New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.

NZ Politics Daily: 29 August 2023

GOVT SPENDING CUTS ANNOUNCEMENT
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): $4 billion policy bonfire – Grant Robertson lays field of landmines for Nicola Willis (paywalled)
Richard Harman (Politik): “I’ve spent the lot” (paywalled)
Jem Traylen (BusinessDesk): Govt lays down challenge with latest round of spending cuts (paywalled)
Russell Palmer (RNZ): Government shaves off $4b: Where Robertson found his savings
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Grant Robertson denies new big cuts shows there’s waste in Government system
Luke Malpass (Post): Meet Grant Robertson: The goldilocks of fiscal probity (paywalled)
Thomas Coughlan (Herald): Government announces $4 billion worth of public service savings, cutbacks to consultants and contractors
RNZ: Watch: Government announces spending cuts and changes to ‘save’ $4b
1News: Govt forecasts billions in savings in consultant, contractor cuts
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): Government forecasts $4 billion in savings by trimming programmes, clamping down on contractor spending
Dan Brunskill (Interest): Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the money saved would help to offset the growing deficits due to weak tax revenue
Brent Edwards (NBR): Govt to cut back on consultant and contractor spend (paywalled)
Shannon Thomson (ODT): Finance minister stands by govt spending
RNZ: Government spending cuts don’t go far enough – National, ACT

ECONOMY, TAX, COST OF LIVING
Simon Wilson (Herald): On flying, tax, profits and potholes (paywalled)
Jenna Lynch (Newshub): Analysis: National’s tax plan expected to rely on reprioritisation, targeted revenue measures for funding
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): National gives ‘bottom line commitments’ it won’t slash frontline services with tax cuts plan
Dan Brunskill (Interest): National will reveal its tax cuts (and hikes) this week
Ireland Hendry-Tennent (Newshub): Rising profits, not wages, primary driver of domestic inflation during cost of living crisis – report
RNZ: Business profits contributed significantly to recent rising costs, study finds
Tom Pullar-Strecker and Luke Malpass (Post): Grim growth outlook for NZ from International Monetary Fund (paywalled)
Liam Dann (Herald): How NZ wage growth stacks up against the world – International Monetary Fund verdict (paywalled)
Dan Brunskill (Interest): International Monetary Fund report criticizes the New Zealand Government for increasing spending while the central bank battles inflation
RNZ: New Zealand economy faces year or more of tepid growth – IMF report
Brent Edwards (NBR): NZ in a necessary, policy-induced slowdown: IMF (paywalled)
Robert MacCulloch: New IMF data ranks NZ’s GDP growth as worst out of 159 nations in world along with Equatorial Guinea
The Hui (Newshub): Experts dissect Labour’s, other major parties’ tax policies
Toby Manhire (Spinoff): Wealth tax rules out working with Chris Hipkins
Eric Frykberg (Interest): A new law could lay the intellectual groundwork for more taxes on the wealthy

ELECTION
Chris Trotter (Interest): Going for broke with woke
RNZ: Winston Peters says non-coalition deals up to ‘the people’
Tova O’Brien (Stuff): Christopher Luxon’s change of tone on Winston Peters
Jim Tucker (Taranaki Daily News): A question of whether Winston Peters holds politicians to account or to ransom
John MacDonald (Newstalk ZB): NZ First – What should Christopher Luxon do?
Liam Hehir (The Blue Review): Cordon sanitaire
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Christopher Luxon confirms National will campaign in Epsom against David Seymour
RNZ: Checkpoint: ACT deputy leader makes bid for true blue National seat
Steve Braunias (Herald): The Secret Diary of … Truckin’ Luxon (paywalled)
Brian Easton (Pundit): Bullying Politicians
Newshub: The Opportunities Party wants to shift tax burden from income to land in bid to support young people
William Hewett (Newshub): ‘He’s an attractive man’: Advertising expert gives verdict on ‘visual pollutant’ party billboards
Rachel Sadler (Newshub): Chris Hipkins says Freedoms NZ ‘determined to disrupt’ election campaign after Christopher Luxon’s press conference hijacked
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Christopher Luxon tells heckler he’s ‘no Slim Shady’ after being told to ‘please stand up’ at hijacked media event
RNZ: Watch: National leader Christopher Luxon’s media breifing hijacked by heckler
Jamie Ensor (Newshub): ‘Will the real Mr Chris Luxon please stand up?’: Watch National leader’s press conference hijacked by heckler
Shaneel Lal (Herald): Winston Peters’ transgender women’s bathroom ban is a vibes for votes policy
Michael Fallow (Southland Times): No Green candidate for Invercargill
Karl du Fresne: Hypocrisy, cant and fashionably woke opinion masquerading as news
Don Brash: Too many politicians are ignorant or intimidated
Tom Peters (World Socialists): The rise of the far-right ACT Party in New Zealand
Rob Campbell (Newsroom): The David Seymour joke guide
Nicholas Holm (Post): Joking around with David Seymour and the KKKK (paywalled)
Emma Hatton (Newsroom): Sir Roger Douglas’ nephew bets business on big Act win

MIGRANT WORKERS
Lincoln Tan (Herald): Immigration NZ raids Auckland properties housing dozens of migrants amid review of accredited employer scheme
Gaurav Sharma (RNZ): Greens, migrant rights advocates corner Labour on migrant exploitation

WORKPLACE SAFETY
Aimee Shaw (Stuff): Workplace deaths, injuries costing NZ $4.4 billion a year – report
RNZ: Workplace death, injuries costing economy estimated $4.4 billion a year – report
Vincent So (Post): The reasons lung-health experts want engineered stone banned (paywalled)

TRANSPORT
Dita De Boni (NBR): Auckland light rail faces existential threat in election ’23 (paywalled)
Joel MacManus (Spinoff): The most hated policy in public transport is gone. What does that mean for commuters?
Todd Niall (Stuff): Low-emission boats crossing troubled funding waters

HEALTH
William Hewett (Newshub): Senior Palmerston North Hospital doctor slams Government for lack of action as people wait 60 hours for hospital bed
Janine Rankin (Stuff): Don’t blame the patients, say Palmerston North Hospital ED doctors
Ruth Hill and Rowan Quinn (RNZ): Staff at two Auckland hospitals hit panic buttons, called security thousands of times
Rayssa Almeida (RNZ): Patient advocate campaigners call for better access to new medicines
RNZ: Staff shortages force only Christchurch emergency doctors’ surgery to temporarily close doors
Helen Harvey (Taranaki Daily News): Radiologist shortage leaves Taranaki with long waiting list for scans
Anna Whyte (Post): Psychiatrist pool shrinks since 2017, despite huge mental health funding boost (paywalled)
Newsroom: Beyond the Soap Box: Six health priorities for the next government
RNZ: Covid-19 update: 3484 new cases, 22 deaths
Spinoff: I was a party pill industry insider. Here’s why the vaping problem gives me deja vu
Laura Frykberg (1News): Calls to change BMI requirements for publicly-funded IVF treatment

EDUCATION
Abbey Wakefield (1News): Poll: Voters split on National’s school phone ban policy
Colin Kennedy (Post): What cellphones in schools debate missed (paywalled)
John Gerritsen (RNZ): Schools not doing enough to stop truancy epidemic – reports
Luka Forman (RNZ): More schools turning to on-the-job training to fill teacher shortage
Stephen Agnew (The Conversation): Financial education has its limits – if we want New Zealanders to be better with money, we need to start at home
Gianina Schwanecke (Post): University’s back and forth on name change comes to an end (paywalled)
Serah Allison (ISO): Labour: Stop Pretending and Actually Fund Tertiary Education!

POLICE, CORRECTIONS, JUSTICE
George Block (Herald): Gang funerals: Classified intel reveals police ructions over motorcycle runs(paywalled)
ODT Editorial: Watching the watched (paywalled)
RNZ: Tamper and abscond rate of bail bracelets ‘as low as it’s always been’, Corrections says
Zane Small (Newshub): Corrections admits removing man’s ankle bracelet in error for 48 hours
Imogen Wells (Stuff): Newsable: Why people are given home detention
Stuff: Pre-trial criminal appeals may have added to delay instead of cutting
Robert Fisher (Herald): What critics of judges and sentences do not understand (paywalled)

HOUSING
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): Population growth outstripping affordable rentals, Child Poverty Action Group report warns
David Hargreaves (Interest): Mortgage ‘top-ups’ lose their lustre
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): What’s normal for home loan interest rates, anyway?
Susan Edmunds (Stuff): Ill-fated website highlighted anti-investor sentiment, representatives say
Matthew Littlewood (ODT): Construction of 18 Dunedin Kāinga Ora homes under way (paywalled)

CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENT
Newshub: Restore Passenger Rail protesters block busy Wellington road
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): NZ won’t meet 2030 emissions promise without further action, IMF warns
Michael Fallow (Southland Times): Groundswell NZ to hit the road again
John Berry (Herald): The Government and BlackRock – what have we just endorsed? (paywalled)
George Driver (North & South): A burning question
Tom Kitchin (RNZ): The Detail: Backsliding in the battle against pest species
Emma Hatton (Newsroom): Fears of chainsaw massacre after tree protection changes

LOCAL GOVERNMENT, RATES
Will Trafford (Whakaata Māori): National eyes repeal of Māori wards
Tema Hemi (Whakaata Māori): Māori ward councillor Nikau Wi Neera labels Act policies ‘apartheid’
Jonathan Milne (Newsroom): Clock tiktoks down on lower voting age in local elections
Erin Gourley (Post): Public Service Watch: Land value rating on the backburner (paywalled)
Marty Sharpe (Stuff): Council wins second court battle against forestry group wanting lower rates
Andrew Stewart (Post): Here is why farmers pay higher interest rates than homeowners (paywalled)
Erin Gourley (Post): Council proposes new rules for urban animals (paywalled)
Janhavi Gosavi (Spinoff): What happened to Wellington – Live?
(paywalled)
Tom Hunt (Post): Forgotten optimism back in Wellington: ‘We used to do things like this’ (paywalled)
Gianina Schwanecke (Stuff): Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh gift $2 million towards Wellington’s National Music Centre
Bill Hickman (RNZ): Wellington Town Hall set to get multi-million dollar recording facility

MEDIA
Dunca Garner (NBR): Goodbye, it’s our crisis, last one turn out the lights, thanks (paywalled)
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): It wouldn’t have happened in my day
David Harvey: Centralising Regulation in the Digital Paradigm
Gavin Ellis: Cartoons: High octane humour politicians love to hate
Simon Plumb and Annemarie Quill (Stuff): ‘Breakfast Hotties’: TVNZ shrugs off claims from disgraced host Kamahl Santamaria
Darren Bevan (Newshub): TVNZ reveals why it blamed Kamahl Santamaria exit on ‘family emergency’ as he admits touching colleague led to departure

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Nicholas Khoo (The Conversation): Talk of a new Cold War is overheated – but NZ faces complex challenges in the era of ‘strategic competition’
Tim Beal (Pearls and Irritations): Self-destructive stupidity, New Zealand style
Martyn Bradbury (Waatea News): Threat of conflict with China demands examination of Neutrality
Christine Rovoi (Stuff): Greens call for NZ action over Japan ‘nuclear waste dumping’
RNZ: Rabuka’s nuclear wastewater discharge stance divides opinion within coalition

OTHER
Nikitin Sallee (BusinessDesk): Wellington’s chessboard of top public servants (paywalled)
Dave Armstrong (Post): Where the streets have long names (paywalled)
Damien Venuto (Herald): The Front Page: Will the Mainzeal directors case impact the business community?
Hamish McNicol (NBR): Companies Act ‘long overdue a rethink’: lawyers react to Mainzeal (paywalled)
RNZ: Checkpoint: Kiwis don’t know how to react to earthquake warnings – research
Melanie Watson (Newshub): Research shows many Kiwis ignore earthquake warning alerts instead of protecting themselves
Joseph Los’e (Herald): Willie Jackson defends Jennifer Ward-Lealand Māori Language Commission appointment, sings karaoke with critic
Gerhard Uys (Post): Fonterra expects to put non-dairy protein on the market next year (paywalled)