a bridge with a gap with the words refugees scams social media and oceans fallind through the empty space
Some policy areas fall through the gaps (Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal)

PoliticsOctober 12, 2023

The policy that doesn’t exist

Contributing writer
a bridge with a gap with the words refugees scams social media and oceans fallind through the empty space
Some policy areas fall through the gaps (Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal)

Policy.nz is an excellent resource for learning about what political parties are promising to do if elected. But some sections are surprisingly empty. Which ones? And why? 

Not every party has a policy for everything. Some parties – Animal Justice, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party – are focused on a single issue (exactly the one it sounds like). Others simply aim for broad-spectrum, middle-of-the-road policies that appeal to the (squeezed?) middle voter. Labour and National’s most high profile and fleshed out policies largely fit in this category, although they have other policies around the edges too, like National wanting to create a ministerial portfolio for… space? 

Then there are the minor parties. Te Pāti Māori focuses almost exclusively on policies that promote the interests of Māori. As Policy.nz editorial director Ollie Neas said in an interview with Gone by Lunchtime, Labour and National get media attention because they’re likely to be leading the next government, while the Green Party and Act often have to release policy to achieve the same result. 

Despite the many hundreds of policies released by parties this election, there are also some important areas which have been largely neglected, or have at least been neglected by major parties. Opinion columnists have already talked about the holes in disability and artificial intelligence policy, and Spinoff writers Duncan Greive and Sam Brooks have observed the absence of media and arts policy respectively. From a trawl of policy.nz, here is a non-exhaustive examination of some of the other missing issues.  

a woman wearing a striped top with long hair medium brown skin and holding a microphone
Golriz Ghahraman, an MP who initially moved to New Zealand as a refugee. Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

Foreign policy, especially aid and refugees

New Zealand is a small country in a big universe – which must be why Christopher Luxon has announced a proposed ministerial portfolio for space. But while Luxon looks to the stars, his party offers very little policy about the rest of the world. National has a few business oriented policies: free trade deals with India and Pacific and Gulf states; recruiting more international students; removing tariffs for international trade. But it has no policies for defence, international aid or refugees. 

While there have been previous high-profile campaigns to increase the number of refugees New Zealand supports, raising the refugee quota to 1,500 in 2020 and creating the community resettlement scheme, there is very limited refugee policy being promoted in this election. TOP says an investor visa could help pay for refugees; the Green Party wants to expand resettlement support and remove the health test limitation for refugees and, along with Labour, wants to add a rainbow sub-category for refugees. Act, New Zealand First, National and Te Pāti Māori have no refugee policy at all. National does say that it will “ensure our foreign aid budget is deployed effectively and in places where New Zealand can make the greatest contribution to humanitarian and economic development efforts,” but this statement is entirely devoid of detail.

A local man carries water bottles as he passes by a collapsed building on February 7, 2023 in Elbistan Turkey – a humanitarian crisis that New Zealand contributed aid to. (Photo: Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images)

New Zealand spent $820m on international aid in 2020, which was not even 0.3% of the overall Gross National Income – well below the target of 0.7% set by the OECD. “It’s a small percentage, and the government hitting its target would make such a difference,” says World Vision’s head of advocacy Rebekah Armstrong. 

Much of this aid goes to the Pacific, which has been allocated $1.8b between 2021 and 2024, as well as to humanitarian crises like the Turkey-Syria earthquake earlier this year. While this is a big chunk of money, there are very few policies around how to spend the international aid budget. The Green Party wants money to go to climate change adaptation in the Pacific, and Te Pāti Māori wants to support Pacific leaders. Labour says only that it will “continue providing overseas development assistance”. No other significant party has any public policy about foreign aid. 

“At the moment we are all feeling the crunch of tax and the cost of living, the issues that the parties are campaigning on, but [overseas] these are life and death issues,” says Armstrong. “There are people dying of hunger every few seconds.” Previous elections, in which the refugee quota was more prominent, featured more discussion of New Zealand’s international obligations, Armstrong says, but since Covid the issue has fallen off the agenda – even though the number of global refugees is higher than ever.

A lack of policy makes it harder for New Zealand to address international humanitarian issues. “It puts an increased burden on NGOs and has a direct impact on the significant human rights and humanitarian crisis where children most often pay the price.”

a hand overing over a phone cartoon with questionmarks
Romance scams are especially insidious Image: Tina Tiller

Scams 

New Zealanders lose millions and millions of dollars to scams each year – $4.2m in the last quarter alone. Telecommunications companies, banks and the government are all targeted, and widespread scams erode trust. It seems like an obvious bipartisan issue that the public would support action on, and yet most parties have a blank space for this policy, with only Labour saying it would create an anti-scamming unit. 

“Scams are really bad for business,” Consumer NZ CEO Jon Duffy said in an August interview with The Spinoff. National, which likes to see itself as the party of business, has not yet used this line to support action to prevent scams. 

Getty Images

Social media

The Labour government spent ages talking about the TVNZ/RNZ merger only for it to be incinerated on the policy bonfire after Chris Hipkins took over. In a term that has seen widespread misinformation, including on social media, no significant party has more than one or two sideways mentions of social media in their policy. Given that nearly every single party has a candidate that has either shared misleading information or said controversial things online, perhaps it’s in all of their interests to make sure that these powerful corporations are being engaged with in some way? 

Labour says it will continue engaging with social media through the Christchurch Call process and Act wants to loosen proposed rules that would let the Department of Internal Affairs regulate what is being said on social media. A plan to make online media safer made waves earlier this year – but discussion of social media has been basically non-existent this election.

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Sea Cleaners
Ocean pollution is one major concern (Photo: Chris Schulz)

Oceans and fishing policy 

While New Zealand is small, the oceans around our islands are large. We have one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world, covering more than four million square kilometres. It’s important from a business perspective, too: in 2017, the value of the “marine economy” was estimated at $3.8b from shipping, fisheries and offshore minerals – not to mention incredibly valuable ecosystem services. 

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    The oceans are also crucial in responding to climate change: water absorbs heat (as catastrophic marine heatwaves have shown). Warmer water impacts land temperatures and rainfall too. Despite this, oceans are a notable hole in some parties’ policy. Labour (which added oceans to the fisheries portfolio in 2020) and the Green Party both have relatively comprehensive oceans policies, which include expanding protected marine areas, protecting the Hauraki Gulf (which advocates have said is “stuffed”) and addressing marine biosecurity risks. 

    However, National’s only ocean policies are opposing recreational fishing licences (which aren’t currently in use anyway) and reversing the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. Act also wants to remove the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. The party has endorsed ocean action in the past, including the troubled Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary, which was initially announced by John Key in 2015. The ocean is mostly blue – it’s missing an opportunity for some branding synergy, if nothing else.

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    Image: Tina Tiller
    Image: Tina Tiller

    OPINIONPoliticsOctober 12, 2023

    Voting in New Zealand is easy – except, sometimes, on election day

    Guest writer
    Image: Tina Tiller
    Image: Tina Tiller

    Has the Electoral Commission gone too big on early voting at the expense of on-the-day polling places? Possibly, says Graeme Edgeler.

    New Zealand makes voting very easy.

    You don’t need ID. You can vote in any voting place in the entire country. On any day during early voting period, or on election day itself. If you are not enrolled to vote, election officials will help you enrol at the voting place when you go to cast your vote. You can vote from overseas. If you go to the busiest voting place in the whole country, at the busiest time on election day, you’ll probably still be done in 15 minutes.

    If you are blind, partially blind, or have a physical disability that means you are unable to vote without assistance, you can speak with a series of people from the Electoral Commission who will take your vote by phone dictation. I still get misty-eyed thinking about the select committee evidence detailing the experience of a voter who had been able to use the service the first time it was offered (and who had been able to cast an actual secret ballot for the first time ever).

    The Electoral Commission posts “Easy Vote” cards to those enrolled early enough, but you don’t need to take this with you. It just makes it easier for the person helping you vote in the voting place to find your name in the printed electoral roll they’re going to cross it off in (the numbers printed on it are the page and line number of the physical electoral roll just to make things a little quicker).

    And on election day itself, if you are at work, and did not have a reasonable opportunity to vote beforehand, and 3pm rolls around and you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, you get the rest of the day off – with pay – just so you can.

    These things aren’t true in a lot of countries.

    In Ireland, unless the reason you are not in Ireland is that you are a diplomat or in the Defence Forces, you have to be physically present in Ireland to vote.

    In parts of the United States, queueing to vote can sometimes take all day.

    In the United Kingdom, the equivalent of the Easy Vote card is the “poll card”. Like the Easy Vote card, you don’t have to take it with you, but unlike the Easy Vote card it tells you when you can vote, and at which voting place. And you can only vote at that one voting place. If you can’t make it there, you can apply for a proxy vote, or to vote by post and depending on where you live, you may have to apply up to 14 days before the election to do this.

    Americans wait in line to cast their votes at a Maryland high school, November 03, 2020. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

    But New Zealand isn’t perfect. There are naturally minor slip-ups each election: when you employ 20,000 temporary staff members, one election official misunderstanding one thing or another and making a mistake is a risk. And this election, there are some concerns about the distance people may need to travel if they wish to vote on election day.

    The concern is raised specifically about a few voting places that will be open for a short time during early voting, but won’t be open on election day itself. For example, people who live in rural Taranaki near Uruti School had the option of voting at the school last Sunday, but if they want to vote on election day itself, the nearest voting place will be Mimi School, approximately 11 km away. On election day in 2020, both schools were used (Mimi school seeing 123 votes general votes cast, and Uruti 55).

    If you live rurally, there’s a chance that finding a place to vote on election day may be a challenge (Photo: Getty)

    Some voting places only being used during early voting is to be expected: the Kelburn campus of the Victoria University has early voting Monday-Friday only, because basically no-one attends university on the weekend. Schools are frequently used for election day voting on the Saturday the election is held, but obviously can’t be used for daily early voting because students are using them. Despite claims by some, these places are not closing early. All voting places being used on election day will open at 9am and close at 7pm (if you’re still in the queue at 7pm you still get to vote).

    That some people who live rurally will need to travel some distance to vote is not new, but there is a question about exactly how far we might expect people living in or near small settlements to have to travel to vote on election day itself, and questions around how and when early voting options provided in rural areas are advertised.

    The 2011 election was the first election at which New Zealand offered voters the opportunity to vote early without needing a reason. The numbers voting early have only grown since, and were especially high at the 2020 election. But extensive early voting opportunities come at a cost. Every dollar spent by the Electoral Commission employing vote takers in large numbers in the period leading up to election day, is a dollar that it cannot spend on election day itself on opening up a few extra voting places in rural areas.

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      The Electoral Commission doesn’t set its own budget. Like other agencies funded by taxes, it makes its case to the government and to parliament for the funding it requires. My guess is that the Electoral Commission probably has the balance close to right – ensuring that access by New Zealanders to voting places is relatively painless. But it’s definitely possible that at the margins, in a few small rural settlements, the balance has gone slightly too far: maybe neither Uruti School nor Mimi School should have had early voting at all, and both should have had an election day voting place, as they did in 2020? Equally, at 11 km apart, maybe only one of the schools really needs to offer election day voting, given the small number of people in the area. But neither was even close to being the least used voting place in Taranaki in 2020.

      Even with greater use of early voting, we should ensure that people who want to vote on election day have the opportunity to do so relatively easily. If that means providing the opportunity to vote on election day at two rural schools 11km apart, it is probably a price worth paying. In which case, offering slightly fewer early voting opportunities, or funding the Electoral Commission at a slightly higher level is something that should be considered.

      Politics