But wait! There’s worse! Election ballyhoo is also coming obscenely early.
Recently, a year away from the next election, a pamphlet arrived which invited me to read what National had delivered.
"National is getting New Zealand back on track" was the headline and then followed six pages of "achievements".
New mums can now stay at the hospital for three days which is an improvement but hardly earth-shattering.
In fact, it reminded me of the leaked memo which revealed Wellington Hospital is cutting beds from its gynaecology and maternity wards in a trial aimed at making more room for patients from the overcrowded emergency department.
As for emergency departments, we learn that 73.9% of patients are treated and discharged within six hours, up from 71.2% last year.
Pretty minuscule improvement I would have thought when the government target was 77% for 2025-26.
Then there are those reports from Wellington and Auckland which claim fewer than 40% of patients are seen within six hours on some days.
There are still horror stories about patients waiting in pain for up to 30 hours before being seen by a doctor.
It’s not that long ago that the minister of health assured us a lot of money was being put into doctor training but didn’t mention how many under-paid doctors trained in New Zealand end up working in Australia.
A new medical school in Waikato is listed, but to those who knew that both Otago and Auckland could increase their output of doctors for much less funding the announcement smacks of a reward to the voters of Hamilton East for getting rid of Labour in their electorate and to those of Hamilton West who saw off a Labour candidate in handsome style.
The pamphlet notes National has "begun work on Dunedin hospital rebuild".
That the new hospital will be less than the "ideal" building originally envisaged is not mentioned.
Perhaps the only bright spot in the debacle is the comment from National’s Chris Bishop: "we’re the ones who’ve inherited an absolute hospital pass from the previous government".
On the "Restoring Law and Order" page, the banning of gang patches in public gets a mention as does the increasing of police patrols.
Of course, it gives no solid data about whether the unpatched are now model citizens or by how much patrols have increased.
One achievement is ignored. Under this government much has been done to restore law and order in Queensland as dozens of New Zealand cops head across the Ditch for higher pay and better working conditions.
"Ram-raids have reduced by 85%", crows National but the pamphlet ignores the fact that the main cause of the decrease is the absurdly high cost of petrol under this government.
Young rammers can no longer afford to pursue their hobby.
Dumping the NCEA qualification got a mention, but I immediately thought of the teacher who went public complaining that teachers got a 1% pay offer from the government but that implementing the new scheme involved hours of extra work.
The rest of the pamphlet was crammed with "successes" which, on examination, proved to be failures.
I ended up being very confused. Here was an election pamphlet from the National Party which carefully crafted details of minor successes and omitted major failings to come up with something which pretty well convinced me that National was leading us up the garden path rather than getting us back on track.
I turned to my old friend Emeritus Prof Leonard Buffon who taught political science for over 30 years and whose students now litter the political landscape, most of them shaped by the theories in his classic Politics For Dummies And The People Who Vote For Them.
I explained my bewilderment and he chuckled quietly.
"Ah, Jim, if you read my book you would know what’s going on."
"I’ll read it. Promise. But maybe you could explain in in a sentence or two."
"Very well. The pamphlet, authorised by S Smith, Parliament Buildings, Wellington, appears at first to extol the virtues of the present administration but in the end leaves you feeling very negative about the government and perhaps likely to vote for Labour next year. Correct?"
"Correct. But why?"
"Your blind faith in what politicians tell you is your downfall, Jim. There are 14 Smiths swanning around in Parliament buildings and you presumed "S Smith" was Stuart Smith, the chief government whip. In fact, the pamphlet was cleverly compiled by Sam Smith who’s read Politics For Dummies And The People Who Vote For Them. Sam happens to be chief strategist on the Labour re-election committee."
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
