Labour’s failing its vaccine promises

In early February 2019 the then Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and I met with the Labour leadership to talk about the year ahead.

There were various issues to discuss, and most were tricky. None were helped by Labour having already pre-emptively declared 2019 The Year of Delivery. Unsurprisingly, that year proved gruelling as the delivery expectation set wasn’t met. Failure of delivery has dogged Labour ever since.

Now we have The Year of the Vaccine. Given progress so far, Labour risks a repeat.

What they have going for them is research that shows a majority in the country are happy to be hermetically sealed for the foreseeable future in our fortress and feel no urgency to be otherwise. They are content.

When cursed

Covid hit, the first principle that drove our response was not seeing our health system overwhelmed. So, while the current RSV spike is being managed in our hospitals, that logic holds.

But the gap in logic between ‘‘the one source of truth’’ on the Beehive podium and lived experience over the vaccine rollout is opening a yawning perceptual gap.

As a life-long asthmatic I’m designated in group three, so should have been vaccinated according to the Government’s own website, or at least contacted. Zilch. Several friends in their 70s and 80s have likewise heard zip.

Yet we are told it’s all going to plan. Yeah, right. The global vaccination rates don’t lie, and we’re trailing the field.

The illogic that bothers me is being asked to trust our district health boards (DHBs) to administer the vaccine roll-out when the Government has, through its health reform, told us that DHBs have failed us so can’t be trusted to deliver equitable health services.

I crave the day when an epidemiologist doesn’t tell me how I’m likely to be living my life in 2022. I want that freedom, not health specialists. They’re good smart people and have risen magnificently to their task of advising our decision-makers.

But I recall well two occasions working in the Beehive when politicians rejected contrary advice from the director-general to ensure our citizens were welcomed home (until the bots) and facilitate overseas citizens returning to their homes.

Lesson: health specialists are brilliant at what they do, and they have served us brilliantly. But politicians leading the country must assess risk based on much wider responsibilities and a broader assessment of risk.

Nonetheless, I think it’s fair to say advice and decision have closely aligned since the plague hit. And it’s worked.

But a new phase has already begun. Political leaders across the globe are weighing up their risk thresholds. Gaps between advice and decisions will increasingly diverge and lessons will quickly emerge.

Empirical data is essential but, ultimately, political judgement informed by data and a lot else besides will have to be exercised here.

As at today, that means a majority of New Zealanders will need to be persuaded by the PM that the world is moving on around them and we do, as a necessity, need to move to. That will be an interesting test of her public leadership.

The pressure is now on, with inflation news only raising it further. In the early 1980s, newly installed leader David Lange was asked if his lack of economic background would prove an impediment to his leadership. His reply was, ‘‘I’m not an economist, am proud to assert I not an economist, and will use them insomuch as they can be used. Although I recall that a chap called Stalin had them all shot.’’

Lange’s quip might be classed as hate speech in these sensitive times, but it does mirror the wilderness of mirrors that is economic forecasting.

Whether inflation is a brief shower or heavy rain, it will impact our politics. The dimensions driving politics are Covid and the asymmetry between Labour and National’s leaders and their brands. That asymmetry is baked into much of the media coverage.

One party has a forcefield against criticism, despite being open to it across policy fronts. The other party can’t take a trick.

However, like 2019, issues are everywhere. Expectations have been set and they already looked frayed. The implementation unit is intended to make the difference. We’ll see.

The paradox is that Labour has an ambition to win four terms. Yet the breadth and depth of its reform agenda creates expectations that its delivery record has never matched. Delivery failures will guarantee an earlier election loss.

Issues are bubbling away but until one of either Covid or the asymmetry shifts, the status quo will persist. It seems Covid suppresses froth from bubbling over too. So for some, this Covidhibernation feels like time standing still.

Expectations have been set and they already looked frayed.