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.

 

 

 

 

The government has just announced plans to strengthen New Zealand’s immigration laws to make it easier to deport residents convicted of serious criminal offences. Under current law, permanent residents of up to ten years standing who have been convicted of criminal offences can be deported after release from prison. However, the term of their deportation depends on the nature and seriousness of their offending. The government’s new plans significantly broaden the scope of the existing policy. It is planning to increase the time frame to residents of twenty years standing and also includes historic crimes, committed before the person came to New Zealand,

These announcements will likely be welcomed, especially by those concerned about community safety and the risk they consider released offenders pose to the community. As such, the announcements – reported in the media as making it easier for the government to deport non-New Zealand criminals – will play well as part of the government’s tough law and order agenda.

And it will be easy for the government to portray parties opposing the moves as “soft on crime and criminals”. With an election looming next year, and law and order always being an important issue, that will be no bad thing as far as the government is concerned. 

However, there is a certain irony in these announcements. For years, successive National-led and Labour-led governments have railed against Liberal/National coalition and now Labor Australian governments for their notorious s.501 policy. Under this policy many Australian criminals, born in New Zealand and often with the most tenuous remaining links to this country have been deported here once released from prison in Australia.

So, as it now moves to strengthen New Zealand’s deportation rules, our government will need to be very mindful of the consistent and outspoken approaches various Prime Ministers have made over the years to their Australian counterparts about the s.501 policy and potential risk of claims of hypocrisy it now raises.

Indeed, on the same day the Immigration Minister was announcing New Zealand’s proposed changes, the Prime Minister was attacking calls from Australia for the deportation to New Zealand of neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell because he was born here and holds dual Australian and New Zealand citizenship. While he is undoubtedly “a pretty awful human being” as the Prime Minister described him, Sewell has so far not been convicted of any crimes that would lead to his deportation from Australia, so he is unlikely to become a victim of the s.501 policy, and thereby New Zealand’s problem, despite more than 88,000 Australians having signed a petition calling for his deportation.

In the circumstances, the Prime Minister’s comments that Sewell is Australia’s problem were ill-timed, given his own government’s deportation announcements the same day. The risk is they will further embolden hard-line politicians on both sides of Australian politics to dig-in further against any softening of the s.501policy insofar as New Zealand is concerned. They know that, as in New Zealand, cracking down on migrants who break the law is good domestic politics.

However, it must be acknowledged that all sovereign nations – New Zealand and Australia included – have a right to protect their citizens against the risk imposed by foreign criminals and to deport those non-citizens who seriously offend to their countries of origin. The right to citizenship and residence in any country must always be conditional on acceptance and compliance with the laws of that country. The issue around deportation is therefore less about the right of countries to deport those who are not citizens who have criminally offended, than it is about the reasonableness of such actions.

In that context, there is a legitimate argument about the reasonableness of Australia deporting to New Zealand people who have not lived here since childhood and who no longer have any substantial family links here. However, in the same vein, it was only a few weeks ago that Immigration New Zealand was threatening to deport a teenage boy to India for being an overstayer, despite the fact his family was legally resident in New Zealand and he would have no means of familial or other support in India. Government officials contemplating this move and Ministers who initially supported it failed to see the hypocritical parallel until the last minute.

For this reason, many will argue that as it moves to strengthen its deportation laws New Zealand should be mindful of the reasonableness test, and not get itself into the type of s.501 mess Australia has. But there will also be more cynical voices – inside and outside government – arguing precisely the opposite, that, for domestic political reasons, having a deportation policy that is criticised externally as unreasonable and excessively xenophobic will play well for the government in election year.

With ACT and New Zealand First being the glue holding the Luxon-led coalition together, it is hard to escape the conclusion the latter view is the more likely driver of the new policy direction.

 

Unconfirmed reports that the Public Service Commission (PSC) may be considering winding up some smaller Ministries have produced predictable reactions.

Not surprisingly, the Public Service Association has lambasted the suggestions as “too disruptive”. It says the possible abolition of the Ministries of Women's Affairs, Pacific Peoples, Disabled People and Ethnic Communities would leave those groups disempowered and unrepresented in government policymaking. But then the PSA has never been known for looking beyond the trade union interests of public servants.

However, there is a deeper issue behind any changes the PSC may be considering, far beyond such an easy, knee jerk reaction. If the PSC is looking at the future of those small, boutique Ministries and potentially the Māori Development Agency, Te Puni Kokiri, as well, the real question is what alternative structural arrangements will be put in place to replace them and meet the needs of the population sectors they presently serve. After all, the relevance and purpose of the functions they carry out is far more important than the form by which they do so.

The main reason why these small Ministries and agencies have developed separately has been to give specific identity to the causes they represent. The presumption has been that these separate entities have both given a clear sense of worth and distinctiveness to those sectors and provide a general official rallying point for their specific causes. There is a legitimate purpose in that.

It appears that what the PSC may be looking at is whether that form of identity governance still best serves the interests of those sectors. Implicit in that determination will be a judgement of the role and purpose of those small Ministries. Do they exist simply to ensure that those sectors “have a voice” in government decision-making (in other words, a representative function), or are they there to perform a more activist advocacy function, and if so, how effectively do they currently perform that role?

A likely conclusion would be that current outcomes are variable. Te Puni Kokiri and Women’s Affairs probably are more influential than the Ministries for Pacific Peoples, Disabled People and Ethnic Communities. If that is the case, then is there a better way for organisationally ensuring more even-handed representation and advocacy of the interest of all those sectors within the structure of government?

What will be imperative in any review or winding-up of small Ministries by the PSC will be ensuring that the various functions they currently undertake are clearly assigned within any new structures. Abolishing small Ministries cannot mean that the roles they have performed over the years are similarly abolished or downgraded. The focus needs to be on the relevance of form, not function.

At the same time, consideration ought to be given to a wider review of the organisation and number of government departments, and the consequent impact of those on the nature and number of Ministerial portfolios. Too often in recent years Ministerial portfolios have been created to provide roles for government support partners. The upshot has been a subsequent pressure to create some form of bureaucratic entity to give meaning (and mana for the Minister) to these new portfolios. The establishment of the Ministry of Regulation (which sounds like something out of Orwell’s 1984, or a Monty Python skit) following the appointment of ACT’s leader as Minister for Regulation is the most obvious, but by no means sole, recent example.

That raises the question of whether government departments and agencies should be established or abolished to suit the dynamic of coalition formation of the government of the day, or whether there should be a firmer structural base, built around ensuring the best mechanism for the delivery of the ongoing functions of government. At the start of his tenure, the current Public Service commissioner hinted at moving towards the latter approach, and this may be behind the current speculation about the fate of small Ministries.

While the discussion around the future of small Ministries is an important one, it is not just a specific end. So long as there is sufficient protection elsewhere in the government machine for the functions they currently perform, the overall impact of any change in this direction is likely to be minor, aside from its cosmetic impact.

When the dust settles from any changes that may emerge from the work the PSC declines to confirm or deny is underway, the wider question of whether the public service is currently best organised for purpose will remain. With public sector job numbers having grown over a third during the term of the Labour-led government and thousands of jobs now being cut under the current government, the abrupt, ad hoc approach of the last decade to the development of the public service is far from desirable.

A more functional, output-centred approach to the future structure and organisation of the public service is overdue. It is a matter the PSA might even be persuaded to engage constructively upon.

It is difficult not to see Sir Trevor Mallard’s sacking as New Zealand’s Ambassador to Ireland as anything other than an act of political vengeance by Foreign Minister Winston Peters. After all, there has been considerable antagonistic history between the pair, culminating in then-Speaker Mallard’s trespassing of Peters during the 2022 occupation of Parliament’s grounds by Covid19 protestors.

But Mallard should never have been appointed to a diplomatic post in the first place. His lengthy Parliamentary career had been frequently punctuated by aggressive outbursts – he was thrown out of the Chamber for abuse and misbehaviour more than anyone else during his time in Parliament – showing clearly that he lacked the necessary skills to be a credible diplomat or external representative of New Zealand. His appointment owed far more to political patronage by then Prime Minister Ardern.

It may be a simple coincidence that two of Labour’s highest profile appointments – Phil Goff in London and now Mallard – have been terminated early by Peters, even if Goff’s demise was largely self-inflicted. Nevertheless, they highlight the risks involved in appointing former politicians to diplomatic posts for which they may not be temperamentally suited. Peters’ comment on Mallard’s dismissal that there should be no more such political appointments was understandable in the current circumstances, even if it went a little too far.

London, Washington, Canberra and increasingly Beijing are New Zealand’s most important diplomatic posts. Over the years, from the early 1950s when former National Minister Sir Frederick Doidge was posted to London, there has been a succession of former National and Labour Ministers (including a former Deputy Prime Minister and two former Speakers) serving as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to Britain. Similarly, since Sir Walter Nash was posted to Washington in the 1940s (while continuing to serve as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance!) there has been a parade of former Ministers, including three former Prime Ministers, appointed Ambassador to the United States.

However, political appointments have been less common to the Canberra post, and curiously, there have so far been no political appointments as Ambassador to China, arguably likely to become our most important post in the future.

The argument for political appointments in key (and attractive) posts like London and Washington is that former politicians have political contacts and can therefore open doors that may prove difficult for career diplomats. This may have been so in the days when communications and travel connections were less easy, but it is a more difficult argument to sustain today. After all, if necessary, today a Minister or a Prime Minister can be in either capital in little more than 24 hours, or, as the round table meetings between the world’s leaders on Ukraine have shown, connected instantly by satellite. The position is still a little different in the United States, however, where status counts much more, and where, when we had former Prime Ministers as our Ambassador, unexpected doors opened more readily.

But beyond these appointments, the advantage of former politicians in diplomatic roles is far less obvious and does, as Peters states, snub the talents and experience of professional diplomats who might have otherwise expected those appointments. Indeed, when political appointments have been made, senior diplomats have frequently been appointed to those embassies in supporting roles, to cover for and support the political appointee.

Some political diplomatic appointments have proved to be remarkably successful. Others have been significantly less so, leading to the inevitable conclusion that their appointment has been more about getting someone out of the way, or repaying political favours.

But Peters’ statement that the days of political appointments are over goes a step too far. While such appointments should be rare, and even then, for time-limited specific purposes with appointees required to submit their resignations upon a change of government, it would be unwise to rule them out altogether. Nevertheless, his comments are a timely warning to any of his current government colleagues, and even those who may serve in a future Labour-led government, that contemplating a comfortable diplomatic retirement is likely to become increasingly unrealistic.

From the days of the legendary Sir Carl Berendsen in the 1920s through to the 1940s, New Zealand has produced some outstanding diplomats who have played significant roles in some of the major international events of their times. Since Berendsen’s day, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been well regarded for its professionalism and competence, even if it has sometimes appeared a little too cautious to external observers. There is no reason why it cannot continue to attract and provide highly skilled professional diplomats able to serve effectively at the highest level.

The unnecessary controversies surrounding the Goff and Mallard appointments are unfortunate examples of what can happen when politicians chose to reward their own ahead of relying on professional diplomatic expertise. Each detracted from the calibre of New Zealand’s international representation, which is why their early termination was reasonable.

The political commentariat was at its most skittish following the release of two public opinion polls last Monday.

The Taxpayers Union/Curia poll released in the morning projected a hung Parliament, with neither the centre-right nor the centre-left blocs able to claim a majority. That prospect excited much idle speculation for most of the day about what that eventuality could mean.

However, that evening’s TVOne/Varian poll showed the coalition government being re-elected with a reduced majority, despite the falling popularity of the Prime Minister. That immediately set off a round of comment about how long the Prime Minister could last and whether National MPs would move to replace him, completely ignoring the fact that the last time a party replaced its leader in government and went on to win the next election was 85 years ago in 1940.

In all the excitement no-one dared comment that opinion polls are but a snapshot in time, so cannot be considered in isolation. The trend they disclose is far more significant than the result of any individual poll. In that regard, the long-term rolling average of polls still shows the coalition government having the numbers to form a government, even though its majority would be smaller than at the last election. Moreover, only once since then – in March this year – has the polling average showed the Labour/Greens/Te Māori bloc ahead of the coalition government.

One trend that all the polls has showed since February this year has been steadily rising support for New Zealand First. Consequently, at this stage, New Zealand First’s performance looks like being the largest determinant of the result of next year’s election and which group of parties will form the next government. And it is therefore worth recalling that in its four stints in government New Zealand First has twice worked with Labour and twice with National, so potentially could work with either side once more, allowing the commentariat to trot out the “kingmaker” label yet again.

However, New Zealand First’s influence on next year’s election outcome is likely to be different from the traditional post-election dance it has engaged in when in a position to do so. Since 2023, New Zealand First has consistently and frequently ruled out working again with Labour under Hipkins’ leadership, due to residual bad blood from the 2017-2020 coalition experience. On that basis, with Hipkins looking increasingly entrenched as Labour’s leader, at least until the election, it seems reasonable to assume that New Zealand First will not be part of any governing arrangement with Labour so long as he is around.

But that does not mean that New Zealand First will have no influence on whether Labour leads the next government. Its influence will come from the size of its vote share at the election. In short, the more votes New Zealand First garners, the less likely it will be that Labour will be able to form a government.

At present, the soft votes National is shedding look to be going to New Zealand First – they are not crossing the line to Labour. On present numbers, to be able to lead a government after the next election, Labour needs to be converting to its cause more of those voters now deserting National, rather than seeing them just decamp to New Zealand First, and remain within the coalition’s bloc.

This is especially so with support for the Green Party on average hardly having moved above the support it had at election time, and Te Pati Māori’s volatility as a potential governing partner. Labour therefore needs to be actively going after the voters now switching to New Zealand First from National, rather than lethargically standing by, as seems to be the case at present. Otherwise, the likelihood it will be able to form a government after the next election will be lower.

New Zealand First poses just as big, though different, a problem for National. While New Zealand First’s increasing support is not yet threatening the coalition’s hold on power, it is threatening to destabilise its dynamics. At the last election, New Zealand and ACT together accounted for 28% of the coalition’s voter support – on today’s current polling average they make up almost 36% of its support. New Zealand first’s proportion has risen from just under 12% of the coalition’s vote at election time to almost 18% on today’s figures. To maintain its grip on power and not have its influence further reduced, National will therefore also be keen to see New Zealand First’s current support diminish, and for those voters to return to National at the next election.

While National and Labour continue to be portrayed as wallowing, the opportunities for New Zealand First and to a lesser extent ACT will prosper. Given that ACT has nowhere else to go politically than supporting National, New Zealand First with its record of having previously worked with both sides of politics seems set to continue to gain from voter disillusionment, at least in the short-term.

That is why New Zealand First’s next election result will probably determine who forms the next government, and why, for different reasons, it is in National’s and Labour’s interests for New Zealand First’s support to be brought to ground before then.