Last week, Greens co-leader and government Minister Marama Davidson spoke out against the government over the pace of its climate change response. Her remarks took some commentators by surprise, both because of their bluntness, but also because as a government Minister she had spoken out like that at all. But the real surprise was that after a quarter of a century of proportional representation and multi-party governing arrangements there were still those expecting Ministers, especially those from government support parties, to always toe the line in a way far more reminiscent of single party government under First Past the Post. 

Ministers from smaller parties seeking to use issues that are of special concern to them to brand their parties differently from the major party of government have been a constant feature of MMP-type governments, whether they have been made up of formal coalitions, confidence and supply agreements, or the type of loose arrangement that exist between Labour and the Greens in the current Parliament. New Zealand First Ministers speaking out against certain aspects of government that they did not like was commonplace during the more formal Coalition Government between 2017 and 2020, although curiously (and in keeping with the inherent paranoia of that party) New Zealand First was far from pleased when Labour Ministers spoke out against New Zealand First! 

“Agree to disagree” provisions have been part of every governing arrangement under MMP, and have been used frequently. As a Minister from a government support party for more years than anyone else, I frequently spoke out and voted against government policies that were not consistent with my own party’s policies, from Labour’s deal with New Zealand First over the foreshore and seabed in 2004, through to National’s efforts to gut the Resource Management Act between 2014 and 2017, and other issues besides. It was an accepted part of the process that government support parties were always free to decide their own positions on matters, like these examples, that were not covered by the formal confidence and supply arrangements. Moreover, no-one in the government of the day nor the media batted much of an eyelid whenever it happened. 

So, there should have been no surprise that Marama Davidson chose to speak out the way she did, especially given that climate change is of the most critical issues for the Greens. In doing so, however, she has highlighted one of the ongoing problems all smaller parties in governing arrangements have had to face over the years: how to get attention for their particular issues and the role they are playing in resolving them. The experience to date has generally been that major parties of government take the credit for policies that turn out well and are popular, while the smaller party is blamed for unpopular policies or those that have turned out not quite the way they were expected to. 

It is not a problem unique to New Zealand. I recall a discussion with Sir Nick Clegg, Britain’s former Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister during the 2010-2015 Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition under David Cameron. He made the point to me that the Conservatives never let the Liberal Democrats get the credit for the things they did that went well, but were more than happy for them to take the blame for the things that went wrong. 

That is where climate change policy is difficult for the Greens. While it was good that James Shaw – as Climate Change Minister – went off to the recent COP26 talks, he did not get there until after all the major political figures had left, somewhat lessening his impact and opportunities. Moreover, given the enormity of the climate change issue, it is always going to be one where the emphasis will be on what goes on between national leaders, rather than worthy Ministers down the chain. And the Prime Minister famously declared some years ago before she took office that climate change was her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”, even though she seems to have forgotten the intensity of that commitment now. 

So, when and if New Zealand makes big decisions on climate change, it will be the Prime Minister who makes the grand headline announcement, with James Shaw left to announce subsequently all the boring details of what it means. Labour, not the Greens, will then take the credit if the announcement is popular, but the Greens will be blamed for being too rigid and uncompromising if it is not. It is the typical no-win situation, one which all those who have been in smaller parties in government can relate to. 

Marama Davidson’s statement was therefore a classic positioning one – setting out the Green’s position long before final government decisions are made, and giving them plenty of room to manoeuvre if things do not turn out as expected. Otherwise, they face the galling prospect, not unknown to small government support parties, of going into the next election campaign watching Labour as the major party of government taking all the credit for what is one of the Greens’ key policy planks. (In a similar vein, I look back on the recently passed fluoridation legislation which National hailed as its own because the legislation was introduced while it was in government. In fact, I introduced that legislation in 2016, having spent months persuading a sceptical National Party that change was necessary.) 

For many years, the Greens seemed destined to be the one small party that would never make it to government. They had been spurned by Labour in 2002 and 2005, and ruled out working with National in 2017, citing a preference instead for Labour. Even then Labour turned to New Zealand First ahead of the Greens who were left as a confidence and supply partner outside the Labour/New Zealand First Coalition. The years 2017-2020 were consequently tough ones, with New Zealand First determined to shut the Greens out wherever it could. When New Zealand First was thrown out of Parliament in 2020, the Greens could not quite reach the moment in the sun they had been hoping for, because Labour won the first outright majority under MMP, leaving the Greens sidelined once more. 

But as the 2023 election looms, and Labour’s support is starting to slide, the Greens sense their moment to finally emerge as the natural coalition partner for Labour they have always considered themselves to be, may at last be upon them. The last thing they want in the meantime, as has been the case in the past, is to be made to look ineffectual or irrelevant by Labour. 

In that context, Marama Davidson’s statement was no surprise but more a clear foretaste of what is to come as the Greens try to manoeuvre themselves into the box coalition seat ahead of the next election.

 

 

New Zealanders generally are very protective of their personal privacy. They do not like officialdom to know any more about them than is absolutely necessary and have traditionally been sceptical of attempts by governments trying to gather more personal information. 

Musings by successive governments from time to time since the 1980s about the practicality and inevitability of some form of individualised standard number or national identity card for everyone have been consistently and soundly rejected by public opinion. Yet, at the same time, there has been an almost seamless uptake of an individualised IRD Number; a National Health Number; specific numbers for Ministry of Social Development and Accident Compensation services. Now, through the Smart Start programme introduced a few years ago it is possible to track a person’s full interactions with all range of government services, literally from the cradle to the grave. 

Although our national wariness of a universal individual number to replace each of these specific numbers remains this is not because we are resistant to the potential advantages in terms of service delivery, but more because we are still fundamentally wary of the information being collected being misused by authorities. And, for good reason – there are still too many instances where personal information collected by government agencies for one specific purpose is being shared inappropriately or misused for some other purpose. The recent case involving Accident Compensation staff is the latest example. 

An important principle underpinning our privacy law has been that information collected by the state can only be used for the purposes for which it was collected, no matter its potential relevance to other agencies. Over the years, successive Privacy Commissioners have been extremely vigilant in defence of this principle, even when governments have attempted to push out the boundaries for well-intentioned reasons. While this has caused annoyance and frustration from time to time and occasional dark mutterings about the need to curb the Privacy Commissioner’s enthusiasm, the principle is a sound one, which has so far stood the test of time. 

It may be about to be tested in a way and on a scale not envisioned at the time when the original Privacy Act was being developed in the early 1990s, through the government’s just introduced vaccine pass. 

The introduction of a vaccine pass has been an inevitability for some time, as a precondition for New Zealand being able to resume a measure of normality as it adjusts to living with Covid19, and for New Zealanders to be able to travel once more. Most other countries have been moving in a similar direction for some time now, meaning New Zealand would have truly become the hermit kingdom had it not done likewise. 

But while inevitable and necessary – at least in the short term while the virus remains rampant – the introduction of the vaccine pass is not without significant issues that need to be carefully considered, to prevent its misuse. 

The Covid19 Minister has described the pass as “official proof of vaccination and a ticket to enjoy the extra freedoms that will come with the COVID-19 Protection Framework”. That is unobjectionable in so far as it goes, but the devil is always in the detail. The more pressing question relates to how the pass will be used, and any threats to personal privacy within that. 

According to the Minister, the pass “will mean people will be able to do the things they love, like going to concerts and music festivals, nights out at bars and restaurants, and going to the gym and sports events”. However, it will not be required for essential services like supermarkets, petrol stations, or pharmacists, although the wider retail sector will have some flexibility about whether to require customers to use the vaccine pass. 

Two main potential problems lie within this approach. The first relates to consistency and enforcement. Given the flexibility implied for the retail sector, it is certain there will be cases of some retailers adopting tougher requirements than others, and much public aggravation as a consequence. Rather than this ambivalent approach to the retail sector, the government would have been better off to either exclude the retail sector altogether or make the presentation of the vaccine pass a mandatory pre-condition of entry to all stores. As there are currently some retailers, including some of the so-called essential services, that are acting as though we are still in Alert Level 4 and imposing tougher restrictions than they need to, there is a real risk of the requirements around the vaccine pass being extremely variable and inconsistent, if left to individual retailers to decide for themselves. That is a recipe for public confusion and frustration, which the government would be unwise to ignore. 

This raises the issue of enforcement. If individual retailers are to be effectively left to make up their own rules about use of the vaccine pass, where does responsibility for enforcement lie? It is not reasonable to ask the Police to be involved, despite what the government says. That leaves enforcement potentially in the hands of individual retailers and their security guards, which is a further recipe for inconsistency and abuse. In other contexts, the government has consistently said it does not believe in leaving the administration of the law in private hands, so it needs to seriously rethink its approach to the retail sector before going too much further. 

The second major potential problem relates to the way in which the information in the vaccine pass will be used. Ideally, the pass is equivalent to a driver’s licence which is a permit to drive a motor vehicle. Likewise, the vaccine pass is a permit to undertake certain activities or enter certain premises. Its scope needs to be restricted to that function. It should not be used for building up client and customer databases about who has and who has not been vaccinated, for example. The role of the pass must be kept purely functional, a ticket to freedom to paraphrase the Minister, and nothing more than that. 

Any future attempt to adapt the vaccine pass to contain wider information about the holder’s other vaccination or general health status that might be of interest to a service provider must also be resisted as totally inappropriate and beyond the comparatively limited scope of the vaccine pass. There is always a tendency to extend the scope and prolong the life of interventions like the vaccine pass long after they have become unnecessary. In that regard, it is good that the pass will have to be renewed every six months and the hope has to be that it can be phased out for domestic use before too long, although obviously it is likely to be a long-term requirement for international travel as that resumes. 

The vaccine pass is an important part of life returning to a degree of normality, a necessary evil if you like. The rules around its use therefore need to be simple, but circumscribed. That we are prepared to accept it at all shows how far New Zealanders’ attitudes have shifted during the pandemic. But it would be unwise for the government to assume that means our traditional determination to protect our personal privacy has softened and no longer matters.

 

 As political proclamations go, it was neither the boldest nor the most inspiring, but, in the circumstances, probably one of the more realistic of recent times. Judith Collins’ assertion that she would be still leader of the National Party next year is probably true as far as it goes, but it also acknowledges implicitly that she is likely to face a challenge at that time. 

Since she took the leadership in mid-2020 because she was the only candidate still standing after the disastrous Todd Muller interlude, she has effectively been on borrowed time. After all, no-one expected National to come within a bull’s roar of winning Labour’s 2020 Covid19 election. The absolute best Collins could have hoped for was to staunch the gaping wound and limit National’s losses. In the event she could not do so – although to be fair she tried her best (besting the Prime Minister in at least two of the three television debates) but she was not helped by the various scandals that emerged at the time about other National MPs – and ended up as the leader who led National to one of its most ignominious defeats. 

But even if she had succeeded and done better, her survival as leader was unlikely. National has always been more ruthless in dealing with leaders who lose elections than Labour. Walter Nash, Norman Kirk, and Bill Rowling lost more elections for Labour than they ever won, and Mike Moore was given another chance after Labour’s 1990 annihilation – but Jim Bolger is the only National leader since the days of Holyoake to be given a second chance immediately after losing an election. So, the prospect of Judith Collins retaining the National Party leadership on a long-term basis has always seemed fanciful. 

Much has been made of National’s woeful performance in Opposition as a reason for getting rid of Collins, although that is probably overstated. National has certainly bungled many opportunities since the election to score heavily against Labour, but in the end that may not count for all that much. There would have been few Oppositions as weak or inept as Labour between 2008 and 2017, yet it was still able to claim power, albeit in unusual circumstances, after the 2017 election. The old maxim, “Oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them” remains relevant. 

For these reasons, only two questions remain about the National Party leadership – when will the coup occur, and who the next leader will be. The first question is probably harder to answer than the second.

At this point, the first quarter of next year seems the most likely time. Within that, the usual Caucus retreat in early February would be the obvious moment. That would enable the Party to begin the new Parliamentary year with the new leadership in place and give the new leader time to both define their style and build the team around them. It would also allow about 20 months before the 2023 election to put together the policy platform and select the best candidates to put National in the strongest position it could be to contest that election. 

If no move is made in February, the Party cannot afford to let things drift on much beyond Easter next year, for practical reasons. They are less to do with voter appeal than they are with candidate selection and fundraising. Good prospective candidates are unlikely to come forward if there are still doubts about the leadership and National looks set for another drubbing. The same applies to potential donors who will be unwilling to make significant donations to another campaign like that of 2020. 

The question of who the new leader will be is less unclear. Simon Bridges is the obvious choice. He is untainted by having led National to an election defeat – he was deposed several months before the last election – and more importantly, has assiduously reinvented himself as a kinder, gentler figure. In so doing, he has followed the tried-and-true path of political comeback. First, came the cultivation of a more laid-back and relaxed public image – in his case, slightly longer and more unruly hair, more casual clothing to suggest a more carefree image. Then there was the gentle self-mocking on television chat and game shows, carefully showing a softer and more humorous side than the brash politician he came across as previously. There was also the mandatory book, so overtly not about politics, yet covertly setting out the new Bridges’ message. And all the while, accompanied by the constant denials of ever wanting or intending to seek the party leadership again. 

While Bridges’ return would be unusual in the context of New Zealand politics, it is not without precedent – Sir Bill English came back to the National Party leadership in 2016, thirteen years after being deposed, although the circumstances were vastly different. A more interesting parallel comes from across the Tasman. John Howard was an abrasive and brash Treasurer under Malcolm Fraser. Howard subsequently became leader of the Liberal Party but was dropped in 1989 because he was seen as no match for then Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Once Hawke had departed the scene (and the Liberal Party had been through three more leaders and two additional election defeats) a more mellow Howard was restored as party leader, going on to win four consecutive elections and become Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister since the dominance of Sir Robert Menzies from the 1940s to the 1960s. 

There is still a mighty long way to go before National can even dare to dream of such a heady future. It cannot happen until National closes the door on its last two disastrous years. Changing the leader is but the first step. More important, will be the development of a coherent policy programme and message to the electorate at large, which still seems as far away as ever. Yet that will be the difference between National looking like a genuine contender at the next election and just another also-ran the way it does at present. 

Changing the leader will not of itself change that – but it will put the party in a position where it can look forward once more. Simon Bridges will therefore need to show he really has risen above the failings of his previous leadership by setting out clearly and persuasively National’s plan for the country’s future.  He will not get a third chance.      

 

As the world’s great and good descend on Glasgow for the COP26 Conference there has been criticism of Climate Change Minister James Shaw’s decision to attend on behalf of New Zealand. Some have highlighted what they see as the hypocrisy of calling for the need to reduce individual carbon footprints on the one hand while travelling halfway round the world to do so on the other. Others have argued that it is insensitive to be leaving New Zealand at this time to attend an international conference, when Covid19 restrictions are making it near impossible for so many others with pressing family matters to come and go from the country. 

Both streams of criticism miss the point, in my view. My concern is not of the Minister’s attendance, rather that he will not be arriving until after all the other political leaders have left. The whole value of such conferences is the opportunity to interact directly with political counterparts from other countries, to share experiences, and learn directly from them. 

For many years when I was a Minister I attended the annual meeting of the United Nations Convention on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna. While the meeting proceedings were formulaic (despite my attempt when chairing one of the plenary sessions to make the discussion more focused and purposeful, rather than just the customary statement of national positions), the opportunities outside of those more formal situations to establish links with Ministers and senior officials from other countries, or international non-government agencies was extremely valuable. 

I was able to establish close personal connections with not only many of my counterparts of the time, but also agencies like the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and its agencies, and the Obama White House. Over time, these contacts became extremely valuable, both as sources of information on developing trends from their perspectives, and new policy initiatives that may or may not have been applicable to New Zealand. There were similar opportunities to share New Zealand’s experiences with others facing similar situations. 

One example was learning from UN Drug Testing Laboratory officials of the then comparatively new Swedish approach of testing wastewater for narcotic drug residues to ascertain the prevalence of drugs like methamphetamine in local communities. That technique has now become commonplace today, including using wastewater testing to determine the presence of Covid19 in a community. 

The COP26 meeting has a much greater significance and overall importance to the world than the Convention on Narcotic Drugs, but the experiences I am reporting will be just as relevant in a different context. For the future of both New Zealand’s international positioning and our domestic response, it is important that New Zealand have a Minister visible at the table for these discussions. 

Other countries rate the significance countries place on an issue by whether they are represented at these international gatherings by politicians, or just leave their participation to officials, or diplomats. The presence of a Minister heading a country’s national delegation is generally interpreted as meaning a country is taking the issue seriously and has a point to make, and moreover, is worth listening to. In a very hierarchical international order, this is important for a small, isolated country like New Zealand. It opens doors that might otherwise have remained closed. 

The decisions reached at COP26 will have an important impact on new Zealand’s future. While we are still finessing our own policy response, consistent with our national interest, and the work to date of bodies like the Climate Commission, we will be very influenced by what happens over the next week in Glasgow. Having a Minister present to set out New Zealand’s position and potential concerns will have an impact beyond just having officials putting forward our view, no matter how well-intentioned and competent they might be. 

For these reasons, I do not criticise James Shaw for deciding to go to Glasgow. As I say, it is a great pity he will not be arriving there until after most of the political heavyweights have left, which will diminish his attendance somewhat. But hopefully he will still have sufficient opportunity to make good connections, that both reinforce New Zealand’s concerns from a national and wider Pacific perspective and press home to others the urgent political as well as environmental consequences rising sea levels will have in our part of the world. 

Climate change should not be a partisan political issue, no matter how tempting it might be from time to time to play politics over some of the positions being advocated. Therefore, the overwhelming thrust of the government’s approach needs to be on securing a durable national consensus on which to base New Zealand’s own ongoing policy approach. 

The Minister’s attendance at COP26 is not an opportunity for political sniping, but rather a further step in building up the sound policy base we will need to secure our national climate change policy response. To that end, he should have the full support of Parliament and should be required to report back fully to Parliament as a whole, not just the government, when he returns. 

After all, climate change is simply too important an issue to be capriciously up for change whenever there is a change of government.

Just three weeks ago the Minister of Local Government received the interim report of the Future for Local Government Review which the government had earlier commissioned.

Predictably, she welcomed the report the way Ministers usually do, with the standard statement of warm platitudes and pious hopes about what it might lead to for the future.

She said, “Our system of local democracy and governance needs to evolve to be fit for the future. New Zealand is changing and growing, and there are some significant challenges presenting … with issues like COVID-19, future population growth, and climate change.” All very worthy, and hard to disagree with.

The Minister then went on to say, “… local authorities can be innovative and collaborative, and there is a breadth of opportunities for local government and the role it can play in contributing to the wellbeing of all of us living in Aotearoa.” She concluded that “local democracy is vital to the fabric of New Zealand society” and that the report “… is a starting point for strengthening our local democratic participation, empowering communities to have a voice in local decision-making, more collaboration between central and local government.”

A casual observer might have been forgiven for taking from those remarks that the government was genuinely looking to achieve the partnership that all governments say they want with local government but rarely achieve, and that her words could be believed. However, actions she and her government have taken since then show not only that the government no interest in working constructively with local government, but also that the Minister’s words were no more than waffling poppycock that cannot be taken seriously.

Barely ten days later the Minister of Housing stood at the same “podium of truth” with collaborators from the National Party to announce mutually agreed new housing development plans, which cut right across the current district and local plans of many Councils up and down the country. From the reaction of a number of Mayors it was clear they had little knowledge or warning of what was coming, even though they are now the ones expected to pick up the pieces to make this joint Labour/National declaration work.

There was nothing in the two old parties’ proclamation about “strengthening our local democratic participation” or “empowering communities to have a voice in local decision-making” as per the Minister of Local Government a few days earlier, even though she would have known at the time what was being planned. To rub salt into the wound, the joint statement from the old parties made it clear that they would be moving quickly to legislate their decisions into place.

Local government, already wary from numerous past experiences over many years of engaging with central government, would have seen this as one more reason why Wellington cannot be trusted, no matter who is in power there. The Minister of Local Government, so soothing and pious when the Future for Local Government Review report was presented, was nowhere to be seen – or heard.

But this was only the start. What fluttering shreds remained of her credibility were completely ripped away by her announcement yesterday that the controversial Three Waters reforms, which have divided local government, will proceed. In making the announcement there was no reference to the “local democracy”, “opportunities for local government” or strengthening “local democratic participation” and “empowering communities” that the Minister seemed so fond of when the Future for Local Government Review was released.

Her rationale for proceeding with the Three Waters reforms was no more than “they may not be popular, but they are necessary.” Such a glib statement is no justification for one of the most controversial asset steals of recent times, aside from the implicit but untested assumption that central government knows best how to manage water resources.

Now, there is little doubt that the management of water resources in New Zealand does require a shake-up, but it remains highly questionable whether placing everything under centralised state control is the best way of achieving change. Big centralised, government-controlled agencies have not always worked well in the past and local government clearly thinks a state monopoly will not work in this instance either, but its views might be tainted by vested interest so also need to be treated with some caution. The group with the biggest stake of all in the management of water resources – local communities – have not yet been consulted at all at this stage, so it is unclear what they think of the idea.

The obvious opportunity for hearing what the public – or at least the portion of it that bothers to vote – thinks will be at the next local government elections now less than a year away. But the last thing the Minister of Local Government and her colleagues want is the local body elections to become a referendum on the Three Waters plans, hence the decision to proceed at this point.

The unfortunate reality is, as with the housing changes also, that central government holds all the cards. Local democracy, it would seem, is fine but only up to a point, The clear message from both the housing and Three Waters changes is that when it comes to the big decisions, central government will do what it wants, regardless of other views. Local councils and people can talk and rage all they like about what is happening, but it is effectively too late once the major decisions have been made.

The same pattern is being demonstrated with the health reforms and many aspects of the Covid19 response where the default position has been throughout that everything must be controlled by the government. One has only to look at the cumbersome, incompetent, unfair, callous, and unworkable MIQ system or the ineffectual sealing of internal borders to see how good this government is at running things!

So, where does all this leave the Minister of Local Government? She has single-handedly torn up her credibility over the last three weeks. She now risks becoming the modern embodiment of Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter: “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” 

Given that she is also the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and there are difficult emerging foreign policy issues ahead where the precision, clarity, certainty, and veracity of words will matter, a Mad Hatter making it up as they go along is the last thing we need.

     

 The Labour-led Government must be rubbing its hands with glee after the announcement earlier this week of its housing deal with the National Party. In one fell swoop it has effectively both taken increasing housing availability and affordability – issues the government was becoming increasingly vulnerable on – off the political agenda, as well as burying the spectre of its own much-ridiculed Kiwibuild programme. 

Kiwibuild spectacularly failed to achieve the overly ambitious target Labour set for it of 10,000 new affordable homes a year for ten years. However, undaunted by the past, this week’s agreement is holding out the even bolder prospect of 105,000 new homes in just the next five years. And, if this plan fails, the responsibility will be shared equally between the two old parties who devised it. In the meantime, for that reason, neither will have any incentive to criticise the other over it, meaning housing provision has effectively been removed from the short to medium political agenda. 

The pressures on both Labour and National to make this agreement work are strong, but not identical. For Labour, this deal is a chance to recover some momentum in the housing field, given the failure of Kiwibuild, runaway housing prices showing little real sign of slowing significantly despite various government tax changes and the Reserve Bank tightening lending rules, and steadily rising homelessness rates. For National, it is much more a case of being taken seriously once more, important for its own credibility and relevance as more and more of its supporters appear to be defecting to ACT. 

The importance of this deal to both parties is underscored by its coming as a surprise to Labour’s support partner the Greens, and the Mayors of major cities whose own housing development plans have now been undercut. As might be expected though, the Labour Mayor of Auckland, while complaining that he was not aware of the agreement before it was announced, sycophantically immediately threw his support behind it before he had even seen the details. The Mayor of Wellington was grumpy that this new plan cut right across his own Council’s still being finalised intensification strategy. But since the Wellington City Council’s plan looked set to sacrifice the heritage aspect of many Wellington suburbs to multi-storey neo-Stalinist apartment blocks, the National/Labour agreement curtailing that lunacy may be no bad thing. 

Leaving aside a measure of cynicism that this week’s agreement will in fact amount to much, given the number of national and local elections and possible outcomes over the next five to ten years, there are nevertheless a number of concerns about what appears to have been agreed. The emphasis on building more homes is an understandable public policy priority at present. However, the intention to gut the Resource Management Act and the good planning and environmental safeguards it has ensured is likely to be regretted over time. 

The rush to free up urban land to enable developers to build up to three three–storey dwellings on existing sections on a non-consented basis has serious implications. Not only is it effectively an open invitation to developers and speculators to do what they like, it has the potential, as a consequence, to further escalate house prices, as well as changing the character of many of our suburbs forever. The appeal of quiet suburban streets giving way to more and more apartment blocks side-by-side, with more cars parked on the streets, and less playing space for children where once were homes, lawns and gardens is likely to be short-lived. 

Yet this is the future Labour and National are effectively signing us up for. While New Zealanders are concerned about housing and do want to see real moves to improve both affordability and accessibility, it is doubtful that too many will, over time, favour the fundamental change in the nature and form of our major cities, let alone the consequential lifestyle changes, the new Labour/National plan will engender. In that regard, it is extremely disturbing that such a major potential change to our way of life was developed by the two parties, effectively in secret, without any public or local body consultation. 

While the inherent collectivism of close-quartered, multi-storey living, with little private external recreational space for people to develop as their own (a breeding ground for airborne viruses like Covid19 if ever there was one), might be closer to Labour’s ideological heart, it runs contrary to National’s historic policy of promoting a property-owning democracy, with its implicit commitment to land, space and opportunity. 

If one of the intentions, from Labour’s perspective at least, and now by implication it would seems National’s as well, of this policy is to create greater equality by eliminating over time the diversity of our suburbs, it is almost certainly doomed to failure. Indeed, it is likely to have the opposite effect – currently attractive suburbs are likely to become even more so, thus pushing up their prices, and thereby dragging up prices throughout the rest of the housing market. The only long-term winners are likely to be the speculators and developers whose eagerness over many years to get rid of the Resource Management Act should have been a warning to be noted, rather than embraced the way it now has been. 

For Labour, though, none of this apparently matters. By the time these new policies reach absolute fruition, if ever they do, their time in government will most likely have passed, so the consequences will no longer be their responsibility. In getting National on-side with these plans, Labour has not only removed a currently ongoing contentious issue from immediate debate, but in so doing has once more snookered National. 

It is a further sign that politics has always been at the forefront of this government’s agenda.

 

This week marks the 25^th anniversary of the New Zealand’s first MMP election. Over the last quarter century, the MMP electoral system has led to our Parliament becoming more socially and ethnically diverse, more gender balanced, and to a wider spread of political opinion gaining representation. Or, as one of my former colleagues observed somewhat ruefully at the time, Parliament starting to look a little more like the rest of New Zealand. 

As we celebrate that milestone, it is worth noting that – contrary to the dire predictions of some of MMP’s original opponents – the arrival of multi-party governments has maintained political stability and broad policy continuity. The various political parties in government over that time have quickly developed the modus operandi to make that work, and while there have been differences within governments, there has rarely been the instance of the small party tail wagging the large party dog the way some feared would be the case. 

But rather than strengthen the positive features the MMP system has brought to our system of government, the current government is currently considering a measure that will limit the ability of smaller parties to gain and retain representation in the future. It has established an independent electoral review to look at, amongst other measures, changing the threshold for representation in a way that could have a detrimental impact on small parties, Te Pati Māori, in particular. 

The 1986 Royal Commission that proposed our MMP system originally recommended that the party vote threshold (the minimum vote required to gain party list seats) be set at 4%, or, if a party won an electorate seat, for all its party votes to count, regardless of whether they reached the 4% threshold. In effect, that meant a party winning one seat needed about 1.2% of the party vote to win its first list seat. 

At the time, Parliament’s then two-party Labour-National club decided that the Royal Commission’s recommendations were too generous and might lead to an unacceptable proliferation of new and small parties in Parliament which could be destabilising for democracy (in other words, a threat to their monopoly). So, together, they increased the Royal Commission’s recommended threshold to 5%, but left the one-seat rule untouched because both thought it unlikely many, if any, parties would gain representation this way. 

By and large, they have been right. Outside the Māori seats, where special dynamics have applied, since the advent of MMP only 5 general seats have elected Members from outside either Labour or National. In the current Parliament only one general seat and one Māori seat have non-Labour or National Members. Moreover, on only three occasions (the Progressive Party in 2002, UnitedFuture in 2005 and Te Pati Māori in 2014) have parties with Members elected via the one-seat threshold been part of governing arrangements, and even then the total number of Members elected this way over those three instances was just 4. On three other occasions (New Zealand First in 1999, ACT in 2005 and Te Pati Māori in 2020) a total of 5 Members have been elected via the one-seat rule, but they were not part of governing arrangements at the time. 

Whichever way one looks at it, the impact of the one-seat threshold has been limited. In the three instances where it played a role in government formation, the lead party of government (Labour in 2002 and 2005 and National in 2014) would likely have remained in office, regardless of the application of that threshold. That says the pejorative argument that parties, large and small, have been using the one-seat rule to manipulate government formation has little real weight. 

At the same time, what is clear, though, is that the one-seat rule has helped small parties get representation, but without significant distortion to the overall make-up of Parliament. (The biggest number of Members at any one time elected via the one-seat rule was 3 New Zealand First MPs in 1999.) 

If the independent review upholds the government’s previously stated policy intent to abolish the one-seat rule from 2026 it will also need to recommend a substantial reduction in the party vote threshold to compensate for the impact on small parties. Current thinking seems to be to revert to the 4% proposal of the Royal Commission, but, effectively, without the one-seat rule, this would still leave the representation barrier higher than the Royal Commission thought desirable. 

If the one-seat rule is abolished, a fairer and more realistic party vote threshold would be in the region of 2% to 3%, but the chances of that happening are remote. For its part, National has already said it will oppose any reduction in the party-vote threshold, but its position on the one-seat rule is more ambiguous. The worst outcome – but the one Labour and National have historically inclined to – would be keeping the party vote threshold at 5% and abolishing the one-seat rule. 

That would suit their common self-interest very well but would be bad for democracy overall. It would further limit the already difficult prospects new and emerging parties face to gain representation and would have a particular impact on Te Pati Māori. Were the one-seat rule to be abolished, as things currently stand, Te Pati Māori would lose its solitary list seat. Moreover, as its power base is concentrated in the Māori seats, its prospects of reaching the 5% of the total vote threshold will always be much more difficult than for other parties. For that reason, there is a case for considering a lower party vote threshold for Māori-based parties, although that would be extremely difficult to institute in practice and would almost certainly be divisive, so is unlikely. 

There is a fundamental principle at stake here which is in danger of being overlooked. The basic role of the electoral system is to provide a fair process for the election of our Parliament. An inherent part of that is ensuring that the system is so designed to enable the widest possible expression of political opinion, which is more than just looking after Labour and National. Provisions that unreasonably restrict or marginalise that opportunity should be rejected. Instead, within the confines of the system, the focus should always be on enhancing and promoting the opportunities for political expression and representation, not limiting them. Were that principle to be applied to the current consideration of electoral law changes, the fixation to do away with one-seat rule would be immediately and solidly rejected.