The Post: The left needs to come up with a coherent message on the economy

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Pop quiz: could you tell me the Government’s narrative about how we fix the economy? Pop quiz part two: could you tell me the Opposition’s version?

Whatever your political beliefs, I suspect you’d find the former easier to describe than the latter. The Government, Christopher Luxon constantly tells us, has got inflation under control by curbing Labour’s “wasteful” spending, and is now “laser-focused” on getting rid of red tape so that Kiwi entrepreneurs can build flourishing businesses and we all become better off.

If he has a little more time, and is trying more directly to win over Labour voters, the prime minister will add something about lifting school standards, building infrastructure and reforming the RMA, all actions notionally designed to lay the foundations of long-term prosperity. But the core of his message is short and simple.

It may not be especially accurate: falling inflation, for instance, has had almost nothing to do with his Government’s actions, and everything to do with the Reserve Bank’s hiking of interest rates. But Luxon sticks to his message, as do his ministers and coalition partners; the public, accordingly, absorbs a clear and comprehensible story about how we raise our living standards.

By contrast, the opposition’s narrative about the economy is … what, exactly? Labour, the Greens and others have done a reasonably good job of prosecuting the Government’s failures, notably the calamitous decision to cut back on state house-building, classroom construction and other infrastructure projects just as the economy was in a state of collapse and crying out for stimulus.

When it comes to solutions, however, the picture becomes much muddier. Occasionally the Opposition talks about shifting investment away from housing and into more economically productive areas. Ideas are floated about boosting savings and backing Kiwi businesses.

The Greens in particular have a detailed fiscal strategy that makes the case for higher taxes to deliver better public services and greater borrowing to deliver the infrastructure future generations will need. But a strategy isn’t the same thing as a story.

If, as I suspect, many left-wingers could more clearly articulate their opponents’ economic message than they could their own, it suggests there has been a significant failure to develop an alternative narration. And that matters in a week when even a commentator like Bernard Hickey, long sceptical about the promised economic recovery, has acknowledged “green shoots” in the form of increased retail spending and rising business activity.

The Government’s critics may argue that no matter how strong National’s message discipline, the public aren’t buying the story. Unemployment has spiked, people are fleeing the country in droves, and Labour is now the party most trusted on the economy.

But as business activity regathers strength, the Government’s message will become more convincing, amplified by the public’s underlying belief that the right are better economic managers than the left. Time-poor and disengaged from politics, swing voters may be easily persuaded by the Government’s simple message, often repeated.

Constructing an alternative story is far from impossible. And it needn’t be especially original; National’s isn’t. (Indeed it is just a variation of the age-old right-wing fable: get government out of the way and watch the economy boom.)

The best alternative tale is probably a variation on bottom-up economics. The economy will thrive only if everyone, especially those who are currently struggling, can contribute to their full potential.

That requires foundational government investments in housing, education and healthcare, to help people maximise their abilities, and employment policies – higher minimum wages and so on – to ensure ordinary Kiwis’ hard work is rewarded. To put it in metaphorical terms: we’re all on the same waka, and that waka will forge ahead only if we make sure everyone on board can paddle at top speed.

This is, of course, far from the whole story. A fuller narrative would have to encompass the government’s role in shaping the economy’s direction – industrial policy, in other words – and the need to ensure any economic growth is compatible with protecting the planet.

This reflects an innate disadvantage the left faces in politics. The right’s story – not just on the economy but about life in general – is always much simpler: individuals are to blame for their success or failure.

The left, conversely, has to construct an account of the many and varied forces – poverty, discrimination, difficult upbringings, failures of public services, neighbourhood effects and so on – that can conspire to cast people down or lift them up. It is just an inherently more complex story.

Be that as it may, coherent narratives are still needed. And those narratives are only ever the wrapping, the covering, the envelope. The thinking that lies inside them must also be coherent.

Just as bad prose often indicates muddled argument, an unclear narrative often points to a lack of a comprehensive plan. That, in fact, may be the left’s biggest weakness.