Is NZ still “on the cusp of something special”?

 

Remember if you will the last NZ election, in which the only ‘tangible’ thing John Key offfered –aside from his already-broken promise not to introduce new taxes – was his forecast that New Zealand was on the "cusp of something special" and he would like to lead the country there.

We heard it many times. It anchored many of his election speeches, making up for the lack of any detail about how this “something special” would emerge.

We know today that – unless that something special was an out-of-control asset bubble -- it hasn’t, and won’t.

We all wondered at the time what adman wrote that empty platitude for him to conceal the empty platform.

Turns out Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, running on an equally empty platform, is singing from the same empty songsheet, composed for him by the same empty admen.

Announcing the election campaign six short sentences into his speech formalising what we have all known since before Easter – that we are going to the polls on July 2, – Malcolm Turnbull came out with  “It is the most exciting time to be an Australian!” The anti-zinger, one might call it. A line Turnbull often has parodied himself.  A leaden leitmotif. But even worse was the verbal packaging it came wrapped in; packaging, as one would cringe from calling it rhetoric or prose.
    “Our economic plan for jobs and growth is as clear as it is critical to support this transition to the new economy of the 21st century,” Turnbull trumpeted. “It is the most exciting time to be an Australian! These are exciting times. But we must embark on these times, embrace these opportunities, meet these challenges ….”

Blah. Blah. Blah. And so on.’

Talk about The Yawning Gap.

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