Policies based on beliefs, not reality

Bruce Holm

Opinion

Ah, beliefs, aren’t they wonderful things to have — especially as they offer such certainty. If I were to stand at the corner of the Sheepfarmers building in Tokomaru Bay and declare to all and sundry that I am Jesus Christ returned and I was challenged on that, I would reply that I am JC because I believe I am. Reality is irrelevant here because my belief trumps that reality.

Speaking of Trump, 70 percent of Republican voters believe that the 2020 election was stolen from him because he tells them so. Of course Biden won the election fair and square, that’s the reality.

Similarly, here in New Zealand, beliefs have rapidly, covid-like, colonised the political landscape as they begin actively shaping the new Government’s policies.

The Prime Minister believes that the previous Government’s anti-smoking legislation would increase ram raids and expand the black market for tobacco product, repeating tobacco industry talking points. The evidence all points in the opposite direction; there are fewer ram raids now and fewer of them are about tobacco; the planned 95 percent reduction in nicotine levels would mean the demand would drop right off.

The Prime Minister also believes in the efficacy of boot camps, even though the former Key Government cancelled them because they didn’t work.

Police Minister Mitchell believes that banning gang patches, etc, will work even though the police say they simply won’t always have the resources to crack down effectively. Social mayhem is the most likely result, while clogging up the already severely overloaded courts and increasing the prison population — for a net social and economic deficit, rather than gain.

Social Development Minister Upston believes that tougher sanctions against beneficiaries will work when it has never worked before — all the evidence says that it compounds hardship and poverty. She also believes that taking money off beneficiaries is a good thing to do, when all the evidence says it will tip many thousands more into poverty.

Transport Minister Brown believes that building more motorways is the right thing to do to solve traffic congestion and help fight climate change, when the reality is that all new motorways do is add more vehicles and increase congestion and emissions. He also believes that axing the clean car discount, and thereby ending up with an estimated 300,000 fewer electric vehicles on the road by 2030, will be the best way forward to meet our carbon credit obligations — obligations that will likely cost us billions more than if we had kept the previous lower emissions policy in place.

The new Government fundamentally believes in small government and low taxes. Treasury says that this is unsustainable going into the future and that tax settings will need to change along with other things to cope with future demand.

This paring down of government is occurring at a time of climate crisis, when the demands on central governments will inevitably increase hugely. Look at the huge cost already of Cyclone Gabrielle. How does a low-tax, small government cope with the next cyclone, in all likelihood more powerful and destructive? And the one after that?

All these beliefs being turned into policy didn’t just magically appear out of nowhere — these are the policies of the international hard right.

We’ve been here before. Just like the 1980s and ’90s, New Zealand is now in the grip of a right-wing government at the extreme end of the scale. It is hell-bent in delivering on its mandate to govern, even though in doing so it will cause massive social harm.

Eat your heart out Douglas and Richardson, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Jesus Christ.