For the first time in their lives, while this was going on, New Zealanders didn't have a government. People started to notice that the sky was not falling in. Peters chose National as New Zealand First's coalition partner. Since then, the Coalition Government has become a farce. Policy-wise, the deferral of the tax cuts precipitated a dramatic fall in business confidence.
Unemployment is on the rise again.
So there you have it. If it does have to go into coalition, it'll be with the even more left-wing Alliance. Smaller but still significant majorities remain opposed to the privatisation that has already occurred, notwithstanding the extraordinary benefits that have flowed therefrom . Telecom, where in the bad old days customers used to have to wait up to six weeks to have a phone installed or a fault repaired. Now it happens more or less immediately.