New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon faced sustained heckling and had to fend off questions about a revived Treaty Principles Bill as he returned to Waitangi this year.

ACT leader David Seymour predictably attracted his own jeers, and NZ First’s Winston Peters focused on a return serve.

The opposition was not spared criticism either yesterday, with Labour accused of backstabbing, and Te Pāti Māori given a stern word to sort out their internal problems and finish the work it started at Parliament.

But Luxon was clearly the one attracting the most ire.

Even before MPs walked onto the upper Treaty Grounds, a group of 40 or so protesters led by activist Wikatana Popata gathered as he made a rousing speech beneath the flagstaff — calling the coalition “the enemy”.

“These fellas are accountable to America, they’re here on behalf of America e tātou mā. Don’t you see what my uncle Shane [Jones] is doing?” he said.

“My uncle Shane, he’s giving the okay to all the oil drilling and the mining because those are American companies e tātou mā. So wake up.

‘Not scared of arrests’
“We’re not quite sure who our enemy is, well let me remind us: those people that are about to walk in, that’s our enemy . . .  we’re not scared of your arrests, we’re not scared of your jail cells or your prisons.

“We’ve been imprisoned . ..  we kōrero Māori to our tamariki at home, we practise our tikanga Māori at home, so you will never imprison us.”

The group performed a haka in protest against the politicians’ presence amid the more formal haka welcoming them to the marae. A small scuffle broke out as security stopped some of the protesters — who were shouting “kupapa”, or “traitor” — from advancing closer.

Speaking from the pae in te reo Māori on behalf of the haukāinga, Te Mutunga Rameka paid tribute to retiring Labour MP Peeni Henare and challenged Māori MPs working for the government, asking “where is your kotahitanga, where is your unity?”.

The next speaker, Eru Kapa-Kingi, acknowledged the protesters outside — saying he had challenged from outside in the past and now he was challenging from within the marae.

“Why do we continue to welcome the spider to our house,” he asked.

“This government has stabbed us in the front, but others stabbed us in the back,” he said, referring to Labour.

“Sort yourself out,” was his message to them, and to Te Pāti Māori, which in November ousted two of its MPs.

Part of ructions
Kapa-Kingi was arguably a central part of those ructions, however, having been employed by his mother Mariameno — one of those ousted MPs — and leading some of the criticism of the party’s leadership.

His criticism of Labour highlighted the departure of Henare, who he said had been — like his mother — silenced by his party.

Henare soon rose to his feet, saying according to custom those named on the marae were entitled to speak — and he spoke of humility.

“We must be very humble, extremely humble. And so that’s why I stand humbly before you . . .  Parliament kept me safe over the years.

“We have reached a point in time where I have completed my work. And so I ask everyone to turn their thoughts to what was said this morning: the hopes, aspirations, and desires of our people.”

Henare and his soon-to-be-former boss, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, have both batted away speculation about other reasons behind his departure — not least from NZ First deputy Shane Jones.

Hipkins himself acknowledged Henare in his speech, saying “our hearts are heavy today. We know we are returning you to your whānau in the North, but you are still part of our whānau. And we know where to find you”.

‘Lot of rubbish’
He later told reporters Kapa-Kingi was talking “a lot of rubbish”, that the last Labour government did more for Māori than many others, and Labour had already admitted it got the Foreshore and Seabed legislation wrong.

Seymour was up next and spoke of liberal democratic values; dismissing complaints of colonisation as a “myopic drone”; and saying the defeat of the Treaty Principles Bill was a pyrrhic victory because — he believed — it would return and become law in future.

Defending his comments on colonisation later, he said it had been more good than bad, as “even the poorest people in New Zealand today live like Kings and Queens compared with most places in most times in history”.

Conch shells and complaints about growing sick during Seymour’s speech clearly fired up the next speaker, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters — who said he did not come to be insulted or speak about politics.

“There’s some young pup out there shouting who doesn’t know what day it is,” he said, calling for a return to the interests of “one people, one nation”.

As the shouting started, Peters repeated his line there would come a time where they wanted to speak to him long before he wanted to speak to them.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson then rose to speak from the mahau, echoing the words of the late veteran campaigner Titewhai Harawira, urging the Crown to honour the Treaty, “it is not hard”.

Green candidates
The party announced during the events yesterday it would be standing candidates in three Māori seats, including list MP Huhana Lyndon, lawyer Tania Waikato, and former Te Pāti Māori candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth — and Davidson staked out her party’s claim to those seats.

“When the giants, the rangatira of our Green Party — before the Pāti Māori was even formed — were the only party in the 2004 Foreshore hīkoi to meet the people, the masses, to uphold Te Tiriti,” she said.

With the government trampling treaty and environment while corporations benefited, she said giving land back was core.

While her speech was welcomed with applause, the government’s hecklers soon turned up the noise for the Prime Minister.

After skipping last year’s pōwhiri amid tensions over the Treaty Principles Bill, Luxon began by saying it was a tremendous privilege to be back, someone already shouting “we’ve had enough”.

He spoke about the the meaning of the Treaty as he saw it, and the importance of discussing and debating rather than turning on one another.

“It speaks so highly of us that we can come together at times like this, but it is also relevant on Waitangi Day as we think about how we’ve grappled and wrestled with other challenging issues as well,” he said.

Shouts and jeers
Shouts and jeers could be heard throughout, but he ploughed on undeterred.

“. . .  I think we have the Treaty to thank for that, because that has enabled us to engage much better with each other and we should take immense pride in that.”

One person could be heard yelling “treason” as Luxon spoke. He later said it was “typical of what we expect at Waitangi . . .  I enjoyed it”.

Asked if his government was honouring the Treaty, he said “yes”.

“We take it very seriously. It’s our obligation to honour the Treaty, but we work it out by actually making sure we are lifting educational outcomes for Māori kids, we work it out by making sure we are lifting health outcomes, we work it out by making sure we’re making a much more safer community.”

Luxon has been rejecting the idea of a revived Treaty Principles Bill since the day after it was voted down, but his coalition partner Seymour has been pledging its return for even longer.

The Prime Minister has reiterated his stance several times in the lead-up to Thursday’s pōwhiri, and did so again: “David can have his own take on that but I’m just telling you, it ain’t happening,” he said.

Referendum ‘divisive’
Ahead of the 2023 election, he had said redefining the Treaty’s principles was not his party’s policy and they did not support it, that a referendum — as the bill proposed — would be “divisive and unhelpful”, and a referendum would not be on the coalition table.

He was asked, given that, how ironclad his guarantee could be with an election campaign still to come and governing arrangements yet to be confirmed.

“We’ve been there and we killed it, so we’re done,” he said, clearly hoping for finality on the matter.

Te Tai Tokerau kaumātua and veteran broadcaster Waihoroi Shortland bookended the speeches.

Beginning with a Winston Churchill quote — that democracy is a bad form of government but the others are worse — Shortland said it was easy to remark on how divisive Māori were “when you all live in the most divisive house in the country”.

He called for Henare to be allowed to leave politics with dignity, but extended no such luxury for Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi.

“Rawiri, I cannot allow you to come away. Your work is not done. It is crushing to see and to hear what the House does kia koutou, kia tātou, ki te Māori — but we sent you there nevertheless, and that work is not done. Find a way.”

‘Feel the pain’
Waititi had spoken earlier, thanking Eru Kapa-Kingi for what he had said.

“I can hear the anger and I can feel the pain. And the courage to stand before the people and say what you had to say,” he said.

He said the party wanted to meet with Ngāpuhi but had been “scattered” when invited to a hui in November, and indicated an eagerness to meet.

“We are still eager to gather with you but we must make the proper arrangements before we can,” he said.

“It’s alright to have problems. But we must experience those problems in our own house. If those problems go outside, the horse will bolt.”

He said the current government was “nibbling like a sandfly” at the Treaty, and there was “only one enemy before us, and it is not ourselves”.

But that fell short of what Mariameno Kapa-Kingi had hoped for, telling reporters she initially thought an apology was coming.

She said she was disappointed Waititi did not fully address their stoush in his speeches, and she was committed to standing in Te Tai Tokerau — presumably, regardless of her party affiliation.

“I’m not going anywhere until our people tell me otherwise. I’ve got much to do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been warned that Māori will not sit by without a fight if the government attempts to meddle with te Tiriti o Waitangi.

As politicians of all stripes have flocked to Rātana near Whanganui, it was a rare chance for Māori to address politicians directly on the pae — something that holds extra weight this year, because the annual celebrations come so soon after last weekend’s national hui.

Among those in attendance were Labour and Green MPs, Prime Minister Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones, while Te Pāti Māori were welcomed on Tuesday. ACT did not have a representative there.

Rāhui Papa, a representative of the Kiingitanga and Waikato-Tainui, said they were watching the rhetoric coming out of the Beehive very closely.

“Quite frankly, te iwi Māori — and the hui at Turangawaewae confirmed, the hui here at Rātana has confirmed — that if there is any measure of meddling with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori will not sit idly by.

“The message is: The Tiriti o Waitangi is sacrosanct in the view of te ao Māori. We truly believe that the only treaty in town is the one that was written in the indigenous language.”

Amid a climate of concern over the Treaty Principles legislation, Luxon is calling for calm over a bill he himself has said feels divisive.

Government ‘will honour the Treaty’
“The government has no plans and never has had plans to amend or revise the Treaty, or the Treaty settlements that we have all worked so hard together to achieve.

“The government will honour the Treaty.”

His speech to the Rātana faithful largely a speech to all Māori — and focusing on his favourite word: outcomes.

“Ours will be a government with goals for better healthcare, better school achievement, and less welfare dependency.

“When I talk about wanting better outcomes, I’m not talking about giving out hand-outs to close the gaps. I want to improve the opportunities so that people who are prepared to get to work and work hard, can make the most of their opportunities and get ahead.”

Ratana representative Kamaka Manuel told the government that promise of better outcomes was hard to believe.

“What we do see is the first part of the word ‘outcomes’ — or like ‘Māori out’ — and we’re left with the last part: ‘how come’.”

Māori outcomes ‘gone backwards’
He once again reiterated his claim that outcomes for Māori had gone backwards under Labour, and that National had “no intention and no commitment” to take ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill beyond a first reading.

There may be no commitment or intention at this point to do so, but Luxon has repeatedly refused to categorically rule out further support for it.

“It’s consistent with our coalition agreements, we have said and I don’t know how to be any clearer about it, there is no commitment to support it beyond the first reading.”

He was asked by reporters if he would say National would clearly say they would not support it further, but Luxon again said there was “no intention, no commitment”.

For a day full of politicians, Rātana is not supposed to be overtly political.

Deputy Prime Minister Peters acknowledged that — but still gave a political speech anyway — lashing out at Labour to pockets of heckling.

“These people will promise you a bridge where there is no river . . . I want to ask you this question: what’s their record?.”

impromptu standup
In an impromptu standup with reporters, NZ First’s Shane Jones said a review of the Waitangi Tribunal would need to address whether its powers should remain intact.

“An institution that’s been around for 50 years should not expect to continue on uncritically for another set of decades without being reviewed.”

Spurred on by speeches from the morehu, Labour’s Willie Jackson said it had made the opposition parties more united than ever.

“What they were saying the whaikōrero was that there was one enemy . . . and the enemy was the government, and so they wanted us to all . . . to come together as a group — Greens, Pāti Māori, Labour.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins, in his first public appearance of the year, spent all of a minute talking about Labour’s deep connection to Rātana — and then went on the attack.

“The role of us as political leaders is to light that path forward, it’s not to exploit the fear that comes from uncertainty.”

Hipkins said the current government’s approach was emboldening racism, which he later clarified related to things like the Treaty Principles Bill.

Policies ‘enable racism’
“I don’t think those are things that a responsible government should do.

“The policies of this current government encourage, foster, and enable racism in New Zealand and we should call that out for what it is.”

This time last year, Hipkins was speaking as prime minister. He now admitted — from the benefit of hindsight — the last government didn’t get it all right.

“One of the things that we didn’t get right was that making sure we were bringing non-Māori New Zealanders along with us on that journey.”

There was a notable absentee — the ACT Party, whose Treaty Principles Bill National has agreed to support to Select Committee, but no further.

“We know there could have been some trepidation like last week at Turangawaewae where we only had a couple from the three-headed taniwha government that we have in New Zealand today,” Rāhui Papa said.

‘Dishonour’ to Māori world
Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson told reporters that ACT’s no-show at Rātana was a display of “absolute ignorance” and a dishonour to the Māori world.

“It dismisses the mana and the importance of Ratana, of Wiremu Pōtiki Ratana, and te ao Māori and their political voice.”

But David Seymour was brushing off the criticism.

“There was a time when they didn’t manage to invite me and now they seem to be complaining that they’ve invited me but I haven’t come. I guess one day the stars will align.”

Seymour has never attended Rātana festivities, describing it as a “religious event”, but he will be attending Waitangi next month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Zealand’s opposition parties have seized on a leaked ministerial memo about the coalition government’s proposed Treaty Principles bill, saying the prime minister should put a stop to it.

ACT is defending the bill, while National has repeated its position of supporting it no further than select committee.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi posted a screenshot of part of a page of the leaked document on social media on Friday, saying it showed the government’s “intentions to erase Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.

1News also reported that it had a full copy of the leaked report, which it said warned the proposal’s key points were “at odds with what the Treaty of Waitangi actually says”.

Ministry of Justice chief executive Andrew Kibblewhite confirmed the leak “of a draft paper seeking to include the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in the Legislation Programme for 2024” would be investigated.

“We are incredibly disappointed that this has happened. Ministers need to be able to trust that briefing papers are treated with utmost confidentiality, and we will be investigating the leak as a priority.

“All proposed Government Bills are assigned a priority in the Legislation Programme. The draft paper was prepared as part of that standard process, and had a limited distribution within the Ministry of Justice and a small number of other government agencies.

“We will be keeping Minister [of Justice Paul] Goldsmith informed on our investigation and will not be making any further comment at this stage.”

ACT: ‘That is what I believe our country needs’
The bill was an ACT Party policy during the election, which National in coalition negotiations agreed to progress only as far as the select committee stage. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in Parliament last year said “that’s as far as it will go”.

Party leader David Seymour defended the bill.

“Over the last 40 years, the principles of the Treaty have evolved behind closed doors with no consultation of the average New Zealander, no role for them to play in it whatsoever,” he said.

That referred to the courts’ attempts over the last few decades to reconcile the differences between the English and reo Māori texts of the Treaty, based in part on the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal — an independent body set up by a previous National government to examine the Treaty’s role in New Zealand.

Seymour said people in the bureaucracy had become set in that way of thinking about the Treaty, but that it had made the country feel more divided by race.

“And when ACT comes along and says, ‘hey, we need to have an open discussion about this and work towards a unified New Zealand’, you expect that they’re going to be resistant. Nonetheless, there’s the band aid this government has, and that is what I believe our country needs.

“I believe that once people see an open and respectful debate about our founding document and the future of our constitutional settings, that’s actually something that New Zealanders have been wanting for a long time that we’re delivering, and I suspect it might be a bit more popular than the doomsayers anticipate.”

In a statement, he said the party was speaking for Māori and non-Māori alike who believed division was one of the greatest threats to New Zealand.

“We’re proposing a proper public debate on what the principles of the Treaty actually mean in the context of a modern multi-ethnic society with a place in it for all.

“ACT’s goal is to restore the mana of the Treaty by clarifying its principles. That means the New Zealand government has the right to govern New Zealand, the New Zealand government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property, and all New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.”

He said they would be consulting all New Zealanders on it, and once it got to select committee they would have a chance to recommend changes to the bill, which would then be put to the public as a referendum.

Te Pāti Māori: ‘The worst way of rewriting the Tiriti’
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer told RNZ News she was not surprised to see ministry officials warning against the bill.

“The extent and the depth of the erasing of Tangata Whenua, the arrogance to assume to rewrite a Treaty based on one partner’s view — and that was a partner who only had 50 rangatira sign — is really alarming.”

She said she did not trust Prime Minister Christopher Luxon would not support the bill any further than the select committee stage.

“It’s the worst way of rewriting the Tiriti we could ever have expected, it’s made assumptions that don’t exist and again has highlighted that they rate the English version of te Tiriti.

“I’m not quite sure when the last time you could believe everything a prime minister said was factual,” she said.

“The prime minister has been caught out in his own lies . . . the reality is that a clever politician and intentional coalition partner will roll anyone out of the way to make sure that something as negatively ambitious as what this rewrite is looking like can happen.”

She said one of Māoridom’s biggest aspirations was to be a thriving people “and ensure that through our whakapapa te Tiriti is respected”, she said, criticising Luxon’s refusal to attend this weekend’s national hui.

“He didn’t have to be the centre of all the discussions, a good leader listens,” she said.

Labour: ‘A total disgrace and a slap in the face for the judiciary’
Labour’s Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson however said the bill was a “total breach” of the Treaty, its obligations, and the partnership between Māori and the Crown.

“It’s a total attack on the Treaty and the partnership that we have, that Māori have with the Crown, and it continues the negative themes from this government from day one.

“The reality is that the Treaty principles — in terms of what’s been drawn up in terms of the ‘partnership’ — was already a compromise from Māori. That’s why the judiciary wrote up the partnership model — so if they want to go down this track they’ll open up a can of worms that they’ll live to regret.”

He said the government should not be pushing ahead with the bill.

“Absolutely, absolutely not, and Luxon should show some leadership and rule it out now. This is a disgrace, what ACT are doing, a total disgrace and a slap in the face for the judiciary and all the leaders who in past years have entrenched the partnership.

“You’re talking about National Party leaders like Jenny Shipley, Jim Bolger, Doug Graham, John Key. This is just laughable and idiotic stuff that is coming from Seymour, and Luxon should shut this down now because it goes in the face of legal opinion, legal history, judiciary decisions since 1987, prime ministerial decisions from National and Labour.

“All of a sudden we’ve got this so-called expert Seymour who thinks he knows more than every prime minister of the last 40 years and every High Court judge, Supreme Court judge — you name it … absolute rubbish and it should be thrown out.”

He said Seymour was “trying to placate his money men . . .  trying to placate some of his extreme rightwing mates”.

He did not trust the government to do as Luxon had said it would, and end support for the bill once it reached select committee.

“I mean surely this government would be the last group of people you’d trust right now wouldn’t you think? These are people that are going to disband our magnificent smokefree laws to look after their tax cuts.

“They also must be told in no uncertain terms that there can be no compromise on the Treaty relationship.”

Greens: ‘All of the kupu are a breach’
Green Party Māori Development spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon also said the government should not proceed with the bill, arguing all the words proposed by ACT for replacing the principles were a breach of the Treaty itself.

“All of the kupu are a breach to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and this is the choice of the National government to allow this to go ahead into select committee. There’s been no consultation with te iwi Māori or the general public.

“The government shouldn’t proceed with it. Te Tiriti o Waitangi is Te Tiriti o Waitangi — and those words need to be given effect to by the government, any changes to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is between hapū, iwi and the Crown.”

She said the new words proposed to assert a specific interpretation of te Tiriti and its historical context “does not give effect to te Tiriti and does not honour the sacred covenant that our tūpuna signed up for”.

“Ultimately, as we can see, even the government advice is cautioning strongly that the proposed words in the Treaty principles bill will be contentious, and could splinter — and, in fact, undermine — the strong relationship of te iwi Maori with the Crown to date as we have our ongoing conversation around how we honour te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“As we’ve seen with this government thus far, they are rushing through bad legislation under urgency, and this is no different to what we saw before Christmas.”

National: ‘It’s just a simple coalition agreement’
National’s Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith repeated to RNZ the party’s stance was to only progress it as far as the select committee, and no further.

“That’s what the prime minister has indicated,” he said. Asked why the government was even supporting it that far, he said it was part of the coalition agreement.

“Look, it’s just a simple coalition agreement that we have with the ACT Party, we agreed to support it to the select committee so that these matters can be given a public hearing, people can debate it. And so that was the agreement that we had.

“The process that we’ve got will introduce a bill that will have the select committee hearing, lots of different views on it and its merits.”

Asked about National’s position on whether the Treaty principles needed to be defined in law, he said their position was very clear, “that we support this piece of legislation going to the Select Committee and that’s as far as our support goes”.

He rejected Waititi’s suggestion it was an attempt to erase the Treaty.

“Look, I think there’ll be a lot of inflamed rhetoric over the coming weeks, and I’m not going to contribute to that . . . there’s no intention whatsoever to erase the Treaty and that’s not what this bill would do.”

When asked about the memo’s author saying the bill would be in opposition to the Treaty itself, he said the memo was a draft and the matter would be debated at select committee.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Government-formation negotiations are ongoing between National, Act and New Zealand First. We do not know how long these will take. Neither it seems, do they.

Importantly, there are fundamentally no hard deadlines on government formation negotiations in New Zealand. It will take as long as it takes. I’ll start by saying that some of the hypotheticals I talk about here are ridiculously unlikely. National, Act and New Zealand First will almost certainly either come to an agreement, or realise they cannot, well before we reach the ones I mention at the end. The point I am making is well-established by them however: there really are no hard deadlines. There is no date by which, if negotiations haven’t resolved anything, there must be a fresh election. Unless they’re still going in 2026, of course, when we’ll need an election anyway.

In New Zealand, a decision to hold an early election is one that is made by the Prime Minister. This power – like all other powers the Prime Minister has – is circumscribed by the caretaker convention. If a Prime Minister has the confidence of more MPs than not, they may exercise the power to advise the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and hold an election.

If a Prime Minister is operating in caretaker mode, that is, is governing without the clear support of a majority of MPs, the power to advise the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and hold an election can only be exercised – like all the other powers – if more MPs than not support the exercise of the power.

This means that, no matter how longs things take, there will be no advice from the Prime Minister to the Governor-General to hold a new election unless at least one of the parties involved in negotiations to form a government agrees to the holding of a new election.

There are soft deadlines all the time. There are soft legal deadlines. Saturday 11 November 2023 was one. It was the date negotiations had to be resolved if we wanted to avoid the necessity of having Chris Hipkins reappointed as Prime Minister because the writ wasn’t able be returned within 28 days of the election. But that date passed, and Chris Hipkins was appointed Prime Minister again (to operate within the confines of the caretaker convention).

There are soft political deadlines too. There was a date that things would have needed to be resolved by for Christopher Luxon to be able to attend this year’s APEC leaders meeting by. That didn’t happen.

And there will be others. At some point, if negotiations continue, this becomes the longest-ever negotiation to form a government. But that’s only politically relevant. It wouldn’t mean anything, legally.

And there’s also a date that this would have to be resolved by so that Christopher Luxon can be sworn in as Prime Minister before the first opening of Parliament for the swearing-in of MPs. But this isn’t a hard deadline either. MPs can be sworn in before Ministers. The opening of Parliament and the first sitting of the House after the 1996 general election occurred before the swearing-in of Ministers from the National-New Zealand First coalition (albeit, the negotiations had been resolved).

They don’t have to be though. At some point, it possibly becomes politically difficult for National. And if it keeps going, it possibly becomes politically damaging for National. They may decide that the harm to them being caused by negotiating is worse than the harm that would be done to them by being seen by the public as forcing New Zealanders back to the polls. But that’s just politics. If National, Act and New Zealand First are content to continue discussions, and none of them wants a fresh election, the can go on basically indefinitely.

Legal things will crop up. Like the re-swearing in of the old Government Ministers. Like the first sitting of the House. But they will just happen. The House will sit to swear-in MPs and to elect a speaker whether negotiations have concluded or not. But once those formalities are done, the House can just adjourn until next year and the talking can continue. The expectation is that the Governor-General will attend at the state opening of Parliament and give a speech from the throne. That can probably happen, albeit the content of the speech will be subject to agreement under the caretaker principle. There is no need for the House to adopt a reply to the speech before everyone is ready to. It can just meet every so often, and National, Act, and New Zealand First would have the numbers to adjourn. One really big soft legal deadline is imprest supply. At some point in the middle of next year, the permission that Parliament has given the government to spend money runs out. But Parliament exists, and there will be MPs. If they’re committed to making negotiations work, they’d just make sure it happens.

Politically, do I think this is at all likely? No. They’ll agree something at some point, or realise they cannot. There are even halfway houses. If it’s taking ages to resolve, but National, Act and New Zealand First are still committed to resolving it, they could even agree in the interim, Christopher Luxon could be appointed Prime Minister instead of Chris Hipkins, to operate under the caretaker principle. I don’t think that’s likely either.

But anyone who tells you there’s a legal deadline this all has to be done by is mistaken, unless the deadline they’re talking about is 10 November 2026. At that point, Parliament will have expired.

*******

Graeme Edgeler is a Wellington barrister, with a professional interest in constitutional and electoral law.

Pacific leaders fear they will have little or no voice in the new National-led government in Aotearoa New Zealand with the real possibility of not a single Pacific person making it into the new coalition.

Labour had 11 Pacific members of Parliament, then 10 when then Communications Minister Kris Faafoi left. Included was Carmel Sepuloni who became Deputy Prime Minister when Chris Hipkins became leader.

National currently has one possible Pacific MP, Angee Nicholas, but she may lose the Te Atatū seat on special votes, leading with only a margin of 30 over Labour’s Phil Twyford.

But even though the race is tight, she said on social media she had been stopped and congratulated by community members.

“It is going to be close but I hope to bring it home now,” Angee said in a post to social media.

National list MP Agnes Loheni has not made the cut as things currently stand.

Pacific political commentator Thomas Wynne said it meant that the number of Pacific people in government might very well go to one or even zero.

Who is it?
“Here’s my question to National, who is it exactly that you’re going to have as the minister for Pacific people? Because if Angee doesn’t get in and neither does Agnes, then who?” Wynne asked.

“Because you don’t have any Pacific people in there.

“Chris Luxon has said he has a party of diversity, well I’m sorry but that’s just not the case.”

At the moment Dr Shane Reti is the Pacific people’s spokesperson for National.

On the campaign trail Dr Reti said “attending to the cost of living” was one of the most impactful things that could be done for Pacific people.

Pacific community advocate Melissa Lama said she did not know how National planned to make decisions on Pacific issues.

“To me that’s really scary to have one person represent a massive group of New Zealand society who are visible which is our Pacific people, I just can’t get over that.”

Disheartened over results
Lama said she felt disheartened after the results.

“If we look at some of the campaigning slogans and narratives that particularly on the right side, National and Act, have had throughout this election it doesn’t necessarily give me hope for what’s to come for my future and my children’s future,” she said on Sunday.

“I’m definitely gutted. I feel a bit low mood today.”

On Saturday, at a Pacific election watch party in Ilam, Christchurch, most attendees opted to socialise outside instead of watching the results.

Views on what’s to come for Pasifika are mixed. There’s some excitement for change but also nerves.

A common thread was concern that the Ministry for Pacific Peoples would be scrapped.

However, just last week the now incoming Prime Minister told RNZ Pacific he would not bow to ACT.

“Our position very strongly is I’ve been supportive of the Pacific Peoples Ministry. I haven’t been supportive of the management of it. When you have a $40,000 farewell I think that’s insane,” Luxon said.

Keeping an optimistic outlook
Deputy Mayor of Waitaki Hana Halalele who is also the general manager of Oamaru Pacific Island Community Group said she was disappointed about the results but was trying to be optimistic.

Despite the drop in Pacific representation in Parliament, Wynne wants to focus on the positives and asks frustrated Pacific community members to hold National and ACT to account on what they have promised.

“I feel it’s time for us to not think about what we’re losing because that day is done — that was yesterday and really we need to start looking at the opportunity of what this new government affords us, because shouting from the sidelines is not going to help,” he said.

Wynne said Act’s vision was for less government and more community involvement could be beneficial.

He also said Act had promised a return of charter schools, which could be good for Pasifika.

Tongan community leader Pakilau Manase Lua, who is leading the charge on fighting for justice for ongoing Dawn Raids said National and Act had been clear on overstayers.

“They don’t support any pathway to residency for people who are overstaying or who may have been stuck here during the lockdowns and had no other option but to try and find a way to settle.”

Pakilau said while there was concern for overstayers, he was still holding out hope the new government would surprise him.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

From winning a single-party majority in 2020, Labour’s vote has virtually halved in 2023 in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election.

Pre-election polls appear to have under-estimated support for National, which on the provisional results last night can form a government with ACT and will not need NZ First, despite those same polls pointing to a three-way split.

While the Greens and Te Pāti Māori both saw big gains, taking crucial electorate seats, it has been at the expense of Labour.

Special votes are yet to be counted, and Te Pāti Māori winning so many electorate seats will cause an “overhang”, increasing the size of Parliament and requiring a larger majority to govern.

There will also be a byelection in the Port Waikato electorate on November 25, which National is expected to win.

So the picture may change between now and November 3 when the official result is revealed.

But on last night’s count, the left bloc is out of power and the right is back.

Big shift in the Māori electorates
Te Pāti Māori has performed better than expected in the Māori electorates – taking down some titans of the Labour Party and winning four of the seven seats.

The party vote remained at 2.5 perecent — consistent with 2020.

One of the biggest upsets was 21-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s win over Labour stalwart Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate. Mahuta has represented the electorate since 2008 and has been in Parliament since 1996.

This was a must-win race for Mahuta, the current foreign affairs minister, after she announced she would not be running on the Labour party list.

Labour won all seven Māori seats in 2017 and six in 2020.

Advance voting
In 2017, 1.24 million votes were cast before election day, more than the previous two elections combined.

In 2020, this rose to 1.97 million people – an extremely high early vote figure attributable to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, more than 1.3 million New Zealanders cast advance votes before election day – higher than 2017 but significantly lower than 2020.

The comeback kid
After a dismal showing at the 2020 election, NZ First’s Winston Peters has yet again shown himself to be the comeback kid of New Zealand politics. Peters and his party have provisionally gained nearly 6.5 percent of the vote, giving them eight seats in Parliament.

On the current numbers, the National Party will not need NZ First to help form the government. But the result is still a massive reversal of fortune for Peters, who failed to meet the 5 percent threshold or win an electorate seat in 2020.

The heart of Wellington goes Green
Urban electorates in the capital Wellington have resoundingly shifted left, with wins for the Green Party’s Tamatha Paul in Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter in Rongotai.

Chlöe Swarbrick has retained her seat in Auckland Central.

The Wellington electorates had previously been Labour strongholds. But the decision by outgoing Finance Minister Grant Robertson to compete as a list-only MP opened Wellington Central to Paul, currently a city councillor.

Genter takes the seat from outgoing Labour MP Paul Eagle.

Both Wellington electorates have also seen sizeable chunks of the party vote — 30 percent in Rongotai and almost 36 percent in Wellington Central — go to the Greens.

Debrin Foxcroft, deputy New Zealand editor, The Conversation; Finlay Macdonald, New Zealand editor, The Conversation; Matt Garrow, editorial web developer, The Conversation, and Veronika Meduna, science, health + environment New Zealand editor, The Conversation. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Christopher Luxon and the National Party are on course to form a new government with the ACT Party in Aotearoa New Zealand, with National winning almost 40 percent of the party vote in yesterday’s general election.

National romped far ahead in the party vote in the election and were above 40 percent much of the night, but were falling just below at about 39 percent of the vote with 95 percent of results in the preliminary count as of nearly midnight.

That may mean the party needs New Zealand First to hit the numbers, but with special votes yet to be counted and a number of close electorate races, the final picture is not quite clear.

Labour was sitting at about 26.5 percent of the party vote, and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins conceded there was no chance he could form a government and that Labour was heading out after six years and two terms in office.

The Green Party was at about 10 percent, ACT at 9 percent, New Zealand First at 6.4 percent and Te Pāti Māori at 2.5 percent with 94 percent of results counted.

Te Pāti Māori was poised to win most of the seven Māori seats with new candidate Hana-Rawhiti Maipi Clarke defeating Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta in the Hauraki-Waikato electorate, ousting the longest serving female MP and at just age 21 becoming the youngest MP in Aotearoa in 170 years.

It is a stunning reversal from 2020’s election, when Labour hit 50 percent of the vote as Jacinda Ardern’s government won a second term and National cratered with 25.6 percent.

One Labour supporter told RNZ that “Labour expected a slap on the wrist. This is a punch in the face.”

‘A new government and a new direction’ – Luxon
Greeting cheering supporters in Auckland, Luxon said the results were a mandate for change.

“You have reached for hope and you have voted for change,” Luxon told supporters. “On the numbers tonight, National will be in a position to lead the next government.”

“My pledge to you is that our government will deliver for every New Zealander, because we will rebuild the economy and deliver tax relief.

“We will bring down the cost of living, we will restore law and order, we will deliver better health care and we will educate our children so that they can grow up to live the lives that they dreamed of.

“That’s what you voted for and that’s what we will deliver.”

A joyous crowd chanted “back on track” as Luxon spoke.

‘I gave it my all, but that was not enough’ – Hipkins
Earlier last night, Labour leader Chris Hipkins conceded that the party had no path to return to power, saying that “the result tonight is not one that any of us wanted”.

Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern in January, but he joined other prime ministers like Mike Moore, Jenny Shipley and Bill English in failing to win election in their own right after taking over from another leader mid-term.

“I gave it my all to turn the tide of history, but alas, that was not enough.”

Hipkins struck a defiant note in his speech and promised Labour would remain strong in opposition.

“When the tide comes in big it almost invariably goes out big as well . . . but Labour is still here, it is not going anywhere, and we will get up again as we have done many times before.

“We put people first, we refused to leave people behind, because that is what we do, that is what the Labour Party does.”

Many electorate seats were still too close to call, with only a few hundred votes separating candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Two polls out tonight both have Winston Peters firmly in the drivers’ seat for forming a government with Aotearoa New Zealand’s general election this Saturday, though the left bloc has increased its overall support.

With 1News and Newshub each releasing their final polls ahead of the election, the trends are showing a last-minute boost for Labour and the Greens — but still far short of forming a government without Winston Peters’ support — which he has vowed not to provide them.

While Newshub’s poll featured a dramatic 4.6-point fall for National, TVNZ’s had National up 1 point but ACT down by the same amount — the right bloc staying steady.

That could be partly explained by the difference in each poll’s survey period: Newshub’s was comparing to numbers from 17 days before, while TVNZ’s poll has been on a weekly release schedule — which makes for smaller shifts in the numbers.

Newshub’s poll also showed a smaller majority for the combined National-ACT-NZ First grouping, with 63 seats, and with trends showing an increase in the left vote, the final days could be crucial.

RNZ political editor Jane Patterson told Checkpoint the rise for the left bloc would be putting the pressure on National.

“Chris Hipkins has of course been talking about that, he said, ‘Look, I feel the momentum, that the left bloc is starting to pick up’ and these polls are starting to show that — however they are not being put in the position where they are in a commanding enough position to form a government.

Second election threats
“If you look at the timeframe, both of them basically covered the weekend . . .  that covered the threats of a second election on Sunday from National, it covered Chris Hipkins back on the campaign trail, and obviously a lot of policy debate we know over the tax package.”

She said Labour was also really starting to hone in on the impact of a National government on rental tenants and beneficiaries, “so there’s been a lot of very assertive, aggressive campaigning from Labour against the National Party policy platform”.

Poll mania. Video: RNZ News

Patterson said ACT and NZ First were typically battling each other for voters, and ACT would have been hoping to see their support increase to help consolidate their chances of a two-party government.

“It’s more difficult because of the rhetoric that Chris Luxon has been rolling out about Winston Peters — that tactic has not worked, on these numbers . . .  so they could basically cut New Zealand First out he was saying, ‘please, don’t vote for New Zealand First, it’s not going to be good.’”

Despite National doubling down on this by raising the risk of a second election, Peters had remained statesman-like during that time, she said, and NZ First support base were unlikely to like being told what to do.

“The supporters are anti-government, a protest against the government, and not just against Labour — an anti-establishment type vote, so I don’t think that tactic’s worked either.”

Biggest risk
She said the biggest risk to Labour, meanwhile, would be people coming to the conclusion the election result had already been decided.

“I think they’re just going to have to keep carrying on and campaigning until Saturday.”

National also have an advantage, likely to pick up another seat after the Port Waikato by-election in November.

Both had Labour leader Chris Hipkins’ personal popularity also on the rise — but still equal with or just below that of National’s Christopher Luxon. That said, Luxon’s popularity is still well below voters’ preference for his wider party.

This all must be taken with a grain of salt, however.

Individual polls compare their numbers to the most recent poll by the same polling company, as different polls can use different methodologies.

They are intended to track trends in voting preferences, showing a snapshot in time, rather than be a completely accurate predictor of the final election result.

Because of those differences in how they collect and calculate the numbers, which includes revising the calculations to account for demographic differences compared to the wider population (known as ‘weighting’), the different companies’ polls shouldn’t be compared against one another directly.

However, with both showing similar general trends and numbers, it gives a good idea of what voters’ thinking was through to yesterday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

National Party leader Christopher Luxon made claims about health outcomes that were clearly false. Why was he left unchallenged?

In the TVNZ leaders’ debate last night, Luxon and Labour’s Chris Hipkins had a testy exchange over Māori healthcare.

Hipkins held firm on the creation of a Māori Health Authority, established last year, arguing strongly that the persistent gaps in health outcomes and care justified it.

Luxon was equally clear in opposition to it. He framed his critique of the authority around an alleged complete lack of progress on Māori health outcomes. He was very specific.

“Every single health outcome has gone backwards under Chris’s government,” Luxon said.

“Six years, not one has improved for Māori or for non-Māori.”

While sweeping in nature, Luxon’s claim did not get a direct response from Hipkins.

Luxon repeated a similar line later in the debate.

“Gone backwards. Chris, under your government, every single health outcome for Māori or non-Māori [has gone backwards]. You can’t have that.”

Hipkins did push back on this occasion, citing the ongoing reduction in rates of smoking.

Luxon’s claim was far from true — there are a number of areas where health outcomes for Māori and non-Māori have improved while Labour has been in charge.

But it is perhaps understandable that Hipkins was not quick to correct Luxon because the data — even though it’s better in many respects — is still grim. Maybe Hipkins did not wish to dwell on this.

Improved health outcomes
There are a number of health outcomes where, for Māori, statistics have improved.

Perhaps Labour’s biggest boast is their track record on bringing down lung cancer and smoking rates for Māori.

Lung cancer is the second leading cause of death for Māori in Aotearoa. But according to the Ministry of Health, rates of lung disease for Māori have come down.

In 2017, the rate per 100,000 people was 79.9 for Māori. By 2019, it was down to 68.4. This also aligns with smoking rates among Māori dropping.

Pre-colonisation, Māori did not smoke. However, when tobacco was introduced to Aotearoa in the 18th century that quickly changed.

Smoking has been particularly harmful for Māori who have higher smoking rates than non-Māori and experience greater rates of death and tobacco-related illness.

In 2017/18, the smoking rate for Māori adults was 35.3 percent. By 2021/22, it was down to 20.9 percent (approximately 127,000 people).

Rates were falling under National but they have continued to drop under Labour, which has rolled out a number of initiatives in an effort to reduce nation-wide smoking rates.

As part of the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan, historic and world-leading legislation mandated an annually rising smoking age that will mean that anyone born on or after 1 January, 2009, will never be able to purchase tobacco products.

Other cancers
Overall, cancer registrations rates among Māori fell from 416 per 100,000 people in 2017 to 405.7 in 2019.

Breast cancer registration rates for Māori women fell from 140.7 per 100,000 people in 2010 to 122.5 per 100,000 in 2019. Prostate cancer registration rates for Māori fell from 105.5 for Māori in 2017 to 103.5 in 2019.

For non-Māori, overall cancer registration rates increased slightly from 323.2 (2017) to 332.4 (2019).

Life expectancy
The life expectancy gap between Māori and non-Māori may be the most telling indicator of all when it comes to inequities.

According to the latest available data from 2019, life expectancy at birth for Māori men in 2017-2019 was 73.4 years, up 3.1 years from 2005-2007 data.

The life expectancy for non-Māori men is 80.9 years. For Māori women, it was 77.1 years, up 2 years from 2005-2007. Non-Māori women are expected to live to 84.4 years.

While Māori life expectancy has increased over time, the gap to non-Māori persists.

At the current rate of progress it will be more than a century before Māori and non-Māori have equal life expectancy, a study by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists found in 2021.

Child immunisation
In the debate, after Hipkins raised smoking as an area of improvement, Luxon said child immunisation was a concern. On this, he was correct.

Over the past six years, child immunisation rates have steadily fallen.

In 2017, 86.2 percent of eligible Māori five year olds had completed all of their age-appropriate immunisations. As of last year, the rate had shrunk to only 71.8 percent. That is an alarming 16 point drop in the period Labour has been in power.

In April of this year a report commissioned by Te Whatu Ora’s Immunisation Taskforce found that immunisation failed to achieve “adequate on-time immunisation rates in young tamariki” and to immunise Māori, meaning those who were most susceptible to “vaccine-preventable disease” had the lowest immunisation coverage.

The report highlighted the worst rate in the country — just 34 percent of Māori children in South Auckland were fully vaccinated. It attributed part of the problem to vaccinators being diverted to the country’s covid-19 pandemic response.

“This caused childhood immunisation rates to plummet. These rates are now the lowest they have ever been and ethnic disparities have further expanded,” it said.

The report outlined 54 recommendations covering funding, delivery, technology, communications and governance across the programme.

In the debate, Hipkins suggested the anti-vaccine movement was part of the problem, which he sought to link with National.

National has proposed an immunisation incentive payment scheme. The plan would see GP clinics paid a lump sum for achieving immunisation targets, including full immunisation for two-year-olds, MMR vaccines for ages 1-17, and influenza vaccines for ages 65+.

The clinics would have to either achieve 95 percent coverage for their childhood patients, and 75 percent for the flu shots, or achieve a five percentage point increase for each of those target groups, by 30 June 2024 to receive the payment.

Labour’s Dr Ayesha Verrall said a similar scheme already existed.

Labour has also failed to halt type 2 diabetes, the country’s biggest and fastest growing health condition.

Ministry of Health figures show that in 2021 there were 302,778 people with diabetes, predominantly type 2. Since the Labour government came into power in 2017, the estimated rates of the number of Māori with diabetes per 1000 has risen from 66.4 to 70.1 in 2021.

The rates for non-Māori have also climbed from 27.8 in 2017 to 30.1 in 2021. It is also important to note that the rate of diabetes in Aotearoa has been steadily rising over the past 50 years.

Type 2 diabetes can also lead to devastating health conditions and complications, including heart failure, kidney failure, strokes and limb amputation.

According to Ministry of Health data obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, since 2011 there has been a 39 percent increase in diabetic limb amputations across the whole population.

For Māori, the number has more than doubled in the past decade from 130 in 2011 to 211 in 2021. Under Labour, the number of Māori diabetic limb amputations rose by 15 percent.

Māori are still 2.8 times more likely to have renal failure, another complication of diabetes.

Mental health
According to Te Whatu Ora, the rate of suspected suicide per 100,000 Māori population in 2021/22 was 16.1. This is not a statistically significant change from the average of the past 13 years.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Pacific Election 2023 debate kicked off today with one of the most pressing issues for Pacific communties — an amnesty for overstayers.

The Dawn Raids apology was two years ago, and weeks out from the election, the Labour Party has announced it would offer a lifeline for long-term overstayers in New Zealand.

It followed anger from Pacific community leaders, disappointed it had not happened in all the years following the apology.

On the panel were Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni, National’s Fonoti Agnes Loheni, ACT’s Karen Chhour and Teanau Tuiono from the Green Party.

Labour’s Sepuloni said the amnesty announcement was not an attempt at baiting voters.

“You have to think about everything that has been expected of Immigration New Zealand in the last couple of years and the immense pressure that they have been under,” Sepuloni said.

An amnesty would be granted “in the first 100 days if we are re-elected,” she said.

Green support for amnesty
The Green Party would also suppport an amnesty for overstayers.

“Amnesty for overstayers is more than timely. It is late,” said Green Party Pacific Peoples spokesperson Teanau Tuiano, criticising Labour for taking too long.

The Pacific Issues Debate. Video: RNZ Pacific and PMN

Meanwhile, both National and ACT would not back an amnesty.

National leader Christopher Luxon had previously said it would send the wrong message and encourage “rule breakers”.

National’s Pacific spokesperson Loheni said the the Dawn Raids was no doubt “discrimination and abhorrent”.

But, she took the side of people “working hard to go through the legal steps to become residents”.

Health
Around 40 percent of New Zealanders — and half of Pasifika people — cannot afford dental care.

The Green Party plans to make dental care free for everyone — paid through a wealth tax system, which the Labour Party had already ruled out.

However, the Labour government said it would provide free dental care for everyone under 30 years old.

Dental care in New Zealand is free until a person turns 18 years old. But this excludes orthodontic care, i.e. braces because it is classed as “specialist dental care”.

National’s plan to tackle the health crisis was to attract an overseas workforce and plug the nurses and doctor shortage within New Zealand. Loheni reiterated her party leader’s stance and refused to back “race-based” policies but did acknowledge the hardships Pacific people faced.

“The numbers are grim for the Pacific. We need to get more of a workforce here,” Loheni said.

“The health system is in absolute crisis. We are 4800 nurses short. We are about 1700, GP’s short and about 1000 midwives short,” she said.

ACT Party candidate Karen Chhour said, “I’m hearing all around the country and especially up north and just the lack of GPs up north.”

Chhour said it was about helping to “ease pressure off hospital services” and “investing in the front line services”.

Two thirds of students experience poverty.

“Why would you go into university to study medicine . . . we would pay this through a wealth tax,” Greens Tuiano said.

This policy is expected to provide a guaranteed income for students or a person who has fallen out of work to help them get through university.

Labour said it would address health inequities because Pacific and Māori people were more disadvantaged.

“It has been incredibly ugly on the campaign trail . . . the level of racism that is resulted because of the rhetoric around measures like this, when they are purely equity measures and they should be embraced by everyone,” Sepuloni said.

She said seen since 2019, around 1000 health scholarships had been given to Pacific people.

Housing
One in 10 Pacific (11 percent) children live in damp and mouldy homes, where they are 80 times more likely to develop acute rheumatic fever, which can lead to heart disease and death.

Sepuloni said: “We have increased that by 13,000 homes, stopped selling them off. We have got 2700 Pacific people signed up with our programme that provides them with support to pathway into home ownership . . .

“Some of our Pacific populated areas are getting investment that they never had before. Like the NZ$1.5 billion we put into put it for housing revitalisation.”

But ACT’s Chhour hit back and said the “government should be held to the same account as landlords”.

“Kāinga Ora is one of the worst landlords in some cases where they do not meet those standards and where they have got extra time to meet those standards,” she said.

Green’s Tuiono said prices for rentals needed to be capped to protect tenants.

“There are 1.4 million renters within New Zealand and many of those people are our people.”

National’s Loheni said she “grew up in a state house with a crowd 15 people. One of my sisters has lived with asthma her whole life and it put her behind in school”.

She said under the Labour government “rents have gone up $180 per week.

“Unfortunately, we still need social housing, emergency housing. We have got 500 people living in cars at the moment. So we got a priority category to move those people who have been living in cars further up that social housing list.”

Education
Pasifika students face significant achievement gaps and underfunding, while teachers struggle with complex job demands and mental health issues.

“The government has failed our students,” Loheni said.

Loheni got emotional during the debate when sharing the declining pass rates of some Pasifika students.

“Only 14.5 percent Pasifika students reach the minimum curriculum for maths compared to the rest of the population of 41.5 percent,” she said.

“Please don’t say it’s covid because why is it Pasifika students, the lowest of all groups, and nothing has been done.”

Sepuloni defended her party, and said it had invested $5 billion into the education system – mainly “towards pay for teachers”.

Chhour said there’s a lot of pressure on teachers.

“Not only are they teachers, social workers, kids have been through a lot. They have effectively had interrupted education for the last three years.

“A lot of them are feeling anxiety about whether they agree with your exams. A lot of them are suffering from mental health issues . . . so teachers are dealing with all of this on top of actually trying to educate our kids.”

She said under the ACT party, they wanted to “bring back” charter schools and partnership schools for young people “who didn’t quite fit into the education system”.

Greens’ Tuiono said the government’s payout to support teachers was “vital”.

“I talked to some teachers where their pay rise hasn’t kept up with inflation for 10 years.”

Crime
Almost half of our Pacific children are likely to live around family violence. Pacific children are twice as likely to be hospitalised due to assault, neglect and maltreatment.

Sepuloni said it was about addressing “intergenerational impacts”.

She said sending more young people to prison was “an opportunity for gangs to actually recruit once they’re in there”.

Instead, a programme they had put in place addressed this issue and had seen more than 80 percent of young offenders not go on to reoffend.

“It actually requires full wraparound support for not just them but for their siblings and their families.”

Loheni said the National Party would address the rise of RAM raids and through “social investment,” and planned to put young people through military and cadet training, which studies had previously shown to be ineffective.

“We do have policies around military academies where they are going to have wraparound support, note that they do work.”

Tuiono disagreed. “Locking them up into boot camps that just won’t work.”

“We also have to address those underlying drivers of poverty because if you have the stable home life, there’s food on the table, you know the family can afford to keep the lights on, that helps to stabilise our families.

“That’s what we should be doing,” he said.

Climate change
National plans to “double renewable energy, help farmers clean up in the areas and invest in public transport,” Loheni said.

Sepuloni said Labour was “action oriented” and their “track record” with the Greens “goes to show that we have been able to reduce carbon emissions”.

Tuiono said “a vote for the Greens is a vote for climate action”.

“We have got some money set aside to support our towns and our councils to make their towns and councils more more climate resilient.”

ACT’s Chhour said the party would be looking at how “we’re building our infrastructure and adapting to climate change”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is a definite gloominess among the public right now — with a perception that not only is the country broken in many ways, but the political system is too.

We see this most strongly in surveys that ask if the country is on the right track or not.

Generally, New Zealand has flipped in a few short years from having about two-thirds of the public saying the country is headed in the right direction, to now having two-thirds saying we’re going the wrong way.

Journalists and politicians report that out on the campaign trail they are discovering that the public is angrier than ever.

Mark Blackham reported last week that “MPs are encountering angry people — a general anger about the state of affairs and paucity of political choices.”

Stuff journalist Julie Jacobson summed up the political mood in the weekend as “Disillusioned, demoralised, disenchanted, disgruntled”. And she argues this has only increased during the campaign: “What was a low hum has become a sustained grumble.”

‘Out of love’
Jacobson reports that across the political spectrum people are “out of love with what’s currently on offer.”

Certainly, much of what the politicians are offering is extremely grim. For example, both Labour and National are promising to slash billions of dollars from public services.

This promised austerity drive reflects a reality that the government’s books are empty, with no room for additional new spending. Hence Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has openly said that this election can’t be one for big spending policies.

Hipkins has gone from promising “bread and butter” reforms to, as leftwing political commentator Chris Trotter points out, being committed “to less butter and thinner bread for at least the next three years.”

Trotter says, in general, there’s not much for the public to positively vote for, and instead people will vote negatively – choosing whoever they regard as the best of a bad bunch.

Hence, “This is not going to be a happy election.”

For traditional leftwing voters, Labour’s austerity programme is a major disappointment, as it goes hand in hand with opposition to any real tax reform that might collect more revenue for public services and infrastructure.

Strong suspicion
Likewise, on the right, there is a strong suspicion that National’s tax cuts are simply unaffordable. The policy is being called out by the likes of rightwing political commentator Matthew Hooton as being unprincipled and incompetent, and by the Taxpayers Union as foolhardy.

There is also growing scepticism that some of the bigger policy promises are electoral bribes that can’t be delivered. Hooton says that a “cynical electorate” sees many of these policies as empty promises — especially because voters have got used to being lied to or misled by politicians who don’t deliver their promises once in power.

He suggests that voters are right to be cynical because New Zealand has had “15 years of people hearing promises from politicians which are platitudes on the face of it and they haven’t even been delivered to that extent”.

Similarly, Stuff journalist Andrea Vance argued in the weekend that “Voters know when they are being used”, suggesting that the “bribes” being offered don’t compute for voters. Vance says politicians are promising to slash “public services and spending — in the name of savings and efficiencies — when they are already stretched and degraded.”

Voters shouldn’t have confidence, she suggests, that the next government will be able to meet the existing needs of public services, let alone start fixing the severe deficits in infrastructure and services. Fundamentally there is a credibility gap between politician promises to cut spending but to properly maintain all “front-line” services.

Politicians aren’t up to challenge
Voters are aware that we’re in something of a “polycrisis”, and the status quo is unsustainable.

Political pollster Peter Stahel wrote last week that there is “an unmistakable mood for change” based on a “strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction, driven by personal financial hardships and an uncertain economic outlook”.

His company’s polling show “only 29 percent of voters say the current options for prime minister appeal, with nearly half (46 percent) saying they don’t.”

There’s a cost of living crisis, failing public health and education systems, a housing crisis, a climate crisis — the list goes on. As Newstalk’s Mike Hosking says, “There is no shortage of serious, worryingly serious, issues to discuss this campaign”, but the politicians are largely missing in action.

Because the politicians haven’t risen to the challenge, the contrast between what is desperately needed and what is on offer has never been so great. The public is right to be disenchanted — parties are mostly just offering sniping and petty criticisms of their opponents.

As political commentator Josie Pagani has put it, “This is an election of parties wrestling on the ground, when we crave a new Jerusalem.”

Pagani says “We have gone from ‘Hope and Change’ to ‘Perhaps Just a Biscuit’.” Whereas in previous elections, parties ran on a programme of grand causes, this time around, issues like child poverty and the housing crisis are being ignored by politicians.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe appears to agree — he went on Breakfast TV on Thursday to say that “voters are grumpy. They don’t think that either party is really hitting the nail on the head in terms of what’s worrying them.”

Similarly, business commentator Bruce Cotterill wrote in the Herald last week that the campaign has been highly disappointing so far because it’s more about attack ads and petty sniping than about illuminating the big issues and the policies that the parties have for fixing them.

He laments the lack of debate about the crises in the health and education systems, and says problems like housing waiting lists and child poverty have been virtually ignored.

Hooton also says this avoidance of the big issues is a tragedy, especially since we are now in what he argues is the worst economic crisis in decades.

An uninspiring election campaign
In lieu of being focused on the things that matter, the politicians are becoming more aggressive, threatening to turn this year’s campaign into the most negative in living memory.

Press gallery journalist Glenn McConnell reports that as we go into the last month of the campaign its “becoming more feral”. He says the politicians are largely to blame: “Nobody is running a wholesome forward-looking, solutions focused campaign. They are frothing to attack, attack, attack.”

The lacklustre nature of the parties is reflected in their campaign slogans according to Jacinda Ardern’s former chief of staff Mike Munro. He says none of them are original, because “every variation of wording around concepts like change, hope, aspiration, unity and the future have been previously used on party billboards”.

And he argues that the parties are incredibly risk-adverse this election, being determined to stage-manage every element of the campaign and the candidates, reducing any chance of life in the election.

Is this therefore the most uninspiring election ever? Writing on Sunday, journalist Andrea Vance asks: “Has there been a duller election campaign in recent memory?” She labels it “the election of The Great Uninterested” because people seem to be turning away in boredom or disgust.

Vance says: “It’s not just that voters are bored. They’ve stopped listening.”

Political commentator and former Cabinet Minister Peter Dunne is also amazed at the lacklustre performances of the politicians so far – especially Hipkins and Luxon who are in the fight for their political careers.

He says, given the big issues at stake, “Neither Hipkins nor Luxon has so far shown sufficient passion or boldness to convince New Zealanders they have what it takes to be an effective prime minister in the difficult years ahead.”

Election fatigue and low voter turnout
Do you wish the election was over already? You are probably in good company. This year there is no apparent enthusiasm for the campaign. You’ll notice that there aren’t many pictures or videos of politicians being swamped on the campaign trail, signing autographs or having mass selfies with fans — as occurred in recent elections.

Young people, in particular, seem unimpressed this time around. According to political scientist Richard Shaw, the students he teaches are losing faith in the New Zealand political system.

He says that they are part of a growing cohort who are now “over” politics. Shaw is also picking that voter turnout is going to be low this election.

So, could the most popular choice at the coming election be “none of the above”? Certainly, the number of eligible voters who choose not to vote in the upcoming election could surpass a million, effectively making it the most popular option in 2023.

Voter turnout has generally been trending down in recent decades, and it hit a low of only 69.6 percent at the 2011 election. That low turnout was generally because none of the parties were offering much that was inspiring, and no one expected the result to be close. Hence, one third of the electorate turned away in that election in disgust, apathy, or whatever.

The fact that the politicians and debate have become more aggressive and divisive puts people off. Other commentators are also now picking a decline too.

David Cunliffe says: “Expect a record low turnout, and expect a record low vote share for Labour and National combined, and the highest ever share for the [minor] parties on both sides of politics.”

Leftwing columnist Verity Johnson has also written recently about the political despair among the public, predicting an extremely low voter turnout: “I’ve lost count of the people I’ve spoken to this week (smart, articulate and historically politically engaged people) who aren’t planning on voting in October. What’s the point, they shrug, there’s no one to vote for.”

Johnson says that the rising fury in New Zealand society is very tangible: “if you go into the suburbs and listen closely, you can hear an ominous hiss of fury rising up like a gas leak.”

She suggests that this disenchantment is rational, and that there’s now little hope that politics can fix the problems of New Zealand: “Whatever happens on October 14, it feels like there’s just gonna be another 3 years of muddling, myopic, middle management politics where we have our head up our ass and our ecosystem on fire.”

Is politics in New Zealand broken?
Given the declining trust and participation in politics and the electoral process, this might signal that something is wrong in New Zealand’s democracy.

Of course, this is a problem all over the world at the moment, with rising dissatisfaction and a sense that elites and vested interests dominate. There is a huge mood of change everywhere.

Chris Trotter says that most politicians haven’t caught up with the new Zeitgeist. He reports on a new book exploring the decline of politics, written by former British Tory Cabinet Minister Rory Stewart, which reflects on how the political system has hollowed out.

Here’s the key quote that Trotter cites from the book, suggesting it could well come from a minister in the current New Zealand government: “I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given… It was a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation.”

Similarly, writing about how dire the current election campaign is, Matthew Hooton says New Zealand’s political system is effectively broken because the parties simply aren’t serious vehicles for political change anymore.

He argues that they have been captured by careerists, consultants and lobbyists seeking power: “That is, they are not concerned with achieving power to make anything better. They are focussed merely on achieving office, to enjoy the status and perks.

“This is why they feel no need to do real work between elections, before which they release pseudo-policies, written the night before, often by external lobbyists or consultants, that they can’t and won’t deliver — and which they don’t care whether or not are delivered anyway.”

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political scientist and an independent analyst with The Democracy Project. He writes a regular column titled Political Roundup in Evening Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

While attention is focused on economists finding a $500 million-a-year hole in National’s tax plans, a similar-sized hole in climate costings is hiding in plain sight — and it applies to Labour, too.

National appears to have the bigger gap, however.

The gulf was highlighted in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) — Treasury’s official word on the state of the government’s books — which explicitly excluded the cost of meeting New Zealand’s international climate target under the Paris Agreement.

Asked how they would pay this week, politicians gave unclear answers. But the obligation was still very real.

Both Labour and National have said they are committed to meeting the country’s international climate target, known as an NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions).

Under the Paris Agreement, which covers almost every nation on the planet, New Zealand has promised to cut emissions by 41 percent off 2005 levels by 2030. Exporters and carbon market experts say failing to meet that pledge could jeopardise international trade — nevermind the fact that following the Paris Agreement is humanity’s best hope for avoiding more expensive and deadly heating.

New Zealand plans to meet its target in two ways. First, it will do as much as it can inside the country by meeting a set of “emissions budgets”.

No way to meet target
But when the Climate Change Commission ran the numbers, it concluded there was no way to meet the whole target with action at home. Because New Zealand started slow at tackling emissions, cutting transport, industry, farming and electricity emissions that quickly would cause too much economic pain, it concluded.

So there is also a second part to the target: buying carbon credits from overseas. Typically, economists assume this is cheaper than making cuts in emissions at home, though it depends on the project.

While no purchases will be made until after the election, the kinds of things that could qualify include retiring coal boilers in developing countries, or planting forests.

This is where the gap in the books comes in. Treasury had previously put the cost of buying these credits from overseas — and an estimated 100 million tonnes of them will be needed, at last count — at between $3.3 billion and more than $23 billion between now and 2030.

Even at the lower end of projections, it could work out at around $500 million a year.

Whichever way the government decides to do it, PREFU said the costs would be “significant” and will start biting “within the current fiscal forecast period”.

As things stand, according to Climate Change Minister James Shaw, one or possibly two rounds of purchases could be made in the next four years, with a third and final “washup” at the end of the decade.

Election may change timing
The election could change the timing, but whoever is in government will be expected to start showing progress towards meeting their Paris target well before the end of the decade, said carbon market expert Christina Hood from Compass Climate.

“There’s this common misconception that whoever the finance minister is in 2032 is going to have to get their chequebook out and square up by however much we missed by. It doesn’t work that way at all.

“Every emission (saving) we count has to actually occur during those years (before 2030), so we need to get on with funding that.”

Yet despite starting to fall due within the next four years, the costs did not appear as a liability on the government’s books. Nor do the major parties seem to be clear on how much to budget for them.

Bold claims, few details
This week, neither National nor Labour answered clearly how much they had planned to set aside for these costs nor how they intended to pay them. They instead focused their answers on wanting to cut planet-heating emissions more deeply inside New Zealand’s borders.

At times, politicians seemed to confuse domestic emissions budgets with the $3 billion-plus added cost of buying offsets to meet the Paris target, or they made heroic statements about how much they could do onshore, without supplying the figures behind them.

A quick reminder: the 100-odd million tonnes in overseas offsets that it was estimated we would need were on top of meeting New Zealand’s domestic emissions budgets, not instead of it. Only a truly incredible effort could meet the entire amount inside the country, requiring deep and fast climate action on a scale neither party has hinted at.

Currently, New Zealand is not even on track to meet its domestic emissions budgets, as Climate Change Commission chief executive Jo Hendy told a business and climate conference in Auckland this week.

“Latest projections show we are not on track in every single sector, so we are going to have to do more,” she said. “We are particularly reliant on pushing the dial in transport and in process heat.”

Yet when RNZ asked about the $3 billion-plus cost on the campaign trail, politicians appeared to be planning to overperform on those budgets, sometimes by impressive amounts. Their answers suggested they may not need to worry too much about that $3 billion-plus.

Here’s what Labour leader Chris Hipkins said, when asked if he had costed for meeting Paris: “We still have a way to go before we have to make a final decision on how best to meet our commitments there. We’re on track to meet our first emissions budget.

Working harder
“We’ve still got the second and third emissions reduction budgets to go. If we don’t meet our targets there is a period of time when we can figure out how best to remedy that, and that includes working harder in the second period to compensate for that.

“But we’re confident that with the stuff we’ve got in place at the moment, we’re on track to meet our first target.”

Hipkins did not address paying for offshore credits, which were required even if the country met all three domestic budgets. As prime minister, he rolled back a biofuel policy and, like National, has focused his transport promises mainly on building new roads rather than a strong shift to lower-emissions modes.

He has also promised help for home insulation and solar, but it was not clear if his new promises compensated for the cuts.

Asked the same question, National leader Christopher Luxon took aim at the government for undermining the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), saying the scheme should do more of the “heavy lifting”.

He, too, skirted the question of paying for offsets.

For context, the ETS made polluters pay for around half the country’s domestic climate pollution (the other half was from agriculture) and was already factored into projections of needing 100 million-odd tonnes of extra ‘top up’ help from overseas.

The scheme could do more, particularly if carbon prices went higher (taking petrol prices with them), or if farming was included, or if there were no limits on planting land in cheap pine trees, but Luxon did not detail how National would navigate these kinds of changes.

Cutting domestic emissions
Meanwhile, other party spokespeople talked-up cutting domestic emissions.

Labour environment spokesperson David Parker told the conference in Auckland he wanted to look at claims that native afforestation could meet the entire Paris target (without overseas help).

National’s climate spokesperson Simon Watts told the same gathering — the annual Climate Change and Business Conference — that National believed it could meet 70-75 percent of the 2030 target inside these shores, a figure considerably higher than previous estimates by the Climate Change Commission.

Watts did not supply details on how that would be achieved, though he discussed lightening regulation on wind and solar energy.

His party has said it would scrap Labour’s Clean Car Discount and major grants to companies to switch off coal boilers, and it would also delay pricing farming emissions a further five years, until 2030. There were questions about how it would meet even the current domestic emissions budgets.

The cost of waiting
Hood had a spot of good news on the cost front. She told RNZ that based on recent purchases by Switzerland, the cost of overseas carbon offsets was likely to be towards the lower end of Treasury’s range.

Even if the government winded up buying 100 million tonnes of savings offshore, that was still only around half the quantity the John Key-led government expected it might have to stump up for when it made its first Paris Agreement pledge, despite the first pledge being weaker on climate than the current one, she noted.

But getting offsets at the lower end of the cost range relies on the government getting moving on lining them up and buying them, she says.

Shaw told RNZ that environmental integrity would be a bottom line after New Zealand was burned for buying valueless “hot air” credits from Russia and Ukraine in the early years of carbon trading.

As well as Switzerland, Singapore and others had already started striking deals to buy the offsets they needed.

While the New Zealand Government has been scoping out prospective sellers overseas, it has refused to reveal who it is talking to, citing commercial sensitivity.

The ministries for Foreign Affairs and the Environment were working on advice to Cabinet on how to make these purchases and ensure the carbon saved was real. But that advice will not land until after the election.

Most expensive time to buy
One thing is clear. 2030 will be the most expensive time to buy, Hood said, because many countries will be panic-buying from overseas projects to meet their missed domestic commitments. Shaw agreed.

“A whole bunch of countries will be going, ‘Oh crap, I’ve missed my target,’ and scrambling around trying to find ways to fill the gap.”

Shaw wanted Paris costs to go into PREFU, making it clear to the government that any money spent on domestic action on climate change was also a cost saving in terms of buying fewer offshore credits.

“This is one of the things that worries me about what some of the other parties are saying, is that they aren’t really accounting for [Paris] in their fiscal plans.”

Shaw called the huge variance in Treasury ‘s $3 billion-23 billion estimate “unhelpful”.

“It’s such a wide variance it’s hard to trust it. At the moment… people are putting their fingers in their ears and saying ‘lalalala”.”

But asked how much the Green Party had costed for meeting New Zealand’s offshore climate commitments, Shaw would not be drawn on naming a more accurate number.

Treasury estimate best
“The best estimate I’ve got is the Treasury estimate. The Ministry for the Environment and MFAT (Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade) are doing a lot of work on this at the moment, but they’re not going to have a report back until just before Christmas. If I was to give you a number I would be pulling it out of thin air.”

As for how to pay for it, Shaw said ETS proceeds from polluters could do a lot of it.

“In a good year that’s a billion dollars, so if there’s seven years for us to do that it’s $7 billion.”

But Shaw also acknowledged there were a lot of other calls on that money — including for adapting to climate change, paying for domestic carbon savings, and helping low-income families weather the costs of higher emissions prices, which boost fuel and electricity costs.

National has said it would use ETS proceeds to help fund its tax cuts, meaning it will need to pay for the Paris target (both the offshore and onshore parts) some other way.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

National Party leader Christopher Luxon made claims about health outcomes that were clearly false. Why was he left unchallenged?

In the TVNZ leaders’ debate last night, Luxon and Labour’s Chris Hipkins had a testy exchange over Māori healthcare.

Hipkins held firm on the creation of a Māori Health Authority, established last year, arguing strongly that the persistent gaps in health outcomes and care justified it.

Luxon was equally clear in opposition to it. He framed his critique of the authority around an alleged complete lack of progress on Māori health outcomes. He was very specific.

“Every single health outcome has gone backwards under Chris’s government,” Luxon said.

“Six years, not one has improved for Māori or for non-Māori.”

While sweeping in nature, Luxon’s claim did not get a direct response from Hipkins.

Luxon repeated a similar line later in the debate.

“Gone backwards. Chris, under your government, every single health outcome for Māori or non-Māori [has gone backwards]. You can’t have that.”

Hipkins did push back on this occasion, citing the ongoing reduction in rates of smoking.

Luxon’s claim was far from true — there are a number of areas where health outcomes for Māori and non-Māori have improved while Labour has been in charge.

But it is perhaps understandable that Hipkins was not quick to correct Luxon because the data — even though it’s better in many respects — is still grim. Maybe Hipkins did not wish to dwell on this.

Improved health outcomes
There are a number of health outcomes where, for Māori, statistics have improved.

Perhaps Labour’s biggest boast is their track record on bringing down lung cancer and smoking rates for Māori.

Lung cancer is the second leading cause of death for Māori in Aotearoa. But according to the Ministry of Health, rates of lung disease for Māori have come down.

In 2017, the rate per 100,000 people was 79.9 for Māori. By 2019, it was down to 68.4. This also aligns with smoking rates among Māori dropping.

Pre-colonisation, Māori did not smoke. However, when tobacco was introduced to Aotearoa in the 18th century that quickly changed.

Smoking has been particularly harmful for Māori who have higher smoking rates than non-Māori and experience greater rates of death and tobacco-related illness.

In 2017/18, the smoking rate for Māori adults was 35.3 percent. By 2021/22, it was down to 20.9 percent (approximately 127,000 people).

Rates were falling under National but they have continued to drop under Labour, which has rolled out a number of initiatives in an effort to reduce nation-wide smoking rates.

As part of the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan, historic and world-leading legislation mandated an annually rising smoking age that will mean that anyone born on or after 1 January, 2009, will never be able to purchase tobacco products.

Other cancers
Overall, cancer registrations rates among Māori fell from 416 per 100,000 people in 2017 to 405.7 in 2019.

Breast cancer registration rates for Māori women fell from 140.7 per 100,000 people in 2010 to 122.5 per 100,000 in 2019. Prostate cancer registration rates for Māori fell from 105.5 for Māori in 2017 to 103.5 in 2019.

For non-Māori, overall cancer registration rates increased slightly from 323.2 (2017) to 332.4 (2019).

Life expectancy
The life expectancy gap between Māori and non-Māori may be the most telling indicator of all when it comes to inequities.

According to the latest available data from 2019, life expectancy at birth for Māori men in 2017-2019 was 73.4 years, up 3.1 years from 2005-2007 data.

The life expectancy for non-Māori men is 80.9 years. For Māori women, it was 77.1 years, up 2 years from 2005-2007. Non-Māori women are expected to live to 84.4 years.

While Māori life expectancy has increased over time, the gap to non-Māori persists.

At the current rate of progress it will be more than a century before Māori and non-Māori have equal life expectancy, a study by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists found in 2021.

Child immunisation
In the debate, after Hipkins raised smoking as an area of improvement, Luxon said child immunisation was a concern. On this, he was correct.

Over the past six years, child immunisation rates have steadily fallen.

In 2017, 86.2 percent of eligible Māori five year olds had completed all of their age-appropriate immunisations. As of last year, the rate had shrunk to only 71.8 percent. That is an alarming 16 point drop in the period Labour has been in power.

In April of this year a report commissioned by Te Whatu Ora’s Immunisation Taskforce found that immunisation failed to achieve “adequate on-time immunisation rates in young tamariki” and to immunise Māori, meaning those who were most susceptible to “vaccine-preventable disease” had the lowest immunisation coverage.

The report highlighted the worst rate in the country — just 34 percent of Māori children in South Auckland were fully vaccinated. It attributed part of the problem to vaccinators being diverted to the country’s covid-19 pandemic response.

“This caused childhood immunisation rates to plummet. These rates are now the lowest they have ever been and ethnic disparities have further expanded,” it said.

The report outlined 54 recommendations covering funding, delivery, technology, communications and governance across the programme.

In the debate, Hipkins suggested the anti-vaccine movement was part of the problem, which he sought to link with National.

National has proposed an immunisation incentive payment scheme. The plan would see GP clinics paid a lump sum for achieving immunisation targets, including full immunisation for two-year-olds, MMR vaccines for ages 1-17, and influenza vaccines for ages 65+.

The clinics would have to either achieve 95 percent coverage for their childhood patients, and 75 percent for the flu shots, or achieve a five percentage point increase for each of those target groups, by 30 June 2024 to receive the payment.

Labour’s Dr Ayesha Verrall said a similar scheme already existed.

Labour has also failed to halt type 2 diabetes, the country’s biggest and fastest growing health condition.

Ministry of Health figures show that in 2021 there were 302,778 people with diabetes, predominantly type 2. Since the Labour government came into power in 2017, the estimated rates of the number of Māori with diabetes per 1000 has risen from 66.4 to 70.1 in 2021.

The rates for non-Māori have also climbed from 27.8 in 2017 to 30.1 in 2021. It is also important to note that the rate of diabetes in Aotearoa has been steadily rising over the past 50 years.

Type 2 diabetes can also lead to devastating health conditions and complications, including heart failure, kidney failure, strokes and limb amputation.

According to Ministry of Health data obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, since 2011 there has been a 39 percent increase in diabetic limb amputations across the whole population.

For Māori, the number has more than doubled in the past decade from 130 in 2011 to 211 in 2021. Under Labour, the number of Māori diabetic limb amputations rose by 15 percent.

Māori are still 2.8 times more likely to have renal failure, another complication of diabetes.

Mental health
According to Te Whatu Ora, the rate of suspected suicide per 100,000 Māori population in 2021/22 was 16.1. This is not a statistically significant change from the average of the past 13 years.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Labour leader Chris Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon have faced off in a fast-paced but unspectacular debate in the Aotearoa New Zealand general election campaign with co-governance and gangs among the issues producing the liveliest exchanges.

It was the first time the two leaders had squared off against each other outside Parliament and at times the mood was tense during last night’s debate.

Luxon, in particular, appeared frustrated when Hipkins interjected, while the Labour leader appeared to be enjoying himself a bit more.

However, with Labour behind in the polls, Hipkins was unable to deliver anything telling enough to put Luxon off his stride.

He did manage some amusing lines, however, such as “We have a proven track record of reducing our emissions . . . it’s not just a bunch of slogans”, “building EV stations is like building petrol stations”, and when asked what was his worst quality he responded with a smile: “I need to delegate more”.

Afterwards both leaders professed themselves happy with how they performed, however, commentators on TV1 were less enthusiastic, with former MP Tau Henare saying there was no excitement and Hipkins had been “too mild”.

Former Labour leader David Cunliffe believed Hipkins had allowed Luxon too much of a free run and the National party leader made the most of it. Both declared the debate a tie.

Wide-ranging debate
The debate was wide-ranging, covering health, housing, crime and gangs, climate change and the economy. 1News political editor Jessica Mutch-McKay kept it moving at a fast clip and co-governance, especially in health, led to some intense debate.

The leaders were both asked if Māori and Pacific people should get priority when it came to the health waitlist. Luxon said need should come first ahead of ethnicity, while Hipkins said Māori and Pacific people having priority was a positive due to their poor health outcomes when compared to the rest of the population.

Hipkins said other parties were using the issue to “race-bait”, to which Luxon interjected “rubbish”.

Luxon said he felt the definition of co-governance had been expanded since the last time National was in government and the public had not been given adequate explanations of what it entailed.

Hipkins said co-governance meant shared decision-making over natural resources which had been successful. He believed Māori and government working together benefited New Zealand.

Luxon said he supported it for Treaty of Waitangi settlements but not for national public services and repeated his party’s intention of axing the Māori Health Authority.

“The Māori Health Authority isn’t having two separate systems,” Hipkins said.

Luxon challenged in Māori health
He challenged Luxon on why he would keep Māori health providers if he did not want two systems of health. Luxon said he wanted to “turbo-charge” community organisations but it would be as part of one health system.

Hipkins said the health system was dealing with systemic issues and it would take time to build capacity to fix them.

But Luxon said every single health indicator had worsened under Labour — although Hipkins countered that by saying falling smoking rates were one example of effective action.

He said he did not feel safe in downtown Auckland and believed many New Zealanders felt the same.

Under Labour the prison population had been reduced by 30 percent — which might have been acceptable if the crime rate had gone down by the same amount — but in fact it had risen sharply, Luxon said.

On gangs he claimed: “We have nine gang members for every 10 police officers in this country.

“We’re going to make sure we ban gang patches in public places, we give police dispersal and powers to break them up from planning criminal activity, we get tough on the illegal guns that they have and we make being a gang member an aggravating factor in sentencing.”

Consequences for young offenders
He also promised there would be consequences for serious young offenders.

Hipkins said the escalation in gang activity was unacceptable and acknowledged that more New Zealanders were feeling unsafe. However, he advocated working with young offenders to turn their lives around which would reduce crime.

On boot camps, told that an expert had said 83 percent of young people who went through them re-offend, Luxon said National would make them “more effective”.

“We need targeted interventions in these young people’s lives. I’m not prepared to write them off.”

When Hipkins tried to intervene and say how boot camps did not get results, Luxon hit back saying Labour had had six years to get it right.

Hipkins said Labour had changed the law so police could be tougher on gang convoys, such as the recent one that closed down parts of Ōpōtiki over a tangi.

Insults fly on housing
Luxon slammed Labour’s record on housing while Hipkins said National’s plan was to offer incentives to landlords whereas Labour was focused on getting people into homes.

Hipkins said there were more “mega landlords” these days and that was not right.

“Will you guarantee your tax breaks for landlords will get passed on to tenants?” Hipkins asked Luxon.

Luxon avoided a direct answer so the Labour leader answered on his behalf, saying “We’ll take that as a no.”

Both leaders stated they supported building more state houses — although Hipkins was critical of how state houses had been sold off the last time National was in government.

Hipkins admitted KiwiBuild had been an “unrealistic promise” but since then Labour had created momentum in house supply which needed to be continued.

Afterwards both leaders were relaxed. Hipkins was reluctant to score himself, saying the voters would decide, but when pressed again opted for an eight.

Luxon said he had enjoyed it and hoped viewers did also while also choosing an eight.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The traditionally blue seat is currently held by Labour — the election of 2020 was the first time it had been won by the left since 1938 — but polls suggest that won’t last much longer.

Five candidates took part in the live-streamed debate at the Homestead Tavern organised by right-wing lobby group the Taxpayers’ Union.

With a partisan audience and The Daily Blog editor/publisher Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury and libertarian Damien Grant as MCs — political commentators from opposite ends of the political spectrum — it was a rollicking, raucous ride, sometimes rude but never dull.

For Prime it was a foray into hostile territory with the Labour MP all but drowned out by shouts and jeers.

She had little chance to defend her party’s record or set out her priorities above the din.

The loudest reaction came after mention of the C word — that’s covid, of course.

Covid response ‘saved lives’
Prime defended the government’s response, saying it was one of the best in the world and had saved lives, but acknowledged some in the room did not agree with her.

There were angry shouts from some in the near-capacity crowd anytime she used a word in te reo Māori, such as Aotearoa or puku [belly].

The other candidates received a warmer reception, with Matt King — the former Northland MP who quit National and set up DemocracyNZ in protest at the party’s covid policy — having the loudest supporters.

New Zealand First candidate Shane Jones continued his campaign theme of describing himself as the politician who delivered for Northland when he held the purse strings for the Provincial Growth Fund.

He also said it was time Northlanders broke their habit of electing lions, only to find they turned into lambs as soon as they took their place in Parliament.

Jones promised a “laser-like focus” on Northland’s infrastructure deficit, especially when it came to roads, rail and shipping.

‘Squeezed middle’
National candidate Grant McCallum, a Maungaturoto farmer who won the party’s selection process to replace King, also promised a laser-like focus — but in his case it would be on costs and the “squeezed middle”.

He said middle New Zealanders had been hard hit by rising prices and interest rates.

King was initially denied a place in the debate, raising the prospect of a protest outside the venue by his supporters, with the Taxpayers’ Union saying he did not meet the criteria.

Those criteria included being a sitting MP or polling at least 5 percent in the electorate.

King was told on Monday he could join the debate after all because the weekend’s Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll put his support in Northland at 5 percent, once undecided voters were excluded.

King promised to “fight back for farmers” against what he called a “climate change catastrophist narrative”.

ACT list MP Mark Cameron, meanwhile, just wanted less government, saying New Zealanders should be left alone to do what they did best.

Gun register dismissed
He was questioned by MC Martyn Bradbury about ACT’s plans to reverse a ban on high-calibre semi-automatic weapons, which Cameron did not address — but he did say bringing in a gun register had not worked overseas and would not work in New Zealand.

Between the serious politicking there was also plenty of humour.

When New Zealand First was accused of being less interested in real issues than in culture-war talking points such as the use of public toilets by transgender women, MC Damien Grant asked — with some trepidation — how Jones defined a woman.

“Matua Shane Jones has 19 mokopuna [grandchildren],” Jones replied.

“And he has his beautiful wife sitting right in front. Bro, that’s a woman.”

The last word went to Prime, who warned the crowd a change of government would lead to cuts in basic services.

It is not clear, however, if anyone heard her above the jeers.

‘Lot at stake in election’
“There is a lot at stake in this election, and I implore you all, to ask the questions and do the research,” Prime said.

Earlier in the evening, the organisers released the results of a Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll conducted in the Northland electorate the previous weekend.

The poll showed McCallum had 43 percent of the electorate vote, followed by Prime on 18 percent and Jones on 13 percent.

Both King and the Greens’ Reina Tuai Penney, who did not take part in the debate, had 4 percent support with Cameron trailing on 2 percent.

However, the poll had a relatively small sample size of 400 and a margin of error of almost 5 percent.

The proportion of respondents who had not made up their minds was 11 percent. If they were excluded, McCallum’s share of the vote jumped to 49 percent.

The poll showed broadly similar trends when it came to the party vote, although personal support for Jones (13 percent) was much higher than support for his party overall in Northland (3 percent).

Situation reversed
The situation was reversed for Cameron who had just 2 percent support as a candidate while his party, ACT, polled 12 percent.

Cameron has, however, been campaigning for the party vote only and suggesting his supporters give their electorate votes to McCallum.

Respondents were asked what they believed was the most important issue facing Northland.

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the region’s transport network, 36 percent opted for roads, followed by the cost of living on 15 percent, health on 14 percent and law and order on 8 percent.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz