Over at the Dim-Post, Danyl assesses National's first year in office, starting with:
We didn’t get ’shock doctrined’. Our last two right-wing governments (National in ‘91, Labour in ‘84) used economic crisis as pretexts to introduce radical reforms that they didn’t campaign on and had no mandate for. It wouldn’t have been that difficult for Key and his party to repeat history and restart the revolution, given the apprehension over the global financial crisis and the general mood of the nation this time last year – but they didn’t. Obviously I don’t agree with everything the Nats have done but they have shown a degree of prudence and responsibility that we haven’t seen from previous right-wing governments.We have MMP to thank for this. Under a fair electoral system, any repeat of the strategy of deceit seen in 1984 and 1991 would result in a one-term government, and a lengthy spell in opposition. They’d be out on their arses quicker than you could say "unmodified Sainte-Laguë formula". Which is perhaps one of the reasons why National’s right are so keen to ditch it...
