And with that, finally, the parliamentary term has limped to its conclusion.
The House has risen for the final time and Labour can shift fully from the demands of government to full-time campaigning.
As has been noted widely already, Covid-19 has had a warping effect on the electorate’s collective sense of time.
Although Labour has governed for the last two parliamentary terms, to many voters (and many Labour MPs) the last six years feel like nine. A two-term government has three-term-itis.
For the incumbent governing party, election campaigns have additional dimensions which distinguish it from its opposition.
Parties are differentiated by their respective campaign policies, but the governing party also has a fresh record to be compared against its new proposals.
And what good are new promises if a government didn’t deliver on its previous ones?
Labour came to power in 2017 with an ambitious agenda.
Whereas John Key’s National government had essentially campaigned on economic stability and steady GDP growth, Jacinda Ardern ran a Barack Obama Hope and Change style campaign.
Labour would tackle the mental health crisis, end child poverty, and solve the housing crisis. Climate change was the nuclear free issue of this generation and a Labour government would rise to the challenge.
In government, Labour has not lived up to the spirit of those promises.
House prices today are more expensive relative to incomes than they were in 2017 (and indeed were more expensive, even before the Covid-19 surge).
Rents are up, too.
Although the Government has substantially increased the number of state houses built, the social housing wait list has ballooned (which Labour MPs argue is due to more generous eligibility criteria).
The Government has introduced frameworks for emissions reductions and agreed on a net-zero target, but the most difficult emission reductions decisions have been deferred to future governments.
New Zealand’s largest-emitting industry still doesn’t pay for its emissions and climate experts say a modest drop in our overall emissions is only because it’s been raining a lot.
Has child poverty meaningfully improved? Labour consistently points to metrics which show 77,000 children have been “lifted out of poverty”, although food banks claim demand has increased 165% since 2020.
Almost half a million New Zealanders need food support each month.
At the end of last year the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation said “the transformation of mental health is failing."
"Things are overall getting worse, not better."
There is, of course, an enormous caveat to any assessment of the Government’s performance.
Covid-19 caused disruption on a scale most of us have never experienced.
A counterfactual alternative to Labour’s pandemic management is that under different political leadership, many more New Zealanders might be dead, along with the social and economic carnage that would have caused.
Labour’s initial response to the pandemic was rewarded by voters at the last election with the first majority government in MMP history. But credit for that response has waned in the eyes of many voters.
And while it would be totally unreasonable for any fair-minded assessor not to consider the impacts of the pandemic on the Government’s progress, there is no escaping the transformational void.
2023 is not 2017. The political and economic environment has changed. Labour’s campaign has a completely different tone from the grand pronouncements and ambitious policies of six years ago.
But while most voters will not scrutinise the exact detail of what was promised on the campaign versus what was delivered in Government, while trying to simultaneously allow for the pandemic’s incursion, many will consider Labour’s record with some version of a simple question: "After six years of a Labour Government, is my life today meaningfully improved from my life in 2017?"
Jack Tame is a well-known television presenter and journalist in New Zealand. This article was first published HERE
Although Labour has governed for the last two parliamentary terms, to many voters (and many Labour MPs) the last six years feel like nine. A two-term government has three-term-itis.
For the incumbent governing party, election campaigns have additional dimensions which distinguish it from its opposition.
Parties are differentiated by their respective campaign policies, but the governing party also has a fresh record to be compared against its new proposals.
And what good are new promises if a government didn’t deliver on its previous ones?
Labour came to power in 2017 with an ambitious agenda.
Whereas John Key’s National government had essentially campaigned on economic stability and steady GDP growth, Jacinda Ardern ran a Barack Obama Hope and Change style campaign.
Labour would tackle the mental health crisis, end child poverty, and solve the housing crisis. Climate change was the nuclear free issue of this generation and a Labour government would rise to the challenge.
In government, Labour has not lived up to the spirit of those promises.
House prices today are more expensive relative to incomes than they were in 2017 (and indeed were more expensive, even before the Covid-19 surge).
Rents are up, too.
Although the Government has substantially increased the number of state houses built, the social housing wait list has ballooned (which Labour MPs argue is due to more generous eligibility criteria).
The Government has introduced frameworks for emissions reductions and agreed on a net-zero target, but the most difficult emission reductions decisions have been deferred to future governments.
New Zealand’s largest-emitting industry still doesn’t pay for its emissions and climate experts say a modest drop in our overall emissions is only because it’s been raining a lot.
Has child poverty meaningfully improved? Labour consistently points to metrics which show 77,000 children have been “lifted out of poverty”, although food banks claim demand has increased 165% since 2020.
Almost half a million New Zealanders need food support each month.
At the end of last year the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation said “the transformation of mental health is failing."
"Things are overall getting worse, not better."
There is, of course, an enormous caveat to any assessment of the Government’s performance.
Covid-19 caused disruption on a scale most of us have never experienced.
A counterfactual alternative to Labour’s pandemic management is that under different political leadership, many more New Zealanders might be dead, along with the social and economic carnage that would have caused.
Labour’s initial response to the pandemic was rewarded by voters at the last election with the first majority government in MMP history. But credit for that response has waned in the eyes of many voters.
And while it would be totally unreasonable for any fair-minded assessor not to consider the impacts of the pandemic on the Government’s progress, there is no escaping the transformational void.
2023 is not 2017. The political and economic environment has changed. Labour’s campaign has a completely different tone from the grand pronouncements and ambitious policies of six years ago.
But while most voters will not scrutinise the exact detail of what was promised on the campaign versus what was delivered in Government, while trying to simultaneously allow for the pandemic’s incursion, many will consider Labour’s record with some version of a simple question: "After six years of a Labour Government, is my life today meaningfully improved from my life in 2017?"
Jack Tame is a well-known television presenter and journalist in New Zealand. This article was first published HERE
11 comments:
We don't need to scrutinise anything, Jack. It's patently obvious to most thinking adults that things are worse in every direction, be it: cost of living; crime; the economy in general; education; health; housing; infrastructure, social cohesion - go on, pick a topic - any topic and things are generally worse? Oh, except we now have an additional unmandated name for our country, along with a host of manufactured names for a whole bunch of existing and new entities that haven't improved life for the majority one jot.
All of which will make the campaigning for those that achieved all this rather difficult. As the old saying goes, 'reap what you sow' - how deserving.
Jack, you are way too polite with your description and soft critique of Labours performance.
Never no mind, the world goes on.
And never a mention of the co-governance anti-democratic policies that have been imposed on us, and no mention of how the Labour Party have successfully nobbled the media through the PIJF.
Must be so hard for Jack to have to criticise Labour in the face of their terrible statistics showing their utter failure as a government, across every single area of life they screwed up for us.
He'd like you to think that it was really all the fault of Covid but anyone with just a stem cell for a brain can see the truth.
Labour were never fit to run a country. They have done their best to destroy the basic principles of a democracy and they deserve everything that's heading their way.
Congratulations to those of you who read Jack’s article. I can’t abide reading or listening to him. Maybe when he grows up he’ll understand.
WW
An incoming Nat/ACT government should immediately compulsory publish the terms of PIJF contracts in the in the main stream media so the public can see how they have been indoctrinated by this Labour Government.
Besides the fact that everything about covid is now, on a daily basis,being revealed as wrong ,please view doco 'Rver of Lies' there has been shocking mismanagement of money spent on eg half a biliion $ spent on now expired test kits and more mega millions spent on handouts to those who didn't need them.
Like any 'flu which causes deaths of vulnerable older people, covid was a risk to that group but it is speculation that it would have been worse if it had been managed differently. In fact it seems. we have an excess death rate,now which the authorities refuse to investigate.
If Nobel prize winning scientists and many others of similar ilk don't believe the current fashionable global warming narrative then emissions trading is foolishness as well.
Very tame comments on the most useless government ever. No mention of the divisiveness of race, class and sex. 3 Waters, co-governance, the Maori caucus, rascist health policies and journalists like Jack who can only tell half of the story. Such vitriol everywhere against Labour and seemingly well deserved.
MC
I wish commentators like Jack would highlight the stupidity of completely restructuring the health system right in the middle of a pandemic. Especially if they are going to use that same pandemic as an excuse for their multitude of failures.
The Labour politicians have taken advantage of the overly polite Saccharine Jack and used him to push their decisive agenda. Has he ever put pressure on his interviewees even when he knew full well that they were spinning him along ?
Perhaps the boy Jack should try owning and managing a SME in the private sector for 10 years then re-consider the Labour soft dribblings contained in his article.
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