Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nicola Willis has challenged former National Party Finance Minister Ruth Richardson to debate the country’s books at Parliament.

The Taxpayers’ Union is poised to launch a “pressure campaign” targeting Willis in an effort to convince her to cut spending and reduce debt.

Heading into National’s caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Willis said it was clear the campaign was being driven by Richardson, who is chair of the Taxpayers’ Union.

“My message for Ruth Richardson is a very clear one, come and debate me face to face. Come out of the shadows. I will argue toe for toe on the prescription that our government is following.

We’ve had a lot of good publicity for our campaign launching very soon, and now it is our turn to say what it is all about. The campaign is about @NicolaWillisMP becoming our best ever finance minister. No one wants her to succeed more than than Taxpayers’ Union to cut wasteful…

— New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union (@TaxpayersUnion) December 7, 2025

“I reject your approach and instead of lurking in the shadows with secretly funded ads in the paper, come and debate me right here in Parliament.

“I challenge any of these media outlets here to host that debate. I’m ready anytime, anywhere. I will debate her. She needs to come front up face to face. Put her face to he words.”

Willis said she stood by her decisions in government and wanted Richardson to “defend her legacy”, having introduced the infamous ‘Mother of all Budgets’ in 1991.

“What I want is a straight up honest debate to really analyse some of the claims that she and her associates are making, to argue about actually what the impact of some of the things that she is calling for would be on everyday New Zealanders and their families, to test what her tolerance for human misery is and to understand why it is that she is prepared to reject our government’s economic approach in ads, but won’t front up.”

Richardson laughed when RNZ asked her if she would debate Willis.

“I came to Parliament as a Minister of Finance. She is the Minister of Finance. She has to make the calls.”

She made no apologies for the pressure campaign.

“The issue of very vulnerable fiscal position and the structural fiscal deficit is bread and butter for the Taxpayers’ Union and we are seeking to hold the feet of the Minister of Finance to this fiscal fire. Her Treasury are shouting, ‘fire, fire’. We have a structural deficit. This cannot go on. It needs to be addressed.

“This is not an issue about personalities. This is an issue about policy.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Happy birthday, GST. You probably pay it every day – 70c or so on a bottle of milk, $150 on an airfare.

But did you know the tax, which is applied to almost everything you buy, has turned 40?

This December marks 40 years since the law changed to allow Goods and Services Tax (GST) to be introduced in New Zealand. It took effect the following October.

Alan Bullot, a GST expert at Deloitte, said there was a lot to celebrate about the tax.

“New Zealand certainly wasn’t a trailblazer, but the GST legislation we brought in in New Zealand is seen universally as almost being best practice from a tax design point of view.

“It has a broad base that has very few exceptions and it just gets on with the business of what the tax is supposed to do, which is collect some money for the government to go off and do what the government needs to.”

He said when GST was first introduced in New Zealand, about 30 or 40 countries had a similar tax.

“Now, it’s the vast majority of countries other than America that have a national GST or VAT regime.

“Governments just love GST or VATs because they can forecast its collection a lot better because it functions over the whole economy. It’s a test of what the economy is doing.

“If you think about company tax, if I make a profit Inland Revenue can say ‘you made a $100 profit in the company and 28c is coming in’. That’s great, but if I’ve made a loss for two or three years, even if I made a profit of $100 this year the government might not get anything because I’ve got to go through my loss that’s in there.

“It’s much harder for the government to forecast exactly how much money will be coming in from income tax.”

More change coming?

Over the years, the rate has lifted from 10 percent to 12.5 percent to the 15 percent we now pay.

Bullot said it had also had to keep up with technology.

GST now applied to almost all international purchases imported into New Zealand.

“If you think about 1985, you might have heard of a CD. You may have seen a CD, that would be the pinnacle of music. You would have had a Walkman, you certainly weren’t able to download endless amounts of songs from overseas, you couldn’t download any movies.

“If you wanted to order anything online you couldn’t. If you wanted to order something from overseas that would have been pretty difficult… it was just so different in terms of the way that things would operate.

“The fundamentals of GST haven’t changed, but it has had to keep adapting to the economy it operates in.”

Every so often, there are calls for GST to be taken off things like public transport or food. Bullot said that was possible, but there would be drawbacks.

“Every time you do that, you add a bit of additional complications for businesses that are having to deal with it. And more to the point, if you’re not collecting it here, where are you collecting it?”

Bullot said Australia had more exemptions than New Zealand, but had been discussing whether to increase its coverage.

Treasury recently calculated that if nothing else were to change, GST might have to increase to 32 percent to cover the cost of an ageing population.

Bullot said another option would be not to have income tax but to charge a much higher rate of GST.

“Would people accept the doubling of GST?”

He said he could not see a future where GST was not a very significant part of the tax take.

“I think that it will stay that way. I think it is unlikely for it to increase from this rate from a practical political perspective. I think it is much more a case of we just need to keep making sure that it’s fit for purpose.”

He said Inland Revenue should change the rules if GST was not working as intended over time.

“I think Inland Revenue needs to be able to use that power perhaps a little more frequently sometimes rather than us going into sort of long technical debates… Sometimes we should just say what’s best for ‘New Zealand Inc’ and let’s move on.”

He said it was notable the level of GST tax debt had also increased recently and the government would need to continue to take action on it.

“I think it really needs to be a focus, because GST isn’t working if we’re getting information on returns but no cash. GST’s job is to collect large amounts of money in a consistent manner for the government, for the government to do the government’s programmes with the least amount of economic damage to the country in terms of compliance costs, uncertainty…

“Businesses can work around odd rules as long as they can see that they’re going to be there and they’re not going to flip and change.”

Is the tax regressive?

A major criticism of GST is that it is regressive because lower-earning households tend to spend more of their money, and spend more of it on things that attract GST.

Bullot said when the tax was introduced, benefits were increased to help cover the cost. He said the tax might not be as regressive as some people worried.

“When you look at what people in the lower incomes are spending their money on, a lot of it is residential rent, which is one of the big aspects that doesn’t have GST charged on it.

“Whereas if you are going out and you’re lucky enough to be in the financial position to buy a new house, for instance, when you’re buying that new house off the developer and say that was $500,000, you’re paying them $75,000 GST on top of that.”

Financial services and rent were some of the few things exempt from GST.

Could we introduce a tax like this now?

New taxes tend to be politically difficult. Bullot said the environment was different in 1985.

“It was coming in as part of a range of things… the floating of the New Zealand dollar, deregulation, we had a wage price freeze not many years before that, we’d had carless days and the GST coming through was just another one of those things.

“There was some pushback ,but not massive amounts, and there were significant cuts in the top rate of income tax.”

Good sales pitch

Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said it helped that the tax replaced other complicated sales taxes, and happened alongside income tax cuts.

He said income tax was almost 75 percent of the tax take in March 1986, and that had dropped to 69 percent in June this year as the share of GST lifted to 24.4 percent.

The top income tax rate dropped from 66 percent two years later.

“The pre-MMP political environment was such that large changes could be made relatively easily, whereas political policy now is often very much about compromise between the various parties in the governing coalition.

“Interestingly, the yearbook also notes reviews in 1967 and 1982, both of which recommended greater reliance on indirect taxes, with mention also being made of the need to reform existing indirect taxes – so it wasn’t like GST was something that came completely out of the blue.

“I can’t comment on the sales job that Labour did around introducing GST in the 1980s, but it must have been reasonably good, given that the party was re-elected in 1987.

“Perhaps an analogy can be drawn with the current (longstanding) debate about capital gains tax. From an economist’s point of view, a move to tax profits on property more fully is a positive, because it means that person who has lots of money and assets would then be taxed more fully than currently, compared to the low-asset wage-earner who doesn’t have the ability to tap into these tax-free gains.

“It seems to me that the problem is in the sales pitch, which for the last six years has been ‘here’s a new tax’, rather than ‘this tax change will enable us to reduce income tax for the 80 percent of the population who aren’t property investors’.

“But even with its recent announcement, Labour was finding new ways to spend money from the additional tax, rather than just looking to make the tax system fairer.”

Economist Shamubeel Eaqub said he thought it would be possible for a government to do something similar with a tax on capital.

“It will happen with the political calculus of bankrupting our grandchildren forces us to.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

MP for Te Tai Tokerau Mariameno Kapa-Kingi is returning to Parliament for the first time after being temporarily reinstated to Te Pāti Māori.

Kapa-Kingi contested her expulsion in court last week and got her membership back in time for the party’s annual general meeting in Rotorua over the weekend.

She told RNZ she wanted to be included in the Māori Party’s weekly caucus meeting, though she was yet to get an invite.

“It makes Parliamentary sense to me to do that and I’ve prepared myself for that but I would expect that a discussion or a reaching out would happen. We’ll see.”

Regardless of getting an invite to the party’s weekly hui, she said she would be showing up and working this week.

“I’ve already had a couple of meetings in terms of the next two weeks. We know that the House is likely to go into urgency because there’s still quite a bit of work to push through.

“I’ll be there as usual, first thing in the morning … and we’ll set ourselves up in that way. I haven’t heard anything from the party, anything formal yet, but I’ll be at the House and ready if any of that comes through.”

Kapa-Kingi said she had received a lot of respect and love at Te Pāti Māori’s AGM over the weekend.

“There was certainly a lot of photo interest and the number of people, I’m talking from across the hui, not just people who I know, but definitely a number from across each of the electorates who were overtly kind, respectful, loving and supportive. They were all of those things directly.

“It didn’t surprise me that a lot of them were women, wahine Māori and wahine Pākehā, that were overtly expressing you know, that sort of ‘good on you Meno’, that kind of thing.”

Expelled Te Tai Tonga MP Tākuta Ferris wasn’t at the AGM but published an Instagram story at the weekend, saying, “What Te iwi Māori doesn’t need is a political leader driven by UTU’.”

While Kapa-Kingi didn’t have a speaking slot at the hui, she said Dame Naida Glavish spoke on behalf of Tai Tokerau.

“She got really straight and plain in her reo Māori that only Tai Tokerau can take Meno out because it’s Tai Tokerau voters that put her in.”

Kapa-Kingi said Glavish also laid down key messages from a large hui at Kohewhata marae in Kaikohe a few weeks ago.

Te Pāti Māori’s leadership had been invited but did not attend.

“She laid that down very clearly and had the executive hear that. Obviously up to them how they understand it,” Kapa-Kingi said.

Glavish also shared a message from women in Northland about how they thought the Te Tai Tokerau MP had been treated, she said.

“They are absolutely disgusted with the way the president has treated me and the way in which he would address and assault me.

“Their kōrero was you are not suitable to be the president … and that we will persist with our plans for the Tai Tokerau from the voice of people.

“It’s not the executive that runs the people, it’s the people, the voices of the people, that will decide what is best for Tai Tokerau.”

Asked if she thought the executive had understood this message, Kapa-Kingi said it was loud and clear for everyone that was present.

“Naida is very straight. There was nothing grey, no nuance in her kōrero. What they then do with that is yet to be seen.”

Kapa-Kingi said it was too early to say if the party had made any progress at the AGM.

“I haven’t watched or heard [Tamihere’s] discussion after the AGM but there was certainly a lot of contest to the discussion from the front table inside the room.

“There was a lot of contest and questioning and clarification, which is typical actually in an AGM, but there was definitely an edge to this.”

She said she didn’t have any interactions with the party’s president John Tamihere or party co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi over the weekend.

“You need to keep yourself safe, I don’t mean that in a dastardly way, I just mean you need to contain and moderate yourself.

“Naida was very clear, she was very clear with me; Tai Tokerau, I will carry that voice.

“It’s one of the most comforting things when you’ve got a he kahurangi, he rangatira just saying it’s okay, you’ve done your bit, you’ve done the heavy lifting. We’ve already got this decision from court so we’ll take this now.”

Kapa-Kingi said she was looking forward to taking a break over summer and would not change her mind about contesting the Te Tai Tokerau seat next year.

“Not at all. I am as resolute as I was when we first made the decisions to move a particular way and in fact I’m as resolute as I was when Tariana asked me to run.

“Of course there’s ups and downs and life is always present and this situation now, but I’m as resolute as I was then and I’m determined.”

She wanted those in her electorate to take a break over summer too.

“Keep connected to the idea that by Māori, for Māori, and all those things Māori that you value, those are still the things that in my heart our party is about.

“Fundamentally, tikanga is critical, te reo is critical, your connections to your marae and all of those very deeply traditional Māori things are critical.

“So connect, reconnect over Christmas with everybody that you love, care about and want to spend time with and just focus on those things because there’s a lot to come in the next year.”

A substantive hearing into Kapa-Kingi’s future in Te Pāti Māori will be heard in the High Court in Wellington on 2 February 2026.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government will release its long-awaited replacement to the Resource Management Act, which the Prime Minister has described as a “game changer” for New Zealand.

Details of exactly what the replacement will look like will be revealed on Tuesday afternoon, but the government has already signalled the RMA will be replaced by two new pieces of legislation.

Both pieces of legislation will have more of a focus on private property rights.

A Planning Act will be focused on regulating the “use, development, and enjoyment” of land, while the Natural Environment Act will be focused on the use, protection, and enhancement of the natural environment.

On Monday, Christopher Luxon said the RMA was “broken” and was the “root cause” of many of New Zealand’s economic challenges.

“Everyone knows that the RMA is broken,” he said.

“It has held us back for 30 years, and it’s turned us into a country that says no far too often. With our government’s new planning system, there will be less talking and filling in forms, and more building, and more growing.”

Luxon said officials had estimated up to 46 percent of consent and permit applications required under the existing RMA could be removed under the new planning system.

Shortly after the coalition came into government it repealed Labour’s replacement of the RMA, which had only passed into law two months before the election.

The Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act were instead replaced by the old RMA until the coalition could introduce its own replacement.

Despite repealing Labour’s reforms, Luxon said the government had reached out to Labour to seek bipartisanship on its own reforms.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he had a few “informal conversations” with RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop about the legislation.

“I don’t think that this merry-go-round of constant repeal and replace, repeal and replace, repeal and replace, is sustainable,” Hipkins said.

“So if we can find ways to support large parts of what the government are doing, we will do that. If there are areas where we disagree, we’ll be clear on what those areas are. But they won’t necessarily involve a whole other cycle of repeal and replace.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Prime Minister says there is no need for a further inquiry into the Jevon McSkimming scandal, claiming the government’s implementation of an Inspector General is the strongest response.

On Sunday, former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told TVNZ’s Q+A that ministers knew more than they had admitted about McSkimming.

Coster claimed he had briefed former Police Minister Chris Hipkins and current Police Minister Mark Mitchell about the allegations before both said they were aware.

Both Hipkins and Mitchell have denied Coster’s claims.

Mitchell told Morning Report it was “absolute total nonsense,” and that he did not know anything about the allegations before 6 November 2024.

Christopher Luxon has expressed confidence in Mitchell and his timeline of events.

“You can go through the process story of who said what, when, and where, but from my point of view the matter’s settled. Mark’s addressed the issues, I’m very comfortable with that. I think he’s doing an exceptionally good job,” Luxon said.

A further inquiry – such as a Royal Commission – was not needed, Luxon said, as the government’s focus was on responding to the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report’s findings and making sure it did not happen again.

“No, what we need to do is jump to the solution that any inquiry would generate, which is to give us the strongest statutory oversight mechanism possible, which is that of an Inspector General of Police,” Luxon said.

Acknowledging Hipkins had also come out to deny Coster’s allegations, Luxon said Hipkins and Mitchell had taken the same approach.

“That’s not their recollection of events at all. And I think we have to trust them with that.”

Hipkins said he had spent time over the weekend “reflecting” on conversations he had with Coster while he was Police Minister, and could not recall any where it came up.

Coster’s claim that he told Hipkins in the back of a car while the two were travelling around the South Island “simply never happened,” Hipkins said.

“Certainly not on the road trip that we did across the country, nor at any other time. So I don’t know what he’s referring to there, but he clearly never provided me with any briefing of the allegations surrounding Jevon McSkimming.”

An informal conversation in the back of a car would have been insufficient anyway, as there was an obligation from the Police Commissioner to disclose what he knew during the formal appointment process.

“One of the observations that I would have from this is that there did appear to be a culture within the Police of downplaying the significance of any of these allegations,” Hipkins said.

Whether there was a need for a further inquiry was up to the government, Hipkins said, but he would support any decision they took in that regard.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said it was important system failures were fixed, and for the harm of victims and survivors to be centred.

“I’m hearing a lot of them protecting themselves. I suppose that’s natural, but I would really like to hear any voices involved, especially men in power, to really direct their voices back to fixing the system and to supporting victim survivors.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi wanted an investigation separate from the IPCA, now that allegations were coming out after its release.

“If there are facts coming outside of the IPCA, then obviously the IPCA report hasn’t done its thorough job. There should be another external process, like a Royal Commission, into that particular issue, to ensure that we’re getting all the facts, also taking into consideration the IPCA report but also those other allegations that are coming in afterwards so we’ve got a full picture.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Prime Minister is set to face questions as he lays out his government’s plans for the last weeks of the political year.

Christopher Luxon is speaking to media after a regular meeting of Cabinet ministers. You can watch the press conference live at the top of this page from bout 4pm.

Parliament will sit for the last time this year on December 18.

It comes as former Labour Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer criticises the government for passing too many laws under urgency.

Meanwhile, Luxon has been defending Police Minister Mark Mitchell, who has been facing questions about what he knew about the investigation into former top cop Jevon McSkimming, after claims by former Commissioner Andrew Coster.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A former Labour Prime Minister says Parliament is passing too many laws without proper scrutiny.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer told Nine to Noon the government was increasingly pushing through legislation under urgency, which allowed it to skip stages such as public consultation and select committees.

But Leader of the House Chris Bishop said just nine Bills have been passed in that way, and there were good reasons for all of them.

Palmer said the normal checks and balances were stripped out when laws were made at pace.

“Urgency has become the default mechanism for dealing with Parliamentary legislation and the standing orders are not followed and you also have extended sittings – and both of those mean the Government’s agenda is completely at the will of the Government,” he said.

Palmer said the Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024 – and its amendment – was a classic example of a trend that “ministers know best” and was “ministerial dictatorship”.

“It was criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment then, Simon Upton, the amendment bill puts the process that was enacted in 2024 on steroids.

“It gets faster and faster. It will be a fast-track to environmental degradation, [more] than it already is.”

Bishop was approached for further comment.

The legislation, which passed under urgency at the end of last year, is back before Parliament with an amendment that the government intended to push through by the end of 2025.

It said the amendment to the Act would increase competition in the supermarket sector.

Despite being open for just over 10 days, it received 2158 submissions, with about 95 percent opposed.

Palmer said legislative checks and balances – which he already considered lacking – were further reduced when legislation was made at pace.

“What is the hurry? Legislation is law-making. You want to get it right. You have to analyse it, you have to do proper research, you don’t bang it through because a minister has an idea.

“It needs to be properly drafted by Parliamentary council. We have had a degradation of our legislative system in New Zealand in recent years.”

Bishop said the government had a big legislative agenda and limited hours in ordinary house time to get it done.

Regarding the use of urgency, he said: “I am reluctant to use urgency to avoid select committees outside of the standard Budget urgency process, and it is only done so when there are good reasons.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Parliament’s final weeks of the year began with Scrutiny Week, and while bellicose exchanges dominated headlines, much examination took place in relatively calmer hearings.

Coverage of Parliament’s biannual scrutiny weeks is often dominated by the more theatrical moments of verbal sparring between ministers and opposition MPs.

But in the hearings where ministers are absent, leaving only ministry officials and committee MPs present, the lack of a minister-vs-opposition dynamic allows for a more inquisitive and constructive dialogue.

One such example last week was the annual review hearing of the Ministry of Justice, which carried a noticeably calmer, more focused tone.

There is considerable crossover between membership of the Justice Committee and the MPs who you might call ‘practitioners of the committee of the whole House stage’; those their parties often rely on to dissect the finer details of legislation. Among them is Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan, who this week dissected annual report numbers with justice officials and went deep into the data on Māori representation in the justice system. The exchange between Xu-Nan and officials was hardly dramatic, but it demonstrated the scrutiny process unfolding in real time.

With less temptation for political tit-for-tat MPs have more room for MPs to really probe the data. Labour MP Duncan Webb used his time to probe the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime and the financial numbers coming from its work. It was a lengthy exchange that, appropriately for a former senior law practitioner, felt like a gentle but revealing courtroom cross-examination.

“Is there any concern around the costs that have been incurred by members of that group?” Webb asked Secretary for Justice Andrew Kibblewhite.

“The group is doing its work. They’re busy and they’re producing quite a lot of advice for ministers. As part of that they’re running quite a lot of engagements,” Kibblewhite replied.

Webb: “What’s the audit check when people put claims in for days worked that the days were worked?”

Kibblewhite: “We would take a member’s claim for days worked on face value.”

Webb: “It’s just, I mean, in terms of the chair, he claimed for 154 days between February and July 25, meaning he worked five days a week in one or two days every weekend and took none of the six public holidays in that period. Does that raise any concern?”

Kibblewhite: “Look, I think this is a pretty passionate undertaking for the chair, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he did work very long days and hours on it.”

This tangent of inquiry continued for some time, with Webb interrogating the costs incurred by both the chair and the advisory group, ranging from salaries to events, including a $3,000 lunch that Justice officials could offer little detail about.

The full exchange took a number of minutes and while fascinating and instructive was not brimming with classic newsy soundbytes. It is likely that scrutiny done well seldom is.

Of course governing-party MPs have the opportunity to ask questions too. Much like in Question Time, some are patsy questions, but in a room without ministers they can take on a different tone. Less jumping in the ring with your colleague, and more rhetorical prompts (but always answered). Questions are aimed at countering Opposition narratives or drawing out positives that officials have not raised.

Following Webb’s probing, National MP Carl Bates offered a gentle counterweight by drawing attention to positive feedback he had received from one of his constituents in Whanganui.

“I got an email the other day from one retailer on the Quay,” Bates said. “I’m interested if the sentiment she shared with me is similar to the sentiment you’re hearing from these meetings across the country. She said, ‘I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised by the amount of work happening behind the scenes to support victims of retail crime, as well as the stronger measures being put in place to hold offenders accountable. It’s encouraging to see that meaningful changes are underway and that positive progress is being made.’

In his reply, Kibblewhite said that they had no detailed surveys, so was cautious not to agree or disagree, but said that the group had been productive and had produced much advice for the Minister.

While the quotable moments extracted for news coverage from Scrutiny Week are often the hostile ones; these more audibly tedious, prescriptive hearings likely tell us far more about how our public entities performed over the past year.

To listen to The House’s coverage from scrutiny week, click the link near the top of the page.

*RNZ’s The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament’s Office of the Clerk.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police Minister Mark Mitchell says the former Police Commissioner’s claims he knew about allegations being made about Jevon McSkimming “absolute total nonsense”.

Mitchell said he was first informed of concerns regarding former Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming on November 6, 2024.

Last month Mitchell said 36 emails containing allegations about McSkimming were sent to his office but he never saw them.

A protocol in place meant police staff in Mitchell’s office forwarded those emails directly to Police Commissioner Andrew Coster’s office.

In an interview with TVNZ’s Q+A on Sunday, Coster said there were ministers who knew more than they admitted, including the then Minister of Police Chris Hipkins and Mitchell.

He disputed Mitchell was not aware of the allegations before November last year, and claimed it had been discussed “informally” between the two throughout 2024.

Mitchell told Morning Report, he did not know anything about the allegations before November 6, 2024, and he would’ve taken action sooner if he did.

“Had Mr Coster brought forward to me the fact that Jevon McSkimming had entered into an affair that involved a big age gap, a big power imbalance, that involved creating a job for this person in the police and then her butting up against the power of the state I would have done what I did on the sixth of November.

“[It’s] absolute complete nonsense.”

Mitchell said as McSkimming was the Deputy Commissioner at the time it would not be something he would have a “causal conversation” with Coster about.

“It’s a very serious matter. I take really seriously my job about protecting people…”

More to come…

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Te Pāti Māori’s leadership is adamant the annual general meeting was a “magnificent day for” the movement, despite issues around the decision to expel an MP and the party presidency remaining unresolved.

The meeting showed the party was “anything but a party in disarray” says Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere as he batted away suggestions he should stand down, with one person in attendance calling for everyone to “eat a humble kumara.”

During the pōwhiri, the party leadership was asked by Ngira Simmonds whether they were the right people to unify the party.

Another member asked Tamihere during the AGM whether he would be willing to step down if it was for the good of the party.

In attendance were Māori leaders such as Dame Naida Glavish and Taame Iti. Expelled MP Tākuta Ferris was not at the meeting.

Speaking to reporters after the AGM, which ran much later than expected after general business was opened up after all, Tamihere said he’d stand down if there was a “good reason” to stand down.

“If it’s a reason that a few people don’t like me, that doesn’t cut the mustard.

“You got to have reasons about policy, about program, about politics, not personality. Just because you don’t like somebody doesn’t mean to say you should guillotine them.”

The last minute reinstatement of Mariameno Kapa-Kingi as a member to the party, following her expulsion alongside former member Tākuta Ferris, meant remits and resolutions in relation to the court ruling were unable to be discussed at the AGM.

That included the decisions to expel two MPs, as well as the party presidency. Those issues will be addressed in substantive hearings in February, on the eve of Waitangi Day celebrations.

In terms of welcoming Kapa-Kingi back to the party, Tamihere said it was an issue of trust, which had been “so badly broken” that it was a difficult issue in his mind.

“It might not be in others.”

Newest Te Pāti Māori MP Oriini Kaipara greeted Kapa-Kingi warmly on the day and both stood to sing in support of Simmonds after he spoke.

But Tamihere maintained the party didn’t want to welcome Kapa-Kingi back into the fold.

Co-leader Rawiri Waititi wouldn’t be drawn on whether it was nice to see Kapa-Kingi on the day, “it was nice to see everybody”.

He said the AGM was about the “people,” and the people “turned out today”, and we’re “really pleased” with the outcome.

Ngarewa-Packer added they thrive in face-to-face spaces.

“We had up to nine hours with our people. Some of the busiest people in their marae turned up to make sure their movement heard them,” Ngarewa-Packer said.

Tamihere said the party didn’t file the proceedings, but as someone who was experienced around litigation, “we just go with the system.”

Instead, the AGM reset the “confidence” of the majority of the electorates he said.

“Because they’re the ones that turned up in big numbers, and they felt that they were being adversely impacted by not the leadership, but by the conduct of others.”

In response to Simmonds’ criticism, co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said Simmonds had come up to her and Waititi after the meeting and told them he had 100 percent confidence in their leadership.

“That’s a strong position, and I think that’s the significance of today, is actually being able to eyeball each other and ask the hard questions.”

A resolution was passed during the meeting in support of the co-leaders.

Kapa-Kingi told RNZ it had been a great day to “show face” as the Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau “who never left”.

She said her electorate reaffirmed the resolutions settled upon by people in Te Tai Tokerau at their Kohewhata hui “some weeks ago.”

But there was a sense of frustation by some as they made their way out of the hui that it had been a waste of time, given key issues couldn’t be discussed.

Hemi Piripi from Te Tai Tokerau told RNZ he believed there was still a lot of division.

“There’s a lot of ‘he said, she said thing’.

“Everyone just needs to eat a humble kumara.”

He said there was a generation who were watching the “waka go down” and he wanted to float the waka and relash it so Māori could come together.

He wanted the president to step down, for the executive to be looked at and for a rotation in leadership roles to be considered.

“He does need to go for the waka to start rising again.”

The AGM was closed to media, but over a number of hours there was intense discussion, with cheers and boos heard at various times and many members leaving as the day went on.

Te Tai Tonga also raised the expulsion of Tākuta Ferris. The electorate had invited the leadership to meet this coming weekend, but Tamihere said he was unavailable due to the family memorial for his son who had passed.

During the AGM, Tamihere gave a speech which Waatea news obtained a copy of.

In it he said “no MP is above the Party. No MP is below the Party.”

“Without discipline – we descend into anarchy. With discipline – we ascend into power,” he said.

Tamihere said he wasn’t concerned at how this would impact the party at the next election, and dismissed suggestions not reinstating the expelled MPs would risk losing support for the party.

There was “time on our side” to repair something based on feelings and personality as opposed to good process, policy and programming.

“It’ll be definitely sorted out before the election.”

Furthermore, Ngarewa-Packer spoke of those who turned up to “make sure their movement heard them, their movement saw them.”

“Their movement felt their absolute unity in going forward and taking this government out.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand