Top Eight NZ Politics Daily reads
There’s very little happening in New Zealand politics at the moment. But below are some of the more interesting and insightful items from the last 24 hours.
1) The media is reporting today that former prime minister Jacinda Ardern is about to marry long-term fiancé Clarke Gayford, a year after she announced she was stepping down from politics. The Post has the main scoop saying that the ceremony will take place “in a small, highly secure ceremony in Hawke's Bay in 10 days… on January 13 at an elite venue”. The newspaper reports: “The Post understands the ceremony will be small, with mostly family and very close friends and a few politicians” including Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins, and Trevor Mallard. The newspaper says that sources say “a prestigious vineyard was the venue”. See: Dame Jacinda Ardern to marry Clarke Gayford next week (paywalled)
2) The new prime minister’s property portfolio is in the news, with a report that his Waiheke holiday home was allegedly trespassed on by a teenager early on New Year’s day – see William Hewett’s Newshub report: Teenager allegedly found by police at Christopher Luxon's Waiheke Island holiday home in early hours of New Year's Day
The article reports that Luxon’s Onetangi beachfront property is valued at $6.59 million.
3) Why is New Zealand’s infrastructure in such a dire state? In the wake of the new government cancelling Three Waters, Auckland light rail and the Cook Strait mega ferries, the Herald’s Damien Venuto looks at the problem, saying: “The dire state of our roads, our lack of fast and reliable public transport and our broken water pipes are all the toxic byproducts of an unwillingness to act. It’s always too expensive, too difficult or too low on the list of priorities” – see: ‘A disease’: NZ’s broken infrastructure likely to trudge into the future (paywalled)
“Decision paralysis” sums up the problem, with politicians constantly “kicking the can down the road”. We have politicians and political parties are too focused on short-term electoral wins at the expense of the country’s long-term future. Max Rashbrooke is quoted as believing this is due to New Zealand’s pragmatic “number eight fencing wire” mentality of finding clever short-term fixes, and “I think we struggle with long-term planning, often because it involves having quite complicated debates, conflict and taking things very seriously, and those aren’t really hardwired into the New Zealand national character.”
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub warns this will costs the country much more in the long term, which will eventually result in some tough choices: “Either we have to increase taxes to be able to afford it … or we have to cut other services that we might also want: for example, good healthcare, infrastructure or social services. It’s in those tensions that we have to make some really tough choices.”
4) Chris Trotter writes today for Newstalk ZB, that the conservative parties largely won the 2023 election because voters they thought the last government was moving the country in an undemocratic direction, especially with constitutional changes involving “indigenisation” and “decolonisation”. The problem he sees for the new government is that although some small symbolic but controversial changes have been made, the National-led government won’t actually roll back much of the 2017-23 changes, leading to disappointment for many voters – see: Welcoming The Liberators (paywalled)
Trotter believes that instead, the new coalition’s focus will be on repaying the promises of its vested interests donors and backers, which won’t actually be popular: “Just being another crony-capitalist National Party-led coalition government, unwilling to spend serious money on anything other than tax cuts, Roads of National Significance and looking after all those privileged people with large sums of money to donate, is unlikely to keep its poll numbers healthy.” And he calls for the government to reform the Waitangi Tribunal and Human Rights Commission.
5) It’s a bit of a mystery as to what exactly the new government is going to do in terms of gun control reform. In the Herald today, Derek Cheng has an in-depth examination of what the Act Party and David Seymour want reformed – see: Christchurch mosque attacks and gun law reform: Why there’s no perfect answer (paywalled)
Although the coalition agreement with Act includes a commitment to rewrite the Arms Act, Cheng reports that “Rolling back new regulations on gun clubs and shooting ranges within 100 days of taking office is the only concrete law change Act was able to convince National and NZ First to agree to.” David Seymour wants greater access to military-style semi-automatic rifles for those with an approved purpose and rigourous checks, but his coalition partners are unlikely to be convinced.
6) Artificial intelligence is potentially liberating for humanity, but Waikato University academics Nick Agar and Albert Bifet believe that the New Zealand government has a role in helping regulate to make sure the benefits are captured by wider society and not just the billionaire owners of technology, prioritising “fairness over profit” – see: The big opportunity Aotearoa should seize around AI (paywalled)
Here’s their key pitch: “Aotearoa’s point of difference is the internationally recognised strength of our democratic institutions and our value of fairness. In New Zealand, we take pride in looking out for the worst off, and brand Aotearoa offers a powerful opportunity to show the world how democratic societies can find ways to spread the benefits of AI to all.”
7) Yesterday the Herald reported on the dire state of personnel recruitment in the defence forces. University of Auckland professor Stephen Hoadley has since been interviewed on Newstalk about how this has come about and what is likely to happen – see: Politics professor breaks down why New Zealand's military is struggling (paywalled)
Hoadley points out that this is a long-term problem that started decades ago, and is now driven by the fact that New Zealand is being tasked with more operations as it gets integrated further into the Western military alliance. For example, the article reports: “Hoadley pointed to the fact New Zealand's relationship with the United States had been restored over the decades and there were more opportunities for soldiers to work abroad, in some cases it was requested by some of New Zealand's allies.” Furthermore, “There is also an advancing challenge with China, Hoadley said, which requires New Zealand to be more vigilant and to increase its patrolling and assistance to Pacific Island nations to strengthen ties.”
8) Yesterday Richard Prebble forecast in the Herald that “The Greens and Te Pati Māori have embraced the politics of redistribution” and on this basis, together with the Labour Party, have an equal chance of getting into government at the next election. Today, Rob Campbell expands on this in the Herald, saying that the real value of the Greens and Te Pati Māori focusing on redistribution is that they are not talking so much about monetary redistribution such as tax, incomes and assets, but more about social and cultural power – see: Richard Prebble and I used to be in the same political party (no not Act)
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