Illustration / Guy Body
COMMENT:
Something went wrong for Jacinda Ardern and the Government in July and August.
This week saw an attempt to restore some equilibrium and reset the political agenda in a choreographed series announcements on major issues.
It might take a bit more than that.
It is not clear what went wrong back in July but it showed up in the major parties' private polling.
Even Labour polling showed a steep decline in favourability ratings for Jacinda Ardern, almost as steep as the rise following March 15.
Suddenly private polling was no longer being leaked.
Ardern had had an exhausting few months, dealing with the massacre, organising and launching the Christchurch Call in Paris, dealing with the Wellbeing Budget, dealing with the Budget leaks late and a Cabinet reshuffle late into June.
There was also a three-week recess in July, a short trip to Melbourne and a longer trip to Tokelau, and a brewing crisis at Ihumātao in which natural allies of Labour were putting the boot in.
She certainly kept up appearances but for whatever reason, Ardern had lost her mojo compared to her energetic start to the year when she told her caucus it was the year of delivery.
National, through close observation or political polling, sensed something had shifted and it switched up its attacks to a more aggressive mode, where it has remained ever since.
Even from his trip to India and China over the recess this week, National leader Simon Bridges maintained a relentlessly aggressive presence on social media.
Labour used the recess to present a series of initiatives - a better time than in the hurly burly of a sitting week in which a minor transgression by an MP or a creatively worded throw-away line by Winston Peters can hog the headlines disproportionately.
Despite having returned to a fighting-fit state, the Government's attempted "reset" was not left to Jacinda Ardern.
She fronted the release of the cancer strategy on Sunday with Health Minister David Clark in a bid to provide more even treatment across the country.
There is still some grumpiness in the Government that the strategy was so slow coming, National was able to gazump it with its own policy for a cancer agency.
It was a catch-up announcement.
Ardern, as Child Poverty Reduction Minister, had also launched the lunch in schools the week before, which, while widely welcomed, is a very limited programme, starting with 30 schools next year and building to 120 – nothing like the 1000 schools taking part in the Kickstart breakfast in schools programme.
It was an unambitious announcement.
The health and disability review by Heather Simpson, Helen Clark's no-nonsense former chief of staff, was the next big thing. It was surprising in two respects.
First, any hope that the fearless and fearsome Simpson was slaving away to produce a blueprint for a radical reform of New Zealand's Heath Robinson health system were dashed because it was an interim report only with no recommendations.
Second, given that she had six other people on the review group and another six on the Māori export advisory group, it turned out to be a 300-page report.
That made it a disappointing announcement.
The next big thing was the KiwiBuild reset by new Housing Minister Megan Woods. It was the final public humiliation for former Housing Minister Phil Twyford, who had done much of the work to try and knock the policy of 100,000 affordable homes in 10 years into a more realistic shape.
About the only thing that survived was the name. All accountability mechanisms, the target-setting, were removed.
It was less of an announcement on Wednesday than a flag raising – a white flag.
The decision by the Government to remove the targets altogether was more a waving of a white feather.
The proper thing to do when targets are deemed unrealistic is to adjust the policy and change the targets, not to blame the targets as a policy failure.
The KiwiBuild renovation will give National fodder right up to next year's election but the changes are being taken particularly badly by the left, who see it a betrayal.
Ubiquitous left-wing commentator and Victoria University academic Bryce Edwards goes as far as to says: "Having won power in 2017 on the basis of promises like KiwiBuild, it would be apt if the Labour-led Government lost that power in 2020 because of their failures to deliver."
The last big announcement of the week was David Parker's plan to clean up lakes and rivers by setting land-intensification controls, higher standards for freshwater, and moves to accelerate the current timetable for local authority compliance with national standards from 2030 at present to 2025.
The suggestion that it amounts to an urban-rural divide is going too far.
It is more like a Government-rural divide.
The announcements are being seen as another declaration of war by those who predict it will push some farmers off the land.
But Parker has a sense of political rectitude about him that suggests he is man not for U-turning.
Pursuing the new standards will test New Zealand First, the so-called champions of the provinces.
They have already approved the water proposals but will have to sign them off again as firm decisions in Cabinet before they are passed as regulation.
The one part of the proposals that require the daylight of parliamentary scrutiny is the part requiring local authorities to have adjusted their plans by 2025, instead of 2030. That might tempt New Zealand First to wobble.
Consultation will be brief and will finish on October 17, just before Shaw's Zero Carbon bill is reported back to Parliament on October 21 with another target that will reinforce the sense of assault being experienced by the farming sector – to reduce methane emissions in 2050 by up to 47 per cent of 2017 levels.
If getting attention for progressing or changing one's policies is resetting the political agenda then the Government has done that this week.
But in this year of delivery, it was far from being a week of results.
It's understood a NZDF aircraft and multiple helicopters are involved.