This year the Herald’s award-winning newsroom produced a range of first-class journalism, including exploring the NCEA and UE results of every college around NZ, the collapse of the Du Val property empire, revealing claims a former funeral director at Tipene Funerals was swindling grieving clients and
2024 saw the first full year of New Zealand’s first-ever formal three-party coalition Government, a tumultuous year for the Green Party, a year full of cutbacks and protests, and sadly, the loss of some good people. As always in the world of politics, it was anything but boring.
This summer we’re bringing back some of the best-read Premium articles of 2024. Today we take a look at some of the key moments of a busy year in politics.
One year of the ‘coalition of chaos’
November marked one year since National, Act and New Zealand First formed the country’s first-ever three-party coalition Government, reaching agreements after weeks of tense discussions following the 2023 election.
The Herald interviewed the leaders of all three parties about how they think the coalition has fared so far, how they’re getting on with one another and how the dynamic could change ahead of the 2026 election.
PM on working with Peters and Seymour
Commentators and Opposition MPs pointed to Christopher Luxon’s relative inexperience as a politician and questioned his ability to manage Seymour and Peters, who had traded barbs publicly for years before the 2023 vote.
But 12 months on from the signing of coalition agreements, Luxon believes his Government has defied the critics.
How Seymour ‘got it wrong’ about Peters
David Seymour’s evolving relationship with Winston Peters is one of the most intriguing aspects of the coalition Government.
Seymour, known for his quick-witted jabs, has historically appeared all too willing to poke fun at Peters, having called the NZ First leader a “charismatic crook” and likened the prospect of fighting the now-79-year-old to elder abuse – all of which Peters has responded to in kind.
Seymour’s attacks ramped up in the lead-up to the 2023 election, with him describing Peters as the “least trustworthy person in New Zealand politics” less than three weeks out from election day. He had vowed not to sit at a Cabinet table with the NZ First leader.
But it’s said time can heal all wounds and it seems 12 months have done the trick, with Seymour admitting to the Herald he was wrong to claim NZ First would be obstructive in power.
Peters hints at 2026 election plans
Winston Peters is no stranger to a coalition.
The NZ First leader is something of a veteran, having governed alongside National’s Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley, as well as Labour’s Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern.
While he admits his past coalitions have had varying degrees of success, Peters believes his current arrangement with National and Act is progressing well.
“All coalitions are difficult and you’ve got to, how shall I put it, compromise,” Peters told the Herald.
“You’ve got to meet people halfway and try to make things work and that’s what we’ve done. I think in that respect, it’s been very successful.”
Like all leaders, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will make mistakes but he also has teams of advisers, political and neutral, to help him to minimise them and to make the best decisions.
As anyone who has had experience in Government will tell you, having good staff is paramount. An able minister without good staff will be ineffective. A hopeless minister with a good team is likely to be able to accomplish more.
Luxon had the advantage of forming a tight team in Opposition after becoming National leader just over three years ago and who transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office after the election. Some of the best are hand-me-downs from the Key-English years.
Luxon also has the advantage of getting non-political policy advice from the country’s brightest public servants who comprise the Policy Advisory Group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Audrey Young looks at the people Luxon depends on in politics, the public service and business.
Golriz Ghahraman is no longer an MP following her resignation amid allegations of shop lifting.
The former Green Party MP announced via a statement she would be leaving politics, apologising for her behaviour.
In her attempt to explain but not excuse her actions, Ghahraman cited the “extreme stress” she had been experiencing and linked it to previously unrecognised trauma. She said she was seeking help from mental health professionals.
Adam Pearse looks at the rise and fall of the woman who was New Zealand’s first refugee MP.
He joked, he sang, he spoke about his big ideas and he answered his critics.
And then Fa’anānā Efeso Collins - the dad, husband and Green Party MP seen as a Pasifika leader who brought hope to disadvantaged communities and who died suddenly, aged 49, during a charity event in downtown Auckland in February - told the 150 guests at his old school, Ōtara’s Tangaroa College, why he wanted to be mayor of a city still picking itself up a year after a last, long Covid-19 lockdown.
“I want a city that dreams again. I want us to imagine what’s possible and make it happen”, the Samoan/Tokelauan Kiwi and father of two young daughters said at the September 2022 campaign opener.
But come October 2022, the voters would overwhelmingly pick someone else, with septuagenarian Wayne Brown’s blunt “Fix Auckland” message earning him 181,000 votes to Collins’ 124,000.
Collins would find another way to serve - a year later he’d be among 12 Green Party list MPs (and three electorate MPs) off to Parliament.
Following his death, Collins - who started his career in public service as the first Polynesian-ethnicity Auckland University Students’ Association president in the late 1990s before later being elected and chairing the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board - was remembered with love and admiration.
Former Greens co-leader James Shaw said they were “absolutely devastated” at the loss of their friend and colleague.
“His love for his family essentially extended to all families... he truly was the most beautiful man with an orientation of love,” Shaw said.
Green Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has admitted she crossed a line when she yelled in the face of a minister in Parliament and says she will receive de-escalation training to recognise when she’s in “fight or flight” mode.
In her first extended interview since the heated incident, Genter told the Herald she hopes it will not become the defining moment of her 12-year career as an MP.
Speaker Gerry Brownlee referred Genter to the privileges committee after she crossed the floor in the debating chamber and waved a book in the face of National MP Matt Doocey after he commented on Labour cancelling roads.
“I fully apologised the moment it happened. I realised I crossed a line”, Genter said.
In March, Chlöe Swarbrick was confirmed as the new Greens co-leader.
In this interview she sat down for lunch with Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie to discuss life, family, Sir Ian Taylor and wealth taxes, the “time-warp” of Parliament – and why she’s not in politics forever.
Redundancy payouts across the public sector are increasing as job cuts are finalised, with the bill reaching $58 million at the start of August.
Thousands of roles in the sector have either been slashed or are in the process of being cut following the change in government at last year’s election, with Nicola Willis taking the reins as Finance and Public Service Minister.
Efforts to cut back spending in the public sector had already started under the prior Labour-led Government. Last August, then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced a savings package across the sector in an attempt to turn the tide on spending.
The Labour pair backed $4 billion in savings over a four-year period, on top of savings announced during Budget 2023 - Grant Robertson’s final Budget. Agencies were given savings targets between 1% and 2% under Labour.
Months later, with National’s Willis at the helm, the savings targets were raised to 6.5% to 7.5% on average.
Number crunching from the Herald reveals thousands of jobs deemed “back-office” have been culled - racking up redundancy payouts above $58 million.
Some Cabinet ministers end up spouting the gobbledegook of their own officials, but not Erica Stanford.
If she resembles anyone in her role as Education Minister, it is more that of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in terms of her energy levels, buzz words, targets and a focus on outcomes.
She is sitting on the sofa in her Beehive office – she never uses the desk – explaining how much research she did into education as an Opposition MP before getting into Government in November.
She read every piece of education research she could get her hands on, studied what was happening overseas and engaged extensively with the sector to find out what bugged them so when she arrived in Government she was ready.
“We had huge clarity of purpose, and we knew there needed to be pace – so purpose, clarity and pace. We knew what we needed to do,” she said.
The way she puts her priorities is: a clearer curriculum; a better approach to literacy and numeracy; smarter assessment and reporting; improved teacher training; stronger learning support for students with additional needs; and greater use of data and evidence to drive improvement.
The Government’s commitment to implement a new operable redress scheme by next year isn’t satisfying survivors of abuse in state and faith-based institutions as one believes the Government is still “dragging the chain”.
The issue of compensating the hundreds of thousands who were abused across several decades remains unresolved for many survivors who endured what was an emotional and, at times, hostile day at Parliament as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon articulated the Government’s formal apology.
“An apology without redress is meaningless,” survivor Paora Crawford-Moyle told the Herald.
Luxon, in his speech to the House, acknowledged his words would “count for little” without action on redress.
However, having cited the complexity of such a scheme in the days leading up to today’s apology, Luxon was only able to announce $32 million of funding to “increase capacity” in the current redress scheme that is processing about 3500 new applications and is considered not fit for purpose by Luxon himself.
The hīkoi to Parliament had a crowd triple the size of the 2004 Foreshore and Seabed equivalent, with people spilling onto nearby streets and climbing trees, buildings, and gates to glimpse the action.
Police estimated 42,000 people descended on central Wellington, “smoothly and safely”, to rally against the Treaty Principles Bill and other Government policies that protesters say undermine the rights of Māori.
The hīkoi organisers, the Public Service Association and Labour MP Willie Jackson thought the crowd was at least as large as 50,000.
One of the speakers, Ngāti Toa chief executive Helmut Modlik, told the crowd the day marked the start of something new.
“From this day forward, our hapū, our iwi, we will never stop until Te Tiriti o Waitangi is respected in this land.
”The time for change is here. The whole world is watching us to see what happens to Aotearoa,” Modlik said.
After the Act Party’s Treaty Principles Bill passed its first reading, the party ran an advertisement claiming that the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi “has resulted in different rights for different groups of New Zealanders”.
So we asked a group of legal experts whether Māori have rights that other New Zealanders don’t have and if so, on what basis.
They were: former Treaty Negotiations Minister Sir Douglas Graham; former Attorney-General Chris Finlayson KC; practising lawyer Karen Feint KC; former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer KC; former Attorney-General David Parker; and Treaty specialist and academic Carwyn Jones.
The overwhelming view among those approached is that the Treaty of Waitangi has confirmed existing rights rather than created new rights.
The view was that unless those rights which existed in 1840 had been abandoned or clearly extinguished through the law, they continued to exist.
And the view that the Treaty does not create new rights is contained in advice to decision-makers in a Cabinet Office circular (number five) issued in 2019.
There was one stand-out line from my last interview with Nikki Kaye: “I feel loved,” she said during a weekend on her beloved Great Barrier Island.
She was talking about the people who had continued to check in on her after her sudden departure from politics and having served 53 days as its deputy leader to Todd Muller.
It was easy to see why she felt loved. She was energetic, passionate, clever and full of fun. She came from a close family and had a loyal set of friends. Her political mentors, including Sir John Key, were helping her adjust to a new life and hoping to harness that seemingly infinite well of energy on boards inside and outside New Zealand.
She would work with anyone who shared her particular goal at the time as she did with former Green MP Kevin Hague on social issues and Labour’s Chris Hipkins on education issues.
She won the former Labour stronghold of Auckland Central because of her hard work and because she was probably the most acceptable Tory they had ever been presented with.
She was a fantastically flawed politician. She threw herself into whatever she was doing, sometimes to the point of obsession. As Key put it, she was among the most intense people he had met.
After a year she left politics, I thought she had been given enough time to lie low and suggested a novel assignment. It would allow me to visit her spiritual home, Great Barrier Island, for the first time with her as a guide, and to let readers catch up with what she had been doing outside politics. Surprisingly, she agreed.
It was one of the most fun assignments ever.
Nikki was nervous though. She knew she had no control over what was going to be written. We had barely got out of the airport before she asked what I was going to write. She need not have worried, then or now. She was loved and admired, flaws and all.
Following the death of Nikki Kaye, Audrey Young reflects on her last interview with the former National MP.