With much of the world watching us, how do we make the most of that attention? (Photo: Getty)

PoliticsMay 8, 2020

NZ is winning global kudos for our Covid-19 response. How do we use it?

Guest Post

With much of the world watching us, how do we make the most of that attention? (Photo: Getty)

With Ardern and New Zealand in headlines for what promises to be a successful elimination strategy, we have an opportunity to use that influence in international relations, write Nina Hall, Max Harris, Evelyn Marsters, Thomas Nash and Arama Rata of New Zealand Alternative.

The international praise of Jacinda Ardern’s response to Covid-19 means that New Zealand has the ear of the world right now.

When the prime minister speaks, news outlets with a large international reach listen. The political world is paying close attention to actions taken in New Zealand and what is said by New Zealand’s leaders. Winston Peters has taken part in at least 23 calls with other foreign ministers to share Covid-19 experiences. This means New Zealand’s actions on coronavirus can make some mark internationally.

Without overstating New Zealand’s influence or being opportunistic, we should think hard about how our actions could influence the international community. Three topics with an international dimension need political attention in the months ahead: migration and migrants’ rights, international solidarity through debt relief, and climate action and a just transition.

New Zealand rightly enacted early travel restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus. But existing discriminatory policy means “temporary migrants”still in New Zealand do not have equal access to access to healthcare or benefits. This endangers their health and livelihoods – and the health and livelihoods of others – at a time when many of these people are doing essential work. New Zealand had 300,000 migrants on a temporary visa at the end of February. With most of us in New Zealand now receiving direct state assistance, the government should widen access to social security and social services to migrants, while boosting income support for all those who need it.

As New Zealand emerges from this crisis, we should also support migrants who cannot return to their home countries ravaged by coronavirus. Restrictions on migration will have a particular impact for Pasifika communities, unable to cross borders for funerals, weddings, graduations, and work. New Zealand should consider support for families and villages that usually rely on New Zealand-based income. New Zealand’s progressive action on migration policy is critical as many other countries struggle with how to support immigrants working in the agricultural and food sector.

Support for Pacific families and villages is likely to come from New Zealand’s overseas aid budget, and it is imperative that New Zealand maintains and increases its aid contributions as less well-off countries are hit hard by coronavirus. We should do this not out of sympathy or charity, but as a matter of solidarity and justice.

As SOAS professor Adam Hanieh has pointed out: “Momentary victory by a rich country in controlling the virus at a national level, coupled with travel bans and border closures, may give a semblance of accomplishment. But… only global victory can bring this pandemic to an end”. Hanieh rightly notes that public services are weaker in less well-off countries partly because of histories of colonisation and the dictates from wealthy countries and international institutions for cuts to public services in exchange for loans.

New Zealand’s international aid agencies have called for the government to provide $25 million in immediate additional aid funding. That is the bare minimum. At a time of low public debt and low-interest rates for borrowing, New Zealand should raise its development contribution to 0.7% of gross national income for the duration of the crisis. There is also a strong case for us to write off debt payments for less well-off countries, as several African nations have called for. Some debt relief has already been offered by G20 governments and the International Monetary Fund so this is not a pie-in-the-sky idea. But these efforts fall short and New Zealand should use the platform it has earned to make the case for more robust debt relief.

International discussions of New Zealand’s response should fully understand and acknowledge community actions, as well as actions taken by the Crown. These include Ngāti Ruanui mobilising to check on members and providing care packages to the elderly. They include checkpoints set up by Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou and Te Tai Tokerau as a legitimate expression of tino rangatiratanga, in order to uphold community wellbeing. There are also examples of tikanga being adapted to online spaces, such as the live-streaming of karakia (church services). Such acts of generosity and solidarity have been seen around the globe and are a cause for celebration in these difficult times.

This year’s global climate talks in Glasgow have been rightly cancelled on health grounds. But as we emerge from lockdown, climate action must stay on the agenda internationally and domestically. The government’s economic package will be significant. It is the biggest opportunity in generations to reset our economy and give meaning to the wellbeing ideas embraced by this government.

From the Climate Change Commission to environmental organisations to political and business leaders, a chorus of voices are encouraging the government to advance climate action through its response. The government can do this by investing with hapū and iwi in job-rich natural infrastructure projects to regenerate native forests, wetlands and waterways. It can prioritise public and active transport projects and resilient water infrastructure.

This could be the chance for a generation-defining commitment to building energy-efficient state housing at scale. These projects should be devised in partnership with hapū and iwi and provide well-paid unionised jobs fit for a “just transition”. But parallel funding should also be provided to hapū and iwi to determine investments fit for their own communities.

We’ve shown the solidarity we need by staying at home out of concern for each other’s safety. We need that solidarity because, even though we’re all in this together, we’re not affected equally. Class, race, age, gender, disability, and nationality all shape experiences of coronavirus. The pandemic has exposed longstanding inequalities. Bonds of solidarity must extend to all of us, whether migrants or citizens, old or young, living here or beyond these shores. Solidarity will determine how well we get through this crisis and what sort of world we rebuild afterwards.

New Zealand Alternative is an independent organisation promoting a progressive role for Aotearoa in the world.

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The physically distanced government benches in parliament. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

PoliticsMay 7, 2020

Yes, the courts should scrutinise the lockdown. But Bridges’ committee should back off

Andrew Geddis

Contributing writer

The physically distanced government benches in parliament. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

The legality of the actions taken in response to Covid-19 are coming under question. And some are very reasonable questions to ask, writes law professor Andrew Geddis.

Questions over the legality of the various notices issued by the director general of health to enforce New Zealand’s Covid-19 “lockdown” have reached something of a critical mass in the last few days.

Following a pretty heavy hint from the Court of Appeal, an application for judicial review has been filed in the High Court. The House of Representative’s Regulations Review Committee is holding an inquiry into whether the notices were properly made. And its Epidemic Response Committee has “summonsed” the solicitor general and others to provide it with documents containing any legal advice regarding the lockdown given to the crown.

Let’s be clear about the nature of these questions. They are, for the moment, just that – questions. It can sometimes be a struggle to accept that well-meaning, reasonable people who have legal training can in good faith disagree over what “the law says” on a particular point. But they can and do.

Given that we’re dealing with the use of powers contained in a piece of legislation more than six decades old, expressed in quite terse fashion, and exercised in the midst of an emergency situation, it’s unsurprising that there’s some uncertainty about their “correct” interpretation and application. Having that debate involves no malice or unwarranted pedantry. Rather, it reflects a desire to get clarity about whether the claimed legal powers actually permit the very extensive actions that have been taken.

However, the best way to resolve uncertainties over the lockdown’s legality also is important. In particular, I think it’s questionable whether the Epidemic Response Committee should get involved in interrogating the legal advice that the crown received when deciding how to respond to Covid-19.

This committee has a really important role in ensuring the government (in the form of ministers and their officials) remains accountable for its actions in relation to the virus emergency. With some caveats (cough, cough, Māori), it’s done a very good job. But it isn’t the only institution that oversees the government’s actions. Most obviously, there are the courts, which have already demonstrated their ability to ensure the lockdown response remains within the bounds of the law in respect of compassionate release from quarantine.

And the committee’s role in holding the government to account also circumscribed by other institutional imperatives. In particular, by “summonsing” (ie demanding the production of) legal advice given to the crown, the committee is directly challenging the legal privilege that attaches to such documents.

That privilege allows the crown (as is the case with any client) to refuse to divulge the advice’s content, and it exists for a very good reason. Privilege permits legal advisers to give their full and frank views on the legal risks and challenges involved in any particular policy decision. Receiving that full and frank advice then helps the government to make the best decision on the matter at hand.

Without such legal privilege in place, legal advisers may hedge and trim their views to avoid having them rebound on their client (the crown) at a later date. So, rather than saying “this policy proposal has very weak legal foundations and there is a high risk it will be overturned if challenged in court”, they may instead say “there might be a potential legal issue with this policy proposal”. Which actually would be bad for deciding what is the best thing to do.

So, given that there’s another institution in place that is going to examine the lockdown rules’ legality (the courts), and the institutional value in enabling the crown to receive full and frank legal advice, it probably would be best if the Epidemic Response Committee backed off here. It probably doesn’t need to inquire into this issue, and by doing so it may well do longer term harm to our processes of government.

But does that then mean that the Committee can’t get hold of these documents using its summoning power if it really insists on doing so? Well, that’s a bit unclear. The relevant power is based on parliament’s historical privileges and is spelt out in the House’s standing orders in blunt terms: “The [committee] may order that a summons be issued to any person … to produce papers and records in that person’s possession, custody, or control to the … committee.”

However, all of the House’s powers must be exercised within the law. And legal privilege is protected by the common law, subject to specific overrides in legislation. For example, you can obtain legally privileged official information under the Official Information Act 1982, but only provided there is a “public interest” in doing so that outweighs the reason for the privilege.

What that background matrix then means for the Epidemic Response Committee’s summons remains to be seen. The solicitor general and others may very well respond by simply saying “sorry – this material just isn’t for your eyes.” In which case, the committee’s only recourse (beyond firing off outraged press releases) would be to raise the matter as a potential “contempt of parliament”. And whether such a refusal is a contempt of parliament only the Privileges Committee can decide.

How does it then decide such questions? By a vote, if necessary. And at the moment the Privileges Committee has five government members, and five opposition members. You do the maths.

Of course, many people (including perhaps some reading this) will regard these sorts of discussions of the lockdown’s legality and ways of addressing this as being completely beside the point. The lockdown was necessary! It worked!! So, who cares how it was achieved, or who asks such questions!?

Well, as Alex Braae, insightfully writes in (checks notes) a webizine called The Spinoff: “It might be tempting to write all of this off as just procedural nonsense – because as mentioned before, the lockdown prevented a mass outbreak of a deadly virus. But this sort of thing taking place is what it looks like when civil society systems are working as they are supposed to. It might not make for particularly exciting or juicy scandals, but these questions are fundamental to a functioning society, and we have to pay attention when they’re raised.”

Could not have said it better myself. So I won’t.