New Zealand’s newest government – effectively a composition of political losers – is, if nothing else, ambitious.

Jacinda’s ‘war on child poverty’ is on schedule to be properly waged by the end of the year and, in fact the way she’s talking, her side will have declared victory before the end of the following year.

Of course with the ‘massive cash surplus’ left behind by the outgoing National party – money prudently set aside for unforeseen circumstances such as a relapse of the Global Financial Crisis which, given the current instability of the US, might just be closer than many of us would ever dare imagine – just like the former, Helen Clark led Labour Government, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government appear to have plans to spend money freely and indeed frivolously; thus after Labour’s three year term, as with the last Helen Clark led Labour Government, the country might well again be bankrupt.

One billion trees are to be planted by around this time in 2027, creating jobs for the men (and evidently the women) employed to plant the (approximately 274,000 daily) saplings while also, reportedly, going some way to driving New Zealand’s response on climate change…

Classic idealistic Jacinda: while planting trees, increasing oxygen and decreasing carbon dioxide does all sound wonderful, in theory, I just wonder if the likes of Canada, who in fact fell and replant over twice that number of trees every year, consider their actions to be anything remarkable; of course I am in support of Labour’s intentions to boost this and reduce that, yet from the perspective of a miniscule slice of land almost drowning in the South Pacific and containing fewer people than the combination of the aggregate populous of its surrounding island nations, short of setting an example, I wouldn’t have thought New Zealand’s ‘planting trees’ would have any real effect on the rest of the world or, perhaps more specifically, be the best use of Government resources at this time.

…Nevertheless that’s one third of Prime Minister Ardern’s loser coalition placated (now all James Shaw and his Green party need is some way to ensure that more of New Zealand’s pristine ‘polluted’ waterways are gushing their trillions of cubic metres of invaluable ‘undrinkable’ water into the ocean so it too can be no good to anyone – as opposed to being distributed over the land where it has the potential to benefit everything New Zealand – least of all the rising level of the world’s oceans), but now how is she supposed to deal with that cigarette smoking, whiskey swilling, other third – particularly after the inexperienced young leader has already sycophantically given opposing leaders conflicting assurances in order to garner support and indeed, to placate them? …

As a political leader it is good to be ambitious but – seemingly this is wisdom that an MP only learns over time and with political experience – one should never promise too much. As a politician your voting public will expect you to maintain the majority of your election promises, or if not that, at least have a viable explanation for why you are reneging on those promises; to simply become a turncoat – as Miss Ardern obviously needed to do in order to lure other loser parties to help build her coalition – in politics (or in fact in life in general), is very dangerous ground on which to base any kind of foundation.

…Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government plan to recruit 1800 new police officers over the coming three years which, although this initiative does sound splendid, given that fewer than 20 in every 100 applicants are ever successful in completing the rigorous New Zealand Police training course, that’s somewhere close to 180,000 police recruits Labour needs to find in a few short political years…

‘Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister’ – perhaps this is how she placated him.

…US President Donald J Trump reportedly made a call to, and had an amiable discussion with, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Elect, Jacinda Ardern; makes me wonder what kind of obsequious platitudes the famously misogynistic Trump had for this apparent leader of a democratic state..?

Firm right-wing supporter I may be, even so I am interested (if not mildly amused) to see where this (more or less) left-wing government will lead the country.

If MMP is democracy at its finest, why is it only the losers that made it into government?

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Lucy R Clition

Photography by A Bomber Trump