Blocks to building

The OECD is the latest organisation to highlight our dysfunctional economy but neither National nor Labour seems capable of delivering change.

- Danyl McLauchlan

The art historian Kenneth Clark put it like this: "If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a minister of housing or the actual buildings put up in his time, I should believe the buildings."

Much political discourse focuses on political speech and any gaffes or errors in it, the Opposition reaction, legal threats responding to the speech or perceived media bias in the coverage of it.

Voters generally believe the buildings - currently, how much it costs to live in them, and how rapidly the companies that construct them are going into liquidation.

For most New Zealand households, real wages have been going backwards for three years, and even though inflation is lower, higher interest rates mean higher mortgages and rents. We are living through a sustained period of national impoverishment.

So, voters aren't joking when they tell pollsters they're concerned about the economy and cost of living, and they're probably not kidding when they indicate a willingness to vote out the current coalition if an election were held tomorrow.

Whenever households are defaulting on their mortgages and paying the grocery bill with their credit cards, the incumbent government is in trouble - even if everything else is running smoothly.

And everything else is far from smooth. Popularity is also driven by events: every now and then, a story or scandal breaks through the background drone of political life, dramatically shifting public perceptions.

The parties and major media organisations can see this happening in real time via their media monitoring tools, and they can gauge the sentiment around breaking stories on social media.

In 2021, Labour's decision to fund a drug rehabilitation programme run by the Mongrel Mob validated every negative stereotype of the Ardern government.