Former President Donald Trump, speaking at a rally in the swing state of Pennsylvania, seemingly narrowly dodged certain death after gunshots sounded, apparently clipping his ear.
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.
OPINION
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Welcome to the Politics Briefing in a week that shook the world. The attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump at the weekend will undoubtedly change the presidential election and political history. Already his survival and immediate response has galvanised the Republican Party and given it a sense of unity and invincibility it may not otherwise have had.
It will almost certainly extend Trump’s lead over President Joe Biden and increase pressure on Biden to step aside for a more agile candidate. It also means there will be a greater focus on the foreign policy differences between the candidates – differences that would affect New Zealand.
The hallmark of Biden’s term has been expanding alliances, formal and informal, in response to aggression by Russia and China. It’s why New Zealand has joined the Indo Pacific sub-branch of Nato (the IP4) and why Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has started to talk up Aukus pillar 2.
Former Prime Minister and foreign policy specialist Helen Clark is better equipped than almost anyone to detect shifts in foreign policy messaging. This week she, with Don Brash, seized upon a significant interview Luxon gave to the Financial Times at the Nato summit in Washington.
“These statements orient New Zealand towards being a full-fledged military ally of the United States, with the implication that New Zealand will increasingly be dragged into US-China competition, including militarily in the South China Sea,” Clark and Brash said.
TPM, Seymour trade barbs over Pharmac Treaty shift
Associate Health Minister David Seymour with Pharmac chairwoman Paula Bennett in Wellington on July 16. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Meanwhile, Act leader David Seymour this week has been making the most of his second stint at Acting Prime Minister. The centrepiece of his announcements was the letter he sent to the Pharmac board some time ago setting out his expectations for change, including dropping any consideration of the Treaty of Waitangi in its decisions.
Patient Voices Aotearoa advocate Malcolm Mulholland said there was no evidence the previous Treaty direction had made any difference to Māori patients.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer responded: “Seymour thinks it is inappropriate for Pharmac to consider the Treaty, I say it is inappropriate for a racist to decide the Treaty’s place in the health sector.”
Seymour replied: “They speak for perhaps one in six Māori. The vast majority of New Zealanders, including the vast majority of Māori, want nothing to do with their race fanaticism.”
The heat may have been taken out of US politics temporarily, but it is still bubbling away here.
Quote unquote
“I can’t tell the Reserve Bank Governor what to do, but you don’t need an economics degree to see people are hurting, inflation is going down fast and relief is required” – Act leader David Seymour tells the Reserve Bank what to do.
Micro quiz
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has been at the 10th Pacific Island Leaders Meeting (Palm) this week, which began in 1997. Which country hosts the meeting? (Answer below.)
Brickbat
Goes to Tauranga District Council officials who are refusing to release the guest-list of a dinner for 150 it co-hosted in May (but did not fund). It just proves the adage that news is something someone doesn’t want printed. Good luck to the Bay of Plenty Times with its appeal to the Ombudsman.
