The Front Page: The week’s top stories - landlords v renters, comparing crime policies and battle over the benefit

How you vote this election could deliver some big changes for some key policy areas. Photo / Greg Bowker

Every weekday at 5am, the NZ Herald presents The Front Page, a daily news podcast covering the biggest stories of the day. Here’s a rundown of key stories that made headlines this week. We look into why politicians are battling over the benefit, explain what’s at stake for renters, compare crime policies, dig into the political tussle in Northland, look at the impact of The Voice referendum and analyse the financial mess in Auckland and Wellington.

Benefit battle

Billions of dollars are spent on our benefit system every year. “It changes year on year, depending on whether you’re in a time of high unemployment or low unemployment,” says NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan.

“This year, for example, the Jobseeker payment is $3.5 billion, the supported living payment is $2.3 billion, and the sole parent support is $1.9 billion. We’ve also got an enormous benefit for people who retire, which also goes through the benefits line of the budget, and this is, of course, superannuation, which costs $19.5 billion.”

And every election, politicians debate fiercely about where we should be cutting or increasing contributions to make the system fairer. Our political parties are deeply divided on this issue. National’s plan would see hundreds of thousands of people miss out on payments worth more than $50 a week by the end of the decade, while the Greens are looking to increase benefit payments to give families more stability.

So why are the parties so divided? And where should the balance lie between spending and keeping Kiwis secure?

Renters v Landlords

New Zealand's renters could face some big changes. Photo / NZME

There’s a great deal at stake for Aotearoa’s 1.3 million renters and nearly 600,000 landlords in the upcoming election.

The balance of power between these two groups largely depends on who forms the next government.

The Labour Government has greatly enhanced protections for renters, but NZ Herald property editor Anne Gibson tells The Front Page that Act and National both want to roll back some of these moves.

“Act and National are very aligned on this, and there are [a number of] things they’re looking at changing,” says Gibson.

The first would be the reinstatement of no-cause terminations, which would give landlords an easier path toward terminating a tenancy. They would also change the bright-line test from 10 to two years in a move to make the market more attractive to investors.

The combined shift of these changes would tip the power balance back in favour of landlords, thereby making conditions a bit tougher for renters.

Criminal comparisons

Three in four Auckland businesses wanted greater police presence in the city centre. Photo / Hayden Woodward

Few topics have attracted as much airtime over the last year as the state of crime in New Zealand.

Politicians across the divide have offered their views on what should be done to rectify this situation.

But do any of the policies actually match up to what experts have been saying on this issue? A long line of reports on law and order in New Zealand have shown our criminal justice system is failing everyone from victims and communities to the people committing the offences.

The most recent was the Turuki! Turuki! Move Together! report from the Safe and Effective Justice Group, which was chaired by late former National MP Chester Burrows.

“He lamented that such reports just gather dust and he feared that his report would be the same,” NZ Herald senior political reporter Derek Cheng tells The Front Page podcast.

“As the other reports have said, this one said that society is being failed, victims are being failed, and offenders and communities are being failed because people aren’t rehabilitated. Victims are ignored, their voices aren’t heard, and that has been the status quo for decades.”

So which parties are actually paying attention and not letting those reports gather dust?

The tussle for Northland

NZ First's Shane Jones is fighting for Northland. Photo / 1News

For the last century, National has only lost the Northland electorate, or its predecessors, three times - once in 1966 when Vernon Cracknell won it for Social Credit for one election cycle, a second time in 2015 when Winston Peters pulled off a by-election win for NZ First, and then again in 2020, when Labour’s Willow-Jean Prime pulled off a narrow victory.

Fast-forward three years, and it seems likely the seat will return to National, but voters have the option of having the balance of power for the whole country. Analysing the state of the race for On the Campaign, the Herald’s daily news podcast, NZ Herald writer David Fisher said the polls show that Grant McCallum, a former campaign manager for former National MPs John Carter and Matt King, is the likely frontrunner.

Also running against him and Prime is former NZ First minister Shane Jones, who is making a strong case for himself and his contributions in the previous term of government. “Jones would like everyone to remember he was Mr PGF [Provincial Growth Fund], he was the man who sent $650 million into Northland, which is an extraordinary amount of money for a region that has really been neglected decade upon decade by a National Party that knows it’s got it in the bag so doesn’t have to do too much for it, or so it seems,” Fisher said.

So will this be enough to give NZ First control of this important seat?

The Voice and what it means for NZ

The Voice Referendum has sparked fierce debate in Australia. Photo / New York Times

New Zealand politicians would do well to pay attention to the divisive debate happening in Australia as the country heads to the polls for a referendum.

On October 14, Australians will cast a ballot to decide whether their government should introduce an advisory group that would consult on legislation affecting Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders.

Should the Indigenous Voice to Parliament be passed, Australia’s constitution will be updated, and future governments would have to head to the polls again to make any changes. Speaking to The Front Page podcast, Australian Financial Review political correspondent Tom McIlroy says the referendum has become a highly politicised affair.

“Traditionally, in Australia, referendums that have bipartisan support in the Federal Parliament do quite well,” says McIlroy.

“But where there is a partisan split, as we’re seeing with The Voice, they traditionally go down.”

Aotearoa could face a similar divide if the Act Party achieves its campaign goals and gets a referendum over co-governance and the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

And referendums could become commonplace, with NZ First campaigning on the abolition of MPs’ conscience votes and having the voting public decide moral calls.

McIlroy warns that we should proceed with caution when it comes to making any of these moves. “Most people don’t spend their days thinking about constitutions, government treaties,” says McIlroy.

“When millions and millions of people are asked to vote on it, there’s an education campaign that has to happen. If you’re going to cast an informed ballot, you need to understand the proposal. One lesson that we can take out of the Voice debate is that good information needs to come fast and from reliable sources to help people understand the parameters of the debate.”

Financial chaos

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown faces some tough decisions. Photo / Michael Craig

The balance sheets for New Zealand’s largest cities are not in great shape.

Both Auckland and Wellington have budget holes that need to be repaired by cutting services, reducing large-scale plans or raising rates. There will likely be a combination of both of those things.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown opened the books last week, showing NZ Herald Super City reporter Bernard Orsman both the state of affairs and why Auckland Council will need to raise rates.

Orsman tells The Front Page that Auckland is facing a string of issues that have coalesced to create a financial strain on the city.

“It really does boil down to budget pressures,” says Orsman.

“There’s inflation, interest costs on $12.4 billion debt and depreciation. These have been cited by Mayor Wayne Brown as the three costliest challenges facing the council heading into the new 10-year budget. At the same time, Wellington is also facing some tough financial decisions.”

Wellington-based senior reporter Georgina Campbell broke that story and joined The Front Page to explain why our capital city may need to cut spending by tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. So what are the common themes across both cities? And what can be done to solve these problems?