If you had asked me last week whether or not I thought the Government would go full term, then I’d have said yes.
Now, I’d hedge my bets, but say the likelihood of an earlier election has passed a greater than 50% chance and is likely heading towards 75%.
Why?
Because, there is real discord erupting amongst the constituent parties in the Government, and open talk in the Labour caucus of unrest.
Just yesterday you had Green co-leader James Shaw accusing Winston Peters of breaking the coalition agreement after the over-promised, and not even close to being delivered light-rail project was binned.
Then you have the volte-face by NZ First over supporting Andrew Little‘s and lobbyist Neale Jone‘s dirty little backroom deal that favoured multi-national tenants over Kiwi landlords.
Winston Peters was dirty on the deal after finding out he’d been stitched up. Now NZ First has pulled the plug on the deal and ensured that the legislation for it is mired deep in the order paper with no possibility of it seeing the light of day before the election.
Andrew Little is putting a brave face on it all by saying that it is being re-negotiated. But that is simply a thin veneer for what is in reality NZ First playing handbrake yet again.
Then there is the on-again, off-again Ihumatao deal that we keep hearing is imminent but strangely splutters to a stop the instant Pania Newton opens her mouth claiming victory.
The inside word from Labour sources is that both Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson are keen to push this through before the election, and the latest effort was again an attempt to hoodwink NZ First. The Labour party’s thinking is that this is the issue to show Maori that ‘Brown Lives Matter’ in the wake of the protests across the world and, with the continued meddling by the Prime Minister, a deal would solve everything.
This is the problem you get when people are mired deep inside the Wellington Beltway and forget to listen, firstly to their own Maori caucus and secondly to the wider public.
Pandering to petty criminal squatters, overriding the original Treaty settlement and ignoring private property rights is an electoral loser. Winston Peters knows this, and he also knows that it would finish off his party if he is seen to be supporting it.
That is why there were tense words on Tuesday night and veiled threats hurled about regarding an earlier election.
Bluffs are being called.
When you add in the backwards marching going on dealing with the border debacle, plus the unruly feeling in the population, you can see why Labour might want to call an earlier election and hope their massive lead in the polls isn’t attrited too rapidly. They will be hoping that between them and the Greens they have enough to govern.
NZ First on the other hand would also welcome an earlier election, especially if it is fought on the grounds laid out above. National’s position will be to hang on for dear life while they still are rearranging the deck chairs.
But anger in the electorate is growing at the same rate that jobs are being lost. The public will not be locked down again, no matter the health costs. Confidence in the Government has been ground away progressively as each day brings more evidence of an appalling lack of control at the border.
Evidence is also mounting that the bumper-sticker slogans that assaulted our eardrums daily about “going hard and early” were nothing more than slogans.
Already there is clear evidence that the PPE issue was, and still is, poorly handled. The testing regime was clearly built around a lack of capacity and rationing as is still the case. Why else would you not test every new arrival since the lockdown?
Time will also prove the undoing of the laxest regime in the world for deciding if someone is recovered or not. New Zealand was alone in not requiring a negative test to declare someone as recovered. Our definition, based on obvious symptoms and moulded by the rationing of tests meant that we declared people as recovered without actually knowing whether they were negative or not. They were sent back out into the wild despite the fact that over 80% of people are asymptomatic.
The lax testing regime, and the even laxer border controls are now showing their evil fruits, with daily cases emerging.
People are over it and they are angry; yet the minions in the Prime Minister’s Office still think they can walk on water. They think the public still supports them.
But the reality is that they are like a weakened scrum in a rugby team. For the first 20 minutes of the game they can stay on a par with the monster pack opposite, but after that they start going backwards, then they are slow to the breakdown, then they lose line outs and pretty soon the play-makers are dropping the ball, missing touch, and then the flood gates open.
Jacinda Ardern and Grant Roberston aren’t used to playing into a Wellington southerly, but that is precisely where they have landed. By also blaming the civil servants they’ve also decided they want to play the test in a downpour.
One thing for sure is that the red umbrella has been turned inside out with the current blustery and chilly conditions.
With all of that I think we are looking at a real chance that the election will be earlier than September 19.
Fingers crossed.
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