Mike Butler: The treaty principles crossroads again

The Waitangi Tribunal’s declaration that the review of treaty principle clauses breaches treaty principles is both predictable and shines a light on the constitutional crossroads that 50 years of treaty policy have brought us to.

AI told me that evaluating whether the review is the "correct" course of action involves navigating one of the most significant, complex, and deeply polarizing constitutional debates in modern New Zealand history.

JC: We Are Well and Truly ‘Browned’ Off

The more the discontent with this government by its supporters grows, the more it seems the government is determined to show us the middle finger. Much of the issue surrounds the ‘Māorification’ of this country because what they promised they would do is not what they are in fact doing. It would appear that they are taking every opportunity to find pathways to incorporate a Māori perspective into legislation on any flimsy pretext.

Peter Dunne: End of year political parties observations

As a turbulent political year draws to a close some observations can be made about the state of the various parties and some of their personnel.

Within the National Party, this year has seen the emergence of Chris Bishop as not just one of the government’s key Ministers, with a range of new initiatives across his various portfolios, but also the go-to person when things do not go to plan. In that regard, he looks set to reprise the role of Minister of Everything, pioneered by Sir Bill Birch during the Bolger government, and developed to the ultimate degree by Steven Joyce in the last National-led government.

Sir Bob Jones: Our post-war political history

Since the first Labour government’s demise in 1949, thereafter came three successive National election victories, then the second Labour government for a single term from 1957-60.

This was followed by a 12 year Holyoake/Marshall National government, then again, a single one term Labour government.

Peter Dunne: Grand Coalition

In the wake of last week's election some have asked why no consideration has been given to a grand coalition between National and Labour to limit the influence of ACT and New Zealand First. After all, they say, grand coalitions have worked in other countries, so why not in New Zealand, given that the differences between the two major parties often appear so wafer thin?

Winston Peters as a hooker in fishnet stockings

Is this the political cartoon of 2023, at least so far? It's by the Herald's Rod Emmerson and it was used to illustrate an article by former Labour MP Graham Kelly on the pitfalls of MMP.

Jack Tame: Ruling out NZ First now would martyr Winston Peters

There was an air of inevitability around the polls this week.

It pays to be restrained in putting too much weight into any one poll, but the trends are what matter and the trends are suggesting Winston Peters and New Zealand First might break 5% and make it back to parliament.

Garrick Tremain: Vertigo

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Chris Luxon's lacklustre approach to the election! 

Graham Adams: Besieged Ardern pins hopes on a managed retreat

Labour won in a landslide in 2020 but now favours a tactical withdrawal to minimise losses.

A tactical withdrawal is said to be the most difficult of all military operations. A commander has to take his troops backwards while maintaining contact with the enemy and not being pushed into headlong retreat. The challenge is to not lose discipline during the operation.

It can become necessary when the enemy is simply too strong and an army needs to leave the battlefield to avoid a crushing defeat, or it can be simply to pull back to reach an area that is easier to defend.

Trailing National in the polls, Ardern has decided to retreat and present a smaller target to opponents by postponing the implementation of contentious policies or reducing their scope.

Karl du Fresne: ACT should make abolition of the Human Rights Commission a bottom line

The Human Rights Commission says it’s “very disappointing” that the government isn’t going ahead with law changes that would curb New Zealanders’ right to free speech.

Let me repeat that, just in case you didn’t get the irony. An agency ostensibly set up to protect our rights is upset that the government isn’t introducing new laws that would restrict them. What better evidence could there be of the commission’s highly selective interpretation – you might say perversion – of its own name?

Peter Dunne: Attacks on the Reserve Bank and its Governor

National’s and ACT’s attacks on the Reserve Bank and its Governor are becoming more frequent and strident. As the cost-of-living crisis bites deeper, and the Reserve Bank tightens the screws on interest rates, pushing up home mortgage rates, it becomes easy to portray the Reserve Bank and its Governor as the problem.

Add in the fact that Adrian Orr does not fit the traditional mould of a central banker, with his irreverent flamboyance and brusque manner (a Doc Martin of the monetary policy world, if you like) and he and the Reserve Bank can quickly be portrayed as cavalier, financial technocrats playing havoc with, and caring little about, small to medium businesses and households struggling to get by at present.

Bryce Edwards: Labour’s version of conservatism is no longer popular

New Zealand now essentially has two conservative major parties for the public to choose from. Unfortunately for one of them – the Labour Party – the public increasingly prefers the more authentic conservative option, National. This can be seen in the latest opinion poll showing National continuing to storm ahead of Labour.

According to last night’s Newshub-Reid Research poll, National has nearly a third more support than Labour – 41 per cent compared to just 32 per cent. As a result, Labour is currently projected to lose something like 24 of its MPs at the next election, and be turfed out of power in what could be a landslide reversal of the 2020 victory.

Peter Dunne: Labour’s self-congratulatory smugness being replaced by anxiety, anger, and desperation

There was a clear air of self-satisfied smugness within the Labour Party when Dr Gaurav Sharma was expelled from its Caucus. A stroppy young MP had been firmly dealt with and his political career destroyed because he had dared challenge the veracity of the Prime Minister on how Labour dealt with internal staffing issues. Most people probably saw him as a self-centred troublemaker, not suited to the rough and tumble of politics, who by virtue of his Caucus expulsion would be despatched to political oblivion at the next election. And that would be the end of the story.

At best, Sharma was considered by Labour and the commentariat as no more than a generally minor irritant, who, once starved of media attention, would become a nonentity. However, his calculated resignation to force a by-election in his Hamilton West seat before the end of the year will have changed that perception. The short-term irritant has now become a major problem that cannot be brushed aside and ignored. One way or another, Sharma has derailed Labour's short-term political recovery agenda.

Point of Order: Ardern is right – Peters is politicking

But it’s rollicking politicking as he denounces co-governance and separatism

Returning from the political wilderness, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters delivered what some commentators described as a “withering attack” on the government. He said the Labour Party was pursuing “woke, virtue-signalling madness” and a “separatist agenda”.

The government, furthermore, was scattering the “seeds of apartheid” through New Zealand’s laws and institutions.

Point of Order: Why we are puzzled by the polls and what they are telling us about prospects of the Nats and ACT forming a government

Here’s a political conundrum: why aren’t Opposition parties doing better in the opinion polls?

National’s leadership has settled in, and it’s fair to say support for the Nats has increased since Christopher Luxon replaced Judith Collins. But the gains have been at the expense of ACT.

And together, the two parties are not polling well enough to form a government on their own.

Roger Childs: Comrade Jacinda and 2 years of the Covid Crutch

The arrival of the coronavirus in New Zealand in March 2020 gave the prime minister the ideal opportunity to increase her power and popularity. The Labour/NZ First/Greens Coalition was struggling in the polls and Jacinda Ardern gratefully seized the opportunity to give her government emergency powers and effectively close the country down.

With her excellent communication skills and winning smile, backed by the confident Director General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, Ardern had the nation watching daily press conferences to learn about the latest developments. Phrases like the team of five million and be kind to each other struck a chord with most. Most businesses had to close down, but the Finance Minister subsidized these with wage subsidies and through them provided payments for people who had lost their jobs.

The four to six week lockdown was obediently accepted by the vast majority as the price that needed to be paid for keeping covid 19 at bay.

Barry Soper: Labour is abusing its absolute power

What's happening to democracy in this country, let alone the promised transparency of this Government?

Labour is abusing its absolute power and it seems those opposing it are powerless to do anything about it because majority rules.

A couple of weeks ago National wanted Police Commissioner Andrew Coster to appear before the Justice Select Committee to answer questions about the three-week occupation of Parliament's grounds by protesters.

The Labour majority of MPs on the committee blocked their request, arguing the Independent Police Conduct Authority was the "appropriate place for the review of police operational activities".

Lindsay Mitchell: Glossing over growing benefit numbers

Finance Minister Grant Robertson makes frequent self-serving references to New Zealand’s low unemployment rate of just 3.2 percent. He does not talk, however, about the Jobseeker dependency rate which is much higher at 6 percent.

In absolute numbers 93,000 people are officially unemployed according to Stats NZ but there are 188,000 on a Jobseeker benefit.

It is unusual for the gap between the two numbers to be so large.

Four years ago, the respective numbers were close at 128,600 and 123,039.

To understand the growing gap, we need first to understand the definition of ‘unemployed’ used by Stats NZ which is:

David Seymour: The Kiwi Identity

The following is an extract from ACT leader David Seymour's State of the Nation speech.

At the centre of nearly every Labour policy, from the school curriculum to the management of three waters infrastructure is an obsession. The Labour Party is obsessed with the Partnership State, putting the Treaty at the heart of everything.

Interestingly, the Treaty is not at the heart of the Labour Party. Its 123-page constitution mentions the Treaty only three times, and in passing. There is no co-governance in the Labour Party; its first principle is that ‘All political authority comes from the people by democratic means, including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.

Why might that be? Because the idea of co-governance is incompatible with democracy. Democracy means one person, one vote. It’s the basis of New Zealand’s one globally significant political achievement, realising the idea that every adult New Zealander should have the vote.

The opposite of that principle is being rolled out in healthcare, with two systems. It is being rolled out in infrastructure, with co-governance of Three Waters. It is being put into resource management law. The three bills replacing the Resource Management Act will be filled with co-governance provisions. The history curriculum is being designed to tell the next generation that everything in New Zealand is about colonisation and most of the students are guilty before they open their textbook.

Karl du Fresne: How this revolution differs from the last one

We’re already more than a month into 2022, but I’m only now coming out of holiday mode and trying to rev myself up for the year ahead. As readers of this blog may have noted from my silence, this annual adjustment has taken longer than normal.

For this I blame the lingering sedative effect of a holiday in Nelson, where my wife and I spent 10 days in our caravan with two teenage grandsons.

Nelson has never been an ideal vantage point from which to assess the state of the world. It’s relatively isolated, barricaded as it is by sea and hills. My family and I spent four very happy years there during the 1980s and I know from experience that it’s easy to retreat behind those barriers and forget that the rest of the world exists.

Like Gisborne, another charming provincial city, Nelson isn’t a place you drive through to get somewhere else. Socially and culturally, it’s a cul-de-sac. Such towns tend to develop their own distinctive character, uncontaminated by outside influences (a point of difference magnified, in Gisborne’s case, by the fact that the population is 50 percent Maori).

When I lived in Nelson I likened it to living in a warm bath; so comfortably soothing that you don’t want to get out. There’s an insularity and sense of other-worldliness about the place that becomes even more accentuated if you head over the Takaka Hill into Golden Bay.