Andrew Little's recruitment of National's Amy Adams to help him get what is guaranteed to be a fiercely-debated rewrite of the country's flawed abortion laws through Parliament is very smart politics on the part of the Minister of Justice.
When it comes to doing the smart thing in politics, timing is everything.
In sounding out National's previous finance spokesperson and one-time leadership aspirant to ascertain whether she would be willing to work with him in replacing the decrepit and much-detested Contraception, Abortion, and Sterilisation Act, Little's timing has been right on the button.
The reworked legislation, which was put in front of Cabinet ministers for their consideration this week, will relax the requirements that must be met for a woman to be able to have an abortion — although by just how much will not become evident until the measure is tabled in Parliament by Little.
He has indicated that the public release of the details of the redrafted law — which falls within the ambit of his Justice portfolio rather than being the responsibility of the Minister of Health for reason of the carrying out of unauthorised abortions featuring as an offence under the Crimes Act — is now not very far off from finally happening following months of delay.
MPs will ostensibly be able to exercise a conscience vote on the matter, rather than being obliged to fall into line and vote according to some predetermined party line.
Things are not that simple, however.
Little has engaged in negotiations with New Zealand First with the objective of coming up with a measure which the conservative-minded MPs from that party can feel comfortable in backing.
There is no guarantee that any such arrangement will hold together long enough for the legislation to make its way through all its parliamentary stages and into law — especially after those MPs find themselves on the receiving end of the ferocity generated by the anti-abortion lobby.
Little might well need to have those MPs in National's ranks, who are liberals on abortion, on board to get the measure into law.
Having someone with the competence and respect that Adams enjoys to act as a conduit is invaluable.
She was ripe for the picking, however.
Not surprisingly, Adams' announcement that she is quitting politics and won't be standing for re-election in her seat of Selwyn at next year's general election was tinged with a distinct undertone of disappointment and potential achievement unfulfilled.
That frustration might well explain why Little's approach seemingly got such a favourable reception.
She admitted as much this week when she acknowledged that helping remove abortion from the Crimes Act would be a fitting way to leave Parliament.
The high-ranking National MP announced her upcoming departure yesterday.
Adams has been one of the hardest-working and results-driven MPs in Parliament and a tough taskmaster — especially on herself.
Her decision to retire has seen her lose the prized shadow finance portfolio and her front-bench status.
It has cast her into the wilderness of the Opposition back benches. She is without any shadow portfolio. That is not unusual. There are only so many jobs to go around. There is no point in the leader wasting a portfolio, no matter how minor, on someone who is halfway through the door marked "Exit".
Getting Adams on board is a tribute to Little's capacity for lateral thinking. At the same time, however, it is likely that more than a few eyebrows will have been raised in National's quarters by her readiness to help Little to stitch together a temporary coalition of MPs of all ideological persuasions which will be tasked with ensuring a less restrictive and workable abortion law comes into operation in place of the current legal schemozzle.
National's leader says Jacinda Ardern should be moving on some ministers on Thursday but doesn't have talented people to replace them.
Adams is just another piece — albeit a welcome and most useful one — in a legislative jigsaw that Little has been putting together on the quiet.
His search for a broad consensus cannot disguise the fact that the push for reform is very much a Labour Party initiative.
Jacinda Ardern promised that Labour would decriminalise abortion if it became the Government. It was a very public promise — a promise made during one of the televised leaders' debate at the height of the last election campaign.
It has fallen on Little to make good on that promise.
It is impossible to make definitive projections on how the numbers will fall when his bill faces crucial votes in Parliament.
The great bulk of the 46-member Labour caucus will follow their party's line — as will the Greens' eight MPs along with David Seymour as ACT's sole MP in the House. Assuming for argument's sake — and no more than that — that five Labour MPs opt to buck Little's reform initiative, he would be 11 votes short of a majority. Making up such a shortfall would require that six MPs from either New Zealand First or National — or a sufficient combination of MPs from both parties — switch sides.
It is quite possible, if not probable that there would be enough liberal-minded MPs in National's ranks that Little would not have to rely on Winston Peters' party to progress the legislative measure which will be under his name through the House.
He might still be worried, however, that National's hierarchy might suddenly decide to impose the party whip and oblige its MPs to vote as a bloc against his reform bill.
It is highly unlikely that National would seek to take advantage of such an opportunity to exploit things for naked political advantage —and the party's MPs would be most unappreciative of any attempt to limit their flexibility.
Wise politicians never rule out the possibility of something happening no matter how high the odds might be against it doing so, however.
Having links with someone with impeccable National Party credentials and fully aware of the ebb and flow of thinking in that party's caucus is invaluable.
The politics of abortion are not about winning votes. They are about not losing them. Look no further than Adams for confirmation of that.
She was fulsome this week in claiming to be "one of the more liberal" MPs in the current Parliament. Yet when she was Justice Minister, she gave short-shrift to any thoughts of reviewing one of the most hated measures to have ever graced New Zealand's statute books.
That was just a year or so before the then National-led government went into an election in search of a fourth term in control of the country.
The margins between victory and defeat were too fine to be bothered about revamping something that previous governments enjoying far larger majorities in the House could not be bothered to bother about.
The political inertia was understandable — as was Adams' similar swiftness in ruling out any review of the existing law when the matter arose during the contest for the National Party leadership in February of last year.
Boil it all down and the fact is that abortion law reform is not a priority for National. The party has little to gain from helping Little.
By positioning herself as a kind of intermediary, Adams is now offering some insurance for the Justice Minister that the worst will not happen and that all the effort he has made over preceding months to come up with a formula that most MPs will have few qualms about supporting will not be wasted.
The following questions will linger, however. Is it insurance enough? And how long will it be on offer from Adams?
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