1. Henry Cooke (Post): One heart attack away from an election: How a likely one-seat Government could play out (paywalled)
Henry Cooke’s piece follows on from my own analysis last week, which pointed out that a National-led Government is likely to have a precarious majority and that this will make it unstable. In 10,000 computer simulations based on past special votes, the Post found a one-seat majority for the existing coalition was the most common outcome, at 38%, and the current two-seat majority survived in only 8%. Marilyn Waring, who crossed the floor on nuclear-free legislation and triggered the election that ended Robert Muldoon’s government, says a National caucus made up entirely of electorate MPs owes Christopher Luxon far less fealty, so he will have to listen to it very closely. Cooke also interviews corporate lobbyist Ben Thomas, whom he curiously labels a “political consultant”. Thomas thinks a left government would be at the mercy of the volatile internal state of Te Pāti Māori.
2. Richard Harman (Post): All politics is local (paywalled)
Richard Harman heard plenty of complaints about National’s campaign from National supporters themselves. They disliked the personal attack on Chlöe Swarbrick, and found little to cheer in a campaign whose only big theme was “no new taxes”. Six National candidates were among the top 20 from all parties who increased their majorities, even as National’s party vote in their seats fell, and Harman reads that personal vote as an invitation for local MPs to find their own voices in caucus. They have reason to, after a campaign in which even the promise of a supermarket review came from the Beehive without consulting them. Harman is good on that episode. Nicola Willis’s Foodstuffs de-merger review scared big business and was fought by a lobbying team including Sir John Key’s former chief of staff Wayne Eagleson and PR veteran Trish Sherson.
3. Tom Hunt and Julie Jacobson (Post): Sole contractors squeezed while ‘big four’ consultants cash in (paywalled)
Nicola Willis declared the contractor and consultant “gravy train” over in 2024. Yet in the last financial year the big four consultancies billed major departments at a five-year high, and Tom Hunt and Julie Jacobson find Wellington’s sole contractors going backwards. Hnry figures show that $100 earned by a Wellington contractor in government-facing work in 2023 had become $75 three years later. Outside Wellington it grew to $134. Hnry’s chief executive James Fuller, a former Deloitte man, thinks agencies may be paying significantly more for similar expertise. One contractor tells of a KiwiSaver drawdown so she could eat.
4. Verity Johnson (Stuff): A deal with either side is a poison chalice for Quilae Wong
Verity Johnson thinks Qiulae Wong should turn down both National and Labour. Opportunity’s voters are angry moderates who want big change, and Seymour and Peters “will skewer her like a cocktail olive”. Her advice is to stay on the cross benches and make the Government beg for every policy. She also floats a twist in which Peters, put out at losing the kingmaker role, does a deal with Labour on condition Hipkins is rolled.
5. Andrea Vance (Post): The nursing education overhaul that fell apart (paywalled)
The Nursing Council spent $166,345 on an education review it billed as independent. Yet one reviewer, Candy Cookson-Cox, sat on the council’s board, and the other, Debra Thoms, was a former interim chief executive of the lobby group for university nursing faculties, Andrea Vance found in documents released under the Official Information Act. Neither link was disclosed. The review proposed shifting all degree-level nurse training to universities by 2030, even though polytechnics train about 75% of domestic nurse graduates, and the online survey of 260 health workers never asked about the change. A subsequent assessment by consultants Phronesis found the review met just three of 35 quality benchmarks. Cookson-Cox disputes the findings, saying the assessors never interviewed her, and that she declared her council seat at every workshop. Asked why the conflicts weren’t disclosed, board chair Sharon Brownie said: “The reason is unknown. It is unclear and undocumented.” The council has shelved the report.
6. Azaria Howell (Herald): New Zealand backed US co-funding port on former Cook Islands military base without a formal business case (paywalled)
New Zealand has committed $17.5m to a port upgrade on Penrhyn, a former US military base in the northern Cook Islands, with no business case. Azaria Howell’s story draws on Official Information Act documents obtained by Newstalk ZB, in which MFAT officials concede a project like this would “ordinarily be supported by a detailed business case prepared over a number of years with firm cost estimates”. The US is putting in about $84 million. MFAT’s own concept note rates the project high risk, and a detailed business case isn’t due until June 2029.
7. The Post: Editorial – What is RNZ’s modern purpose? (paywalled)
The Post’s editorial on RNZ doesn’t hold back. The broadcaster overspent by nearly $12m, its board approved a $5m loan without the required ministerial sign-off, and Paul Thompson got a 5.6% pay rise in the year it all unravelled. Blaming Nicola Willis’s cuts doesn’t wash, the paper says, since Crown funding last year was around 39% higher than in 2021/22. It wants RNZ out of toe yoga and pimple patches and into the news deserts and courtrooms that commercial media can no longer afford. The Post declares its own interest as a competitor, accusing RNZ of using its guaranteed revenue to “prey on the rest of the industry”.
8. Nicholas Jones (Stuff): Women may have been harmed by cancer screening failures - investigations underway
Health NZ has confirmed it is investigating a “small number” of cases where women may have been harmed by flaws in the cervical screening register, which failed to send 968,000 invitations and reminders. Back in August it said 13,000 case reviews hadn’t shown anyone harmed by follow-up issues. Nicholas Jones has stayed on this story, and advocates now want to know how many women are involved. Documents released under the Official Information Act show officials discussing four cases of clinical harm linked to delays of more than six months, mostly for colposcopies.
9. Andrew Bevin (Newsroom): Fishing sector trying to steer bottom-trawling discussion as coalition talks loom (paywalled)
With coalition talks looming, Seafood NZ is writing to every party’s leader, president and chief of staff, offering its experts and warning of the damage a bottom-trawling ban would do. It’s lobbying in real time, and Newsroom’s Andrew Bevin catches it well. Chief executive Lisa Futschek calls Shane Jones one of the sector’s largest champions, though she says it will work with any fisheries minister, and she’s hoping “the facts, the evidence and the data will prevail”. She concedes that some provisions of Jones’s Fisheries Amendment Bill, which no party other than NZ First supported, drew enough opposition from submitters to warrant a rethink.
10. Neil Sands (LawNews): Pike River sixteenth anniversary looms, no progress on whether to lay criminal charges
Sixteen years on, Pike River families still don’t know whether anyone will be charged. Police told LawNews the investigation is nearing its final stages, exactly what they said in February, and Neil Sands reports that the families’ lawyer Nigel Hampton KC, who has worked for them pro bono since 2011, isn’t expected to live until Christmas. “It’s just a big mess,” says Sonya Rockhouse, whose son Ben died in the mine.
Below the paywall are 30 more summaries and then 17 further links. They cover the unresolved fate of Michael Laws, whether Winston Peters wants another term as foreign minister, Duncan Garner on John Key’s and Helen Clark’s vote-splitting errors, why voters are deserting the major parties, what a new MP owes their party, whether the Greens are communist, the Green surge in the Māori seats, the scale of abuse aimed at women candidates, Claire Robinson on why MMP isn’t to blame for the overhang, hospital patients who couldn’t vote, Māori fisheries groups threatening legal action over bottom trawling, New Zealand’s slide down the climate rankings, Act and the supermarket break-up, Fonterra’s push to scrap Dira, unemployment at a post-GFC high, a “Yalta moment” at Apec, an Army that wouldn’t survive a modern battlefield, MBIE’s $251,000 copyright settlement with NBR, and what RNZ and Nvidia have in common. Plus today’s cartoons.