The coalition announced a directive to government departments to make funding decisions on ‘need, not race’ unless there was a strong rationale for ethnicity criteria.
Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and has been in the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 2007.
OPINION
On Friday morning, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon got to talk about some things he wanted to be talking about: roads, taxes, the Government’shealth targets and all those things that he would describe as the “basics” of governing.
On Kerre Woodham’s ZB show, he talked about these things, including plans to accelerate the expressway to Northland.
“I’m over the talk,” Luxon said. He was all about the do.
Within an hour, the Luxon headlines had been bumped down by Act leader David Seymour talking about something else the Prime Minister was “over the talk” on: the Treaty Principles Bill.
When it comes to the circus of a government, the big top tent should be for policies such as health and infrastructure – the “basics” of a government’s work, to use the phrase Luxon has told local councils they should abide by.
But life is not as simple for Luxon when it comes to trying to keep the focus on the show in the big top.
The trouble with a three-way coalition is that the coalition agreements effectively set up a vast array of sideshows to compete for customers in the circus.
Those sideshows with their sometimes unusual and controversial offerings have a tendency to hog the attention.
It is like reading a book after you’ve already read the last chapter.
The only party in Parliament that will support the bill is Act. It is the tyranny of the 8.6%.
The longer it drags on, the more that becomes clear to the voters.
It could be argued it is not necessarily doing Seymour much good. It has sucked attention away from other Act gains, despite Seymour’s attempts to highlight those too.
Some Act supporters will not be happy with the amount of attention going into it.
Yet he has dug in on it.
Because it is going nowhere, the debate is not about the meaning of the principles of the Treaty but about why the hell Seymour – a sensible and productive politician – is persisting with such a monumentally futile waste of time, money and effort.
On Friday, he answered that by referencing the long path of attempts to change euthanasia law in New Zealand, noting that too had started with an unpopular bill that was defeated but the drive had continued and eventually it was Seymour who managed to deliver on it. Constitutional change is quite different from a conscience issue, but he clearly sees this as the start of a debate that might eventually bear fruit.
The short-term goal is a bit less lofty.
The Treaty Principles Bill has become a bit emblematic of the raft of moves the Government is taking on issues around Māori – many of them either by Act or NZ First.
It is the least meaningful of them because it is on a road to nowhere, and yet it is the highest profile.
That is not displeasing for either Luxon or Seymour.
Act leader David Seymour with the media's microphones. Photo / Ben Dickens
Luxon will be sick of having to talk about it and will not be disappointed Seymour has been left looking isolated on it. He just wants it over and done with quickly.
It means people have accepted his reassurance National will not support it once the select committee is done.
It means Seymour and not Luxon will be the one getting any blame – or credit, depending on your point of view.
It may be the reason Cabinet signed off on Seymour’s planned bill, despite significant concerns from officials, which has the feeling of a parent giving in to a toddler having a tantrum by letting them have the red lollies.
Given Luxon and Seymour did a fair bit of the negotiating over that themselves, there was a distinct feeling Luxon wanted to get the nightmare over and done with, so signed off on whatever it would take.
It may or may not be coincidental that if all goes to plan, it will be consigned to the nowhere bin in the middle of next year – at about the time when Seymour will take over from NZ First leader Winston Peters as Deputy Prime Minister.
Seymour on the other hand will not mind all the attention going on his own measure rather than on NZ First’s thus-far less controversial proposal to trim back references to the Treaty in legislation.
The point of these sideshow policies in the coalition agreements is to hold the circus together by giving smaller parties something that is all their own to parade before their voter base.
When it comes to the “basics” – the big stuff in health, the economy, education – the larger party will get most of the credit from the so-called “middle New Zealand”.
The smaller parties have their own voter bases and need to rely on the non-basics to please them. In some cases, they are competing for the same ones.
When it comes to putting out your slate for the voters who might be swayed by a particular issue, Seymour got the visibility advantage.
That was a policy position of all three coalition partners.
Seymour was the only one cunning enough to hold a press conference to talk about it – ensuring his was the dominant voice on it.
National and NZ First simply put out a press release.
Act and NZ First will be fairly satisfied the polling of the three governing parties has barely shifted since the election. They have not plummeted. Both have suffered from being in governing arrangements before, watching support dwindle as the larger party hogs all the attention, gets all the credit and the rule of cabinet collectivity starves them of oxygen.
Seymour in particular is still stinging from the last election, when Act went from the teens in the polls down to 8.6 per cent on election day.
