The fairy dust really does seem to be fading fast. If even our sycophantic media are starting to criticise the government, hopeless as it is, then you know we are in trouble. Until now, our precious fourth estate has been pandering to the government with shameless form, giving them chance after chance to get things right. But as we approach the three-quarter mark in Jacinda’s ‘Year of Delivery’ and the only things delivered so far are worsening statistics on all fronts, even the media has lost patience with them. John Roughan, normally a Jacindaphile, has given the government a few choice words over its allocation of taxpayers’ money.
Bill English used to say, “The Labour Party thinks the answer to every problem is to dump a pile of money on it.” This Government is making those words prophetic.
That is all they do. They commission a working group, receive a report, allocate some dosh and hey presto! Nothing happens.
Hardly a week passes when it does not announce more money for some problem without having any practical answer to it. I suspect even English is surprised by the lack of concrete projects for some of the sums announced.
But much of the cash is not actually spent yet, making the government look prudent with money, when the truth is, the money is not spent because no one knows what to do with it.
One of the largest was the $1.9 billion for mental health, the centerpiece of the “Wellbeing Budget” delivered a few months ago. The sum included $455 million for a new service for people with “mild to moderate” mental illness. They say that’s a lot of us.
What might the service be? That’s a question the Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction did not answer, nor did a pre-Budget group set up by Health Minister David Clark to comb the inquiry’s report for anything he could usefully do.
Then, having committed $455 million in the Budget, Clark sent the Ministry of Health out on another roadshow of workshops a few weeks ago to discuss what new frontline mental services should be set up.
That’s a working group,a report, a roadshow, another working group, another roadshow…
I would have thought that when a government sees a problem it first looks for a practical remedy, then works out what it would cost, decides how much of the remedy it can afford and announces the programme.
Labour seems to work in reverse. I don’t know how they decide how much to spend before they know what to do.
They don’t, of course. Think about the gun buyback scheme. Originally, $168 million was allocated, boosted to $208 million, but it is obvious that no one has a clue about the actual cost.
And let us not forget the mighty Provincial Growth Fund.
But Labour gave him [jones] $3 billion and sure enough, not much of it has been committed so far. Much less in fact than Jones has announced.
Like his former party, he is prone to making big announcements before practical work such as cost-benefit assessments have been done.
They never do… they seem to think that just throwing money at things will fix them, but resources is often the biggest problem, and that needs experienced ministers and a competent public service.
The Government’s latest announcement without substance was last week’s “Youth Employment Action Plan”. Jacinda Ardern and Employment Minister Willie Jackson reminded us they had made a “significant investment” in the Wellbeing Budget for additional staff in the social welfare system to help people find “meaningful work.”
Finding competent people is always an issue though. Most of the time, we seem to bring them in from overseas, which means more houses, more roads, more transport.. that this government is incapable of providing.
(They did not remind us they have told those staff they must not withdraw the jobseeker benefit from someone who refuses work without referring the case higher up. If anyone is puzzled that numbers on the dole are rising at the same time as jobs are increasing, the answer is there.)
Disgraceful, but we knew about this. If people want to simply live on the dole, this government will allow it, even though there are many industries crying out for staff.
Now they are giving us an “Employment Strategy”. You can look it up online but I wouldn’t recommend it. It is just a list of good intentions.
John Roughan is surprisingly scathing. He should know that good intentions is all that this government ever produces.
The strategy is to be delivered through a series of Action Plans. Last week we got the first of them, for youth who are not in education, employment or training (Neets).
Action plans. Wellbeing Budgets. Feelgood factors. None of these actually produce anything, and none of it will get the nephs off the couch.
They should be helped to find paying jobs but unfortunately the Action Plan has nothing new to suggest.
Obviously it is not easy to devise new mental health services or make railways pay, or find viable regional business that is not already financed, or get some youngsters off a couch.
But if you haven’t got a solution, why allocate money? Well I know why. Big monetary sums make a headline. We are being taken for suckers
A NEWSPAPER
Oh yes. We have been taken for suckers since Selection Night in October 2017, but it gives me hope that the media are finally beginning to admit it. Thank you, John Roughan for telling it like it is. For once. Let it not be the last time.