The unravelling of Britain’s Royal Family being brought about by the continuing revelations from Prince Harry about his upbringing and the way the “firm” reacted to his new wife and son continue to attract attention around the world. It seems to matter not whether one is a monarchist or republican – natural prurience is keeping enough people lapping up the stories for media outlets to keep seeking more and more from the disgruntled but seemingly eagerly obliging Prince to keep the gossip alive.  

Whatever else one may think about it, the issue raises the interesting question of the extent of the public’s right to know personal details about the lives of those in prominent public positions. The general rule-of-thumb so far has been that the public right to know extends only as far as those details impact upon the person’s ability to carry out the functions required by their position. 

Short of that, as Prince Harry’s case demonstrates, the public is often subjected to all manner of trivial and silly details about a public figure’s private life, their likes and dislikes and much other nonsense via magazines and soft media stories in some strange act of national titillation. Over the last year or so, this ritual has reached new heights, or probably more accurately, plumbed new depths. For many it is just harmless, trivial fun, to be taken with a grain of salt, scoffed at over morning coffee, and then put aside. 

But, aside from the coffee table diversions, there is a more serious and concerning point about all this banality. New research by international media monitoring firm Isentia based on thousands of media reports about leaders and leadership in the past year shows that what the media say about leaders and their leadership is not only critical to their popularity, but more importantly, their perceived trustworthiness and effectiveness. In other words, perception rather than performance has now become the key to evaluating effectiveness. 

To make things even more bizarre, many other surveys are currently recording declining trust in news media credibility. So, we have this extraordinary situation where the public seems to lap up every detail about our public figures’ private lives, however trivial, fatuous or salacious, as solid fact that the news media they distrust dishes up. Yet, weirdly, they then base their assessments of these public figures’ trustworthiness and effectiveness on this information! 

It is a situation ripe for political exploitation and manipulation, whereby “soft and nice” stories about community and national political and other leaders are offered by their media managers to media outlets, with the dual expectation in return that not only will the stories be published, but also that their warmth will influence the way the media portrays their person in other more challenging situations. We have seen many examples of this over the last couple of years. 

There is another more worrying aspect to all this. Given declining trust in media credibility, what confidence can we have that the media will look beyond the froth when it comes to serious stories about the way our leaders are doing their jobs. Does the false intimacy all the soft stories engender mean that the media is no longer willing to probe more deeply than the superficial when harder issues arise about what our leaders have been up to? 

We are often told a fearless and unfettered news media is an important democratic safeguard. Although the relationship between politicians and the media has always been symbiotic, for obvious reasons, it has generally been considered that each should hold to its own corner. But is that still true, given the Isentia findings, or has the media now become the politicians’ captive plaything, incapable of running critical stories that might negatively impact on public perception? If so, what implications does that have for an open society’s right to know the evidence, as well as to be critically informed? 

As recent events in New Zealand and elsewhere confirm, the obsession with soft and trivial stories is becoming too overwhelming – in an age of so many other choices people are increasingly turning to media that run the stories they like. Those stories, rather than the facts behind them, often become the new truth that contorts public perception and opinion accordingly. The distinction between hard news, which can sometimes be unpleasant and challenging, and soft stories presenting people in the best light to shape favourable public impressions of them is becoming significantly blurred. 

However, a properly informed electorate remains the key to a functioning democracy. The news media still has a vital role in ensuring that people have full, meaningful and accurate information on which to base their political preferences, especially at election time, or even at times of great national crisis. For that reason alone, countering the increasing focus on trivia at the expense of what matters and the media pliancy that can give rise to, is posing a serious challenge all open and democratic societies need to confront.

 

 

As he brought this year’s Budget together Finance Minister Grant Robertson would have been mindful of three factors.

First, the Budget should set out significant steps towards reducing inequality, child poverty especially. This, after all, had been a pillar of Labour’s campaign prior to coming to office in 2017. So far, partly because of previous Coalition constraints and more latterly the onset of Covid19, alongside its own innate caution, Labour’s record on this front had been rather dismal, with most indicators showing little to no positive movement, and some even going backwards. Now, as a majority government unconstrained by Coalition partners, there would be little excuse for the government not being able to make the progress it promised on this front.

Second, the management of the ongoing response to Covid19, both in terms of the economic readjustment in certain key sectors, and the delivery of the vaccination programme during this year, would continue to be a major focus of the Budget. At the same time, given the extraordinarily high levels of borrowing set out in last year’s Budget to meet the costs of the pandemic, some focus on the future debt repayment programme would be expected, alongside some assurance that the borrowings that had already occurred were being used prudently.

Thirdly, Grant Robertson’s earlier Budgets (with the exception of last year’s Covid19 Budget) had been criticised for a lack of strategic direction. This was undoubtedly largely due to uncomfortable Coalition arrangements which no longer apply. Consequently, this year’s Budget provided an opportunity for the government to at last set out a clear strategic pathway, not just for the year ahead, but for the next three to five years.

And, underlying each of these factors, was the Finance Minister’s ongoing stated commitment to maintaining a prudent approach to fiscal management.

Against that background today’s Budget was very much a Curate’s Egg Budget – good, even very good, in parts, but quite lacking elsewhere.

As far as inequality is concerned, the Budget borders on the dramatic. Only the most mean-spirited of people will begrudge the $3.3 billion increase in benefit spending over the next two years. Lifting all benefits by $20 a week from 1 July this year, and $55 a week from 1 April 2022, as recommended by the Welfare Expert Advisory Group, could see up to 33,000 children lifted out of poverty. Sitting alongside the $380 million allocation to build up to 1,000 new homes for Maori and repair 750 others, it is a significant step towards what the Finance Minister described as the government’s “quest to reduce inequality.” However, it is discounted to some extent by the lack of additional funding for Whanau Ora and general accommodation assistance for families struggling now with high housing costs.

The Budget also scores highly on the management of the Covid19 response. Its economic projections are substantially more encouraging than those produced at the time of last year’s Budget. Unemployment projections of just 4.3%, the creation of 221,000 new jobs over the next four years and wage growth of 3% are far more positive than those set out a year ago, even though they have still to be achieved. Projected debt as a result of last year’s substantial borrowing programme remains high by our recent historical standards, but with a new estimated peak of 48% of GDP in 2023, is lower than forecast twelve months ago. And it is still way below the debt levels of countries like Australia and Britain.

So, the Budget scores well in terms of reducing inequality and sound economic management but is more disappointing when it comes to overall direction.

Labour seems to have passed up the opportunity of being the first government in a generation to be able to present a Budget untrammelled by having to meet Coalition or support partner concerns. This year’s effort is just as directionless as the two far more constrained pre-Covid19 Budgets this Minister has been responsible for. It is certainly not the “strong and confident plan” he proclaimed it to be in his Budget speech.

Instead, it is very much a maintenance Budget – addressing those areas that could no longer be overlooked, like rising inequality, and making sure the housekeeping is kept under good control. Beyond that, there was very little to cause excitement or flurry. Increasing PHARMAC’s budget by $200 million looks positive, but as the agency itself acknowledges, will not be enough to enable to fund all the new medicines queuing up. $700 million for new hospitals again looks good but will not go far. Likewise, with the additional $761 million for school buildings. A new allocation of $1.3 billion for rail upgrades also looks promising but in need of more detail, while the $300 million allocated to the transition to a low carbon economy is probably on the low side of what is required to achieve full carbon neutrality.

While businesses and New Zealanders generally will feel a little relieved that the country’s medium-term prospects look far less bleak than they did at Budget time last year, and that the plight of the most vulnerable households is being addressed, they still have no clear picture of how the government views the journey ahead or where our future opportunities might lie. The Budget’s failure to step into this territory is not only puzzling but also extremely concerning, raising questions about whether the government is far more focused on redistributing the economy, rather than growing it.

Reducing inequality and getting “the balance right” in economic management are worthy goals in themselves, consistent with the government’s “Wellness” approach. But focusing on “Wellness” alone without a similar emphasis on “Prosperity” will not be enough to secure New Zealanders’ future wellbeing. Early in his Budget speech the Minister said the three Budgets he will present during this Parliamentary should be viewed as integrated package. On the evidence of this year’s Budget that means the next two will need to project a much stronger focus on achieving growth and prosperity than has been the case to date. Other countries are already moving ahead in this space and New Zealand cannot afford to be left standing still as the world moves on from Covid19.

 

There has been a desperate and palpably false rumour circulating in recent weeks that the resignation of the Prime Minister is imminent. Meanwhile, Jacinda Ardern remains just as firmly ensconced in office as she ever was. However, it does raise the intriguing question of just who might take over as leader of the Labour Party in the most unlikely event the Prime Minister decides to move on any time soon.

The general view has been that Finance Minister Grant Robertson would be best placed to become the next Labour leader. After all, he is the current Deputy Prime Minister, although not the deputy leader of the Labour Party, a role he has held previously, and has gained respect as a competent Finance Minister. He is a close friend of the Prime Minister and is one of the most recognisable faces in the current government.

However, he has tried and failed twice before to become leader of the Labour Party – first in 2013 following the resignation of David Shearer, and again in 2014 when David Cunliffe stood aside after that year’s election debacle. After his second defeat he appeared to rule out future leadership bids, although that has not stopped other political leaders from changing their minds as the political circumstances shift. Although still only 49 years old, Robertson’s bigger problem in any future leadership bid could be that in this era where the value of experience seems heavily discounted, he might be considered too much of the old guard to be Labour’s face of the future.

In any case, he now has a clear rival for the status of heir apparent. The star of Chris Hipkins has been rising over the last couple of years. Although he has been in Parliament the same length of time as Robertson, he is seven years younger, and looks more youthful. Like Robertson, he is affable and a fluent communicator, but with more of a twinkle in his eye.
Whereas Robertson is so laid back he can sometimes appear a little languid, Hipkins, while no less relaxed, comes across as more energetic. However, unlike Robertson, he is starting to reveal some of the smugness of Ministers who know that they are on top of their portfolios develop, which may count against him.

Both Robertson and Hipkins have been tested in tough government portfolios and have not flinched. Hipkins, though, seems to have become the Prime Minister’s “go to” Minister in crises. He added Health to his already busy roles as Education Minister, Public Service Minister and Leader of the House, after the David Clark debacle. Now, he has swapped Health for the no less demanding role of Covid19 Response Minister, in addition to all his other responsibilities, and is increasingly becoming the government’s face on Covid19 matters, surpassing even the Prime Minister. He comes across as no less soothing or assured than the Prime Minister, but crisper and more precise in his presentation.

His big current negative, which he can easily curb, is that his enthusiasm for the Labour cause is so blind that there are times when he sounds like New Zealand’s version of Comical Ali. (Comical Ali was the nickname given to Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, the Iraqi Information Minister who became infamous during the Iraq War for his repeated colourful assurances that all remained well in Bagdad, right until the bitter end.)

Hipkins’ assertion that the government’s recent disastrous public sector pay-freeze, which it has now backed down from, was actually “the opposite of that” and really about enabling “the people on the lowest incomes to do disproportionately better than those on the highest incomes” was sufficiently incredible it could have been a straight lift from the Comical Ali playbook. Similarly ludicrous is his claim that the Covid19 vaccine rollout is going so well and quickly that we are actually now in danger of exhausting our vaccine supplies before the next shipment arrives at the end of June. It hardly fits the repeated reports of confusion and delays at vaccination centres or the reality that around 120 other countries have already achieved far higher vaccination levels than New Zealand – which, according to his colleague Megan Woods last year, would be at the head of the vaccination queue because of the way the government had responded.

The biggest obstacle Robertson and Hipkins, and anyone else for that matter, would have to overcome in any post-Ardern leadership contest is Labour’s convoluted leadership selection process. The Caucus, which best knows the strengths and weaknesses of potential candidates as it works alongside them day in and day out, has only a limited say in this process, with the shadowy, unelected trade union bosses who seek to control so much of what the modern Labour does and is about, having an influential role in the selection of the party leader.

Robertson has already come up against this barrier twice before and has lost both times. Hipkins, on the other hand, is not yet so tarnished or scarred. Perhaps that, and an eye to the future, explain his desperation to present to the state sector unions with the best possible explanation of the state sector pay freeze Robertson had announced.     

 

 It is time for Speaker Trevor Mallard to go. His extraordinary conduct in Parliament this week in defence of false rape allegations he made against a Parliamentary staffer not only further demean himself, but also Parliament as a whole. For the sake of Parliament’s reputation, if not his own rapidly diminishing credibility, he needs to go, and quickly. 

The role of Parliament’s Speaker is a crucial one within our Parliamentary system. It is normally held by a senior Member of Parliament, more often than not from the government party, who has a measure of respect from all sides of the House. Because of the nature of the role, the Speaker needs to demonstrate impartiality, good judgement, and fairness, topped off by a calm temperament, and an extraordinary level of patience and good humour. The Speaker also needs to maintain the confidence of the House as a whole, not just the government majority, to be able to operate effectively, and gain the co-operation of Members. 

Few Speakers achieve all of these requirements. But most have enough of the skill-set to be able to operate constructively, albeit on occasions with the most grudging support of the non-government side of the House. 

Mr Mallard is the exception. Despite being a very long-serving Member of the House, he possesses none of the tact and sensitivity good Speakers need to gain the respect and co-operation of all parties in the House. Mr Mallard’s political style has always been brutal, confrontational and uncompromisingly partisan, useful attributes for the cut and thrust of normal government/opposition politics, but never desirable qualities in a person chosen to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

The manifestations to date of Mr Mallard’s temperamental unsuitability to be Speaker have focused around his management of the House, particularly Question Time. While there has been an edge to them, they have, by and large, been the standard complaints all Oppositions have from time to time, that they are not getting what they would regard as a fair deal from the Speaker. Although Mr Mallard’s irascibility and rudeness has been causing this traditional friction to be more tense than usual, the situation, although increasingly difficult, was not out of control – until this week’s events. 

The controversy surrounding Mr Mallard’s handling of sexual abuse allegations, including his false rape claim, has been around for some time. It was brought closer to a head recently with the revelations of the substantial legal bills the taxpayer has already met as a consequence of his remarks. Mr Mallard had always said he would answer his critics and offer a full explanation at the appropriate time in Parliament. That time was this week. 

Those who may have expected the Speaker to have provided a reasoned, factual and possibly contrite explanation of his conduct and the reasons for his claims were completely off the mark. True to form, Mr Mallard’s response was defiant, aggressive, belligerent and intolerant of any criticism. His remarks were highly personalised towards those National MPs who had been raising the issue in recent months, and went way beyond what anyone might have imagined the reasonable response of a Speaker would be in such circumstances. 

But herein lies the problem and the reason why Mr Mallard can no longer continue as Speaker. The Opposition has been expressing “no confidence” in the Speaker for some time, but given the Prime Minister’s unwavering support of him and the government’s strong majority in the House, it has been comparatively easy to date to brush that criticism aside as just another disgruntled Opposition grizzling. 

However, the visceral and highly personal nature of Mr Mallard’s response changes all that. Now, there can be no doubt that, having showed his true colours so clearly, the Speaker lacks the capacity to deal with the Opposition impartially and fairly that his position requires. In turn, that creates a significant problem for the government and the Prime Minister in particular. To date, her position – correctly – has been that the choice of Speaker is a matter for Parliament, not her, to resolve, since the Speaker is elected by Parliament, not appointed by the Prime Minister. 

Mr Mallard’s behaviour this week puts both the government and the Prime Minister in a bind. If they do nothing and continue to stand by him, they will be effectively condoning his conduct. But it would be an unprecedented step for the government to support a vote of no-confidence in the Speaker. At the same time, given her long and frequently professed commitment to a kinder, gentler style of politics, the Prime Minister will be aware of the potential long-term cost to her own reputation of continuing to be seen remaining so closely tied to a Speaker who is so clearly neither of those things. 

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House have now spoken out against the Speaker’s conduct after this week’s Parliamentary events, although both say still they have confidence in the Speaker. These are at best holding statements. They sound remarkably like the start of the time-honoured political tactic of slowly but firmly pulling the rug out from under someone. It is the way you withdraw confidence in someone, without formally doing so. You cannot credibly carry on indefinitely being critical of a person’s conduct on the one hand, while continuing to express confidence in them on the other. Once the Prime Minister expressed “serious concerns” about his conduct, Mr Mallard was effectively left with nowhere else to go. It is not just a matter of Mr Mallard’s credibility any more – the Prime Minister has now placed hers on the line as well. Mr Mallard cannot win against that. 

In such situations, the person concerned is usually allowed a quiet time of reflection before announcing they have decided, as they always intended, that it is now time for them to move on to pursue those other interests they really have always wanted to. For the sake of Parliament, and the credibility of the Prime Minister he has served so loyally, Mr Mallard must now come to that realisation quickly – and resign.