NZ Politics Daily – 29 January 2024

Jan 28, 2024

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Political Analyst in Residence

Democracy Project, School of Government

Victoria University of Wellington

Top “NZ Politics Daily” stories today

Below are some of the more interesting and insightful New Zealand politics items from the weekend and this morning.

1) Christopher Luxon’s government is handling the highly polarised debates over Treaty principles very well according to the Herald’s Fran O'Sullivan, who argues that it’s much better to have public debate about race relations out in the open rather than suppressed. She says the new PM “wants differences aired rather than buried and left to fester” and so it’s worth celebrating: “Finally, a Prime Minister who supports strong debate” – see: Treaty Principles Bill: Open debate should be nothing to fear (paywalled)

O’Sullivan suggests that the polarised feelings on the Treaty, and how its principles have been interpreted in recent years, leading to Labour’s co-governance of public services, including Three Waters and “setting up a parallel Māori health structure” have been building up for years, leaving “precious little opportunity for the public to have a direct say”. She believes it’s healthier to have these views aired and debated, both in Parliament and public, and “There should be little to fear from this in a modern democracy.”

2) It is exactly twenty years since then-National leader Don Brash gave his infamous Orewa speech in 2024, and many commentators are drawing parallels between what was happening in politics back then and now, and suggesting some sort of cyclical nature of how politicians deal with race relations. For the most interesting account of this, see former Cabinet Minister Steven Joyce’s Herald column, Waitangi’s relaxed vibe and how middle NZ holds the key to Treaty issues (paywalled)

Joyce argues that Brash’s speech back then resonated strongly in the same way that conservative politicians are now connecting with a public that is feeling excluded by agendas being driven in a top-down way on race relations. He says that John Key’s coalition government with the Māori Party “painstakingly rebuilt the consensus on Crown-Māori relations”, but that this was torn apart again after 2020, when NZ First left Labour’s coalition government, and “A newly assertive Māori caucus in the Labour-led Government, led by firebrand Willy Jackson, started to make demands the wider public didn’t support.”

Joyce argues that although there are radicals on both sides of the new debates, ultimately National and Luxon will find a middle ground because most of the public are fair-minded on race relations: “They want to see improvements in outcomes for disadvantaged Māori, but they don’t want to feel excluded themselves on the basis of ethnicity. They believe historic breaches of the Treaty should be remedied, and they also believe one person, one vote is sacrosanct. They are uncomfortable with public service ministries being divided on ethnic grounds but they do believe there is room for different types of service provision to different groups, including ethnic groups. These days, no one bats an eyelid at the Wānanga or Whānau Ora – both of which do great work.”

3) In the weekend, Luxon clearly made further corrections to the situation, by reshuffling his Cabinet slightly, to give David Seymour the role of Associate Minister of Justice, responsible for work on his Treaty Principles Bill. Rightwing commentator Matthew Hooton – who believes Luxon should kill the bill – wrote on his paywalled Patreon blog that this move was about giving National more distance from the controversial bill – see: Luxon washes hands of Treaty bill (paywalled)

Hooton says: “Seymour is now an Associate Minister of Justice, responsible for the Bill, which makes it him responsible for all the work on it, for commenting on any further leaks, and selling and defending it, rather than Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith”. And Hooton laments that the bill is distracting the rightwing Government and PM from undertaking more important reforms: “the controversy around the Bill is still going to consume all his and his government's and the public's political energy. It will make it more difficult for him, Nicola Willis and the rest of the Cabinet to drive through the spending cuts, regulatory reforms and massive changes to the school system that are needed, and which should be National's and - even more so - Act's focus.”

4) Similarly, Richard Harman writes today that Luxon has given Seymour a “political hospital pass”, and now the Act leader “must bear full responsibility for whatever happens from now on with the promise to draft and introduce a Treaty Principles Bill which will eventually then be voted down by at least one, probably both, of his coalition partners”. He says that National is clearly now headed in a different direction to Act on race relations and the Treaty. Harman also draws attention to the fact that Luxon has now ruled out that National would even support a Treaty Principles Bill that doesn’t involve a “divisive” referendum – see: Luxon’s carefully worded counter to Seymour (paywalled)

In terms of the new middle ground that National might be looking for on race relations and the Treaty, Harman points to Luxon’s apparent enthusiasm for devolution of state service delivery, especially under the concept of “localism” that has been pushed by the NZ Initiative think tank. Harman reports: “As CEO of Air New Zealand, he was part of a high-powered New Zealand Initiative delegation to Switzerland in 2017, which focussed on localism. He told Ratana that he saw a strong alignment between Maori and National on localism.” Luxon’s words at Ratana were: “This Government believes in devolution and working locally – not centralisation and control… A big public service based in Wellington does not have all the answers.” And Harman points out that such a version of localism will “inevitably produce the delivery of social and other services divided by race at a local level.” This could be consequential: “How far he elects to go down the ‘localism’ sovereignty path and how much he concedes to Seymour is likely to define not just the political year but very possibly his whole term as Prime Minister.”

5) Not everyone is so optimistic about Luxon’s management of race relations. Conservative political commentator Janet Wilson argued in the weekend that although the debate is good for Act, National has put itself in a no-win situation on the Treaty Principles Bill, and one that will define Luxon’s time as prime minister, even though he doesn’t support it – see: Luxon fiddles while his political capital burns (paywalled)

6) The Listener’s Duncan Garner also argued in the weekend that Luxon should put the Treaty Principles Bill on a “policy bonfire” as it’s distracting the government and wasting time, all no great outcomes: “It means we now have to ask what are we left with? Division, scrapping and potential race-based rifts, which threaten to fester and breakout into something more serious especially if Seymour stumbles on, hoping to get so much public support that National is forced to change its mind” – see: Aue! Luxon’s Moment of truth with Māoridom (paywalled)

7) Similarly, the Post put out an editorial on Saturday asking: Who wants this culture war? (paywalled). The newspaper argues that the Treaty Principles Bill is all about engineering “a potentially destructive national argument driven by misinformation and populist grievances.” And it “appears that ACT is unleashing a potentially nasty debate for no real purpose. National has said it will not support ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill any further than select committee, rather than backing the public vote Seymour seeks. NZ First has made similar noises, which makes the ACT bill look like a time-consuming vanity exercise that does little for social cohesion. There are other, easier ways of having a debate.”

The Post’s Andrea Vance also thinks it’s damaging to National and Luxon: “National loses every way out of this exercise, a conclusion anyone who spent more than 10 minutes thinking about this issue would have drawn. The prime minister has wasted the opening week of the political year defending the indefensible, a position that is not even the National Party’s, and one that he personally opposes… Is this a cul-de-sac that his predecessors John Key or Bill English would have blundered into? No, because they had what he lacks: a deftness to navigate complex, intergenerational political problems, or at least the good sense to body-swerve them” – see: How the hell has Christopher Luxon got himself into this mess? (paywalled)

8) What do others from National’s past think about where things are going? Adam Dudding has interviewed treaty negotiations minister Doug Graham, who says that although he thinks debate on Treaty issues is good, “I don’t see a great deal wrong with the principles as developed by the courts” – see: As Waitangi Day approaches, could we be facing Ōrewa all over again? (paywalled)

On issues like Labour’s Māori Health Authority, Graham says: “Māori having a greater say in how health is delivered to Māori is 100% correct. But that doesn’t mean you have to have a massive centralised bureaucracy.” And on the whole race relations debate, he thinks it will all die down: “I think after a few weeks or months it'll all become a bit dull. There’s only so much you can say about it.”

Dudding’s article is also interesting for its focus on how iwi have changed since the days of Brash’s Orewa speech – with Māori becoming major capitalists, with a stake in the economy, and many leaders getting involved in business and professional managerial roles.

9) The Labour Party is in a difficult situation in terms of this year’s major debate on Māori and Treaty issues according to the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan, who suggests they are trapped between polarised options, with not much to offer either side of the debates. If they double down on their previous programme, could be a big mistake: “If Labour gets into a bidding war with Te Pāti Māori it will repeat the dreadful 2023 result, losing both Māori and non-Māori alike” – see: Chris Hipkins and Labour taste irrelevance (paywalled)

For a sense of Labour’s difficulties on race relations, here’s Coughlan’s main point: “Labour allowed Te Pāti Māori to be the arbiter of the ideal of Māori policy, the price-maker. Te Pāti Māori forced Labour to assume humbling position of offering a watered-down and electable version of whatever its small, nimble cousin can offer. Labour seemed not to understand that any party that got into a bidding war with Te Pāti Māori on Māori-related policy would lose. Te Pāti Māori is an unusual electoral machine. It’s co-leaders can gasbag on “genocide” and “white supremacy” all the while serving under a president who as recently as 2019 said “sieg Heil to that” when referring to then Auckland Mayor Phil Goff, who John Tamihere added “acts like Hitler”. That contradiction would lead some to wonder whether Te Pāti Māori has any idea what genocide actually means - but it hasn’t dissuaded the party’s target constituency, people on the Māori roll, who have flocked to the party. Labour cannot get away with such shenanigans.”

10) The new Government appears to be under the influence of the fishing industry influence in its decision to protect the right of New Zealand boats to continue to carry out bottom-trawling in the South Pacific Ocean. International negotiations start today on clamping down on bottom-trawling, and although New Zealand has previously proposed a deep-sea conservation measure be adopted globally to reduce the destruction of the sea floor, the Government has suddenly done a U-turn, with journalist Andrea Vance pointing the finger at Fisheries Minister Shane Jones – see her article, New Zealand backs away from deep-sea trawling restrictions (paywalled)

Vance says: “NZ First MP Jones has long had links to the industry, and once chaired the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, and fishing company Sealord. Ahead of the 2020 election, Jones received a $5000 donation from Westfleet and $5000 from Talley’s (2023 candidate returns are yet to be published). Talley’s and its managing director gave nearly $27,000 to the New Zealand First Foundation between 2017 and 2019.” She also quotes Jones saying that as Minister of Fisheries, he is unapologetically “a pro-industry politician”.

11) NZ First Cabinet Minister Casey Costello is still being criticised for her party’s links to the tobacco industry, with suspicion that lobbyists close to the party are influencing the new Government’s policies on smoking. Max Rashbrooke, who is currently working for the Health Coalition Aotearoa, wrote in the weekend about her links to interest groups funded by tobacco: “Costello used to chair the Taxpayers’ Union, a lobby group that has taken vehemently pro-tobacco-industry positions without disclosing that it receives money from British American Tobacco, one of the worst of the merchants of death. We know also that another influential right-wing group, the New Zealand Initiative, is financially backed by British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands” – see: Backdowns on smokefree rules suggest tobacco lobbyists are in the House (paywalled)

Rashbrooke argues that we desperately need reform of lobbying laws, but reveals a letter to Health Coalition Aotearoa from Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith suggests that their resolve to carry out reforms is weakening.

12) For a very different analysis of the tobacco reforms, the NZ Initiative head of research, Eric Crampton, has argued in the weekend that there are two broad public health community orientations towards achieving the SmokeFree goals, one of prohibition and one of harm reduction, and that the new Government is taking up the latter approach – see: A shift to smoking harm reduction (paywalled)

Here’s Crampton’s main point in favour of the new approach: “The alternative [new] approach focuses more sharply on making sure that those who enjoy nicotine, or who are dependent on it, or both, have the widest possible range of alternatives to cigarettes. Smoking’s substantial harms come from combustion, not from nicotine. Making sure that smokers are supported in finding a form of nicotine that they prefer, and whose harms will be trivial relative to cigarettes, is their highest priority. They also weigh the harms imposed by tobacco control policies, including the burden that tobacco excise imposes on poor households that continue to smoke when an inadequate range of reduced-harm alternatives are available. They remind us of inconvenient consequences of prohibitionist approaches, including that bans on disposable vapes would have disproportionate effects on disadvantaged groups with higher smoking rates and make it harder to reduce smoking’s harms.”

13) With education reforms set to be one of the big government activities of the year, respected educationist Bali Haque has penned a very good analysis for the Post about what is wrong with the schooling system – see: Why the silver bullets flying around education will miss the target (paywalled)

He blames the devolved and competitive model of Tomorrow’s Schools: “The problem is a structural one, and the core of it is the way we run our schools. Aotearoa/New Zealand has one of the most devolved education systems in the world. In fact, a good case can be made that we don’t have a system at all – just a whole lot of schools. We expect approximately 2500 independent Crown entity organisations (schools) to take on the myriad complexities of educating our children without the system wide support they need. Governance of these organisations is arbitrary – sometimes outstanding, often patchy, and, too often, awful. Principals’ appointments and performance management are likewise. Teachers are left to their own devices and professional support is ad hoc at best. As a country we maintain the fiction that this devolved “system” somehow empowers local community and democracy, and we shy away from any notion that it is this which is responsible for increasing inequities and decline.

14) Reform of the Resource Management Act is another very contentious part of the new Government’s reform programme. And the huge headache of this is expertly laid out by the Post’s Charlie Mitchell: The new, old law that no-one can seem to kill (paywalled)

15) One issue that is off the Government’s agenda is the reform of superannuation, including any rise to the age of entitlement. This is very good news according to a report from the New Zealand Society of Actuaries, who have argued that having a universal pension is both highly advantageous and affordable for the state – see Rob Stock’s NZ Super is becoming more essential, actuaries say (paywalled)

Here’s the key part: “There have been some suggestions on ways the rising cost of NZ Super could be kept down as the age profile of the population increases. However, every proposed change to make NZ Super more affordable were problematic, said the actuaries, financial experts whose job it is to predict and assess the financial risks and impacts of future events… Simply lifting the age of eligibility, or linking it to a longevity index, were bad options, and would ignore inequalities, and any changes should only be made after well-designed independent assessment.” They argue that if anything needs reform, it’s the government’s KiwiSaver scheme.

Dr Bryce Edwards

Political Analyst in Residence, Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

NZ Politics Daily – 29 January 2024

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