Govt becoming all delivery and no aspiration

Opinion: Franklin Roosevelt launched 100 days of action to fight the Great Depression when he took office as US President in 1933. Ever since, new governments the world over have become fixated on their first 100 days in office.

They have become a symbolic time for new leaders and governments to assert their authority and legitimacy through a series of actions that show their purpose and how different they are from their predecessors. New Zealand’s new Government is no different. It passed its first 100 days in office last week and celebrated the milestone and the completion of its 100 days action plan with due fanfare.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has strongly suggested similar plans will follow because, as a chief executive, he likes that style of management. So, attention now turns to the Government’s first Budget, due at the end of May, as the next action period. The Budget Policy Statement due at the end of March will set out the broad focus of the Budget. Over the next few weeks, therefore, ministers’ primary attention will be on finalising the content of the Luxon Government’s first Budget.

There are advantages and disadvantages of the style of management the Government is developing. The most obvious advantage is that it allows a concentrated focus on the Government’s priorities at a particular point in time, and the delivery of related outcomes. It requires ministers to work without distraction on the matters immediately at hand. Hence, the coming likely preoccupation on the Budget and the directions it will set.

But there are also significant disadvantages. The most obvious is its extremely short-term focus. There are already whispers from within the bureaucracy that the Government’s single-minded focus on the 100 days plan meant ministers were paying more attention to ensuring its goals were met, rather than spending time on the bigger concerns confronting their portfolios. Concentrating on the immediate issues of the day in a sort of tick-box way makes it extremely difficult for the Government to give bigger, more serious matters the attention they deserve.

This is the most worrying aspect of the Prime Minister’s avowed commitment to continue this style in the future. Alongside this is his comment that he sees himself as a chief executive, now running a Government instead of an airline. But Prime Ministers are more than a chief executive – they are national leaders who need to be able to inspire and take the country with them at difficult times. In their heyday, Sir John Key and Dame Jacinda Ardern were especially good at that, but Luxon has so far shown no signs of that skill. 

Effective government is more than just checking off a series of specific actions – it is also about establishing a clear sense of purpose and direction, and working to achieve that. National has so far certainly managed to complete a list of specific actions but has yet to convey a clear sense of its ambition over the next few years. It risks becoming so preoccupied with meeting short-term targets that it is unable to devote the time and energy required to address the country’s more pressing, deep-seated social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Nevertheless, so far, the public seems supportive of the new Government’s actions, despite the noise some of its policy moves have generated. Overall, opinion polls since the election show the coalition is now marginally more popular than when it was formed, while support for Labour continues to fall.

But the polls also show some worrying signs for National. Its support today is virtually the same as it was on election day, meaning the party has enjoyed no honeymoon on coming to office, nor yet built up a reservoir of support to draw on when times get tougher. At the same time, though Luxon’s faux pas and lack of judgment over things like his housing allowance are detracting from his personal credibility, they are not yet damaging it irreparably, but that is unlikely to continue indefinitely. Moreover, although Act and New Zealand First have increased their support slightly, the volatility normally associated with support for third parties means neither party can be relied on to save National’s bacon if the Government’s fortunes start to decline.

The polls also show that a significant factor in the overall level of support of the three coalition parties at present is the performance of Labour – increasingly becoming an absentee Opposition. Labour’s support has fallen steadily since the election, mirroring the party’s overall silence. This general absence from the political fray has undoubtedly helped National settle into government. Right now, the most trenchant and consistent critic of the Government’s policies is former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark – who left Parliament nearly 15 years ago.

The basic problem remains that although National and its partners took control of the machinery of government when they came to power, they have yet to set out clearly how they intend to use those levers to change New Zealand over the longer term. To some extent, this is inevitable given the Government is a coalition of three parties with very different world views and priorities. But it is being exacerbated – perhaps inadvertently – by the very short-term focus Luxon’s liking for 100-day periods of action, or their equivalent, that his leadership style is engendering.

Whereas the previous government came to be seen in its final year or so as all aspiration and no delivery, the current government risks becoming the opposite. Labour failed because hope without achievement is ultimately unsustainable. In the same way, short-term achievement in the absence of ambition and purpose is equally flawed. Having first filled in most of the dots, National now needs to start painting the big picture for the public. And that will be more than just another 100-day job.