Tough environment for election year

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

Opinion

What is generally regarded as the final warm holiday of the year before winter, Easter has been a disappointment for this district and in keeping with a summer which will be best forgotten by most.

After a generally dismal first three days, however, yesterday started with heavy rain then went on to become the kind of perfect Easter day we expect. The weekend also saw the storm-battered district facing yet another heavy rain warning, which mercifully delivered a lot less rain than it could have.

Adding to the gloom in Gisborne itself was the reappearance of a large amount of woody debris on the main city beaches . . . after several costly clearances already, leaving it until next summer might be the most practicable advice.

In fact, the coming winter is a worrying prospect for Gisborne District Council which likely faces another battle to keep roads open. The district’s key land industries, the backbone of the economy, are still struggling to overcome the impacts of the two cyclones.

Nationally things are not looking rosy for the economy. The Reserve Bank’s decision to raise the OCR by 50 basic points is going to hurt.

The bank says inflation is still too high and employment is beyond its maximum sustainable level. Trade union economists estimate that getting back to the bank’s target inflation rate of 1-3 percent will mean up to 70,000 people joining the 90,000 currently out of work.

Meanwhile the University of Auckland’s 12-year research project on living in New Zealand showed last week that one in five Kiwi children had experienced material hardship by the time they were 12.

The Government faces a key Covid decision today on whether to relax the seven-day isolation requirement. Most other countries, including Australia, have already removed legal requirements to self-isolate but epidemiologist Michael Baker has warned against this, saying Covid-19 was already on track to kill 1000 New Zealanders this year.

Te Whatu Ora is investigating a whooping cough outbreak in which three babies have died.

None of these facts are good news for the Government as it prepares for this year’s election.

Rightly or wrongly the voting public tend to blame the Government for hard times. Will the right-wing group be able to sleepwalk to victory?

Still, there is always some light in the gloom. By this morning there had been only one death on New Zealand roads over Easter, down from five last Easter holiday and seven the year before.