Editorial: Brash's dole ideas welcome

The Orewa Rotary Club might not have been intentionally mischievous when it invited the National Party's finance spokesman to give a January address once preserved for the party's leader, but Don Brash gave a speech as unconstrained as any leader could make.

It was noted mainly for his return to a theme that the present party leadership might prefer he muted - the abolition of the dole, in conjunction, he now suggests, with provision of daily relief work for the unemployed.

But many in his audience might have been more surprised to hear a National politician mention that the Government, despite its rhetoric, has largely maintained the economic direction set since 1984. Rhetoric often obscures reality in politics, particularly when it suits both sides to promote a fiction. Labour likes to pretend it has made a sharp break with the market economics of the past 18 years; National under Bill English resolutely refuses to debate "the past" and casts about for new policies, preferably not radical or scary, at least for non-Maori.

So it is refreshing to hear its new finance spokesman not only venture one or two radical proposals from the free-market prospectus but to acknowledge the continuity under Labour. "For all they profess to disagree with the policies of the late '80s and '90s," he said, "the present Government recognises that most of them were sensible and has so far reversed very few."

The problem for the National Party, of course, is that while the Government reaps the economic fruit of the previous reforms, it also capitalises politically on the sense of relief in the electorate that no further reform is in store. National can only point out - nervously from Mr English, bluntly from Dr Brash - that the Government is unlikely to reach its own targets of economic growth unless it embraces further reform.

In part, the Government agrees. It believes improvements in the transport infrastructure will be necessary to attain the 4 per cent annual growth rates that could begin to restore New Zealanders' average incomes to a level comparable with those in the top half of OECD nations. And since the Government is maintaining the fiscal prudence of its recent predecessors, it is inviting private financing of public roads.

The user charges that will provide a return for private investors could be as grating to the public as any of the steps taken in the cause of national efficiency. It will be a test of the Government's economic mettle, although not the first such test we can expect this year. The rising dollar already presents us with a measure of the Government's character.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen is under no illusion that the market's rapid devaluation of the dollar around the time Labour was elected four years ago has been a boon to primary exporters and to the Government's political fortunes ever since. The dollar's appreciation over this summer has defied an early comment by Dr Cullen and he has made no serious attempt since to talk the currency down. Even last week, when the Reserve Bank left interest rates unchanged, Dr Cullen did not criticise its refusal to offset the effects of the higher dollar for the time being.

The Government has done no more than tinker with monetary settings and largely kept its hands out of business. Labour was a reluctant investor in an Alliance bank and even more reluctant buyer of the national airline. It seems no keener to buy back the railways. The country can celebrate more continuity than Labour's rhetoric suggests. And if the rhetoric produces a more contented electorate, that is a bonus. National's task, which Dr Brash did well this week, is to warn us when contentment becomes complacency. There is a still a way to go.