There are golden moments in our lives, great times that stand out as being the best, impossible to repeat and never to be surpassed.
The early days of being in love when every fibre in your being craves to be with that person. You cannot think of anything else, nothing could ever feel that wonderful or sure again.
Intense times, the death of someone close in your life, things that bring us closer than ever to our own mortality, that make us think in terms of finite time and what matters most.
Even things like a great performance from your team. Man United winning the treble and coming from behind right at the end of the Champions League final in 99 was it for me. There will be other sporting things of interest, wins, losses, but nothing could ever surpass that, the games and the players are etched on to my brain for all time.
I tell you what though, if the Black Ferns can repeat last night’s heroics in the final, and it’s as much of a roller coaster as the semi against France, that’ll be up there.
We have a great, once in a lifetime, Prime Minister, I make no apology for saying that. I cannot remember a decent leader of the UK, or one in the US - Carter seems like a good bloke but that is a long time ago now. In my time there has not been a NZ PM as good as Jacinda Ardern. I fully expect there will not be another. If this is it, might as well enjoy it.
This weekend saw the Labour Party annual conference, the last one before the election. A time to reflect on how lucky we are, especially with our PM. She has given so much, we’ve been the envy of the world with her leadership during the pandemic, and now despite the global conditions in terms of cost of living we seem to be doing better than most.
The economy is going well. Unemployment is as low as it can realistically get (3.3%) for the labour market to continue to operate, even now there is pressure for employers to meet the market to attract workers.
House prices are stable or have even fallen a little after so much unrestrained, and untaxed, capital growth. Our inflation rate (7.2%) is lower than most of the world and we have wage growth actually ahead of inflation.
The conference began with the Maori caucus on Friday, some powerful and emotional speeches and an absolute ripper of a line that got the crowd cheering, "So in New Zealand if you want to be misinformed read the New Zealand Herald.”
Saturday saw Grant Robertson tear apart Christopher Luxon’s lack of vision, or ambition, for Aotearoa beyond making the wealthy wealthier.
Benedict Collins and Chris Bishop were on damage control for National. Benedict a “journalist” on One News gave a lengthy piece on his opinion of Labour as part of the opening segment - he is not a fan. He and the teleprompt reader grinned as if this was normal, a National fanboi slagging off Labour was apparently what News is now. If you wanted an opinion piece like that you could probably of just tuned into channel Groundswell for one of their spokespeople.
I imagine if you complained to TVNZ they would say “we work hard to navigate between partisan view points, in fact the original rehearsal that afternoon had Benedict screaming ‘that fucking Communist bitch’ red faced into the camera while Jessica cheered ‘Lock her up, Lock her up’ but we removed that bit, for balance.”
Singing from the same song sheet, almost as if they were both sharing the same material was Chris Bishop complaining:
Sorry, is this the same Chris Bishop that has spent years chasing after every car, passing or parked, barking hysterically about Labour every time there was a minor human error by a public servant?
Ahead of the main speech this morning Jacinda appeared on Q&A, interviewed by John Campbell (prerecorded on Saturday afternoon in what appeared to be an abandoned bunker). Apparently Jack Tame has the virus that doesn’t exist any more, which is a bit unfortunate for him.
So pretty much the dream team for us lefties, it could only have been better if Susie turned up for a meeting on the media mega merger and was giving Christopher Luxon a kicking in the green room, not figuratively, just because she could.
They started by talking about the Rona, turns out poor old Jack isn’t the only one to have gotten sick from that virus which internet experts have declared to be all over. I wonder what conspiracy they’ll dream up over the real reason more people are in hospital beds?
Jacinda and John talked of the energy and enthusiasm of people at the conference, the Sharma drama by election, the cost of living crisis and the practical steps the government is talking to provide targeted assistance. Yes it is still hard for people, but it’d be a damn site harder without those measures.
The moment when John Campbell teasingly joked with Jacinda that she'd give away all the big announcements ahead of her speech if she believed in public media was just delicious as they both laughed naturally.
They talked of Norman Kirk the last great Labour leader, a bit before my time I had only just turned three when he died. It made me think - fifty years from now my grandchildren, or great grandchildren, might be listening to the leader of their own time reflecting back on Jacinda Ardern and what she had meant to people.
It was a good interview, a friend commented “the Campbell interview was so on point and refreshing, I actually cried with relief at the fairness of the questions and the time afforded her to answer thoroughly.”
So onto the main event. There was singing and dancing, the daughter of a family friend, one of the kid’s best mates, was dancing. My wife thought I might be watching because of a link posted for the dance. Ha - nope I’m watching for the political speeches, different circles indeed - wouldn’t have it any other way.
Then Jacinda’s great friend Grant Robertson came to the stage to rev the crowd up with his famous wit and introduce Jacinda to rapturous applause.
She smiled, she joked, she talked of significant challenges and the values that help us face them. Of course the other great Labour leaders were spoken of Savage and Kirk, Lange and Clark.
There was focus on what has been achieved, and it was a long and impressive list. Not all items have been solved, but there has been investment to stop the bleeding and begin the road to recovery on many of the tough problems. She spoke of their excellent economic management, commenters on the Newstalk ZB page may not be that impressed but the numbers don’t lie.
Announcements of a significant increase in childcare subsidies that will benefit thousands of families and a significant boost for Working for Families tax credits, both excellent targeted assistance well received.
Many in the media suggest the country has turned on Jacinda, the vox pops on the News make it look like the whole country have forgotten we have the best PM in a lifetime and we’re desperate for change.
But there are a lot of us who can remember what things were like under Key, we can see Luxon being the same, if anything more dismal.
Bill English holding the purse strings was an old school conservative, fiscally responsible but not willing to undertake austerity when he was finance minister despite the GFC - I’ll give him credit for that.
Well done Bill, you didn’t take the bread and water from the poorest when times were tough, well done, have a spaghetti/salami/pineapple pizza and a good old walk-run.
Anyone that thinks Nicola Willis would have the same qualms has not been paying attention. Do not be surprised when it happens, she has been looking down the camera and telling us she has no sympathy for the poor and they’ve had it too easy for too long for quite some time now. I don’t thinks she’s saying it just to appear cool with her caucus mates.
Jacinda meanwhile is focused on doing the best for the people of this country. She remains calm, considerate, and level-headed despite enormous pressure and much provocation.
So what of the alternative?
Did you ever watch one of the press conferences over the last couple of years and then see the News later and say “hang on that’s not what happened, you’re showing things out of context and editing responses in a way to make the government look bad and the opposition look good.”
Sounds paranoid but think about it, that did happen a bit too much to just be a coincidence. The same thing is true in parliament. Whether you agree with their policies or not no one could reasonably argue that the likes of Jacinda and Grant are not formidable in the debating chamber.
The current National team, in particular their leader, are not. Most days Labour make National look ridiculous in the chamber but then you watch the news and it is a completely different story.
Sure most kiwis don’t care about the debating chamber, but give it a watch sometime and ask yourself about the opposition - are these the people you want negotiating deals on your behalf and representing our country overseas?
You’d be watching thinking we really need someone switched on, in command of the facts, able to hold a cogent position. Someone more onto it - like Joe Biden. Or one more in touch with the common man - like Rishi “richer than the King” Sunak.
I get plenty of derogatory messages for being positive about our government and people tell me I’m such a one-eyed Labour supporter. Funny thing is I don’t even vote for the Labour Party, I’m a member and supporter of a different party altogether – I just know a good government when I see one. Not perfect by any means, but better than any other I can remember.
Imagine you’re on the Titanic, the captain has crashed straight into an iceberg, didn’t even slow down, gouging an enormous hole in the side. He looks around and thinks “holy heck this looks pretty bad”, and abandons ship.
A replacement captain is found and takes over, immediately making sure the waterproof chambers are locked off ensuring buoyancy while she sorts out the mess and turns the boat around. The ship slowly crawls back to port for repair.
Meanwhile some in the crowd aboard the ship have started to complain - “this is boring, we’re over going slowly and doing repairs, let’s bring the other guy back and make it exciting again. We have to just get on with living with icebergs”, some of them questioned whether they were really that dangerous - “I mean they’re only made out of water, frozen water - there you are lefties explain all the frozen water if there is supposed to be global warming!”
So they reinstate the old captain who again crashes them straight into the only iceberg for miles, the boat sinks and all the passengers die. The captain sales away on a billionaires yacht thinking “Hawaii would be nice this time of year, I’ll txt John to fire up the BBQ and chill some Coke Zero Sugar.”
Yeah Nah.
Let’s not be doing that, we have in Jacinda Ardern a once in a lifetime Prime Minister, would you give that up for Christopher Luxon?
Another great column Nick as I would expect from a Man U supporter. Agree re the greatest PM we have ever had and as someone who has voted at least 20 times this comment is made with same background of comparison. Have always voted Labour and regretted it only once when Douglas and Prebble took us into the neo Lib period from which it seems we find it hard to escape. Let's hope the people of Aotearoa realise the choices to be made next year and focus on the policies that will make a difference for everyone not just the select few.
"I get plenty of derogatory messages for being positive about our government and people tell me I’m such a one-eyed Labour supporter. Funny thing is I don’t even vote for the Labour Party, I’m a member and supporter of a different party altogether – I just know a good government when I see one. Not perfect by any means, but better than any other I can remember." Never a truer word.