Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.4.24

Friday April 26, 2024 

News:
Legal fight to summons children’s minister will continue, with appeal lodged
A late evening judgement from the High Court overturned the Waitangi Tribunal’s subpoena to Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, but that didn’t spell an end to the remarkable rift between the courts and executive.

Annette Sykes, a high profile Treaty rights activist and lawyer, has confirmed to Stuff that she will be appealing the High Court’s Wednesday night ruling.

David Farrar: Hysterical Hipkins

Newshub reports:

He [Hipkins] said the government had only been in office for six months, and “the wheels are falling off already”.

This is beyond stupid. Hipkins claims taking two portfolios away from Ministers who were seen to be struggling is the wheels are falling off.

Peter Dunne:

The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe wryly commented – in a clever paraphrasing of St John’s Gospel – that “greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life.”

Dr Eric Crampton: A new kind of city deal

For a few months after last year’s elections, Wellington consultancies seemed to be scrambling to publish reports on city deals.

National’s coalition agreement with ACT promised long-term city deals for funding and financing infrastructure but was short on details.

Thursday April 25, 2024 

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Clive Bibby: Deterrent or Paper Tiger

As the Ukraine war drags on with little show of victories (even small ones) on the Russian Front, and the much needed American replacement armaments package stalled in the US Congress, the question surely needs to be asked of the NATO alliance members - “Isn’t the outcome of this war EUROPE’S RESPONSIBILITY?”

Because the current stalemate is looking more and more like a lost cause if the European member states of NATO continue to allow the Americans to do the heavy lifting.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 25/4/24

Maori Party (with “disgust”) draws attention to Chhour’s race after the High Court rules on Waitangi Tribunal’s summons

A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night.

It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it.

Lindsay Mitchell: Is Oranga Tamariki guilty of child neglect?

One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?

Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care.

David Farrar: High Court quashes Waitangi Tribunal summons

The Herald reports:

The High Court has ruled Children’s Minister Karen Chhour cannot be compelled to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal.

In a just-released decision, Justice Andru Isac granted the Crown’s application for judicial review, setting aside the summons issued by the tribunal.

Roger Childs: Anzac Day - Origins, Changes, Controversy

Anzac commemorations suited political purposes right from 1916 when the first Anzac Day marches was held in London, Australia and New Zealand, which were very much around trying to get more people to sign up to the war in 1916–1918. –Australian historian Martin Crotty

The first day of remembrance

The first Anzac Day was on 25 April 1916. This was exactly one year after New Zealand and Australian troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in a joint Anglo-French invasion designed to capture Constantinople and take the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War, The first service in New Zealand, and the World, was held in the small Wairarapa town of Tinui where patriotic citizens dragged a large cross to the top of a local hill to remember the fallen.

JC: PM Needs to Don His Hard Hat

First, let me say I think overall the Prime Minister is doing a good job. He didn’t disappoint in executing his 100-day plan. He and his ministers have been getting on with the job, and publishing a plan for the next few months was a good move. I do however have one area of concern. Christopher Luxon appears to not want to offend those who would seek to derail his well-intentioned ambitions. I refer, in the first instance, to that august body (well, that appears to be how they think of themselves), the Waitangi Tribunal.

Chris Trotter: Comity Be Damned! The State’s Legislative Arm Is Flexing Its Constitutional Muscles

THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE of “comity” acknowledges the susceptibility of what should be complimentary state functions to dangerous entanglement. It enjoins the three branches of government; executive, legislative and judicial; to demonstrate a mutual respect for each other’s functions. Without “comity”, not only is the smooth functioning of the three branches of government put at risk, but also the political legitimacy of the state itself.

idbkiwi: About as Non-partisan as You Can Get

I listened to a Mediawatch bulletin from RNZ and heard the authors of the Trust in Media report exhorting news outlets to carry less opinion, emphasising that the issue of opinion, and the slant of such, was a major, very major, concern to news-consumers and a huge factor in the decline in trust we place in those outlets.

Bruce Cotterill: When TV news is the news

Media people love reporting on the media. As a result when media companies start shedding services, people or programmes in this case, it can become the biggest story in town.

And so we’ve had the news items, the coverage of meetings with staff, and finally the announcement about where to next. Compare the coverage to any other company or government department decreasing personnel numbers at the moment and you get the idea.

John MacDonald: Who says farmers can't be trusted?

Welcome to another war of words between the greenies and the government over changes to the Resource Management Act.

With the poor old farmers stuck in the middle, just wanting the chance to be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to protecting the environment. And that’s what I think we should be doing.

We will remember them

 

Wednesday April 24, 2024 

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Heather du Plessis-Allan: NZ deserves Luxon's style of performance management

I have got nothing bad to say about Chris Luxon demoting Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds today.

This is exactly the kind of performance management that the country deserves, don't you think?

Obviously on a human level, I feel sorry for both of those ministers because this will be humiliating - but don’t tell me this wasn’t deserved.

Mike Butler: Maori wards basic facts

Maori wards became an issue again when the New Zealand coalition government announced, on April 4, 2024, that it would restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Maori wards in local government.

Since the Ardern Labour government in 2021 removed the right to petition for a vote, 32 councils imposed Maori wards knowing that mostly whenever a vote was held, substantial opposition would block the proposal.

This piece serves to fill in the gaps because recent commentary promoting Maori wards mostly neglects to give basic facts, context, or background.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 24/4/24

At a time of media turmoil, Melissa had nothing to proclaim as Minister – and now she has been demoted

Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot below – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of Media and Communications.

To the contrary, her career has been besmirched by her failure to do anything – an accomplishment embarrassingly recorded on a blank sheet on the official government website (which was updated this afternoon to remove her name from the page).