Aroha

The thing is when a politician makes a move like this there is always the chance it may come back in the distant future and bite him on the arse. Still he's managed to get away with it and I can say with all honesty had Helen Clark, Winston Peters, or Peter Dunne tried such a move they would have been hammered mercilessly by the fourth estate. Key, by reason of his political inexperience, and possibly his much promoted working class roots, has been cut some slack.

To be fair I think it's entirely likely that John Key made the offer of the Waitangi trip without any consideration of manipulative politics. From what I have observed of him he is the type to make such an offer spontaneously. He is that sort of guy - perhaps a side effect of having a life before politics rather than having been involved in it continuously as a career choice.

The problem is that the media remembers these sort of happenings and now this young girl may become a benchmark for John Key's future political career. Any policy announcement on dealing with the economic underclass will no doubt see a hack or three descending on McGehan Close to vist Aroha and her family to find out "what they think of it".

Also the media will very likely keep tabs on young Aroha's progress through life and measure her success, or failure, against John Key and the vision he is espousing.

One wonders what might happen if Aroha one day ends up at, say, Arohata.