In his first two months as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins impressed for his directness, clarity and determination, and the assured way in which he transitioned into his new role. His everyman style, from the hoodie to the more than occasional meat pie, won many positive comments. The methodical but decisive way in which he dismantled or pushed to one side those aspects of Ardernism, so dear to the Labour Party, but increasingly egregious to the public, has been impressive. Taken together, they have led to speculation he could become the first Prime Minister since Peter Fraser eighty years ago to win re-election in his own right, after having taken over during a Parliamentary term.

However, it all changed this week, through the way Hipkins dealt with crises surrounding two of his Ministers, Stuart Nash and Marama Davidson. In both instances, he looked panicked, hesitant, and uncertain, and no longer in control of events. 

The sacking of Stuart Nash was inevitable, following the revelations over the last couple of weeks about various actions he had taken as a Minister that were in breach of the provisions of the Cabinet Manual. After this week’s news of an email sent to funders detailing Cabinet discussions, Nash reportedly offered Hipkins his resignation from the Cabinet. But Hipkins was determined to appear strong and decisive, so decided instead to proactively dismiss Nash, rather than just accept his offer of resignation. 

But, in reality, Hipkins’ decision looked far less that of a Prime Minister in control, and much more a “mea culpa” for not having dismissed Nash when allegations first arose against him a couple of weeks ago. Then, Hipkins gave Nash at least two final warnings about his behaviour, and Nash, for his part, assured Hipkins there were no more skeletons in his closet. Hipkins was too willing to ignore the patterns of Nash’s behaviour and seemed oblivious to the prospect of more incidents coming to light, to the embarrassment of Nash and the government. 

While Hipkins’ decision this week may have got rid of Nash, it has not got rid of the problem. Investigations are already underway into what other inappropriate actions Nash may have taken as a Minister over the last five years. At the same time, and more worryingly for the Prime Minister, investigations have also begun into the role of the Prime Minister’s Office and what officials there knew about what Nash was up to, and why they chose not to inform both the Prime Minister and his predecessor about what they knew. 

The net effect is that the Prime Minister has lost control of the Nash issue. Hipkins does not know what other inappropriate actions by Nash the current investigations may find, or how damaging they may be. And because of the involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office during his predecessor’s time, he now faces accusations of a cover-up by his officials over the matter. In the meantime, the Nash issue looks likely to rumble on for some time to come, disrupting Hipkins’ momentum as it does so. Had Hipkins acted more decisively earlier, and dismissed Nash then, instead of just issuing a series of final warnings, it is likely the matter would have blown over by now. However, now, his initial indecision could up by derailing his government altogether. 

One thing the Nash saga this week has done is deflect attention from another errant Minister, the Greens’ Marama Davidson. Her inflammatory comments at the weekend about who perpetrates sexual violence earned a Prime Ministerial rebuke of sorts, but that was as far as it went. Davidson has subsequently refused to either withdraw or apologise to the wider public for her comments, appearing instead to double-down on them when challenged. 

As with Nash, Davidson’s responses this week suggest it is very likely she has not learned from the incident, and there is no consequent guarantee she will not make similar outbursts in the future, to the frustration of the Prime Minister. At the very least, Hipkins should have stood Davidson down from her role as Minister for Family Violence Prevention, and he should have had an urgent discussion with her co-leader about whether she should be replaced as a Minister altogether. By not acting decisively, Hipkins looks as though he is hoping the Nash affair will let Davidson’s transgressions slide by almost unnoticed. 

What is surprising is that Hipkins has not learned from the early stages of the Nash affair and seems set to repeat the same mistakes all over again. As he did with Nash, the Prime Minister is just keeping his fingers crossed Davidson will not transgress again. All of which leaves him looking weak and no longer in control of the government’s narrative. 

In just a week, Hipkins’ positive, cheery approach and the confidence it was inspiring, has taken a mighty hit. He no longer looks like a Prime Minister in firm and decisive control of his government and its agenda. His indecision and timidity have left him looking distracted, to the detriment of the government’s agenda. 

Time is marching on. There are just over seven months to the election. The last thing the Prime Minister needs is to be distracted from the big tasks requiring his attention in that time, by having to put out persistent fires in his own ranks. Yet his initial failures to act decisively in the Nash case, and now potentially the Davidson situation as well, have left him exactly in that situation. Against the backdrop of likely more embarrassing revelations about Nash, and more divisive and explosive comments from Davidson (not to mention any other Ministers yet to go rogue!) the Prime Minister now faces an almighty challenge in trying to recapture the control of the political agenda he and his government were enjoying barely a week ago.

 

 

 

 

 

Thirty years ago, after a marathon Parliamentary sitting, the Bolger National government passed the Maritime Transport Act which deregulated coastal shipping by abolishing cabotage. Cabotage was the practice which restricted the operation of sea, air, or other transport services within a country to that country’s domestic operators only.

The abolition of cabotage meant that New Zealand’s coastal shipping services were opened to direct competition from overseas shipping lines. According to the argument at the time, it was more efficient to allow foreign vessels coming here to transport their cargo around the coast themselves, rather than requiring them to unload at major ports to smaller, New Zealand-operated coastal vessels. Abolishing cabotage, it was said, would cut transport costs, make deliveries more efficient through greater economies of scale, and provide a better service overall to consumers.

It was predicated on the assumption the overseas shipping companies would welcome the opportunity to compete directly around the New Zealand coast, and that the days of slow and sometimes unreliable local services were over. Conveniently overlooked in this argument was New Zealand’s previous experience with the Conference Lines – the cartel of mainly British-owned shipping companies that had dominated New Zealand’s maritime trade from the 1880s through to the advent of containerisation in the late 1960s. The Conference Lines had set charges and determined tonnages to be shipped to Britain on their terms and always in their own interests.

The naïve assumption of the 1990s was that a more competitive international shipping environment brought on by containerisation would be different. It would not lead to the type of restrictive practices of the Conference Lines once coastal shipping was deregulated, or so it was said. Implicit in this was a view that the New Zealand coastal market was big enough for overseas shipping companies to want to play in. What was overlooked was that New Zealand is a small market at the end of most trade routes, and therefore unlikely to be sufficiently attractive to international shipping companies to invest too much effort in. They simply wanted to arrive here, unload their cargoes, reload, and sail to their next overseas port, as quickly as possible.

The first casualty of coastal shipping deregulation was the local shipping industry itself. The small coasters that had served provincial ports up and down the country quickly disappeared. They were replaced not by overseas ships bringing cargoes to those ports, but by rail services between ports in some cases, but more commonly by trucks that could operate more flexible services. The Cook Strait ferries, unreliable as they have become, are now our only significant coastal shipping services.

Over the years, overseas shipping companies have steadily reduced or terminated their services to New Zealand, making our supply lines even more vulnerable than already determined by our geography. The disruption caused to international trade by the pandemic has massively intensified that problem.

At the same time rising concern about carbon emissions has raised questions about the environmental sustainability of large container vessels sailing around the New Zealand coast. The devastation to regions like Tairawhiti and Hawkes Bay during the recent cyclones, and disruption to road and rail transport networks have raised their own concerns about whether our shipping network remains fit for purpose.

The recent announcement by global shipping giant Maersk that it is terminating its national coastal shipping service from next month after less than a year in operation introduces further uncertainty into the domestic shipping market. Maersk is intending to ship goods to New Zealand through an Australian port on a weekly basis, rather than several New Zealand ports, which it says will lead to better and more flexible services and connections to overseas markets. Maersk will be continuing its direct services to west coast North American ports from New Zealand.

The promises of better services to New Zealand consumers have a familiar, if unbelievable, ring to them, going back to the days of the Conference Lines and the “home boats” serving the British market. Our already vulnerable shipping links are likely to become more tenuous as a result.

The combination of rising concern about emission levels and the environmental safety of big container vessels (remember the Rena?), the vulnerability of regional communities to adverse weather events, and the apparent indifference of international shipping companies to New Zealand’s circumstances, raise the question of whether, and how, a more responsive coastal shipping service could be re-established. A return to cabotage is unlikely and undesirable, but there is a case for reviewing the Maritime Transport Act and looking afresh at the feasibility of establishing a modern coastal shipping service. 

Our state highways are deteriorating because of increased heavy usage, our rail services are perennially struggling, with their vulnerability to adverse weather and the consequences for regional communities now dramatically exposed. Therefore, reconsidering the role and place of coastal shipping must surely be a priority for the next government as part of its approach to climate change, reinforcing community resilience and developing national infrastructure.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to see how the Greens can support another Labour-led government if they are able to do so after this year’s election. Already, co-leader James Shaw has warned Labour not to take it for granted that the Greens will automatically support Labour again (even though by ruling out ever working with National the Greens have left themselves nowhere else to go if they want to remain a party of government.)

The problem for the Greens is that in his drive to make Labour electable again new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has ditched many items from the government’s agenda that the Greens were champions for.

Co-governance of water resources which the Greens wanted to entrench last year was an early casualty. Last week it was joined by climate change emissions targets in the roading sector which were dropped in favour of repairing highways after the cyclones. This week, the clean car rebate; reductions in road speeds as the part of the Greens-sponsored “Road to Zero” programme; reform of alcohol laws which the Greens have been pushing hard on, and legislation to lower the voting age to 16, another Greens’ favourite, have all been dropped.

Other Greens priorities at present like a wealth tax, and a tax on windfall profits in the banking sector, are also finding little favour with Hipkins’ Labour. All of which leaves the Greens in quite a predicament about what to do post-election if Labour needs their support to form a new government.

But it is also a problem for Labour. Having so emphatically abandoned so many of the policies dearest to the Greens’ hearts as distractions and too expensive, Hipkins will have no credibility if he seeks to re-introduce some or all of them after the election as the price of a coalition or new confidence and supply agreement with the Greens. To do so, would be the ultimate act of duplicity, which voters would take a long time to forgive.

Yet, if Shaw’s comments are to be taken seriously, and not just treated as pre-election shadowboxing, Hipkins will have to offer some significant concessions to the Greens if he wishes to remain Prime Minister after the election. Voters can therefore be rightfully suspicious that policies abandoned now as unaffordable, or undesirable, and a few more besides, will re-emerge after the election as the price of a deal with the Greens.

In a telling remark last week justifying why the RNZ/TVNZ Merger Board was still meeting weeks after the project had been dropped by the Prime Minister, Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson suggested the move was only temporary and that plan could well emerge at some future point. That candid admission inevitably raises the question of what other pet projects that have been jettisoned so quickly now in the quest for electoral popularity will resurface just as quickly if Labour remains in office.

Labour needs to spell out before the election which of the policies the media love to say Hipkins has put on the bonfire, are gone forever, and which ones will be revived if it gets the chance to do so. And the Greens need to make clear what their expectations are in this regard. That way, voters will know whether Labour really has become more pragmatic and responsive under Hipkins, or whether the whole policy review was just a charade to allow Labour breathing space before the election. The Greens, too, need to spell out what policies they have acquiesced on just to get through the election, and which ones they would expect to see reinstated if there is a Labour/Greens government next year.

National’s Luxon makes the point that if the policy bonfire is a genuine scrapping of unpopular policies, then the Labour government is left with very little to show for the last five and a half years in office. He now needs to hammer home this point – that, by its own admission, Labour’s cupboard is bare, and therefore that the last five and a years have been largely a waste of time. National also needs to constantly harry Labour on what policies are gone forever and which ones will return after the election, as the price of doing a deal with the Greens.

In a nutshell, it comes down to this. Labour cannot stay in government without the support of the Greens, notwithstanding their current grumpiness and threats not to support Labour. Each knows the only outcome from that would be a National-led government, which would be political anathema to both. Therefore, some sort of deal will have to be done between them.

Consequently, voters will be rightfully wary about how credible, Hipkins’ self-proclaimed “bread and butter” policy reset is, or whether, as is looking increasingly likely, it is no more than a cynical stunt to save Labour’s electoral bacon.

The Greens may well know the answer already.

   

In its increasingly frenetic rush to distance itself from the least popular aspects of the Ardern government, the Hipkins administration is becoming more and more erratic and inconsistent.

The initial policy reset was reasonable, but the government’s actions subsequently have become abrupt and unpredictable. It is increasingly difficult to discern a clear sense of direction, and hard to escape the conclusion that electoral panic has become the government’s main driver.

Climate change emissions targets have been dropped following cyclone damage to roads. In the best tradition of Yes Minister farce, the Radio New Zealand/Television New Zealand merger establishment board is still meeting weeks after the merger was abandoned. And as the Campbell and Maharey incidents demonstrate differing rules seem to apply to the way in which those appointed to government roles should conduct themselves.

In that regard, it must be acknowledged that governments need competent external people to serve on their various boards and committees and have a right to expect they will comply with recognised professional standards of behaviour. For their part, appointees have a right to expect in return that governments will treat them fairly and consistently.

At first glance, the Rob Campbell situation looked like a straightforward – but bizarre – case of someone who had breached the expectation of political neutrality, and therefore had to go. The fact that he was a highly experienced professional, independent director raised eyebrows as to what had occasioned his apparent brain fade. There was little initial sympathy for him, with many concluding that he should have known better and had therefore brought his sackings upon himself.

However, his subsequent comments and those from Ministers paint a more disturbing picture. It is now clear that Campbell was dismissed less for his public criticisms of the National Party leader, than for his ongoing internal questioning of whether the government’s health reforms he was leading were proceeding in the right direction. His warnings that the government’s flagship reforms were being stalled by a “constipated” bureaucracy had become too trenchant for the government to want to keep hearing. Ministers were clearly looking for an excuse to not only get rid of him, but also make him the scapegoat for the failure of the reform process so far.

Yet the official grounds for his removal remain – his public comments on National’s attitude to co-governance breached the expectation of political neutrality, and therefore the government’s expectations. All of which they might have got away with, had it not been for the emergence of the Maharey situation while the dust was still settling on the Campbell case.

Maharey is a doctrinaire former Labour Minister who chairs the ACC, PHARMAC, and Education NZ Boards. He is far more a reliable upholder of the Labour faith than ever Campbell was, and therefore more valuable to the government. He felt obliged to draw to the government’s attention that he also wrote political columns critical of the National Party, and offered, in the light of Campbell’s fate, to stand down from his appointed roles.

Given the stress the Prime Minister had placed last week on the importance of preserving political neutrality in these roles and why Campbell’s comments had made his position untenable, Maharey’s offer to resign on similar grounds should have been accepted immediately and without further question. That would have been the consistent thing to do.

But consistency does not seem to be a value Hipkins is attracted to. Instead of acting decisively on the Maharey case, as it did with Campbell, his government resorted to all sorts of prevarication. First, was the Prime Minister’s banal suggestion that Maharey’s case was not as serious as Campbell’s because Maharey’s critical language had been softer than Campbell’s. Then came the excuse from the Health Minister that the Public Service Commission was still investigating whether Maharey had breached the rules, notwithstanding Maharey’s admission he had already done so.

The Commission’s subsequent finding that while Maharey had breached the rules, it was at the lower end of the scale so did not require his dismissal is simply perplexing. Maharey is a seasoned political operator who knew full well what he was doing, not just once but on the several occasions, by his own admission, that he wrote politically loaded commentaries.

That the government chose not to take the high ground and dismiss him like Campbell simply smacks of a desperate attempt to keep a political friend on the public sector gravy train, rather than the application of the behaviour standards applying to government appointees. The rules that applied last week when Campbell was dismissed, apparently do not apply to members of the Labour family like Maharey. In his determined rush to clear the decks of anything that could be awkward for Labour in election year, the Prime Minister appears to be increasingly disregarding the value of consistency.

Beyond Campbell and Maharey, the bigger picture created by these events has become more disturbing and unclear, because of the chaotic way in which they have been handled. All government-appointed Board chairs and directors must now be scratching their heads about what the current rules regarding political neutrality are being applied at present, and more importantly, how consistently they will be applied.

The greater risk emerging from the government’s quixotic approach is that good people will become less inclined to accept appointments to government boards, because of the uncertainties created by its handling of these recent events. The talent pool of people competent and experienced enough to fill these roles is already a limited one, with the same names cropping up time and time again, mainly because of the small size of our country.

In the overall interests of sound governance, we cannot afford to lose the services of good people because of this uncertainty. Nor can we tolerate a government that treats previously accepted rules and standards of behaviour as its personal plaything, to be acknowledged, applied, or abandoned, only as and when it sees fit, but always to its political advantage.    

 In just over five weeks as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has breathed new life into a previously flagging government. His government looks more purposeful, more grounded in the realities facing New Zealanders today, and more realistic.

Whereas his predecessor clung to her dreams – famously telling television interviewer Jack Tame last year that she would never shy away from aspiration – Hipkins understands that aspirations count for little if they cannot be achieved. Hence his bonfire of various difficult or unpopular Labour policies on taking office, with the hint of more to come. He knows that even to be able to think about aspirations, his party needs to secure power at the coming election in October.

He has made a good start so far, with his media profile being boosted by two unwelcome and unexpected damaging cyclones. Through this, he has established his brand as Prime Minister, more quickly than he might have anticipated. As a result, Labour is at least back in the ring for this year’s electoral contest. Tellingly, there has been little evidence so far of nostalgia for the former Prime Minister.

Parallels are already being drawn between Labour’s dramatic poll recovery and subsequent election landslide in 2020 in the wake of the arrival of Covid19, and the current situation. There have been suggestions that Hipkins’ response to the cyclones could generate a similar wave of support for Labour in the lead-up to this year’s election. These are over-enthusiastic reactions to what is happening at present.

The parallels between 2020 and now are limited. In 2020, the government won because the sense was that the risk of Covid19 applied to all of us, and that the government’s response, and Jacinda Ardern’s overt compassion, kept the entire nation safe from the pandemic that was then sweeping virtually unchecked across the world. Indeed, “Jacinda kept us safe” became the mantra of many in the months before that election.

This time, the situation is not so universal. While the colossal devastation of large parts of the east and north of the North Island from the cyclones cannot be minimised, the rest of the country has not been directly affected. There is no sense of immediate crisis and threat enveloping the entire country, as there was with the arrival of the pandemic. Nor is there anything that “Chris has kept us safe” from, as there was with Covid19. While the Prime Minister will win support for his handling to date of the cyclone response, it will not be anything like the deep, emotional, lasting bond of gratitude there was with Ardern.

Bluntly, managing the initial response to the cyclone was the easy bit, which Hipkins has done well. He showed clarity of purpose and understanding of the magnitude of the situation, which got people on side. But having done that successfully, he now faces the far more difficult challenge of retaining that support while the recovery gets underway.

The tolerance of those whose lives have been torn asunder will quickly dissipate if their situations do not start to be rectified soon. Inevitably, calls will have to be made about priorities, and just as inevitably that means there will be winners and losers in the terms of how the recovery proceeds and its impacts on particular localities.

It is not like Covid19 where the risk was constant across all communities, and where it was possible to apply a whole-of-country approach to keeping the pandemic at bay. Situations differ from region to region now, meaning the response will, of necessity, be uneven. It will be simply impossible to apply the “one size fits all” style that worked so well in the “podium of truth” days.

When the going gets tough in the weeks ahead, Hipkins will not be able to rely on the appeal to the “greater good” that Ardern could during the pandemic. Unlike her, he will be expected to answer the hard questions, and will be pinned down by the media and political opponents when he does not. Already, he has shown a tendency to make minor mistakes under pressure, a point that will not have escaped his opponents’ notice.

While the Prime Minister deserves praise for the way he has handled his job in the first few weeks, his long-term fate will almost certainly be determined by what happens over the next few weeks before the Easter break. During that time, those who have lost houses and businesses will be seeking at least rudimentary assurances about their futures. Local authorities will be wanting to know how the recovery in their area is to proceed, and will expect all their vital infrastructure and connectivity services to have been restored. Insurance companies will be expected to have begun the compensation process.

If the prevailing sense in affected communities at that point is that tangible, albeit slow, progress is being made towards getting back to normal, the Prime Minister may live to fight another day. However, if the sense of despondency and desperation so many now understandably feel has not diminished, or has been replaced by new anxieties and uncertainties, and that mood starts to permeate the country, the Prime Minister and his government will be in trouble.

In short, Hipkins’ future is now inextricably linked to how the recovery from the cyclones goes. We are too far advanced in the electoral cycle and the impact of the cyclones has been too great to allow the government the time and space to develop and implement attractive, new policies, in other areas much dearer to Labour’s heart and constituency.  Even his early commitment to focus on the cost-of-living crisis now risks becoming secondary to recovery from the cyclones’ impacts.

Whereas Ardern was able to control the spread of Covid19 through border closures and lockdowns, Hipkins has no such capacity to control the impact of natural events. As winter approaches, the risk of recession draws closer and the cost-of-living continues rising, he may well be left just having to hope for the best.

During the first Covid19 lockdown the government cleverly and skilfully used the tactic of inclusion to build support for its initiatives and marginalise its critics. Hence the frequent references to all being in this together as part of the “team of five million.”

In their anxiety and fear of the looming pandemic people quickly brought into this approach and the government reaped strong compliance and substantial political approval for its actions. Consequently, it was easily able to isolate its critics, from anti-vaxxers to the anarchistic rabble that occupied Parliament grounds, as not being part of the “team”, and therefore not worthy of further consideration. By and large, the public agreed.

However, over the following couple of years, aspects of this approach started to grate more and more. First, was the controversy that erupted over the way the MIQ system was operated, with increasing numbers of families affected by its arbitrary and uneven procedures and the seeming indifference of officials to their concerns. Then came the vaccine mandates and the suggestion that the small minority of New Zealanders who misguidedly chose not to be vaccinated, as was their right, should be discriminated against regarding employment and access to government services.

This type of overreach was generally seen as a step too far. It culminated in then Covid19 Minister Hipkins’ short-lived suggestion, that Aucklanders seeking to leave the city for Christmas 2021 should have to apply for permits and be given allocated times to do so. That idea led to New Zealanders starting to push back more actively on the government’s interventions and saw it begin steadily removing restrictions during the first half of 2022.

But while the physical restrictions were steadily removed, a more sinister, intangible aspect remained and now looks as though it might have become a permanent feature. The “you’re either with us, or agin us” sense that the “team of five million” mantra inculcated has permeated wider society. Despite being a country with one of the diverse Parliaments in the world, we have become a far less tolerant society since the pandemic.

Where previously, different views might have been shrugged off as just ill-informed or eccentric, there is now a growing feeling that such views are simply wrong, and therefore dangerous, and should not be promoted, or even held at all.

A good example occurred earlier this week. Maureen Pugh, the list MP National needs like a hole in the head, foolishly said she had seen no evidence of human activities contributing to climate change. Her timing was appalling, not only coming right on the back of the devastation and misery caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, but also upstaging her leader’s response to the Prime Minister’s statement at the start of Parliament for the year.

Unsurprisingly, she backed down within a few hours, relying on the old politician’s excuse of having not been reported accurately. There the matter should have ended with Pugh left to swallow her embarrassment and absorb the wrath of her colleagues who felt completely sideswiped by her unexpected remarks. People could have drawn their own conclusions about the worth of her views, and how seriously to take them.

But, in the new age of intolerance we are now beset by, the argument quickly ceased to be about Pugh’s ill-informed views, and far more about whether as a MP, she even had a right to express views that were clearly out of line with the mainstream of national opinion on an important issue like climate change. It was the old “you’re either with us, or agin us” mentality of the pandemic response all over again.

Now, I have no truck with Pugh’s views. I think she is plain wrong, and I recall that she has also expressed anti-vax sentiments previously. But they are her views, and she has a right to express them, regardless of her status as an MP, or what the rest of us might think.

That is what free speech in an open democracy is all about. Public debate, not community censorship, is the best antidote to views that appear quirky or extreme to the majority, and we should never shy away from that. The last thing we need is the mediocrity and uniformity of a “carbon copy” approach to the expression of public opinion. As Voltaire so famously said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” We need to rekindle that principle.

Making judgements about what should be believed and what should not, should never be based on the type of artificial absolute that applied during the extreme circumstances of the pandemic. Doing so poses a more dangerous threat to free speech than the expression of certain views themselves. We do not need to be told what views are acceptable in public discourse and which ones are not – that was exactly the problem the government ran up against in its early efforts to define what constituted hate speech.

Rather, we need to focus afresh on promoting informed debate based on thorough information. The best response to Pugh’s outburst came from her colleague Nicola Willis who said she would be giving Pugh all the relevant reputable data and expected her to be doing a lot of reading. It is the sort of response that would have been the norm before the new absolutism engendered by the pandemic took hold, but which is now becoming threatened. Previously, we would have trusted people to reach their own conclusions.

The irony is that over the years New Zealand has been more diligent than most in calling out threats to the freedom of expression and the rights of minorities in other countries. We have even gone to wars in the past on that clarion call.

We should uphold the principle once more at home.

 

 One of the lessons the government learned early in the Covid19 response was the importance of controlling the narrative. The flow of information was quickly centralised and controlled. The daily 1:00 pm media conference became institutionalised. Information, scientific, medical, or otherwise, that did not come through this channel was both scorned and dismissed.

The then Prime Minister even went so far as to say, “we will continue to be your single source of truth … unless you hear it from us it is not the truth”. George Orwell’s “1984” could not have parodied centralised control of information better than the reality New Zealanders faced in 2020-21. Yet, because of the urgency of the situation, and the widespread fear of the pandemic and its potential effects, the government’s strategy worked, and New Zealanders by and large complied.

While those extraordinary days seem far off now, and while New Zealanders are perhaps more cynical and wary about the blanket exercise of government power than they were then, elements of the Hipkins’ government’s response to Cyclone Gabrielle look like direct lifts from the Covid19 response playbook.

Following the bumbling response of Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown to the year’s first cyclone, Cyclone Hale, in January, the government has been looking for a way it can get more directly involved in managing the response to disasters of this scale. Normally, the power to declare a state of emergency rests with the affected local authority. But when Cyclone Gabrielle struck the government moved quickly to declare a national state of emergency. In part this was due to the sheer scale of the event and the damage it was causing, and in part to government frustration that it had been largely shut out of any role in the response to Cyclone Hale until it was too late.

This is not at all unreasonable and follows the pattern set by the Covid19 outbreak and the Christchurch earthquakes, the only two previous occasions when a national state of emergency has been declared.

However, one of the more unsavoury aspects of the Covid19 response, and the determination to centrally manage the dissemination of information to the public, was the suspension of Parliament for several weeks, despite the availability of communication systems that would have enabled it to continue meeting on a virtual basis. The intention then was to shut down any avenue for critical scrutiny of the government’s actions, lest the exercise of that accountability expose cracks in both the veracity and substance of the “single source of truth”.

It was a state of control of public discourse unmatched since the emergency regulations promulgated during the 1951 Waterfront lockout, which made it illegal at that time to publish material critical of the government’s actions, or supportive of the locked-out watersiders.

Parliament was due to resume this week, but in an eerie reminder of what happened in 2020, the government quickly deferred that until next week, curiously with the support of the National Party this time. It means, as in 2020, for the critical period of the initial response to the crisis, the government will escape the scrutiny of Parliament for its actions. And, as in 2020, without Parliament sitting, the Opposition has been deprived of its best forum to hold the government to account for what is happening.

By the time Parliament does resume next week, the immediacy of the current crisis will have passed. In the meantime, though, the government, through monotonous, regular media conferences and interviews, will have been able to establish the legitimacy of its narrative as the one true version of events. And any divergence from that line from any of the local authorities, emergency agencies, or the thousands of directly affected citizens will be able to be dismissed as mischievous and inaccurate.

But the right of Parliament to meet is a fundamental part of being a parliamentary democracy, dating back to the days of King Charles I, nearly 400 years ago. The New Zealand Parliament has previously met in dark days – throughout World War II, for example, and Britain’s House of Commons even continued meeting while it was being bombed during the Blitz in 1940. Governments then would never have dreamt of suspending Parliament in a crisis, however inconvenient full scrutiny and accountability might have been at the time.

It was wrong for the government to suspend Parliament in 2020, and it was wrong for it to do so again this week, especially when, as it turned out, most MPs, including the Prime Minister, were in Wellington. There was no threat to public health or safety, as could have been argued in 2020, and therefore no compelling argument why Parliament could not have met.

This smacks of the government seeking to control the flow of public information and limit its own exposure to criticism and accountability, just as it did in 2020. Unfortunately, that detracts from other positive aspects of the response to Cyclone Gabrielle, notably the unflinching, brave, and selfless work of the fire, emergency and urban search and rescue services.

However, it is not acceptable that in two of the three national states of emergency declared in our history, both times under Labour-led governments, Parliament has been so quickly pushed to one side as the response has unfolded. There needs to be urgent agreement between all the political parties that in future states of national emergency Parliament will not be suspended for the sake of the government’s convenience.

Hipkins was a senior Minister during the 2020 Covid19 response. He was frequently alongside the former Prime Minster at the “podium of truth” and directly knows the power of controlling the flow of information and the political dividend it can pay. He well remembers that in 2020 the government was teetering on the brink of defeat until Covid19 came along, and that skilful management of the response produced a landslide election win. Aspects of his response to Cyclone Gabrielle suggest he has his eye on producing a similar effect for this year’s election.