The current election may be marking a clear water-shed in the minds of the community.

If the two major centrist parties (National and Labour) fall from traditionally between 75 and 80% of the vote, to potentially below 60% we have probably moved to a more extreme and divided political environment.

It might be helpful to understand the drivers of this change.

In simple terms it is because the centre-left and centre-right policies in use until now, have failed to build a sustainable and prosperous society.

As the middle ground is soiled and spoiled, more people are heading further right or left for answers.

The problem with this trend, if it is one, is that it will lead to even greater swings of policy in future as the inevitable changes in popularity over six to nine years, occur.

It therefore might be timely to look at why the centrist policies have failed us before we reject them.

Firstly, my definition of failure. The role of government in my mind is: to help each person it governs live their best life, so that we can all contribute to a better society.

This obliges the government to balance individual rights with our joint responsibility to create the society where everyone can flourish, not just those who a born into good fortune.

I believe every political party would accept this and say their answers are the best way to achieved it.

In practice we have now had decades of:

* Worsening economy (productivity isn’t improving, the main drivers of growth since 2010 have been more people and an earthquake.)

* Worsening living standards (for most as cost-of-living increases)

* Worsening health services (do I need to clarify?)

* Worsening housing issues (homelessness now highly visible and having to be regulated to make it less so)

* Worsening dependence on benefits (or worse, moving out of the benefit system onto the illegal drug fuelled and funded one)

These factors have contributed to the inability of increasing numbers of people to improve their and their families lives.

I suggest this is sufficient proof of the failure of either the centre-right or centre-left policies of past decades.

Some policies I’m referring to are, in Winston Peters words from 2017, the “neo-Liberal economic policies” of the right, “capitalism without a human face” and a “wealthy few” economy; and the centralised Wellington based decision making from the left that goes beyond a safety net for the disadvantaged.

When did extra spending in Wellington last solve systemic problems in health, housing, transport or education?

The problem lies deep within government operations. People advising governments of any colour still apply completely flawed logic which ensures the failures this logic have caused, continue.

There are many examples but for brevity I provide three examples.

* Decision making without knowledge.

The failure to see the impact on the ground of calls made in the boardroom, lead to unintended consequences. This has been encouraged by decades of executives and managers who have been trained (one should call it hoodwinked) into separating governance and operations, rather than integrating them so decisions help operations.

It is an example of an idealogic concept used because it seems to make life easier, when the reality is it makes performance worse.

* Use of arbitrary targets.

These have been proven to worsen performance in research available since the 1940s and reconfirmed in any study on the issue since then. One way these worsen performance is by focusing attention on treating symptoms rather than dealing with causes — for example, wait times for emergency departments, when with better housing and earlier intervention with primary health care, volumes at ED would be slashed, taking the pressure off both wait times and the need to build new and bigger ED facilities.

Replacement measures are needed, but successive governments have failed to make the shift. Parties are finally beginning to talk about prevention, but you can guarantee any new prevention model will be subject to targets.

* Accountability.

The emphasis on who ultimately takes the blame for any error, gleefully encouraged by media believing they are doing good for the community, has led to the design of an “unaccountability machine” in government.

Covering one’s backside has become a primary consideration of decision-makers, not necessarily consciously, but just look at the number of consultants’ reports funded for any significant call, to ensure others can be blamed if things go pear-shaped.

The list is long. It includes how citizens are (not) understood, the way contractors are managed, unhelpful methods of regulation, and investment especially in IT with predictable overruns and non-delivery of a working asset to name four more.

What is important to understand is the combined consequence of these, working off one another, is the downward spiral we see in health, housing, cost of living, productivity, and transport within New Zealand and also around the world.

At least we aren’t yet rioting on the streets as they are in Europe.

The point is the centrist position has been poorly serviced by the well-meaning, servants of the system with poor logic.

I am confident we can all point to stupidity of government action and with incredulity wonder “how the hell people could have done that?”

Just as an aside the same failures and beliefs exist in private enterprise and contribute to the productivity malaise of the Western world. It isn’t just a government issue, it is a belief issue.

Moving to more extreme positions to see if those will work better, is not a recipe for improvement, as UK, Italy and USA are finding out.

However, when no option seems to exist, it’s kind of satisfying to at least stick it to the status quo as a form of protest vote, like Brexit.

To avoid this, we do need to rethink what interventions will truly turn around the trajectory we are currently on.

The old ones have failed time and again but they continue to be proposed or at least accepted as necessary building blocks to a prosperous society. It hasn’t worked in the past three to four decades and with the next couple of decades going to be more disrupted owing to AI, the importance of a solid, proven platform is becoming more important.

Because of the pace of change, a lot more damage can be done in a three-year term than was the case.

So please cast your vote wisely rather than in frustration. We need a real, positive change, not flip flopping between two failed ideologies or heading to extremes.

Given we don’t have a proven alternative on offer, I am looking for the most positive disrupter. Perhaps they will work it out in the coalition discussions.

  • John Cooney is an undecided Otago voter and is not affiliated to any political party.