Category: Politics

Source: Radio New Zealand

Newly released advice shows officials urged the government against its welfare crackdown on 18-and-19-year-olds, warning it could actually increase the risk of long-term benefit dependency.

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) also said the tightened eligibility could incentivise teenage pregnancies and keep abuse victims financially reliant on their abusive parents.

In a statement, Social Development Minister Louise Upston acknowledged the “free and frank” advice but said she did not necessarily agree with all of it.

“Our position is very clear: young people should be in work, in education or in training,” Upston said.

“Young people should first be supported by their parents. We don’t believe a life on welfare is as good as it gets for young people.”

From November 2026, those aged 18 and 19 will only qualify for Jobseeker support if their parents earn less than $65,529 or if they can prove they cannot rely on their parents for financial help.

About 4300 young people are expected to become ineligible.

An MSD regulatory impact statement (RIS), published online, assessed the proposed restrictions as being no better than the status quo overall.

While the new restrictions would save the government money, officials said: “in terms of impact on young people and their families, the costs will likely significantly outweigh the benefits.”

The RIS said teenagers who lost access to benefits would also miss out on MSD support designed to help them into work, such as literacy or numeracy programmes. Without that assistance, those teens could be at greater risk of future benefit dependency.

Officials said there was “no clear evidence” that the changes would incentivise young people to enter employment, education or training, meaning they could well just move on to the benefit at age 20.

“This policy does not address any underlying causes as to why people receive a benefit in the first place.”

The report also said some young people might find themselves cut off altogether as their parents were under “no obligation” to provide support. This was highlighted as a particular risk for members of rainbow communities.

“There is a risk that they may not have access to financial support at all if their parents refuse or are unable to support them financially.”

Alternatively, abuse victims could be forced to turn to their abusers for help.

“This policy may result in young people being expected to be financially dependent on their parents in situations where they have previously been subjected to physical, psychological, emotional, or sexual violence.”

Officials said the policy could also increase demand on food banks and other community services, due to the increased costs for young people and their parents.

The analysis highlighted particular risks for minority groups who were more likely to be represented in the benefit system.

“Disabled people tend to face higher costs of living due to health-related expenses and could be disadvantaged if this is not accounted for in the parental income limit,” the analysis said.

Officials also flagged that some young people might be “incentivised to have children to maintain access to income support”, because the new rules would not apply to young parents.

The RIS shows MSD preferred a very different approach: expanding education, training, and skills programmes to help young people into work.

Officials said this non-regulatory option would better reduce long-term benefit dependency by addressing literacy, numeracy, and employment-readiness barriers.

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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 mayor of Wellington says the coalition’s proposed restructure of local government is a “pretty serious attack” on the Crown’s treaty obligations.

The coalition wants mayors of city and district councils to take over the duties of regional councillors, in what would be the biggest local government shakeup in three decades.

The proposed removal of regional seats includes scrapping Māori constituencies.

There are currently two regional councils with specific legislation for Māori represenation: Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Canterbury Regional Council.

The government’s discussion document states the government has “considered the impact of the proposal on Māori rights and interests”.

It also says the proposal “has been designed to not undermine, disrupt or affect Treaty settlements but is seeking a wide range of views to ensure this is the case”.

‘A total backtrack’ – Little

Speaking on Nine to Noon on Wednesday, Wellington mayor Andrew Little said the proposals would impact Māori representation that had been guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi.

“One thing that regional councils do is regulate the environment. The fundamental promise of the Treaty of Waitangi was tino rangatiratanga over whenua, over land, and other valued things.

“So to undermine the representation of Māori over environmental things is a total backtrack on the obligations that [have] been recognised for the last 50 years that the Crown has under the Treaty.

“Regional councils and district councils act effectively with Crown authority when they regulate the environment, so undermining that representation is a pretty serious attack on treaty obligations.”

Little said it would narrow the diversity of representation at council level.

“The proposals that were announced yesterday look like they are diluting, or in fact completely removing that Māori representation on that important function and that cannot be consistent with the Crown’s obligations under the Treaty.”

Speaking more generally on the proposed changes, Little said the direction of travel was amalgamation.

“One obvious conclusion to draw from the proposals, as they’ve been announced, is it is trying to drive towards greater amalgamation.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s got to be supported locally and democratically, though.”

Little said the proposals would also “significantly’ add to a mayor’s workload.

“There’s a whole new organisation to get to grips with. There’ll be staff, including a chief executive, that has to have appropriate oversight and support so that adds to what is already a growing workload for mayors.

“I’m not quite sure what the underpinning analysis was that suggested that this was an easy transfer to make.”

RMA needs to be part of discussion – Gisborne mayor

Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz said the proposals wouldn’t change the functions of regional councils but they did risk losing technical expertise.

She also said the Resource Management Act had a big part to play in the national conversation about how to best restructure local government.

“Before we criticise regional councils, they’re working under a regime called the Resource Management Act, which we all agree is not fit for purpose.

“So I think we also need to make sure that discussion is had alongside what the functions are that we want to have on a local, regional level or national level.”

Stoltz said Gisborne had operated as a unitary authority since 1989 that did the work of both a city council and regional council.

It had worked well for her region, though that didn’t mean it would be the best approach in other parts of the country, she said.

“It works really well for us because we have a single governance structure making both the local and the regional decisions, which means there is real clear accountability. Your community know exactly who is responsible for that and for what and then we can also have integrated planning across our land, water and infrastructure.

“That works really well for us, because all the major planning and regulatory functions sit under one roof.

“During Cyclone Gabrielle, it was easier to have a coordinated emergency response. When you need rapid decision making, you don’t need to negotiate across multiple councils.

“You have a coordinated response, and your community know exactly who is responsible for what. So there is some reduced duplication but the fact that it works for the Gisborne District Council does not mean it will work for any other region.”

Asked if her community would not support being amalgamated with other regions, she responded: “I think if you asked the people of Gisborne that, that will be a firm no…we have been a unitary authority forever, and it works well for us.

“We never put those discussions aside, though, because we haven’t had a review in 36 years. So this is a once in a lifetime review. The devil will be in the detail.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says the current regional council structure stifles economic growth and that regional councils have suffered cost burdens, “green overreach” and too much influence from iwi.

His comments come after the government announced its plan to scrap regional councillors and hand responsibilities over to mayor-led Combined Territories Boards, marking the biggest structural shift in local government in decades.

The boards will take over regional duties and have two years to propose a longer term structure.

The government said the move will cut costs and streamline decision making.

Regional Development Minister and NZ First Deputy Leader Shane Jones has been one of the strongest critics of regional government, previously saying there is “less and less of a justifiable purpose” for keeping regional councils under the new RMA system.

He also described the Otago Regional Council as “the Kremlin of the South Island” after a dispute over mine expansion.

Jones told Morning Report on Wednesday the country can not afford the multiple layers of regional and local government that “stifles growth”.

He believes regional council has been captured, especially in Otago, by “green banshees” who want to block development such as mining.

“I have no doubt in my mind that once the public sinks its teeth into this issue and realise that it’s a burden of cost, we have had green over-reach, we have had hapu over-consumption and we have stifled growth. I believe the vast majority of Kiwis in regional New Zealand agree with me,” Jones said.

He said some regional councillors have been interpreting parliamentary legislation in a “devious” and “negative” way and that is breaking the law.

“If they are not going to continually abide by the law, they are going to disappear.”

Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said there was a case for reorganising regional councils – but the government is forcing change without consultation.

Sepuloni said the government campaigned on handing power back to local communities, but this plan strips it away.

National Minister Nicola Willis said the scrapping of regional councils is about cutting complexity in local government and getting local communities to decide how they want to simplify things.

Willis told Morning Report that it’s also about addressing the cost of living and people’s concerns about rates.

Earlier on Morning Report, Former Local Government NZ regional chair Doug Leeder said the government’s plan has merit.

He said the regional sector of local government have been advocating to have this conversation with ministers for at least the last 12 months.

However, he said it remains to be seen what can incentivise local mayors to act in the best interest of their region.

“What is going to be the incentive for local mayors to remove themselves for their territorial responsibilities, their local communities, and act in the best interest of their region – there lies the challenge.”

Leeder said while the regional sector supports the plan, he believes the level of governance needs to step up for the plan to work.

He said the appointment of external commissioners could help.

The changes are out for consultation, which remains open until 20 February, with the resulting legislation expected to be introduced mid-next year and passed in 2027.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Despite dropping in the polls and failing to resonate with voters on a range of issues, Sir Bill English is confident Christopher Luxon is the right person to lead National to victory at next year’s election.

Speaking to 30 with Guyon Espiner, the former Finance Minister said the government has done a “remarkably good job”, adding that Prime Minister Luxon, Winston Peters and David Seymour all deserve credit for what they have achieved.

“They’ve got an equilibrium, and I’m making those comments not just as a former politician, but sitting outside it, involved in running businesses, involved with a wide range of New Zealanders.

“It doesn’t work to change Prime Ministers,” he said. “It’s stable and it’s working.”

While suggesting New Zealand was going through a “rough patch”, Sir Bill said it wasn’t about the government showing “bold leadership”, but rather the government needed to sort out “those barriers that are getting in the way of productive investment and, more importantly, productive employment”.

“This government, it’s a bit less sort of clean cut and well presented, but it is stable. The government’s got a coherence, and it’s getting through a whole lot of serious issues. I think they’ve done a remarkably good job, and probably an unexpectedly good job, of managing themselves.”

On the economy, Sir Bill – who served as Finance Minister under Prime Minister Sir John Key from 2008 to 2016 – said in 12-18 months New Zealand’s will be growing faster than Australia’s.

The current economy feels like it is “struggling to get up out of the mud” because the usual cycle of house prices picking up, which makes people feel good and spend more money, isn’t happening.

“New Zealand’s dealing with some structural shifts in its economy, which means its recovery is slower.

“But in a sense, it will be a higher quality recovery, because it won’t be dependent on some big shift in house prices, and it won’t be as dependent on a surge in immigration.”

Sir Bill said “this amazing, almost bipartisan view that we need to change the rules for housing so that it’s more affordable” is cause for optimism.

When pushed on the increase in inequality, including rising homelessness, Sir Bill pointed to the impacts of previous policy.

“Our poor-quality housing policy in the past has driven a lot of inequality. It’s driven a lot of a burden on low-income people trying to afford housing.

“I don’t think the housing issues were to do with neoliberalism. They were actually to do with over-planning our city’s.

“Poor planning causes poverty, it causes higher costs than would otherwise be the case.”

Sir Bill was also critical of the “state monopoly” which he said has done a “poor job for a long time” when it comes to social housing, and called for more housing to help tackle issues around homelessness.

While economists and politicians have been debating whether a Capital Gains Tax is worthwhile, Sir Bill said “there’s a lot of complexity, not much revenue,” and “the possibility of revenue is significantly less now than it would have been, say, 10 years ago, and certainly 20 years ago.”

On Te Pāti Māori, whom he worked with for three terms, Sir Bill described it as “an often-challenging experience” but “a satisfying one”, before saying the party as it was originally conceived was conservative.

“I don’t mean in the sort of National Party’s right-wing sense, but conservative in that they were trying to rebuild social connection, self-reliance.”

Sir Bill praised the increasing use of te reo Māori in everyday language, and how “in the business world dealing with iwi is now completely normal”, but said “particularly in the public service, performative biculturalism had got completely out of control.”

“I think what you’ve seen recently has been a kind of general political correction.

“What I find interesting is that there’s a debate going on in the political world about whether one party’s anti-Māori or whatever. In the real world the custom and the practice of the people just moves on.”

He added: “there’s nothing wrong with a bit of pushing and shoving when you think the Constitution’s at stake”.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

While opposition parties agree more needs to be done to make local government work better for everybody, they say the government’s proposals to scrap regional councils could remove a layer of community voice and expertise.

Under the proposals revealed on Tuesday, district and city mayors would take on the regional councils’ roles, forming Combined Territories Boards.

Those boards would then be tasked with coming up with plans to reorganise how their councils are structured long-term.

How those plans look is up to the boards, but they would be assessed against criteria like whether they are realistic, are financially responsible, provide fair and effective representation for communities of interest, and whether they support national priorities, strategies, and goals, are financially responsible.

They would have to be given the final sign-off by the Minister of Local Government.

The government has also stressed it would be “highly unlikely” the status quo is maintained, with Resource Management Act Reform Minister Chris Bishop saying it would be a “fair summation” that they ended up being unitary authorities.

“The status quo can’t remain locked in formaldehyde forever,” Bishop said.

Deon Swiggs is chair of Environment Canterbury, as well as chair of Local Government New Zealand’s regional sector.

He also recognised that the current model was “unsustainable,” but said it was important that accountability, localism, and local voice was transferred to whatever happened in the future.

“We all want to see our economy thrive. We all want to see things get done. And reorganising local government may not achieve those outcomes. It might achieve efficiencies in some areas, but it might not achieve the outcomes that the government wants to see.”

Wiggs was also a Christchurch City Councillor from 2016 to 2019, and said while there were tensions between district and regional councils, it was constructive.

“It’s never been ‘oh, the regional council’s stopping us from doing this’ or ‘the district council’s stopping us from doing that.’ It’s about outcomes,” he said.

“The regional council has a different focus, and the city council has a different focus. They want to drive down costs, and the regional council wants to drive environmental outcomes. Those constructive tensions shouldn’t be looked at as a failure of the system. They should be looked at as actually getting the best outcomes that have longevity in our system.”

Central Otago mayor Tamah Alley said it was a “dramatic shift,” and while mayors put their hands up to represent their communities, “sometimes that asks more of us than we thought at the beginning”.

“It will be a challenge for local government, already under the pump with so much reform on our plates to pick up the additional workload. If that’s the direction that comes from this consultation,” she said.

Alley, who is a Local Government New Zealand national council mayor, said local government had been talking about how to do things in a more efficient and economic way for a while, and the proposals had “pushed the conversation”.

Selwyn mayor Lydia Gliddon said while she could see the intention to streamline decision making, it raised big questions.

She said any new model must not be a restructure for the sake of it.

“These are not small responsibilities. If those functions are reorganised or absorbed, we need absolute clarity that oversight won’t be weakened.”

Nelson is one of the councils that currently operates under a unitary authority model, along with Tasman, Marlborough, Auckland, Chatham Islands, and Gisborne.

Mayor Nick Smith said the proposed changes would make councils “simpler, less costly and will help deliver better services”.

He said the unitary model had meant the Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough councils had worked “much better,” and it was a “no brainer” to merge Nelson and Tasman.

The Northland Mayoral Forum, which comprises the region’s three district mayors and regional council chair, agreed it was time to review the way local government was structured.

Far North mayor Moko Tepania said all four forum members were unanimous that whatever the outcome of reform, “we want to make sure it’s in the best interests of Northland as a whole. We do not need a ‘one size fits all’ solution imposed by Wellington”.

Whangārei mayor Ken Couper said the priority was “ensuring that any changes deliver real benefits for our communities and our region,” while Kaipara mayor Jonathan Larsen said he looked forward to working with the other Northland councils to get the best possible outcome for ratepayers.

With just under three months of consultation before a final draft, the legislation is not expected to be introduced to Parliament until the middle of next year.

Bishop said what the government had put forward was its preferred model, but it was open to “sensible changes” all the way through the process.

The government would seek to pass it in 2027, lining up with the phasing in of the resource management reforms.

It means, with an election in 2026, a change in government could mean the legislation is dropped.

But Labour’s local government spokesperson Tangi Utikere said Labour would need to look at the implications of the proposal first.

“We are open to looking at how we can make local government work better for everyone, and I think even people within the sector would accept that as well, how we simplify things. That’s where the focus needs to be on right now.”

The Minister of Local Government Simon Watts said the proposals were “absolutely” consistent with National’s advocacy for localism.

But Utikere disagreed.

“The government talks a lot about the need to empower local communities, but they’re looking to strip away what is a key layer of that.”

Utikere said with such long-lasting implications he was disappointed a bipartisan approach was not taken.

“What we want here is a real look at what works for communities, that local voice is part of that conversation, and also that those key sort of areas of environmental protection, public transport, waste, minimisation and management are taken care of.”

Bishop said consultation was open to everybody, and as Labour was part of the “ecosystem” it would get a chance to have its say.

The Green Party’s local government spokesperson, and former Wellington mayor, Celia Wade-Brown believed mayors had a different skill set to regional councils when it came to public transport, environmental protection, harbour management, and monitoring rivers.

“There is a complete disregard for the expertise for both officers and staff and elected members in these proposals. I think most of us think that there needs to be consideration of reform, but this has jumped to the end game of getting rid of regional councils,” she said.

Wade-Brown acknowledged there was a need for new funding models, and a conversation about planned reorganisation, but starting with getting rid of regional councils was not an inviting way to start.

“This is Christopher Luxon talking about localism and doing the opposite.”

The Combined Territories Boards’ plans would still need to uphold Treaty of Waitangi settlement commitment, but there was no requirement for iwi representation.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said there were “great relationship agreements” between iwi and regional councils, and she did not want that to change.

“It’ll be really important that it doesn’t sideline the Treaty, and sideline the progress that Māori iwi and communities have achieved within these spaces,” she said.

She also agreed there needed to be a more efficient and effective way to manage the layers of bureaucracy, but said abolishing regional councils was a “direct assault” on Treaty settlements.

“We have to make sure that they’re not removing Māori and iwi from decision making, that they’re not removing environmental protection. And when you centralise power to Cabinet ministers, there’s a political imperative that takes over everything else.”

“It’ll be really important that it doesn’t sideline the Treaty, and sideline the progress that Māori iwi and communities have achieved within these spaces.”

Meanwhile ACT’s local government spokesperson Cameron Luxton called it a “good day for local democracy,” and it would remove overlap.

“For too long we have had territorial councils, regional councils, mayors, local MPs, area ministers and Cabinet all overlapping. People are left wondering who is responsible for what. Voters look at their papers for regional council and see a list of names they do not recognise and shrug their shoulders,” he said.

“Ratepayers don’t know who their regional chair is, but they do know who their mayor is. Under these reforms, they’ll know who to hold to account. By removing a layer of governance, we are making it clearer where responsibility sits.”

The Taxpayers’ Union wanted to see rates relief alongside the announcement.

Spokesperson Tory Relf said the government’s proposals were a “real chance” to cut back bureaucracy and reduce the costs to ratepayers, but would only work if the changes were genuine.

“That can’t mean shifting the same responsibilities and the same staff into district councils and pretending that’s reform. And it certainly can’t mean creating new roles or bodies in a manner that isn’t democratically accountable. Ratepayers need less bureaucracy, not a reshuffle from one layer to another,” she said.

Watts is still expected to bring a policy proposal around rates capping to Cabinet before the end of the year.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Senior National MP and minister Chris Bishop has categorically denied plotting a leadership challenge, insisting that Christopher Luxon remains the best person to be prime minister.

Speculation surrounding the prospect of a coup has intensified in the past week given dissatisfaction within the National caucus after a series of worrying polls.

Addressing reporters at Parliament on Tuesday, Bishop said he was “definitely not” planning to roll Luxon as leader and dismissed the commentary as people “interviewing their typewriters”.

Asked if he could give a firm commitment that Luxon would remain prime minister through to the election, Bishop responded simply: “yes”.

Bishop was asked several times whether Luxon was the best person for the top job, to which he said Luxon was “fantastic” and “outstanding”.

He eventually responded directly: “Correct… absolutely, he’s doing a wonderful job as prime minister.”

“We’re in difficult economic times, as I think everybody knows, and this is the first time we’ve had a three-way coalition Cabinet in New Zealand history,” Bishop said.

“That produces its own challenges and trials and tribulations. But he’s doing an excellent job leading a government that is… firmly focused on long term structural reform to drive higher living standards.”

Bishop said he spoke to Luxon “almost every day” including about the rumours.

Earlier on Tuesday, another MP touted as a future leader Erica Stanford shrugged off a question over whether anyone had approached her about potentially taking over.

“All I’m concentrated on… is doing my job,” she said. “I don’t talk to people about leadership.”

Standing alongside Stanford, Luxon said she was doing an “outstanding job” and the National Party had a “great team doing an amazing job”.

Asked whether he would step down if National sunk below a certain level in the polls, Luxon said that was “not a concern”.

He said he did not hold any concerns for those National MPs who would lose their jobs on current polling: “No.”

Speaking on NewstalkZB on Monday, Luxon said he did not believe the rumours and described Bishop as a “great minister” and “good friend”.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington City Council could save tens of millions of dollars through cost-cutting, such as reducing staff, according to a new report.

In August, the then-new council chief executive Matt Prosser commissioned independent analysis from Deloitte of the council’s processes, as well as finding opportunities to improve performance and rates affordability.

That report was revealed on Tuesday afternoon, and highlighted issues such as the council’s aging technology, double-handling and ambiguity around the council’s roles and how it differed from central government.

It said through “right shaping” the council workforce and optimising spending through better governance, contract compliance and strategic sourcing, the council could save up to $79 million over three years.

Prosser said some of Deloitte’s recommendations were at odds with the wishes of the community and decisions previously made by the council.

“It’s important we don’t get ahead of the democratic decision processes at the heart of local government.

“We will critically assess everything in the report against the needs and aspirations of our communities.”

He said in the short-term the council would be focused on finding cost savings and making operational improvements.

“Throughout this process our staff will be kept informed, and we will seek their views on the initiatives raised in the report. As is council’s practice, we will also be engaging with the unions.”

The council had removed 58 roles over the past few months, he said.

“We’ve also kicked off a programme to improve our delivery across a number of areas including contract management, procurement and asset management.”

The report said the council had 330 more staff than it should, based on the number of full time employees per 1000 households.

It found that would result in a 18.5 percent reduction in employees and on an average it would save $33.9 million.

‘A flimsy PowerPoint presentation’ – PSA

PSA national secretary Duane Leo said the report was “fundamentally flawed”.

“This is a flimsy PowerPoint presentation that lacks any depth, rigour or even a basic understanding of what the Council’s role is.

“Hidden in the fine print, the report notes that its assumptions need to be validated and shouldn’t be relied upon for decision-making.”

Leo said it was based on crude benchmarking that ignored Wellington City Council provided services many other councils don’t such as social housing, city housing and addressing homelessness.

He said it also did not include that an extra 22,000 people come into the city every day for work.

“You cannot remove one in five positions without serious impacts. Building consent times will blow out. Libraries will have reduced hours. Parks will be less well maintained. Council has already removed 58 roles this year and staff are stretched thin.”

The Deloitte report made note that the council should make more use of AI for tasks such as triaging general enquiry’s from the public, creating reporting on project management and automate workflows.

Leo said the union was concerned about the proposed use of AI.

“Deloitte is assuming AI can deliver productivity gains of up to 50 percent but they haven’t done the work to show replacing experienced staff with ChatGPT would actually deliver those results.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The government has sunk plans to station an open ocean tug in the Cook Strait long term saying the costs outweigh the benefits.

For years local government leaders on either side of the North and South Island had been calling for open ocean tugs after several near miss accidents.

One of these was in January 2023 when the Interislander ferry Kaitaki was sailing into Wellington Harbour with 854 passengers on board and lost power, which resulted in a mayday call.

In April the government contracted the MMA Vision, an open ocean tug, to be stationed in Wellington till June while it came up with a long term solution.

On Tuesday, the government announced that contract will end earlier in February and there would be no replacement for it.

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said cabinet had considered a detailed business case for open ocean tugs in March which would provide a tug which could stabilise a stricken boat and another which could tow that boat in.

Bishop said while Cook Strait clearly had risks, they were too small for the costs associated with the tugs.

He said those costs had escalated from the initial business case to the detailed business case from around $80 million over 10 years to over $259 million over 10 years.

The minister also noted most recorded boating incidents happened outside of Cook Strait.

“While most of these costs were intended to be paid with the establishment of EORC-specific levies, there would still be significant cost pressures on the Crown to procure an EORC solution, and these levies would be passed onto consumers through higher prices.

“Put bluntly, the cost to taxpayers is too high for something that’s unlikely to be needed – and unlikely to be useful even if it is.”

He said cancelling the MMA Vision contract early would save $9 million.

New Cook Strait ferries arriving in 2029 would have better safety features and reduces the need for open ocean tugs, he said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Oranga Tamariki says it learnt a lot from the coalition’s boot camp trial, but documents seen by RNZ show many of those lessons were identifed more than a decade ago and shared with the programme designers.

Emails show a ministry evaluation of “military-style activity camps” run in 2009 and 2010 was sent to Oranga Tamariki staff in March 2024 as they were preparing National’s promised boot camp pilot.

“Probably not telling you anything you don’t already know but it’s a good summary of previous work done in this space and highlights the lessons that we can learn from the earlier work,” the email read.

The document summarising the main findings presented it as a “focus on findings that could inform the design and establishment Military Style Academies and help mitigate or avoid potential pitfalls”.

Among the lessons to learn were: rushed implementation, a lack of clarity around roles, inadequate information, training and resource, better engagement with whānau and a need to involve iwi services.

Many of the same themes are present in the final independent evaluation of the government’s latest military-style academy pilot, released in early November.

For example, while it noted “meaningful and positive change” for the young people, it named various challenges: rushed implementation, challenging transitions, a lack of continuity around therapeutic support, a lack of capacity in the residential phase, the need to engage with mana whenua earlier and support for whānau began too late before the rangatahi returned home.

The opposition parties say it’s proof the government is simply recycling old failures, but Oranga Tamariki insists it did take on board lessons from the earlier programmes.

Opposition hits out

Labour’s children spokesperson, Willow-Jean Prime, said the emails proved the government had “sunk millions into an experiment that has repeated the same failures of the past”.

She said the pilot was a “disgrace and utter waste of time” which the government had rushed through for “political headlines”.

“We need real, proven wrap-around interventions that work, not failed experiments that take us back down a road of harm.”

The Green Party’s youth and corrections spokesperson, Tamatha Paul, said the pilot had been an “enormous waste of time and resource”.

“Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is insanity,” she said.

“The international and domestic evidence shows clearly that this approach does not lead to reduced re-offending. The far more effective and cheaper intervention is resourcing community-based kaupapa to support rangatahi in their neighbourhoods.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the government had obviously failed to learn any lessons from its “experments”.

“This information confirms what we already knew to be true: boot camps and punishment have never been the solution for our tamariki,” she said.

The government’s response

In a statement, Minister for Children Karen Chhour told RNZ she strongly believed the pilot had been a success. She said the review reflected that, while also acknowledging opportunities for improvement.

“The reality for our young serious offenders is that they are on a pathway to adult Corrections and a lifetime in-and-out of incarceration unless they are given a chance to turn their lives around and take that chance. This programme has been that chance.”

Chhour said social workers and mentor teams had put a “huge amount of work” into supporting the nine young people and their 29 sibilings, including helping them access housing, education and health assessments.

She said the pilot was reviewed while it was underway and its successes had helped the government achieve its target of reducing serious and persistent youth offending “a half decade early”.

Military-Style Academy programmes lead Janet Mays provided RNZ with a statement, insisting that the agency did consider the previous evaluation when designing the new pilot and took “several lessons” into account.

Mays said officials also took on board “the findings of a thorough literature review on a range of intervention programmes for young offenders”.

Asked why many of the same difficulties were identified in the latest programme, Mays acknowledged a short timeframe had “impacted some outcomes”.

She said the community transition phase could be strengthened and Oranga Tamariki had acknowledged mana whenua should have been involved in the design of the pilot earlier.

But Mays said the pilot was well-resourced, and kaimahi had “good role clarity in residence” and received “two weeks of intensive training” before the programme’s launch.

She said the therapeutic intervention offered in the residency phase was “extensive” and showed improvements.

“The MSA Pilot was a new initiative that aimed to help a small group of serious and persistent young offenders turn their lives around by providing them with increased structure, support and opportunities.

“We have learnt a lot from this pilot, which will strengthen and shape how we best support rangatahi in the future.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Lawyers for a judge accused of disrupting a New Zealand First event want clarity over the legal test which will apply at her judicial conduct hearing.

A judicial conduct panel is looking into the behaviour of Acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken.

She is accused of interrupting a New Zealand First function at the exclusive Northern Club in Auckland last year in November, allegedly shouting that leader Winston Peters was lying.

Judge Aitken has argued she did not shout, that she did not recognise Peters’ voice and did not know it was a political event.

A bid she made for a judicial review of the decision to hold the Judicial Conduct Panel was dismissed in April of this year at the High Court in Auckland.

‘What is the test’

Under the District Court Act, a Governor-General can, on the advice of the Attorney-General, remove a Judge from the office on the grounds of inability or misbehaviour.

The Judicial Conduct Panel will consider Judge Aitken’s behaviour at a hearing in February next year. It will determine facts, and write a report to the Attorney-General including about whether the removal of the Judge is justified.

The panel is comprised of former Court of Appeal Judge Brendan Brown KC (who is the chair), Justice Jillian Mallon, a sitting Court of Appeal Judge, and Sir Jerry Mateparae, the former Governor-General.

In a preliminary hearing on Monday, counsel for Judge Aitken, David Jones KC, told the panel it was essential to know what the specific legal test for misbehaviour was.

“We are asking you to state the test, in advance of the hearing.

“You have to have something to aim at, you have to have something to establish.

“And here we have the difference – for example – between misconduct and misbehaviour, and we have to know how aggregious that has to be, in order for the contemplation of removal to be considered.”

Jones KC said it was essential to understand the legal test before the hearing took place, because it could affect the arguments or context the evidence is presented in at the hearing.

“You have a situation where if you have a test, and you know that you have to satisfy that test, or special counsel has to satisfy that test, then evidence can be adduced – potentially from experts to say – ‘look this is certain behaviour but it doesn’t get to this point, or it does’, or whatever.”

He said it was even more important these issues were nailed down in what he described as a “political context”, referring to how the report from the Northern Club was leaked to the media.

Jones KC said the hearing would need to establish Judge Aitken knew of the political context when she spoke – not what she, as a judge, ought to have known.

He said the political dynamic was critical to the hearing that would take place.

“If, for example, the people in the room… were a group of law students, or were from a book club, or whatever, and somebody said something as the words were spoken, and heard by the Judge, and she said something, would we be here? My submission is we wouldn’t.”

Special counsel Jonathan Orpin-Dowell, who is one of two lawyers presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel, said the question of what the Judge knew or should have known when she spoke needed to come out in the evidence in the hearing.

He said parliament didn’t intend to set out a specific test for judicial misbehaviour.

Orpin-Dowell said the District Court Act lays out the grounds for removal as inability or misbehaviour.

He referred to Ministry of Justice advice to the 2004 select committee considering the law setting up the judicial panel, which aimed to avoid any potential misbehaviour from being excluded.

He said thresholds of misbehaviour come down to specific facts and situations.

“The panel isn’t a permanent court, or even a permanent tribunal, it’s an ad-hoc panel set up to deal with a particular reference about particular conduct, from a particular Judge, and it follows from that, that whether removal will be justified in any case is necessarily a question of fact and degree.”

Both lawyers referred to a previous case involving Justice Bill Wilson, where it found misbehaviour was conduct that “fell so far short of accepted standards of judicial behaviour as to warrant the ultimate sanction of removal”.

This is the third Judicial Conduct Panel that has been established since the law establishing the body was passed in 2004.

Elements of discussion in Monday’s preliminary hearing have been suppressed.

The panel is expected to file a decision on Monday’s application by the end of this week.

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