Bill Ralston: Real action the only tonic

Trying to pick when National's honeymoon with the public and the media will end is a little like trying to predict when the economy will bottom out. My guess is the honeymoon will end soon but the economic recovery will take a while longer.

Now the initial excitement of actually being in government has passed, ministers are being forced to make some tough decisions. The calls they make inevitably provoke a reaction from the opposition and so public confidence and support for National will slowly start to ebb.

With liabilities in ACC totalling more than $21 billion, Nick Smith talks of cost-cutting and reducing entitlements. Murray McCully looks like he is taking an axe to the foreign aid budget. Immigration Minister Dr Jonathan Coleman closes the Department of Labour's troublesome Pacific Division.

For the time being the tried and true tactic of blaming the previous government for the problems deflects some of the criticism but, sooner or later, people will start blaming the government in power and not the one that preceded it.

Not that Labour's counterattacks have been particularly effective. It seems to have reverted to the same prophet of doom approach it adopted before the last election. "The End is Nigh!" Everything National says or does Labour hysterically portrays as part of a vast right wing conspiracy to destroy the fabric of our society.

If you listen to the opposition there is nothing wrong with ACC and the Tories are simply out to sell it to evil foreign financiers. McCully is callously ignoring the starving huddled masses that depend on our kind charity. Coleman is just politically grandstanding and there was nothing wrong with the Pacific Division's handling of immigration issues, despite those police investigations.

Labour's tactic seems to be to say, "see, we told you so!" Sadly, voters don't like being told they got it wrong.

The truth is this Government does not have some huge hidden right wing agenda. In fact it doesn't seem to have any sort of agenda. It is really a sheep in wolf's clothing.

So far the Government has been a triumph of style over substance. National seems to think it can remain in power simply by being better managers and trimming a few costs here and there. Now the first 100 Days programme has passed, it might be nice to see a plan for the next 1000 days.

While I don't think most New Zealanders expect John Key to quickly come up with a magic bullet to solve our economic woes, they may start demanding some real action to reduce the pain fairly soon. Much depends on Bill English's budget and, hopefully for National, he can sell it as a blueprint for surviving the recession.

The Government has to avoid looking like it's simply standing on the sidelines, fiddling while the economy burns and people suffer.

It did try to give the impression of action with the Employment Summit but, armed with 20/20 hindsight, I can say that it was probably a mistake that will cost the Government credibility over the next few months.

The summit produced little in the way of new ideas and was pretty much the talkfest John Key promised us it would not be.

Worse, having neatly focused our attention on employment issues with the summit, the Government now has to stand by and watch a rash of layoffs this week in businesses across the country. The hundreds of new jobless in Nelson and Wellsford, for example, might be wondering exactly what the summit delivered for them. Zilch would be their conclusion.

It can only get worse. According to a survey out last week, 22 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses expect to lay off staff this year. A third of retailers say they will be sacking people.

Somehow I doubt if these unemployed will be terribly impressed with the Government as they labour away, clearing a cycle track from North Cape to Bluff. That slightly loopy idea was the only one people can recall coming out of the summit, apart from the nine day fortnight.

Frankly, most people would enjoy a three-day weekend every two weeks but their joy may be tempered by the corresponding pay cut or, worse, the demand that they attend some meaningless training course in order to receive a small top-up to their reduced pay.

While economists are predicting unemployment will only rise from 4.6 per cent to perhaps 7 per cent, the problem for the Government is the other 93 per cent of us will fear we will be next to go and will want to see National working its butt off to save ours.

While Labour continue to whine and look like sore losers, National's honeymoon will continue for a few more months but, in the end, rising unemployment must take its toll on its popularity.