Genter deep dives in Nat’s Facebook pages
If the Government’s plan to defend its electric vehicle ‘‘feebate’’ scheme is to individually respond to comments on National Party Facebook pages, they’re nailing it. It seems that for all the planning that took place to announce it with maximum coverage, apparently far less thought was given to how to defend it.
This has left Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter seemingly with no other choice but to stoically dive deep into the heart of Opposition online territory as the last bastion of defence against misplaced scepticism of Government policy.
With no critique too small and no backbench MP too irrelevant, she’ll personally wade into enemy territory to ensure even the followers of National’s lowest ranked MP
Dan Bidois get the Government’s message. The level of hyper defensiveness leaves the impression the Government is not confident the scheme can hold its own.
National has not explicitly said whether it would repeal the ‘‘feebate’’ scheme, but it’s pretty obvious the party favours a policy of incentives without a penalty for drivers who haven’t made the switch.
To assume the position that any critique of the EV policy is a stance against EVS is politically naive. It’s a quick way to get out of touch with voters and there are signs National’s messaging around consumer choice is already getting traction.
The risk is the Government still suffers a hangover of what plagued the final years of Helen Clark’s tenure. The memory of the electorate can be extremely long when it comes to political clangers. Shower heads and light bulbs still hold a weird place in New Zealand political lore.
It’s not too much of a stretch to assume that on top of National’s messaging on tax and cost of living, that the ‘‘consumer choice’’ buzzword (the political precursor to ‘‘nanny statism’’) is beginning to have a moment too.
It’s understood even National has been surprised at the reach its campaign on EVS has delivered.
The issue for Genter is she’s not up against a relative newbie to the transport portfolio.
She’s up against Simon Bridges – a former transport minister whom the Government can’t credibly argue is opposed to electric vehicles either.
As minister, he dedicated an effective $40 million worth of subsidy incentives to extending that government’s exemption, for drivers of EVS, from road user charges. Pre 2017 election, National also committed to greening the Government’s fleet of vehicles and set a target to double EV registrations each year to reach 64,000 by the end of 2021. It’s not exactly an area the Government can criticise for ‘‘nine long years’’ of inaction.
And so without an apparent plan post-release, the Government has found itself on the defensive against a social media campaign that is likely to be a taste of National’s political operations to come.
The EV policy has plenty of positive messages which sit behind it. But given Genter is among the 750,000 people who have engaged on National’s Facebook page, it seems there is not much of plan to lead the narrative on it.
It’s surprising, as a minister, she has the time to comment on the Opposition party’s political page, but there she is multiple times. And it has to be asked what she expects to achieve by jumping into the fray of what is effectively a chatroom discussion heavily weighted to one political viewpoint over her own.
Running defence, or looking defensive?