POVERTY AND CLIMATE CHANGE : THE FAILED POLICIES OF JACINDA ARDERN

Ardern and Macron : Two centrist politicians loyal to neoliberalism.

During her 2017 General Election campaign, Jacinda Ardern declared that poverty and climate change were the two issues that concerned her the most. But since becoming Prime Minster the country has made little progress on both fronts.

"As Finance Minister, I am proud that we are delivering for Kiwis a sense of shared prosperity."

Finance Minister Grant Robertson, speech to the Labour Party conference in November.

BEFORE THE general election Jacinda Ardern declared that eliminating the scourge of poverty, particularly child poverty, was a crucial issue for her. But, says the Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft, New Zealand 'has dropped the ball on child poverty'. According to the Child Poverty Monitor, which measures childhood deprivation in New Zealand, some 100,000 children are living in the kind of poverty that denies them sufficient daily food.

Despite all Jacinda Arden's big promises to really come to grips with child poverty Andrew Becroft says that, compared to previous years - (when a National-led government was in power)- nothing has really changed. The 'transformation' that Ardern promised appears to have gone on hold.

One thing did change though.

Over the past twelve months New Zealand's fat cats have grown financially plumper by a staggering twenty percent. There has been little of the 'shared prosperity' that the also increasingly corpulent Finance Minister Grant Robertson talked about at the Labour Party conference in November.  But the signs of economic distress are everywhere.

The Auckland City Mission began its Xmas campaign on Monday and it says that the demand for food parcels has never been greater. And the Christchurch City Mission says there has been a 'significant uplift' in the demand for food parcels. It says that demand is up 44 percent in 2018 compared to last year. The Christchurch City Mission handed out a total of 30,000 parcels in 2017 By this Xmas they will have handed out over 45,000 parcels.

None of this should come as any surprise. Ardern's big talk about tackling child poverty might have enticed liberal gullibility during her election campaign but it was never going to be more than an empty promise. While Ardern talked of the failure of neoliberalism she defended Labour's Budget Responsibility Rules which represented an affirmation of neoliberalism, not a break with it.

This Government's fixation with market led solutions to climate change has also led to failure.

With the special report from the Climate Change Intergovernmental Panel warning us that we have less than twelve years to save ourselves from a environmental catastrophe, the newly-released Climate Change Performance Index 2019 has seen New Zealand drop eleven places  to 44th position in the survey of 56 countries. Given its docile and subservient relationship to Labour, don't expect the Green Party to be talking about this anytime soon.

The policy failure of the political establishment is expressed, among other things, in poverty, inequality and climatic conditions that all continue to worsen. The political failure is undeniable and with National remaining the largest party in Parliament, its uncertain whether Ardern will get away with it come the 2020 general election. Maybe a few more appearances on the covers of various women's magazines will do the trick.

When a real progressive alternative is sorely needed it still remains elusive. While there are promising indications that something is finally stirring we still have to overcome the political conservatism and intransigence of an old and uninspiring left that, even now, can't bare to let go of Labour. According to Martyn Bradbury of The Daily Blog we are 'blessed' to have Jacinda Ardern. But he also said much the same thing about David Cunliffe and Kim Dotcom.