Mike Hosking: With Parliament finally open, not everyone is thrilled with the new Government’s changes

OPINION

No matter how keen you are to fix the country, the machine of politics is not of the real world.

We have finally got Parliament open this week after the voting, the byelection, the negotiations, the swearing-in, the maiden speeches and all the frippery that surrounds what we would call the running of the country.

So far the new Government has done one very important thing, they’ve given us hope.

Not everyone, of course, is thrilled with matters, and it has been interesting to watch these past few weeks as the various lobby groups have lined up to be alarmed at pending changes coming to their caucus or business or incomes or both.

The tobacco changes have got the biggest backlash, and whether you agree with what they are doing or not, what most people appear to have trouble understanding is that this is a centre-right government and the hallmark of centre-right governments is the shift away from the past six years of where the government told you what to do, how to do it and when.

The tobacco changes have got the biggest backlash. Photo / 123RF

Smoking is your choice. We all agree it’s not a good exercise and we all agree that in various ways, shapes and forms we pay a wider price for individual activity around it.

That is applicable to many things but we don’t set about trying to outlaw the perfectly legal with the sort of vigour various governments have over the years.

Here’s a couple of simple truths.

Firstly, Smokefree 2025, which is where all this started, is a failure. We were never going to be smoke-free by 2025.

Secondly, what progress we had made beyond the initial outlawing of smoking indoors etc, was the arrival of vaping ... which has been little short of a disaster.

We have managed to delude ourselves into believing that somehow the drop off in tobacco use is a win, while the uptake in vaping is harmless.

Any parent of any teenager in any school in this country is fully aware what a cataclysmic mess vaping has become, and if you don’t think that there is a health crisis coming with it in the ensuing years, you are not awake.

So as the change of ideology settles in, we will continue to see the gnashing of various teeth.

The hope the Government has given us can be seen in the business and confidence surveys that have had their numbers lift in a positive direction.

But those numbers also show the size of the job in front of us.

As the Reserve Bank pointed out only too alarmingly last week, this country is in a very deep and worrying hole.

The inflation rate is still a mile too high. Speaking to Adrian Orr last week, he estimated it is currently about 5 per cent. We don’t know that for sure because we only publish statistics every three months, making us look like a fiscal backwater.

Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr during his Monetary Policy Statement press conference. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The official figure is 5.6 per cent, so even at 5 per cent it is too high and the Reserve Bank doesn’t see cuts coming until well into 2025.

Not just that, but they have an economy that is either not growing at all or, actually, once again, going backwards.

One bank suggested last week that its estimate for the third quarter was -0.1.

There is much worry in retail and hospo around this current quarter and Christmas.

They have every right to be worried, as spending statistics just out also show a drop.

We are indebted, we are stretched and we are worried.

Early withdrawals from KiwiSaver are up, insolvencies are up.

Before the election we targeted our concern and anger quite rightly at the architects of this mess, the Labour government. But they are in the luxurious position these days of having been booted out of office so get to watch on as what we are hoping is a competent set of fiscal operators set about trying to rectify it all.

But do not underestimate the job.

The goodwill the new Government currently enjoys will be short-lived if this turns ugly.

You get a period of time to blame the last lot, but look across the Tasman at the Albanese government.

They got a honeymoon too as Australia dispensed with the Morrison years.

But their inability to deal with their cost-of-living crisis (and note theirs is a vastly rosier picture than ours) has seen the Labour polls tank and Albanese’s popularity with it.

Luxon and co have some time, and a lot of our goodwill. It’s been a very solid start with a lot of the right noises.

But sooner or later the rubber will hit the road, and there will need to be some runs on the board.

As much as we want change, we want results more.