Carnage in Canberra makes our politicians, system look peachy
WHAT a week for Jacinda Ardern and the New Zealand Government.
The Government could have done absolutely nothing and still looked magnificent in comparison to what has been going on in Australia.
The carousel of carnage in Canberra was cranked up to depose another prime minister and it makes New Zealand politicians and its voting system look like paragons.
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters wasn’t there for the end of the process yesterday, to see Scott Morrison elevated to the job. But he was on the sidelines earlier in the week for prescheduled sixmonthly talks with Julie Bishop, a press conference and a speech to the National Press Club.
Despite being the most unpredictable, polarising and occasionally vengeful New Zealand politician of his time, he looked like a statesman from a country that has largely excelled in stability.
In a diplomatic way, Peters conveyed the dismay of the global democratic world at yet another premature departure of an Australian prime minister, especially when stability is promoted so heavily by Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific.
Scott Morrison is a better result for New Zealand than Peter Dutton would have been. He knows the country, having lived and worked here in the late 1990s (answering to Murray McCully as tourism and sports minister) and his relationship with New Zealand as Treasurer has been largely positive.
Morrison is as hardline as Dutton on border security — he is a former immigration minister — but he has not clashed openly with New Zealand as Dutton has in a bid to build a domestic profile for his leadership ambitions.
Quite why Parliament House has become a working set for ‘‘Survivor Canberra’’ might be one for the psychologists rather than political scientists.
On paper, there’s more potential for instability in New Zealand.
Seven governments under MMP have been minority governments, but only one looked remotely shaky — when Labour’s coalition partner the Alliance imploded in office.
The one that should have been the most stable because it was formed — by Peters — from a majority coalition in 1996, turned out to be the least stable and imploded. The record since then has been ever improving.
In New Zealand, instability and chaos is a luxury for the Opposition, not usually the Government, and certainly not the big parties of government.
It is not yet clear whether Australian voters are going to be disgusted by this week’s events or are so inured to prime ministers being deposed that they are past caring.
Kiwi voters revolted against large parties’ repeated broken promises by changing the electoral system.
Maybe the events of the past week will send voters in their droves to smaller parties but maybe it will ignite a movement for greater electoral change in Australia. We are happy to help.
Whatever the outcome, Australia has given New Zealand a new sense of pride this week in our politics.
It must be said while the New Zealand Government could have closed the shutters this week and still looked virtuous, it has been incredibly active.
In Jacinda Ardern’s third week back since maternity leave, it has been her busiest and one designed to seize the political agenda.
The series of announcements, including highly populist ones such as freezing MPs’ pay, axeing bonus payments for public sector bosses and foreshadowing a law to limit wheel clamping, overshadowed Andrew Little’s criminal justice summit in Porirua this week.
The Government would naturally deny any intention to do so.
But it is curious that the first of the Government announcements on Monday in a big rollout of announcements throughout the week outlined detail on its hardline law and order policy to increase the number of police officers by 1800.
That by itself is an indication of how nervous the Government is over the effect of its criminal justice reforms.
The media continues to be pressured to scale back coverage of victims’ stories but when it comes to coverage for extra cops, it’s a different story.
Fortuitously, the Opposition has had the worst fortnight of the year over the illjudged inquiry (now dumped) into leaks and has been in no danger of putting heat on the Government.
There has been a little something for Labour’s partners, too.
Winston Peters delivered the glad tidings over the details of the police numbers alongside Police Minister Stuart Nash.
And, to even things up, Greens coleader James Shaw made the announcement about the popular SkyPath over the Auckland Harbour Bridge alongside Transport Minister Phil Twyford.
Ardern then went on to make an announcement for Auckland hospitals funding and Auckland schools funding.
Like an early Christmas, everyone was bearing gifts this week.
There has been no sign of Ardern being slower since her return. When she said she was receiving a daily bag of Cabinet papers during her leave, it is entirely believable she was reading them.
In some ways Ardern is exhibiting more focus and energy than before she left for maternity leave.
Her Government’s record in February and March was patchy. The successful trip to Europe and the Budget in May allowed her to head off in June in a state of equilibrium.
Peters did no harm, but it was a hiatus nonetheless.
Ardern’s mission this week and next is something of a bid to get momentum behind the Government, something that has not existed because of its standing start.
She finished the week on a strong note — demoting Cabinet minister Clare Curran for filing a false answer to a written question by removing her from Cabinet and stripping her of two portfolios.
Ardern will make a major speech to a business audience in the coming week.
Whether she gets to be the first prime minister to visit the new Australian prime minister — as has been the tradition — is not yet known.
But at least one task she has been spared is having to start a new relationship with a new Australian prime minister from scratch. There is a head start with Morrison.
The only question is how long will he last?