Editorial: Clark's team should ditch their caution

Opinion

When Parliament assembled this week for a new year it could have hoped for more action from the Prime Minister. The Government last year won a third term in office, it has had a summer holiday and the Cabinet has had a few weeks without parliamentary pressures to think, take stock of what has been done so far, and consider what needs to be done now.

Helen Clark has led a cautious Government so far, seldom pursuing an unpopular policy, quickly backing off any course that becomes controversial, suspending ministers at the first suggestion of misbehaviour, governing by arrangement with parties in the middle of the road.

But continued caution cannot be counted likely to win the Government another term. There is a natural life of any party's lease on power and Labour knows it. Few last longer than three terms and few members of any Government want to endure opposition. If they came into politics to make a difference they need to do it now.

The Prime Minister's statement to the House on Tuesday revived familiar aims, to improve the economy with investments in higher-value products and better productivity and enhance certain health, education and welfare benefits to selected sections of society.

But those are no more or less than would be expected of any Government at any time. This is a moment to be more daring.

Nothing on the scale of the 1980s and early 1990s economic reforms is needed, but within most areas of Government concern there is a difficult, possibly contentious, step that needs to be taken at some time.

Helen Clark mentioned one or two in her statement. We need a breakthrough on the provision of broadband internet services. The regulation of Telecom, a matter of interminable argument and litigation, might at last receive some decisive action from a new and knowledgeable minister, David Cunliffe.

Another new minister, Damien O'Connor, has taken a hard look at our high and costly rate of imprisonment and taken a step towards finding politically acceptable alternatives.

A Green MP, Sue Bradford, is giving anti-smacking legislation another push. Like anti-smoking law, the repeal of the parental defence to assault will be hotly debated until the day it is enacted.

Thereafter it will seem so right and sensible we will forget the issue. No parent will be prosecuted for a normal smack but abusers will lose legal protection.

In almost every minister's portfolio there will be a difficult, more or less shelved, task that almost certainly has to be done sooner or later. The confused state of TVNZ, for example, cannot go on forever. It must either revert to a clearly directed state-owned enterprise or be a pure public service broadcaster. Somebody will make the decision sometime. Why not soon?

The use of hand-held cellphones when driving cars is plainly dangerous. Every driver knows that. The habit will be stopped eventually. Why not now?

Road tolling, too, is necessary to ration road use. Transport officials have been telling successive governments so.

Eventually, when congestion reaches a point that anything seems preferable, a minister will bite the bullet. Why doesn't the present minister make his name? History remembers decision-makers, not ditherers.

Some people go into politics because they enjoy the subject, others because they want to get their hands on the levers of power and advance the country's welfare. After six years in office it is still hard to tell the Clark Government's purpose.

It has brought relief from rapid change but surely it wants to do more. It has little to lose. There are things that need to be done and no better time than this.