Ever since Britain joined the old European Economic Community in 1973 New Zealand has been on a quest to secure reliable, long-term markets for our sheep meat, beef and dairy exports.

 

First, we settled on Iran as a potential market from whom we could import cheap oil in return. The Shah of Iran even visited New Zealand 1974 to strengthen the burgeoning relationship. But that all fell over when the 1979 oil crisis struck, and the Islamic revolution toppled the Shah's regime.

 

Then we shifted our focus to the former Soviet Union, importing large numbers of the infamous Lada cars in return for dairy access into the USSR. But that deal crumbled the early 1980s when domestic economic problems caused the Soviets to default on payments, at the very time when the New Zealand economy was on the ropes.

 

The free trade agreement with China in 2008 was the most dramatic move yet, given the vast size of the potential Chinese market and the potential it offered to New Zealand exporters across the board. This potential was so alluring that warnings at the time of the risks of putting too many eggs in the Chinese basket were quickly and easily ignored. Not surprisingly, it was only a very short period of time before China became our major trading partner, dominating our economy in many areas.

 

The relationship was bolstered by a steady exchange of trade delegations and Ministerial visits emphasising the importance of the relationship, with only limited acknowledgement of the reality that New Zealand now needed China much more than it needed us.

 

This tension - that some had warned of at the time the free trade agreement was signed, but had been ignored - started to become more apparent as China begin to exert its political influence in the South Pacific, and as more and more questions about its domestic human rights record arose. But as the United States, Australia and others began to call out China for its potential expansionism and human rights abuses, New Zealand clung to its delicate balancing act, sharing the concerns others were expressing, but never quite joining traditional friends in saying so publicly out of blind fear of the potential economic consequences.

 

By the early 2020s, the United States and others, including Five Eyes partners the United States and Australia, were expressing frustration at New Zealand's reluctance to ever criticise China. But, with our economy now so dependent on the Chinese, New Zealand has retained its staunch silence on any public criticism of China. Successive Prime Ministers have pleaded in defence that their public silence does not mean they have not made forthright criticisms to China's leaders in private meetings, but then, they would say that, wouldn't they.

 

Things came to a head this week with revelations of sustained Chinese cyber espionage against Parliamentary and electoral agencies in Five Eyes countries, including New Zealand. This time New Zealand did issue a critical public statement, but unlike the United Kingdom and the United States it is not proposing any retaliatory action against China. Incredibly, the Prime Minister even went so far as to say he believed the government's statement, best described as "naughty China, please do not do this again" was sufficient for China to get the message!

 

It has to be acknowledged that the success of the free trade agreement makes it difficult for New Zealand to speak out against China for fear of economic retaliation to our detriment. But it is also true that competing geopolitical considerations in our region cause their own difficulties. For example, New Zealand’s flirtation under both the previous and present governments with joining the non-nuclear parts of the AUKUS agreement will become increasingly problematic since AUKUS is really an anti-China alliance. The AUKUS partners are unlikely to view favourably New Zealand’s involvement, while it remains so tied to China. For its part, China has already warned New Zealand about getting involved with AUKUS. The bottom line is that at some point New Zealand will have to make a choice, and that choice will have consequences.

 

Meanwhile, at the beginning of May the free trade agreement between the European Union and New Zealand will come into effect. At the same time, the government is keen to revive the long-stalled talks with India over a proposed free trade agreement. Both markets offer huge new potential opportunities for New Zealand. India, however, is not nearly as keen on a free trade deal as New Zealand is, so any progress there is likely to be very slow. But, given the size and emerging strength of the Indian economy, a free trade agreement remains extremely attractive from a New Zealand point of view, and the new government has signalled it is a clear priority.

 

Should that eventuate, the new opportunities created would alleviate some of the pressure created by the reliance on the current free trade arrangement with China, which would leave New Zealand less precariously balanced on the diplomatic tightrope than it is currently. But until and unless that happens, New Zealand governments of whatever hue will be forced to continue fudging and obfuscating with friends and allies alike for fear of upsetting the Chinese dragon that controls our economic destiny.

Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case.

The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights this. To be very clear, there is no justification for the remarks Peters made comparing the previous government – in which he was Deputy Prime Minister for three years – and its co-governance policies to Nazi Germany. His comments were no more than a very cheap attempt to gain a headline, and one more in a long line of racial slurs that he has used over the years to maintain his appeal to the egregious bigots who are his constituency.

But calls for the Prime Minister to discipline him over his remarks misunderstand the power of the Prime Minister in a coalition government. According to the Cabinet Manual, the Prime Minister is the head of government and responsible for the overall conduct of its policy. Ministers are responsible to the Prime Minister for the implementation of government policy as agreed by the Cabinet. The specific party responsibilities of both the Prime Minister and other Ministers are separate from their governmental responsibilities. As Speaker Margaret Wilson ruled in 2008, “The Prime Minister is not responsible for the decisions of another party.”

The Prime Minister’s official powers in a situation like last weekend’s speech are therefore quite limited, especially so since the Deputy Prime Minister made it clear that he was speaking as the leader of New Zealand First. Therefore, no matter what he thought of the comments, the Prime Minister had virtually no room to act, unless he felt that the comments risked the stability of the whole government, which they did not.

While that may be the official perspective, the political reality is somewhat different. Although the Prime Minister clearly disapproved of what was said, his limited ability to act left a public perception of weakness on his part, and a feeling that once more his errant deputy had been able to get away with it.

This is, of course, precisely what Peters was seeking. Ever since the coalition was formed, he has been jostling to assert the superiority of his flawed experience over the politically inexperienced Prime Minister, and the ACT Party leader. Peters wants to be seen as the dominant power within the government, even if his party is the smallest part of it. The weekend’s remarks were thus a continuation of the pattern established at the media conference announcing the formation of the coalition last November when Peters used the occasion to launch his extraordinary claim that the media had been bribed.

So far, both the Prime Minister and the ACT leader have lacked the political skills to counter this behaviour. Consequently, they have ended up treading around their fair-weather partner on eggshells, too wary of giving him any opportunity to walk away from a coalition, as has happened previously. This simply reinforces his contention that he and by (distant) association New Zealand First, hold the real power within the government.

Under the coalition agreement, New Zealand First is supposed to cede the Deputy Prime Minister’s role to the ACT Party in just over a year’s time. In the meantime, a near certainty is that there will be more outbursts of the type seen at the weekend as New Zealand First seeks to retain its political relevance. All of which will make the Prime Minister’s already difficult political management that much more challenging.

Another near certainty is that as each new situation unfolds, the populist media will demand the Prime Minister act, and lambast him when he cannot, rather than calling out New Zealand First’s behaviour for what it is.

It all stems from a failure to move beyond the bipartisan world of the old First-Past-the-Post system. While there is still a government and an Opposition as there was previously, governments and Oppositions today are multiparty in nature. They work together on the issues they agree upon and retain their own positions (and identities) on those where they differ. But the confrontational nature of our Westminster political system means too many observers still see the political contest in the black and white terms of the past.

Yet the concept of one government composed of many parties is not a difficult one to grasp, although it does require more subtle understanding than the commentariat often demonstrate. The same applies on the other side of the fence as well, where there seems to be a constant struggle to work out where Te Pati Māori – which by its own admission operates on a different social and cultural paradigm – fits.

None of this is a justification of the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments last weekend, more an attempt to explain the wider circumstances behind them. It is a task that might reasonably have been expected of the media present at the time, but they were too readily seduced by the immediate, salacious drama of the remarks themselves to want to look too closely at some of the underlying realities.

That was exactly what Peters wanted, and, like puppets on a string, they duly obliged him.

This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it would enable the coming ski season at Whakapapa to proceed. Given the ski field’s substantial annual contribution to the Ruapehu district’s economy, the relief in some quarters at the government’s was understandable. It is estimated that since 2020 the government has advanced $32 million to keep the ski field operation open, but it has made it clear that the latest payment will be the last.

However, the decision does raise a question about relative priorities. For example, the same week that the government was considering this latest bailout, Associate Education Minister David Seymour was questioning whether the government could afford to keep providing free school lunches to around 220,000 students each day. Seymour argued that the programme, which covers about a quarter of all school students, was not working, because around 10,000 lunches a day being wasted.

When challenged why bailing out a ski field was more important than the school lunches programme, or settling the looming Police pay dispute, Ministers responsible for the Ruapehu decision offered the lame excuse that the funding they were making use of came from a different part of the budget. However, that was likely to be of little consolation to those facing losing their school lunches, or Police pay negotiators.

Nor is it likely to have cut much ice with the hundreds of journalists and technical staff facing uncertain futures following the substantial news and current affairs cutbacks announced recently by both TVNZ and Newshub. Many were stung by Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee’s initial comments – which she has subsequently walked back from – that it was not the government’s business to bail out struggling media companies. She is now promising a Cabinet paper on how the Broadcasting Act 1989 needs to be updated to address the current uncertainty in the media industry, although the details of her plan are still skant.

The crisis brought to a head by the Newshub and TVNZ decisions has been simmering for some time. The previous government attempted to provide some security and certainty for broadcast media during the Covid-19 downturn by establishing the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund in 2020. But, however well-intended, the plan was doomed from the outset, being widely perceived as an attempt by the government to buy favourable media coverage during the pandemic. This perception was confirmed by the way the government played media favourites in its highly staged Covid-19 daily media conferences. So, any genuine intent to support media struggling in a difficult environment was lost by this negative perception. It was consequently no surprise that the Fund was wound up in July 2023.

However, its demise left a hole which the Newshub and TVNZ cuts have exposed. But, even if it was of a mind to, the costs involved make it unlikely that the government could bailout entirely TVNZ’s struggling news and current affairs operations, let alone Newshub’s. And if it were to do so, it would only be a short-term solution.

Therefore, a more long-term response is required which is presumably why Lee is now looking to changes to the Broadcasting Act. That Act is 35 years old and was developed when there were just two state-owned television channels. TV3 was yet to be established, and satellite and digital television services, and the explosion in channel numbers they would lead to were off in the future. Concepts like streaming, social media, and the expansion of smartphone technology were still far-off dreams in a society where the ubiquitous brick was seen as the height of technological sophistication.

In today’s environment, TVNZ needs radical change if it is to survive. The crisis it is facing with its news and current affairs services is a symptom of a wider problem. To put it simply, how does it remain relevant? Is it destined to follow TV3s path and become just a delivery platform for a range of overseas produced programmes? And if so, where would that leave it as a national broadcaster?

An overarching issue relates to the important role of the media in an open and democratic society. That has been largely taken for granted over the years. The threat to diversity and pluralism the potential restriction of news and current affairs services poses has been put into stark relief by the TVNZ and Newshub cuts.

One solution might be to establish a new national non-commercial public broadcasting entity, combining both TVNZ and RNZ, with a redeveloped Public Broadcasting Charter. In this model, TV2 could be sold, and the proceeds used to properly establish and set up the new public broadcasting agency. Thereafter, it would need to be funded by the government through an annual appropriation, like, although more generously than, the way RNZ is funded now.

The task facing Lee as she develops her paper is to establish a framework which both addresses the issues now confronting the sector, but which also gives the flexibility to anticipate and accommodate further changes as they arise. It is likely to be an almost impossible challenge to satisfy completely, given the rapidity of technological development and the diversity of media platforms already available.

So, in these circumstances, it is easy to see why bailing out a ski field where the snow can be virtually guaranteed to fall every year seems so much easier.

Earlier this week, Wellington’s newspaper, The Post, launched a “conversation” inviting public responses about how Wellington could move on from the problems currently besetting it. The responses published so far show a level of fondness for the city, but a deep frustration at its current problems and the way they have been dealt with by recent Councils.

It all smacks of a desperate recognition that Wellington, the nation’s capital, is slowly dying. The current Wellington City Council borders on being dysfunctional; the city’s infrastructure is collapsing, or, in the case of the pipes, bursting and leaking profusely, seemingly without the prospect of repair anytime soon. Severe water restrictions have been threatened and the prospect of a double-digit percentage rate increase looms. Wellington has been surpassed by Christchurch as the nation’s second city, and the gap between the two looks set to widen in coming years.

The Council is polarised and divided on just about every issue facing it – from cycle ways to developing more space for housing. Civic amenities are being closed to try to make ends meet. The once “Coolest Little Capital in the World” now looks being a leading candidate to be the “Most Rundown Little Capital in the World”. And still the Council squabbling continues.

In the light of this chronic failure – which has affected the city for most of the last twenty years, if not longer, it is no surprise that whispers are intensifying that the Capital city is now headed on the mortifying but inevitable path of having the Council sacked by the government – the way the Council in Tauranga was – and replaced by Commissioners to sort the mess out. For many Wellington ratepayers, the move cannot come quickly enough.

Wellington has always felt it was living in the shadow of Auckland. The joke used to be that Auckland, with its then myriad number of local boroughs and Councils was too divided and disorganised to ever pose a real threat to the capital city. But when more and more major companies started relocating in Auckland because of the port and airport, leading to then-Prime Minister Key’s infamous comment that Wellington was “dying”, Wellington’s civic leaders expressed predictable outrage but otherwise failed to heed the warnings. Now, with the advent of the super city and the arrival of a Mayor with an uncompromising and unashamed “Auckland First” agenda, Wellington’s faces being left well and truly behind, to moulder away quietly.

After an extraordinarily shaky and uninspiring start, Mayor Brown is starting to make significant progress. His uncompromising non-partisan approach to unrelentingly pushing Auckland’s interests appears to be paying dividends. Even his left-wing critics are now grudgingly beginning to acknowledge that while his methods and approach may be unusual, he is making a beneficial difference for his city. Brown appeared to be developing a good relationship with the previous government in its latter stages, and certainly looks to have a good working relationship with the present government. 

Already, as Mayor of Auckland he has met various government Ministers more frequently than most of the other metropolitan Mayors, to push his city’s case. By way of contrast, Wellington’s Mayor, who, as The Post helpfully pointed out recently has but a twelve-minute walk from her office to the Beehive, has had the least contact of all metropolitan Mayors with Ministers, despite her city probably facing the most serious immediate problems of all.

The new government says it is interested in developing city-specific plans, along the lines of an approach being taken by the current British government. It is also a concept Mayor Brown says he wants to promote for Auckland, so there is already synergy between the Mayor’s aspirations and the government’s policy. But there appears to be no such aspiration in Wellington. Even if there were, the prospects of Wellington Councillors ever being able to agree on what a Wellington-specific plan should look like are near zero.

When Wellington adopted the “You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” and the “Coolest Little Capital in the World” mantras they captured the public mood. That helped create a positive mood in the city and helped Wellington get over, at least for a while, its historic inferiority complex.
For once, Wellington people had a spring in their step, feeling positive about their city and what it had to offer. Those days are long gone now – a tired inner city, leaking pipes, road works everywhere you go, bickering Councillors and civic amenities being closed have changed all that.

So, good on The Post for trying to whip up a positive conversation about Wellington and its future. Every little bit helps. However, the campaign looks too much like one desperate final effort to make an impact.  It smacks more a case of manning the pumps to keep the steadily sinking ship afloat. While it may save the ship for a while, allowing it to drift aimlessly on towards the ever-nearing rocks, it is most unlikely to be enough to bring the dysfunctional Council to its senses.

Therefore, the only remaining question is how long the government will let this situation continue before it intervenes.