Ministers must listen to those expressing concern about the pace of change, not ridicule them. There is nothing worse than finding out through the ballot box that your priorities and prejudices are not shared by the wider electorate.
During his heyday as Minister of Finance in the Lange Labour government, Sir Roger Douglas was fond of what was then described as political blitzkrieg to get his policies through. Douglas liked to embark on radical change to existing policies, in a manner people were not expecting, with implementation occurring almost immediately. And while they were just getting used to the first move, he would embark on the second, and so on. That way, he was able to implement his agenda quickly, and before opposition to it had much of a chance to become organised.
The tactic worked well during the Lange government’s first term in 1984-87. Indeed, without such an approach it is difficult to see how many of the reforms progressed by that government and which still underpin our current system could have been implemented at all.
However, it all fell apart spectacularly after the 1987 election and the sharemarket crash later that year, leading to the to the eventual resignations of both Lange and Douglas, and the government being destroyed at the 1990 election.
Yet as early as 1985, Sir Geoffrey Palmer had been warning the government of what he called “speed wobbles” being caused by the too rapid implementation of the government’s agenda. He warned of the risk that policies that were rushed would not always be implemented correctly, and that potential fishhooks within them might not be discovered until it was too late.
There was an echo of all this in weekend comments by the Mayor of Waimakariri about the current Labour Government’s water reforms, announced last week. He warned that the government was moving too rapidly on too many fronts at present for there to be proper consultation and that the water reforms were but the latest example. Certainly, with many mayors, including the former Labour MP mayors of Auckland and Christchurch, already speaking out against aspects of the reform proposal, the Government is unlikely to find it easy to implement its plans over the next couple of years.
This government’s reputation is already of one that talks a big game, but whose policy implementation constantly falls well short of that. Therefore, the last thing that it should want now is a drawn-out battle with local government over water reform, particularly since the Minister of Local Government has already acknowledged that the reform package cannot proceed on a “bit-by-bit” basis and that the participation of every local authority will be required.
She well understands that the government needs to get some runs on the board, so to speak. (While we are making comparisons with the Lange government she might find value in talking to her predecessor in that government, Dr Michael Bassett, about how he succeeded in driving through the most comprehensive local government reforms in a century.)
The current government’s failings in housing are already the stuff of political legend – from the flop KiwiBuild proved to be, through to record homelessness rates that have soared over the last three years, and rampant house prices making it more and more difficult for young families to buy their first home.
Child poverty rates remain unacceptably high with more and more households becoming benefit dependent. The mental health system, where the government says it has invested vastly more resources, is in greater crisis than ever, and the Covid-19 vaccine rollout programme looks at best confused, with mounting uncertainty about the ongoing supply of the vaccines we require, or when they might be administered.
As well, there is now the simmering row over proposed hate speech laws where senior ministers seem to be at odds over precisely what the government’s proposals actually mean, and the curious ongoing secrecy about the He Puapua Report’s contents and the government’s intentions regarding it. There are also the plans to reorganise and centralise the public health and education systems, the revamp of the immigration system, and proposed changes to industrial relations laws.
Overall, it is beginning to look like a concerted attempt to at least lay the foundations to reshape the face of contemporary New Zealand over this Parliamentary term. In part, it is driven by Labour’s determination to show that it really does have a plan that it wants to implement and can now do so, free of the shackles of New Zealand First.
And in part it is because of the mistaken belief that its overwhelming last election result has given it a mandate to do just about anything it wants, when even the Prime Minister has admitted that the election was in reality “a referendum on Covid-19”.
Labour’s victory has to be seen in that light, not a blanket endorsement to advance of a wider agenda.
This is especially so since many of the policies now being promoted under the guise of the election mandate were either not mentioned at all before the election, or at best received only passing reference. Voters could feel forgiven for feeling cheated that they seemed to have emerged as priorities only after the election. The idea that people voted for them – let alone with enthusiasm – is a nonsense.
The Minister of Finance admitted in this year’s Budget much of the present Government’s policy focus is about unwinding the reforms initiated by the Lange Labour government and governments that followed. Ironically, this government is resorting to Sir Roger Douglas’ "political blitzkrieg" tactics to do so.
Like Douglas it is moving on so many different fronts at once in the hope of making it extremely difficult for the Parliamentary Opposition, let alone the wider community, to consider them fully or fight them effectively.
But as with Douglas, it is “speed wobbles” that pose the greatest risk to these policies being achieved, rather than the policies themselves. And as the Lange government found out, once the public perceive the wheels to have come off one of the policy chariots, they quickly conclude that they are falling off all of them and begin to lose confidence in the government accordingly.
For that reason alone, the government needs to be listening to those expressing concern about the pace or nature of change, not ridiculing or attempting to marginalise them. There is nothing worse for a government than to find out through the ballot box that its priorities and prejudices are not shared by the wider electorate.
For the 67 weeks since the first Covid-19 lockdown was imposed, most New Zealanders’ focus has been primarily on the impact of the pandemic on their personal safety. Over the months, while the emphasis has shifted from the lockdowns and the impacts they were having on jobs and households, through to the security of our borders, and keeping the virus at bay, the underlying public interest has been on its safety in all its facets.
Right now, people are focusing particularly on the vaccine roll-out and when their turn will come. They are also asking why it is taking so long and appears to be so hopelessly and unequally organised. More and more questions are also arising about when the Government intends New Zealand will return to a more normal way of life.
However, even though its policy response in so many unrelated areas is looking more and more shaky, our government could hardly be accused of “speed wobbles” in its Covid-19 response. Indeed, quite the opposite.
It is a stark contrast that this government – which seems so willing to move at increasing breakneck speed with an almost “damn the torpedoes” bravado to implement the policy items that appear dearest to it – appears stubbornly determined to move at near glacial pace on matters immediately affecting the day-to-day lives of New Zealanders.
The Prime Minister’s admission this week that she is not yet ready to look at a what a post Covid-19 New Zealand might look like is especially disturbing. With the Government now looking to build its own permanent managed isolation facilities, it seems domestic restrictions are likely to be in place for years to come, regardless of what happens in the rest of the world.
Since it won a stunning election victory last year on the back of Covid-19, is the Government now looking to keep the spectre of Covid-19 well and truly alive until 2023?
