John Key was roundly mocked last year when he claimed that he and Barack Obama had a lot in common. However the early months of their respective administrations suggest he was onto something
Perhaps John Key had a point when he compared himself to Barack Obama last year. This weekend has made one thing perfectly clear – they're both making significant political gains by simply not being the previous guy, or gal.
President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize victory at the weekend had little to do with his story and achievements, and everything to do with the fact he's not George W. Bush. The nomination was made when he was barely a fortnight into office, so while his multi-lateralism, commitment to dialogue with adversaries and desire to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world would have influenced the vote, his place in the race was due to who he is not as much as who he is. He is not Bush, the unilateralist; Bush of the unnecessary war, lies and spurious intelligence; Bush the torturer.
In that regard, the Nobel prize is an award for American democracy and a thank you gift from the rest of the world to US voters. As Obama has recognised by calling it "a call to action", it's also an invitation for America to get back in the game; indeed to lead on nuclear arms reductions, climate change and reforming trade in a way that helps the world's poorest.
For John Key, the prize for not being Helen Clark is nothing so grand as a trip to Oslo. Rather, it's a relatively smooth first year during which his likeability has carried him over every political hurdle he's come across.
What's often forgotten about Key's clumsy Obama comparison in an interview with the Financial Times last September is the detail. Key said they were alike because he, like Obama, wasn't an insider and wasn't "institutionalised".
In many ways it was a prescient observation because that fact has defined the early months of both their administrations.
I was late in boarding the Obama bandwagon; I backed Hillary Clinton. My reasoning was simple – she was Washington through-and-through and she would play the game to win. She would get the job done.
Obama's power as a transformational symbol cannot be under-stated, and the award this weekend is testament to the healing that's achieved for America – and Americans – on the world stage. But where Bush was 'The Decider', Obama risks becoming 'The Procrastinator', or at least, 'The Stymied One'.
He has put all his chips on healthcare this year, and it's going to be a close run thing. Until a healthcare bill is passed he can't seriously address a single other issue, such is the fear that he may anger an ally in Congress and thus lose a vote. As a result, other jobs are piling up.
American representatives will likely head to Copenhagen in December without a clear Congressional mandate on climate... Obama's vow to act on gay rights and an end to the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy is hamstrung... Trade Representative Ron Kirk's "stocktake" of US free-trade deals is thought to have been completed, but also must wait its turn. As US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell explained on Q+A this weekend, the US understands that the Asia-Pacific region has been "waiting patiently" for them to get back into the trade arena. 'We're coming, just taiho a little longer,' was his unspoken message. 'We'll get there just as soon as we've sorted healthcare'.
Obama entered office with huge political capital, but he's struggling to harness it effectively. His lack of experience is hurting him.
A lack of experience is showing up in Wellington as well as Washington. In contrast to Obama, Key has got runs on the board. Laws have been changed, policy promises enacted. But if anything defines this government it's still a lack of political coherency.
You can put that down to a number of things – Key's innate conservatism warring with the right-wing reform agenda elsewhere in his Cabinet, his desire above all else to win a second-term, and the stalling powers of a recession, for example. But that lack of coherency is a pitfall-in-waiting.
Consider 'the nanny state'. It was central to National's election win last year. Voters loved the fact that John Key was nothing like bossy Aunty Helen. He wouldn't tinker with social behaviours, he'd get on with running the country for the good of the majority.
Yet from folate in bread to driving with a cellphone, National's approach to governing social issues has been strikingly similar to Labour's. Key's getting away with it for now – the likeability is more obvious than the inexperience and incoherence – but for how long?
An example of this incoherence popped up last week, unnoticed by most. Maori Affairs minister Pita Sharples announced half a million dollars for communal gardens to be built on marae.
"On the most immediate level it will result in measurable benefits in terms of healthy produce to eat," Sharples said. "But there are other less-tangible but just as significant benefits -- healthy outdoor activity, and learning the skills of planting, growing, harvesting and storing fruit and vegetables."
It's a grand idea, the kind of thing we should be doing in schools as well. Well, we were. The enviro-schools project has been hugely popular in hundreds of schools nationwide, as students have grown their own fruit and vegetables in communal gardens. Only the government has ignored school protests and canned its funding. Local protests haven't made it to the 'national' papers, but it's getting plenty of column inches in the regional press, such as here, here and here.
This is small stuff politically, but it's poor management and makes no sense. Why take away money from school gardens and give money to marae gardens? Why have the Education minister culling gardens with one hand and the Maori Affairs minister planting gardens with another? Either it's a good idea and something government should be backing, or it's not. It's a sign, however small, that no-one in this government is paying attention to the big picture stuff.
So perhaps Key isn't that similar to Obama after all. Obama has a strategy, but just can't get it done; Key on the other hand can get stuff done. What he lacks is the strategy.
Comments (5)
It'd be interesting to know how long that funding announcement has been in the pipeline - ie, whether its planning and preparation predated the ETS.
I note that the item linked to doesn't say, commenting only that it "was funded by Te Puni Kokiri and Te Waka Kai Ora, a Maori organic food collective".
Why take away money from school gardens and give money to marae gardens? Why have the Education minister culling gardens with one hand and the Maori Affairs minister planting gardens with another? Either it's a good idea and something government should be backing, or it's not.
In pure policy terms, you might well ask. But as a political quid pro quo ... different answer, possibly, albeit not a very acceptable one.
An example sort of like this that springs to mind is the cuts to ESOL services for migrants, which have been concerning people I know.
When they challenged Bill English on the matter he responded with confusion, denying that ESOL services had been cut at all.
It's possible that he was genuinely unaware of what had been cut. The state funds such a vast array of programs, many of them acronyms, many of which themselves exist to fund sub-programs which actually do things, that without nine years of experience dealing with them all it might be hard to know what any given program actually does.
It seemed to be denied by Anne Tolley, the responsible Minister, too - are we talking about the same thing here, Chris?
PAUL Let's talk about that shortly. But 200,000 New Zealanders a year go to night classes to improve themselves. Grown up people - that's a helluva lot of people to annoy for 13 million dollars.
ANNE Well 124 million dollars will still be spent in adult and community education. What I've said is we're going to focus on literacy, numeracy, language, foundation skills - those courses that will lead on to employment. We're still in an economic recession, there are people out there, particularly young people, who are the most vulnerable, they are the most likely to lose their jobs and the least ones likely to get jobs.
PAUL Yes, but night classes in schools of course as adults - migrants, refugees adults trying to improve their lot - the strugglers.
ANNE Some of them are, some of them are hobby courses courses like belly dancing, ukulele playing. We've got courses like pilates and yoga - I've attended those classes myself. The average age of people attending those night classes is about 46. What we're saying I had a half billion debt from the previous government to find in tertiary education what we're saying is we're going to put those tax dollars into supporting our young people through the recession.
PAUL I understand. Go to those classes again, Minister. Some of those classes might have been questionable - belly dancing, Cook Island drumming, cheese-making, folk art for beginners - but there were also book-keeping basics, English as a second language, learning Mandarin
ANNE Yes, English is important, language classes will remain as I say
Yes, that is what I was referring to. Please excuse the amount I've taken to respond- I was checking my facts and details.
Depending on what Anne Tolley meant, she might think she's right- There are programs that continue to receive money (English Language Partners' program for current employees, for instance).
However, much has in fact been cut.
Assessment and Access Specialists, who test people's level of english and then direct them to the appropriate courses/ certify them as having an adequate/inadequate level of english for whatever they want to do have been cut completely.
Foundational Learning (particularly for refugees and migrants) has been cut significantly- This aspect of the English Language Partners has been cut in the North Island, and Literacy Aotearoa has been cut in all major centres.
Studygrants- which subsidise Refugee and migrant access to english language education have been cut from the end of 2010.
The government's idea, apparently, is that these are subsumed into the literacy program, which would provide an intensive course of 100 hours (And after that 100 hours, nothing). The primary problem with this is that it doesn't really consider different levels of learners: 100 hours is not anywhere near enough for refugees starting with no knowledge of english, and the intensivity will be too much for the many have received little or no education, ever. At the other end of the scale, those who have almost, but not quite enough education need more advanced stuff than will be found in a 100 hour 'crash course.' The secondary problem is that the groups expected to offer the courses are largely unwilling to take up the funding and offer the courses, because they are generic organisations rather than ESOL specialists and therefore consider offering intensive courses too hard.
Basically, the government's decisions have failed to consider secondary impacts of shifting money around (That generic institutions can't teach like experts, that different levels of learners need different types of course, that volunteers aren't able to pick up what has up till now been done by paid workers).
The government's decisions have also completely neglected the special needs of refugees and their treaty obligations to the UNHCR to provide for those needs. Their ability to access ESOL has been severely curtailed. (Particularly cutting the study grants, and failing to provide courses for people with little or no experience of english or education).
Thanks for that info, Chris and Claire.
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