There would be few who would disagree with the approach to sentencing taken by Justice Cameron Mander in the tragic Lauren Dickason case.

Justice Mander effectively bypassed the jury’s decision that Dickason was guilty of the murder of her three infant daughters, with his comment that ““I am satisfied that your actions were the product of your mental disorder. I consider your severe depression dominated your mental process. Not just contributed to your actions but drove them.” In sentencing Dickason to three concurrent sentences of 18 years, with no minimum parole period, the Judge was rejecting the argument that she was guilty of cold-blooded murder. In practical terms, that means Dickason will be eligible for parole after six years.

Moreover, by ruling that she be detained in a specialist mental health institution until she is fit to be transferred to a prison, the Judge has ensured that Dickason will at worst serve a minimal time in prison. As it is, when the time she has been in detention since her arrest is considered, Dickason could be released by 2028, assuming her mental health situation has improved sufficiently by then. At that point, she will almost certainly be deported back to South Africa, to the care of family and friends.

Justice Mander is to be applauded for the way in which he has navigated often-inflexible sentencing rules to reach a solution that will be seen as the most reasonable in the circumstances. In that, he has set a standard for other Judges to follow in similarly harrowing cases. His judgement also raises questions about the adequacy of our law in such matters, and whether there needs to be greater capacity for juries to show more flexibility than the stark guilty/not guilty decision this case required of them.

But there is a delicious coincidental irony that on the same day Justice Mander announced his momentous decision, the government introduced renewed “three strikes” legislation to Parliament. That legislation, a United States solution to repeated offending that gained popular support during the 1990s, has long been championed by the ACT Party. Similar legislation was introduced here in 2010 and passed with only National’s and ACT’s support, with Labour, the Greens, the Māori Party and UnitedFuture opposed. It was repealed by Labour in 2022, against the opposition of National, ACT, and New Zealand First.

Introducing the new three strikes legislation this week, Associate Justice Minister, ACT’s Nicole McKee, said “Three Strikes law will help keep New Zealanders safer while sending a strong message to those who keep committing these serious crimes – repeat offending is not acceptable, and they will face increasingly serious consequences.” Under the law, which will have limited discretion for Judges to “avoid manifestly unjust outcomes”, offenders will be warned of the consequences of re-offending at their first strike and will be denied parole at their second strike. For a third strike, offenders will have to serve the maximum penalty without parole.

However, critics point out that, in the United States, three strikes laws have not proven a deterrent to violent crime, because violent crime is often not pre-meditated, but a spur of the moment reaction to a particular situation. In New Zealand violent crime has been sharply increasing since 2010, even during the time when the three strikes law was in place. 

Studies on the impact of three strikes laws in the United States have produced mixed results. At best, they appear to show such laws have had a minimal positive impact on crime levels. But some studies have produced more critical results, that offenders may be pushed to commit more serious crimes to avoid the escalating effect of three strikes sanctions. A Missouri study in 2015 concluded that three-strikes laws were associated with a 33% increase in the risk of fatal assaults on Police officers. Other studies have drawn attention to what they consider to be the uneven emphasis on violent crime, over, for example, white collar crime.

What is clear is, that despite the protections the government promises will be in New Zealand’s new three strikes laws, the overall intention is to provide more certainty in the sentencing process, by limiting the exercise of judicial discretion. The government has separately announced plans for legislation later this year to limit Judges’ discretion to impose lesser sentences. While these moves may satisfy the public lust for a strong sentencing response to aggravated violent crime, which is understandable in the current circumstances, they will come at the cost of the type of wise flexibility Justice Mander exercised in the Dickason case. Not all Judges will possess or be willing to adopt the same flexibility Justice Mander did.

Three strikes laws are designed to overcome what are often regarded as “weak” sentences from “soft” Judges to satisfy the public’s concerns that the law is not being properly applied. The risk is that this will induce a new general sense of judicial conservatism whereby Judges become more reluctant to adopt a compassionate approach to sentencing for fear of running foul of the three strikes regime.

The net effect of this, and the proposed reduction on Judges’ sentencing discretion, will be many more people clogging up our already overcrowded prisons. The Corrections Department’s figures show that it currently costs about $113,000 annually to keep a sentenced prisoner incarcerated, and the cost of the new prison being built at Waikeria has already surpassed $930 million. On that basis, the economic feasibility of building more prisons to house three strikes prisoners looks deeply flawed, especially in a time of severe fiscal restraint.

Mindful of Sir Bill English’s 2011 comment that prisons are “a moral and fiscal failure”, there are so many better priorities the government ought to be focusing on.  Improved mental health facilities to identify and help severely at-risk people like Lauren Dickason, before they commit horrific acts of (family) violence would be a good place to start.

In 2016 New Zealand instituted comprehensive new health and safety laws for workplaces and other areas of activity. The expectation was that the new regime the legislation introduced would dramatically improve the culture and practice around safety in the workplace, reduce the numbers of accidents and save lives.

However, the most obvious manifestation of the new legislation and its associated regulations has been a massive increase in compliance costs imposed on businesses and community groups. Traditional events like Christmas parades and other community activities have been cancelled because of the impost of traffic management requirements, and it seems impossible these days for even the most minor road maintenance tasks to be carried out without the accompanying panoply of ubiquitous orange cones and stop-go signs.

But so far, there has been no significant improvement in health and safety in either the workplace, the community, or on the roads. There were 275,568 claims under consideration by the Accident Compensation Corporation in 2016 when the new legislation took effect – by the end of 2023 that number had swelled to 292,380. It is a similar trend with the road toll. In 2016 there were 326 road fatalities, but by 2023 that figure had risen to 340.

In fact, all the new legislation seems to have done is spawn a new growth industry in traffic management businesses. There are many such companies operating across New Zealand, costing taxpayers and ratepayers millions of dollars annually for their dubious services. Traffic Management NZ is one of the most prominent of these. It employs more than 650 staff, operates hundreds of vehicles and thousands of traffic devices. Traffic Management NZ has proved such a successful business that it was recently fully acquired by the Altus Group, Australia’s largest full-service traffic management business. Altus Group is in turn owned by Pacific Equity Partners, Australia’s leading private equity firm, currently managing assets worth around $11 billion.

The battalions of road cones up and down the country are the most obvious evidence of the traffic management companies at work. It has been reported that the cost of hiring an individual road cone is $4 a day. Given the hundreds of cones involved in a project it is easy to see how the costs of traffic management are so high. In some cases, it has been estimated that traffic management compliance could account for up to 20% of a project’s total cost. Auckland Council estimated last year that traffic management compliance was costing it at least $145 million a year.  

The major manufacturer locally of road cones is RTL. In a description that few people would recognise as reality its website proclaims its mission to “engage with industry partners, regulatory bodies, and communities to share knowledge, collaborate on safety initiatives” and “to build lasting relationships, drive sustainable growth, and make a positive difference in the world.”

Bluntly, both the traffic management companies and the cone manufacturers have treated the 2016 legislation as a “cash cow” to grow their businesses, at the taxpayer’s expense, without, as the road toll figures show, any demonstrable benefit to road safety.

I now feel embarrassed to have supported that legislation when it was going through Parliament. At the time, I supported the proposition that our health and safety laws needed to be overhauled and brought up to date to be more relevant to current circumstances. But I never imagined the bureaucratic shambles and the profiteering at the public expense that would emerge as a result. Nor I suspect, did many of my colleagues across the House,

But it was probably too much to expect the hand-wringing previous Labour Government to have been prepared to deal with this growing monster. At the same time, the ongoing silence of the National Party about the mess its legislation has created has been self-serving and disappointing. Now, finally, it has fallen to ACT’s Workplace Relations Minister, Brooke van Velden, to do something about it.

Announcing a major review of the current approach to workplace health and safety, she recently observed that “Our health and safety culture can be summed up by the sea of orange road cones that have taken over the country. From Santa parades to property development, you can’t get a lot done without having to set up a barricade of cones. While they may improve health and safety in some places, in other situations their prevalence just doesn’t make any sense … Businesses and community organisations spend a huge amount of money trying to keep people safe, but it’s worthwhile asking: are the rules and expectations proportionate to the actual risks, and when should common sense prevail?”

Bravo Minister! But for the widespread consultation and review she has promised to succeed, it cannot get hijacked by the vested interests that have so dominated this issue since 2016. Therefore, for her ambition of a more common-sense approach – which naturally I applaud – to prevail, the pernicious dominance and numbers of traffic management and cone manufacturing businesses need to be broken. Exploiting health and safety rules for commercial gain, often at the taxpayer’s expense, the way they have done since 2016 should no longer be tolerated, especially when there has been no demonstrable improvement in the overall situation since then.

Van Velden’s challenge is to break this nexus and to restore a more sensible balance. There will be many road users, small businesses, voluntary and community groups, and kids of all ages who like Christmas parades and other community fun, wishing her every success.   

 

Last week’s Budget marks the final stage of the political transformation that began with the election and the change of government. Until now, the coalition government had been working on the budget set by the previous government for the 2023/24 Budget. That is why so much of the new government’s activity has focused on the obliteration of the previous government’s record and reputation.

From now on, however, the government will be operating on its own Budget settings, so its attention should likely shift from dismantling what Labour did to putting in place the coalition’s alternatives. The Budget’s income tax changes signal a shift towards greater self-reliance. Recent policy announcements in education and housing, controversial though they may be, reflect a shift in emphasis away from what happened before to what the government intends for the future.

But the government’s appalling handling of the cancer medicines funding question in the Budget, coming on top of the earlier fiasco over smokefree legislation, will raise questions about its capability to effectively manage difficult political situations and to deliver effectively its policy outcomes. Its tin-ear approach to public sector redundancies reinforces those questions.

Therefore, the government will need to get on top of both these situations in the next few months, to restore its currently teetering credibility. Failure to do so soon, will simply spill over into wider doubts about its capabilities in other areas, to the potential detriment of the attainment of its wider goals.

There have, however, been some positives for the government. On the international front, both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, along with the Minister of Defence have been busy shoring up traditional relationships, and trying to move on from the ambivalence that has been clouding such relationships in recent years. While the “New Zealand is open for business again” message they have been conveying has ruffled a few feathers at home, it does appear to have been positively received on the international front.

Nevertheless, much work remains to be done in this field, with the still-to-be-resolved question of whether New Zealand joins Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement, and how the domestic politics surrounding any such move will be managed. And China remains a delicate matter, both in terms of our near-total economic dependence on Chinese markets and the increasing Western unease that led to the formation of AUKUS in the first place.

On the domestic front, the first six months have burnished the reputations of several National Ministers, aside from the Ministers from Zealand First and ACT. In particular, three Ministers – Nicola Willis, Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford – have impressed as potential successors to the Prime Minister at some point in the future. Special mention must be made of former leader Judith Collins. She is working tirelessly across a range of heavy portfolios without rancour or grandstanding and is one the government’s most successful quiet achievers.

Winston Peters has slipped seamlessly back into his third stint as Foreign Minister, and ACT Ministers David Seymour, Brooke van Velden, and Karen Chhour have generally been on top of their game.

For Labour, leader Chris Hipkins has been its best performer so far, often appearing to be the sole Labour MP taking the fight to the government. Hipkins has so far defied speculation that he would be merely hanging on as leader, until a suitable replacement could be found. Given the paucity of talent in Labour’s ranks that is likely to last longer than many first imagined. Indeed, it seems not unlikely at this stage that he will lead Labour into the next election, something few would have imagined after last year’s election defeat.

One impressive find for Labour has been new finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds. While still learning the ropes of Opposition, this former highly skilled tax lawyer, who was briefly a Minister last year, is beginning to demonstrate that she might be the long-term answer to Labour’s leadership question.

Elsewhere, since the election, there have been other significant changes. Three former Labour Ministers – Andrew Little, Kelvin Davis and Rino Tirikatene – have already resigned and been replaced by three Labour retreads – one-term list MPs defeated at the last election. Two Greens MPs have resigned and been replaced by new list MPs. There has been the tragic, sudden death of Efeso Collins, the first sitting MP to die in a decade, and his replacement by another new Greens list MP. And there is the still unresolved case of Greens MP Darleen Tana and her lengthy “gardening leave” while her, and her partner’s business practices are investigated.

The government’s first six months have also seen a significant level of public protest against various government policies. While much of this has been organised by traditional opponents of the current government, the level of response has been far greater than in recent years, with the notable exception of the 2022 prolonged occupation of Parliament grounds.  

Various allegations about Te Pāti Māori and potential misuse of Census data and Covid19 vaccination records and the confirmation of subsequent official investigations into these alleged malpractices, round out what has been a often chaotic start to New Zealand’s 54^th Parliament and fifth MMP government.

The next six months will be telling for the government. There will be a greater expectation following the Budget that it will now turn its focus more to implementing its own policy agenda than dismantling what went before it. To do so successfully, and notwithstanding the shortcomings of other parties, it will need to lift its game substantially to retain the political initiative.

The government still has a long way to go. 

 

Notwithstanding all the usual pre-Budget media hype it is worth remembering that Budgets seldom defeat governments. Game-changing Budgets – like Sir Roger Douglas’s 1984 Labour Budget or Ruth Richardson’s 1991 National “Mother of All Budgets” – which profoundly shook up the existing social and economic order, did not lead to their governments’ defeat at the next election.

Indeed, the only post-war Budget which could be held to be at least partially responsible for a government losing the following election was Labour’s 1958 “Black” Budget. But even then, there were extenuating circumstances – Labour had been elected by the barest of majorities in 1957, so was always going to struggle to win a second term in 1960. This was even before the 33% personal income tax increase and the sharp rise in taxes on alcohol and tobacco – the “working man’s pleasures” of the time – that the “Black” Budget introduced.

The 1958 Budget was a shock because it was unexpected, rather than because of its contents. In those days, there was very little media commentary or discussion in the lead-up to the Budget. There was certainly not the round of pre-Budget softening-up speeches and presentations we are used to today, or the post-Budget roadshows that Prime Ministers and Ministers of Finance now carry out. So, the Budget was really a bolt from the blue.

Back then, Budgets were seen simply as the government’s annual economic statement. Today, Budgets have a wider role – they are not only the government’s annual economic statement, but they also shape much of the ensuing political agenda.

Nicola Willis’s first Budget focuses strongly on achieving National’s pre-election commitments on tax relief for what she calls the “squeezed middle of New Zealand”, as well as meeting other commitments in health, education, and infrastructure. While the Budget was accompanied by widespread protests, it is unlikely to determine the result of the next election, if history is any guide.

The Budget draws more starkly the ideological line between National-led governments of the centre-right, and Labour-led governments of the centre-left. It makes a strong point of providing $3.7 billion a year of tax relief to New Zealand households through cutting back or eliminating some 240 specific policies of the previous government at an annual cost of $5.86 billion. It sends a clear, quasi-moral message that this government believes households should decide their own futures, rather than rely on a range of government programmes, however well they are targeted.

At the same time, the government is boosting health spending by $8.2 billion, education by $2.9 billion, law and order by almost $3 billion, and disability services by just over $1 billion through a combination of new funding and “reprioritisations”. The government is also committing to spending $68 billion over the next five years on infrastructure, including road and rail upgrades (although there is no mention of new Cook Strait ferries). In the longer term, the government is pledging to hold the net increase in new spending to $2.4 billion a year – a nearly 33% reduction on annual new spending levels that happened under Labour – which means there will be an ongoing focus on programme cuts and reprioritisations. 

While National and its coalition partners will be seen to have delivered substantially on their pre-election commitments and will be able to draw some satisfaction from that, bigger questions remain. From a macroeconomic perspective, the Budget is unlikely to cause too many ripples. A one-year delay in the projected return to a Budget surplus and a debt level to GDP ratio remaining at around 44% are still good by international standards and are therefore unlikely to be problematic.

The wider question relates to the domestic political reaction. This year’s Budget marks the end of what Sir Bill English used to call the “nice to haves” that people became increasingly used to during Labour’s time in office. For example, last year Labour scored heavily with the abolition of prescription charges. But how will people react to prescriptions charges being reinstated for everyone but superannuitants and community service card holders in this year’s Budget? Will they buy the argument that this is more than compensated for by the forthcoming tax relief of up to $78 a fortnight?

And what about the delay to funding additional cancer drugs that National promised at election time? National says that Labour’s underfunding by $1 billion last year of certain drugs which now need to be funded, has caused that. But patients desperate for new cancer drugs are unlikely to buy that argument.

Over the next few weeks, New Zealanders’ reaction to the 2024 Budget will become clearer. During that time, starting tomorrow, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and other senior Ministers will be on the road selling their message to a variety of audiences across the country. That again shows how things have changed since 1958 – then, there were no post-Budget roadshows, nor attempts to politically sell tough economic decisions.

A Budget that largely does what its author promised it would, without surprises, is going to be hard to attack politically. Labour’s best chance will be to focus on what the Budget does not do, the lost opportunities as it sees them. The rub is, though, that while people might tell pollsters and the like they favour prefer more government spending over tax reductions, few will baulk at additional cash in their household budgets after 31 July. That is the awkward truth National is relying on, as it did in the election campaign last year, and which Labour has so far failed to successfully debunk.

This year’s Budget is reminiscent of the old Selwyn Toogood radio show, popular in 1958, “It’s in the Bag”, and his legendary catchphrase, “what will it be customers, the money or the bag?” This year, Nicola Willis has gone for the comfort of the money over the uncertainty of the bag. She and her government colleagues will be hoping voters will now do likewise.

As the city of Tauranga prepares to elect a new Mayor and Council after three and a half years being run by government-appointed Commissioners, the case for replacing the Wellington City Council with Commissioners strengthens.

The Wellington City Council has been dysfunctional for years, long before the current Mayor took office. However, the situation has worsened significantly during her tenure to the extent it is now almost impossible to see the current crop of Councillors being able to resolve the massive issues confronting the capital city.

The shocking state of Wellington’s water supply, with about 40% of the city’s water being wasted through leaking pipes, has led to derisory headlines around the country. Savage restrictions imposed on residents to conserve water over the summer period have only just been lifted this week, but the Council-controlled company, Wellington Water, which supposedly runs the system, is giving no guarantees things will be any better next summer. And the Council seems powerless to do anything about it.

Central Wellington is a maze of traffic cones as many inner-city streets are realigned to remove parking to allow for cycleways and bus lanes. This completely overlooks the reality that Wellington’s topography means most of the city’s streets are already narrower than elsewhere. Making them narrower still is neither practical, nor safe for either cyclists or motorists. But that inconvenient reality seems to matter little to the Council with its avowedly anti-car and pro-cycling and public transport approach.

Even that is coming to grief. Large double decker buses rumble frequently empty through suburban streets. Commuter bus-stops are being removed in other parts of the city. The city’s much-maligned bus system, last reviewed in 2014, is simply not working and needs to be overhauled. Gridlock continues to choke access to the eastern suburbs and the airport because the Council cannot agree how to resolve it. Central government’s plan for a second road tunnel through Mount Victoria aroused little Council enthusiasm.

When the pandemic struck, and the public servants went home to work, many seemingly yet to return, Wellington’s already struggling CBD became a ghost town, leading to the closure of long-standing, well-regarded city businesses. The subsequent economic downturn, and more latterly the loss of around 4,500 public service jobs because of government funding cuts, are making the situation worse. Wellington faces severe long-term retrenchment in jobs and population.

But the Council clings to the increasingly absurd notion that the city’s population will increase by around 80,000 people over the next thirty years, with absolutely no indication of where the jobs will be for this additional population to fill. The Council’s new housing intensification strategy, based on non-consented approval of up to six storey high Stalinist style apartment blocks, in the inner city and alongside designated commuter routes to house this mythical population increase simply compounds the sense of unreality. Even more bizarrely, the Minister of Housing, who had previously appealed as a person of sound judgment and commonsense, has approved this nonsense.  

The appalling way the Wellington City Council does things was highlighted this week at a Council meeting discussing the city’s long-term plan. A local community leader – allocated a mere five minutes to make his submission on an issue of concern to his community – had the temerity to complain that the Mayor had been working on her phone the entire time he was making his submission. In response, the Councillor chairing the meeting, rebuked him for criticising the Mayor, terminated his presentation, and adjourned the meeting until he left.

Not even the worst of student politicians, which the current ruling clique on the Council seem so reminiscent of, would behave in such an overbearing and childish way. Their pointless and petty behaviour, coupled with an arrogant and smug sense of their own authority, inspires no confidence at all in their ability to prudently manage a Council operating budget of nearly $820 million a year, and an annual capital budget of $566 million. And the Mayor’s seeming indifference to what is happening, simply adds insult to injury.

Increasingly, it seems wishful thinking to believe that the current Council and its leadership will ever be capable of waking up to reality and abandoning their personal hobbyhorses in the interests of making Wellington a functional capital city once more. Worse for the long term, the current shambles means there is no incentive for capable people to put their names forward for election to the Council in the future, so the downward spiral looks set to continue at ratepayers’ expense.

It is going to become more and more difficult for the Minister of Local Government to stand by and watch this train wreck steadily worsen. Ratepayers already face a 16.4% increase in rates this year, with no clear indication of any improvements in service delivery. Sooner or later the government will have to step in and appoint high-powered Commissioners to sort out the sad mess the capital city has become. For Wellington’s beleaguered residents, that day cannot come quickly enough.  

It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job cuts is occurring, and in his role with the E Tu union Michael Wood has fronted the campaign for redress for TVNZ staff laid off in the recent programme cancellations.

 

Fitzsimons will be remembered as the Labour candidate who unexpectedly lost the hitherto safe seat of Rongotai to the Greens' Julie-Anne Genter at the last election. At the same election, after a series of self-inflicted mishaps that led earlier to his Ministerial resignation, Wood was tossed out of the Labour stronghold of Mount Roskill by National's Dr Carlos Cheung. This was only the second time since 1957 that Labour had failed to win the Mount Roskill electorate.

 

Both Fitzsimons (a former Wellington City Councillor) and Wood seem keen to resume their thwarted political careers. Their good fortune is to now be in positions where they can promote their political profiles and attack the National/ACT/New Zealand First coalition government at the same time. Both are doing so with shameless vigour. In addition, Wood has also become a member of Labour's powerful Policy Council, so is already in a strong backroom position to influence Labour's future policy direction, alongside another Parliamentary wannabe, Council of Trade Unions' economist Craig Renney, who reportedly fancies himself as the next Labour Minister of Finance.

 

However, Labour, like most parties, does not have a good record when it comes to political forgiveness, so despite their current very public penance Fitzsimons and Wood may struggle to secure immediate redemption before the next candidate selection round. Political parties have long memories when it comes to electoral failures, especially if that failure contributed to the defeat of a government. This may be especially so in Wood’s case where it has been reported that Labour’s internal polls recorded a critical 4% drop in its support after his repeated failures to disclose various personal shareholdings were revealed.

 

But even if they are to be selected again, neither Fitzsimons nor Wood face a certain route to Parliament. Fitzsimons’ defeat at the hands of Genter was part of the Green wave which washed over Wellington at the last election and shows no signs of abating, Genter’s recent public behaviour embarrassments notwithstanding. While Wood’s conduct failings as a Minister played a large part in his electoral demise, a significant underlying factor in his loss of the Mount Roskill seat was that just under 50% of that electorate now identify as Asian, hence their attraction to Cheung. As that trend intensifies, Wood will increasingly appear the pale, stale, odd-male-out in that electorate.

 

But behind this, a bigger picture is playing out. After the last election, there were few who expected Hipkins to stick around as Labour leader for very long. The conventional wisdom was that he, like most former Labour and National Prime Ministers, would find the return to Opposition tedious and soul-destroying and would quickly move on to greener pastures elsewhere. That may still prove the case for Hipkins, but so far, he has shown no signs of doing so, and indeed looks to be increasingly relishing his role as Opposition leader. In any case, no credible potential challenger to his leadership has yet emerged, nor seems likely to, given the talent in Labour’s current ranks. The likelihood that Hipkins will lead Labour into the next election is therefore increasing.

 

Hipkins is innately prudent, cautious and pragmatic, very much in the Helen Clark mould. His immediately circumspect reaction to the government’s revival of charter schools is an example. While some of his colleagues fulminated against the plan, Hipkins pointed out that the nature of the contracts to be concluded with the new charter schools would ultimately determine whether a future Labour government would be able to abolish them, as they might wish.

 

But Fitzsimons, Wood, and Renney are distinctly more left-wing and doctrinaire, so may find Hipkins lukewarm about their becoming part of his line-up for the next election. (This may be especially so in Wood’s case, given Hipkins’ interaction when Prime Minister with him over the shares disclosure issue.) For his part, Hipkins seems anxious to portray Labour as credible, compassionate, progressive, inclusive and fiscally responsible – not a bunch of wide-eyed ideological enthusiasts ready to cut loose on New Zealand society.

 

The crunch point for Labour, Hipkins, and the current wannabes will be the outcome of Labour’s internal policy review. A pragmatic result, building on the perceived gains of the last Labour-led government, will be a positive boost for Hipkins and his leadership, which in turn should be reflected in the type of candidates selected for the next election. However, a significant shift to the left in areas like economic management, taxation and industrial relations, while potentially beneficial for the likes of Fitzsimons, Wood and Renney, could create real problems for Hipkins’ ongoing leadership, which, given the talent within Labour’s current Parliamentary ranks, are unlikely to be resolved by the time of the next election.

 

So, the public positions now being taken by Fitzsimons and Wood are not just about their carrying out professionally and properly the responsibilities assigned to them by their current employers. Nor are they just about helping promote their personal political agendas, although that is certainly a factor. Rather, they are part of the deeper contest for the future heart and soul of the Labour Party.

I am always wary when I hear that the Controller and Auditor-General has commented on or made recommendations to the government about an issue of public policy that does not relate strictly to public expenditure.

According to the legislation, the role of the Controller and Auditor-General is to make sure that public sector organisations are spending public resources well and making good decisions.  That is as it should be and consistent with what might be expected of good audit practice.

But the Controller aspect of the role is more problematic. Under the relevant legislation, the Controller "can direct a Minister to report to the House of Representatives if the Controller has reason to believe that expenditure has been incurred that is unlawful or not within the scope, amount, or period of any appropriation or other authority” and “can stop payments from a Crown or departmental bank account, to prevent money being paid out if the Controller believes the payments may be applied for a purpose that is not lawful or is not within the scope, amount, or period of any appropriation or other authority.”

Again, that is reasonable and is an important accountability constraint on Ministers who may think they can do as they like with the funds appropriated to them by Parliament.

But, over the years, successive Controllers and Auditors-General have interpreted the function far more broadly and consequently delved into all manner of specialist areas, delivering a view not just on whether spending complied with the appropriation, but whether the activity in question was even justified in the first place. Recent Controller and Auditor-General’s reports have dealt with topics as varied as “Meeting the Mental Health Needs of young New Zealanders”; “Monitoring importers of specified high-risk foods”; and “The fast-track approvals Bill”. This week, the Controller and Auditor-General issued his words of wisdom on the conduct of the 2023 General Election, specifically the processes for counting votes.

Now, these are all important areas of public policy deserving of critical scrutiny, but it is surely doubtful that this can be provided by an office that is essentially a fiscal bean-counter. However, that constraint has never stopped Controllers and Auditors-General over the years poking their noses into areas where they have limited or no expertise, and then reporting with a confidence and certainty that defied that. As an aside, that may explain why so few of their recommendations, outside the fiscal management ones, ever get adopted by governments.

The report on conduct of the 2023 General Election is important. The smooth, fair, and efficient operation of our election process is critical to the functioning of our democracy. That is why Parliament conducts a full public enquiry, to which anyone can make a submission and be heard, after each election to improve the process for the next one. That process has worked well over the years and does not require the intervention of the Controller and Auditor-General at this stage. His office and time would be far better employed examining the profligate blow-outs in government expenditure that occurred under the previous government, as well as some of the expenditure decisions of the present government.

In the early 1990s, as a member of the Electoral Law Select Committee, I pushed successfully for the establishment of an independent Electoral Commission to oversee all aspects of electoral law, educate voters about the political process, and manage the conduct of elections. I envisaged it would become a strong and authoritative expert body. But unfortunately, over the years it has proven too amateur, timid, and wimpish to do any of those things properly. It seems far more comfortable being a cheap policeman, ticking off politicians and parties when they do not dot every i and cross every t with the level of bureaucratic pedantry the Commission likes to wallow in.

There is no doubt the Electoral Commission mismanaged the conduct of the last election. The Chief Electoral Commissioner and the Chief Electoral Officer should be held to account by Parliament and the public for this failure. But doing so via the route of the office of the Controller and Auditor-General, that has no known expertise in either electoral law or running elections, is of questionable value. It almost certainly means those officers will escape any accountability, which probably ensures nothing will change as a result.

Put bluntly, the office of the Controller and Auditor-General needs to refocus its activities on the specific responsibilities regarding the effective management of public expenditure that its legislation requires it to oversee. That should be its unquestioned area of expertise, which means that the Controller and Auditor-General’s enthusiasm to pontificate on so many other areas of government activity needs to be curbed as a consequence.

Ironically, under the present arrangement where the Controller and Auditor-General’s office can butt its nose in, almost at will, specific departmental and agency accountability is being eroded, not strengthened. The primary role is for government departments and agencies to own the policy and procedures for which they are responsible. A busy-body, know-all Controller and Auditor-General’s office merely gets in the way of that.