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Welcome to Inside Politics. Strains between coalition partners Winston Peters and David Seymour are evident as the Government works through its position on recognition of Palestine, which is yet to be announced. It is understood that Peters, the Foreign Minister, has complained to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon about Seymour, the Deputy Prime Minister, for mouthing off about New Zealand’s position in various interviews.
Seymour claims he is just speaking as the Act party leader, but that doesn’t wash.
Seymour is a member of the Cabinet in the midst of a highly contentious and sensitive review of its position. It is Peters’ responsibility to lead the review and to articulate the final decision. Ministers, whether party leaders or not, should not be expressing individual views. Act has not opted out in any formal agree-to-disagree position, so it should be exercising the basic discipline of belonging to a coalition Cabinet.
“We have a Government position,” Peters said yesterday. “I’ve made that very clear. A statement was made by someone who’s got no authority to make it, and that’s why we are putting the record straight now.”
Seymour sniped back in The Post: “It’s a fairly normal position in MMP [government]. I mean, Winston has been in MMP since I was in form two, so I wouldn’t have thought it’d be unusual for him.”
So what has Seymour been saying? “I’m not going to recognise a state that’s currently weaponising hostages, holding people for years on end in absolutely inhumane conditions. I mean, who would recognise that?
“The Government’s policy remains the same, and that is the Government would like to see a two-state solution and would like to recognise Palestine at some point, but it has no commitment to do that right now ...,” he told RNZ.
I’ve always thought that Act would be the more problematic partner in the Government, and its relative decline in the polls compared to NZ First is likely to exacerbate that.
The process the Government is using to reach its position is not ideal – but that is no excuse for senior members to disregard it.
The controversy over what MP Tākuta Ferris said in a social media post has snowballed from a media storm into something a lot more serious: whether Labour could work with Te Pāti Māori in Government.
Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere put a spanner in the works this week when he backed “the substance” of Ferris’ sentiments, for which the party leadership had already apologised. Ferris had been disparaging in a social media post about ethnicities other than Māori campaigning to support Labour MP Peeni Henare’s bid to win back the Tāmaki Makaurau seat from Te Pāti Māori in the byelection.
Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer had assured Labour leader Chris Hipkins that Ferris’ comments did not reflect the party’s view. Hipkins accepted that assurance and said it would have been hard to work with the party otherwise. But then on Radio Waatea, Tamihere – while saying Ferris had been “far too aggressive” in his comments – said he backed the substance of them.
“It is wrong for other folk to politic in Māori seats because I don’t go over to their country, like the British Raj, and destroy India. I don’t rage the Opium War, as the British did with the Chinese. I don’t place all people from Africa into slavery, like white Europe did,” Tamihere said.
Hipkins is particularly confused by Tamihere’s stance. Hipkins told me that, when Tamihere was a Labour MP, he had worked as a telephone canvasser on Tamihere’s campaign for re-election to Tāmaki Makaurau when he was standing against Pita Sharples, and he didn’t appear to have any objections then.
Green Party MP Benjamin Doyle will deliver a valedictory speech at 5.45pm today. Doyle has had the shortest term of any MP in the past 125 years who has left the place voluntarily (ie not died, retired, defeated or been pushed out by their party). If you include the non-voluntary factors, Doyle has had the sixth-shortest term since 1900, only marginally longer than former Green MP Darleen Tana, who was an MP for 374 days this term before being expelled from Parliament by her party, creating the vacancy that Doyle filled.
Doyle, the first non-binary MP, was the subject of frenzied attention and threats in March after posts on a social media account used vulgar language that was misinterpreted. This is the piece I wrote at the time.
Clearly, life did not settle down for the Hamilton-based MP after that initial storm, and the threats continued.
Earlier this month, Doyle made this statement: “After having baseless and violent accusations thrown at me, and an onslaught of hate, vitriol and threats of real-world violence directed at me and my whānau, I have decided to move on from Parliament. Whānau is the most precious thing in the world. From the start, I have always said my child is my priority. My tamaiti asked me to leave Parliament, and I am leaving for them and for my own well-being.”
With some help from the Office of the Clerk and Herald data editor Chris Knox, these are the shortest terms, in days, for MPs who have left voluntarily since 1900, and the year they resigned:
1. Benjamin Doyle, Green Party list, 346 days (2025)
2. Harry Jenkins, Parnell, United Party, 498 (1930)
3. Tanya Unkovich, NZ First list, 622 (2025)
4. William Stewart, Bay of Islands, Reform, 633 (1917)
5. David Garrett, Act list, 684 (2010)
6. Gaurav Sharma, Hamilton West, Labour, 731 (2022)
7. Deborah Morris, NZ First list, 799 (1998)
8. Andrew Falloon, Rangitata, National, 1032 (2020)
9. Mike Sabin, Northland, National, 1161 (2015)
10. Don Brash, National list, 1656 (2007)
A significant defence treaty aimed at addressing China’s growing interest in the Pacific was to have been signed this week between Australia and Papua New Guinea when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was attending independence celebrations in PNG.
The treaty goes beyond interoperability and effectively integrates the PNG and Australian defence forces, allowing the ADF to recruit from PNG and vice versa. It is called an “alliance” and, while it does not go as far as Nato’s clause five in which an attack on one is an attack on all, it does obligate each partner to consider assisting the other with this clause: “Each party recognises that an armed attack on either of the parties within the Pacific would be dangerous to each other’s peace and security and the security of the Pacific, and declares that it would act to meet the common danger, in accordance with its constitutional processes.”
But it appears that PNG Prime Minister James Marape either over-promised support for it from his Cabinet members or they got the jitters, because the meeting that was supposed to sign it off earlier this week did not reach a quorum. Instead, Albanese and Marape signed a communique saying the treaty would be signed after Cabinet processes had been completed.
• Senior National minister and music fiend Chris Bishop revealed a personal interest in getting more concerts held in New Zealand. Talking to Herald NOW host Ryan Bridge about the investigation into Eden Park bylaws, Bishop revealed he has tickets to see Oasis in Sydney in November. Hopefully, the Gallagher brothers will still be talking to each other by then. Bishop is taking his wife and, with airfares for two, a couple of nights’ accommodation, tickets to the concert and a long lunch at The Rocks, they won’t get much change out of $5000.
• Parliament’s Speaker, Gerry Brownlee, appears to have opened the way for MPs to find creative ways to call each other liars. Yesterday, he let Labour leader Chris Hipkins get away with saying to Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, “that’s a big fat lie”, on the basis that he was not actually calling Goldsmith “a liar”. A rare misstep by the Speaker. Surely he revised his decision overnight.
“I won’t be setting a precedent that the way to get a meeting with me is to put on an adult nappy and chain yourself to my electorate office” – Finance Minister Nicola Willis refuses to meet members of the clergy chained to her office for two nights in protest at Israel’s war in Gaza.
Who did Foreign Minister Winston Peters take to Papua New Guinea to celebrate its 50th year of independence, and which member of the royal family was there? (Answers at the bottom of this article.)
Goes to Act’s Simon Court for referring to pro-Palestine protesters wearing keffiyeh (traditional Arab scarves) as “terrorist dress-up” and putting “tea towels” on their heads. Sheer bigotry.
Goes to NZ First’s Shane Jones for hosting a prostate cancer awareness event at Parliament last night, and for his promotion to deputy leader.
Ferris comments: Te Pāti Māori President John Tamihere backs substance of Tākuta Ferris post, Labour’s Chris Hipkins sends warning
Court comments: Act MP Simon Court’s pro-Palestine ‘terro dress up’ quip: PM says comment ‘unhelpful’
Opinion – Palestinian statehood: Cabinet turns focus to recognition of Palestine – Audrey Young
Opinion – Capital Gains Tax: Labour Party narrows in on CGT as policy announcement looms – Thomas Coughlan
Crime data: New data shows chances of prison sentence at all-time high; ‘staggering’ spike in drug-use charges
Adoption loophole: Govt scrambles to change law allowing convicted abusers to adopt internationally
Tom Phillips injunction: Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith open to law change to address suppression breaches
Jones promotion: ‘It’s biblical’: Shane Jones on his ascension to NZ First deputy leader
Eden Park review: Government to look at changing rules to allow more Eden Park concerts
Events funding: Government announces $70m package to attract major events to New Zealand
Competition law: Commerce Act overhaul to empower Commerce Commission to quash ‘killer acquisitions’ and predatory pricing
Gaza protest: Priests stage sit-ins at Nicola Willis and Simeon Brown’s electorate offices to protest Gaza war
Tourist levy: Government lifts tourism and conservation spending by $90m a year; keeps up to $139m for itself
Quiz answer: Winston Peters took Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman, Peeni Henare. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, was there.
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