What’s up with 2022?
Normally it’s Māori communities – namely Ratana Pa and Waitangi – who kick-start politics in New Zealand after the summer slumber. But such things are now subdued by pandemic restrictions, and it’s the Covid-19 response that matters most as we face the incoming omicron variant.
It took just one brave Kiwi journalist to make the Taliban look more humane than the New Zealand government’s border restrictions. The National Party capitalised on the unfairness of MIQ by proposing to open the border to all fully vaccinated New Zealanders. And they also (inexplicably) suggested giving all staff and students at schools rapid antigen tests – although it’s hard to see what the public health pay-off of that would be. The main point is that the Opposition has no real criticism of the government’s response to the pandemic, other than to say that last year was a shambles.
Well, imagine that we were all unexpectedly dumped in the middle of a huge quagmire and it was up to the prime minister to decide how we’d get out of it. Naturally, there’s no ‘nice’ way out. And naturally the stragglers will complain about things getting messy along the way. Some will have opinions about a quicker cleaner pathway, but so far no alternative is looking so attractive as to make us want to change course or to get a better navigator.
The fact that Jacinda Ardern’s popularity declined in the latest opinion poll should come as no surprise, all the same, although a couple of foreign journalists who’ve asked me about it did express surprise. (Perhaps that’s just their lead-in to get me talking….?)
Anyway, which of us hasn’t felt disgruntled about the last lockdown and about someone we know having trouble with MIQ? There’s a lot to be pissed off about as we make our way out of the quagmire.
I imagine, though, that Labour politicians can’t believe their luck that the latest poll has them in the lead on 40% and still in line to form a coalition government with the Greens. National’s increase to 32% came at the expense of the ACT Party, so it’s not getting them any closer to effecting a change of government. (And I refer you all to my earlier post about the systematic inaccuracy of the opinion polls!)