Oral Questions for 16 July 2025
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NZ Herald
an hour ago
- NZ Herald
Shane Te Pou: Tāmaki Makaurau byelection a chance to test out campaign machine
No electorate belongs to any party and Peeni Henare (who was Tāmaki Makaurau's MP for three terms until he lost to Kemp by 42 votes) has every right to try to win the seat back. And, contrary to some claims that Henare winning would mean fewer Māori in Parliament, if he wins the electorate, Labour will have an empty list seat, with the next in line being the wāhine Māori Georgie Dansey. Labour's Peeni Henare was Tāmaki Makaurau's MP for three terms and is fighting to win the seat back. Photo / Mark Mitchell Having a contested campaign is good for Labour and Te Pāti Māori. It will allow both parties to give their election campaign machines a run and put forward their vision to people who have been hard hit by this Government's poor decisions and negligence. According to the latest census, construction is the biggest employer for Tāmaki Makaurau voters. It's also been a sector that's been hammered by the Government stopping large infrastructure projects mid-stream and cutting off funding for building more state houses. Oriini Kaipara is the Te Pāti Māori candidate for the Tāmaki Makaurau byelection. Photo / Supplied Fifteen thousand construction jobs have been lost in the past two years. Nationwide, the economy has lost 34,000 jobs in the past year and Māori unemployment is over 10%. Rising costs for basics such as food, GP visits, prescriptions, and electricity are hitting whānau who are dealing with job losses, all while being characterised as dole bludgers by a Government that seemingly has no solutions. With 79% of Tāmaki Makaurau voters renting, they're also feeling the pinch of continuing rent rises. The reality is most of our people work, but no matter how hard they work, even holding down two jobs, they just cannot get ahead in life. Many whānau live in overcrowded homes, with the constant spectre of having nowhere to live as the Government has brought back no-cause evictions and cut off access to emergency housing. Anyone who walks the streets of our largest city knows that the number of homeless people in Tāmaki Makaurau is growing, and many of them are Māori. Labour says its focus is on jobs, homes, health and the cost of living. Those are clearly key issues for voters, who are unimpressed by this Government's lack of delivery and their carelessness towards the hurt people are feeling. But voters aren't yet ready to fully embrace Labour – probably because of the lack of a vision and policy to go with those priorities. This byelection is an opportunity for Labour to start putting some meat on those bones and present themselves as an alternative government that people can trust with their vote. For Te Pāti Māori, holding on to Tāmaki Makaurau will be an important goal, to cement their hold on the Māori seats and prove that 2023 wasn't a passing high-tide mark, like 2008 was. It will also be a test of how they handle more mainstream media attention. Next year, National will spend a huge amount of money and energy trying to show that a vote for Labour is a vote for Te Pāti Māori and that they are too extreme to be let near power. It will be up to Te Pāti Māori to prove that fear-mongering wrong. Labour and Te Pāti Māori will need to use this byelection to show they can compete while keeping things civil and positive. Oriini Kaipara and Peeni Henare are excellent candidates, and I'm not making a pick on who will win. I am confident that whoever is elected will be able to represent our people well. I hope that the winner will work tirelessly for more jobs, more houses and better public services. Two years of cuts and negligence have left our people hurting. It's time for some hope.
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
No penalty clauses paid on stalled Waiouru army base housing project
Waiouru military training camp Photo: Google Maps The Defence Force (NZDF) says it has not paid any penalty clauses associated with its housing project at Waiouru army base . Penalty clauses can be paid when contractors or subcontractors sign up to projects that do not then go ahead. The $50 million-plus project has stalled , though both defence and Ngāti Rangi iwi consider it urgent, and the force issued a tender over a year ago for 50 new homes. No building has taken place. The NZDF once again refused to tell RNZ why it was still in negotiations with the iwi over the housing. It had appeared the talks were settled before it issued last year's tender. "Negotiations in relation to this matter remain underway. Accordingly, this information is withheld in full... to enable negotiations to be carried out without prejudice or disadvantage," it said in a response to a request under the Offiicial Information Act. "The NZDF's relationship with local iwi has not changed and remains vital to our use of the Waiouru Military Training Area," it added. It also said no penalty clauses had been paid, either related to the new builds or the retrofit upgrade of existing army rental houses. Defence housing and other facilities were very rundown, interfering with its military performance and leading to some personnel quitting, its own reports showed. It had an Estate Investment Committee that "provides performance monitoring, oversight, and direction", according to its annual report. But when RNZ asked for the latest three performance management reports by the committee, NZDF replied: "No reports are generated by the New Zealand Defence Force's Estate Investment Committee." It repeated this in relation to its Technology Governance Committee, when RNZ asked for its latest reports, too. A lot of the NZDF's information technology was old and needed replacing, or were in the middle of years-long projects. Funding was set aside in Budget 2025 for this.
NZ Herald
2 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Heather du Plessis-Allan: We are being irrational about the price of butter
Unless you're into commercial scale baking, butter is not the thing putting the most pressure on household budgets. Try power. This winter power is costing the average household almost a block of butter every day. Or rates. That's costing the average Wellingtonian more than a block of butter every day. Those expenses have no alternatives. You have to pay them. With butter we at least have alternatives. If we don't like the price we can do a swap. I don't want to be Marie Antoinette but at least we have the option to switch to margarine. Not only have we abandoned logic, but also facts. Even the Finance Minister briefly took to complaining that butter is cheaper in Australia than in the very country that produces it. Except that's not true. At the time of writing, if you take Woolworths' salted butter, which is available both sides of the Tasman, adjust for currency and the fact the Australian Government does not charge their equivalent of GST on butter, we actually pay 30c less. Discounting butter domestically is impractical, as it would require subsidies, impacting farmers and shareholders. Actually, the price of butter is a good news story for New Zealand. Because if we're paying our farmers more, the world is paying our farmers more. And they're buying a lot more blocks of butter than we are. So that means they're paying a good chunk towards our tax take, our health, our roads, our schools. It's become slightly fashionable to suggest the solution is to discount butter domestically. That's a nutty idea. A discount is a subsidy. A subsidy has to be paid by someone. Who? Fonterra? The shareholders will probably object to that. Maybe, if this drama runs on long enough and there is enough reputational damage to Fonterra, it might be in the business' interest to cut the price to make the pain stop. That would not be a good day for farmers and shareholders. Miles Hurrell attributes the 46.5% rise in butter prices to global demand and supply issues. Photo / Alyse Wright The Government? Again, bonkers. If New Zealand is too broke to afford the full Dunedin hospital build, we're too broke to help commercial bakers afford their butter. The truth is there is no fix to the price of butter that isn't stupid or temporary. We simply have to pay the price that we pay. And the Finance Minister knows this. She knows this because she is a very clever woman. And because she worked for Fonterra for six years. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has turned butter into the cost-of-living symbol. Photo / Mark Mitchell So, she should never have turned butter into the cost-of-living symbol she has. This really started with her in April when she visited Costco and was taken by the fact it could sell butter for about half the price mainstream supermarkets were selling it for. It became her evidence that supermarkets were ripping us off. But then somehow, Fonterra got dragged into it and one of their regular ministerial briefings became a please-explain. And then the TV news was chasing the CEO Miles Hurrell around the forecourt of Parliament and going live to air while the meeting was under way. And there were expectations. And then nothing happened. And it has become yet another example of the Finance Minister, disappointingly, talking big but doing nothing. Just like with the retail banks. And just like with the supermarkets, so far. Spare a thought for Hurrell. The man is one of the most impressive Kiwi CEOs of his generation but had to spend his week cast as the villain of the butter story. There is no story. It's not even the biggest pressure on our weekly bills.
