New Zealand politics is at an interesting stage.
National is no longer tearing itself into pieces, at least publicly.
It is currently maintaining discipline and its modus operandi is clear:
Labour is not helping itself. It shows signs of third termitis. Senior ministers look tired and there is a feeling that big structural reforms like the TVNZ Radio NZ merger are not being advanced quickly enough.
It is a feature I have experienced with Wellington. It will drag you down into dealing with ever increasing minutiae when a quicker more general based decision is perfectly appropriate.
The TVNZ Radio NZ merger is clearly having an effect on the entities involved. Radio New Zealand now gives prime time broadcast rights to a right wing aligned lawyer involved in litigation relating to three waters and still lets her attack the Government on a program involving commentary on politics. I cannot understand how RNZ’s management can think this is acceptable. The state broadcaster should not be giving a loudspeaker to a lawyer with a clear conflict and then pretend that it is a political discussion. Especially when the litigation is being funded by the Taxpayer’s Union.
And main stream media is doing what it always does and is attacking the government mercilessly. In the Herald over the past few days there have been attack pieces by Steven Joyce and Paula Bennett both pretending to be independent commentators. And yet another hatchet job from Ian Taylor who is deeply upset that Ardern appeared on the front page of Woman’s Weekly. He is still railing against the MIQ system despite the real benefit that system gave us time to prepare.
The reasons for Labour’s fatigue are clear. It has been a hell of a few years. Ardern and others must be running on empty. They did the job. The country locked down hard to prevent the spread of Covid, then the vaccination effort was exemplary and most of us complied. Tens of thousands of lives were saved.
But since then a small extreme group of individuals (looking at you Liz Gunn) have attacked Ardern mercilessly, suggesting that the decisions she took were wrong and lacked compassion and evidence of a socialist threat to control us all. Of course their rhetoric is empty. Burning up a large amount of your political capital to keep everyone safe is not the actions of a despot.
And the safety concerns posed by some rather deranged followers of Gunn’s mean that Ardern’s contact with the public has been reduced. This has not helped.
There is a general tiredness in Aotearoa right now. It is not only a local phenomenon, the world is going through the same sort of malaise.
It is not helped by economic problems. Every new issue reinforces the feeling of tiredness. There is a phrase for how people are responding and that is going goblin. More than a few voters are doing the same with the Government.
So a big reset is required. Labour needs to reassert itself.
This week it is said there will be some announcements of Ministers standing down at the next election. Politik has indicated that David Clark will be one and there could be three or four others. That is a good thing. Rejuvenation of the party is absolutely vital.
Ardern has also announced that Ministers will be considering which policies and projects should be continued, with the clear inference that if they are too expensive or too big a distraction then they should be quietly buried.
Again this is a good idea. The government should be focussing on the issues that are really important and bed them in.
National showed how extreme this action could be taken. They fiddled at the edges of issues, put up simple tweaks to complex legislation to generate press releases. The only systemic change they achieved, partial privatisation of some of the SOEs was an abject disaster to the country but a boon to their supporters.
Labour does not need to stoop this low. But it needs to get rid of the distractions and make sure that the big issues are addressed.
It needs to continue with the roll out of public housing. My very strong impression is that the housing market is correcting and so far in a way that is not devastating.
Three waters needs to be completed and bedded in. If you need any justification for the reforms then read Ad’s very perceptive blogpost on the subject.
It needs to continue to address child poverty. Despite the rhetoric thrown at this topic things are improving.
And it needs to continue to prepare us for climate change. We have no time to waste.
It is not all doom and gloom. Despite everything there is a resilience in Labour’s polling and National’s support appears to be very brittle. And its leader is Christopher Luxon.
Decisions over the next couple of months will determine if next year’s election is a repeat of 2005 or 1975. For the long term interests of the country Ardern and Labour have to get this right.
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