Not my title but one from Arthur Chrenkoff at his Australian blog, The Daily Chrenk, which I happened upon even though I don’t follow Aussie politics much.
“ScoMo” is the Social media nickname for Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who won an unexpected victory at their last general election.
Each of the reasons is lengthy and detailed but I’m going to extract the quotes that I feel apply to Centre-Right political parties around the world, but especially National and ACT here in NZ.
Reasons 1 and 7 are not applicable here. The first asserts that the State governments have reaped positive public support while the Federal government has not. The last deals with the government’s slim majority.
2. We’re all in this together, but some animals are more equal than others
If you are on public payroll, as more and more Australians increasingly are, or if a substantial part of your income derives from government payments and support of one kind or another, as again is the case for more and more Australians, COVID really doesn’t matter… Of course the public servants and the government support recipients are two demographics which already lean heavily towards Labor and the Greens.
…
“The laptop class” of professionals in the private sector who likewise a) still have jobs, and b) can perform them from anywhere with an internet connection is probably evenly split electorally.
…
By contrast, the hardest hit by lockdowns and border closures are those in the traditional Coalition base: business people, particularly small and micro business owners, a lot of whom have seen their dreams destroyed and livelihoods go to the wall or are at the very least are seriously struggling.
I’ve not looked into the NZ data for these categories but I suspect that we have a higher proportion of the population dependent on the government, a laptop class trending more to Labour/Green, and a smaller proportion of small or micro business owners.
3. Do tread on me
Australia has never particularly been a libertarian polity, certainly nowhere near the United States in that respect.
…
[but] the pandemic has revealed just how passive, compliant, reliant and authoritarian the majority of the population is. It helps if you don’t have a skin in the game (see the point above), but this does not explain the whole phenomenon. On the other hand, those more mindful of liberty, a less intrusive and powerful government, fiscal responsibility, cost-benefit analysis, rational risk assessment etc. are clearly in the minority in Australia – but they are also traditionally part of the Coalition base.
Even more so in NZ, as the chart of a recent survey of nations on the topic of Covid responses demonstrates.
4. The policy non-manifesto
What does the Liberal Party stand for anymore? Arguably, Liberals are not a party of small government anymore. They’re not a party of fiscal responsibility and good economic management anymore either, having presided over the past 8 years over a monumental blowout in government debt (John Howard and Peter Costello must be crying themselves to sleep every night) and virtually unrestrained spending.
…
On cultural issues, there is but a feeble pushback, if any, against the triumphant march of identity politics and wokeness. The Liberal Party’s traditional advantages in national security and immigration don’t count anymore,
By contrast National set an excellent track record on debt in their last term, continuing on from the days of Bill Birch and Michael Cullen, and while spending growth was higher than I would have liked the government was at least on a path to being a smaller part of the economy. But there’s no evidence that will apply in future, thanks to Covid-19 lockdowns.
Also, as they repeatedly remind us, “National don’t do Culture Wars”, which was acceptable in the days of the abortion and gay marriage debates, but is not acceptable as wokeness gets pushed into our public schools, healthcare, other government functions and frankly right in our faces every day, unlike theories in academia (the ones that don’t escape into the wider culture that is).
5. Vote for us, we won’t be quite as bad as Labor
The apparent lack of core beliefs (political survival and managerialism don’t count) in turn translates into an inability to sell the voting public any particular vision for the government, and give them reasons to vote for the Coalition rather than the other mob. Having abandoned any tangible commitment to smaller government, less spending, less debt and so on, Liberals have trashed their historically main advantage over and point of differentiation with the left.
How can anyone in the Morrison government argue with a straight face that they are a party of good economic management while Labor will spend, spend, spend, and drive Australia into debt? Sure, as in we will spend only $200 billion while those economic vandals on the left will blow out the budget with their irresponsible $205 billion promises.
Sounds familiar. I’m rather reminded of the last NZ general election where National promised a debt level of $155 billion, as opposed to the outrageous and profligate $180 billion of Labour.
6. Vaxed, unvaxxed and dangerous
This is the real Achilles’ heel of the government; everything else could have been forgiven or overlooked if it the rollout worked. Vaccination was going to be the solution to all our COVID problems; instead, it turned out to be another COVID problem.
As with “Reason 1″, the question is why the Australian Liberal government deservedly gets brickbats for a slow vaccination rollout with planning and management mistakes, while the NZ Labour government has not? Behind those mistakes are reasons unique to each country, but those differences should not explain the different sense of accountability.
I’d guess that it’s down to two reasons.
First Adern probably being a better communicator than Morrison.
Second, the Australian MSM traditionally being more feral than here, with a better Left/Right balance to start with and a willingness of Right Wing media to go after the failures of a Right wing government in exactly the way the mainly Left MSM in NZ have not done so over Adern’s myriad failures.
All up though, those reasons suggest that National are in for a very hard road to regain government any time soon, short of exhaustion with Labour’s failures or simply making themselves look like Labour in all but cosmetic appearance.
No Minister 
Is there a Rand Paul in the National Party Caucus or in Parliament at all?
I remember when Mr what-was-his-name-again was discovered to be in possession of a MAGA hat in the aftermath of him assuming the reigns of the National Party
You’ld have thought from the reaction of the hysterical media he had a Swastika flag hung on the wall of his office, not a campaign item from an incumbent US President
It was comical how fast he wilted over that and it wasn’t long after that was a gone burger.
Cinderella gets puffballs from the fawning media who go after the Nats
National Party Groupies whine about that but haven’t grasped that their invertebrate representatives will always loose, because they are loosers
What is required is politicians with spine who can confront the media, show the world how stupid these reporters really are
What that Aussie post shows, together with that graph, is that such a politician would not get anywhere in NZ nowadays – as Wayne Mapp has gleefully reminded us on numerous occasions.
About the only satisfaction that can be drawn from this is that the likes of Chris Trotter are equally frustrated, as such leanings have not extended into the realm of bring back his good Old Zealand, despite the ongoing strength of the Greens.
But in Trot’s case I think that’s just his narrow frustration with a particular Leftie past: the future in NZ looks like more Leftism, just different from what he wants.
Lock Downs forever
plus
Borrowing forever.
plus
No international travel combined with pent up local demand, fuelled by borrowing, and house prices going thru the roof for the middle classes and up.
Equals
A formula is good for another 2 elections I reckon.
Actually a post I largely agree with. On the vaccination point, it will be very old news by the 2023 election. Basically the vaccination programme in NZ will be complete by the end of this November, probably earlier.
The big test in 2022, running into 2023, is how much NZ will open up, given that just about everyone over age 12 will be vaccinated, and will have had their first booster shot. Now that will be a real political contest, with quite clear political differences between the major political parties.
And 40,000 New Zealanders a year will still be dying
The economy will be trashed
And the National Party will still have less charisma than a dead mouse
I think we’ll be lucky to get to 50% fully vaxxed i.e. similar level as the yearly ‘flu jab. We’re at 24% fully vaxxed now. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/121286312/flu-vaccine-2020-record-number-of-kiwis-get-jabs-twice-as-many-as-2019
I never get the flu “jab” Fredonas – they don’t work particularly well
Haven’t had the flu in a long time either
Flu kills about 500 New Zealanders in a normal year, New Zealanders who fit exactly same demographic profile as our 26 Covid Deaths. A co-inky inky dink?
Apparently Covid deaths are different from Influenza deaths even though clinically they present the same – you have do use some heavy duty biochemical techniques to differentiate between the two, a clinician can’t do it.
Of course if you die and pass the Covid test you get a mention from the podium of truth but if you die and fail the test in these days of lockdown your family can’t even mourn at your graveside
There seems to be a sexual element to this “jab” fetish – penetrating someone’s body with a needle and squirting foreign RNA or DNA into it
Certainly compelling someone to have the “jab” is highly analogous to rape
I wonder how long until we have a QR code on our forearm so the authorities can scan it to see if we are up to date with all our jabbies
Perhaps we will be scanned at the supermarket entrance and only permitted entry if our vaccinations pass muster
@Andrei Oh, I agree that there is definitely another agenda at play here. We’ve had the yearly ‘flu jab for 20+ years and we still get the seasonal ‘flu because it mutates very quickly. The MSM are addicted to free “fear porn” content and the Government is addicted to controlling and micro-managing the general public assisted by paid “experts” and a volunteer army of deluded “Karens”. The key statistic has always been excess deaths but that has been obscured and ignored in favour of profit and increased state control courtesy of tech giant enablers.
fredonas,
We are already at 44% with the first jab, and that is a percentage of the whole population. It is 50% for the population aged over 12. I reckon we go will go well north of 80%. I am picking 90% of those over 12 will get vaccinated by the end of the year.
As for the 10%, well, they make their choice. One of the consequences being no international travel. And probably a few voccations will not be open to the non vaccinated. Definitely health, border, airlines, and quite possibly police and armed services.
Oh so smug for a man who can’t spell “Vocations”
The moving target has now has become to vaccinate as many people as possible, using coercion if necessary.
As to why this is desirable in the face of the declining efficacy of the vaccine remains unexplained
It seems the ruling elite have hitched their wagon to the “elimination strategy” and will brook no dissent and as it fails will institute ever more draconian measures to try and make it work.
To suggest the best and brightest focus their energies on treatment options that limit the severity of the worst cases or that the long term prognosis for those that succumb was not good to start with is heresy
Or that actively seeking out cases among people who don’t even know they have it or are only mildly inconvenienced is good for spreading despondency from the Podium of Truth but does little to alter the eventual outcome because what we are really dealing with here is the newest incarnation of virus that rapidly mutates that has been endemic in our communities forever
Wayne’s World
Notice the sign on the police van “Proud to Protect” – that is positively Orwellian, given the circumstances
Unless enough of the population start standing up to this scare porn and the overreaching control fetishes’ of egghead technocrats and politicians, well be locked into a perpetual cycle with little way of escape.
In Israel there were 11000 new “cases” yesterday – a near record, and already over 2 million Israeli’s have has their third shot. Who much of this shit are they going to insist we inject ourselves with before we start telling them to shove it up their arse?
Newspoll has Morrison on the rise as people wake up to the way they’ve been had by idiot state premiers.
Is this the poll you’re referring to Adolf?
About bloody time. However:
To me an 8 point gap with an election in early 2022 seems like doom for the government, even if Morrison remains popular, and since I don’t have the figures for him I can’t say whether he can do an “Adern” and haul his government back into power.
Yes Tom. You need to remember the federal election is decided by the number of seats won, not by the national public vote. There is no party vote. If my memory is correct, it is quite common for a party to win power with a minority national public vote. (Must find out where to check that .)
For all … Politics 101 … governments tend to lose elections as opposed to oppositions winning them. A good opposition can hurry the process along though. The reality is that the list of Ardern’s failures grow by the day despite attempts by the media to soft peddle the truth … you do that when the government is the hand that feeds you.
The alternative … a National/ACT government with pressure from ACT mitigating against the influence of National’s ‘wets’ and likewise, pressure from National keeping ACT’s ‘let them eat cake’ faction from influencing social policy to the degree they would want to.
That right there is an example of buying into the Left’s debate framing from the start. I can’t speak to the detail of ACT policy but for me the primary points would be to reduce the size and power of the State not by cutting into benefits but by significantly cutting down or eliminating numerous government departments so they can never be weaponised by the Left again when they’re next in power.
I’d like to think that most of National, even the “wets”, would support such a thing, but a comment like that makes me think you’re all on the back foot on these arguments from the start. So wiping out the Department of Women’s Affairs and the like would immediately be converted by the Left into “You don’t care about women” – and National would buckle before that onslaught.
As admirable as Bill English’s incremental approach was, the harsh reality is that you’d have to be in power for many terms before your targets – particularly reducing the size of government in the economy and in our lives – were met.
I wrote about just one, small aspect of this in my life with the impact of regulations on our rural water scheme. Regulations passed by Clarke as she went out the door, never touched by Key’s government in nine years, and now killing us with expensive demands – A small example of National’s failures
Rogernomics was a long time ago now and rust never sleeps: we’re steadily being strangled by bureaucratic socialism and technocracy, and the more government organs you leave in place the more you’re creating a safe place for future left governments to expand upon – with all that that implies for government spending and taxes.
From even that narrow perspective you’re destroying yourselves over time because they’ll be no room for tax relief unless you’re willing to buy into the Labour attitude towards deficits and debts. I’m almost at the point of saying, “screw it” on that front and letting rip via tax cuts, but even that assumes you’re capable of fighting back against “borrowing for the rich”.
Just on that water scheme thing, I wrote that post after reading Elle’s Rural Roundup of August 25, which included this headline:
Labour must stop flooding rural NZ with pointless and onerous regulations
It was a link to a National Party piece on the subject and it specifically talked about how bad the impact of the proposed Water Services Bill will be.
But our scheme is already getting screwed by legislation that’s been on the books for years, courtesy of both National and Labour. What’s the point in me getting all rarked about a water bill now, to vote for National in the face of this existing failure? That Labour will be worse?
Yeah, as I said to Ele about that in another comment:
Tom,
Well there you have it. You think that National should be against Ministry of Women’s Affairs. What you don’t seem to understand is that many National women MP’s were and are strongly in favour of the Ministry and were much part of its origins (women MP’s of an earlier generation).
The reality is that National is positioned in a different part of the political spectrum than ACT. I know you deplore that, but so be it. That is your view and as a consequence you support a different political party.
In any event, you are wrong about National and the size of government. Government spending was 28% of GDP by the time National left office in 2017, down from about 34% in 2008. The size of the central public service had also shrunk.
Act MP’s at the time (Rodney and others) wanted National to go much further, down to 20 to 25% of GDP. We did not think his arguments were sustainable. As it was by 2017 some issues are certainly arising, especially in health. Dr Coleman, the Minister at the time, has told me the problems were a direct result of not increasing the health budget enough to cope with the demand of a growing population.
What does the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs actually do Wayne?
How much do they contribute to our Balance of Payments?
Here’s the thing – Imagine you’re a Public Servant. Lockdowns are great.
Each day you get up and wait on the freezing platform at Plimmerton station for your train which is late and packed to the gunwales when it finally arrives.
Then you disembark and head up Molesworth Street or the Terrace, whatever, to your building and into your cube for a hard day of clickity clack on the old computer, interspersed with a meeting or two to break the monotony
Lockdowns come along and you can do the clickity clack at home and attend important meetings via zoom and all the while you are “saving lives” as part of the “team of five million” – your salary is coming in and your transport costs are out
What’s not to love?
But if you happen to be the proprietor of a gift shop in a tourist hotspot, say, things are not so rosy. The busloads of Chinese, Japanese, Australians and Americans are not stopping outside your doors which are locked and no money is coming in
This whole zero Covid thing is a magnitude 10 disaster and everything you have worked for all your life is evaporating before your eyes as your jars of manuka honey and sheepskin baby blankets gather dust on the shelves
One of these activities earns about 30% of our FX and one doesn’t generate a dime.
The problem is Wayne I am prepared to be in your circle there are many who do the old clickity clack and very few if any who serve beers to Tourists, tan the sheepskins that they buy or drive the buses that take them to the attractions
Our political and managerial classes are completely out of touch with the everyday reality of the average Joe, and I suspect how the world actually works.
This of course is exactly what Donald Trump tapped into and why you loath him for it – he showed our technocratic ruling class for what they really are – empty suits
Or as they say in Texas – “All Hat and no Cattle”
@Wayne
It would appear that you either didn’t read the article or ignored it if you did. It points out the problems the Australian Liberal Party are running into with their #MeToo approach, and I pointed out the similarities to National here and what it portends for the future.
For example have those National woman MP’s ever addressed any points as to what the Ministry has achieved in terms of practical advances for women in NZ, or is their success and productivity measured, in the classic terms of Sir Humphrey, by the amount of activity they generate, reports and so forth?
Same for the Ministry of Youth. The Ministry of Pacific Peoples, and many others.
And your claim about 28% of GDP is simply another revelation that you didn’t get it at the time and still don’t. What is the point of grinding down to that level while you leave in place all the institutions that enabled Labour to so quickly ramp it back up again? Was the plan for National to stay in power permanently?
We are now in a situation where both the right and “wrong” people are happy to do the wrong things because it’s politically profitable. Your only objective seems to be to win elections and while I’m well aware that without winning elections a party is powerless to implement its ideas, it seems to me that National have reached the point where they’re just as powerless when they win.
And I noticed that you did not address my points about the water scheme, which goes to the heart of how National have taken advantage of rural communities votes for decades.
As I said the other day over on Kiwiblog: every time you open your mouth in a public forum I reckon another 1000 votes heads to ACT.
Good summation of the wankerati ruling class we’re all subjected to . . . It buttresses Andrei’s point well.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/30/own-your-failure-biden-voters-n2594924