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OPINION
Welcome to the Politics Briefing - with 49 days to go to the election. After Labour’s previous run of badly behaving ministers, it has been National and Act’s turn this week to focus on themselves and badly behaving leaders, MPs and candidates.
First, it was the refusal of David Seymour to acknowledge the offence taken by the Pacific Island community to him saying Guy Fawkes should be sent into the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, then the fallout from National MP Michael Woodhouse refusing to accept his list ranking (which I have worked out - see below), then the resignation of an anti-vaxxer Act candidate, and then the finding of contempt of Parliament against National MP Tim van de Molen for standing over a Labour MP in a threatening way.
None of them comes close to the bad behaviour of four Labour ministers which resulted in two resignations, a sacking and a defection. But it may temper the holier-than-thou attitude of National’s Christopher Luxon and Seymour who tried to blame Chris Hipkins for his ministers’ sins.
Christopher Luxon was limited in what he could do to punish van de Molen, the MP for Waikato. But he has stripped him of all his portfolios, including defence, building and construction and ACC. That is suitably proportionate. It is clear he won’t become a minister if National leads the next Government, but he wasn’t going to in any case. He almost certainly would not be a select committee chair either in the short term. Luxon can’t sack him from Parliament - only the voters can do that. He could have asked the party board to deselect him as a candidate, but that would have been disproportionate. Luxon got it about right.
I’ve worked out that the Dunedin-based MP was offered the ranking of No 30 or close to it. That is based on the vital information I picked up that the position he was offered meant he would have effectively been No 12 on the list - i.e. the 12th person to be elected from National’s net list.
It is not an exact science because the number of list MPs also depends on how many electorate seats a party wins. Luxon is first on the actual list but is not on the unpublished effective list because he is expected to win his seat of Botany. But let’s assume National keeps the electorates it holds, and gains the 12 electorate seats in which Labour’s majority is less than 4500. With 37 per cent party vote, it would get 48 seats (on the basis of Monday’s 1News-Verian poll), of which 36 would be electorate seats and 12 list seats. So under that scenario, Woodhouse would have been last in on the list, but would have made it to Parliament and would have been considered as a minister.
The effective list under that scenario would be 1. Nicola Willis; 2. Paul Goldsmith; 3. Melissa Lee; 4. Gerry Brownlee; 5. Nancy Lu; 6. Katie Nimon; 7. Agnes Loheni; 8. Maureen Pugh; 9. Emma Chatterton; 10. James Christmas; 11. Dale Stephens; 12. Michael Woodhouse.
On Saturday, when Woodhouse was told his ranking, the latest polls had National at 35 per cent and, using the same assumptions above, National would have had 10 list MPs and Woodhouse would have missed out. But two days later, the next poll had National on the rise and he would have made it.
Labour has focused more on getting a backlog of legislation through the House under urgency this week and announcing the cost-sharing arrangements it has reached with Auckland Council and the council in Tairāwhiti after the floods this year.
Chris Hipkins was absent for the past few days because he was working from hospital where his four-year-old was receiving treatment for a blood disorder. He normally would not have issued a statement to that effect but because he was cancelling his appearance at events, and with the possibility of being spotted at hospital, he issued a pre-emptive statement to avoid inevitable media speculation. Suggestions he did so to get the sympathy of the public are beneath contempt.
There have been some magnificent farewells in the chamber this week. The most stunning sight was Māngere MP Aupito William Sio delivering his speech in his traditional matai attire, with an incredible headpiece and shirtless, as he mentioned: “Mr Speaker, I bet you when the ‘No Tie’ rule was introduced, you didn’t think an MP would extend it to ‘No Shirt’, did you?” The Herald’s Pasifika editor, Vaimoana Mase, has a full report below. And you’ll also find a profile I did on Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds, who is looking like a dead cert for Cabinet if National is elected. Retiring Act MPs James McDowall and Damien Smith have not given valedictories. McDowall has decided not to, and Smith has been unwell this past week.
Brickbat: Goes to National MP Tim van de Molen after the privileges committee unanimously found his behaviour to have been threatening to the transport committee chair, Shanan Halbert. The lesson? Clear up wrongdoing with an early admission and apology - or risk escalation.
Bouquet: Goes to Willie Jackson for recognising that pākehā can also have a role in helping the survival of Te Reo Māori in his appointment of fluent speaker Te Atamira Jennifer Ward-Lealand to the board of the Māori Language Commission, Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. Let’s hope she lasts longer than his appointment of Jason Ake to the RNZ board.
- National MP Tim van de Molen has been stripped of all portfolios after he was found to have acted in a “threatening manner” towards Labour MP Shanan Halbert.
- Act candidate Elaine Naidu Franz has resigned after her historical comments comparing Covid-19 vaccine mandates to Nazi concentration camps came to light - and Act leader David Seymour is also facing questions regarding two other former candidates.
- Outgoing National list MP Michael Woodhouse has slammed the media’s portrayal of his comments on the diversity of the party’s rankings, claiming it painted him as a “toy-throwing misogynist”.
- National and Labour are attacking each other with what they think are each others’ most unpopular tax policies - the problem is that neither of these policies are, strictly speaking, on the agenda this election.
- As political parties dangle costly sweeteners before voters, Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold is warning the next government won’t have much money to play with.
- Former National leader Todd Muller delivered his parting words to Parliament on Wednesday evening, warning MPs they face tough choices in order to live up to climate commitments.
- Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is stepping away from his political engagements for a few days to help care for his young daughter in hospital.
- Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi is facing a possible censure from the Speaker or Privileges Committee after he appeared to refer to a case before the courts to which suppression orders apply.
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.
Around 18,500 public servants received a pay rise in the quarter.