OPINION: New Zealanders, more than anyone, should understand the value of being able to believe what our politicians and public experts say, and then taking actions or changing our expectations in response.
We rightly trusted our prime minister’s warnings about Covid-19 at a time of crisis in March last year and collectively took major and painful actions for the greater good over the longer term. It worked, unlike in other countries where either politicians didn’t trust voters, or voters didn’t trust their Governments.
Trust and credibility matter too when a Government is trying to run a stable economy, especially when expectations about the future often drive behaviour today. That’s why New Zealand collectively decided in the late 1980s to crush inflationary expectations by creating an independent central bank targeting inflation of 2 per cent with brutal hikes in interest rates.