New Zealand political discussion thread

[Pericles]

You're overstating the case about 2020. Labour has if anything been emboldened by the 2020 election result. While they are a politically cautious government, they have been bolder in their second term. For example, while they resisted a capital gains tax they have gone almost as far with a 10 year bright-line test, they will be abolishing the regionalised healthcare system and also establishing a Maori Health Authority, they raised benefits by a significant amount last year, and they will be passing Fair Pay Agreements that lift the minimum worker's rights across low paid sectors. I think there would be a significant legacy if they do get 9 years to entrench it.

There have also only been nine MMP elections, so frankly it seems like you're just using some random statistic that doesn't actually mean anything.

[Sestak]

There have been only 2 occasions since MMP has been introduced in New Zealand that an incumbent government that had lagged in a poll has been re-elected.

I don't think this statistic means anything near as much as you think. There have also only been three occaisons since MMP was indtroduced that an incumbent government has lost under any polling condition. So there having been two separate times that polls have incorrectly predicted an opposition win in that time span is a fairly bad statistic to have if you're the opposition.

[Pericles]

President Biden praises PM Ardern's leadership during meeting at White House. Love to see it. Ardern also went on Colbert again in this trip and spoke at Harvard.

[brucejoel99]

President Biden praises PM Ardern's leadership during meeting at White House. Love to see it. Ardern also went on Colbert again in this trip and spoke at Harvard.

Inviting him & Evelyn to her & Clarke's wedding was a really cute follow-up to his pre-pandemic offer to officiate.

[Pericles]

President Biden praises PM Ardern's leadership during meeting at White House. Love to see it. Ardern also went on Colbert again in this trip and spoke at Harvard.

Inviting him & Evelyn to her & Clarke's wedding was a really cute follow-up to his pre-pandemic offer to officiate.

They seem to genuinely get along really well, it's nice.

[Pericles]

The preliminary results for the Tauranga by-election (Simon Bridges' old seat) are in. It was a very boring by-election with no surprises, the new MP is the National Party candidate Sam Uffindel. He got 56% of the vote, and the ACT Party candidate Cameron Luxton got 10% (probably benefited from his surname being similar to the National Party leader's lol). The Labour candidate Jan Tinetti, who came within 4% in 2020, and is a cabinet minister because she's a list MP, got 25% of the vote. Tauranga is normally a safe National seat, the margin is slightly above the one recorded at the 2017 election, so that would be the big swing the polls are showing to National and a bit of by-election penalty mixed in.

More concerning for Labour is that GDP shrank by 0.2% in the first quarter, that was not expected and a second nasty surprise like that of course means a recession.

[Continential]

Labour MP for Hamilton West Gaurav Sharma wrote an oped on the eleventh where he alleged that there was widespread bullying in Parliament, by the party leadership, party whips and the Parliamentary Service.¹ The day after his op-ed was released to the public, he made a detailed Facebook post about why he has written the article and I think it is important to read if you want to understand more about his grievences.² Following this, an ex-staffer of Sharma accused him of engaging in the same practices as the other MPs, beliving him to be "controlling".³ Additionally, Parliamentary Service said that one allegation raised by Sharma about mispending taxpayers money was normal practice.⁴ On the fifteenth, the Labour parliamentary caucus held a secret meeting regarding Sharma's future, and following him finding out about the secret meeting, he refused to attend a public meeting regarding his future in the party, saying that it was pre-determined. Additionally, he wrote another Facebook post regarding workplace bullying in the Labour Party.⁵ Following this, twenty members of Hamilton West electorate committee sent letters in support of Sharma and calling for a independent investigation into bullying, with the Prime Minister rejecting calls for an independent investigation. The New Zealand Hearld reported that three of his staffers resigned during his first year, which led to Parliamentary Service suspending hiring of staff for Sharma's parliamentary office and they rebutted an allegation raised by Sharma about a Labour MP mispsending tax money.

On the sixteenth, he weas suspended from the party caucus until December, with the Prime Minister alleging that he had breached trust repeatedly and that Sharma had rejected the party's offers to help him throughout the past eighteen months.⁶ Following this, Sharma accused Labour of ignoring his concerns and accused Ardern of lying. Noticably after the ruling by the Labour caucus, Sharma went quiet on social media with there being no response to the caucus's ruling and with Sharma not returning the calls from the Prime Minister. But on the eighteenth, Sharma had an interview with Newshub, and provided Newshub with a secret recording of a Labour MP saying that his fate was predetermined and that he would be "whacked" by the Labour Party. Sharma alleged that the Prime Minister is a bully and that the Labour MP was coaching MPs on how to avoid the Official Information Act and Sharma called for an independent investigation against himself.⁷ The day after, he participated in interviews with other media outlets. Labour Minister Michael Wood said Sharma should take part in meditation.

On Tuesday, it is very likely that Sharma will be expelled from the Labour caucus and following his likely expulsion, he has two options, resign or become an independent MP. Alternatively, the Prime Minister could write to the Speaker asking for Sharma to be removed from the parliament under the waka-jumping legislation. If the legislation was triggered or if Sharma resigned, a by-election would happen, something risky for Labour because of bad polling for Labour in recent months. Sharma hasn't considered his future plans yet, saying that he wants a fair trial for himself as the MP for Hamilton West.

[Pericles]

My take on it is that Sharma was the bully who was about to be outed (because National had a scandal with their new MP Sam Uffindell) so he is playing the victim. He hasn't presented any evidence but has kept attacking the PM in the media, recording other MPs and he refused to attend the caucus meeting that suspended him even though Jacinda agreed the time with him (though the rest of the caucus did have a meeting beforehand allegedly to raise concerns but they would have made the decision there). I agree that Labour won't want a by-election, I guess he will be like Jami Lee-Ross and sit on the backbenches without a party. I don't think this is that harmful politically for Labour, but all these scandals with MPs (most of them National MPs) would hurt Parliament's reputation-they should just cut it out and be normal.

[Continential]

I agree with you Pericles on this since Sharma hasn't shown anything that corroborates with what he has claimed. Anyway, he has been expelled from Labour and Ardern ruled out removing him from parliament so unless he resigns, he'll be an independent member of Parliament.

[Pericles]

New Zealand scraps Covid rules

The Covid traffic light system has been repealed entirely. The only two rules left are that masks must be worn in healthcare and aged care facilities, and that positive cases must continue to isolate for 7 days. The latter is not really a rule at all, everyone uses rapid antigen tests so it is unenforceable guidance. Everything else is gone.

It has taken a while, but the winter wave has become a light ripple of cases. From tomorrow, New Zealand will be fully back to normal. It's a great day for our country, and such a relief to be done with these Covid rules. Looking back at this point, we can be very proud of how we did, with one of the best responses in the world.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, this is a good day for you.

[Pericles]

Sam Uffindell acquitted by National Party

Who knows what really happened but honestly this is a bit of a relief. Sure he's a Nat but the bullying stuff was so long ago that it shouldn't be held against him now imo. Tauranga voters will be relieved not to have two by-elections in one year.

[Pericles]

Preliminary results for the local elections have been released. Since most candidates do not run on party labels, and turnout was poor (around 30% despite many competitive races), it is hard to know what the 'narrative' is. Overall though, it looks like right-wing candidates had a good set of results. In Auckland, brash right-wing outsider Wayne Brown defeated Labour-affiliated Efeso Collins (who would have been the first Pasifika mayor) in a landslide to break the centre-left hold on the mayoralty there. Wellington was a unique case, where former Green Party chief of staff Tory Whanau defeated incumbent centre-right mayor Andy Foster and Labour MP Paul Eagle (who humiliatingly came fourth despite entering the race as the frontrunner).

[Pericles]

Scandal-plagued former Labour MP Gaurav Sharma has resigned from Parliament, causing a by-election in the bellwether seat of Hamilton West. He said he is planning to contest the by-election and form a new centrist party. This is the path taken by one Winston Peters in 1993, but personally I don't think Gaurav has the charisma to do the same. I expect that the National Party will win this electorate, because they are currently polling ahead of Labour and it's a by-election. Obviously, I hope a loyal Labour MP will be elected.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300715341/gaurav-sharma-says-he-has-resigned-as-an-mp-triggering-byelection

[Pericles]

The Labour Party held their annual conference this weekend. I was actually there as a delegate for my local branch of the party, so I have a bit more insight into it than just what has been reported in the media. It's pretty well understood that Labour has fallen from its huge peak in 2020, but the party was energised to fight a close election rather than being resigned to defeat. It was also the first in-person conference since 2019, so the vibe was positive.

They did start to sharpen their message, with Grant Robertson attacking National as "Christopher Luxon and the Trickle Downers" who are trying to "out-Truss Liz Truss". This is because Luxon's biggest policy and his first announcement was repealing the new top tax bracket of 39% that Labour introduced, a policy that would give him at least $349 a week compared to $2.15 extra for minimum wage earners (admittedly this is based on an analysis by the Council of Trade Unions). It wasn't just attacking National as the media claimed, he spent most of his speech talking about Labour's record and boasting about how the deficit and inflation are lower than in most developed countries. The basic narrative is that Jacinda has led New Zealand through crisis and can be trusted to get us through the cost of living crisis, which would be bolstered by attacking Luxon. They need to have a clear message because they have been politically drifting after the public moved on from Covid. Jacinda also gave a great speech and announced expanded childcare subsidies.

I did get to see the party's internal polling, but I can't share that. I can share though the recent public poll that was released, which has National on 41% to 32% for Labour, resulting in 65 seats for the right-wing bloc. So that's obviously showing that there is (at best) a narrow path to victory for Labour, which has been hit hard by inflation and general voter dissatisfaction across many areas. Jacinda Ardern is on 30% as preferred Prime Minister to Luxon's 22% (both lost support).

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/11/08/pm-asks-banks-to-reassess-record-profit-making/

Kiwi politics keeping it real. Banks making record profits? Politely ask them to stop then say you don't have a solution. Bravo.

[Pericles]

https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/11/08/pm-asks-banks-to-reassess-record-profit-making/

Kiwi politics keeping it real. Banks making record profits? Politely ask them to stop then say you don't have a solution. Bravo.

It would be pretty pathetic if she doesn't do anything about it, so they need to follow it up. Some kind of windfall tax could be a smart move, we don't have anything like that yet.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/11/08/pm-asks-banks-to-reassess-record-profit-making/

Kiwi politics keeping it real. Banks making record profits? Politely ask them to stop then say you don't have a solution. Bravo.

It would be pretty pathetic if she doesn't do anything about it, so they need to follow it up. Some kind of windfall tax could be a smart move, we don't have anything like that yet.

Given the backflip on capital gains tax I wouldn’t be crossing my fingers for any kind of windfall tax!

[CumbrianLefty]

Windfall taxes are generally easier to sell politically, though.

[Pericles]

Big news for the 2023 election-Winston Peters rules out working with Labour again. It is possible he makes another comeback, a recent outlier poll had NZ First on 7% and a leaked private poll had them just under 5%. This is a bold move on Winston's part-it naturally alienates people who don't want a National government and reduces his leverage but might let him take some of the insurgent momentum back from ACT. I'm not sure exactly what his pledge means, he is known to slip out of promises, maybe he is saying he could be on the cross-bench and make either party a minority government.

[NewYorkExpress]

The New Zealand Supreme Court has ruled that the voting age of eighteen is discriminatory.

New Zealand's Supreme Court has ruled that the country's current voting age of 18 is discriminatory, meaning parliament must discuss whether it should be lowered.

The case was brought by campaign group Make It 16, which wants the voting age reduced to include 16 and 17 year olds.

"This is history," Make It 16 co-director Caeden Tipler said.

The group argued that young people should be able to vote on matters affecting them, such as climate change.


The issue must now be brought to parliament, after the court ruled that New Zealand's minimum voting age of 18 was inconsistent with the country's Bill of Rights - which gives people who are 16 years and over the right to be free from age discrimination.

The ruling does not mean that the voting age will definitely be lowered.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/andrewmacfnz/status/1594534140677787648

[Pericles]

It's pleasantly surprising that Jacinda supports this and the decision has certainly boosted the momentum for change. It won't happen in this vote but the issue is now on the agenda. And the voting and for local elections can be changed by a simple majority (arguably entrenchment provisions can be overriden too but sensibly the government won't want to get into that). So maybe the voting age will be 16 for the 2025 local elections, and while it won't be for general elections people could see it isn't such a scary change.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, can see moves coming to bring the voting age down to 16 in other countries too.

[Pericles]

The news yesterday was far more grim though. Interest rates hiked by 0.75%, year-long recession forecast, from mid-2023 to mid-2024. This would be alongside inflation continuing to be high and the peak is still upcoming next year (which prompted the move). This looks like a return to monetarist policies from the 1980s and 1990s, and maybe the Reserve Bank is influenced by very harsh attacks it received from the Opposition for being too soft on inflation previously. This is also likely to rule out large public spending increases or tax cuts next year. The National Party did use the opportunity to say their unpopular cut to the top tax rate won't be going ahead.

This is very similar to recent news from the UK, though a slightly less horrific picture. Still, it's gutting to realise the worst is likely still ahead of us, as if the last three years haven't been rough enough.

Politically, this latest news adds to the growing feeling that a National Party victory is virtually inevitable. The election must be held by the end of 2023 so the timing is awful for the government. Who knows what will really happen though.