Slumbering towards election Saturday
It was a forlorn sight. Driving past a political aspirant’s ‘‘Street Corner Meeting’’ in my electorate last week, I saw the candidate’s event had mustered a hapless turnout of two men and a cocker spaniel. It struck me as a metaphor for the state of switched-off slumber seemingly plaguing the election campaign. Politicians across the spectrum have all informally expressed to me the soulsapping struggle to stimulate the hearts and minds of voters.
Has the Covid age knocked the stuffing out of our willingness to plug in to this election? Has the deferred election date exacerbated the climate of fatigue? Is a vast swath of voterland simply tuned out?
The elevated alert levels since August have certainly put paid to the ebullient party rallies that typically fuel the passions. You may recall that 79.1 per cent of eligible voters exercised their vote in
2017, slightly up from the 77.9 per cent in 2014 and
74.2 per cent in 2011.
A voter turnout above 80 per cent hasn’t occurred for 15 years, let alone a 90 per cent turnout, which was last achieved 36 years ago. But alongside electing our next government, the novelty of having two referendums also on the ballot should be stimulating high voter engagement.
I suspect the climate of indifference can also be sheeted home to the farcical lolly-scramble of freebies giddily raining down on the campaign trail, in tone-deaf defiance of the red ink spilling from the Crown’s balance sheet.
Last week’s goodies plumbed new lows, with Jacinda Ardern pledging free school lunches for
200,000 children, while Judith Collins dressed the dental nurse in a Santa suit, to dispense free toothbrushes and toothpaste.
Why are we giving negligent parents a pass? Frittering away taxpayer dollars on such fripperies is not what you’d expect from a First World nation’s election campaign – it’s more in keeping with the hustle for votes in South American banana republics.
Whether you love or loathe the ACT Party, David Seymour deserves considerable credit for at least behaving like a grown-up by bringing some reality-checking rigour to the arena. His Debt Destroyer plan, which would eliminate $76 billion in borrowings to ease debt over the next decade, makes for a thought-provoking read.
It would entail abolishing a raft of spending programmes, ranging from fees-free tuition and winter energy payments to film subsidies and the Provincial Growth Fund. With an Everest of indebtedness marring our horizon, low-value, lowquality spending must be seen as Public Enemy No 1. All parties owe it to New Zealanders to be fiscally brutal on eliminating wastage.
But beyond managing debt, the final four weeks of the campaign deserves a relentless focus on the economy and how to harness a strong and speedy recovery.
National has sought to awaken the dozy electorate from its Covid-induced coma by brazenly dangling temporary tax cuts. It’s a throw of the dice, a political Hail Mary, but the stimulus benefits of higher consumer spending bolstering the domestic economy and saving jobs pose as a potential circuit-breaker for National.
With an Everest of indebtedness marring our horizon, low-value, low-quality spending must be seen as Public Enemy No 1.
Unlike its tedious roading announcements – many of which are reheated encores – its big reveal on tax thresholds and depreciation has effectively secured the party some sustained cut-through. However, the finance minister could barely conceal his glee in bursting the balloons on the party’s virtual campaign launch by outing National for its $4 billion accounting blunder on axing future Super Fund contributions.
It was an untimely and embarrassing clanger, but National’s claim to being the better economic managers has been dented, not destroyed.
With many voters clearly content to reward Jacinda Ardern’s government for shepherding New Zealand through the pandemic with so few deaths, this remains Labour’s election to lose. After all, we haven’t thrown out a first-term government for 45 years.
But 26 days out from election day, tonight’s first televised leaders’ debate is critical. It is National’s best opportunity to take charge of the narrative, take the fight to Labour and give themselves a sniff.
Jacinda Ardern is a deft and nimble debater, but no-one denies that Judith Collins embodies grit, guile and tenacity.
Tonight is her chance to jolt disengaged voters out of their fatigue-induced complacency with the prime-time performance of her life.