Donald Foster: The Coalition Government’s Progress

In his 15^th May, 2024 pre-budget speech, the Prime Minister asserted that “New Zealanders voted for us last year to do three things – rebuild the economy, restore law and order, and deliver better public services”. 

That may have been his personal perspective on the issue, it may even have been the National Party’s perspective on the issue, but the Coalition Agreement more reliably reflected the electoral issues of concern at point three of the preamble to the agreements between National, Act, and NZ First, which stated “The Coalition Government’s priorities for this term include (in addition to those picked out by the Prime minister and amongst other issues) ending race based policies (and)  defending freedom and democracy, (the latter expanded elsewhere in the Agreement  to uphold the principles of liberal democracy, including equal citizenship and parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law and property rights), followed by a number of specific steps to that end.

It is to the credit of the prime minister and the coalition partners that the Coalition Agreements were published, and further, that time-related action agendas were publicly issued and updated, but there has been much debate and disillusionment at the choice of priorities.  There is little doubt the last government was voted out for a very wide variety of reasons, but among the most troubling were its promotion of racial divisiveness based on updated interpretations of the Treaty of Waitangi, and its scant regard for issues of freedom and democracy.  There was a concern in the electorate, that unless these issues were dealt with urgently and decisively, then the future of this country would not be what our forebears fought and died for in the two world wars, nor indeed what we expected from our political leaders.  Because these issues were tearing our society apart, it was important for the new government to act decisively and quickly to show it understood that the damage must be reversed.

One of the important aids for a government to “take the public with it” or win the hearts and minds of the people is to communicate its policy, and its reasoning, so that the issues can be widely debated and understood.  Traditionally this role was facilitated by the media representing the fourth estate, but that role has been abdicated, and the media continually attacks the government as if the previous government’s ideology was the gold standard and nothing the current government proposes is worthy of support.  The parlous state and standards of the media were well identified in a Mediawatch survey published in April 2024 where trust in media was shown to be at all-time lows, and 87% of those surveyed who did not trust the news said it was “biased and unbalanced”, while 82% said news reflected the political leaning of the newsroom, and 76% regarded news as “too opinionated, lacking in actual information”.  In the case of the taxpayer funded media there is no excuse for the government not to have done something about this.  While we would expect the government to support the right to free speech we are also entitled to have a balance in the ideologies of those reporters dealing with political issues, and the “experts” and commentators they select to interview.  The taxpayers voted the last government out.  They do not want to continuously only hear the last government’s ideological perspective on the current government’s policy.  It may not have occurred to the media that taking steps to offer balance may in fact attract back some of its lost patronage. It is also a missed opportunity for the government, and action to balance that bias should help what can only be described as a disgraceful state of affairs.

The electorate clearly voted for the coalition to ditch the path to ethnocracy being pursued by the previous government and return to a democratic society and the Rule of Law.   It is time to deal in a practical way (such as proposed by the referendum on Treaty principles) with the “invented” Treaty, as Dr. Elizabeth Rata refers to Treaty ‘developments’ that have blossomed since 1975 - aided and abetted by Maori radicals, the Waitangi Tribunal, activist judges, and others - and while the coalition government has made some important progress on some of this agenda - for example, restoring the right to local referendum on the establishment or ongoing use of Maori wards - other progress on that agenda has been less clear.  For example, the Three Waters legislation has been revoked as promised, yet the Te Mana o Te Wai provisions appear to be left in place.  How did that happen?  Or the Fast Track Approvals Bill, despite all the coalition agreement rhetoric about ending race based policies and promoting equal citizenship, is loaded with racial references and rights.  How did that happen?  There are other issues that should be simple and quick to put into effect where delays are simply adding to the problems to be faced.  For example, the effects of judicial decisions in relation to the Marine and Coastal Areas Act where activist judges have clearly ruled against the intent of Parliament, simply requires under coalition policy that the intent of Parliament be made absolutely clear to the judiciary to prevent that issue getting out of control.  Why hasn’t that been done on an urgent basis?

The change back to principles of democracy has to be fully put into effect in this term of government. Any concessions made against that policy only encourages further erosion.  Since ACT and NZ First have both been clear in their Coalition Agreements on these issues, it has to be assumed that delays in progressing this agenda and problems with implementation of related policy as outlined above, fall at National’s door, and in particular, Mr. Luxon’s door.  As far as the future of this country is concerned, there is nothing more important than restoring democracy yet this appears to be at the low end of his priorities, and we on track to miss getting enough done to provide hope for the electorate and to stop the exodus of our best citizens to finer pastures.  His position on the Treaty referendum proposal, made clear after the striking of the Coalition Agreements, tells us all we need to know about where democracy ranks on his agenda.   This issue has to be faced and dealt with by the coalition partners.

Donald Foster is a retired company director.