Democracy is an inefficient business. Yet efficiency is at the core of many of its arguments.
If only the private sector was more efficient, productivity would be higher and we would be a richer nation.
If only public services were more efficient, we could have more and pay less tax for them.
If only our houses, vehicles and lifestyles were more energy-efficient, that would make it easier to meet climate change targets.
Colin James on the election for Management September 2008
The first rule about elections is that they must be managed. They cannot be left to voters.
Even the date must be managed. Prime Ministers cling to the vestige of monarchical power which they have misappropriated, the power to determine when your election is held.
For nearly two years the government has tried to make “sustainability” a core issue and a distinguishing point in the coming election. It hoped climate change would be the vehicle.
But as a slogan “sustainability” is passive and abstract, inviting acquiescence rather than action. Worse, few can agree what it means. And, compounding that, climate change is confusing.
Delegates to the National party’s conference early next month will be abuzz with anticipated victory. The excitement will obscure a sobering question: is National national?
In the 1950s and 1960s and even into the 1970s when it siphoned many wage-workers off Labour National proclaimed itself, with cause, the national party. Labour, it said, was captive to the unions and therefore sectional.
Small is not necessarily beautiful. Maybe E F Schumacher was wrong back in 1973.
Sure, New Zealand looks beautiful. Tourists come in millions to stare at the beauty, especially in the South Island. But the beauty they come for is in the landscape, not the smallness.
In fact, tune in to the agonising of politicians, economists and social commentators and smallness sounds like a handicap. Moreover, distance from the big places makes New Zealand look and feel even smaller — as if it is viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.
In Budget after Budget in Michael Cullen’s time the Treasury has been wrong. It has projected less revenue than the economy dished up. This time, if the Treasury is wrong again, chances are revenue will be lower, not higher.
Just whose problem will that be?
In an economic upswing companies do well, profits rise, individuals’ incomes rise and taxes deliver a chunk of all that to the Treasury, with a lag — and with a built-in bonus: fiscal drag siphons a higher proportion of individuals’ incomes in taxes as their incomes rise through the thresholds at which higher rates cut in.
The same but different: that’s what voters want. But what they want to stay the same and what they want to be different varies from voter to voter — and from generation to generation.
These contradictory wants don’t bother small parties. A small party’s aim is to make a difference: a particular difference or differences. It is in Parliament not to manage the state but to prod policy down a liberty (ACT) or family (United Future) or oldies (New Zealand First) or green (Greens) or brown (Maori party) track.
The Electoral Finance Act passed amid controversy late last year will not be the law for the 2011 election if National leads the next government. It is likely to need amendment whoever is the government.
So will all that damage the Labour-led government did to itself, leaving a public impression it was attacking free speech, have been for one election?
Helen Clark completes eight years as Prime Minister on December 10. Will she still be Prime Minister a year from now?
To do that, of course, she has to be able to form a government after the election, which must be held by November 15.
The polls in 2007 have not been encouraging. In late spring the average gap between National and Labour was around 11%.
Helen Clark has a year at most to repair the damage. That means, first off, four months to get the poll gap with National safely into single figures.
Her party, conferencing this month, is not in a mood to go out of office next year, either through exasperation with its cabinet or weariness. The party has members and money and a pleasure in power, even if “radical” has given way to “incremental”.