Politics
Parliament’s first debate foreshadows a year of policy and pettiness.
Jane Clifton
Jacinda Ardern’s “Year of Delivery” is going to be like one long, confusing and probably contradictory series of “Track your parcel” messages from a courier company.
As Parliament resumed for the year, the Prime Minister’s annual statement was one long “It’s in the Mail” list of policies and targets – all meticulously fact-checked by the Opposition. Capital gains tax? Don’t even bother to bubble-wrap it. Deputy PM Winston Peters said during the election campaign: “It’s off the table.”
Provincial Growth Fund dividends? Sure, wait avidly by the letter box for those, if you reckon the odd $9 million traffic roundabout or a spot of jetty restoration is the font of regional prosperity.
There’s already been one of those “You were not at home, so we’ve sent your consignment back to the depot” cards left in the letter box with respect to KiwiBuild. Strangely, the tick-box option for “Please choose another delivery time” has gone.
At least reform of the Resource Management
Act (RMA) has finally achieved cross-party accord, with legislation in the pipeline. But after all the years of bickering and inertia over the telephone-book-thick legislation, this eventual “Your parcel is on its way!” notice couldn’t truly be described as exciting.
BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN
Still, Parliament’s annual scene-setting debate has been a useful guide to the year’s probable trigger points. For National, the favourite is, “Winston’s running amok.” It means to highlight every instance in which the New Zealand First leader gets his own way, to feed the voter-toxin known as Holding the Country to Ransom.
The latest Winston-zilla exhibit is another of those suspected microsnubs from China, the further deferral of Ardern’s invitation to Beijing. This follows an Air New Zealand plane being turned back for poor paperwork, exporters having documentation problems and stalled progress on a free-trade upgrade. It depends how one joins the dots, but National’s take is that because of Peters’ petulant sniping about China, and the Government’s Defence Review baldly labelling China a threat to regional security, NZ First has put $29 billion worth of trade in peril.
The Government says there is no Chinese retaliation, but even if there were one, it would be occasioned by the decision to exclude Huawei from upgrading Spark’s mobile network
– a call based on the Government Communications Security Bureau’s intelligence, under a legislative framework established by the last National Government.
The Government’s chief mission will be to show measurable social benefits from its new “well-being” Budgetary focus. The A script goes, “While those has-beens are fixated with Winston and petty politics, we’re getting on with serious work and making people’s lives better.” But for occasions where the “well-being dashboard” isn’t displaying quite the expected readings, the B script is, roll
Parliament’s annual scene-setting debate has been a useful guide to the year’s probable trigger points.
up your trousers and leap into the shallows of petty National politics.
Simon Bridges’ flagging personal poll rating seems likely to continue as a cheap and cheerful refuge for the Government’s rainy days. Parliament rings with taunts of “Look out, she’s behind you!” To repurpose Lewis Carroll’s ditty, frontbencher Judith Collins welcomes the little fissures with gently smiling jaws.
The caucus is divided between the anxious, the impatient and the resigned. Of the two former, those smarting from being turfed out of ministerial jobs are no less triggerhappy than those impatient to get into them. But staying their hand is the lesson of recent history. Until an obvious messiah comes along, changing leaders is one long hop between the frying pan and the fire.
Now 6.2% preferred PM to Bridges’ 5%, Collins is also more popular with the party. She shows increasing bite as a shadow minister and is, predictably, an Opposition powerhouse. But can she convince the public she’s more than a pantomime villain? She’s National’s Winston – a force of nature, a first-name household word, but a divisive figure whose negative polling outweighs her positive.
Leadership bingo is irresistible to the political firmament, but this round comes with an unusually sobering reality check. The latest published opinion poll, while showing Labour ahead at 47.5%, has National at 41%. No Opposition on the planet would sack a leader getting those numbers.
NATS NEED POLICY MUSCLE
Opposition caucuses are perpetually Hamlet-ish about whether the leadership is working, but this can be an unwise substitute for more beneficial activity. The Nats need to be match-fit for some hefty policy work, some of which, once enacted, will be hard for any future administration to roll back.
Besides the War and Peace that is the RMA, there are decisions pending on water management and who best to trust to safeguard drinking water. The probably doomed Fair Pay report will nevertheless prompt pithy debate on how to move beyond our low-wage economy.
The Government’s proposal to make Tomorrow’s Schools yesterday’s policy, recentralising some school governance and reducing parent power, has the makings of a civil war.
The coalition is also shaking up vocational training to address our chronic skills shortages, an exercise that may have to include a concession that its fee-free tertiary policies are not hitting the mark. There are potentially game-changing consumer law and Commerce Act rewrites under way. And there are the many labyrinths of Auckland’s infrastructure governance, not least the lingering questions around the efficacy and affordability of the planned light rail.
These are not issues on which an Opposition can just snap out populist opinions. Few are reducible to “yes” or “no”, “do” or “don’t” responses. Voters expect more nuanced criticism than “nanny state” and “bureaucracy gone mad”. The very fact these monster issues are all back on the drawing board at once shows the previous Government had let quite a few of them slide.
The Nats must meet all this policy wonkery afresh. Voters will want to know: how would National now lift wages, fix the housing shortage, prevent water contamination, and all the rest of Labour’s “Your parcel is on its way!” items the previous Government didn’t manage to do?
And as National goes in big with the scary Heraldic banner of Winston rampant, it should factor in the scary banner the Government holds – of Judith couchant.
Voters expect more nuanced criticism than “nanny state” and “bureaucracy gone mad”.