A Budget Day like no other
Report and photos by Roy Murphy
While Members of Parliament squabbled inside the Beehive in Wellington on Budget Day, more than a thousand angry people gathered on the lawn outside. It was a powerful outpouring of dissent against amendments to the Equal Pay Act rushed through Parliament at short notice and without consultation. Read more »
Making democracy work. Part 5: Decisions
Part One covered the formation and structure of the Porirua Citizens Assembly. Part Two examined how the Assembly went about its work. Part Three looked at the contribution from the rangatahi. Part Four described the contribution of the Mana Whenua.
The Porirua Citizens Assembly finished its work last Saturday. It had no authority to add anything extra to the draft of Day Four. It was refining the expression of the final draft to delete some contested sentences and clarify the wording. It was aiming at 100 percent acceptance, but it agreed to accept an 80 percent favourable vote. In the end the final version was approved by unanimous vote. Read more »
Vibes, debt, and affordable housing
May 21, 2025 19 comments
by Felicity Wong
Few affordable houses in Wellington have resulted from de-regulating zoning in the District Plan. So far, the Wellington evidence supports the Independent Hearing Panel's (IHP) view that 'zoning by itself, does not lead to affordable housing'. Read more »
Making democracy work. Part 4. Mana whenua kōrero
by Roy Murphy
Part One covered the formation and structure of the Porirua Citizens Assembly. Part Two examined how the Assembly went about its work. Part Three looked at the contribution from the rangatahi..
One big difference between the wider Porirua community and the Mana Whenua, the indigenous people of Aotearoa, became obvious right from the start. The wider community spent nearly the whole of the first day getting to know each other, developing acceptable ways of dealing with each other, going on a bus tour to get familiar with the land, and agreeing on how to arrive at conclusions. Whereas the Mana Whenua already knew each other, knew the land, knew the families, and used the traditional Māori ways of kōrero (discussion) and of making decisions. Read more »
Making democracy work. Part 3: the youth speak up
May 19, 2025 9 comments
by Roy Murphy
Part One covered the formation and structure of the Porirua Citizens Assembly. Part Two examined how the Assembly went about its work.
Day Two was centred around the rangatahi, the young people. Read more »
Making democracy work. Part 2: getting to know you
May 18, 2025 4 comments
by Roy Murphy
Part One covered the formation and structure of the Porirua Citizens Assembly on climate change.
For the wider Porirua community, Day One of the Assembly was devoted to setting the ground rules, finding out about each other so they could talk, going on a bus tour of the Porirua area to develop their knowledge of the local environment, and listening to experts. Read more »
Making democracy work. Part 1: building the framework
May 17, 2025 24 comments
by Roy Murphy
In a world first, the Porirua community has improved the experience of people involvement in society three-fold. It has transformed the already successful process of citizens' assemblies. Read more »
$800,000 to re-plan Dixon Street
by Karl Tiefenbacher
The Wellington City Council last week once again showed how desperately out of touch it is with what we need as a city, and how much we need a change at the local elections. Read more »
Running out of runway
May 14, 2025 50 comments
by Councillor Diane Calvert
Wellington is running out of runway — financially and politically. City councillors are about to make decisions on a revised 10-year budget that will shape Wellington's direction for years to come. This is the last chance for councillors to face facts: the city we've been planning and spending for isn't a city people can afford to live in. Read more »
Eight months of roadworks
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Spinoff
2 days ago
- The Spinoff
Windbag: Andrew Little looks to Auckland to fix Wellington
Wellington's rate of housing construction has plummeted. Mayoral candidate Andrew Little thinks he has the solution – and he's borrowed some ideas from our biggest city. If there's one statistic that should scare every Wellingtonian, it's this: in the 12 months to May 2025, Wellington City Council consented 2.1 new dwellings per 1,000 residents. That's the slowest rate among all 11 city councils in New Zealand. The only silver lining is that it's a slight improvement on 2024, when Wellington consented just 1.7 new dwellings per 1,000 residents. That was the worst annual result posted by any city council since 2013. Since the market downturn began, construction in Wellington has plummeted, falling by 71% between 2023 and 2024. That was the steepest drop in the country, not just among city councils, but including all district councils and Auckland local boards, too. It wasn't a fall from particularly lofty heights, either. Wellington's most productive year in the low-interest-rate-fuelled boom was in 2020 when it consented 6.8 dwellings per 1,000 residents. Auckland and Christchurch topped out at 12.8 and 12.0 respectively. Per-capita consents data for major city councils (Data source Stats NZ, graph Joel MacManus via Flourish) This is way beyond a problem of housing supply and affordability. It's a crisis that threatens the future of the city. If Wellington can't build, it can't grow. It will continue to decline, becoming increasingly economically and culturally irrelevant, its core infrastructure falling into greater disrepair while the burden of costs falls upon a shrinking pool of ratepayers. Anyone who puts their hand up to be mayor needs to have an answer for how they would break the cycle and bring building back to the city. So what are the leading candidates offering? Alex Baker, a former director at Kāinga Ora, is driving the conversation on land value rates and wants to replace developer contributions with targeted rates based on location-specific infrastructure requirements, which should act as an incentive for denser and better-located housing. Karl Tiefenbacher wants to introduce council 'path smoothers' to work with major developers to streamline the consenting process, and wants to explore ways to lower building insurance costs. Diane Calvert has some vague language about removing red tape for developers (though it's hard to put too much weight in her words, considering she vehemently opposed removing density restrictions in the District Plan, the biggest red tape blockade of all). Ray Chung doesn't have any listed policies about housing development, but he, too, opposed increased density in the District Plan. Then, there's Andrew Little. I've been pretty critical of his policy stances thus far – unambitious, technocratic, campaigning against things that already aren't happening. But it would be naive to pretend that he isn't by far the most credible candidate and most likely to be mayor after October – and as such, his stance on housing is important. Little announced his housing policy on Wednesday last week at the showroom for the upcoming Lido Apartments on Wakefield Street, a 138-unit development by Watson Group with prices starting at $395,000. 'That's just the sort of thing that we need if we're going to attract young people, and mid-career people, and retain them here, and to make housing affordable for Wellington,' Little said. Little's policy, as he describes it, aims for 'a culture of 'yes' around new building consents'. He wants to give the council chief executive new KPIs to bring down the time it takes to process building consents, cut consenting fees to align with other cities, and make further changes to the District Plan to remove lighting and landscaping requirements. He also confirmed he would explore land value rates or other tools to encourage development in good locations. His two most interesting proposals are both borrowed from successful Auckland Council initiatives. The first is the 'qualified partner' approach; basically, major developments will each have a dedicated council staffer working with the developer to support consent applications. This is a change from the current approach, where consents are handled by a pool of staff, which can often lead to miscommunications and inefficiencies. The second, and most significant, proposal is to create an urban development office, similar to Auckland's Eke Panuku. Initially a council-controlled organisation, now an in-house council department, Eke Panuku serves as a 'master developer' for Auckland, with the ability to buy and sell property on behalf of the council to drive urban regeneration projects. It's best known for the Wynyard Quarter redevelopment and has worked on several other town centres and shopping precincts. For an example of how this could work in Wellington, Little cited the Tawa Anchor Project. Residents and businesses in Tawa are pushing the council to renew the community centre and library at the heart of the suburb. It could be an opportunity to partner with private developers to build adjacent housing or retail to maximise the impact of the development. As Little put it: 'The council still owns the land, and it's still a council library, but you have the opportunity to have a higher development, which is owned by the developer with apartments or what have you.' On the whole, I'm impressed by this announcement. I know some of the people who contributed to the policy. I won't name them because I don't want to get them in trouble with work, but they aren't Labour people, just smart urban nerds who want good housing policy. The fact that Little has taken (most) of their suggestions on board is a positive sign for how he might lead as mayor – and who he might listen to. What I appreciate about this policy is that it meets the moment. Wellington City Council has already pulled the biggest lever at its disposal last year by rewriting its District Plan to enable more density. There has been a small uptick in consents, and a noticeable change in the types of buildings being consented, but the new plan hasn't made any real difference to housing supply. The trouble is timing – by the time the change went through, the economy had cratered, and precious few developers wanted to invest in Wellington. Wellington needs to do more than just change the rules to attract development; it needs the council to take a direct leadership approach. It can't just be a watchdog; it needs to be a herder, presenting opportunities, promoting investment, and encouraging them along.
Scoop
12-08-2025
- Scoop
Greens Look To Be Tail Wagging The Dog - Should Labour Be Worried?
Analysis: The most telling line out of the Green Party's AGM this weekend was not its claim to be leading the opposition, nor its ambitions on leading the next government. Such lofty goals are to be expected as all parties try to motivate members at their annual conferences. More interesting was an observation from co-leader Marama Davidson, dropped almost as an afterthought near the end of Sunday's media conference. "Setting the agenda isn't just about numbers," she said. "We've got a government right now whose tail is being wagged by two smaller parties." The subtext is clear: if ACT and NZ First can have a disproportionate influence - as David Seymour likes to put it - then why not the Greens, alongside perhaps, Te Pāti Māori? That framing is politically dangerous for Labour. National will seize on it, warning of a Labour government beholden to its minor partners. Remember previous attempts to tie Labour to the Greens' wealth tax. Those attacks might be undermined somewhat by its own coalition tensions, but they will be aided by Labour's current policy paucity. If Labour's manifesto remains light on detail for too long, the Greens could end up setting the agenda and the terms of debate by default. That's where the Greens' claim of opposition dominance has some merit. They have pumped out a suite of detailed policies on tax, climate, and industrial strategy this term while Labour has deliberately kept its powder dry. Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick pointed to this year's Budget Day, claiming ministers spent most of their time talking about the Green Budget. They won't be thrilled by Swarbrick advocating herself as the next finance minister over the weekend either. Labour will look to correct the policy imbalance as the election gets closer. But in the meantime, it risks losing support to the Greens' big talk. Monday's Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll suggests that has not happened yet. The poll records Labour on 33.6 percent - the most popular party in Parliament - with the Greens just under 10 percent, more than 20 points behind. That severely undercuts the Greens' self-styled role as the main force on the centre-left. However, look deeper and the polling shows voters are lukewarm on all party leaders. Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins are level-pegging as preferred prime minister, but on numbers that would have been considered dire in previous cycles. In that environment, a smaller party talking up its ability to call the shots could help mobilise its supporters - or it could alienate swing voters wary of instability. Both would be a concern for Labour, though again, a similar tension will play out on the centre-right as well. Swarbrick's push for the Green Party to reach beyond its comfort zone - to miners, mill workers, even farmers - recognises the need to expand its base. The question is whether those voters can realistically be convinced to back a party long associated with a different set of priorities and values. For now, the Greens remain what they've been for years: a minor party with a loyal base and a clear agenda. Their claims on leading the opposition are more marketing than reality. Still, in a race this tight, marketing might make the difference.
NZ Herald
01-08-2025
- NZ Herald
Use of urgency to upend pay equity scheme decided after PM's meeting with senior ministers
Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech. Use of urgency to upend pay equity scheme decided after PM's meeting with senior ministers Pay equity protesters rally outside Minister Brooke van Velden's electorate office in Auckland in May. Photo / Jason Dorday New documents reveal the Government's use of urgency to rush through controversial changes to the country's pay equity scheme wasn't decided until after a high-powered meeting between the Prime Minister and senior ministers. A document dump yesterday from several government agencies provides an insight into the Government's shock decision in May to amend the Equal Pay Act, which ministers claimed created a fiscally unsustainable pay equity scheme as changes saved almost $13 billion over the next four years. The changes, which stopped 33 live pay equity claims, raised the threshold for claims to be made and limited the job types workforces could use as comparators when arguing inequity. The amendments announced by Workplace Relations Minister Brooke van Velden had not been publicly forecast, and the Government used urgency to pass the bill through the House, meaning no public consultation was done. Now, documents released yesterday showed urgency hadn't been raised by officials in the months of preparation through 2024 before potential reform.
