OPINION:
The road to hell is paved with good intentions – and this week hell came in the purgatory of a tortuous debate about consultants and contractors.
Not so long ago, both National Party leader Christopher Luxon and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins loudly announced their intentions to relentlessly focus on the issues that matter to New Zealand voters – and the cost of living.
Yet somehow they ended up talking about the cost of consultants’ reports instead.
It all came about as National wrestled with what may turn out to be the biggest problem on its plate: How to stop people liking Hipkins.
The most recent Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll spelled out the problem: People like Hipkins – including a decent chunk of National Party voters.
That doesn’t mean they will vote for him. But if even National Party voters like him, the undecided or swinging voters will too. And that is trouble with a capital T for Luxon.
It will be baffling to National why voters have taken to Hipkins so well – and how to respond to it.
National should also be very careful in thinking Hipkins’ early running is down to a honeymoon period and the fresh blast of his very different style to that of Ardern – or because of his dominance in the immediate aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.
Hipkins showed on Tuesday how pragmatic he was willing to be for the sake of getting a third term.
After Michael Wood went into the media to wax lyrical about transport priorities such as cycle lanes and busways, Hipkins waded in to say that the priorities had changed, courtesy of the cyclone. The new priorities were rebuilding and building roads. For cars and trucks. Roads that might help them win an election.
After a break in transmission because of the cyclone, Hipkins is also expected to return to his policies bonfire in the next week – his Marie Kondo of Labour’s over-crowded programme.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson also made it clear this week that the Government still intends to forge ahead with some form of cost-of-living assistance in the May Budget.
He said the costs of the cyclone damage were not as grim as first thought.
He has shifted his predictions on that uniquely New Zealand measurement scale from his initial estimates of “bigger than the Christchurch earthquakes” to “between the Christchurch earthquakes and the Kaikoura earthquake.”
And Hipkins is well aware of the need to keep his eye on the cyclone-affected areas once the wider public attention to it fades.
Hipkins was a twist in the tale National had not foreseen and so had not prepared for.
It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to catch him out or over-litigating mistakes or errors that are relatively minor in the wider context.
It pays to keep a close eye on what the actual voters see, those who do not follow every twist and turn of political events.
National has – so far unsuccessfully – tried to depict Hipkins as beltway, as the former parliamentary staffer turned politician, a right-hand man to Jacinda Ardern, who has spent his life in the halls of power rather than the “boy from Upper Hutt” tag Hipkins gave himself.
It has not flown because it has not tallied with the Hipkins those voters have seen on their television screens.
That Curia poll – the same pollsters National uses – tells National that the voters quite like that Hipkins. They like Hipkins for the same reasons they liked John Key. They just do – and they think he has been dealing with things that are important well.
The wiser heads in National should know that a strategy of telling voters that they are wrong in those assessments does not work.
In the process of trying to counter Hipkins’ credibility, National this week fell into a trap of its own devising.
The first mistake was in deciding to highlight contractor spending alongside announcing its new policy: A childcare tax rebate for families on low to middle incomes, leaving them $75 better off.
It was a great policy. It ticked the education and cost-of-living boxes. It was targeted at the end of town Labour likes to think it has a monopoly over: Lower- and middle-income earners. It was almost impossible for Labour to criticise.
But National decided to say it would pay for the rebates with savings from cutting contractors and consultants. That is little more than a political gimmick: It will not literally mean that money is ring-fenced.
The problem with that is that while National wanted people to be gazing admiringly at its new childcare policy, it plonked a great dancing elephant off to the side for people to look at instead.
Sure enough, it wasn’t too long before people were talking about contractors and consultants instead of National’s policy – most notably Luxon and the National Party MPs.
Luxon tried to show up Hipkins over the use of consultants in Parliament – and other National MPs also took on their counterparts.
Nothing was cheaper as a result of that. No lives were improved other that a brief rush of endorphins for one or the other if they won an exchange.
It was a baffling approach from Luxon, who rails against what he considers beltway thinking - and it is a beltway issue.
It’s a fair bet Joe and Jo Public did not follow the exchange or care whether things were done by public servants or contractors.
Meanwhile, a chance went begging.
Health is a potential vulnerability for Hipkins and the Government and an issue people care about.
On the same day that National was banging on about contractors, the media were highlighting the pressure on Auckland City Hospital: Ambulances diverted, doctors warning that another winter like the last would be disastrous.
It is easy to slate failings in health down to the Government’s reforms and inability to restock the health workforce. And National’s health spokesman Shane Reti had been pursuing emergency waiting times well.
It was an opportunity with neon lights on and fitted very well with Reti’s ongoing push.
Yet there was no question to Health Minister Ayesha Verrall about it – nor to Hipkins.
The press release from Reti on the day was – you guessed it – about the number of consultants used by Health NZ.
By the end of the week, National had corrected and Reti was prosecuting a series of unfortunate events to befall Te Whatu Ora/New Zealand Health and Verrall: From mistakes in emergency waiting time data to a “puff piece” on Verrall in a newsletter.
But in the future, Luxon might want to get his eye back on the ball rather than Hipkins.
It follows concerns about use-of-force powers being given to staff.