The last few weeks of coalition negotiations have been reminiscent of the Mainland Cheese advertisement on television, where the cheesemakers wait, and wait, for the cheese to say it is ready.

Now, with the imminent swearing-in of the new three-way coalition government, attention will shift from the process of its formation and the tedium that induced, to the job that lies ahead of it over the next three years. The new government comes to office at a time of heightened international tension arising from the ongoing war in Ukraine, the mayhem and carnage in Gaza, and the fallout from increasing super-power rivalry in our own part of the world. On the domestic front, inflation, high interest rates and an economy hovering just above recession are at the forefront of most peoples’ minds.

The new government will therefore want to hit the decks running, both to demonstrate the viability and credibility of the new coalition arrangement, and to introduce some of its promised immediate legislation. The principal item here will be the Mini-Budget incoming Finance Minister Nicola Willis has been long promising, but it is also likely the government will want to introduce other items of legislation that reflect the key parts of its agreements with ACT and New Zealand First.

That will not be as easy as it sounds. It is possible, but unlikely, that the new 54^th Parliament will be summoned to meet next week. The following week seems more likely. The ceremonies associated with the Opening of Parliament will take up most of the sitting time available during Parliament’s first week. These formalities include the Commission Opening by a panel of senior Judges, the swearing-in of Members, the election of the Speaker, the State Opening of Parliament by the Governor-General with the Speech from the Throne, and the moving of the Address-in-Reply debate in response.

That will leave just two sitting weeks before Christmas. Although the timetable will be very tight, it should allow sufficient time for the government to introduce some legislation, and to pass through all stages any legislation associated with the Mini-Budget especially if the government takes Urgency to extend Parliament’s sitting hours.

But again, things are not quite that simple. The new Ministers do not have any authority to direct their departmental officials to begin work on any of the new government’s plans, until they have been sworn in as members of the Executive Council early next week. This is particularly pertinent to the development of the Mini-Budget.

While it is highly likely that Willis has been working on the content of that statement since the election, she has been unable to seek any Treasury input into its content until she is formally sworn in as Minister of Finance. Although the content of the statement is properly her (and the government’s) political prerogative, it would be extraordinarily unusual – not to mention massively unwise – to proceed without Treasury’s advice and input. Allowing for Cabinet approval of the content of the Mini-Budget, it is unlikely to be introduced to Parliament before the end of the week after next at the earliest. It would be prudent (if a little symbolic given the time available) for the government to then refer any legislation associated with it to the Finance and Expenditure Committee for what would only be the briefest and most perfunctory of consideration, before being passed through all its remaining stages in Parliament in the week before Christmas.

The Mini-Budget will be the government’s first big challenge. It must get it right, so it cannot contain any errors, or loopholes that will be subsequently discovered. This puts additional pressure on Willis, her staff, and officials. Aside from its content – likely to be pared back anyway from the scope initially foreshadowed – the Mini-Budget will be an early test of her credibility as Minister of Finance. Not only the public, but also the financial markets, will be watching in critical judgment, and their broad reaction will help frame the way in which the government is perceived as its term unfolds.

Other key aspects of the government’s legislative programme are less critical at this stage. If ready, they can be introduced to Parliament before the Christmas recess, then referred to the relevant select committees for consideration over the next few months.

Overall, though, the next few weeks through to Christmas will be a chance for new Ministers to demonstrate their capability and intent to the public, and to shape the political agenda for next year and beyond. The government will be keen to leverage off new Prime Minister Chris Luxon’s brand as crisp, competent, no-nonsense, decisive and in charge. Given its unique make-up – New Zealand has never had a three-way coalition government before – all three parties will also be keen to show they can make the arrangement work.

Although the Labour and the other Opposition parties will not be all that relevant to the political process in the lead-up to Christmas and the foreseeable future beyond, the pre-Christmas Parliamentary sitting will provide an opportunity to assess what sort of an Opposition they will be. It will be interesting to see how quickly they adapt to the role of holding the government to account and exposing any shortcomings, and how effective they will be.

After a long political year, and a hectic time in Parliament before Christmas, politicians might be forgiven for looking forward to a decent summer break to recharge their batteries. However, they are almost certainly going to be disappointed – Luxon has already made it clear he thinks Parliamentarians have too long a summer break. He wants things to resume much earlier in January than has been customary.

So, after weeks of political radio-silence where nothing much appeared to be happening, we now seem set for a period of frenetic political activity. The relative quiet of the last few weeks is at an end.

 

 

Over 2,500 years ago the legendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu observed that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.

This week Labour began its journey of a thousand miles towards political rehabilitation. Its first step was the correct one to endorse Chris Hipkins as party leader. To do otherwise would have been extremely foolhardy.

Only Hipkins has the mana to manage a battered and bruised Labour Caucus as it begins its long journey to recovery. There is no-one else in the Caucus with the capability of doing that. Hipkins’ retention was the sensible and obvious move, and the fact it was carried out with a minimum of fuss is a positive for Labour.

Similarly, with the elevation of Carmel Sepuloni to be the new deputy leader. While doubts remain about her policy record in government, her confirmation ends the awkward position of 2020 and 2023 where Kelvin Davis was passed over to be the Deputy Prime Minister, while remaining the party’s deputy leader. Sepuloni’s appointment has resolved that and is a vote of confidence in her.

The unanimous endorsement of the Hipkins/Sepuloni team sends a clear message that they will be the duo to oversee Labour’s rebuild, in sharp contrast to the turmoil of Labour’s 2009-2017 period in Opposition when it churned through five different leaders. However, that is not to say that this will be the pairing that takes Labour into the next election.

What happens next will be largely over to Hipkins. While he says he intends staying in the job for the full Parliamentary term, he could hardly have said anything else at this stage. What is more likely is that over the next eighteen months to two years he will quietly reassess his situation and long-term aspirations. It would be no surprise then to see him follow the pattern of other former Prime Ministers and decide to step down from Parliament altogether, at or before the next election.

But as with every step Labour took during its time in government things are never as quite straightforward as they might seem. In this case, the first positive step on the leadership was not matched by nearly as sure-footed a start to the wider question of what the party now stands for and how its future message and appeal to the electorate will be shaped.

Hipkins’ first statement – that Labour would be reviewing all its policies and starting from a clean slate position – was positive enough and the right line to take. But he quickly allowed himself to be trapped into having to explain whether that meant capital gains and wealth taxes – which he had ruled out only a few months ago – were now back on Labour’s agenda.

In short, he made a hash of the explanation. Instead of saying Labour was beginning a ground-up review of all its policies and that it was premature (and silly) to be talking about specific policies at this stage, before the review had even begun, let alone been completed, Hipkins “clean slate” line quickly became these taxes are back on the table.

And that creates huge problems for Hipkins – how can he credibly say these taxes are back on the agenda when Labour is in Opposition, when he so emphatically ruled them out a little while ago when in government? Even the CTU’s economist, usually amongst the most fanatical and uncritical of Labour’s supporters, has warned that before committing to new taxes Labour first needs to establish the case for them, something, by implication, it has not done so far. Instead, all Labour has done has been to give the incoming government a free weapon to continue to beat it with.

This is not to say that tax policy will not be a critical aspect of Labour’s review, nor that it does not need to address capital gains and wealth taxes as part of that. It does – the advocacy for such from future natural partners, the Greens and Te Pati Māori ensures that. But any moves in that direction should be the consequences of a wider policy programme (the Greens, for example, set out very clearly the specific policies they would introduce from the proceeds of a wealth tax), and not just a policy one-off the way Hipkins made them sound.

Nor does Labour need to rush this process. The early confirmation of its leadership gives Labour time and space for a thorough and careful policy review. In any case, the reality of Opposition means that Labour will not be politically relevant for the next eighteen months to two years (unless either ACT or New Zealand First feel compelled at some point to abandon the Luxon government), so it has plenty of time on its side.

In that period, alongside its policy positions, Labour also needs to review its personnel. Ironically, its election drubbing is a partial help in that regard. Half its Caucus now come from the party list, which means they can be replaced without the need for by-elections, should any of them choose to stand down. Already, Andrew Little has announced he will do so, and questions remain about the futures of Grant Robertson, Kelvin Davis, Willie Jackson, and others.

All these MPs could quickly go and be replaced by those next on the list – all first or second term MPs defeated this year.  But that highlights another of Labour’s problems. All those of talent from Labour’s 2017 and 2020 intakes are already in Parliament, thanks to this year’s list. Those next on the list and likely to return if current MPs stand down are unlikely to add anything to Labour’s firepower in Opposition.

So, as Labour’s thousand-mile journey begins, it will need to avoid being swept along by the political circumstances of the moment and show instead extraordinary patience and stamina. Only then has it a chance of success.

 

 This coming weekend the Annual General Meeting and Conference of the United Fire Brigades Association will take place in Wellington. It will be the largest such gathering in the organisation's 145-year history, with more than 600 delegates and observers attending.  

The United Fire Brigades Association represents the 86% of New Zealand's urban and rural firefighters who are volunteers. While Fire and Emergency New Zealand is the operational body responsible for the delivery of fire and emergency services, it is heavily reliant on the volunteers. Volunteer firefighters cover 93% of New Zealand’s land mass, including virtually all the area that has been at risk from recent adverse weather events.

 

To put the contribution of volunteers into perspective, 567 of New Zealand’s 647 fire stations are crewed entirely by volunteers, and a further 34 stations are crewed jointly by volunteers and employed firefighters. Only 46 fire stations, mainly in the four main centres, are crewed entirely by employed staff. The UFBA also represents airport fire services and other urban search and rescue services personnel.

 

I have the privilege of chairing the United Fire Brigades Association. However, by way of disclaimer, the comments in this column are my own views, and do not necessarily reflect those of the UFBA.

 

As the country recovers from the aftermath of the recent Cyclone Lola, and with the memory of the damage wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle earlier in the year still raw for many people, it is worth remembering that the bulk of the emergency response work to those events was carried out by firefighters, the vast majority of whom were volunteers. 

 

This is not new – firefighters have been the primary responders to civil emergencies for many years. In 2014 New Zealand's firefighters received a United Nations' commendation for their response to the 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. 

 

Yet the myth persists that there is a vast network of separate civil defence workers out there who step into the breach whenever an adverse event occurs. Government agencies like the old Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, and the National Emergency Management Agency which replaced it, perpetuate the myth. There is no such standing civil defence army.

 

As we saw with the cyclones in the north and east of the North Island earlier this year, it was primarily firefighters – overwhelmingly volunteers – who responded to the civil emergencies affecting their communities. And it is volunteer firefighters who are often the first responders to other emergencies – like road accidents. Attending structure fires now accounts for only about a fifth of the incidents firefighters attend.

 

When, as Minister of Internal Affairs, I amalgamated the old Rural Fire Service and the New Zealand Fire Service into a single organisation – something first recommended by a Royal Commission in the wake of Ballantyne’s fire in Christchurch over 75 years ago but ignored by successive governments – I deliberately named it Fire and Emergency New Zealand to reflect the wider role firefighters have today.

 

Yet within the bureaucracy there has always been a belief in the need for some sort of overarching emergency structure to provide co-ordination in the event of a national disaster. Hence the retention for many years of the position of director of Civil Defence, now replaced by the National Emergency Management Agency, as an autonomous agency within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. NEMA’s role is to provide “leadership and support around national, local and regional emergencies” and to provide information to local authorities to assist them in their own disaster preparedness.

 

But both NEMA and the local authorities lack any personnel capability to respond effectively to a national or local emergency. That is where firefighters come in. Under the changes I made in 2017, Fire and Emergency New Zealand has nationwide statutory responsibility for fire safety, firefighting, hazardous substance incident response, vehicle extrication and urban search and rescue. There is no need to invent another wheel to run alongside that.

 

Firefighters already provide the emergency response capability the country needs to deal with the range of adverse natural events that might befall it. We have seen that at work in the responses to the cyclones we have endured this year. The clear message from these has been that the speed of the response has been most critical, and the value of local knowledge was of paramount importance. Local need, not national bureaucratic leadership, drove the community response to what was happening.

 

What our emergency response services, especially our volunteer fire and emergency services need now is adequate resourcing and training to deal with the challenges increasing adverse weather events brought on by climate change are posing to the resilience of local communities. FENZ is best placed to respond to those challenges, but it must be adequately resourced to do so.

 

Bureaucrats locked away in the Beehive bunker, “providing leadership and support” in a time of emergency are all very well. However, a far more practical and productive use of their time would be ensuring that our firefighters, urban and rural, volunteer and employed – those who do the real work – have the resources and expertise they need, so that they can continue serving their communities the way they have done for the last 145 years.