Voters ready for tax change – and Key's big test

BY RICHARD LONG

OPINION: So Prime Minister John Key steps up to the high diving board today. Just about everything else to date has been the easy stuff, frolicking around in the shallows.

But flagging an era of tax reform - especially of the widespread variety being recommended to give us the so-called world-class tax system - has the potential to create a whole new army of the disaffected.

Mr Key, aiming for a perfectly executed high dive, rather than a belly-buster, is perfectly aware of this. It is  hard to think of another prime minister in recent times who has been so naturally instinctive.

The Government build-up has been well-paced, with task forces and working groups unanimous over the need for fundamental tax change to remove the multiple distortions stultifying growth.

Voters are aware something needs to happen, but hope it will affect other groups - landlords are a popular target - rather than their own pay packets (unless of course it involves tax cuts).

If anything, there is anticipation and a developing mood for Mr Key to get on with the job and to prove himself with the tough stuff. Is he just a grinning Gentleman John, or can he also be the smiling assassin when it counts?

Instinctively again, Mr Key used Waitangi Day celebrations to shore up his constituency in other areas, before his statement on Government priorities and policies to be presented to today's opening session of Parliament.

He gave maverick Maori Party MP Hone Harawira a serve - always a good tactic that - over what appeared to  be a plan (quickly abandoned) to milk royalties from the Maori (tino rangatiratanga) flag.

He gave another serve to extremists on both sides of the Maori issues debate (read Hone again on that one).

But the big one in terms of dogwhistle politics was his hint that, if Maoridom was not reasonable over a replacement for the foreshore and seabed legislation, then the act would not be repealed.

That would have shocked the Maori Party to the core - repeal is their raison d'etre - but for a Pakeha electorate alarmed at the prospect of giving away more of the farm, this would have shored up Mr Key's mana ahead of any worrying tax changes.

After the sweetheart deal last year for Maori forestry interests, granting advantages not available to other forestry owners, behind-the-scenes attempts are being made to advantage the Iwi Leadership Group again over foreshore and seabed law changes.

The idea of not being able to dip a toe or throw a fishing line along parts of the coast without paying koha would be a case of goodnight nurse for any government. Labour realised this when they were panicked into  legislating after the initial Court of Appeal decision that customary title to the foreshore and seabed had not  been extinguished.

This is a morass for Mr Key to get through, while still holding on to Maori Party coalition support. He has a  close relationship with Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples - the television camera caught a telling comradely  arm around the shoulder at Waitangi - but this will be a major test.

And even after sorting that one, Mr Key needs to face what will inevitably be problems with the well-intentioned but complicated Whanau Ora scheme, the Maori Party initiative to bundle regional social services for Maori families, including healthcare, housing, education and justice, into the one oversight  vehicle. Extending it to include all families in need, to avoid the racial overtones, will not make it any easier.

Labour's spokesman Shane Jones declares this to be ''a mad scheme'', so we can expect Labour to go trawling to produce an array of embarrassing anecdotes.

But whether it is dealing with tax changes, explaining the foreshore and seabed law changes, justifying Whanau Ora, or illustrating the need for national standards in education, National and its support partners  need to work on coordinating their responses. (Mr Sharples, for example, headed off in damaging opposition  to aspects of national education standards last week until he was quickly pulled back into line.)

There is a political jargon for these explanations and responses. I am haunted by the image of those Australian strategy gurus, Crosby Textor, demanding: ''What's the back-story? Where's the narrative?''

- © Fairfax NZ News