The fact that the local voice, the knowledge of the local people is being weakened.
My message to Government would be to butt out and let local government work out these things; work with us rather than telling us what to do, – Carmen Houlahan
It really does not seem like a simplification process. To me it sounds like lots of bureaucracy and centralisation of power and control. – Jules Radich
Its quite ironic that in the same breath they are trying to task local government with how to get people more involved on a local level of participation … when in fact their voice is being taken away – Jules Radich
These are important issues but they are deeply, deeply complex issues about who pays for it fairly in terms of insurers, individual property owers, taxpayers, ratepayers, is it this generation, future generation … it will be a multi-decade effort and it’s really important that we can work together in a bipartisan way.
“I think it will be part of a review, a good set of questions to ask why over 50 years there’s been houses built in places that maybe aren’t appropriate now and we should be really clear about that, so making sure councils have authority and power to do that will be important. – Christopher Luxon
The reactions by media chiefs and cultural commissars to accusations that government cash has bought the media’s support or silence — particularly on co-governance — has been marked by bewilderment, defensiveness, exasperation and anger.
Some of that reaction stems from the fact that a very specific criticism of the fund — that it requires the media to endorse a particular view of the Treaty of Waitangi — metastasised quickly into the widespread belief the media had been “bought” generally.
Once that view had taken hold, no matter how loudly editors and journalists insisted they were robust critics of the government, the damage had been done. The widespread disdain for the recipients of the fund’s cash was summed up by the epithet “The team of $55 million” — a play on “The team of five million”, which Jacinda Ardern used to rally the country behind her Covid management strategies. – Graham Adams
The first of the general eligibility criteria requires all applicants to show a “commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to Māori as a Te Tiriti partner” — alongside a commitment to te reo Māori. The section describing the fund’s goals includes “actively promoting the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner“. These criteria may appear uncontroversial to most government bureaucrats and media managers but they are very contentious to the many New Zealanders who don’t accept that the Treaty implies a partnership of any kind — let alone a 50:50 power-sharing agreement between the Crown and iwi, which Three Waters, for instance, incorporates. And it’s not as if rejecting the claim that the Treaty implies a partnership is a fringe opinion.
In his Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture in 2000, former Labour Prime Minister David Lange described that view as absurd: – Graham Adams
The defence of the fund on the grounds that most of the projects approved by NZ on Air are not directly concerned with the Treaty has been dismissed by critics, who say the criteria have an insidious effect by functioning as a “good behaviour” bond for any organisation that wants to access taxpayer cash.
Just how seriously PIJF applicants take the requirement to swear allegiance to the approved view of the Treaty was revealed when details of NZ on Air’s assessment process were released in 2022 under the Official Information Act. – Graham Adams
Perhaps the biggest blow to the fund’s credibility was the publication of a report in March last year that expanded the criteria stated in the funding application documents. Titled the “Te Tiriti Framework for News Media”, it was commissioned by NZ on Air — at a cost of $33,350 (plus GST).
While NZ on Air advised that the “framework” was offered only as “guidance”, any media organisation hoping to tap into the fund’s millions would have been under no illusions about the stance they should take towards the Treaty.
Indeed, the report begins with a firm instruction: “Mass news media organisations need to consider, explore, build on and implement this framework in ways that show commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
Examples of the “guidance” include:
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- “Māori have never ceded sovereignty to Britain or any other state.”
- “…our society has a foundation of institutional racism.”
- “For news media, it is not simply a matter of reporting ‘fairly’, but of constructively contributing to Te Tiriti relations and social justice.”
- “Repeated references by the government to the English version [of the Treaty], in which Māori supposedly ceded sovereignty, have created systematic disinformation that protects the government’s assumption of sole parliamentary sovereignty.” – Graham Adams
Despite such firm evidence of what NZ on Air expects from applicants, many senior journalists still seem unable to accept that demanding adherence to a certain editorial position on the Treaty as a requirement for funding is an outrageous abuse of government power and taxpayer money.
Equally, they seem reluctant to accept it was a massive blunder for media organisations to agree to such criteria. Nevertheless, a few media managers have admitted privately the PIJF has been a disaster for them. – Graham Adams
As the concepts of co-governance and partnership increasingly become a flashpoint in this year’s election campaign — at a time when the government has been steadily inserting them into a swathe of legislation and policy ranging from education and health to the RMA and Three Waters — a question remains over just how much the fund’s criteria have crimped that debate.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins insists that many voters are suspicious of co-governance only because politicians haven’t explained the concept clearly — but that failure also falls squarely on the shoulders of journalists. – Graham Adams
In short, for Stuff there is no debate to be had over the question of whether the Treaty implies a partnership — in much the same way it prefers not to publish criticism of anthropogenic climate change or transgender activism. – Graham Adams
There can never be a definitive answer to the question of exactly how much the Public Interest Journalism Fund has helped shut down criticism of the Treaty at a crucial time in our political history. But by accepting its conditions, it is undeniable that the media has inflicted a terrible wound on itself by being seen to have compromised its principal assets — trust, credibility and independence. – Graham Adams
The lesson to media organisations seems clear: if the government ever comes calling with a bag of money that requires editorial prescriptions to be followed, take the advice of the advertising campaign that ran in the early 1990s to discourage children from experimenting with illegal drugs — and just say no. – Graham Adams
That faint squealing noise Australians have been hearing over the past couple of weeks was the sound of New Zealand’s Labour government slamming on the brakes. The distant smell of burning rubber can also be explained. That was the same government executing a handbrake turn.
Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation last month triggered not only a sharp political reset but a pronounced change in the country’s mood. Ardern may have enjoyed worldwide adulation, but in two terms as leader she had become an increasingly polarising figure at home. Her departure resembled nothing so much as the lifting of a spell. – Karl du Fresne
Ardern’s departure – which was spun as a sudden decision, but turned out to have been carefully plotted weeks beforehand – could be interpreted in two ways. One was that she saw defeat looming at next October’s general election and didn’t want to go down in history as a failed prime minister. (That was the rat-and-sinking-ship theory.) The alternative explanation was that she realised she had become a liability to Labour and wanted to give her successor time to regroup before going to the polls. (That was the noble self-sacrifice theory.)
Either way, the portents were clear. Not only did opinion surveys show Labour in steady decline and its National party opposition in the ascendancy, but Ardern’s personal popularity had slumped to the point where she had fallen into the negative approval zone, where voters who liked her were outnumbered by those who didn’t.
It was a dramatic demonstration of what some political scientists call the Obama effect, where a leader is admired abroad but not so much domestically. It also reinforced the fundamental truth that ultimately, the only people in a position to truly judge whether Ardern was doing a good job were those who had to live with the consequences of her government’s policies. When it comes to the crunch, rapturous applause from left-leaning overseas commentators is just so much meaningless noise. – Karl du Fresne
The Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 was a crucial turning point. Ardern’s earnest ‘be kind’ shtick and her patronising entreaties to the ‘team of five million’ soon took on an unmistakeably totalitarian tone. State-imposed mandates that barred unvaccinated people from working were seen as cruel and heartless. The same was true of a chaotic and randomly unfair isolation and quarantine system that prevented New Zealanders overseas from returning home, often in heartbreaking circumstances.
To many people, Ardern became the face of authoritarianism – ironically, the exact reverse of the compassionate image she sought to convey. Her daily televised pep talks from what was derisively labelled the Podium of Truth, so named because of her statement that the government was the sole source of reliable information about the pandemic, aroused as much scepticism as shoulders-to-the-wheel fervour.
None of this was helped by the growing public perception that Ardern was protected by sycophantic journalists. New Zealanders expect the media to subject the government to rigorous critical scrutiny, and they didn’t see that happening. In the end, the media’s fawning over Ardern became a negative. – Karl du Fresne
Covid aside, what most damaged Ardern was the growing public realisation that her government was pursuing a radical agenda for which it had no mandate and which it demonstrably lacked the competence to execute. Even as homelessness, gang crime and child welfare issues escalated, Labour ideologues seemed more concerned with promoting disruptive and destabilising changes in health, education and local government. As with some Labour regimes in the past – and with Australia under Gough Whitlam – there was a striking mismatch between ministerial ambition and ability.
So now Hipkins has embarked on a desperate salvage operation, reshuffling Labour’s cabinet, demoting his most unpopular minister, the divisive Nanaia Mahuta, and pledging to focus on ‘bread and butter issues’ such as the cost of living. He has also signalled the likelihood of a rethink on some of Labour’s most ideologically toxic policies – notably, Mahuta’s push for what is euphemistically termed Maori co-governance over the nation’s water resources. – Karl du Fresne
The Bill of Rights Act says that everyone aged 18 and over has the right to vote. The Supreme Court says that setting the voting age at 18 is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. Astute readers may have noticed a contradiction, one that arises out of the Make It 16 decision issued by our highest court late last year. It’s the result of a tangle of legislation and judicial logic which, when unravelled, is a good illustration of why the courts shouldn’t be asked to resolve contentious social and political issues like this. – Alex Penk
The Electoral Act 1993 sets a minimum age of 18 for voting in general elections. Section 12 of the Bill of Rights Act says that qualified voters “of or over the age of 18 years” have the right to vote in Parliamentary elections. However, section 19 of the Bill of Rights Act says that everyone has the right to freedom from discrimination including age-based discrimination, with “age” defined as any age from 16 onwards. The age-based non-discrimination right was actually inserted into the Bill of Rights Act three years after it was first passed, apparently without anyone noticing that this created a contradiction between sections 12 and 19. This contradiction opened up a line of argument for Make It 16, who were seeking a declaration of inconsistency—a formal statement that the voting age of 18 is inconsistent with the fundamental rights and freedoms in the Bill of Rights Act.
A majority of the Supreme Court judges resolved this contradiction with a rather creative interpretation of the Bill of Rights Act. Section 12, they said, only guarantees that the voting age won’t be raised; it doesn’t mean that it can’t be lowered. The majority justified this conclusion by invoking section 6 of the Bill of Rights, which says that wherever possible, “an enactment” should be “given a meaning that is consistent with the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights”. In other words, section 12’s specification of the voting age should be interpreted in a way that’s consistent with section 19’s prohibition on age discrimination. – Alex Penk
First, it seems frankly implausible that Parliament would have thought it was creating some sort of sliding scale rather than fixing a specific voting age, especially when you look at the actual legislative history.[1] Only Kos J, writing a sole minority opinion, did this in detail. Disagreeing with the majority’s interpretation, he concluded that Parliament meant to prevent the voting age being raised or lowered because a change in either direction, “is not a neutral political action” but one that will inevitably “benefit some parties disproportionately.” He noted too that the voting age is one of those rare entrenched provisions in the Electoral Act—a provision that requires a super-majority vote of 75 percent of MPs or a majority in a referendum to change—meant to settle the position and end a history of “Parliamentary tinkering with electoral law”.
Second, it’s hard to see how the interpretive direction in section 6 can be used to resolve inconsistencies within the Bill of Rights itself. It’s entirely circular to say that the Bill of Rights Act should be “given a meaning that is consistent with the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights”. This just begs the true question—what do those rights and freedoms actually say?—and the confusion provides cover for judges to resolve conflicts between rights in a way that fits their preferred view, in this case using section 19 to reinterpret section 12. There’s no reason this logic couldn’t be used to justify the exact opposite approach—using section 12 to reinterpret section 19—but in fact the whole issue is a red herring.
As Kos J said, the real issue is how to resolve the conflict between a specific provision, section 12, and a general one, section 19. Like him, I think the best way to do this is to say that, “the explicit right to vote in parliamentary elections at 18 years, grounded in the constitutionally-entrenched provisions of the Electoral Act and affirmed by s 12 of the Bill of Rights, prevails over the generalised right to freedom from discrimination affirmed by s 19.” – Alex Penk
Then the majority got into policy-making territory, though to be fair that’s not entirely the court’s fault. The Bill of Rights Act says that rights are subject to “reasonable limits” that are “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” So the courts will only say that a law is inconsistent with the Act if the law creates an unreasonable, unjustified limit on a right. But asking judges to decide what is “reasonable” and “justified” in a “free” and “democratic” society is an intensely value-laden exercise, not a legal one, the kind normally reserved for politics. Judges are clearly sensitive to the perception that they’re straying into politics, and the majority was at pains to stress that it was simply stating what the rights mean. – Alex Penk
These are not legal questions; they are questions of social science and policy, and this is not how policy should be made—on the basis of a solitary and uncontested study containing no New Zealand participants, provided by a Commissioner who has been advocating for a lower voting age since at least 2018, supported by the assertion of a mid-ranked academic at an overseas university. Compare this to the Parliamentary process which, at its best, gathers comprehensive research, puts it through an open and contested process, and offers a measure of transparency via Select Committee deliberations and ultimately accountability to the electorate.
The Attorney-General also played an eyebrow-raising role in all this. First, the Court said he was required to provide positive justification for a voting age of 18—in other words, to offer evidence to support the current position. But the Attorney-General wasn’t able to do this, and so was limited to arguing that 18 is within a range of reasonable possibilities. The Court therefore relied only on the evidence from the Children’s Commissioner, and made the declaration of inconsistency that Make it 16 sought. But the judges said that limiting the voting age to 18 could potentially be justified—it just hadn’t been in this case. Second, and more concerningly, the Attorney-General had also begun his case arguing that section 12 disposed of Make it 16’s case, but abandoned this argument before the case began. Kos J was particularly unimpressed by this, describing it as a “regrettable” choice and noting: “Important questions of public rights before this Court cannot just be resolved by forensic choices made by parties.” It’s difficult to understand why the Attorney-General made this choice—though a cynic might think it had something to do with the fact that the Attorney-General isn’t just a law officer but a member of the Government, the same Government that immediately greeted the Court’s declaration with an announcement that it would introduce legislation to lower the voting age.
For now, opinion seems firmly against changing the voting age but what is changing, in this era of declarations of inconsistency, is the role the courts are playing in political issues. They are ill-suited to this; it’s not ideal that arcane arguments about legal interpretation play such a large role in a case like this. And as this case demonstrates, courts are limited to the issues raised and the evidence supplied by the parties—or not, in the case of the Attorney-General. Whatever his reasons, when a single party’s litigation strategy can have such far-reaching implications it illustrates why issues like this shouldn’t be decided by the courts. – Alex Penk
When our highest court says something is inconsistent with fundamental human rights, that tends to stick in the public consciousness and to motivate political action. Just look at the power to make declarations of inconsistency itself, a power that wasn’t in the Bill of Rights Act and was invented by the courts, to be eventually acknowledged in statute by Parliament. Will the same thing happen with the voting age? Who knows, but with the courts taking this kind of approach, expect to see more cases like this. – Alex Penk
There is responsibility when you take on the role of public service, you have a responsibility to the people that you’re representing”.
It’s important that egos and collaboration and civility, and actually you can disagree strongly without being disagreeable or personal with each other. That behaviour and that character and that leadership really matters. – Christopher Luxon
You don’t just have council because it’s a squabble-fest. You’ve actually got to get things done for people.
As you’ve seen even in the last round of elections across the country, people are frustrated with politicians not getting things done.
That’s my call to all politicians is that we have to model out the standards of leadership that we want to see in our fellow citizens. We’ve got to carry ourselves with civility. – Christopher Luxon
Homepaddock 