Over recent elections, tax policy has proven to be Labour’s Achilles Heel.

Its coyness on tax in the 2011 campaign led to John Key’s famous “Show me the money, Phil” retort to leader Phil Goff on Labour’s spending plans. When Goff could not answer satisfactorily, Labour’s campaign was sunk amidst a public suspicion of new taxes looming to pay for Labour’s policies. So, in 2014 Labour resolved to be more specific, explicitly promising to introduce a capital gains tax. But that did not work either and Labour was again heavily rejected by voters.

By 2017, Labour had fudged its intent somewhat, promising to establish an independent working group to review the tax system. It duly recommended the capital gains tax Labour had long hankered after, but, when the crunch came, Prime Minister Ardern baulked at the idea, saying the government lacked the political support it needed. She further added that even though she personally still supported a capital gains tax, she would never introduce one, so long as she was Prime Minister.

After her resignation in 2023, it became known that the Ministers of Finance and Revenue had been quietly working on a tax-switch package for the 2023 Budget under which a new wealth tax would be introduced for the “super wealthy”, to pay for making the first $10,000 of income tax free for all income earners. That plan was vetoed by then Prime Minister Hipkins, who also ruled out revisiting such ideas were his government to remain in office after the 2023 election.

One would have thought that Labour might have got the message by now. Apparently not, however. This week reports emerged that former Revenue Minister, David Parker, is working on a yet to be specified capital income tax aimed at the wealthiest New Zealanders. But showing the indecision that has plagued Labour on tax over the years, Opposition leader Hipkins could not quite bring himself to confirm what was happening, defensively saying it was just an “internal debate at this stage” and that more attention should be paid to the government's plans to bring in "new taxes".

The problem with this type of response is that it just confirms ingrained suspicions in many voters’ minds that a future Labour-led government will increase taxes on the wealthy when next in office. But Labour has never really come to grips with the political problem that causes for itself. While its lower income supporters will always welcome such moves, upper income earners and those middle-income voters aspiring to be wealthy – the voters Labour needs to win elections – will be less impressed or inclined to vote Labour accordingly.

To have any chance of succeeding, therefore, Labour will need to be far more transparent about its tax policy development, otherwise suspicions will mount. Labour must spell out the tax problem to be remedied as it sees it, explain why it is a problem, and how their plans will resolve that. But that is a risky strategy, given the electorate’s overall twitchiness about tax policy, which may not work. However, it is far preferable to the timid, non-committal approach that Hipkins has taken over the last year, which did not work then, and will certainly not work in the lead-up to the next election.

At a wider level, the tax issue exemplifies Labour’s current overall conundrum. Conventional wisdom strongly suggests it is unlikely to win the next election with Hipkins still leader, and after just one term in Opposition. But then it seems just as unlikely that it would do any better were there to be another leader. Moreover, both the leading alternative names suggested – Kieran McAnulty and Barbara Edmonds – have so far emphatically ruled themselves out of leadership consideration. Each would face major credibility issues if they were to about-face on those unequivocal commitments now.

For the foreseeable future, therefore, Hipkins’ position as leader seems safe, and with it his tendency to prevaricate, to Labour’s detriment, looks likely to continue. This week, for example, he emphatically denied that Māori ceded sovereignty when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi, only to add later that “that doesn’t mean the Crown doesn’t have sovereignty now, but that Māori didn’t cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty.”   

For Labour’s sake, Hipkins’ needs to understand that such obfuscation aimed at keeping all Labour’s potential supporters on-side, ends up pleasing no-one. And that while Labour continues in this vein, hoping that the government will eventually trip itself up, it will make little impact or be taken seriously. 

The water pipe, which burst beneath Wellington’s Cambridge Terrace on Wednesday morning, could not have chosen a better moment to do so. Not only did it cause massive traffic disruption, but also a loss of water pressure, and in some cases supply, to the nearby suburbs of Roseneath and Mount Victoria. It was the last thing needed by both the beleaguered Wellington City Council, and the hapless Wellington Water (the utility company owned by the region's Councils) whose handling of the region’s water issues has already become a national joke.

 

For that was also the very day the Prime Minister was due to make his first major address on local government to the annual conference of Local Government New Zealand - the body which represents all the country's local authorities - at the Wellington City Council's new Takina Conference and Exhibition Centre, just a few hundred metres away. Moreover, the theme of his address was that Councils need to "rein in the fantasies" and get "back to the basics" of collecting rubbish and fixing pipes and potholes. Councils had to return to “reality” he said, adding that “the days of (government) handouts” are over because ratepayers “are sick of white elephants.”

 

The Prime Minister also spoke in detail about Local Water Done Well, the government's recently announced national water upgrading government plan to replace the former Labour Government's Three Waters scheme. His remarks could not have been clearer, and more pointed, and his target more obvious. Coming on top of the Minister of Transport’s remarks to a Wellington Chamber of Commerce breakfast that same morning where he “congratulated” his audience for making the “arduous journey” into Wellington City, past leaking pipes, and an “infestation of speed bumps”, the Prime Minister’s comments confirm the government’s general disdain for the left-wing Wellington City Council and its current leadership. But whether the Council will heed, or even listen to, the government’s messages remains to be seen.

 

Certainly, the Prime Minister’s “back to basics” message will strike a chord with ratepayers in Wellington and elsewhere who are facing large rates increases over the next few years. They are likely to welcome a renewed focus on fixing potholes and pipes, and better waste collection services, ahead of more inner-city speed bumps and raised pedestrian crossings.

 

But, to mix a metaphor, it is not all a one-way street. While ratepayers generally want to see less Council indulgence and a greater focus on getting the basics right, they do not expect that to mean the government withdraws completely from any role for Councils to support the development of local amenities or services. At the Local Government Conference, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the government’s intention to remove once more the promotion of the “four well-beings” – social, environmental, economic and cultural – from local government’s mandate. These had been put in place by the Clark Labour-led Government, removed under the previous National-led Government, then restored under the last Labour-led Government.

 

However, that should not mean that those well-beings are to be ignored completely. By default, if nothing else, the responsibility for upholding these now shifts back to central government. The Prime Minister and his colleagues cannot allow the abolition of the well-beings as local government responsibilities to also mean that they are to be ignored by central government. Yet that now appears very likely to be what will happen.

 

Culture and heritage looks set to be the first area where this will occur. Our system of classification for buildings and items of heritage significance is a national, not regional, one. So, maintaining and upgrading buildings and items of national heritage interest ought to be the responsibility of central government, not hard-pressed local ratepayers. But that is not happening, nor is the government showing any interest in honouring our national heritage classification system.

 

In Wellington, for example, a significant contributor to the sharp rates increases has been the blow-out in the costs of restoring the city’s earthquake-risk Town Hall. Some, like the increasingly heritage-sceptic Housing Minister, have questioned the Town Hall’s heritage value, but so long as the building retains national heritage status, the responsibility for funding its restoration should not be falling as heavily as it is on Wellington ratepayers, while the government sits idly by.

 

It is the same with Christchurch Cathedral. This iconic building in the heart of the city is one of the country’s best-known buildings. It is a long standing image of Christchurch and the quest to secure its restoration became a symbol of the city’s resilience to come back after the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. But now the project is being mothballed indefinitely because of a funding shortfall of $85 million, which the government is refusing to meet. Christchurch Cathedral has been a central feature of the city’s life since construction began in 1864 – so it is hardly a “white elephant.” But the government’s short-sighted decision calls into question its commitment to upholding national heritage classification and protection standards. After all, in the grand scheme of government finances $85 million, possibly advanced by way of suspensory loan over many years, is not a large amount. 

 

Beyond that and arguably more worryingly, the government’s refusal to act also sends a clear message that at least so far as culture and heritage is concerned this government has no interest in upholding the well-being responsibility it is about to remove from local government. That raises the far more important question whether it will be similarly uninterested when it comes to upholding the social, economic, and environmental well-beings it is about to remove as well.

 

As with its wider reforms, the government narrow focus on getting to know the true cost of various services risks it overlooking unwisely their wider value and benefit

In every government there is a quiet achiever – a Minister who just gets on with the job and gets things done, without fuss or fanfare, no matter what else is going on around them. In the current government, that Minister is Judith Collins.

When Collins lost the National Party leadership in bruising circumstances in 2021, after a difficult couple of years in charge, which had included one of National’s biggest-ever election defeats in 2020, many wondered about her political future. She left the leadership role largely unlamented and unloved, with little apparent support in her Caucus.  While no-one really expected her to slope off into political oblivion – that did not seem within her nature (she was renowned as a natural fighter) – many speculated she might become a difficult personality within the National Party Caucus, like Sir Robert Muldoon did after he lost the National leadership in 1984.

Initially, her assertions that she was “the ultimate team player”, “always happy to be a constructive member of the team” were taken with a considerable grain of salt. But over the next two years in Opposition, despite a comparatively low Caucus ranking of 19, Collins proved to be just that, burying her head and working hard and effectively in her roles as National’s spokesperson on Research, Science, Innovation and Technology. She was able to build up a rapport with the science and technology community that, despite public platitudes of support, has often felt neglected by governments in the past. Collins also developed an interest in space technology, an area in which New Zealand has the capacity to play an increasingly important role, as the growth of companies like Rocket Lab is showing. 

When National returned to government last year, Collins unsurprisingly returned to Cabinet, ranked number 8 around the table, and holding the substantial portfolios of Attorney-General, Minister of Defence, Minister for Digitising Government, Minister Responsible for the GCSB and the SIS, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, and New Zealand’s first Minister for Space. She was also appointed a Kings Counsel in December 2023.

In each of these portfolios she is already marking a mark. As Attorney-General she has made several new judicial appointments and is overseeing the government’s response to the Royal Commission’s Report into the Christchurch Mosque Attacks. As Minister for Digitising Government, she is working on unifying government digital services, beginning with developing an app to bring together all NZTA services from vehicle registration reminders, to warrants of fitness and ultimately leading to a digital driver’s licence.

As Minister of Defence, Collins is at the forefront of New Zealand’s efforts to assist Ukraine, and, more controversially, in discussions about what role, if any, New Zealand should seek to play through Pillar Two of the AUKUS Agreement. She has also taken up the cause of conditions of service for Defence personnel.

In both her related roles as Minister in Charge of the GSCB and SIS, Collins has taken a strong position on protecting New Zealand from mounting international cybersecurity threats. In her Science, Innovation and Technology, and Space roles, Collins has also been busy. This week, she announced her intention to modify New Zealand’s genetic modification rules to better align them with current international practice.

There is also Collins’ previous experience during the Key and English governments as a Minister holding at various times the Police, Corrections, Justice, ACC, Revenue and Energy portfolios. They add to the breadth of experience she brings to the present government. Whether one agrees with her politics or not, Collins has proven to be one of National’s best performing Ministers, the ideal combination of a safe and reliable pair of hands that gets things done, seemingly with a minimum of fuss. Other Ministers, still struggling to come to grips with their portfolios could well look to Collins as a guide on how to carry out their roles effectively.

Through her actions since leaving the party leadership, Collins has effectively rewritten the book about how ex-leaders should behave within a party Caucus. Over recent years, there have been examples in both the major parties of disruptive former leaders, sulking on the backbench, more interested in trying to protect their reputations, than serving their party’s needs. True to her initial post-leadership assertions, Collins has resisted that temptation, and proven that if they are of a mind to, ex-leaders can play a constructive role in their Caucuses and make an effective contribution to government.

 

Too often, an apparent concern for good public policy is really a cover for the protection of vested interests. In a small and intimate society like New Zealand this can make it difficult for governments to reach the best decisions on critical issues.

There is no intrinsic wrong in groups promoting their vested interests when issues of public policy are being considered, provided those interests are clearly identified. However, we are often too polite a society to do so. And so, the vested interests become – by default – a more significant part of the story than they deserve to be.

Earlier this week, the Maritime Union hit the news with claims that the cost of cancelling the Cook Strait ferry replacement could be as high as $500 million on top of the $500 million already spent on “sunk” costs. It did not name its “impeccable” sources, saying unconvincingly they were far too sensitive to be revealed publicly. Nevertheless, the media took the unsubstantiated claims seriously and dutifully reported them as such. So far, there has been no independent confirmation of the Maritime Union’s assertions, which are left looking like fact.

The Maritime Union has a long history – led by such colourful figures over the years as Fintan Patrick Walsh, Bill “Pincher” Martin and more recently, Dave Morgan. It has always staunchly promoted mariners’ conditions of service and general rights, leading to some of our more significant industrial disputes. So, its entry into the ferry replacement debate should therefore be seen for what it is – a legitimate attempt to protect the future employment interests of its members. Dressing it up as a wider concern about the contract arrangements for the replacement of the ferries is a clever tactic from the union’s perspective, but, in the absence of corroborated information, is hard to take more seriously.

In a similar vein, the head of a major traffic management company says, “everyone wants to tackle the cone problem, but framing it as a ‘war’ implies someone will have to lose”. And, he says, such rhetoric will undermine the attempt to save lives. While admitting that New Zealand might be the world’s “most cones per worksite” nation, he seeks to position the argument in more reasonable terms, saying the issue is a safety one for the community to resolve. He professes support for the criticisms of the Transport Minister and the Mayor of Auckland about what they consider to be the excessive use of cones. But then he says he has “a problem with some of the consequences of their delivery” and falls back on the cones are “an item ultimately designed to protect someone’s life” defence.

He also just happens to be chair of the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group which is considering ways in which current traffic management issues can be streamlined and improved to gain more public support. He could have added – but did not – these include protecting the interests of the plethora of traffic management companies across the country and the revenue they derive from central and local government.

Given his comments, and the prominence of traffic management companies and their ubiquitous cones, this is another area where it will be difficult to separate the obvious protection of vested interests from a sound public policy outcome.

Earlier this week, the government announced it was accelerating from 2026 to next year, the introduction of a new mathematics curriculum for primary and intermediate school students to significantly improve achievement rates. Since then, there has been a steady stream of criticism of the plan from various education groups. This has ranged from questions about who was involved in advising the government on the new approach, to claims its introduction is being unnecessarily rushed, and that there has been insufficient consultation.

The policy is certainly a departure from what was being developed under the previous government, and there are suggestions traditional practices are being bypassed, with resource materials being sourced directly from the private sector, rather than developed in-house as usual. It is easy to see how some professional noses are out of joint that the government is apparently upending their traditional way of doing things in favour of what the Prime Minister says is “swift action to transform maths education” and to end what he describes as years of “not setting kids up for success.”

However, in the debate which has followed this announcement the idea of “setting kids up for success” seems to be taking very much a back seat to the interests of the professional groups. It parallels the wider discourse about education which too often descends into the narrower argument of more resources for teachers, rather than the best ways to meet the needs of children. But skewing policy decisions to appease educational interest groups, as has happened too often in the past, has not always led to the best outcomes for children and parents, as appallingly low maths achievement rates confirm.

In an open society, interest groups have a right to promote their interests and causes and to seek to influence policy outcomes accordingly. But there also needs to be greater recognition that vested interests and good public policy outcomes do not always coincide, and that in the interests of transparency vested interests need to be identified clearly and publicly, so they can be appropriately discounted.

Above all else, the ongoing responsibility facing governments is to pursue the best policies, not just those which satisfy the most interest groups.

If being Leader of the Opposition is, as often described, the worst job in politics, then being Speaker of the House of Representatives is, as Gerry Brownlee is now discovering, the loneliest.

The office of Speaker ranks highly in New Zealand, third behind the Governor-General and the Prime Minister in the official Order of Precedence. Appointment as Speaker carries the entitlement to the honorific “Right Honourable” for life, and a near-automatic Knighthood on leaving office.

The Speaker’s role is a combination of Parliamentary, ceremonial, and administrative functions. The Parliamentary function is to preside over the business of the House, including Question Time and significant debates. In doing so, the Speaker pledges to uphold both the “rights and privileges” of all Members, “without fear or favour”, and Parliament’s Standing Orders (the rules by which Parliament’s debates are regulated), including ruling on their application and interpretation.

The Speaker also performs ceremonial functions on behalf of Parliament at significant State occasions. Administratively, the Speaker chairs the Parliamentary Service Commission, which oversees the work of the Parliamentary Service, which employs Parliament’s staff and looks after the day-to-day running of the Parliamentary complex. 

Above everything else, the Speaker is expected to be scrupulously impartial. But the Speaker is also a politician, elected to Parliament every three years on a party label. Almost invariably, the Speaker is drawn from the ranks of the government party and is usually a senior politician of many years standing, often with a lengthy background as a Minister. (The only time in the last eighty-odd years where the Speaker was not from the ranks of the government party was 1993-96 when Labour’s Sir Peter Tapsell held the role because of the narrowness of the National Government’s majority.)

While the Speaker’s vote on legislation is still recorded as being one of their party’s votes, the Speaker is expected to sever all other party ties (until the next election). Speakers seldom attend party Caucus meetings (although some have been known to do so during Parliamentary recesses).  Informally, and through the Business Committee – the cross-party committee that meets each week to determine upcoming business in the House – the Speaker is kept aware of the government’s legislative plans but has no direct input into these. Yet, at the same time, as at least one former Speaker has observed, there is an informal expectation that the Speaker will help the government “get its business through the House.”

Therefore, in short, the Speaker is expected to be the friend of all in Parliament, but no-one in particular. The Speaker is often criticised by one side of the House or the other for either not seeing the things the way they do or being too accommodating of the other side's interests.

On occasions, the differences between the Speaker and a party, relate to the interpretation of a particular Standing Order, but these are usually resolved through informal discussion, outside the Parliamentary Chamber. It is against Standing Orders to directly criticise the Speaker, with resort to a motion of no-confidence being the only permissible way of doing so. This nuclear option is seldom used or even threatened. I recall only one such time in the late 1980s during my time in Parliament.

All of which makes the current row brewing between the Speaker and the ACT Party that much more interesting. There are two levels to this. The first is that Speaker Brownlee has determined that his ruling last week that Members cannot display prominent party stickers on their laptops in the House, also means they cannot wear lapel badges featuring their party logos.

ACT MPs wear these lapel badges like a uniform, the same way many other MPs across the House have done over the years. ACT has taken affront to Brownlee’s decision that lapel badges are the same as stickers on laptops. He has subsequently escalated things by refusing to allow MPs to speak in the House, including Ministers answering questions, if they are wearing party lapel badges.

This seems on overreaction, inconsistent with upholding the “rights and privileges” of Members, “without fear or favour”. It should be capable of resolution through off-line discussion, rather than the trivial-looking public posturing we are now seeing.

The second issue is more complex. ACT is aggrieved at what it considers racially motivated abuse against Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, over her support for boot camps and the removal of the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi in the Oranga Tamariki legislation. ACT believes that the level of verbal and other abuse Chhour has been receiving within the Parliamentary precincts is completely unacceptable, and that Brownlee, as chair of the Parliamentary Service Commission, has not done enough to protect her and other Members from such abuse and intimidation.

 

In effect, Brownlee is being held to account by ACT for failings by the Parliamentary Service to ensure Members have a safe work environment, in the same way a Minister would be held to account for performance failure within their department. That is an important recognition of the reality that the Speaker’s responsibilities also include the operation of Parliament as a whole, not just the Chamber and the select committees.

It is also significant that ACT, as National’s senior coalition partner, feels the need to “go public” on the issue – a clear measure of the extent to which it feels Brownlee has failed to respond. Given its sensitivity, other parties are unlikely to rush to Brownlee’s aid, lest they become caught up in the row.

Coming on top of the issues that occurred during the previous two Parliaments about behaviour and conduct, which led to at least one independent review, a Speaker now appearing to drag the chain on allegations of abuse and intimidation of Members is far from a good look.

Brownlee needs to front up and treat seriously the concerns ACT is raising – otherwise his role as Speaker will become even more lonely.