‘Twas the night before the election

When all through the think tank

Not a creature was stirring

Because frankly, all we can do now is sit and wait.

While the outcome of the election remains anyone’s guess, one thing is certain. We need to know how to measure the new government’s success.

If elections are the public’s opportunity to give the government a performance review, then new governments could do with a clear set of goals or KPI’s.

Otherwise, how will we know what our new government stands for? In three years’ time, how will we be able to judge the government’s progress on the issues it purports to prioritise?

Though parties can get away with – and even be rewarded for – platitudes, once they are in government we will need to see results. It is all very well making policy and spending promises, but the public deserves to know how those promises have stacked up over time.

The current government set the standard with its introduction of Better Public Service (BPS) targets. The BPS targets outlined the Government’s top 10 priorities in complex, long term issues and tracks the progress made. To illustrate, National’s targets included reducing long term welfare dependence, improving maths and literacy skills, and reducing the waiting time for people on the social housing register.

The BPS targets have not been without controversy. Some targets have been “updated” (discarded), making it hard to track real progress over time. And any targets will almost inevitably reflect political objectives that not everyone will share.

But that is no reason to dump the concept. If parties are committed to transparency and accountability, they will retain their targets even if the outcomes appear politically unfavourable. And the fact that parties will differ in their priorities is a feature, not a bug.

Rather than just restrict measures of political progress to public services, the incoming government could go even wider and adopt economic measures.

Likewise, given rising house prices are a key election issue, surely that should be front and centre of government reporting. If the government were really ambitious, it might even look into closing the income gap between New Zealand and Australia too.

This election voters have had the opportunity to appraise the government on its motivation, progress, and room for improvement.

No matter your political persuasion, voters should at least be able to judge whether future governments achieve what they set out to achieve.