Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 1/10/24

New name – and a richer swill – for 20-year-old government fund to help clean up contaminated sites

Oinkers will be heartened to learn the Government has established something that looks like a new trough. Or rather, it has put more swill into an old trough and given it a new name.

Mind you, it’s not the most alluring of names. It’s the Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfills Fund, a source of dosh intended to help councils and landowners clean up historic landfills and other contaminated sites that are vulnerable to the effects of severe weather.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 7/5/24

Correcting the Corrections announcement – a fiscal farce that should bother the OECD

One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates.

Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 22/4/24

The media were given a little list and hastened to pick out Fast Track prospects – but the Treaty aspect is fascinating, too

The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts.

News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop released the list of the organisations which had been advised on how to apply for consideration under the Fast-Track Approvals Bill.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 21/3/24

Willis is undeterred by GDP slowdown and IMF advice, although she is talking of “tax relief” rather than tax cuts

One minister is talking tough while a colleague – whose ministry had acted tough and drawn a barrage of flak – has shown an official softening.

Some ministers are doing what Labour was good at, which is distributing public funds to causes regarded as worthy or needy, while another has portended the prospect of a contentious Labour decision – to shut down the Marsden Point oil refinery – being reversed.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive 9/2/24

Peters officially posts new diplomatic appointments – Jones has yet to do the same with changes to fishing rules

A slew of new diplomatic appointments has been announced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters while Transport Minister Simeon Brown at last has got around to having the Government decision to axe the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax posted on the government ‘s official website.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 14/12/23

Three Waters legislation will go down the plug early next year – but new govt is still distributing corporate welfare

Going, going – gone.

Or flushed down a legislative plughole, in the case of Three Waters.

Point of Order: Rachel Brooking hates waste....

....and she wants us to know about a $20m trough (funded by levies) to help reduce it

It was tempting – for a moment – to suggest Rachel Brooking become an Associate Minister of Finance to keep Grant Robertson on the straight and narrow.

The temptation was triggered by Brooking’s speech (as Associate Minister for the Environment) to the WasteMINZ conference in Hamilton, when she declared:

Point of Order: Co-governance isn’t mentioned in latest Three Waters statement......

.....but that doesn’t mean it has been flushed down the Beehive drain

Within 15 minutes of the Government emailing its overhauled water-service reforms to Point of Order, another email arrived, this time from National’s local government spokesman, Simon Watts. Hard on the heels of that came emails from the Act Party and the Taxpayers’ Union.

The Opposition parties and the Taxpayers’ Union, you won’t be surprised to learn, expressed their objections to the Government’s revised plans (but they won’t have winkled out all the flaws after a quick read of what was announced).