New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon faced sustained heckling and had to fend off questions about a revived Treaty Principles Bill as he returned to Waitangi this year.

ACT leader David Seymour predictably attracted his own jeers, and NZ First’s Winston Peters focused on a return serve.

The opposition was not spared criticism either yesterday, with Labour accused of backstabbing, and Te Pāti Māori given a stern word to sort out their internal problems and finish the work it started at Parliament.

• READ MORE: Indigenous and Pacific leaders unite at Waitangi with shared messages on ocean conservation
• Big Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi delegation joins Māori in solidarity over Te Tiriti
• Other Waitangi reports

But Luxon was clearly the one attracting the most ire.

Even before MPs walked onto the upper Treaty Grounds, a group of 40 or so protesters led by activist Wikatana Popata gathered as he made a rousing speech beneath the flagstaff — calling the coalition “the enemy”.

“These fellas are accountable to America, they’re here on behalf of America e tātou mā. Don’t you see what my uncle Shane [Jones] is doing?” he said.

“My uncle Shane, he’s giving the okay to all the oil drilling and the mining because those are American companies e tātou mā. So wake up.

‘Not scared of arrests’
“We’re not quite sure who our enemy is, well let me remind us: those people that are about to walk in, that’s our enemy . . .  we’re not scared of your arrests, we’re not scared of your jail cells or your prisons.

“We’ve been imprisoned . ..  we kōrero Māori to our tamariki at home, we practise our tikanga Māori at home, so you will never imprison us.”

The group performed a haka in protest against the politicians’ presence amid the more formal haka welcoming them to the marae. A small scuffle broke out as security stopped some of the protesters — who were shouting “kupapa”, or “traitor” — from advancing closer.

Speaking from the pae in te reo Māori on behalf of the haukāinga, Te Mutunga Rameka paid tribute to retiring Labour MP Peeni Henare and challenged Māori MPs working for the government, asking “where is your kotahitanga, where is your unity?”.

The next speaker, Eru Kapa-Kingi, acknowledged the protesters outside — saying he had challenged from outside in the past and now he was challenging from within the marae.

“Why do we continue to welcome the spider to our house,” he asked.

“This government has stabbed us in the front, but others stabbed us in the back,” he said, referring to Labour.

“Sort yourself out,” was his message to them, and to Te Pāti Māori, which in November ousted two of its MPs.

Part of ructions
Kapa-Kingi was arguably a central part of those ructions, however, having been employed by his mother Mariameno — one of those ousted MPs — and leading some of the criticism of the party’s leadership.

His criticism of Labour highlighted the departure of Henare, who he said had been — like his mother — silenced by his party.

Henare soon rose to his feet, saying according to custom those named on the marae were entitled to speak — and he spoke of humility.

“We must be very humble, extremely humble. And so that’s why I stand humbly before you . . .  Parliament kept me safe over the years.

“We have reached a point in time where I have completed my work. And so I ask everyone to turn their thoughts to what was said this morning: the hopes, aspirations, and desires of our people.”

Henare and his soon-to-be-former boss, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, have both batted away speculation about other reasons behind his departure — not least from NZ First deputy Shane Jones.

Hipkins himself acknowledged Henare in his speech, saying “our hearts are heavy today. We know we are returning you to your whānau in the North, but you are still part of our whānau. And we know where to find you”.

‘Lot of rubbish’
He later told reporters Kapa-Kingi was talking “a lot of rubbish”, that the last Labour government did more for Māori than many others, and Labour had already admitted it got the Foreshore and Seabed legislation wrong.

Seymour was up next and spoke of liberal democratic values; dismissing complaints of colonisation as a “myopic drone”; and saying the defeat of the Treaty Principles Bill was a pyrrhic victory because — he believed — it would return and become law in future.

Defending his comments on colonisation later, he said it had been more good than bad, as “even the poorest people in New Zealand today live like Kings and Queens compared with most places in most times in history”.

Conch shells and complaints about growing sick during Seymour’s speech clearly fired up the next speaker, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters — who said he did not come to be insulted or speak about politics.

“There’s some young pup out there shouting who doesn’t know what day it is,” he said, calling for a return to the interests of “one people, one nation”.

As the shouting started, Peters repeated his line there would come a time where they wanted to speak to him long before he wanted to speak to them.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson then rose to speak from the mahau, echoing the words of the late veteran campaigner Titewhai Harawira, urging the Crown to honour the Treaty, “it is not hard”.

Green candidates
The party announced during the events yesterday it would be standing candidates in three Māori seats, including list MP Huhana Lyndon, lawyer Tania Waikato, and former Te Pāti Māori candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth — and Davidson staked out her party’s claim to those seats.

“When the giants, the rangatira of our Green Party — before the Pāti Māori was even formed — were the only party in the 2004 Foreshore hīkoi to meet the people, the masses, to uphold Te Tiriti,” she said.

With the government trampling treaty and environment while corporations benefited, she said giving land back was core.

While her speech was welcomed with applause, the government’s hecklers soon turned up the noise for the Prime Minister.

After skipping last year’s pōwhiri amid tensions over the Treaty Principles Bill, Luxon began by saying it was a tremendous privilege to be back, someone already shouting “we’ve had enough”.

He spoke about the the meaning of the Treaty as he saw it, and the importance of discussing and debating rather than turning on one another.

“It speaks so highly of us that we can come together at times like this, but it is also relevant on Waitangi Day as we think about how we’ve grappled and wrestled with other challenging issues as well,” he said.

Shouts and jeers
Shouts and jeers could be heard throughout, but he ploughed on undeterred.

“. . .  I think we have the Treaty to thank for that, because that has enabled us to engage much better with each other and we should take immense pride in that.”

One person could be heard yelling “treason” as Luxon spoke. He later said it was “typical of what we expect at Waitangi . . .  I enjoyed it”.

Asked if his government was honouring the Treaty, he said “yes”.

“We take it very seriously. It’s our obligation to honour the Treaty, but we work it out by actually making sure we are lifting educational outcomes for Māori kids, we work it out by making sure we are lifting health outcomes, we work it out by making sure we’re making a much more safer community.”

Luxon has been rejecting the idea of a revived Treaty Principles Bill since the day after it was voted down, but his coalition partner Seymour has been pledging its return for even longer.

The Prime Minister has reiterated his stance several times in the lead-up to Thursday’s pōwhiri, and did so again: “David can have his own take on that but I’m just telling you, it ain’t happening,” he said.

Referendum ‘divisive’
Ahead of the 2023 election, he had said redefining the Treaty’s principles was not his party’s policy and they did not support it, that a referendum — as the bill proposed — would be “divisive and unhelpful”, and a referendum would not be on the coalition table.

He was asked, given that, how ironclad his guarantee could be with an election campaign still to come and governing arrangements yet to be confirmed.

“We’ve been there and we killed it, so we’re done,” he said, clearly hoping for finality on the matter.

Te Tai Tokerau kaumātua and veteran broadcaster Waihoroi Shortland bookended the speeches.

Beginning with a Winston Churchill quote — that democracy is a bad form of government but the others are worse — Shortland said it was easy to remark on how divisive Māori were “when you all live in the most divisive house in the country”.

He called for Henare to be allowed to leave politics with dignity, but extended no such luxury for Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi.

“Rawiri, I cannot allow you to come away. Your work is not done. It is crushing to see and to hear what the House does kia koutou, kia tātou, ki te Māori — but we sent you there nevertheless, and that work is not done. Find a way.”

‘Feel the pain’
Waititi had spoken earlier, thanking Eru Kapa-Kingi for what he had said.

“I can hear the anger and I can feel the pain. And the courage to stand before the people and say what you had to say,” he said.

He said the party wanted to meet with Ngāpuhi but had been “scattered” when invited to a hui in November, and indicated an eagerness to meet.

“We are still eager to gather with you but we must make the proper arrangements before we can,” he said.

“It’s alright to have problems. But we must experience those problems in our own house. If those problems go outside, the horse will bolt.”

He said the current government was “nibbling like a sandfly” at the Treaty, and there was “only one enemy before us, and it is not ourselves”.

But that fell short of what Mariameno Kapa-Kingi had hoped for, telling reporters she initially thought an apology was coming.

She said she was disappointed Waititi did not fully address their stoush in his speeches, and she was committed to standing in Te Tai Tokerau — presumably, regardless of her party affiliation.

“I’m not going anywhere until our people tell me otherwise. I’ve got much to do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A former National Party Member of Parliament says his late party looked “like dickheads” not supporting the first reading of a bill that would restore New Zealand citizenship to a group of Samoans and is hoping they will change tune.

Anae Arthur Anae told RNZ Pacific it “was outright racism” that National did not back Green Party Member of Parliament Teanau Tuiono’s Restoring Citizenship Removed by Citizenship (Western Samoa) Act 1982 Bill.

National was the only party to not support it, citing “legal complexity” as the issue.

Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti declined an interview with RNZ Pacific.

In 1982, the Privy Council ruled that because those born in Western Samoa were treated by New Zealand law as “natural-born British subjects”, they were entitled to New Zealand citizenship when it was first created in 1948.

However, the National Party-led government under Robert Muldoon took that away with the Western Samoa Citizenship Act 1982, effectively overturning the Privy Council ruling.

Tuiono’s bill aims to restore the right of citizenship to those who had it removed.

25,000 submissions
Public submissions have closed and the Governance and Administration Committee received almost 25,000 submissions.

NZ First leader Winston Peters has told Pacific Media Network he intended to continue to back it, if he does, it will likely become law.

Anae said if National continued to “slag it” during the process they would keep making themselves look stupid.

“Not only in New Zealand but internationally and on the human rights issues. They have put themselves in a serious situation here and they really have to get this right.

“I’m hoping and praying that they will see the light and say, ‘look, enough is enough, we’ve got to sort this thing out now’.”

Anae said the world had grown out of the racism he knew as a child and it was time for New Zealand to follow suit.

“Who would have ever imagined the day when the key positions in the UK of Prime Minister, Mayor of London, all senior positions across the Great Britain, would be held by the children of migrants.

“Time has changed, we’ve got to wake up to it.”

Hearings to begin
Hearings will be held in-person and on Zoom in Wellington on Monday, Wednesday and  July 9.

There will also be hearings held in South Auckland on July 1.

Anae said about 10,000 of the submissions came from Samoa and there was a request for a hearing to be held there also.

“Everybody in Parliament right now is under huge pressure with the budget discussions that have been going on, so I do have my sympathies understanding the situation.

“But at the same time this thing is one of the most important thing in the lives of Samoan people and we want it to be treated that way.”

He said almost all the public submissions would be in support of the bill. He said in Samoa, where he was three weeks ago, the support was unanimous.

But he said Samoa’s government was being diplomatic.

‘Sitting on fence’
“They do not want to upset New Zealand in any way by seeing to be siding with this and they’re sitting on the fence.”

Tuiono said it was great to see the commitment from NZ First but because it was politics, he was reluctant to feel too confident his bill would be eventually turned into law.

“There’s always things that will need to be ironed out so the role for us as members participating in the select committee is to find all of those bits and pieces and work across the Parliament with different political parties.”

Tuiono said most of the discussion on the bill was around whether citizenship was extended to the descendants of the group and how many people would be entitled to it.

“That seems to be where most of the questions seem to be coming from but this is what we should be doing as part of the select committee process, get some certainty on that from the officials.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been warned that Māori will not sit by without a fight if the government attempts to meddle with te Tiriti o Waitangi.

As politicians of all stripes have flocked to Rātana near Whanganui, it was a rare chance for Māori to address politicians directly on the pae — something that holds extra weight this year, because the annual celebrations come so soon after last weekend’s national hui.

Among those in attendance were Labour and Green MPs, Prime Minister Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones, while Te Pāti Māori were welcomed on Tuesday. ACT did not have a representative there.

• READ MORE: Former Pacific minister ‘lights fire of spirit’ supporting Māori at unity hui
• Rātana 2024 celebrations in pictures – RNZ

Rāhui Papa, a representative of the Kiingitanga and Waikato-Tainui, said they were watching the rhetoric coming out of the Beehive very closely.

“Quite frankly, te iwi Māori — and the hui at Turangawaewae confirmed, the hui here at Rātana has confirmed — that if there is any measure of meddling with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori will not sit idly by.

“The message is: The Tiriti o Waitangi is sacrosanct in the view of te ao Māori. We truly believe that the only treaty in town is the one that was written in the indigenous language.”

Amid a climate of concern over the Treaty Principles legislation, Luxon is calling for calm over a bill he himself has said feels divisive.

Government ‘will honour the Treaty’
“The government has no plans and never has had plans to amend or revise the Treaty, or the Treaty settlements that we have all worked so hard together to achieve.

“The government will honour the Treaty.”

His speech to the Rātana faithful largely a speech to all Māori — and focusing on his favourite word: outcomes.

“Ours will be a government with goals for better healthcare, better school achievement, and less welfare dependency.

“When I talk about wanting better outcomes, I’m not talking about giving out hand-outs to close the gaps. I want to improve the opportunities so that people who are prepared to get to work and work hard, can make the most of their opportunities and get ahead.”

Ratana representative Kamaka Manuel told the government that promise of better outcomes was hard to believe.

“What we do see is the first part of the word ‘outcomes’ — or like ‘Māori out’ — and we’re left with the last part: ‘how come’.”

Māori outcomes ‘gone backwards’
He once again reiterated his claim that outcomes for Māori had gone backwards under Labour, and that National had “no intention and no commitment” to take ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill beyond a first reading.

There may be no commitment or intention at this point to do so, but Luxon has repeatedly refused to categorically rule out further support for it.

“It’s consistent with our coalition agreements, we have said and I don’t know how to be any clearer about it, there is no commitment to support it beyond the first reading.”

He was asked by reporters if he would say National would clearly say they would not support it further, but Luxon again said there was “no intention, no commitment”.

For a day full of politicians, Rātana is not supposed to be overtly political.

Deputy Prime Minister Peters acknowledged that — but still gave a political speech anyway — lashing out at Labour to pockets of heckling.

“These people will promise you a bridge where there is no river . . . I want to ask you this question: what’s their record?.”

impromptu standup
In an impromptu standup with reporters, NZ First’s Shane Jones said a review of the Waitangi Tribunal would need to address whether its powers should remain intact.

“An institution that’s been around for 50 years should not expect to continue on uncritically for another set of decades without being reviewed.”

Spurred on by speeches from the morehu, Labour’s Willie Jackson said it had made the opposition parties more united than ever.

“What they were saying the whaikōrero was that there was one enemy . . . and the enemy was the government, and so they wanted us to all . . . to come together as a group — Greens, Pāti Māori, Labour.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins, in his first public appearance of the year, spent all of a minute talking about Labour’s deep connection to Rātana — and then went on the attack.

“The role of us as political leaders is to light that path forward, it’s not to exploit the fear that comes from uncertainty.”

Hipkins said the current government’s approach was emboldening racism, which he later clarified related to things like the Treaty Principles Bill.

Policies ‘enable racism’
“I don’t think those are things that a responsible government should do.

“The policies of this current government encourage, foster, and enable racism in New Zealand and we should call that out for what it is.”

This time last year, Hipkins was speaking as prime minister. He now admitted — from the benefit of hindsight — the last government didn’t get it all right.

“One of the things that we didn’t get right was that making sure we were bringing non-Māori New Zealanders along with us on that journey.”

There was a notable absentee — the ACT Party, whose Treaty Principles Bill National has agreed to support to Select Committee, but no further.

“We know there could have been some trepidation like last week at Turangawaewae where we only had a couple from the three-headed taniwha government that we have in New Zealand today,” Rāhui Papa said.

‘Dishonour’ to Māori world
Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson told reporters that ACT’s no-show at Rātana was a display of “absolute ignorance” and a dishonour to the Māori world.

“It dismisses the mana and the importance of Ratana, of Wiremu Pōtiki Ratana, and te ao Māori and their political voice.”

But David Seymour was brushing off the criticism.

“There was a time when they didn’t manage to invite me and now they seem to be complaining that they’ve invited me but I haven’t come. I guess one day the stars will align.”

Seymour has never attended Rātana festivities, describing it as a “religious event”, but he will be attending Waitangi next month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

RNZ News

New Zealand’s opposition parties have seized on a leaked ministerial memo about the coalition government’s proposed Treaty Principles bill, saying the prime minister should put a stop to it.

ACT is defending the bill, while National has repeated its position of supporting it no further than select committee.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi posted a screenshot of part of a page of the leaked document on social media on Friday, saying it showed the government’s “intentions to erase Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

• READ MORE:  More than 10,000 turn out for NZ’s national Hui-ā-Iwi at Tūrangawaewae
• NZ government confirms leaked document was a ministry Treaty Principles bill memo
• Luxon defends decision not to attend nationwide hui
• RNZ live news feed

1News also reported that it had a full copy of the leaked report, which it said warned the proposal’s key points were “at odds with what the Treaty of Waitangi actually says”.

Ministry of Justice chief executive Andrew Kibblewhite confirmed the leak “of a draft paper seeking to include the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in the Legislation Programme for 2024” would be investigated.

“We are incredibly disappointed that this has happened. Ministers need to be able to trust that briefing papers are treated with utmost confidentiality, and we will be investigating the leak as a priority.

“All proposed Government Bills are assigned a priority in the Legislation Programme. The draft paper was prepared as part of that standard process, and had a limited distribution within the Ministry of Justice and a small number of other government agencies.

“We will be keeping Minister [of Justice Paul] Goldsmith informed on our investigation and will not be making any further comment at this stage.”

ACT: ‘That is what I believe our country needs’
The bill was an ACT Party policy during the election, which National in coalition negotiations agreed to progress only as far as the select committee stage. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in Parliament last year said “that’s as far as it will go”.

Party leader David Seymour defended the bill.

“Over the last 40 years, the principles of the Treaty have evolved behind closed doors with no consultation of the average New Zealander, no role for them to play in it whatsoever,” he said.

That referred to the courts’ attempts over the last few decades to reconcile the differences between the English and reo Māori texts of the Treaty, based in part on the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal — an independent body set up by a previous National government to examine the Treaty’s role in New Zealand.

Seymour said people in the bureaucracy had become set in that way of thinking about the Treaty, but that it had made the country feel more divided by race.

“And when ACT comes along and says, ‘hey, we need to have an open discussion about this and work towards a unified New Zealand’, you expect that they’re going to be resistant. Nonetheless, there’s the band aid this government has, and that is what I believe our country needs.

“I believe that once people see an open and respectful debate about our founding document and the future of our constitutional settings, that’s actually something that New Zealanders have been wanting for a long time that we’re delivering, and I suspect it might be a bit more popular than the doomsayers anticipate.”

In a statement, he said the party was speaking for Māori and non-Māori alike who believed division was one of the greatest threats to New Zealand.

“We’re proposing a proper public debate on what the principles of the Treaty actually mean in the context of a modern multi-ethnic society with a place in it for all.

“ACT’s goal is to restore the mana of the Treaty by clarifying its principles. That means the New Zealand government has the right to govern New Zealand, the New Zealand government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property, and all New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.”

He said they would be consulting all New Zealanders on it, and once it got to select committee they would have a chance to recommend changes to the bill, which would then be put to the public as a referendum.

Te Pāti Māori: ‘The worst way of rewriting the Tiriti’
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told RNZ News she was not surprised to see ministry officials warning against the bill.

“The extent and the depth of the erasing of Tangata Whenua, the arrogance to assume to rewrite a Treaty based on one partner’s view — and that was a partner who only had 50 rangatira sign — is really alarming.”

She said she did not trust Prime Minister Christopher Luxon would not support the bill any further than the select committee stage.

“It’s the worst way of rewriting the Tiriti we could ever have expected, it’s made assumptions that don’t exist and again has highlighted that they rate the English version of te Tiriti.

“I’m not quite sure when the last time you could believe everything a prime minister said was factual,” she said.

“The prime minister has been caught out in his own lies . . . the reality is that a clever politician and intentional coalition partner will roll anyone out of the way to make sure that something as negatively ambitious as what this rewrite is looking like can happen.”

She said one of Māoridom’s biggest aspirations was to be a thriving people “and ensure that through our whakapapa te Tiriti is respected”, she said, criticising Luxon’s refusal to attend this weekend’s national hui.

“He didn’t have to be the centre of all the discussions, a good leader listens,” she said.

Labour: ‘A total disgrace and a slap in the face for the judiciary’
Labour’s Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson however said the bill was a “total breach” of the Treaty, its obligations, and the partnership between Māori and the Crown.

“It’s a total attack on the Treaty and the partnership that we have, that Māori have with the Crown, and it continues the negative themes from this government from day one.

“The reality is that the Treaty principles — in terms of what’s been drawn up in terms of the ‘partnership’ — was already a compromise from Māori. That’s why the judiciary wrote up the partnership model — so if they want to go down this track they’ll open up a can of worms that they’ll live to regret.”

He said the government should not be pushing ahead with the bill.

“Absolutely, absolutely not, and Luxon should show some leadership and rule it out now. This is a disgrace, what ACT are doing, a total disgrace and a slap in the face for the judiciary and all the leaders who in past years have entrenched the partnership.

“You’re talking about National Party leaders like Jenny Shipley, Jim Bolger, Doug Graham, John Key. This is just laughable and idiotic stuff that is coming from Seymour, and Luxon should shut this down now because it goes in the face of legal opinion, legal history, judiciary decisions since 1987, prime ministerial decisions from National and Labour.

“All of a sudden we’ve got this so-called expert Seymour who thinks he knows more than every prime minister of the last 40 years and every High Court judge, Supreme Court judge — you name it … absolute rubbish and it should be thrown out.”

He said Seymour was “trying to placate his money men . . .  trying to placate some of his extreme rightwing mates”.

He did not trust the government to do as Luxon had said it would, and end support for the bill once it reached select committee.

“I mean surely this government would be the last group of people you’d trust right now wouldn’t you think? These are people that are going to disband our magnificent smokefree laws to look after their tax cuts.

“They also must be told in no uncertain terms that there can be no compromise on the Treaty relationship.”

Greens: ‘All of the kupu are a breach’
Green Party Māori Development spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon also said the government should not proceed with the bill, arguing all the words proposed by ACT for replacing the principles were a breach of the Treaty itself.

“All of the kupu are a breach to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and this is the choice of the National government to allow this to go ahead into select committee. There’s been no consultation with te iwi Māori or the general public.

“The government shouldn’t proceed with it. Te Tiriti o Waitangi is Te Tiriti o Waitangi — and those words need to be given effect to by the government, any changes to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is between hapū, iwi and the Crown.”

She said the new words proposed to assert a specific interpretation of te Tiriti and its historical context “does not give effect to te Tiriti and does not honour the sacred covenant that our tūpuna signed up for”.

“Ultimately, as we can see, even the government advice is cautioning strongly that the proposed words in the Treaty principles bill will be contentious, and could splinter — and, in fact, undermine — the strong relationship of te iwi Maori with the Crown to date as we have our ongoing conversation around how we honour te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“As we’ve seen with this government thus far, they are rushing through bad legislation under urgency, and this is no different to what we saw before Christmas.”

National: ‘It’s just a simple coalition agreement’
National’s Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith repeated to RNZ the party’s stance was to only progress it as far as the select committee, and no further.

“That’s what the prime minister has indicated,” he said. Asked why the government was even supporting it that far, he said it was part of the coalition agreement.

“Look, it’s just a simple coalition agreement that we have with the ACT Party, we agreed to support it to the select committee so that these matters can be given a public hearing, people can debate it. And so that was the agreement that we had.

“The process that we’ve got will introduce a bill that will have the select committee hearing, lots of different views on it and its merits.”

Asked about National’s position on whether the Treaty principles needed to be defined in law, he said their position was very clear, “that we support this piece of legislation going to the Select Committee and that’s as far as our support goes”.

He rejected Waititi’s suggestion it was an attempt to erase the Treaty.

“Look, I think there’ll be a lot of inflamed rhetoric over the coming weeks, and I’m not going to contribute to that . . . there’s no intention whatsoever to erase the Treaty and that’s not what this bill would do.”

When asked about the memo’s author saying the bill would be in opposition to the Treaty itself, he said the memo was a draft and the matter would be debated at select committee.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

While the tide well and truly went out on Labour on election night in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are still several factors complicating the formation of a National and ACT coalition government.

Special votes are yet to be counted, with the official final result still three weeks away.

In past elections special votes have boosted the left parties. If that is the case this year, we will not know by how much until November 3. Consequently, the preliminary results may be slightly skewed against the left.

• READ MORE: It’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right: 2023 election results at a glance
• Lack of Pasifika MPs and ‘no voice’ in new NZ govt worries community
• Other NZ election reports

On these figures, National won 50 seats (up 17 since the 2020 election), Labour 34 (down 31), the Greens 14 (up four), ACT 11 (up one), NZ First eight (returning to Parliament), and Te Pāti Māori/the Māori party four (up two).

There are 121 seats overall (up one from the last parliament with a byelection to come).

While National and ACT currently have 61 combined seats, enough for a right majority, if past patterns hold they will lose one or two seats when the special votes are counted — and thus their majority.

Several variables in play
There are two other complications. First, there will be a November 25 byelection in Port Waikato after the death last Monday of an ACT candidate. The winner of that byelection will be added as an additional seat.

National is almost certain to win the byelection.

An honour and privilege to receive another mandate from our beautiful rohe.

Ngā mihi pic.twitter.com/HwkgKAnBB3

— Rawiri Waititi MP (@Rawiri_Waititi) October 14, 2023

Second, Te Pāti Māori won four of the seven Māori-roll electorates and Labour one. In the other two, Labour is leading by under 500 votes.

If Te Pāti Māori wins both these seats after special votes are counted, it would win six single-member seats, three above its proportional entitlement of three.

The new Parliament already has one overhang seat due to Te Pāti Māori’s electorate success. If it wins six, the new Parliament will have 124 members (including the Port Waikato byelection winner).

That would mean 63 seats would be needed for a majority.

National, though, would be assisted if Te Pāti Māori’s party vote increases from the provisional 2.6 percent to around 3 percent after special votes are counted, but it wins no more single-member seats. That would increase Te Pāti Māori’s seat entitlement to four and eliminate the overhang.

Then, if the right drops only one seat after special votes and National wins the byelection, National and ACT would have a majority.

While National performed better than anticipated given the late trend to the left in the polls, National and ACT are unlikely to have a combined majority once all votes are counted, and National will likely depend on NZ First in some way.

Polls understated the right
Party vote shares on the night were 39.0 percent National (up 13.4 percent), 26.9 percent Labour (down 23.1 percent), 10.8 percent Greens (up 2.9 percent), 9.0 percent ACT (up 1.4 percent), 6.5 percent NZ First (up 3.9 percent) and 2.6 percent Te Pāti Māori (up 1.4 percent).

For the purposes of this analysis, the right coalition is defined as National and ACT, and the left as Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. NZ First has sided with both left and right in the past, and supported the left from 2017 to 2020, so it is not counted with either left or right.

On the preliminary results, the right coalition won this election by 7.7 percentage points, enough for a majority despite NZ First’s 6.5 percent. In 2020, left parties defeated the right by a combined 25.9 points. But it is likely the right’s lead will drop on special votes.

The two poll graphs below include a late poll release from Morgan conducted between September 4 and October 8. I have used September 22 as the midpoint. This poll gave the left parties a two-point lead over the right, a reversal of an 8.5-point right lead in Morgan’s August poll.

The current result is comparable to the polling until late September and early October when there was a late movement to the left.

Overall, it looks as if the polls overstated the Greens and understated National. The polls that came closest to the provisional result were the 1News-Verian poll and the Curia poll for the Taxpayers’ Union.

In 2020, polls greatly understated the left; this time the right was understated.

It’s possible media coverage of the possibility of NZ First being the kingmaker drove voters back to National in the final days. By 48 percent to 26 percent, respondents in the Guardian Essential poll thought NZ First holding the balance of power would be bad for New Zealand rather than good. For now, any such concerns are on hold.

Adrian Beaumont, election analyst (psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Pacific leaders fear they will have little or no voice in the new National-led government in Aotearoa New Zealand with the real possibility of not a single Pacific person making it into the new coalition.

Labour had 11 Pacific members of Parliament, then 10 when then Communications Minister Kris Faafoi left. Included was Carmel Sepuloni who became Deputy Prime Minister when Chris Hipkins became leader.

National currently has one possible Pacific MP, Angee Nicholas, but she may lose the Te Atatū seat on special votes, leading with only a margin of 30 over Labour’s Phil Twyford.

• READ MORE: NZ elections 2023: It’s National on the night as New Zealand turns right
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

But even though the race is tight, she said on social media she had been stopped and congratulated by community members.

“It is going to be close but I hope to bring it home now,” Angee said in a post to social media.

National list MP Agnes Loheni has not made the cut as things currently stand.

Pacific political commentator Thomas Wynne said it meant that the number of Pacific people in government might very well go to one or even zero.

Who is it?
“Here’s my question to National, who is it exactly that you’re going to have as the minister for Pacific people? Because if Angee doesn’t get in and neither does Agnes, then who?” Wynne asked.

“Because you don’t have any Pacific people in there.

“Chris Luxon has said he has a party of diversity, well I’m sorry but that’s just not the case.”

At the moment Dr Shane Reti is the Pacific people’s spokesperson for National.

On the campaign trail Dr Reti said “attending to the cost of living” was one of the most impactful things that could be done for Pacific people.

Pacific community advocate Melissa Lama said she did not know how National planned to make decisions on Pacific issues.

“To me that’s really scary to have one person represent a massive group of New Zealand society who are visible which is our Pacific people, I just can’t get over that.”

Disheartened over results
Lama said she felt disheartened after the results.

“If we look at some of the campaigning slogans and narratives that particularly on the right side, National and Act, have had throughout this election it doesn’t necessarily give me hope for what’s to come for my future and my children’s future,” she said on Sunday.

“I’m definitely gutted. I feel a bit low mood today.”

On Saturday, at a Pacific election watch party in Ilam, Christchurch, most attendees opted to socialise outside instead of watching the results.

Views on what’s to come for Pasifika are mixed. There’s some excitement for change but also nerves.

A common thread was concern that the Ministry for Pacific Peoples would be scrapped.

However, just last week the now incoming Prime Minister told RNZ Pacific he would not bow to ACT.

“Our position very strongly is I’ve been supportive of the Pacific Peoples Ministry. I haven’t been supportive of the management of it. When you have a $40,000 farewell I think that’s insane,” Luxon said.

Keeping an optimistic outlook
Deputy Mayor of Waitaki Hana Halalele who is also the general manager of Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group said she was disappointed about the results but was trying to be optimistic.

Despite the drop in Pacific representation in Parliament, Wynne wants to focus on the positives and asks frustrated Pacific community members to hold National and ACT to account on what they have promised.

“I feel it’s time for us to not think about what we’re losing because that day is done — that was yesterday and really we need to start looking at the opportunity of what this new government affords us, because shouting from the sidelines is not going to help,” he said.

Wynne said Act’s vision was for less government and more community involvement could be beneficial.

He also said Act had promised a return of charter schools, which could be good for Pasifika.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua, who is leading the charge on fighting for justice for ongoing Dawn Raids said National and Act had been clear on overstayers.

“They don’t support any pathway to residency for people who are overstaying or who may have been stuck here during the lockdowns and had no other option but to try and find a way to settle.”

Pakilau said while there was concern for overstayers, he was still holding out hope the new government would surprise him.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

From winning a single-party majority in 2020, Labour’s vote has virtually halved in 2023 in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election.

Pre-election polls appear to have under-estimated support for National, which on the provisional results last night can form a government with ACT and will not need NZ First, despite those same polls pointing to a three-way split.

While the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both saw big gains, taking crucial electorate seats, it has been at the expense of Labour.

• READ MORE: NZ election 2023: National, ACT poised to form new government
• Other NZ election reports

Special votes are yet to be counted, and Te Pāti Māori winning so many electorate seats will cause an “overhang”, increasing the size of Parliament and requiring a larger majority to govern.

There will also be a byelection in the Port Waikato electorate on November 25, which National is expected to win.

So the picture may change between now and November 3 when the official result is revealed.

But on last night’s count, the left bloc is out of power and the right is back.

Big shift in the Māori electorates
Te Pāti Māori has performed better than expected in the Māori electorates – taking down some titans of the Labour Party and winning four of the seven seats.

The party vote remained at 2.5 perecent — consistent with 2020.

One of the biggest upsets was 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s win over Labour stalwart Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Mahuta has represented the electorate since 2008 and has been in Parliament since 1996.

This was a must-win race for Mahuta, the current foreign affairs minister, after she announced she would not be running on the Labour party list.

Labour won all seven Māori seats in 2017 and six in 2020.

Advance voting
In 2017, 1.24 million votes were cast before election day, more than the previous two elections combined.

In 2020, this rose to 1.97 million people – an extremely high early vote figure attributable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, more than 1.3 million New Zealanders cast advance votes before election day – higher than 2017 but significantly lower than 2020.

The comeback kid
After a dismal showing at the 2020 election, NZ First’s Winston Peters has yet again shown himself to be the comeback kid of New Zealand politics. Peters and his party have provisionally gained nearly 6.5 percent of the vote, giving them eight seats in Parliament.

On the current numbers, the National Party will not need NZ First to help form the government. But the result is still a massive reversal of fortune for Peters, who failed to meet the 5 percent threshold or win an electorate seat in 2020.

The heart of Wellington goes Green
Urban electorates in the capital Wellington have resoundingly shifted left, with wins for the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul in Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter in Rongotai.

Chlöe Swarbrick has retained her seat in Auckland Central.

The Wellington electorates had previously been Labour strongholds. But the decision by outgoing Finance Minister Grant Robertson to compete as a list-only MP opened Wellington Central to Paul, currently a city councillor.

Genter takes the seat from outgoing Labour MP Paul Eagle.

Both Wellington electorates have also seen sizeable chunks of the party vote — 30 percent in Rongotai and almost 36 percent in Wellington Central — go to the Greens.

Debrin Foxcroft, deputy New Zealand editor, The Conversation; Finlay Macdonald, New Zealand editor, The Conversation; Matt Garrow, editorial web developer, The Conversation, and Veronika Meduna, science, health + environment New Zealand editor, The Conversation. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Christopher Luxon and the National Party are on course to form a new government with the ACT Party in Aotearoa New Zealand, with National winning almost 40 percent of the party vote in yesterday’s general election.

National romped far ahead in the party vote in the election and were above 40 percent much of the night, but were falling just below at about 39 percent of the vote with 95 percent of results in the preliminary count as of nearly midnight.

That may mean the party needs New Zealand First to hit the numbers, but with special votes yet to be counted and a number of close electorate races, the final picture is not quite clear.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election reports

Labour was sitting at about 26.5 percent of the party vote, and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins conceded there was no chance he could form a government and that Labour was heading out after six years and two terms in office.

The Green Party was at about 10 percent, ACT at 9 percent, New Zealand First at 6.4 percent and Te Pāti Māori at 2.5 percent with 94 percent of results counted.

Te Pāti Māori was poised to win most of the seven Māori seats with new candidate Hana-Rawhiti Maipi Clarke defeating Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, ousting the longest serving female MP and at just age 21 becoming the youngest MP in Aotearoa in 170 years.

It is a stunning reversal from 2020’s election, when Labour hit 50 percent of the vote as Jacinda Ardern’s government won a second term and National cratered with 25.6 percent.

One Labour supporter told RNZ that “Labour expected a slap on the wrist. This is a punch in the face.”

‘A new government and a new direction’ – Luxon
Greeting cheering supporters in Auckland, Luxon said the results were a mandate for change.

“You have reached for hope and you have voted for change,” Luxon told supporters. “On the numbers tonight, National will be in a position to lead the next government.”

“My pledge to you is that our government will deliver for every New Zealander, because we will rebuild the economy and deliver tax relief.

“We will bring down the cost of living, we will restore law and order, we will deliver better health care and we will educate our children so that they can grow up to live the lives that they dreamed of.

“That’s what you voted for and that’s what we will deliver.”

A joyous crowd chanted “back on track” as Luxon spoke.

‘I gave it my all, but that was not enough’ – Hipkins
Earlier last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins conceded that the party had no path to return to power, saying that “the result tonight is not one that any of us wanted”.

Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern in January, but he joined other prime ministers like Mike Moore, Jenny Shipley and Bill English in failing to win election in their own right after taking over from another leader mid-term.

“I gave it my all to turn the tide of history, but alas, that was not enough.”

Hipkins struck a defiant note in his speech and promised Labour would remain strong in opposition.

“When the tide comes in big it almost invariably goes out big as well . . . but Labour is still here, it is not going anywhere, and we will get up again as we have done many times before.

“We put people first, we refused to leave people behind, because that is what we do, that is what the Labour Party does.”

Many electorate seats were still too close to call, with only a few hundred votes separating candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Two polls out tonight both have Winston Peters firmly in the drivers’ seat for forming a government with Aotearoa New Zealand’s general election this Saturday, though the left bloc has increased its overall support.

With 1News and Newshub each releasing their final polls ahead of the election, the trends are showing a last-minute boost for Labour and the Greens — but still far short of forming a government without Winston Peters’ support — which he has vowed not to provide them.

While Newshub’s poll featured a dramatic 4.6-point fall for National, TVNZ’s had National up 1 point but ACT down by the same amount — the right bloc staying steady.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 reports

That could be partly explained by the difference in each poll’s survey period: Newshub’s was comparing to numbers from 17 days before, while TVNZ’s poll has been on a weekly release schedule — which makes for smaller shifts in the numbers.

Newshub’s poll also showed a smaller majority for the combined National-ACT-NZ First grouping, with 63 seats, and with trends showing an increase in the left vote, the final days could be crucial.

RNZ political editor Jane Patterson told Checkpoint the rise for the left bloc would be putting the pressure on National.

“Chris Hipkins has of course been talking about that, he said, ‘Look, I feel the momentum, that the left bloc is starting to pick up’ and these polls are starting to show that — however they are not being put in the position where they are in a commanding enough position to form a government.

Second election threats
“If you look at the timeframe, both of them basically covered the weekend . . .  that covered the threats of a second election on Sunday from National, it covered Chris Hipkins back on the campaign trail, and obviously a lot of policy debate we know over the tax package.”

She said Labour was also really starting to hone in on the impact of a National government on rental tenants and beneficiaries, “so there’s been a lot of very assertive, aggressive campaigning from Labour against the National Party policy platform”.

Poll mania. Video: RNZ News

Patterson said ACT and NZ First were typically battling each other for voters, and ACT would have been hoping to see their support increase to help consolidate their chances of a two-party government.

“It’s more difficult because of the rhetoric that Chris Luxon has been rolling out about Winston Peters — that tactic has not worked, on these numbers . . .  so they could basically cut New Zealand First out he was saying, ‘please, don’t vote for New Zealand First, it’s not going to be good.'”

Despite National doubling down on this by raising the risk of a second election, Peters had remained statesman-like during that time, she said, and NZ First support base were unlikely to like being told what to do.

“The supporters are anti-government, a protest against the government, and not just against Labour — an anti-establishment type vote, so I don’t think that tactic’s worked either.”

Biggest risk
She said the biggest risk to Labour, meanwhile, would be people coming to the conclusion the election result had already been decided.

“I think they’re just going to have to keep carrying on and campaigning until Saturday.”

National also have an advantage, likely to pick up another seat after the Port Waikato by-election in November.

Both had Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ personal popularity also on the rise — but still equal with or just below that of National’s Christopher Luxon. That said, Luxon’s popularity is still well below voters’ preference for his wider party.

This all must be taken with a grain of salt, however.

Individual polls compare their numbers to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methodologies.

They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.

Because of those differences in how they collect and calculate the numbers, which includes revising the calculations to account for demographic differences compared to the wider population (known as ‘weighting’), the different companies’ polls shouldn’t be compared against one another directly.

However, with both showing similar general trends and numbers, it gives a good idea of what voters’ thinking was through to yesterday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Pacific Election 2023 debate kicked off today with one of the most pressing issues for Pacific communties — an amnesty for overstayers.

The Dawn Raids apology was two years ago, and weeks out from the election, the Labour Party has announced it would offer a lifeline for long-term overstayers in New Zealand.

It followed anger from Pacific community leaders, disappointed it had not happened in all the years following the apology.

• READ MORE: NZ election 2023: Bryce Edwards: The most hollow campaign in living memory
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

On the panel were Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni, National’s Fonoti Agnes Loheni, ACT’s Karen Chhour and Teanau Tuiono from the Green Party.

Labour’s Sepuloni said the amnesty announcement was not an attempt at baiting voters.

“You have to think about everything that has been expected of Immigration New Zealand in the last couple of years and the immense pressure that they have been under,” Sepuloni said.

An amnesty would be granted “in the first 100 days if we are re-elected,” she said.

Green support for amnesty
The Green Party would also suppport an amnesty for overstayers.

“Amnesty for overstayers is more than timely. It is late,” said Green Party Pacific Peoples spokesperson Teanau Tuiano, criticising Labour for taking too long.

The Pacific Issues Debate. Video: RNZ Pacific and PMN

Meanwhile, both National and ACT would not back an amnesty.

National leader Christopher Luxon had previously said it would send the wrong message and encourage “rule breakers”.

National’s Pacific spokesperson Loheni said the the Dawn Raids was no doubt “discrimination and abhorrent”.

But, she took the side of people “working hard to go through the legal steps to become residents”.

Health
Around 40 percent of New Zealanders — and half of Pasifika people — cannot afford dental care.

The Green Party plans to make dental care free for everyone — paid through a wealth tax system, which the Labour Party had already ruled out.

However, the Labour government said it would provide free dental care for everyone under 30 years old.

Dental care in New Zealand is free until a person turns 18 years old. But this excludes orthodontic care, i.e. braces because it is classed as “specialist dental care”.

National’s plan to tackle the health crisis was to attract an overseas workforce and plug the nurses and doctor shortage within New Zealand. Loheni reiterated her party leader’s stance and refused to back “race-based” policies but did acknowledge the hardships Pacific people faced.

“The numbers are grim for the Pacific. We need to get more of a workforce here,” Loheni said.

“The health system is in absolute crisis. We are 4800 nurses short. We are about 1700, GP’s short and about 1000 midwives short,” she said.

ACT Party candidate Karen Chhour said, “I’m hearing all around the country and especially up north and just the lack of GPs up north.”

Chhour said it was about helping to “ease pressure off hospital services” and “investing in the front line services”.

Two thirds of students experience poverty.

“Why would you go into university to study medicine . . . we would pay this through a wealth tax,” Greens Tuiano said.

This policy is expected to provide a guaranteed income for students or a person who has fallen out of work to help them get through university.

Labour said it would address health inequities because Pacific and Māori people were more disadvantaged.

“It has been incredibly ugly on the campaign trail . . . the level of racism that is resulted because of the rhetoric around measures like this, when they are purely equity measures and they should be embraced by everyone,” Sepuloni said.

She said seen since 2019, around 1000 health scholarships had been given to Pacific people.

Housing
One in 10 Pacific (11 percent) children live in damp and mouldy homes, where they are 80 times more likely to develop acute rheumatic fever, which can lead to heart disease and death.

Sepuloni said: “We have increased that by 13,000 homes, stopped selling them off. We have got 2700 Pacific people signed up with our programme that provides them with support to pathway into home ownership . . .

“Some of our Pacific populated areas are getting investment that they never had before. Like the NZ$1.5 billion we put into put it for housing revitalisation.”

But ACT’s Chhour hit back and said the “government should be held to the same account as landlords”.

“Kāinga Ora is one of the worst landlords in some cases where they do not meet those standards and where they have got extra time to meet those standards,” she said.

Green’s Tuiono said prices for rentals needed to be capped to protect tenants.

“There are 1.4 million renters within New Zealand and many of those people are our people.”

National’s Loheni said she “grew up in a state house with a crowd 15 people. One of my sisters has lived with asthma her whole life and it put her behind in school”.

She said under the Labour government “rents have gone up $180 per week.

“Unfortunately, we still need social housing, emergency housing. We have got 500 people living in cars at the moment. So we got a priority category to move those people who have been living in cars further up that social housing list.”

Education
Pasifika students face significant achievement gaps and underfunding, while teachers struggle with complex job demands and mental health issues.

“The government has failed our students,” Loheni said.

Loheni got emotional during the debate when sharing the declining pass rates of some Pasifika students.

“Only 14.5 percent Pasifika students reach the minimum curriculum for maths compared to the rest of the population of 41.5 percent,” she said.

“Please don’t say it’s covid because why is it Pasifika students, the lowest of all groups, and nothing has been done.”

Sepuloni defended her party, and said it had invested $5 billion into the education system – mainly “towards pay for teachers”.

Chhour said there’s a lot of pressure on teachers.

“Not only are they teachers, social workers, kids have been through a lot. They have effectively had interrupted education for the last three years.

“A lot of them are feeling anxiety about whether they agree with your exams. A lot of them are suffering from mental health issues . . . so teachers are dealing with all of this on top of actually trying to educate our kids.”

She said under the ACT party, they wanted to “bring back” charter schools and partnership schools for young people “who didn’t quite fit into the education system”.

Greens’ Tuiono said the government’s payout to support teachers was “vital”.

“I talked to some teachers where their pay rise hasn’t kept up with inflation for 10 years.”

Crime
Almost half of our Pacific children are likely to live around family violence. Pacific children are twice as likely to be hospitalised due to assault, neglect and maltreatment.

Sepuloni said it was about addressing “intergenerational impacts”.

She said sending more young people to prison was “an opportunity for gangs to actually recruit once they’re in there”.

Instead, a programme they had put in place addressed this issue and had seen more than 80 percent of young offenders not go on to reoffend.

“It actually requires full wraparound support for not just them but for their siblings and their families.”

Loheni said the National Party would address the rise of RAM raids and through “social investment,” and planned to put young people through military and cadet training, which studies had previously shown to be ineffective.

“We do have policies around military academies where they are going to have wraparound support, note that they do work.”

Tuiono disagreed. “Locking them up into boot camps that just won’t work.”

“We also have to address those underlying drivers of poverty because if you have the stable home life, there’s food on the table, you know the family can afford to keep the lights on, that helps to stabilise our families.

“That’s what we should be doing,” he said.

Climate change
National plans to “double renewable energy, help farmers clean up in the areas and invest in public transport,” Loheni said.

Sepuloni said Labour was “action oriented” and their “track record” with the Greens “goes to show that we have been able to reduce carbon emissions”.

Tuiono said “a vote for the Greens is a vote for climate action”.

“We have got some money set aside to support our towns and our councils to make their towns and councils more more climate resilient.”

ACT’s Chhour said the party would be looking at how “we’re building our infrastructure and adapting to climate change”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

While attention is focused on economists finding a $500 million-a-year hole in National’s tax plans, a similar-sized hole in climate costings is hiding in plain sight — and it applies to Labour, too.

National appears to have the bigger gap, however.

The gulf was highlighted in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) — Treasury’s official word on the state of the government’s books — which explicitly excluded the cost of meeting New Zealand’s international climate target under the Paris Agreement.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 climate crisis reports

Asked how they would pay this week, politicians gave unclear answers. But the obligation was still very real.

Both Labour and National have said they are committed to meeting the country’s international climate target, known as an NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions).

Under the Paris Agreement, which covers almost every nation on the planet, New Zealand has promised to cut emissions by 41 percent off 2005 levels by 2030. Exporters and carbon market experts say failing to meet that pledge could jeopardise international trade — nevermind the fact that following the Paris Agreement is humanity’s best hope for avoiding more expensive and deadly heating.

New Zealand plans to meet its target in two ways. First, it will do as much as it can inside the country by meeting a set of “emissions budgets”.

No way to meet target
But when the Climate Change Commission ran the numbers, it concluded there was no way to meet the whole target with action at home. Because New Zealand started slow at tackling emissions, cutting transport, industry, farming and electricity emissions that quickly would cause too much economic pain, it concluded.

So there is also a second part to the target: buying carbon credits from overseas. Typically, economists assume this is cheaper than making cuts in emissions at home, though it depends on the project.

While no purchases will be made until after the election, the kinds of things that could qualify include retiring coal boilers in developing countries, or planting forests.

This is where the gap in the books comes in. Treasury had previously put the cost of buying these credits from overseas — and an estimated 100 million tonnes of them will be needed, at last count — at between $3.3 billion and more than $23 billion between now and 2030.

Even at the lower end of projections, it could work out at around $500 million a year.

Whichever way the government decides to do it, PREFU said the costs would be “significant” and will start biting “within the current fiscal forecast period”.

As things stand, according to Climate Change Minister James Shaw, one or possibly two rounds of purchases could be made in the next four years, with a third and final “washup” at the end of the decade.

Election may change timing
The election could change the timing, but whoever is in government will be expected to start showing progress towards meeting their Paris target well before the end of the decade, said carbon market expert Christina Hood from Compass Climate.

“There’s this common misconception that whoever the finance minister is in 2032 is going to have to get their chequebook out and square up by however much we missed by. It doesn’t work that way at all.

“Every emission (saving) we count has to actually occur during those years (before 2030), so we need to get on with funding that.”

Yet despite starting to fall due within the next four years, the costs did not appear as a liability on the government’s books. Nor do the major parties seem to be clear on how much to budget for them.

Bold claims, few details
This week, neither National nor Labour answered clearly how much they had planned to set aside for these costs nor how they intended to pay them. They instead focused their answers on wanting to cut planet-heating emissions more deeply inside New Zealand’s borders.

At times, politicians seemed to confuse domestic emissions budgets with the $3 billion-plus added cost of buying offsets to meet the Paris target, or they made heroic statements about how much they could do onshore, without supplying the figures behind them.

A quick reminder: the 100-odd million tonnes in overseas offsets that it was estimated we would need were on top of meeting New Zealand’s domestic emissions budgets, not instead of it. Only a truly incredible effort could meet the entire amount inside the country, requiring deep and fast climate action on a scale neither party has hinted at.

Currently, New Zealand is not even on track to meet its domestic emissions budgets, as Climate Change Commission chief executive Jo Hendy told a business and climate conference in Auckland this week.

“Latest projections show we are not on track in every single sector, so we are going to have to do more,” she said. “We are particularly reliant on pushing the dial in transport and in process heat.”

Yet when RNZ asked about the $3 billion-plus cost on the campaign trail, politicians appeared to be planning to overperform on those budgets, sometimes by impressive amounts. Their answers suggested they may not need to worry too much about that $3 billion-plus.

Here’s what Labour leader Chris Hipkins said, when asked if he had costed for meeting Paris: “We still have a way to go before we have to make a final decision on how best to meet our commitments there. We’re on track to meet our first emissions budget.

Working harder
“We’ve still got the second and third emissions reduction budgets to go. If we don’t meet our targets there is a period of time when we can figure out how best to remedy that, and that includes working harder in the second period to compensate for that.

“But we’re confident that with the stuff we’ve got in place at the moment, we’re on track to meet our first target.”

Hipkins did not address paying for offshore credits, which were required even if the country met all three domestic budgets. As prime minister, he rolled back a biofuel policy and, like National, has focused his transport promises mainly on building new roads rather than a strong shift to lower-emissions modes.

He has also promised help for home insulation and solar, but it was not clear if his new promises compensated for the cuts.

Asked the same question, National leader Christopher Luxon took aim at the government for undermining the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), saying the scheme should do more of the “heavy lifting”.

He, too, skirted the question of paying for offsets.

For context, the ETS made polluters pay for around half the country’s domestic climate pollution (the other half was from agriculture) and was already factored into projections of needing 100 million-odd tonnes of extra ‘top up’ help from overseas.

The scheme could do more, particularly if carbon prices went higher (taking petrol prices with them), or if farming was included, or if there were no limits on planting land in cheap pine trees, but Luxon did not detail how National would navigate these kinds of changes.

Cutting domestic emissions
Meanwhile, other party spokespeople talked-up cutting domestic emissions.

Labour environment spokesperson David Parker told the conference in Auckland he wanted to look at claims that native afforestation could meet the entire Paris target (without overseas help).

National’s climate spokesperson Simon Watts told the same gathering — the annual Climate Change and Business Conference — that National believed it could meet 70-75 percent of the 2030 target inside these shores, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates by the Climate Change Commission.

Watts did not supply details on how that would be achieved, though he discussed lightening regulation on wind and solar energy.

His party has said it would scrap Labour’s Clean Car Discount and major grants to companies to switch off coal boilers, and it would also delay pricing farming emissions a further five years, until 2030. There were questions about how it would meet even the current domestic emissions budgets.

The cost of waiting
Hood had a spot of good news on the cost front. She told RNZ that based on recent purchases by Switzerland, the cost of overseas carbon offsets was likely to be towards the lower end of Treasury’s range.

Even if the government winded up buying 100 million tonnes of savings offshore, that was still only around half the quantity the John Key-led government expected it might have to stump up for when it made its first Paris Agreement pledge, despite the first pledge being weaker on climate than the current one, she noted.

But getting offsets at the lower end of the cost range relies on the government getting moving on lining them up and buying them, she says.

Shaw told RNZ that environmental integrity would be a bottom line after New Zealand was burned for buying valueless “hot air” credits from Russia and Ukraine in the early years of carbon trading.

As well as Switzerland, Singapore and others had already started striking deals to buy the offsets they needed.

While the New Zealand Government has been scoping out prospective sellers overseas, it has refused to reveal who it is talking to, citing commercial sensitivity.

The ministries for Foreign Affairs and the Environment were working on advice to Cabinet on how to make these purchases and ensure the carbon saved was real. But that advice will not land until after the election.

Most expensive time to buy
One thing is clear. 2030 will be the most expensive time to buy, Hood said, because many countries will be panic-buying from overseas projects to meet their missed domestic commitments. Shaw agreed.

“A whole bunch of countries will be going, ‘Oh crap, I’ve missed my target,’ and scrambling around trying to find ways to fill the gap.”

Shaw wanted Paris costs to go into PREFU, making it clear to the government that any money spent on domestic action on climate change was also a cost saving in terms of buying fewer offshore credits.

“This is one of the things that worries me about what some of the other parties are saying, is that they aren’t really accounting for [Paris] in their fiscal plans.”

Shaw called the huge variance in Treasury ‘s $3 billion-23 billion estimate “unhelpful”.

“It’s such a wide variance it’s hard to trust it. At the moment… people are putting their fingers in their ears and saying ‘lalalala”.”

But asked how much the Green Party had costed for meeting New Zealand’s offshore climate commitments, Shaw would not be drawn on naming a more accurate number.

Treasury estimate best
“The best estimate I’ve got is the Treasury estimate. The Ministry for the Environment and MFAT (Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade) are doing a lot of work on this at the moment, but they’re not going to have a report back until just before Christmas. If I was to give you a number I would be pulling it out of thin air.”

As for how to pay for it, Shaw said ETS proceeds from polluters could do a lot of it.

“In a good year that’s a billion dollars, so if there’s seven years for us to do that it’s $7 billion.”

But Shaw also acknowledged there were a lot of other calls on that money — including for adapting to climate change, paying for domestic carbon savings, and helping low-income families weather the costs of higher emissions prices, which boost fuel and electricity costs.

National has said it would use ETS proceeds to help fund its tax cuts, meaning it will need to pay for the Paris target (both the offshore and onshore parts) some other way.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon made claims about health outcomes that were clearly false. Why was he left unchallenged?

In the TVNZ leaders’ debate last night, Luxon and Labour’s Chris Hipkins had a testy exchange over Māori healthcare.

Hipkins held firm on the creation of a Māori Health Authority, established last year, arguing strongly that the persistent gaps in health outcomes and care justified it.

• READ MORE: NZ election 2023: Hipkins and Luxon in fast-paced debate but fail to excite pundits
• Other NZ election 2023 reports
• Full RNZ data on Māori healthcare

Luxon was equally clear in opposition to it. He framed his critique of the authority around an alleged complete lack of progress on Māori health outcomes. He was very specific.

“Every single health outcome has gone backwards under Chris’s government,” Luxon said.

“Six years, not one has improved for Māori or for non-Māori.”

While sweeping in nature, Luxon’s claim did not get a direct response from Hipkins.

Luxon repeated a similar line later in the debate.

“Gone backwards. Chris, under your government, every single health outcome for Māori or non-Māori [has gone backwards]. You can’t have that.”

Hipkins did push back on this occasion, citing the ongoing reduction in rates of smoking.

Luxon’s claim was far from true — there are a number of areas where health outcomes for Māori and non-Māori have improved while Labour has been in charge.

But it is perhaps understandable that Hipkins was not quick to correct Luxon because the data — even though it’s better in many respects — is still grim. Maybe Hipkins did not wish to dwell on this.

Improved health outcomes
There are a number of health outcomes where, for Māori, statistics have improved.

Perhaps Labour’s biggest boast is their track record on bringing down lung cancer and smoking rates for Māori.

Lung cancer is the second leading cause of death for Māori in Aotearoa. But according to the Ministry of Health, rates of lung disease for Māori have come down.

In 2017, the rate per 100,000 people was 79.9 for Māori. By 2019, it was down to 68.4. This also aligns with smoking rates among Māori dropping.

Pre-colonisation, Māori did not smoke. However, when tobacco was introduced to Aotearoa in the 18th century that quickly changed.

Smoking has been particularly harmful for Māori who have higher smoking rates than non-Māori and experience greater rates of death and tobacco-related illness.

In 2017/18, the smoking rate for Māori adults was 35.3 percent. By 2021/22, it was down to 20.9 percent (approximately 127,000 people).

Rates were falling under National but they have continued to drop under Labour, which has rolled out a number of initiatives in an effort to reduce nation-wide smoking rates.

As part of the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan, historic and world-leading legislation mandated an annually rising smoking age that will mean that anyone born on or after 1 January, 2009, will never be able to purchase tobacco products.

Other cancers
Overall, cancer registrations rates among Māori fell from 416 per 100,000 people in 2017 to 405.7 in 2019.

Breast cancer registration rates for Māori women fell from 140.7 per 100,000 people in 2010 to 122.5 per 100,000 in 2019. Prostate cancer registration rates for Māori fell from 105.5 for Māori in 2017 to 103.5 in 2019.

For non-Māori, overall cancer registration rates increased slightly from 323.2 (2017) to 332.4 (2019).

Life expectancy
The life expectancy gap between Māori and non-Māori may be the most telling indicator of all when it comes to inequities.

According to the latest available data from 2019, life expectancy at birth for Māori men in 2017-2019 was 73.4 years, up 3.1 years from 2005-2007 data.

The life expectancy for non-Māori men is 80.9 years. For Māori women, it was 77.1 years, up 2 years from 2005-2007. Non-Māori women are expected to live to 84.4 years.

While Māori life expectancy has increased over time, the gap to non-Māori persists.

At the current rate of progress it will be more than a century before Māori and non-Māori have equal life expectancy, a study by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists found in 2021.

Child immunisation
In the debate, after Hipkins raised smoking as an area of improvement, Luxon said child immunisation was a concern. On this, he was correct.

Over the past six years, child immunisation rates have steadily fallen.

In 2017, 86.2 percent of eligible Māori five year olds had completed all of their age-appropriate immunisations. As of last year, the rate had shrunk to only 71.8 percent. That is an alarming 16 point drop in the period Labour has been in power.

In April of this year a report commissioned by Te Whatu Ora’s Immunisation Taskforce found that immunisation failed to achieve “adequate on-time immunisation rates in young tamariki” and to immunise Māori, meaning those who were most susceptible to “vaccine-preventable disease” had the lowest immunisation coverage.

The report highlighted the worst rate in the country — just 34 percent of Māori children in South Auckland were fully vaccinated. It attributed part of the problem to vaccinators being diverted to the country’s covid-19 pandemic response.

“This caused childhood immunisation rates to plummet. These rates are now the lowest they have ever been and ethnic disparities have further expanded,” it said.

The report outlined 54 recommendations covering funding, delivery, technology, communications and governance across the programme.

In the debate, Hipkins suggested the anti-vaccine movement was part of the problem, which he sought to link with National.

National has proposed an immunisation incentive payment scheme. The plan would see GP clinics paid a lump sum for achieving immunisation targets, including full immunisation for two-year-olds, MMR vaccines for ages 1-17, and influenza vaccines for ages 65+.

The clinics would have to either achieve 95 percent coverage for their childhood patients, and 75 percent for the flu shots, or achieve a five percentage point increase for each of those target groups, by 30 June 2024 to receive the payment.

Labour’s Dr Ayesha Verrall said a similar scheme already existed.

Labour has also failed to halt type 2 diabetes, the country’s biggest and fastest growing health condition.

Ministry of Health figures show that in 2021 there were 302,778 people with diabetes, predominantly type 2. Since the Labour government came into power in 2017, the estimated rates of the number of Māori with diabetes per 1000 has risen from 66.4 to 70.1 in 2021.

The rates for non-Māori have also climbed from 27.8 in 2017 to 30.1 in 2021. It is also important to note that the rate of diabetes in Aotearoa has been steadily rising over the past 50 years.

Type 2 diabetes can also lead to devastating health conditions and complications, including heart failure, kidney failure, strokes and limb amputation.

According to Ministry of Health data obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, since 2011 there has been a 39 percent increase in diabetic limb amputations across the whole population.

For Māori, the number has more than doubled in the past decade from 130 in 2011 to 211 in 2021. Under Labour, the number of Māori diabetic limb amputations rose by 15 percent.

Māori are still 2.8 times more likely to have renal failure, another complication of diabetes.

Mental health
According to Te Whatu Ora, the rate of suspected suicide per 100,000 Māori population in 2021/22 was 16.1. This is not a statistically significant change from the average of the past 13 years.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon have faced off in a fast-paced but unspectacular debate in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election campaign with co-governance and gangs among the issues producing the liveliest exchanges.

It was the first time the two leaders had squared off against each other outside Parliament and at times the mood was tense during last night’s debate.

Luxon, in particular, appeared frustrated when Hipkins interjected, while the Labour leader appeared to be enjoying himself a bit more.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election 2023 reports

However, with Labour behind in the polls, Hipkins was unable to deliver anything telling enough to put Luxon off his stride.

He did manage some amusing lines, however, such as “We have a proven track record of reducing our emissions . . . it’s not just a bunch of slogans”, “building EV stations is like building petrol stations”, and when asked what was his worst quality he responded with a smile: “I need to delegate more”.

Afterwards both leaders professed themselves happy with how they performed, however, commentators on TV1 were less enthusiastic, with former MP Tau Henare saying there was no excitement and Hipkins had been “too mild”.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe believed Hipkins had allowed Luxon too much of a free run and the National party leader made the most of it. Both declared the debate a tie.

Wide-ranging debate
The debate was wide-ranging, covering health, housing, crime and gangs, climate change and the economy. 1News political editor Jessica Mutch-McKay kept it moving at a fast clip and co-governance, especially in health, led to some intense debate.

The leaders were both asked if Māori and Pacific people should get priority when it came to the health waitlist. Luxon said need should come first ahead of ethnicity, while Hipkins said Māori and Pacific people having priority was a positive due to their poor health outcomes when compared to the rest of the population.

Hipkins said other parties were using the issue to “race-bait”, to which Luxon interjected “rubbish”.

Luxon said he felt the definition of co-governance had been expanded since the last time National was in government and the public had not been given adequate explanations of what it entailed.

Hipkins said co-governance meant shared decision-making over natural resources which had been successful. He believed Māori and government working together benefited New Zealand.

Luxon said he supported it for Treaty of Waitangi settlements but not for national public services and repeated his party’s intention of axing the Māori Health Authority.

“The Māori Health Authority isn’t having two separate systems,” Hipkins said.

Luxon challenged in Māori health
He challenged Luxon on why he would keep Māori health providers if he did not want two systems of health. Luxon said he wanted to “turbo-charge” community organisations but it would be as part of one health system.

Hipkins said the health system was dealing with systemic issues and it would take time to build capacity to fix them.

But Luxon said every single health indicator had worsened under Labour — although Hipkins countered that by saying falling smoking rates were one example of effective action.

He said he did not feel safe in downtown Auckland and believed many New Zealanders felt the same.

Under Labour the prison population had been reduced by 30 percent — which might have been acceptable if the crime rate had gone down by the same amount — but in fact it had risen sharply, Luxon said.

On gangs he claimed: “We have nine gang members for every 10 police officers in this country.

“We’re going to make sure we ban gang patches in public places, we give police dispersal and powers to break them up from planning criminal activity, we get tough on the illegal guns that they have and we make being a gang member an aggravating factor in sentencing.”

Consequences for young offenders
He also promised there would be consequences for serious young offenders.

Hipkins said the escalation in gang activity was unacceptable and acknowledged that more New Zealanders were feeling unsafe. However, he advocated working with young offenders to turn their lives around which would reduce crime.

On boot camps, told that an expert had said 83 percent of young people who went through them re-offend, Luxon said National would make them “more effective”.

“We need targeted interventions in these young people’s lives. I’m not prepared to write them off.”

When Hipkins tried to intervene and say how boot camps did not get results, Luxon hit back saying Labour had had six years to get it right.

Hipkins said Labour had changed the law so police could be tougher on gang convoys, such as the recent one that closed down parts of Ōpōtiki over a tangi.

Insults fly on housing
Luxon slammed Labour’s record on housing while Hipkins said National’s plan was to offer incentives to landlords whereas Labour was focused on getting people into homes.

Hipkins said there were more “mega landlords” these days and that was not right.

“Will you guarantee your tax breaks for landlords will get passed on to tenants?” Hipkins asked Luxon.

Luxon avoided a direct answer so the Labour leader answered on his behalf, saying “We’ll take that as a no.”

Both leaders stated they supported building more state houses — although Hipkins was critical of how state houses had been sold off the last time National was in government.

Hipkins admitted KiwiBuild had been an “unrealistic promise” but since then Labour had created momentum in house supply which needed to be continued.

Afterwards both leaders were relaxed. Hipkins was reluctant to score himself, saying the voters would decide, but when pressed again opted for an eight.

Luxon said he had enjoyed it and hoped viewers did also while also choosing an eight.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Northland MP Willow-Jean Prime walked into the lion’s den when she took part in an election debate in Kerikeri last night.

The traditionally blue seat is currently held by Labour — the election of 2020 was the first time it had been won by the left since 1938 — but polls suggest that won’t last much longer.

Five candidates took part in the live-streamed debate at the Homestead Tavern organised by right-wing lobby group the Taxpayers’ Union.

• READ MORE:  Better ways than taxation to bring down living costs – Hipkins
• Other APR election coverage
• RNZ’s full election coverage
• Poll of polls and donations data
• Guide to party policies

With a partisan audience and The Daily Blog editor/publisher Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury and libertarian Damien Grant as MCs — political commentators from opposite ends of the political spectrum — it was a rollicking, raucous ride, sometimes rude but never dull.

For Prime it was a foray into hostile territory with the Labour MP all but drowned out by shouts and jeers.

She had little chance to defend her party’s record or set out her priorities above the din.

The loudest reaction came after mention of the C word — that’s covid, of course.

Covid response ‘saved lives’
Prime defended the government’s response, saying it was one of the best in the world and had saved lives, but acknowledged some in the room did not agree with her.

There were angry shouts from some in the near-capacity crowd anytime she used a word in te reo Māori, such as Aotearoa or puku [belly].

The other candidates received a warmer reception, with Matt King — the former Northland MP who quit National and set up DemocracyNZ in protest at the party’s covid policy — having the loudest supporters.

New Zealand First candidate Shane Jones continued his campaign theme of describing himself as the politician who delivered for Northland when he held the purse strings for the Provincial Growth Fund.

He also said it was time Northlanders broke their habit of electing lions, only to find they turned into lambs as soon as they took their place in Parliament.

Jones promised a “laser-like focus” on Northland’s infrastructure deficit, especially when it came to roads, rail and shipping.

‘Squeezed middle’
National candidate Grant McCallum, a Maungaturoto farmer who won the party’s selection process to replace King, also promised a laser-like focus — but in his case it would be on costs and the “squeezed middle”.

He said middle New Zealanders had been hard hit by rising prices and interest rates.

King was initially denied a place in the debate, raising the prospect of a protest outside the venue by his supporters, with the Taxpayers’ Union saying he did not meet the criteria.

Those criteria included being a sitting MP or polling at least 5 percent in the electorate.

King was told on Monday he could join the debate after all because the weekend’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll put his support in Northland at 5 percent, once undecided voters were excluded.

King promised to “fight back for farmers” against what he called a “climate change catastrophist narrative”.

ACT list MP Mark Cameron, meanwhile, just wanted less government, saying New Zealanders should be left alone to do what they did best.

Gun register dismissed
He was questioned by MC Martyn Bradbury about ACT’s plans to reverse a ban on high-calibre semi-automatic weapons, which Cameron did not address — but he did say bringing in a gun register had not worked overseas and would not work in New Zealand.

Between the serious politicking there was also plenty of humour.

When New Zealand First was accused of being less interested in real issues than in culture-war talking points such as the use of public toilets by transgender women, MC Damien Grant asked — with some trepidation — how Jones defined a woman.

“Matua Shane Jones has 19 mokopuna [grandchildren],” Jones replied.

“And he has his beautiful wife sitting right in front. Bro, that’s a woman.”

The last word went to Prime, who warned the crowd a change of government would lead to cuts in basic services.

It is not clear, however, if anyone heard her above the jeers.

‘Lot at stake in election’
“There is a lot at stake in this election, and I implore you all, to ask the questions and do the research,” Prime said.

Earlier in the evening, the organisers released the results of a Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll conducted in the Northland electorate the previous weekend.

The poll showed McCallum had 43 percent of the electorate vote, followed by Prime on 18 percent and Jones on 13 percent.

Both King and the Greens’ Reina Tuai Penney, who did not take part in the debate, had 4 percent support with Cameron trailing on 2 percent.

However, the poll had a relatively small sample size of 400 and a margin of error of almost 5 percent.

The proportion of respondents who had not made up their minds was 11 percent. If they were excluded, McCallum’s share of the vote jumped to 49 percent.

The poll showed broadly similar trends when it came to the party vote, although personal support for Jones (13 percent) was much higher than support for his party overall in Northland (3 percent).

Situation reversed
The situation was reversed for Cameron who had just 2 percent support as a candidate while his party, ACT, polled 12 percent.

Cameron has, however, been campaigning for the party vote only and suggesting his supporters give their electorate votes to McCallum.

Respondents were asked what they believed was the most important issue facing Northland.

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the region’s transport network, 36 percent opted for roads, followed by the cost of living on 15 percent, health on 14 percent and law and order on 8 percent.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition National Party deputy leader Nicola Willis was among three political leaders who made a surprising commitment at a debate last night to build 1000 state houses in Auckland each year.

Labour Party leader and caretaker prime minister Chris Hipkins and Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson also agreed to do so, with resounding “yes” responses to the direct question from co-convenors Sister Margaret Martin of the Sisters of Mercy Wiri and Nik Naidu of the Whānau Community Centre and Hub.

All three political leaders also pledged to have quarterly consultations with a new community alliance formed to address Auckland’s housing and homeless crisis and other social issues.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Interview with Te Ohu co-chair Nina Santos
• Labour, National and Greens commit to 1000 more state houses a year in Auckland
• National makes commitment to build 1,000 state houses
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

The “non-political partisan” public rally at the Lesieli Tonga Auditorium in Favona — which included about 1000 attendees representing 45 community and social issues groups — was hosted by the new alliance Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga.

Filipina lawyer and co-chair of the meeting Nina Santos, of the YWCA, declared: “If we don’t have a seat at the table, it’s because we’re on the menu.”

Later, in an interview with RNZ Morning Report today, Santos said: “It was so great to see [the launch of Te Ohu] after four years in the making”.

‘People power’
“It was so good to see our allies, our villages and our communities — our 45 organisations — show up last night to demonstrate people power

“Te Ohu Whakawhanaunga is a broad-based alliance, the first of its kind in Tāmaki Makauarau. The members include Māori groups, women’s groups, unions and faith-based organisations.

“They have all came together to address issues that the city is facing — housing is a basic human right.”

She chaired the evening with Father Henry Rogo from Fiji, of the Diocese of Polynesia in NZ.

Speakers telling heart-rending stories included Dinah Timu, of E Tū union, about “decent work”, and Tayyaba Khan, Darwit Arshak and Eugene Velasco, who relating their experiences as migrants, former refugees and asylum seekers.

The crowd was also treated to performances by Burundian drummers, Colombian dancers and Te Whānau O Pātiki Kapahaka at Te Kura O Pātiki Rosebank School, all members of the new Te Ohu collective.

Writing in The New Zealand Herald today, journalist Simon Wilson reported:

“Hipkins told the crowd of about 500 . . . that he grew up in a state house built by the Labour government in the 1950s. ‘And I’m very proud that we are building more state houses today than at any time since the 1950s,’ he said.

“’Labour has exceeded the 1000 commitment. We’ve built 12,000 social house units since 2017, and 7000 of them have been in Tāmaki Makaurau. But there is more work to be done.’

“He reminded the audience that the last National government had sold state houses, not built them.

“Davidson said that housing was ‘a human right and a core public good’. The Greens’ commitment was greater than that of the other parties: it wanted to build 35,000 more public houses in the next five years, and resource the construction sector and the government’s state housing provider Kāinga Ora to get it done.

“’We will also put a cap on rent increases and introduce a minimum income guarantee, to lift people out of poverty.’

“Willis told the audience there were 2468 people on the state house waiting list in Auckland when Labour took office in 2017, and now there are 8175.

“’Here’s the thing. If you don’t like the result you’re getting, you don’t keep doing the same thing. We don’t think social housing should just be provided by Kāinga Ora. We want the Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity and other community housing providers to be much more involved.’

“Members of that sector were at the meeting and one confirmed the community housing sector is already building a substantial proportion of new social housing.”

National says a series of attack ads targeting its leader Christopher Luxon funded by the Council of Trade Unions in the Aotearoa Election 2023 campaign is “disgraceful”.

The NZCTU launched its campaign targeting Luxon today, with billboards going up around the country and social media.

A full front-page wrap-around ad on The New Zealand Herald newspaper declared “Christopher Luxon: Out of touch. Too much risk” under the paper’s masthead, with the word “advertisement” in smaller font at the top of the ad.

• READ MORE: Telling the truth about National isn’t an ‘attack advert’
• Other NZ election 2023 reports

The NZCTU’s logo and a link to a CTU-run website outoftouch.nz was at the bottom.

A second full-page ad ran overleaf on page 2, saying Luxon was “out of touch and focused on the wealthiest few”, and highlighting policies like tax cuts, scrapping fair pay agreements and fully funded prescriptions, and concluded with a bullet point saying Luxon “isn’t the right leader in a cost-of-living crisis”.

The National Party’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said the CTU, which has 27 unions affiliated, should be ashamed.

“The union movement is able to spend vast sums of money attacking the National Party and Christopher Luxon,” he said.

‘American-style hatchet job’
“They’re running audio-visual slots, televisual slots, they’ve got billboards in many major cities around New Zealand, this is a highly orchestrated, highly political, highly choreographed American-style hatchet job on Christopher Luxon.

“It’s disgraceful, they should be ashamed of themselves and it’s not what New Zealanders want in this election campaign.”

“Sadly with six weeks to go it’s become very clear that thanks to the Labour Party this is going to become the most negative election campaign in New Zealand history. Jacinda Ardern’s ‘be kind’ has become ‘be nasty’ under Chris Hipkins.”

Bishop would not commit to not attacking Labour, but said it would target differences of policy approach and targeting Labour’s record.

“Of course we are going to attack the Labour Party’s record, we’re going to make no bones about that . . . but the point of pointing those things out is to draw a contrast with National’s different approach and our positive plan for the future.

“We are going to run a strong and vigorous campaign but we are not going to engage in the kind of nasty, personal, petty, vindictive politics that the union movement and the Labour Party are going to engage in.”

‘Play the ball’
Labour’s campaign chair Megan Woods made a similar commitment last week, saying the party would “play the ball, not the person — but we should be holding National and ACT to account for the ideas that they’re putting out there”.

Asked how Luxon was holding up under what Bishop described as “very personal” attacks, he laughed and said Luxon was “completely fine”.

“Look, he’s big enough and ugly enough to handle it, I just think it’s pretty pathetic and I think the New Zealand public deserve better than that.”

He said the CTU was “intimately” connected to the Labour Party.

“It’s in the name, it’s the Labour Party because they’re part of the Labour movement . . .  Craig Renney was Grant Robertson’s adviser and he’s now at the CTU, so they know exactly what they’re doing.”

‘Not nasty at all’ – CTU
Council of Trade Unions president Richard Wagstaff told RNZ the campaign was focused on National’s policies.

“He’s [Luxon] promising to take down fair pay agreements, put people on [90-day] trials, make savage cuts to public services, and all in all we see it as a very serious choice ahead of New Zealanders at this election — perhaps the most serious choice in over a generation,” Wagstaff said.

He denied that focusing on Luxon was unfair.

“It’s not nasty at all, it’s simply saying that Christopher Luxon is out of touch and he can’t be trusted.

“National is focused heavily on Christopher Luxon, launching him as the leader, the buck stops with him and he’s leading these policies so we need to draw attention to Christopher and what he’s saying.

“His instinct in the cost of living crisis is to take over $2 billion out of the climate fund and give an over $2 billion gift to landlords. That, to us, is an out-of-touch policy.”

He said Labour had not been involved in the ad campaign at all, and it was a completely independent intiative.

“This is the National Party’s paranoia, Labour are not even mentioned in the ads, they’re not part of this campaign … we’re not asking people to vote for Labour we’re simply saying that Christopher Luxon and his policies would present a major danger to working New Zealanders.”

He said National was just trying to divert attention “away from the fact that their leader intends to smash industry bargaining, put people on trial periods and generally undermine the interests of working people”.

“We’re just putting that out there . . . it’s important that people look behind the rhetoric and really look at their policies.”

He said the $400,000 National had suggested for total ad campaign cost was an incorrect figure.

“It’s wrong, as far as I know it’s incorrect — I actually don’t know the figure but we don’t have that kind of money to spend on campaigns.”

Union members were happy to have their funds spent on the campaign, he said.

“Absolutely, union members expect the CTU to advance their interests as working people. This is an incredibly important election for the interests of working people.

“We’re not going to sit on our hands while National takes an axe to basic entitlements of the New Zealand working people.”

In an earlier statement, Wagstaff said the ad campaign would be “evidence-based”.

“Christopher Luxon and National will take New Zealand backwards and working people will be the first to feel the pain,” the statement said.

‘Democracy in action’ – Hipkins
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the CTU had run campaign ads in every election he had been involved in, and he had been aware they would be doing so but had not seen the ads until they were published.

He said for National to be offended was “incredibly thin-skinned” given the Taxpayers Union lobbying group, which has typically advocated for right-leaning policies.

“I think the CTU are raising some legitimate concerns around the effects of the National Party’s policies,” Hipkins said.

He said National was “desperately trying to distract attention away from the fact that they’be been caught out with their numbers and their policies just not stacking up. They’re trying to create a diversion here.

“The National Party and their surrogates, including the Taxpayer’s Union, Groundswell, Hobson’s Pledge and so on, have been running attack ads against me and the Labour government since the day I took on the job.

“I haven’t called a press conference or issued a media statement every time they have done that.”

Hipkins presented some “random examples” of the attack ads to reporters.

‘Russian horses’
“This one here, I was particularly touched by this one, actually. This is myself and David Parker on what would appear to be some Russian horses. I actually think I look quite good on a horse, to be frank.

“We have a pretty nasty, despicable personal attack on Nanaia Mahuta, that was, I believe, The Taxpayer’s Union did that one.”

Another ad — published by the National Party — had a photoshopped image of Hipkins’ face on the side of a sticking plaster box.

Hipkins said he did not believe Labour’s own campaign was negative.

“I don’t believe that we are running a negative campaign. We are out there campaigning positively on the things that we’re putting before the electorate, but we are also checking the promises the National Party are making because they simply don’t stack up.

“If they want to be the government, they’re going to be subject to this sort of scrutiny day in and day out — we have been for the last six years.”

“I don’t think critiquing the potential effects of the National Party’s policy is something they should shy away from. That is democracy in action.”

Chris Bishop said National would condemn any third-party ads attacking Chris Hipkins.

‘Completely separate from editorial’ – NZ Herald
In a statement, a spokesperson from The New Zealand Herald said “expression of opinion through advocacy advertising is an essential and desirable part of a democratic society”.

“All advocacy ads must comply with the ASA Codes and Advocacy Principles, as well as our own Advertising Acceptability Policy. Publishing an advertisement does not indicate NZME’s endorsement of that product or message.

“It’s also important to note that advertising stands completely separately from editorial.”

Bishop said he did not have a problem with the Herald running the ad.

“I mean, newspapers have got to sell advertising, I’ve got no issue with the Herald running that ad and I’ve got no issue with other outlets taking advertising money.

“I’ve got an issue with the CTU running it and I think they should be reflecting on it. I think it will backfire, ultimately, on them, and I think New Zealanders will see through it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Parliament has ended for another term, shutting down ahead of the Aotearoa New Zealand election campaign with a debate where many focused on attacking their political opponents.

Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins warned New Zealanders: “We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history.”

Parliament typically rises at the end of a term with an adjournment debate, and Thursday’s seemed to confirm the coming election on October 14 would be full of negative campaigning.

• READ MORE: Other NZ election reports

Here is a brief summary of the political leaders’ speeches:

Chris Hipkins (Labour):

Labour’s leader and incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins launched into the closing adjournment debate reflecting on the eventful past six years. He said his own tenure in the role had not broken that mould, with the Auckland floods sweeping in just two days after he was sworn in, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle.

“Ours is a government that has been forged through fire. Every challenge that has been thrown our way, we have risen to that,” he said.

He said Labour had achieved a lot, but there was more to do — and much at stake in the coming election.

“We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history, a government who want to wind the clock back on all of the progress that we are making.”

He praised Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s handling of the economy, highlighting a 6 percent larger economy than before the covid-19 pandemic, record low unemployment, and wages “growing faster under our government than inflation”.

He soon returned to attacking political opponents, however.

“Now is not the time to turn back. Now is not the time to stoke the inflationary fires with unfunded tax cuts as the members opposite promised, and it is not a time to turn our backs on talent by introducing a talent tax,” he said, referring to National’s plan to increase levies on visas.

“National wants to turn the clock backwards; we want to keep moving forward.”

He finished by saying Labour had a positive vision for New Zealand, before his final parting words: “and I wave goodbye to Michael Woodhouse, too, because he’s guaranteed not to be here after the election”.

Christopher Luxon (National):

The National leader said Hipkins’ speech should be one of apology, “to the parents and the kids who actually have been let down by an education system …to all the people who have waited for endless times and hours in hospital emergency departments … to all the victims of ram raids in dairies and superettes … to all the people that are lying awake at night worried about how they’re going to make their payments and keep their house.”

He continued with the requisite thanks such speeches so often sprinkle on officials, staff, supporters and workers before thanking the man he had been criticising.

“I do want to thank, in particular, the Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for his services to the National Party, because he rode in very triumphantly in February, and he announced that he was sweeping away everything that Jacinda Ardern stood for-especially kindness. But I have to say it turned out it was all words and no action, because, as we expected, he just carried on doing more of the same: Excessive, addicted government spending.

He turned to the slew of Labour personnel problems of the past year and more, likening the government to a car with the wheels falling off; the Greens were “in this rally too, they’re on their e-bikes, and they’re pedalling along the Wellington cycle lanes,” while Te Pāti Māori were “in their waka, but, sadly, they’re not the party of collaboration that they once were”.

“Then there are the ACT folk. They’re off in their pink van, and it’s been wonderful. They’re travelling the countryside, and David’s reading Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which is a good read, as you well know, Mr Speaker.”

He lavished praise on his own team, singling out deputy Nicola Willis, then closed by promising National was “ready to govern, we are sorted, we are united, we have the talent, we have the energy, we have the ideas, we have the diversity to take this country forward”.

David Seymour (ACT):

ACT’s leader also honed in on his political opponents, targeting Labour’s polling.

“It’s been a long three years in this Chamber and it has been characterised by one fact that lays bare what has happened, and that is the fact that the Labour Party, in Roy Morgan, polled 26 percent. That means that half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is.”

“I think the reason that we have so much change and support-Labour have lost half of their supporters in the last three years because, frankly, never has so much been promised to so many and yet so little actually delivered … New Zealanders overwhelmingly say this country is going in the wrong direction, and they also will tell you that their number one concern is the cost of living. That is Grant Robertson’s epitaph.”

He targeted housing, debt, inflation, victimisation, and child poverty before targeting the government for taking “a divisive approach to almost every single issue”.

“If you take the example of vaccination. Now, I’m a person who says that vaccination was safe and effective, yet by using ostracism as a tool to try and increase vaccination levels this government has eroded social cohesion and divided New Zealanders when they didn’t need to,” he said.

“New Zealand have had enough of that style of politics. They’ve had enough of Chris Hipkins going negative. They’ve had enough of the misinformation.”

He finished by saying the choice for New Zealanders now was not between swapping “Chris for Chris and red for blue”, but “we’ll actually deliver what we promise, we’ll cut waste, we’ll end racial division, and we’ll get the politics out of the classroom. Those aren’t just policies, those are values that we all share.”

James Shaw (Greens):

The Green co-leader took his own opening shot at Seymour, as “the leader of ‘New New Zealand First'”.

“Mr Seymour must be feeling quite grumpy right now, because last term he worked so hard to get rid of Winston Peters so that this term he could become Winston Peters, and now Winston Peters is calling and he wants his Horcrux back because that blackened shard of a soul can only animate the body of one populist authoritarian at once.”

He turned the hose on both major parties in one statement, saying it was odd National was proposing more new taxes than Labour while the Greens were promising bigger tax cuts than National. He criticised National over its plan to spend the funds from the Emissions Trading Scheme, before turning to climate change overall as — unusually — a source of positivity.

“Our greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa are falling, and that is because — and it is only because — with the Green Party in government with Labour, we have prioritised that work every single day.”

But positivity did not last long.

“Under the last National government, one in 100 new cars sold in this country was an electric vehicle. Last June, it was one in two … and National want to cancel all of that so that they can have an election year bribe.”

Rawiri Waititi (Te Pāti Māori):

The Pāti Māori leader Rawiri Waititi began with a fairy tale.

“It seems like this side of the House can find a grain of salt in a sugar factory. I just wanted to say, as I heard the story about Goldilocks — Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear — I tell you, it’s been very difficult to sit next to a polar bear and a gummy bear, and it’s been quite hard to contain the grizzly bear in me.”

He spoke in te reo Māori before giving a speech which — unlike the other leaders — focused exclusively on his own party’s promises.

“We are the only movement that will fight for our people,” he said.

“What does an Aotearoa hou look like? It looks like how we would treat you on the marae. We will welcome you. We will feed you. We will house you. We will protect you. We will educate you. We will care you. We will love you.”

“Te Pāti Māori is a movement that leaves no one behind, whether you are tangata whenua or a tangata Tiriti, tangata hauā, takatāpui, wāhine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna — you are whānau.”

He spoke of the need to reduce poverty and homelessness, before making the second of two references to his suspension from Parliament this week, then said it was time to “believe in ourselves to be proud, to be magic, and to believe in your mana”.

“I am proud of you all, I am proud of our movement, and I’m proud to head into this campaign, doing what we said we would do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

When New Zealand’s opposition National Party’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, questioned the logic of bilingual traffic signs, he seemed to echo his leader Christopher Luxon’s earlier misgivings about the now prevalent use of te reo Māori in government departments.

Genuine concern or political signalling in an election year? After all, Luxon himself has expressed interest in learning te reo, and also encouraged its use when he was CEO of Air New Zealand.

He even sought to trademark “Kia Ora” as the title of the airline’s in-flight magazine.

• READ MORE: Bilingual road signs in Aotearoa New Zealand would tell us where we are as a nation
• You can’t speak what you can’t hear’ – how Māori and Pacific sports stars are helping revitalise vulnerable languages
• Putting Aotearoa on the map: New Zealand has changed its name before, why not again?

And for his part, Brown has no problem with Māori place names on road signs. His concern is that important messaging about safety or directions should be readily understood. “Signs need to be clear,” he said.

“We all speak English, and they should be in English.” Adding more words, he believes, is simply confusing.

It’s important to take Brown at his word, then, with a new selection of proposed bilingual signs now out for public consultation. Given the National Party’s enthusiastic embrace of AI to generate pre-election advertising imagery, one obvious place to start is with ChatGPT, which tells us:

Bilingual traffic signs, which display information in two or more languages, are generally not considered a driver hazard. In fact, bilingual signage is often implemented to improve safety and ensure that drivers of different language backgrounds can understand and follow the traffic regulations.

ChatGPT also suggests that by providing information about speed limits, directions and warnings, bilingual traffic signs “accommodate diverse communities and promote road safety for all drivers”.

‘They should be in English’: National to ditch te reo Māori traffic signs https://t.co/7FGYyQDrPu

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 26, 2023

Safety and culture
With mounting concern over AI’s potential existential threat to human survival, however, it’s probably best we don’t take the bot’s word for it.

Fortunately, government transport agency Waka Kotahi has already examined the use of bilingual traffic signs in 19 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Its 2021 report states:

The use of bilingual traffic signage is common around the world and considered “standard” in the European Union. Culture, safety and commerce appear to be the primary impetuses behind bilingual signage.

Given Brown’s explicit preference for the use of English, it’s instructive that in the UK itself, the Welsh, Ulster Scots and Scots Gaelic languages appear alongside English on road signs in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

More to the point, on the basis of the evidence it reviewed, Waka Kotahi concluded that — providing other important design considerations are attended to — bilingual traffic signs can both improve safety and respond to cultural aspirations:

In regions of Aotearoa New Zealand where people of Māori descent are over-represented in vehicle crash statistics, or where they represent a large proportion of the local population, bilingual traffic signage may impart benefits in terms of reducing harm on our road network.

‘One people’
Politically, however, the problem with a debate over bilingual road signs is that it quickly becomes another skirmish in the culture wars — echoing the common catchcry of those opposed to greater biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: “We are one people”.

It’s a loaded phrase, originally attributed to the Crown’s representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, who supposedly said “he iwi tahi tātou” (we are one people) at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

Whether or not he said any such thing is up for debate. William Colenso, who was at Waitangi on the day and who reported Hobson’s words, thought he had.

But Colenso’s account was published 50 years after the events in question (and just nine years before he died aged 89).

Either way, the assertion has since come to be favoured by those to whom the notion of cultural homogeneity appeals. It’s a common response to the increasing public visibility of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

But being “one people” means other things become singular too: one law, one science, one language, one system. In other words, a non-Māori system, the one many of us take for granted as simply the way things are.

Any suggestion that system might incorporate or coexist with aspects of other systems — indeed might benefit from them — tends to come up against the kind of resistance we see to such things as bilingual road signs.

Fretful sleepers
The discomfort many New Zealanders still feel with the use of te reo Māori in public settings brings to mind Bill Pearson’s famous 1952 essay, Fretful Sleepers.

In it, Pearson reflects on the anxiety that can seep unbidden into the lives of those who would like to live in a “wishfully untroubled world”, but who nonetheless sense things are not quite right out here on the margins of the globe.

Pearson lived in a very different New Zealand. But he had his finger on the same fear and defensiveness that can cause people to fret about the little things (like bilingual signs) when there are so many more consequential things to disrupt our sleep.

Anyway, Simeon Brown and his fellow fretful sleepers appear to be on the wrong side of history. Evidence suggests most New Zealanders would like to see more te reo Māori in their lives, not less.

Two-thirds would like te reo taught as a core subject in primary schools, and 56 percent think “signage should be in both te reo Māori and English”.

If the experience in other parts of the world is anything to go by, bilingual signage will be just another milestone on the road a majority seem happy to be on.

Dr Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand’s Māori Party co-leader says the opposition National Party should go back to school if it thinks including te reo Māori on road signs is confusing.

In a transport meeting yesterday in Bay of Plenty, National’s spokesperson Simeon Brown said introducing the language to road signs would make them “more confusing” and they “should all be English”.

On Monday, Waka Kotahi said its He Tohu Huarahi Māori Bilingual Traffic Signs programme was going out for public consultation.

• READ MORE: Other Te Reo Māori reports

If successful, the programme would include te reo Māori in motorway and expressway signs, destination signs, public and active transport signs, walking and cycling signs, general advisory and warning signs.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said having the language included on road signs will help those in the process of learning te reo.

“This is an environment where there’s more non-Māori learning reo than we ever had in the history of Aotearoa. It’s important that we embrace our nation hood, including our indigenous people and our language.”

“We spent a long time trying to make sure we don’t lose our language, so having our culture in our roads is not just about helping those who are fluent Māori speakers, but so those who are in our education system learning reo can see it reflected around our environment.”

‘Make an effort’
She said Brown should go back to school if he thought te reo Māori on road signs was confusing.

“It’s never too hard to understand the official languages of Aotearoa. Whether it will be making an effort to understand te reo or sign language, for example.

“These are all a critical part of our nation and if he [Simeon Brown] needs to go back to school or take some time off Parliament to be able to understand our language so be it.”

There had been Māori traffic signs, Māori names, in this nation for a very long time, Ngarewa-Packer said.

“I’m not so sure why he [Simeon Brown] is so confused now.”

The Te Pāti Māori co-leader said Brown’s comments were separatist.

“I think it’s a real ignorant alarmist way to be politicking.”

“Twenty percent of our population is Māori. If we see a large [political] party basically trying to ignore 20 percent of this population, then can we expect them to do that to the rest of our multiculture, diversity and languages that we see coming forward in Aotearoa?”

She said most New Zealanders would enjoy seeing multilingual road signs.

“I think we are a mature and sophisticated country and generally, most of us, actually really enjoy not only seeing our indigenous language but also other languages.

“[Not having bilingual signs] It’s an attempt to take us backwards that I don’t think many are going to tolerate.”

‘They should be filling pot holes’ – National
National’s transport spokesman Simeon Brown said Waka Kotahi should be filling pot holes instead of looking into including te reo Māori in road signage around the country.

“NZTA should be focusing primarally in fixing the pot holes on our roads and they shouldn’t be distracted by changing signage up and down our country.”

“Most New Zealanders want to see our roads fixed, it’s their number one priority.”

Brown said the National Party was open to bilingual information, but only when it came to place names signage.

“When it comes to critically important safety information the signage needs to be clear and understandable for people in our road, most of whom who speak English.”

“It’s important to keep the balance right between place names, which we are very open for bilingual signage, and critical safety signs where is really important people understand what the sign is saying,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Iwi leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand have accused opposition parties National and ACT of “fanning the flames of racism”, urging the prime minister to be brave and not walk away from partnership on Three Waters.

With Waitangi events and festivities gearing up for the holiday weekend, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins attended the Iwi Chairs Forum yesterday.

He emerged from the closed-doors meeting saying they had asked the government to continue to work with Māori “to advance the issues that we’ve been working on previously”.

• READ MORE: Other Waitangi Day reports
• Other NZ politics reports

Iwi leaders had also, it seemed, laid down a wero [challenge].

“I have also heard their concern that they don’t want to see ethnicity, race, being used as a way of dividing New Zealanders and I was able to absolutely reiterate my government’s commitment to ensuring that we continue to work together to avoid that happening,” Hipkins said.

“Where there is uncertainty, where there is a lack of clarity, that can lead to fear. Politicians who use that fear or exploit that fear in order to try and gain political advantage need to really reflect on their own actions. That’s something my government will never do.”

He was not afraid to get into specifics, either.

“They don’t want the concept of co-governance to be used to stoke fear, and nor do we,” he said.

“I think it’s been misunderstood and those who seek to use misunderstanding around it for political advantage need to reflect on their own behaviour.

“People can form their own judgments about that but I certainly think the opposition — National and ACT have, as they’ve done in the past — they’ve used uncertainty to try and stoke fear.”

The devastating flooding in Auckland this week may have changed some minds about the need for change in management of drinking, waste and stormwater — something Hipkins will be looking to capitalise on.

“I think that we have to accept that as a result of climate change we’re going to see more extreme weather events, and stormwater — which is an integral part of the Three Waters system — is going to continue to come under more pressure,” he said.

The iwi leaders were not shy about it either, with Tukoroirangi Morgan telling reporters they wanted co-governance or a similar partnership retained in the Three Waters legislation.

“The challenge we’ve put to the prime minister today is will he succumb to the attack dogs of the National party and ACT as they fan the flames of racism and anti-Māori sentiments, and throw us under the bus for the sake of keeping alive Three Waters?”

Morgan, it must be noted, has been appointed chair of the entity set to oversee Auckland and Northland’s water.

“There is nothing mysterious about Three Waters — it’s all about pipes under the ground. Our view is as it has always been: we stand here at Waitangi, the cradle of the Treaty of Waitangi, and here is the embodiment of partnership,” he said.

“What we seek from this government is an ongoing commitment that partnership will amplified and affirmed through Three Waters, [it is an] opportunity for the Crown and Māori to work together in a meaningful and significant way.”

Jamie Tuuta, an iwi leader from Taranaki, also warned against allowing Māori to become a political football this election.

“One of the key messages we want to give to the prime minister and other ministers is that they need to stand up, they need to step up,” he said.

“It’s unacceptable — because again, the racist and biased attacks on Māori in 2023 are unacceptable.”

A Pou Tikanga of the forum, constitutional law expert Professor Margaret Mutu, said it was essential race rhetoric was removed from electoral debate.

“There’s a need to understand and address racism in this country and over recent times it’s got a lot more urgent,” Professor Mutu said.

“We need to make sure that work doesn’t slow down, particularly as the extreme attacks coming in are very, very hurtful. We want to try and stop that hurt.”

Te Arawa’s Monty Morrison said the meeting went “very well, it was very open.”

Ngāti Kuri’s Harry Burkhardt said they “were clear about our message, and I think Chris received that well”.

Luxon, Seymour respond
Co-governance was a topic National’s leader Christopher Luxon chose to address when he visited Rātana last week. His speech accused the government of failing to make its position on the matter clear, and allowing it to become a “divisive and immature” conversation.

National had been invited to meet with the Iwi Chairs Forum but declined. In a written statement after the kōrero at Waitangi today, Luxon said the party had been clear about its position.

“We support co-management between government and Māori for natural resources in the context of Treaty settlements. We do not support co-governance of public services or separate bureaucratic systems for Māori and non-Māori,” he said.

“Labour has progressed a divisive agenda and continually failed to set out its views clearly. It is disappointing to see the new Prime Minister try to shut down the discussion rather than clearly setting out Labour’s plans for the public to judge.”

Luxon has previously raised as examples National does not support:

• The Māori Health Authority, which sets strategy for overcoming racial health gaps and commissions kaupapa Māori health services
• The Three Waters legislation allowing equal representation between council and iwi appointees on a strategic oversight group which appoints the management board of the four entities set to take over management of water services

ACT leader David Seymour — who has Ngāpuhi roots — has been even more stridently critical of these, arguing they are race-based approaches which only further divide.

“If the prime minister thinks that ACT is making co-goverment divisive, wait till he hears what Labour’s been up to,” he said.

“Their modus operandi is to divide public affairs between two groups of people based on race — that is divisive and it’s unsurprising that opposition parties are raising concerns.”

He bristled at being labelled an “attack dog” by Morgan.

“Again, it’s a shame. The Iwi Chairs Forum were an organisation we’ve enjoyed good relationships with.

“That kind of language, calling people dogs, well it doesn’t exactly sound like they’re coming to the table to make the situation any better, now, does it.”

Three Waters changes yet to be decided
Since taking over as Prime Minister from Jacinda Ardern, Hipkins has promised his government will focus more on the “bread-and-butter” issues, targeting cost-of-living pressures and cutting back some of the government’s work programme.

Media speculation has highlighted the unpopularity of the government’s RNZ-TVNZ merger and the Three Waters projects, and therefore likely on the chopping block.

Hipkins signalled announcements within weeks about the slimmed-down work programme, but when pressed about Three Waters early this week spoke about the need to change the status quo — statements he repeated today.

“We’ve been doing so many different things, actually we probably haven’t created the space to make sure people understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and that is absolutely, I think, a lesson for us over the last five years and it’s something we have all reflected on and you’ll see some change in that regard.

“I haven’t said a lot in terms of ruling things in and out, but one thing I will rule out is no reform . . .  we can’t continue with the status quo — it is not delivering New Zealanders the water services they need and that they deserve.

“If we leave it just with the status quo, one thing it will deliver is significantly higher rates for households, and I’m not willing to just stand back and say ‘that’s a council problem to deal with’.”

He has, to date, refused to outline what any of the changes to the project might be — saying those decisions are yet to be made by the full Cabinet — but speculation has centred on the co-governance aspect.

“I think everybody acknowledges that what we’re doing now or around the way we manage our water infrastructure in New Zealand is not sustainable, and it has left us with a pretty disgraceful legacy, frankly, of that core infrastructure being run down.”

Taranaki iwi leader Jamie Tuuta said whatever changes came, they expected the same level of engagement and partnership.

“By and large what we ask is that we are respected and that [Hipkins] and his ministers engage openly with us in the event that there are any changes.”

With an election in October, Morgan and the other leaders present at today’s forum are clear: they want bold leadership and partnership, and however this year’s election plays out — they will still be there.

“This is a ongoing journey for us,” Morgan said. “Absolutely, we would want a very clear and unfettered response and commitment from this government that they’re not going to walk away, nor are they going to throw us under the bus for their own political means.

“Iwi will be at this side of the table come the election, we’ll deal with whoever the government is. What is clear in this situation is we are enduring, iwi will remain as the Treaty partner.

“Whether we deal with Hipkins after the election or the National Party, we will see, but all we say is that we want an equitable share in the major decisions that affect our people – that’s our bottom-line expectation.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Iwi leaders warn Hipkins not to bow on Three Waters co-governance https://t.co/upsPqJEbMm

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) February 3, 2023

Tuesday, February 7, at 2pm. That’s when New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ parliamentary year begins and he faces National leader Christopher Luxon in the debating chamber for the first question time of 2023.

He needs to “Win the House”, as the saying goes. That means getting the better of the other side, and Hipkins has to show his caucus that he is up to it.

Hipkins is a vastly experienced parliamentarian, but there is nothing like being in the hot seat directly facing the leader of the opposition.

• READ MORE: Other NZ politics reports

He can be expected to take it to Luxon and ACT leader David Seymour more aggressively than Jacinda Ardern did, he is more of a “take no prisoners” politician than she was and he needs to get some hits in early on.

Hipkins has had a great start with two opinion polls showing Labour has regained the ground it lost to National.

The 1News Kantar poll showed Labour up five points to 38 percent and National down one point to 37 percent.

Newshub’s Reid Research poll had Labour up 5.7 points to 38 percent and National down 4.1 points to 36.6 percent.

Hipkins slightly ahead
In the preferred prime minister stakes, Hipkins was slightly ahead of Luxon in both polls.

Stuff‘s political editor Luke Malpass said the polls showed what no Labour figures dared to consider a fortnight ago — that the party might have better prospects under a leader other than Jacinda Ardern.

“Hipkins, it now appears, could be that person,” he said.

“In other words, by the time Ardern left she might have been a drag on the party vote.”

Luxon dismissed the poll results, saying nothing had changed.

“It’s the same government, and a new leader who can’t deliver,” he said. “It’s going to be an incredibly tight race.”

The poll details, and what the results would mean in terms of seats if an election was held now, are on RNZ’s website.

Labour’s new champion
After settling in to his debating chamber role as Labour’s new champion, Hipkins has to get his next big agenda item off the blocks — ditching policies and programmes that are in the way of his pledge to totally focus on “bread and butter” issues that affect people, which means the cost of living.

This process was started by Ardern at the end of last year and Hipkins needs to get it done and dusted because there’s sure to be the usual cries of “U-turn, U-turn”.

Although Ardern and Hipkins have explained it as necessary to the new focus on dealing with inflation and the cost of living crisis, there Is also an obvious political need in election year.

Labour wants to get rid of liabilities, policies and programmes that are causing trouble and are easy targets for the opposition.

Hipkins needs what MPs call clear air to explain and implement policies Labour hopes will reset the party’s direction, entrench the lead over National and ACT, and deliver a platform for the election campaign.

The new prime minister may be in his honeymoon period but the media knows he has to deliver.

“He will have to show there is more on the tin than just a new sticker, and in pretty short order,” said Malpass.

“It won’t be enough to just chuck the odd media merger and dank old bits of legislation over the side: It will have to be replaced by some actions on the ‘bread and butter’ issues Chris Hipkins says he is concerned about.”

Plagued by troubles
The New Zealand Herald’s political editor Claire Trevett said Hipkins’ job was to convince voters that Labour was focused “on the various troubles plaguing them now — from potholes to hip ops to the price of bread”.

“The talk is one thing, the delivery is another. Hipkins has no real option but to deliver.”

There’s been speculation about which policies and programmes will get the chop or be put on the slow track, and Stuff published a list with the top three being the RNZ/TVNZ merger, the Income Insurance Scheme (which National calls a jobs tax) and Auckland Light Rail.

It said other lesser known projects could join the list.

Hipkins must also deal with Three Waters, which has given the government more problems than anything else.

That’s more difficult because the legislation has been passed, but Hipkins has acknowledged he has to do something about it.

“We are going to look closely at the Three Waters programme,” he told Trevett in an interview. “There’s no question there has to be change. I don’t think we can just sit back and say ‘this is not our problem, this is a council problem’.

“I don’t think that would be responsible. But we also need to bring people along with us and what we are doing.”

Policy clear-out
When it comes to the policy clear-out, Hipkins has much more freedom than Ardern would have had.

She would have faced ferocious opposition attacks for dumping policies she had supported, her words would have been thrown back at her.

But Hipkins is a new prime minister, doing things his way, just as Ardern told him when she said “you must do you”. She was giving him free rein to do it his way.

Did she know Labour was heading in the wrong direction under her leadership, and that it wouldn’t win the next election unless there was drastic change?

One commentator who thinks so is Matthew Hooton.

Writing in the Herald, Hooton said Ardern so badly wanted her government to win a third term that she was prepared to step down.

“Labour’s masterful transition was carefully planned before Christmas by Ardern and her closest allies, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, and flawlessly executed,” he said.

Capturing the initiative
“Political strategists spend every December working out how to capture the initiative in January, especially in election year. None has ever succeeded like Labour over the last week.”

Luxon hasn’t had a good run-up to the new parliamentary year.

Inevitably, he’s been eclipsed by Hipkins simply because he is the new prime minister but when Luxon has been able to get into the media he might have wished he hadn’t.

“National strategists seem dumbstruck,” Hooton said in his article. “Christopher Luxon was more incoherent than usual trying to explain where he stands on co-governance, the Māori seats, and whether women politicians receive worse abuse than males, pleasing neither the liberal nor conservative wings of his party.”

Stuff’s Andrea Vance said Luxon had actually helped ease Hipkins into the job “by being more mediocre than usual”.

“Somehow Luxon — whose one job last week was to stay on message — managed to drive down a co-governance cul-de-sac at`Rātana, and then spend the rest of the week doing bunny-hop u-turns to get out of it,” she said.

“And how did he manage to piss off women, again? The correct answer was ‘yes’, Christopher. Female politicians patently face more abuse than men.”

Abuse of women
She was referring to Luxon responding to a question about whether women politicians suffered more abuse than men by saying he wasn’t sure.

When Hipkins takes his seat in Parliament on Tuesday he’ll have his revamped front bench alongside him.

The cabinet reshuffle, as RNZ reported, means some of the government’s most contentious portfolios will have a fresh face.

One of the most interesting facets was Hipkins’ decision to appoint Michael Wood as Minister for Auckland.

Hipkins explained the need to “get Auckland pumping” after a difficult couple of years, but there’s a political imperative behind it as well which the Herald’s Trevett saw.

“It is aimed as a pre-emptive counter to the inevitable attacks from Auckland-based opposition leaders such as Christopher Luxon and David Seymour that the Wellington-based Hipkins is a beltway creation and out of touch with Auckland’s concerns,” she said.

“It sends a signal that Hipkins has his eye on Auckland and knows its importance.”

Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament’s press gallery, 22 years as NZPA’s political editor and seven as parliamentary bureau chief for NZ Newswire. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

With a new prime minister sworn in and a cabinet reshuffle imminent, it is no exaggeration to say the election year in Aotearoa New Zealand has begun with a bang. Already the punditry and speculation are ramping up, with anticipation building for the first opinion polls.

There will be more polls to come, of course, but a word of caution is in order: don’t treat them as gospel, and try not to let them become self-fulfilling prophecies.

At this point, we cannot predict who will form New Zealand’s next government, and it could yet be a tight race.

• READ MORE: Here’s how to make opinion polls more representative and honest
• What is a margin of error? This statistical tool can help you understand vaccine trials and political polling
• Chris Hipkins becomes NZ’s new prime minister – there are two ways it can go from here

Furthermore, political polling has not had a stellar record in recent times. Former prime minister Jim Bolger’s famous remark from 1993, after he didn’t get the election majority he expected, still resonates: “Bugger the polls.”

It’s not just a local phenomenon, either. The results of the Brexit referendum and the Trump–Clinton presidential contest in 2016, and the 2019 Australian election, were all out of line with preceding opinion polls.

In 2020, the US presidential polls were off by about four percentage points. And the 2022 US midterm elections didn’t produce the landslide (or “red tsunami”) many Republicans had predicted.

The 2020 election miss
It is a similar story in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2020, the polls immediately prior to the election overestimated the National vote and underestimated Labour’s.

Taking the averages of the results of all six polls published during the month before election day, National emerged on 30.9 percent and Labour on 47.2 percent. In the final three polls during the two weeks when advance voting was open, the averages were National 31.4 percent and Labour 46.3 percent.

The gap was closing and Labour would land on about 46 percent, or so it seemed. As Labour’s trend in the polls since mid-2020 was already downward, 45 percent looked plausible. But predictions based on the opinion polls were significantly wrong.

Labour’s election result was 50 pecent, National’s only 25.6 percent.

The polls in the final fortnight were overestimating National by an average of 5.8 percentage points. They were underestimating Labour by 3.7 points. The Green and Māori parties were also underestimated (1.1 and 0.7 points, respectively).

There were even bigger failures in polls showing Green candidate Chlöe Swarbrick running third in Auckland Central with about 25 percent of the vote. Instead, she got 35 percent and won the seat.

Statistics 101
The opinion polls and the election — the only poll that counts, as the saying goes — use different methods with different samples. They are intended for different purposes, and hence their results will differ, too.

An opinion poll is a snapshot of a sample of potential voters. By the time it’s published, it’s already in the past. Surveys normally ask which party you would vote for if the election were held tomorrow.

But you may change your mind by the time you actually vote, if you vote at all.

Furthermore, surveys are prone to random error. So, no matter how scientifically rigorous, they only estimate — and cannot replicate — the relevant population. It is in the interests of the polling companies to be accurate, of course, especially when close to an election.

But we need to read their results critically.

Samples are normally about 1000 people, and pollsters try to ensure they closely resemble the demographic makeup (ideally by age, gender, ethnicity, education and location) of the eligible population, giving voters of all kinds an equal voice.

Post-survey weighting boosts results from social groups with low response rates.
The proportion of the population that holds a specified preference is estimated, and all estimates are subject to variance.

This is expressed as a margin of error, which is normally plus or minus three percentage points.

The margin of error is the range in which the pollster bets the “true” results should probably fall, with the true figures being outside that range only 5 percent of the time. In other words, pollsters are 95 percent confident the actual results will fall within that range. It is only a statistical estimate.

But the quoted margin of error doesn’t apply evenly. If a given party is polling at 50 percent, then the quoted margin of error applies. If a party is polling higher or lower, then the margin of error narrows percent the further you get from 50 percent, the narrower the margin of error.

Beyond the margin of error
Another concern is whether respondents will give honest answers. Some may be unwilling to reveal their voting intentions or they will wilfully mislead the poll.

And often a large proportion of a sample doesn’t know yet whether they’ll actually vote, or for whom they’ll vote. Responsible pollsters will report the percentage of “don’t know” responses.

But the conservative bias in the pre-election 2020 opinion polls was systematically outside of the margins of error, and hence not due only to random variation.

Apparently, pollsters did not obtain samples that resembled the population that actually voted. It looks like younger leftwing voters were especially hard to reach or unwilling to participate.

Or their election turnout may have been underestimated.

Polling companies are now using online panels to help correct such biases. We’ll have to wait for the next election’s results to judge how it’s working.

Reading the tea leaves
A series of opinion polls can reveal trends and thus serve a purpose as public information. But they’re not suited for forecasting. One result taken out of context may be misleading, so it is disappointing when major news organisations over-hype polls.

When party-vote percentages get converted into numbers of seats, journalists are reading tea leaves and not reporting news. Meanwhile, the market research firms are getting massive publicity.

Accurate or not, opinion poll results can have self-fulfilling or “bandwagon” effects on people’s voting behaviour. People might want to back a winner, or not waste their vote on a party that’s polling below 5 percent. Or some might vote for a party other than their favourite, with an eye to post-electoral negotiations.

Perhaps the best advice for voters is this: when deciding which party to vote for, try not to think about the polls. And poll-watchers should prepare for surprises on election night.

Dr Grant Duncan, associate professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Following the surprise resignation of Jacinda Ardern on January 19, Aotearoa New Zealand already has a new Prime Minister and Labour Party leader: Chris Hipkins.

The handover from Ardern to Hipkins has been achieved with the same efficiency as the handover from Andrew Little to Ardern in 2017. But will it be as successful?

Hipkins entered Parliament in 2008 — along with Ardern. Under Ardern’s leadership, he held ministerial portfolios in education, police and public services, and was Leader of the House.

• READ MORE: ‘The shoes needing filling are on the large side of big’ – Jacinda Ardern’s legacy and Labour’s new challenge
• Ardern’s resignation as New Zealand prime minister is a game changer for the 2023 election
• Jacinda Ardern’s resignation: gender and the toll of strong, compassionate leadership
• Carmel Sepuloni: New Zealand’s new Deputy Prime Minister
• More Jacinda Ardern reports

His role as education minister includes a (not altogether successful) centralisation of all the country’s polytechnics under one administrative umbrella — a form of restructuring typical of this Labour government.

He distinguished himself during the covid pandemic as a hard-working and competent leader who contributed a much-needed clarity and common sense. He is a dependable and intelligent politician who does not mind being an attack dog when it is called for.

As leader with Tongan Carmel Sepuloni as his deputy, however, Hipkins now faces an uphill battle, with his party trailing the opposition National Party in the most recent published polls. But he lacks Ardern’s charisma.

In 2017, there was an instant “Jacindamania” effect when she took the party leadership, and Labour’s polling shot up. One simply can’t imagine a “Chris-mania”, however. But maybe that’s not a bad thing right now.

Game over?
There are two ways this could go now. First, the nightmare scenario for Labour: the government continues to be sniped at over controversial and unpopular policies such as the Three Waters programme and the income insurance scheme, economic problems continue to damage household budgets, the opposition leaders (both National’s Christopher Luxon and ACT’s David Seymour) have a field day.

In head-to-head debates with Luxon once the election campaign begins, Hipkins lacks the fire that Ardern was able to show when she needed it, and becomes political roadkill at the ballot box on October 14.

Labour supporters wake up in a cold sweat.

Carmel Sepuloni: New Zealand’s new Deputy Prime Minister https://t.co/91TMUI2wud

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) January 22, 2023

With Labour’s ongoing slump in the polls, trailing National by around five or six percentage points, this scenario cannot be ruled out. Following defeat, Labour could go into the kind of spiral it endured after Helen Clark’s loss in 2008, with one unsuccessful leader after another.

We can recall the defeat of Labour’s Phil Goff in 2011 and David Cunliffe in 2014 when up against National’s John Key. And, to be fair, National suffered a similarly bad run after Bill English stood down in 2018 and until Luxon became leader in November 2021.

“Chris Hipkins has been part of a government that has spectacularly failed to get anything done and what New Zealanders need is a National government that is going to get things done.”https://t.co/w67vxckHaw

— RNZ (@radionz) January 21, 2023

A new hope?
So is there a dream scenario for Labour? With Ardern’s charismatic — and now rather polarising — personality heading for the exit, the party could turn things around.

New leadership licences a significant cabinet reshuffle and (more importantly) a refresh of policy. Labour could now neutralise (or even dump) some policy proposals that are presently causing public dissatisfaction.

Rather than Hipkins having somehow to fill Ardern’s shoes, he could follow his own path in his own trusty trainers.

An advantage he has is an apparent unanimity of support from his caucus. This suggests his team is focused on beating National rather than beating one another.

But can Labour win back the support of those middle-ground voters who have shifted to the centre-right? It appears many of those who have swung away from Labour actually liked Ardern.

And Ardern remained on top in preferred prime minister polls right up until days before she resigned.

We could infer from this that a leadership change on its own will not suffice to woo these voters back. The loss of Ardern could indeed precipitate a further drop in polling for Labour.

A policy reset
Late in 2022, Ardern had stated that the government’s focus this year would be the economy. And National will inevitably use the line that they (National) are the more competent when it comes to “managing the economy”.

If Labour is serious about winning the 2023 election, then, they need to convince enough voters of the following:

• they are addressing the real economic concerns that are affecting people presently;
• they have taken heed of people’s disquiet over some current policy changes and are prepared to revise them; and
• they are not going any further with controversial matters, especially co-governance with Māori, without first seeking a wider public understanding and consensus.

Hipkins is a competent and reliable person. If he has his party’s backing to revise or backtrack on policy, then he may have some success. With less focus on personalities this time around, his best hope may be to convince people his government is serious about resetting the country’s direction.

Dr Grant Duncan, associate professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says her Aotearoa New Zealand government will not back down on advancing Māori issues, even if National frames co-governance as central to the 2023 general election.

“You’ve got to be able to sleep at night, knowing that you’ve done your best and you’ve done what you’ve believed is right,” Ardern told TeAoMaori.news

The Māori Health Authority, Three Waters and Māori seats on councils were achievements Ardern said the government was proud of.

• READ MORE: Other NZ co-governance reports

Ardern said she was “comfortable” the government was doing its best to fulfil obligations under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

“We haven’t been perfect. But I am comfortable with what we’ve tried to do to make sure that we are fulfilling our obligations as the Crown, that we’re fulfilling our Treaty obligations.”

Ardern said the Government was proud of the 6.8 per cent Māoriunemployment rate,although she conceded homeless families living in motels still needed tackling.

“I don’t want anyone living in a motel. I want someone in a warm, dry, safe environment. But I also don’t want people living in cars. And so this has been a transition for us while we build more public housing, and we are,” she said.

Mandate protests
Reflecting on 2022, Ardern conceded it was another tough year, singling out the vaccination mandate protests on Parliament grounds as her biggest challenge.

Ardern said the protests were upsetting for many in Aotearoa who saw vaccination as key to reopening the country.

“For New Zealand, I think it deeply affected people,” Ardern said.

There were moments she thought about talking to the protesters but a previous attempt during a government walkabout with vaccinators that was scuppered by protesters prevented that.

“I did stop and try and have a conversation with the people there. And what became clear to me is that the starting point for that conversation was so different for me, and then that was very hard to cut through,” Ardern said.

“I had a practice in the past of talking to protesters in fact. I remember very early on the DPS [the PM security team] having to learn, that was part of the way that I was going to do the job.”

UN declaration
Ardern was asked about comments from Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson that he would be pumping the brakes on co-governance initiatives set out by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous people (UNDRIP), signed by the National government in 2010, because several recommendations would not fly with certain Cabinet members.

“Why is it someone in Cabinet is ‘not comfortable’ with co-governance? And should someone be in the Cabinet if they’re not comfortable with co-governance?” Ardern was asked.

“What he’s talking about are some of the thoughts and debate around the UN declaration, the next stages of ensuring that we are doing our bit, as yes, the National government signed us up and then did nothing, and left us to figure out ‘how do we fulfil our obligations?’

“What he’s [Jackson] talking about is through that process, there’s been a lot of ideas. Some of them, we can confidently say, New Zealand already does, othersare challenging. So he’s broadly discussing the next steps.”

Ardern said that as she looked ahead to this year’s election, she had no interest in fighting it on race, saying she would campaign on the government’s record.

“When there’s change… people will sometimes be confronted by that, and it’s our job to try and bring people with us, but that will sometimes be challenging,” Ardern said.

“Our record is growing Māori housing. Our record is growing Māori employment opportunities. Now our record is growing the Māori economy. I will happily campaign on our record.”

Republished from Whakaata Māori. First published in The New Zealand Herald.

Opposition National Party leader Christopher Luxon says there are more important issues facing Aotearoa New Zealand than the controversy over a party social media post while he was holidaying in Hawai’i.

He has admitted he was holidaying in Hawai’i last week despite his social media posts suggesting he was visiting provincial New Zealand.

While he was away, a video was posted on his Facebook page where he claimed to be in Te Puke visiting businesses.

• READ MORE:  Aloha from Te Puke: Christopher Luxon’s quiet Hawaiian jaunt and the peril of politicians’ holidays
• Other Christopher Luxon reports

“We should have posted it closer to the date and we should’ve at least captioned it that it was in recent days, not implying that it was on that day,” Luxon told RNZ Morning Report.

“We got that wrong, and we own that.”

He said he had expected the video to be posted on the day of the visit or soon after.

It was “honestly a mistake”.

Cost of living
He said there were more important things to focus on, like New Zealand’s cost of living and crime, than the social media post.

“There are more things that I’m lying awake at night worrying about in New Zealand than a social media post.”

And while the country was facing a cost-of-living crisis, he said his family deserved a vacation away from New Zealand.

“New Zealanders are doing it incredibly tough,” he said pointing to record-high inflation.

“And that’s because this government doesn’t have an economic plan. Lots of band-aid economics.

“We’ve got dumb and wasteful spending going on in the government not getting outcomes.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

It followed Judith Collins’ tumultuous exit as leader last week, after she summarily demoted Bridges last week.

Shellshocked, MPs went into a hastily called caucus the next morning and cast a vote of no confidence in her. Deputy Shane Reti became interim leader and the vote for leader was set down for today.

• READ MORE: NZ’s covid-19 update for November 30: 134 new community cases today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“It is a tremendous privilege to lead our great party, and I thank my colleagues for the confidence they have placed in me,” Luxon said in a statement shortly after the vote.

Luxon, a former chief executive of Air New Zealand between 2012-2019, also said that he was pleased Nicola Willis had been chosen as his deputy.

“She will do an incredible job and we will be a formidable team.”

They face a National Party reset at a critical when New Zealand has been facing its toughest covid-19 lockdown after initially weathering the first waves of the virus last year.

Evangelical Christian
Luxon, who describes himself as an Evangelical Christian and has expressed his opposition to policies such as abortion and cannabis legalisation, said he had entered politics because he was a problem solver who “gets things done”.

“I have built a career out of reversing the fortunes of under-performing companies and I’ll bring that real-world experience to this role.”

Luxon said he and Willis would be working hard to earn back New Zealanders’ trust and confidence “and deliver for them”.

He also promised that the party would be unified under their leadership.

“We are the new National Party that New Zealand needs.”

Luxon’s main rival, former leader Simon Bridges, tweeted his support for Luxon with just over an hour remaining before this afternoon’s caucus meeting where the party voted on the new leader.

“This morning I met with Chris Luxon and had a great discussion. I am withdrawing from the leadership contest and will be backing Chris. He will make a brilliant National leader and Prime Minister,” he said.

This morning I met with Chris Luxon and had a great discussion. I am withdrawing from the leadership contest and will be backing Chris. He will make a brilliant National leader and Prime Minister.

— Simon Bridges (@simonjbridges) November 30, 2021

Few words for media
“Luxon had few words for the media as he arrived at Parliament this afternoon.

“Great day for the National Party, it’s really wonderful today … I’m looking forward to going to see my caucus colleagues,” he said.

Other National MPs were saying little as they arrived at Parliament throughout the morning and early afternoon.

Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop, who had been raised as a possibility in initial speculation about the leadership, also backed Luxon.

“He’s gonna make a great leader of the National Party, he’s gonna make a great prime minister, I can’t wait to serve in his team. It’s an exciting day for New Zealand, big reset moment for the National Party.”

He said Bridges would remain in the party.

“Simon’s gonna be a critical part of the National team going forward, he’s got undoubted political skills, I’m really looking forward to serving with him, he’s gonna make a great whatever role he gets from Christopher Luxon and National just resets now.

Go forward together
“We go forward together and we’re gonna change the government in two years’ time.”

Waimakariri MP Matt Doocey said it would mean a new direction for the party.

“I’m looking for a fresh start and a new vision for the party, and a new vision for the country. I’m looking forward to that, it’s exciting.”

List MP Melissa Lee said she thought Luxon was “very experienced in life”.

“He is very new but the thing is that he’s not daft. He’s a very intelligent man, I think he has led companies before and although it is actually a very different feel, that experience does speak to his life experience and I think he will make a great leader.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand’s opposition National Party leader Judith Collins has suffered a sharp dip in support in the preferred prime minister stakes, in the latest Newshub Reid Research poll.

The new poll has Labour on 52.7 percent while National has improved slightly to 27 percent support – an increase of 1.4 percentage points on election night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is on 48.1 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes, while Collins has slipped to 5.6 percent – a drop of 12.8 percent.

This is despite plenty of media coverage since she began accusing the government of introducing separatism for Māori “by stealth” when dealing with poverty and lack of opportunity in New Zealand.

Labour keeps its majority stranglehold on Parliament on 52.7 percent, up 2.7 points on the election result.

The Green Party is on 7.1 percent – down 0.8 – and ACT is just below on 6.9 percent, down 0.7.

The Māori Party remains on 1.2.

The poll was conducted between 7 and 13 May with a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

It was supposed to chart a new way forward but He Puapua, a report on how the government can uphold tangata whenua rights by giving affect to tino rangatiratanga, has become bogged down in the swamp of politics.

New Zealand was one of four countries that voted against adopting the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.

That was under a Helen Clark-led Labour government, just three years after the Foreshore and Seabed controversy.

• READ MORE: He Puapua – the working group report

Going back a few more years, Labour declared all government funding had to be based on need and not race, in response to former National Party leader Don Brash’s Ōrewa speech in 2004.

Within just a year of Brash’s campaign against Māori “special privileges”, Clark went from mentioning the Treaty of Waitangi 26 times in her speeches to just three.

Her senior cabinet minister, Trevor Mallard, now Speaker of the House, had the job of responding to the Ōrewa speech; as past of that response he stated “Māori have no extra rights or privileges under the treaty or in the policy of the New Zealand government”.

Fastforward to 2021 and the latest campaign by the National Party – with ACT alongside – against “separatist” and “racist” policies, cannot simply be dismissed as a desperate attempt to gain traction in the polls, as Minister of Māori Development Willie Jackson describes it.

Separatist rhetoric
The separatist rhetoric has sent Labour running from Māori before, and if there is a boost in National’s polls this time around, it could spook the Labour government into backing away from He Puapua.

It might end up like Puao-te-Ata-tu, the landmark report by a Ministerial Advisory Committee from 1988 on how to stop so many Māori children going into state care which includes recommendations to devolve power of the care and protection of tamariki Māori to iwi and hapū.

Willie Jackson describes National and ACT’s latest campaign against “separatist” and “racist” policies as a desperate attempt to gain traction in the polls. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone

It gathered dust for more than 30 years and He Puapua could too be shelved.

Labour may have avoided much of the political spectacle if it had proactively released the report, and front-footed the kōrero on what partnership between iwi-hapū and the Crown could look like.

Ministers say they did not want it to appear like it was government policy and for it to be misrepresented, misquoted or misused.

That has backfired.

Upper House
National and ACT say the report calls for a “Māori Parliament”, when in fact it proposes an Upper House to scrutinise legislation for Te Tiriti o Waitangi compliance, made up of 50 percent rangatiratanga representation (iwi/hapū leadership) and the other half from Parliament.

Politics has overshadowed the substance of He Puapua and the opportunity to have a national conversation about New Zealand’s constitution and the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

It suggests making Waitangi Tribunal recommendations binding, and paying royalties to Māori for natural resources such as water and petrol.

It also calls to exclude Māori freehold land from the Public Works Act, and for Māori to maintain rights and interests in respect of all Crown lands.

Then there’s the higher level stuff or structural changes needed to give effect to tino rangatiratanga.

Much of this is pulled from existing literature like Matike Mai, the report by Professor Margaret Mutu and Dr Moana Jackson suggesting models for an “inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa” using Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Māori Declaration of Sovereignty (He Whakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni 1835) as its basis.

It proposes to massively expand the small sphere of Māori governance over people and places and the currently miniscule area of co-governance between rangatiratanga and the government in the next 20 years.

Co-governance bodies
For instance, it asks that co-governance and co-management bodies for freshwater be made compulsory.

There are a number of existing models of co-governance – just take a look at Te Mātāwai (the independent statutory body for the revitalisation of te reo Māori).

Then there are models for how Māori can have full authority over an area – like Te Urewera, which has the same legal rights as a person and is managed by Ngāi Tūhoe, the kaitiaki (guardians) of forest, making decisions on its behalf.

As Waikato-Tainui leader Rāhui Papa said this week, no one cares after three years.

There are those who will never agree with implementing Te Tiriti o Waitangi on the basis of its guarantee of tino rangatiratanga – self-determination, sovereignty – for Māori.

ACT Party leader David Seymour said self-determination should be for everyone, not the “exclusive preserve of Māori based on a certain interpretation of the Treaty”.

He argues that the modern English translation of the Māori version of the Treaty, by Sir Hugh Kawharu gives all people of New Zealand the same rights and privileges under article 3.

Māori equity guarantee
The interpretation put forward in He Puapua is that article 3 guarantees Māori equity, which “does not mean all individuals should be treated the same”.

The Waitangi Tribunal – the judiciary responsible for interpreting the Treaty – concludes the Crown must recognise the status of Māori groups exercising rangatiratanga in order to honour its Treaty obligations.

All of this is laid out in He Puapua which report author Claire Charters said was supposed to be an “instrument to have a genuine discussion about realising our international obligations and what Te Tiriti o Waitangi requires”.

Instead, it will likely keep being kicked around as a political football, particularly while the idea of the nascent Māori Health Authority – which seeks to give affect to Māori-Crown partnership – is still fresh.

Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer cannot understand “what is so repelling and revolting” about partnership with Māori for National and ACT.

And there is the fear that current political discourse could lead to racial division like the Brash years, Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson has said, although he adds his belief is New Zealanders are “more mature now”.

The Māori Labour caucus will need to be a backbone for the government as it progresses the Authority and chooses what recommendations of He Puapua it moves on.

The report name means “to break” which the authors said was to represent “the breaking of the usual political and societal norms and approaches”.

So far, that’s yet to be realised.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Strong team. More jobs. Better economy. So say the National Party’s campaign hoardings. Only thing is, last Sunday’s Newshub-Reid Research poll – which had support for the Labour Party at 60.9 percent and for National at 25.1 percent – suggests the team is not looking that strong at all.

Nor will it be having much to say on jobs or the economy following the general election on September 19 if those numbers are close to the result.

As you might expect, National’s leadership dismissed the poll as “rogue”, saying the party’s internal polling (which hasn’t been publicly released) puts it in a much stronger position.

READ MORE: National gambles on Collins crushing Ardern’s charisma in NZ election

But this latest poll is consistent with three others released since May (June 1, June 25 and July 15). Averaged out, these polls put support for Labour and National at 55.5 percent and 29.1 percent respectively.

[Editor: Yesterday’s 1 News-Colmar Brunton poll put National down to 32 percent while Labour moved up another three points to 53 percent.]

That is quite the gap. Assuming they are broadly accurate, what do they tell us about the state of politics in Aotearoa New Zealand?

The centre is now centre-left
For a start, the political centre appears to be shifting to the left. Across the past four polls, support for Labour and the Greens sits around 62 percent. When nearly two out of three voters in a naturally conservative nation support the centre-left, something is going on.

Correspondingly, as the notional median voter shifts left, parties on the right are being left high and dry. The Reid Research poll put the combined support for National, ACT and New Zealand First at 30.4 percent, a touch under half the level of support for the centre-left.

In 2017, National secured nearly 45 percent of the party vote. Nearly half of that support has bled away – and most of it hasn’t gone to other conservative parties. New Zealand First is on life support; the right-wing ACT party is at 3 percent; and the other centre-right parties (including the New Conservatives, the Outdoors Party and the conspiratorially inclined Advance NZ/Public Party coalition) are well off the pace.

The leadership gap
Then there is the question of leadership. Judith Collins was installed in an attempt to re-establish National’s bona fides as New Zealand’s natural party of government. But she has not had the impact Jacinda Ardern did when she took Labour’s reins several weeks out from the 2017 election.

In fact, while 25 percent of those polled by Reid Research support National, the party’s leader sits at only 14 percent in the preferred prime minister stakes: nearly half of those who would vote National do not rate Collins as the prime minister.

The polling suggests that Collins’s penchant for attack politics is not resonating with voters. She has not been helped by the recent antics of (now departed or demoted) caucus colleagues Hamish Walker, Michael Woodhouse and Andrew Falloon, but the buck stops with her.

National’s default claim of being the better economic manager also took a blow in the most recent poll. Asked who they trusted most with the post-covid economy, 62.3 percent of respondents preferred a Labour-led government and only 26.5 percent a National-led one.

Could we see an outright victory?
Something may be about to happen to the shape of our governments. Under New Zealand’s previous first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system we saw a string of manufactured governing majorities.

For the better part of the 20th century either National or (less frequently) Labour would win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives with a minority of the popular vote. Indeed, the last time any party won a majority of the popular vote was 1951.

That may be about to change. Since the first mixed member proportional (MMP) election in 1996 we have not had a single-party majority government: multi-party (and often minority) governments have become the norm. That is because MMP does not permit manufactured majorities in the way FPP does. To win an outright majority you need to enjoy the support of a (near) majority of voters.

Labour may be on the verge of doing precisely that. If it does, it will be a very different kind of single-party majority government to those formed after FPP elections.

In 1993, for instance, the National Party formed a single-party majority government on the basis of just 35 percent of the vote. If Labour is in a position to govern alone (even if Ardern looks to some sort of arrangement with the Greens) it will be because a genuine majority of voters want it to.

Rogue poll or outlier on the same trend, Collins has had her honeymoon (if it can even be called that). In a way, though, neither Ardern nor Collins is the real story here. Much can and will happen between now and September 5 when advance voting begins. But something bigger and more fundamental may be going on.

If the pollsters are anywhere near right, New Zealanders will look back at the 2020 election as one of those epochal events when the electoral tectonic plates moved.

Dr Richard Shaw is professor of politics, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand’s National Party has elected Judith Collins as its new leader to replace Todd Muller, with Gerry Brownlee as her deputy to take on the Labour-led coalition government in the September general election.

Collins, 61, was first elected as an MP for Clevedon in 2002 and has been part of six Parliaments.

“I think it’s really important that we all have a common goal … to get rid of the current government and put in place a better government,” she said after emerging from the caucus meeting.

READ MORE: Muller’s ‘bolt from the blue’ resignation

“One of the things that unifies any party is if they see that we’re getting the results that we want … I think you’re going to find that we’re very focused on winning.

“There is no chance at all that I am going to allow … [Prime Minister Jacinda] Ardern to get away with any nonsense to do with our economy. I am going to hold her to account.

“I would say experience, toughness, the ability to make decisions … that would be myself. Jacinda Ardern is someone we should not ever underestimate.”

“We’re actually better. If you look at our team, our experience … it’s all better than Jacinda Ardern and her team.”

No major changes
She said the party’s policies would not see any major changes.

Collins, the MP for Papakura has been the shadow Attorney-General since May and holds the National Party’s spokesperson roles for several areas, including Economic Development, Regional Development and Pike River Re-Entry.

She has previously been the minister for ACC, Corrections, energy and resources, ethnic affairs, ethnic communities, justice, police, revenue and veterans’ affairs.

According to her National Party profile, she holds a Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws with Honours and a Master of Taxation Studies from the University of Auckland and was a lawyer and company director before being elected to parliament.

Brownlee said he was there to support Collins “and the rest of the team and that’s what I’ll be doing”.

He ruled out ever wanting the leadership.

Consideration for Muller
Collins replaces Todd Muller, who resigned this morning, saying it had become clear he was not the best person for the job.

Brownlee offered his sympathies.

“I just was devastated for Todd Muller and his family, I found Todd a wonderful person to work with … I’m sure he will continue to be just that.”

The party would continue to support Muller in what was a difficult time, Collins said. She said it was important that National MPs had no further distractions before the election.

History with scandal or controversy

• Dirty Politics 2014: She was accused of leaking information to her friend and right-wing blogger Cameron Slater in the book Dirty Politics. She resigned from Cabinet after allegations she tried to undermine the Serious Fraud Office director. An inquiry cleared her of wrongdoing. She was reinstated in 2015.
• Oravida 2014: She visited the Shanghai offices of Oravida, of which her husband is a director, while on a taxpayer-funded trip. The company used her photo as a product endorsement.
• Wetlands comments 2014: It emerged swamp kauri had been stockpiled in Northland under the name Oravida Kauri, another business linked to Oravida and Ms Collins’ husband. She outraged environmentalists by telling a reporter she did not care, saying, “Am I the Minister of Wetlands?”
• Brownlee was among former National ministers forced to defend the activities of private investigators under their watch after it emerged insurer Southern Response broke its code of conduct when it used security firm Thompson and Clark to secretly record meetings of earthquake victims. As former Earthquake Recovery Minister Brownlee took issue with the report, saying it used “inflammatory language that’s designed to make the big cost of it more palatable.”

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

The detailed reasons for opposition National Party leader Todd Muller’s shock resignation are something we are not yet given to know. At this point, anything other than the statement made by Muller himself is nothing more than speculation.

The announcement was a bolt from the blue even for those working closely in the National Party machine.

It is, in any event, ironic that Muller came to power as the result of a plot ostensibly about saving the National Party from an electoral disaster. Before the coup was even consummated, however, it was badly compromised.

READ MORE: Todd Muller resigns” ‘I am not the best person to be leader’

Key aspects of the challenge were botched leading to the airing of dirty laundry in a not very National Party-like fashion. The result was close with neither camp being entirely sure about who was going to win when the challenge played out – a recipe for wounded feelings.

Then, owing his position to liberal factions of the party of which he was not himself a member impaired Muller’s ability to make the leadership his own. Labour Party-aligned commentators and surrogates who had been touting their respect for Muller as a means of attacking Simon Bridges all of a sudden discovered that, actually, it turned out they didn’t respect him all that much now that his usefulness was over.

All of that was foreseeable and foreseen by those who argued against the coup. Nevertheless, almost anything would have been preferable to changing the leadership right now.

All the election hoardings have been printed and were ready to go up. In the modern, presidential manner of campaigns, the leader and deputy were featured prominently in the style of a real-estate power couple.

No Jacinda Ardern in the wings
Those will all have to be replaced now and in a hundred little ways like that, National’s attention is going to be focussed precisely where it does not need to be.

This would be one thing if there was a Jacinda Ardern waiting in the wings as there was for Labour when Andrew Little unexpectedly resigned in 2017. That is not the case for National in 2020.

Jacinda Ardern is one out of the box and no attempt at a pale facsimile is going to have the same effect in what is a very different electoral environment.

Furthermore, for all his own failings, Andrew Little had done a creditable job of uniting the Labour Party caucus before stepping down. Again, that is not the case for National now. The only thing uniting the party is the shared fear of catastrophe.

And given that many of those most vulnerable are among those most responsible for bringing it about, not even that fear can be completely counted on as the galvanising force it ought to be.

And this is the problem when a coup is not completely decisive. Grudges are nursed and neither camp feels a lot of responsibility for what comes next.

If National were to look for a historical precedent, it might look to Labour in 1990. Labour’s Sir Geoffrey Palmer had just resigned and then it needed its Mike Moore to try to save the furniture.

Moore was, of course, somewhat successful in those efforts with polls narrowing in the final few months before the vote.

But bearing in mind that Labour suffered a landslide loss that year, the example will not be of much comfort for National right now.

What could be?

Liam Hehir is from Rongotea, a small village in the Manawatū hinterland. He was formerly active in the National Party and writes about politics, religion and popular culture. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition National list MP Dr Jian Yang has announced his retirement from New Zealand politics and says he will not stand in the 2020 general election after three terms in the party caucus.

He said politics was “demanding” and he wanted to spend more time with his family.

“Accordingly, I have informed the party president that I should not be considered by the regional list ranking committee of the Northern Region in its meeting tomorrow, hence my announcement today.

READ MORE: Who is National MP Juan Yang – Checkpoint

“I truly believe that New Zealand is a great country.”

Of the 21 years he has been in New Zealand, he has spent 12 years in academia and nine in politics.

“I have been proud to be a part of what I think is a caucus that is truly representative of the ethnic diversity that is modern New Zealand, and to have played my part as a Chinese New Zealander in the governance of our amazing country.”

He said he was honoured to represent the Chinese community in Parliament.

Support for Chinese community
“I am proud that I have been able to assist numerous Chinese constituents and enabled the Chinese community to better understand and participate in New Zealand’s open and democratic politics. And I will continue to support New Zealand’s hard-working Chinese community outside of caucus.

In 2017, Yang confirmed he had taught ‘spies’ in China, but denied that he was a spy himself. A story on the Newsroom website raised questions about his involvement with Chinese military and intelligence.

He was a member of the Communist Party while he was in China but had not been since he left the country, he had said.

He said he enjoyed being part of governments led by Sir John Key and Sir Bill English and to have chaired two select committees.

“My trips to China with Prime Minister John Key, ministers and colleagues are some highlights of my political career. I have witnessed the rapid growth of New Zealand’s trade with China and I am pleased to have played a role in it.

“I wish Todd and the team all the best to win the election. New Zealand needs a National government.”

Last month National MP and ousted deputy leader Paula Bennett had also announced she would not be standing at the upcoming election.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Jacinda Ardern, we have some suggestions for when you go as New Zealand’s incoming Prime Minister to APEC in Vietnam next month. Take note of where you are – in a country that fought Western imperialists for decades, first the French, then the Americans, to successfully achieve independence.

What more appropriate inspiration for your new government, one elected by people wanting change for the better, to declare that Aotearoa too will become truly non-aligned and independent?

Close the Waihopai spy base, get out of Five Eyes, and pull the plug on the ANZUS-in-all-but-name military and intelligence alliance with Trump’s increasingly dangerous and unhinged United States. Get out of the American wars that we are already in, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan and definitely stay out of any new wars that Trump may try to drag us into, such as in Korea.

The Americans are very proud of having won their independence from the British Empire; it’s time for us to do the same from the American Empire.

Don’t sign the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) while you’re at APEC. With or without the US, it’s a dog.

And it is extremely feeble of Labour to say that your only quibble is your wish to stop foreign speculators from buying NZ houses. That is commendable in itself, but it is the very least of what’s wrong with the TPPA and so-called “free trade” deals like it.

The whole model of such foreign investment agreements is broken and needs to be reconsidered from scratch. They are in the interests of transnational corporations only, and certainly not in the interests of the New Zealand people.

Don’t be bullied
Don’t be bullied by so-called experts and journalists with an ideological agenda who accuse you of wanting to “close New Zealand off from the world”. Tell them to look no further than Australia which, for example, has much more stringent restrictions on house ownership by foreigners.

It’s great that you are giving the existential issue of climate change a high priority. Make sure that your government does something real about it, not just more greenwash. One thing that needs to be done immediately is to open this country’s doors to our Pacific neighbours who are under immediate threat of literally going under due to climate change.

They did nothing to cause this problem – whereas New Zealand certainly did and continues to do – but they pay the cost. Taking them in is not a solution to climate change, it is simply an acknowledgement of reparations for damage done. All up, there are only a few thousands of them. We owe them safe haven much more than we do American billionaires seeking a bolthole.

Both Labour and New Zealand First have expressed concern, to a greater or lesser degree, about foreign control of this country. Rest assured that it consists of a lot more than house sales and the relentless takeover of NZ’s prime rural land. They are important but the important stuff is who owns the real guts of the economy.

Name any sector of the NZ economy – take banks as just one example – and it is owned outright by, or dominated by, transnational corporations. That is where the emphasis must be for a government that is really committed to change. Making transnationals pay their fair share of tax is fine but is just tinkering around the edges. It is dealing with the insult, not the injury

Don’t just stop the further sale of public assets such as state houses – take back those assets that have been stolen from the people of New Zealand by your predecessors (both National and Labour). Renounce and reverse Rogernomics, not just because it proved to be electoral poison for Labour but because it was, and is, fundamentally wrong.

It constitutes a crime against the people, a crime of the few against the many. You can trace the dramatic spike in NZ’s deplorable slew of negative social statistics back to the deliberate imposition of that institutionalised inequality and declaration of class war on workers and those at the bottom of the heap.

Naughty old Uncle Winston has had the bad manners to mention the “C” word, one which no recent labour Leader has ever mentioned, let alone in a critical sense, for fear of inducing double incontinence in the business sector.

Good on him for doing so but he is indulging in wishful thinking. Trying to put a “human face on capitalism” is, to use another phrase from the election campaign, putting lipstick on a pig. Concentrate on sorting out the pig and forget about the lipstick.

Murray Horton
Spokesperson, Aotearoa Independence Movement (AIM)
Christchurch

Winston Peters has called it: NZ First is going into coalition with Labour-Greens.

In reality, it was the only decision he could possibly make.

Firstly, National has a scary reputation for devouring it’s coalition partners:

Peter Dunne – falling electoral support at each election until he faced a potentially humiliating defeat by Labour’s Greg O’Connor. Instead, he chose to resign and leave Parliament voluntarily rather than being turfed out by the voters of Ōhāriu.

ACT/David Seymour – a shadow of its heyday in 2002, when it had nine MPs, it is currently hooked up to perpetual political life-support. Seymour is tolerated by the Nats as a cute mascot rather than as a useful partner. No one has the heart to flick the “off” switch to end Seymour’s tenacious grip on parliamentary life.

The Māori Party – its close alliance with successive National governments took it from five seats in 2008 to losing everything at this election. Coalition with the Tories was the proverbial “kiss of death” for the Māori Party.

NZ First has dodged that party-killing-bullet by declining to join with the National “Black Widow” Party.

Baggage of failed policies
Secondly, a National-NZ First Coalition would have meant taking on the baggage of failed policies; knee-jerk rush from crisis-to-crisis, and bad headlines from the last nine years of mismanagement from the Key-English administration:

• Increasingly polluted waterways
• Families living in cars
• Under-funded health system
• Stretched mental health services
• Increasingly unaffordable housing
• Rising greenhouse gas emissions
• Low wages
• Economic growth predicated on housing speculation and immigration
• … etc, etc, etc.

A coalition with National would have meant taking ownership of nine years of worsening statistics and bleak media headlines.

How would that benefit NZ First? The answer is self-evident.

National has had nine years to address the critical problems confronting us as a nation. The sight of families with children living in cars or rivers that are toxic with urban and rural pollution and unfit to swim in is not the New Zealand we wanted to leave future generations.

Yet that is precisely the legacy bequeathed by the Nats and their neo-liberal, market-driven ideology. That would have been the poisoned chalice from which Peters would have supped from.

Fresh start offered
A coalition with Labour and the Greens offers a fresh start. It puts NZ First into a brand new government, with a fresh leadership, new ideas, and none of the baggage offered by a tired government that had simply run out of ideas.

It also accords Winston Peters with the legacy he sought: the kingmaker who put the sword to 33 years of the neo-liberal experiment.

The nightmare of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson is over. Neo-liberalism is dead.

Thank you, Winston Peters.

And as I promised: I offer my apologies for doubting that you would make the right decision. This is one of those occasions where I am happy to have been proven 100 percent wrong.

Frank Macskasy is a media and politics columnist with New Zealand’s The Daily Blog. Asia Pacific Report has a publishing arrangement with TDB.

• Peters opts for coalition with Labour-Green

A “supergroup” of New Zealand environmental organisations has sent an open letter to the leaders of four key political parties, warning them that the public expects them to deliver on election commitments.

Following the so-called “environment election”, seven environmental groups have delivered their strong message to the incumbent centre-right National’s leader Bill English, centre-left Labour’s Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand First’s Winston Peters and Green Party’s James Shaw as they prepare to negotiate the country’s next coalition government.

While the open letter congratulates the parties and politicians for their election success last weekend, it reminds them about their commitments to improve the state of New Zealand’s environment.

The group said there was now a strong public expectation that there would be clear gains for freshwater, the climate and conservation in the next three years. It has pledged to hold future leaders to their promises.

The letter offers politicians help in achieving those key gains.

“Environmental issues were at the centre of the 2017 election campaign,” the open letter said.

“No matter who ends up in government, they will have a clear mandate and a responsibility to take action on fresh water, climate change, and conservation.

“And they should know that we will be right there to make sure they do.”

The signatories to the open letter are Ecologic, Environmental Defence Society, Fish and Game New Zealand, Forest and Bird, Generation Zero, Greenpeace NZ, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-New Zealand).

The open letter says:
29 September 2017

Rt. Hon. Bill English
Leader, National Party
Jacinda Adern MP
Leader, Labour Party

Rt. Hon. Winston Peters
Leader, New Zealand First Party

James Shaw MP
Co Leader, Green Party

Dear Party leaders,
A winner in this year’s election was the New Zealand environment. It featured as a bigger concern amongst the electorate than ever before. All of you through your party manifestos made commitments to improve the state of our environment. We congratulate you for those promises.

As environmental leaders, we wish to offer our congratulations to all parties and to both sitting and new MPs for their election success. We also wish to acknowledge those parties and MPs who are departing Parliament and thank them for their work.

There is now a strong public expectation that whichever parties form the next government, there must be clear gains for fresh water, the climate and conservation in the next three years.

We offer our help in achieving these gains:

FRESHWATER
It is clear that ecologically healthy freshwaters, and the ability of New Zealanders to safely swim in their rivers and lakes, will be a key measure of environmental success for the new Government. This can only be achieved if government facilitates and supports a transformation of the primary sector toward new, environmentally-friendly land uses and practices, coupled with tougher regulation and market signals which reflect the true costs of resource use.

CLIMATE
There must be a more structured and transparent approach to tackling the greatest challenge of our time – climate change. New Zealand’s emissions have continued to climb and we need an ambitious plan on how to reduce them. Transformative change is required through a new law to establish a statutory carbon budgeting process overseen by an independent Climate Commission to plan, monitor and report on the transition to net zero by 2050. Anything less betrays this and future generations.

CONSERVATION
The jewels in the crown of our national identity are the unique species which inhabit our lands, waters and wild places. We need the new Government to institute real measures to protect and enhance the viability of our precious species. This includes the health of the diverse and invaluable terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that sustain both them and valued introduced species. An increase in funding of DOC’s core budget must be a key component in that strategy.

These issues, and the many others that fall under the umbrella of “environment”, are at the heart of the richness of our quality of life in New Zealand, and underpin our international reputation. They are also at the core of a genuinely sustainable future and are therefore true legacy issues. The natural world is our home and there are few greater gifts we can bestow our children than a vibrant, vital and healthy natural world.

We promise to continue our strong advocacy for the environment and look forward to working with all political parties, both in the next government and in the opposition, to achieve positive gains for our environment.

Yours sincerely

Kevin Hague
Forest and Bird

Russel Norman
Greenpeace New Zealand

Livia Esterhazy
WWF New Zealand

Bryce Johnson
Fish & Game New Zealand

Gary Taylor
Environmental Defence Society

Guy Salmon
Ecologic

Lisa McLaren
Generation Zero

• The open letter

In 2014, New Zealanders shrugged off dirty politics and mass surveillance lies and then voted National back in power to protect their speculative property bubble wealth. So, as a progressive, to be where we are three years later with Labour + Greens + NZ First being the majority, that’s a major victory.

Special votes, which include many of the “youth quake” who enrolled and advanced voters, are 384,072 (15 percent of the total vote) and they will not be counted for another two weeks.

It is believed that Labour and the Greens will benefit most from that and expectations are National and NZ First will come down and the Labour/Green bloc will get a boost.

Analysis suggests Labour and the Greens will each add an MP from the special votes which would gives a Labour + NZF + GP a majority of 63 seats in Parliament.

As Labour prepares to put together the negotiating team of their lives, and without knowing who can govern, it is clear from the result as we know it right now that there are some major winners and losers and looming issues that create immediate influence over the next government.

‘Dirty Politics’
The disgusting way National have openly lied to our faces has been extraordinary.

They have utterly failed to explain and justify how their mass immigration, milk powder to China and property speculation economic policy is helping 41,000 homeless, 10,000+ in prison, 300,000 kids in poverty, generations locked out of home ownership, student debt, infrastructure gridlock, mental health breakdown and the rise of the Blue Dragons, and instead just lied to our faces.

There was no $11.7 billion dollar hole in the Labour fiscal plan, no one would have paid more in income tax and claiming inequality and poverty were high because of the Christchurch earthquake as National’s Deputy PM Paula Bennett did was beneath our collective intelligence, but it worked.

Lies, deceit and wilful ignorance was National’s campaign and it worked well enough to win National 46 percent of the vote.

Corporate mainstream media
The right-wing corporate media won this result for National. The tirade of right-wing attack columnists and pundits who swamped all the newspapers and panel shows to repeat National Party spin lines was extraordinary.

The way they lynched Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei for courageously pointing out how damaged and punitive our neoliberal welfare state agencies have become while ignoring a possible Chinese spy in the National government highlights the obscene double standards of our rich white male broadcasters.

Willie Jackson
An incredible result for the Willie Jackson, campaign manager of Labour’s Māori campaign.

A total seven-seat sweep of the Māori electorates on top of an incredible pumping up of the party vote for Labour by Māori voters in the Māori electorates and the general seats marks Willie Jackson out as front bench material.

The Māori faction within the Labour Party is now the largest faction but most importantly, Willie Jackson’s close personal relationship with New Zealand First leader Winston Peters means he is the nervous system connection between Labour and NZ First that Labour leader Jacinda Ardern will need to make a Labour-led government work.

Read on

• Read the rest of Martyn Bradbury’s election column
• Revealed: China’s network of influence in New Zealand

On the eve of New Zealand’s 2017 general election, Pacific Media Watch reports on whether West Papua features in the human rights and foreign affairs policies and stances of the country’s five major parties.

Since the late 1960s, West Papua has controversially been ruled by Indonesia following what many critics dub an “Act of no choice”. Accusations of human rights abuses are rife and the media are all but banned, despite an apparent lifting of restrictions by President Joko Widodo in 2015.

Pacific Media Watch starts with the party that has the strongest policy on West Papua:

Green Party
The Greens have kept the issue of West Papua’s right to self-determination in the public eye and political arena, particularly Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty, who said she would continue to speak up for the people of West Papua, despite not running for re-election.

West Papua features heavily throughout the Greens website, both in the blog and press release sections. These sections reveal the party’s advocacy appears to stretch back to 2005.

Several Green MPs also signed the Westminster Declaration – a document which calls for West Papua’s right to self-determination to be legally recognised through a vote – during the visit of Free West Papua advocate Benny Wenda in May this year.

However, West Papua does not feature in the party’s human rights policy, but it does feature strongly within its “Global Affairs” policy. The document states it will promote human rights in Asia and support the self-determination movements of non-self governing territories, such as West Papua.

West Papua is mentioned both in relation to the Pacific Islands Forum and the UN Committee on Decolonisation in terms of its status. The policy has not been updated since 2011.

Labour Party
West Papua does not feature on the Labour Party’s website nor does it feature in the party’s foreign affairs or human rights policies.

However, within the party’s “Foreign Affairs Manifesto”, Labour states it will: “Enhance New Zealand’s specialist capability as a peace builder in the Asia-Pacific region” and makes special mention of the country’s past peacekeeping successes in Bougainville, Timor-Leste, Fiji and Solomon Islands.

Labour MPs Louisa Wall, Carmel Sepuloni, Adrian Rurawhe and Aupito S’ua William Sio have also signed the Westminster Declaration.

Māori Party
Like Labour, the Māori Party’s website does not feature any information on West Papua.

West Papua also does not feature within the party’s 2017 policy manifesto, and is absent in relation to international trade and relations and also Pasifika.

However, Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox has signed the Westminster Declaration.

National Party
Similar to both the Labour Party and the Māori Party, West Papua does not feature on National’s website. The issue of West Papua is not included in either its foreign affairs or Pacific Peoples policy.

The National government has also been criticised for its apparent refusal to acknowledge West Papua’s right to independence and instead uphold the sovereign integrity of Indonesia and its territorial jurisdiction of West Papua. This criticism has been directed at former Foreign Affairs minister Murray McCully and current minister Gerry Brownlee, largely by Free West Papua groups and the Greens.

In August this year, New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee rejected a petition spearheaded by West Papua Action Auckland which called for the government to make a “public and unequivocal” stand regarding West Papua’s right to self-determination.

A motion tabled in July 2014 by the Green Party calling on Indonesian president Joko Widodo to commit to genuine press freedom was supported by the government, however.

National Party MP Chester Burrows has also signed the Westminster Declaration.

New Zealand First
New Zealand First’s foreign affairs policy does not feature West Papua and no information on the Indonesian ruled region can be found on the party’s website.

When New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was Foreign Affairs minister in 2006, Maire Leadbeater of the Indonesia Human Rights Committee urged Peters to take urgent action over West Papua in a letter.

However, New Zealand First has said, within its 15 principles, that it wishes to be a “reliable neighbour in our region”.

Free West Papua advocacy group West Papua Action Auckland announced in August this year it was approaching all political parties to seek a clear policy statement on West Papuan self-determination prior to the election.

The group said: “New Zealand’s shameful acquiescence in this horror story in our neighbourhood must end.”

• More NZ election stories

Mangere Labour MP Aupito William Sio has hit out at claims by Tongan Māori Party candidate Manase Lua that Labour has done nothing for Pasifika people.

In comments reported by Kaniva News, Lua said Labour had backed 80 percent of the National Party’s legislation.

Aupito, who is Labour’s spokesperson for Pacific Island Affairs, said the Māori Party had been part of the National government and was responsible for New Zealand’s growing unequal society.

“They are responsible for the growing unequal society we now have,” Aupito said.

“While the wealth of the wealthiest New Zealanders continues to rise, we see more homelessness in our communities.

“People live in cars, garages, or share a bedroom among several people in a boarding house, a caravan, or hotel room.

“New Zealand never used to be this way. The Salvation Army tell us they see more and more people who work full-time coming to them for food parcels.

Māori Party support
““All this has happened under the National government, supported by the Māori Party.”

Aupito said that in opposition Labour had challenged the government on its spending of public funds and advocated strongly for more affordable housing, better fund healthcare, free education and for the lifting of family incomes and workers’ incomes.

“National has refused and only promised tax cuts, which favour the very wealthy.

“Labour has voted against the government’s budget in the last nine years because we don’t believe in giving wealthy people more money at the expense of creating more poverty, more homelessness and making it difficult for families to put their children through tertiary studies.”

Inequality more severe
In an interview with Kaniva News before the last election in 2014, Aupito said that in the previous six years inequality in New Zealand had become severe.

“People come to my office for a variety of reasons and often turn up as a last resort where they just aren’t getting any assistance from the various government departments,” he said.

“A lot of these issues have been determined by the struggles our families are facing.

“There’s also the housing crisis which affects so many of our Pacific families.

“The housing crisis has also been exacerbated due to the government removing itself from providing state houses.”

In the same interview, Aupito defended Labour’s record against criticism from the Pacific community for its stand on gay marriage.

He said at the time that while he respected members of the gay community, he had voted against gay marriage to reflect the views of the majority view of his Pasifika constituency.

• More NZ election stories