Guest Post: The Ardern legacy
A guest post from a reader:
“Since the resignation of the PM a variety of commentators have run the line that she is one of our most significant prime ministers.
That claim bears some analysis.
I don’t have any textbook frameworks for what constitutes success in the role. But arms-length observation suggests there are at least three key dimensions:
- Setting out and publicly defending a vision of where the country should be going.
- Managing the internal politics of the government.
- Achieving what has been declared as the policy platform.
On the first the PM has been clear that she believes in kindness and mentioned that Friday as one aspect of what she would wish her legacy to be. But kindness is not an end-point. It is a style. It therefore fails to come close to articulating a vision.
As an aside, I don’t minimise the empathy and compassion the PM exhibited so well. They were great gifts. However such attributes are not in my view central to the success of a government. They certainly help but if not accompanied by action to address issues they soon lose credibility.
The PM talked in the early days about child poverty and homelessness. This starts to look like a vision and indeed addressing these matters has been a priority for her government.
So lets be kind ourselves and concede that Ms Ardern did know what she wanted to achieve and took early steps to get there, even if constrained by coalition government and then Covid.
As regards managing the government it would have to be said that things were very quiet. There were no significant disputes with NZ First and the last term of monopolistic Labour power has had virtually no overt rebellion other than the Hamilton West meltdown.
However, many would argue this was achieved by tolerating incompetence and indiscipline on the part of NZ First during the first term and on the part of her own ministers during the second. Whether it is Willie Jackson with “that” interview or Mahuta blaming everyone else for sneaky dealings with the Constitution it appeared that Prime Ministerial sanction was very hard to provoke.
Further Christ Trotter has expressed the view if I interpret him correctly that Ms Arderns decision to leave is likely partly a function of an unwillingness to deal with the consequences within the government of rolling back aspects of the programme such as Three Waters which are both key to the Maori caucus but also crucial to electoral success.
In summary then while the government has not been restive this appears not to have been because of careful and rigorous management but as a result of a willingness to let things go (including oneself) for the sake of peace.
That’s an approach, after all sometimes it’s wise to lose a battle in the hope of winning a war, but it’s hardly one that marks out the PM as a great leader.
And then the big one… success in achieving one’s programme.
Here little needs to be said. It has become generally-accepted wisdom that this government conspicuously lacks the ability to mobilise the public sector or the country-at-large to actually do stuff.
It is noteworthy that its “successes” such as policy related to labour relations, abortion and dying are regulatory in nature and do not involve deploying resources to build or fix things. Even Covid was essentially a matter of committing the power of the state to stop things happening. Where it involved doing new things, even those as basic as procuring vaccine, the effort stalled. Perhaps a little unfairly it is possible to see roading in this light. Rather than fix the highways just get people to drive more slowly so they can see the potholes…..
So for me Ms Ardern can never be said to be a significant or highly successful PM. If you know what you want and can explain it coherently but lack the ability to focus your own people to achieve it and even worse lack the ability to harness the powers of the state to do so, you are not a success. All icing and no cake.”