though from the Telegraph, these profiles do have decent background for NZ-political newbies like me

New Zealand election: the vanquished Helen Clark
The Telegraph - Now the Gladiator in the form of John Key, leader of the Centre-Right National party, has put Boadicea to the sword - by persuading voters to end nine years in power by Helen Clark, the Labour Party leader.

Miss Clark, New Zealand's first elected woman prime minister, is at 58 a battle-hardened warrior whose early political skills were forged fighting old-fashioned mysoginists to claw her way to the top of the Labour party.

Mr Key, younger at 47, with a fresh-faced charm and unshakeable confidence, had overtaken her in public popularity before ousting her in the most important poll of all.

It was the first time that Miss Clark's political dexterity, combined with her remarkable instinct for survival and passion for what she believes in, had failed her since she first burst on to New Zealand's political stage.

more at the link

New Zealand election: the victorious John Key

The Telegraph - Mr Key's greatest weakness may also have proved his greatest strength. A 47-year-old political novice with no experience of government, he is the antithesis of Miss Clark, one of New Zealand's longest-serving politicians.

His opponents tried to argue that an international economic crisis was the worst time to hand power to an untested beginner, who had been an opposition MP for only six years and leader of the National Party for the past two. Yet to many voters he is the fresh face of change, unencumbered by the political baggage of history.

He has likened himself to Barack Obama, an analogy that drew mirth in Wellington but which was, perhaps, not lost on an electorate with an appetite for change after nine years of Labour rule.

Voters also like the fact that he rose to become a multi-millionaire investment banker from a childhood on the breadline. He grew up in a single-parent family, living in a council house, but on taking office he will become New Zealand's richest ever Prime Minister, with a personal fortune estimated at NZ$50 million (£19 million).
more at the link

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

My sister, who lives on the south island, mentioned one time that Clarke was a controlling person.

From Times Online
November 8, 2008

New Zealanders chose a multimillionaire former foreign currency trader Saturday to lead them through the global financial meltdown, handing long-serving left-wing Prime Minister Helen Clark a crushing election defeat.

John Key’s conservative National Party easily won power in New Zelaland, known internationally for its pristine environment and as the backdrop to the “Lord of the Rings" movies.

“Today, New Zealand has spoken, in their hundreds of thousands, and they have voted for change,” Key told supporters at a victory celebration in Auckland.

snip

He is expected to inplement tax cuts and extra spending to help cushion an economy already in recession and has promised more right-leaning government than Clark’s, which for almost a decade made global warming a key policy issue and led international condemnation of scientific whaling.

In a country where the environment is a mainstream political issue, Key has said he would scale back Clark’s greenhouse gas emission trading scheme to protect businesses from financial losses, and reduce red tape that he says will entangle infrastructure projects, such as dams, because of environmental concerns.

Key will not need the support of the indigenous Maori Party, which won five seats but said he would reach out to them anyway and seek their support in Parliament.

Foreign affairs and trade policies are unlikely to change under Key, including the long-standing ban on nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports which has rankled the US.

New Zealand’s small number of troops doing reconstruction work in Afghanistan will remain. New Zealand has no troops in Iraq.

If you are lurking, it would be interesting to hear your views on the
election.

_{Yes, I can come up with a post-election signature, just... not... yet...}

TVNZ - Unions do not see any hope of closing New Zealand's wage gap with Australia under a National government.

The national secretary of the National Distribution Union, and former Alliance MP, Laila Harre is not impressed with National's tax plans.

She says they do not help the lowest paid workers. And Harre says the test of John Key's rhetoric of inclusiveness will be if he goes down the tried and true National track of attacking the unions - or whether he is prepared to work with them in fixing low wage problems.

continued at link

_{Yes, I can come up with a post-election signature, just... not... yet...}

Terrible title but long, thorough piece of crystal ball gazing

Gordon Campbell | November 14

Scoop - The premise of Labour’s election campaign was that John Key was either (a) a vacuum waiting to be filled by political expedience or (b) a secret hardliner masking his real intentions until he could gain power.

Both ways, the assumption was that something akin to an anti-government, free market agenda would be enacted, probably on terms hatched by National in collusion with the Act Party and its friends in business. Whatever, voters slept on through the alarm.

The more likely and more interesting prospect is that Key – like his mentor David Cameron in the UK – will be seeking a fresh formula for conservatism in order to re-install National as the natural party of government. To achieve that, the narrow Reaganite agendas of Rodney Hide and his friends will have to be sidelined, or only spasmodically affirmed. Therein lies the basic similarity between Helen Clark and John Key –both came to lead their respective parties in order to direct them away from failed hard right agendas, and both seem to instinctively recognise that laissez faire policies are too socially divisive to be politically sustainable.

For solutions, both Clark and Key turned to UK models for inspiration. Clark’s initial response was to draw on Tony Blair’s “Third Way” model, whereby the Clark government used the state to minimize the social impact of the economic framework that she inherited, and largely retained. Key is drawing upon Cameron to do much the same thing – to embrace the notion of the activist state, and to use Big Government openly to achieve the broadest possible consensus for the conservative enterprise. The irony being, if Key is to succeed, the social outcomes themselves will need to have quite a lot in common with Clark’s vision. Only if Key fails will New Zealand look like a world devised by Rodney Hide - with greater extremes of wealth and poverty, and ever increasing and ever costlier crime and imprisonment rates. That’s not an option for Key morally, or politically.
more at the link

_{Yes, I can come up with a post-election signature, just... not... yet...}