NZ Politics

That takes balls, doesn't it?

For those of you tuning in from outside NZ, check these out:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586975/winds-gust-to-240km-h-on-lower-north-island-s-east-coast

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/587001/weather-local-farmers-clear-mudslide-which-trapped-20-vehicles

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/586968/in-pictures-heavy-rain-and-wind-hits-wellington-region-bringing-down-trees-flooding-roads

BTW it's summer here.

Govt to pay up to $180m/year or $2.7b over 15 years to lease LNG re-gasification plant, paid for by $15-$30 'levy' per household per year. That $2.7b would build four Benmore Dams worth of electricity

My biased quotes:

The government says a Liquefied Natural Gas import facility in Taranaki will save New Zealanders about $265 million a year.

Energy Minister Simon Watts on Monday announced a contract was expected to be signed by the middle of the year, with construction finishing next year or early 2028.

"We need to get rid of the dry risk," Luxon told reporters on Monday.

"I'm not going to guarantee, based on the advice I've been given the benefits outweigh the costs."

A factsheet supplied by the government said the infrastructure costs would be paid for through a levy on electricity of between $2 and $4 /MWh.

The facility was expected to cut future prices by at least $10/MWh, and curb an expected 1.25 percent reduction in Gross Domestic Product from higher energy prices.

Procurement started in October in response to the independent Frontier report, which the government largely rejected.

The government largely rejected the recommendations of the review carried out by Frontier Economics, with sector players including Simon Bridges criticising a lack of bold action.

"It would make no economic sense to develop an LNG import terminal to meet just dry year risk as the large fixed costs would be spread over a relatively small amount of output," the Frontier report said.

New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was positive for the country’s Indigenous Maori population.

Dozens of people started booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to offer a prayer during a dawn service at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where New Zealand’s founding document was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the two sides would govern the country.

Seymour made his controversial comments that colonisation had been an overall positive experience for Indigenous people on Thursday during a speech to mark national Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air grievances.

“I’m always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that’s happened in our country was all bad,” said Seymour, who is leader of the right-wing ACT Party and a member of the Maori community.

“The truth is that very few things are completely bad,” Seymour had said, according to local online news site Stuff.

Describing his hecklers on Friday as “a couple of muppets shouting in the dark”, Seymour said the “silent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of these antics”.

Following Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.

On Thursday, Indigenous leader Eru Kapa-Kingi told parliamentarians “this government has stabbed us in the front,” and the previous Labour government had “stabbed us in the back”.

Seymour’s government has been accused of seeking to wind back special rights given to the country’s 900,000-strong Maori population, who were dispossessed of their land during British colonisation and remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or be imprisoned compared with the country’s non- Indigenous population.

Controversial legislation that was tabled last year seeking to reinterpret the treaty’s principles and roll back policies designed to address inequalities experienced by Indigenous people led to protests and failed after two of the three governing parties did not vote for it.

Speaking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for national unity and for steps to address challenges faced by the Maori community.

Luxon also said the national debate over the legacy of British colonisation should remain civil.

“We don’t settle our differences through violence. We do not turn on each other; we turn towards the conversation. We work through our differences,” Luxon said in a social media post.

Denial about the destructive legacy of colonialism and its connection to contemporary challenges faced by Indigenous communities remains a frequent subject of contentious debate in former colonies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

• Unemployment rises to 10 year high of 5.4 percent
• 15,000 jobs added in quarter, but workforce and job hunters grow
• Underutilisation rate steady at five year high of 13 pct
• Youth unemployment rises, more woman in the labour force
• Annual wage growth slows to near five year low of 2 percent
• Data worse than expected, backs the RBNZ holding cash rate steady in two weeks

Making the announcement in Auckland on Tuesday, Transport Minister Chris Bishop said the current system was "expensive, outdated and no longer works as well as it should".

Key changes

• No more full licence test: Drivers will no longer need to sit a second practical test to move from the restricted to full licence, saving time and money. This applies to Class 1 (car) licences only.
• Longer time spent on learners for under 25s: There will be a 12-month learner period for under 25s, an increase of six months.
• Option to reduce learner period: There will be an option for under 25s to reduce their 12-month learner period back to six months by recording practice hours or completing an approved practical course.
• New restricted periods: The restricted period will be 12 months for under 25s and six months for over 25s, with no option to reduce it with a defensive driving course.
• Cheaper to get a full licence: The total cost of getting a Class 1 (car) licence will reduce by $80 under the new system.
• Encouraging safe driving: Drivers on their restricted licence will face a further six months on their restricted if they get demerits.
• Fewer eyesight screenings: Eyesight screenings will only be required at the first licence application and at each renewal. This applies to Class 1 and Class 6 (motorcycle) licences.
• Zero-alcohol rule expanded: All learner and restricted drivers, regardless of age, will be subject to a zero-alcohol limit.
• Stronger oversight of training providers: NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) will gain new powers to monitor and suspend driver training course providers.

Resources Minister Shane Jones shut down the possibility of New Zealand signing up to a 'road map' away from fossil fuels at the annual global climate summit, documents reveal.

Opposition MPs say the documents underscore the disproportionate influence that National's minor coalition partners wield over government policy.

But Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said it was "appropriate" to consult Jones because of his portfolios.

Australia, the UK, the European Union and a group of Pacific nations were among 80 countries pushing for a 'road map' to be included in the formal negotiations at COP30 in Brazil last November.

They were unsuccessful, but Australia and several Pacific nations were among 24 nations that signed the Belém Declaration on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels on the final day of the summit.

Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act show New Zealand's negotiating team was also considering signing the declaration - before officials back in New Zealand informed them that Jones did not want them to.

Similar pattern as with the ferry, health and water systems - Labour had fixes for their problems rolling out but National scrapped them and then did nothing.

political interference in the new curriculum!

Good work Newsroom.

Political division is taking hold in NZ and we need to turn it around.

I'm trying to figure out what the point of holding this session in a marae is, it doesn't sound like they were consulting with the public at all?

The cost for the venue was $2570, including venue hire and catering.

Don't they have their own building?

National and Labour are joining forces to get modern slavery legislation into Parliament, using a new process to skip the biscuit tin for the first time.

The MPs backing it say the process was needed because the ACT Party and its Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden refused support.

Not surprised to hear a lot of this, to be honest. Both my parents are career teachers who've been progressively disgusted with the ministry in the last 15 years or so.

Will be interesting to hear if more people report this or similar experiences (or if there's a leak of the agency trying to clamp down on leaks!)

Hurrah!

I stumbled across a 2020 OIA request to NZ Treasury where someone asked:

what analysis Treasury has done on the KiwiSaver First Home scheme affecting house prices, and how much taxpayer money gets transferred into the housing stock

Treasury released a few internal docs and they basically say that increasing caps would lead to higher house prices and that subsidies for renters/buyers tend to be captured by landlords/sellers instead of improving affordability long-term.

The advice was apparently ignored.

Election year!

Quite relevant for this year.

The advice from the AG, Judith Collins, on the new Age Verification Bill gives it a big thumbs up and includes a scenario where it would be OK to restrict access to adult websites, even though the bill is targeted at social media, and none of the debate has mentioned adult websites.

Get ready to upload your ID to sketchy adult websites?

The government is cutting transport subsidies for elderly and disabled people for elderly and disabled people from 75 percent to 65 percent.

The Total Mobility scheme provides discounted taxis and public transport fares for those with long-term impairments.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Disability Minister Louise Upston said when the previous Labour government boosted the scheme from a 50 percent subsidy in 2022, it did not account for increased demand.

The number of registered users had increased from 108,000 to 120,000 between 2022 and 2024/25, and the number of trips increased from 1.8 million in 2018 to 3 million in 2024/25.

"This is yet another fiscal cliff left to us that we are having to correct and fix. Today, the government is announcing decisions to stabilise the Total Mobility scheme so that the disability community is supported in a financially sustainable way, by all funding partners."

While other Auckland areas saw turnout drop, voting numbers in Papatoetoe increased by more than 7 percent. All four seats went to first-time candidates from the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team. The result was inconsistent with historic voting patterns. None of the previous local board members of the Papatoetoe subdivision were re-elected.

Sketchy! Who are these guys?? https://www.facebook.com/papatoetoeotaraactionteam/

The government's plan for Parliament's final full week of the year moved 12 different proposed laws through 32 stages of approval.

Included in the plan is fixing an error made by tired government MPs during the previous long week of urgency, when they voted for an opposition amendment and, even when prompted, failed to notice the error.

Watching this week's endless debating it appeared on Thursday that another more egregious error had occurred. It seemed that a minister had forgotten to include key aspects within an amendment bill, and so ask a select committee to add them back in.

However, it was no mistake. Paul Goldsmith had purposefully omitted some disallowed measures from the Crimes Amendment Bill, in order that they could be added back in as an addendum by the Justice Select Committee, in order to dodge the usual rules about what is allowed.

In the United States, vast bills sometimes include so many random provisions that those voting on them are seldom aware of all the aspects they are approving.

Our Parliament's Standing Orders say that "a bill must relate to one subject area only". Bills here cannot include disconnected policy ambitions or amend multiple pieces of current legislation (Acts) unless they fall within the rules for Omnibus Bills.

The Crimes Amendment Bill contained a ragtag collection of amendments to the Crimes Act. However the minister also wanted to include amendments to the Summary Offences Act. That is not possible unless all the amendments to both bills achieve a single policy objective - they do not. Or unless permission has been given by Parliament's cross-party Business Committee.

Parliament is sovereign. It makes its own rules. It can also give itself permission to break them, via a simple majority vote in the House. It is this ability that Goldsmith took advantage of when he moved "that the Justice Committee's powers be extended under Standing Order 298(1) to consider the amendments set out in Amendment Paper 436 in my name, and, if it sees fit, to recommend amendments accordingly, despite Standing Order 264(2)".

Of course, governments always have a majority and so can always win such votes, regardless of an opposition's protests.

Allowing a committee to add in unrelated provisions to a bill is not common. Certainly not as a dodge. It may be entirely novel. It seems like a potentially dangerous manoeuvre that could lead New Zealand towards the shambolic American style of pick 'n' mix legislation.

Loads of info on environment.govt.nz

About the planning system

The Government has announced it will replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) with a planning system designed to make it easier to build houses and infrastructure, let farmers and growers get on with doing what they do best, and boost New Zealand’s primary sector, while protecting the environment.

The new planning system is based on a blueprint developed by the Expert Advisory Group on Resource Management Reform.

Read the EAG’s blueprint report.

A major change is the shift to two separate bills that separate land-use planning and natural resource management

Read more about the resource management reforms.

The two new Bills

The Planning Bill is focused on enabling development and regulating how land is used.

See more about the Planning Bill.

The Natural Environment Bill is focused on managing the impacts from the use of natural resources and protecting the natural environment from harm.

See more about the Natural Environment Bill.

Key features

Key features of the new system include:

• Fewer effects managed
  • Many currently considered effects will be removed from scope, including internal site matters, retail distribution effects, visual amenity, competition impacts and the financial viability of a project.
• Fewer consents
  • Fewer activity categories, with low-impact activities no longer requiring consent.
• More proportionate conditions
  • all consent conditions must be necessary and proportionate, reducing red tape.
• Fewer plans
  • More than 100 existing plans will be reduced to 17 regional combined plans that bring together spatial, land use and natural environment planning in one place, making it easier for New Zealanders to know what they can do with their property.
• Spatial planning
  • 30-year regional spatial plans to identify growth areas, infrastructure corridors and areas requiring protection.
• Faster plan-making:
  • plan development time will fall from an average of 6 to 7 years to around 2 years for a regional combined plan.
• Standardised zones
  • a major reduction from 1,175 bespoke zones to a nationally consistent set decided by central government.
• National standards:
  • a comprehensive suite of national standards for common activities to reduce costs and speed up consenting.
• Regulatory relief
  • when imposing significant restrictions, such as heritage protections and significant natural areas, councils must provide practical relief mechanisms.
• Clearer consultation requirements
  • clarity about who must be consulted and when, including iwi.
• Faster conflict resolution
  • a new Planning Tribunal to resolve straightforward disputes quickly and at low cost.
• Clear environmental limits
  • clear limits to support community decision making, improve efficient resource use and reduce unnecessary application costs.
• Better, more consistent enforcement
  • centralised oversight to ensure consistent and effective enforcement across the country.

National policy direction

National policy direction under the new system will be finalised within nine months of the bills becoming law. Mandatory national standards will be delivered in stages and aligned with council plan-making needs.