The political scene is changing.

Sometime ago I wrote these words:

They [National] are already accepting that they have no support parties to assist them [National] next year. They know that the ACT party as such is dead in the water with Banks awaiting trial for fraud. While Dunne betrayed them by leaking information to Fairfax reporter during the GCSB stuff up. The Maori Party is dying a natural death because of its blind obedience to the National agenda of Asset Sales, beneficiary bashing, and future mining.

Now Key is no slug when it comes to manipulation of the media, he knows the above is true so his strategy will revolve around not needing support parties as such, but he will seek to buy support via other means, not win support via policy adaption, but by buying with cash his support required.  

A couple of weeks later in response to a blog on thedailyblog site a reader wrote the following:

“Well put Martin and well done TDB for an apt prediction re Key & the Conservatives.

Given the fowl scratching left overs coalition partners, in the motley form of Dunne, Banks and the Maori Party – Key has been making “nice” utterances about Colin Craig and his Conservative Party recently. However at the last election one of the Craig party’s policies was NO ASSET SALES! And he was most adamant on that one!

Somehow given how the political trend is going at the moment, I don’t think Key will be in a position to form anything, because Labour will be the power broker calling the shots next year, post election. At least they have a good coalition partner in the Greens, whose political star is rising”.

At the same time the No Right Turn blog said the following:

The Solicitor-General has taken over the case against John Banks. As I said earlier, I am not sure we can be confident in their independence; even if we rule out explicit political intervention, most prosecutors will probably see vigorous pursuit of a conviction (which could lead to the Government falling and an election) as a career-limiting move, or they'll simply take an easy plea-bargain rather than going all the way. We need to watch them like hawks to make sure they pursue the case with appropriate vigour, rather than cutting some shady backroom deal to let Banks (and the government) off.

...Except that we can't. Because everything they do will be protected by legal professional privilege, effectively excluding it from the coverage of the OIA. Meaning that we have no way of effectively overseeing them and ensuring they actually do their job in this case. They can't even be held to account through Parliament, because the Attorney-General does not have Ministerial responsibility for law officer functions (and that's a Good Thing).

This isn't a good situation to be in. No transparency and no accountability means there can be no trust. If the charges are dropped, or even if Banks is acquitted, it will look like a political stitch-up. And we all lose from that. After their initial refusal, it would have been better for the government to stay out of it.

Since NZ has had a MMP system of electing governments political parties have needed to be strategic in their approach to elections.

For example the Nat’s had a perfect partner in the ACT party in that it was ultra right while National was simply far right and secondly the ACT party leadership was ex National party members or sacked right wing Labour party members.

They also played to the weakness [Money] of a one man United Future party led by Peter Dunne. John Key had cups of tea with both John Banks and Peter Dunne to cement their support. Each of their seats could have been won by National, but that would only have given National two more seats but that would not have got them over the line and the 51 percent needed to govern on their own.

What they planned for was for the Act Party to bring with them more than one member. So the Nats were happy to give up two seats in the hope to gain four or five via their support parties.

They fell into the trap of believing the main stream media polls that they would gain more than 50% of the vote. Its history now that they didn’t succeed. They gained 47% Act gained 1% and United Future below 1% giving them around 49%, so they went into begging mode and approached the Maori Party with offers of Cabinet positions and all the perks related to that, they also watered down their policy of removing the Maori seats, and upping the settlement of various Treaty of Waitangi Claims, the Maori party took the bait; and were hooked.

But this time around [2014] that strategy has turned to custard, the ACT party leader could be in jail or be convicted of a crime with a sentence of two years, which will ban him from being in Parliament. They [The Nats] have as good as accused United Future’s Peter Dunne of leaking confidential information about the GCSB affair to the Fairfax media group and sacked him from his ministerial position. 

And the Maori Party has in some respects seen the light and is preparing to abandon their relationship in an effort to remain in existence at all. They have, just a week ago approached the Mana Movement to talk about their Maori Party future. Mana is happy to listen to their woes but so long as they remain with the Nats their future looks grim. After all that was one of the reasons Mana left the Maori party in the first place.

So the Nats have to seek other avenues to achieve their goal of a third term. One Avenue was the New Zealand first party but there is a problem, John Key has stated publicly that he would never work with Winston Peters and with Winston Peters so opposed to asset sales that there seems only one area of possible but unlikely agreement that is the raising of the retirement age, both are against than move.

My view is that Winston Peters and NZ First will achieve the five percent to enter parliament without an electorate seat. So he has no need for that fatal cup of tea with John Key.

Well what’s left, nothing in the present parliamentary line up, so what’s outside?

Colin Craig and his Conservative Party it would seem is the Nats only possible partner but to achieve a forced marriage between Colin Craig the Conservative boss and John Key there would have be a same sex marriage between them…and Colin Craig is dead against same sex marriages. 

He is also against asset sales so John Key is stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

This has never stopped from buying a way out from any dilemma in the past…he brought his seat in Parliament…he brought the new boss of the GCSB…he brought John Banks and Peter Dunne, all with tax payers money I might add. 

But just but, Colin Craig might be a different kettle of fish, because some consider him a right wing Christian style leader, who is anti same sex marriage [which Key supports] he is pro-smacking but more importantly seems to believe that lying is a sin. 

All of these factors, plus the fact that he is a fairly wealthy chap could make him unsusceptible to possible bribes and pressures that Key well knows how to use.

So next year’s election is going to be an interesting event, we should expect a lot of dirty stories to appear about some of the key players. The Len Brown revelations are just the beginning, a practice run for the far and ultra right. It was simply a trailer for the main event, so folks keep your eyes open and your brain clear.