Prime Minister Christopher Luxon started this week by releasing the coalition Government’s next quarterly plan, a list of things it plans to get done in the three months to the end of September.
Many of the plans are things happening anyway, and often involve the Government making decisions on policy initiatives. For example, the Cabinet is going to decide on legislation to support time-of-use charging to reduce congestion and on new regulations to remove the ban on genetic engineering ban and allow the safe use of genetic technologies in agriculture, health, and other sectors.
There are many who welcome removing the GE ban but not everyone is a fan.
Sustainable farming group Southern Pastures’ executive chair Prem Maan was the sole voice raising concerns about GE technologies on a panel at the primary industries summit this week.
Maan told NBR that two large global customers had warned him recently they would stop buying New Zealand products if the country was no longer GE-free and would buy from Ireland instead.
But the Government, particularly Science Minister Judith Collins, is keen to grasp hold of any technologies it believes can improve productivity and, in the case of GE, also help reduce methane emissions.
Maan says, however, there are other non-GE technologies already being developed that can help cut farm emissions.
Southern Pastures executive chair Prem Maan.
Law and order emphasis
When Luxon released his quarterly plan, he put most emphasis on the Government’s law and order policies, pointing out that in the three-month period, it intends to pass legislation already before Parliament to give police more power to go after gangs and to get guns out of the hands of criminals, as well as to improve rehabilitation for prisoners on remand and improve the efficiency of the court system.
It will also launch a military-style academy pilot for serious and persistent young offenders, even though many experts say the evidence does not suggest “boot camps” will work. Nor has the Government so far been able to provide reporters with details about just how they plan to make it work and what a normal day will look like for those young people sent to them.
But will all these initiatives happen anyway, with or without a quarterly plan? Most likely, but perhaps not with the same urgency, given the Government has imposed a deadline on itself to get things done, even if it is only to make decisions.
Luxon argues it gives the Government more focus and then it gets to report back to the public about what it has achieved. In the case of its first three-month plan, it ticked everything off, apart from its plan to disestablish tertiary education provide Te Pūkenga. While decisions have been made, “consultation has not yet begun”. That will happen, though, in coming weeks.
One decision not in any quarterly plan is the Government’s about-face on the legislation that will require tech giants such as Facebook and Google to negotiate payments with news media organisations for stories that appear on their platforms.
The National Party had opposed the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill when in Opposition and has shown little enthusiasm for it in government; but, following Luxon’s decision to sack Melissa Lee as Broadcasting Minister and replace her with Paul Goldsmith, it appears to have had a rethink.
The Act Party, however, has not and, like New Zealand First last week, has invoked the ‘agree to disagree’ clause in the coalition agreement.
Questions also remain around whether the legislation will have any effect. In other countries, the tech giants cut them off or pull out of negotiations, as they have in Australia. What power will New Zealand have to force Facebook and Google to play ball?
Can large tech companies be forced to pay news media companies here for their content?
Kāinga Ora
Meanwhile, the changes at housing agency Kāinga Ora roll on, with six new board members appointed to replace five board members who have effectively been given the boot. The new board members join relatively new chair Simon Moutter and have been given the job of turning around the agency’s financial performance, which the Government describes as “abysmal”.
The organisation will also soon have a new chief executive, with current boss Andrew McKenzie leaving at the end of October.
While the Government tries to push a narrative of a failing organisation, Moutter isn’t so sure. In a Radio New Zealand report he said McKenzie had been an enormous difference, delivering 4000 new houses this year.
Moutter said he had no wish to disagree with Luxon, who said Kāinga Ora had been “chronically underperforming”, but it was an incredible achievement for the agency to have built that many houses, and thousands in the years earlier.
But he also noted the Government had signalled a change for the organisation and wanted it to go back to its core role as a landlord. That meant no net housing growth.
Moutter told RNZ he and the new board would work on getting the organisation back to financial sustainability, which was threatened by its growing amount of debt.
At the same time, the Salvation Army predicts homelessness will start to rise as the Government is “sitting on its hands”.
In a statement this week, the Salvation Army says the Government’s cuts to social services are leading to continued hardship for tens of thousands of New Zealanders. In the first six months of this year, it has provided food assistance to more than 60,000 New Zealanders but it cannot keep up with demand.
New Kāinga Ora chair Simon Moutter.
Housing announcement
In Auckland, Housing Minister Chris Bishop has also announced six policy changes to speed up the building of new houses. Housing growth targets will be established for Tier 1 and 2 councils covering the country’s biggest cities and towns, where housing shortages are most acute; new rules will require cities to allow expansion beyond their urban boundaries; intensification provisions will be strengthened; councils will be required to allow mixed-use developments; minimum floor areas and balcony requirements for apartments will be abolished; and the medium density residential standards will be made optional for councils.
Labour’s housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty says, unless the Government fronts up with infrastructure money, local councils are limited in what they can do to enable the expansion of residential housing.
“There is an opportunity here, but the short-term thinking means it runs the risk of ending up as a shambles. This shouldn’t be used as a way for the Government to avoid difficult discussions about density or fronting up with funding,” McAnulty says.
Bishop has promised there is more to come, saying this week’s announcement is just the start.
“There’s a lot to do on our infrastructure funding and financing system as well as incentives for growth and I’ll have more to say in the coming months,” he says.
Presumably that will in one of the Prime Minister’s upcoming quarterly plans.
The Government wants to encourage a lot more housing construction by requiring councils to set growth targets.
Reconnecting with Auckland
Labour leader Chris Hipkins and his MPs were also in Auckland this week for a caucus retreat and an opportunity to get around the country’s largest city where, at last year’s election, most voters spurned Labour.
Hipkins says it is about listening and he acknowledges the Labour Government might have not listened enough to Aucklanders. While he and Labour are under pressure – mainly from some media – to attack the coalition and announce definitive policies, particularly on tax, listening and taking time to get their policies right makes more sense. The next election is, after all, still nearly two and a half years away.
Next week, Luxon jets off to the United States to attend the Nato summit in Washington and then he will be promoting New Zealand to investors and businesses in San Francisco as he continues to “hustle” around the world.
Brent Edwards is NBR’s political editor.
