Mike's Minute: We need more bipartisan politics on key issues

"Every three years the political goalposts move". 

Indeed, we call it an election. But the quote is from the infrastructure industry. 

Their report out this week tells you the usual tale – that the pipeline, or lack of it, is an issue and politics gets in the way. It holds the country back. 

The Treasury report we featured this week as well tells pretty much the same story. Their report spanned out over 40 years and talks of the fear that our debt will be at 200% of GDP if we don't do something about it. 

We have a lot of big picture issues that we know are issues and yet we haven't been able to crack them. 

To be fair this Government has tried the big picture talk. They've announced a pretty decent pipeline of longer-term work and they have cited various countries that have a greater level of political cooperation than we do. 

Certain sectors and projects are handled by independent bodies that operate between Governments; a project is agreed to and that project is not interfered with if a government changes. 

This week's example gave little hope that we have the maturity to try and change the way we continue to shoot ourselves in the collective foot. 

Luxon wrote to Hipkins about oil and gas exploration inquiring as to whether we can get cross party agreement. 

The problem is that although exploration and applications are back open and we have $200 million of taxpayer money to get skin in the game, the fear is that no one is signing up if you don’t know the rules stay the same. 

Hipkins said the letter was desperate, so that’s that then. 

Which is a shame and Hipkins should know better, act better, and ask himself whether he serves the country well with such a myopic response. 

No one is really a fan of oil and gas, but surely, we all agree it’s a big help between now and whenever all the windmills, solar panels and batteries are up and running. 

Does he really prefer coal? Can he not see that keeping the lights on is kind of important? Can he not be a bigger person about it? 

America is closed down currently because the two sides hate each other. We aren't as bad, but we could be an awful lot better. 

Surely it can't be so hard to put common, economic interest beyond simple, party politics? 

Surely two major so-called centre parties can't be so far apart that a basic like power supply can't be dealt with in a civil and collegial way, right? 

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