Friday 20 Jan 2023
Whatever happened
to the cabinet reshuffle?
Did some part of a planned reshuffle fall over and become a
tipping point situation for Jacinda Ardern? On top of the burnout issue which
is totally understandable and believable. For me the part which is not
believable is the timing of the resignation. These types of decisions would
have a much longer gestation timespan than a matter of weeks. Think in terms of
from when parliament rose for the year, 14 Dec until yesterday’s announcement 19
Jan (equates to a mere 5 weeks). That maybe raises questions of who else in
government might have known in advance. I backtracked to her December
adjournment speech. There were some humorous touches. No real clues about a
resignation, maybe just apart from her saying 2023 would be a year of
uncertainty and that for 2023 there would be a committed team on that side of
the house. She did not say she would be leading that team.
Election 2023
Putting a stake in the ground so to speak I made my decision
about Labour well in advance of yesterday’s happenings. Disclosure: I voted
Labour in 2020. I shall not be renewing the vote this year.
The failings of Labour cannot all be placed at Jacinda
Ardern’s door. To be fair to her we do not know, and might never know, which
factions within Labour gave her the most grief and stress. We can guess. A new
leader’s reshuffle if it happens could be an indicator. Labour is supposedly a
collective and a team of 65. They should all share any blame for those
failings.
So what in my mind are the failings? Labour has put too much
effort into accommodating diversity interests and racial interests. There it is
again, the race issue and in tandem with it the language issue.
Labours obsession with the Treaty is what is dividing New
Zealand and will be what finally destroys the Labour party. We might find that
Jacinda Ardern was unable to overcome some sort of malignancy within the party.
Remember what the malignancy of Roger Douglas and others did to Labour in the
1980s. Though as a leader, David Lange at the time had many more weaknesses
than Jacinda Ardern. That does not mean to say I classify Jacinda Ardern as a
great leader.
The diversity debate covers a lot of territory. To name a
few issues. Abortion, Euthanasia, Sexualities, Moral Relativism. To the list of
problems we can add Health, Housing, Immigration, Three Waters, Crime, Gangs
and Drug Addiction.
Comments