We need a roadmap to a better place, not things-to-do listicles
Having a plan is essential to keep trust in government over successive terms and no-one knows this more keenly than Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. This week he was busy crossing off number 18 in his quarterly 36-point action plan, which promises to “raise the energy New Zealand brings to key relationships through international relationships”, with a swing through the Asean countries of Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines.
The visit was clearly needed if a Singaporean survey is anything to go by. The Asean Studies Centre survey of 2000 people across 11 countries put New Zealand at the bottom of Asean’s 11 dialogue partners in terms of its relevance to the region.
Meantime, Aotearoa’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, was strutting and gliding across the world stage executing plans of his own, ones that represent a marked shift from a generations-old independent foreign policy and puts Aotearoa directly at odds with its biggest trading partner, China.
While National’s pre-election foreign affairs manifesto spoke blandly about the shared values New Zealand has with the United States and enduring friendship while “affirming the long and positive history between our two countries”, Peters clearly wants an even closer relationship. One that strongly suggests Aotearoa will sign up to Pillar Two of Aukus while forming closer alliances across the IndoPacific.
A joint declaration, co-signed with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, spoke about Quad – the alliance between India, the US, Japan and Australia, set up to stop China’s progress in the Indo-Pacific – and Aukus contributing to peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific which sees “powerful reasons for New Zealand engaging practically with them, as and when all parties deem appropriate”.
A day later, in the strongest signal yet that when it comes to plans, this Government operates without consultation or due regard to their coalition agreement, Luxon told an Australian newspaper that Aukus was “something we haven’t yet contemplated”.
It would be easy to dismiss what amounted to a political schemozzle as Winston showing Luxon who’s the real boss while he buddies up with his good mate Kurt Campbell, the US Deputy Secretary of State.
But with the world becoming increasingly unstable, with war raging in the Middle East and the Ukraine, voters are at least owed a public debate about why an independent foreign policy, which none of the governing parties campaigned on, is going to change.
While the Government’s tier one politicians were engaged in diplomatic schmoozing, its tier two counterparts were performing some kite-flying, blue-skythinking of their own.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced that he’d requested advice from Waka Kotahi on a 4 kilometre tunnel – potentially the country’s longest – across Wellington from The Terrace to Kilbirnie.
Not only would such a tunnel make trips to Wellington airport 15-minutes shorter, Brown told reporters, but it aligned with priorities in the Government policy statement on land transport.
How could Brown decree such expenditure when transport project Let’s Get Wellington Moving (LGWM) rejected it three years ago due to cost? The same LGWM that Brown promptly scrapped last December, decrying it as having lost its social licence?
Critics quickly pointed out the hypocrisy of a Government that had axed the Cook Strait ferry project but was willing to consider a mega tunnel while keeping its commitment to build a second Mt Victoria tunnel with spades in the ground by the end of its first term.
These three events in the past week embodies this Government’s penchant for quick-look-busyness, with the ongoing roll-out of things-to-do listicles, foreign-policy making on-the-hoof, while proposing laughably unrealistic infrastructure projects.
It’s all tactical when it should be strategic if there’s to be any change to the growing list of our social and economic woes.
Former economist turned journalist Martin Wolf, writing in the Financial Times,suggested a reform roadmap to the troubles the UK is experiencing. Troubles such as low economic growth, a straining public service and growing debt. Sound familiar?
It begins with a rolling five-to-10-year strategic vision (“muddling through is not enough” he says) of the skills that are needed, the investments that must made, and how to deal with challenges such as ageing and climate change.
Wolf argues that without a vision you can’t judge whether what you’re doing today makes sense and whether the priorities governments employ for immigration, education, or health will work.
But for all its planning, instead of this Government maintaining trust, it’s losing it. And it’s being replaced with disillusionment. An Ipsos survey of 1001 New Zealanders, released this week, asked if the country was broken. Fifty-eight percent said it was.
To the question, “is the country in decline”, 60% agreed.
With trust in government in Aotearoa at record lows, and social cohesion threatened, tactical busyness isn’t the answer.
What would be is a long-term strategic vision that provides a roadmap of comfort amongst the despair.