You have got to hand it to those Kiwis: right now they are the only country in the world where the people are virtually begging their leader to stay on.
The Italian PM has resigned at about the same time after a failed referendum and the people there are rejoicing.
Not in the land of the long white cloud.
John Key may have tried – and failed – to change the NZ flag, but that was his biggest blemish in eight year as PM.
In comparison, let’s see what has happened to our Prime Ministers since Robert Menzies retired undefeated in 1965:
Harold Holt drowned; John Gorton was replaced by Billy “big ears’’ McMahon, who was smashed by Gough Whitlam in 1972.
The big man won one more election in 1974 but was thrown out in a landslide at the next one, in 1975.
Gough fought one more election in 1977, when he was again heavily defeated by Malcolm Fraser, who cried when the voters threw him out in his ear in 1983.
Bob Hawke had a brilliant opportunity to be the first since Menzies to go out on his own terms but decided to take his chances and almost nine years later he was ousted by his own party and Paul Keating.
The “world’s greatest treasurer’’ went on to win the 1993 election but got mugged by the voters and John Howard in 1996.
Howard was PM for almost 11 years and should have got out a couple of years before but just couldn’t bring himself to give up the reins of power.
Result: in 2007 his government was not only thrown out of office but he became only the second Aussie PM ever to lose his own seat.
His conqueror, Kevin Rudd, didn’t even make it to the next election, with Julia Gillard taking over in June 2010.
Gillard suffered the same fate three years later, with Rudd returning in time to face the voters, and losing to Tony Abbott.
He lasted just two years before Malcolm Turnbull got the numbers to steal the top job from him 15 months ago, and MT is still there.
♦ So, if we had a Top 5 of our pollies who should have resigned before being thrown out, this is how it would look:
Number 1. John Howard, 11 years, how much more did he want?
Number 2. Bob Hawke was there eight years, same as John Key, hello!
Number 3. Kevin Rudd. The scary thing with this guy is that if he survived the political assassination we may have been stuck with him for a long, long time.
Number 4. Paul Keating. He should have retired a year after winning the “unlosable election” of 1993.
Number 5. Tony Abbott. A successful opposition leader, but going for PM? What was he thinking?
