As we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025, it’s a good time to catch up on the very best of some of the Herald columnists we enjoyed reading over the last 12 months. From politics to business, these are some of the voices and views our audience loved
National gets spooked as David Seymour plays a blinder on Treaty Principles Bill - Claire Trevett
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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has faced criticism for allowed the Treaty Principals Bill into the coalition agreement. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Opinion by Claire Trevett
Claire Trevett is the New Zealand Herald’s Political Editor, based at Parliament in Wellington.
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Finlayson, who is appalled by the bill, suggested on RNZ that former PM Sir John Key would not have got himself into such a pickle because he would have called Act leader David Seymour’s bluff on any threats to sit on the cross benches over the issue, rather than join a coalition.
He added, hilariously, that Key would have told Seymour he would personally stand against him in Epsom if he pushed his luck on it.
Finlayson’s suggestion forgets Key was brutally pragmatic about political arrangements and also had more options than Luxon had in 2023.
Had Key faced the same situation Luxon did after the last election, he could well have done what Luxon did, which was to give Seymour an inch and then suffer the consequences of Seymour transmogrifying that inch into a mile.
The effect of Finlayson’s comments was to put the blame squarely on Luxon for what may have seemed to be a workable compromise at the time the coalition agreement was forged, but has predictably proved otherwise.
And it is a pickle — not just for Luxon, but for pretty much every National MP.
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If you want to watch joy die in a National MP’s eyes these days, it only takes three words: Treaty Principles Bill. Read more >
Labour MP’s bizarre attack on Police Minister does Hipkins no favours - February 24, 2024
On Tuesday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins went through the traditional humiliation of an Opposition leader having to face up to questions about a slump in his personal polling levels.
He also had to turn up to a press conference to talk teary-eyed about the resignation of his friend and support crew Grant Robertson.
The tears were personal - the pair were old friends, they had been through a lot together and Hipkins had known Robertson had his back.
It is a discombobulating time for Hipkins and so for Labour.
Hipkins can not sit and mull it over for long.
Leaders of the Opposition risk facing three enemies: the polls, ill-disciplined MPs and themselves.
Hipkins got a taste of the second the day after Robertson’s resignation.
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Ginny Andersen has done no favours for him with her bizarre attack on Police Minister Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB about his past as a security contractor in the Middle East. Mitchell quite rightly described it as a character assassination. Read more >
A bad poll and an overseas trip makes Chris Hipkins an easy target - September 19, 2024
Labour leader Chris Hipkins knows from prior experience that the worst time for an Opposition leader to sally off on an overseas jaunt is in the aftermath of a bad poll.
It almost inevitably leads to attempts to try to stir up speculation that while the cat is away, the mice back home will embark on manoeuvres.
Sometimes there are grounds for that. Sometimes there are not.
In the past, Hipkins was among those mocking other leaders of the Opposition who were once in his situation, so he would have been braced for it as he headed to the United Kingdom for a fortnight to attend the UK Labour Party conference.
The bad poll is there – a Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll showing Hipkins’ ranking as preferred Prime Minister had plummeted 6.1 points to 12.6% and the numbers who viewed him favourably had shrunk significantly.
However, it seems the mice – any potential rivals for Hipkins’ job – simply can’t be bothered just yet. It is less than a year since the election and as Hipkins quite rightly pointed out, it is a very difficult time for an Opposition to get any attention. Read more >
Chris Hipkins' long trail of mea culpae - June 17, 2024
By now, Labour leader Chris Hipkins must be starting to feel as if his mission of mea culpae will never end.
Since the election, Hipkins has been travelling around sprinkling a trail of regrets and sorrows to show he knows how Labour managed to peeve people before the last election.
At the party’s regional conference in Wellington on Sunday, he explained why he was doing that. He is going through the political equivalent of the 12-step programme.
His goal is to seek forgiveness from those peeved off voters to try to achieve a very lofty goal: winning that support back by 2026 and up-ending the National-led coalition after just one term.
It is a lofty goal. No National Government has yet been kicked out after one term (although two Labour ones have). Then again, no party managed a one-party majority under MMP either until Labour did in 2020 (spoiler alert: it didn’t end well).
Hipkins is hopeful about it partly because he has to be: his own job as leader relies on him convincing his own people that he is the best one to deliver a win in 2026. Read more >
The way Luxon rolls will keep ministers on their toes - April 24, 2024
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s rapid-fire reshuffle punting Melissa Lee out of Cabinet and stripping her of the media portfolio sends a stark warning to all ministers: if you’re not up to the job, you won’t keep the job.
It is, he said, “how I roll” before making it clear that rolling underperforming ministers may well become a regular event.
It will certainly feel cut-throat to those ministers facing it - Lee and Penny Simmonds, who has had Disability Issues taken from her.
Both are still ministers and have kept their other portfolios, and Luxon went to some lengths to insist he still had confidence in them and understood any disappointment.
That will not lessen the humiliation he handed out just five months after they were sworn into office - especially for Lee, who has also lost her space at the Cabinet table.
Rarely have we seen such early demotions in a new Government. Read more >
