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Home / Gisborne Herald / Opinion

Calamity and failure surround Labour Govt’s aspiration for mediocrity

Gisborne Herald
2 May, 2023 01:34 PMQuick Read

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A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

The legacy of this Labour Govt, regardless of when they finally shuffle off, will without doubt be one of abject failure.

Driven by an ironically named “progressive agenda”, almost everything they have touched has resulted in calamity, and almost everyone they’ve effected has been effected adversely.

At the heart is their aspiration for mediocrity. Whether it’s continuing to penalise the most carbon-efficient farming system in the world, or subjecting the wealthiest to an inquisition the rest of the population would violently revolt over, or the continued pandering to minority groups at the expense of the majority, there simply is no incentive to succeed.

Their wont to centralise publicly funded institutions in a return to the 1950s has seen these organisations implode almost overnight. The polytech sector is on its knees, the health sector is basically writing its own obituary. Water assets are lined up next, which on paper appear equally to be another basket case.

They have trod on our human rights, restricted our freedoms, increased inequality, deepened poverty, mandated people from careers, and along with fellow travellers the media, have restricted freedom of expression and rapidly increased indoctrination.

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Recently the IMF compared our economy to that of Greece and Cyprus. Why? Because our trade deficit is at record levels and growing rapidly under this Government. We are a trading nation, reliant on exports for financial survival, yet like this Govt we are continuing to “borrow” — this time on our trade account.

The education system is failing our children like never before. Chipkins, as Opposition Education spokesman for nine years and then Education Minister for five years, is entirely to blame. In 2017, he ideologically removed what he didn’t like, but replaced it with nothing. More recently, he has given the curriculum an ideological make-over. Education standards continue to drop.

If this Govt were to do something truly useful, they’d attend to the dramatically dropping vaccination rates of young Maori children. In 2017, 90 percent were vaccinated; in six short years this has dropped to 67 percent.

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Stay tuned.

IAIN Boyle

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