We finally have a government – but at what cost? I have previously said that New Zealanders did not vote for a lurch to the right. The difference in the seats tell us that story – 59 v 55 on the left when New Zealand First seats are not taken into account. Winston Peters was previously in government with Labour from 2017 to 2020, signing off on the responses to the Christchurch shootings and Covid crises, and one assumes his return with the National party is more about his personal ambitions than a rightward policy direction.
Peters has managed to secure an expansion of the Covid inquiry to include vaccine efficacy and rollout, a key issue for those who voted for him. Even though he has previously supported vaccination, he eked out support from those who don’t to make a return. The foreign homebuyer tax, which was going to pay for National’s tax cuts, is gone so it is unclear how National will find the funds to pay for it. Presumably it will be through further cuts to public services and additional taxes.
Act’s David Seymour, on the other hand, will not get his treaty referendum right away but a treaty principles bill to a select committee. He will be minister of regulations, ironically creating a whole new ministry just to cut red tape. We are getting repeals to fair pay agreements, three strikes and a return to tax breaks for landlords.
Politicians who complain we are not doing as well as Australia are quick to strike down legislation like the Fair Pay Agreements Act, which exists in Australia and is one of the major reasons why they have higher incomes than New Zealanders.
Instead of taking an evidence-based approach to justice policy, we will reinstate the three-strikes law that has largely been proven to not reduce crime. And the policies that increased first-time homebuyers will be dismantled to ensure landlords are prioritised once again. Peters will once again be minister of foreign affairs, a position he held in the previous Labour government.
Instead of a change forward it is merely taking us backwards to where we were six years ago. We don’t have a government that has a vision for the future, but one that is relying on nostalgia to regain power and ministerial titles.
We just had news that global temperatures briefly rose 2C above pre-industrial levels for the first time but the climate change and environment portfolios will be held by ministers outside of cabinet, showing that Christopher Luxon’s government is not going to take this crisis seriously at all. This is perhaps not a surprise as MPs from the National party have had to walk back comments on climate change in the past.
This is a government put together in order to advance personal career ambitions rather than deliver meaningful change. A party that previously supported changes to gun laws in the face of the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history is willing to work with a party that would like to review them for a seat at the cabinet table. A party that is willing to put aside their key mechanism to deliver tax cuts in order to be in government. A prime minister who is willing to create a chaotic co-deputy position as long as he gets to be the prime minister.
What we are seeing is a haphazard direction towards fewer employment protections and opportunities for home ownership, more crime and a larger prison population, and the dismantling of treaty obligations that have reduced the deprivation gap between the general and Indigenous population, in order to hold on to power.
This isn’t a government founded on a vision to achieve specific goals but rather founded on a vision to be in government by any means necessary.
• Lamia Imam is a political commentator and a former Labour party staffer
