Apologies for not posting much lately. The Auckland floods and the draft Mayoral budget have taken their toll on my time as well as many other things not to mention people’s lives.
Chris Hipkins has announced the great policy reset and there are no surprises.
The RNZ TVNZ merger is off. Hopefully now journalists from those institutions will settle down and stop presenting the Government in such negative terms.
The Social Insurance Scheme has been put on ice. To ease the disappointment of the Trade Union Movement and workers generally there has been a significant increase to the minimum wage, up by $1.50 or 7%. Business interests are predictably moaning about this. In their view the poorest paid amongst us should bear the brunt of the effects of inflation.
The hate speech legislation has been moved over to the Law Commission to take a deeper look at it. I think this is the appropriate thing to do. Hopefully the Law Commission’s recommendations will take some of the politics out of the attacks although to be frank I do not expect the attacks or the rhetoric to abate.
The biofuels mandate is scrapped. My personal view is they need to concentrate on renewables. Use of biofuels has received a mixed response from environmentalists.
And Three Waters is to be reviewed. If I had a say in what will happen I would recommend that stormwater management was retained by councils. This simplifies the reform process significantly. In Auckland for instance there would be no change and Watercare could be rolled out to the north to look after their water and wastewater systems.
Obviously they will take a deep look at the Governance provisions. Increasing the proportion of local government representation on the Regional Representative Groups is one option that may be considered. One option could be for local government to elect their own iwi representatives to the RRGs.
But to those that say that Three Waters is not necessary or important all I can do is point out what has happened to Auckland over the past week.
In political terms it is a move to the centre. The intent is that it gives the Government enough head space to accelerate other projects.
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