It’s Monday, October 16 and welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates. I’m Stewart Sowman-Lund. Get in touch with me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz
The agenda
ICYMI, National won the election. We’ve got a heap of post-Saturday content on the site today, including Duncan Greive writing about the impact the 2021 lockdown had on support for Labour in Auckland and Hayden Donnell digesting the biggest winners and losers from election night.
MPs are returning to Wellington for the first time since the campaign today.
The incoming prime minister says he’ll get to work straight away – but is promising to keep negotiations with Act and NZ First out of the media.
Will Chris Hipkins survive as Labour leader? The rumours have started.
It’s Monday, October 16 and welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates. I’m Stewart Sowman-Lund. Get in touch with me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz
The agenda
ICYMI, National won the election. We’ve got a heap of post-Saturday content on the site today, including Duncan Greive writing about the impact the 2021 lockdown had on support for Labour in Auckland and Hayden Donnell digesting the biggest winners and losers from election night.
MPs are returning to Wellington for the first time since the campaign today.
The incoming prime minister says he’ll get to work straight away – but is promising to keep negotiations with Act and NZ First out of the media.
Will Chris Hipkins survive as Labour leader? The rumours have started.
Incoming prime minister Christopher Luxon has held a press conference after arriving at parliament, where he largely refused to answer any questions related to ongoing negotiations.
“What I owe New Zealand is to deliver a strong and stable government,” said Luxon when pushed as to why he wouldn’t provide details about coalition discussions. “I said I would go off and do that professionally, constructive.”
He added: “I want to build relationships, I think chemistry and relationships are very important.”
Luxon has confirmed that his team have been in contact with Winston Peters and NZ First, along with David Seymour and Act. But he has so far refused to comment on any other details of those calls.
“I think you’ve seen over the past two years that we’ve got very good discipline in the National Party,” said Luxon when asked whether he was worried about any leaks.
Of the earlier reports that Winston Peters had been offered speaker, Luxon wouldn’t say if that was correct. However: “I’d just say to you, I’ve read a lot of punditry and commentary [and] it’s not always right.”
Before fronting for media, Luxon was taking a photo with his 23 incoming National MPs. They wouldn’t, according to one undetermined reporter on the RNZ livestream, “do a silly one”.
There were some marvellous monikers among the mutts that featured in our dogs at polling booths live pupdates over the election period. Chippy and Lux, fittingly, were there, as was Dr Dog, Fenrir Baldur von Ritzweber, Prinz Otto von Schnauzer, George Michael and Rufusdupomsky.
But the name to feature most commonly? Ruby, with six dogs named thus, followed closely by Monty, on five. Variations on Frank featured five times too, and Louie/Louis/Lou four times.
We had three Pipis, three Poppies, three Maxes, three Junos, three Archies, three Rosies, three Lunas and three Ted/Teddies, and a whole lot of double-ups – see below for the full list.
Common themes were floral names (Rosie x 3, Poppy x 3, Flora x 2, Daisy x 2), food and/or drink-related names (Bean, Mr Meatball, Milo x 2, Cocoa, Basil, Nando, Mr Fig, Tuk Tuk Peanut, Pickle, Pickles and Mr Pickles), and names that ended in -y or -ie or -o. We had a few native tree names (Rata, Rimu, Pia Matai) and other te reo Māori ingoa (Pounamu, Whetu, Tūī). We had a dog called Moose, a dog called Goose, and two dogs called Bruce.
And while we had three dogs bearing Aotearoa’s most popular dog name (Luna), we did not receive a single Bella (the second-most popular) and just one Charlie (the third-most popular).
A million thanks to all the humans who sent in pics, and a million pats to all the democracy-loving dogs we featured.
Auckland Museum has issued an apology after it staged a light display in support of Israel over the weekend.
The display was in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict, that is the latest development in a long history of discord. It drew criticism from members of the public and some museum staff on social media. Pro-Palestinian supporters protested the display on Sunday night.
In a statement to The Spinoff today, museum chief executive David Reeves recognised the hurt caused by the display – “I acknowledge the depth of feeling around our decision to light the museum on Sunday night,” he said.
“We wanted this to be an expression of hope for peace – our approach was wrong, and I personally apologise for the distress and hurt caused to members of our community. I am carefully reviewing and reflecting on all of the feedback we have received. As a War Memorial Museum, we continue to hope for deeper understanding and a peaceful resolution to conflict.”
Yesterday on social media the museum posted a photograph of the display with the caption: “This evening, your museum is lit in blue and white in solidarity with Israel, our thoughts go out to the many civilians impacted as a result of the terrorist attack a week ago today.”
Some viewers criticised the museum’s support of Israel, given the history of the region. Others criticised the museum for taking a public stance. The museum later reposted the photograph with an updated caption: “Our thoughts go out to the many civilians impacted as a result of the terrorist attack in Israel a week ago today. As a war memorial, we value the importance of peaceful dialogue and understanding. We condemn all acts of violence and terrorism. This evening the Museum is lit in blue and white in condemnation and as an expression of hope for peace.”
There was some talk before election day that Winston Peters could be offered the role of speaker of the house in a National-led government that required New Zealand First.
The suggestion was put forward by John Key and the thinking was essentially that it would give Peters a bauble while limiting his involvement in the machinery of government.
According to a report from Politik.co.nz, Peters has indeed been offered the role of speaker – but has turned it down.
And the report adds that National might consider offering it to outgoing Labour speaker Adrian Rurawhe who was widely liked across the House.
Wellington will be buzzing with new, returning and outgoing parliamentarians over the coming days as the transition from the outgoing to incoming government gets under way.
Stuff, the Herald and Newshub all have live blogs capturing MPs as they arrive off planes and head across town to the parliamentary precinct.
One particular thread from Labour MPs appears to be not discussing the leadership and/or throwing their support behind Chris Hipkins staying on. “I am just going to see how the team is first. We’ve got to see what Chippy wants to do and hopefully he wants to stay,” Willie Jackson said. Meanwhile, Carmel Sepuloni refused to say whether or not she’d be interested in the leadership (her name has been in the mix).
I’ve just been listening to Megan Woods on the latest episode of Tova O’Brien’s Stuff podcast. Woods, who was Labour’s campaign chair, has made it clear that the caucus fully backs outgoing prime minister Chris Hipkins and she absolutely expects he will lead the party into the next election.
But anyone who’s followed politics, especially Labour during its wilderness years before 2017, will know that seems unlikely.
The party must constitutionally hold a confidence vote within three months of an election, which could be the first glimpse of any discontent within the caucus.
The Herald’s Claire Trevett reported that the “names doing the rounds” in terms of leadership speculation included outgoing deputy PM Carmel Sepuloni and senior MP Peeni Henare. Kieran McAnulty, who lost his Wairarapa seat on Saturday night, had previously had his name in the mix but has consistently ruled himself out.
Losing half your caucus is a wake up call for any party. But as National showed after its staggering 2020 defeat, anything can happen in three years.
Chris Hipkins at the Lower Hutt Events Centre. Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
The business sector will be very happy with the election result, commentators tell the Herald’s Tamsyn Parker (paywalled). While “a change in government won’t be a silver bullet for bringing down inflation or fixing New Zealand’s fiscal situation”, business confidence is already on the rise, they tell her, and will be further bolstered by the prospect of National and Act being able to govern alone.
Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold says financial markets may be slightly more volatile than usual during the post-election negotations. “However, [the] centre-right’s strong performance on the night will help to assuage some uncertainty.” Also celebrating are those involved in the real estate industry. The prospect of National’s pro-landlord policies such as the reinstatement of mortgage interest deductibility has made property investor Steve Goodey a “very happy camper”, he tells Stuff’s Susan Edmunds, while over on The Kākā, Bernard Hickey says he predicts “the housing market will take off again, from today. I stick with my view residential land prices will rise 20% because of this result.”
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Politicians will return to Wellington this week as work begins to transition to a new government.
The incoming prime minister Christopher Luxon said conversations have started between his team and both Act and New Zealand First to develop a relationship ahead of the special vote tally which isn’t due until the start of next month.
The relationship with Winston Peters will be tougher to develop, though based on preliminary votes New Zealand First would not formally be needed in a coalition arrangement.
Luxon told RNZ that he would be working with each individual party and believed it was better to do so behind closed doors. “For me, it’s about me building a relationships with those respective parties,” he said.
The way the special votes would fall remained speculative, said Luxon, who didn’t want to get ahead of that announcement.
On Newshub, Luxon said he felt like the job interview was finally over and now he could get to work. He remained committed to his party’s “mini-budget” before Christmas and said he would like to attend the Apec summit as it would be a good forum to develop bilateral relationships with leaders.
He made it clear that he would not be providing a daily “blow-by-blow” update on negotiations over the next three weeks as he did not believe that led to positive relationships.
“I won’t be talking about it,” said Luxon. “I want to build good will.”
On the election results, Luxon said he had found that by moving around the country over the campaign there was a stronger sense on the ground of the move for change when compared with commentary and polling in the media.
Luxon reiterated his preference to simply work with Act during an appearance on Newstalk ZB. “I would prefer as I’ve always said, in a coalition National and Act – I think that would be the strongest and simplest way to do it,” said Luxon.
