Aside from better haircuts, better-made suits, and not being mistaken for a lesbian, Prime Minister John Key was uncannily similar to Helen Clark. Key, in fact, continued the entente cordiale between Labour and National which had been established by clandestine socialist Jim Bolger, happily packing Clark off to the UN once her tenure here as Marxist-in-chief was finished.
If there is a denominator in the equation which has separated the two main political parties over the past thirty years, it is competence. But if Judith Collins intends to close the current gap on competence alone, she will have to wait at least another term, until New Zealand’s soft-socialist voting public has had enough of Labour’s congenital ineptitude and, sadomasochists that we are, have begun to feel some pain.
For Collins to salvage the election for National, she needs to fight the People’s Prime Minister on policy. Policy differentiation is not something National should be frightened of. To its shame, it has failed to substantially differentiate itself within the realm of ideas for years.
How can this be turned around?
‘The COVID election’
Ardern lied about ‘hard and early’ and her late interventions were draconian, crippling the economy. We are surviving on borrowed billions, which have to be paid back and which no one wants to talk about.
If things remain as they are, it will occur to the voting public only six months or a year into the next parliamentary term that we cannot hide from the world in prison ship New Zealand indefinitely. We need to be open for business and, like the rest of the world, we will need to come to terms with COVID and find ways to live with it.
The Aussies have offered a trans-Tasman ‘travel bubble’ which Ardern self-righteously refused. She adopted a threatening manner towards Kiwis who might travel; insisting on quarantine upon return. She has been querulous towards our larger neighbour and should be called out for it.
Ardern has played a political game with accoutrements like face masks. They are a cheerleading tool, fooling the credulous into believing they have played their part. In reality, much of the government’s policy has been an exercise in national calisthenics, improving the political circulation and central control, without actually moving us forward.
Collins needs to tell the truth. It may be unpalatable, but people need to hear it. The current COVID paradigm is unsustainable.
New Green Deal
Ardern has bought the New Green Deal, and whether the Greens are in government or not, we are going to be forced to eat it. The PM uses fashionable language of blandishment to circumnavigate the topic, delicately picking at dishes like Meat Free Mondays with a pair of red chopsticks. What she really means is that she loathes New Zealand agriculture and wishes to persecute farmers for their misalignment with the UN’s One World climate policy.
The PM does not care for farmers’ significant contribution to our economy, because she does not care for our economy. Finance minister Robertson has proved that we can borrow to survive, and that’s fine so long as Ardern can be seen to be saying all the right things on the world stage.
The left intends to transform New Zealand into a fully urban country in which the types of food we will be expected to eat in future – such as soy, quinoa, nuts and lentils – are all imported. To say that this will count against us on our balance sheet is an understatement.
Labour’s commitment to 100 percent renewable energy is memorable as a sound bite but it’s far more difficult to deliver than the likes of light rail to the airport or the building of state houses. Nobody appears to have looked at what will have to happen to the capacity of the national grid in order for it to happen or, for that matter, in order that that everyone can drive an electric car.
There is a lot at stake. Collins, meanwhile, is busy establishing herself as a proto-greenie. She needs to stand up and say instead that conservatives are the long-time and proven custodians of our environment. And that the New Green Deal has almost nothing to do with the environment. It is a geopolitical control lever and a catalyst of social transformation. A lot of people will find it less palatable when this becomes apparent.
Welfare dependency
There is a growing tendency in the national dialogue towards welfarism now that we have all been taken hostage to ‘Kindness’. To disagree with the ‘new normal’ is to be seen as being somehow unkind. And yet there really needs to be debate around what the taxpayer should be expected to fund, and what is owed in return.
Universal Basic Income lurks like a mugger just around the corner. In addition, Ardern is offering more and more on a one-off basis – such as free school lunches. While it looks mean to say no, someone has to ask why some people are seemingly unable to provide even the very basics for themselves. Wouldn’t we be better off keeping families together and getting parents into work?
Not just the economy, but freedom and liberty
The public appears to have accepted the ridiculous proposition that Labour is able to manage the economy. But the debate needs to be broader than this. What sort of political economy is it that our politicians should be managing?
Thinking particularly of oil and gas, and to the future of farming, is it one in which governments decide which industries and sectors are morally worthy to remain alive, and which are to be euthanised? Or is it one in which free citizens, acting through markets, are at liberty to decide for themselves?
Do we want to become a command economy where our parliamentarians fund the winners and tax the rest of us to the gunwales to fund their choices?
Do we really like being talked down to, and do we like being told what to do? The answer to this is, possibly, yes. But Collins needs to clearly enunciate the consequences of our choice.
Commitment
Is Ardern fully committed to another term? She is the queen of the qualifier, in that much of what she has committed to around tax and the stratagem of general restraint is based upon her tenure as leader. Should she cease to be the leader, it’s game-on for the left and there will be a capital gains tax, and a wealth tax and – that particular favourite of the ‘environmental’ left – a raft of taxes on the weather.
Voters didn’t get what they wanted last election; but seem to like surprises. Ardern stakes claim to ‘honesty’ and ‘transparency’; but has proved herself instead to be the consummate political manipulator. What can we expect this time around, except more consummate political manipulation?
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