Analysis: Danyl McLauchlan analyses the past week in politics in an online exclusive story.
Sunday
The New Zealand First party celebrated its 30th birthday at its annual conference. Winston Peters has ruled out forming a government with Labour, indicating that he’s targeting a chunk of National’s voters this election. He’ll still form a government with Labour after the election if it is advantageous for him to do so, of course, thunderously denying he ever said otherwise and damning the media for its endless malicious lies. But Labour has both the Greens and Te Pati Maori as potential partners while National only has Act. Peters is a brilliant tactician and it’s hard to fault his calculation that a pivot to the right is the optimal path to power.
When he formed a government with Labour and the Greens in 2017, Peters announced that free market capitalism was failing New Zealand. This year he denounced the “secret woke agenda”: the radical machinations of an “elite cabal of social and ideological engineers” dedicated to the destruction of Western values, to be accomplished via the twin evils of co-governance and te reo names for government departments, while Shane Jones warned that the current government is gender fluid and nonbinary.
Newsroom’s Tim Murphy pointed out that Peters never once mentioned immigration. High levels of immigration have been a consistent platform for Peters for three decades but in 2021 the Labour government announced a great immigration reset and the lack of skilled migrants across key sectors nearly crashed the economy. Perhaps that issue will lie quiet for a few years.
Sometimes when democracies are in moments of existential crisis their major parties form a grand coalition: a unified bi-partisan government to defend the nation. I’m no historian but the choice between a Labour-Greens-Te Pati Maori coalition versus a National-Act-New Zealand First alliance feels like it more than qualifies. Hipkins and Luxon should immediately begin talks to discuss this possibility.
Monday
Justice Minister Kiri Allen was taken into police custody following an incident in which she crashed into a parked car at 9pm Sunday evening. Allan later resigned her portfolio and announced she will not be standing at this year’s election.
There’s been so much commentary about this issue. Is Parliament a safe place for Māori women? Did the Prime Minister act in Allan’s best interests in allowing her to return to work after mental health leave? Is there something toxic about our political culture? Why has the government haemorrhaged ministers during an election year? Was it just an odd coincidence that the Justice Minister crashed her vehicle outside the house of a senior official at the Ministry of Justice? Why did she leave the scene of the accident? When a politician resigns this usually lowers the curtain on ongoing media coverage: they are no longer a public person. But there’s still extensive reporting and commentary around Allan.
Tuesday
David Parker relinquished his long-held revenue portfolio during the post-Allan Cabinet reshuffle, telling media: “You know my views on those things, I thought it was untenable for me to continue so I suggested to Chris [Hipkins] that it’s in the best interests of him and the party that someone else takes that role.”
Parker and Finance Minister Grant Robertson took the lead on developing a tax switch for this year’s budget: workers would get a tax-free threshold of $10,000 year, paid for by a 1.5% wealth tax on fortunes above $5 million. The plan was scrapped by Chris Hipkins, who also made a “captain’s call” ruling out any kind of wealth or capital gains tax in the future.
Political leaders will permanently exclude a policy if a focus group shows it creates a “barrier to voting”: if the mere suspicion among some key demographic that a hated policy might be enacted costs votes, this is the best way to address that. John Key and Jacinda Ardern ruled out changing the eligibility age for superannuation; Christopher Luxon has said he’ll resign if there’s any change in access to abortions or contraception if he’s Prime Minister. But they usually get consensus from their caucus beforehand. Polls report that the wealth tax has broad popular support even before you factor in the prospect of a tax switch bribe. Hipkins appears to have permanently ruled out a popular policy developed by some very influential members of his caucus without consulting the rest of his party. It’s not surprising that this is creating disunity.
Wednesday
The Herald reported that over the past five years Auckland’s local government has spent $190 million on consultancies and law firms. The bill is currently running at $104,000 a day. By comparison the council relief fund for households struggling after the Auckland anniversary floods is $4 million, and it is massively oversubscribed. There’s a quote that’s popular among left-wing policy circles: “Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” But government is, increasingly, the name we give for a mechanism that transfers public money to private sector firms who seem to return very little value, while core government entities struggle to deliver the basic services taxpayers and ratepayers expect.
The Post reported on a leak from inside Labour’s caucus discussion. A “visibly emotional” first-term Labour MP alleged they’d been “bullied and yelled at” by Allan and told colleagues: “We can’t pretend that we haven’t known about this for two years.” Over the past five years there’s been a steady drip-feed of bullying allegations within Parliament: primarily staffers alleging mistreatment by MPs. Maggie Barry, Nick Smith, Meka Whaitiri, Gaurev Sharma, Jamie Lee Ross, Anna Lorke, Elizabeth Kerekere and Kiri Allan have all been accused of bullying.
Back in 2019 the government commissioned public servant Debbie Francis to investigate the culture of Parliament. Francis identified “systemic problems” with toxic behaviour and cases of sexual assault and recommended a suite of changes. An update from Francis was delivered last Friday. She found some improvements, but mostly because of the efforts of individual people and parties and commented that “the appetite does not presently exist for such a transformative approach, particularly amongst elected members”.
