In politics, perception is reality
No weekend at home with my parents is complete without a “heated discussion” with Dad. It’s a family tradition. Some families bake from recipes handed down the generations. Some watch Coronation Street together. Mine has debates, discourses, and robust conversations. We’re also pretty good at euphemisms.
Over the years, I’ve become increasingly aware of the similarities between my beloved old Dad and I. Whether through nature or nurture, we’re similarly strident and outspoken. We form strong opinions, and we’re not afraid to voice them. Which would be all well and good, apart from the fact that we happen to have very different opinions.
Last weekend, Dad and I had a kõrero about politics. Politics is one of those subjects that we feel similarly passionate about, and often passionately disagree upon. I can’t remember exactly what Dad said. It sounded something like, “grumble, grumble, Labour, grumble, grumble, Budget, grumble, grumble, Winston Peters”. My mother looked apprehensive as he finished his monologue, like she’d been handed a shaken can of Coke and asked to open it. He’d laid the bait, and she knew that I was about to take it.
So, true to form, I dutifully did. I informed my father that any presumptions about Labour being terrible financial managers were actually bollocks, given that under the Helen Clark Government, Labour returned eight years of surpluses and reduced net Crown debt from 22.6 per cent of GDP in 2000 to 5.5 per cent of GDP in 2008.
Guess what? He didn’t believe me. I reiterated the point a few days later when I’d had a chance to check my facts again. He still didn’t believe me. Which speaks to the power of perceptions. Under the last National Government, net Crown debt rose from 9.1 per cent of GDP in 2009 to 24.6 per cent of GDP in 2016, while the books under National spent eight years in the red in deficit. And yet National trades on its reputation as a supposedly sound financial manager, while Labour is accused of being incapable of balancing the books.
National supporters often point to the Christchurch earthquakes and the Global Financial Crisis as excuses for their party’s lacklustre financial performance. The last Government quite obviously had challenges to contend with, but what is often glossed over is that those challenges would’ve been significantly more difficult if the Clark Government hadn’t left the country’s books in good shape.
As a nation, we seem to have startlingly short and fanciful memories. We seem to have forgotten that one of the biggest ever increases in public debt (in terms of percentage) occurred under accountant Robert Muldoon’s Government, when the gross Crown debt ballooned from 49.4 per cent of GDP to 69.1 per cent of GDP. Which party did Muldoon belong to? National.
The truth is that both major parties have done great and terrible things for the economy over the years, but of the past two Governments, it’s Clark’s and Michael Cullen’s financial reputations that arguably deserve more credit than John Key’s and Bill English’s. And, given the numbers provided by recent history, perhaps we should allow Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson the chance to prove themselves before we pre-emptively judge.
Simon Bridges too has a lot to prove. This week, he appeared to suggest that he believes in so-called trickle-down economics. “I think there is some trickle-down effect,” he said. I wonder whether he knows that trickle-down economics was, in fact, a joke devised by American humorist Will Rogers.
It’s a fascinating and somewhat alarming reflection of humanity that a term coined by a comedian has become one of the most prolific and influential economic phrases of the last few decades. In politics, perception, as they say, is reality.
But what the “reality” of trickledown economics is quick to obscure is the unfortunate fact that the top 1 per cent of the New Zealand population took home 28 per cent of the wealth created in 2017, while the bottom 30 per cent only took home 1 per cent.
An enormous body of research shows that when money sits in a glut at the top of a society, it steadily defies gravity. The only thing trickling down to the poor is debt and deprivation. Rising private debt and hardship, in turn, lead to an increased need for the Government to redistribute wealth in a society; coincidentally the very thing that Labour Governments are most resoundingly criticised for.
Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s not a coincidence at all. Perhaps the criticism Labour Governments face and their willingness to redistribute wealth in order to create a fairer society are actually related. Stranger things have happened.
While the farcical trickle-down economics, $11.7 billion holes, and other political fallacies retain their power in the consciousness of the public, our political landscape remains vulnerable to bullshitters with the gift of the gab. Reality has become a contestable idea, made malleable by spin and alternative facts.
Perception and deception are willing bedfellows. The reality is, as a society we find it increasingly difficult to tell one from the other.