Chris Trotter is a socialist, of the thinking kind. He does not follow the pack when it comes to left leaning policies. Chris really does believe in the politics of kindness which Jacinda campaigned upon. Now Chris is clearly quite disappointed. This government has not turned out the way he had hoped, and, to him, Jacinda is largely to blame for that. quote.
What’s become of the young woman who captivated the electorate sixteen short months ago? The Jacinda who promised New Zealanders a “transformational” government inspired by the politics of kindness. Where has she gone?
Surely the New Zealand Prime Minister who earlier this week pledged to stand by Britain: “Whatever you decide about your place in the global community”; cannot be the same woman who turned up to Buckingham Palace proudly wearing a Maori cloak?
Except, of course, it was New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who said those things. The very same Jacinda Ardern who’s been guilessly decorating the “loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires” who gather every year at the exclusive ski resort of Davos in the Swiss Alps. end quote.
Chris is not saying this outright, but Jacinda obviously revels in her celebrity status. She enjoys rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous. It is enough to make a girl from Morrinsville quite dizzy. When it comes to doing the job she has been appointed to do, however, Jacinda is falling short, and Chris is rightly calling her out on that. quote.
It would seem that we misunderstood the Labour leader when she promised us a transformational government. Our naïve assumption was that she intended to transform New Zealand society when, clearly, it was herself she was determined to transform.
end quote
What Jacinda has not considered is that, at some point, she will be measured on what she has done, rather than on what she talks about doing. That is when her star will fizzle on the horizon, leaving herself and her government in a smouldering heap. quote.
It is to be hoped that somewhere between all her high-powered forums and Davos’s swanky cocktail parties our prime minister is lucky enough to run into a wealthy venture capitalist by the name of Nick Hanauer.
Hanauer’s solution to global inequality is refreshingly straight-forward: “A fundamental prerequisite for a more just society is that the wealthiest should pay their fair share of tax.” end quote.
In this, Chris refers to the really wealthy, like Bono (an attendee at Davos), who lectures the world on poverty but who deliberately took up tax residency for his band in an overseas jurisdiction to reduce the taxes paid on its music. quote.
If only this clear-eyed billionaire could contrive to sit down with Jacinda and her Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, for a few minutes and explain this to them.
How sad that it has come to this. That a member of the 0.01 percent sees more clearly what must be done than the young woman who, just sixteen months ago, invited her fellow citizens to “Let’s do this!” How tragic that, sixteen months later, so few of those same citizens have the slightest idea what the “this” that she enjoined them to “do” actually is.
Jacinda is the most accomplished ambassador for New Zealand to have graced the global stage since David Lange bowled-over the Oxford Union. That is not, however, enough. Jacinda is not New Zealand’s MC, she’s our PM.
It’s time for her to start acting like one.
chris trotter bowalley road end quote
Jacinda still talks about ‘kindness’ and ‘wellbeing’ but Chris is right. Instead of improving the lives of the downtrodden, she has merely improved her own life by moving in the circles of billionaires and celebrities. She needs to remember what her true role really is. After all, her lifestyle with the rich and famous will come crashing around her ears once the government is out of power. That may be sooner than anyone expects, particularly Jacinda herself.