A year of shattered dreams
For many, it was a year of big dreams, and rude awakenings. David Cunliffe began 2014 with high hopes, but ended it as a question in some future round of Trivial Pursuit.
Who was that strange guy who led the Labour Party to a historically bad defeat in 2014? Who was he, indeed. Things could easily have turned out even worse for Labour.
Its new leader, Andrew Little, only squeaked back into Parliament on the special votes.
Stuart Nash, another Labour rising star, eked out a victory in Napier mainly because the Conservative Party split the centreright vote.
Yes, Labour’s Kelvin Davis did win Te Tai Tokerau, but only after the leaders of the National Party and New Zealand First had – bizarrely – urged their supporters to vote for Davis, to get rid of Hone Harawira.
All around the country, the electoral tide went out on the centreleft this year.
The unlikely union of Harawira and Kim Dotcom ended up costing the Mana Party its very presence in Parliament.
Despite expending a great deal of effort, the Greens barely held their ground.
It was also a year in which the Parliamentary to and fro seemed to have even less connection than usual to everyday life.
Before the election run-up there had been sideshows aplenty: the Donghua Liu affair and Maurice Williamson’s resignation, the Oravida scandal and the (eventual) Judith Collins resignation, for other reasons.
Ultimately, even the biggest of the media-driven events – Nicky Hager’s disturbing book Dirty Politics – served to boost the turnout of National voters, which was hardly the outcome intended.
After the election, the sideshows kept on coming.
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority boss Roger Sutton resigned after a bungled investigation into sexual harassment, although State Services Commissioner Ian Rennie kept his job, regardless.
Fairly typical. During 2014, hardly anyone in power paid a price for the follies that occurred on their watch.
Mid-year there had been the saga of the fleeing Malaysian diplomat, a fiasco for which Foreign Minister Murray McCully accepted no responsibility at all.
Similarly, no one in the Corrections department (or anywhere else) accepted blame for the brief escape to Brazil of the murderer/paedophile Philip Smith.
Even the supposedly serious political stuff – the carefully crafted Budget surplus and the economic recovery – came and went without leaving any discernible impact on the lives, wages and job prospects of anyone not living in Christchurch.
Amid the sideshows, what didn’t we hear about that we should have?
Well, barely a month before the election, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists released a damning report on the health system. The report showed our high and growing dependence on foreign doctors and specialists – who, it seems, are leaving New Zealand at an accelerating rate, after experiencing the excessive workloads here, and the relatively poor wages and conditions.
Yet health issues barely rated a mention in the election campaign.
The public health system remained in a silent state of crisis known only to the people who work in it, and the patients who use it.
In September, National and John Key won a resounding election victory and a strong thirdterm mandate.
However, for our version of Westminster politics to function properly – for the good of the voters – the Government of the day has to be vigorously tested by the Queen’s loyal Opposition.
This year, Labour failed dismally in that role.
Usually, it is obligatory in this sort of wrap-up to name the year’s winners and losers. Politics isn’t a game, though.
Who really lost out thanks to the fixation in 2014 on circuses and diversions? Arguably, we all did.