Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Minister for Disability Issues is seeking advice on the Supreme Court’s decision that parents who care full-time for their disabled children are employees of the government and should received the same benefits and protections.

Louise Upston asked the Disability Support Sevices, a government unit that was responsible for supporting disabled people and their whānau, to consider the ruling “carefully”.

The decision was released on Tuesday, in favour of recognising both Christine Fleming and Peter Humphreys, who care full-time for their disabled son and daughter, as ministry employees.

For carers not to be recognised as employees meant they weren’t entitled to things like holiday pay and protection against unfair treatment – and during the April hearing, lawyers said the issue could potentially affect thousands of family carers.

Upston said existing care arrangements would continue while the investigation by Disability Support Services took place.

She said the government had already announced changes that would give more consideration to the needs of family, whānau and carers.

Disability advocate Jane Carrigan, said the decision had huge implications for at least 10,000 family carers.

She said the decision could not be ignored.

“These issues have really been before the courts for the last two-plus decades. But this is the first time we’ve ended up in the Supreme Court, so we’ve finally got a decision the government aren’t going to be able to ignore.”

Humphreys, who cared for his 37-year-old daughter Sian, told Morning Report, he was “really happy” with the decision and it had been a long track through the courts.

“Hopefully its come to an end this time.”

He said the case began for him when his family moved into a house and needed a bathroom modification for Sian’s health and safety.

“When I applied to get some funding to assist with that I was told no, I had to be means tested. I asked the question, what other employee is means tested to alter a bathroom for their employer?”

He said his case had been running through the courts in parallel with Fleming, so it was ideal that judges were able to hear both cases and see the different dimensions between each case.

“My wife Maria and I have been together 43 years, we have two of us doing it [caring], but often it’s one-person doing it. Often the mum is left at home looking after a person.

“You just get on with life because you’ve got no choice really.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Former Finance Minster Ruth Richardson has agreed to a challenge from the current finance minister to debate her.

On Tuesday morning, Nicola Willis challenged Richardson, who was Finance Minister from 1990 to 1993, to a debate.

The challenge, Willis said, was because the Taxpayers’ Union was preparing to launch a pressure campaign against her.

Richardson is chair of the organisation.

“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,” Willis said.

“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.”

Richardson had earlier laughed when RNZ asked her if she would debate Willis, and made no apologies for the pressure campaign.

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

On Tuesday afternoon, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Tory Relf said Richardson was more than happy to debate the government’s debt, levels of public spending, balancing the books, and growth.

“The government promised to reduce public spending. It’s now higher than when Grant Robertson left office,” Relf said.

“The government promised to tackle Labour’s 30 percent increase in bureaucrats. They’ve managed to reduce the size of the core public service by not even one percent.”

Relf said all National Party finance ministers since Robert Muldoon have had to tackle structural deficits inherited from Labour, and Willis’ challenge was no different from Richardson’s or Sir Bill English’s.

“The government promised to get the books back into surplus. Unless you count a newly invented OBEGALx measure, the government’s fiscal pathway never gets New Zealand back into surplus,” Relf said.

“The government promised ‘growth, growth, growth’. GDP per capita is lower than when Grant Robertson was in office.

“The government promised to reduce borrowing. Borrowing is still near Grant Robertson-era levels.”

The Taxpayers’ Union confirmed Richardson was ready to debate the country’s fiscal position after the release of the Half-Year Economic and Fiscal Update next Tuesday.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Parliament has been briefly interrupted following a protest from the public gallery, calling on the government to sanction Israel.

Question Time was just beginning as the call “free Palestine” rang out from above the chamber.

“For two years this government has refused to take its obligations to the genocide convention.”

Around 10 people joined in, chanting “Christopher Luxon you can’t hide for supporting genocide”.

They also floated leaflets into the debating chamber, with demands such as expelling the Israeli Amassador and to cut all cultural and academic ties.

The protesters were removed within two minutes, while the Speaker watched quietly before acknowledging the “impromptu performance” from the “friends in the gallery.”

“A little bit of poetry, and lots of perforative art as well.

“I think we’ll now progress to questions for oral answer.”

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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 unveiled its proposed replacement bills for the Resource Management Act on Tuesday afternoon, totalling about 750 pages.

Here’s five key details:

Two new laws, in effect by 2029

Two new laws will replace the Resource Management Act.

The Planning Bill will lay out how land can be used and developed including planning for housing growth, while the Natural Environment Bill will lay out the rules for managing the use of natural resources and protecting the environment.

Each of these will have “goals” the system needs to achieve, and rules limiting what councils can regulate.

They were introduced to Parliament around the same time as the system was announced, and the government plans to have them passed by the end of 2026, and fully operational by 2029.

A transition period allowing some of the new system to kick in while extending the expiry date of current consents – mostly out to 2031 – two years after the transition period is expected to end.

The government intends to urgently pass legislation in the coming days to enable the transition.

Fewer plans, fewer consents

The new system aims to streamline and simplify consenting processes, saying this will save money and improve productivity by curbing compliance costs.

It reduces the more than 100 policy statements and plans across 78 local authorities down to 17 Regional Combined Plans, which will take two years to develop.

Many more activities will be considered permitted by default, and the number of consent categories will be reduced to four.

Zoning will be standardised, and National Standards will set out cookie-cutter approaches to consenting, planning, information gathering, and environmental limits – so all councils are working from the same basic approach.

The government expects the reforms to save $13.3 billion over 30 years, and increase Gross Domestic Product by at least 0.56 percent annually by 2050.

Several current rules from the RMA for things like farming will be scrapped and standardised.

Property rights

One of the main principles laid out in the new system is a new approach to “regulatory relief”, also known as “regulatory takings”, which basically means compensation for when people’s rights are impacted on by regulation.

In this case, local councils will be required to compensate land owners for “significant” impacts on any privately owned land.

This could take the form of cash payments, rates rebates, extra development rights, no-fee consents, land swaps, or the provision of expert advice.

That’s a higher threshold than under the current RMA system, where such compensation is limited to extreme scenarios where land is considered unable to be reasonably used.

A new planning tribunal would help decide what to do if landowners and councils disagree.

‘National instruments’

National Standards and National Policy Statements will set out the government’s priorities and direction in a regime that expands on the current approach.

Some of the existing national policy statements will be incorporated into the new system.

The government intends to set out the initial instruments out in two stages, the first in late 2026 and the second in 2027.

Iwi authorities will have input into the national instruments.

The environment will be protected through environmental limits, which set out maximum thresholds for things like pollution which cannot be breached – or if they are, councils will plan how to correct it.

Repeal, replace and reform

The overall thrust of the system somewhat resembles the reforms Labour passed shortly before the 2023 election.

The emphasis on property rights is one key difference, alongside the goals set out in national direction and the purpose statements setting out how the laws should be interpreted.

The coalition scrapped Labour’s regime as one of its first actions after coming to power in 2023, returning New Zealand to the previous Resource Management Act while writing up its own new version.

Coalition reforms to local councils – including limits on what councils can spend on and increased monitoring of council decisions, the abolition of regional councillors, and a new rates capping regime form another plank of the changes the government is pushing ahead with.

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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 coalition’s replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) will force councils to compensate landowners for significant restrictions that impact developments.

It will be an additional challenge for councils facing rising costs and widespread changes in other areas, including restrictions on what they are able to spend funding on – and an incoming 4 percent cap on rates increases.

The reforms follow a similar model to Labour’s attempt, aiming to creating two new laws – a Natural Environment law and a Planning law.

More than 100 reporters, stakeholders commentators and officials spent two hours going over the documents ahead of the official release at 1pm, revealing the information all at once to avoid market disruption.

The planning bill would lay out what infrastructure is needed and when, with land secured for key infrastructure like roads, schools, and utilities. Regional policy statements are being scrapped and replaced with ‘Regional Combined Plans’ which include spatial planning, environmental planning, and land-use planning.

Zoning – currently up to councils, with more than 1100 different zones across the country – will also be standardised, with new “overlays” providing additional and sometimes stricter rules for specific areas where consents would normally be permitted.

The government estimates its new system will save about $13.3b over the next 30 years and increase GDP by 0.56 percent a year by 2050.

The changes, introduced to Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, would be passed in 2026, with another bill to be passed “in coming days” in “coming days” to extend current consent expiry dates.

Until the main bills take effect, new consent applications will still be able to be made. Current consents will also be largely extended to 2031, two years after the main legislation takes effect, under a bill the government expects to pass urgently in “the coming days”.

The legislation will include “descriptive, non-operative” Treaty of Waitangi clauses listing specific provisions that relate to the Crown’s Treaty obligations, and “clear requirements for iwi participation in the development of national instruments” like the national policy statements and national standards.

Councils will also work with tangata whenua to identify significant sites and apply rules and policies in line with the national standards.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said he did not think the legislation would weaken Maori rights, rather providing additional clarity.

Like Labour’s approach, consenting would be largely standardised, with many activities deemed permitted so no consent is needed and new national standards giving councils requirements to develop plans and make consenting decisions. Also resembling Labour’s approach, regional spatial plans will set out 30-year planning for infrastructure in each region.

Labour’s approach reduced the number of consenting categories to five, the coalition reduces it further to four: permitted, restricted, discretionary and prohibited.

The coalition repealed Labour’s version as one of their first orders of business, reinstating the Resource Management Act until they could bring in their own replacement.

There are key differences to Labour’s version.

One is an emphasis on regulatory takings – a concept that was also a key feature of the Regulatory Standards Bill. In this case, councils would be required to compensate landowners, including through rates remission and other measures.

Under the RMA, compensation is limited to extreme scenarios where land is considered unable to be reasonably used; the new system would lower that threshold to where impacts of regulation on all privately owned land are “significant” under a new framework.

Instead of shifting to a system focused primarily on environmental limits the coalition will have a mix between the effects-based RMA and the limits-based approach. However, fewer effects would be able to be considered as part of the consenting process. Limits would be set out in national direction documents.

The new approach would also come into effect much faster than the decade-long process Labour envisioned, with the first suite of national instruments expected in place by the end of 2026.

Planning would be largely up to a new planning tribunal which would also be tasked with resolving disputes about how councils provide compensation.

The RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop also highlighted simplified purpose statements in the legislation which would avoid complexity and litigation.

Labour’s version also aimed to have a Climate Adaptation Bill which would intersect with its other legislation, but the work on that was not completed before the party lost power in the 2023 election.

A new national regulator may also take over enforcement, which is currently up to councils and inconsistent across the country, depending on advice to the government. This would be progressed through separate legislation if the government decides to take it up.

Where Labour’s bills totalled about 900 pages, the coalition’s version is a little shorter at about 750 pages. That total – in both cases – also does not include the respective fast-track laws, the transitional bill the government is passing, the coalition’s local government reforms, or the potential new national regulator.

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

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

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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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 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