Point of Order: Some Ministers head overseas while others are aiming for the stars

Giving their strategy its thrust with a $16m investment

The news from the Beehive featured announcements of ministerial travel plans and law-and order initiatives along with news that our government is aiming for the stars with a strategy given some thrust with almost $16 million of public funding.

New ministerial posts also deal with:-

The monitoring of marine reserves –

A new monitoring programme for marine reserves, coupled with a network of marine reserve rangers, will boost protection for the country’s special marine areas.

Congratulating Britain’s new PM –

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated Liz Truss on her election as Conservative Party leader, and pending appointment as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The new Aerospace Strategy – which has been opened for public consultation – will be supercharged with

* $9 million for research partnerships with NASA

* $3 million for research projects under the Government’s Airspace Integration Trials Programme

* 3.7 million for the Civil Aviation Authority to establish an Emerging Technologies Programme, which will help the CAA to increase its regulatory capacity.

The strategy was announced at the inaugural New Zealand Aerospace Summit in Christchurch.

Three Ministers contributed to the press statement.

Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash said:

“By 2030, we aim to have an aerospace sector of global importance that is coordinated in its activities, can leverage its shared strengths and is at the forefront of innovation. This strategy sets out ambitious goals and an action plan to guide us there,” Stuart Nash said.

Research, Science and Innovation Minister Ayesha Verrall said the Government is taking action to ensure our research, science and innovation system is fit for purpose and enables productive innovation to occur in the aerospace industry.

“The Government sees aerospace becoming a key focus of our research ecosystem, creating opportunities for innovative highly skilled jobs,.”

Associate Transport Minister Kieran McAnulty had regulatory objectives in mind:

“The Government’s aerospace strategy will make sure that regulations remain fit for purpose, and advanced aviation technology is integrated into transport networks without disadvantaging those who use the airspace.”

The review of New Zealand’s space policy aims to enable New Zealanders to have their say on the values and policy objectives that inform our Government’s activities and engagements in space.

“Feedback will contribute toward the development of a new National Space Policy that will capture our values regarding space and inform future space policy development, including any regulatory or legislative changes to the Outer Space and High-altitude Activities Act 2017,” Stuart Nash said.

More information on the aerospace strategy consultation and the space policy review, and on how to give feedback, can be found on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website.

But might a Waitangi Tribunal claim be triggered by the absence of any mention of “Maori” or “iwi” in the press statement, where the only partnerships mentioned are research partnerships with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration?

There has been no oversight. The consultation document says:

Our nation’s history has long been intertwined with the sky and stars. For Māori and Pacific peoples, voyaging and celestial navigation have deep cultural and historical roots that led to incredible feats of innovation and exploration. The Maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) tracks the movement of the sun and the moon and has traditionally aided the planning of activities throughout the year, such as the timing of harvests.

And :

We want to create an aerospace sector that supports the values, ambitions and aspirations of Māori.

Māori are an active part of the aerospace sector, from involvement in launch and testing activities, to space medicine and biology, to downstream uses of aerospace technology and data, such as agritech.

We seek to further enhance Māori engagement in the aerospace sector, ensure opportunities for Māori leadership and realise benefits to Māori from the sector’s growth. We are interested to hear how we can collectively develop the future aerospace sector in New Zealand and how Māori interests in the sector could be enabled by the Aerospace Strategy.

While Nash, Verrall and McAnulty are aiming for the stars, three of their colleagues have announced plans that will take them to –

New York –

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will travel to New York on 17 September to represent New Zealand at the United Nations General Assembly, co-host a Christchurch Call to Action Leader’s Summit, and participate in events to promote trade, investment, and tourism.

She will co-host the Christchurch Call to Action Leader’s Summit with President of France Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday 20 September.

While in New York, the Prime Minister will promote New Zealand trade and export interests including meeting with Motion Picture Association of America executives to promote New Zealand as a film destination and attend the launch of the Invest New Zealand campaign “Do Good, Do Well” alongside major US investment funds.

San Francisco and Los Angeles –

Minister for Trade and Export Growth and Minister of Agriculture Damien O’Connor will visit the USA this week to help further New Zealand’s economic recovery through cooperation efforts with a range of US and Indo-Pacific partners.

In Los Angeles, he will represent New Zealand at a ministerial meeting on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, a regional cooperation initiative, developed by the United States and now involving 14 economies throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

New Zealand has been actively engaged on the IPEF since its inception last year.

While in Los Angeles, O’Connor will hold bilateral meetings with ministerial counterparts from other IPEF economies.

In San Francisco, the focus will be on growing New Zealand’s relationship with California and supporting sustainable agriculture connections.

Damien O’Connor will depart New Zealand today and will be in San Francisco on 6-7 September and Los Angeles on 7-9 September, returning to New Zealand on Sunday 11 September.

Canberra –

Question: is the Minister for State for Trade and Export Growth of higher rank – or lesser – than the Minister for Trade and Export Growth?

Whatever the answer, our Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth, Phil Twyford, will travel to Canberra this week for talks with Australian counterparts on key trade issues.

He will be discussing a range of matters, including the ongoing implementation of the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER Plus), upgrading the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area (AANZFTA) and implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Minister Twyford will also discuss disarmament and non-proliferation issues with the new Australian Government, in his capacity as Disarmament and Arms Control Minister.

In addition to meetings with Ministerial counterparts, Minister Twyford will meet relevant academics and think tanks while in Canberra.

Minister Twyford leaves for two days today.

On the law-and-order front, Police Minister Chris Hipkins and Justice Minister Kiri Allan announce legislative changes targeted at gangs. The aim is to strip gang members of the benefits of their criminal activity with:

* New powers to target the associates of organised criminal groups and restrain their property, when it is clear their legitimate finances would’ve been unlikely to have enabled them to acquire the assets.

* A new court order that will mean criminals based overseas who have assets in New Zealand will face losing those assets, unless they can provide proof within two months that they obtained their property legally.

* Amending a technical gap, which will allow the Official Assignee – the government body that manages assets restrained under CPRA – to hold seized property longer than 28 days while the court considers an application for a restraining order.

* Allow funds in KiwiSaver schemes to be subject to civil forfeiture orders, eliminating the potential for criminals to hide illegal funds in their KiwiSaver.

The Government also will introduce the legislation that creates new offences and enforcement powers to give Police more tools to combat gangs.

But while that announcement looked like a tougher stance on crime, Hipkins (as Police and Education Minister) joined Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni today to announce a ‘Better Pathways’ package that aims to place more young people in education, training or work to drive down youth crime.

Hipkins said punishing young people through the criminal justice system more often than not sets them up for a life of adult crime.

“Instead, we’re ramping up our investment in young people to create even more opportunities for them to earn and learn,” Chris Hipkins said.

“We want to provide every young New Zealander with the chance to succeed. To do that we’ve identified youth focused programmes that are working already out in the community, and investing heavily to scale them up.”

Adolescent thugs who become involved in ram-raids therefore are being kindly treated.

Carmel Sepuloni said the South Auckland Social Wellbeing Board’s ‘Kotahi te Whakaaro’ approach “is already paying dividends” and is being extended to West Auckland.

“Over the past four months all children under the age of 14 who were apprehended as a result of a fleeing driver or ram raid or other serious offending in Counties Manukau have been referred to the board who can provide wrap-around support and refer them on to other programmes in order to steer them away from crime. As a result three quarters have not reoffended

“The success of this initiative in South Auckland is why we are extending it into West Auckland where a cross-agency team involving government agencies like MSD, Police and Oranga Tamariki, as well as local NGOs, respond directly to the needs of the children and young people who have offended.

“Through this approach they are tackling family harm and violence in the home, working with schools on responses to psychological distress and trauma experienced by children, and embedding engagement with iwi into their mahi.”

The package is also extended to “He Poutama Rangatahi”, language which camouflages another employment, education and training programme that Sepuloni says has proven to work.

“Ensuring our children and young people have access to pathways into employment, education and training remains a priority for our Government. This extends to those who may need a little bit more support to get back on the right track, and He Poutama Rangatahi has proven to be a successful programme that breaks down barriers to work for some of our hardest to reach young people,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

“Having supported over 3,500 people already, He Poutama Rangatahi will continue to have a critical role to play in working with young people at risk of participating, or already participating, in youth crime, and on reducing involvement with gangs.

“We have chosen to back solutions and build on what is working for young people right now. It means we can tackle youth crime by getting those who have already offended or are at risk of offending the support they need, while also ensuring these successful approaches are embedded in the way Government does things in the long term, so we can make changes for the better,” Carmel Sepuloni said.

The NZ Herald yesterday reported five retailers had been targeted by thieves in yet another night of burglaries across Auckland while a day earlier workers at a small Hamilton grocery store had been left shaken after it was targeted by a gang of youths in a brazen knifepoint robbery

Last week, the Herald reported Hipkins as saying that “almost all” of 129 ram raids since May this year have been committed by people under 18.

In response to questions from the Act Party, he said 38 offenders have been either identified or arrested from the raids.

“Almost all of these people are under 18 years old, and their median age was 15,” Hipkins said.

Good luck with the effort to steer these delinquents back to their school desks.

Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton