Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party colleagues have talked a lot in recent months about “doing the right thing”.
The phrase fitted snugly with the party’s “Let’s do it” election campaign slogan which was adopted after Andrew Little was replaced by Ardern and his passive and dreary “fresh approach” line was likewise ditched.
“Doing the right thing” has become Labour’s unofficial motto. It is to be hoped for Ardern’s sake, that it does not become her government’s epitaph.
It will not take long before tricky issues where doing the right thing comes at a political cost find their way onto the agenda of the weekly Cabinet meeting.
The PM made number 13 on Forbes' Top 22 Most Powerful Women in Politics.
In fact, it has already happened even though the three-party governing arrangement is little more than one week old.
Ardern’s weekend trans-Tasman summit with her Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull will require some fancy diplomatic footwork on her part.
“Doing the right thing” means going a lot further than merely implementing your manifesto commitments or scrapping key policies of the previous government, be that national standards in primary schools, the three-strikes law or charter schools.
“Doing the right thing” has a large moral component. Without that dimension, the phrase is devoid of meaning. It becomes an empty vessel.
To keep using it is to enter the territory of the political charlatan.
Talking of political charlatans, in the case of Australia, “doing the right thing” would see Ardern slamming Canberra’s morally bankrupt treatment of the Manus Island refugees.
It would see her likewise decrying the similarly despicable detention and deportation of long-time Australian residents with criminal records who also happen to be New Zealand citizens.
That is not going to happen. Despite the indignation on both sides of the ditch at Canberra’s slide into a humanitarian abyss, the political reality of the lop-sided relationship between the two countries inevitably intrudes.
Even so, Ardern will not find it easy to strike a balance which avoids embarrassing her host by her being overly critical of Australia’s handling of its immediate refugee crisis and embarrassing herself by not being seen to be critical enough.
So far, she has veered in the latter direction, meekly saying that New Zealand was in the “lucky position”of not having to struggle with the refugee issue, unlike Australia.
Arden will have to do better than that. She can do better than that.
There is another vexed example where Labour has promised to “do the right thing” far closer to home.
In this case determining the right thing to do is a far bigger dilemma because neither side of the argument is intrinsically wrong.
During the election campaign, Ardern reiterated Andrew Little’s pledge to the families of the 29 deceased Pike River miners that a Labour government would attempt a manned re-entry to the part of the mine where some bodies are thought to be lying.
She insisted it was not just the right thing to do. It was the least that Labour could do.
There is a very strong argument that Ardern should have executed a swift post-election U-turn and sided with National on the matter by declaring that a recovery mission was too dangerous, that respecting the sensitivities of the families did not justify playing Russian roulette with other lives and that the mine entrance should instead be sealed permanently.
Such a declaration would have been a display of true leadership which would have received plaudits everywhere apart from the West Coast.
Keeping her word and the opportunity to get one over National appear to have instead won the day during the subsequent negotiations with Winston Peters and New Zealand First.
“Re-entry to Pike River” is now an explicit commitment in Labour’s coalition agreement with the latter, although the word “manned” is noticeable by its absence.
Little, who now wears the newly-minted moniker of “Minister responsible for re-entry” to sit beside a string of other similarly challenging portfolios, has put that down to oversight rather than intent.
He sounded surprisingly gung-ho this week about the chances of gaining entry to key areas of the mine, indicating he was not willing to wait for the development and deployment of robotic devices to be sent in first to survey the scene.
Just why he was so positive is puzzling. Nothing has changed regarding safety since Solid Energy determined manned re-entry was too risky given the possibility of the collapse of the roofs of access tunnels.
It can be safely assumed that whatever advice Little has received from his officials would have been heavily laced with caution.
The latter commodity is likely in short supply, however, since the changing of the guard in the Beehive.
Andrew Little will be working closely with Deputy PM Winston Peters on the re-entry effort.
After nine years twiddling its thumbs in Opposition, Labour’s demand is for decisiveness.
This is a special moment for the country’s new prime minister. All the stars are in rare alignment. Her power is at its zenith.
Her energy and enthusiasm levels will never again be as high as they are currently. Public dissatisfaction with her will never be lower.
The public mood will never again be as sympathetic to her causes as now.
Her parliamentary colleagues will never be as understanding of any mistakes on her part.
Her coalition and support partners will never be as accommodating to her wishes as they are now.
Ardern has Labour’s “first 100 days action plan” — a standard tool for ensuring a new government hits the ground running, and maintains momentum and keeps setting the agenda.
Given her popularity, Ardern can also probably expect a longer than normal honeymoon period with voters.
National might as well stay home this side of Christmas. No-one will have much interest in what its MPs have to say, at least for the time being.
Everyone who is anyone in the Wellington political milieu will instead be hanging off Ardern’s every word — or rather words as she endeavours to satisfy expectations that she will always try to do the right thing.
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