NZCPR Weekly: Coalition Deals

We are witnessing a remarkable turnaround in New Zealand politics.

The Coalition agreement entered into by National, ACT and New Zealand First reflects the first three-party coalition deal in our country’s history.

Democracy can be seen to have prevailed, with MMP delivering what a majority of New Zealanders want.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 30/11/23

Government in a hurry – Luxon lists 49 priorities in 100-day plan while Peters pledges to strengthen NZ ties with USA

Yes, ministers in the new government are delivering speeches and releasing press statements.

But the message on the government’s official website was the same as it has been for the past several days, when Point of Order went looking for news from the Beehive that had not been pre-digested by hostile political journalists.

Ben Espinar: Peters vs Media

There is ample evidence of faltering journalistic integrity in our media over the past 6 years

Newly minted Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has elected to drag the issue of media bias firmly back into the limelight less than 24 hours after being sworn in as part of the country’s new coalition Government.

David Farrar: Hysterical bullsh*t

Radio NZ reports:

Te pāti Māori's co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has accused the new government of “deliberate .. systemic genocide” over its policies to roll back the smokefree policy and the Māori Health Authority.

The left love hysterical language. If you oppose racial quotas in laws, you are a racist. And now if you sack 400 bureaucrats you are genocidal.

Derek Mackie: First steps to Victory!

Very excited by the prospect of a new centre-Right government who have laid their impressive cards on the table, promising to undo most of the damage inflicted on our nation by three years of out of control woke socialist excess, I found myself thinking back to famous rousing speeches of the past. 

The master is, of course, Winston Churchill, during WWII. 

 We have our own Winston but it’s only fair that centre-stage is given to the leader of the largest party and broker of not one, but two coalition agreements. 

So imagine, if you will, Chris Luxon, who from a distance bears a passing resemblance to the great man, wearing a Homburg hat and puffing on a large Havana cigar. 

Rising from his front-bench seat in the Commons and fixing the Opposition with his steely glare, he utters these immortal words:- 

Cam Slater: Is Ayesha Verrall Lying or Stupid?

It seems to have escaped the notice of Ayesha Verrall that Labour has lost the election. She has been throwing a paddy, stamping her feet and huffing on about changes to smoking legislation. As a result of her hyperbolic ranting, she has made a very, very bold claim: that decisions around “smoking” usually have bipartisan consensus.

Mike Hosking: Change is coming and the repair work has begun

There is a lot to take in this week. There is a lot to do because a lot of change is coming.

But one of the starker moments was when we asked the university people how it was that we are not getting the number of offshore students the way they are in Australia?

As it turns out, Australia is up over 30%, so much so they are looking to put a cap on it.

Here, it's only a 15% increase. This was a $5 billion industry before our approach to Covid wrecked it.

Roger Childs: Winston is right on the money…

…with the the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) which had to —

“…actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner.”

Brendan O'Neill: We mustn’t let the left erase the truth of 7 October

Owen Jones’s reaction to the footage of Hamas’s atrocities speaks to a serious sickness in the bourgeois left.

There is a video doing the rounds related to Hamas’s barbaric pogrom of 7 October that is difficult to watch. It is making viewers wince and recoil. It shows the madness that can flourish when people retreat from reason. I am speaking, of course, about Owen Jones’s reaction vid to the footage of Hamas’s atrocities; that arch Guardianista’s 25-minute YouTube musing over what he saw Hamas do. It is a disturbing watch. It provides the starkest proof yet of the collapse of moral reason and plain decency that has occurred on the middle-class left these past seven weeks.

Peter Williams: Media lack self awareness

Winston's war with the Fourth Estate

The mass media indignation of recent days ignited by Winston Peters accusations of bribery remind us of a famous expression from sixty years ago.

Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the women involved in Britain’s sex and spies Profumo Affair, reacted to one of her lovers denying all knowledge of her by stating “well, he would say that, wouldn’t he.”

That there has been such vociferous pushback against the New Zealand First leader displays a quite remarkable lack of self awareness.

Chris Trotter: Who’s Driving The Right-Wing Bus?

Bill Rowling told New Zealanders that he felt as though he had been run over by a bus. The metaphor was apt. Rob Muldoon’s 1975 electoral victory represented one of the great turnarounds in New Zealand political history. Three years earlier, Labour’s Norman Kirk had sent the National Government of Jack Marshall packing. But, just three years later, Muldoon, Marshall’s populist successor, exactly reversed Kirk’s landslide. National’s majority in the House of Representatives was identical to Labour’s – a whopping 23 seats. New Zealand had voted for the nation they wanted – and Muldoon was determined to give it to them.

Capitalist: Labour Government on the Rubbish Heap

Do you recall when The Beatles visited New Zealand? Perhaps you were a teenager or young adult? In the same period between then and now – sixty years – our doughty antecedents built a nation; it was that quick. They didn’t worry too much about childish matters like health and safety, or planning permission, they just cracked on with the job using their common sense.

Cam Slater: That Howling You Can Hear Are the Vested Interests

The unhinged left and the professional bludger class who take government money to lobby the government are struggling to understand why the new government is reversing Labour’s tobacco prohibition measures.

The same people who pontificated throughout Covid, arguing for lockdowns, masks that didn’t work and mandatory vaccines, are now telling us the world is ending because David Seymour, Christopher Luxon and Winston Peters are reversing their prohibition on tobacco.

JC: A Key Government Unlike the John One

First, let me explain the headline of the article. This is a key government in the sense that it is key, indeed holds the keys, to implementing policies that will unlock the country from the straitjacket the previous government has put it in. We elected a government to advance this country in the direction of personal and business achievement and increased productivity to bring prosperity to all. We voted for a government that will promote opportunities and openness rather than compulsion and coercion. But it won’t be the John Key model: far from it.

Karl du Fresne: The media's war on the new government

We are in an extraordinary situation where the mainstream media are openly at war with an elected government. This has never happened before in my lifetime, and to my knowledge never in New Zealand history.

Having adopted a nauseatingly sycophantic approach to the former government, consistently ignoring issues that showed it in a bad light and subjecting it to only the gentlest scrutiny while mercilessly savaging the opposition, the media are now in full-on attack mode.

Wednesday November 29, 2023 

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Point of Order: Treaty pledge to secure funding is contentious

But is Peters being pursued by a lynch mob after making bribery claims?

TV3 political editor Jenna Lynch was among the corps of political reporters who bridled, when Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told them what he thinks of them (which is not much).

She was unabashed about letting her audience know she had bridled.

Robert MacCulluch: Winston is Right. Hipkins is Wrong. The Evidence Proves the Media are Bribed by Government Funding

Labour Leader Hipkins today said that Winston Peters' remarks about the government bribing the media "weren't acceptable" & "potentially in breach of legislation". The bribery claims relate to the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund. However that fund has little to with the true extent of the bribery. The evidence shows it works primarily through the vast amount of advertising which the government pours into the media on a daily basis

Bob McCoskrie: New Government - New Policies, Renewed Optimism?

Government policies play a crucial role in the functioning and well-being of our society. Good government policy is essential, especially after the last few years of mostly incompetent, wasteful and ideologically-driven governance. So we’re greatly encouraged by many of the excellent policies agreed upon by the new Coalition Government.

Max Salmon: New Zealand's fiscal constraints

The incoming government has been entrenched in drawn-out coalition negotiations.

Across the table from National Party leader Christopher Luxon sit the leaders of two minor parties, both basking in the now-fading glow of recent electoral successes, eagerly eyeing their slices of the economic pie. Unfortunately, this pie has seen better days. The crust is stale, and the filling is sparse.

Oliver Hartwich: Stark warning in creative misuse of covid funds

Writing about European affairs for a New Zealand audience may seem, at first glance, a bit of a strange pastime. What happens in European domestic politics rarely seems to matter down here.

Yet part of my motivation for this column is to elaborate parallels between Europe and New Zealand. The challenges we face are often similar, but our responses to them are usually not. That means there is much to compare.

Cam Slater: Winston Dropping Truth Bombs on Media

The Media Party’s war against Winston Peters continues with Jenna Lynch, and now Jason Walls, upset that Winston Peters is dropping truth bombs in their laps. Apparently, the $55 million bribes of the Public Interest Journalism Fund didn’t buy anything, much less a hard editorial line. They may like to think so, but we know different, and so does Winston Peters.

David Farrar: Winston vs media

The Herald reports:

Peters interjected as Luxon ushered for media to leave and proceedings to get under way.

“Before you go – can you possibly tell the public what you had to sign up to to get the money, it's called transparency,” Peters said.

Bruce Moon: Historypunk

‘Historypunk’ a subgenre of ‘Mythpunk’, itself ‘a subgenre of mythic fiction’ in which classical folklore and fairy tales get hyperpoetic postmodern makeovers - Catherynne M. Valente

What I tell you three times is true - Lewis Carroll “The Hunting of the Snark” 1876

Murray Reid: Complaint to News Hub

“Album to Commemorate Invasion of Rangiaowhia to be Released”.

Meriana Johnsen.  22 November 2023 

 

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/11/album-to-commemorate-invasion-of-rangiaowhia-to-be-released.html

My complaint relates solely to the following sentence: "More than 100 people at the pā - half of the women, children and kaumātua who were living there - were murdered, raped or injured”.

A.E. Thompson: Voters Voice Of No Interest To The Left

New Zealand's socialists are quickly showing what they think of democracy. On the same day that our new government announced its agreed policies, our Public Service Association (PSA) sent to its members the following email. It seems highly disrespectful of the public's voice through the ballot box.

PSA ready to defend public and community services and Te Tiriti O Waitangi.

Point of Order: NZ has a chance to rise again......

.....as our new government gets spending under control

New Zealand has a chance to rise again. Under the previous government, the number of New Zealanders below the poverty line was increasing year by year. The Luxon-led government must reverse that trend – and set about stabilising the pillars of the economy.

John MacDonald: The Marsden Point pipedream needs shattering

Forget about it.

That’s pretty much the message the Government is getting today from the owner of the Marsden Point oil refinery.

That’s the Marsden Point oil refinery that doesn’t do any refining these days because, as you’ll remember, it was shut down in April last year by its private owner which, back then, was known as Refining NZ. These days it’s known as Channel Infrastructure.

Kerre Woodham: A breath of fresh air for our health system

As Mike Hosking and I exchanged morning pleasantries today, I said to him “Wasn't Dr Shane Reti a breath of fresh air?”

“Breath of fresh air?” said Mike, “He was a howling Nor Westerly of fresh air!”

Bryan Leyland: “Things that you know that ain't so” - climate

As the American humorist Will Rogers said: “It’s not what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” 

“Things that you know that ain't so”

“If New Zealand reduces its emissions of greenhouse gases, our climate will improve.”

Guy Hatchard: The Tide is Turning, But Much Remains to Be Done

Yesterday’s coalition policy announcements validated our lobbying efforts and those of multiple others over the last two years. Some key research findings and concerns finally penetrated the political firewall. We have turned a corner, but it is a first step and there is a lot more to do. As Winston Churchill said following the first allied victory of the war at El Alamein:

Tuesday November 28, 2023 

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Graham Adams: Media knives flashing for Luxon’s government

No one is going to die wondering how some of the nation’s most influential journalists personally view the new National-led government. It has become abundantly clear within a few days of the coalition agreements being signed that they both loathe and fear it.

It is often said that the National Party attracts people who imagine they are born to rule. But since the details of the agreements between National, Act and New Zealand First were announced on Friday, it seems it is the left-leaning media who see themselves as the nation’s true aristocrats, endowed with a perpetual mandate to decide which ideas are suitable for public discussion. And which should be allowed to be put to voters in a referendum.

Michael John Schmidt: Poisoned pill – Te Whatu Ora

In September 2008 during the year of the last financial collapse, Peter Cappelli authored an article titled The Trouble with HR in the Harvard Business Review. In it, he argued that HR departments had lost their relevance and credibility in many organisations, asserting the need for them to reinvent themselves. Cappelli claimed that HR departments had failed to fulfil their essential functions of talent management, performance evaluation, and employee relations.

• Cappelli P. The trouble with HR. Harv Bus Rev 2008; 86: 40–7.

Mike Hosking: What I'm enjoying about the new government so far

There's three little things I am enjoying about the new Government so far.

The first is the media imploding about the use of Māori language. Winston Peters didn’t help with his claim at Government House yesterday that the media were bribed by the previous Government.

That is categorically not true. But a lot of what Winston says has the seeds of some sense about them.

Eric Crampton: Time to restructure Wellington water to to fix the regions creaking pipes

When Wellington Airport installed licence plate readers to streamline parking and passenger pickup and drop-off, it did not have to beg Wellington City Council to find room in the council’s 10-year plan for funding.

Though partially council-owned, the Airport funds its own operations out of its own revenues and makes its own decisions. The structure imposes a commercial discipline and provides better outcomes.

It provides a sharp contrast to the city’s water system.

Brendan O'Neill: The moral cowardice of the managerial elites

Why Leo Varadkar failed to make a full-throated condemnation of the monsters of Hamas.

Is it just me or does the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar seem to fear his own citizens more than he does the murderous theocrats of Hamas? Compare the comment he made when hundreds of louts rioted on O’Connell Street last week with the weird tweet he put out when Emily Hand, the nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl, was finally freed from Hamas’s racist clutches. He damned the Dublin looters as a mob ‘filled with hate’, people who ‘love violence’. And Hamas? What did he say about this medieval terror group that violently abducted an Irish girl from her loving family? Well, nothing.

Karl du Fresne: The media needed a line of attack, and they found one

The left-wing media pack wasted no time identifying the new government’s weakest point.

Seething over an election result that they didn’t like, they have searched for a convenient line of attack and found one in the proposed repeal of Labour’s extremist smokefree legislation.

This has been a running story for the past two days. The media have collectively decided to frame the government’s proposal as an attack on the poor to benefit the rich. Even the BBC picked up on it.

Cam Slater: Police Trample on Rights, Yet Again

On Kiwiblog, and now the NZ Herald, a criminal defence lawyer, Lucy Rogers, has written about the illegal and high-handed approach of NZ Police to silence her protest at the pro-terrorism march over the weekend in Auckland.

Clive Bibby: MSM response to New Government formation in not unexpected

Why are we not surprised!

I doubt there is a person in this country interested in the make up of the new Coalition government, who would be expecting anything other than the response we have received from the MSM during the hiatus period since the election.

Most impartial observers of western politics, especially during the last 6 years, will have noticed the MSM‘s abuse of their position of trust in modern democratic societies throughout the world.

Point of Order: Don’t accept Human Rights Commission reading of data on Treaty partnership

Wellington is braced for a “massive impact’ from the new government’s cutting public service jobs, The Post somewhat grimly reported today.

Expectations of an economic and social jolt are based on the National-Act coalition agreement to cut public service numbers in each government agency in a cost-trimming exercise “informed by” head counts in 2017.

National campaigned on a 6.5% reduction in spending across the public service.

Karl du Fresne: A few random thoughts post-election

■ My friend and former boss Robin Bromby, long domiciled in Australia but still a keen observer of New Zealand affairs, makes an interesting point in an email.
He asks, “When has a Wellington MP led his party to an election win? The last Wellington area MP to become PM after an election was Walter Nash in 1957. But the job now seems to be taken mainly by Aucklanders.”

Kerre Woodham: Were there other ways to bring the smoking stats down?

Now the new Government has officially signed in this morning, and as Christopher Luxon said on Friday, he and his coalition Government cannot wait to get stuck in.

The RMA reforms will be rolled back before Christmas, Three Waters gone, the ute tax is expected to be gone as well, and in a controversial move, the Government will not proceed with Labour's planned legislation that would restrict the number of retailers allowed to sell cigarettes.

Monday November 27, 2023 

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David Farrar: Luxon is absolutely right

1 News reports:

Christopher Luxon says he was told by some Kiwis on the campaign trail they “didn't know” the difference between Waka Kotahi, Te Pūkenga and Te Whatu Ora.

Speaking to Breakfast, the incoming prime minister said having English first on government agencies will “make sure” people “understand” what agencies are and what they do.

JC: Let’s Get This Maori Thing Straight

The election has been had. The coalition agreement is in place. For those of us on the right there is much to like; for those on the left it is a different story. Many of their expensive ideological policies have quite rightly gone. These include the racist policies brought in at the behest of the Labour Maori Caucus. Most voters were awake to the games Willie Jackson, Nanaia Mahuta and John Tamihere were playing. The type of policy arrangements they were trying to progress were very much a contributing factor to Labour’s devastating defeat.

David Cumin: Where to from here?

“How are you?”, my Jewish friend asked. My response was much the same as it has been since Oct 07, especially with fellow Jews: “You know. Coping. You?” It’s almost two months on and we’re still just coping.

First it was the shock of terrorists crossing over the border, into Israeli villages. Then it was the disgust of hearing and seeing civilians murdered at bus stops and in their bomb shelters. Then there were horror stories of rape and slaughter of hundreds of young people at a music festival; and the chilling images of kidnapped civilians; dead bodies paraded through Gaza to cheering crowds; abhorrent stories of tortured families, parents and children burned alive… and Israeli forensic pathologists are still trying to identify human remains.

David Farrar: Prohibition doesn’t work

Newshub reports:

Health experts are labelling the new government's plans to scrap smokefree legislation “vile” and “devastating”.

The tobacco industry brings in nearly $2 billion a year in tax revenue.

Rodney Hide and Tane Webster - Politics Expained Special

Rodney Hide and Tane Webster analyse the coalition agreement policies and portfolios on Reality Check Radio.


Click to listen

Philip Crump: Team of Rivals - A CEO Approach to Government Leadership

Today the work begins

Later today the new National-led coalition government will be sworn in, and the hard work begins. At the core of government will be three men - each a leader of their own political party and each of whom brings their own distinctive personality, experiences and strengths to the new government. How that trio operates will have a significant bearing on the success of the coalition.

Damien Grant: Our education system is constantly failing our students

There is a saying in the technology sector that if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. This has been playing on my mind as I’ve been dragging the ten-year-old around private schools last week.

He will probably object to being used, once again, as a muse for my weekly column, but the challenge of being ten is that you have very few enforceable rights.

Kevin: Hey Stacey, Here’s Your Hop Card

Auckland Transport wants shopping centres to proactively manage traffic during Black Friday sales and the Christmas shopping period.

Of course they do.

Sunday November 26, 2023 

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Michael Bassett: A new Ministry - at last

Like most people, I was getting heartily sick of all the time being wasted over the coalition negotiations. During the first three weeks Winston grinned like a Cheshire cat, certain he’d be needed; Chris Luxon wasted time in lifting the phone to Winston and, still in campaign mode, visited the Chelsea Sugar Works rather than cementing his numbers in place. Even in the weeks after the final results it took time before the leading trio seemed to be in purposeful mode.

But then came the announcement on Friday 24 November, forty days after the election. A credible ministry with one or two over-burdened ministers, and two separate agreements, one with ACT, the other with New Zealand First, each of them is worthy of careful analysis.