28/1003
The Nats have reached a pretty pass. They
appear to have little option but to endorse Don Brash today.
Change is desperately needed. While his coup seems amateurish,
Dr Brash is their only credible option. Bill English has done
himself such mischief with his indecisiveness that he can't be
resurrected. He's a decent man with a good mind. He was a
competent minister, too. But a leader who can't show in the
polls relegates his whole party to the shadows. If Mr English
steps aside as Australia's Alexander Downer did a decade ago, he
could still be a force within National. But if he tries to
soldier on then both he, and the party, can kiss goodbye to the
next election. That's why Labour wants him to stay. He won't be
Prime Minister. He must know it. Surely his colleagues have
worked it out?
New and politically inexperienced Don Brash
might be, but he could provide hope to the legions of potential
centre right voters currently at the edge of despair. What
National needs is a new, authoritative face, one with a track
record for taking hard decisions. There are plenty of them that
Labour currently fails to confront. The Government has thrown
away its growth strategy. That means New Zealand's standard of
living will continue lagging behind Australia, America and
Britain. Tax creep hits more and more people as their incomes
rise; increasing compliance costs hurt business and local
government; and the burgeoning Treaty industry is directing
power and resources into racial separatism. There is talk of two
standards of citizenship. Such issues are tearing up our
long-term aspirations. An overly prescriptive mentality in the
Beehive wants to regulate our daily lives and tell us what to
think. It stifles creativity. Margaret Wilson, Steve Maharey and
Tariana Turia seem to be the ones setting our national agenda. A
group of mischievous minds with dangerous agendas, born of no
real life experience. Then there's the poverty industry that
continues to thrive despite a decade of better than average (for
us) economic performance, and which the Labour Government feeds,
albeit grudgingly.
These are issues ready made for a determined,
purposeful leader who isn't afraid to advance solutions. Some
are potentially popular like "one standard of citizenship" and
an end to the foreshore and seabed controversy. An announcement
from National that it would assist in legislating a freeze to
the law as we believed it to be before the June ruling of the
Court of Appeal, then negotiate from there, would bring sighs of
relief from both Maori and Pakeha. Other issues are more
difficult to solve. Yet, as Australia's Malcolm Fraser once
said, life at the top isn't meant to be easy. Advancing the
concept of a responsible society where work becomes the
handmaiden of reward may appear to threaten some, short term.
But longer term it would release many from the oppressive trap
of poverty dependency that blights so many lives in this
country. The behaviour of roughly 20% of the country undermines
the other 80% of us each and every day. Dependants over-breed,
underachieve at school, are high in the crime and child abuse
statistics, and are the major contributors to carnage on our
roads. A recent statistic was genuinely scary. More than 40% of
new recruits to the DPB are Maori. It's a national disgrace. It
shows that the bottom of the heap is growing in size, and that
"closing the gaps" has become a farce. Labour offers us nothing
to look forward to except an ever- larger cycle of mayhem and
misery, one that the Government's toleration of separatist
racial policies makes more dangerous.
The Nats have recently been playing
ineffectually with some of these issues. They need a decisive
leader who is able to tackle hard and ruck out some sensible
conclusions. Like Bill English, Don Brash possesses decent human
values. But his years growing up in the Manse, his experience
overseas with the World Bank, and his steady stewardship of
monetary policy over fourteen years, indicate a safe, sensible
pair of hands, and a style that carries conviction. More than Mr
English, he understands that the major social problems are
inter-connected and require change across a broad front. Surely
he's worth trying? The Nats' only other option seems to be to
shut up shop for the foreseeable future. In the world of MMP
where voters have options, that could, as Dame Thea Muldoon has
pointed out, be dangerous for National's future.