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What They Got Right

Entry 2408, on 2025-08-23 at 15:47:36 (Rating 2, Politics)

I received some feedback recently that too many of my blog posts are negative, especially in relation to politics and cultural issues. So I thought, why not do a post talking about the good things happening in politics at this stage. Of course, what I see as good might not correspond with that others think, but a similar argument applies to most of what I write here, so it is what it is!

Here in New Zealand we currently have a right oriented government, which consists of a coalition of three parties. They could be described, very roughly as conservative (National), libertarian (Act), and populist (New Zealand First). One possible way right wing politics differs from left is in how the economy is managed. On the right they tend to try to adjust the underlying parameters to correct economic problems (inflation, cost of living, etc) but on the left they more tend to try to disguise the issue by throwing money at it.

That may not be true in every case, and it might be a somewhat biased way of looking at it, but I think there is at least an element of truth there.

So our current government have tried to fix the economic problems left by the previous left-oriented government by reducing taxes, reducing the number of bureaucrats employed in the public service, streamlining consent regulations, reducing benefit spending, and re-negotiating contracts which were previously too expensive.

Of course, these measures do have some negative side effects. For example, the smaller amount of tax collected means there is less money which could be used for various public projects, many of the bureaucrats no longer required are out of work, and changing the terms of some contracts (for example, the Dunedin hospital build, and the purchase of new ferries) has delayed those projects and potentially wasted money.

These negatives have been emphasised by most of the mainstream media, who generally have a left bias, but occasionally a success is reported as well.

So first, even if we hadn't seen any benefits yet, I think that the current approach is the correct one, but these actions can only be justified if some fairly substantial positive outcomes appear soon. The next election is in just over a year, and if they want to be re-elected, the current government needs to start showing us some more impressive results, otherwise people will, quite rightly, reject them when they vote next.

There are signs of improvement of course, in lower rental and house prices, inflation being kept under control, and good returns for our primary exporters, but the cost of living is a continual cause of concern, and it is uncertain whether that might be improved much by the time of the election, and it might be that which determines whether voters allow this government to continue in power.

The government is also dabbling in social and cultural issues. For example, they announced major changes to education, and many of those have been received quite positively, except by teacher's unions of course, which are notoriously left-wing and would probably never give this government any praise, whatever action they took. And while they unwinding of woke race and gender based policies from the past hasn't happened as quickly as many of us would like, at least it is happening.

So generally I think they are pursuing the right broad social policies was well, but they need to be aware that many of their supporters want more change, and more quickly.

Finally, I do have to briefly discuss leadership. The current prime minister has never really connected with the majority of the population. He is not a professional politician, which should be a good thing, but often isn't, because he arguably represents a group even worse than politicians: senior management. He was previously CEO if New Zealand's national airline and he has brought a lot of the corporate BS he must have been immersed in there with him to politics.

So when I listen to the PM, I hear the same kind of obscuration of difficult facts, meaningless catchphrases, and repetition of prepared comments as I did from the previous prime minister, who was both a professional politician and about as far to the left as the current PM is to the right. We really seem to be no better off in terms of communications style.

But apart from that point I am fairly positive about the current administration. I will need to see those results coming through soon though, otherwise the detractors who complain about the ineffectiveness of austerity economics might be shown to be right.

So those are my cautiously optimistic and positive thoughts about New Zealand politics right now. There are things I could complain about more, but I think it is important to acknowledge what they got right.

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