From parliament:

National reckons the finance minister has conceded a leaked proposal to change GST rules will soon be formally announced.

Last week, Nicola Willis, the National Party’s finance spokesperson, revealed allegedly leaked information about Labour’s election year tax policy. It included changes to GST that would see the blanket tax taken off produce. That’s something Grant Robertson has previously criticised as a “boondoggle”, a word that was repeated multiple times in parliament’s debating chamber this afternoon.

Earlier today, Robertson once again refused to comment on Labour’s unannounced tax plan. However, he said it was the “nature of politics” that MPs often had “to deal with things [they] don’t always necessarily 100% back at the start”.

Willis told The Spinoff that was a concession Robertson had been made to swallow a rat. “First he was made to swallow the petrol bandaid rat, then it was that he couldn’t do his fantasy wealth tax, and now he is having to swallow a GST policy that he himself has said will benefit supermarkets most,” Willis said. “The question you have to ask yourselves is: if Chris Hipkins can’t trust advice from his finance minister, then why should New Zealanders trust him with our economy?”

It was incredibly important for a prime minister to be able to trust their finance minister, Willis added, and it now appeared that Hipkins was “willing to completely ignore the long held views” of Robertson. “That’s very troubling and to me it paints a picture of a government in disarray,” she said.

As for whether there could be additional leaks from Labour ending up in the hands of the opposition, Willis said it wouldn’t surprise her. “I’ve no doubt that over the next days and weeks there are going to be more and more leaks coming out,” she said.

Hipkins said that didn’t concern him and he had no evidence to believe there had even been a leak. “Nicola Willis can claim whatever she likes, I’ve not seen any proof that she’s actually got a leak,” he told reporters before heading into the House this afternoon. “I’m not scared of it, I would have thought she might have spent a bit more time on her own policy. By mid-July in 2017 the Labour Party had released an alternative fiscal plan that was very clear about how we would pay for all of the commitments that we’ve made. Nicola Willis has yet to do the same, maybe she should focus on her own policy.”

Labour’s tax plan will be released in the coming weeks.

National has hit back at the release of costings that suggest a multi-billion-dollar shortfall for its tax and spending plans, calling the calculations, put out by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), a “partisan hit job”.

The NZCTU’s costings, using publicly available information from Treasury and the IRD, show a gap of between $3.3 billion and $5.2 billion in the funding available and National’s plans, according to the council.

“Our costings show National has spent around two dollars for every dollar available over the next three years,” said NZCTU economist Craig Renney in a statement. “Further billions are likely from the policies that they have not yet costed or will likely announce on the campaign trail.”

Renney said such a shortfall could only be accounted for “by raising debt, increasing other taxes, or slashing funding for critical public services like healthcare, education and police”.

National did not engage in the substance of the calculations, instead calling their release a “partisan hit job”. In a press release, National’s public services spokesperson Simeon Brown criticised the appointment of Renney, a former Labour Party adviser, to the Cyclone Gabrielle Recovery Taskforce in March.

“Like Rob Campbell, Ruth Dyson, Steve Maharey and Jason Ake before him, he has failed to abide by rules of political impartiality as a member of the government-appointed taskforce,” said Brown. “Perhaps this is why the cyclone recovery has been so slow and poorly managed.”

Brown also raised concerns about “whether the costs involved in preparing this so-called CTU report are being appropriately registered with the Electoral Commission, given we are now in the regulated period and the CTU is registered as a promoter”.

In parliamentary question time this afternoon, finance minister Grant Robertson denounced National for “impugning the integrity” of those who had put themselves forward to support the cyclone recovery.

Another MP has been referred to parliament’s powerful Privileges Committee – the fourth this year alone.

The committee acts effectively as parliament’s courts, and similar to the judicial system, MPs are permitted only to discuss limited details of what goes before it.

At the start of question time this afternoon, speaker Adrian Rurawhe confirmed National’s Tim van de Molen had been referred to the committee after a complaint from Labour’s Rachel Boyack.

Regarding the allegation made, Rurawhe said it “could amount to threatening or intimidating a member acting in the discharge of their duty or threatening a member on account of their conduct in parliament”.

However, he said referring van de Molen to the committee was not an indication of guilt. ”The speaker’s role as such matters is to determine whether the facts alleged could, if true, amount to a breach of privilege or contempt of the house,” Rurawhe said.

So far this year, MPs Jan Tinetti, Michael Wood and Simon Court have all been referred to the committee for questioning.

Hot on the heels of last week’s College Hill sinkhole saga, a new one has appeared on a busy Auckland road, this time in the south of the city.

A section of Princes Street in Ōtāhuhu has been closed due to the emergence of the sinkhole, with bus detours in place.

The hole was discovered late last night by Carol, who lives on the street. She told The Spinoff that if she hadn’t been looking down while crossing the road, she could’ve fallen in.

Carol took a photo of the sinkhole and posted it on the Ōtāhuhu community Facebook page, then reported the hole on the Auckland Transport website.

She says the hole starts crumbling if you tap around its edge, and it’s grown in size since last night, showing her original photo as evidence.

John Brenan, the traffic management specialist at the site, told The Spinoff crews were on their way to fix the hole, which had jumped to the top of the priority list due to media coverage.

A temporary fix is now in place at the College Hill sinkhole, which at 3.5m in diameter is much larger than the new Ōtāhuhu one, but a permanent solution to replace the damaged stormwater pipe causing the sinkhole is expected to take four months.

From parliament:

The finance minister is refusing to enter into “speculation” on what Labour’s election year tax policy might be.

Last week, National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis revealed details of what she claimed was leaked Labour Party policy. It included a plan to ditch GST on produce, something that has been campaigned on by Labour in the past.

What complicates the matter for the current government is comments made last year by Grant Robertson. He said that tampering with GST would be “an absolute boondoggle” – though he wouldn’t repeat that position today.

“If you do it off fresh fruit and vegetables, or even staple products,” Robertson said in 2022, “then you get into an argument of what’s the difference between beetroot and canned beetroot, and if you want to make a real impact on the lowest income people you wouldn’t cut the tax off fresh beetroot – that’s not what people on low incomes buy.”

Speaking to reporters at parliament today, Robertson repeated the government’s line du jour that: “Our tax policy will be released in due course… I’m not going to speculate on any tax policy today.”

However, he added that sometimes MPs had to adapt to policies that weren’t always their preference. “I’ve been around a long time and I’ve seen politicians of all shades have to deal with things you don’t always necessarily 100% back at the start, it’s the nature of being here,” he said.

“What we stand for are the values and the principles of the party… I very much stand with Labour and I’m very much committed to being the finance minister with Chris Hipkins as the prime minister.”

As with many prospective Labour policies being floated at the moment, Robertson said the party’s tax plan will be released in the coming weeks.

From parliament:

The war of words over transport policy has continued at parliament today, with the National Party accusing the government of being “in chaos”.

Yesterday saw the National Party unveil its multibillion-dollar transport policy. It included projects for around the country, though much of the attention has been on what it would mean for the capital. There would be a new four-lane highway to the Wellington Airport along with the party’s long-pledged new Mount Victoria tunnel.

But, yesterday, transport minister David Parker said he’d uncovered a mega fiscal hole in the plan and accused the opposition of misleading the public.

National’s unimpressed and said the Labour Party needs to figure out its own position on transport plans for Wellington. “They’ve got Labour Party candidates… putting out damning press releases of the National Party [and] you’ve got the prime minister from what I can see basically agreeing with our criticism,” National infrastructure spokesperson Chris Bishop said today at parliament.

“They are all over the show when it comes to transport, we’re really clear about what our priority is which is getting on and building a second Mount Victoria tunnel which has been talked about for 20 years.” It was “completely outrageous” that the current Mount Victoria tunnel was taking about 40,000 vehicle movements a day with just a single lane.

However, he was pleased that there appeared to be consensus across political lines that action was needed to fix congestion at the Basin Reserve. “No one wants to go back to [the flyover] days, but we do need a solution for the Basin,” he said.

In a scathing press release sent out shortly after, Bishop further criticised the government’s lack of action on transport policy. “Is the business case done or not? Is LGWM going ahead or not? What has Labour been doing for six years in transport?” he asked.

Government ministers agreed with frustrations in the capital, while opposing National’s plans. Finance minister Grant Robertson said that, as the MP for Wellington Central, he understood those frustrations. And transport minister David Parker said progress had been slow. “We are committed to improving transport for Wellington. We’re not proposing dropping the project, [but] we’re open to discussions as to what should be faced first,” he said.

MPs are now in closed-doors caucus meetings but will face media again ahead of question time which starts at 2pm.

As Glenn McConnell reports for The Post, the foreign affairs select committee considering a government bill to allow for long-term detention of asylum seekers, in the event of a “mass arrival” via boat, has delivered a unanimous report telling parliament it cannot recommend that the bill become law. The Immigration (Mass Arrivals) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in March.

At the time, Amnesty International pointed out the bill ran counter to recommendations from the United Nations and a 2021 report by Victoria Casey KC that had been accepted by Immigration NZ. Aliya Danzeisen, the national coordinator of the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, described remarks made during the debate in the House at the time as “quite xenophobic”. Members of the committee include Labour’s Ibrahim Omer, Dan Rosewarne and Jenny Salesa, National’s Todd Muller and Gerry Brownlee and the Green party’s Golriz Ghahraman​.

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There are further questions being asked about the workplace conduct of former minister Kiri Allan.

Stuff’s Andrea Vance has reported that concerns were raised about interactions between Allan with officials from three further agencies: Waka Kotahi, the Ministry for the Environment and the Public Service Commission.

However, there is limited new information, with agencies opting not to release full correspondence. “We hold three text messages that mention workplace relations / culture within the former minister Allan’s office,” said Leisa Coley, Waka Kotahi national manager for government relations.

The Public Service Commission also said concerns had been raised “by senior public servants from other agencies about working relationships in the minister’s office”. And a letter sent to a DOC manager responsible for staff seconded to Allan’s office, also unreleased, similarly referenced concerns.

Prime minister Chris Hipkins told Newshub’s AM that the alleged incidents took place before his time as prime minister and he wasn’t aware of them. He also said that there was nothing – yet – to suggest Allan had done anything wrong, noting that the report just referenced robust conversations. However, if people were concerned, there were avenues for raising formal complaints.