OPINION
The briefings to the new Government released this week painted a picture of a country suffering from deferred maintenance – in some cases, quite literally.
For example, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon arrived at his desk to a briefing that said one of his first jobs would be deciding on the purchase of new Crown cars to replace the current fleet, and on upgrades and repairs of Premier House.
His predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, had slid the question of Premier House off to an independent group to assess what was needed – an apparent bid to try to distance it from the Prime Minister to avoid the political flak that comes from upgrading the PM’s home.
Luxon’s stance on wasteful spending elsewhere will make it even harder for him to justify doing it.
The briefings to incoming ministers (BIMs) went a long way to highlighting just how difficult the National coalition Government is going to find its mission to prune government spending.
BIMs – from transport to the public sector – showed looming cost increases, small and large, that will be very hard to avoid and which National quite likely did not appreciate the extent of from Opposition.
Some will be government departments trying to maximise their chances of keeping a healthy budget and maybe getting a bit more – but a fair lot of it is spending the Government can’t avoid.
Willis’ BIM from the Public Service Commission went through the fair pay claims still going through the system and said up to 25 more were likely to come – all of which would impact on the public sector’s wage bill. Most of those will be for frontline workers, which National has sworn to protect from its cost-saving measures. It can hardly pull the pin on pay equity to pay for its tax cuts.
The BIMs go some way to explaining Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ reaction last year when she grumbled loudly about the state of things - although part of it is simply cost demands they would not have foreseen.
Her bigger challenge than finding the savings she has promised is trying to ensure they are not immediately swallowed up by other costs.
In contending with all this, Luxon could have done without the usual throes of rookie whoopsies that most new governments face.
Nonetheless, he is fast learning that government is quite often little more than a series of what are called “distractions” strung together.
The stumbling of NZ First MP and associate health minister Casey Costello over whether she asked for “specific advice” on freezing tobacco excise increases, and Police Minister Mark Mitchell’s premature declaration police recruitment would be done over three years not two years were unwelcome but not unpredictable.
All new governments go through their teething problems while ministers get used to the oxygen-deprived altitude of the Beehive offices – and the accountability that goes with it.
It is also a particularly perilous time, given the Opposition has only recently left those government offices, and material is prone to being leaked in the event a staffer or public servant doesn’t like what the new ministers are doing.
The way the two issues were handled by the ministers involved as well as Luxon highlighted perfectly the maxim that explaining is losing.
The Mitchell issue was done and dusted in one night. He said on Tuesday the timeframe for delivering on 500 police had changed to three years rather than two, as set out in the NZ First coalition agreement.
NZ First baulked, despite apparently having a meeting to discuss it with Mitchell late last year. By Wednesday morning, Mitchell revoked the three years and went back to two.
It left Mitchell with egg on his face, but he wore it without any apparent resentment. The decision to simply say he’d got it wrong without trying to save his pride by explaining how saved them all from days of litigating who had said what and when.
The Costello issue dragged out mainly because Costello dug in on it.
She began the week denying to RNZ she had sought specific advice on freezing tobacco excise.
When documents showed she had indeed asked for that advice, she got entangled in a bizarre tautological argument, apparently around the distinction between whether ticking a box to ask for advice on something amounted to asking for specific advice.
She tried to argue she had not asked for advice on that specifically, but rather had sent material to the Ministry of Health to ponder over, mainly drawn from the annals of NZ First manifestos. Officials had then asked whether she wanted advice on each part of that – including the excise tax freeze - and she ticked yes.
Newsflash, Costello. That is a request for advice – whether it is specific advice or bog-standard advice is moot.
It’s a lesson to others that when you’re asked a question, especially when there are papers that might provide the answer, drop the semantics and answer it in full, right up front.
Labour’s Grant Robertson pointed to the right word: “obfuscation”.
It wasn’t even clear why she was obfuscating. It is long-standing NZ First policy to ease back on taxes on tobacco. It is perfectly legitimate for political parties to have different stands on such an issue.
It was hardly a big secret NZ First would want to look at it; however, nor does that mean it will happen.
It would be one thing to get officials to advise on what impact such a policy might have, and quite another to get Cabinet to then agree to it. Luxon himself has made that pretty clear: he has said the Government has already increased the excise tax and will continue to do so.
He has claimed Costello’s primary focus is driving smoking rates down, and she has sought a wide range of advice to weigh up how to do that.
He’s had a hard job selling that one.
The Government came under early fire on the smokefree front, when it decided to scrap Labour’s gradual ban on smoking and the move to restrict the number of outlets they could be sold in.
Luxon had insisted that smokefree targets could be hit by other measures – which Costello is now charged with.
However, the Government also mangled the messaging on it, by discussing it mainly in the context of the extra revenue it would bring in to help pay for its tax cuts.
Given that raised question marks about how serious the Government parties were about cutting smoking rates, it was perhaps not the best idea to then give the tobacco portfolio to an MP in the party with the most lenient policies on smoking.
It’s one thing to decide Labour’s outright ban is both arbitrary and excessive. That’s a viable political argument. It’s also viable to argue that there comes a point when the tax on tobacco is high enough.
But in terms of perception, it’s hard to sell a convincing case that you are still determined to drive down smoking rates when it’s in the hands of a party that has long pushed for leniency on it – and in 2020 campaigned to drop the tax on tobacco significantly so a pack would cost $20 max.
Labour will not let it lie: it has a sniff of a weak link. It is now trying to sow the perception that NZ First – and by extension other Government parties – are too cosy with the tobacco industry, using the same arguments and are doing their bidding.
Luxon has so far managed to get away with brushing it off – but the rookie excuse doesn’t last long.
Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
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