For more than a century New Zealanders have prided themselves on their “can do” mentality. Our “number eight wire” approach to problem solving is legendary. It derives from the ability settlers developed in the early days of colonisation to utilise number eight-gauge fencing wire to fix all manner of things for which parts were either unavailable or too expensive. It was an ingenuity and resourcefulness necessitated by the country’s geographic isolation.

Over time, it became an important part of our national make-up, signifying an approach to resolving issues that was both practical and innovative. New Zealanders became very confident of and content with their ability to deftly and efficiently resolve difficult problems this way.

So, it comes as a jolt to the national psyche when that “can do” approach is challenged. Such a challenge came recently from the chief executive of the Ports of Auckland when he told an Auckland audience that New Zealand was becoming known internationally as “No” Zealand “because you just say no to everything.” While he was talking about tourism and cruise ship visits particularly, his jarring warning can be applied to other areas as well.

Over the last twenty years or so there has been a decided shift away from the previous generally permissive approach to new business and social activities to a more specific emphasis on “permitted activities”. These activities have generally required resource consents under the Resource Management Act, often introducing new compliance costs and additional regulatory restraints on activities. In addition, ever increasing health and safety standards have imposed their own restraints.

Against that backdrop, it is easy to see how the “No” Zealand image can take hold in stark contrast to the innovative “can do”, nothing-is-a-problem approach we have been used to. And it is easy to see how the desire to light regulatory bonfires becomes so attractive.

Although some of the regulations put in place over the last couple of decades have been excessive and, in some cases, downright silly, most have been necessary to protect the environment, ensure good workplace practice and uphold safety. The answer to the “No” Zealand complaint is not therefore to get rid of all regulations – nor was the Ports of Auckland chief executive suggesting that – but to ensure that when regulations are put in place their focus is enabling activities to proceed, rather than preventing them.

In this regard, the regional government reforms announced by the government this week and foreshadowed in this column some weeks ago, assume an additional importance. Many of the regulations businesses complain about as constraints on their activity emanate from regional government and often appear more about preventing or restricting an activity than facilitating its development in an environmentally sustainable way.

As well as being a de facto amalgamation of territorial, district authorities and cities, the government’s reforms are also an opportunity to get rid of the regulatory inconsistencies and lack of common standards that apply at present. The aim should be to streamline current procedures and set clear and consistent standards governing future commercial and other activities in a region. If an entity complies with those standards, it should then be permitted to operate, without the need for costly licences and permits, which have often become no more than a revenue gathering device for the local council.

As the Ports of Auckland chief executive noted elsewhere in his remarks, there are now clear incipient signs of economic recovery – for example, container volumes handled at Auckland last month were the highest in nine years. Similar cautiously optimistic comments have also been made by several economic commentators in the last few weeks. This week’s OCR rate cut by the Reserve Bank is a further sign of recovery.

But the caveat they are all entering is that the recovery is still in its early stages and will take further effort to be sustained. A defter regulatory approach to new existing businesses therefore becomes more imperative, to lock in what gains there are at present.

Earlier this year the Prime Minister told a government-convened infrastructure summit that New Zealand was open for business again and was keen to engage with the international investment community. The “No” Zealand message is somewhat at variance with that call, but needs to be heeded, nonetheless.

If the government’s regional government reforms are accompanied by a more rational regulatory approach that focuses on encouraging commercial and other opportunities, rather than restricting them, the “No” Zealand message can be countered. And the Prime Minister’s call that New Zealand is open for international investment again will look more credible and achievable.

But beyond that, a more positive and pragmatic regulatory environment may reinvigorate our traditional “can do” optimism and energy. It has been to our national cost that that spirit was allowed to become dormant in recent years when conformity and compliance held sway.

The proposal advanced by the Institute for Democratic and Economic Analysis (IDEA) for a Kids Kiwisaver scheme raises interesting questions.

Under IDEA's plan, which is effectively a compulsory savings scheme by stealth, every child would be automatically enrolled in Kiwisaver at birth. There would be a government kick-start to each new Kiwisaver account and thereafter a government matching of small annual contributions by low- and middle-income families to a child's account.

IDEA estimates that the overall cost to the government would not be high, and that by the age of eighteen, each child so enrolled would have about $10-20,000 in their Kids Kiwisaver account, which could then be converted into a full adult Kiwisaver account. Along the way, IDEA hopes that those young people will have developed a strong savings habit to see them through the balance of their working lives.

When Kiwisaver was established in 2007 its purposes were two-fold. The first was to provide a long-term savings vehicle for New Zealanders to boost their retirement savings and lessen their reliance on National Superannuation after the age of 65. The second was to boost New Zealand's poor national savings record by effectively locking up access to Kiwisaver funds until the age of 65, so that invested Kiwisaver funds could be utilised for infrastructure development.

A limited exception was subsequently introduced to allow access to a portion of one's Kiwisaver funds for purchasing a first home. Over the years there have been calls to allow access to Kiwisaver funds - such as repaying student loans or meeting health costs - but governments have so far sensibly resisted these. Kiwisaver’s strength – both from a personal and a national perspective – is that funds are locked in until the saver turns 65, providing a measure of certainty for the future.

For the IDEA plan to succeed, it will be important to ensure that this aspect is preserved across the board and that young savers will not be able to withdraw their funds at age 18. Some may argue that 18-year-olds ought to be able to access funds saved through Kids Kiwisaver to pay for their tertiary education. However, that misses the point of what a long-term savings scheme should be all about. Any compromise on this point simply diminishes the value of a long-term retirement savings scheme and is contrary to Kiwisaver’s founding principles.

In any case, savings by parents, through whatever form, to meet their children’s future educational costs, while laudable, are a personal choice, reflective of their circumstances, and should not something the government becomes involved in supporting through matching contributions.

When Kiwisaver was introduced, it was a voluntary contributory scheme. It quickly proved more popular than originally anticipated, raising the question of whether it should be converted to a compulsory national scheme. However, successive governments have demurred on this point, perhaps mindful of the result of the 1997 referendum on a proposed Compulsory Retirement Savings Scheme when 91.8% of voters rejected the idea, although this result is generally thought to have been influenced by a negative reaction to New Zealand First which had promoted the referendum.

Nevertheless, the reluctance to apply overt compulsion notwithstanding, Kiwisaver has since its introduction in 2007 automatically enrolled new employees, who have up to 56 days to opt out of Kiwisaver if they wish. So, the scheme has become a de facto compulsory savings scheme.

However, IDEA’s plan for a Kids Kiwisaver scheme enrolling every child at birth raises again the question of whether the government should grasp the nettle and remove the current opt-out provisions altogether. As it stands, it is estimated that 96% of the workforce are currently in Kiwisaver, so removing the opt-out provisions is hardly likely to be controversial and would be simple to do legislatively.

So far, there have been no signs of any moves to make Kiwisaver compulsory. While some political parties’ policies favour compulsory Kiwisaver, the issue is not a priority for the current government. Nor was it for its predecessor. Both governing blocs seem content to let the sleeping dog of compulsion lie, figuring that 96% voluntary membership of Kiwisaver makes the final step to compulsion unnecessary.

Similarly, there has so far been little political reaction to the IDEA plan, suggesting that the parties are not persuaded that a separate Kids Kiwisaver scheme is necessary. After all, there is nothing to stop parents opening Kiwisaver accounts for their children now, although there is no government incentive to do so. But the current arrangement is skewed towards better off families that can afford to make regular savings contributions for their children, a point IDEA’s plan seeks to rebalance through its proposed government matching contributions to low- and middle-income households. However, whether those families will be in a financial position to make meaningful contributions is doubtful.

There is also the question of whether better-off families would use the Kids Kiwisaver plan to shelter income and thereby reduce their tax liability, raising tax avoidance issues, sure to attract the attention of Inland Revenue.

Nevertheless, the IDEA Kids Kiwisaver plan is a useful contribution to the ongoing wider debate about promoting a better savings culture in New Zealand and long-term retirement planning generally.  

Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby once advised his Minister that “nothing must be done for the first time” because “doing the ‘right thing’ once could create a dangerous precedent, obligating one to do it again.” Therefore, he argued it was best to do nothing at all, thereby avoiding setting any precedent.

In advice to Parliament’s Education and Workforce Select Committee in August regarding a petition calling for volunteer firefighters to receive the same coverage as employed firefighters, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Accident Compensation Corporation jointly argued that “Expanding work-related cover to volunteer firefighters would be complex to implement. Work related cover is only available for injuries that are caused by work. ACC would continue to need sufficient evidence that a work-related mental injury, disease or infection was caused by the work tasks carried out. This would be less clear cut than it is for paid employees.”

In other words, do nothing. The principle that experienced volunteer firefighters exposed to the same level of risk should receive the same level of ACC coverage as their employed counterparts if injured or exposed to the same carcinogenic risks while doing the same job is apparently too difficult to comprehend. Or that paid firefighters who are fully covered as employees would not be covered if they were working in a voluntary capacity. Therefore, best to do nothing. Advice straight out of Sir Humphrey’s textbook.

It is little wonder so many politicians consider the Yes Minister series was far more a documentary than a comedy. The tragedy is that the attitudes and bureaucratic behaviours it pilloried so savagely in the 1980s are still alive and well in the public service over 40 years and several public sector reform rounds later.

The joint MBIE/ACC advice picks up on Sir Humphrey’s ‘right thing’ warning. They advised the select committee that if the law was changed to broaden ACC coverage for volunteer firefighters, it would have to be extended to include other emergency service volunteer workers such as Surf Lifesaving New Zealand, Coastguard, Land Search and Rescue, St Johns and Wellington Free Ambulance. Well, yes that is obvious and has never been denied by the petition’s sponsors and the United Fire Brigades Association. But it is hardly a valid reason to continue to do nothing.

MBIE and ACC did however concede that the cost of extending coverage to volunteer firefighters would be only $244,533 annually, but then, lest that might persuade MPs to support the petition, quickly fell back on the tried and true ‘thin end of the wedge’ argument. Again, Sir Humphrey would have been very pleased that his advice was being followed.

The sad thing is that while Sir Humphrey’s observations were made in the world of fiction, there are real people suffering today because of the lack of ACC coverage that MBIE and ACC so staunchly defend. If these agencies were genuinely concerned about the categories of volunteers not properly covered by ACC at present, they would have proposed specific possible solutions to the select committee, not hidden behind the many “why not” reasons their official advice contained.

None of the reasons they proffered were insoluble. All could have been easily resolved with a little creative and constructive thinking. But meeting need by providing proper public service is clearly beyond the scope and moral capability of these two agencies and their leaders. Again, conduct the same as Sir Humphrey would have advised. By focusing on process over outcome, MBIE and ACC are seeking to prevent change and the implementation of just, beneficial and fair social policy, an outcome many would describe as bureaucratic failure.

MBIE and ACC concluded their advice to the select committee with the somewhat dismissive observation that “depending on the circumstances, volunteers can endeavour to seek damages through the courts, and prosecutions under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 may also be able to provide reparations.” They should be careful about what they wish for.

Any actions by volunteers for compensation through the courts would likely lead to substantial damages being awarded against the Crown, far more than the $244,533 annual cost of extending ACC coverage reported to the select committee.

But then, as Sir Humphrey once told his Minister, “The public doesn't know anything about wasting government money. We're the experts." By their bureaucratic lethargy on the volunteer firefighter coverage issue, MBIE and ACC seem keen to prove this point all over again.

 

There were more MPs at this year’s Taiwan National Day celebrations in Wellington than I can recall in over 30 years of attending this annual event. And they all spoke, recounting favourably aspects of their Taiwan-government sponsored visits to the country, and their admiration for its democratic system of government. They represented all parties in Parliament except the Green Party, and Te Pati Māori (who were too busy fighting amongst themselves). It looked to be a clear sign of support across the House for Taiwan and its achievements.

No wonder the Chinese Government was annoyed. After all, the strong turnout of MPs at Taiwan’s National Day could be seen as a direct thumbing of the collective political nose at China’s constant attacks on any suggestion Taiwan be viewed as an independent state. However, the turnout probably had more to do with the fact that it was during Parliament’s dinner break, and this was a good function for MPs to attend at a nearby venue, before they returned to the House for the evening session.

Nevertheless, that did not stop the enraged over-reaction of the Chinese Ambassador to what happened. In an extraordinary letter to the MPs concerned he denounced their attendance at the function, rebuked them for their temerity in doing so, and warned them they were placing New Zealand’s critically important relationship with China at risk.

Unfortunately for him, all the Ambassador’s intemperate response has done is confirm how little he and his colleagues are prepared to understand how freedom of speech and association works in a democratic society like New Zealand. While China has every right to assert its view that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and that the resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter for China alone to resolve, it has no right to expect its view to automatically prevail over the views of those in this country who hold a contrary opinion.

If MPs attending Taiwan’s National Day celebrations were interfering in China’s domestic affairs, as the Ambassador alleged, then his letter to them was by the same measure an unwarranted interference in New Zealand’s affairs, not to mention an attack on individual rights to freedom of thought and expression.

During my time as an MP, I visited Taiwan several times, meeting senior Ministers and officials, and attending a Presidential inauguration. As a Minister, I met at least one Taiwanese Minister in New Zealand, and on another occasion hosted a dinner where the Chinese Minister and his Taiwanese counterpart sat either side of me. None of those meetings provoked the type of response the Chinese Ambassador showed to recent events. Nor did they threaten or challenge New Zealand’s adherence to the one-China policy followed by all New Zealand governments since 1972. Rather, they focused on bolstering the mutual economic and cultural relationship between New Zealand and a valued trading partner, within the constraints of the one-China policy.

Over the years, both China and Taiwan have shown a commendable subtlety in managing their relationship which has worked well for both, as the increasing free flow of people and commerce between them shows. Countries like New Zealand are becoming well-versed in understanding the dynamic of that relationship and working alongside it. The biggest risk to destabilising the carefully crafted balance now in place is not the attendance of MPs at an annual function hosted by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, but a blunderbuss intervention of the type it provoked from the Chinese Ambassador.

However, the saving grace is that in an open society like ours the overbearingly critical words of the Ambassador will quickly dissipate, unlike in China where a heavily managed state media would have made them far more ominous and threatening.

The future of China and Taiwan is for each to resolve. The last thing either need is the active intervention of external parties. But that does not mean, as the Ambassador fails to understand, that other countries or individuals within those countries cannot express or even hold a view on the situation. A peaceful and fair resolution of the tension is in all our best interests, hence the value of ongoing dialogue and association.

For New Zealand, as a small trading nation, maintaining open communication with both China and Taiwan is an important part of our ongoing trade and foreign policies. We need to have good relationships with both. Therefore, although the Chinese Ambassador’s outburst was ill-considered and unfortunate, it cannot be allowed to get in the way of our ongoing relations with both China and Taiwan.

 

In 1994 the then Labour Opposition resolved to introduce a new top tax rate of 39 cents in the dollar. The reason for the policy was purely political, not fiscal. Labour was shedding votes to Jim Anderton's left-wing Alliance at the time and wanted to do something symbolic to staunch the flow. Increasing the tax rate on top income earners would be that symbolic gesture.

I was Labour's revenue spokesperson then, and a member of its front bench. However, I had been left out of any discussion of the policy because of my known opposition to symbolic policy gestures. So, as a matter of principle, I resigned from the Party a few days after the policy was announced.

Labour's new damp-squib capital gains tax policy hurriedly announced this week has many similarities to those times. It is more about pandering to Labour's militant envy-saturated left wing to stop them deserting to the Green Party than serious and sound policy. As such it is a policy of symbolism rather than significant change.

The decision to exclude the family home or farm from the tax has kneecapped the policy from the start. It will not produce enough revenue and will simply incentivise home and farm owners to invest more in their own properties, knowing that no matter how much their equity will increase their capital gain will never be taxed. Meanwhile, those struggling to enter the property market will continue to struggle. Indeed, not one homeless or inadequately housed person will be helped into a home of their own because of this policy.

And the pledge to use what modest revenue may be derived from the tax to fund three free doctors' visits a year is no more than a clever charade. Without more doctors, introducing three free visits a year will do nothing to reduce the waiting time for a doctor's appointment. Indeed, if anything, it is likely to increase that waiting time and will not cause any more doctors to be trained. But linking a capital gains tax on the alleged wealthy to making free doctor's visits possible is nevertheless clever politics, even if it will not increase overall levels of healthcare.

Moreover, if Labour's new capital gains tax was intended to mollify disgruntled supporters contemplating shifting to the Green Party, it may have precisely the opposite effect. The Greens' leadership has already attacked Labour's new policy as "watered down" and not going nearly far enough.

Labour may feel for now that the Green’s opposition gives credibility to the policy. But in the longer-term Labour may have no option in any post-election government formation talks with the Green Party to either increase the proposed 28% capital gains tax rate or broaden its base beyond property assets as announced to get a coalition deal over the line.

Nor is there anything new in Labour's policy announcement. It is essentially the same capital gains tax plan that Sir Michael Cullen's Tax Working Group recommended in 2019. At the time, Cullen said then was the last chance to introduce a capital gains tax because of ingrained public prejudice. When she rejected the Working Group's recommendation, then Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern ruefully said that although, "I have believed in a CGT, it's clear many New Zealanders do not." It was a similar sentiment from her successor Chris Hipkins a year later when he ruled out introducing both a capital gains tax and a wealth tax so long as he was Prime Minister.

All of which underscores the flakiness of Labour's new policy.  Hipkins' complete flip-flop on this issue in just two years has irreparably damaged his credibility and reliability. Nothing he says on future tax policy can now be taken seriously. That is not a good look for someone vying to be New Zealand's leader again, especially at a time when trust in politicians is at an all-time low.

There is also a combination of arrogance and naivety in Labour’s announcement. Hipkins and his colleagues appear to believe that they can succeed where their predecessors have so consistently failed. No Labour leader – in government or Opposition – has yet successfully sold the idea of a capital gains tax, however limited in scope, to New Zealand voters. Hipkins himself was the last Labour leader to fail that test, even if he now seems to have forgotten that. The suggestion that this Labour Caucus can, through the bribery of free doctors’ visits, do what their predecessors have all proven unable to do is simply laughable.

Therefore, a strong leader would have heeded the warnings of the past and recognised the folly of persisting to flog the capital gains tax dead horse. Such a leader would have upheld sound policy over symbolism and stared down Labour’s tax-and-spend fanatics to forget it once and for all in the interests of electoral credibility.

By abandoning policy soundness for symbolic gesture all Hipkins has done this week is prove he is not that leader.

 

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has had a noticeable spring in his step in recent days, living up to his nickname “Chippy.”

After nearly two years’ dormancy, Labour made two significant policy announcements this week. On Monday Hipkins and finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds announced Labour’s plan to establish a Future Fund to both protect state assets from future sale and establish a sounder basis for funding long-term infrastructure development. Although derisively short on detail, and therefore attracting predictable political ridicule from opponents, the policy was reasonably well-received elsewhere, suggesting a flicker of life is returning to the Labour beast.

A couple of days later, Hipkins went into what might almost be regarded as policy overdrive, given Labour’s somnolence since the last election. A second policy was announced – this time a commitment to increase the amount of money gaming development companies can claim back from the government, to boost the growth of the local gaming development sector and retain local talent here. This announcement has so far been well received by the sector, suggesting Labour might be on a bit of a policy roll.

There was almost a third policy – relating to the funding of general practice – although in a moment more typical of the way Labour has worked for the last two years, Hipkins did not seem to know about it, even though his health spokesperson had announced the party’s intent in an article for a medical magazine. But that did not detract much from what had been a good week for the Labour leader.

However, a more critical assessment would reach a less enthusiastic conclusion about Hipkins’ week. Rather than be the week where Labour finally took the first steps out of the policy vacuum, it was more the week of careful displacement activity. Labour’s two-and a-bit policy announcements were more about taking the focus off some its biggest impediments to leading the next government than they were statements of future intent.

No matter how buoyed up Hipkins might be by Labour’s position in the polls at present, and the mildly positive response to this week’s announcements, he knows he is still a long way from being able to form a viable government after the next election.  He knows too that ultimately, no matter how hard he works, or how many new policies he releases, his electoral fate will likely be decided by forces beyond his control – namely, his potential support partners.

It is generally acknowledged that the Green Party is Labour’s most likely partner in government. But Labour and the Greens have not always had the smoothest of relationships. In 2002 and 2005 Labour abandoned the Green Party to form confidence and supply partnerships with other parties. In 2017, the Green Party was shut out of Labour’s coalition with New Zealand First, and in 2020 Labour had an outright majority it felt no need for a coalition so saw no need for a formal coalition.

However, things will likely be different should Labour be able to lead a government after next year’s election. It will have no alternative but to look to the Green Party as its primary support partner, presumably in a coalition. That will be difficult, given the history and some of the Greens more extreme and “wacky” policies, but it is by no means an impossible situation. It would certainly be no more fraught a relationship to manage than National having to accommodate the vanities and prejudices of both ACT and New Zealand First in the current coalition.

But a deal of whatever form with the Green Party is unlikely to be enough to return Hipkins to Premier House. On current polling, a Labour/Greens bloc alone would be unable to form a government. It is presently about 6% short of the support the current coalition is attracting. And there is no sign from the polling data of the last two years that that position is changing, as any growth in the Green Party’s support in that time has largely been at Labour’s expense.

All of which goes to the core of Labour’s basic problem – what to do about Te Pati Māori? The Tamaki Makaurau by-election result showed a massive swing away from Labour to Te Pati Māori, suggesting that not only is Labour’s dream of recapturing the six Māori seats it lost to Te Pati Māori at the last election forlorn, but also that its one remaining Māori seat could similarly fall next year. But in all probability, Labour will be unable to form a government without some form of arrangement with Te Pati Māori.

Yet Te Pati Māori’s wider actions and internal ructions are making uncommitted voters far more dubious that it can credibly and reliably play a part in a future government. Even Hipkins has admitted Te Pati Māori is a long way from being ready to be taken seriously as a potential government partner. While he was making policy announcements this week, Te Pati Māori was setting fire to government legislation in Parliament grounds.

Eventually, Hipkins is going to have to make a call about Te Pati Māori. If he rules them in as a potential government partner, he risks alienating uncommitted moderate voters that might otherwise have supported Labour, which could cost him the election. But if he rules them out, he risks driving more Māori voters from Labour to Te Pati Māori and similarly being deprived of the support he needs to form a government. And the longer he delays a decision, the more awkward and difficult his position becomes. It is an absolute no-win situation.

The fact that Labour’s policy announcements this week were not universally panned and even mildly welcomed in some quarters was an unexpected, although still temporary bonus. They were almost a welcome relief for Labour, leaving it able to focus its attention for a brief while on something other than what to do about Te Pati Māori.

The great Scottish poet Robbie Burns’ famous quote “O wad some Power the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us!" could well have been written solely for politics because politicians often have the greatest capacity for self-delusion. History is littered with examples – big and small – of politicians whose understanding of their circumstances has been completely, almost sadly, out of touch with the reality of their situation.  

After last weekend’s local government elections defeated Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung woefully admitted he had been so confident of victory that he had pre-ordered a $90,000 Rolex watch to celebrate his victory. However, in fact Chung finished a distant third in the mayoral race and only narrowly held on to his council seat. In a similar vein, former Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said she was “shocked” not to have been returned to the council through the Māori ward seat.

Yet most impartial observers of the Wellington scene would have been able to tell Chung and Whanau of the fates that awaited them, long before the elections took place. Chung’s mayoral chances had evaporated when the salacious e-mail he had circulated about Whanau a couple of years ago surfaced, and Whanau’s fate in the Māori ward was sealed when she failed to get the endorsement of local iwi. While their determination to carry on in the face of such setbacks was admirable, it does not justify the stunned surprise both displayed when the election results were declared.

Of course, Chung and Whanau are not the first, nor will they be the last, politicians to be caught out by their self-delusion. Therefore, the bigger question becomes how is it that politicians, who supposedly have such a good sense of what people are thinking, so consistently fail to see the signs of public disillusionment with them?

In part, it is a simple matter of personal ego and self-belief, that their cause is right and that they have the answers and the capability to deal with the problems their community or country is facing. That of itself is no bad thing, but it needs to be tempered by a dose of Burns-like reality about how they and their proposed solutions are perceived by the communities they want to serve. People seldom vote for politicians they consider out of touch with their daily reality.

Politicians often live in an echo-chamber. They are surrounded by key advisers and workers who support their goals and want to see them succeed. This group therefore focuses on the positives of their campaigns and often avoids telling the politician the true reality of external perceptions. Negative feedback or information is kept at arm’s length, lest it detract from the cause that is being pursued. Again, history provides many examples of this bunker mentality at work.

Right now, as the race for next year’s general election tightens, these factors are clearly at play within all the political parties, National and Labour in particular. Both continue to be trapped within their bubble, viewing the state of the country through their own ideological prism, and taking little account of outside thinking. In a changing world, each is still promoting the same old policy directions they have always promoted. There is little evidence yet of new or dynamic thinking.

The same goes for their support parties, although not to quite the same extent. There are signs within ACT, for example, that it is seeking to soften its flinty hard-right approach, so beloved by its activists and key supporters, in favour of attempting to become more voter friendly. Similarly, New Zealand First is working to broaden the base of its support, successfully so far if the opinion polls which it consistently ridicules are any guide, but the party remains centred around the leader and the tight inner core that supports and dares not cross him.

On the centre-left, the Green Party has remained staunchly within its quietly growing support base, apparently untroubled by, and indeed wearing as a badge of honour, the increasingly strident attacks that it is living in a fantasy world of its own. The apparent sense of defiance and insularity now emerging within Te Pati Māori’s leadership following the revelation of the party’s internal divisions raises in a different way the question of whether it is so consumed with its own issues as to not care, let alone acknowledge, the impact of external perceptions.

In their different ways, none of the parties is currently focusing on how voters perceive them. They are all too inwardly focused. But in the type of tightly defined political marketplace we have today the solutions the country is seeking go beyond the narrow interests of one group of parties or another. The need to find common ground on key issues like improving our woeful economic performance and declining standard of living, promoting social cohesion, and showing greater tolerance for cultural and ethnic diversity has never been stronger.

Voters generally care little for the parties’ view of the overall state of the world. As Norman Kirk once said, “there are four things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear, and they have to have something to hope for.” They look to political parties to provide the opportunity for them to attain these. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our politicians and their parties all need to step outside their bubbles of self-delusion and recognise that Kirk’s statement remains as relevant today as it was when he first made it well over fifty years ago. And then, having absorbed the message, they need to shape their policy programmes accordingly.

There is a crisis of confidence affecting the two old parties, National and Labour, and it is getting worse. Between them presently they are attracting around only 60% support in public opinion polls, the lowest combined vote share for the two big parties since MMP was established in 1996. Each of them is hovering around the 30% mark in popular support, a figure that has been tracking steadily downwards since the start of this year. On that basis, neither can look forward to next year’s election with a great deal of confidence.

The problem is far worse for National than for Labour. At the last election, National attracted just under 39% of the party vote – today it is averaging just over 30%. Labour polled just under 27% at the last election, one of the worst results ever for an incumbent lead party of government under MMP. Today, it has improved slightly but is still averaging barely 30% support in opinion polls.

Just after the last election this column made the point that National’s party vote of 39% was perilously low for a party beginning a term in government. By comparison, when Sir John Key became Prime Minister in 2008, National achieved 47% of the party vote, giving it some political fat for the difficult years ahead. But National’s much weaker 2023 result meant it had no such fat and was therefore always going to find re-election in 2026 to be a difficult challenge.

And so, it is proving to be. The government has made several hard and unpopular decisions over the last two years, against the backdrop of a promised but not yet realised economic upswing. At first, there was some support for what the government was doing – for the first year after the election National was more than holding its own in popular support. But as 2024 ended and 2025 began, confidence in the government’s approach started to wane, and National’s support in opinion polls dropped steadily.

Even so, thanks to strong showings by ACT and more latterly New Zealand First, the coalition government retained enough support to have been able to form a government for all but a couple of brief periods during 2025. Right now, the centre-right and centre-left blocs are virtually tied in the race to become the next government.

Adding to National’s woes in not yet delivering the economic recovery it promised, has been its own political incompetence and increasing self-belief it knows best. 

Faced with a Labour Party shrewdly not saying anything for fear of being caught out, an increasingly feral Green Party and the rancorous divisions threatening Te Pati Māori, National ought to have been able to capitalise heavily. The contrast between a surprisingly cohesive coalition government and a disorganised rabble opposing it should have been easy to draw. And instead of running neck-and-neck with Labour in the opinion polls, National should have been able to open up a comfortable lead by now. That it has failed to do so is a damning indictment of its performance.

Indeed, its own political attack on this disjointed Opposition, or of the failings of the last government, has been virtually non-existent. It has been left largely to ACT and New Zealand First to take the political fight to the Opposition. In a closely contested political market-place National’s apparent unwillingness to enter the fray and confront its opponents head-on has left it looking aloof and out of touch.

Moreover, when National has made policy announcements, its tone has become more and more censorious, speaking down to its critics, and appearing increasingly self-righteous. The recent announcement about a new parental income test for 18- and 19-year-olds seeking the Job Seeker Allowance, ended up being a lecture from the Prime Minister about how parents should raise their children. In today’s difficult circumstances for many households, that was never going to be a winning approach.

But if National’s time to remain the lead party of government after the next election is running out, there are so far no signs of a building groundswell of support for a Labour-led alternative. Both parties are currently polling around 10% below the level they will require to be confident of being able to lead a future government. Neither is so far showing any sign it knows how to boost their support to that required level. Instead, both seem comfortable relying on their respective potential support partners gaining sufficient support to enable them to cobble together some sort of governing coalition after the election.

This is not political leadership as we know it, nor as we deserve. Drifting to power on the back of support for other parties does not demonstrate the leadership New Zealand needs to resolve its long-term economic and social difficulties. Yet that is the fate to which National and Labour appear increasingly content to consign the country, which explains why their stars look set to continue to wane.  

In the wake of the Christchurch, Seddon and Kaikoura earthquakes a new lexicon and culture developed about earthquake damaged and prone buildings. Red and yellow stickers became pervasive, and across the country many buildings, old and new, deemed to be earthquake risks were summarily demolished.

Many were historic or heritage sites, others were buildings that probably should have been demolished years earlier. The overall effect was to dramatically reshape the appearance of Christchurch and to a lesser extent Wellington, but almost every other town and city has been affected to some extent by building demolitions.

There have been controversies along the way. Dubious building practices of the 1960s and 1970s have been savagely exposed in many instances. In other instances, decisions to restore at risk or damaged significant buildings have proven financially disastrous. The stalled restoration of Christchurch Cathedral stands out as the obvious example, but the strengthening of the old Wellington Town Hall, closed as unsafe in 2013, is far more dramatic and expensive. Originally forecast to cost around $150 million, the latest estimate is around $329 million, with a completion date of mid-2026, and the building being reopened in early 2027.

There have also been many examples of buildings deemed to have met earthquake safety standards in the 1990s and early 2000s being declared non-compliant following law changes in 2017. The costs to many building owners having to meet updated and constantly changing standards has been prohibitive. Many buildings have been abandoned and left to become local eyesores.

Commercial and domestic insurance costs have risen sharply over these years, because of steeply rising insurance claims to meet the cost of remediation, and the subsequent impact of those claims on international reinsurance.  

Nonetheless, in the wake of the damage wrought by the Christchurch, Seddon and Kaikoura earthquakes and the subsequent revelations about the general level of unsafe buildings across the country that had not been taken all that seriously for too many years, the sweeping approach to identifying, then strengthening or demolishing unsafe buildings was inevitable and understandable.

The idea that people might be living and working in homes or buildings that posed a daily threat to their safety was socially unacceptable. But the mounting costs to homeowners and businesses of meeting the costs making homes and buildings earthquake compliant has become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Against that background the government’s announcement of a new, risk-based approach to earthquake strengthening is a positive step forward. Not only is it estimated that it will save building owners across the country around $8.2 billion, but it is also expected to reduce the risk to community safety posed by derelict buildings. Under the changes, the previous one size fits all national approach will be replaced, with much greater emphasis on local seismic risk.

So, Auckland, Northland and the Chatham Islands will be exempted from earthquake standards because of their low seismic risk, while tighter standards will be introduced for Coastal Otago and Dunedin. In Wellington, long considered the country’s most at-risk earthquake centre, the changes are expected to have a positive effect, reducing the number buildings classified as earthquake risk by about half, and saving city building owners around $1 billion in remediation costs.

However, a perverse consequence of the changes may be that Wellington’s genuine outstanding eyesore, the City to Sea Bridge may now be saved at the eleventh hour from the Court-mandated demolition it so richly deserves. On the other hand, the new standards might be the saviour of a genuine heritage treasure, National Park’s Chateau Tongariro, which has been closed and facing an uncertain future for some years now.

While the changes have generally been welcomed as pragmatic and realistic in today’s circumstances, which should be good news for the government and its fight to reduce compliance costs where it can, they are not without political risk. For example, there is no suggestion that they will lead to a stabilisation, let alone reduction, in insurance premia any time soon. Also, much care will need to be taken by both central and local government in the application of the new rules to ensure that less restrictive standards are not opening up short-cuts or loopholes in building safety standards that could have disastrous consequences next time a major earthquake strikes.

Announcing the changes Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk acknowledged this point when he said protecting human life must remain the top priority, but a fairer balance was needed between cost and the real risks buildings posed.

However, unfortunately it may take the next disaster to prove whether the balance has now been struck correctly.

While Ireland's President Michael D Higgins calls for Israel’s expulsion from the United Nations for what he describes as its "lies" over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, New Zealand continues to dither over joining the 157 (out of 193) United Nations members that have already given diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters will announce New Zealand's decision in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the week. According to him, this will allow New Zealand as much time as possible to gather and assess the latest information on the issue before reaching a definite conclusion.

Frankly, this claim is poppycock. A decision as momentous as giving diplomatic recognition to another state, especially one as contentious as the Palestinian state, would never be left to the Foreign Minister alone to make after a few conversations at the United Nations. Rather, the New Zealand government’s position would have been determined by the Cabinet some time ago. In that sense, he will be but the message boy in New York.

Winston Peters’ statement that the Palestine issue has been around for at least eighty years, so waiting a few more days to announce New Zealand’s decision is hardly a problem, further obfuscates the issue. He is hardly likely to have travelled all the way to New York to tell New Zealanders and the rest of the world, that New Zealand is not going to do as Commonwealth partners Australia, Canada and Britain, among so many other countries, have already done this week. Therefore, the question becomes why the delay?

The most obvious and easily dismissible argument is that New Zealand’s speaking slot at the United Nations does not occur until the end of the week, so it would have been churlish to announce New Zealand’s decision before then. That is true up to a point but has not applied in the case of other countries. Australia, Canada, Britain and France all felt able to indicate in advance of their General Assembly speeches that they would be announcing Palestinian recognition, leaving no credible reason why New Zealand could not have done likewise.

A second possible argument is that there was division within the Cabinet on recognition which has only been overcome in recent days. It is well known that ACT has not been comfortable with recognising a Palestinian state if Hamas is involved, so may have delayed until the last moment a Cabinet decision being reached. However, given both the Prime Minister’s and the Foreign Minister’s “when not if” support for recognising Palestine, it is most unlikely that Peters would have departed for New York without a firm government commitment to recognition in his back pocket.

Then there is the outside chance that the Cabinet’s decision was conditional, leaving open the possibility of last-minute information exchanged in the corridors at the United Nations influencing New Zealand’s final decision. Again, that seems unlikely given that the overwhelming majority of United Nations’ member states have already recognised Palestine or are about to do so.

That leaves only one credible explanation for New Zealand’s tardy response. It has nothing to do with weighing up the merits of last-minute information or respecting diplomatic niceties and not disclosing one’s position ahead of the country’s formal speaking slot. Nor has it anything to do with not wanting to offend Israel or the United States. Israel has already been critical of New Zealand’s comments about the situation in Gaza, and the United States’ position is discredited by most countries.

Rather, New Zealand’s approach to this issue has been all about bolstering the mana and ego of the Foreign Minister on the world stage and ensuring all New Zealand eyes are on him when he addresses the General Assembly. Sadly, the government appears to have decided that pandering to this is more important than letting New Zealanders, many of whom have marched in the streets in support of Palestine, in on its eventual decision.

However, given that no formal Palestinian state currently exists, recognition now is at best an in-principle decision. The real and far more difficult decision relates to the shape and form of an eventual Palestinian state, given Israel’s defiant, intransigent opposition, repeated this week by Israel’s Prime Minister, to any form of Palestinian state ever. In this regard, it was notable that Peters attended the two-state side meeting at the United Nations, a further indication of New Zealand’s likely upcoming announcement.

Given New Zealand’s support for a two-state solution since the 1990s, the tardiness of the government’s response to calls for recognition of Palestine has been appalling. The fact that it has descended from the noble aspiration of supporting the right of people to self-determination, to pandering to a Foreign Minister’s ego to look good on a world stage is unconscionable    

Meanwhile, while it plays these games, innocent people in Gaza continue to be slaughtered.

Governments rarely lose office because their policies are unpopular or not working. Far more often they are defeated because they have become arrogant and contemptuously dismissive of those promoting different views to theirs. 

Usually, this trend becomes pronounced during a government's second or third term, but there are already emerging signs of increasing arrogance and intolerance from the current government, barely two-thirds into its first term. This week alone there have been three such displays of the government's mounting arrogance and disregard for contrary views.

First was the Prime Minister’s refusal to discuss the government's decision regarding recognition of a Palestinian state, saying that all would be revealed when the Foreign Minister addressed the United Nations General Assembly next week. The New Zealand public will learn the government's decision on what is arguably one of the most sensitive foreign policy issues the country has faced in recent years at the same time as the rest of the world. The government seems more interested in pandering to the Foreign Minister’s vanity of wanting to be on the world stage than keeping New Zealanders in the loop. And the Prime Minister seems unbothered by that.

Then there was the Finance Minister's response to a group of Wellington clergy who sought a meeting with her over the government's approach to the genocide in Gaza. When they chained themselves together outside her electorate office in protest, she crudely dismissed them saying that the way to get a meeting with her was, not to "don an adult nappy and chain yourself to a door".

While she was fully within her rights to refuse their request for a meeting, it was nonetheless unbecoming of a senior Minister to deride them the way she did. It smacked of extraordinary arrogance and a dismissive contempt for which she should apologise.

But the government's arrogance is not just limited to National Ministers. ACT's David Seymour, the Deputy Prime Minister, rejected a call from actress Keisha Castle-Hughes for Māori to be automatically entitled to New Zealand citizenship, regardless of whether they were born here. Seymour correctly pointed out that such a move would be contrary to the rules currently applying to every other New Zealander. But then he added the gratuitous and unnecessary rejoinder that Castle-Hughes “frankly should stick to whale riding.”

In politics, tone is critical. Both Willis’s and Seymour’s remarks failed the tone test, coming across as cheap, nasty and smart aleck. Each could have made their points in a far more considered and reasonable, but no less effective, way. What Willis and Seymour may have considered to be mildly humorous responses looked instead to be sneering superiority.

Their comments, and the Prime Minister’s equally tone-deaf deference to his Foreign Minister’s ego on the Palestine announcement at the expense of the rest of New Zealand reflect the type of response more typical of governments becoming world-weary after a couple of terms in office. But this government is displaying the same symptoms, not even two years into its first term.

Voters turn off governments when they feel they have stopped listening and instead give off the air that they know best.  With the ongoing cost-of-living crisis still hitting many New Zealand households hard, and the economy teetering on the brink of returning to recession, the last thing the government can afford in the lead-up to the election is for voters to conclude that it no longer cares what they think. Yet that is precisely the response the above examples engender.

Times are undoubtedly unchallenging for the government at present, with significant reform programmes underway in health, education and the economy. The pressure is intensifying to produce some positive results before the election. This is even more reason for it to be showing more humility and understanding than this week’s incidents indicate.

People abandoned the last Labour-led government when its unctuous be-nice-to-everyone approach in the absence of policy achievement became overbearing. That should have been the signal to this government to go about its business with quiet determination to make a difference, rather than the strutting swagger it has developed.

The Prime Minister, who presented himself before the election as the solid, determined leader the country required, now needs to live up to that. He needs to re-focus his government, “laser like”, as he used to say, on addressing the things that matter. Otherwise, his government will be defined by side-shows like the continuous pandering to individual Ministerial egos and smart remarks that we are now seeing.

And if that feeling becomes entrenched, the government’s days may well be numbered.

When relationships break up, it is frequently any children involved who suffer most. They often become pawns in a wider game – the struggle between parents over custody and access rights, or questions of responsibility for their financial upkeep, for example. Sometimes, the struggle goes beyond the parents, and involves the wider family, or even the community in which they live. But whatever the circumstances, the innocent children at the centre of the dispute generally have the least say in its resolution.

The recent tragic case involving Tom Phillips and his children portrays all these elements. Even now, with Phillips dead and the children remaining in the care of the state while Police investigations are carried out, their mother, who remains their legal guardian, says she does not know when they will be returned to her. The children, meanwhile, have no option but to go along with what is happening and being decided around them.

Sadly, parents too often use their children as a means of getting back at the partner from whom they have separated. In many cases, an unseemly tug-of-war develops between the custodial parent (often but not always the mother) and the non-custodial parent (frequently the father) over access to the children. Where informal custody arrangements exist, these are often breached when one parent or other decides it does not suit them to have the children at the previously agreed time. Family Court mandated custody arrangements are more reliable but are also often breached. But whatever the custody arrangement, the children’s interests and preferences invariably run secondary to the tussle of wills between the estranged parents.

The same applies with regard to financial support for the children. When I was Minister of Revenue responsible for the Child Support scheme it was always my view that every child had the right to the love, attention and support of both their parents, whatever the circumstances, and that, equally, every parent had the responsibility to support their children, also whatever their circumstances. My strong preference was that parents should be encouraged to jointly reach their own voluntary agreements about the upkeep of their children, and that the state’s Child Support scheme should be a back-stop, to be applied only when parents could not or would not reach agreement.

Unfortunately, for too many parents Child Support became an easy default position, which just happened to conveniently relieve them of any obligation to reach satisfactory arrangements for the upkeep of their children. But this often created an intolerable situation where one parent was set against the other, probably exacerbating much of the bitterness present in already fraught situations. Frequently, custodial parents felt they were receiving insufficient support from their former partners, and non-custodial parents argued they were getting insufficient access to their children for the Child Support they paid.

This clash between access and financial support was as visceral, as it was misplaced. Parents are responsible for supporting their children regardless of the level of access they receive and there can be no compromise or trade-off on that. Access and support are separate issues and should not be linked to each other, and cannot be traded the way some parents think.

That they can be is a consequence of an essentially confrontational approach both at the Family Court and in the Child Support system. For the administrative ease of both, there has to be a custodial parent and a non-custodial parent, a winner and a loser if you like. The system struggles to cope with the concept of shared custody or shared financial support arrangements. And in this environment, it is not surprising that the children have so little say.

In 2012, I amended the Child Support Act to give greater encouragement and recognition of shared parenting arrangements, which better reflected the financial circumstances of both parents, not just the non-custodial (paying) parent. However, I am not sure that this has worked out as intended, for a number of reasons.

At the time, officials, brought up on the Child Support Act and the more draconian liable parent scheme which preceded it, were sceptical that shared parenting arrangements would work or could be enforced, so I suspect did little to encourage their utilisation. Moreover, shared parenting arrangements called for a greater level of commitment to the wellbeing of their children than recently separated and still angry parents were willing to make. So, once again the inherently inflexible Child Support scheme became their easy way out.

This situation will not improve until the confrontational winner/loser approach both the Family Court with regard to custody and access cases, and the Child Support scheme with regard to financial support, changes. The focus of both needs to shift towards an emphasis on seeking collaborative solutions involving both parents equally (or at least to the extent they want to be) as the preferred outcome in the future of their children.

While Tom Phillips’ actions, whatever their motive, cannot be condoned and will have scarred his children, emotionally and psychologically, for the rest of their lives, they are an awful extreme reminder of what may happen when the system breaks down.

For every parent, properly looking after their children must be paramount – ranking well ahead of seeking to satisfy residual bitterness towards a former partner, or taking out frustration against state agencies for perceived inflexible and unreasonable actions.

There is no acceptable alternative to putting children first.