Politics
If ACT partners with National to form a government, it must avoid personal vanities and self-deception about its role, which derailed NZ First
Opinion: The ACT party’s “First 100 Days” action plan should it form a coalition government with National after the next election is breathtaking in its ambition and bold in its scope. Many of the items are well-known ACT policy topics, while others are issues National would likely address anyway.
The real purpose in putting it out was more to enthuse the true believers present at the party conference until next year’s general election than to attract widespread public attention. To that extent, ACT’s announcements were about what to expect at this stage of the election cycle.
However, their uncompromising zeal and tone was also a chilling reminder that ACT is likely to be just as stubborn, “bigger than its shoes” and unreasonably a coalition partner for National as New Zealand was First in coalition, first with National in 1996-98 and then Labor from 2017 to 2020. While ACT leader David Seymour does not suffer from the extreme narcissism and insufferable arrogance of his New Zealand First counterpart, his uncompromising belief that only the message of ACT has merit poses an equally great risk to the functioning of a stable government, as New Zealand First’s selfish whims did.
Except for the current unusual term, coalitions and support party arrangements are an inherent part of government under MMP. However, in order to operate successfully, a certain amount of give and take between the parties involved is required. The major ruling party may reasonably expect to be able to implement the policies for which it has been elected, while coalition and support partners should also be able to count on support for the issues that are important to them in return. Achieving this balance requires an unavoidable degree of compromise.
At the same time, coalition and support agreements don’t work, or last for a very long time, when the minor party basically vetoes everything the major party promotes and becomes the wagging tail. The not unreasonable social expectation is that coalition and support parties will exert influence in roughly proportion to their numerical strength within the coalition agreement. New Zealand First held Labor too often and determinedly to demand ransom during the last legislature, under the guise of being the handbrake. Voters quickly grew tired of these tactics, so they simply removed it from parliament altogether in the 2020 election. ACT, with its more euphemistic commitment to “sharing power,” would be wise to learn from this.
Nevertheless, Seymour makes the fair point that National has yet to learn to work with partners. A standard feature of any government settlement since the advent of MMP is that National and Labor have been very bad at publicly recognizing the contributions of coalition and support partners. In general, both have always been quick to claim popular policies from partners for themselves, and equally quick to blame partners for unpopular policies, or policies that don’t work as intended. In that regard, Seymour’s determination to delineate ACT’s territory early on is understandable, but without compromise and mature recognition of relative party size, he risks leaving his party no more credible than New Zealand First.
Part of ACT’s plan that is resonating and has the potential for broader appeal between parties is the call for an investigation “into all aspects of the Covid-19 response — from the lockdowns to the Reserve Bank’s response — and the impact it had on New Zealand society and economy”. National has already responded with a pledge to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 response within 100 days of taking office.
In the early days of the pandemic, the government also talked about a full investigation at the right time, but as the months and years have passed, it has become more resistant to such a move. While there were many good things about our Covid-19 response that needed to be acknowledged, there were also things that were not done so well. An investigation should ensure that the country learns from these recent experiences and is better prepared the next time a crisis of this magnitude occurs.
An investigation should look at preparedness, and why the Influenza Pandemic Action Plan of the Ministry of Health of August 2017 was ignored. The official response so far that the plan was aimed at a flu pandemic, not a coronavirus pandemic, is a little too cute. After all, it could have been quickly adapted to the new circumstances, rather than starting over as the government did, wasting precious time. Why should that happen?
And then there’s the question of why a government-wide approach was not chosen from the outset, rather than the sole, narrow reliance on public health advisers. Many of the subsequent problems related to cumbersome border access policies, the unfair MIQ system and costs to businesses, especially the manufacturing and hospitality sectors, could have been avoided or mitigated by a broader approach. Again, why didn’t it happen?
ACT’s success over the past two years has been built on its willingness to be the sometimes fearless, sometimes unpopular, and outrageous critic of what’s going on. In a world where meek conformity threatens to become the new, post-Covid-19 norm, there is a role for ACT as a ‘resident skeptic’ within a prospective government-led government, holding national firmness to its policies and principles. . But while doing so, it will have to avoid, for its own sake, falling prey to personal vanities and self-deception about its role, which derailed New Zealand First when it was part of the government.
As well as it does in the next election — and the better National does, the worse ACT will do — the inconvenient truth ACT must remember is that, at best, it will be a coalition or support partner for a new government. It won’t be the star of the show.