Mike Williams says the surge in electoral support for the Act Party is responsible for National’s slide to the right as that party tries, with mixed success, to appeal to former National voters who are now for Act.
OPINION
Although I have persistently tried to understand many difficult things, there are three things that I will never understand.
I can’t figure out how Air New Zealand’s flight attendants (not the guys) keep their often complicated hairstyles in place flight after flight, I can’t figure out quantum mechanics and I have absolutely no idea why anyone would think that National is running the New Zealand economy better than Labor.
On Thursday, Stats NZ confirmed that the country’s economy grew under Grant Robertson’s leadership in the last quarter and that an upward revision to the previous quarter showed the country had and never has been growing despite the impact of the pandemic and an international downturn a recession.
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Despite all predictions, our economy is now almost 8 percent larger than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.
In fairness, we can now expect National to remove the attack ads claiming the country is in recession.
Having emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic with fewer deaths than almost any other country, our national debt is still lower than that of Australia, the UK and Germany, our unemployment rate is among the lowest in the OECD and businesses, despite their resentment of Robertson (which saved them during the pandemic) are profitable.
Compare this economic performance to the three national governments I have experienced.
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The National Government of 1975 to 1984 brought the country into such great economic difficulty that Sir Robert Muldoon was unable to deliver a budget and had to call a snap election, dubbed a “booze election” because of Muldoon’s apparent state when he announced the election on the July date .
The national government from 1990 to 1999 opened up to the “mother of all households” and made the most vulnerable pay for its over-promises. Sick pay was cut by $27 a week and user pay requirements were introduced for services such as hospitals and schools, facilities previously funded by the government and free to the public.
The “cure” was much worse than the problem and a significant portion of the population endured years of hardship. The vast majority of this national government all but disappeared in the 1993 general election and Ruth Richardson, the finance minister, lost her job.
Between 2008 and 2017, another national government enacted tax cuts for the wealthy, and we all had to pay for it when that government increased the GST from 12.5 percent to 15 percent after solemnly promising not to do so.
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Additionally, deposits into our rainy day savings account, the very successful “Cullen Fund,” have been stopped.
Assuming political polls continue to be a reliable indicator of election results, New Zealand could have its most right-wing government in 32 years after October’s election.
However, the latest TVNZ poll suggests this result is not concrete, as it suggests a National-Act coalition with just a one-seat majority.
It would only take a rise in voter turnout, particularly in Māori seats, to bring back to government the left side of politics, which is now decidedly centrist in contrast.
The rise in electoral support for the Act Party is responsible for National’s slide to the right as the party tries, with mixed success, to appeal to former National voters who are now in favor of Act.
From the Howard League’s perspective, a National/Act government would be a depressing setback.
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National has replaced the sensible and proven measures under Sir Bill English’s leadership – such as reducing sentences for prisoners who continue their education – with populist nonsense.
This party would revive “boot camps” for young offenders when all research shows that they act as universities of crime and make young offenders’ crimes worse.
National’s most foolhardy policy to date is to ban the wearing of gang badges in public.
If this policy is ever implemented, it will prove counterproductive and a lasting embarrassment to Christopher Luxon.
Before this can happen, a “library” of gang sponsors must be created so police know who to arrest.
Since gangs are by definition organized and their members are not generally stupid, they would circumvent any new law by making subtle changes in the design or color of their badges. This will be a nightmare for the courts and an embarrassment for Luxon.
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Worse, this policy could encourage many more gang members to have their gang affiliation tattooed on their faces, as a small minority already do.
That makes quitting a gang — and many do just that when they get a job — very difficult and prohibitively expensive, at $1,000 to $2,000 per tattoo removal.
National police spokesman Mark Mitchell is right when he says we should focus on “getting kids out of gangs”.
Unfortunately, his party’s policies are likely to have the opposite effect.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke’s Bay and is a former Labor Party president.
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