spinofflive
(Getty Images).
(Getty Images).

The BulletinSeptember 4, 2020

The Bulletin: Family support looms as election policy battleground

(Getty Images).
(Getty Images).

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Family support looms as election policy battleground, warm winter heralds climate change fears, and warnings of insolvency cliff looming for government supported businesses.

National has launched a policy package around support for new parents, reports Stuff. The headline announcement in it is a package of $3000 to spend on parental services, which would have to be used with approved providers. Party leader Judith Collins said it would be there for those who need it, but wouldn’t be given in the form of cash in hand. They’ve also reconfirmed a policy aimed at allowing both parents to take parental leave at the same time. Underpinning the policies is a philosophical commitment to heavily supporting families during the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

There are certainly a lot of parents out there who will need the money. As Alice Webb-Liddall reports, a Unicef survey has found New Zealand ranks near the bottom of 41 countries in child wellbeing, with poverty being seen as a driver of other poor outcomes. That isn’t exactly new information – the Welfare Expert Advisory Group report last year made it very clear, with their recommendations driving much of what has subsequently become Green party policy for the election.

We’re still yet to see the tax and family support policies Labour will take into the election. PM Jacinda Ardern defended the government’s efforts to date in response to the Unicef report. “The report pre-dates our progress in rolling out the $5.5bn Families Package, setting child poverty targets, lifting 18,400 children from poverty, and improving seven out of nine child poverty measures.” It’s fair to say Ardern has made addressing child poverty the cornerstone of her political identity, so it will be fascinating to see whether Labour announces something more on top of what has already been done.

On the point about National’s plan not being simply cash in hand, there has been a bit of a debate on social media as to whether that would be a better strategy, on the grounds that parents might need things that aren’t included in the list of services. Speaking personally, I wonder if that will reopen some of the debate around concepts like helicopter money, or a UBI which is being proposed by The Opportunities Party. The former policy option was discussed in this opinion piece by Business Desk’s (paywalled) Rebecca Stevenson, who suggested that or a cut in GST as being a way to simply put money in the hands of people who will spend it, thus providing an economic stimulus.


This winter was the warmest New Zealand has ever experienced, with climate change contributing to that, reports the NZ Herald. For an example of just how warm, last week Timaru in Canterbury hit 25 celsius – but pretty much the whole country was above average for the whole season. There were other causative factors for the high temperatures, like warmer seas around New Zealand, but they too are influenced by climate change. For an example of the effects of that, it meant a bad season for many ski fields, which were unable to retain enough of a snow pack, reports Stuff. One can only assume the consequences are going to get a bit more dire than not being able to ski in the future.


Chartered accountants are warning that an “insolvency cliff” is looming of businesses that would have failed without government support, even in normal times. David Hargreaves of Interest has reported on the warning, which notes that it was an unintended consequence of support that was necessary to keep otherwise viable businesses afloat. Insolvency stats for July and August are way down on where they were over the previous two years, suggesting a reality check is coming.


A good series to check out over the weekend, about the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake. The team at The Press (but particularly Philip Matthews and Charlie Gates) have put together Munted, which is based on their experience of both living through and reporting on how the disaster affected people. The story is told in a series of written pieces and short video episodes, and I think something that jumped out to me from the episode about the Eastern suburbs in particular – it just never stopped – both the shakes themselves, and how it smashed what people had spent their life building.


Some odd looking financial arrangements for Labour’s Hutt South electorate office have been revealed, by Stuff’s Thomas Coughlan. It’s a bit technical, so I’ll quote the top paragraph:

“The Labour Party’s Hutt South wing has been running an apparently unusual subletting “arrangement” in which it gets cheap rent on office space off a local union, sublets the rooms to its local list MP Ginny Andersen, and then bills parliament at a markup, pocketing the difference.”

The rest of the story goes into detail about how the arrangement allegedly works. Parliamentary Services fund the electorate office MPs, and to be clear, it doesn’t appear that the law has been broken at all here – the sums of money being talked about are also in the low thousands of dollars. But I personally would quite like to know how many other MP electorate offices have similar arrangements. In a follow up this morning, questions are asked about whether this is potentially a case of donations being under-declared.


Here’s a useful piece on one of the most important upcoming campaign milestones – the TV leader debates. Newsroom’s Mark Jennings, who in a former life used to run TV news for Mediaworks, has looked at how the format has changed over the years, particularly through the lens of how party leaders (and probably more importantly, their teams) approach the set piece showcases. He’s also analysed how those scheduled for this campaign could play out, in the context of who is moderating each one.


Just quickly – a hearty congratulations to Metro, and all the other former Bauer titles that will be returning to magazine shelves, including the Listener and North and South. They’re our mates as well as our competitors, and their return is hugely positive for the industry as a whole. It’s wonderful to see people willing to take a punt on them, and I can’t wait to see what journalism comes out.


Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Drop us a line at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz

Right now on The Spinoff: Isla Stewart argues that Wellington desperately needs to replace character housing with something warmer, drier and more dense. Leonie Hayden reports on a new study that shows why Māori would be much more likely to die in a Covid-19 outbreak. Linda Collins, the author of a forthcoming book about losing a child to suicide, questions how silence can ever be a solution. Henry Oliver speaks to Sean Topham and Ben Guerin, the young digital campaigners who some (probably mistakenly) believe are evil geniuses. Sherry Zhang writes about a policy comparison tool put together by Rainbow Youth, and concerns around many parties not having LGBTQI+ policies. Jose Barbosa uses a range of traditional soothsaying techniques to predict the election results for every single party. And for the final episode of Bad News for this season, Alice Snedden is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to talk about racism, and New Zealand’s treaty obligations.


For a feature today, a look at one of the unintended consequences of the ongoing tensions between India and China. Sixth Tone has reported on how travel bans have affected the delivery of cancer drugs – manufactured as generics in India – to patients in China. It’s very much a human story, going behind the headlines to show how top line policies affect people on the ground. Here’s an excerpt:

Ying had no idea who the supplier was — she speaks little English — but the service worked like a charm. Within a week or two of placing the order, the imatinib would arrive via EMS, the cross-border express mail service.

At the time, what Ying was doing was illegal. China labeled any unapproved pharmaceutical imports “fake drugs,” and those caught selling them were harshly punished — sometimes with long prison sentences. But many Chinese cancer patients didn’t care, and the market for Indian drugs flourished. Jin Ni, a resident of the eastern city of Taizhou, recalls speaking with many families in the hospital after her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009.

“They were all using Indian drugs,” Jin tells Sixth Tone. She adds the targeted drug used to treat non-small-cell lung cancer — gefitinib — cost 15,000 yuan per month in China at the time. “It’s unaffordable for average Chinese families, no matter urban or rural.”


There’s a bit of rugby on this weekend, even if the buildup to North vs South has been heavily disrupted. The NZ Herald has a report on the two teams, and over and above the spectacle there will be some interesting matchups in there. Among them: Sam Whitelock vs Patrick Tuipulotu, Beauden Barrett vs Richie Mo’unga, and there’s a reasonable chance Crusaders wingers Sevu Reece and George Bridge will end up marking each other.


That’s it for The Bulletin. If you want to support the work we do at The Spinoff, please check out our membership programme

Keep going!
Health minister Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield at the health select committee (Robert Kitchin – Pool/Getty Images)
Health minister Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield at the health select committee (Robert Kitchin – Pool/Getty Images)

The BulletinSeptember 3, 2020

The Bulletin: Alert level one still a long way away

Health minister Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield at the health select committee (Robert Kitchin – Pool/Getty Images)
Health minister Chris Hipkins and Dr Ashley Bloomfield at the health select committee (Robert Kitchin – Pool/Getty Images)

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Alert level one still a long way away, parliament once again closes for the term, and thousands of primary health workers to strike today.

Alert level one could still be a long way away, according to the country’s top health official. Dr Ashley Bloomfield fronted the health select committee yesterday, and as One News reports, the ministry hasn’t yet started working on advice for taking the country down in alert levels. Rather, the priority is currently to get Auckland out of what is being termed ‘level 2.5’ – the sort of strict form of level two which is currently in place, which among other things has much lower caps on gathering numbers.

There’s no set date on either a move down from 2.5, or a wider move to level one at this stage. Nor – as we saw in the polling covered in yesterday’s Bulletin – is there really any public appetite to rush the move. As health minister Chris Hipkins told Newshub, it is possible that even without finding the source of the outbreak, the move could take place. A cabinet meeting will take place on Friday to discuss it, and as the NZ Herald’s Jason Walls reports, it could end up being a particularly tense meeting, with NZ First leader Winston Peters yesterday openly criticising Labour party ministers.

What about the rest of the country? As our live updates reported yesterday, there were some suggestions that the South Island be allowed to shift down, given there has been no community transmission in months. But with Aucklanders now allowed to travel, and no plans to change that, the risks are there that Covid might still spread. The ODT reports some experts have suggested a travel ban would be wise, particularly in the context of a conference in Queenstown that Aucklanders went to. In the meantime, Hipkins is confining his request to saying that Aucklanders should “take their alert level with them”, and continue to avoid large gatherings.


For the second time this year, the term of parliament has come to an end (that’s not technically true I suppose but it is in spirit.) There are two pieces worth reading out of it. The first is by Stuff’s Henry Cooke, who captured a mood of this particular parliament absolutely dragging to a close, pettiness and exhaustion filling the chamber. And Politik’s Richard Harman has written a wonderful and quite poignant piece about an iconic photo taken during an incident right at the start of the term – when National schooled the inexperienced Labour government and got some extra select committee seats as a result. It explains why the politicians probably are so exhausted, because in looking back at everyone in the picture, it reveals what a wild three years it has been.


Thousands of primary health care workers are likely to strike today, including a large contingent of nurses, reports One News. They’re currently paid less than colleagues in the DHB system, and want pay parity. Their union says that achieving pay parity has been costed at $15 million a year, and they argue that there’s no reason why that shouldn’t be funded right now.


Warnings are being sounded that police facial recognition software will result in the wrong Māori or Pacific Island person getting arrested, reports Radio NZ’s Meriana Johnsen. That is at least what has happened with similar technology when used against Black people in the US. Dr Karaitiana Taiuru said that among his concerns around false arrests, he was also “concerned the system wouldn’t have been trained on tā moko, moko kauae so we have no idea how the system will react to that.”


Several Lower Hutt motels have been struck off the list for emergency housing because of terrible conditions, Stuff’s Matthew Tso. One tenant spoke of seeing “cockroaches, mould and rotting food left by previous guests” in a room he spent four months living in, a situation that never improved. An investigation from the social development ministry found that at three motels, the standard provided to those in emergency housing was well below what would be provided to paying guests – even though the motel rooms were all in fact being paid for by the government.


Around 2.1 million people now have the Covid app downloaded, but many daily movements aren’t actually being scanned or tracked at all, reports Radio NZ’s Nita Blake-Persen. As a result, a new and high-tech tool will be deployed – a booklet that allows people to write in where and when they’ve been, using what is commonly referred to as a pen. Health minister Chris Hipkins says the new paper diaries will be particularly targeted towards senior citizens groups and those who don’t have smartphones. Incidentally, the story also mentions an update on the Covid-card – trials of that are still going to be going ahead, despite backer Sam Morgan pulling out.


A story from my beat covering the minor parties: Former Auckland mayoral candidate John Palino is running for parliament under the banner of the fledgling Tea Party – the catch is that he’s running from a campaign base in Florida, where he has been since December. If you’re wondering who on earth the Tea Party is, they’ve only formally existed for a few months, and are focused on a pro-business agenda and an embrace of migration and multiculturalism.


Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Drop us a line at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz

Richard Prebble and Mark Thomas during a TV debate (Screenshot, NZ on Screen)

Right now on The Spinoff: Epidemiologist and mask enthusiast Lucy Telfar Barnard simplifies all you need to know about what makes a good mask. Charlie O’Mannin sets out on a quest to discover if there really are snakes in the West Coast bush. I interviewed the director of the legendary political documentary Campaign, to talk about why it has held up so well, and what it can teach us about politics. Hal Crawford writes about a remarkable threat from Facebook in Australia, and what it could mean for news in the rest of the world. Conversations that Count takes a deep look at the upcoming cannabis referendum. Reiná Vaai meets Dave Letele aka the ‘Brown Buttabean’, a former pro boxer who is now helping South Aucklanders get jobs, get fit and get fed. Ben Thomas brings his wit and wisdom to bear on the case of James Shaw and the Green School. And Steward Sowman-Lund takes in an utterly bizarre bit of talkback radio, with Marcus Lush going at it with a ‘not racist, but’ caller over albatross names.


For a feature today, a look at the process of being made redundant from a media job, at a time of crisis for the workforce of the industry. The latest issue of the very good Essential Services zine is out, and I’d encourage you to flip through to page 33 to read an essay by former Metro digital editor Tess Nichol. It very accurately describes a pressing issue with how journalism is done at this moment, by whom and with what support, and why that’s bad news for the future of the industry. Here’s an excerpt:

The opportunities to graduate out of the daily grind of online news and into a role with a slower pace, where you can meaningfully develop your writing and reporting skills, are dwindling, and there is little appeal in staying in an industry with a business model no one knows how to fix, persistently low pay, high stress, and ever-increasing demands. As a result, many people leave, taking their talent and their promise with them. 

This matters, not because we should want every aspiring journalist to be able tofulfil their dreams (although that would be nice), but because when the industry lacks the ability to nurture and retain young talent, and keeps its workers tangled in the unrelenting 24/7 news cycle, too many chances to create good work and good journalists are wasted, and the overall quality and breadth of journalism suffer. This quote from a participant in a survey looking at burnout in journalism sums up the claustrophobic feeling of the endless barrage of information: “It is impossible to keep on top of everything as it pours into the newsroom – and even harder when you are out and about (where you should be as a journalist) – glued to your phone (like you shouldn’t be) on rapidly dying batteries not engaging with the world properly.”


One of sport’s great characters is returning to the field this weekend. One News reports Sonny Bill Williams has been named to be on the bench for the Roosters, in their NRL match against the Raiders. SBW returned to the competition after previously signing on to play league for the Toronto Wolfpack – but that all fell through because of the pandemic. It’s a bit of a full circle moment, given his remarkable multi-sport career started in the NRL.


That’s it for The Bulletin. If you want to support the work we do at The Spinoff, please check out our membership programme

But wait there's more!