By Chris Trotter*
Political provacateur, Matthew Hooton, predicts that we should expect to see “less Grey Lynn and more Morrinsville” from Jacinda Ardern. He may have been referring to the Prime Minister’s earthy vocabulary, with its “bloody” this and “bloody” that, but his characterisation also offers an apt description of the political territory traversed by Ardern since the heady days of her “Let’s do this!” campaign of 2017.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to recognise the almost reckless quality of Labour’s 2017 election campaign as the product of a party that did not expect to win. The gap to make up after David Cunliffe’s 2014 debacle, when Labour’s Party Vote declined to a woeful 25%, was generally assumed to be too wide. With a Party Vote of 37%, Labour seemed happy enough to have lifted its vote by 12 percentage points. Ardern had done well, but her demeanour on election night gave no hint that she believed herself to have done any more than avert yet another electoral catastrophe.
Certainly, the pundits’ verdict on the night was that, with 44% of the Party Vote, Bill English would remain New Zealand’s prime minister. Much as he might squirm at the prospect, Winston Peters’ final decision as to which of the two main parties NZ First backed would be dictated, as it always had been before, by which of them received the most Party Votes.
But it wasn’t. This time Peters chose to sit down and dine on a dish of cold vengeance, and Ardern found herself, at the age of thirty-seven, the stunned steward of New Zealand’s fortunes. That she was woefully unprepared for that role was hidden from the electorate by the new prime minister’s superb communication skills. Ardern accomplished the transition from the person who could always be relied upon to charm Labour’s rank-and-file, to the prime minister who could charm not only her own people, but the rest of the world to boot, with astonishing aplomb.
That words – no matter how well chosen – were not, in the end, enough to produce concrete policy victories became clear to all in the grotesque failure of KiwiBuild. It would not be the last instance of massive over-promising, followed by equally massive under-delivery. Indeed, all those years working alongside Helen Clark and Heather Simpson had not driven home to Ardern the deep political wisdom of Clark’s “under-promise and over-deliver” formula for electoral success.
The explanation for this failure is almost certainly generational. As a Baby-Boomer, Clark belonged to a generation that not only understood how much a properly equipped state could accomplish, but who also knew, as someone who had lived through the angst and anguish of Rogernomics, exactly how much equipment the state had lost. Yes, there were still many levers left to pull, but hardly any of them were attached to anything that actually worked. If it was work you wanted, the place to get it done – after 1984 – was the market.
Ardern’s other generational problem was the extent to which “communication” and “performance” had melded together. Government announcements about government action had become so important that the very fact an announcement was about to be made itself became the excuse for an announcement. It was as though Ardern and her colleagues believed that the announcement of a set of measures, and their accomplishment, were one and the same. To say it was to do it. Which was fine, providing “it” was something the market wanted to “do”.
The ”Grey Lynn” Ardern understood the genuine desire of her generation to do something about climate change, poverty, racism, sexism and cycle-lanes. But, she also understood how good they felt “liking” a Facebook post or “hearting” a tweet, and how effortlessly signing an online petition had come to replace trudging down the main street with a placard. Politics had become performative – a play. It existed to deliver a message – but not much of anything else. Surely, everybody understood that what they were looking at wasn’t real?
When it comes to delivering messages, however, the Grey Lynn Ardern had few equals. Her “They are Us” on the day of the Christchurch Mosque Massacre, followed by her hug in a hijab, brought the whole world to tears – and cheers. Covid-19 provided an opportunity for more of the same. In the face of a global pandemic, the delivery of calm and inspiring leadership proved to be a vaccine every bit as effective as Pfizer’s – maybe more so!
Ardern’s signature message of kindness, and her powerfully solidaristic “Team of Five Million”, combined with her intuitive decision to “go hard, go early” with the “science” (rather than the business community) carried her forward to an historic electoral victory.
But, if 2017-20 was the Lord Mayor’s Coach, then 2020-23 shows every sign of being the shit-cart. In spite of announcements, and announcements about announcements, the relentless machinery of free-market capitalism grinds on. Every crisis has its cost, and the cost of New Zealand’s Covid-19 pandemic has been, and will continue to be, huge. Political dramas cannot go on forever, and all too often the audience steps out of the theatre into driving wind, freezing rain – and Omicron. When you’re wet, cold, ill-housed and infected, and the cost-of-living keeps spiralling upwards out of control, then messages – no matter how inspiring – tend to be forgotten.
The Morrinsville Ardern is emerging because our Prime Minister has realised just how bloody naïve the Grey Lynn Ardern always was. Like Helen Clark, who grew up in the same part of the country, the Morrinsville Ardern has learned the hard way just how little the contemporary New Zealand state is capable of delivering. She knows what it’s like to pull on a lever and feel it rattle loose in her hand. She knows, too, that a Labour prime minister can only say “No” to the business community for so long. She has learned that carrots are all very well, but every now and then it’s necessary to put a bit of stick about. And if the stick’s victims turn up on your front lawn? Well then, you give them a little bit more!
Morrinsville Ardern is what you get when reality drives an iron spike into the gentle soul of Grey Lynn’s “Jacinda”. Will Kiwi voters take to Morrinsville Ardern? Hard to say. As a people we’re notorious for letting ourselves fall in love with performers – generally on the sports field. We are even willing to allow them a few mistakes – providing the culprits demonstrate they’ve got what it takes to pull themselves together and lift their performance. Even the disappearance of the grace and flair that first attracted us to them is forgivable, just so long as the ruthless and ugly efficiency with which it’s been replaced continues to deliver the wins.
Grey Lynn Ardern declared airily, “Let’s do this!” If, eighteen months from now, Morrinsville Ardern can snarl, “I’ve bloody done it!”, then she’ll lead her Labour Government to a third term.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
88 Comments
Housing crisis? 2017 prices not looking so bad now.
Cost of living crisis? What's that now?
Climate Change emergency? Lower Petrol taxes!!!
Global Pandemic? Freeze the healthworkers pay, fire any who aren't vaccinated, and ban any overseas ones from entering the country.
Ardern has "Bloody done it", what emergency can she solve next.
She had to be naive, to take on 'child poverty'. Collectively, they all had to be naive to think they could 'solve' housing in the face of human overshoot (and the Limits to Growth, diminishing physical returns, entropy).
Wealth - child included - is access to resources and energy. Without addressing population, they were doomed to fail. Even doing so, they'd have probably been too slow, too late.
Not that any alternative Party can do better - indeed, Luxon would need more skill-set than he's shown, to be of any use at all. He's simply a last manifestation of the problem.
"Where we tend to disagree, is what can be done about it in a world where none of the solutions will be perfect."
That is the issue, we should be able to to vote about what to do, but no party seems willing to step up to the plate and even start to discuss it. Let alone put forward an actual starting option.
Keith..posted this elsewhere..no news to you I'm sure, but you may find it of interest.
But you seem to forget that we have simply borrowed more and more from the future to do so... kind of like saying "look, I was fat last year, this year I am even fatter, so I am therefore better off!" while ignoring that obesity is lowering the future quality and length of your life. Oh I forgot to add - the enormous amounts of food going in to increase the waistline is paid on a credit card that looks increasingly like it will never be payed off.
The comment about 'becoming wealthier, everywhere' is nonsense, too. The UN had to shift it's own goalposts, a few years back.
But the real problem, is that real-time money is no valid count; it's a forward bet which none of the issuers are checking to see whether it's underwritten. Not trained to.
Wealth correlates with environmental protection. As countries have become wealthier, they have strengthened their environmental regulation and improved their environments. The solution to any looming environmental catastrophe involves wealth creation; and if it doesn't, then it means that adaptation will be sub-par. Let me make this concrete: more people will die from typhoons if they live in corrugated iron shacks than if they can afford real houses and infrastructure.
And diminished the natural environment and other species with just as much claim to this planet as us. We are on the verge of an actual collapse, all down to us thinking we can cram more and more people onto this planet. Your thinking is extremely narrow and short sighted.
In 2017 NZ received an unlikely government. One that was caught by surprise and equally unprepared. They have never left that page. They have always been playing catch up. In the first term WP’s long experience and a couple of good NZF mps shored them up, intercepted and interceded before clangers & goofs got along too far. Lack of substance however cannot remain hidden forever. PM Adern has certainly delivered pathos professionally but not much else really. The double talk and repeatedly circuitous utterances have escalated to the point they are an embarrassment. At times, for instance the AM show on the morning of the parliamentary protestors, arms waving wildly & shouting down questions, she has looked anything but professional. Completely out of her depth in fact. That I suggest is the challenge now. The previous image has worn and waned, the halo tarnished and slipped. According to the polls the government is now on a slippery slope. Such governments tend to follow the force of gravity reasonably quickly. Still all is not lost. National have recovered but have yet to present a selection of candidates for government that looks markedly better than the current lot. They have just as much work to do too.
but as usual your comments give no credit for the IMFs report.."With strong economic and health policies, the economy rebounded strongly in 2021." and "Strong public health policies and tight border controls allowed for effective containment of infection waves in 2020 and 2021.
which is an entirely Republican "slam whatever we can" standpoint.
It is easy to fault every government but alongside faults should also be successes. Yes housing is a continued disaster and that's the net result of policy absence and greed...luckily National wasnt in power or it would be even worse AND the death rates would have been astronomical.
After a lifetime of voting National there is finally an alternative in Jacinda Ardern, warts and all. And thats from a house owning boomer.
Since the separation of public policy & delivery in the 1980s SOE Act, politicians created their own structural excuse for their ongoing lack of personal ministerial responsibility for Govt failure.
The NZ tradition is that Govts of any hue must be kicked out after no more than 3 terms (9years) their ever increasing hubris & deceit being too much for us to stomach by then. I'd be surprised if Arden gets a 3rd term now the co governance cat is out of the bag & I've been a 95% Labour voter for 50 years - next year I'll be voting ACT.
This.
I suspect a lot of people who voted Labour the last 2 times are now absolutely disgusted with the left, see National as Labour in blue suits, and are now looking even further to the right.
Will also be interesting to see the first poll results that include Matt Kings new party Democracy NZ.
Correct. Mates overseas started asking months ago what Jacinda had done because news media had done an about-face and now seem to hate her. There are very few outlets that support her now, even left-leaning UK rags have turned against her.
She will definitely turn into Morrinsville Adhern because that is where she will be headed in 18 months or so if they will take her.
But Chris - if Ardern hasn't realised by now she has the unprecedented mandate to enact the sweeping changes so promised, there is no hope. Instead she has indulged the creeping undermining of our democracy by the cabal wagging the dog's tail. A betrayal on so many fronts.
By what benchmark should we judge Ardern by? In all my time I have never seen global leaders so universally despised - Biden, Johnson, Macron, Morrison. They would all lose an election tomorrow. The West has adopted the "build back better" model and enacted unprecedented Covid stimulus, both of which have led to loss of energy independence and the inflation we have today.
If Ardern is guilty of anything, it is over-promising. But which global leader has delivered? The Luxon bounce will force Labour to focus back on the economy and that has to be a good thing.
True. The article also seems to put too much weight on a generational factor and forgets completely the commonality with the previous government (John Key):
Ardern’s other generational problem was the extent to which “communication” and “performance” had melded together. Government announcements about government action had become so important that the very fact an announcement was about to be made itself became the excuse for an announcement. It was as though Ardern and her colleagues believed that the announcement of a set of measures, and their accomplishment, were one and the same.
Key's government had the same fetish for working groups (and almost exactly the same number of them)...recall the 'Jobs Summit' and all the hoo-haa about "productivity", but in the end there was the same unwillingness to address underlying factors.
English avoided some of the predicament that Ardern has found herself in by simply saying some things - e.g. child poverty - were too hard to measure. If you don't measure something or you don't let folk on a waiting list then the picture can't look worse and worse.
'Social investment' is an interesting idea. I do wonder at some of the ideological drivers, though. Is it thought that people at the coal face working with our worst off and most damaged folk do not understand what they are doing or what might drive results? That if only we had better dashboards with more data points we'd be better placed to make decisions about whom to invest in and where?
On what basis would you believe it's the 'best possible approach'?
Instinctively, I also would imagine we have too much of a middle management layer between the budgets and the execution, but I'm aware this is a product of media coverage and political rhetoric oft-repeated too.
We see interesting philosophical inconsistencies, though, too, across our political wings (such as they are, grouped closely in a centre). Where standardised testing and measurement is desired for public schools and teachers' performance, standard testing is not allowed and not appropriate for charter schools who can take and use taxpayers' money.
At the end of the day, we best keep trying to measure more accurately, eh?
I have very little confidence that this government and the RBNZ has the knowledge and experience to navigate the country through what is going to be a very challenging economic environment for the next 2 years. There is going to be a lot of pain from unintended consequences from policy and lack of action.
I voted for her last time because any other lot looked worse. Now they are starting to look better. I look to what is best for NZ long term so to be in the hunt for my vote next time they need to keep the lid on population, and base policies on my need rather than who some of my ancestors were.
Very strange. Neither party has a qualified lawyer in the justice role. That portfolio was once highly respected and so were justice ministers such as Ralph Hanna, Martyn Finlay & Jim McLay. The electorate used to have confidence that the law was paramount and a Minister of Justice would not allow that to be compromised. It really does summon up how far parliamentary disciplines and priorities have been eroded & weakened.
I am never going to vote Labour or for Andrew Little. But with health Andrew has every reason to be angry and I have every sympathy with him.
Those clinicians have thwarted every health minister for decades. They are extraordinarily powerful in their capacity to do that. It's not funny.
This site is infested with cynical “told-you-sos” and partisan commentators that assume their political preference would have done any better or could do so. The National Party is bereft of anyone with governing experience or leadership qualities and is unlikely to offer anything better than the current government other than paying craven obeisance to the business community. This community’s endless sense of self-confidence, entitlement and absence of any sense of gratitude for the way in which they have been supported by this government is worrying. A National government would roll back improvements made to the lot of ordinary New Zealanders while lining the pockets of the business elite with unaffordable tax cuts. Be careful what you wish for.
"This community’s endless sense of self-confidence, entitlement and absence of any sense of gratitude for the way in which they have been supported by this government is worrying."
Assumption.
"A National government would roll back improvements made to the lot of ordinary New Zealanders while lining the pockets of the business elite with unaffordable tax cuts. Be careful what you wish for."
ALSO assumption.
Is assuming that my political preference would have done better any worse than you assuming they would have done worse? It's the same ridiculous discussion lacking in any substance, whichever way you're looking at it.
I'm pretty tired of posters dismissing any legitimate criticism of the current government with a hand-wave "But the other guys would have been worse!", you're literally just as bad as the posters you are complaining about.
"We all knew" except Labour who were the ones making the outlandish policy claims to begin with? The 'impossible' mess they got was significantly lower house prices, lower net migration pre-Covid and a public sector with at least some public benchmarks, like National Standards or healthcare targets. Labour imported more people, abandoned objective health targets and National Standards with no clear replacements and changed the RBNZ mandate to include employment, leading to a depressed interest rate environment which helped blow out house prices. The only thing that got them out of it was Covid.
Suggesting that things were somehow worse than they are now is appallingly partsian revisionism and ignores the cynical bait-and-switch nature of the 2017 election campaign.
Some FHBs have no doubt have had some difficulty purchasing their first home. No doubt.
Some restaurants have had to close down permanently. Unfortunately this is true.
234 people have died from Covid. This is sad.
You could say that all these unfortunates have been New Zealand's sacrificial lambs of the current pandemic.
Now let's look at how many New Zealanders have died in previous global wars and pandemics:
World War1: 18000 dead
The Spanish Flu: 9000 dead
World War 2: 12000 dead
(all from a population base less than half of what it is today).
Shouldn't we as a country be erecting cenotaph memorials in every town and city throughout the country to memorialize and honour those FHBs and restaurant-owner casualties of the Covid pandemic even though most FHBs will eventually obtain their house and restaurant owners will eventually make a comeback of some sort?
Would you rather have spent over 3 years on the Western front like mine and yours (possibly?) amongst blood and guts, human waste, incessant rain and mud, constant shrapnel raining down around you or, during a pandemic, seeing your whole family die of the plague because there were no vaccinations, no antibiotics, no proper sterilization, no knowledge of how the plague spreads, no prescribed distancing, no requirement to wear masks, no leadership to tell you what to do.
The only thing they had in their favour was the lack of whining, whinging couch pressers huddled in front of their computers.
If you're set on whining forever about house prices blame the people that caused the problem:
the Helen Clark and John Key governments, both of which were responsible for unleashing the immigration tsunami that overwhelmed our capacity to build enough houses for the new immigrants. This crushing demand caused house prices to go through the roof. We simply didn't have the IMMEDIATE capacity to build enough houses. Clark and Key did the damage and have now bu**ered off leaving Labour to take the rap.
So stop blaming the current government and appreciate what they have done for us as a nation. There's simply no opposition political leader-aspirant that has anywhere near as much money in the bank when it comes having crediblity and standing with the leaders of any other country.
I'll keep blaming the current government when people stop falling over themselves to avoid holding them accountable for their actual, bona fide stuff-ups. Standing with other leaders and sympathetic coverage in the Guardian doesn't house a single family stuck in supposedly scandalous emergency housing. And it took COVID to do what Labour campaigned on but didn't do, which was put a stop to huge levels of migration that continued under their watch. You know, the thing you're blaming Clark and Key for, still, all these years later (rightly, I'd add).
I make no apologies for not having the same fetish for revisionism that others do. Until Covid came along, this government had almost no runs on the board. Bitching about PMs out of office for over five years while simping so hard for the current one that you think international press coverage makes up for their numerous domestic policy failures and campaign walk-backs is pretty sad.
According to https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-case-demographics as of 27 March the number who have died 'with Covid' is 231 and the number who have died 'from Covid' is 43. That is from over 604,000 reported cases ... the actual number of cases will be much higher.
Fortunate. One can only imagine the numbers if Boris, Donald, Morrison or any other conservative MP in New Zealand had been at the helm steering the ship through the pandemic storm. What an ugly thought. We'll take those 43 - 231 unfortunate souls over thousands and wish they RIP.
There were a couple of good items on Sundays Q&A
They talked about the high cost of living and how economists are saying that on average a household will suffer an increase in living costs of $150 a week. Fran O'Sullivan rightly pointed out that many of the costs are arising from events overseas and not the fault of the government however she talked about the many duopolies that we have in New Zealand such as the supermarkets building supplies etc.
Previous governments have failed to address these duopolies that are keeping prices so high and Labour had a great opportunity to sort these out but all it did was ask for more reports to keep the consultants rich.
I had high hopes that Luxon would have some transformative policies to fix some of these issues but no all he came out with was.
We will reverse the tax increases. Our Health system is in tatters and he wants to reduce taxes.
I have lost faith that Labour would address these issues that we all talk about and I don't see anything better with National .
Where have all the inspirational Leaders that will take the bold actions gone?
The second item was about the huge increase in temperatures in Antarctic, very scary stuff but our world leaders talk a lot but little bold action.
Quite depressing really.
"We will reverse the tax increases. Our Health system is in tatters and he wants to reduce taxes"
Why does no one ever tell you how much tax you would need to pay to actually fix the health system?
A) Because there wouldn't be enough left for you to survive on, B) They know they can't actually deliver on it and C) It's far easier to just allude to cutting services than actually meaningfully improve them. Plus it would expose the rampant inflation within departments and if you think general inflation is high, wait until you see health sector inflation.
Actually we'll quite likely have to increase our spending on health, intensified housing and public transport (lower financial and energy cost of moving), and education (but more targeted). It cannot just be working folk who shoulder the cost though, as most wealth has fled labour and been pushed into unproductive assets anyway...we'd have a stronger chance of paying for things if we reduce company income taxes and recapture some of the betterment handed to land.
Health professionals are definitely able to provide great care if we fund and equip them.
Well, putting the hundreds of millions from needless studies, consultations, advertising and information campaigns into actual improvements could a be a start.
Advertising campaigns are like the announcements of announcements - empty, useless and unproductive. Please do actual work and get results, rather burning precious financial resources telling us that's what you plan to do.
While there are some good comments in this stream, most if not all miss the most salient point, in my view, CT makes which sums up HCs failure and JA's on-going failure;
"As a Baby-Boomer, Clark belonged to a generation that not only understood how much a properly equipped state could accomplish, but who also knew, as someone who had lived through the angst and anguish of Rogernomics, exactly how much equipment the state had lost. Yes, there were still many levers left to pull, but hardly any of them were attached to anything that actually worked. If it was work you wanted, the place to get it done – after 1984 – was the market."
One of the most important lessons learned in recent years is that 'the market' does not and cannot rule. CT indicates these two knew the angst of the effects of 'the market' but neither took active measures to address these and even as PDK indicates, JA's abject failure in addressing Child Poverty is bounded by her unwillingness to take control of 'the market' as is the Government's role, to ensure everyone has a chance.
And again JA is allowing 'the market' to dictate in so many debates wheere it is clear she and her Government have little or no vision.
When Ardern said, Capitalism has failed,' all that showed was her complete misunderstanding of what a free market is. She thinks things are failing because we have too much of a free market ie not enough Govt control, so her solution is to have more command and control, ie Socialism.
It is not about Capitalism or Socialism per se. A wrong policy is not improved if you do more of it, or do it quicker. It's only improved if you remove it and replace it with the right policy, which in many cases is no policy.
The wrong policy is the wrong policy irrespective of whether it is light or heavy.
And the market works best when the policy is right and light.
Neither National nor Labour have used the right policies. They need to stop looking at their well-meaning ideologies and look at the results.
And the results say fail.
No Dale, you just don't get it. Take away regulation, some form of control and limitation of the market and others, usually the big players will only manipulate in their favour at the expense of everyone else. this is demonstrated and proven in every market.
Consideration of your point is that there should be no rules. The purpose of Government is to provide those rules to enable everyone to participate. The fact that there are able bodied poor in society proves that the government have failed in their regulation and that the big players have too much power. Society should be working to the benefit of all, not just a few.
I give Dale the credit of assuming he's not simply a blind Ayn Rand admirer, but refers to the fact NZ's 'market' is not effectively enabled to be free. He may well realise as you have pointed out that without reasonable regulation ensuring competition there is no free market either. There's certainly not free market price discovery in New Zealand's property market, with government and Reserve Bank eager to protect it and pump it at any event.
Nah. Let's have a government-run by referendums. MP's become admin and let us have no more list seats! Let's have 120 electorates instead! A true direct proportionate representative body!
After a referendum on becoming a Republic!
After the third world war!
After China moves in!
After the election moves further up the calendar, to the end of this year!
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