Ardern’s popularity abroad belies trouble at home

Author: Gary Hawke, Wellington

Internal and external evaluations often differ in politics. Occasional appearances by political leaders overseas do not reflect the continual grind of local challenges and political rivalry.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern benefitted from her image as a personable and articulate woman and gained support when she combined political office with motherhood. Ardern earned high evaluations — both in popularity polls and from informed commentators — for her response to the terrorist shooting at a Christchurch mosque in 2019.

Her government’s initial communication about COVID-19 also resonated. Ardern’s ‘team of 5 million’ mantra was approved by all but a few contrarians. The costs and benefits of lockdowns and border closures were much less visible than low numbers of COVID-19 cases. The prime minister continues to be identified with these successes abroad. She has also been an effective leader of trade delegations.

But the domestic context has changed. COVID-19 mutated and could not be kept at bay — early success owed as much to geographical isolation as to policy responses. The costs and inconveniences of lockdowns loomed larger, especially as their effectiveness declined. Solidarity gave way to scepticism. Only a small but vocal minority of New Zealand is extremist, but a lengthy occupation of parliament’s grounds attracted more than just opponents of vaccinations, anarchists and conspiracists. Public discourse has lost the sophistication it had in Ardern’s earlier years.

The government began to appear ineffective. Problematic vaccination rollouts, indecision about health and safety requirements and fiddling with ‘alert levels’ reinforced this impression. It spread not only to political sideshows but to significant areas of policy. Inflation is a new experience for much of the population, especially the influential middle-aged cohort.

Public confusion is fuelled by failure to distinguish between changes in relative prices and a process of cumulative inflation. Interruption to international supplies has raised the relative prices of some goods and services. Price increases followed the relaxation of fiscal discipline to counter COVID-19, whether the direct result of public spending or the consequences of other policy responses. There is now a foolish debate about whether inflation is imported or generated domestically.

Major political issues add to the sense of ineffectiveness. The government’s response to problems is to centralise control in a way that suggests nostalgia for a world of ‘clocks’ and predictable engineering rather than a world of ‘clouds’ and digital networks. A major centralisation of health services in which distinct health boards give way to national institutions is underway. Vocational and technical education is being reorganised, with 13 polytechnics spread around the country being amalgamated into a single entity.

Changes announced by the government have proved impossible to implement and the COVID-19 response was muddled. In the middle of a housing shortage, the government’s housebuilding programme is an abject failure. In August 2022, the decision to levy a Goods and Services Tax on fund management fees collapsed within 24 hours in the face of opposition to a tax on savings.

Trying to position New Zealand amid US–China tensions would challenge any government, but it cannot be smothered in communication inconsistency. There is an enormous gap between the communique issued by the White House after talks between Ardern and US President Joe Biden and the Prime Minister’s speech to the Lowy Institute in Australia — reported in New Zealand as an effort to distance Auckland from the ‘Western’ position.

Political life is always a sequence of issues but the internal popularity of a prime minister cannot survive when a government faces big controversial issues and responds only with attempted empathy and implausible visions. Perhaps the biggest challenge Ardern faces is ‘co-governance’.

For 50 years, there has been a public endeavour to accommodate Maori beliefs and interests in New Zealand’s public life. It is most evident in a conscious effort by many institutions and individuals, especially public sector organisations, to use te reo, the Maori language, in routine conversations and communications. It has had the biggest impact on treaty settlements — agreements between the government and Maori tribes that include substantial financial grants and have helped create significant Maori business enterprises.

Much has been achieved, including some arrangements for the joint control of significant natural resources — arrangements for which the term ‘co-governance’ was invented. But it has not been enough to satisfy extremists or even youthful enthusiasts. A non-Maori, ahistorical interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Crown and Maori and a contentious interpretation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People fuelled demands for more. The current governing party acquiesced.

Co-governance has become a challenge to the conventions of democracy, especially one person, one vote. The proposed response to inadequacies in water infrastructure — for all drinking, waste and stormwater — became a proposal for removing control from local authorities to regional authorities in which Maori tribes would hold 50 per cent of control. Criticism was met by contortions, including a reinterpretation of the definition of ‘ownership’ to exclude having any element of control.

The underlying issues are deep. Domestic politics have become a minefield for Ardern and communication abilities cannot substitute for policy analysis. The domestic issues have little resonance overseas, although there is interest, not least in Australia, in indigenous issues. Still, if the government can navigate the pressures of US–China rivalry, the domestic issues may be evaded.

Gary Hawke is Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).

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