Kerre Woodham: So far, so good on the Government's quarterly plans

“A successful second quarter Action Plan shows the coalition Government has continued to build on the momentum of its first 100 days”, says the press release from the Prime Minister's office. Well, Christopher Luxon would say that wouldn’t he?  

The Press release continues: “Actions the coalition government has taken this quarter include:  

- Deliver tax relief to hardworking New Zealanders.  

- Support young families with the cost of childcare through the Family Boost tax credit.   

- Set ambitious Government Targets to improve the lives of New Zealanders  

- Restore Three Strikes and establish a Young Serious Offender category to hold serious, persistent offenders to account.” 

It goes on. Certainly, it appears the tougher stance on crime and giving police permission to police seems to be working. I’m not entirely sure there's wholesale relief after the tax relief, and the government really does need to sort out their boot camps and who's running them before they can claim to be sorting out the young, serious, persistent offenders. But nonetheless, whether you agree with what the coalition government is doing or not, at least you know what they're doing. They set out the plans. They then report back as to whether they've achieved them, and they let us know.  

The Prime Minister told Mike Hosking this morning that his way of doing things is that they have a different way of running things from previous governments, but they're trying to be transparent.  

“I publish these quarterly plans and people will say to me, you know, why do you do that? Well, I'm doing it because I'm trying to be transparent about what we're working on as a government in the next 13 weeks, and some of it is taking decisions and making sure we get alignment inside our government and our coalition to do those programmes. A lot of it's introducing legislation. This August, you're going to see all our gang laws get actually passed into law. That's a six month process, we kicked that off in that first 100 days. Now that's going to be law. That will be picked up by police in October and away we go. So it does take time, but it's really at the moment, it's the turn around. You've got to just be what's the problem I'm trying to solve? What's the common sense solution that deals with that? Right, is that moving forward in the next 13 weeks or not? And it's focusing tremendously a public service that hasn't had direction and it's also focusing my ministers and my conversations with them about what I'm expecting from each of them. And it's always done through the mantra of rebuild the economy, restore law and order, deliver better public services, particularly health and education.” 

So that was the Prime Minister with Mike Hosking this morning. And sure, as some of the things might be a bit Betty Basic on the Q3 40 point plan that's just been released. Take cabinet decisions. Well, basically that means holding cabinet meetings, hold public consultations. Yeah, good on ya.  And probably, the action on gangs that featured in Q1. So that features in Q3, so a bit of a double up, but that's what I'd do with the big To Do List as well. Write down the really easy things that I was going to do anyway, so I can cross them off and it makes the list look less daunting. And if you can double up... sometimes I'll do bathrooms, and then I'll do polished glass, which includes the bathroom, and I can do 2 ticks off my list, which is a little bit, I think, what the Prime Minister is doing.  

But who can blame them? It's a daunting list. And when it's a great big scary list, you need to have a few things you can tick off. Governments love to think that they're all about transparency. Remember the last lot? But this one does appear to be transparent. If you want to have a look at what the government intends to do, you can see it online. If you want to look at how well they have done, you can see it online and then you can make your own judgments as well. I feel they are being transparent. I feel they are giving us something against which we can measure them. Is that how you feel? Whether you like what they're doing or not, then at least we know what they're doing and then we can think, okay, they're doing a good job/they're not doing a good job.  

So far, so good. They've listed what they intend to do, they're following through on their plans, we can see that with the gangs. They've said that Q3 is where they're going to be focusing on the gangs and clamping down on gang activity. The way gangs advertise themselves through the patches, through the gatherings, and we can judge whether they're having any effect or not. So yes, I think they are being transparent, might be a slightly more business-like way of doing things by setting out a list or a 40 point plan. The stats seemed to be coming through and that was always something I wanted the last lot to do. Show me. If your ideas are that great, show me they're working, give me some numbers, and that was something that the last lot failed to do. So, so far, so good. 

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