Expect an entire array of dirty tricks and economic self sabotages to damage Labour erupting before Christmas and expect the corporate mainstream media to blame Jacinda, Winston and James every step of the way.
Will she get blamed for curdled milk and crop failure as well?
After years of denial and obfuscation by the National-led Government, this is a massive opportunity. The world is watching.
Jacinda has pulled off one of the greatest political come backs in NZ history. To think that she has turned the Labour Party around and won the 2017 election in the space of 10 weeks is an achievement like none other in NZ politics and her leadership, courage and tenacity bear all the hall marks of a truly great Prime Minister. With Winston in full war mode against neoliberalism next to her and the very smart James Shaw on the other side, this is a Government who have every chance of producing an incredible 3 years.
Actually governing with a global financial collapse imminent, environmental apocalypse caused by climate change and corporate vested interests challenged, the Labour-NZ First-Green Government is going to have to fight every day to maintain their momentum.
Not since the Rugby World Cup have I heard a cheer as loud in the unit as when the new Labour government was announced last night .
The new government got off to a pretty good start – indeed a few minutes before it was announced – when Winston Peters indicated that its mission is no less than to humanise capitalism in New Zealand. This reminds us that Winston Peters is by far the most qualified person in this government to be Minister of Finance, and that it’s Finance Ministers that make or break governments.
IN ALL ECONOMIES, and in every political system, there are roped-off areas of shadow and hidden places swathed in deliberate darkness. In these light-starved locations all kinds of disreputable economic and political transactions take place.
It was one of the mad failures of the nine-years of the last Labour-led government that union membership density as a percentage of the working class was lower at the end than the beginning. The changes to industrial and other laws were too inconsequential to allow unions to grow easily – especially in the private sector which covers fewer than 10% of the private sector workforce. The goal should be to double or treble that percentage.
The most interesting aspect of Winston Peter’s announcement of a coalition deal with Labour was his acknowledgement that capitalism had become the enemy of so many people. He said he wants a government of change which, among other things, will do something real about poverty.