Coalition forced to back down on tolling Pahiatua track

A grassroots backlash has forced a backdown from Brown, but he is still eyeing up plenty of tolls for other new roads. And the pressure is on Willis to ramp up the Government’s austerity strategy. Photo: Getty Images

Mōrena. Long stories short, the six things that matter in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, December 16 in The Kākā’s Dawn Chorus above and the daily Pick ‘n’ Mix below are:

1. Transport Minister Simeon Brown is ploughing ahead with plans to toll all new Roads of National (and Regional) Significance (RONS) and some motorways already under construction, but on Friday suffered his first big defeat on tolling when he had to announce he had backed down on plans to toll the new Pahiatua Track motorway.

2. Brown also announced a ‘Hydrogen Action Plan’ as a ‘key pillar’ of the National-ACT NZ First Government’s climate emissions reduction strategy, adding another distractionary and speculative policy to go along with plans to import LNG, capture carbon in gas wells and rely on unproven new technology for methane emissions reduction.

3. Benefit numbers out on Friday showed almost one in nine New Zealanders between the ages of 15 and 64 are now on a benefit, including an extra nearly 50,000 in the past year to take the total to 400,000. See Chart of the day below.

4. Discontent is growing in the provinces over Simeon Brown’s attempts to increase speed limits, especially around schools, including at the top of the South Island, where Tasman District Councl Mayor Tim King described the process as "entirely stupid" and "such a load of s***". 1News

5. Treasury is expected to unveil a deterioration in the Government’s budget position and a higher borrowing programme tomorrow, putting the pressure on Finance Minister Nicola Willis to continue an even more aggressive austerity strategy for the next three years to meet the Government’s surplus and debt reduction targets, or relent for the sake of the economy and the coalition’s popularity.

6. GDP figures for the September quarter on Wednesday are expected to show New Zealand’s economy is still in a triple-dip recession, with manufacturing sector data for November showing an even deeper contraction is continuing in some parts of the economy in to the December quarter. This is related to number 5.

(Normally at this point we would have a paywall for free subscribers and only paying subscribers could both listen to the Dawn Chorus podcast above and read the analysis and detail below in the Pick ‘n’ Mix. But during our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ until this Sunday, December 22, we have opened everything up for all immediately to give everyone a full taste of the public interest journalism your subscription supports. And here’s our ‘Gravy Day Fortnight’ deal that ends on Sunday, December 22.)

---

The best of the rest

I’m up from 3am daily and read around all sorts of news websites¹ to get a sense of what’s happening in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate, both here and overseas². The full Pick ‘n’ Mix is usually available only for paying subscribers. Here’s my Top Six in the Pick ‘n’ mix as of 8.00 am on Monday, December 16:

The Top Six in Monday’s Pick ‘n’ Mix

1. Poverty & Austerity: Foodbanks face closure with funding to stop RNZ’s Amy Williams

2. Health & Austerity: Women living in ‘pure hell’, while thousands of gynaecologist referrals declined. One gynaecologist said if women got the right people to write letters their referrals would be accepted to avoid complaints. Other clinicians sought therapy to deal with the distress of not being able to help patients.

   The Press’ Maddy Croad

3. Climate & Austerity: National’s quiet U-turn on $247m pledge. Christopher Luxon promised more money to reduce EV range anxiety. Instead, his Government shrank the pot. The Post’s Olivia Wannan

4. Poverty & Health: 'Significant challenge': Calls to address equity in gastric cancer care for Māori and Pacificia NZ Herald

5. Health & Poverty: ‘If we can't get this right, our health system can't ever function’. Māori paediatrician Owen Sinclair has spent the past decade pushing to get kids vaccinated. But amid a whooping cough epidemic, with measles sure to follow, the rates just keep falling. The Sunday Star Times’ Nikki Macdonald

6. Column by Andrea Vance in Sunday Star Times: Why Christopher Luxon just made (another) tactical blunder. The PM humiliated his finance minister, and his lack of loyalty hasn’t gone unnoticed.

---

The Pick ‘n’ Mix for Monday, December 16

Scoops & breaking news

Health & Infrastructure: Former health boss dismayed at Dunedin Hospital ‘debacle’. The cost of delays to the Dunedin Hospital rebuild had already reached $5 million a month before Te Whatu Ora took over, Chris Fleming says. The Press’ Louisa Steyl

Climate & Austerity: GNS job cuts: Emergency management bosses told of 'significant risks' for natural hazards watchdog NZ Herald-$$$’s Jamie Morton

Poverty & Austerity: Children’s charity staves off closure after striking deal with Government. The Post’s Andrea Vance

Deep-dives, interviews, features & analysis

Transport & Politics: Was the ferry ‘decision’ good? A bid to explain the unexplainable. The Sunday Star Times’ Kevin Norquay

Transport & Climate: Safer option or backwards step? Cycle lane debate reignites. Moving the Kent/Cambridge Terrace bike lane to the central footpath is being touted as better for riders ‒ with the added benefit of restoring lost parking ‒ but cycling and walking advocates have rubbished the idea. The Post’s Justin Wong

Politics Interview: David Seymour says ‘half of the ideas’ from Government come from ACT. Seymour talks about the “core tension” in the Coalition, as the Government turns one. The Post’s Thomas Manch

Columns, Op-Eds & Editorials

Column by Janet Wilson in Weekend Post: Year 1 of the coalition: struggling economy and a stumbling PM. He enters his second year as Prime Minister as the weakest leader in the coalition, a nowhere man who stands for nothing and falls for everything.

Solutions & Good news

Housing & Economy: Westfield operator looks to build apartments on shopping centres RNZ

Climate & Environment: Whanganui rejects fast-track seabed mining project RNZ

Housing & Te Titiri: Ngāti Toa purchases 80 hectares of school land in Hutt Valley RNZ

---

Chart du Jour: Almost as bad as in the GFC

Working Age Benefit numbers for November show the numbers up nearly 50,000 to almost 400,000 this year, meaning one in nine people in the working age population are on a benefit, which is worse than during Covid and almost as bad as during the Global Financial Crisis. Chart by MusicalChairs on Bluesky

---

Cartoon du Jour: Following yonder fiscal strategy

Guy Body via NZ Herald-$$$ and via BlueSky

Timeline-cleansing nature pic: Short but sweet

Photo by Bernard Hickey for The Kākā.

Mā te wā

Bernard

1. Links with -$ are to paywalled websites. Some sites have both paywalled and non paywalled articles (The Post/Press currently, the NZ Herald, Newsroom & ODT) and I’ll make clear if it’s paywalled by adding -$. No dollar sign means no paywall today.

2. I subscribe to and check FT-$, WallStreetJournal−$, Bloomberg-$, The Guardian, WashingtonPost−$, New York Times-$, TheEconomist−$,RNZ,1News,Stuff,ThePost−$, ThePress−$,BusinessDesk−$, Politik−$, NZHerald−$ & NZ Herald; Interest.co.nz, Newsroom, Newsroom Pro-$,AFR−$, NBR-$ and The Spinoff. The Press is currently not paywalled. I will include gift links where I can (some from the likes of FT-$ only work a few times) and if I have any left (Bloomberg-$, NZ Herald-$ & Economist-$ have monthly limits)