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The government's desire to open up more Crown land for mining is set to be one of its most contentious policies.
In his speech opening Parliament a week ago John Key argued the case for more mining, claiming just 40 square kilometres of New Zealand's land mass is subject to mining operations.
So at his weekly post-Cabinet press conference the question was inevitable. It came from the back row and it was blunt: "Where did the 40 kilometre figure come from," a radio journalist asked. "From my speech writer," the Prime Minister replied.
Accompanied by the usual carefree grin the response went down well and is illustrative of why Key is so popular : he is relaxed and unpeturbed. He doesn't have all the answers and doesn't pretend to. He isn't a show off and he can laugh at himself.
At his best those qualities are deceptively powerful. It plays beautifully to the Kiwi psyche and wrong foots his opponents in the media and in politics, deflating egos, arrogance and pomposity.
But there's a difference between being relaxed and being sloppy and the government has crossed that line several times already this year.
Take the GST rise . A resourceful and prepared government would have been aware of comments from both John Key and Bill English prior to the 2008 election, when they effectively ruled out raising GST.
A better prepared Prime Minister could have said in his speech last week that despite reservations prior to the election, raising GST was now being considered.
Had he done that the emergence of pre-election footage of National saying it wouldn't raise GST would have been much less embarrassing.
Key also should have made sure his extensive financial portfolio didn't again get in the way of his political career.
After his difficulty with Tranzrail shares in 2008 it wasn't particularly smart to hold on to shares in an Australian mining company when he is arguing the case for opening up more of the DOC estate for domestic and international companies to extract minerals. The fact that the company, after a merger he was unaware of, now has substantial interests in uranium mining, is just plain embarrassing for the leader of an aggressively nuclear free country.
Only a fool would believe Key had any sinister intent or motive to gain financially out this. But did it not occur to anyone in his government that this was going to be unhelpful to National in its battle to win an already highly charged political argument?
Perhaps more significantly, sloppiness is creeping into National's management of its relationship with the Maori Party.
Backbench Maori Party MP Rahui Katene claims the party is considering walking out of the coalition over a rise in GST. Hone Harawira puts a bill into the ballot calling for entrenchment of the Maori seats and then withdraws it realising it is in breach of the confidence and supply agreement between National and the Maori Party. Neither Key nor Tariana Turia appear to remember what is in the five page document.
Turia and Key also appear at odds over the Whanau Ora policy - a revolutionary new approach to delivering social services.
The Maori Party was clearly developing the policy to be 'for Maori by Maori' at least in the initial stages. Now Key, fearing a backlash from 'one-law-for-all' advocates, says it is for all New Zealanders. Turia has this afternoon been convinced to come around to the view too. But this is a policy which was in the parties' confidence and supply agreement over a year ago. It has not leapt out of nowhere to confront the government.
Such sloppiness mattered less in National's first year. In 2010, when it's making the hard decisions unnecessarily burning political capital is foolhardy. National needs to sharpen up.
