Around the time I returned from London in 1978 a businessman punched a young journalist called Colin James. People in politics sympathised with me, some barely suppressing schadenfreude.
That other, punched, Colin James went offshore soon after. No one punched this Colin James (me), at least not physically. The incident reinforced for me the merit for a journalist of humility.
It’s time to anoint the politician of 2017. It has to be Jacinda Ardern.
With accomplished assurance, she took Labour from a 24% poll average and falling in July to 36.9% in the election, 12 points up on 2014.
Don Brash’s 2002-05 18-point rescue of National beats that. But Ardern did it in under eight weeks, combining substance and connectedness. She is not “stardust”, Bill English’s shabby scoff. She is of a rising generation, he of a passing one.
National will soon have some finance numbers to get its teeth into. So will Labour. The Treasury HYEFU is on December 14.
The HYEFU is the half-year economic and fiscal update. With it comes a budget policy statement setting out Jacinda Ardern’s ministers’ intentions for the next four years.
It has been a month for centenaries of revolutions: Vladimir Lenin’s Russian coup and Martin Luther’s challenge to Catholic authorities. Their legacies are very different.
Lenin’s revolution brought to power a brutal Communist autocracy which killed capitalism in one country but also over time trashed the collectivist alternative ideal. Western socialists, including Labourites here, turned to a social democratic accommodation with capitalism.
Here’s a number to make the new government’s day: 48% more people are positive than are negative about where the country is now going.
UMR Research asks people whether “things … are heading in the right direction or are … off on the wrong track”.
Throughout the Key-English time there was a net positive reading, sometimes strongly so.
Senior ministers have been abroad on national business: trade and climate change. Doing such business well needs a firm, broadly agreed national foundation. Can Parliament measure up?
Not if you judge it by the National-Labour petty points-scoring on swearing-in day last Tuesday.
Shadow leader of the House Simon Bridges withdrew National’s agreement the previous day to back Trevor Mallard for Speaker to leverage an increase in select committee numbers above what he had proposed pre-election.
Colin James’s Otago Daily Times column for 7 November
Bill English’s mission is to stop the new government “frittering away” his government’s fiscal and economic gains.
Jacinda Ardern and Co don’t intend to do that but do aim to fritter away homelessness, child poverty the economy’s low-wage settings and tax privileges for the better-off.
Jacinda Ardern’s intricately-interlocked ministry is in place. The BIMs have been delivered. One will likely open a door to a wide new space Ardern will want to drive into.
A BIM is officials’ “briefing to the incoming minister”. In 2014 ministers heavily redacted many, which reflected badly on officials’ supposed party-political independence. Earlier this year officials briefed ministers on Winston Peters’ superannuation.
Yesterday was Labour Day. Actually, it was Labour day last Thursday, courtesy Winston Peters. And this is Labour week as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern settles in — well, zips in.
Stale white males from Richard Prebble up are harrumphing that she won’t last, that hers will be a fractious or chaotic one-term government at most.
Usually domestic matters are top of mind for a Prime Minister. But whoever is Prime Minister — still unknown at the time of writing — will face what may be the biggest foreign policy challenge in a generation.
This will be so whether New Zealand First chooses a two-bloc arrangement — National plus New Zealand First versus Labour plus Greens — or a three-way deal with Labour plus Greens.