Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 3/7/24

Perhaps Tinetti knows how to lift Kiwi kids’ progress in schools – but don’t forget what happened when she was Education Minister

Responding to news that children in their first year of school will undergo phonics checks to help teachers understand their reading progress, former Education Minister Jan Tinetti bleated something about the government taking “another backwards step for education”.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 13/5/24

NZTA takes the wheel after govt gives it the road map for regional roads (and puts a speed governor on the spending pedal)

Tolling was mentioned when Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced the government was re-introducing the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme, with 15 “crucial” projects to support economic growth and regional development across New Zealand.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 26/3/24

The PM baulks at cyber grilling but Collins is not so shy – and McCully is given a job by the Minister he mentored

China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department.

Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning Report – he would not even confirm that ministerial statements were in the offing.

Point of Order: Overseas-focused ministers busy with trade and security issues

Ministers who took time out from the Labour Party congress to attend to portfolio duties were focused largely on promoting the country’s interests overseas.

The statements with the widest implications dealt with:

Point of Order: PM will join a NATO leaders’ meeting.....

....and we are being kept safe in our beds by commitment to secret activities in Jordan

Ministers have been preoccupied with the country’s overseas relationships since we reported yesterday on goings-on in the Beehive.

Four of the five latest posts on the Government’s official website deal with issues beyond this country’s shores.

They include news of the PM’s plans to travel abroad “to advance New Zealand’s economic interests”.

Point of Order: $55 million for a bashful bunch of builders and a belated patch-up on the Solomon Islands

Another day, another Crown:iwi partnership, this time a deal between the Government and Toitū Tairāwhiti to build homes for families “who need them most”. In this case ethnicity is the critical factor in determining this need.

On the international front, meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahua has named a new high commissioner to Solomon Islands, presumably (and belatedly) to repair the “relationship failure” she acknowledged when she confirmed that New Zealand, Australia and other Pacific nations were caught out by China’s security deal with Solomon Islands.

Mahuta said of the appointment:

Richard Prebble: The world has got more dangerous. It is time to rejoin ANZUS

New Zealand is a partner of an Atlantic Defence treaty but apart from a pact with Australia this country has no defence treaty. New Zealand is a NATO partner, a nuclear alliance, but our membership of ANZUS is suspended.

Jacinda Ardern has explained New Zealand is sending troops to Europe because “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of international law”. Russia’s “blatant attack on a country’s sovereignty is a threat to all of us”.

The PM is correct. Russia’s invasion is a threat to the international rules-based system that is fundamental to New Zealand’s national security.

All the political parties say the Pacific should be New Zealand’s focus but the actions do not match the words.