How tarnished is the gloss on Jacinda Ardern‘s premiership? Pretty tarnished is the answer, and the sheen has come off overseas now too. They say you can’t polish a turd, but you can whack some big teeth on it, dress it up in a sack and some Allbirds and put it up on a podium.
Andrew Bolt calls it:
Sky News host Andrew Bolt says there are signs the Jacinda Ardern “gloss” is wearing off fast in New Zealand.
Mr Bolt discussed the issue with New Zealand Initiative Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich.
“We’re now looking at an inflation scenario for New Zealand which is among the highest in the world,” he said.
Sky News Australia
Ardern loves to boast about what she has achieved. Only she, as the Mother of the Nation, knows best.
We must accept this proposition without question because centralisation and state control produces much better outcomes for a country. Well, that seems to be the thinking of the current Government and of Ardern. Results however, contradict this notion.
Just look at the evidence of the last few years of the current Government’s performance.
- Goal 100,000 KiwiBuild homes; result only 1600 homes built, and because of this embarrassment Housing New Zealand, (HLC) and KiwiBuild were merged into the Homes and Communities agency, renamed Kainga Ora. Currently, the forecast budget debt of $20 billion in 2033 has now grown to about $30 billion. The state house waiting list has exploded from 6,000 to more than 27,000, with nearly $1 billion spent on emergency housing in motels. The agency has also spent $24 million on head office renovations, has hired 1700 new staff, and is planning on hiring another 485 in 2023.
- Te Pukenga (i.e. New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology) was created 3 months ago, merging 16 polytechnics, wananga, and industry training organisations. Despite warnings of great risk, the Labour Government proceeded with a $200 million centralisation plan that now results in “a $110 million deficit, declining enrolments, a damning Tertiary Education Commission report, and the prospects of widespread job losses. A goal of centralisation was to give iwi greater control of vocational training.
- Health New Zealand and the Maori Health Authority were initiated this month to coordinate the delivery of health services effectively replacing 20 DHBs with the aim of empowering iwi elites – in this case to control health through the Maori Health Authority and Iwi Partnership Boards. Rather than ensure our health system can cope with the added pressure of the pandemic, the Government has proceeded with major national health reforms causing 900 doctors across 30 different areas of medicine to state that “We are at risk of a catastrophic collapse of the healthcare workforce.” The Ministry of Health has hired nearly 1000 new consultants over the last 11 months; they now total 1359.
- Three Waters came into being this month to take over the ownership and management of 67 independent water resources entities previously owned and managed by local authorities. Iwi will gain a controlling influence over water at many levels and nothing will happen without their approval. The Government relied on the Water Industry Commission for Scotland for advice. They stated that efficiencies will only arise if the four entities use private sector management practices and disciplines. With the complex governance arrangements and direct influence of iwi, that may be (probably will be) impossible.
The prospects for the Labour Government managing these complex centralisation projects on time and within budget are slim to nil. This Government does not plan thoroughly and cannot implement management systems to meet its major long-term resourcing goals. It bribes recipients of its funds not to criticise what it is doing or proposing.
The erosion of democracy is so stark that some are now calling it a slow-moving coup. By way of example, the Government created a $2 billion ‘Better off’ fund to bribe councils into accepting the Three Waters proposals, and to ‘gag’ them by requiring those accepting the money to agree to not do “anything that can reasonably be expected to have an adverse effect on the reputation, good standing or goodwill” of the Labour Government.
Local Government NZ has become the lickspittle of Nanaia Mahuta and LGNZ President Stuart Crosby is now derisively referred to as Mahuta’s Little Helper as he moves to shut down dissent over the largest nationalisation of community assets the nation has ever seen.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the Government’s headlong dash towards Maori co-governance and the rewriting of history and the Treaty is the racial division they have brought about. All the media that are supping at the state-funded trough are all in lockstep promoting Maori wonderfulness at every possible moment, even infesting the news with nonsensical propositions, like indigenous medicine can solve problem gambling the Maori way.
It seems that this Government thinks if you give a moribund government organisation a new Maori name, and tell everyone that they will now be focussing on delivering things under the guise of Te Ao Maori that everything from the Reserve Bank, the health system, housing and now water infrastructure will all magically be better under state and Maori control.
Nothing they have done since gaining power has manifested itself in better outcomes for voters. Yet they continue to wax lyrical about their achievements, and they are supported by uncritical media in love with the state-funded lucre they receive with contractual conditions that they continue to promote Maori wonderfulness.
This country is in dire need of a clean-out of all the parties in the Parliament, but especially the evil, divisive and racist Labour party.
Mythbusters proved a few years back that you could in fact polish a turd, but you had to be patient. This government is running out of time so instead of polishing their turd, they’ve whacked some big teeth on it, dressed it up in a sack and some Allbirds and put it up on a podium.
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