Matthew Hooton: Labour drops the ball but National fumbles

National Party leader Christopher Luxon. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

Another week, another demonstration of Government incompetence, nastiness and deceit.

It's nearly five years since Winston Peters anointed Jacinda Ardern prime minister, with her promises to end the housing crisis, eliminate child poverty and reduce inequality.

Since then — as National's Chris Bishop keeps telling us — the number of children living in cars has quadrupled, the state house waiting list is up six-fold, and the Government is paying motel owners and other landlords $1 million a day for emergency housing, up 10-fold since 2017.

In its case study of Rotorua, TVNZ's Sunday programme revealed motel owners can pick a sucker when they see one, with the Government paying double market rates. Six times as many motels have signed up to the scheme since 2017.

Maybe no one cares since it's just borrowed money. But Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi worries Labour's incompetence is also putting our most vulnerable at risk of sexual assault, and emotional and physical abuse.

Act's Brooke van Velden also puts the social catastrophe ahead of the fiscal disgrace, asking whether the Department of Corrections is sharing information so criminals aren't being housed next to children.

Bishop wants an inquiry. The Greens, apparently more interested in Whittaker's chocolate, are silent.

Braver is Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick, a former Labour Cabinet Minister. She fears "those living in emergency accommodation are destroying our city and its reputation".

Rotorua, she says, is suffering "due to drug use, violent behaviour, vandalism and other anti-social behaviours, in the proximity of the motels providing emergency housing".

Were Auckland mayor Phil Goff not awaiting confirmation that Ardern will make him High Commissioner to London, he might say the same about his CBD.

With no obvious support, Labour has dumped those with major personal problems together in the unfamiliar environment of accommodation previously used by foreign students.

Pretty much everyone except Labour and Auckland Council knew what would happen to Queen St and its surrounds.

Auckland's heart was already a near-wasteland thanks to the over-budget and behind-schedule City Rail Link, where Ardern posed for the cameras this week, despite her Government and Auckland Council colluding in keeping the full cost blowouts secret.

The Government was also discovered to have falsely smeared, from the podium of truth, three women who travelled from Auckland to Northland last year, accusing them of using deception to get travel permits and causing Northland's unnecessary October lockdown.

It was hinted the women were prostitutes connected to organised crime.

Despite knowing the allegations were false and that any blunder was its own fault, the Government didn't correct the public record for nearly a year. It still refuses to apologise to those it smeared.

Perhaps that's unsurprising. Government surrogates are also happily smearing Revenue Minister David Parker as responsible for the so-called KiwiSaver tax fiasco, including confusion over who was consulted, when and what they said.

In fact, Parker did everything right. Questioned by National's Nicola Willis, Parker pointed out that the proposal emerged from IRD's ongoing work programme to fix tax loopholes, which is available on its website. He confirmed Finance Minister Grant Robertson was involved in the discussions and decisions on the matter. Even Act agrees with the decision made.

Most demonstrative of Beehive incompetence, Parker outlined his proposal in a Cabinet paper, distributed to all ministers. Final decisions were made at a meeting of the full Cabinet, which Ardern chairs.

It must also have been considered by the Cabinet legislation committee, whose members are Ardern, Robertson, Parker, Andrew Little, Poto Williams, Michael Wood, Kiri Allen, David Clark and Kieran McAnulty, plus Labour's whip.

Committee members are meant to grill ministers about their draft bills, looking for fish-hooks. They wouldn't have had to look far.

The bill's explanatory statement, distributed to all MPs, reports IRD published an issues paper and consulted on the idea more than two and a half years ago. The Prime Minister and Finance Minister might have asked for more details, and checked who was involved.

The bill's 19-page regulatory impact statement, also available to all ministers and MPs, says as early as page two that the GST changes would collect $225 million in the first year, rising by 10 per cent every year after. It says this would be passed on to investors.

On page 10, it warns ministers that "modelling by the Financial Markets Authority shows that this option will lead to KiwiSaver fund balances being reduced by $103 billion by 2070". That's surely a big enough number for at least one minister to ask questions. It's nearly 5 per cent of what KiwiSaver balances would be without the new tax.

It is not Parker's fault if no other minister, including Ardern and Robertson, bothered to read the papers. Nor is it his fault if none picked up the political risk they spell out in black and white.

After all, what else are Ardern and Robertson for if not to identify political risks? It's not like either of them — unlike Parker, a former businessman and lawyer — has a background in anything else.

However good the political antennae of Ardern, Robertson and the rest of the 20-strong Cabinet, they can't fulfil even that modest function without reading the papers they receive each Friday. Once upon a time, prime ministers required that every minister read every paper before showing up to Monday's Cabinet meeting. There were even discussions and arguments before decisions were reached.

Apparently that rudimentary expression of Cabinet collective responsibility and basic political management is out of fashion.

With her PR talents, perhaps Ardern and her Cabinet don't think they need to understand decisions they are taking or announcements they are making. Besotted cub reporters in other daily media let them spin out of anything that pops up.

And yet the Labour-Green-Te Pāti Māori bloc remains neck and neck with National-Act. That's despite the fact that real wages are falling consistently for the first time in at least three decades. All reputable polls indicate voters have only ever been this grumpy after the 2007 global financial crisis, the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the 1991 recession.

Christopher Luxon's coalition should be at least 10 points ahead, the way John Key's was in 2007, Helen Clark's in 1998 and the various opposition parties in 1992. With his net favourable rating below zero, Luxon is dragging his side down. His media performances suggest lamentable knowledge of New Zealand's recent political and economic history. If he can't lift his game, will we soon need to have a talk about Christopher?