A paucity of vision

Labour made a policy announcement today: special earthquake courts, to resolve Christchurch's insurance case backlog. Which as great as far as it goes, but still a little meh. The same could be said about last week's "big" policy announcement, the restoration of adult and community education. Yes, its good, yes, ACE is valuable, but as policies go its just a little... small. As for their other campaign "highlight", keeping trucks out of the fast lane and cheap registration for caravans, the less said about it the better.

None of these policies are particularly bad, and some are even good. Its just that they're nothing-policies, tweaks around the edges, and together they speak to a paucity of vision. From their policies so far, you'd think that Labour's grand vision for New Zealand is "the same as it is now, only it works a little better" (except of course in superannuation, where they promise to make people's lives worse). If you needed a better example of their diagnosis that the fundamental problem with our country is that some other people (rather than them) have the comfy seats and the fat ministerial salary packages, you'd struggle to find one.

Labour's campaign supposedly revolves around re-contacting the "missing million" and persuading them to vote again. To point out the obvious, I don't think anything announced recently is going to do that. People who feel that politics isn't about them and offers them nothing are hardly likely to flock to the ballot boxes because the government promises to clean up a disaster at the other end of the country a little better. And I really don't think anyone will go "cheap caravan registration? Two ticks for Labour!" It just looks like more vision-less managerialism from a party which has given up on them, and given up on the idea of change. And while Labour has bigger policies - paid parental leave and regional development - its just more of the same, more tinkering around the edges. Its been offered before and rejected; what makes them think the "missing million" will bite this time?

Michael Joseph Savage promised us a better New Zealand, one fundamentally different from the past. Norman Kirk promised generational change and modernisation. David Lange promised the same (while Roger Douglas betrayed everything). Even Helen Clark promised this. By contrast, modern Labour promises nothing. All it offers is the status quo, only with different faces (and in fact it offers worse than that, because they'll fuck you over on superannuation). Please forgive me for not caring.