More policies are stopped or slowed to help save $1bn for bread-and-butter spending – but RMA “reforms” escape the cull

Buzz from the Beehive

It was a big day for the stopping or slowing of a second tranche of government programmes, an exercise which  Beehive publicists are pitching as measures to allow the Government to focus more time, energy and resources on “the bread and butter issues” facing New Zealanders.

This affirms, of course, that since the 2020 general election, the bread- and-butter issues facing New Zealanders had been lowered (or forgotten?) in the Government’s priorities.

Hence the Government’s popularity had wilted, its poll support had shrunk and Jacinda Ardern – remember her ? – had bailed out as Prime Minister when it looked like the Nats and ACT were on course to win the election this year.

But her successor, Chris Hipkins, has not thrown all the rubbish overboard – or swept it under the carpet until after election day.  He is persisting with one programme which the state-subsidised mainstream media have not too well explained to the public – the legislation that will replace the Resource Management Act.

A strong hint that it deserves much more critical analysis can be found in an article by New Zealand Initiative chairman Roger Partridge headed Submissions expose horrors of David Parker’s RMS reform proposals.

How the Govt aims to make us safer by strengthening NZ’s terrorism laws – but might this work with other laws?

Buzz from the Beehive

A government committed to improving our wellbeing and safety is assuring us it intends strengthening counter-terrorism laws “to make it harder for people who are known threats to undertake terrorist acts”.

The headline announcing this proclaims:  Stronger terrorism laws make New Zealand safer.

This is hugely encouraging and may well become the subject of study by criminologists around the world.   If our legislators can draft a stronger law to make us safer from terrorists, then all sorts of possibilities are opened.

A stronger law that makes it harder to conduct a ram raid is an attractive possibility, for example, or a stronger law to make it harder for those of us with homicidal inclinations to murder our fellow citizens.

But fair to say, Allan did acknowledge:

“While no law can ever stop a motivated terrorist from undertaking an attack, these changes will go a long way in preventing, disrupting and limiting their ability to do so.”

Whoa there, before saluting the Ardern government for keeping so many people in work

Stats  NZ  figures  this  week indicated the  country’s  unemployment  was  3.3%  of  the  workforce  in the  June quarter, or 0.1% less  than in the  March  quarter.

So  should we give  three  cheers to the Ardern  government for sustaining employment at   such  a  high  level    through  the  Covid  pandemic?

Given  how wages have increased – for  example,  in the manufacturing sector by  8%  over the  past year – surely  you have to concede  the  economy  is  ticking along very nicely under  this  government?

First, let’s check out  the  number  drawing  benefits.

In  March  there  were 278,238  people  drawing  a  main benefit.  That’s 11.1% of  the  working  age  population.

Sepuloni is chuffed about reduction in numbers on benefits – but more than 300,000 Kiwis are being succoured by the state

Social Development  and  Employment Minister Carmel Sepuloni  was  quick  off  the mark to announce  the government’s  achievement in  getting  more  people off benefits. She  says the government’s response to COVID-19 has helped keep people in work, with March Quarter Benefit statistics showing a further fall in the number of people receiving a main benefit and jobseeker assistance.

There were 19,883 fewer people on a main benefit, compared with December, with near-record numbers of people moving into work, Sepuloni said.

The figures also showed an annual fall of 4.8 per cent in the number of people receiving a main benefit.

She  claims  it  was the government’s quick response to COVID-19  that had worked, with initiatives such as the Wage Subsidy and the economic support packages keeping people in work and delivering record low unemployment.

Bigger benefits from tomorrow – bravo! But they might not buy as much as before

Ministers  have been celebrating  their  wisdom in raising  benefits  substantially from  April 1.

Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni led  the  chorus by  telling Parliament it is the biggest lift to main benefits in decades.  For many years, the rate of main benefits has fallen further behind the average wage, placing  many people, including children, in undue hardship, she said.

That  was  an unusual admission, given the  Labour  Party has been in office  for  four years.

So  now  the  good  news:

“In addition to indexing main benefits to wage growth, we are further lifting main benefits so they don’t fall further behind. The Ministry of Social Development’s analysis shows that from 1 April, a couple on a benefit with children will now be, on average, $237 a week better off than they were when the Government took office in 2017.

“As a Government, we have worked hard to lift as many children out of poverty as possible, and while raising the level of main benefit is only one way to achieve our goal, it is an incredibly important step in the right direction”.

The PM is promising “progress” and Sepuloni is reporting it on the welfare front – but doubts are raised by her benefits data

The PM’s first speech of the year, delivered to Labour MPs in New Plymouth at their annual caucus retreat, largely focused on Covid-19 and the Omicron variant, according to RNZ.

Jacinda Ardern insisted the government has and is continuing to prepare for an Omicron outbreak in the community.

“But it will not be without its challenges, though, we are facing a trickier enemy given it keeps evolving.”

Despite the challenges thrown up by the pandemic, Ardern said, the government must continue to make progress in other areas.

Does this include progress in dismantling our democratic structures in favour of so-called Treaty-based and provocatively race-based co-governance arrangements?

Perhaps, but RNZ said: 

Child poverty group presses for more govt help as demand for benefits and food grants surges

So   how  is  the  team  of  five  million  looking after  its   latest  encounter  with  Covid-19  and  its  more  transmissible  Delta  strain?

The  majority    will  be  relieved  to  have  escaped  its  clutches.

On  the  other  side  of the  ledger,  the virus  has  had  a powerful  impact  on  lower-  income  groups.

One  lobby  group,  noting the current lockdown triggered the largest weekly increase in numbers of people receiving benefits since the first lockdown last year, says the government isn’t doing enough to help affected families.

The latest MSD reporting also shows food grant numbers near the end of August were double what they were at the same time last year, when Auckland was in a level 3 lockdown.

Govt invites ideas on freshwater farm plans but irked cockies are unlikely to cancel their protest plans

One ministerial announcement which invites farmers and growers to engage in consultations on fresh water matters seems to have been issued a tad late to mollify angry farmers.  It coincided with news that a farmer group is planning a protest against what it describes as unworkable government regulations and interference in farmers’ lives – and interference in the work of the country’s biggest export sector.

Another announcement reflected concerns in the Beehive to mollify stressed operators in the tourism industry, no longer the country’s biggest earner of overseas revenue since it was crippled by the closing of borders to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Beehive policy-makers have figured they can’t do much to compensate flagging businesses for the billions of dollars lost when overseas visitors stopped coming here – but hey.

There IS something a “be kind” government can do.  It can chip in $4.5 million to give them peace of mind – of sorts – by dealing with their mental wellbeing.

Take the heat off Megan Woods, folks – we must all pitch in and help nail (or fund) a resolution to the housing crisis

Housing Minister Megan Woods perhaps hopes to take the political heat off herself and the government on the matter of the shortage of houses, rampant real estate prices and soaring rents.

She acknowledges there is a crisis.   And – in a speech to the Palmerston North Housing Forum 2021 -she said it’s up to all of us to fix it.

The speech was among several items posted on the Beehive website since Point of Order last monitored what Ministers of the Crown are doing and how they are spending our money.

Further north, Maori Development Minister Willie Jackson was demonstrating that the housing crisis has been resolved for six families in Pāpāmoa, in the Bay of Plenty.

And his press statement reminds us that, if we are paying taxes, we already are doing our bit.

We are funding a raft of government programmes, several of them tailored to help people based on their ethnicity.

Spending monitor seeks better deal for taxpayers but a blogger begs for bigger boost for beneficiaries

Whoopee!  A pay rise.

No – to be precise, a rise in the national super which is paid to some of the team at Point of Order.

Super was mentioned in the boost to benefits announced yesterday by Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni.

Fair to say, this boost did not go down well with the monitors of public extravagance at the Taxpayers’ Union.  The indexation of benefits to wages means taxpayers are treated less fairly than ever, they say.

Martyn Bradbury, on the Daily Blog, is critical too – but his grouch is that the government has been much too stingy.

Point of Order checked social spending as a percentage of total government spending in the latest six-month Crown financial statements.  We were surprised to find it is a smaller portion of than it was 20 years ago.

But first, the announcement.