Never mind the swear words, politicians need to raise debate quality

NZ Herald

3 days ago

I don't believe people are genuinely shocked by the language we're all hearing every night on our streaming TV shows.
What is shocking is the standard of argument being employed by politicians and parties as they seek to score points with silly populist arguments.
On my Facebook and Instagram feeds, the Labour Party has been trying to tell me that the Government is to blame for soaring butter prices.
It has posted a chart of butter prices pointing out that they have doubled since the National-led coalition came to power.
That's annoyed me on a number of levels.
Despite the fact it seems to enrage many Kiwis, soaring dairy prices are clearly a net gain for the economy.
We sell a lot more internationally than we consume locally and the current dairy price spike is expected to bring in an additional $10 billion in export revenue over this year and next.
It's exactly what our economy needed.
The impact on consumers is overstated. Butter prices have doubled in two years. You used to be able to get a 500g block for about $4.50 now it's about $8.50.
That's an extra $4 a week, far less than petrol prices fluctuate on a regular basis.
Also, there are numerous butter substitutes and blends that haven't risen nearly that much.
I understand why someone on the Labour Party team has tried to milk the dairy price story (sorry for the pun).
It is a headline grabber and an easy online meme.
I bet the analytics on it look great. But it makes no sense in the real world.
The Government has no control over international dairy prices.
There are things a government could do to reduce the cost of butter for local consumers.
They could subsidise the price with taxpayer money. Or they could impose price controls on farmers and force them to sell a certain amount locally.
These would be terrible policies, and there is no chance Labour is about to adopt them.
So butter prices would be exactly the same right now if they had won the last election.
More broadly, inflation is running rampant like it was throughout 2021 and 2022.
It has edged up to 2.5% but remains within the Reserve Bank's 1-3% target band.
The same Stats NZ release that included the butter price graph also pointed out that annual rent price increases haven't been below 2.8% since 2011.
Of course, much lower inflation isn't all good news. The fact it is underperforming so badly is giving economists confidence that inflation will stay subdued.
The economy is struggling to get any momentum and there is no doubt a lot of people are doing it tough.
There's no shortage of real issues with this recovery, which the current Government ought to take some responsibility for.
Labour could legitimately be attacking the Government on unemployment and job security.
There are tens of thousands more people on the Jobseeker benefit now than there were when Labour was in power.
I don't mean to single out Labour either. The National Party spent a lot of time in opposition attacking Labour for letting those Jobseeker numbers rise.
It also drives me crazy when the Government holds press conferences after the Official Cash Rate announcement to take credit for falling interest rates.
Interest rates are falling because inflation is under control and the economy is underperforming.
If they go much lower, it will be because things are getting worse, not better.
Meanwhile, in the past week, we've had David Seymour running 'victim of the day' social media attacks on opponents of his regulatory standards bill.
Seymour says he is being 'playful' and having 'fun' with his line, suggesting opponents are suffering from 'Regulatory Standards Derangement Syndrome'.
Surely if the bill is worth putting before Parliament, then it must have been aimed at delivering some sort of meaningful change to the status quo.
Let's have a grown-up debate about what that intended change is.
What's frustrating about political debate in 2025 is that politicians are so quick to build 'straw man' arguments because they seem easy to sell as memes and headlines.
A 'straw man', for the record, is where you present a weak version or flawed version of your opponent's argument so you can easily dismiss it.
It's lazy and doesn't do anything to boost the quality of policy-making in this country.
It's probably too much to ask, but wouldn't it be nice if our politicians were confident enough in their view to employ the opposite of a 'straw man' argument?
That's called a 'steel-man' argument.
It requires you to consciously present the strongest and most charitable version of your opponent's argument. Then you explain why it still doesn't stack up.
It requires you to do a bit of homework and think through the logical basis for your argument.
I'm pretty sure all the leaders of our political parties are smart enough to do that.
But we seem to be following a depressing international trend which sees social media debate reduce everything to simplistic points which appeal to an increasingly tribal political base.
New Zealand has a cyclical recovery underway that would have happened, at a greater or lesser pace, regardless of who was in power.
Scrapping over that is pointless.
We need to be looking ahead to how we lift the economy at a structural level and enable higher levels of cyclical growth.
That requires some serious work and will need a higher quality of debate than what we've been seeing this year.
This column will take a two-week break as the author is on holiday with his family.
Liam Dann is business editor-at-large for theNew Zealand Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined theHeraldin 2003.