You know, I don’t pretend to be some all-knowing sage, but thanks to writing for The BFD, I also don’t think it’s a hollow boast to say that I know more about NZ politics than most Australian journalists. Pick any random Australian journalist and the most they would be able to tell you about politics in NZ is that Jacinda Ardern is kind, had a baby, and saved New Zealand from Covid.
As BFD readers will know, only one of those things is true.
But it’s one thing to be ahead of the curve on the mob of witless sheep comprising the Australian legacy media, quite another to realise that the “experts” advising the most powerful government in the world are only slightly less clueless.
Craig Greaves […] spent nearly a decade working for the US State Department advising on New Zealand foreign policy and New Zealand politics.
Greaves at least gets one thing right: Jacinda is really, really on the nose with Kiwis, right now. And they’re not getting much comfort from the All Blacks’ on-field performance in… well, whatever it is that you New Zealanders call that weird exhibition of choreographed sodomy that you play.
The All Blacks are presently suffering an extraordinary run of losses – including most recently to Ireland – under an unpopular coach and with few near-term prospects of improvement in sight […]
All Black defeats may never have brought down a government but the fortunes of incumbent governments have followed those of the national team with uncanny regularity.
This time around, the country’s disillusion in the team is reflected in similar disillusion in the government, with a protracted cost-of-living crisis abetted by climbing inflation and a low-growth economy, rising Covid cases and hospitalisations under a cracking healthcare system and escalating gang violence – all of which spell potential disaster for Ardern in the polls.
There’s still a long road to the 2023 election, but such pessimistic political moods often have their own momentum. Once a government is thoroughly on the nose, winning back the electorate is a hard task. John Howard was heading for a hiding until the War on Terror pulled his arse out of the sling. There’s no such job-saver for Ardern on the horizon.
And it’s here that our “expert’s” judgment descends to the analytical level of The Project.
So far, she remains well-liked by the majority, and her individual brand of empathy and her ability to connect with voters remain effective political tools. As such, Ardern is still thought of by her party as its biggest asset.
Somewhat contradicting that is the acknowledged list of her failures: the housing crisis, the utter failure of Kiwibuild, child povverdy, and the big one: Covid policy and its concatenation of failures.
Curiously, the analysis completely neglects to mention the growing tide of public anger over Three Waters, He Puapua, the imposition of Te Reo NewSpeak, and the whole co-governance agenda.
Then comes the real howler.
Ardern and her team have certainly moved to attend swiftly to the country’s social and economic headwinds. Ministers have recently issued plans to crack down on gang activity (new legislation to expand the scope of firearm legislation) and take the sting out of high fuel prices (cutting petrol excise duty and mandating the extension of half-price public transport fares).
Treasury also aims to reduce headline inflation by 0.5 percentage points in the June quarter.
The Australian
I’m not sure which is funnier/sadder, the idea that, after years of mollycoddling and handing out public funding to gang leaders, the Ardern Government is somehow going to “crack down” on gangs, or that a government which is spending like a welfare recipient at a Bottle-O is going to reduce inflation.
But what would I know? I’m not an expert adviser to foreign governments.