A Distracting Tragedy.

Using Kiri For Cover: Ironically, the idea of using a dramatic event to distract the public’s attention from something politically embarrassing was picked up by David Parker. Unwilling to front his party’s “revised” tax policy, Labour’s most progressive cabinet minister quietly relinquished the Revenue Portfolio.

THERE IS AN IRONIC TWIST buried at the heart of the Kiri Allan tragedy.

The word “tragedy” is used advisedly in this instance, since it is always tragic to see politicians of principle and promise dragged down by their own inner demons. Most pundits are assuming that the extraordinary events of Sunday night also spell tragedy for the Labour Government. Certainly, its chances of retaining office appear to have sustained a fatal blow.

The twist of irony in this political debacle is to be found in Chris Hipkins high-handed decision to rule out the one indisputably exciting move that might have distracted the electorate from Labour’s ministerial malfunctions.

Had the Prime Minister, from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, not informed New Zealanders that there would be no Wealth Tax or Capital Gains Tax while he remained leader of the Labour Party, “end of story”, then the acute political discomfort occasioned by Kiri Allan’s misadventures would have been swept off the front pages by the release of his government’s radical new tax policy. Flanked by his Finance and Revenue Ministers, Chris Hipkins could have set the terms of the 2023 General Election in a single media conference.

The policy he was supposed to announce – about now – had been quietly developing within the Labour Cabinet, Caucus and Party for several years. The Finance Minister, Grant Robertson made no secret of his support for a Capital Gains Tax. Indeed, had it not been for the application of Winston Peters’ “handbrake”, he would likely have made history by introducing New Zealand’s first comprehensive CGT in this Labour government’s first term.

David Parker, beneath whose grey exterior beats a surprisingly red heart, was keen to top Robertson’s CGT with a Wealth Tax. Inspired by the radical French economist, Thomas Piketty, Parker commissioned an IRD study into the distribution of wealth in New Zealand. To the surprise of very few, it showed the wealthiest New Zealanders paying a proportionately smaller amount to the taxman than the average wage and salary earner.

Before they could take their tax package public, however, Robertson and Parker needed draft legislation. At Treasury and Inland Revenue, the wheels were set in motion. Alarmed at the speed of the policy’s development, Hipkins grabbed for the handbrake himself, bringing the work at Treasury and Inland Revenue to a sudden, screeching halt. A few weeks later, the Prime Minister issued his infamous “Captain’s Call” from Vilnius, killing the Robertson/Parker Tax Package stone-dead.

This is what he killed. A tax package that would have made the first $10,000 of personal income tax-free. Worth roughly $1,000 per year, this change would have made every taxpayer around $20.00 per week better-off. It was to have been paid for by a Wealth Tax levied on the richest families in New Zealand. These wealthy few would not have been impoverished by the tax, but within ten years they would have been contributing billions to the state’s revenues. Whether Labour’s package would have addressed the problem of “fiscal drag” (a move that would have neatly undercut National’s tax policy) paid for by a CGT and a new top tax rate for those earning in excess of $250,000 per annum, we shall never know. The whole thing lies dead at Chippy’s feet.

Word was spread that the Robertson/Parker package had been very badly received by Labour’s focus-groups. Like Jacinda Ardern before him, Hipkins appeared spooked by the prospect of having to win the country over against the fierce opposition of big business and the right-wing news media. He remained unmoved by the argument that the election could be transformed into a referendum on a fairer tax system and all the pro-social things it could buy. “We have no mandate”, chorused Hipkins’ defenders. The idea of seeking and winning one, was rejected.

One can only speculate on Hipkins’ response to the suggestion that the announcement of the Robertson/Parker package would have refocused the public’s attention dramatically. Kiri’s crash forgotten, voters might now be arguing about something of real importance to their own, their families’, and their country’s future.

Ironically, the idea of using a dramatic event to distract the public’s attention from something politically embarrassing was picked up by Hipkins’ principal victim. David Parker, unwilling to front Labour’s “revised” tax policy, quietly relinquished the Revenue Portfolio. Presumably, Grant Robertson is waiting for October.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 28 July 2023.

“Governor” Of The People.

Topsy-Turvy: Justice Minister Kiri Allan has got the direction of power and control in New Zealand completely upside-down.

“AS A GOVERNOR.” That is how Justice Minister Kiri Allan described her political function on TVNZ’s Q+A. Unfortunately, Jessica Mutch McKay, standing in for Jack Tame, allowed Allan’s self-characterisation to pass without comment. Which was a pity, since it is highly unusual – unprecedented even – to hear a cabinet minister describe herself in such a fashion. In New Zealand’s down-to-earth democracy, calling oneself a “governor” is just a little bit weird.

New Zealand has had governors, of course, but not for a while. The Governor of New Zealand ruled in the name of the British sovereign, and was appointed by her government. A territory ruled by a governor may, or may not, be democratic, but everywhere and always their duties are exercised alone. There was only one governor in office at any given time in colonial New Zealand, just as there is only one governor in office at any given time in the USA’s fifty states. Being a governor is a job one does alone.

A semantic storm in a teacup? Well, no, not really. Ask a central government politician from New Zealand what they are, and by far the most common response is (or used to be) “I’m an MP.” Even when that MP was also a Cabinet Minister, it was generally left to others to introduce them as the minister of this, that, or the other. To personally flaunt one’s ministerial status in New Zealand was likely to provoke the observation that so-and-so was “a bit up themselves”.

When first encountered, the bureaucratic practice of always addressing the individual in possession of a royal warrant as “Minister” – in recognition of the office rather than the person – strikes most New Zealanders as excessively and ridiculously posh. The Kiwi instinct is to call politicians by their first and/or last names in preference to their titles. Hence, the present Prime Minister is called “Jacinda”, in exactly the same way that her predecessors were hailed as “Bill”, “John”, “Helen”, “Jim”, “David” and “Rob”. Exceptions were made for public servants, journalists, and those officiating at formal gatherings, because, well, it would be a bit rude not to. Otherwise, informality is the rule.

Parenthetically, this egalitarian informality has always struck the acutely status-conscious Brits as reprehensible. There is a famous story, dating from World War II, about the commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Bernard Fryberg, who was chastised by the punctilious commander of the British Eighth Army, Bernard Montgomery, for the way he failed to reprimand his men for not saluting senior officers. Unfazed, Fryberg responded by saying: “On the contrary, Sir, I find that if I wave at them, they generally wave back.”

A constitutional purist would, of course, object that Allan, as a member of the Cabinet, is part of the “Executive” which, under the Westminster System, constitutes the most active branch of government. Indeed, when New Zealanders refer to “The Government”, they are usually talking about the Cabinet, acting collectively. If Kiri Allan is engaged in actively governing the country, then why shouldn’t she refer to herself as a “governor”.

The most straightforward response to this question is: because she’s got the direction of power and control completely upside-down.

Historically, the Cabinet evolved out of the King’s or Queen’s council of advisers, that clique of powerful subjects among whom he, or she, distributed the great offices of state through which the realm was administered.

So far, so Henry VIII.

But, history does not stand still. The evolution of Cabinet government reflects the relentless disempowering of the British monarchy by Parliament, and the British people, to the point where, by the Eighteenth Century, its membership was restricted to those seated in the houses of parliament and appointed solely on the advice of the person commanding a reliable majority of the elected members of that parliament.

The New Zealand version of the Westminster System makes the direction of authority even clearer. Since 1950, this country has had only one parliamentary chamber – the House of Representatives. As its name implies, all the members of this “House” have been elected by the people to govern in their name. Meaning that, if anybody in this country has the right to describe themselves as “a governor”, it is the ordinary voter.

Kiri Allan sits at the Cabinet Table because the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, advised the Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro, to issue her a ministerial warrant. The Prime Minister has that power because she commands a clear majority in the House of Representatives. If Allan loses the confidence of the Prime Minister, she ceases to be a Cabinet Minister. If Ardern loses the confidence of the House – or the next election – she ceases to be Prime Minister.

So far, so Politics 101.

Which only makes it all the more mysterious that Allan would ever begin a sentence with the words: “As a governor, …” At least until Sunday’s (30/10/22) Q+A, Allan’s reputation has been that of a rough-and-ready woman-of-the-people: someone not known for putting on airs-and-graces, but for being willing to call a spade a bloody shovel – and then use it. If Allan was to describe herself as anything, the smart money would have been on her calling herself the people’s “servant” – not their “governor”.

Certainly, Allan’s announcement – via Q+A – of her intention to go after the liquor industry is very much an example of leading by serving. She is responding to the anger and frustrations communicated to her by city councils and community advocates confronted with the paralysingly expensive legal obstructions erected by the alcohol distributors’ high-priced lawyers. That she is planning to do this by what looks suspiciously like a curbing of due-process (abolishing appeals and cross-examinations) only confirms what some observers describe as an almost reckless determination on the part of the Ardern Ministry to enact its more controversial reforms before the 2023 General Election.

Frustrated by the lethargy and incompetence of the public service; stung by mainstream media criticism; injured by social media attacks; and bitterly aware that its time is running out; the Labour Government is determined to leave a “progressive” legacy – even if it lasts only as long as it takes an incoming National-Act Government to repeal it.

It is even possible that some Labour leaders, and Allan may be one of them, are saying: “We have to give our core supporters at least some of the policies they requested – and we promised – because that’s the only way we can win.” Less optimistic (but possibly more Machiavellian) Labour strategists, by contrast, may counsel forcing National-Act to play the ruthless right-wing reactionaries, this time, so that Labour can win, next time.

If this is the way Labour’s thinking is heading, then Allan’s words are easily explained. People who know they are forcing a majority of the people to accept policies demanded by a minority, will always, under pressure, fall back on the blunt interrogatives of political power: Who has it, and who is willing to use it?

That’s why it is so easy to finish a sentence that begins, “As a governor”, with the words: “it is my will that prevails – not yours.” Easy, but a perilously long way from New Zealand’s egalitarian political traditions.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 31 October 2022.

Jacinda Ardern’s Radical Reshuffle.

Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of two tough political fighters in Justice and Broadcasting, but “conciliatory” isn’t one of them.

KRIS FAAFOI’S DEPARTURE from Parliament has left the Immigration, Justice and Broadcasting portfolios in need of new ministers.

In the case of Immigration the Prime Minister’s choice of Michael Wood to replace Faafoi is a sound one. The issues of employment, migration, and workplace relations are closely related, so entrusting the portfolios of Labour and Immigration to a single, highly capable, politician makes a lot of sense.

When it comes to the Justice and Broadcasting portfolios, however, matters are nowhere near so cut and dried. Between now and the General Election issues with considerable potential for creating serious political division are likely to test the skills of the new ministers to their limits.

Before examining those issues in more detail, however, it is important to establish what the Prime Minister has, and hasn’t, done.

The opportunity existed for her to make good her error in assigning Justice to Faafoi. Although acknowledged on both sides of the House as a man of great integrity and good-will, Faafoi was clearly out of his depth in the Justice portfolio. Unusually, given the requirements of the job, he was not a lawyer. Nor did he appear to have a very firm grasp of the foundational principles of this country’s legal system.

Nowhere was this more clearly manifested than in the fraught subject of “Hate Speech”. Faafoi floundered shockingly when questioned on scope and implications of the Government’s proposed legislation. The experience rendered him gun-shy for the rest of his stint as minister. At a time when the Government needed a person of demonstrable intellectual subtlety to explore with the public the full ramifications of controlling Hate Speech, it was saddled with a Justice Minister who, in spite of his background in broadcasting, seemed inordinately wary of the news media.

To be fair to Faafoi, he did not seek out the portfolio assigned to him by the Prime Minister. Indeed, he had told her back in 2020 that he wished to step down from Parliament altogether. Ardern would have been kinder, both to Faafoi, and her Government, if she had granted his wish.

The Prime Minister’s choice of the qualified lawyer, Kiritapu Allan, may, however, make matters worse. Faafoi’s bumbling, by pushing the Hate Speech issue onto the back burner, was almost certainly a godsend politically. Should Allan take up the cause with her characteristic élan, the chances are good that she will ignite a full-scale culture war between the Government and the defenders of Free Speech.

Ardern could have opted to further settle the feathers of the free speakers by appointing a Justice Minister singularly deficient in “woke” credentials – the Attorney-General, David Parker, perhaps? That she has, instead, opted to advance a feisty member of Labour’s Māori caucus: a woman lionised by Labour’s “progressives”; has sent the New Zealand electorate a message of admirable (if not entirely sagacious) clarity.

By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of two tough political fighters in Justice and Broadcasting, but “conciliatory” isn’t one of them.

If Allan presses forward with Hate Speech legislation, and Willie Jackson delivers to the people of New Zealand a state broadcaster that is te Tiriti-driven, committed to advancing the cause of “partnership”, and completely unabashed in its promotion of “co-governance”, the result will be a synergy of political enablement practically guaranteed to raise the hackles of at least half the nation’s voters.

An exaggeration? Not at all. The material made available to those seeking financial support from the Public Interest Journalism Fund (overseen by New Zealand on Air) makes it crystal clear that no state funding will be made available to journalists who do not adhere to te Tiriti, the doctrine of partnership, and co-governance. The advisory documents spelling out what that means in practice are of an historical and ideological inflexibility that would make even the most zealous of Stalin’s commissars blanche.

That the new state broadcasting entity will adhere to these revolutionary stipulations in every respect may be taken as a given. Likewise the temptation for both the Justice and Broadcasting ministers to characterise the inevitable chorus of opposition as Hate Speech.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times  and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 17 June 2022.