A NATION IN DECLINE, A GOVERNMENT WITH NO ANSWERS

After barely a year in office, the coalition Government is losing popular support. It's up to the opposition parties to provide a real economic alternative to the Government's austerity agenda.


TO QUICKLY grasp why the coalition Government is falling in the polls, a read through the Salvation Army's comprehensive State of the Nation report will suffice. The report details a country in decline, where poverty and inequality stalk the land, and where people are increasingly being denied access to what were once considered to be basic services. The report says that 'In measuring our progress, we aim to be fair and actively look for evidence of progress. This year, we can find few areas of improvement and, in many cases, indicators have worsened.'

The recession has only been deepened and exacerbated by the coalition Government's austerity agenda. Its impact has been devastating; thousands of workers have been thrown out of their jobs, a record number of businesses have gone into liquidation, and social services are incapable of meeting basic social needs. Finance Minister Nicola Willis likes to favourably contrast her cost-cutting zealotry with Labour's so-called big spending ways. But even if the comparison was accurate (it isn't), under this Government's fiscal regime, the patient may well be dead long before we arrive at Dr Willis' promised cure.

The Government thinks if it keeps chanting 'growth', mantra-like, it can turn the tide of public opinion. But even on the coalition Government's own terms, austerity is counterproductive. Cutting public spending reduces demand in the economy, which reduces tax revenues and puts further pressure on already struggling public services. Reckless cost-cutting simply stunts growth and damages the economy over the long-term. It is little more than economic vandalism.

The Government's unpopularity means, that for the first time, the polls say that the so-called 'left bloc' of Labour, the Green Party and Te Pati Maori could form the next government.

But this, of course, assumes that both the Green's and Te Pati Maori are prepared to play ball with Labour. Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has already firmly rejected the timid centrism that plagued the Green Party under former co-leader James Shaw. She's almost certainly not going to accommodate the Green Party to anything that resembles 'business as usual' under a Labour-led government. Swarbrick would certainly be wise to reject such accommodation. Defending or merely tweaking the status quo when the mood is for real change would be politically tone-deaf and massively out of touch with public sentiment.

It's worth noting that the Salvation Army's 2023 State of the Nation report doesn't exactly provide the then Labour Government with a glowing report, either. The lesson for Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party to learn quickly is that neoliberalism is not only unpopular, it's bad economics. Hipkins might like to reflect on Chloe Swarbrick's relevant question: 'Do we want to keep tinkering, or do we want a brand new deal?'