The politics of a pasting from Oz
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is yet to re-emerge from holiday to face election year, but already has a political gift from abroad: another pasting from a high-profile Australian.
This came after she visited a winery and a cheese shop in Queensland on her holiday. The venues put their photos on social media, and Aussie media covered it.
We were told Ardern’s visit — planned before the bush fires really kicked off — would send the message those areas were open for business.
All Ardern had to do was buy some cheese and wine to get sanctified.
At the same time, the man whose holiday was disrupted by the fires — Aussie PM Scott Morrison — was being lambasted for not being like Ardern.
All of this prompted The Project host Steve Price to ask why Ardern herself had not holidayed at home.
He even suggested Hamilton, before declaring he was sick and tired of Ardern’s “do-no-wrong” schtick.
Morrison could be forgiven for secretly harbouring similar feelings about Ardern, so often have his own deeds been contrasted with hers.
This happened with their different approaches to climate change, and Morrison’s clumsy initial response to the bush fires was compared with Ardern’s reaction after the Christchurch mosque attacks and Whakaari/white Island tragedy.
Predictably Morrison has sunk in the polls, whereas Ardern climbed after Christchurch.
Such reactions tend to be shortterm. Ardern’s ratings have since dipped, and Morrison has a way to go before Australia’s next election.
This year NZ voters will get to decide whether they, too, are sick of Ardern’s “do-no-wrong”. And the PM will be hoping to emulate Morrison in one respect — winning the election.
The year has yet to start in earnest. National Party leader Simon Bridges’ Twitter account has started teasing out any post-holiday kinks.
There was a wee dabble with hypocrisy when he questioned the supposed politicisation of the police after the raid of a right-wing activist by police looking for illegal firearms.
Bridges had seen top police having coffee with ministers at Parliament.
The hypocrisy came the next day — his social media reboosted an earlier video on his stance on law and order, which featured a former police officer talking about Bridges in his days as a Crown prosecutor.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw’s year began with a complimentary tweet from cricketer Jimmy Neesham after hearing Shaw cross swords about climate change with radio host Sean Plunket.
NZ First leader Winston Peters was readying the ship of state literally. He was scraping barnacles off the bottom of a boat. His dog Beau looked on.
(Winston, if you’re reading instead of fishing, Beau has got a bit porky. Take him for a few more walks before you get back.)
Very soon these January amusebouches will be replaced by Bridges banging on about crims, gangs and extremists, Ardern banging on about delivering and kindness and Peters banging on in cryptic fashion.
Each will be strategising the best path to victory. They may want to look at what has worked for others.
History is littered with politicians who came, won hearts and minds only to fizzle out in a flurry of unmet expectation.
Then there are those who did none of those things. Among them is Morrison, with his poll-defying win of Australia’s last election.
In avoiding the fizzle, our MPS could also look to Japan’s Shinzo Abe.
Last year I was in Japan when he became Japan’s longest-serving PM.
Abe has had to steer his country through more than one disaster — earthquakes, tsunami and the global financial crisis, which it’s still contending with as it struggles with deflation and a declining population.
He has faced down the scandals that beset any administration.
On that day in Japan, there were no big celebrations — just a low-key press conference and a lot of analysis in the local media. There was dissection of what Abe had not done, and debate about his legacy.
The general consensus was that Abe’s legacy was not of fireworks or great societal reform, but simply of stability in unstable times.
It brought to mind similar analysis of both former Prime Minister John Key’s legacy when he retired and now criticism from some quarters about Ardern’s pace of delivery on the “transformation” she promised prior to the last election.
Perhaps voters reward stability more than fireworks. Perhaps they do not want all the bells and whistles. They simply want the country to be managed in a way that allows them to get on with their lives.
As one commentator pointed out in the Japan Times, there was one reason Abe had become the longestserving Prime Minister: “The simple fact that Abe has continued to win elections.”
Replicating that requires more than wine and cheese.