Business chiefs found it unfathomable that the Labour Government was mounting change on multiple fronts in the middle of a polycrisis rather than focusing on key priorities and executing them well.
This has been a weakness of the Government.
In discussions with a range of mid-cap CEOs this week, it was apparent they viewed a lack of focus by the Government to prioritise and ensure skilful delivery simply exacerbated declining business confidence in the Government, although there was general acceptance it had faced major challenges.
Robertson makes the point that Labour governments come to power wanting to introduce significant economic and social reforms. They don’t want to waste time.
Read into this that it’s the other lot (National) that will consolidate the reforms. Big-ticket Labour policies such as Working for Families have endured, so he has a point.
While Robertson has been hesitant to recommend jettisoning other ministers’ policies, he is in a unique position to judge just what can be achieved prior to the 2023 general election.
In May 2021, he became the unofficial “Minister for Delivery” when an Implementation Unit was set up in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to report directly to him wearing his Deputy PM hat.
The unit’s brief was to “ensure awareness of whether selected, priority projects are on track to deliver the intended benefits within the intended timeframes — and, if not, to work with the responsible minister and agency to identify what needs to be done to bring the project back on track and follow up to ensure these actions are taken”.
Robertson was due to bring a proposed unit workplan for the first half of 2023 to the Cabinet Priorities Committee this month, which would no doubt have informed Ardern’s drive to get some renewed focus for 2023.
Reading through some summaries, there simply has just been too much slippage.
In the second half of 2022, the unit has been working across a range of programmes including: the carbon neutral Government programme, emergency and transitional housing, the emissions reductions plan, health reforms, He Waka Eke Noa, the immigration rebalance, the national strategy for the elimination of family and sexual violence and the Three Waters programme.
An earlier brief by Robertson to the Cabinet Priorities Committee provided insight into the slippage and steps the unit was taking to ensure momentum. A key thrust for 2023 will be a stock take of progress to review the readiness of agencies, local government and the interim Local Establishment Agencies to assume the accountability and delivery functions of the new water service entities in the Three Waters reform programme to ensure there is “Day One readiness”.
As for Ardern, if 2022 was already a “cluster****” by early July — as she famously intimated in Sydney this year — what superlatives will she choose to describe the international environment come 2023?
This wasn’t a “mic-on” incident such as her parliamentary slip with Act’s David Seymour — happily resolved by the two political foes uniting to raise money for prostate cancer by auctioning off a signed copy of the offending words — “such an arrogant prick” — as recorded in Hansard.
Ardern was speaking to the prestigious Lowy Institute.
By December — in an exclusive article for the Herald’s Dynamic Business report — she had reverted to using the term “polycrisis” as the wrap-all descriptor for the global pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an energy crisis, climate change, and the soaring cost of living and a global recession which present deep challenges to New Zealand. Add to this the current uncertainty in China as that nation pins its hopes that an economic slump will reverse if/when an earlier than expected end to Covid fuels a robust recovery.
All politics is essentially domestic.
But the international economic environment has created huge uncertainty. A once hugely popular Prime Minister can’t control the international narrative, but she can influence perceptions of Labour.
Trimming for trial also means jettisoning colleagues that aren’t measuring up and “blooding others” so if Labour does lose the election it has a nucleus of experienced players to draw on for next time the party is in government.
