Ryan Bridge: The Coalition needs to tighten its agenda

In the last week we’ve had a smorgasbord of small, seemingly minor stories hitting the headlines.

Helmets or no helmets for cyclists. Which name comes first on the cover of our passports. A ban then reversal on marshmallows in hot chocolates from the coffee machine at hospitals.

Not a single one of these stories is significant on their own.

But they’re the kind of stories people remember because they either simply make no sense or appear to be a colossal waste of time.

Most working families can’t afford to even use their passports right now. A Hawaiian holiday - nope. The only ones dusting off travel IDs are moving across the ditch!

Is this the stuff your average punter wanting to feed their kids actually cares about?

No.

The Clark Government got bogged down by a bunch of these silly little things. Think the size of shower heads and light bulbs.

Instead of asking officials whether little Johnny should be allowed to ride a bike without a helmet (something no decent parent would allow anyway), why not keep your eyes on the big stuff? No shortage of that around.

Just yesterday Fitch warned our AA+ credit rating could be out at risk if we:

• Get slack on fiscal discipline
• See a further correction in the housing market (which isn’t completely off the cards) 
• See another spike in unemployment (also not out of the woods yet)

It’s not that the Coalition is not focussed on these things - certainly more focussed than the last. Just there’s a bit too much noise around on little things that don’t actually matter to the swinging middle that National needs if they want to finish the big jobs they’ve set out to achieve.

Distraction is the enemy of progress.

Passports and helmets are distractions and lately, there’ve been too many of them.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.