| Tuesday, April 24, 2012 5:47 AM

They almost sprinted up the aisle to join in an unholy alliance with The Tories after the last election but now they're playing the part of the blushing brides.

They're the tour de force of the Tories, without them State Homie John Key and his band of weary men and women would be on the outside looking in.

It's the consequence of the MMP electoral system that even though The Tories nudged close to getting half the vote at the last election, a staggering result, they were staggering to make up the numbers. And without the numbers, political power is nothing.

The Homie's pokies for convention centre deal with Sky City will require changes to the Gambling Act. He's brimming with confidence though of getting ACT and United Future on board and probably with fairly good reason, their two MPs are picking up a Cabinet Minister's pay cheque by the good grace of the Tory triumph.

It's a given that Actor John Banksie will give the deal the green light even though he pretends to play hard to get saying he hasn't seen the deal and he's not committing to anything until he's seen the fine print.

That'll tell him that Auckland, which he refers to as the aspirational capital of the country, will get a convention centre, built by the gambling giant for free in return for more pokie machines, or more appropriately known as one arm bandits.

To allow that to happen the Act, which is specifically designed to cut back on the number of bandits, will have to be changed. And one of its designers Prissy Peter Dunne holds the other critical vote.

In his usual sensible way he says there'll be no blank cheque. He says he wants what's best for Auckland and what fits with the mood of New Zealanders regarding pokie machines.

Yeah well that would seem to be something of a Hobson's choice.

If you listen to The Homie the convention centre will deliver two hundred thousand visitor nights in hotels, economic growth and jobs. Conference delegates spend twice as much as tourists, he tells us.

So there'll be more money in the system to feed the insatiable one arm bandits!

Photo: NZ Herald