I recently had the privilege of reading the Prime Minister’s speech from the Wellington Labour Party Rally. I am sure the civil servants in their cardigans lapped it up like kittens drinking milk out of a bowl. Mittens the cat actually got a mention as evidently one of those who had made it possible “to do what we do”.
The speech started out with a load of language in the native tongue which meant nothing to me. Something to do with a welcome I presume. As far as the content of the rest of the speech was concerned she might as well have carried on in the native tongue. There was nothing in it that warranted giving it in a language that we could all understand. We were transported to the Never Never Land of New Zealand in the year 2030.
Jacinda’s Never Never Land. New Zealand in the year 2030.
Jacinda enlightened us to the fact that some things were still the same as in one of the first countries to see the sun each day, still the first nation to have conquered the world’s highest peak, the first country to give women the vote and still nuclear free with a system of social support for those who need it. She didn’t suggest how many millions might be on it after thirteen years of her stewardship.
Jacinda’s next comment was to tell us that some things have changed in 2030. According to her, we are now in a country where children living in poverty has halved. So after promising to eliminate it by 2027 she will only halve it in the next ten years. Again, we weren’t given a figure of how many millions would be in poverty by then. There was no mention of the housing waiting list that has grown 330% in her first term.
We are in a country that lives on 100% renewable energy she said. She may not be aware but in her first term, renewable energy has gone down. In 2030 she says we will have long eliminated COVID and our economy and country will have been built back better. Not with you in charge sweetheart. Evidently she’ll be able to say that in the past decade we have overcome new and unexpected challenges as we did the decade before with natural disasters, terrorism and a global pandemic.
Voila! So no more of those. This extraordinary phenomenon of a woman has eliminated those as well. Health inequalities will no longer exist. All rivers will be clean and farmers will have been reducing greenhouse gases for five years. Jacinda says in 2030 we will be able to say that we are the first in the world to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis. We will have new free trade agreements with even more countries that are paying top dollar for our clean green, safe products, and are investing in our safe haven too. A little bit of emotion doesn’t go astray does it? According to Jacinda, we will have grown our pride in who we are as a nation. That might be so sweetie but what we really need to grow between now and 2030 is the economy.
Of course, COVID got a mention and the well worn lie about how we went hard and early. Apart from that the speech was devoid of any meaningful humour. She then rambled on speaking of all her failures as if they were astounding successes. We’ve built over 600 Kiwibuild homes, she said, as if the original target was six. We increased the minimum wage to $18.90, and extended paid parental leave to 26 weeks (both of which will cost jobs). As will a further public holiday, the significance of which hardly anybody gives a toss about. Not that she understands this.
There was another piece of humour at the end. Quoting James Henare she said “We have come too far not to go further, we have done too much not to do more”. We must all believe that by 2030 this amazing woman will have created a safe haven utopia where everyone will be as rich as their neighbour living in a lovely little Kiwibuild home bought at an affordable price. The team of five million must continue to join together and carry on the good work from COVID so that this utopia can be achieved.
To know what the reality of this utopia might look like I suggest you look up The Great Reset, an item from Sky News Australia which can be found on YouTube. It’s nothing like her speech but no doubt how she would like it to be.
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