Audrey Young, writing in a weekend newspaper prior to Christmas, wasn’t going to let reality get in the way when it came to handing out festive bouquets to the leaders of our political parties. According to Audrey, echoing the words of old Mr Grace in Are You Being Served, “you’ve all done very well.” I beg to differ.
Audrey couldn’t resist giving the Prime Minister, arguably the worst performer apart from her hugs and kisses, the politician of the year. Blunders aside, Audrey says. She then spends the first half of her column accurately describing the blunders of which there are plenty. First up was the crisp phrase, The Year of Delivery. Body’s cartoon, accompanying the article, is a good illustration of the fallacy of the phrase where he has Jacinda riding on a horse and cart marked Year of Delivery across a desert.
Audrey says for all the policies that have been delivered (she didn’t mention what they were and I have no idea either) there were also the ones that were not part of the manifesto: the year of delivering higher rents, the year of delivering lower growth, the year of deficit etcetera. She then talks about the Kiwibuild debacle and says that and the Year of Delivery catchphrase epitomises Ardern’s single biggest weakness – a propensity to over-promise and a failure to manage expectation. Audrey says she fails to grasp there is often little difference between a great sound – bite and a superlative that sets herself up for failure. Her big decision to scrap a capital gains tax gets a plaudit from Audrey. Was there an option?
Audrey says Ardern’s two best ministers have been Chris Hipkins, who knows how to get things done, and Greens co-leader James Shaw who persevered with an inclusive approach to establishing climate change architecture. Hipkins might get things done but usually at the behest of his union masters. Shaw’s inclusive approach has failed miserably with the farmers who are anything but happy with what is proposed.
Simon Bridges, according to Audrey, has had an excellent year. Really? She credits him with holding the MPs together, getting policy under development, maintaining high support for the party, keeping Judith Collins at bay and improving his communication skills. He also led National in small but deliberate steps to bipartisan support for Shaw’s Zero Carbon Bill. I think the MPs largely held themselves together, Judith kept herself at bay and high support for the party has little to do with Bridges. His small but deliberate steps re the Zero Carbon Bill were giant steps too far for most of us.
Audrey says Act Leader David Seymour has had a momentous year, getting his End of Life Choice Bill passed into law, to take effect after a referendum. I might add, that more than that, he was the lone voice on a number of matters that are of concern to those on The BFD and would get my award for the most effective politician of the year.
Despite the domestic difficulties Audrey says it is impossible to go past Ardern as Politician of the Year for the way she handled the Christchurch massacre. Not just for the comfort she gave the victims’ families and the country, but for taking steps to diffuse any possible negative impact between Muslims and non- Muslims. Through Ardern, the world saw the genuine grief that non- Muslims were experiencing as well.
Her expertise in grief has allowed her to heap it on other sections of society including law-abiding gun owners in a stupid knee jerk reaction to the Christchurch massacre. Like everything else in her year of delivery few guns were delivered to Police. Farmers were given plenty of grief through an unworkable climate change agenda and insults from her Ministers. Workers were given grief through job losses due to her ridiculous minimum wage policy.
In conclusion, Audrey, it gives us all grief that you saw fit to name her politician of the year.