OPINION
This is a transcript of the Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click here, select Premium Politics Briefing and save your preferences. For a step-by-step guide, click here.
Small Business Minister Andrew Bayly will survive as a minister but, like the worker he taunted, he will be permanently scarred.
And he can kiss goodbye to a second term as a minister. He is already National’s lowest-ranked minister. Next week is a recess week. It is hard to imagine Bayly being the issue of the day when Parliament resumes on November 5.
The controversy has not been well handled by National and Labour has prosecuted it for all it is worth.
If Bayly had come clean at the outset, he may have limited the amount of time he has been on the back foot over the incident at a Marlborough winery warehouse.
In what sounded like a bad episode of The Office, he joshed a complete stranger for working late and called him a loser, making the “L” sign on his forehead in the mistaken belief he was being funny.
But from last Friday, when the worker’s complaint was sent widely, Bayly would not address details, including about the consumption of alcohol.
That naturally led to more questions in Parliament on Tuesday, a correction Tuesday night about the detail, and more questions and confusion on Wednesday about Bayly’s interactions with the worker.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon appeared to give a slightly different account to Bayly yesterday, and Leader of the House Chris Bishop went to Bayly’s seat at the back of the House in what looked like an attempt to clarify facts partway through Question Time.
It was very untidy – and any further attempts by National to claim they are the party of the workers will be laughed out of court.
After four days of dragging it out, it appears that after taunting the worker and realising he had stuffed up, Bayly suggested he join them for a drink after Bayly’s tour of the warehouse.
The worker declined.
After the tour, and on his way to the wine-tasting, Bayly again came across the worker and again suggested he join them. The worker declined again.
Bayly and his hosts then went to their wine-tasting. There was no drinking before his two encounters with the worker. There may have been two conversations during his first encounter, but there was no separate third encounter.
Three politicians are real losers this week: Bayly, Darleen Tana and Tory Whanau.
Bayly’s reputation has taken a hammering. He has been very busy in the Commerce and Consumer Affairs portfolios but, until now, hadn’t made much of an impact in Small Business. He is a high achiever, very wealthy, and a daredevil in his private pursuits, including pulling a sled 112km to the South Pole, climbing four peaks in the Antarctic, and pulling a sled 120km to the North Pole. He has not been abrasive or antagonistic in my experience and is considered a bit of an oddball. Incredibly, he was once No 3 in the National caucus under Judith Collins.
Darleen Tana was expelled from Parliament by the Green Party for not having disclosed the employment dispute her husband had in his bike business. It seems an incredibly low threshold for such a drastic action and is a sorry end to a short political career that began with such promise and a great maiden speech.
Tory Whanau, the Mayor of Wellington, will be forced to have a Crown observer around her dysfunctional council table. One of the reasons given was funding much of the water capex from rates, not debt. Thomas Coughlan and Georgina Campbell have dug deeper into that in a fascinating piece.
Whanau took the news relatively well and suggested the observer could help. She has copped most of the flak that should be shared around the table. And let’s not forget that the long-term plan was upended after three councillors changed their minds over the sale of Wellington airport shares: Tony Randle, Diane Calvert and Nicola Young.
Christopher Luxon and Winston Peters arrive in Samoa today for the Commonwealth Summit, where one of the centres of attention will be new UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
A former chief prosecutor, Starmer has stunned political observers by how quickly he has got offside with voters since being elected in July. In Opposition, he was Mr Squeaky Clean and Mr Dependable as he railed against the sleaze in the Tory benches and readied Labour for Government.
But as NZ pollster David Farrar notes, he makes Luxon’s average net approval rating of +3 % look good. Starmer’s net approval rating when he came into office in July was +18 per cent and, after three months, is at -31 per cent.
Starmer and senior colleagues have been mired in controversy over accepting donations and gifts, including clothes and accommodation, from wealthy donors.
Greg Sheridan, The Australian’s foreign editor, put it best, comparing Starmer before and after: “It’s like discovering Bambi had a vodka problem or Mother Teresa took holidays in a luxury spa on the French Riviera. It shakes your faith in human nature”.
Whanganui MP Carl Bates has been hobbling around Parliament during a five-week stint on crutches. The cause? He was at a community event in Castlecliff two weeks ago.
“I took along my 6-year-old Angus and agreed to take him on the slip-and-slide and, at the bottom, another child came down, whacked into me and dislocated my knee-cap.” Ouch!
Defence Minister Judith Collins is back from her visit to Brussels for a Nato meeting and Singapore for cyber meetings and is now heading to Sydney to give a speech as Attorney-General at Western Sydney University.
Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones is in Singapore meeting potential investors, Health Minister Shane Reti is in the Philippines for WHO meetings and Singapore for health meetings,
Trade Minister Todd McClay is in Brazil for a G20 trade and investment meeting, and MPs Stuart Smith, Rachel Brooking, Tangi Utikere and Kahurangi Carter have returned from Geneva where they attended an Inter-Parliamentary Union assembly.
“...We recognise these targeted attacks as merely doubling down on this Government’s racist agenda to exterminate our people. I demand that the Police Commissioner immediately convene a meeting with Te Whakatōhea and explain why the police have chosen to activate their state-sponsored terrorism in Ōpōtiki today” – Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi on police gang raids on Tuesday.
Where is this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm), in which African country was it held in 2022, and when did New Zealand last host it? (Answers below.)
Goes to Winston Peters for trying to shut down probing questions by Labour’s Arena Williams about when Andrew Bayly had been drinking on a ministerial visit to a winery that was subject to a worker’s complaint. Peters claimed it was a “prurient interest” and Bayly’s own private business. “She should be stopped,” Peters told the Speaker.
Goes to Speaker Gerry Brownlee for rejecting Winston Peters’ attempts to shut down Arena Williams’ questions (see above).
Brownlee: “A minister is a minister at all times... is there another question from Arena Williams?”
Council intervention: Wellington ratepayers are funding water investment at nearly double the national average, data from the Department of Internal Affairs shows.
Opinion - council intervention: Angry ratepayers have been vindicated by the Government’s decision to intervene at Wellington City Council, writes Georgina Campbell.
Council intervention: Embattled Mayor Tory Whanau admits her council “must do better” after the Government moved to appoint a Crown observer at Wellington City Council.
Bayly complaint: Small Business Minister Andrew Bayly has altered his answer on whether he drank alcohol on the day he called a worker a loser.
Opinion - Bayly complaint: PM Christopher Luxon has sent Andrew Bayly to Last Chance Land after his boorish behaviour during a ministerial visit, writes Claire Trevett.
Workers’ protest: Thousands of protesters took to Parliament’s lawn on Wednesday to object to what they described as attacks on the rights of workers.
Gang crackdown: Police Minister Mark Mitchell has rubbished Te Pāti Māori claims that a gang crackdown in Ōpōtiki amounted to “police-sponsored terrorism”.
Public spending: Four public sector agencies have reported increased spending on contractors and consultants in the 2023/24 financial year.
Sentencing laws: Several thousand more offenders are likely to be captured under Three Strikes 2.0 following substantive changes by Cabinet to toughen up the new regime.
Bank competition: ANZ chief executive Antonia Watson has defended the bank’s profits at a parliamentary hearing on competition in the sector.
Electoral change: One North Island electorate will disappear before the next election.
Migrant work: The Government is overturning a near ban on partners of migrants working, restoring work rights to partners of high-skilled migrants.
Quiz answer: Samoa, Rwanda and 1995 in Auckland.
For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.
Expectations tempered around return to surplus in 2027/28.