Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

Labour has an eight-point lead over National in the latest The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll, but neither the coalition nor the opposition parties have the numbers to govern.

Labour has 38 percent support in the poll, up four points since the last survey in October, compared to National on 30 percent, down one point.

National’s coalition partners ACT and New Zealand First are on 8 and 9 percent respectively.

The Greens are registering 8 percent – down one – with Te Pāti Māori on two percent – also down one.

That result would give the coalition parties just 59 seats between them – not enough to hold onto government.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins is still the preferred prime minister on 45 percent, while Christopher Luxon is at 39 percent, although Luxon has gained 3 points since the last The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll in October.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Economists say the government is stuck between a rock and a hard place off the back of Treasury’s latest economic forecasts.

Tuesday’s Half-Year Fiscal and Economic Update (HYEFU) saw a budget surplus stretch further out of reach, to 2029/2030.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has promised to get the books back to black a year earlier while continuing to run “a tight ship”.

“We have taken a deliberate, medium term approach to fiscal consolidation that minimises the impact on individuals and on public service delivery, but also, crucially, shows a credible path to surplus and debt reducing as a proportion of the economy.”

Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen said no matter what way it was cut, politicians faced tough calls both now and in the future.

“At the moment, there’s a really limited amount of additional new spending to afford all of the increasing costs of providing government services. Health becomes more expensive, education becomes more expensive.

“The government doesn’t have a lot of options here, and that means that over time, you’re still seeing the government books being in deficit all the way up to around 2030 or so.

“The government wants to see that return earlier but at the moment the fiscals aren’t stacking up and the government will still spend more than it’s earning for a considerable period of time.”

Olsen said the coalition would have to to pursue deeper cuts if it wanted to have a shot at reaching surplus before Treasury’s forecast period.

“The challenge for the government is that they’ve got a lot of commitments that they’ve made to a lot of different areas.

“There’s a lot of baked-in spending from previous decisions by previous governments, and the current government, that have to be paid for.

“At the moment it means that they’ve got a lot that needs to be done, not a lot of fiscal room to move, which realistically means for the Finance Minister, she has to say no a heck of a lot more than she can ever say yes.”

Independent economist Cameron Bagrie said conversation about the sustainability of superannuation could not be avoided forever.

“If you look at Treasury’s statement on the long term fiscal position, we face some very tough, intense trade-offs going forward because on current policy projections government debt is going to go to 180 percent of GDP in 30 to 40 years as New Zealand superannuation and health expenditure basically explode, courtesy of demographics.

“So tweaking New Zealand KiwiSaver around the edges is not going to make a real big difference here.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to put some pretty tough decisions on the table here going forward, whether we’re going to return to what’s called sustainable fiscal position in the next four to five years, or in the next 10 to 20 years. There’s no easy choices here.”

It all comes as the Taxpayers’ Union runs a targeted campaign to pressure Willis to slash spending.

Willis challenged its chair Ruth Richardson to a public debate last week, saying she would go toe-to-toe with her predecessor “anytime, anywhere”.

It’s a quote that’s come back to bite the Minister, given the Taxpayers Union offered to meet on Newstalk ZB on Thursday.

The offer had not been accepted, though there were still two days to go until the week was out.

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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 debate between Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Taxpayers Union chair Ruth Richardson seems unlikely to go ahead, with Richardson saying she won’t be part of a “circus or sideshow”.

Willis last week challenged Richardson – the former National Party finance minister who championed the so-called “Mother of all Budgets” – to a debate “any time, anywhere”.

Initially laughing off the request, Richardson agreed – but the pair have been unable to settle on a time, a location or a host.

Willis directly criticised the Taxpayers Union’s rhetoric at the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update opening of the books on Wednesday, coming armed with a copy of the group’s proposed solutions which she said would deliver “human misery”.

She said she was still up for the debate and would be available Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, and did not care who the moderator was.

However, in a statement later in the afternoon, Richardson said instead of a good-faith roundtable discussion in a Wellington Studio, Willis had pushed for an event at Parliament chaired by Winston Peters, which would be “a circus”.

“In the face of the level of fiscal failure revealed today, it is clear why she wanted such a distraction,” Richardson said. “The outlook delivered today is the worst in 30 years. It gets lost in the billions, but no one was expecting the books to be anywhere near this bad.

“The debate was supposed to be about whether there is a credible pathway back to surplus; today’s numbers show there clearly isn’t one. Over the last two years, Minister Willis has pushed back surplus another three years. If there is a so-called ‘path to surplus’, Willis is walking the wrong way.”

She appeared to pull out of the debate entirely, saying: “I will not be party to a circus or a sideshow designed to distract from fiscal failure.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Both Labour and the Taxpayers’ Union have hit back at criticism levelled at them by Finance Minister Nicola Willis, saying she must take responsibility for the state of the books.

Treasury’s Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) – published on Tuesday – showed a surplus was not forecast until 2029/30, although Willis said the government would still target 2028/29.

The expected deficit for 2025/26 was projected to be $13.9 billion, $1.8b worse than forecast in May. A slower economy, lower tax take, higher debt costs were cited as reasons for the revisions.

In her accompanying Budget Policy Statement, Willis mounted a defence of her “deliberate, medium-term” strategy, and attacked her opponents on both the left and the right.

She acknowledged there were calls for her to take a harder approach – and cut spending faster – and those who wanted a softer approach.

But Willis said going harder could hurt lower income families and depress demand in the economy, while going softer was “reckless and irresponsible”.

She used Labour’s opposition to the government’s savings measures to create a hypothetical Labour Budget, with an increase to the deficit and the debt.

Using Treasury’s analysis of the savings the government had delivered over its first two Budgets, Willis’ office calculated that if government spending in 2024 and 2025 had not been offset by its savings programme, then the OBEGALx deficit would be $25b, and net core Crown debt would be 59 percent of GDP over the forecast period.

“We have the receipts, and unfortunately for Labour, having opposed every saving that we have delivered, they cannot take a position of responsible fiscal management,” Willis said.

But Labour leader Chris Hipkins questioned whether Willis had factored in the government’s tax cuts to those forecasts, an initiative Labour would not have gone ahead with.

“We certainly wouldn’t have delivered the tax cuts that they delivered at the last election, which have now created the structural deficit that Nicola Willis is dealing to.”

Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said the government and Willis had made the wrong decisions.

“She’s blamed Labour. She’s blamed Fonterra. She’s blamed Ruth Richardson. She’s blamed the unions. She needs to have a good, hard look at these books and reflect on the choices that she’s made.”

The Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said the government had created a “doom-loop” for itself.

“They have underfunded our public services and infrastructure, they have completely gutted the circumstances necessary for creation of jobs and a productive economy, which in turn has meant they have lowered their tax revenue,” she said.

“All of this has meant that we are circling the drain as a country, and these are active government decisions. Different decisions can be made.”

At her Tuesday media conference, Willis brandished a policy document from the Taxpayers’ Union, which said abolishing Working for Families tax credits would save $2.98b in 2025/26, or $14.95b over the forecast period.

Willis said such a policy would take money away from 330,000 families overnight, with beneficiaries and low-income working families to bear the biggest brunt.

“It would create a level of human misery that I, for one, am not prepared to tolerate.”

The Taxpayers’ Union head of policy and legislative affairs James Ross told RNZ not all of the suggestions in the document had to happen, but the longer it took the government to make choices, the harder it would be.

“The real story is that for the third time in just two years, the minister has seen the surplus slip back and back and back,” he said.

In the HYEFU, the cost of superannuation payments was projected to increase from $24.8b in 2025/26 to $30.9b in 2029/30 (with the number of New Zealanders receiving Super tipped to cross the one million line in 2027/28).

Willis, who temporarily put on her National party finance spokesperson hat, said “all sensible parties” should take a position on superannuation into the campaign.

A policy to raise the KiwiSaver contribution rate, announced last month, was National’s “opening shot,” Willis said, in that the party sees KiwiSaver playing a greater role in people’s retirements.

ACT leader David Seymour agreed superannuation needed to be looked at.

“There is an obvious change that just about every country we compare ourselves with is making, and that is now inevitable in New Zealand. The question is are we going to make that change slowly and gradually in our own time, or have it foisted on us by some financial crisis in the future?”

Edmonds said Labour was not prepared to change the superannuation settings “at this point,” while New Zealand First leader Winston Peters asked what had changed to make people concerned.

“When it’s only 5.2 to 5.3 percent of our GDP, half the imposition that it is in other economies, how can this be the issue?”

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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 Minister for Transport can’t say how many people are expected to lose their jobs as the government plans to merge multiple ministries with around 1300 staff in total.

Chris Bishop said the agencies involved are “very high-performing” but he acknowledged – while the intention is for “better government” rather than cost reduction – there will be “efficiencies on the way through”.

He said those efficiencies will be a decision for the new chief executive. Bishop planned to visit the agencies along with other ministers involved and speak directly to the staff affected over the coming days.

The government announced a mega ministry which will take on the work of housing, transport, and local government functions.

The new Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT) will bring together the ministries of environment, transport, housing and urban development and the local government functions of Internal Affairs.

Bishop said he currently had the “privilege” of being the minister for many of those agencies and they often provide different advice across different issues.

“We want coherent, integrated advice across some of the great challenges facing New Zealand, and we think this will help make a difference.”

The announcement was made to provide “clarity and certainty” to the public and the people who work in those agencies it was happening, given it had been talked about publicly for three or four months now, Bishop said.

He said careful thought was given to the timing of the announcement. With Christmas approaching, he said the alternative was to make the decision now and announce it in February next year. He pointed out that sort of delay would be legitimately criticised.

Bishop confirmed there’d been a range of scenarios considered as part of the advice received in relation to job losses, but that work couldn’t start until certainty was provided around the merge.

“That’s all for another day.

“It’s really important that the new CE gets in place, establishes a structure, works out exactly the business units and how it’s going to operate.”

Bishop said it wasn’t a decision they’d made “lightly”, but that it was the right one.

In the coming days, Bishop said he and other ministers would personally visit staff affected at all of the agencies. His message to them would be the same message to the public: “they are very high performing.

“They’re a high-performing agency full of high quality New Zealanders who are working for the public interest.”

He pointed to the work delivered by the Ministry for the Environment such as the Fast-track legislation, amendments to the existing RMA and new bills that would replace it.

“My message to them is they will be more effective once you bring together climate adaptation with local government and with transport and with housing, because climate adaptation spans all of those issues, and at the moment, it’s completely disconnected and they’re not working together as a team.”

Whether there would be a reduction in Cabinet roles, due to a consolidation of portfolios, Bishop said that was up to the prime minister.

Around $30 million of “initial up front investment” was required to bring the agencies together, but indicated there would be more efficiencies due to the merge after a couple of years.

Opposition’s response

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said “another expensive merger” of government departments wouldn’t be his priority while all the economic indicators are going backwards and things are getting worse for New Zealanders.

“The merger of MBIE didn’t deliver the benefits that the government then claimed it was going to deliver. This one’s not going to be any different.

“What it will do is cost taxpayers a lot of money in rebranding and reorganisation at a time when we should be focused on other issues.”

The Greens co-leader Marama Davidson said she’ll be keeping a close eye on whether this would result in more cuts to public services.

“We’d like to see if this is going to ensure that communities continue to receive the public services that they deserve, that they’re entitled to.”

She wanted to understand better what the government was trying to achieve with the merger.

“Certainly, if it’s about making sure that our communities are receiving the support they need – that could be a really good thing.

“I also want to understand if this is about more cuts to government services.”

Davidson said this government was “trampling over the top” of local decision-making and local government decision-making, and suggested a need to better understand whether the government was “authentic” about supporting local decision-making and ensuring communities get the services they deserve.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Finance Minister Nicola Willis is doubling down on her “disciplined” plan for returning the books to surplus – despite new forecasts delaying it by yet another year.

And she took aim at those advocating for sharper spending cuts, such as the Taxpayers’ Union, warning that that prescription would deliver “human misery”.

“We are sticking to our strategy,” Willis said. “Not over-reacting to movements in the forecasts.”

Treasury’s half-year update, published on Tuesday, predicted a return to surplus in 2029/30 – a year later than its forecasts in May. That’s using the coalition’s new OBEGALx calculation which excludes ACC.

“I wouldn’t get too wound up about small changes,” Willis told reporters. She said she would continue to aim for a surplus by 2028/29.

“We are on target to return the books to surplus faster than Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and many other advanced economies, while maintaining a prudent debt position.”

In her budget policy statement, released alongside Treasury’s update, Willis confirmed she would stick to her previously signalled operating allowance of $2.4 billion.

Existing pre-commitments meant that left just $1b a year on average for spending on new initiatives in next year’s Budget.

“Most agencies and ministers will need to plan to manage service pressures and other commitments with little or no additional funding,” Willis said.

Willis noted the downward revisions to forecasts were “relatively modest” but acknowledged they followed a similar trend over the past two years due to factors “outside the government’s direct control”.

The Taxpayers’ Union last week launched a campaign calling for Willis to cut public spending and debt more aggressively, accusing her of simply continuing the previous Labour government’s “sugar-rush economics”.

It prompted Willis to throw down the gauntlet, challenging its chair Ruth Richardson – a former finance minister – to debate her “anytime, anywhere” on the government’s finances.

The two have since been locked in negotiations over the conditions for the debate, including time, location and moderator.

Speaking on Tuesday, Willis said she had no update on that showdown but was still up for the debate.

“The offer is there. Thursday afternoon, I’m available. Friday morning, I’m available. I don’t really care who the moderator is. If they want to turn up, I’m ready.”

Willis explicitly nodded to the “shorter, sharper fiscal consolidation” being advocated by the Taxpayers’ Union.

She said while that would speed up the return to surplus, it could also hurt frontline public services and depress already-weak demand in a recovering economy.

Willis pointed out that the Taxpayers’ Union proposed scrapping all Working for Families tax credits, reducing recipients’ average weekly incomes by about $180.

She said beneficiaries and low-income families would bear the brunt of that change, delivering “a level of human misery” that she was not prepared to tolerate.

Willis said, on the other hand, Labour’s approach to spending was “reckless” and would further delay a return to surplus.

She said the government had delivered about $11b a year in savings during its term.

“Without this disciplined approach, this year’s deficit would be $25 billion and debt would be on track to blow out to 59 percent of GDP,” she said.

Willis promised to release more details to prove that: “We have the receipts.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

ACT leader David Seymour is promising to reignite the Treaty principles debate next year, saying he’ll never move on from his vision for equality in New Zealand.

Seymour – who’s deputy prime minister – made the comments in a sit-down interview with RNZ, reflecting on the past year and looking ahead to the 2026 election campaign.

The Treaty Principles Bill, championed by ACT, was voted down at its second reading in April, but not before provoking massive public outcry and the largest hīkoi to ever reach Parliament’s grounds.

The issue had largely shifted from public focus since then, but Seymour said he remained committed to the idea and “quite confident” in its long-term prospects.

“Our friends abandoned us and did not support us for the vote in Parliament,” he said. “But… we’ve planted the seeds of a movement of equal rights for this country that won’t go away anytime soon.

“I’ll never move on from the idea that we are all equal. Our universal humanity trumps any superficial differences in relation to race or culture… nobody can make those simple facts go away.”

The proposed law would have scrapped the existing understanding of the Treaty’s principles and replaced them with three new principles: that the government has the right to govern, that everyone has equal rights before the law, and that the only exception to that is where it’s set out in Treaty settlements.

ACT secured the legislation during coalition negotiations with National but did not receive any guarantees beyond its first reading.

National voted the bill down at second reading, calling it “too simplistic”, and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon ruled out entertaining another iteration as part of a future coalition.

Despite that, Seymour said he had not given up on the debate. He said ACT would campaign on the issue again but was still developing the exact shape of the policy.

“We will be campaigning on the idea that New Zealanders, whatever wave of settlers you may be part of, the first being Māori, or any later ones, you nonetheless are human beings with hopes and dreams and equal rights in this country.

“The mechanism and the vehicle for that, well… we’re not going to burn all our powder in the first few months.”

Indeed, ACT looked likely to hold back more of its policy offerings until later in election year, with Seymour admitting the party “peaked too early” in the 2023 campaign: “We were pooped.”

The Treaty principles debate resulted in some tense exchanges between the coalition parties, a dynamic which has played out again more recently over Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Act.

Despite voting for the legislation last month, NZ First leader Winston Peters swiftly vowed to repeal it next term. The National Party had also left the door open to rolling it back.

Initially, Seymour fired up, suggesting Peters was gearing up to support a Labour coalition.

But Seymour was now playing the dispute down, advising RNZ not to over-egg the parties’ differences.

Asked whether his partners had acted in good faith, he said: “I’m not getting into characterising other people or their faithfulness. My view is that this government has signed up to do it, and we would expect it to continue.”

Other internal differences this term included over firearms reform, with ACT twice invoking the ‘agree to disgree’ clause. The eventual Arms Act rewrite also fell short of what the ACT party had hoped for.

But Seymour said the outcome was still an ACT Party victory and would not have happened at all without its advocacy.

Asked whether he expected more internal feuding in election year, Seymour said ACT would remain “very collegial” with its number one focus on keeping the opposition parties out of power.

He noted the government had passed more legislation in the first two years than any other MMP-era parliament despite claims the coalition parties were “always warring and dysfunctional” .

“And to the extent that there has been disagreement, and some of it’s been public, I say, so what?” Seymour said.

“New Zealand needs to get better at having disagreement but still being able to work together. The alternative is cancel culture.”

Seymour acknowledged 2025 had been a “tough time for everybody” and said it was “no secret” the ACT party wanted more aggressive cuts to spending.

But he said he had been “really thrilled” with policy progress, arguing years of ACT campaigning had shaped major reforms across regulation, resource management and earthquake building standards.

Seymour said he had “every intention” of staying on as party leader up to the election and to then serve out another term.

“I still think that I’m getting better at it… I got into Cabinet, became the deputy prime minister… we’ve absorbed that pressure and we’re ready to go again.

“So long as I’m still growing, I’m still going.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is holding his post-Cabinet press conference, as Australia reels from the terrorist attack on Sydney.

Earlier on Monday, Luxon said he had contacted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to offer support and condolences after 16 people died – including a shooter – when a father and son opened fire at a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach

“These were shocking and appalling images we saw last night; I was sickened as I watched it. Our thoughts go straight to the people who have lost their lives or their loved ones, or been injured. But also our thoughts go to the Jewish community in Australia, but also here and around the world.

“There is no indication of any New Zealanders caught up in the attack. Obviously, many of us know that area very well and there’s a lot of Kiwis in that area.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it is not aware of any New Zealanders involved in the fatal shooting.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is holding his post-Cabinet press conference, as Australia reels from the terrorist attack on Sydney.

Earlier on Monday, Luxon said he had contacted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to offer support and condolences after 16 people died – including a shooter – when a father and son opened fire at a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach

“These were shocking and appalling images we saw last night; I was sickened as I watched it. Our thoughts go straight to the people who have lost their lives or their loved ones, or been injured. But also our thoughts go to the Jewish community in Australia, but also here and around the world.

“There is no indication of any New Zealanders caught up in the attack. Obviously, many of us know that area very well and there’s a lot of Kiwis in that area.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it is not aware of any New Zealanders involved in the fatal shooting.

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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 Defence Force is brainstorming with local and overseas companies on how to improve intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the oceans around New Zealand.

Its capability plans calls for spending $50- to $100 million over four years on long-range aerial drones.

But the NZDF in a new tender document said drones were just an example and it was open to any solutions for monitoring the South-West Pacific and Southern Ocean.

“The Persistent Surveillance (Air) (PS(A)) project aims to improve the NZDF’s ability to collect high fidelity ISR data, for longer durations, against a range of targets,” it said.

It is holding three workshops in January to hear back from industry, timed to get American, European and Australian involvement too.

“The workshops are designed to be brainstorming sessions that will identify innovative and viable opportunities.”

Initially, any solution might be owned and operated commercially but in future phases Defence could take over ownership, it said.

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