Armstrong on "those" targets...

John Armstrong's column this morning contains a salutory lesson for the parties of the Left, and it's right there in the very final paragraph:

As usual, the left has underestimated Key. As he says, his Government is going boldly where no government has gone before. Others are struggling to keep up.

The Left has been underestimating John Key ever since he entered Parliament. They simply cannot understand how a man who has not lived and breathed politics for every waking and sleeping moment of his life can lead a political party. They don't seem to grasp that not being a career politician is actually Key's greatest strength and that because he doesn't look at everything in purely political terms, they can't pigeon-hole him.

So how did John Armstrong get to that final paragraph? What was his rationale? Let's go back to the beginning; check this out:

If Labour thinks National's new five-year targets for improvements in some of New Zealand's ugliest and most depressing statistics are little more than a political gimmick, the party should think again.

Last Monday's announcement by the Prime Minister laid out the percentage changes required to meet the targets which cover such things as violent crime and beneficiary numbers.

It was widely misinterpreted as a bid to shift the focus away from National's unpopular legislation paving the way for the partial sale of state assets.

In fact, National had promised the percentages would be released by the end of this month.

More crucially, National sees the targets as devices which will not only be agenda-setters, but something enabling National to claim ownership of vast areas of policy territory usually the preserve of Labour. That makes the targets vital components in National's 2014 election strategy.

There is no indication Labour has woken up to the fact that some of the targets - such as boosting child immunisation rates, lifting the numbers getting trade qualifications and tackling youth crime - amount to an invasion of its traditional domains.

It is still high risk stuff on National's part, however.

The 14 targets which pertain to the portfolios of six of the Cabinet's 20 ministers traverse some of the country's most deep-seated social problems.

There is no guarantee either that National's according priority to things such as violent crime in general and assaults on children in particular will produce any rapid turnaround in the figures.

The public will be able to judge. Data measuring progress will be released at regular intervals once departments have finalised "action plans" outlining how the targets will be met.

Although they do not have to be reached until 2017, the unstated expectation on ministers is that the figures will be moving in the right direction well before the 2014 election.

John Armstrong is right on the money here; National has caught the opposition parties flat-footed. Labour and the Greens especially were so busy dying in a ditch trying to stop partial asset sales that Key and his Ministers were able to ambush them. 

And even after the targets had been released, Labour was slow to react. Key was quick to embarrass Chris Hipkins for his "pretty meaningless stuff" comment when what National is targetting is anything but meaningless.

And Armstrong can see the strategy at play here; read on:

National could have taken the easy option and picked targets which would not have been hard to meet. But there would have been little point in doing that.

It goes without saying that the inevitable mix of a tiring Government, and an electorate tiring of the Government while the Opposition parties revitalise, mean the odds are stacked against National winning a third term.

The easy option would not have paid the kind of political dividends that a party seeking a third term would need to compensate.

It can be assumed that the targets - which include cutting violent crime by 20 per cent and reducing the numbers on working-age benefits by 30 per cent - are the result of focus group research.

It is all about getting the fundamentals of the economy, health, education, law and order and so forth right.

Voters may not like some of the things National is doing. They may not like National full stop. But they are willing to ignore those negatives if those fundamentals which determine their standard of living and overall wellbeing are looked after.

In particular, National believes women apply this logic in determining their votes. And National's capacity to retain the female vote it took from Labour in 2008 will determine if it hangs on in 2014.

It is classic conservatism. It is classic John Key.

It is also classic Bill English. He is the one driving what is a slow but unrelenting process of transforming the public service into the kind of results-driven beast capable of delivering on the targets.

John Armstrong has clearly sat down and thought this through, unlike the Labour and Green MP's who have shot from the lip. And he is dead right, in our ever-humble opinion. Whilst Labour and the Greens were obsessing about a petition that will have no tangible effect, and the closure of a state-funded television channel that is being closed because so few people watch it, the Government has been working away behind the scenes preparing this week's announcement.

So let's go back and revist Armstrong's close:

As usual, the left has underestimated Key. As he says, his Government is going boldly where no government has gone before. Others are struggling to keep up.

Dead right; and just because someone hasn't devoted their life to politics doesn't mean that they cannot be a very clever political operator, as John Key has proved here.