As the tenure of the current government drags on it is becoming more and more apparent that the Prime Minister’s Achilles heel is not his lack of political acumen – it is his complete disregard for how the other half live.
Either demographically or geographically.
He may almost have got away with it except that the other half is rapidly morphing into the other 75%.
To be fair to Luxon, he is not the only one in government gleefully showing such blatant disregard for the “lesser” contributors to the country’s coffers. There’s a number of them who seem to think that their own personal opinions hold more relevance than any amount of empirical or other credible evidence. Dropping Treaty of Waitangi expectations for school Boards of Trustees, or open plan classrooms, or fast track planning, or ACC and water safety – the list goes on… and on.
Continuing to be fair to Luxon however, he might need reminding that a significant part of his role is to hold his people to account. There’s been the odd summary sacking which as time has rolled on feels like a standard that has not been maintained. Some of the early sackable offences feel pretty paltry alongside some of the most recent stuff to which he has turned a blind eye. Perhaps this is a self-preservation exercise. If he had maintained consistency, he would be scrabbling to maintain the numbers required to form a government.
All jokes aside though, increasingly, Luxon speaks as if the whole of the country is just an extension of Auckland, and none of the population are strapped for cash or bereft of hope or dignity at the hands of an under resourced and poorly held to account public service.
His latest comment regarding the selling of state owned assets in order “to convert one asset into another more valuable one” is the sort of thing a rich man might say about his own investments. It is not the sort of comment a person overseeing the assets and well-being of an entire nation should make – particularly when he is looking to generate cash at any cost and the assets that might be converted in the process are irreplaceable and hold tremendous value in a whole lot of ways besides just economic.
It is very easy when able-bodied to mock those who are not. It is very easy for the young to mock the elderly. It is very easy also for the rich to mock the poor. We are fast becoming a nation where 75% of us are fair game for a good old mocking from this government. And as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, there is an insidious process of dumbing down going on in the background as all of the things that contribute to the finer points of humanity – such as art, diversity, and natural resources left in their natural state are undervalued and undermined (pardon the pun).
It feels appropriate to pluck a couple more trite observations. Knowledge is power. Being forewarned is being forearmed. We often cannot change what people do to us, but we can control how we react to it. Those of us sitting in the “fair game” category which in my view is fast becoming most of us, would do well to reflect on these wisdoms, and what we as individuals might do to mitigate this homogenisation which is dressed in sheep’s clothing and called economic recovery and is taking place as we speak.