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.
It was time for Finance Minister Nicola Willis to shine this week. She was decidedly in the pink on Wednesday, which is more than can be said for her anaemic mini-Budget.
The ANZ put it best when it said it was more a policy statement than a Budget and that it outlined “the general vibe for how the Government intends to run things”.
But it had the imprimatur of Treasury in assessing 16 of the coalition Government’s big policy decisions, which are estimated to save a net $7.47 billion over four years. All the policies were foreshadowed, however, such as reversing the extension of 20 hours’ free early childhood education to 2-year-olds, ending Let’s Get Wellington Moving, and free bus travel for young people.
There is still far more unknown than known about the promised tax cuts and how they will be funded and phased in. That is a big unknown given that they were the centrepiece of National’s campaign.
Willis delayed the Budget Policy Statement – setting out the allowance for new spending – to March next year. The tough decisions will begin on January 23 when Cabinet meets for the first time in 2024.
Christopher Luxon made his first trip abroad as Prime Minister and met Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese in Sydney. Foreign Minister Winston Peters had well and truly set the scene for a closer relationship with Five Eyes partners and downplayed New Zealand’s “independent foreign policy”, as I pointed out in a comment piece (see below) before the talks.
Luxon continued that theme, saying at a joint press conference with Albanese that “New Zealand is committed to doing our share of the heavy lifting”. The clear implication was that it hadn’t been doing so previously.
Parliament had its final debate for the year but, disappointingly, without National’s three heavyweights – Luxon, Willis, or Leader of the House Chris Bishop. National’s most senior speaker was Building and Construction Minister outside Cabinet, Chris Penk. Mostly, the adjournment debate was good-natured, non-political and full of Christmas cheeriness.
The least gracious contribution came from a combative Winston Peters, who decided to criticise Te Pāti Māori MPs for wearing pounamu.
“Half of the mining in the South Island is on their chest right now,” he said. “The greenstone is all there, huge, almost pulling their necks down – because if they were real, you wouldn’t need to wear that, would you?”
In the preceding fortnight of urgency, the new Government overturned six Labour laws: the new laws returned the Reserve Bank to the single mandate of price stability, repealed Fair Pay Agreements, the RMA reforms, the Clean Car Discount, and a bill requiring the IRD to report on tax principles, and extended 90-day trials from small businesses to all businesses.
That done, it is definitely time for a decent lie down, a cup of tea and a mince pie or two.
Labour MP Jan Tinetti talking about a former pupil in a debate on the expansion of 90-day trials: “When he was let go [on day 86 of a 90-day trial] it was very tough for him, and he actually went into a deep depression. I had only seen him about three months earlier and things were great. He had his first job, he had things going right for him in his life, and then suddenly this happened. Now he’d come off a benefit. He had gone into this job. This was the best thing that had happened to him in his life. Then he was let go and given no understanding of why that happened. Two weeks later he took his own life.”
Winston Peters yesterday echoed Michael Cullen’s taunt: “We won, you lost, eat that.” In what year did Cullen say it? (Answer below.)
Goes to Green MP Chloe Swarbrick, who declined an invitation by the Speaker last week to withdraw and apologise for calling Christopher Luxon’s answer to a question “a demonstrable lie”. She probably thought she had got away with it.
Goes to Chloe Swarbrick for finally apologising this week, albeit near midnight on Thursday – a lesson to new MPs that it’s sometimes better to cut your losses quickly than be dragged off to the Privileges Committee.
Last words: Parliament has held its last debate for the year yesterday without Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Analysis - mini-Budget: Finance Minister Nicola Willis was right when she said her mini-Budget would be very “mini” indeed, writes Thomas Coughlan.
Opinion - tax cuts: National and Act don’t see eye-to-eye over how to provide tax relief, writes Jenée Tibshraeny.
Opinion - public service: Nicola Willis should aim for 25 per cent cuts to the public service, writes Matthew Hooton.
Luxon-Albanese meeting: Christopher Luxon and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese have prioritised defence force cooperation in their first official meeting.
Opinion - foreign policy: Winston Peters has set a blazing pace in the first few weeks of his third stint as Foreign Minister, writes Audrey Young.
Speaker’s warning: Speaker Gerry Brownlee has warned MPs to keep family members out of debates after Chris Hipkins questioned Christopher Luxon about his subsidised Tesla.
Speaker’s apology: The Speaker has apologised to Chris Hipkins for any implication that he was responsible for bringing Christopher Luxon’s wife into the political debate.
Controversial clause: Minister Chris Bishop has admitted he is not a fan of a wide-ranging clause in his new resource management law, which largely reverts to the old RMA.
Quiz answer: 2000 – August 20, to be precise, during the so-called Winter of Discontent when Cullen was speaking about Labour repealing National’s Employment Contracts Act. The exact quote was: “Eat that! You lost, we won, it [the ECA] goes.”
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.
Expectations tempered around return to surplus in 2027/28.