The week in politics: Is Simon Bridges safe?

The government has announced a review of the Resource Management Act but comprehensive change will not happen before next year’s election.

Parliament’s environment committee held its first hearing into the Zero Carbon Bill this week and, while there is agreement action on climate change needs to be taken, there is not overwhelming consensus about just what needs to happen.

And in this week in politics we also look at the state of the National Party as it holds its annual conference in Christchurch over the weekend.

Environment Minister David Parker told NBR this week that under the review local councils were likely to get more authority.

“What we’re going to do is to empower councils, elected councillors, to properly exercise control of democratic functions. It is absurd that effectively the laws that are passed by councils, which are in their district plans, can’t be changed within the term of a council. In Parliament we can change laws within a three-year term. It’s not fair that councils can’t.”

But Parker said local authorities did need to perform better and that included changing the behaviour and attitudes of those working for their planning departments.

“We need them to be able to harness their wisdom to drive forward land availability or intensification rules where we need more housing and at the moment it’s quite hard for councils to achieve that,” Parker said.

The National Party has responded positively to the review although its housing spokesperson Judith Collins questions why it will take so long to make substantive changes to the RMA.

Collins was also cautious about Parker’s criticism of changes National made to the legislation and said if he was genuinely concerned about improving the RMA he should work with National.

“I’m saying to him how about you just reach across, treat us with respect, take up the offer and act like you’re looking after the best interests of New Zealand,” she said.

Ideological change

Former National ministerial adviser and now lobbyist at Silvereye Brigitte Morten said Collins was right. 

“If it’s going to be an ideological change, that it’s just going to be taking out what National put in to put what Labour wants to put in, that means in three years’ time or in six years’ time we could be back down this track where it’s just getting flipped back the other way,” Morten said.

She said for meaningful change to occur there had to be political consensus about what needed to happen. But given the review would not be completed until the middle of next year it was likely to be caught up in the politics of the campaign.

How likely too is consensus on the Zero Carbon Bill? While National voted for its first reading the party still has grave doubts about the 24-47% methane reduction target included in the Bill.

In its submission to the select committee Forest & Bird argued for tougher emissions targets.

Its chief executive Kevin Hague, a former Green Party MP, told NBR the argument about the negative impact on economic growth was a red herring.

“Actually, the existential threat of climate change trumps economic growth. You know, that’s largely the problem, that people are hoping to be able to make the kind of changes that are needed to combat climate change while still conducting business as usual and that’s just not going to be possible,” Hague said.

Morten said it was wrong to approach the climate change debate as though it was a choice between business or the environment.

She said National was clear that the methane target was too high unless farmers were given the necessary tools to reduce their emissions.

National confidence

Meanwhile, Simon Bridges is confident about National’s prospects at the next election.

Bridges said his job was to ensure National got more votes than any other party and he believed it would.

“I believe we can do better than 44%. I feel that very clearly right now a bit over halfway through a term.”

But National still has the problem of whether it will have allies after the election to help it form the next government.

Bridges believes new parties will emerge before the election.

“We live in this funny time actually where in some ways holding your cards till pretty close to the end can work for minor parties.”

Did he know of another party that would emerge between now and the election?

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Morten said she was not aware of any minor party ready to stand in the election but there had been a lot of discussion. She also believed Bridges was right that a party could form late in the electoral cycle and still do well.

She said the government had problems and had a lot of ground to make up in its year of delivery. KiwiBuild was the most public of its failures but it also had to meet its child poverty targets and the expectations raised by the wellbeing budget.

“It will be interesting next year to see how they portray some of these promises they made at the last election.”

Morten also believes that, despite the speculation about Judith Collins, Bridges’ leadership is safe.

“There’s nothing that points to them having to take extreme action. I think if the polls consistently have them below 40% that’s going to be an issue and they will look at that but I don’t think that we can also rule out that there are many people that could be a possible leader within the National Party.”