Recent public opinion polls are revealing some very interesting, if somewhat contradictory, insights into New Zealanders’ current thinking about the Covid19 crisis and the national response.

The most recent 1News Colmar Brunton poll reported that 92% of those surveyed considered that the government “had responded appropriately to the coronavirus outbreak” – up from 62% when the same question had been asked in February. To a second question, 86% rated the “government’s response to the economic impacts of the coronavirus outbreak” as good or better.

Yet, at virtually the same time, the Commission for Financial Capability was reporting its own survey data showing that already one in ten households had missed a mortgage or rent payment because of the Covid19 emergency, and that 34% of households had already experienced some financial difficulty, and a further nearly 40% felt on the brink of doing so. A similar recent survey by Research New Zealand reported that 75% of respondents were concerned about the impact the crisis was having on their children. That survey also reported that there have been significant increases in the level of concern about losing one’s job (67%), being able to pay the mortgage (59%) and being able to pay the rent (61%).

So, while at a more global level, New Zealanders are happy with the way the government has responded to date, they are becoming increasingly concerned about the longer terms impacts on their families, the future of their jobs, and their capacity to meet their weekly outgoings. And evidence is mounting every day of the serious impact on employment and business – this week alone has seen Air New Zealand confirm 1,300 job losses, the Millennium and Copthorne Hotels chain say over 900 of its jobs are at risk, and the long-established southern department store H&J Smith foreshadow around 175 potential job losses as it looks to downsize to survive. Taxi company Green Cabs has gone into liquidation, costing 160 jobs.

As more small to medium sized businesses resume after the lockdowns, the more likely it is that these numbers will escalate considerably as the stark reality of how difficult business and trading conditions are going to become hits home. Moreover, for the first time since probably the 1930s Depression the job losses and business failures will start to hit those who have never previously had reason to even consider such a possibility would affect them.

  
Treasury estimates that unemployment will peak at 9.8% by September this year, and start to fall back after that have been dismissed as “wildly optimistic” by analysts such as Infometrics, with most other commentators predicting unemployment to rise to well above 10% by September and fall only slowly after that. Already, the numbers on the Jobseeker benefit have risen around 27% to just over 184,000 in just five weeks between the move to Alert Level 4 from late March and the beginning of May. The government’s announcement this week of a new temporary tax-free payment to help those who have lost their jobs because of Covid19 confirms its recognition of the severity of the situation we are now facing.

The worry for the government now must be that at some point not too far away the two apparently contradictory strands of public opinion will crossover. Public concern about the social and economic impact of Covid19, already sharply on the rise, will overtake support for the approach the government has taken so far.

Throw in a general election in just over three months and it becomes especially challenging. Already the Greens and New Zealand First – the government’s support partners, both polling below the 5% threshold in the most recent Colmar Brunton poll – are starting to actively distance themselves from the Labour Party, just in case. The Greens have been critical of this week’s emergency relief package as introducing a two tier welfare system, too narrowly focused on what they describe as the middle classes, while New Zealand First has taken more direct aim at the Prime Minister claiming somewhat incongruously that she agrees with them that the country is taking too long to move to Alert Level 1. Neither of these reactions is about policy – both are much more about struggling smaller parties sensing that public disgruntlement will rise and stellar support for the government fall as more and more households and businesses are directly impacted. Quite understandably, they want to be on the right side of public opinion when the crossover occurs. 

Labour’s response has to be built around the ever-increasing stature of the Prime Minister, as it hopes to be able to keep enough wind in its sails to hold an increasingly fracturing government on course in the lead-up to the election and maintain the momentum it has established so far. It cannot afford to be sidetracked by crew members scrapping openly on the foredeck about which sails to hoist for the run home, while the previously wallowing National Party has started to look for more favourable airs.

The uncertainty of this and the contradictions in public opinion, and where they might all head, have added even more to the fascination of what is already shaping up as New Zealand’s most dramatic and unusual election ever.        

DUNNE SPEAKS

Anyone who doubted that Simon Bridges is a hardened fighter got their answer with his response this week to the leadership rumblings within the National Party. For a leader whose judgement and decisiveness had been questioned on a number of occasions during the Covid19 outbreak, he displayed a remarkable clarity and swiftness in bringing the increasingly festering boil of the National Party leadership to a head. Friday’s leadership vote has certainly taken the public by surprise, and looks to have caught a number of National MPs off-guard as well.

While there had been speculation for some time about how secure Simon Bridges’ leadership was, the conventional wisdom was that nothing would be done this close to the election. For a start, none of the potential candidates to replace him would have wanted to be seen to precipitate a divisive and potentially electorally destructive coup just four months before an election. Nor was there any sign that Simon Bridges would decide to stand aside voluntarily for the sake of the party, as then Labour leader Andrew Little did in 2017. And there was certainly no Jacinda Ardern coming forward to replace him. After the election, and with the likelihood of another term in Opposition things might look a little different.

Typically, politicians brush aside public opinion polls, good or bad, lest they be accused of acting like the “poll-driven fruitcakes” former Prime Minister David Lange once described his Caucus critics as. However, privately, they take them very seriously, especially those bearing bad news. In 1990, bad polls after bad polls forced then Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer to make way for Mike Moore, barely 59 days before the election, as Labour MPs worried their seats were at stake unsuccessfully sought rescue. Bad polls led a group of Labour MPs to call on Labour leader Helen Clark to stand aside in 1996, but she called their bluff and survived. It is no different today. There are undoubtedly a number of National MPs worried that recent bad polls mean they will be without seats after the September election, hence the search for an alternative leadership.

It is apparent now that after much speculation about who might replace Simon Bridges that the focus has settled on Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller, with Auckland Central’s Nikki Kaye as his running mate. While the numbers for change may have been beginning to firm behind the Muller/Kaye ticket, it is not clear that they were ready to be thrust into limelight as yet, the bad polls and the proximity of the election notwithstanding. Indeed, the several hours’ hesitancy between Bridges’ claim that there was a challenge which he would move to head off through as early a vote as possible, and Muller’s later confirmation that he was the challenger suggests as much.

So, by immediately opting for a leadership vote, and bringing the timing of that forward to Friday, Bridges has – at least temporarily – grabbed the initiative. Muller and his supporters have been placed on the back foot – they now have to put up, or shut up. It is a very bold gamble by Bridges who, publically at least, seems confident it will succeed. Time will tell.

However, the leadership chalice which either Bridges or Muller will pick up on Friday is likely to be a very poisoned one. Hotly contested leadership challenges always produce further divisions, no matter the superficial goodwill dispensed on such occasions. If Bridges wins, his immediate challenge will to be deal with Muller and his supporters. Too much conciliation and he risks being seen as weak; too much retribution and he will be seen as petulant and overly vengeful. If Muller wins, he will have to make some sort of peace offering to Bridges and his supporters to get them on-side for the election campaign. It is likely to be an unsatisfactory outcome either way, with the internal divisions it opens up certain to take some time to heal.

From the perspective of both sides the hope has to be that the Caucus vote produces a decisive result. Bridges cannot afford to be re-elected by a very narrow margin; nor will Muller be seen as enjoying the confidence of the Caucus if he prevails by just one or two votes. Normally, the results of Caucus leadership votes are not officially released, but the numbers invariably make their way into the public arena very quickly after the vote has taken place. If the vote is close, both the government parties and the media will have a field day right through until the election pointing out the polarisation within the National Party Caucus.

From the public’s perspective, while there will be interest in the relative merits of Bridges or Muller as leader of the National Party, and who might be better for the party’s prospects, the overriding feeling will be a sense of unease at the level of internal division that has been exposed. They will be asking themselves the question that should be of primary interest to the National MPs: how can a party that is this divided today present itself as a credible, united team with a coherent and focused plan for the future they are all committed to, when the election comes around in just seventeen weeks?

MY SECOND WEEKLY COLUMN IS ON NEWSROOM.CO.NZ

I saw 33 Budgets and many other financial statements introduced during my years in Parliament. Each had their own drama attached to them – some much more than others. The 1984 “Rogernomics” Budget of Sir Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson’s 1991 “Mother of All Budgets” were probably the most sensational. However, none of them was developed and introduced in quite the dramatic circumstances of this year’s Budget.

For that reason alone, it is a remarkable yet most unusual document. No government has ever announced a spending package remotely approximating $50 billion over a four-year period, yet never before, not even in wartime, has a government had to deal with such a rapidly emerging and pervasive crisis as Covid19.

To its credit, and despite the obsequious obligatory references to the now canonised first Labour Government, the Minister of Finance resisted the urge to delve into Labour’s ideological back-pocket to fund his solutions (although that day may well come when the time comes to pay for all the spending he has announced). Rather, with unemployment projected to rise to almost 10% by election time, he has focused on trying to save up to 140,000 jobs over the next two years, and the various means by which that can be achieved. And he has shown himself unafraid to run massive deficits - $28 billion in the coming financial year; almost $30 billion the following year, dropping to $16 billion by the time of the 2023 election – to achieve that.

The immediate urge to turn to more taxes to fund those deficits has been resisted for the time being (the months before the election) but cannot be ruled out in the future. In the meantime, the government is relying on the strong balance sheet it inherited to bridge the gap through borrowing, increasing the debt to GDP ratio from around 19% at present to almost 54% by 2024. Even that figure is low by current comparable standards in other countries – Australia’s current debt to GDP ratio is around 42%, which they laud as low by world standards, and which will undoubtedly rise as a consequence of Covid19,  Britain’s debt to GDP ratio is predicted to be 95% by the end of the year, and Germany’s is projected to be at 75%. So, the Prime Minister was right to an extent when she spoke of being able to spend the money previously set aside for a rainy day, assuming another does not come along in the meantime.

Along the way, the government has been able to commit spending on a mix of capital and other projects that will fix infrastructure deficits (upgrades to the rail network and new interisland ferries, for example) – although its record to date on delivering major projects leaves considerable doubt whether these will happen – and packages to protect and create jobs. The extension of the wage subsidy scheme for a further eight weeks will be welcomed by many businesses, although there must be big questions about what happens at the end of that period. Especially since the election will then be right upon us, and the combined effects of a cold winter and consumer demand perhaps becoming a little more restrained will be putting even more pressure on business and employment than is happening already. Maybe that is what a fair chunk of the currently unallocated $20 billion additional expenditure is being held for.

Overall, the government appears to have front-ended much of its response to get the economy ticking over as soon as possible. It must be hoping that the uptake and forecasts of strong economic growth from 2022 will provide much of the revenue to sustain its future spending projections. Clearly, mounting international demand for loan finance from other countries seeking to rebuild their own Covid19 shattered economies will make it harder for the government to  raise funds offshore in the years ahead, despite currently historically low international interest rates and the government’s strong balance sheet.

Here is where the overall methodical nature of the Budget’s provisions starts to look shaky. While much activity has been announced or foreshadowed, it has been done in the absence of any demonstrable strategy for the journey ahead. The commitment to keeping jobs is certainly a laudable objective, but it is no substitute for a forward-looking view about how the New Zealand economy might develop sustainably and prosperously in the changed international environment now facing us. To that extent, it is a very introverted document, sadly at a time of international crisis when New Zealand needs to be looking as much to its future trading prospects as it does to protecting the current jobs of so many.

Budgets have often been criticised for being long on ambitions, and short on practical policies to achieve them. This Budget goes almost to the opposite extent. It is not obvious where the government wants to see New Zealand by the end of the decade, when it is clear worldwide that a lasting consequence of Covid19 will be a profound change in the way economies operate and interact. In the absence of even a mere inkling in the Budget of the government’s thinking in this regard, it is hard to escape the conclusion the Budget is primarily a marking-time document, aimed first at getting through the coming election, and then buying a little time thereafter to consider wider future implications.

There is perhaps another explanation for this pedestrian aspect of the Budget. This is, after all, a government of three parties facing an election in a few short months. Each therefore needs to be able claim some achievements in the budget as its own. For New Zealand First, the already announced rescue package for the racing sector, and the big increase in New Zealand assistance to the Pacific stand out. The Greens are laying claim to the billion dollar “Jobs for Nature” package. Labour will no doubt focus on the wage subsidy extension and the commitment to building 8,000 homes as part of its public housing programme. With each party having its own audiences to appeal to, it makes the task of presenting an overall coherent Budget theme that much more difficult.

The Minister of Finance faced a uniquely difficult balancing act in bringing this Budget together. Typically, the budget process begins around the end of the previous year and comes to fruition in late March to early April, just after the time the Covid19 crisis hit here. So, rather than finalising a generous election year Budget at that time, as had been widely expected, the Minister and his officials virtually had to go back to scratch and start almost all over once again. He has therefore done extraordinarily well in bringing such a full Budget together in just a few weeks.

In these circumstances, his lack of boldness for the future is understandable. At first glance, his critics on both the left and the right seem disappointed by various aspects of the Budget, for different reasons. The Minister may therefore be tempted to conclude he has got it “about right.” The team of five million – the ones who made the real sacrifices of recent weeks – may well agree, at least in the short term. But as things get worse before they start to get better the question will be asked whether this essentially conservative Budget has done enough to secure the country’s longer-term future.

   

New Zealand has been on a remarkable roller coaster ride over the last couple of months as it has first confronted and now flattened the Covid-19 curve. But now, as the ride is starting to perhaps become a little smoother, some cracks in the basic machinery that require immediate attention, are becoming somewhat obvious. The haste to achieve perfection, while understandable, has seen some corners cut to the detriment of our democracy.

The restoration last week of a functioning Parliament after weeks of unnecessary suspension has been welcome and positive. However, one of its first actions was simply embarrassing. In the rush to be seen to be doing something positive for the struggling small to medium business sector, squashed up against the wall by the closedowns brought on by the Covid-19 lockdown, the Minister of Revenue introduced a Bill to provide tax relief to the sector. Because it was acknowledged that the sector’s needs were extremely pressing, the government decided to rush the Bill through all its stages in one afternoon, rather than follow the normal process that could take up to six months. That of itself was neither unusual nor irregular – Parliament does have the authority to act swiftly in situations where it considers an urgent response is necessary.

What was unusual was that the Minister introduced – and Parliament passed – the wrong Bill, accidentally bringing into law a multi-billion-dollar loan scheme, and only one MP seemed to realise what was going on. He was ridiculed at the time but was subsequently proven absolutely correct. While such an incident does not show Parliament at its best, the primary responsibility for this error rests with the Minister of Revenue. He has shamefully and weakly tried to shift the blame to the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office for providing the wrong Bill, but there is no escaping his direct responsibility for not having checked before he got up to speak in the House that he was actually introducing the Bill he meant to. The good intention of moving swiftly to aid struggling businesses was completely undone by Ministerial shoddiness and basic incompetence. Now, the whole process will have to be gone through again, and the hope must be that the Minister might take the time to check he has the right Bill this time.

Then came the leaked emails revealing that the Police held major concerns whether they had the legal authority to enforce aspects of the lockdown, given that the Solicitor-General in official advice, which the Attorney-General has steadfastly and wrongly refused to release, had apparently suggested there was no legal basis on which the Police could stop, let alone detain, people under the lockdown. Added to this have been questions about whether the Director-General of Health, who has been exercising sweeping powers during the lockdown, has been going beyond the somewhat narrower brief envisaged by the Health Act 1956.  At the same time, the Court of Appeal has hinted at concerns about the legal process adopted to impose the lockdown. In dismissing an appeal in a specific case, the Court said that it had nevertheless raised wider issues that could be the subject of a separate, possibly urgent, hearing. The President of the Court of Appeal observed in a reference to various arguments being raised by legal academics about the legality of the lockdown that there extraordinarily complex questions needing answers. He further observed that a report of Parliament's regulations review committee looking at government powers in emergencies was “hardly approving".

Early this week the government announced that Covid-19 recovery related legislation would not require a Regulatory Impact Analysis. Most people would have been none the wiser about what a Regulatory Impact Analysis is, and why the suspension of the requirement should be of concern, so the announcement raised virtually no interest.

However, Regulatory Impact Analyses are an important check on the way the Cabinet does its business. Their significance is set out clearly in the Cabinet Manual – the primary authority on the conduct of Cabinet government in New Zealand. It makes it clear that a Regulatory Impact Analysis must be undertaken for “any policy initiative that includes consideration of regulatory options (that is options that will ultimately require creating, amending or repealing Acts or disallowable instruments).” All such proposals going before Cabinet require such an analysis to “ensure that Cabinet has the best available information on the nature and extent of a policy problem, policy options, and risks and impacts.” The analysis is usually made public when a Bill is introduced to Parliament.

Regulatory Impact Analyses are intended to warn governments against actions that are impractical, unworkable or otherwise unnecessary, and alert the public to the risks involved. They have probably never been more necessary than they will be in putting together the post Covid-19 economic recovery package, yet they are being abandoned. It smacks very much of a government that now seems less interested in the “facts” and proper accountability for its decisions, than being seen to be “doing something”. When governments assume that they know best, and that the law and convention can be pushed aside if they conflict with their plans, the public has every reason to become concerned.

During the Covid-19 situation to date the government has won plaudits for being clear and decisive in its actions. People have felt included in the process, and that, plus a still huge sense of community fear about Covid-19, has secured their compliance. That is good and we should all be proud of the sacrifices we have individually made. However, none of that justifies treating due process, and sticking to the law, as just some sort of optional extra that can be picked up and discarded as it suits, as now seems to be the case. 

This is the time for the government and its authorities to be seen to be acting in absolute accord with the law, not doing their best to get around it when it does not suit them. After all, this is the government that promised to be the “most open and transparent ever.”

What’s in a word? Well, not a lot it would seem, if New Zealand’s experience dealing with Covid-19 is any guide. Words now seem apparently to have no definitive meaning, but rather mean that just what those uttering them imagined them to mean at the time. Just like Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

On 25 March the Prime Minister announced the Level 4 lockdown to Parliament, explaining that its purpose was to “manage the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic within New Zealand” because “there was early evidence of community transmission of COVID-19.” Hence the accompanying “Go hard, go early” slogan and the “flattening the curve” tag-line.

Two weeks into the lockdown, on 9 April, just before the Easter weekend, the Prime Minister was talking about breaking the “chain of transmission”, and, consistent with the earlier comments, about managing the spread, noting that with just 29 new cases reported that day “we (were) turning a corner.” She described the campaign as a marathon, but then, in a phrase which has come to be problematic, added that the aim was to keep “eliminating” the virus from New Zealand.

That appeared to be a significant step-up from the earlier ambition of “flattening the curve”. This was at a time when more and more people were starting to be hit hard by the economic consequences of the lockdown, and the calls upon the government’s substantial assistance subsidies and assistance were growing daily. Was it just coincidence, or had there been a conscious decision based on the clear success to date that, rather just trying to manage the spread of Covid-19, New Zealand now had the opportunity to be bolder and become the first country in the world to eliminate it completely? If so, had any assessment been done of the economic and social costs of doing so, and whether it was even a feasible objective, given that at some point New Zealand would have to reopen its doors to trading partners which might have adopted a lesser standard?

Debate and speculation about the true nature of the government’s policy continued for the next couple of weeks while the number of new cases being identified kept on falling. The reduction was such that after a one-week extension to Level 4, the Prime Minister was able to announce a move to the less restrictive Level 3 from 28 April. Foreshadowing that announcement on 16 April, she observed this was possible because “there are promising signs our go hard and go early elimination strategy is working and the lockdown is breaking the chain of community transmission.”

But here is when the fun began. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, eliminate means to “get rid of” without qualification. It is final and absolute. On that basis, therefore, it was reasonable to assume that by talking of elimination New Zealand was seeking to get rid of Covid-19, once and for all. But, again, things are not simple, as the Prime Minister later told Radio New Zealand that “when I talk about elimination it does not mean zero cases, it means zero tolerance for cases.” She further explained that “the idea of Covid being completely gone, that is eradication - so there are important differences there." (The Concise Oxford Dictionary does not think so – it applies the same “get rid of” definition to eradication, as it does to elimination.)

While we were working all that out, Professor Michael Baker, part of the Otago Medical School cabal that seems to have been driving so much of the policy response to date, joined the fray. He felt that the coming Level 3 period would be “a good opportunity to work on the definition of elimination.” Even more helpfully, his colleague Professor Nick Wilson intervened with his view of how elimination should be defined. According to him elimination means “no active cases at all in the country for at least a period of four weeks of extensive testing and other surveillance systems in place.” In his mind, elimination is clearly some way off.

When the Prime Minister announced on 27 April that New Zealand had “currently” eliminated Covid-19 from our shores, it was not clear whether she was applying the Dictionary’s definition, or her own redefinition. Alice’s reply to Humpty Dumpty that “the question is whether you can make words mean so many different things" was starting to appear ever more relevant.

The mounting confusion was all left for the Director-General of Health to try and clear up on 28 April. New Zealand had not yet eliminated the virus, he explained, because “elimination is not a point in time - it's not 'we've got to the end of alert level 4, we've eliminated it'. It's not something that you can just say 'done and dusted' - it is an ongoing effort." According to the Director-General, elimination is something else again. Adopting neither the Prime Minister’s, nor the Concise Oxford Dictionary’s, nor Professors Baker’s or Wilson’s definitions, he described elimination as "a small number of cases, a knowledge of where those cases are coming from and an ability to identify cases early, stamp them out and maintain strict border restrictions so we're not importing new cases.”

So, there we have it. New Zealand’s Covid-19 strategy has all along really been about “flattening the curve”, which we have achieved remarkably well, not about getting rid of Covid-19 after all. The bigger question now becomes, has it all been worth it? Certainly, in terms of controlling the spread of Covid-19, the answer must be a resounding yes. However, as people start to think about picking up the threads of life once more, debate will intensify about whether the mounting economic and social costs which will last for years to come have been worth it, or whether a steadier approach such as Australia’s might have been better for our country in the long term.

But since words apparently now have only the meaning those using them choose to apply to them, it is probably not worth getting into that debate!

The welcome and overdue resumption of Parliament next week will be another step-up in our Covid-19 response. The days of virtual one-party government we have endured in recent weeks will be at an end, and Ministers (even the long absent Minister of Health) will have to front up and be accountable to the House on a daily basis, required to give answers to the difficult questions the lockdown has so far enabled them to avoid. Also, the government will be able to progress some of its other legislative initiatives that have been languishing because they are not Covid-19 related, and the Minister of Finance will be able to deliver the 2020 Budget on May 14. Altogether, this more democratic process will mean the dynamic under which the government has been operating since the imposition of the lockdown will have to change.

Since the middle of March, the government has been following pretty much the usual political norms for dealing with a major crisis, albeit with the few inevitable slip-ups along the way.

First, was the identification of the crisis. From the time Covid-19 burst on the scene and the seriousness of the threat it posed to the whole world started to become obvious, the government began, slowly at first, but then steadily thereafter, framing its narrative in terms of the threat the virus and its rapid escalation posed to New Zealand. By early March it was moving to the types of solution New Zealand might have to look to imposing, if the virus continued its rampage. Soon thereafter, the Alert Level system was mooted, and the possibility of closing borders raised, although the tardiness with which the latter was implemented is still hard to understand.

By the time the move to Alert Level 3 followed by the almost overnight transition to Alert Level 4 occurred, the seeds that the country was facing a major, hitherto not experienced crisis had been well and truly sown in the public mind. That made the next stage of the suspension of Parliamentary government and its replacement by government through emergency regulations easier to bring about. At the same time, this was cleverly covered by the resort to inclusive language – like “we are all in this together” – both emphasising the extreme nature of the crisis the country was facing, and making compliance with the impositions on freedom about to be made that much easier. It also made it that much harder to be critical of what was happening, and it was no coincidence that public tolerance for dissident views or awkward questions fell sharply.

All this was reinforced by the daily press conferences with the Prime Minister, the Director General of Health, and initially the Commissioner of Police, to make clear in the early stages where the true authority lay, and to become the sole and dominant means by which official information was conveyed. We were even told not to believe things that had not been stated at the press conference. As time has gone on, and the numbers of new cases have dwindled, so too has the relevance of this daily event, which should disappear altogether once Parliament resumes.

Far preferable and more accountable that the Prime Minister make her regular announcements to the House where she can be questioned with more precision than at a press conference, where she controls who asks the questions and any follow-up. That change alone will start the process of winding back the highly centralised and controlled nature of our Covid-19 response.

Of course, critical to this whole process of crisis management is there being an actual crisis to manage. That has been clearly the case in places like the United States, Britain, Italy and Spain, for example, as the numbers of cases and deaths have been spiralling out of control and the public reaction has been one of desperate panic. While the potential impact for New Zealand was just as serious, the perverse consequence of acting early to avert the extent of the crisis has been that the extremes seen overseas have been averted. But an inevitable consequence is that some now question whether there was ever a crisis here in the first place.

Yet it is a more than reasonable conclusion that without the actions taken, the number of cases here could have been at least ten times higher than they are. On relative population terms that would have been about on a par with the United States and Britain. Which is why in its public presentations the government has been treading a fine line between too much celebration of our unexpectedly low numbers and continued warnings of the need for ongoing vigilance. It will need to maintain that balance for some time to come.

Nowhere will the line be more tested than in the process of withdrawing from the various Alert Levels. In many senses, that will be the hardest part of all. Winding back the emergency regulations and structures will not occur overnight. That is why the exit process will be gradual, no matter the decline or even ultimate absence of cases. The government will be reluctant to relax too much of the control structure built up in recent months but will have to adapt to doing so. It will also have to be seen to be looking beyond the Covid-19 outbreak and shifting its future focus to the enormous economic and social restructuring that now lies ahead. So, it will have to reshape its narrative in the same clear way it did at the outset to meet the new situation.

In short, next week’s events will set off a further process of major adjustment for the government, just as it will for every other New Zealander, so pervasive has been the impact of Covid-19 to date.

A leading pollster suggested earlier this week that the National Party may be best placed to win this year's election if it just stays quiet and lets the government wear all the criticism for the inevitable rising unemployment, business failures and massive personal dislocation brought on by the Covid-19 outbreak and its aftermath. Whether that musing is any way true or even likely of course remains to be seen. But in the meantime, the National Party seems to have taken the advice to heart and gone to sleep early, just in case.

In part, this is because the government’s initial way of responding to the Covid-19 outbreak was to effectively shut the National Party out of any role whatsoever. When the Leader of the Opposition reacted to this in Parliament – in the days when we still had a functioning Parliament – his response was widely criticised as churlish and striking completely the wrong tone. He clearly took the criticisms to heart, quickly ordering his MPs and candidates to suspend all overt political activity for the duration of the crisis. At the same time, he accepted a government offer to chair a special select committee reviewing the Covid-19 response. He has done so extremely well and showed cross-party co-operation in a time of national need at its best.

But, arguably, he has been too successful, seeming at times to be a stauncher defender of the government’s approach than the government itself. Witness the way he led the government to a stronger line on imposing border controls, for example. However, the weekly committee meetings, asking questions to which there are seldom crisp and clear answers, and never any decisions made, are beginning to look just a little too cosy. It all begins to beg the question of whether he has been politically snookered by the government – cleverly backed into a corner of support from which he cannot readily escape, while allowing it to get on with its job, without too much critical scrutiny.

With Parliament in indefinite abeyance there is little scope for it to currently be any other way. Parliament is the Opposition’s primary forum for holding the government to account and making its alternative case to the public. Given both the current situation, and the massive challenges that lie ahead as we move out of Alert Level 4 and beyond, let alone the huge period of economic and social reconstruction ahead of us, the early resumption of Parliament is hardly in the government’s interests. Even though there are many questions to be answered and numerous uncertainties to be understood, then resolved, the early return of parliament does not even appear to be on the government’s horizon at all. After all, why give the Opposition an open forum for criticism when the country faces such dire times?

Previously, whenever there has been a national crisis – invariably of a much lesser significance and threat than the Covid-19 crisis – the Opposition of the day, National or Labour, has always been quick to call for the immediate recall of Parliament to discuss the situation and, if need be, the official actions being taken in response. There have also been times when the government of the day has felt it necessary to have Parliament endorse its response to adverse circumstances that have arisen. For example, Parliament was recalled specifically to debate New Zealand’s response to the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991, and has previously set aside time to debate what needed to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes, and last year’s Christchurch mosque killings. There has always been the view that Parliament as the House of Representatives needs to be brought into the response to such issues.

Covid-19 is by and far away the biggest of all these crises. It is therefore puzzling, disturbing, and plain out of step with our long tradition, that apart from the initial debate in early February when the breadth of what was happening was not then fully appreciated here or around the world, the government has not seen fit to recall Parliament – albeit by videoconference – both to formally update it on its response, and seek its support for the steps being taken. Even more surprising and certainly more disturbing has been that the Opposition does not seem to have considered this a priority either. Yet the day to day lives of New Zealanders, in their homes, neighbourhoods, workplaces and schools are being impacted upon to a greater extent than even in wartime, when Parliament was in frequent session.

However, the crossroads are looming for the National Party. Assuming the election proceeds on 19 September, as seems reasonable given the Prime Minister’s recent assurances, National’s continuing to play the loyal back-up to the government will hand the coalition a huge advantage. Where is the case for change, if both sides of politics seem to agree on the current direction being taken?

Yet by September, life will not have returned to normal, however that is to be defined from now on. Indeed, it will be anything but. Thousands of businesses will have closed; tens of thousands of jobs will have been lost or put on the shelf; household debt will have soared. While New Zealanders’ resilience will be enabling them to get by, long term confidence in theirs and their children’s futures will have taken a severe hammering, and many future dreams and aspirations will have been permanently shattered. People may well be looking for a viable alternative to support, to restore hope. For that reason alone, if not the grander one of upholding democratic principles, National needs to be starting to distance itself, slowly but surely, from the government and its response. It needs to be showing itself as the party of the future, leaving Labour as the party of the crisis. But it needs the forum of Parliament to be seen to be doing that, which is why the government will not acquiesce.

The call to move out of Alert Level 4 next week is perhaps a start, but without Parliament sitting the country is being kept in the dark about what that means. Presumably National has clear intentions about how the threads of normal life should be picked up once again. The country needs to be hearing these alongside the government’s plans, so that it can assess the relative merits of both. For its part, the direction being proposed by National should appear positive, consistent, and clear. In that regard, making the case for the early resumption of a working Parliament to hold the government to proper account once more should be a no-brainer card for National to play well before the scheduled election

However, could it be that National was undoubtedly so badly scarred by the adverse public reaction to its leader’s early February comments that is has been spooked into a mode of quiescent support ever since, trying desperately to appear constructive while not rocking the boat too much. If so, medium term, this is not likely to be a winning strategy – unless, of course, National, ever mindful of being careful about what it wishes for, has concluded that in its own long term interests, the next election is now one it should not be trying too hard to win.