We are 3% of the way to the next election.
The blog has been in a holding pattern post election, partly because of a lack of interest in politics once the election was over, but also because I couldn’t stand the incessant attempts to divine news out of the closed doors coalition negotiations. I wanted to wait and see what was what, and now we’ve got it, here’s what I think it all means. I’m going through the ministers in the new government and then some of the notable policy concessions to the minor parties.
Part One: The Ministers
There’s almost nothing to note about what Luxon, Willis, Bishop and Reti will be doing, except that Willis as Associate Climate Change Minister is a surprise but always welcome for a central decision maker, and so long as the new government isn’t abolishing ministries, the decision on who to give Minister of Pacific Peoples to was always going to be a weird one. So sure, let Doctor Shane have it, why not? There isn’t really a good argument for anybody; it might as well go to somebody who has their hands full with one big portfolio and nothing else.
Simeon Brown clocks in as a bit of a mega-minister. The obvious concern is that a National Party Transport Minister, who critics will always link to emissions and congestion from road fixation, is also in charge of Energy, which kind of makes him the emitter in chief. (This also means NZFirst didn’t get Energy as hoped for, so we won’t see much of super weird national security energy policy.)
My concern is more that, on top of being Minister for Auckland, he’s ALSO the Minister for Local Government? You can see the obvious link but committing him to all these councils as well as a deep relationship with Auckland - this kind of feels like Mahuta 2.0, where governments overcook their arrangements around who will liaison with local government and end up out of step with them. Just let Brown tackle Auckland in depth and somebody else have the time to go around the country and connect with them. Doocey, maybe? He has the mana for it.
Stanford, Goldsmith and Collins have all gotten a lot to do. Let’s get this out the way first: Collinsmania is through the roof. With her experience all these portfolios make sense, and she’s the right lawyer to be AG, while the plum prize of the Ministry of Defence should keep her happy and prevent any agitation. (Speaker goes to Gerry Brownlee as his own reward for decades of loyalty.) Stanford will really have to prove herself but Education and Immigration are both ideal for her skillset and I love to see it.
Goldsmith will be the butt of Ngāti Epsom jokes until the end of time; he presumably couldn't be let near any portfolios with big sums of the money on the table again after his budget hole, so he'll finally have to show he's worthy of some respect. I could see him becoming a real failure story for this government; besides the difficulties of Justice and Treaty Negotiations, the arts sector has a disproportionately large voice amongst urban liberals and will be sure to agitate about him underfunding them.
Mitchell’s portfolios make sense but I have to wonder at the political wisdom of giving him Emergency Management too. On top of Corrections and Police, it feels like the ultimate trinity of “tough guy” jobs, and we know he loves to run for leader. Give him a big disaster he manages well a la Bob Parker or Desley Simpson (never mind John Key or Jacinda Ardern), and it feels like you’re potentially really burnishing him for a future run as the conservative Nat who can get it done, compared to the mild-mannered Lux who will have his hands full with his deputies.
McClay doesn't really seem to have been punished despite the rumours that it was him who messed up the tax policy - but then again, at his level of experience, the fact he hasn’t risen any further says something. All of his portfolios go together. Potaka has been somewhat pigeonholed as the Māori guy in charge of Māori stuff - and whatever the right-wing parties love to say about how they don’t see colour and are equal for all, this is the outcome of not bothering to encourage or support candidates who aren’t white, where they’ll saddle one guy with a bunch of jobs based on his ethnicity. Still, it’s good to see Conservation in his wheelhouse and hopefully this provides a path forward as a rising star. It’s already an impressive ascendancy as is for such a new MP.
Dooceymania!!! Hell yeah. ACC, Youth, and Associate Health fit naturally with his becoming the first Mental Health Minister. I’m more bemused by him getting Tourism - Waimakariri isn’t a big electorate for tourism compared to many others in the South Island, you have to go much further north or south for that - and Associate Transport - besides the Woodend bypass, there isn’t much in our neck of the woods to speak to.
Nonetheless, it’s good to see recognition that they can apply the guy’s talents outside is one thing; best of luck to him. As I suggested earlier, he is one of the most likeable figures with bipartisan appeal in politics, and they should be thinking in the future about how to apply that in roles that demand consensus, social skills and the confidence of all of Parliament. Treaty Negotiations, Local Government, Climate Change - these are just a few of the jobs worth thinking about for his future.
Lee seems doomed to being pigeonholed due to her experience and ethnicity, and I’m puzzled at National’s lack of initiative in courting and promoting many of New Zealand’s Asian communities. Could they not get somebody else in who makes for a stronger Ethnic Communities Minister, then step Lee into another business-related role too besides Economic Development? But there’s that, at least.
As has been noted, Watts and Simmonds being outside of Cabinet despite handling Climate Change and the Environment respectively is not a good sign. (James Shaw was also outside of Cabinet, but you’d hope things would change for the better, especially with the CCM now actually being from the governing party.) Simmonds has a grab bag of stuff but I think it’s a good application of her talents, whereas I think Penk almost could have been given a bit more.
We round out National with a shrug for Grigg, and the sad tale of Mister Bayly, soon to win Port Waikato. Coming last place in National’s Cabinet Ministers really highlights how he failed to make the most of his shot in his year as Judith Collins’ Shadow Treasurer. Had he shown a greater capacity than Paul Goldsmith to hold the government to account, he may not have ended up filling Nicola Willis’ current heels, but at the very least he could have remained relevant in Cabinet instead of being flung to its edges. Now the rising stars and sage veterans are set for the coming years, with little avenue for inroads on his part.
ACT only got three ministers in Cabinet and two outside, which is kinda sorta the five they were demanding during the campaign, and they have clearly concentrated their capacity within David Seymour. I think that’s a strategic error - they need to expand the brand beyond him - but as I’ll discuss later, I can also see why they’ve decided on being the DSFirst Party until ‘26.
Most of David's stuff seems right up his alleyway but him being the one in charge of Pharmac, instead of BVV or Stephenson, is an odd choice. I would hazard that they didn’t trust anybody else to front the difficult issues there, particularly after Stephenson’s poor public performances I’ve discussed elsewhere, and he can always advise on the issue from behind the scenes - I would call him a shadow minister, but, well.
None of ACT’s other choices need much discussion - McKee and Chhour’s portfolios are bang on for them, while Hoggard clearly wound up as the second banana in the agriculture brouhaha - except for BVV. ACT are unexpectedly in charge of Workplace Relations & Safety (and, by proxy, the credit for ending Fair Pay Agreements). That’s a big job and a vote of confidence in here, but that plus Internal Affairs and David’s jobs really shows ACT’s focus.
Contrary to some bleating on the left, ACT are not fixating first and foremost on being a Thatcherite, cut-tax cut-welfare party of government. They will do some of both, but they are focused first and foremost on deregulation. You can love that or hate that, but such a concern for the rules that govern economic behaviour is a very different thing from an obsession with radically redressing fiscal and monetary levers.
NZFirst also got three ministers in and two outside Cabinet - a win for them and a loss for ACT for the sides to end up on parity, though ACT got the bigger wins. (Similarly, Deputy PM was just jostling for perception with no substance to it, and lo and behold, they have divided time equally like siblings determining whose turn it is on the computer.) Winnie’s portfolios are so classically him, with many of the big wins reserved for his other ministers.
Jonesy has his classic selection of portfolios around delivering for the regions and for NZFirst’s donors, and controlling the flow of primary resources. The surprise here is the confirmation that NZFirst really see Casey Costello as their future talent; besides the hugely important jobs from NZFirst’s perspective of being Minister for Seniors and for Customs, she's Associate on Health, Immigration and Police. This could quickly skill her up and position her to, for instance, be Jones’s Deputy in future.
Patterson gets NZFirst’s minor agricultural concessions and Marcroft is basically shafted, stunningly for her experience, with easily the most irrelevant role in these whole negotiations. That concludes the portfolio allocation for the parties; all in all, the levers of power remain mostly in the hands of National, with assaults on fronts like Agriculture and AG successfully staved off.
Seymour, Shane, Van Velden and Casey Costello are all ready to give their own areas their best efforts to stand out, plus a few reformers like McKee and Chhour get their areas of interest to tuck into. There are lots of young rising stars, but this is yet another Cabinet not reflective of New Zealand’s diversity, that shows some New Zealanders are getting more encouragement and support than others to run and succeed. They overall seem pretty high-skill, but we’ll see.
Part Two: The Policies
Next, we turn to assessing some significant concessions to each of the minor parties that the media have picked out, starting with ACT. The dissolution of the Productivity Commission at ACT’s own hands is funny but makes sense; their Ministry of Regulation exists as a result of diagnosing what went wrong with the Commission (namely, that it lacked enforcement power to improve efficiency).
The idea remains a very Yes, Minister joke, but it is one of ACT’s critical wins. The Ministry could go a long way if word spreads amongst the business community, and from there within the wealthy suburbs, that David is making a real difference for them by cutting down on costs and time delays. We’ll see if he can get useful with the body, or if the bad idea proves bad in practice.
The other classic economic wins for ACT here are pro-landlord policy like faster interest deductibility and a pet bond. This stuff isn’t impressive; it’ll win and keep ACT friends with their natural voters and donors to target, but this doesn’t do amazing things for NZ’s productivity to invest in renting as a way to make the big bucks. Cutting public service numbers back to 2017 is no surprise and also confirms ACT aren’t governing as Rogernomic radicals, if they’re going to retain the entire public service that existed after nine years of Key-English, hardly a golden era for lean and skeletal government.
A parent immigration visa sounds good to me, and could help ACT to continue making inroads amongst immigrants so long as National are asleep at the wheel. Cutting requirements to pay skilled immigrants a median wage seems rubbish, but obviously businesses that can’t attract migrants will have to pay more anyway or be outcompeted by others. Therefore, I’m less concerned and more nonplussed as to what this is supposed to do. Are there really droves of skilled immigrants waiting to be paired across the economy with high-value industries paying minimum or near to it?
The situation with the Treaty principles bill is one of great confusion. At first I was elated - it seemed that any referendum was dead - but there appears to be a commitment to pass the bill anyway, based on existing ACT policy. That may not be the same bill as promised and sidestepping a referendum avoids all the ugly inflammation of racism that comes with it, but this still seems like the centrepiece of a really quite drastic reimagining of race relations (for lack of a better term) in New Zealand, primarily at the behest of minor parties. I will be keeping a close eye on this.
We finish with a few concessions to small interests. Charter schools are one of ACT’s best ideas and they won’t win many votes, but they help with defining ACT’s brand outside of being one-dimensionally right wing and with attracting young volunteers. Psuedoepherine - lmao, sure, it’s such a meme policy I can’t have a serious take on it.
Finally, the Arms Act is to be rewritten and the firearms registry reviewed. That should be enough to make the firearms lobby happy; at least the registry is staying, unless the review provides a real catalyst for binning it, and one would hope the review could correct some of the ineffectiveness of the registry. Still, such changes are overall concerning and not welcome. That finishes out ACT: there are several sops to small voter blocs, but the big things to watch are the Productivity Commission and what happens with the Treaty and the knock on effects there.
NZFirst, as always, are much more of a low-impact hodgepodge of policy. The headliners here are no surprise: superannuation will stay at 65, a win for the party they’ll try to publicise as much as possible, and $1.2 billion of funding is locked in for PGF 2.0. That’ll be awkward on all sides, seeing as National and ACT swallowed such a blatant vote bribe/market distortion and Labour and the Greens will have to attack a policy that they approved of just six years ago. NZFirst are clearly banking on the same strategy as last time: spend big in the regions once 2025 hits and hope you win 5% and Northland.
The other surprise here is notable in that it’s being credited to NZFirst. I assumed ACT would lead the way here and we’ll see how the apportioning of glory goes. The surprise is a binding referendum on a four year term; I thought we were still some years away from hitting the crunch point with this, but apparently the discussion over the past few years was enough to get the ball rolling. This was inevitable, necessary and I hate it; as I may have already said before, I like more elections even though it’s objectively worse for our nation’s governance. Vote yes on the referendum despite my gritted teeth.
The final surprising change in here that’s relevant to all of us is fees free shifting from the first year of uni to the last. I didn’t expect this to actually happen at all, let alone at NZFirst’s direction, but it’s a good change and a way for National to keep their promise that it would stick around.
The other thing bound to upset the Wellington bubble and the like is pushing back on the use of te reo Māori in government department naming and communication, as well as a host of anti-cogov and Māori wards measures and, amusingly, “stop work on He Puapua”. (How do you stop work on a report published four years ago? What next, “stop work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership”?) Let me be frank: this is all crap meant to appease racist old white people.
I try to be as thoughtful about the issues and take opponents at their best, and there are reasonable arguments against co-governance as practised by the Labour government and Māori wards, but you cannot seriously tell me there was any prevailing interest here coming from the NZFirst voter base instead of screeching, conspiratorial fears. The social push to keep normalising te reo Māori will continue, and you’ll just have bureaucrats occasionally looking over their shoulders due to a nuisance policy, and then the government will change and a bunch of this stuff will resume.
This pitiful waste of time appears alongside an independent inquiry into COVID-19 - clearly a pander to the anti-vax crowd, but, hey, it can’t hurt to double-check what we could do better next time about the exercise of colossal state power - and repealing that Therapeutic Products Act that similarly seems to have pissed off an interest group, much of which would have ties to the fringe. At least no anti-trans nonsense got in in this agreement; overall, this is not a radical coalition agreement.
Capping NZFirst off are a couple classics for how their base thinks the world should be. There’s funding for Gumboot Fridays, which is one of those, shrug, sure, if you really cared about this you would probably consider giving it more than $6 million but go for it. Finally, they want prisoners to work where possible. This seems like a good idea on paper - stuff that needs doing gets done and an occupied prisoner learning skills is a better idea than sitting around all day gathering dust - but in practice we need to be very, very careful to avoid an Americanisation of our justice system, where slavery’s fine so long as you committed a crime. And that’s NZFirst done! All in all, a pretty expected mishmash to make the base happy, but no SuperSuperGold Card or port movements or anything like that.
Part Three: The Politics
What can we conclude from all of this? In the end, National hasn’t had to give up a whole lot; NZFirst lacked a lot of their usual bargaining power because they couldn’t go with Labour, and the same for ACT, and the problem for the next three years will be simply maintaining stability and order rather than living up to this agreement. I think the blue team will be happy with this one, provided that the Treaty principles bill or Arms Act rewrite don’t go too far; they have dodged the perception of extremism or of being utterly ransom to huge greed.
Is this agreement enough for ACT? No. They lack a distinctive brand now that they are no longer the best Opposition, but simply auxiliaries to a government on the same page about three strikes, cutting public servants and a host of other issues. Directing a Treaty referendum could have done a lot more for their vote totals. What is important now is two things. One, can the government function well in general, (thus appeasing the centre-right voter that, having decided to vote for the government, can then consider ACT?
Two, can David continue to distinguish himself? The path to retaining their numbers in 2026 lies in whether he can still look like the most effective figure on the right. Otherwise, ACT risk being swallowed up by National. Of course, there’s always the dark path where National are doing terribly and voters jump ship back to ACT, but danger lies that way. ACT didn’t get a lot to work with; it’s on the David show to seal their fate.
Is this enough for NZF? No. There are not big wins to bring back to the voter base. Simply not changing super isn’t enough on its own; many NZFirst voters are old enough not to be affected either way, and the threat of super changing wasn’t a big storyline. The fringe may disengage over the next few years. Three questions on returning to Parliament in 2026 remain.
One, can Winnie do enough to stoke racism and profit off of it? Two, will he disrupt the government as usual or finally show a cooperative face, and which will work best for him? Three, finally in a first-term government and without the unique factor of COVID, can blowing big money in the regions work? I’m not inclined to think so, but this is the best opportunity in NZFirst’s history to finally solidify their future.
Despite no ACT referendum, much of these agreements and particularly with NZFirst is striking in how much racial animus carried over into the coalition talks. Otherwise, you’re mainly just looking at a hodgepodge of concessions to small interest groups and things a National government largely would’ve done anyway. As I heralded at the start of this segment, the real question is not can this agreement be fulfilled - it can with ease.
The question is simply: can these three parties cooperate? Will National prove arrogant, imperious and incompetent and see another collapse for it? That’s unlikely. Will NZFirst prove a constant thorn in the side to work with? That’s very likely. But that leads to the big question: will we see a team of National and ACT confidently on the same page, leaving Winston to spin into oblivion in 2026 as they carry on together? Or will ACT descend to NZFirst’s level, engaging in feuding with them and reigniting tensions with National, and give us the Coalition of Chaos that was promised?
I am unsure. But I suspect the politicians who just spent 41 days (forgive my moronic mathematics) chasing each other around the country and sitting in the same room have a pretty good idea. ACT is not as close with National as the Greens were with Labour (with the Greens having minimal pressure and power), and those were sunnier times than the new government was faced with now. New Zealand’s first real test of whether a three-party coalition can survive and thrive begins today.
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