The political year has kicked back into life with the National Party’s caucus retreat in Christchurch on Thursday and an abrupt resignation from the Green Party.
Politicians are returning from their holidays in time for the first Cabinet meeting this coming Monday and Parliament’s first session the following week.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon used his public speech to his caucus colleagues to encourage them to stay focused on New Zealanders everyday concerns.
“If we stay in touch with Kiwis… and forget about the voices of the commentators and the pundits … I'm sure that we can go on to actually win the next election in 2026 as well”.
He said National had been elected because New Zealanders felt the country was going in the wrong direction and the Labour Party had failed to manage the basics.
“They didn't want a government distracted on some pet ideological projects or some ideological debates. They want us to really focus on the things that will matter … and they have trusted us to get it right”.
Staying focused on everyday issues shouldn’t be a problem for National—a broadchurch, centrist party—but could be more of a challenge for its culture warring coalition partners.
Both the Act and New Zealand First parties have staked out strong positions on opposing the prominence of te reo Maori and Te Tiriti O Waitangi in public life.
Luxon’s coalition Government now faces intense backlash from Māori groups seeking to defend the progress they have made since the cultural renaissance in the 1970s—2000s.
New Zealand’s political calendar always starts with a pair of Māori events, Rātana and Waitangi Day celebrations, but this year there will be a third.
The Kiingitanga movement has called a national hui at Tūrangawaewae marae in Ngāruawāhia next week to discuss how best to respond to the Coalition’s proposed reforms.
Luxon won’t attend this event but did meet with Kiingi Tuuheitia at the start of this week.
Much of the political energy this summer will be focused on Act’s proposed Treaty Principles bill and other Government policies that affect the status and rights of Māori.
Meanwhile, National will press ahead with its 100-day plan, which mostly consists of slimming down the Government’s agenda to free up resources for basic services or tax cuts.
This year it has already ended the Clean Car Discount, introduced road user changes for electric vehicles, and officially cancelled the Auckland Light Rail project.
Imposing road user charges on electric vehicles has the odd effect of taxing those cars at a higher rate than efficient petrol cars — despite an ongoing effort to electrify NZ’s fleet.
The Coalition Government has until March 5 (counting the holiday period) to complete its 100 day plan.
Scuppering scandals
Prime Minister Luxon also used his caucus retreat speech to encourage his MPs to support one another throughout the Parliamentary term.
“Politics is a team sport,” he said. “And there's things that we all each can and can't do, but we support each other as we go up and down as a team”.
“Trust the plan, stay connected to each other, support each other and make sure that we are playing our roles on our team … to the very best of our ability”.
The backdrop to these comments was the dramatic downfall of Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman, who Police charged with two counts of shoplifting this week.
In a resignation statement, the third term MP said the stresses of the job had affected her mental health and contributed to her behaviour.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Luxon said he expected his caucus to look out for one another’s mental health.
“When each of us are going through tough times, we actually know the people that are going to matter are the people that are in that room”.
He said they had talked a lot about providing support during regular caucus meetings and in a three hour session during the recent retreat.
Newer MPs had also been “buddied up” with senior ones who could provide support and guidance throughout the term.
Luxon also asked his MPs to focus on building relationships in their electorates and to learn to be good Parliamentarians in the house and select committees.
83 Comments
Predicted last year that it would take no time at all for the new government to come into hard conflict with the trade unions, the public service and Maori activism. Given the rhetoric from the first, the leaks from the second and the street work of the third, it is well commenced. Any sign of internal disunity in the new government and/or di vision with its coalition parties will be seized on by the media some of which are clearly hoping for just that. A lot of water to come to the bridge for this government, turbulent water too.
"In truth, the elites are terrified of populism because they are terrified of democracy. "
Why the elites fear democracy - spiked (spiked-online.com)
ACTs treaty bill seems odd to me, National have said they won’t support it so what is the point? An ironic waste of time and money from ACT that will also cause social issues.
"We'll support it to the select committee as per the coalition agreement. That gives everybody the opportunity to discuss these issues, but that's as far as our support is," said Goldsmith.
"The Prime Minister has indicated that's as far as our support goes."
"...so what is the point?"..."That gives everybody the opportunity to discuss these issues"
- unlike the undemocratic creeping appeasement of a mixed race minority over the last 50 years by weak politicians, agenda driven Waitangi Tribunal & academics; facilitated by an activist unelected judiciary & complaisant mainstream media
Afraid to say nothing new there. For instance. “A deliberate concealment of facts and a prevention of free discussion is a clouding of truth and a denial of justice. And it is a sorry fact that in New Zealand of late such deliberate concealments have become part and parcel of Government policy.” Extract from the editorial of the New Zealand Weekly News - May 22, 1946.
Scrapping New Zealand's Clean Car Discount, as proposed by the National Party, could cost $549 million and yield $259 million in benefits over 30 years, per transport officials.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507115/scrapping-clean-car-discoun…
Add to this the scrapping of the replacement ferries looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy our rail system in favour of road transport
Who was elected. The coalition or the oil industry.
Which exists is a third of the cost of road with a large part running on NZ grown renewable energy. Diesel locomotives being four times as efficient as trucks.
Are you not quite vocal about the state of our highways. Guess which form of transport causes the problem.
Once again I recall the foresight of Norman Kirk and his third Labour government. They set up the Shipping Corporation of New Zealand. Not only to ensure international freight rates remained competitive but also to provide back up to the inherent problems with overland transport routes in New Zealand, long skinny mountainous terrain, eq’s, wild weather and on. In today’s world such vessels offer very efficient freighting, virtually floating automated warehouses. For example an overnight service between Wellington & Lyttelton would reduce reliance on trucking just for a start for only a inconsequential inctreasevin transit time.
You may be confusing me with someone else, I don't believe that I've commented on nz road issues beyond pointing out that in Queensland drivers who suffer damage from badly maintained roads can claim directly from the public authorities instead of paying an excess to their insurer.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU2202/S00156/report-lays-down-the-fact….
New Zealand's surface freight task – road and rail https://www.transporting.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/TransportingNZ-RoadRail-Final.pdf
I thought that Labour's property policies were making good traction for the greater good with fewer investors crowding out the market. Housing affordability should be our number one issue by the government but it seems to be that higher house prices are National's goal. We are going to have to accept even more immigrants as those living here have fewer and fewer kids.
How can anyone ignore the ideological war. The media are just awful. They made Golriz Ghahraman out to be some kind of saint, when in actual fact, collecting a 180K public servant salary and thieving is obscene! It not only shows a weak-minded person with a bad character, but it highlights the grave danger to the country posed by diversity hires. Putting someone in a position of power who’s ill-equipped to deliver.
The coverage of the principals of treaty was equally bad on the news last night. Various points of view from different radical Marxist leftists is not balanced coverage. Why not interview Professor Elisabeth Rata, or Ewen McQueen who’s just written the historical account of the treaty “one sun under the sky”. I think the public interest journalism fund has done immense damage to the country.
Its ironic that the people slagging her off , are in the same camp of those that sent her death and sexual violence threats . Chicken or the egg???
She wasn't chosen because shes diverse, she was chosen because of the huge amount of work she did for refugees and ethnic minorities.
Maybe a fair criticisim is that the Green's focus less on those areas, and more on the environment.
Seems people want a public hanging , she lost her job and face police action , a lot more than what Undifell did., for one exanmple.
Nice try, but she can't be immunised from criticism by some spurious claim of victimhood status. That’s a common ploy these days. She was likely hired because she was a young woman immigrant in her 20s. Personally, I doubt that anyone in the 20's has the life experience to handle the responsibility of government. I’m not sure what you’re referring to regarding her work with “refugees and ethnic minorities” I know that she participated in the defence team for Rwandan war criminals though.
Has anyone been charged for her "death and sexual violence threats " or are they just another vague excuse like "stress". She lost her job sure but didn't front up on day one for her actions - while the Green Party and the media ran cover for her. If it wasn't for Marc Spring would we even know about it?
Key had to put up with Cindy's taxpayer funded mates performing songs about killing Key raping his daughter and Collins, Key and English had public effigy guillotining. I don't recall any outpouring of sympathy from the media or have it used as an excuse for any mistakes they made.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rude-rant-goes-to-air/JVRPFTFMOZ5DLX6UHOL…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/avantdale-bowling-clubs-tom-sc…
https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/protestors-guillotine-an-e…
SolarDB, Your comment is ridiculous. You need to retract it.
No reasonable person would agree with making death and sexual violence threats. You are stating that anyone who criticises a proven thief is a sexual predator.
The stupidity of these left wing comments is incredible. Just stop.
Rodger, perfectly said!
Solar has started 2024 by ramping up his pomposity to new highs! Equally, his comment regarding Ufindell is pathetic! I in know way endorse his behaviour but he was 16!
Mind you, I now defer to Solar on all things forestry as he once cut some firewood on a skid site! LOL!
My view is that the abuse excuse is completely made up. For me, I’m happy she’s gone, she represented everything that is bad about diversity hires. She was loud, useless, unelected, entitled….and now a crim as well it seems. They have pulled the race card (the Greens) and made the excuse she was terrified of all the abuse blah blah blah. We I hate to remind them that politics is a blood sport, and there is a certain amount of abuse that does go on. I wonder how much shoplifting Mr Trump does given the amount of abuse he gets? In any case, if the Greens are trying to tell us that they have let this women sit in her office for the last 6 years receiving abusive emails from sexual predators then that is on them. A proper employer would not let that happen. They should have email filtering rules and a bunch of other things in place to prevent this. Anything serious that does continue to occur should be dealt with by police. They are clearly a poor employer and this should be dealt with in the employment court I would think.
"They made Golriz Ghahraman out to be some kind of saint, when in actual fact, collecting a 180K public servant salary and thieving is obscene! It not only shows a weak-minded person with a bad character, .... Putting someone in a position of power who’s ill-equipped to deliver."
That's what can happen in the popularity contest game.
There are many government officials globally who are elected to their positions based on their mastery of rhetoric, rather than their policy making abilities / skills to benefit the country as a whole. Lots of vested interests involved - look at those elected government officials around the world who place their top priority on their own vested financial self interests.
Here is one example of the deputy prime minister of one nation with a squeaky clean reputation, that got charged with acting in their own financial self interest.
The coalition has its work cut out for it that's for sure. With a toxic media creating divisions even where there are none, & pushing their agenda at all times & at all levels, the coalition was under the pump from Day 1. They knew that before the election & nothing's changed since. If anything, it's got worse already. That's why I do not give the msm the time of day. There are many sources of good news out there [globally] & we now have the means to access it - 24/7 if need be. Why listen to the bullshit when you don't have to?
Toxic media? I’d say they are more a lazy media! National are about to deliberately increase house prices to take money off the younger generation and give it to the old generation, and the media have barely commented. And about to end all of labour’s environment policies with no replacements, again almost deafening silence. All the media care about is some pointless hack on tic toc.
Toxic media? You only feel like that if it's your side being attacked so personally I don't think that they have changed. Been seriously thinking about cancelling our NZ Herald subscription. Haven't quite got there yet but wondering if journalists nowadays are already? or do they now need to have double degrees and if that would make a difference to the quality and depth to the articles published therein.
Toxic media? You only feel like that if it's your side being attacked so personally
Not at all, I have simply seen first-hand, the degradation of quality, integrity, rationality, fairness, and openness to journalist in the last 3-4 years. Cores issues absent from mainstream media, selective pieces with heavy slant as opposed to a two sided story which reports and lets the viewer decide, and overall the impression that roles in mainstream media, like in politics these days, are all about popularity as opposed to the core valued they stand for in roles of such influence.
The coalition are under the pump because they are an unholy union of fringe lunatics absent the luxury of any intellect, puppets of oil, real estate and tobacco who bankrolled them . The Nats, a deeply christian leader with B+ corporate career, a MoF with no financial or economic experience whatsoever, a tobacco lobbyist etc etc. Peters is senile and Seymour seems slow. There isn't a single impressive politician amongst them.
The Nats are considerably worse than I was expecting in every area. I had more faith in Robertson and Labour regarding finances. I voted for them purely out of self-interest (real estate) and a Ardern protest.
And to cap it off, they have managed to unite iwi, something no politician has achieved in 50+ years
Edit: Peter’s is actually a very accomplished politician, he knows what he is doing.
A B+ corporate career? I think I read on the news a few weeks ago he has a 6.5 million dollar bach on waiheke Island ? Is that part of his portfolio of 7 houses that the media keep telling us about? I don’t know any more about him but I would suspect there would be significant wealth in other asst classes also. I would say that is a pretty A+ outcome from a B+ career or he had a part time job as a drug dealer on the side. Come on, he is coming in to clean up after PM that had a E- career in serving fish and chips, with an A+ in shirking. Really, what are smoking?
Imposing road user charges on electric vehicles has the odd effect of taxing those cars at a higher rate than efficient petrol cars — despite an ongoing effort to electrify NZ’s fleet.
I've seen this claim in the mainstream press, but it appears to be based on the manufacturer's claim of fuel efficiency (achieved under factory test conditions not real world driving) and not on the amount of fuel an average car actually uses. As an example, my car's stated fuel efficiency is 7.6l per 100km, but I've never achieved that in real life. Best I've done is about 8.2l open road driving on the straight Canterbury highways, while all the stop start driving around town at stupidly low speeds and backed up traffic means I normally average about 12l per 100km. So electric cars are probably still better off under the RUC system, as would the average ICE vehicle. The point is probably moot anyway since National have said they plan to transition all vehicles to the RUC system.
Given it has taken the Ministry of Transport years to come up with the most minor of alterations for the EV-RUC policy (discounted RUC for Plug in Hybrids), I can't imagine they will be able to come up with an all-encompassing policy for all vehicles and implement it in any hurry. So even if National were to do this, it would be what, 10-15 years in the future at least? Fuel taxes are so much easier for the government, the fuel retailers do all the work for them collecting the cash.
Pre-internet thinking there, Ifk.
The RUC charges are coded (very simple code too) into a web application and/or easily deployable desktop apps. New pricing can be added, tested and deployed in a day to become effective whenever you want.
What takes a longer is to establish what pricing if appropriate but good data analysts could come up with data sets in a few weeks.
What takes the longest is having some prat sign the whole change off. But given that the simian brown just announces the new pricing without ANY public consultation it would seem this is no longer an issue either. (And lets not forget that the previous government dropped RUC in next to no time during covid.)
So nah. There is no valid reason - except for bureaucratic stalling and grandstanding - why changes to RUC could be done once a month.
As well as chris' arguement there was always the arguement customs had with the oil Cos collecting the tax on fuel from customers but only paying excise on a bulk basis. They pocketed the difference which due to washings in the pipeline from Marsden was substantial over time.
Never simple. Pretty sure government won that against the thieving sobs.
LOL. You're funny. ... And you maths is awful. (Or you simply haven't done it!)
Go back and redo the numbers using your terrible driving style and poor vehicle maintenance that results in using way more gas than what the manufacturers (and better drivers) get. You'll find EV and especially PHEVs are paying more than the share. If you still don't get it - talk to the AA.
And btw - it is heavy axle loads that do the majority of the damage to our roads and why roads cost so damn much to build. They need to be engineered for heavy vehicles and not relatively lightweight passenger vehicles. Plenty of studies available on the internet show the massive difference. Get the truck freight onto trains and our roads would last far longer and cost much less to build and would be built faster.
and trucks don't pay the amount they should for the damage they do the roads especially since JK upped the weight to 46 ton.
so they get subsidized by everyday drivers BUT if they didn't the cost of goods you buy in the shops would increase so either way you would pay.
so the argument that EV drivers should pay their way like everyone else is a flawed argument because not everyone pays their way now, do cyclists pay anything? or do they save money for the government by ridding to and from work overall.
and let's not go into regions getting more money for roads (country) than they bring in revenue.
the whole NZ society is based on everybody paying for the good of everybody even though ACT would prefer a user pay model which would disproportionately affect those outside the main centres especially farmers.
"not everyone pays their way now, do cyclists pay anything?"
No one pays their way as the targeted taxes don't cover the costs, this also means cyclists do pay along with everyone else from general taxes.
Re province's paying, many big projects and even small relate to city folk wanting access to the province's all at once. For instance Kopu bridge or SH 1 north of Auckland.
Its not maths, its physics. You simply cannot compare fuel efficiency achieved under factory conditions (not outside, no wind, no heat, no cold, no braking, no going around bends or up hills) to real world fuel efficiency numbers - regardless of how you drive.
And according to your argument, weight should be the defining factor, in which case electric vehicles should be paying more. "EV trucks and SUVs weigh 2.5 times more than ICE trucks and SUVs. In terms of sedans, the EVs weigh about 30% more than ICE cars."
https://blogs.perficient.com/2023/04/05/the-true-ramifications-of-ev-vs…
> “They didn't want a government distracted on some pet ideological projects or some ideological debates. They want us to really focus on the things that will matter … and they have trusted us to get it right”.
Like simeon brown and his fixation on cars as the only one and true mode of transport? The guy is a fool for cutting cycling infrastructure. The data is clear: For every dollar we invest in cycling infrastructure is many many dollars saved in healthcare down the track. ($15-25)
Dan Brunskill seems to believe the vote for defining the treaty principles and against co governance etc was an isolated faction.
Which makes it easy to marginalise as a view. Lots of effort going into that since the election
I believe it was broad based and pervasive across the political spectrum. There is every chance political support for defined principles and democracy will grow.
In a resignation statement, the third term MP said the stresses of the job had affected her mental health and contributed to her behaviour.
What a complete load of rubbish Im sick and tired of people in high places using the mental health get of of jail card . I wish people would have enough balls to own there Fup especially when they are in a position that nzers voted you into.
In this case empathy is the inverse of karma.
GG arrived at a very young age, under questioned justification as a refugee from a country her parent didn't want to live in, received all the support from NZ to survive & thrive, tertiary education etc.
Started her career defending war criminals & has spent the time since continuously lecturing Kiwis on their supposed flaws.
Then while on a taxpayer funded ministers salary she goes around thieving from people who are working hard & paying taxes to support her indulgences.
Empathy / Karma?
im sure national leadership have already penciled in losing up to two Mps by the end of next year. the problem they have is most of their MPs are electorate so that means by elections. where for ACT, NZ first the greens and labour they are most likely to lose a list MP and can be replaced very easily.
the interesting part is will it be a newbe national MP that gets in trouble or a more senior MP that they have already moved aside due to previous indiscretions.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.