The Government faced tough criticism this week, particularly from dairy owners, over its response to crime, even as it announced new measures to rein in retail crime.
At the same time, though, it announced more money for frontline health workers, including nurses working in aged care facilities, and offered an olive branch to farmers over the issue of how sequestration of carbon on farms is treated.
NBR presenter Grant Walker asks whether it was a good week for the Government or just an example of it trying to fix political problems quickly.
The issue of the anomaly between what nurses get paid at public hospitals and those in aged care, for example, had been raised many times.
Health Minister Andrew Little announced this week the Cabinet had agreed to ongoing funding of $200 million a year to ensure those nurses in aged care facilities, hospices, and Māori and Pacific healthcare organisations were paid more.
Little said the pay difference had emerged after the Government moved to lift the pay of the traditionally female workforce in public hospitals. It had increased the pay of 10,000 hospital administration and clerical workers and put aside $540m to boost the pay of nurses working for the national health body Te Whatu Ora.
Of course, that issue is still not settled, with nurses demanding back pay in the pay equity settlement.
Sequestration
Meanwhile, the Government is also seeking to remove another irritant by offering to work with farmers to find the scientific tools to properly measure sequestration on farms. Farmers had been outraged when the Government rejected the proposal of He Waka Eke Noa that farmers should effectively be able to offset their emissions against the sequestration of CO2 by vegetation on their land. Instead, the Government proposed a more limited system that would pay farmers for additional sequestration occurring in riparian vegetation and arising from managing indigenous vegetations.
The Government has offered farmers an olive branch over sequestration on farms.
But, as part of the process, farmers and industry bodies then had the opportunity to make further submissions on the matter. Their pressure appears to have borne fruit, with the Government listening to their concerns and now offering a joint approach to coming up with solutions.
Some might argue the Government has bowed to pressure, but it is unlikely to win them any votes in the primary sector and could lose them support among those worried about climate change.
Also this week, there were plenty of announcements about doing more to stop the retail crime wave that dairies in particular have been experiencing.
Among a raft of announcements, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday a multi-million-dollar package to tackle retail crime and reoffending, calling it the most significant crime prevention financial package in recent memory. It included more money to install fog cannons in small shops and dairies and a new $4m fund to support local councils in Auckland, Hamilton, and Bay of Plenty with crime prevention programmes.
But shop owners were not impressed, with many saying current sentences for crimes were not tough enough.
Ardern pointed out that her government had not reduced sentences.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Police chases
This week, Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said the police were revising their policy on chasing fleeing drivers.
Two years ago, the police decided to back off high-speed chases and, as a result, more fleeing drivers have got away. Now it appears the case is back on.
Justice Minister Kiritapu Allan and Police Minister Chris Hipkins also announced tougher sentences for those who flee the police. The maximum driver licence disqualification will rise from 12 months to between 12 and 24 months for those facing a second offence for failing to stop; vehicles could be forfeited; and police could impound a vehicle for 28 days if the owner fails or refuses to identify a driver in a fleeing driver event, or provides misleading information.
So, are all these announcements a rushed reaction by the Government to rising concerns about crime, particularly following the stabbing death of shop worker in Sandringham?
Ardern said the work had been under way for a long time and, indeed, at her October 31 post-Cabinet news conference, she had told reporters the Government was looking at what more could be done to deal with crime, particularly ram raids committed by young people.
“We do need a wider range of tools. That’s what’s clear to me because, for this particularly small group, we don’t necessarily have some of the options that we need. That is not new to this Government. That has been a persistent problem, so we are looking at what more can be done, and I want to give people that assurance,” she said a month ago.
Wilful or incompetent?
Another pressing problem for Ardern is how to deal with the issue of the 60% entrenchment clause inserted late into the Water Services Entities Bill to prevent the entities being privatised.
The Government needs to fix its mistake over the entrenchment clause in the Waters Services Entities Bill.
It now appears the Government knew a little more about the amendment put forward by Green MP Eugenie Sage during the committee stages of the Bill in Parliament.
It has been a messy affair and reflects badly on the Government. Either it wilfully tried to get through a change that was constitutionally improper, or it was incompetent.
Luckily it was picked up by constitutional law experts, who raised the alarm about the principles involved.
The option for the Government is clear: next week it should take the Bill back into the committee stages of the House, and vote again on the clause, this time voting it down.
Brent Edwards is NBR’s political editor.
