Labour’s fuel crisis policy is silence

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Chris Hipkins isn’t providing an alternative plan of action to help struggling New Zealanders facing pain at the pump and the threat of rising prices elsewhere. 

Asked repeatedly what alternatives Labour could suggest, Hipkins said the onus to present ideas was on the current Government. 

He gave some principles, such as that any support should assist people on low, fixed income, and generally that Labour wanted to ensure a transition to renewable energy. 

The lack of detail of alternative ideas contrasted heavily with the Green Party’s offerings this morning. It wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon with a variety of policies to support New Zealanders. 

What’s worse – lots of stupid ideas, or no ideas at all?

David Harvey makes a salient point:

There is a particular kind of political cowardice that masquerades as wisdom. It speaks in the language of restraint, dresses itself in the garb of responsibility, and calls itself prudence. But strip away the euphemisms and what you are left with is a simple, damning truth: nothing. No ideas. No vision. No plan.

Chris Hipkins delivered a masterclass in this art form this week, and in doing so, he did New Zealand a genuine service — not the service he intended, but a revealing one. He showed, with uncomfortable clarity, exactly why Labour is unfit to govern this country.

Standing before the press gallery in the shadow of a genuine global crisis — weeks into the war in Iran, with New Zealand households facing real and escalating economic pressure — the Leader of the Opposition opened his mouth and produced precisely zero policy ideas.

Not one.

Instead, he did what the modern Left does best: he criticised, he gestured vaguely at incompetence, and then, when pressed for substance, he retreated behind a wall of excuses so flimsy it would embarrass a first-year politics student.

“The Government needs to come up with a plan,” Hipkins told the Herald when asked what should be done to help struggling households.

That’s it. That’s the contribution. That is the sum total of alternative thinking from a man who wants to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. …

What Hipkins offered this week was the opposite: an opposition that has decided the work is optional, that ideas are a liability, that the safest political ground is the empty ground of permanent critique.

He is, of course, correct that the Government is in the hot seat today. That is true. Voters rightly hold governments accountable for their performance in a crisis. But voters are also watching the alternative. They are forming judgements not just about whether the current government is adequate, but whether there is anything better waiting in the wings.

What they saw from Hipkins this week was a man standing in the wings, refusing to learn his lines, insisting that knowing the lines wasn’t really his job until opening night.

That is not leadership. It is not even competent opposition. It is the political equivalent of turning up to a job interview and declining to answer the questions on the grounds that you don’t actually work there yet.

All very astute points.

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