ACT beats Hipkins to the draw in announcing changes to our gun licensing laws

Buzz from the Beehive

Uh, oh.  Earlier this afternoon there was nothing doing in the Beehive.  Or rather, there was nothing doing that they wanted to tell us about.

We therefore drew a blank when we checked the Beehive website to find what our servants are up to.

Nor (when we checked with Scoop) could we find anything new from the Nats or the Greens, although the Nats since then have posted a statement on the rising expense of hiring government  consultants.

ACT was given a free kick,  in effect, and scored with three statements.

First, ACT’s Firearms Reform spokesperson Nicole McKee was braying that relentless pressure from her party has resulted in the Government making much-needed changes to firearms licensing.

The polls look promising for the Nats and ACT – but it’s too soon for them to be counting on an election victory

The latest political  polling   shows  the  centre-right parties  pulling  ahead of  the centre-left—but  it  may  be  too soon  for  the  leaders  of  the National and ACT parties to  be thinking they  will  be  forming  the next  government.  The mood  of  the  country has  seldom been  as  dark, chastened  as  it has been  by Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, and  a string of  Rugby test disasters, which  not  even  the golden  glow  from the Commonwealth Games  could  erase.

Some  commentators  have  seized  on  the  One  News  Kantar poll to suggest that the  parties of the  right would be  able  to  form  a  government for  the  first  time without  the Maori  Party,

The poll results nevertheless  contained  a  warning  signal for  both  National  and  ACT — the  former  because   it  was  down  two points  from the  previous poll, and ACT  because it  may  have  experienced a  one-off bounce in its  four-point  rise.

National   currently has  its  own  troubles, notably  with its  new  Tauranga  MP Sam Uffindell becoming the centre of a controversy about how much his electorate should have been apprised of something he did as a 16-year-old schoolboy.  Besides,  the Nats have yet  to  find  the  threads  which  they could  stitch into  a  coherent policy with  broad  appeal.

ACT could tap into a rich vein of support by pushing for higher education standards and a stronger Defence force

Emerging  from  its  annual conference, the  ACT  Party’s  leadership appears to  regard itself already  as  a key element in  the  next government.

ACT leader  David  Seymour had  the  conference  cheering  as  he  spoke   of  how  ACT  would ensure in the first hundred days of the  next  government,  Labour’s  measures on Three Waters, the Māori Health Authority, the 39c tax rate, and Fair Pay Agreements  would  all be  gone,  just as ACT’s policies on 90-day trials, three strikes, oil and gas exploration and charter schools would be reinstated.

No  surprises  there.

But  ACT   will  need far  more  than  this  if  it is  to  win over  the  thousands  of   additional  votes  to make  certain  it does have  a powerful voice,  rather  than being  just   a  prop  for  National.  It will need  Cabinet  ministers  in  influential   roles.

Most of the issues highlighted by Seymour are likely to get National’s support or are changes which National already has said it will enact.  He admits getting them to repeal the Zero Carbon Act will be harder.

“We’re going to have to push very hard on that one, because they’ve committed themselves so heavily, but I think it’s worth doing,” he said.

ACT makes commitment to a referendum on co-governance – but maybe it was too late for the capital’s morning newspaper

The Stuff team didn’t bring out the big headline type to report on a party political commitment of profound importance to anyone who cares about how and by whom we are governed. That – of course – should be everyone.

Stuff didn’t mention this commitment in the Dominion-Post (flagship of the Stuff fleet) – at least, Point of Order failed to find an account of it in our copy this morning, but maybe it was tucked away somewhere between some ads.  Or maybe the press release around 7:09 last night was too late.

An online Stuff report did report it but its headline brought the Maori Party’s highly predictable response into the reckoning:  New ACT Party policy branded ‘divisive’ and ‘bigoted’ by Māori Party

The online report opened:

A new ACT Party policy calling for “a referendum on co-governance” has been branded “divisive”, “bigoted” and “appealing to racists” by the Māori Party.

Thus the emphasis was heaped not on ACT’s announcement of a commitment to strengthening our democracy and to enabling voters to determine how we are governed.

Stuff opted, rather, to highlight the hostile position of a party whose leadership does not enthusiastically champion democracy.  

According to Newshub, Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi has declared:

“We need to start looking at how Maori can participate more equally and equitably in that particular space in a tiriti-centric Aotearoa. Not in a democracy, because… democracy is majority rules, and indigenous peoples – especially Maori at 16 percent of the population in this country – will lose out, and we’ll sit in second-place again.”

Seymour becomes a star in the poll dance – but let’s see a spotlight on the hard policy ACT has choreographed

ACT  leader  David Seymour  seems  to  think  he is  dancing  with the  stars  once more. Whether  he’s  in  step  with the  music is somewhat uncertain.

At  any  rate, he’s boldly  putting  it  about:

“We can  win in 2023.”

Point  of  Order has  received from  him a  note  on  how the latest  polls   are  trending in  which he  asserts the gap between the Government and the Opposition is closing.

He  cites the  latest Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll,   in  which  ACT is steady on 16%, while Labour is down 6 points to 39%.

“In the last 12 months, National has regained its election night polling and we have doubled our support.Two months ago, the gap between the centre-left and centre-right was 19 points. It’s now just 6.

“In the most important barometer of the mood of the country, more New Zealanders now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction than the right direction”.

David Seymour’s Herculean challenges: getting 14 MPs into Parliament (really?) and flattening the tax rate

A Flat Tax: The Good, the Bad and Why It Probably Won’t Happen was the headline on an article published in Money Talks News – pitched at an American audience – in 2014.

Act leader David Seymour, who included a flat tax among the policies he unveiled at the weekend, should take note.  Even if he was to get 14 MPs into Parliament (anyone putting money on that very, very long shot?), all the other Parliamentarian will vote to stick with a progressive income tax system.

But that’s no reason for a debate to be stifled.

The article in Money Talks News took the complex US Federal tax code into considerations (the code comprised 73,954 pages in 2013 and included seven tax rates, four standard deductions and at least a dozen tax credits for individuals. Then there were exemptions, itemised deductions and the special tax rules.

Why not eliminate all those hoops and simply tax everyone using the same percentage?

The answer was that it depends on who you ask.