Joyce for National leader?

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, March 28th, 2012 - 36 comments
Categories: national, Steven Joyce - Tags:

Ipredict reckons there’s 60% odds Key won’t be National leader in 3 years. Whether you think that’s too low or high, it brings an important fact into resolution – the next National leader is in Parliament, probably a minister right now. People talk about Parata but she’s a lightweight and she has no camp of supporters. Collins and Joyce are the options. Mike’s just had a look at Collins’ style, let’s examine Joyce’s.

Whereas Collins is a stab in the back creature, Joyce is a positional player.

Collins operates in a stealthy manner. She betrays trusts and tries to upset her opponents, who often thought they were her friends, with unexpected moves, then backs herself to muscle in and fill the resulting power vacuum herself.

Joyce quite openly and ponderously manoeuvres himself into positions of institutional power and then acts. He plays to his strengths as an organiser.

Hence his formation of the mega-ministry. It comes on the back of a reputation he has built as a minister who gets things done, which owes more to the fact he just ignores public opinion and does what he wants than any gift for leadership. The mega-ministry serves no other purpose than to advance Joyce’s political career. As mega-minister, he will get a lot more air-time, and he will have the power to dole out responsibilities and patronage to more junior ministers assigned to parts of his mega-ministry.

He is creating for himself a ‘mini-PM’ role to both convince the public he is up to filling the big shoes and build loyalty within caucus. It’s a clever strategy and implies planning several years in advance.

But Joyce’s weakness is his small businessman instincts – that nose for a dirty deal, whether with SkyCity, or Huawei, or Mediaworks which leaves him exposed to opponents who manage to open up the world of backroom favours and kickbacks he inhabits. And, recently, he has been caught out several times being uncertain or simply wrong on basic fiscal issues that a minister for economic development ought to know.

So, which will win? It’s hard to know at this point. Joyce’s strategy is slow-paced. He will need to be in a position where he has already tied up the leadership race before Key signals he will step down. Because sure as Joyce is thinking ahead so is Collins but, where he’s building networks, she’s thinking about how to isolate him. In the cut and thrust of a leadership race, Collins’ more adaptable and aggressive approach may win out. I would say that Joyce faces an uphill battle, unless Collins is hoist by one of her own petards.

The tortoise or the botoxed hare – who will succeed, or roll, Key? And, given they’re both Tory scum, does it really matter in the end?

36 comments on “Joyce for National leader? ”

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  1. Kotahi Tane Huna 1
    28 March 2012 at 10:32 am

    Collins all the way. Her divisive, destructive style would do lasting damage in caucus before during and after her incumbency. She has to be the candidate the left supports.

    • Kotahi Tane Huna 1.1
      28 March 2012 at 11:34 am

      After reading a few of the other comments perhaps Joyce has his merits: bland, uninspiring, unelectable.

  2. King Kong 2
    28 March 2012 at 10:49 am

    Well said. I especially like the bit where, because Collins is a woman, you had a crack at her looks. Tory scum indeed

    • Blighty 2.1
      28 March 2012 at 10:54 am

      Um. How is mentioning someone uses botox attacking someone for their looks? There was nothing negative in the mention. It’s like saying ‘the bearded Cunliffe’

      and your false feminism is pretty much a joke when you consider that just yesterday everyone spent the day taking the piss out of Brownlee’s weight.

      • Jim Nald 2.1.1
        28 March 2012 at 11:31 am

        The question is can we hear Key having a crack at Collins after having a go at Brownlee and saying it is no secret Gerry is “a large unit”:
        http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10794946

        Saw the snippet “Brownlee did not so much apologise for what he had said as apologise for people not seeing the humour in it” – gosh, that is from Armstrong and I am reading his pieces again after a long period having given up on him.

  3. Lanthanide 3
    28 March 2012 at 10:51 am

    I think Joyce simply doesn’t have the charisma to lead the country.

    Collins also gets bonus points for being a woman and breaking glass ceilings and such.

  4. deuto 4
    28 March 2012 at 11:03 am

    For the heck of it, I was looking at Ipredict just before this post went up (not a supporter and don’t participate) and noted that their odds for next Natioanl Party leader had Collins at 38%, Perata at 19.8% and Joyce at 15.9%. These odds have been reasonably steady for some weeks at least.

    But just in the last hour or so, Collins’ odds have dropped to 32% with today’s trading so far totalling 92 vs a daily average of 29.2.

    IMO, I would not like to see any of them as PM.

    Also noted that Ipredict’s “Another NZ Minister to depart in 2012” is still running at about the 79% mark.

    • muzza 4.1
      28 March 2012 at 11:33 am

      iPredict, what a shame that politics is now seen as nothing more than a game, a sport, and surely people with a cogent thought process can see that it flies right into the face of sanity!

      None of these people are fit to run a bath!

      Bah humbug!

    • Dr Terry 4.2
      28 March 2012 at 11:33 am

      Collins would make Jenny Shipley look like the mildest Prime Minister we ever had!

  5. Tamati 5
    28 March 2012 at 11:05 am

    Joyce has as much charisma as a loaf of stale bread! He may lead some of the policy development, but the public would never stomach him. He’d turn out to be the Nats Gordon Brown, effective behinds the scenes but loathed in the top job. Besides, the Nats would never pick a list MP as their leader.

  6. felix 6
    28 March 2012 at 11:40 am

    I’d like it to be Collins for the sheer enjoyment of watching her implode under the force of her own arrogance.

    But I just don’t think she’ll make it. Too many skeletons to trip her up.

  7. Colonial Viper 7
    28 March 2012 at 11:41 am

    People talk about Parata but she’s a lightweight and she has no camp of supporters.

    Don’t forget that John Key roared out of nowhere from zero to hero very quickly, once caucus colleagues had his popular electorate potential individually “explained” to them.

    • muzza 7.1
      28 March 2012 at 11:47 am

      “Don’t forget that John Key roared out of nowhere from zero to hero very quickly, once caucus colleagues had his popular electorate potential individually “explained” to them”

      But, wait, hold…on, we have demoracy in NZ…..are you saying it was all an accident, and JK roared to the top organically!

      woops, I follow you….you mean that whoever the sponsors decide will be the next puppet, will be the next puppet….

      • Colonial Viper 7.1.1
        28 March 2012 at 3:25 pm

        Indeed, just think of the mechanations which went into gifting Key the National nomination for Helensville over the incumbent MP. And that was just the start.

      • alex 7.1.2
        28 March 2012 at 5:25 pm

        Which makes me think it will not be Joyce. He is the puppet master, not the puppet, so why would he ruin his career by being the front man for a government that will only get less popular?

    • felix 7.2
      28 March 2012 at 11:48 am

      Exactly.

  8. shreddakj 8
    28 March 2012 at 12:07 pm

    Just the thought of someone in the current National government pulling a Shipley makes me giddy.

    • David H 8.1
      28 March 2012 at 11:20 pm

      But it would be worth it to see the look on Keys face as he realists that he’s not important anymore.

  9. Tim 9
    28 March 2012 at 12:21 pm

    @King King…Let’s even the balance then shall we?
    Jerry Brownlee is a fat ugly ignorant thug whose best attribute would be an ability to hold up a landslide in Christchurch, and Steven Joyce is just plain ugly in every respect.
    That make you feel better?
    Unfortunately it seems ugly people don’t rate in politics (whether looks or personality) – how John Key ever got past the test I can’t explain though.

  10. George D 10
    28 March 2012 at 12:50 pm

    Why not English? While he does have some baggage, I could see him pulling most of the same notes that Key does. If he starts to take the limelight in the next few years, we need to watch him.

    • Colonial Viper 10.1
      28 March 2012 at 11:31 pm

      English will remain Deputy PM if National win in 2014.

      • George D 10.1.1
        29 March 2012 at 9:08 am

        I accept that’s your position, and that he’s expressed little public ambition, but who says it’s a given? It’s not self-evident that a former party leader wouldn’t at some stage want the position again.

        I really dislike him, but I could see him being reasonably popular as leader or PM, more so than most of the frontbench.

  11. Akldnut 11
    28 March 2012 at 2:26 pm

    “Bring Back Brash”

  12. Robert Glennie 12
    28 March 2012 at 3:48 pm

    Just heaven forbid we have Gerry Brownlee get any closer to the National Party leadership than he currently is. Brownlee is a granite monolith on the political landscape cumbersome and unwieldy in dealing with sensitive subjects such as the revival of New Zealand’s second city.

  13. Enough is Enough 13
    28 March 2012 at 3:48 pm

    The 10 year plan intitiated by Boag will be realised this term. They will have achieved what they set out to achieve in 2001/2002 when Boag parachuted Brash and Key into the positions of power.

    Although they would like to win the next elction, the job will be done and those running the show now can retire to far off tax havens.

    The next Nat leader will be a caretaker in the way that English was.

    The National insiders will be on the hunt right now for the next ‘Key’. He is unlikely to be in Parliament right now. More likely to be making millions off shore. He will not have the interests of New Zealand at heart now nor in the future. He will be brought in to undertake the next round of theft in about 5 years time.

    • Treetop 13.1
      28 March 2012 at 6:56 pm

      Whoever leads the National party after the next general election in 2014 will be the leader of the opposition. Simon Power was too good for his own party; I bet he is so thankful that he bailed out when he did. He knew alright.

  14. ianmac 14
    28 March 2012 at 8:17 pm

    Rumour has it that Steven Joyce is making preliminary counts to assess his support. It is only a question of time but insiders don’t expect Judith Collins to take it lying down. Some staunch National Supporters are perturbed at the disquiet but some say that Key will have to decide whether to go before the next Election or after. In his calculations is an unwillingness to be just the Leader of the diminished Opposition. (You see? Easy to write for MSM.)

    • felix 14.1
      28 March 2012 at 8:55 pm

      “Key will have to decide whether to go before the next Election or after”

      Do you pick him for someone who fancies his score in the history books as:

      “Won 2, retired” or

      “Won 2, Lost 1”?

  15. bad12 15
    29 March 2012 at 12:40 am

    Achully, we pick him to be a arrogant little shyster (are we allowed to say that sortta stuff here), who will cling onto the power rush for another term knowing that He still has a number of our assets left as tasty morsels to dangle in front of the greedy as for sale in an attempt to keep the Party,s vote with him,

    Key,besides his own fanboy club of acolyte MPs has created 3 distinct heavy weight power blocks in Joyce,Brownlee,and,Collins,we dont see him having done this on a mere whim and there is no real economic or social imperative for such a move so we see the concentration of power in those 3 as purely political,

    Our view is that Key has simply built Himself a shield to avoid the Brat Packers from giving Him one in the back befor 2014 which Key thinks he will win based solely upon the lolly of more partial asset sales,

    We cant see Collins,Brownlee or Joyce being able to offer the Brat Packers anything more than what they have now as the 30 pieces of silver which would enable a palace coup,

    We could tell Slippery Key now that its all much wasted effort for little result as its obvious to all but the most dense that should both Sharples and Turia retire at the next election the Party aint got a bulls roar chance of a 3rd term….

    [lprent: yes. Have a look at the policy. So long as you stick to opinion and speculation and avoid misusing matters of fact then you can say a lot about political figures. Be more cautious when it comes to non-political. The moderators will limit you if you hit the bounds of whatvwe will allow. ]