Guest Post: The end of the Ardern era
A guest post by Daniel Barraclough:
On the afternoon of January 19th, 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would announce her resignation from the office of Prime Minister and bring` the hope and change era of the Labour Party to an end.
Of all the reactions shared, the one that struck me the most was from a friend on the far right of the political spectrum. Instead of glee or spite, which I had expected, he expressed a genuine sadness.
Jacinda Ardern had ridden a wave of popular sentiment to power five years earlier, promising transformational change to New Zealand. She swore after her government was done no child would be hungry in school, or would be sleeping in a car, garage, or a decaying and mold ridden home at night. Ardern promised a return of those most Kiwi of values: fairness and equality. This would be the mark her government would leave on our nation.
My friend’s sadness wasn’t due to the anguish that Ardern expressed as she resigned, rather it was the sadness that someone who had promised so much to those who live without hope, had decided that this challenge was too hard and had given up.
Perhaps If you are fortunate enough, you may have the luxury of choosing to ignore the signs of New Zealand’s growing underclass, but that does not make it invisible. Occasionally you may witness homelessness or violence as you commute to work or school, or you see a story on the news and remark at the tragedy of it all. But unless you’ve grown up in a neighborhood where police sirens, helicopters and raging parties on a monday are the norm you will struggle to understand the environment that produces this phenomenon, and how it creates the statistics we don’t like to talk about in New Zealand.
Ardern clearly empathised with these issues, but I don’t think she ever truly grasped their gravity. When Ardern was 21, she spent a semester exploring the United States, nobly volunteered in a soup kitchen, and dreamed of ways to help the world. Meanwhile, I went to WINZ to ask for a food grant and lamented that due to my criminal convictions, I would likely never get to visit the United States or have a meaningful career.
This may be anecdotal, but it is emblematic of the divide between those that are the human stories behind every tragic news headline, and those who have made it their job to solve them. It is why despite record spending across the public sector, irrespective of the covid response, things have failed to improve in any meaningful way.
The privileged class that makes up the majority our nations politicians, consultants and policy advisors do not have the experience or courage required to grasp the scale of problem they are tasked with solving. This is why for all of Ardern’s rhetoric of ‘transformation’ all that was offered were small changes, institutional reshuffles, and adjustments to already failed systems. Small policy changes will not address intergenerational welfare dependence and poverty. Nor will more ‘radical’ calls for a wealth tax lead to increased home ownership for a segment of society that has normalised prison and the corrections system as just another part of everyday life. Nor will adjusting the metrics used to measure poverty change the reality of a generation of children growing up in motels.
Much of what I’m saying is easy to dismiss as radical and pessimistic. However, we have spent a generation tweaking policy and launching information campaigns while continuing to watch society fall apart. All we are left with now is apathy or new and radical solutions, if we have any hope of tackling a growing social crisis that threatens to destroy our way of life.
The pension, universal health care, free education, social security, and even universal suffrage; all were considered deeply radical at the turn of the 20th century yet are taken for granted as foundations of our society today. So too will the solutions for the problems of 21st century appear.
Perhaps you disagree with my prescription, and you believe that overall things are fine and radical change is uncalled for and would frankly do more harm than good. Perhaps you are right, but many have said the same thing about climate change for decades, and we now stand at the precipice of too late to do anything about it. History is full of societies that closed their eyes as the world deteriorated around them. Change is risky, but change offers hope.
I know I do not put forward any solutions in this piece, but that is not my intention. The purpose of this piece is to warn you we cannot look to another bright-eyed politician who spent their O.E working prestigious jobs on the other side of the world to fix the problems that we have chosen to ignore for decades.
The next ‘Ardern’ that wishes to deliver transformational change must understand that which requires transformation. They must steel themselves to the fact the kindness and empathy will not fix the gordian knot that drives the stagnation and growth of our underclass. The solutions will be difficult, painful and will likely cost the political careers of those that dare to face it.