All Labour governments are tax-and-spend, and this one is no different. Actually, that is not true – they are different. They have the same Labour characteristic of throwing money at a problem to fix it, but their biggest problem seems to be not finding the money (which has been a problem for so many governments before them) but actually being able to spend it. Yes, that’s right. They don’t seem to be able to spend the endless wads of cash that they have to throw at problems with the intention of making them go away.
You have to admit, this is an unusual problem for any government to have.
The current three-cornered administration of Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens seems to lack any kind of plan. We’ve seen first-year university students get a year’s free tuition, but nothing else to improve access to tertiary education other than a plan to combine all the country’s technical institutes into one giant administrative conglomerate. Good luck with that, too.
To save the planet from global warming, the Government has banned new offshore oil and gas exploration, but there is no real initiative to promote any alternative fuels.
The Government recently acknowledged the parlous state of the country’s mental-health system and voted $1.9 billion to address the issue, yet there seems to be no clear plan as to how that great wad of cash should be spent. Shane Jones wanders the country with $3 billion in his wallet to fund regional development initiatives, but most of that is unspent and he appears to have trouble finding suitable recipients.
Anyone driving long distance will tell you our nation’s roading system is poor and a big contributor to a shocking death toll, but the Government appears to be pulling back on major road-construction projects, presumably because those new roads would carry evil gas-guzzling and polluting cars.
I think that is probably right, particularly as our associate minister of transport tried to ban the importation of those aforementioned gas guzzling vehicles.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the lack of planning and joined-up thinking is a result of the fact that the three political parties in charge have wildly disparate views on what should be done, and, in many cases, nothing is done to genuinely address a problem because one or more of them will block the others’ programme.
Possibly, but I think the problem is much simpler than that. This government has no idea how to implement anything. You only have to look at the shambles that is Kiwibuild to realise that. They simply could not organise the proverbial booze-up in a brewery.
The only part of Government that seems to be working in high gear is its publicity machine. Press conferences are held, photo opportunities delivered, media releases pumped out and the appearance of action is created. However, when you look closely, too often you see the scheme just announced is largely cosmetic and does not address the core of the problem. Worse, public money is devoted to a cause but there is no advance planning as to how it should be put to best use.
True, but this government has spent a fortune on working groups, roadshows and reports. Somebody must be benefiting from that though clearly not the people that are supposed to.
It seems to me that the Government is making it up as it goes along, occasionally content to be seen to be doing something about problems but not really addressing the causes, because the coalition parties cannot agree on policies.
It is as if New Zealand has a caretaker administration while it waits for a truly reformist government to come along. That will be a very long wait.
Noted
I don’t care how long it takes for a truly reformist government to come along. I just want to see the back of this government, and the sooner, the better.
