No estimate for when deal will be struck, Auckland ranks among top 3 most expensive cities for rent in the whole world, MetService issues rain warnings for top of the South and lower North Island and abuse for call centres have reached unprecedented levels.
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Opinion by Audrey Young
Audrey Young, Senior Political Correspondent at the New Zealand Herald based at Parliament, specialises in writing about politics and power.
This is a transcript of Audrey Young’s subscriber-only Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click on your profile at nzherald.co.nz and select ‘Newsletters’. For a step-by-step guide, click here.
Welcome to the Politics Briefing in what looks like the final days of the coalition talkswhen the focus will turn to ministerial jobs.
The issues to be decided include overall numbers of ministers, whether Act and New Zealand First ministers should be inside Cabinet or outside - and, if both, then how many inside and how many outside and, of course, which portfolios should go with which parties.
There is also the issue of whether Deputy Prime Minister should go to National which, after all, has 71.64 per cent of MPs in the government parties (Act has 16.41 per cent of the government MPs and NZ First has 11.94 per cent).
The simplest way to settle the relative numbers of ministerial posts is to do it proportionally - according to each party’s share of their combined total of 67.
With a total executive of say, 28, comprising 20 ministers in Cabinet and eight outside, National would get 20 ministers altogether, Act five, and NZ First three. Act and NZ First have made it clear they would prefer to have the power of being in Cabinet than have the independence of operating entirely outside it.
If that were the case, here is one scenario: National could have, say, 14 ministers in Cabinet and six outside, Act could have three inside Cabinet and two outside, and NZ First could have all three of its ministers inside Cabinet.
There is every reason to suggest NZ First’s Winston Peters will be Foreign Minister - he had a meeting in Auckland on Tuesday with Singapore’s Foreign Minister. With Peters likely to be travelling frequently, unless the party had three ministers inside Cabinet, Shane Jones would be the sole New Zealand First voice there.
So under my scenario, of the two smaller parties, Act would have more ministers overall, meaning more influence overall, but Act and NZ First would have an equal voice in Cabinet, which operates on consensus, not votes.
International drama
British PM Rishi Sunak. Photo / AP
The political news vacuum in New Zealand this past week has been easily filled with dramatic events in Britain, with a major ministerial sacking and reshuffle, and in San Francisco where Apec is being hosted by the United States.
The atmospherics around the crucially important summit between US President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping have been remarkably good. They have agreed to resume military-to-military contact, which China broke off after Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, and to better communications between the two leaders.
Treaty pushback
Auckland University historian and anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond. Photo / Natalie Slade
Meanwhile, debate on Act’s proposal to define Treaty of Waitangi principles in law and with a referendum has continued this week in the coalition talks and in public. Dame Anne Salmond, whose writing on the Treaty Seymour regularly cites, put the record straight in a piece in Newsroom. She said she does not support Act’s plans, which she called arrogant and disrespectful, and considers that Act’s text “ignores or distorts the original promises” of the Treaty.
Matthew Hooton, a Herald columnist, philosophy student, and more often than not an Act supporter, has taken a diversion from his PhD thesis to write a paper on the proposed Act referendum from a conservative perspective. And in Hooton’s own words about his paper published on Patreon, he says it would generate largely foreseeable constitutional, political, social, economic and environmental risks, “so that a prudent conservative would not just judge it as radical but as reckless in the extreme”.
However, Seymour insists a referendum is still on the table, and there is some suggestion on social media that if Act fails to get its way in its coalition agreement, it could become the subject of a citizens-initiated referendum.
Quote unquote
“We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict. And we also have to manage it responsibly” - President Biden in opening remarks to President Xi yesterday on the sidelines of Apec.
“Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed, and one country’s success is an opportunity for the other” - President Xi in response.
Micro quiz
Who is the new British Foreign Secretary, who is the new Home Secretary and what caused the vacancies? (Answers below.)
Brickbat
National MP Chris Bishop en route to coalition talks. Photo / Michael Craig
To the spoilsports having a go at MP Chris Bishop arriving at talks in a coffee-stained shirt after a fall from a scooter. The unwritten rule is that if you beat yourself up on social media, others don’t. Bishop admitted his failure to multitask: “For some reason, I thought I could have a satchel across me, phone to work out where I was going, hold coffee and also drive the scooter. This didn’t go well.”
Bouquet
To outgoing Trade Minister Damien O’Connor, a fitting stand-in to represent New Zealand at Apec in San Francisco.
Quiz answer: Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has become Foreign Secretary (while sitting in the House of Lords), replacing James Cleverly who has become Home Secretary, replacing Suella Braverman who was sacked by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
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.
