I’ve had a surprising number of people who had been scathing of Jacinda tell me how impressed they’ve been with Chippy’s handling of the storms.
He has managed to win over a lot of people and win them back to Labour because after all the smiles and kindness of Jacinda, people just wanted competence.
I think Jacinda’s kindness became a criticism of her because endlessly hurting while you are being told to be kind starts to wear away cynically on people.
It wasn’t a fault in Jacinda or her positive and empathetic nature, it was just that Covid was so harsh her kindness couldn’t gloss over the pain.
Chippy’s leadership has been helped immensely by Wayne Brown’s train wreck interview during the Auckland Anniversary Flooding and the enormity of the challenge in front of us post Gabrielle demands a practicality that Chippy exudes.
Kiwis have shown us their good bugger natures by immediately stepping up to help their neighbours and fellow citizens in this time of stress and need and it reminds us of our stoic values.
Covid was a tough sell because much of the crisis and stress was caused by prevention of a mass death event that didn’t eventuate BECAUSE of our precautions, Cyclone Gabrielle, Hale and the Auckland Anniversary Floods however are all physical damage we can see and appreciate the enormity of.
The need to adapt and change to avoid the images we are seeing is far more visceral and real this time and with two more cyclones brewing in the Coral Sea, the urgency to adapt generated by voters won’t stop.
Climate Change and global warming from human made pollution was always some theoretical trouble we faced at the end of the century, the public haven’t understood how extreme the journey to the end of that century would be and as they glimpse our immediate future they will be politically motivated in ways they’ve never been before for solution based responses.
Chippy has the edge here in being perceived to have those skills because he’s doing it right now.
Chris Luxon and National have argued they intend to rip up any of Labour’s climate change legislation to date, so have no actual plans as to how to deal with Climate Change.
Chippy and Labour have proved they are good in a crisis and are confident under the high ball, Luxon and National in comparison seem confused, not sure of what their actual policy plans are and are prone to u-turns after 24 hours.
Life in NZ is going to feel like a continual crisis this year with weather events and the economy and I don’t think National have proven they could lead in a crisis yet because all they’ve relied on so far was a tsunami of toxicity against Jacinda.
Remove Jacinda and National don’t seem to have anticipated what they should do next. Having no policy and becoming reliant on sentiment is a stupid strategy and National are paying for it now.
Their release of their 3 Waters Policy is just bullshit and once the user pays water rates system is announced, those voters will feel deceived and tricked by National’s announcement. It feels like a short term sugar hit to try and pierce the News headlines which have just be wall to wall Chippy.
This will bite National in the arse once the water costings are worked out.
The challenge for Chippy is the scale of radical adaptation and big ideas is incredibly steep and he has to deliver solutions not just cautious tinkering.
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It wasn’t just National, or the Right, who had lost confidence in Ardern, and what her government may or may not be doing, it was Kiwis from across the whole spectrum. She’s gone.
Hipkins’ issue will be 1-2 months down the track when Hawkes Bay, East Coast, Coromandel and West Auckland are still a disaster zone and nothing tangible has been done.
While not his fault CovidCult has destroyed our ability to fix, build or sort anything. Government bureaucrats have readily got their jackboots on again and the “we know best” attitude has come back into vogue. Unlike CovidCult once the disaster passes you still have the problem of remediation and construction.
Coupled with economic stagflation, rooted health and education systems and out of control crime the chickens will come home to roost. Hipkins started well although the gaslighting of the last couple of weeks regarding law and order in the storm ravaged areas suggest this was a show and nothing significant has changed.
Yes Te Reo Luxon is a woke turd burger without a common sense touch but when New Zimbabwe is looking for someone to blame in the winter of discontent it won’t be Luxon nor a poorly performing National front bench that get the blame.
He may be ‘connecting’ but Labour are still a ship of fools and incompetents. I’ll not forget and I won’t return to them.
“It wasn’t a fault in Jacinda or her positive and empathetic nature, it was just that Covid was so harsh her kindness couldn’t gloss over the pain.”
There was me thinking that everything she did or said was divisive, not just issues relating to covid.
As for Chippy, he started off very well because Ardern took a lot of the poison with her, and he said a lot of the right things in his first speech. Time will tell.
Regarding competence, I think the opposition will remind the voters that Chippy has been in charge of our trainwreck education system for the past 5 years.
The opposition will be voted to stay that way such is their incompetence. They are awful.
“Wall to Wall Chippy.” Nice
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