In a disaster, public look for leaders
OPINION: The received wisdom is that when disaster strikes, the public rallies around the ruling party. That’s true only if the people in charge seem to know what they’re doing. Across the Tasman, the Australian public never forgave prime minister Scott Morrison for taking a holiday in Hawaii while disastrous bushfires were raging at home.
Likewise, US President George W Bush bungled his initial responses to 9/11, and to Hurricane Katrina a few years later. If anything, disasters expose politicians to sharper scrutiny than usual. Auckland mayor Wayne Brown, for instance, may never recover from his missingin-action performance during the anniversary weekend floods. In next to no time, Brown reduced expectations to the point where few Aucklanders looked to the mayor’s office for reassurance during the Cyclone Gabrielle storm last week.
Fortunately, such examples tend to be the exceptions.
Overall, New Zealanders can feel thankful that when disasters have struck here, our politicians have generally risen to the challenge. (It helps that communities are also at their best at such times.) When the Pike River tragedy occurred, prime minister John Key displayed the interpersonal skills required, and he did so again during the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes. It was Gerry Brownlee’s handling of the Christchurch rebuild that copped the criticism.
As for Labour . . . the mosque killings, the Whakaari White Island tragedy, and the Covid pandemic all happened during Jacinda Ardern’s time as prime minister. Ardern won international acclaim and a lot of domestic support for the quality of her response. For his part, Chris Hipkins had barely taken over the top job when a spate of catastrophic weather events descended on the country. So far, Hipkins has responded with the unpretentious communication skills the demonstrated during the early days of the pandemic.
No doubt, all of this has been very frustrating for the Opposition.
After months of promoting the idea of the Government’s innate incompetence, National and Act have seen the cyclone provide Labour with a golden opportunity to prove the exact opposite. In addition, the Government has had the advantage of having its Cabinet ministers leading the news bulletins almost every night.
In a bad case of sour grapes, Act Party leader David Seymour even complained last week about how ‘‘Labour loves its disaster politics’’ – as if Cyclone Gabrielle was some kind of socialist plot.
Seymour should bide his time. Inevitably, the devastation inflicted by Gabrielle to lives, housing, roading, energy and communications facilities, etc, is going to be immensely expensive to fix. It will also be costly to fund the compensation packages being sought by business owners, farmers and fruit and vegetable growers. Meaning: in the months ahead, there will be plenty of chances for the Opposition to play the grievance card, if it so chooses.
By nature, Hipkins seems to be a risk-averse politician. It would be surprising though, if he passes up this chance to advocate for major spending on infrastructure backups and for other policies and regulations to counter the threats from climate change.
Voters, after all, will be expecting the Government to provide them with adequate security and protection against the next rounds of extreme weather that global warming sends our way.