I don’t get why the Government should be surprised at last week’s poll results.
In its pursuit of money to give tax cuts to landlords it has been laying waste to important parts of public infrastructure. Claims that cuts would only be to the back office and not the front office appear to be, to put it politely, not correct.
Health funding for instance. Clearly the Government has put a stop on further spending required to keep the country’s hospitals operating as well as can be hoped for.
Cuts to overtime for doctors and nurses will mean that hospitals will become less efficient. No other result is possible. Distressing stories of operations being cancelled like this one are dominating public discourse and affecting public perception.
Former Disability Minister Penny Simmons’ ham fisted handling of a freeze on support for affected families seemed at the time to be overreach.
But the Health cuts are visible for everyone to see. And the refusal to even contemplate roll over funding is obvious.
It is not unusual for there to be deficits in the Health Budget. For instance to the year ending June 2023 Te Whatu Ora had a cash deficit of $1.013 billion.
But not this time.
It is not only in health that the Government has annoyed the electorate. The Fast-track Projects Bill has been rightfully criticised by just about everyone. The chances of corruption are far too high.
Chris Bishop has started to walk back the more extreme of the bill’s provisions back. Expect there to be significant changes made.
And crime, National’s go to propaganda item, is not getting better.
Who can forget this offering?
This is another example of hopelessly overhyped PR.
Shane Te Pou in this morning’s Herald summarises the situation well. He says:
After six months, nothing has been done to reduce the cost of living. In fact, this Government has made living less affordable by cutting support for disabled people and carers, cutting the rate of increase for superannuation and benefits, doubling public transport fares for under-25s, making the biggest after-inflation cut to the minimum wage this century, and helping drive unemployment up.
Want to cut your cost of living by getting an EV to replace your gas guzzler? National made that more expensive. Oh, and your rates are going up because the Government scrapped water reform. So’s the rego on your car, and fees are coming back on prescriptions.
Meanwhile, frontline services haven’t been protected, as Luxon promised. School builds and transport projects are frozen, new hospital wards are sitting empty while Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora has to cut $100 million by reducing doctors’ and nurses’ working hours, adding to surgery delays. Customs officials, biosecurity agents, social workers, anti-child exploitation staff and anti-terrorism officials are all losing their jobs.
The only people who have had a cost-of-living boost from this Government are folks like me, landlords. And, tell you what, a lot of us landlords would rather the money was going on those frontline services.
His conclusion is that this could be a one term Government. But he has a caveat, that Labour needs to present an alternative. Again from the article:
Labour cannot expect to win by default. It has to give the voters something to vote for. The recent Ipsos poll shows two-thirds of Kiwis want a leader who is strong and will take on the elites to give ordinary people a fair go. Labour needs to supply that leadership, which it isn’t doing right now.
The usual logic for a party that’s just been turfed out of government is to lick its wounds and focus on stability, keeping its powder dry, rather than hoping to win again after one term. This time is different.
He is right. Labour, and the Greens and Te Pati Maori need to present an alternative vision of how the country would change under their reign. They need to be presenting this alternative vision immediately.
The Government is less than 12 months away from a change in the Deputy Prime Ministership and I don’t think the transition will be a smooth one. Labour in particular needs to be getting ready now. Because for the first time in this Country’s history this could be a one term National led Government.
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