New Zealand's dim new world

“The public wanted a little bit more than steady-as-she-goes but it didn't know what. On the night, John Key gave it what it wanted.”

Easton had no sense that the public wanted a policy change.

“It's almost that the public decided that if we're going to have a conservative government it should be of the centre right rather than centre left.”

Whereas Obama's message that he stood for change on all fronts was crystal clear and American voters were left in no doubt what this meant, Key's proclamations of “time for a change” led to no such clarity.

Commentators on televised leaders' debates over the past fortnight said they could find little difference between the policies of Clark and Key.

As polling in the runup to the weekend election showed National would claim up to half the electorate, an increasingly desperate Labour party adopted several campaign slogans – “keep it Kiwi”, and “trust us” but with no attempt to show just how Key was untrustworthy.

Key walks a tightrope depending as he does on the right-leaning Act party for governing clout while holding to his promise of not working with Roger Douglas, the architect of Rogernomics and founder of Act. This is the strength of the mixed member proportional voting system which, in the end, can give the smaller parties some bargaining power.

Unlike the vast majority of their American cousins who are full of hope, New Zealanders may look back on the Clark administration with nostalgia when they realise that the new government is interested in pleasing only those blue-chip investors who voted for it. In no more than 100 days, many Kiwis with little bargaining power but their labour, may find themselves out of pocket and out in the cold.