“Failure to manage our assets”

This Phrase and other “commonsense terms” are a failure of voter civics!

Feb 17, 2026

Kia Ora Papatūānuku te Iwi

Greetings Earthlings,

The phrase “Failure to manage our assets” is really starting to get to me.

These politicians AND JOURNALISTS are avoiding the reality that is; failure to invest in infrastructure. This seems semantic but is very important. As Tadhg Stopford discussed in his latest substack article, the framing is key to perpetuating political agendas.

Asset management is associated with business. Using that phrase intentionally frames the issue of under investment by governments as a failure of government doing business… therefore infrastructure should be the purview of business, NOT government. It is an insidiously potent way of telling the average citizen that government is not good at this therefore these “assets” should be privatized.

Yes these issues that are now coming to ahead have been brewing for over 40 years. This is NOT a failure of “asset management”, it is a failure of governments of all flavours to invest and think ahead. It is also a failure of voter civics and our ability to also think ahead. Let me explain…

As someone who has a lot of friends old enough to be my Parents, I hear a lot of them lament the days of Think big Projects being long gone... then in the same conversation they’ll complain about “wasteful government spending”. I recognize that it is NOT only older generations that do this. Disappointingly I have heard fellow Millennials parrot these same talking points. Though I do hold older generations more responsible as they are old enough to know better and younger generations are prone to societal osmosis, ie; we learn from our elders.

Voters need to start coming to terms with the fact that politicians are NOT as out of touch as conventional wisdom often tells us. For example; as voters we complain that government spends money wastefully... therefore they cut back spending! From a political point of view, this is perfectly logical! They (the Government) are doing exactly what we are demanding from them....

But then we complain about our crumbling infrastructure, pot holes, the state of our hospitals, the list goes on!

Individually these complaints are not unfounded… but… and this is an important caveat!

But as a collective we don’t like to admit it, our governments are a reflection of us and what we value. For at least 40 years voters wanted governments to cut back on “wasteful spending” while rewarding those who offer tax cuts by voting them into government or oust the incumbent who supposedly overspends and run up too much debt. This debt is supposedly a burden on future generations, so our commonsense would tell us. This of course is a bull shit talking point as most of the people who use this talking point will vehemently express opposition to free tertiary education and student loan forgiveness… So much for caring about burdening future generations with debt…

The now infamous story of Jamie Cleine, former Mayor of Buller was ousted by voters for doing the thing that voters complain about politicians not doing enough of, thinking ahead. Mayor Cleine was thinking about the long term future and well being of his citizens by suggesting that the township of Westport should be relocated to higher ground because of regular flooding. These flooding events are happening with increasing frequency, causing people to lose their homes. This leads to insurance companies becoming more and more hesitant to provide insurance coverage in these areas and is costing these residents and the country more and more each year. Cleine showed foresight and paid the ultimate political price.

Another recent example was from earlier this week on TV1news. Treasury secretary Iain Rennie said we need to invest more in our hospitals. Yeah no shit Sherlock! What was Labour accused of doing again in the 2023 election? Please remind me!

This is how infuriating all of this is, especially as someone who can see how so much of these problems are perpetuated by the voters themselves without even realizing it. Governments have tried to make things better. The details might not have always been sound, but there were attempts, Earthlings! And heaven forbid politicians and media use the phrase “public utilities” or “investment in our country’s infrastructure”, that would be too socialist now.

Weather it is I-Rex Ferries, free school lunches, 3 waters, funding for new hospitals, light rail etc etc etc. All these investments in… dear I say it… “PUBLIC UTILITIES!” We voted against them! We voted them out!

As the old saying goes “you get the government you deserve”. This has gotten so bad that our now opposition is paralyzed, thinking they have to appeal to the mythical “center voter” by touting a centrist slow progressing platform, when in reality what we need is significant change, and quickly.

And based on our shitty civics and this incessant commonsense belief that a country is like a household(spoiler alert, it’s not), we are mutilating ourselves like a flesh eating parasite, except it’s not a parasite from outside, it’s from within. Our way of thinking is actively destroying ourselves and eventually they’ll be only bare bones and no flesh.

Every time we complain about corporations and politicians, we must look at ourselves in the mirror and ask; what have we REALLY voted for in the last two to three decades? Have we voted for policies that invest in the future or policies that will improve mortgage rates?

Earthlings, this is a painful process. I’ve been through it myself!

My first ever vote was for John Key in 2008. When I think about it, what appealed to me was the prospect of tax cuts, that’s it! What I got instead was losing my part time teaching job thanks to funding cuts to ACE, while struggling to find secure employment, along with increasing tertiary fees. Then being told to “go where the jobs are”. Sounds familiar? Back then we had the Christchurch re-build and anyone who was below a certain age who was struggling to find work but not wanting to go to Christchurch for jobs was considered entitled and lazy… again this should sound familiar.

And remember, I voted for this. I could try to save face and say that I did not expect these kinds of policies, but in reality I should have expected them. John Key stated his agenda back then, he was a businessman who was going to run the country like a business.

Believe politicians when they tell you what they are going to do. Another piece of conventional wisdom we need to throw out the window is that politicians always lie. The old adage of “how can you tell when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving” is inaccurate. If that was the case, politics would be easy. A degree in political science would take 3 weeks instead of 4-5 years.

But here is the even sadder part! John Key did do government investment using the government’s balance sheets. That is our ULTRA FAST BROADBAND (UFB) internet net work in the 2010s. John Key did invest $1.8B of government money along with another $3.8B public private partnerships; he straight up used the government balance sheets to pay for it. It was an astonishing achievement, one of the few things that I give John Key massive props for. It was also a bipartisan policy, with the previous Labour government Under Helen Clark planting the seeds of the project and the Key government nurturing those seeds.

The irony of all of this?… National does NOT talk about this… at all! They don’t even tout this major government investment in an important public utility in any of their electioneering as a major achievement, which it totally is. Nope, they keep this on the down low, why?

Because it would illuminate the fact that governments can invest, can be bipartisan and can spend big on public infrastructure/utilities for the benefit of the whole country. Now of course you will still hear about black spots in Aotearoa where there is little to no internet service, but compared to other countries our coverage is pretty decent. On top of that we really did not realize the full benefit of this significant investment until at least 5 years later when so many of us had to work from home. This would have been impossible had it not been for the ambitious investment in a critical part of our country’s infrastructure. This kept the economy ticking over during lock downs. National, the same party who made that possible are now saying our economy was closed for business during that time. As well as civics our memories are just as shitty. We have forgotten the investment and the payoff.

The politicians who represent us, have been representing our values way more accurately than we care to admit. If we don’t improve our civics we will be stuck in this economic rut. We MUST change ourselves and improve our civics before we expect our politics to change.

Ngā Mihi nui

Cristina

Cristina

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