National party leader John Key Based on a comparative international analysis of centre-right oppositions and governments, I would have to ask whether our own National Opposition will neccessarily win the next New Zealand general election. Why? I sat down and embarked on a comparative exercise, which achieved some intriguing results when I had completed it. It isn't just the terminal incumbency fatigue and cumulative policy failures of the Bush and Howard administrations. And their plight is desperate. Witness the sad spectacle of the isolated, highly unpopular 43rd President of the United States as his circle of advisors are steadily depleted through corruption scandals, imprisonment, and pragmatic exits after the Iraq War fiasco and ideologically driven rejection of the reality of climate change. Due to the incompetence and corruption of his Republican Party, Bush faces an assertive and resurgent Democrat-controlled federal Congress. Howard's situation is one that foes of social conservative extremism have awaited for over a decade. His specific demise is centred on two core unpopular policies- firstly, his government responded inadequately to a devastating national drought, which convinced the Australian general public that climate change was a reality. Secondly, his derivative Australian Workplace Agreements are merely a rehash of our own failed Employment Contracts Act from the nineties, and no-one is convinced that it won't worsen Australia's own skills shortage. Treasurer Peter Costello looks set to replace his erstwhile leader after the descent of the apocalypse in October or November. When it does hit, the Liberals won't even control any state or territory governments, and it is likely that the party will descend into factional civil war as it did for much of the eighties and nineties. And what about outside these terminal cases? Even the best centre-right administrations have problems. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel may be the most powerful woman on earth, but her Christian Democrats are polling on par with the Social Democrats, with whom they co-exist inside a grand coalition government, and more ominously, the CDU has lost several general provincial elections. Similarly, Stephen Harper's stable minority Conservative government is at parity with Canada's federal Liberal Opposition, and unable to make traction with it. It is far frominevitable that Harper's Tories will survive for a second term. Significantly, Canada's Tories are far more pragmatic over global warming, and dumped same-sex marriage opposition when it became obvious that there was voter resistance to pandering to the Canadian Christian Right over that issue. In the United Kingdom, Tony Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's ascendancy has increased the likelihood that the UK Labour Government will retain office at the next general election. After Brown's ascendancy and policy re-orientation, David Cameron's Tories have fallen behind in the polls, and caucus and party social conservative ideologues have started divisive barracking against their social liberal leader. No-one appears convinced that the UK Tories have fully regenerated into a centrist centre-right political party after the excesses of the Thatcher era, and it is paying the price. And in New Zealand? At a time when Australia is regaining its political sanity, we appear to be losing ours. Whatever happened to critical and objective political analysis in the non-gay New Zealand media? Why is it that neither New Zealand media or academics appear to be willing to roll up their sleeves and take a long, hard look at whether National still has unreconstructed hardcore New Right policies left from the nineties that should be abandoned, given the probability that they are based on Bush/Howard policy failures? Where is the comparative critical analysis of Australian Liberal, US Republican and New Zealand National Party policies? I submit that the above is an abdication of journalism's professional responsibility to act as an independent and critical fourth estate, and academic freedom to voice critical and diverse evidence-based positions on matters of public policy. It is a sign of weak democratic institutions and should be viewed with considerable concern. I sincerely hope that in the course of the next year, my concerns will be proven to have been exaggerated. Craig Young - 13th September 2007