Opinion: Thousands of public servants are being made redundant; new fast-track development procedures to bypass Parliament and the courts are being put together; environmental protections for endangered marine animals are being removed; and, more New Zealanders now think the country is heading in the wrong direction.
The Government has cut a swathe through much of its predecessor’s work and has created a dubious record for the urgency it has used in Parliament in its first 100 days, as it pushes through contentious legislation quickly, without time for select committee consideration or public submissions.
Opposition parties have been left flat-footed by this legislative blitzkrieg. The Greens are bogged down mishandling legal and behavioural standards scandals involving some of their MPs. Te Pāti Māori, after a brief, promising start seems to have run out of steam. And the poor old Labour Party appears weak and bewildered in the face of the onslaught on its legacy.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins looks mostly at sea in his role as Leader of the Opposition. Yet on a good day – and there have been precious few so far from Labour’s perspective – Hipkins is a good performer, and better than most. For example, his recent, apparently unscripted, eulogy at the memorial service for former Speaker Jonathan Hunt was outstanding. It was relaxed, warm, respectful, witty, insightful and, above all, genuine. It was a Hipkins we have rarely seen in his current role or when he was Prime Minister.
But Labour’s current woes do not lie at Hipkins’ door alone. He is being constantly embarrassed and let down by the ineptitude of those around him. His main role these days seems limited to tidying up the mess made by his colleagues.
In the last week alone, he has had to call out Peeni Henare, someone who really should know better, for reposting offensive cartoons about Act leader David Seymour on Instagram. Hipkins has also had to deal with more personally abusive comments about a political opponent, this time Melissa Lee, from Willie Jackson, someone who is clearly incapable of knowing better. Add to that the seemingly ingrained superciliousness and sourness of Ayesha Verrall every time she opens her mouth, and it is little wonder Labour still looks to be struggling to come to terms with why it was voted out so comprehensively at the election.
Yet Labour is not without talent in its ranks who could be pushing its case far more effectively at present without the embittered baggage some are carrying. New finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds has been a shining performer. Her interventions so far have been positive, well informed, and largely constructive. Not only does she need to be seen more frequently as the modern face of Labour, but also she needs to be joined by other newer faces in the caucus.
Along with rebuilding Labour’s policy brand with less of the expediency that dogged it in its last years in government, Hipkins’ major challenge is to rebuild the face of Labour so that it can present its message with integrity and credibility. Hanging on to negative and polarising figures such as Jackson and Verrall, and others who still believe the public had no right to boot them out of government, not only tarnishes Hipkins’ leadership but does little to persuade the public that Labour has indeed learned the lesson of its defeat.
Hipkins needs quickly to divest himself of such albatrosses if Labour is to shake off the failures of its recent past. They need to be moved on, at least to the distant backbenches, if not out the door and sooner rather than later. If he cannot or will not do that, Hipkins risks becoming today’s Bill Rowling – a genuine and well-liked nice guy who led the Labour Party nowhere for nearly nine years.
What is clear at present is that while Labour wallows in the past, the Government is increasing its momentum, and is putting more and more distance between it and the proverbial cigarette paper critics have often said was the true gap between National and Labour. Allowing landlords to charge renters a separate bond for pets, and investigating a 4km-long tunnel under central Wellington are just two of the latest initiatives. It is all reminiscent of Sir Roger Douglas’s dictum in the fourth Labour Government – to keep making many changes on so many different fronts at once that it was impossible for the Opposition to keep track. Only this time, it is Labour that is floundering to keep up.
But, thanks to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s focus on quarterly action plans and specific short-term deliverables, National and its partners are accelerating their efforts. At the same time, however, they risk becoming obsessed by the need to intensify their momentum to the exclusion of anything else. Already, compassion looks like an early casualty – with the possible exception of Louise Upston, no minister has yet shown much public interest in the plight of those losing their jobs as the public service is downsized after the years of Labour bloat.
The scope and speed of change is leaving much fertile ground a lively Opposition could productively exploit and cultivate. With the Greens still distracted by their own internal problems and Te Pāti Māori becoming increasingly introspective, there is an immense opportunity for Labour to fill the void. However, the embittered negativity of its current most prominent spokespeople, and the perhaps still shell-shocked silence of the rest, mean it is unlikely to be able to do so with any credibility anytime soon. Hipkins needs to lead the charge in making Labour relevant again, but so far seems to have few capable troops behind him.
All of which means the National-led juggernaut will continue to roll on, largely unchallenged or properly held to account. To rub salt in Labour’s ever-festering wounds, the opinion polls keep showing a clear of majority of voters still support what the Government is doing.
Peter Dunne’s unnecessarily nasty comment about Ayesha Verrall is disappointing. Listen to what she is saying, which is sensible and is founded on research and knowledge.
What a ridiculous story by probably the most ineffective Minister in the Key government. Mr Dunne conveniently forgets that he had to resign as a Minister for a leak of a report and thinks he is somehow qualified to give an opinion. I suspect he is positioning himself for a board role. Typical, given that he has spent his entire life on the taxpayers dime
Rich from a guy that lost his electorate to Greg O’Connor
Mr Dunne is correct about the new government’s ‘legislative blitzkrieg’. They’re burning down the house, in effect. And Labour’s muted response is both confusing and depressing.
Mr Dunne, why is someone of your obvious intelligence & former affiliations so set on criticising this Labour caucus when there is more you could do to aid in their opposition to the most wholly destructive govt this country has ever seen. If you are not up for that fight, then your low-level criticisms from the sidelines are unworthy of you. Do better.
Many of the above comments are reinforcing Peter Dunne’s basic argument. They attack the person not his argument. For the first time in my life I did not vote for Labour last election. I cut up a Life Members card of the Party during their Government. I sat on a selection committee for a candidate and chaired his campaign team. He won the seat. I refused to chair his next campaign team, but voted for him. Last election I didn’t vote for him. However, I am more committed to social justice than ever. I won’t go back to Labour until I see them support removing neo-liberalism from our economy. Have I seen any Labour MP’s in some of the many discussions being held about alternative economics. Nah. I, however, do agree with Peter about Barbara Edmonds. I respect her considered opinion.
I posted this ramble on another Newsroom story today about the general malaise being evident across the electorate but on reading this opinion piece I thought it was a better fit here …
Much of this malaise is founded on the reforms of the reforms of the Lange/Douglas Reagan/Thatcher era where the old public service was destroyed along with a wider sense of coherent national identity. Once long ago NZ had a reasonably competent bureaucracy that worked on ensuring we had a sufficient publicly owned energy supply, that we had a bureaucracy in the Ministry of Works that knew how to build roads and dams that didnt fall apart a year after they were finished, that also knew how to build earthquake resistant buildings and that signed off on the design the construction of all large structures before they were allowed to be built. We had a publicly owned telecommunications network that saw the provision of telecoms networks as a public good – the same as a road network, our national airline was run for the benefit of the nation and not the shareholders, we had inter-island ferries that seemed to be up to the job not old wrecks bought second hand. We once even had our own shipping line so we weren’t dependent on the whims of foreign multinationals as to the level of service provided to our export industries. We even made our own petrol, from our own oil!!! Not to mention we made our own cement and steel and lots of other things that we have sold off to foreign interests – we have had four decades of complete losers in terms of political leadership – who seem to think that private enterprise will do a better job of maintaining the public interest than competent political leadership. The reforms of the Lange/Douglas government unleashed the forces of greed and selfishness against the interests of NZ as a community – and they called it “efficiency” – we are now much poorer for it.
We have academics who foster a range of grievance based agendas against the common interests to build their own little fiefdoms and much of our regulatory processes have been captured by those who make money from their administration – think no further than the “Health and Safety” industry and the proliferation of road cones as illustrations.
Then we have MMP – this electoral process has not resulted in more competent government, nor has it filled parliament with more talented parliamentarians or resulted in better representation of the electorate’s interests. To Illustrate that we presently have a government that about 90% of the electorate didnt want. We have a bunch of MPs whose loyalty is to their party hierarchy not to an electorate and we have political parties now becoming increasingly narrow and “sectarian” rather than broad based, to capture a share of the increasingly divided voter base. We are primarily suffering from a collective malaise of our system of governance – it has become inefficient and corrupted in a petty but very important way – and that is beholden to a “neoliberal” economic agenda that is now facing end-times that has exhausted the economy’s capacity for wealth draining commercial activities – and that is the problem we need to fix first. We need some radical action, there are no half measure answers to the current situation.