Well that was pretty meaningless with a hint of crisis management wasn’t it?
Jacinda Ardern unveils the coalition’s top 12 priorities they’ve agreed on
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, looking to see off criticism her coalition lacks direction, has delivered a speech in Auckland detailing 12 priorities that will drive the Government’s long-term direction.She says it’s the first of its kind since the introduction of MMP, and sets out “a comprehensive set of priorities across a wide range of economic, social and cultural areas and agreed to by all parties that are part of the Government”.
The fact Jacinda is having to host a ‘re-set’ speech after a mere 10 months is the destabilising thing here.
The new Government have been spooked by wall to wall right wing media criticism & are constantly reacting to the news cycle rather than setting it.
This was hollow with a wiff of desperation.
What exactly was announced?
- “Grow and share New Zealand’s prosperity more fairly”
- “Support thriving, sustainable regions”
- “Govern responsibly”
- “Transition to a clean, green carbon-neutral New Zealand”
- “Ensure everyone who is able to is earning, learning, caring or volunteering”
- “Support healthier, safer and more connected communities”
- “Ensure everyone has a warm, dry home”
- “Make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child”
- “Deliver open, transformative and compassionate government”
- “Build closer partnerships with Māori”
- “Value who we are as a country”
- “Create an international reputation we can be proud of”
None of this means anything. Instead of shaking off the media narrative, the new Government have reacted to it and looked pretty shallow in response.
Remember how John Key would never buy into the media narrative, he’d look straight down the barrel of the camera and lie through his fucking teeth, even when he was busted on mass surveillance lies and collaborating with the SIS to falsely smear the Leader of the Opposition months before an election and the entire Dirty Politics scandal, he glided over that and never responded and Kiwi’s loved being lied to with confidence, Key never allowed the media to define him or his Leadership.
Here we have the new government chasing its tail rather than it wagging the dog.
What the new government needed to do was have this at the actual one year mark and sell their achievements and set new targets while putting out their head kickers into the media to push back on the false narrative.
Winston, Willie Jackson and the very excellent Michael Wood are brilliant at this kind of push back, having Jacinda rush to do this at the 10 month mark however just looks desperate.
10 moths in, this is still a Government who don’t seem to know how to play the game of power, they have about 12months to figure it out if they want to win 2020.
No way around it, they weren’t ready for government. But better than National.
Despite reading his articles I still don’t know why Chris Trotter argued against this coalition however.
You’re sort of the William Cobbett of present day NZ, Martyn. Along with reporting Hansard on his own in early 1800s England he filled most of his newspapers for the people himself during the reactionary 40 years that followed the French Revolution.
Yes you are correct Martyn,
My case was made clear the day i with our community in Napier tried to call on Labour ministers to step up and save HB/Gisborne rail services and not one labour minister including Phil Twyford wanted to step up to save the rail service that National willfully destroyed but NZ First have stepped up and always did??????
If Labour continue to ignore the communities and don’t turn back as they did when in opposition to help us Stuart Bash and all Labour MP’s around the central regions will loose theirt jobs in 2020 bet on this as they have shut out any community from offering help to theirs and our’s issues that we need resolved while they are in Government until 2020.
Go back twelve months, Sumsuch, and read my blogs (they’re all archived here on The Daily Blog site.
You will find blogs commenting on how a great many NZers will find it difficult to accept the legitimacy of anything other than a National-led government. Others explaining the true constitutional position. Still more celebrating Winston’s choice of Labour.
It really does pay to investigate the historical record before making pronouncements like the one above – which is, clearly, both unfair and incorrect.
“save HB/Gisborne rail services “, still banging your one policy there Cleangreen?
You were swayed that NZ1st was the greatest party for the particular agenda you are pushing because an MP of theirs turned up and said “YES, we will do that”, what surprises me is at 75yrs old you actually believed an MP in an election year agreeing to something/anything and expect them to hold that promise! So what happens by 2020 and the railway has not been looked at, never mind upgraded, do you attend another meeting in a room filled with like minded souls and get all excited when all/any MP’s say ‘YES, we will do that’….then what about the 2023 election cycle will you and your like minded….well you get the message, you are an MP’s dream voter!!
And you believe everything National said, you are their dream voter. “And John said unto thee, follow and thee I’m Right sheep did follow.
Then the media said unto thee, “the coalition is the apocalypse and the I’m right sheep said yes!”
Come on, Martyn, be honest… the Natzis are going to win in 2020… there will be another 250,000+ foreign resident voters by then… the Natzis just need to sit back and wait for the Blue Dragon and Blue Turban numbers to swell and put them over the line…
Racist much?
To be clear, I don’t much give a damn if people have or espouse racist attitudes as long as they don’t discriminate based on race.
I do however hope you are firmly against increasing the refugee quota, since you clearly don’t care for anyone that doesn’t look like “us”.
If not, you are a class A hypocrite
Unimpressive waffle and mutually-exclusive statements from Jacinda.
I can’t say I’m at all surprised. She is obviously way out of her depth and is more concerned with maintaining dysfunctional arrangements that with challenging them.
Therefore, we can expect continuing erosion of living standards and continuing degradation of the environment, perhaps at a slightly lower pace than if National were in power.
A continuation of degradation was what we have just experienced in the last 9 yrs afewknowthetruth anymore of the tories and their policies we would be down the toilet. Every time they (gnats) get in power Maori and PI stats in all facets of life are the worst they have ever been. Now if you think this is alright you must be either sick or deluded or maybe your blind or have an unconscious bias and that is putting it mildly.
You entirely missed the point. Decline is inevitable (post peak oil, abrupt climate change, local pollution, out-of-control financial system, overpopulation and unaccountable local government etc).
The rate of decline under Labour may be lower than under National but there will still be decline.
And everything that actually matters long term, i.e. atmospheric CO2, ocean acidification, temperature of the oceans, biodiversity etc. will be worse at the end of this parliamentary term than at the beginning -that is 100% guaranteed.
To suggest that I ‘think this is alright’ is absurd, boardering on nasty.
Labour’s problem is still what it has been since Clark stood down, which is that it lacks a credible leader and ministers to run Government. Helen Clark’s slash and burn approach to leadership whereby any challengers to her primacy were destroyed left this vacuum.
National is likewise struggling with Soymun Bridges being scarcely better than Adern. Although National does have a more experienced “bench” than Labour, none of these are leader material with the oft vaunted Judith Collins being the Hillary Clinton of NZ politics – that is, a completely poisonous personality with the electorate.
Its becoming obvious that the current mmp government is a joke, that press conference looked like a puppet show with Winston moving the strings, the rest looked like deer in the headlights, they lost alot of folks the day she gave a cheque to that Hilary Bitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJKAQggSs9Q
It’s an impressive list but she, adern, doesn’t mention where the money’s coming from to start her political monster truck up to pay for those fancy musings .
That’s worrying.
I was ‘brought up’ a farmer. We farmed sheep primarily but we had a few beef cattle.
I now live within a sheep farm and the owners of that property have a few beef cattle too, to fatten so as some high fallooter in Ponsonby can turn that cow flesh into their bowel motions.
I also read, here and there, of an impending global food availability crisis from a looming financial collapse and perhaps more worryingly, an on-going and worsening climate melt out.
What do we living things all have in common?
We need smartphones.
No.
We need to shit. And in order for us to shit, we must first eat.
What does NZ/AO do to earn money from off shore types in order to pay for our stuff and things?
That’s right. We are paid to wander about like zombies, staring into the hypnotronic, brain-musher AKA the Smartphone to see what other zombies are up to, or who they’re up.
No.
We are a country of farmers who farm our farms. ( Excluding cowsploiters. You guys are a pain in the arse and are making the rest of us look like r-unts.)
Where, does jucinda adern mention the vital, and I’d go so far as to say, critically urgent, attention to the health of our agricultural sector? An agricultural sector in dire shape and floundering and managed by the last of the rural morons too dopy to realise that life’s short so sell the farm and go find a warm beach somewhere. Let some other schmuck die from exhaustion in muddy gumboots.
Everywhere, of course!
No.
Could adern’s job be to actually tank NZ/AO so next election we welcome our old farmers-friends, and abusers, back with open arms? And closed minds.
Remember.
Large, wealthy country, slightly bigger than the UK and can grow literally anything.
Small population of 4.7 million or about the size of one of AU’s larger cities.
Once was impressively wealthy.
Now broke and floundering in debt while, given we are a farming country most of our people live in a logical fallacy city hoping to God they die before they must pay back the money they borrowed to buy that black shiny Range Rover and I don’t blame you. I love Range Rovers.
People? You’re being bullshitted. There’s something deeply creepy going on and I can only come up with metaphors to explain my sense of dread.
Adern and her cronies are up to something. The Natzo’s are watching from the shadows. Waiting. We’re being set up. Everything’s wrong. Nothing makes sense.
Except to me. I know exactly what’s going on.
No.
Yes the speech was layers of meh, I ended up skim reading it after it became apparent it was waffle. Sadly we can conclude Jacinda is our Obama, all flowery talk but no structural change.
When in office, the Nats get to social engineering- selling assets, breaking unions and widening inequality.
Labour walks things back only the slightest step, so over time with successive governments we get further and further literally sold out, more unequal, selfish, polluted.
If we can blame Obama’s failure for Trump, what follows Ms Adern?
Jesus H. Christ……now there’s a scary thought.
I wish I hadn’t read your comment KEEPCALMCARRYON. The fitful nights of sleep will now become full on insomnia!!!!!
100% Correct Martyn.
Dear Cindy is learning what her predecessors learned years ago:
Winston cannot work in a team unless he’s the one in charge of it, whereupon it becomes a simple dictatorship.
So basically “Strong and Stable”.
I wish they hadn’t done this. I’ve now gone from being a sceptical naysayer over this Governments ambitions to being downright worried.
Its like when your parents take the family out to the movies and then dinner at Pizza Hut to reassure you all that they aren’t about to get a divorce..
“Kiwi’s loved being lied to with confidence, Key never allowed the media to define him or his Leadership”
Sad, but true.
Curran got roasted for her very public “secret” meeting at a cafe in central Wellington. But Key got away with it time and time again. FFS, thats how he appointed his old school mare Ian Fletcher to head the GCSB!! If i remember correctly, only John Campbell on his old tv3 show, “Campbell Live”, tried to raise questions about Key’s shady dealings. The rest of the country simply didnt seem to care.
Why do we have dishonest politicians who are successful at their deceit? Because the public vote them in.
It would be tragic if that’s what it took for the Coalition govt to succeed.
I can’t see Jacinda Ardern telling the kind of outright lies that Key told.
The narrative has changed.
From the government has spent all the money and can do little more to Peters exercising power to stop Labour doing stuff.
Thus this what we agree on fluff (all they can do till they know if there is any money to spend in the 2019 budget).
At a price, as media is now demanding that the PM reassure them that they go through them to talk to the public.
This is the real Curran issue, fear of the development of any other means by which the government communicates directly to the people.
They forgot to handout the pamphlets with the words to “Kumbaya!”
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Kumbaya
They forgot to handout, the handout … with the words to, that ole mormon favourite party starter! Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s cryin’, Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Someone’s singin’, Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya
Oh, Lord, kumbaya (oh, Lord, kumbaya)
Kumbaya
“None of this means anything. Instead of shaking off the media narrative, the new Government have reacted to it and looked pretty shallow in response.”
It is a relief to read what Martyn is realising here, but at the same time it is of course a great worry.
We have endless band-aid solutions, gap filling, slogans thrown around, feelgood talk, and good intentions, with meaningless talk, really, but no significant policy direction.
That is what has bothered me for months.
What topped it off for me today was this:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/366634/nz-govt-extends-iraq-deployment-until-june-2019
Possums looking into the light of the Five Eyes, scared stiff to take a different stand, it seems.
Also Chris Faafoi on Q+A last night, being neither here nor there on public broadcasting. This government looks like an embarrassment to me, it is neither here nor there on many important issues, all to be discussed ‘by cabinet’ and the ‘coalition government’, bla, bla and bla.
A change kind of government would look different to what I witness, I feel depressed, this is not good.
This government is not new, it’s looking tarnished. Winston’s party looks like the voice of reason and Labour look like a bunch of well meaning incompetents. The white board summit over the weekend looks like a primary school camp. The reality is that the PM probably isn’t up to it. None of the caucus are either. Winston is; not that I voted for him. Even the Greens are distancing themselves from Labour’s comedy of errors.
It’s chill, can’t expect Jacinda to hit it out of the park every time. Banning letting fees, foreign buyers and reducing immigration number will make a lot of people happy.
Still waiting for those to eventuate though. Still, anything had to be better than National.
Yes instead, probably more immigrants to build houses for immigrants already here , why else do we really need more houses.
Really disappointed I thought this government was going to be a bit more innovative and progressive like signalling a move towards UBI as well.
Doom , doom, doom. What a load of nonsense from y,all .
count your blessings .we do have MMP , we do not have John Key .
Winston is Winston .. Hes alright . we have a wonderful young prime minister .Give her a chance ,Its only been one year and here you are the bunch of you . growl growl growl growl .
and there are loads of things in the pipeline being worked on .
and the Greens are doing some pretty good stuff as well .
maybe some folks should be learning how to give credit where credit is due instead of joining forces with those herald writers and their like ..Eh ?
The Golden Rule : (s)he who has the gold, makes the rules. Clearly governments in so-called Western democracies are told what to do by Banks, multi National’s corporations and so on. We all recognise this ugly fact. So that’s the first “manacle” this (or any) govt must wear. The additional manacle for Jacinda’s progressive vision (if indeed it has any substance), is compromise with coalition partners. So hence we get the tinkering around the edges, all under the self imposed financial cap of austerity.
But when the financial crisis hits, the god-given moment to throw away the rule book will have arrived. Then, and perhaps only then, is the chance to make meaningful change. Given the huge concerted campaign being run currently by vested interests to destabilise the threat of this coalition doing anything that might harm profit taking, it will need the nuclear detonation of financial bubbles bursting to justify in the public mind the need to radically alter the economic landscape.
Then they can go wild. Build their Nordic haven, or social democracy, or say goodbye to capitalism entirely and embrace socialism.
Whatever ensues, that for me, is the litmus test of this coalition.
When the time is ripe, will they waste it, or not. We live in hope.
Yes, except that in modern times central banks have created huge amounts of digital money without having the gold to back it.
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