[11 November 2011]
It might seem quaintly appropriate that a former foreign exchange dealer has the future of the free market party ACT in his hands.
ACT's Epsom candidate John Banks has been waiting for the cafe meeting which could just save his campaign and the party.
On Thursday night National Party leader John Key, after some dithering, made the call to meet Mr Banks, as he did in 2008 to help then ACT leader Rodney Hide retain the seat. On that occasion, it meant Mr Hide brought four more ACT MPs into Parliament as a solid support bloc for National.
[image:3685:half:right]Had Mr Hide lost the seat at the last election, no ACT MP would have made it to Parliament and National would have had to rely solely on United Future and the Maori Party to form a government.
On current polling, Mr Key might have felt tempted to avoid a coffee with Mr Banks, particularly given the way ACT has imploded in the past three years.
But here's the worry. What if he didn't, Mr Banks was defeated and yet ACT still managed to get 2% to 3% of the party vote and National fell short of a majority.
It would then have to rely on the Maori Party for support just to form a government. That would put the Maori Party in a much stronger position to leverage concessions from National.
Until now, Mr Key has been much more comfortable playing off ACT against the Maori Party, depending which party was prepared to support him on separate pieces of legislation.
In 2008, National's polling revealed a late surge of support for ACT - enough to convince Mr Key it was worth backing Rodney Hide. In the public opinion polls ACT has not seen a similar surge, but a couple of recent polls suggest Mr Banks could bring in at least one more MP.
And possibly National's own polling reveals support for ACT is growing as centre-right voters shy away from giving National an absolute majority in Parliament.
But Mr Key's meeting with Mr Banks is not without risk. There are signs that Mr Banks - a serial politician - is not universally popular in the seat. As well, it appears voters - in Epsom and elsewhere - are becoming increasingly irritated by what is a manipulation of the electoral system. Epsom voters might not like being told what to do.
National's candidate in the seat, Paul Goldsmith, is doing his bit - campaigning only for the party vote and avoiding talking to the news media whenever possible.
National has a similar deal in Ohariu, where its candidate, Katrina Shanks, is only campaigning for the party vote rather than attempting to oust long-time MP, United Future leader Peter Dunne.
But the Labour candidate there, Charles Chauvel, thinks the deal will backfire on National and United Future.
Mr Chauvel cut Mr Dunne's majority to just over 1000 votes at the last election and believes he has a chance of taking the seat this time.
Fresh debate over asset sales
Meanwhile, on the wider campaign trail the two major parties have continued to argue about National's policy of partial privatisation.
Mr Key tried again to sweeten the deal again this week by saying $400 million from the asset sales would be invested in irrigation schemes for farmers.
That has outraged the Green Party, which opposes the large irrigation schemes designed to support the expansion of dairy farming, particularly on the Canterbury plains.
[image:3684:half:right]Labour leader Phil Goff raised the ante by criticising the amount of money consultants and banks will make from the sales, saying the first thing he would do as Prime Minister would be to stop all work on the privatisation programme.
The quick retort from National's finance spokesperson Bill English was that the same day Mr Goff did that, he should also ring the foreign banks to ask for more money.
And Mr English has signalled National could put the first tranche of shares on the market within six to nine months, if re-elected.
So by this time next year at least one of the State-owned power companies could be partially privatised.
The sales, though, would come at a time of continuing economic uncertainty.
The Reserve Bank released its latest Financial Stability Report, warning the risks to New Zealand's economy and financial system have increased in recent months.
It says banks in New Zealand are in better shape to deal with a crisis, but it is getting more difficult for them to borrow overseas.
At the same time, the Government's books for the first three months of the financial year revealed a deficit once investment gains and losses are excluded of $2.48 billion - $210 million higher than forecast.
It brings home the difficulty of getting the public finances under control at a time of economic uncertainty.
But the Reserve Bank warns it's essential New Zealand gets its public debt under control and says it supports the commitment of both National and Labour to do so.
It points out too, though, that public debt levels here remain very low by international comparisons. New Zealand is not a Greece nor an Italy.
Mr Key continues to taunt Labour leader Phil Goff over his policies with cries of "Where's the money?" But Mr Goff has hit back over asset sales, asking where the money will come from if the market for such assets is depressed.
And that gets us back to National's plan to sell up to a 49% shareholding in Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Energy and Solid Energy, as well as part of its shareholding in Air New Zealand.
At the beginning of the week, Mr English suggested National might delay the sales if market conditions did not look good. But National's spending plans are reliant on the income from the sales, so now a sale could just be months away.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman, who also opposes the sales, is appalled National would consider rushing its privatisation plan when markets are so depressed and describes it as a fire sale.
The position of the two major parties remains clear. A vote for National means shares in at least one of these assets could be sold before the end of next year.
A vote for Labour means the sales will be scrapped before the end of this year.
