Leaked polls from both big parties are predictably telling us that Labour has opened a huge lead over National, with support for PM Jacinda Ardern reaching stratospheric levels. Photo / File
Leaked polls from both big parties are predictably telling us that Labour has opened a huge lead over National, with support for PM Jacinda Ardern reaching stratospheric levels. Photo / File
Now three weeks into lockdown, it looks like the damage to the New Zealand economy and to many lives will be worthwhile as we are on track to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic and perhaps eliminate this highly contagious disease.
Our Covid-19 death toll is small compared with almost anywhere elseand this is a tribute to the quality of New Zealand's leadership in politics and heath.
Leaked polls from both big parties are predictably telling us that Labour has opened a huge lead over National, with support for PM Jacinda Ardern reaching stratospheric levels and, somewhat bizarrely, a huge majority agreeing that the country is on the "right track".
I cannot help thinking, however, that the euphoria of uniting and getting it right in the face of a vicious invisible enemy could well be short lived and a post-lockdown hangover of prodigious dimensions will follow.
The Labour/New Zealand First/Green Party Government which a normally perceptive National voting friend told me "would last maybe a year" has proven capable and resilient and by almost any measure has earned a second term when the September 19 General Election comes around.
But the game has changed in ways we can only guess at, some careers have advanced and at least one has foundered and may well be at an end.
The political victim will almost certainly be Health Minister David Clark who made two incomprehensible decisions and will likely pay the ultimate price.
I noted that the eight states and territories of Australia all had daily Covid-19 reports just as we have every day at 1pm.
The difference between the Australian updates and the New Zealand equivalent is that they are invariably fronted by politicians – the State Premiers, Territory Chief Ministers, and their respective Health Ministers.
Instead of opting to stay front and centre in Wellington, as one might expect of a Health Minister during the biggest health crisis this country has ever faced, David Clark bunkered down with his family in Dunedin.
Mike Williams
Mistake number one was compounded by blunder number two when his itchy feet made him twice break the stay-home rule with bike riding and beach-walking expeditions, one of which was taken in his taxpayer-funded van emblazoned with his picture.
Imagine where David Clark's political profile would be if he had been making the daily announcements instead of the Director General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
Clark was regarded as a competent minister in a potentially difficult portfolio but now faces at the very least demotion the backbenches and a period in the political wilderness.
Besides the PM, Finance Minister Grant Robertson has impressed and taken sectors of society that could normally not warm to a Labour Finance Minister with him and carefully explained his every move with warmth and intelligence.
National Party Leader Simon Bridges worked out that there would be little to be gained from noisy opposition and, much to his credit, has opted for a constructive role. That will not be forgotten.
The election campaign which will get under way when we things approach normality will be very different to what might have been had Covid-19 not come along.
With universal support, the Government is borrowing large sums to protect as much of the economy as is practicable and to save as many jobs as possible during lockdown periods.
There will be much more borrowing to come as major infrastructure projects are fast-tracked to kick-start the post-Covid-19 economy, government income falls and financial dependence on the state burgeons through increased unemployment.
Fortunately, Grant Robertson is the third in a line of "Southern Men" Finance Ministers who perhaps reflect the canny heritage of that neck of the woods, accumulated surpluses and paid-down debt.
If we bounce back in a reasonable time from what could be a bigger economic setback than the Great Depression of the 1930s, we will have Ministers Sir Michael Cullen, Sir Bill English, and Grant Robertson to thank.
The campaign plans of all the political parties have now gone out the window and will all have to be rewritten.
It will not be credible or possible for National to now run on a policy of cutting taxes and they may even have to review their promise of tax indexation.
Equally Labour will have a credibility problem if it promotes an extension to its fees-free policy as it was the Wellington rumour.
In just a few weeks we have been ejected into a very different political environment pregnant with both threat and opportunity.
With all this and the coming referenda, politics is taking a fascinating turn.
Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
