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We have a new rule in New Zealand politics: don’t tell that blabbermouth Shane Jones anything.
The NZ First MP, who’s already Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, Regional Development and Resources, this week added a whole new portfolio to his healthy collection of responsibilities: Minister for Blowing Budget Secrets.
While wandering the halls of Parliament on Tuesday looking like man in search of a public toilet, he was asked by a Newshub reporter whether he thought the government should scrap a popular grant to help first-home buyers, to which he bellowed, with the aloofness of a man dismissing a waiter, “all matters in the Budget will be dealt with on Budget night”.
When the gobsmacked hack asked if this meant dumping the grant was actually in the Budget, he began dismissing the waiter again, only for the penny to drop with the sound of a thousand cabinet manuals falling from the ninth floor of the Beehive.
“Okay, ask me your question again,” he said, shaking his finger and closing his eyes like a man trying to hypnotise a horse.
“Is the Government scrapping first-home grants?”
“No comment at all!” he announced, before heading off again, still a man in search of an elusive dunny.
As theatre went, it was like a farce in which a man, asked by his wife whether he’s cheating on her, leaves the room bellowing “all matters involving the Sunset Motel and Spa will be dealt with at the Sunset Motel and Spa!”
In the end, we didn’t have to wait for Finance Minister Nicola Willis’s “no bells or whistles” Budget to find out whether the Minister for Blowing Budget Secrets had indeed blown a Budget secret.
The day after Loose Lips Shane’s gaff, Housing Minister Chris Bishop suddenly announced the grant had been dumped as of Wednesday, the timing presumably preventing a run on grant applications before next Thursday’s Budget.
So, what are we left with now the curtain is down on the farce? A government that’s not long given landlords a $2.9 billion tax break [by reinstating full interest deductions] has now scrapped a first-home buyers’ fillip costing a more modest $60 million annually that, in the year to February alone, helped more than 10,000 buyers (42% of all first-home buyers during that period) into their first homes.
In doing so, the government — led by a multimillionaire who owns seven homes — made it quite clear whose side it is on when it comes to a fair go in the housing market.
And no matter how much Bolshy Bishop spins the line that he is putting the first-home grant money towards 1500 more “social” housing places, the optics of his decision are horrible. It looks like exactly what it is: sacrificing one in-need group to help another. If Bishop really gave a monkey’s, he’d have boosted the size of the first home grant and money going into social housing.
Later that day, Bishop and other National MPs bragged on Instagram about adding the 1500 more “social” housing places. Unfortunately, the post included a picture of some flash modern units that were not “social” housing but privately owned. The post was quickly taken down.
Meanwhile, someone needs to be put in charge of shutting up Gabby Shane, who also found himself the subject of a campaign by the World Wildlife Fund For Nature (WWF) this week.
Aghast at the government putting export growth ahead of the marine environment, the usually fluffy and non-confrontational WWF launched an attack ad calling for 30% of New Zealand’s seas to be placed within marine protected areas by 2030. The “tongue-in-cheek” advert features a picture of a fish finger and urges Kiwis to give Jones “the finger” — something we can be sure Willis and Bishop would be happy to do.
Jones called the fish finger campaign “creepy”, though it’s actually more crispy, golden and delicious.
The ad will no doubt make not a native frog’s worth of difference to Jones’ plans, but the WWF may have stumbled on the best way for Willis to shut up the Minister for Blowing Budget Secrets until Thursday: stuff a fish finger in his gob.
All you need is cash
If New Zealand thought it was getting the best politicians money can buy, then it’s time we asked for our money back. Despite all the dosh thrown by donors at National before last year’s election we’ve already seen some pretty shoddy work from the party and some of its MPs, including former Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee, former Disability Minister Penny Simmonds and the life-like Mark Mitchell, the holder of bumbling press conferences and, for the moment, Minister of Police.
Now we can add to National’s list of high-priced disappointments: David MacLeod. The New Plymouth MP somehow failed to declare nearly $180,000 of donations made to him in 2022-23, a situation that has seen the first-term but fast-tracked member dumped as chair of the environment select committee and as a member of the (how ironic) finance and expenditure committee.
In a further irony, his leader, the down-to-earth multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, was telling National faithful just last Sunday, at the central and lower North Island party conference in Palmerston North, that MacLeod was doing an “awesome job”.
By Tuesday, the Luxe reckoned MacLeod had “stuffed up big time”, had failed “to meet the high standards we expect of our MPs” and said he was “disappointed in him”. Forget a week: with Luxon’s government, two days is now a long time in politics.
How do you overlook $180,000? The way MacLeod tells it, his failure to declare all that money was a mistake, though it will be up to the Electoral Commission and possibly the police to decide exactly what it was.
Adding to the intrigue is the sheer amount of money thrown at MacLeod by donors: a whopping $207,662 in total — nearly $100,000 more than any other candidate, and more than six times the candidate election expenses limit of $32,600, including GST.
National, meanwhile, reportedly raised a $10.4 million election war chest last year, twice as much as any other party, and a record amount raised by a party in a single year.
Here’s a thought: if MacLeod really wants to make amends for his $180,000 cock-up and do an “awesome job” for our democracy, he should sponsor a bill to totally reform party donations and expenditure rules.
Exit through the gift shop
What do Ed Sheeran, a framed photo of Princess Anne and a bed have common?
They are all gift horses that were not looked in the mouth.
The “Registrar of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament” — yes, it’s an actual job and it’s done by a bloke with a knighthood — has just released the annual list of what our politicians own, owe and were given by others. As always, it makes for very interesting reading.
The number of politicians — particularly on the government side of the House — who are trustees and beneficiaries of family and private trusts is quite astonishing, but then the rich are always experts at protecting their own wealth.
The list of gifts is where the strangest and/or saddest stuff appears. For example, the PM, the down-to-earth multimillionaire and a grown man who has Taylor Swift dance parties, was offered and took free tickets to Ed Sheeran, proving his taste in music is only getting worse.
Labour leader Chris “Sausage Roll” Hipkins certainly made the most of his short time as PM. Oddly, he records not a single flaky pastry treat given to him all through the election campaign. However, the enthusiastic cyclist did receive a free bike from the Chinese Premier, Li Qiang. Was it bugged? The other “gift” Hipkins received was a “Framed photograph – HRH Princess Anne, The Princess Royal”. I’m sure, as a confirmed republican, he’ll treasure it always.
But the weirdest gift went to National MP, now Minister of Education, Erica Stanford. She was given an actual bed by the actual director of Slumberzone New Zealand.
Please feel free to insert your own joke about getting into bed with the furniture sector.
