A strategic challenge for National in a post Covid world

On Patreon I’ve done a fairly lengthy post on what I see as a strategic challenge for National – how it positions itself in a post-Covid world. One extract:

It is very possible that for the next decade or so New Zealanders will feel much more positive about a big state than they have in the past.

So National needs to spend the next few months not just reviewing the last three years, but thinking about the next ten years.  How does National position itself in a post-Covid era?

This is not an argument for National to embrace increasing the tax take from 30% to 40% of GDP, or the like. It is an argument that National has to think about how to make its principles relevant to people post Covid-19.

There are obvious areas to target such as government waste, as the less the Government wastes on failed projects, the more it could spent in areas like public health. But you don’t win an election purely be exposing waste.

You need to be able to advocate an alternative vision of Government – a smarter Government, a more agile Government, a tech friendly Government etc.

Basically National should not assume that once the we have a vaccine for the virus, everything returns to normal. The world and the country in 2023 and 2026 will be very different from 2017.