It’s action stations for Ardern

In the aftermath to a recent burglary, a police youth aid officer visited the home of a young offender. Inside he found barely a stick of furniture; the parents, too, were missing, both unable to get away from one of several jobs needed to keep the household budget, if not their son, on track.

In their largely empty lounge there was enough room to accommodate an elephant. Maybe it was the one Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was speaking of during her State of the Nation speech.

Except she was in Auckland’s plush Hilton Hotel addressing some of the country’s most influential and wealthy business people. She told her audience that the fundamentals of the economy are good, strong. That’s what business people like to hear.

She told them unemployment was at 4.3 per cent, ‘‘the second lowest in a decade’’. That’s good, too, although many of the employed are like the family above, working several jobs because casualisation and low pay have made that a necessity.

‘‘Inflation is tracking at 1.9 per cent.’’ Another good point for the Government. But it must be acknowledged that wages are similarly depressed, to the point that someone making just $70,000 a year is now regarded as wealthy (the top 16 per cent of earners), and teachers and nurses, among others, have been campaigning in the streets.

Maybe the real elephant in the room is that this Government has left itself a great deal of work to do this year as it tries to lift the reality for so many to match the rosy outlook Ardern depicts.

It is already backtracking on key objectives, including the number of homes built in its KiwiBuild campaign, and even cameras on fishing boats.

When the Government was elected, we worried that the elevation was perhaps a little unexpected and came without a coherent, robust plan. That concern deepened when it announced the first of many reviews and working groups; somewhere between 38 and 152, depending on whom you believe.

The Government is reviewing everything from education, mental health, housing and tax to climate change, the prison population and the film industry. That’s understandable for a new administration, especially one coming in after a long time in the wilderness.

But the honeymoon is over. Many of those reviews conclude this year; they will be back before the Government and we will expect something else that is fundamental: action.

Labour and its coalition partners must be applauded for their political courage; some of these groups are considering economic and societal changes the previous National Government wouldn’t touch: cutting the prison population, closing the gap in educational achievement, a possible capital gains tax.

But having raised these pikes of ideological change, they now risk being impaled by them.

In her first State of the Nation address, Ardern chose an audience focused on poverty; her second was before the wealthy captains of industry. Her third will be the most important: she will want to demonstrate how she was able to meet the aspirations of the former while preserving the interests of the latter.

She’ll want to be successful, because elephants have long memories.

This Government has left itself a great deal of work to do this year ...