Matisyahu's Blog

Today I finally replaced my current bed with a new bed and bed side tables along with cleaning the whole house from top to bottom – cleaning every skirting board, hoovering all the floors, wiping down the window ledges etc. I also took my mattress outside in the fresh air and sun that was out during the day along with cleaning all the sheets, airing the duvet resulting in the whole house having a fresh smell after having been closed up all winter dealing with the lousy weather. Tomorrow I’m going to get back into the swing of things with a walk, organisation of meals for the coming week and generally feeling good that the week has wrapped up nicely.

It is interesting hearing the speculation in the media regarding the leadership of the National Party (and in turn prime ministership) given the current economic situation New Zealand find themselves in. I think it was mentioned this week on ‘The Bradbury Group’ that if there is anyone who maybe interested in the top job they probably going to wait for the fallout of the election next year before they make their move – let Chris Luxon take the loss and then go for the top job with the benefit of of the election loss giving the new leader the power to shape the policy direction going forward.

With all that being said, I would be careful about speculating when it comes to the media claiming that a particular party is doomed especially given that the media tend to engage in behaviour of stirring up drama where no drama exists simply to get more clicks. It is very rare for a government to be a one term government – they would have to massively screw up things to the point that even those who swing vote but aren’t strong Labour Party voters may even decide that the promises being offered to ‘complete the job’ and blaming the last government aren’t going to win them back. It reminds me of an interview with John Howard regarding Anthony Albanese being voted in for a second term that generally Australians like to give someone a fair go – I’d say that is pretty close to the same sort of logic we see in New Zealand given how similar Aussies and Kiwis are in terms of their political temperament.

I think I may have mentioned in the past but given how they had invited George Osborne to give a speech at the National Party retreat – yes, the same George Osborne who was the architect of the UK austerity programme, the plan for National was simple: austerity at home, export lead recovery and then after 2 years of tough going the government books would be closed to fixed up and then some additional spending to win the election. Long story short it sounded like a good plan assuming that no crazies got into the Whitehouse and the rules based order regarding trade would remain intact.

The problem is that situation had changed but rather than National going “the assumptions we built the plan around have changed, we better change to meet those new circumstances” they instead kept charging forward as if nothing had changed. The big question is where NZ First is going to land because a portion of their base are those who are socially conservative but economically centre left – do they keep their wagon hitched to the National coalition? then there is the left with the infighting with great policies being undermined by drama and family members behaving like idiots which distract from what the focus should be on which is offering an alternative vision to the current government.

The risk that exists is if things become too uncertain then National may play to the argument of not changing horses in midstream (which is the same argument George W Bush gave when running for a second term), point to the infighting and chaos on the left and go “we’re in uncertain times, do you want these clowns running the country?”. Then add to that the legacy of 6 years where great promises were made but little of those promises delivered I can’t but get the feeling that such a legacy may very much be in the mind of voters unless some how Labour can demonstrate that when they talk a good game that they actually deliver on it.