Let the blame game begin
OPINION: Once upon a time, it was my youthful surprise to be offered a job in the office of the then finance minster Roger Douglas.
Was it my prolific and doomladen predictions in The Dominion (as it was then) about the impending imposition of GST that attracted the Beehive to finding me other work?
Either way, if you want to blame anyone for what happened next, feel free to blame me.
The relatively competitive, resilient, outward-looking and undeniably less egalitarian society we now live in was assisted in a minor way by press statements crafted by me, as part of a group that the then-journalist, now Treasury spokesman, Nikitin Sallee, called ‘‘the baby-faced advisers’’.
There were a number of gallows humour phrases that team used to use: two of which have, as they say, stood the test of time and several changes of government since then.
The first related to the tendency for new governments to want to ‘‘open the books’’ on the previous lot. It was before my arrival, but the perhaps apocryphal tale was that the first set of ‘‘books’’ delivered by the Treasury in 1984 wasn’t quite apocalyptic enough.
‘‘These books won’t do. We need other books!’’ one wag was said to have pronounced.
So it is with the new Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, who has been making much in Parliament of how heavily oversubscribed the previous government’s previous capital budget had become.
That sets up the narrative for next week’s half-year fiscal and economic update and Budget Policy Statement.
His message, at least in part, will be that Labour faces an even bigger task than anticipated to repair the damage done by underfunding public infrastructure and services, and it will require sacrifice, compromise and focus.
The subtext is to temper optimism among supporters who may also see the new administration as a soft touch for every new funding idea.
It has already committed heavily in areas like the fees-free first year of tertiary study, income assistance to low-income families and students, the KiwiBuild home construction scheme, light rail for Auckland, the billion-dollar regional development fund, and a spending catch-up in the health system – to name but a few priorities.
There isn’t much room for more. Opposition finance spokesman Steven Joyce will try to say any such caution proves he was right about the so-called ‘‘fiscal hole’’ – the grenade he lobbed at Labour to some effect before the election.
Robertson will be lobbing it back, painting Joyce as the author of whatever fiscal hole he reveals next week.
None of this is to suggest that Robertson is lying or wrong – just that the narrative is very familiar and leads to the second phrase we often used to use, ‘‘the facts will slowly emerge’’. The current Government is firmly in a ‘‘facts slowly emerging’’ phase.
While its ministers gibe at the suggestion of under-preparation, the fact remains that Labour did not expect to win the election before Andrew Little’s resignation on August 1.
Eight weeks later, his replacement Jacinda Ardern was so uncertain of victory that her election-night speech sounded apologetic rather than optimistic.
The Government’s 100-day plan has helped shape focus, but the detail has been a huge challenge for new ministers and government agencies, many of which were just as surprised as Labour to see a change of administration.
The result since government formation has been undercooked policy, unfilled key positions in the Beehive, a lack of legislation ready to pass, and a scramble to impose order on its policy agenda.
Next Thursday’s announcements will be an important milestone in that process, but a huge amount remains to be done.
It looks as if it will be a short Christmas break for key ministers, even though they’re coming to the end of one heck of a year. –BusinessDesk
His message, at least in part, will be that Labour faces an even bigger task than anticipated to repair the damage done by underfunding public infrastructure and services.