Week 2 of the election campaign draws to a close with actual policy announcements and political theatre balancing out

The election campaign is well into its second week, and has produced sporadic bursts of new policies and long interludes of political theatre. 

It also produced a National Party regulation cull verging on a tiger hunt, lots of sighs over beneficiaries and school kids who just won't learn, plus an argument over whether Maori really are indigenous.  

The week started with the National leader Christopher Luxon dressed up as a pirate. This seemed like a good idea until it inspired Labour's Chris Hipkins’ to say "he was probably looking for buried treasure to fund his tax cuts”.

Hipkins might have added that Luxon lacked a parrot on his shoulder who could have ensured that someone, somewhere, would echo his views, but he didn’t. 

While Luxon was being nostalgic, Hipkins was going futuristic, and tickling a robot, which responded dutifully with a cyber giggle.  

Unfortunately, the voting public is struggling to manage a wry grin let alone a giggle, when their fortnightly pay cheque disappears in days on “luxuries” like meat, fruit and vegetables.     

This gloomy feeling is expressed in opinion polls, which show the Labour Party consistently getting the blame. So uniform is their message that these polls are fast losing their status as newsworthy items, and should perhaps be relegated to the back of a TV news bulletin, not the front. 

Meanwhile, the National Party ended the first week of the campaign by declaring a future National Government would teach teachers how to teach. 

Educational standards vary all over the place, according to the party’s education spokesperson Erica Stanford. So, she is prescribing a remedy: “structured literacy”.

This system is an educational method that breaks words into sub-parts and sounds, and its use would be mandatory. Parents would be informed of progress among year two children, and a knowledge of structured literacy would be a requirement of teacher certification. 

Labour responds that a programme of work is underway on literacy already, and should be completed without political cancellation. 

Despite that, Labour has itself caught the standardisation bug. It earlier pledged to reduce variability in schools by introducing core teaching requirements, otherwise known as the common practice model.  

Meanwhile, Labour wants to keep those better educated people healthy, so it has pledged to train 335 extra doctors each year from 2027 with 95 additional places starting in 2025.  There would also be more nurses, and free cervical screening for people aged between 25 and 69.

But National argues that despite spending billions and turning health administration inside out, the actual treatment of sick people has got worse under Labour.

So, it pledged a series of numerical targets for the health system. This includes having 95% of emergency department patients being admitted, discharged or transferred to a ward within six hours. National's also pledging shorter wait times for surgery or cancer treatment, and more immunisation.

In an environmental announcement, the Green Party said large parts of the ocean have been “torn apart for profit” under successive governments. So, the Greens would establish a Minister of Oceans and Fisheries as well as an Oceans Commission to prevent that.  

The party would pass a Healthy Oceans Act, putting a third of New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone off-limits to “fishing, mining and other destructive industries.”

There would also be a $100 million Moana Fund to help iwi and hapu develop environmental projects. 

On housing, the ACT Party called for people to have the right to develop their properties unless a building project causes actual harm to a neighbour.  There would be targeted rates on developments and a sharing of GST revenue with local councils.

Joining ACT on the housing beat was National, largely regurgitating existing policies such as changing the timing on the Bright Line test, but going further and attacking the programme of keeping homeless people in motels, which is a serious problem in Rotorua. (There was also much debate about National's plan to tax foreign house buyers, after repealing the law banning them).

The party pledged to put people who have been in motels for longer than 12 weeks at the front of the queue for a social house, while also tightening the criteria for getting into motels in the first place.  This would aim to end the use of motels for emergency housing in Rotorua within two years. 

Te Pati Maori co-leader Rawiri Waititi appeared on TVNZ’s Q and A programme to defend his calls for wealth taxes of up to 8% a year, saying these would correct inequities in the current tax system.

He also argued it would not matter to him who wins the election because “both Labour and National have harmed our people.”

The ACT Party unveiled its law and order policy which would include 500 new prison spaces, 200 more youth justice beds, a revival of the three strikes programme, and a ban on gun ownership by gang members.  

The Labour Party has itself pledged to put 300 extra police on the beat, but then in a softer moment, declared that New Zealand would have to work harder to better protect indigenous flora and fauna. 

Labour also took a hard look at justice issues, including promising a clear definition of consent in sex cases and considering raising the threshold for jury trials to try to clear the backlog in the court system.   

ACT, for its part, was busy pledging to get sick or drug addicted beneficiaries back to work.  And National said it would make life easier for farmers, opening the way to GE technology, and making it easier to build water storage systems on farms. 

There would be less red tape and a requirement that central or local government abolish two rules in the rural sector for every one new rule they bring in.  

In another development, the New Zealand First leader Winston Peters declared that Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand. Peters, who is Maori himself, told an audience whakapapa dates back 800 years to the Cook Islands, and that is where Maori are indigenous. It was even possible that Maori might be indigenous to China, which initiated the gradual migration of people towards the Polynesian islands 5000 years ago. 

Peters’ view was condemned by the Bay of Plenty Maori leader Buddy Mikaere, who says Maori were the first people to arrive in New Zealand, and that makes them indigenous, end of story. There was similar criticism from both National and Labour. 

Meanwhile, New Zealand First hit the 5% threshold in another poll, this one done for TVNZ.  The party appeared to be taking support from ACT.  Despite that, the poll indicated National could govern with ACT and without needing NZ First. 

This election campaign has been notable for its anodyne slogans. We have been told to “Take Back our Country”, or that we should “Get our Country Back on Track”, or that we don’t really need to do either because our leaders are already “In it for Us”. 

But beneath the generalities are plenty of specifics. The National Party is not just telling us that we need another great walk, but saying exactly where it should be.  And New Zealand First is even better at getting down to detail, promising to campaign for Mike King’s Gumboot Friday and help develop the Dargaville aerodrome. 

*You can see all the major political parties' policies here.