Last week the National Party launched their campaign approach, promoting team instead of leadership. They have to do that to try combat Labour’s focus on the very popular Jacinda Ardern, but it will be an uphill struggle.
Leader Todd Muller and National’s campaign are a bit like the far side of the moon, you know they’re there but you don’t see them, you just see the glowing other side.
A while ago Muller gave a speech that outlined their campaign focus but it was hardly noticed.
Leader of the Opposition’s Te Puna speech
I will speak at some length today, and I have chosen my words carefully, because I want to outline clearly, to you and the wider New Zealand audience:
- Who I am, and where I have come from;
- How my values have developed as a result, and my core political beliefs;
- What sort of Prime Minister I plan to be; and
- My broad aspirations for New Zealand.
That was a week ago, but who noticed?
We are going to need to confront, honestly, the challenge ahead.
That means the election will be about:
- Which of us – the Prime Minister or me – has the team and background to get you, your families and your communities through the economic and unemployment crisis ahead;
- Which party has the best track record in creating more jobs; and
- Which party has the record in building a better economy, while caring for the welfare of every New Zealander.
New Zealanders trust National Governments to come to power at times of economic crisis, and to steer New Zealand safely through them.
That’s what the John Key led National government did fairly successfully (dealing with the New Zealand recession and the Global Financial Crisis), but Key was a widely popular leader.
I will build on the fundamental economic, financial and commercial strengths of the last National Government as we face an even more terrible crisis, later in the year and beyond.
My job, over the next three months, is to earn the trust of New Zealanders:
- For my commercial experience at the most senior levels of Zespri, Fonterra and Apata; and
- For my background and values on which I will draw, when making judgment calls as Prime Minister, as we work together, to build a better economy out of the crisis.
This may have been aimed more at trying to convince political journalists that Muller was a serious challenger.
The economy I see is the economy you live in – the economy in your community:
- Your job,
- Your high street,
- Your marae,
- Your local sports club,
- Your school or kura,
- Your business,
- Your home, and
- Your families.
It’s going to take a lot to get this across to the wider public.
One thing that will never change is that, for me, what makes a family is love.
You can have the most traditional family structure, as we did, yet if you do not have love, you are not a family at all.
But a family with love:
- A traditional mum-dad-and-kids family;
- A wider whanau of grandparents, grandkids, aunties, uncles and cousins;
- A family where the two parents no longer live together but share the parenting in different homes;
- A family with one parent;
- A blended family;
- A family where it’s mum-and-mum or dad-and-dad;
- Two people who love one another, and
- Single people whose families might be dispersed around the world …
If these have love, then each is a family like any other.
Muller is trying to appeal to everyone here, but no one really listened.
I support New Zealand’s basic macroeconomic framework that was put in place from the mid-1980s, and which remains broadly supported across parties.
That is, I believe in:
- An open and competitive economy;
- A broad-based, low-rate tax system;
- An independent central bank with the primary goal of price stability;
- The book-keeping rules of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, now part of the Public Finance Act; and
- Voluntary unionism and a flexible labour market, underpinned since 2000 by good faith.
Maintaining a firm and disciplined commitment to this basic macroeconomic framework is absolutely fundamental to our recovery from Covid-19.
By this stage of his speech (in printed form) there had been 43 bullet points. This looks like a scatter gun approach hoping something will be highlighted out of this, but it shows a lack of focus.
After several other lists I glazed over, Muller seems to get to the business end of his very long message:
My job, in the 2020s, is to make sure that, at the end of this crisis, your family is not just left with the $140 billion loan Labour is taking out against your future earnings, but that we have:
- Protected you through the economic and unemployment crisis, and immediately created the conditions for tens of thousands of real, permanent full-time jobs;
- Finally addressed long-term social deprivation, with the urgency applied to the economic crises a generation ago;
- Finally built the first-world road and public transport infrastructure New Zealand needs;
- Backed our families, and rebuilt the fabric of our communities;
- Restored our Government’s books so there’s more money for schools, hospitals, housing, mental health, addiction services, cancer screening programmes and treatments;
- A stronger social safety net;
- And, built a better economy for all of us.
These things are urgent.
By now zzzzzz.
My passion in politics is that all of us can choose our own paths and stand tall as New Zealanders in whatever we seek to do, fulfilling our own dreams and our own potentials.
My passion is that we all feel confident in our nation and its place in the world.
We should all feel grounded in a nation of remarkable natural beauty that we all take care of.
We should be grounded in a history to which we are all reconciled, and in our families and communities in all their different forms.
We should live our lives with genuine love for our country and neighbours, so that we help pick one another up at those times that we all have, when we need help.
This is my vision. That is what I believe in. That is what will guide me as Prime Minister.
Most voters just want to know what’s in it for them.
Someone else once said: “Let’s do this”.
I say: “Sure. But you need a National Government to get it done”.
Sure. or something.
Muller is going to have to say a lot more than this in far fewer words if he is going to get across to voters.
Clearly at this stage the election is Labour’s to win or lose. Only if they or the economy stuffs up badly are voters likely to vote more for whoever leads the other party.
