Mike Hosking: Another 10 reasons this Government won’t get a third term

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s emissions announcement has infuriated rural New Zealand. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

To explain how much trouble this Government is in and why next year is going to end in defeat, if not a blood bath, just let’s check the laundry list for the last week. And once you look at it, ask yourself which bit ... or bits ... are serving them well, growing their vote and/or giving them genuine hope for a third term.

1. The emissions announcement, which infuriated rural New Zealand, messed with the original deal that was negotiated, and does not improve the world’s environmental record, given we already are the best there is at producing food at minimal impact.

2. The inflation figure this week, which reminds us yet again that the battle is far from over, and that the Reserve Bank’s 4.1 per cent cash rate projection is going to be blown out of the water.

3. The immigration figures last week, showing for another year more people are leaving the country than entering it, and unlike last year when it was led by foreign nationals, this year it’s led by New Zealanders.

4. The ongoing numbers produced by sector after sector as to the size of their labour shortage: hospitality 30,000, nurses 21,000, truck drivers 9000, and so they keep coming.

5. The extension announced for the mental health programme that came out of Covid - why is there an extension? The demand from the mental health toll of being a hermit kingdom, and the refusal to re-open at a proper time, has devastated and decimated thousands of New Zealanders, who are, and will be, paying the price for the decision-making for years to come, if not forever.

6. The $9 billion bill we will be picking up because the Finance Minister indemnified the Reserve Bank when they started their money printing fiasco that’s led us to the inflationary mess we currently face, but also an astonishing loss-making exercise that any fool could’ve seen coming. And that $9b by the way is today’s number. It will grow. A question that will continue to be asked for years to come is what on earth was Grant Robertson thinking indemnifying such an exercise where if you place the responsibility at the doorstep of Governor Adrian Orr, would he have printed to the extent he did?

Finance Minister Grant Robertson. Photo / Mark Mitchell

7. Last week’s Taxpayers’ Union poll was another of the avalanches we have seen this year that tells the same story, National and Act are your new government, a sense of the death rattle has enveloped the Government, a fairly permanent picture has been painted, and each and every poll is a nail in that particular coffin.

8. The revelation that of the $66 million spent so far on Auckland’s light rail, two-thirds of it has gone on consultants, reinforcing once again that when it comes to delivery this lot couldn’t deliver pizza. Not a piece of track has been laid, the very track the Prime Minister who promised, indeed it was her very first promise as a brand new leader, so we are going back a good number of years now, would not only be laid ... but finished by 2021.

9. The revelation in the select committee papers that the Government’s fair pay agreements have no backstop for industry bodies should a pay dispute require mediating. Business NZ was going to do it but got so fed up with the process it stepped out, and as predicted all power is with the unions in an ideological idea that wasn’t exactly filling people with the confidence to start with.

10. The media merger which has seen literally everyone in the industry step forward through the submission process and explain to the Government what a nonsensical, expensive and dangerous mess this will be. However, Tracey Martin, using all her years of experience in the industry, continues to defy logic and tell us we’re all wrong. And that’s before you get to Willie “I know broadcasting” Jackson, who busies himself insulting his own media outlets with claims of lack of trust.

Shall that do us for this week? I have more, of course. I could talk about the CPI, Creative NZ’s Shakespeare funding, Middlemore Hospital, and the surge in gang numbers revealed this week but there are more examples than I have words allowed in this column.

So that’s just this week’s mess. Back to the question, which part of any of this is doing the Government some good? Which part is getting them closer to a third term, reassuring voters that this is a Government in charge and on top of their game in these difficult days?

Winston Peters was right at the weekend when he said this is the worst Government he’s ever seen. And he goes back a lot longer than I do.