OPINION
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 and the return of the handbrake, Winston Peters. It looked as though it would be touch and go as to whether New Zealand First would get over the 5 per cent threshold. But Christopher Luxon has all but guaranteed the party’s green light back to Parliament by formally stating National would work with the party if it needed to.
Luxon says he would prefer a National-Act coalition but, in private, he is more likely to prefer a replica of some earlier arrangements whereby National had at least two ways of getting a majority on any given vote besides confidence and supply. That way you keep a rein on Act’s extremes, such as cutting 15,000 public servants.
Last night’s Reid Research poll showed that Labour leader Chris Hipkins has been fairly effective in his scare campaign over National and Act’s cuts to spending and tax plans. They lost six seats between them from the poll earlier in the month - but NZ First benefited, going from zero to six, not Labour. And National would have been able to form a majority, although requiring both Act and NZ First.
Luxon has been in Kumeu this morning with Louise Upston, releasing National’s policy on social welfare and sanctions on beneficiaries. They call it a “traffic light system” which could result in benefit cuts if you’re not looking for a job when you are deemed able.
Upston said one of the biggest frustrations she hears about is job seekers not turning up for training or work. “You’ll not get a job if you turn up in your pyjamas and that’s what I heard from an employer last week,” she said. Possibly not a widespread problem, Louise.
Hipkins, meanwhile, has announced a massive injection of funding to Pharmac’s budget by $1 billion over four years and released a climate change policy manifesto yesterday.
Labour and National continue their cat-and-mouse game over releasing their fiscal plans. Labour has been goading National to release its plan, but National clearly wants to wait for Labour’s plan in case it uses updated data that National may not have had.
Labour’s plan is not likely to deviate too much from the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Update, so there is more onus on National. But it’s scandalous that it has taken so long for both parties when advanced voting starts next week. We can safely pick that their respective plans will be out sometime before Monday next week.
We are deep into debate season and perhaps the most anticipated debate is tomorrow’s on Newshub at 7pm, hosted by Patrick Gower. He did a tremendous job with Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins in 2020 in the most riveting leaders’ debate I’ve seen.
Anna Harcourt of Re: News did a great job hosting last night’s Young Voters’ Debate, which was livestreamed on the 1News website, although National put up the socially liberal Erica Stanford, aged 45, instead of young fogey Simeon Brown, aged 32. NZ First was represented by No. 12 on its list, Lee Donoghue, who played Hunter McKay on Shortland Street. He and Green MP Chloe Swarbrick clashed dramatically over the use of toilets.
This morning, the Herald’s Liam Dann hosted a debate on business and finance between Grant Robertson and Nicola Willis sponsored by MYOB. (You can watch that below).
Tonight’s big event will be the Kaupapa debate at 7.30pm hosted on the 1News website by Maiki Sherman. I can’t wait to see Shane Jones v John Tamihere.
The Rodney electorate was renamed in 2020. What is it called now and who is its sitting MP? (Answer at the end of this article).
The last Politics Briefing said Act’s revised fiscal plan last week had removed an error from its original plan in that it had claimed a $7.8b saving over four years by abolishing the income insurance scheme that had never actually been baked into forecasts. It turns out Treasury had once assumed the fiscally neutral scheme would begin in 2024 - 2025, although that assumption was mentioned in Budget 2022 - before it was shelved in this year’s policy bonfire. The original Act fiscal plan also included $7.8b in expenses as well as savings, so it was fiscally neutral to Act as well as to Treasury.
“...if New Zealand First is returned to Parliament, and I need to pick up the phone to Mr Peters to keep Labour and the coalition of chaos out, I will make that call. Frankly, I think Chris Hipkins will ultimately do exactly the same thing” - National’s Christopher Luxon on working with NZ First.
“The fact that Christopher Luxon seems to think you can say one thing during an election and do the opposite immediately after the election actually speaks more to his integrity and his values” - PM and Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
Sir John Key, first for promoting the idea on RNZ that Winston Peters could be Speaker in a National-led coalition (more headaches than Trevor Mallard), and second for saying it would mean the Government would need one less vote. No, the Speaker’s vote is included in any party vote these days.
Labour’s Wellington team, which managed to hold a rally for a speech by Chris Hipkins without letting in serial heckler and Freedom NZ candidate Karl Mokaraka.
Winston Peters v David Seymour: There’s no love lost between the leaders of Act and NZ First. The Spinoff ranks their 15 most venomous insults.
Analysis: Derek Cheng looks at what Christopher Luxon wins and loses by ruling Winston Peters in.
Quiz answer: Whangaparāoa, held by National’s Mark Mitchell.
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 Campaign, the Herald’s politics podcast.
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