Is National becoming a teflon government where nothing bad seems to stick to them? This is what the latest batch of opinion polls seems to be telling us.

After a horror month for the Government in terms of the Mount Albert by-election result, deteriorating economic statistics, a swine flu outbreak, plus the Richard Worth and Christine Rankin affairs and a miserable Budget, I was thinking that National's honeymoon with the electorate would be looking very shakey, if not almost completely over.

But then come the first batch of new opinion polls and they tell us that the majority of New Zealanders are apparently happy with the Nats even after nearly eight months at the helm. For example, the latest Roy Morgan poll shows that National support is steady at 52% while Labour's has only climbed by two points to 33%. For the other parties represented in Parliament, it shows a slight decline in the Green Party vote (a surprise given their good Mount Albert showing and robust campaigning around the country on their 'Green New Deal' proposals) and declining or steady shares for the Progressives, United Future and the Maori Party. The only party to have recorded a small rise is Act with a 0.5 percentage point gain.

What does this snapshot (and polls are just that) tell us about the public mood in the midst of the gloomiest news month we've had in years?

I will summarise it this way.

National has dealt with some of the key issues it faced (apart from the Mount Albert by-election and the Christine Rankin imbroligo) fairly well. It has well and truly exorcised the potential demon of Richard Worth through going one better than Helen Clark ever did with Taito Philip Field and effectively kicked him out of Parliament altogether following recent allegations made against him. The key difference between Field and Worth though is that the latter was a list MP and more easily able to resign than the former who held on by virtue of being an electorate MP.

The Government has also handled the swine flu outbreak well by leaving it largely up to health officials and clinicians to deal with the potentially contagious disease. They have only wheeled out Health Minister Tony Ryall as a media spokesperson to show that the Government does care and will do everything in its power to manage the spread of the flu until a vaccine can get here, hopefully by September.

In terms of the economic statistics and the Budget, National is seeming to be escaping the blame for the morass that it inherited on taking office. In fact the recession officially began last year on Labour's watch and only deteriorated with the onset of the global financial crisis shortly before last year's election. So Bill English and John Key are getting criticised for the cuts they are making but they are being inflicted (as for example in the sudden axing of Training Incentive Allowances for tertiary students on the Invalids and Domestic Purposes Benefits) on poorer Labour, Alliance, Green and New Zealand First voters who wouldn't look at voting for National and/or Act anyway.
However, woe betide the Government if it ever sought to cut widely popular programmes like no interest on student loans or paid parental leave. Then it would be in real trouble with so-called 'Middle New Zealand.'

Another factor that I have constantly carped on about in previous blogs is the absence of an effective Labour Opposition. The party seems to be missing in action still and while Bill Ralston in his latest NZ Herald blog says they are becoming a more effective opposition due to their greater post-election unity, I would really have to counter in saying that I am yet to see evidence of any comeback as a 2% climb in the latest Roy Morgan poll does not constitute one.

Over the longer term, we will most likely see National begin to poll below 50% but not right now. I will say here (even as a left winger who will continue to criticise National and their allies while they remain in office) that, barring a major accident, they could be on course to pull off another victory in 2011 given the Kiwi penchant for granting incumbent governments a second term even if they have performed less well than expected in the first. Historically too there is a political axiom that Labour has tended to win and do well in economic good times while National has won and flourished in government during the bad times. It can be simply put down to the fact that Labour as the (once) traditional party of wealth redistribution managed to successfully do so while National as the perceived party of wealth creation has managed to win elections in times of downturn and crisis. This same pattern was noticed worldwide both in the Great Depression of the 1930s and is being replicated now with right wing parties tending to do better in recessionary periods (as was the case with the centre-right parties in the recent European Parliament elections) due to the fact that many within the electorate (particularly amongst the middle class and wealthy) tend to become more anxious and reactionary in times of crisis.

While a continued spell of New Right government therefore looks in prospect at this stage, I can't see Labour as an alternative government right now. For that reason, John Key will continue to wear a teflon coat for the forseeable future.