National's traditionalists would have been even more encouraged by Paula Bennett's prescription for getting people off benefits and into the workforce. They would also have been impressed with Ms Bennett's handling of her policy announcement, which was far more impressive than Mr Brownlee's management of the politics surrounding his.
While National seems to have finally showed its teeth with its policy on mining, it has chosen a funny way of going about it. If you are going to buy a fight with the conservation lobby, you may as well go for broke and make any political pain worthwhile bearing.
The Government, however, finally settled on releasing only a handful of sites for potential exploitation, two of which are right on the doorstep of the large and volatile political marketplace which is Auckland.
In picking parcels of land in the Coromandel and on Great Barrier Island as part of what is supposed to be the first tranche of such sites, National could not have chosen better locations for the anti-mining movement to wage war on the policy.
The very notion of modern-day mining on Great Barrier, which is completely devoid of the necessary infrastructure, is ludicrous. So much so that it did not take long for one idea to gain currency - that it had been included on the list so it could be dropped later to show the Government was willing to compromise.
The trouble now is that any move in that direction will be viewed as a cynical ploy rather than a genuine sign that National is listening to the public in what the Government insists is still only a consultation exercise.
In contrast, there has been relatively little fuss over National's intention to tighten up on welfare, even though the package of measures will affect far more people than mining operations in out-of-the-way parts of the country.
The debate over Ms Bennett's package ended up being prolonged by Attorney-general Chris Finlayson's finding the work-testing of sole parents breached the Bill of Rights and was discriminatory because the policy does not apply to everyone in that category.
The time-honoured way ministers deal with these such rulings is simply to ignore them. The Social Development Minister went a step further, with Ms Bennett declaring in this case most people would not mind a bit of discrimination.
The relatively muted reaction to her "Future Focus" package was in part down to most of its contents - unlike mining in national parks - being a manifesto commitment.
Another major factor is the international shift in thinking which has seen strict obligations imposed on beneficiaries while, at the same time, offering them more and more incentives to get a job.
Tight budgets and the looming cost explosion of looking after the baby boom generation in retirement have made governments of both the Right and Left less generous in terms of entitlements.
This may explain why Labour offered little criticism of the detail of the package. It had been doing much the same in government in terms of work-testing those on the unemployment benefit.
Where Labour was more hesitant was in expanding work-test requirements to those on the domestic purposes and sickness benefits. Ms Bennett, with the support of Cabinet colleagues, is much less coy about doing that. Even so, there is a sense of deja vu surrounding her announcement this week.
A fair chunk of the contents (as well as the language) echoed National's 1996 reforms which included requiring those on the domestic purposes benefit seeking full-time work if their youngest child was 14 years or older, or part-time work if the youngest child was aged 6 to 13 years.
In some respects, the 1996 reforms were more radical than Ms Bennett's. Widows on the DPB were work-tested. Under, Ms Bennett's policy, they will be exempt - as will those women who are over 50 and who gave previous care to children which qualifies them for the "woman alone" category of the DPB.
As Mr Finlayson's ruling declared, this discriminates against the bulk of sole parents, including men, who have no equivalent of the widow's benefit. Cabinet papers show officials recommended axing the "woman alone" category - but ministers were not prepared to go that far, even though that category would have been "grandparented" for those currently accorded that status.
Indeed, there is a fair bit of "grandparenting" in the package to ensure nobody is made worse off financially. This illustrates that while this week's headlines screamed of a "crackdown" on welfare, the reality is rather different on closer inspection.
The headlines no doubt delighted Ms Bennett and the Prime Minister, who quipped about beneficiaries sometimes needing "a kick in the pants", while she declared the "dream is over" for those on the unemployment benefit who did not make honest efforts to find work.
But talking tough will not substitute for getting results. These will be easily measured come election-time next year - in Mr Brownlee's case, the number of applications for exploration permits and, in Ms Bennett's case, the numbers on the DPB and other benefits.
In one report released this week, Ms Bennett's ministry admitted there was no research available which accurately quantified the "behavioural response" to such changes in policies. That prevented accurate estimates of the number of people who would move from benefit to work over a year.
Ms Bennett has been careful not to set targets or deadlines which might come back to haunt her. She knows factors beyond her control - namely the state of the economy and the supply of part-time jobs - will be the crucial determinants of success.
Other research has credited the in-work payment, which was part of Labour's Working for Families package, with being a major factor in the reduction of DPB numbers during the past decade - at least until the recession, which saw the numbers ballooning out again.
The other crucial factor is the ability of Work and Income to case-manage individual beneficiaries and find the right mix of training, child-care arrangements and so forth which will keep them in part-time work.
For that reason, work-testing of those on the DPB will initially start with 4500 beneficiaries deemed to be the most "work ready". That is a tenth of the number who are expected to face the obligation of work-testing and a fraction of the 109,000 in total picking up the DPB.
Those further to the Right than Ms Bennett would argue substantial progress will not be made until National bites the bullet and imposes a maximum time-limit on how long an individual can remain on a benefit. However, Ms Bennett is parking contentious matters like that in the working group being set up to look at further measures to cut welfare dependency. Until the group reports, she will retain a strictly neutral position on such ideas.
- John Armstrong is The New Zealand Herald's political correspondent.
