Voters showed what they care about this time around

John Key.
John Key.
The voters are always right. Even when they are wrong, they are right. So observed Mike Moore after Labour suffered election defeat under his leadership in the early 1990s.

Mr Moore's sermonising might have plumbed all of the philosophical depths of an advice column in the Reader's Digest or something that fell out of a Christmas cracker.

But two decades on, his words have never been more pertinent or relevant.

New Zealand voters can be cruel, ruthless and unforgiving - more so when they are made to feel stupid.

They are never to be taken for granted.

Despite that warning, the 2014 election campaign witnessed parties no longer listening to voters and instead engaging in a bidding war to end all bidding wars.

Voters consequently felt they were being treated as really stupid.

The profligate promises reached their zenith in the most naked and desperate example of pork-barrel politics seen in a very long time - New Zealand First's commitment to reopen the hopelessly uneconomic Napier to Gisborne railway line.

But Internet Mana then made an even bigger leap into the spending abyss, promising free tertiary education to attract the youth vote.

It simply was not credible.

The youth vote was far more sensible. It found a home elsewhere.

The Greens sought to look like they were more fiscally responsible than National.

They contracted an economic think-tank to corroborate their numbers.

No-one believed them.

Not even the think-tank.

Along with Labour, the Greens promised a capital gains tax as a revenue-raising device to fund extra spending.

It was the political equivalent of munching on cyanide pills.

Labour stressed most people would end up not paying the tax.

No-one believed it.

They believed it even less when Labour's leader could not say which items would be exempt from the tax.

Labour plugged on oblivious to the fact that its ''we know best'' arrogance was taking it down the road to oblivion.

National was the only party really listening to the voters.

Some would argue too much so.

National's leader has long had a proven track record for inclusion in a special clan of politicians once dubbed by David Lange as ''poll-driven fruit cakes''.

But National delivers what voters want - not what National thinks they should want - within reason and within fiscal boundaries.

One of the more intriguing and astute analyses of this year's election came from an unlikely quarter - the recently appointed chief executive of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, Laurence Kubiak.

He argues Mr Key's success as a politician is down to him coming across as anything but a politician.

Mr Key and his Cabinet colleagues instead present themselves as the nation's managers and problem-solvers, rather than ideologically driven warriors seeking to impose their world view on everyone else.

The strategy reflects the fact that the bulk of voters no longer identify strongly with a political party.

Mr Key has thus shifted the political battle away from being ideologically-based to being driven by the practical and the pragmatic, something which is in far greater harmony with the modern-day voter.

With Mr Key seeking to go further and align the national interest with National's interests, attacking him risks being marginalised from the political mainstream.

It was consequently difficult enough for the centre-left to make headway in 2014 without allowing a figure as polarising as Kim Dotcom to lead the charge against Mr Key.

Voters felt disenfranchised by Mr Dotcom's reach, financially and in the media, which was fixated on him.

They were angry he tried to make most of the campaign null and void by announcing he would drop a bombshell in the final week which would destroy Mr Key.

That Mr Dotcom failed to deliver just made them more angry.

The backlash was enough to cement what turned out to be a stunning victory for Mr Key.

Mr Dotcom now talks wistfully of a get-down-and-dirty return to the hustings in 2017.

He should save his breath and what is left of his money.

The public's rejection of Internet-Mana and the failure likewise of Colin Craig's Conservative Party to clear the 5% threshold reinforced confidence in the New Zealand Voter's good judgement not to fall into the arms of the next Flash Harry who comes across the horizon.

The trouncing of Mr Dotcom made the New Zealand Voter a strong contender for Politician of the Year - but for the total apathy which greeted the publication of Nicky Hager's book, Dirty Politics.

The public, by and large, could not be bothered getting indignant about the abuse of power in the Prime Minister's office.

Dirty politics was brushed under the carpet as being no different from normal politics.

That is disturbing.

If anything, however, Dirty Politics only succeeded in strengthening support for Mr Key and National.

The hash that the Prime Minister has made of the whole wretched business has tarnished him, but far less than he deserves.

His scorecard is marked down accordingly.

But the bottom line in politics is power - the gaining of it, the exercising of it and, just as crucially, the retention of it.

Mr Key did that in 2014 by holding National's share of the vote at over 44% for the third election in a row and above 47% for the second in a row.

Regardless of the sorry performances of National's opponents, these results are astonishing enough alone to secure Mr Key the title of Politician of the Year.

Despite all this, it has surely been one of the craziest years in New Zealand's political history.

John Armstrong is The New Zealand Herald political correspondent.

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