Ani O'Brien: A Week Is A Long Time - 14 June 2025

A NZ Politics weekly wrap-up

Total system failure resulted in teen’s death and no one wanted to talk about it

In January 2023, in New Zealand, a 17-year old girl died of starvation alone in emergency accommodation and wasn’t found for two days. When her distraught parents arrived to see her body a police officer scolded them for using her name and female pronouns because she “identified as a boy”. This was the final insult to injury for parents who had fought New Zealand social services (government and NGOs) over their child for years…

Special mention to Fern Hickson from
Resist Gender Education who fought a long time to get this story published. Read the report from Radio New Zealand.

I wrote about this cataclysmic failure this week. Click to read.

Adrian Orr threw a tantrum

Well, now we know that the Reserve Bank Governor was so put out by the cost-saving approach of Finance Minister Nicola Willis that he biffed his toys out of the cot and stormed off. Orr had proposed an operating budget of more than $1 billion over the next five years, but the Government and board agreed to a more modest $750 million; a 27% reduction. Orr found this reduction “distressing” and believed it compromised the bank's ability to fulfil its mandate. However, the new budget is actually approximately 4% higher than the previous five-year agreement of $718.8 million.

Enter lawyers. An exit agreement was negotiated resulting in Orr’s immediate departure and "special leave". I shudder to think what kind of exit package he might have received given his total renumeration in 2024 was $804,802.

Click to view

Orr’s resignation came very abruptly. As Michael Reddell pointed out on X, judging from the above email, “less than an hour before the resignation statement went out he appeared to be planning to turn up to the conference next day.”

Charities Tax changes DOA?

Hat tip to the New Zealand Herald for the reporting on this. Nicola Willis’ review into the charity sector and taxation (or lack thereof) resulted in 86% of submissions opposing the removal of tax exemption for charity business income. With the negligible amount of potential additional tax on offer and the complexity of a fragmented sector, it appears the Government has lost enthusiasm for the project. Though Willis did say that perhaps it is not the tax settings that need to change but the criteria for charity status: “The question we had does raise a wider question of whether these entities should be charities to begin with.”

Skilled labour shortages to be addressed

The New Zealand Government is introducing significant changes to its immigration system to address skilled labour shortages, particularly in the manufacturing sector. The sector contributes approximately $21.8 billion annually to New Zealand's economy. Despite improvements in business confidence, certain critical roles remain challenging to fill. By attracting skilled overseas talent, the government aims to enhance productivity, support sector recovery, and foster job creation and apprenticeship opportunities across the country.

Starting 18 August 2025, the government is expediting residency applications for skilled tradespeople with ten new trades occupations added to the Green List's Work to Residence pathway allowing migrants to apply for residency after two years of working in a relevant occupation for an Accredited Employer.

Blood & Plasma donations on life support

Depending on who you ask the reason will differ, but statistics clearly show that since Covid-19 blood and plasma donations have dropped by 25% among young people. There are very grave concerns that we will not be able to meet the needs of the community for lifesaving donations. Whether lost trust or difficulty getting into schools, the New Zealand Blood Service recognises that they desperately need to connect with young people.

Media Madness: They hate the Government so much that…

…they are willing to make striving for “educational attainment” a bad thing. Seriously, Spinoff? Surely it is uncontroversial to state that the primary reason we send children to school is so that they can be educated. Even if you are of the view that te Tiriti o Waitangi should be central to school life and objectives, it is frankly dogmatic to be offended that educational attainment should not be the overarching goal.

Click to view

Awkward Politician of the Week: Stuttering Swarbrick

NZ Herald’s Ryan Bridge asked Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick if she “grew up in poverty too” having just heard from Act MP Karen Chhour on the subject. Instead of a simple “no,” the Green MP stammered and appeared not to want to admit to her very normal middle class upbringing. Perhaps the Greens would attract more votes from middle New Zealand if they didn’t appear to detest them so much!

LA burns…again

With the scenes of destruction we have seen in LA this week, one could be forgiven for thinking America is terribly divided on Trump’s immigration policies. The truth is that his zero tolerance of illegal immigration is actually popular with Americans including in immigrant communities who funnily enough don’t view illegal immigration too fondly having gone through the proper channels themselves. Nonetheless, the vocal and violent caused carnage in response to ICE operations and set flags (American) and cars on fire, while waving their own flags (Mexican, communist, Palestinian etc) and looting.

You have to see this video of patronising activists arguing with a young mother who is trying to get to work as they block the road.

In short - other stuff that happened:

• University of Auckland Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater has resigned. Hopefully, her replacement will prioritise academic staff and cut the bureaucratic costs. Oh and a pro-free speech VC would be nice.

• Speaking of free speech, comedian Leo Lins has been sentenced to 8 years in Brazilian prison for “inciting intolerance” in his stand-up routine that made fun of pretty much everybody.

• One man miraculously survived a plane crash in India this week by jumping out of the emergency exit at just the right time. More than 200 other people on board died.

• Environmental law groups have filed a judicial review against the government's emissions reduction plan, claiming it is "dangerously inadequate" and fails to meet legal obligations under the Climate Change Response Act.

• Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is set to visit China next week; his first trip to China as PM. Former leaders, including Helen Clark and Don Brash, have warned against aligning too closely with U.S.-led defence coalitions like AUKUS, urging a reaffirmation of New Zealand's strategic partnership with China.

• A new "Parent Boost" visa policy will enable migrants to sponsor their parents for multi-entry visits up to 10 years, aiming to strengthen immigrant family connections. It has received a mixed reception.

• Israel launched a precision attack on top military and regime figures in Iran.

Something I nearly missed:

Spinoff was guilty of media madness above, but I have to recommend this reporting from Hayden Donnell on the K Road Gravel Pit that nearly got heritage status. A few weeks ago he wrote about an Auckland Council debate on upzoning the city centre in which Mayor Wayne Brown channeled the frustrations of those of us fed up with NIMBYs. Being discussed was a vote to limit building heights on Karangahape Road. The mayor expressed disbelief that after the billions spent on the City Rail Link planners, councillors, and NIMBYs would want to limit the potential for housing and development. He said:

“The whole point of this, as I understand, is to get more jobs and residents near this expensive railway, the City Rail Link.”

Donnell reported that the two councillors leading the charge in restricting development on K Road and protecting the gravel pit were Wayne Walker and Mike Lee, who represent the wards of Albany and Waitematā. He described how something appeared to “break inside Brown” when he:

“proposed an exchange: if Walker and Lee were successful in putting heritage protections on an empty site 600 metres from a new rail station, he would move to enable unlimited density near their homes in Whangaparāoa and on Waiheke Island.”

It really is worth reading the article. It reminded me of old school local reporting that we often don’t see these days.

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.