If I were still a member of the Labour Party I would be feeling a little concerned after this week’s Colmar Brunton public opinion poll. Not because the poll suggested Labour is going to lose office any time soon – it did not – nor because it showed other parties doing better – they are not – but more because it builds on the trend of other recent polls of consistently ebbing support for the Labour Party. The most worrying thing for Labour about this poll is that it takes the party back to almost where it was in the public standing before the advent of Covid19 nearly eighteen months ago. At that time, Labour looked as though it would have a real fight on its hands to retain office at the 2020 election, no matter the fate of its support partners. Of course, Covid19 changed all that and Labour went on to win a stunning victory on its own, on the back of its handling of the Covid19 response last year. However, this week’s poll confirms the trend of recent polls tha...
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The most consistent aspect of the government’s response to Covid19 has been that at no point throughout the global pandemic so far has it ever acknowledged that there is merit in any of the responses other countries have adopted. The strong implication has been that no country understands the pandemic the way New Zealand does or has the calibre of scientific advice available to it as we do here. And somehow, the impact of Covid19 on human beings in New Zealand is different from its impact on human beings anywhere else in the world. The government has said throughout that its decisions have been guided by the evidence and focused on the health impacts of the virus. Consequently, the advice it has been guided by has been primarily from the preservation of the public health perspective, with little regard for the wider social and economic impacts of both the virus and the response to it. Fair enough, given that the near unanimity of the advice it has been receiving was that...
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It is probably just as well that the All Blacks are playing the Wallabies in the second Bledisloe Cup test of the year in Auckland on Sunday. For many, that will be a welcome shift from the election campaign that is now rapidly drawing to its close. There seems to be a sense abroad that people are ready to move on from the intensity that has typified politics this year. When the Prime Minister followed Sir John Key’s footsteps and announced the election date in February, neither she nor the country could have imagined the circumstances that were about to unfold as a result of the arrival of Covid19. Rather, the political situation at the time was starting to look like we were in for New Zealand’s first one-term government since 1972-75. That quickly evaporated as the government’s response to the pandemic took hold. Soon, Covid19 was dominating every aspect of our lives. It even led – at short notice – to the original election date having to be deferred a further...
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The government’s proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development is a typical concoction from Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford. Its ambition that local councils “take a long-term strategic approach to the growth of their cities” is laudable. So too, is the expectation of “joining up transport, housing and infrastructure in a 30-year plan”. It all sounds realistic and achievable – in just the same way as his pre-2017 commitment and subsequent spectacular failure to build 100,000 affordable homes over a 10-year period, under the brand Kiwibuild sounded when first proposed. The way things are panning out suggest the Urban Development National Policy Statement could well be headed for a similar fate. The professed aim of the policy is to direct councils in major centres like Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown to free up planning rules to focus more on “high-quality streets, neighbourhoods and communities.” So far, so good. The pro...
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Spare a brief thought for the National Party. If being the Leader of the Opposition is the worst job in politics, then being the party of Opposition is the worst state to be in. No matter how inept the government in office, the Opposition is always on the back foot, reacting all the while to whatever the government is doing, while at the same time being expected to promote constructive, well thought-out, affordable alternatives. And, even if the Opposition is able to develop some bold, new and attractive policy, then there is always the chance the government will act to nullify it, or simply steal it and implement it as its own. Moreover, the government has the resources of the entire government bureaucracy behind it, whereas the Opposition has but a small handful of taxpayer-funded researchers and policy advisers at its disposal to match them. It is always a very uneven contest, but the public nevertheless expects the Opposition to be able to fight the government on more o...
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As the interminable saga surrounding the Wellington Mayoralty election result drags on, some are already blaming the uncertainty on the fact that the election was carried out under proportional representation – in this case, the Single Transferable Vote system Wellington has used for several recent elections. Had this been a First Past the Post election, they argue, the incumbent Mayor would probably have been returned with about 40% of the vote, on a turnout of just over 40%, meaning his effective mandate would have come from about 16% of the total Wellington electorate. At least, when the Wellington result is finally determined, it will able to be said that the person eventually elected will have had the support of the majority of voters, however slim that might be. On a bigger scale, if ever there was an example of why proportional representation systems provide for a fairer expression of the public will, however perverse and contradictory that might be, this week’s Canadian F...
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Most of the time, the Labour Party bears the coarse New Zealand First millstone around its neck with patient equanimity. It appreciates that, however it might resent it, to do otherwise would quickly rend asunder the governing coalition, returning it unceremoniously to the Opposition benches for another, and potentially lengthy, fruitless spell in the wilderness. Meanwhile, elements in the National Party, including the leader it seems, wistfully yearn for a possible reconciliation that would see New Zealand First emerge as its partner in government after the next election. But that is just not going to happen. National needs to wake up to the reality that as New Zealand First was founded principally on its leader’s sense of utu for having been expelled from National’s Caucus in 1991, it is never going to be its saviour. Despite having potentially greater policy compatibility with National, New Zealand First will always opt for Labour if it can, especially while its current leader...