Point of Order - Govt’s policy refocus: supporters of Auckland’s light rail project will be encouraged by City Rail Link appointment

Buzz from the Beehive

In one of his first pronouncements after Chris Hipkins became PM, Transport Minister Michael Wood – and Minister for Auckland after the cabinet reshuffle – confirmed that the light rail project is part of the government’s policy refocus.

Opponents of the project will hope this makes the project a candidate for Hipkins’ bonfire of unpalatable policies and programmes  (Labour’s burning issues, so to speak).

Supporters of the project will hope it is kept alive.

Point of Order: More smoke than flames in new Prime Minister’s bonfire?

 

So was it really a bonfire when incoming Prime Minister Chris Hipkins put a match to several of the Ardern government’s policies?

Certainly his supporters (and some within the media commentariat) hailed the move as being bold, although the ACT party argued that far from setting a bonfire of his own policies, “he has burned a little undergrowth and left a few weeds smoldering for the future”.

Dr Bryce Edwards: Political Roundup - Time for a big debate about Govt use of business consultants

This week’s bonfire of policy was also a bonfire of cash. The Hipkins-led Government finally ditched the RNZ-TVNZ media merger, but only after wasting about $23m on consultants to design the failed project. Other ditched policies also incurred millions of dollars in business consultancy fees.

Much of this was spent on the “Big Four” management consultants: Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst and Young (EY) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). External contractors have become an increasingly large part of Labour’s public policy-making process. Critics say they are superseding the role of the public service in designing state programmes.

Cam Slater: Reverse Ferrets? Not So Much

So, Chris Hipkins has performed a reverse ferret of sorts on some key policies. But there hasn’t been any indication of any willingness to abandon other important policies, yet. But are the reversals really reversals, or have they just parked the policies hoping for a win in October and then they’ll all be back on the agenda?

Well, I think it is the latter. Chris Hipkins announced what the media termed as four U-turns.

• RNZ/TVNZ merger – scrapped
• Compulsory Unemployment Insurance – delayed
• Biofuels mandate – scrapped
• Hate speech laws – referred to Law Commission.

Point of Order: The Great Unwinding – but jettisoning distasteful policies is easy; let’s see if a bread-and-butter focus is more palatable

 

Buzz from the Beehive

Further critical steps in The Great Undoing were announced yesterday as the Labour Government, under new management, strives to claw back the electoral support it had been losing before Jacinda Ardern bailed out as Prime Minister.

The Beehive website recorded Ardern’s resignation announcement on 19 January but it does not record Hipkins succeeding her as Labour’s leader and the country’s Prime Minister.  That was a party matter (although the “news” section of the Labour Party website records neither Hipkins’ elevation to top spot in the pecking order nor Carmel Sepuloni’s becoming Deputy Prime Minister).