Janet Wilson: Labour must prioritise people doing it tough over pet projects
Friday, 16 December 2022
Janet Wilson is a freelance journalist who has also worked in communications, including a stint with the National Party in 2020.
OPINION: You know Parliament has reached its end-of-school-year nadir when the prime minister’s most authentic comment in many weeks was to call ACT leader David Seymour an ‘arrogant prick’ in a ‘hot mic’ moment.
The fact that both left and right viewed the comment as a political win exemplifies the kind of fractious year it has been.
For Labour these past weeks have been a miasma of muddled thinking that highlighted the power divisions within caucus, leaving Jacinda Ardern running behind the narrative, being forced to explain.
If it wasn’t the dirty little deal behind the entrenchment clause of Three Waters, which was hastily abandoned, then it was Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson appearing to threaten TVNZ’s editorial independence, when he was being questioned on that very matter, then it was this week’s complete immigration settings U-turn, a key policy piece it had advocated for this term.
**READ MORE:
* Three Waters' IT system now expected to cost $659 million
* House prices will bounce back to new high in 2026, Treasury forecasts
* 'Good chance' TVNZ-RNZ merger will be shelved, says economist
**
Labour’s actions have been in defiance of its carefully managed risk-averse messaging.
It seems entirely sensible therefore that after The Great Unravelling comes The Great Reset.
The PM told journalists this week she was asking her Cabinet “to reconsider their policy priorities” over the summer break because the Government needed “an absolute focus on the economic situation” next year.
Which gave rise to the inevitable speculation as to which policies would be axed. The TVNZ/RNZ merger? The income insurance scheme, which deftly creates a two-tier unemployment benefit?
The Great Reset then started its own unravelling when Finance Minister Grant Robertson rushed to the defence of the scheme, insisting it would be implemented by 2025.
Those contradictions continued after the prime minister’s claims that the Government needs to be ensuring it is supporting New Zealanders, with news that the fuel tax would be extended until February, then decreased by half in March before it’s stopped altogether, while half-priced public transport will cease for all but community-card holders.
The Government was right to pull the pin on a policy that had cost it $1 billion but in doing so it seemed more like the Grinch who stole Christmas at a time when food prices were up 10.7% last month on the same time last year and the national median house price down 12.4% annually in November.
If you’re facing a grim Christmas with the prospect of no berries on the pav because fruit and vege prices have risen 20% year-on-year, take heart because the Government’s coffers are burgeoning.
That’s according to Treasury’s HYEFU – or half year economic update.
Their report card earned the finance minister a gold star as it forecast debt to track down, revenue to stabilise and a $1.7 billion surplus for 2025.
Which means there’ll be more to dish out in Budget 2023 without adding to Crown spending. But not too much because the Government won’t want to be seen as overstimulating the economy, thus placing pressure on inflation.
But HYEFU also cast the spotlight on the eye-watering numbers surrounding the Government’s reforms; the $659 million for the new IT system for Three Waters, the fact that if the TVNZ/RNZ merger does occur, the new entity will need to pay tax, or that the new health system may require even more funding than the $11.1 billion over four years which was announced in the last Budget.
So, with money in the bank, as Tina from Turner’s says, and the direction set in the Great Reset, will it be the winning strategy for Labour in 2023?
The answer to that lies in its recent history.
Because if Labour is to succeed in 2023 and win the election, which it could still do, it will need to be ruthless when it comes to putting the red pen through its pet projects and instead focusing on what it says it’s doing, but right now isn’t – helping Kiwis who are doing it tough.
Labour must come up with a mix of policies that put money into punters’ pockets, not take it out in the form of a much larger tax take, as HYEFU revealed.
Will it be forced to swallow the proverbial dead rodent and match National’s tax cuts with cuts of its own? Or would that further fuel inflation?
Or will intransigence and obstinacy decree that it uses the government coffers to continue to invest in projects that the electorate doesn’t want and is beginning to get incandescently angry about?
It’s a hopeful sign that the prime minister says the Government will take a rolling approach to the economic challenges next year, because triage is going to be needed to stop the economic bleeding.
But if the growing gap between what Labour says and what it does continues to widen, then the harbinger of the last three polls, predicting Labour’s loss, will become a reality.
Intrinsic to the Great Reset is Ardern is betting on our collective post-Covid fugue and a glorious summer in the hope we’ll forget.
La Niña and increasing economic pain may mean that we don’t.