TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:
* Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling NZ First and ACT ministers in place. His coalition partners already see Luxon as weak and not focused enough on the details. This reshuffle after just five months will reinforce Luxon’s own weakness in coalition relations and in his caucus.
* Climate: The low-investment approach adopted by both flavours of Governments means 26 reviews of failing emergency services have led to no-or-very-slow improvements that leave Aotearoa-NZ more vulnerable to extreme climate events. That’s because politicians find it easier to cut future spending and investing to deal with uncertain and yet-to-be experienced threats, than borrowing for current spending or cutting existing services.
* Transport: The Government is considering calls to put electronic monitoring devices in all vehicles to apply user charges at different rates per kilometre for travelling on different roads at different times in vehicles with different weights.
* Councils: Freezes in capital and operational funding to councils are cascading down to ratepayers in the form of rates increases and cuts to council programmes designed to boost tourism and other export revenues. Despite this, the Government has recommitted to doubling export revenues within 10 years and ministers have made 25 trips overseas in five months to promote exports.
* Housing: The Government’s blunt approach to spending and investment cuts has stopped the rebuilding of quake-prone apartments in Wellington dead in its tracks. The danger for the Government is its penny wise and pound foolish approach is compounding the damage in an economy in a technical recession. It also further erodes business and consumer confidence. Surveys showed confidence collapsed in March after an initial bounce in late 2023 on the Government’s promises to ‘get things done’. The coalition is now talking and freezing the economy into an extended recession, but with still-high interest rates.
* Economy: The Government looks set to cut an $11.2 million industry support programme partly responsible for training software developers and marketers at 605 SaaS (Software As A Service) companies who generate almost $3 billion in exports per year.
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1: ‘He lacks attention to detail and creates dual-standards’
PM Christopher Luxon announced a Cabinet and ministerial reshuffle yesterday that has created a dual standard of behaviour for National and non-National ministers. Having to reshuffle his first Cabinet after just five months further exposes what NZ First and ACT see as Luxon’s weaknesses: a lack of attention to detail and political inexperience.
Luxon stripped Melissa Lee of her media portfolio and demoted her from Cabinet, replacing her in Cabinet with Climate Change Minister Simon Court Watts and giving media role to Paul Goldsmith. He also took Disabled Services off Penny Simmonds and gave it to Louise Upston, but left Simmonds in Cabinet with her Environment and Tertiary Education roles.
Stuff Political Editor Luke Malpass highlighted both the tensions within the coalition and Luxon’s own weaknesses in the eyes of Winston Peters and David Seymour in a column published yesterday morning in The Post-$$$ before the reshuffle was announced (bolding mine):
While the National leadership is pretty aligned with ACT on the broader things the coalition needs to do for the country, NZ First is far more transactional. It is aligned with the parties on many matters, but is always keen to remind National that everything outside the coalition deal has to be negotiated. And Winston Peters is determined that NZ First will be re-elected to Government in three years.
Also, during the coalition negotiations, both smaller parties privately complained that Christopher Luxon could at times be a high-handed poor listener who tended to lecture others without being over the detail of policies or issues himself. That was fine once negotiations had concluded and the stress was over but at the time, it did cause both NZ First and ACT to talk and get to know each other more.
That is once again occurring as ACT and NZ First both privately chafe at being publicly rebuked by the prime minister for criticising the Waitangi Tribunal. Luke Malpass in The Post-$$$
NZ Herald Political Editor Claire Trevett highlighted the double-standard created by the demotions in a column in NZ Herald-$$$ (bolding mine).
Rarely have we seen such early demotions in a new Government. Luxon has set a bar for other ministers, who face a future of what Luxon called his “constant adjustments” approach.
Usually ministers are stripped of portfolios for a scandal, a breach of the Cabinet Manual, or telling a porky to the Prime Minister or the public. In some cases, it is for incompetence that was turning into a distracting mess.
There were elements of the latter in Wednesday’s reshuffle. However - at least in Simmonds’ case - there was also an element of a minister being shifted aside for simply being a bit average.
There is a bit of risk to Luxon in this approach: if you end up moving too many ministers around for shonky performances, it starts to look a bit chaotic.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins was quick to claim that it already was chaotic, although it has not reached that bar yet. Hipkins was also, rightly, quick to point out that Luxon will find it hard to apply the same standard to his coalition partners’ ministers in NZ First and Act. NZ Herald Political Editor Claire Trevett via NZ Herald-$$$
RNZ Political Editor Jo Moir also highlighted the double-standard now in place via RNZ (bolding mine):
Lee, for example, had been opposition spokesperson for Broadcasting and Media for six years and shouldn't have been surprised by any of the problems in her portfolio, which have all been long-signalled both in New Zealand and abroad.
Luxon would have had trouble dealing with this so cleanly if it was an ACT or New Zealand First minister at fault.
The frustration for some National ministers may be that they are thrown under the bus to disguise blockages caused by ACT and NZ First. Newsroom’s Laura Walters made that point: Melissa Lee’s media Hail Mary comes up short.
Newsroom understands Lee’s sacking from Cabinet came after another failed attempt at presenting a paper to Cabinet Committee. On April 8, Lee took a paper to Cabinet Committee – the third paper she had prepared since the February 28 announcement of Newshub’s closure.
Sources told Newsroom that Luxon – who is a member of the committee – believed the proposals in Lee’s paper did not adequately deal with the complexities of the issues facing the media industry.
Lee presented her first paper to Cabinet on March 4 – at Luxon’s request. It gave senior members the lay of the land, following the announcement of Newshub’s closure and the impending job cuts at TVNZ.
But things got rocky for Lee after she started proposing ways to fix these problems. Newsroom understands Lee got ahead of the Cabinet process when preparing her next Cabinet Committee paper and was ordered to carry out further consultation with coalition partners – specifically NZ First.
After almost a month of working with officials and consulting with coalition partners, Lee tried again. But she came up short. Her attempt to take a refreshed proposal to Cabinet committee on April 8 would have been a factor i…
