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The Spinoff
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
Echo Chamber: Cut it, gut it or re-up it, pay equity is ready to overshadow the budget
Last week's biggest story is still the government's biggest headache. Echo Chamber is The Spinoff's dispatch from the press gallery, recapping sessions in the House. Columns are written by politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith and Wellington editor Joel MacManus. The current parliamentary sitting block has been under way for only a week, but already, signs of weariness are beginning to show on the faces of our MPs. With a slew of announcements in the last seven days – a member's bill to ban social media for under-16s (then some real government work), redress for abuse in state care survivors, a Waitangi Tribunal review, just to name a few things – and parliament sitting under urgency, patience is short, wrinkles are deep, and frowns are plentiful. The pressure seemed to weigh deeply on the prime minister, who trotted past the opposition benches before Tuesday's question time kicked off, stopped himself in front of Labour leader Chris Hipkins, and gave his opposition counterpart a seemingly sharp jab in the knee to get his attention. Hipkins, slumped in his seat, just shrugged and grimaced as Christopher Luxon leaned over him. They might have been trying to figure out who the bigger liar was in the pay equity debacle, and couldn't quite crack the case before the speaker's entrance started proceedings. As the saying goes, there are always three sides to a story: yours, mine and the truth – or in this case, one political party, another political party, and the women of tomorrow. Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was first up on oral questions, in a back-and-forth with Luxon over the cutting of 33 pay equity claims in favour of a regime that will make it harder for women workers to launch new claims. Luxon, having already spent the morning fielding anti-government/pro-union propaganda, responded that, well, this new legislation simply fixed an 'unaffordable' system which let librarians think that reading books all day is the same kind of boring as waiting to catch pāua poachers all day. 'And who are you compared to?' Swarbrick called across the barracking benches, before Brownlee swung his fingers and shut the orchestra up. Then it was the 'Right Honourable Christopher Hipkins'. Thank you, Mr Speaker, the Labour leader grinned, but Chris is usually fine. If it was meant to be funny, Brownlee wasn't having it: 'I wasn't inquiring as to your health. Just ask your question.' Another back-and-forth over pay equity with the prime minister saw Luxon keep to the 'well, as I've said to you, we're simply fixing your broken system' line. But Chippy remained cheerful as questions moved to finance minister Nicola Willis, who was able to laud the budget's forecast that the government will be able to make a withdrawal from the Super Fund for the first time in 2028. 'Thanks to Labour!' Hipkins called. His squeaky little voice kept popping up, like a mouse scurrying along the floorboards: 'Thank you, Labour!' And again, a little chirp – 'just say thank you!' 'The leader of the opposition says, 'thank you, Labour,'' Willis responded. 'I say, 'thank you, taxpayers'.' Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer came in with questions about the barring of unions from the budget lockup for the first time. She pressed on despite Luxon hiding behind the finance minister, and a groan sounding from the government benches – it was Act's David Seymour, wearing a boyish grin on his face. 'Ka pai, David? Can I carry on?' Ngarewa-Packer asked. Not leaving the attack dog politics to the minor party leader giggling in his seat, National's number one defence, transport minister Chris Bishop, got into position. Again, the prime minister is not responsible for who attends the budget lockup, Bishop said, before piping up a few minutes later – had the prime minister perhaps seen reports of a certain political party failing to even show up to budget debates? That set Brownlee off again, reminding the House that it was 'inappropriate' to discuss the absence of another member within the House, and asking the prime minister to do so would be a breach of the standing orders. So of course, Winston Peters butted in. Let me correct what has been said by the speaker, the NZ First leader offered. When someone talks about non-participation, they don't mean absence – just non-participation. And then, the icing on the cake: 'Words matter.' 'I'm a very, very foolish man,' Brownlee replied. 'I should've understood that right at the start. None the less, my ruling stands.' He kept the same energy when Labour's Kieran McAnulty rose for a point of order as soon as Luxon looked like he was ready to throw the former Labour government under the bus again: 'Some people would say you're fast, others would have a different view.' He's a man of great wit and little patience, that speaker. Does anyone spare a thought for Gerry Brownlee at the end of the day? It can't be easy to deal with all these cun-… Oh wait, you can't print that!
NZ Herald
13-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Finance Minister Nicola Willis signals KiwiSaver changes amidst Superfund withdrawal announcement
'[Changes will be positive] because I want to see people's KiwiSaver balances grow. KiwiSaver has become particularly important for those saving to buy their first home – we had more than 40,000 people use KiwiSaver to do that in the past year," she told Hosking. 'And it's become an increasingly important supplement for people's retirement income.' Willis announced yesterday that the Government was forecast to make its first withdrawal from the NZ Super Fund in 2028, five years earlier than forecast at last year's Budget. The fund was set up in 2001 to subsidise the future cost of Superannuation, easing the burden on taxpayers. The date of the withdrawal – forecast to total $32m in 2028 – isn't at the Government's discretion and is written into the Fund's governing legislation. The first withdrawal would be followed by some 'bouncing around between withdrawals and contributions', but from 2031 onwards, withdrawals were expected every year, Willis said yesterday. Despite withdrawals, the Super Fund won't shrink in the short-term. It will continue growing for some time as withdrawals will be smaller than the overall growth in the fund, the Herald reported yesterday. Treasury's forecasts, which were based on a complicated formula relating to how much is in the fund, GDP, taxpayer numbers and other factors, confirmed help was needed to pay for superannuation, Willis told Hosking this morning. 'We've all talked for several years about at a certain point, the cost of superannuation will get very high, and then we'll need the Super Fund to help. We're now at that point.' Asked how much of the cost of superannuation the fund would cover 'in its golden moments', Willis told Hosking: 'In its golden moments it's only going to be about 20% of the total cost'. 'There's no getting away from the fact that superannuation is very expensive … just in the next few years, it's going to leap up to $29 billion a year, because there are a lot of people over the age of 65 and superannuation is pegged to the after-tax average wage, so that number keeps going up. 'That's the commitment that we have as a country, is to fund that entitlement, and we then need to pay for it. And there are fewer taxpayers, of course, in the future to help pay for it.'
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trees to be cut down, roads retired in Michaux State Forest project
The National Wild Turkey Federation, American Bird Conservancy, and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry are collaborating on a project to enhance the habitat within Michaux State Forest, according to an announcement. The project aims to create a mosaic of habitats benefiting wild turkeys and other wildlife species, many of which are classified as species of great conservation concern. More than 1,000 acres of the southern Pennsylvania state forest are being monitored for management work set to begin this summer. Foresters plan to use various techniques, including non-commercial tree felling, forestry mulching, planting ecologically valuable trees, shrubs and forbs, and cut-and-leave treatment of trees that have died due to disease or insect infestation. These managed acres will contribute to the 100,000 acres of land conserved under the NWTF's Forests and Flocks Initiative. Foresters plan to cut down more than 1,000 trees across the 205-acre project footprint. Strategically placing woody material directly into or near streams will improve habitat, enhance water quality, support diverse ecosystems and enhance forest composition and structural diversity at all vegetation layers. Trees will be strategically removed to create stream canopy gaps and increase downed woody materials along three miles of streams and adjacent forests. This increased structure in and around the stream will help reconnect the water table with the floodplain, slow down water velocity during high flow events, reduce erosive potential and improve water filtration and recharge through increased retention time within the watershed. Managers also plan to retire about three miles of poorly placed redundant road segments, which negatively impact streams and stream-side forests. The roads will be repurposed as shared-use trails and firebreaks, designed to prevent or slow the spread of wildfires and control prescribed burns. This project will increase the efficiency, predictability and safety of implementing prescribed fire and other managed disturbance regimes to sustain dynamic habitats at the upper tributary system level. The American Bird Conservancy, the project's grantee, is working in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Forestry, Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program and South Mountain Partnership Conservation Network to advance all five of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Chesapeake Watershed Investments for Landscape Defense (WILD) program pillars. The Pennsylvania NWTF State Chapter committed significant funds to the project via the state chapter's Super Fund. Created in the NWTF's formative years, the Super Fund is a volunteer-driven program. NWTF volunteers in every state raise money at banquets and other types of fundraisers and then allocate a significant portion of those funds back into meaningful conservation and outreach projects in their respective states. The project will directly benefit wild turkeys by creating early successional habitat. Indirectly, the project will improve ecosystem conditions for all species by increasing species and structural diversity on a landscape level, resulting in a healthier forest and a greater quantity and quality of nesting and brood-rearing habitat for wild turkeys. The Public Opinion, The Record Herald, Echo-Pilot are growing their local news 'The NFWF project on the Michaux is a continuation of the great restoration work that has occurred on the South Mountain ridge-tops,' said Mitch Blake, NWTF district biologist. 'A fire-adapted landscape, long excluded from fire, is now being restored acre by acre through landscape-scale disturbance. It's great to see the habitats for species of the greatest conservation concern being addressed as well as upper tributary water quality concerns. This project is really the epitome of a landscape scale forest health collaborative.' Since 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation has invested more than half a billion dollars into wildlife conservation and has positively impacted more than 24 million acres of critical wildlife habitat. The NWTF has also invested more than $10 million into wild turkey research to guide the management of the wild turkey population and to ensure sustainable populations into perpetuity. This story was created by Janis Reeser, jreeser@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at or share your thoughts at with our News Automation and AI team. This article originally appeared on Waynesboro Record Herald: NWTF, partners to enhance habitat in Michaux State Forest
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trees to be cut down, roads retired in Michaux State Forest project
The National Wild Turkey Federation, American Bird Conservancy, and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry are collaborating on a project to enhance the habitat within Michaux State Forest, according to an announcement. The project aims to create a mosaic of habitats benefiting wild turkeys and other wildlife species, many of which are classified as species of great conservation concern. More than 1,000 acres of the southern Pennsylvania state forest are being monitored for management work set to begin this summer. Foresters plan to use various techniques, including non-commercial tree felling, forestry mulching, planting ecologically valuable trees, shrubs and forbs, and cut-and-leave treatment of trees that have died due to disease or insect infestation. These managed acres will contribute to the 100,000 acres of land conserved under the NWTF's Forests and Flocks Initiative. Foresters plan to cut down more than 1,000 trees across the 205-acre project footprint. Strategically placing woody material directly into or near streams will improve habitat, enhance water quality, support diverse ecosystems and enhance forest composition and structural diversity at all vegetation layers. Trees will be strategically removed to create stream canopy gaps and increase downed woody materials along three miles of streams and adjacent forests. This increased structure in and around the stream will help reconnect the water table with the floodplain, slow down water velocity during high flow events, reduce erosive potential and improve water filtration and recharge through increased retention time within the watershed. Managers also plan to retire about three miles of poorly placed redundant road segments, which negatively impact streams and stream-side forests. The roads will be repurposed as shared-use trails and firebreaks, designed to prevent or slow the spread of wildfires and control prescribed burns. This project will increase the efficiency, predictability and safety of implementing prescribed fire and other managed disturbance regimes to sustain dynamic habitats at the upper tributary system level. The American Bird Conservancy, the project's grantee, is working in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Forestry, Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program and South Mountain Partnership Conservation Network to advance all five of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Chesapeake Watershed Investments for Landscape Defense (WILD) program pillars. The Pennsylvania NWTF State Chapter committed significant funds to the project via the state chapter's Super Fund. Created in the NWTF's formative years, the Super Fund is a volunteer-driven program. NWTF volunteers in every state raise money at banquets and other types of fundraisers and then allocate a significant portion of those funds back into meaningful conservation and outreach projects in their respective states. The project will directly benefit wild turkeys by creating early successional habitat. Indirectly, the project will improve ecosystem conditions for all species by increasing species and structural diversity on a landscape level, resulting in a healthier forest and a greater quantity and quality of nesting and brood-rearing habitat for wild turkeys. The Public Opinion, The Record Herald, Echo-Pilot are growing their local news 'The NFWF project on the Michaux is a continuation of the great restoration work that has occurred on the South Mountain ridge-tops,' said Mitch Blake, NWTF district biologist. 'A fire-adapted landscape, long excluded from fire, is now being restored acre by acre through landscape-scale disturbance. It's great to see the habitats for species of the greatest conservation concern being addressed as well as upper tributary water quality concerns. This project is really the epitome of a landscape scale forest health collaborative.' Since 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation has invested more than half a billion dollars into wildlife conservation and has positively impacted more than 24 million acres of critical wildlife habitat. The NWTF has also invested more than $10 million into wild turkey research to guide the management of the wild turkey population and to ensure sustainable populations into perpetuity. This story was created by Janis Reeser, jreeser@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at or share your thoughts at with our News Automation and AI team. This article originally appeared on Waynesboro Record Herald: NWTF, partners to enhance habitat in Michaux State Forest
