NZ is well governed…

I thought May was NZ Music Month, but we seem to have Comedy Week right in the middle of it. Yesterday, I wrote about how Simon Wilson thinks Kiwibuild is not a failure, and now the illustrious Phil Quin tells us how everything is fine and we are well governed. Of course, it is Budget week, and the sycophants are all out with articles dripping with love for the princess and her cohorts. Obviously, everyone believes that the Wellbeing Budget is going to be a massive embarrassment to the government, and they are getting their brownie points now.

In this Budget week, here’s an unfashionable theory as to why we have so far avoided the populist eruptions convulsing Europe, Australia and Trump’s America: New Zealand is pretty well-governed.

The very fact that you have to admit that is is an ‘unfashionable’ theory tells me all I need to know. Not everyone in our society is drawn up on political lines. If we were all doing well, we would all be happy. We are not.

Don’t get me wrong. Things are well short of optimal. Given half a chance I would, among other things: ditch KiwiBuild – along with architect Phil Twyford – so fast your head would spin; invest straightforwardly in social housing instead; jack up teacher salaries beyond even what they’re striking over; tax capital gains with rare gusto; and not merely loosen, but discard, the fiscal straitjacket that constrains significant new borrowing.

Well, there you go. Phil Quin wants a government that will ignore all hints of fiscal responsibility and tax and spend like there is no tomorrow. He has no idea of the consequences of such actions in the socialist utopia that he dreams of. What is it Margaret Thatcher said? Eventually, socialists run out of other people’s money.

[…] pollsters have noted to me a remarkable consistency across the Clark, Key-English, and now Ardern governments when it comes to broad public sentiment. On the critical question of whether voters believe the country is on the right or wrong track, the numbers have remained in more or less favourable territory since Helen Clark’s election in 1999.


By contrast, over the same period on the same question, positive sentiment in the US has more than halved, from more than 70 per cent at the turn of the century to 31 per cent today and, in a poll this monthacross nine EU countries, the right-track number is even lower – a miserly 28 per cent.

Europe has its own special set of problems, mostly around uncontrolled immigration that has turned peaceful countries into war zones. That has not happened here, but let’s face it, Jacinda will do her best to make sure it does, all while donning a hijab and hugging people.

Quin then goes on to admit that he’s been living in some difficult places lately, and that his homecoming last year was like something out of the Prodigal Son.

Having lived most recently in Colombia, Vietnam and the US, I entered the Wellington Work and Income offices fully expecting the kind of officiousness, humiliation and delays that flow from interaction with government agencies in those and other parts of the world.

I got nothing of the sort. Instead, I encountered empathy, efficiency and a sincere desire to help.

Stuff.

Colombia and Vietnam are third world countries. You cannot compare New Zealand with them. The US is a great place to live if you are a citizen and have medical insurance, which clearly Phil did not. Shame he didn’t try Venezuela, as it is the kind of socialist utopia that he avidly craves. Funnily enough, he stayed clear of the place.

In my case, recovery from a very low point in life required access to these [public] services. It leaves me full of admiration and gratitude for the coalface public servants who made it possible.

Phil is making little sense. He starts by comparing us to Europe and ends by comparing us to Colombia. Until recently, Colombia was run by drug lords. The place is littered with crumbling infrastructure and corruption. No wonder he would rather be here.

In his rush of blood to the head, he ignores the disaster of Kiwibuild, failing mental health services, increasing poverty and homelessness, a lack of social housing, education policy that will quell excellence and a welfare system that encourages cheating.

You have to admit, if the best a government sycophant can say about the country is that we are not like Colombia, then that is truly hilarious.  Phil should book a spot at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. He’d be a sellout.