Last time the National Party held power in New Zealand, year numbers started with nineteen. As in, 1999.

Fast forward to election night 2008.

New prime minister John Key was asked whether a few celebratory drinks were in order but obviously decided against partying like the famous Prince song, sounding more like someone from 1959.

“There might be a glass of something nice for me when I get home,” he said, smiling amiably amid adoring electoral throngs.

Key signed coalition deals within a week of the election night. Previous administrations had taken weeks, even months, of torturous negotiations.

Jaws dropped lower when Key declared a “new era” in politics, reaching across the political divide and welcoming Maori Party members to the coalition.

Predicting a love fest between National, its socially conservative partner United Future and free market fundamentalists in the ACT Party, observers were taken by surprise.

Especially as, with United and ACT, Key already had the numbers to form a majority government.

By signing up Maori, Key sends a strong signal that the National does not want to risk being held hostage by coalition partners—right or left wing—gaining 70 of the 122 votes in parliament.

Historic

A National-Maori coalition is a historic first for New Zealand, Labour previously holding a near deadlock on indigenous voters.

Maori leaders presented Key with a carved box containing a greenstone pounamu, a symbol of good faith.

One leader, Tuku Morgan, said the gift represents an “expectation, on behalf of iwi, that iwi will be treated in an honest and comprehensive way.”

Responding, Key said the gift represented “love, faith and hope”, then quipped, “I might need all three”.

Radical

Formation of the new government is defined also by what it does not include—ACT list member number three, Roger Douglas.

Architect of an economic “restructuring” under a Labour government in the mid-eighties, Douglas found himself shut out of cabinet because of what Key said were “radical, right-wing views”.

Key also backed away from campaign promises to cut a “bloated” public service.

For Maori and Pacific Islanders at the bottom of the economic heap, more reassuring was Key overlooking another party hardliner, instead appointing a complete newcomer to the biggest budget item in government, Social Development, the ministry paying out welfare benefits.

Vibrant

Another surprise move came in Pacific Islands Affairs.

Key appointed Georgina Te Heuheu, a long-time Maori MP for National.

Te Heuheu told Radio Australia that Key understands that principles to developing Maori communities also apply to Pacific Islands New Zealanders.

“Over the last two decades in particular, Pacific New Zealanders have become a vibrant and just an absolute dynamic force in New Zealand and clearly our government will want to be seen to be building on that,” she said.

“With the Pacific population an increasing part of our overall population, their participation is key to lifting New Zealand’s economic prospects.”

Such sentiments are a long, long way from 2002 when Key first entered parliament.

Fresh from a successful career making millions from currency trading, where colleagues dubbed him the “smiling assassin”, Key joined a party wallowing in the polls, tilling tired soil at the redneck end of the electorate.

Key jumped in, attacking welfare payments like the Domestic Purposes Benefit, telling a reporter in a rural conservative heartland there had been an “enormous growth in the number of people on the DPB, and where people have been, for want of a better term, breeding for business”.

Flip flops

Last month gave fresh cause for misgiving. Key was accused of “flip-flops” over a number of leading issues even before being sworn-in, including cost cuts, housing and climate change.

Public Service Association national secretary Brenda Pilott said Key broke a promise to include unions on a cost cut taskforce.

“Mr Key talks of running an inclusive government but his action in this area does not match his words,” said a clearly peeved Pilott.

After promising urgent action on climate change, Key agreed to a demand from his parliamentary partner on the far right, ACT leader Rodney Hide, to “relitigate” scientific evidence.

Perhaps, most noteworthy are Key’s comments at APEC on his first overseas trip.

Amid the wreckage of the global financial crisis, Key continues to insist salvation lies in delivering “further trade liberalisation.”

Suicide

Already working some of the longest hours in the world—second only to Japan according to the International Labour Organisation—New Zealand residents also suffer equally high rates of suicide and mental ill-health.

According to the National Party policy, however, the answer to the global economic crisis is more productivity.

Critics claim endless productivity gains are illogical and proving as societally risky as the easy, never ending credit that caused economic meltdown in the first place.

It’s a logic gap Pacific Islands governments will need to watch as they fight off pressure to fall in as pawns for global trade agreements.