Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.
Today’s content
Climate change
Peter Dunne: It is now stand and deliver time for Labour on climate change
Rachel Thomas (RNZ): Carbon neutrality by 2050 requires taking a financial hit – economist
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): What if we create a better world for nothing?
1News: ACT calls on MPs to give up unlimited domestic flights in bid to cut carbon emissions
1News: ‘The next step is action’ — Greenpeace pushes Govt following climate emergency declaration
Simon Wilson (Herald): How to cut Auckland transport emissions by 70 per cent in just 10 years (paywalled)
Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes (Māori TV): Climate change won’t wait for politics
Phil Smith (RNZ): Climate specifics in a general motion
Newstalk ZB: Govt told to go further with plans for electrification of public sector car fleet
David Farrar: Labour’s climate emergency policy was first announced by them in 2007
Herald: Chris Bishop urges Kieran McAnulty to give up his ‘gas guzzling’ ute
Kerre McIvor (Newstalk ZB): Government has a long way to go in convincing us to go green
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Climate alarmism gets us nowhere
Point Of Order: Back to the future: Ardern govt refashions a 2007 commitment to make the state service carbon-neutral
Gavin Evans (Business Desk): Public sector emission targets ‘not achievable’ (paywalled)
Joel MacManus (Stuff): Wellington will have fully electric bus fleet by 2027
Herald: Wellington creating new carbon sink with up to 28,000 trees to be planted
RNZ: Westpac assesses climate-related lending risks
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Westpac reveals billion-dollar risk of climate change to its borrowers
RNZ: Union calls for expansion of school funding for coal boiler transition
Parliament, Government, and election
Matthew Hooton (Herald): Who will lead us if our leader won’t? (paywalled)
Claire Trevett (Herald): Confusion, chaos and delay: Inside story of the Labour-NZ First government (paywalled)
Henry Cooke and Kate Newton (Stuff): Election 2020: How New Zealand split its votes – and caused two upset wins
Chris Knox and Claire Trevett (Herald): How Labour voters handed Green MP Chloe Swarbrick Auckland Central (paywalled)
Peter Dunne (Newsroom): A political party out of step and out of time
Chris Trotter: Looking For “The Drummer”
RNZ: Māori Party leaders aspire to transform Aotearoa for the better in maiden speeches
Zane Small (Newshub): Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi challenges Labour’s target for Māori share of public service contracts
Herald: A pebble in your shoe’ – Maori Party’s Rawiri Waititi’s promise to be unapologetic voice for Maori
Heta Gardiner (Māori TV): Māori Party leaders make fiery maiden speeches in Parliament
Rosalie Willis (Herald): New Ōtaki MP Terisa Ngobi delivers maiden speech in Parliament
Amelia Wade (Herald): ‘An ode to artists’: More Labour MPs give their maiden speeches
David Farrar: Select Committees composition
Housing; monetary policy
RNZ: Record number of people waiting for social housing
Georgia Forrester (Stuff): The housing crisis: What’s happening, and where are all the affordable homes?
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Robertson and Orr may remain pals, but they are not on the same page on housing
Gareth Vaughan (Interest): RBNZ to research the impact of loose monetary policy on wealth & income inequality
Miriam Bell (Stuff): Up and away: First home prices outpace rest of market
Catherine Harris (Stuff): Strength of building boom may help bring house prices down
Greg Ninness (Interest): New dwelling consents hit 14 year high
Bryce Wilkinson (Herald): NZ in grips of a double feature housing horror story (paywalled)
Catherine Harris (Stuff): Strength of building boom may help bring house prices down
Brent Melville (Business Desk): Housing stock hits $1,460b as prices, consents ramp up (paywalled)
Jenny Ling (Herald): Our Hidden Homeless: Former meth addict stresses importance of wraparound services
Herald: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern turns sods on new Tara-Ika subdivision in Levin
Vita Molyneux (Newshub): Damp, draughty houses putting people in hospital – Asthma New Zealand
Health
Alexa Cook (Newshub): Growing calls for the Government to increase emergency ambulance service funding
Alice Angelon (RNZ): Health board leaders ask minister for earlier ‘heads up’ on finances
Ian Powell: Pay equity settlement for DHB administration staff has valuable lesson for medical specialists
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Pharmac probe unlikely to examine commercial details – Little
Zane Small (Newshub): Government promises independent Pharmac review after Labour MPs veto Health Select Committee inquiry
Jason Walls (Herald): National Party applying pressure on new Health Select Committee
Debbie Jamieson (Stuff): Bowel cancer screening programme pushing symptomatic patients to back of the queue – specialists
Susan Strongman (RNZ): New Zealand should end restraint use in mental healthcare – psychiatrist
Katarina Williams (Stuff): Māori and Pasifika ‘definitely disadvantaged’ over BMI fertility treatment requirement
Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Girl, 3, with crumbling teeth couldn’t be treated immediately
Lois Williams (RNZ): Departing surgeon says DHB not giving West Coasters the care they deserve
Brittney Deguara (Stuff): Celebrating Matariki holiday between June and October could ease pressure on hospitals, study finds
Stuff: Editorial – Drug testing is a matter of safety and common sense
Taxation
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Tax as proportion of GDP below the average in NZ and falling, OECD reports
No Right Turn: An important public purpose?
RNZ: MPs have signed off on new 39% top tax rate
No Right Turn: Conflicted
Jason Walls (Herald): Government’s new 39 per cent top tax rate bill made law after vote in the House this morning
Zane Small (Newshub): Greens, National and ACT speak out against new tax law over loophole and privacy concerns
Victoria Young (BusinessDesk): IRD needs power to unpick convoluted affairs of the rich (paywalled)
Economy and work
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Roll back minimum wage increases, NZ Initiative urges
Esther Taunton (Stuff): Pandemic perfect time to bring in four-day week, pioneer says
Kathy Errington and Peter Wilson (Newsroom): Higher wages: If not now, when?
Jason Walls (Herald): ‘A period of pay restraint:’ The Government to send expectation letter to SOE bosses
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): The Government is $5 billion better off than expected, as Covid-19 economic bounceback continues
Brent Edwards (NBR): Ardern’s personal responsibility for reducing child poverty (paywalled)
Sarah Robson (RNZ): Calls to budgeting helpline more than double and expected to rise
RNZ: New government procurement target to support Māori economy post-Covid
RNZ: Covid-19: Economic effects expected to endure in New Zealand
Melanie Carroll (Stuff): Covid-19 was a positive experience for some NZ boards, according to IoD survey
Jamie Gray (Herald): Under FLP, the Reserve Bank will pay banks to borrow if OCR goes negative (paywalled)
Rob Stock (Stuff): Proposal to make retirement villages share capital gains with residents
Christina Persico (Stuff): Taranaki youth facing employment struggles despite ‘hard graft’
Andrea Fox (Herald): Import frustrations and costs rise for NZ businesses as global freight jam worsens (paywalled)
Tamsyn Parker (Herald): Who pays when the banks shut up shop? (paywalled)
Keith Woodford (Interest): Regenerative agriculture is not redundant but can be misguided
Herald Delotte Top 200
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Pressure makes a diamond
Tim McCready (Herald): Deloitte Top 200: Covid-19 provides impetus for fundamental change
Herald: NZ’s top business leaders crowned at Deloitte Top 200 awards
Lee Gray (Herald): Deloitte Top 200: Māori business rises to challenge (paywalled)
Natalia Rimell (Herald): Deloitte Top 200: SkyCity wins Diversity and Inclusion Leadership award (paywalled)
Duncan Bridgeman (Herald): Deloitte Top 200: Fisher & Paykel Healthcare named Company of the Year (paywalled)
Covid
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Public support for broader mask mandate
Rachel Sadler (Newshub): Coronavirus: Nearly half of New Zealand’s virus-related deaths had no other health conditions – Ministry of Health
Harry Lock (RNZ): Managed isolation hotels being overbooked – Hipkins
RNZ: No hope of Pacific travel bubble before Christmas – Hipkins
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): We’re dawdling while Australia’s open for business
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Jacinda, where is the vaccine?
RNZ: Health experts offer speculation about Covid-19 vaccine rollout
Anna Bracewell-Worrall (Newshub): Vulnerable elderly clamouring to be first in line for COVID-19 vaccine in New Zealand
RNZ: Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins urges patience over vaccine roll-out in NZ
Ben Gray (Newsroom): No pandemic planning without solidarity
Local government
David Farrar: Maori wards are not the same as geographic wards
Rukuwai Tipene-Allen (Te Ao Māori News): Petition wants urgent law change to allow Māori wards to be established uncontested
Sophie Cornish (Stuff): Social harm cost of crime at small central Wellington park reaches almost $15m over seven years
Robin Martin (RNZ): Council considers changing Maxwell township’s name back to Pākaraka
Justin Latif (Spinoff): No more token tack-ons: Building mana into Auckland design
Herald: Auckland Council development agency Panuku’s blow-out in staff earning over $100,000
Damian George (Stuff): Wellington City Council considers loan scheme for earthquake-prone buildings
Stuff: City centre master plan a test of public imagination
Anthony Fowler (Herald): How does Auckland’s drought measure up? (paywalled)
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Hundreds of earthquake strengthening deadlines to expire in Wellington
Justice and policing
Graeme Edgeler (Democracy Project): New Zealand’s worst law
Phil Pennington (RNZ): ‘Regulation gap’ for facial recognition technology, law expert says
George Block (Stuff): Police facial recognition: new study calls for greater oversight in NZ
Rachel Peters (Newsroom): ‘What can we do to heal?’
Ben Strang (RNZ): Hate crimes: Almost half complaints to police wrongly downgraded
Stuff’s apology to Māori
Carmen Parahi (Stuff): Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono: Newsrooms need to reflect the voices of society not the bias of their news bosses
Sharon Brettkelly (Newsroom): Why ‘sorry’ matters
John Minto (Daily Blog): Chris Trotter is wrong
Karl du Fresne: Stuff’s racist history
China; International relations and trade
Matt Burrows (Newshub): The New Zealand MPs leading global calls to hold China to account over ‘bullying’ of Australia
Newstalk ZB: Louisa Wall joins international call to support Australian wine in China stoush
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): China’s ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy is making a dangerous miscalculation
Royal Commission into terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques
Kurt Bayer (Herald): Christchurch mosque shootings Royal Commission report: Calls for dedicated minister to oversee response
Tom Peters (WSWS): New Zealand inquiry suppresses evidence about fascist terror attack
Jo Malcolm (Spinoff): The Royal Commission won’t change the reality of being Muslim in New Zealand
Education
Simon Smelt (Stuff): Why more kids are wagging school
Ben Leahy (Herald): Education Minister Chris Hipkins takes aim at University of Auckland over $5m Parnell house
Brent Melville (BusinessDesk): Hipkins won’t intervene on Auckland Uni’s sweet Parnell deal (paywalled)
Other
Diana Clement (Interest): Government de-encryption move puts client data at risk
Laura Walters (Newsroom): Sexual violence strategy: ‘Fighting four decades of status quo’
Alison Mau (Stuff): Urgent effort needed to tackle sexual harm, discrimination in music industry, action group says
Laura James (1News): New Zealand becomes more self-sufficient with waste management after Auckland recycling facility upgrade
Áine Kelly-Costello (RNZ): Another media reframe needed to include disabled perspectives
Hinenui Wano-Bryant (Stuff): The ‘Naki’ and cultural erasure through the words we speak
Herald: NZ chief censor backs new call for child abuse crackdown
Karl du Fresne: The curtain of secrecy around abortion
