The PM is busy in China while Andrew Little deals with Five Countries – but for success, check out the Census numbers

Buzz from the Beehive

The government’s diplomatic balancing act can be admired on two fronts this week.

In Wellington, Andrew Little released a statement headed Five Country Ministerial Communiqué.

This was the culmination of a gathering of political bigwigs from New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, one of the bigwigs who came here for the occasion, described it as an “important meeting of the closest of allies”.

Immigration (Andrew Little now has that portfolio) was among the issues on the agenda, along with national security, child sex abuse, democratic resilience, cyber security and foreign espionage at universities.

In China, meanwhile, our PM was delivering a speech (Prime Minister Rt Hon Chris Hipkins at Peking University) and Tourism Minister Peeni Henare was announcing a “technology partnership” to connect New Zealand with Chinese travellers.

GRAHAM ADAMS: Close polls puzzle pundits as election looms

How long can Labour continue to levitate?

• Graham Adams writes –

Centre-right voters are increasingly wondering how many more disasters it will take to seriously dent the government’s poll numbers. Whether it is repeated instances of bungled policy or a spate of Cabinet ministers in trouble, the received wisdom that “Oppositions don’t win elections — governments lose them” seems to be slow to kick in for this year’s election.

National’s latest internal polls reportedly show it climbing against Labour but in the five months since Hipkins became Prime Minister public polls have featured the parties regularly swapping the lead in the race to October 14, with both sitting in a range from the early to mid-30s. Furthermore, polls also show the left bloc — comprised of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori — consistently level-pegging with National and Act on the right.

A tweet last week by Zuru toy magnate Nick Mowbray summed up the frustration of those watching the self-styled “Chris Hipkins government” lurch from one debacle to another yet somehow managing to stay roughly even with National in the polls:

“I can’t understand these polls. NZ has gone backwards on EVERY single metric badly. Despite huge increases in spending and bureaucracy, mountains of debt, backwards on every productivity metric — woeful management — zero talent or accountability. How can any one vote Labour?…”

Garrick Tremain’s view…

Ministers busy strengthening relationships with China – but media attention is drawn to Kiri Allan’s office relationships, too

Buzz from the Beehive

Much of  the ministerial action deemed worthy of recording on the government’s official website over the past 24 hours took place in China.

This was reflected in extensive media reportage and commentary.

But there was significant media interest, too, in whatever might have happened in the office of Kiri Allan, Minister of Justice and Regional Development and Associate Minister of Finance and Transport.

The Point of Order monitor of ministerial performances and machinations last heard from Allan three days ago, when (in her Regional Development role) she announced the Government will provide up to $5 million to the liquidators of Ruapehu Alpine Lifts  to ensure the mountain’s 2023 ski season can go ahead.

But political journalists and the Wellington commentariat have become more fascinated by something that happened (or allegedly happened) not so recently. 

Will the warm greeting PM Hipkins received in Beijing carry through on the trade front – or was the balancing act a mission imposible?

Having told the world  Xi Jinping is not a dictator, it is not surprising PM Chris Hipkins  was greeted warmly  by the Chinese leader at their meeting in Beijing this week. It may be it does the trick  and secures a boost  for NZ exports to China.

Certainly  NZ needs  it, with the  gap between the value  of our imports  and exports  the widest it has been for  three decades. Unless the deficit  shrinks fairly rapidly, the international credit   agencies  could lower NZ’s sovereign credit rating.

While Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta is  said to have been “harangued” when she visited Beijing  earlier,  there  was even a hint of smile, though brief, when Hipkins shook hands with Xi.

NZ reporters  on hand  told  their readers there was  no sign of friction in the opening remarks the media were privy to, with Xi describing New Zealand as a “friend and partner” and the relationship one to which he was “always attaching a great deal of importance”.

Finding out how $128m is being spent (on universities), who has met our PM (Xi Jinping) and what Robertson didn’t mention

Buzz from the Beehive

Confirmation of our Buzz report yesterday was recorded on the government’s official website soon after we posted our news.

Yes, the government short-changed the universities on Budget Day and has come up with an extra $128 million funding, over two years, for tertiary education providers for courses at degree level and above.

For good measure, the government will review higher education funding system.

The additional $128 million will be “invested” into the tertiary sector to increase tuition subsidies at degree-level and above by a further 4 per cent in 2024 and 2025.

This is in addition to the 5 per cent increase provided in Budget 2023 – “the most significant funding increase in 20 years”, the government is crowing.

The government has also posted a carefully crafted statement after the PM’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Zhao Leji, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Those statements tell us who has been hobnobbing with our PM and how ministers are spending (or misspending) our money.

GEOFFREY MILLER: Chris Hipkins’ successful meeting with Xi Jinping

• Geoffrey Miller writes – 

Warm and constructive.

That’s how Chris Hipkins wanted his meeting with Xi Jinping on Tuesday to be remembered.

The New Zealand Prime Minister deployed the ‘warm and constructive’ phrase at least eight times in a subsequent press conference with New Zealand media.

Hipkins was also keen to note that ‘the meeting was at no point adversarial’. This served to reinforce the impression of warmth.

It also matched with opening public comments by Xi, who said Hipkins’ visit was of ‘great significance’. Xi pointed to the ‘tangible benefits to the two peoples’ that had emerged since China entered into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with New Zealand in 2014.

Xi added ‘we will continue to see each other as partners instead of rivals’, according to a Reuters report that cited Chinese state media.

Richard Dawkins (not muted, when he came here to speak) has more to say about the mixing of science and Maori myths

The visit to New Zealand earlier this year of Professor Richard Dawkins was not publicised as provocatively as the visit of women’s rights advocate Posey Parker.  The professor was allowed to speak to audiences in Auckland and Wellington without being physically threatened and the people who turned up to hear him were not thwarted by the belligerence and bullying of bellowing boors.

Dawkins, the world renowned evolutionary biologist, best-selling author and public intellectual, is the author of landmark books The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.  He has earned millions of admirers around the world through his passion for the wonders of science and the vital importance of reason – and he has been described as the world’s most prominent atheist.

But he has his critics, too.  And he is likely to have agitated his New Zealand critics this week with an article posted on The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins headed There’s only one “Way of Knowing”: Science.

He recalls that when he was last in this country, the climax to his antipodean speaking tour, he found he had walked headlong into a raging controversy.

Garrick Tremain’s view…

Govt seemed satisfied with Budget funding for universities just a few weeks ago – but today it has announced a rescue package

Buzz from the Beehive

 We are waiting patiently for the statement from Education Minister Jan Tinetti about another dollop of funding – or a rescue package – for our financially struggling universities.

News of a $128 million rescue package has been reported by RNZ and had been portended in many media reports over the past day or so.

Clearly, a “rescue package” is a response to widely publicised news of staff cutbacks in the offing, most notably at the Universities of Otago and Wellington.

While news of the package had not been posted on the government’s official website when Point of Order checked around 1pm, there were plenty of other government announcements which help answer the  question…

How our ministers spending (or misspending) our money today?

They are spending it on