It has been a challenge to remember what a normal political scene looks like, but how good is boring right now?
As countries around the world experience a resurgence in Covid-19, New Zealand has once again contained the virus, making its election cycle something close to normal, and also a tad ridiculous.
It was already a bit ridiculous.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins both bring B-game to seemingly interminable show
Are we there yet? Is it election day? Is it possible to bring the date forward a little bit from 17 October? Not by too much – things have to be put in place, pens secured to pieces of string and the like. How’s tomorrow?
Election fatigue hit hard during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate. It was a long programme. It could have been worse: it could still be going. Mind you, it feels like it still is and always will be; that the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the opposition leader, Judith Collins, will go at it unhappily ever after in front of a live audience in a dark room in Christchurch.
Continue reading...A tongue-in-cheek campaign is urging eligible overseas New Zealanders to vote in this month’s general election. Here’s how easy – and important – it is
Two weeks out from the election, New Zealanders based overseas are being called on to make their voice heard by the “team of 5 million” back home.
Every Kiwi Vote Counts, a new non-partisan initiative, is seeking to increase low turnout among overseas voters with a tongue-in-cheek social media campaign encouraging Kiwis offshore to “meddle” in their election.
Continue reading...The Mana Motuhake policy is a 25-year plan to improve the outcomes of whānau Māori that the mainstream major parties have failed to deliver on
In an election campaign that has so far been largely a bidding contest over who can fund the most “shovel-ready projects”, create the most jobs and support the most apprentices post-Covid, many commentators have bemoaned the absence of any visionary debate about the type of New Zealand we want to become.
It was therefore refreshing to see the Māori party announce its Mana Motuhake policy this week. As far as timing goes, the policy hasn’t gained a lot of media attention. The news has been dominated by the Serious Fraud Office’s charging of two individuals in connection with the New Zealand First Foundation, a new poll and the second leaders’ debate. Many also think the Māori party is inconsequential in 2020, sitting only on 1–1.5% party vote support in public opinion polls, and not looking like they are going to win back any electorate seats.
Continue reading...New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has admitted to using cannabis 'a long time ago', in a heated televised debate with the opposition leader, Judith Collins.
Speaking during the 90-minute debate on Newshub, the Labour leader and incumbent PM chose not to disclose how she would vote in the forthcoming cannabis referendum, drawing ire from her opponent, the National party leader
Continue reading...Both major parties are pinning their hopes on jobs for the boys to lead the post-coronavirus economic recovery
Some may have heard the terms “shecession” or “pink recession”; words associated with the worldwide trend for pandemic-related job and income losses to affect women more than men. In New Zealand, we saw it in the June quarter unemployment figures. Ninety percent of the 11,000 New Zealanders who had at lost their jobs due to Covid-19 were women.
These statistics were shocking but perhaps not surprising. New Zealand’s early pandemic response was gendered when it came to which industries were, and weren’t, considered “essential”. In the highest alert levels (3 and 4) work in the personal care industries (hairdressers, manicurists, beauticians, domestic cleaners, personal trainers, gymnasiums) – largely done by women – was not allowed. Business owners and workers in these industries were told they could not offer services which involved face-to-face or sustained close personal contact; the risk of Covid transmission was too great.
Continue reading...Labour’s Covid policies and popularity means the opposition is effectively cornered when it comes to presenting a different choice to voters
Its record on eliminating Covid-19 and bringing a second outbreak under control has drawn praise for New Zealand from around the world. Now, the centre-left Labour party, led by the wildly popular Jacinda Ardern, faces an election bolstered by their success in containing the virus – but darkened by the shadow of the country’s worst recession in years.
At the polls on 17 October, voters will be asked to choose between slightly different approaches to who would be allowed to enter the country, whether border quarantine should be government-managed or partially privatised, and the best economic recipe to recover from the pandemic.
Continue reading...Even Labour’s tax policy cant’t spark fury. The only numbers people are concerned about are coronavirus-related
Parents will be only too familiar with this scenario. It’s family holiday time. The car is packed with everything but the kitchen sink. Each child is strapped in with their own screen and headphones. You slip the car into gear and drive off. Finally you can let out a sigh of relief; the holiday has begun! Then a small voice from the back says: “I need to go the toilet.” You divert to the nearest petrol station, and sit back and wait for the journey to restart.
That, folks, is the New Zealand general election campaign of 2020.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister starts campaign with a sleepover at the ‘folks’ in the small rural town of Morrinsville
New Zealand’s prime minister has launched her election tour of the country from her parents’ home in rural Waikato – so her “folks” can babysit.
The rescheduled general election, now taking place on 17 October, is unlike any the country has seen before, with party leaders hitting the campaign trail in face masks and practising social distancing.
Continue reading...In a momentous year, Aotearoa’s youngest MP vows to radically change the political status quo from within. But behind the ‘OK Boomer’ politician is a committed advocate. Chlöe Swarbrick must weigh up the pressures placed on her versus her innate desire to make a difference.
OK Chlöe is part of the Loading Docs 2020 collection. The films can be viewed online via www.loadingdocs.net
Continue reading...Keeping the date while her own party’s polling was sky-high would have looked like self-interest; instead she has been praised for her leadership
At its heart, democracy is about participation. And yet, there have been serious questions about the quality and quantity of public engagement expected in this year’s general election, given the Covid-19 crisis overshadowing everything at the moment in New Zealand. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern has therefore made the right decision to delay the election by a month.
Voter turnout has been trending downwards in recent decades, hitting a low point in 2011 of only 69.6% of eligible voters. It’s plausible that in 2020 it could drop below even this. If the election were still to be held in just a few weeks, as originally scheduled, this would have been especially possible.
Continue reading...Twelve spread in community while 13th emerged in a quarantined returning traveller, say authorities; PM Ardern due to decide on election
New Zealand on Sunday reported 13 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus for the last 24 hours, as the country’s first outbreak in months continued to grow.
All but one of the new cases were from community transmission and appeared to be linked to a cluster in Auckland where the most recent outbreak started, said Ashley Bloomfield, the New Zealand director general of health. The 13th was a traveller who returned from abroad and was in managed quarantine.
Continue reading...New Zealand has reported 13 new cases of coronavirus, with two cases emerging from Auckland where the country’s outbreak began. The two cases occurred in the Waikato town of Tokoroa, 125 miles south of New Zealand’s biggest city, and were linked to the Auckland outbreak, bringing the number of cases in the cluster to 29. One person is being treated in hospital.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said Auckland would remain in lockdown for an additional 12 days as health workers try to contain the 'perimeter' of the outbreak, the source of which remains a mystery. She said a North Island-wide lockdown was not being considered
Continue reading...The prime minister is pitching a mix of steady leadership and big-spending policies to voters after a world-leading coronavirus response
On her first public outing since launching her party’s election campaign the day before, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, spent Sunday morning at a farmers’ market in central Auckland where she walked among friends, posed for selfies and did her vegetable shopping.
Ardern is riding high in the polls – as is the Labour party – on the back of her stewardship of the country’s Covid-19 response. Her strong position has been aided by troubles within the opposition National party, which is heading into September’s election with its third leader in as many months.
Continue reading...The New Zealand politician has swapped twerking on TV for a more serious policy agenda. As the election looms, it seems to be working
He went viral in an awkward campaign video that featured him repeatedly saying “hi” – with an emotionless, thousand-yard stare – at famous spots in his constituency. He twerked merrily on Dancing with the Stars wearing neon Lycra. He once proclaimed – with unintentional double entendre – in a news interview about national flags, that “the French, for instance, love the coq.”
That was the old David Seymour. The New Zealand lawmaker is the leader and sole member of parliament for ACT – a minor, libertarian party that has at times in its history been plagued by the inadvertent comedy of its eccentric members. The 37-year-old wears a sober suit and a quiet, serious demeanour when he meets the Guardian at his parliamentary office in Wellington.
Continue reading...Data shows jobless rate at an eye-popping low of 4% after strict lockdown, but underemployment is higher
Figures showing joblessness in New Zealand has fallen during the coronavirus pandemic have been welcomed by the government and provoked shock and sharp scepticism from economists.
The government agency Statistics New Zealand on Wednesday produced an eye-popping figure of 4% unemployment for the three months to the end of June, down from 4.2% last quarter – before coronavirus restrictions took hold.
Continue reading...Veteran politician, who is being aided by Brexiteers Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, is bullish about New Zealand First’s chances at the election
“When you talk about populism, let me ask you this question,” says Winston Peters, the MP who has at times been in a position to handpick who will lead New Zealand. “In your profession or mine: who wants to be unpopular?”
The eccentric veteran politician – rich-voiced and finely-tailored – has held seats in New Zealand’s parliament since 1979 with only two breaks from his time in office, advancing his minor party on a platform of curbing immigration, benefits for pensioners, and exhortations to “common sense”.
Continue reading...Exits of an MP and a minister might signal a new attitude in a nation where politicians’ private lives have traditionally been off-limits
After a New Zealand MP quit and a minister was fired in successive days over allegations of sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, was asked by a reporter whether it was “open season” on any member of parliament who had “ever had an affair”.
“I don’t want to get drawn into hypotheticals,” Ardern replied as she faced questions about the sacking of Iain Lees-Galloway, her minister of workplace relations and safety, over his workplace relationship with a former staffer in his office.
Continue reading...New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has fired her immigration minister after being told he had engaged in a 12-month-affair with a staffer in his office.
Iain Lees-Galloway's affair took place over a 12-month period and Ardern was concerned that an abuse of power may have taken place.
Continue reading...The country’s requirement that expats must visit at least once every three years should be reviewed in these changed times
Early last year, in what now seems like another world, I nabbed bargain flights from London to Sydney. My parents were already there, visiting, so my sisters flew from Wellington to join us.
We spent a pleasant two weeks together, with the unspoken understanding that it would be another couple of years before we saw each other again – such was the frequency of visits I’d fallen into since leaving New Zealand in 2015.
Continue reading...