Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. Click here to subscribe to Bryce Edwards’ Political Roundup and New Zealand Politics Daily.
Today’s content
Housing crisis
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Emergency housing costs weigh on Government books, costing hundreds of millions a year
Jane Patterson (RNZ): Government ‘ducking for cover’ over emergency housing – National
Rotorua Daily Post: Millions spent weekly in Rotorua on supplements to help pay rent (paywalled)
Sophie Cornish (Stuff): Immigration NZ looking into complaints migrant sex workers operated in former Wellington emergency housing motel
David Farrar: Associate Housing Minister condemns Govt housing as inhumane
1News: Govt says more permanent homes are coming, as it spends millions housing people in motels
Georgina Campbell (Herald): Wellington council social housing arm will be insolvent by 2023 (paywalled)
Brooke van Velden (Herald): Solve housing crisis by uniting New Zealanders with good ideas (paywalled)
Anne Gibson (Herald): Landlords retreat from market – but so do first home buyers: mortgage adviser survey out (paywalled)
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): House prices in New Zealand too high for buyers to get Government’s First Home Grant – data
Simon Angelo (Wealth report): New Zealand property market: An eerie warning from the IMF
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Investors have no ‘moral obligation’, Property Investors Federation says
Hannah Kronast (Newshub): Are Kiwi renters required to make beds under responsibility to keep property ‘reasonably clean and tidy’?
NZ-China-Australia relations
Malcolm McKinnon (Stuff): Advancing human rights in China has nothing to do with geopolitics
Gerald Hensley (Stuff): Five Eyes and China: No middle ground for NZ
Richard Prebble (Herald): Five Eyes fuss ignores the lessons of history (paywalled)
Thomas Manch (Stuff): ACT party will file motion asking Parliament to debate Xinjiang ‘genocide’
Zane Small (Newshub): China imposes strict anti-espionage measures on staff visiting New Zealand, Five Eyes nations
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Five Eyes nations haven’t asked New Zealand to take stronger line against China – Grant Robertson
Andrea Fox (Herald): Nerves on edge in meat export industry as new China audits spread from seafood to apples (paywalled)
Michael Reddell: Listening to Mahuta
Health reforms
Emma Russell (Herald): Health shakeup: Should New Zealanders pay to see a GP? (paywalled)
Wayne Brown (Herald): Three cheers for Andrew Little’s health reforms
Peter Cullen (Stuff): The human cost of centralising our health system
Economy and work
Chris Keall (Herald): Study reveals level of NZ worker burnout – the symptoms and the cure (paywalled)
Ashley Church (One Roof): The great leap back to Muldoonism
Bryce Wilkinson (Herald): The futile call for an effective Govt innovation policy (paywalled)
Ganesh Nana (Herald): Small and far away should not be an excuse for lagging behind world (paywalled)
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Reserve Bank proposals ‘effectively clarify what we already do’ – Grant Robertson
Jihee Junn (Spinoff): A beginner’s guide to inflation
Local government
Kapiti News: Local government review: ‘We need to make the most of this opportunity’ – Gwynn Compton
Chloe Ranford (Stuff): Local government review: Be more like us, says Marlborough
Stephen Forbes (Stuff): Luxon backs call for supercity probe as part of local government inquiry
David Farrar: How to tell a denial from a non denial
Luisa Girao (ODT): Sir Tim Shadbolt falls out with council over ‘lack of IT training’
Former Dunedin mayor Dave Cull dies
ODT: Editorial – Dunedin’s mayoral city builder
ODT: Former Dunedin mayor Dave Cull dies
Liz McDonald (Stuff): Former Dunedin mayor Dave Cull dies
Covid: Vaccinations programme and border
Tess McClure (The Guardian): New Zealand loses top spot for best place to be during Covid to Singapore
Herald: Bloomberg Resilience Ranking – Singapore overtakes New Zealand for top position
RNZ: Man who flew from Perth ‘knew he should not be travelling to NZ’ – Immigration boss
Dan Lake (Newshub): Singapore, Hong Kong ‘in talks’ with New Zealand over travel bubble
Education
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Boy with autism asks Children’s Commissioner: ‘Can you please come to my school and help me?’
Amy Williams (RNZ): Schools’ exclusion of children with high needs ‘common’ – advocates
Louise Gould (Herald): Matua and whaea victory: All teachers can choose te reo classroom titles, Ministry of Education declares (paywalled)
John Minto (Daily Blog): Educating the elite and squeezing out the rest
Government film subsidies to Amazon
Emile Donovan (RNZ): Are Amazon’s tax funded benefits worth it?
Gordon Campbell: On the demonisation of film and TV subsidies
Anna Campbell (ODT): Time for questioning useful Goliath
Prison and justice system
Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner (Newsroom): Judges avoid censure in complaints system
Tony Wall (Stuff): A judge has ruled that police ‘formal warnings’ are illegal and akin to a conviction without trial
Jessie Chiang (RNZ): Waikeria Prison’s role as a flashpoint for public debate about jails
RNZ: Lack of food, overcrowding among issues at prison
Mental health crisis
Rachel Thomas (RNZ): Fears anorexic patients aren’t getting the help they need
Janine Rankin (Stuff): Mental health service changes in Manawatū criticised as risky and badly timed
Francois Barton (Herald): Toxic workplaces need to change for employees’ mental health (paywalled)
National Party
Tova O’Brien (Newshub): National Party election review revealed: ‘Unrelenting focus’, Māori representation, calling out bad behaviour and the ‘Merv’ rules
Richard Harman: Nats propose limiting caucus power to select leader
Media
Daniel Dunkley (BusinessDesk): Newsroom’s big money backers revealed (paywalled)
Damien Venuto (Herald): Jobs to go at TV3-owner Discovery NZ as restructure cuts through transtasman business (paywalled)
Other
Stuff: Editorial – Who watches the watchers?
Thomas Coughlan (Stuff): Fuel taxes need to go – but we’ve got to find better ways to pay
Charlotte Jones (RNZ): Tūhoe protest against their own
Dave Armstrong (Stuff): The NZBustastrophe battle might be over, but the war isn’t
Tom Hunt (Stuff): Wellington bus company owner refused council funds to top up wages: mayor, unions
Matt Slaughter (ODT): Christchurch’s most deprived areas revealed in new socio-economic data
Eddie Clark (The Conversation): NZ’s hate speech proposals need more detail and wider debate before they become law
Alex Braae (Spinoff): A night of free speech with David Seymour
Laine Moger (Stuff): Māori and Pacific expertise excluded from science policy, report finds
Zane Small (Newshub): Transport Minister Michael Wood dismisses ‘frenetic commentary’ of Te Huia Auckland-Hamilton train
Gill Bonnett (RNZ): Migrants join forces as deadlock galvanises action
Hilary Stace (Public Address): The case for a Royal Commission into Accident Compensation, Disability and Income Support
Phil Pennington (RNZ): NZSIS counterterror focus on white supremacists found new targets quickly
Vita Molyneux and Delphine Herbert (Newshub): Controversy over abortion clinic safe zones heats up as Bill heads towards second reading
Herald: Wellington, Porirua report the best quality of life in new biennial survey
