Top “NZ Politics Daily” stories today
Below are some of the more interesting and insightful New Zealand politics items from the last 24 hours.
1) To what extent are corporate lobbyists influencing the new Government? One interesting case study on this is the fact that the tobacco industry is getting some of its preferred policies considered and implemented by the new administration, partly due to the strong advocacy of New Zealand First. It turns out that a former party staffer is now a lobbyist for Philip Morris, and continues to be very close to Cabinet Minister Shane Jones. As an example of this closeness, today in the Post, Andrea Vance reveals that tobacco lobbyist Apirana Dawson “was a guest at the swearing-in ceremony for new government ministers and was pictured posing with NZ First's Shane Jones” – see: Tobacco lobbyist guest at Ministers’ swearing-in ceremony (paywalled)
Vance reports: “Dawson, known as Api, is a long-time associate of NZ First and a former party staffer. In pictures posted to Facebook by Jones' wife Dot, Dawson is shown posing alongside the newly minted minister in the gardens of Wellington’s Government House. Both are holding celebratory glasses of sparkling wine. In another image, seen by The Post, he is pictured in the audience watching the formalities conducted by Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro.”
The lobbyist is a long-time associate and friend of Jones and other politicians – Vance says: “Dawson served as intern for NZ First leader Winston Peters in 2005 and rose to be director of operations, helping to manage manage the party’s 2015 Northland by-election and 2017 general election campaigns. He also worked for Labour between 2008 and 2011, and has worked for the tobacco giant for more than four years.”
Jones has responded to the links between the lobbyist and NZ First policy on tobacco, saying he had consulted with the lobbyist and others about smoking issues, just as he does with other business sectors: “We took soundings from a whole range of people. My friendship and association goes well before the cigarette business... I know, because I'm the minister of mining and fisheries, that I've got a lot of whitewater in front of me. I've always talked to industry. I get a lot of my information about the ebb and flow of the minerals and fishing industry from within industry. And I think it's hard to pull a conspiracy on a politician like me, when I just openly tell everyone, that's where I get my information from”.
On the issue of whether lobbyists or tobacco interests donated to Jones’ election campaign, he says: “I will be declaring my donations and people can draw their own conclusions”.
2) Shane Jones is also at the centre of another vested interests issue: To what extent should the fishing industry contribute towards the rollout and maintenance costs of cameras on board fishing vessels that monitor to ensure rules are adhered to? As Minister for Oceans and Fisheries Jones has announced a review of the issue, with him telling the NBR this week, “The costs are onerous. The industry is already reeling under an onerous cost structure and I’m taking a briefing on how that cost structure might be alleviated” – see Liam Rātana’s Fishing industry faces camera rollout cost dilemma (paywalled)
The article reports: “NBR understands NZ First was seeking to completely scrap the rollout of cameras on fishing vessels but failed to get it across the line during their negotiations to form the coalition Government with National and Act.” The industry argues that the public should pay the costs, as fisheries are a national resource. And Jones has also cited the industries concerns about “data privacy, and the effect of the cameras on staff retention and productivity”. As Minister, Jones has also scraped the previous Government’s “fisheries plan” for the sector, and is talking about earmarking some of the government’s new $1.2b Provincial Investment Fund for aquaculture.
3) With David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill looking to be dead on arrival at the select committee, Chris Trotter suggests today that the Government will instead “give effect to Seymour’s entirely reasonable determination to have the legislature define the meaning of the te Tiriti o Waitangi” via simple legislation passed this term, which would then make the next election a proxy referendum on the issue – see his Newstalk column, Compromising On The Treaty (paywalled)
The gist of the strategy is already contained in Winston Peters’ plans to clarify the principles in existing legislation: “Peters, with Christopher Luxon’s support, can put it to Seymour that if all three members of the Coalition Government commit themselves to enabling the people of New Zealand to define the meaning and purpose of te Tiriti, distilling the essence of their endeavours into a government bill, then there is nothing to prevent them doing what Mickey Savage did in relation to his 1938 social welfare legislation – have it come into force after the next election. The opponents of te Tiriti revision will find it difficult to convince New Zealanders that they should not be permitted to render their collective political judgement in the polling booths.”
Trotter says this will put the Opposition, and especially Labour, in a difficult position: “a strong determination on the part of the Coalition Government to encourage New Zealanders to participate in a broad and open-ended discussion on te Tiriti’s meaning and purpose in the 2020s, with the resulting legislation to be confirmed, or rejected, by voters in 2026, will place Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori in an extremely awkward position. They can hardly argue against the Coalition Government seeking an electoral mandate for its efforts – not without repudiating representative democracy altogether. Accordingly, the political pressure on Labour to embrace the politics of compromise will be immense. A refusal to do so would risk the party being isolated at the extreme end of te Tiriti debate – a position from which it would struggle to present itself as a serious alternative government.”
4) Rightwing political commentator Matthew Hooton calls today in his Herald column for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to immediately axe David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill. He argues that the Act bill is a nonsense, simply designed to increase support for Seymour’s own party at the expense of the National Party and national harmony – see: Treaty Principles Bill: National, Act failing good-faith test (paywalled)
Hooton thinks the draft principles in the bill, as recently leaked from the Ministry of Justice, are bizarre and something of a fantasy, as if the Treaty of Waitangi was written by 19th-century political philosopher John Stuart Mill: “Act’s strategy seems to be to offer fake Treaty principles to the public, generate a few hundred thousand supportive online select-committee submissions, hold six months of heated hearings, hope for civil unrest, produce polls showing a majority wishes the Treaty had been written by Mill, and then accuse National of siding with Māori radicals against ‘mainstream New Zealanders’.”
Luxon has a difficult tightrope to walk at the moment – carefully positioning National with neither the Act Party nor Māori radicals, in what is an extremely polarizing debate. Hooton argues that Luxon has only served to unite the whole of Māoridom with policies announced so far: “after just two months as Prime Minister, he has earned the title Te Pirīmia Whakakotahi i Ngā Iwi, the great unifier of the people. In nearly 1000 years, no one – not even Helen Clark over the foreshore and seabed – has so unified Māori.”
But Hooton paints a picture whereby the nation is becoming polarized between those on Act’s side versus the Greens and Te Pati Māori, with National in the uncomfortable middle. But this is a better place for National to be than helping Act overturn the Treaty consensus and settlements, which Hooton suggests is one that won’t be welcomed by the business community: “if he accidentally unravelled the lands, fisheries or electromagnetic-spectrum settlements based on the courts’ Treaty principles, he’d create instability across the agriculture, forestry, commercial property, seafood and telecommunications industries.”
5) Former Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei, now an Otago University law lecturer, also argues today that Luxon needs to make a truly unequivocal statement against the Seymour bill – such as “While I am prime minister, there will be no legislation passed that rewrites the Treaty of Waitangi nor a referendum on the matter” – see: PM vaguely careful in approach to Treaty principles Bill (paywalled)
Turei says: “The prime minister doesn’t want to support the Bill and I believe him. It is a political disaster in the making. The Bill is driving, and will continue to drive, disagreement and division among New Zealanders. The debate will mar his prime ministership for as long as he holds the role. If the Bill proceeds past the select committee stage, it creates a platform for Act to dominate the political airwaves. He does not want to give his political competition inside government or his political opponents outside of government any more oxygen.”
6) Former Cabinet Minister Peter Dunne also calls today for a middle way on the issue, saying that “Most of the rhetoric coming so far from both sides can be dismissed as (deliberately) ignorant and inflammatory” – see: A middle way to agree modern place of Te Tiriti
Dunne is scathing about the Act bill, but he also believes that the public should be able to sensibly debate the principles of the Treaty. The real strength of his column is drawing attention to the quickly declining social and political cohesion in the world: “New Zealand is not immune – our political divisions have become more sharply delineated and entrenched since the pandemic. The rising level of violent crime, an increasing lack of respect for institutions and political leaders at all levels, and the new dogmatism that has emerged around various political and social issues are all testament to that. We seem to have lost, or more worryingly deliberately thrown away, our capacity to listen to different views, let alone respect the right of others to express them, or even hold them in the first place. Nuance and subtlety have given way to absolute right and wrong.”
7) A similar point is made today by Newstalk’s John MacDonald – see: Can big things be discussed without the bunfights?
8) Political polarisation in media coverage is also discussed today by the Herald’s Shayne Currie, who discusses TVNZ’s National Correspondent John Campbell, explaining that “his style of commentary is causing angst in some quarters - not surprisingly among conservative commentators and on social media. In recent weeks, and especially since the election, Campbell has made little secret of where his politics lie” – see: Media Insider: John Campbell’s curious career twist at TVNZ (paywalled)
Having penned numerous scathing columns about the new government, Currie says: “Campbell has painted himself into a corner in terms of his future responsibilities - something that TVNZ will need to be careful about, even though it insists its happy for him to present any of its news shows.” And he draws attention to a statement from Campbell in the past when he said he wanted didn’t want to be seen as partisan: “I don’t want to be dismissed as a lefty any more. It’s more important than that. I want politicians to think that when they come on air with me they are going to be treated fairly. Unless they behave in a way that means they don’t deserve to be treated fairly. But we’ve got to be empirical about that, we’ve got to wait till it happens, and I can’t make up my mind in advance.”
9) Campbell is one of the people detailed as a possible new Political Editor for TVNZ today in a Stuff article: Who’s next in line for TVNZ’s top political job? The order of Stuff’s predictions are: Maiki Sherman, Jake Tame, Katie Bradford, John Campbell, Rebecca Wright, Jason Walls, and Craig McCulloch.
10) Stuff also forecasts some possible replacements today for outgoing Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes, who finishes next month. Glenn McConnell lists the following possibilities: Brian Roche, Rebecca Kitteridge, Brooke Barrington, Andrew Kibblewhite, Carolyn Tremain, Debbie Power, Peter Chrisp, and Mike Bush – see: Who will be the new top dog of the public service?
11) Today’s Otago Daily Times editorial comes out against the Government’s decision to deploy military to the US-led mission against the Houthis, which will help legitimise the United States military campaign, but will link New Zealand to being on Israel’s side of the Gaza conflict, and will possibly result in “mission creep” and escalation – see: New Zealand’s Red Sea risks (paywalled)
The newspaper concludes: “New Zealand has, nevertheless, clearly aligned itself with the US, a decision which spills over into other broader foreign policy. As for the morass and mess that is the Middle East itself, this country might have been able to play a more useful future role as a respected and relatively independent party.”
12) In the Wellington City water wars, the Labour Party’s Regional Councillor Daran Ponter has thrown the Wellington City Council to the wolves, blaming the current local politicians for failing to properly fund fixing leaks – see Heather du Plessis-Allan’s Some rare good news for Wellingtonians
Du Plessis-Allan says that Ponter “is a Labour man, so you would expect him to be friendly to a left leaning council. Nope, he’s called them out for spending the money they should be spending on pipes on other things – ‘new town halls, or refurbished town halls, or bike lanes’. Now, I reckon the case that’s building here is that this council needs Government intervention. It needs a Crown Observer called in. Because if you don’t know that you should spend money on making sure people get water to their houses before you spend money on cycleways, you shouldn't be running a council.”
13) Kiri Allan has given a burst of media interviews explaining her downfall, including about her decision on the night she was arrested to try to end her life. For the best of her interviews, see Claire Trevett’s Former Labour minister Kiri Allan on her night of shame after Wellington car crash ended her political career
Sadly, Allan points out that a big part of her decline was the pressure she was under as Justice Minister to swallow dead rats, announcing opportunistic policies she didn’t believe in. Trevett reports: “Labour was struggling in the polls and law and order was a big part of Hipkins’ reset. Allan did recognise Hipkins had to try to address the perception Labour was ‘soft’ on law and order. However, it meant scrapping a lot of the work Allan was doing and she now makes it obvious she was not comfortable with what replaced it: Especially the tougher stand on youth offenders.”
Dr Bryce Edwards
Political Analyst in Residence, Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington
NZ Politics Daily – 26 January 2024
TOBACCO
Andrea Vance (Post): Tobacco lobbyist guest at Ministers’ swearing-in ceremony
Jordan Dunn (RNZ): Call for Casey Costello to be removed after 'outrageous' proposal for tax freeze on tobacco
RNZ: Health advocates, opposition slam Associate Health Minister Casey Costello's proposed tax freeze
Bridie Witton (Stuff): NZ First MP Casey Costello under fire over cigarette pricing document leak
No Right Turn: Corrupt, cancerous, and dishonest
Greg Presland (Standard): The Government is planning to cut tobacco excise duty
RNZ: 'Diseased lungs, ageing by nicotine': Exhibition tackles risks of smoking, vaping
TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL, WAITANGI, RACE RELATIONS
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Treaty Principles Bill: National, Act failing good-faith test (paywalled)
Chris Trotter (Newstalk ZB): Compromising On The Treaty (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): A middle way to agree modern place of Te Tiriti
RNZ: Waitangi welcoming set to break with tradition
Ella Stewart (RNZ): What Ngāpuhi’s actions tell us about Māoridom’s emerging response to the coalition government
Merewai Durutalo (Whakaata Māori): Kingitanga: ‘We’re going to go to Waitangi in force’
RNZ: Shane Jones tells critics of Treaty Principles Bill to tone down 'rhetorical hyperbole'
Merewai Durutalo (Whakaata Māori): Shane Jones bites back over cold reception at Rātana
Brent Edwards (NBR): Act Party’s push to define principles of Treaty (paywalled)
1News: Seymour says Luxon being 'open' over Treaty Principles Bill
Newshub: David Seymour urges Kiwis to keep open minds about Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill
Newstalk ZB: What is the Treaty Principles Bill? ACT leader David Seymour explains the controversial reading (paywalled)
Metiria Stanton Turei (ODT): PM vaguely careful in approach to Treaty principles Bill (paywalled)
Rob Campbell (Post): The danger of losing sight of our shining future (paywalled)
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): Can big things be discussed without the bunfights?
Peter de Graaf (RNZ): Hīkoi ki Waitangi to stand up for Te Tiriti - 'It needs people to participate in its discussion and defence'
Te Karere: Racial slurs spray-painted on road leading to marae
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