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The BulletinMay 26, 2020

The Bulletin: Criticism over new ‘two-tier’ welfare payments

Staff Writer
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Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Criticism over new ‘two-tier’ welfare payments, National announces reshuffle, and a day of differing fortunes in the media world.

The government has announced a brand new income support scheme for those who have lost work – but in many ways, it immediately became notable more for what it wasn’t. To deal with the wave in unemployment caused by Covid-19, there will now be a 12-week period of payments of $490 a week, for all those who lost their full time jobs on March 1 or later. The rate will be set at $250 for part-timers, and both will be paid instead of the main unemployment benefit. It’s a massive programme, and is expected to cost about $1.2 bn.

But immediately, some of you with sharp eyes might have spotted what is wrong with this picture. So first, a bit more justification from the government. Stuff reports that social development minister Carmel Sepuloni says it is about creating “breathing space” for the new cohort of unemployed, who may struggle to find a job quickly amid an impending recession. People who lose their jobs might also have particularly high outgoings, and it was suggested by Interest journalist Jenée Tibshraeny on twitter that the move was necessary to prevent a mass wave of house mortgage defaults – “because our housing stock is (unfortunately) worth about 4 times that of our annual GDP”.

All hell quickly broke loose, because as you might have noticed, these payments are set at about twice as much as the main benefit. In effect, it creates a two-tier welfare system – and some argue that by doing so, it creates a line between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ welfare recipients, in an extremely arbitrary fashion. Let’s not forget that a lot of people were already losing jobs because of Covid-19 before March 1, not to mention the fact that people lose jobs through no fault of their own all the time. As Newsroom reports, it leaves out existing beneficiaries and migrant workers who are doing it tough right now too.

Finance minister Grant Robertson said that while unemployment is difficult at all times, “this is a recognition that this came from nowhere.” For many of those who find themselves in need and eligible, it will be a godsend. Writing on The Spinoff, researcher Max Rashbrooke has argued that it could be a sign of a looming shift in welfare policy, towards “both permanent social insurance and core benefit increases.” That whole piece by the way gives an excellent analysis of the structure of welfare systems, and is well worth reading.

But criticism has also come directly from the government’s own base. Not to put too fine a point on it, but now middle class people are going on the dole, and there is a perception that the government is scrambling to protect them when it previously wouldn’t have done the same for others who became unemployed. As a post on left-wing blog The Standard put it, “the government obviously fully understands the basic inequity and inadequacy of the welfare system or it wouldn’t be bolting this short term second tier onto existing welfare provisions. But I guess their only aim is to mollify the suburbs in these straitened times.” Remember, this is a welfare system that the government’s own working group described as difficult to navigate, and providing insufficient support for people to live off – a point made in this strong opinion piece on Stuff by Susan Edmonds.

And it is causing ructions between Labour and the Greens. Several highly ranked Green candidates, including current MP Julie Anne Genter, tweeted out messages saying that the party believed in raising main benefits, but couldn’t do it without more MPs in parliament. It’s a difficult line for the party to walk, because this episode exposes how little their insistences on welfare have mattered over this term of government. The party’s official twitter account also put out the erroneous claim that they were the only party pushing for higher core benefit payments – Māori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said her party would seek to double them. A full report on Green Party anger was released this morning by Radio NZ, with an accusation from the Greens that Labour had broken a promise to overhaul the welfare system in their confidence and supply agreement.

Meanwhile, on redundancies, we’re starting to see some awful situations emerge of workers being pitted against each other for scarce jobs. Radio NZ’s Gill Bonnett reports that some of those cases even involve local and migrant workers being basically in competition with each other. Expect to hear more of these sorts of stories in the coming months.

Just quickly, a message from The Spinoff’s managing editor Duncan Greive: 

“The arrival of Covid-19 and lockdown changed The Spinoff, transforming our editorial to focus on the biggest story of our lives, taking a small team and making it a seven day a week news operation. But it also fundamentally changed us as a business, too. Prior to the crisis, around 20% of our editorial costs were funded by our Members. Now, that figure is north of 50%. The loss of some key commercial clients meant that change has to be permanent. If you’re already a member, please know that all at The Spinoff are incredibly grateful for your help. If you’re not, and can afford to contribute, please consider doing so – it really is critically important to our ability to cover the next phase of the crisis, in all its complexity.”

A fairly major reshuffle of the National caucus has been announced, and former minister and leadership contender Amy Adams is back in the fold, reports Stuff. Many of the ranking changes are minor, but some are huge, with key Muller allies getting big jumps, and a few Bridges backers suffering the consequences. There was also a bit of back and forth on the day over the future of Simon Bridges – Muller said in his press conference that Bridges was “considering his future”, and then Bridges immediately texted Newshub to say he had no plans to go anywhere, and would be running again to be the MP for Tauranga.

One issue for National going forward is that there is still very little detail or specificity about what they’d do differently to the government. That was rather brutally exposed in a forensic interview last night by Jack Tame on Q+A in which the only firm policy pledges were those that National has long argued for. While the details were kept deeply vague, Muller pushed the message hard that National would be better able to manage the economic recovery. However, they’re in a bit of danger there, because newly released IPSOS polling reported on by One News shows Labour is now more trusted in that that area than National.

A day of differing fortunes in the media world: The bad news first – Mediaworks has announced that more than 100 jobs are likely to go, as part of a wider restructure of the radio, sales, and ‘out of home’ divisions. Those staff who also took voluntary pay cuts will have that extended to September. On the other hand, it was a great day for the journalists at Stuff. Their former parent company Nine has agreed to sell Stuff for $1 as part of a management buyout, with the sale expected to be completed by the end of the month.

The deal will make Stuff a wholly-owned NZ media business, as opposed to being a cog in some wider conglomerate. In an industry where companies are so often subject to the ravages of private equity owners, this is probably the best case scenario. The news on the two companies, and what it will mean for the wider industry, has been captured in this excellent analysis by Duncan Greive. And because he’s just really into this sort of thing, Duncan Greive also analysed the news from the perspective of industry consolidation, and whether the trend could now switch towards devolution.

A few announcements were made yesterday around the alert level settings, and you can read about them in our live blog. From this Friday, the gathering limit will be increased to 100, and that is inclusive of all sorts of different gatherings. And a timeline for moving to alert level one was also announced, with a check on whether it can move to take place on June 8.

A law change that will delight DIYers across the country – building consents will no longer be needed for low risk structures, reports Stuff. Now before you rush down to the hardware shop, be warned – structures like garages and sleepouts will still need to comply with the building code. But the move is also expected to save an estimated $18 million in building consent fees, which converted into hours is a lot of weekends collectively spent in the yard.

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

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Right now on The Spinoff: Australian tech expert Mahmoud Elkhodr looks at the pros and cons of the government’s contact tracing app, and why it won’t help open up a trans-Tasman bubble. Future foods expert Rosie Bosworth discusses the role the food sector will have to play in New Zealand’s economic recovery. Michael Andrew meets the people behind an independent bike shop, and the piece is also a fascinating look at the concept of face to face interactions in retail. I speculate on the various permutations and outcomes National’s change of leadership could have on the wider political landscape. And Alice Webb-Liddall highlights 25 young women who are doing amazing work to help change the world.

For a feature today, an interesting analysis of medical science and how it is heavily based on male physiology. It isn’t really something I had hugely considered before, so I learned a lot from this profile in Outside of author and doctor Alyson McGregor, who has thought deeply about it. Here’s an excerpt that gets right to the point:

The way we treat cardiovascular diseases shows how a biased system can be harmful to women. Stroke shows up in unique ways in women: instead of suddenly losing function on one side of the body (as is common in men), women may have a migraine-like headache or a sudden change in their mental or emotional state when experiencing a stroke. These nontraditional symptoms can mean women and their health care providers take longer to realize something is wrong, delaying care. When women are treated, they are less likely to receive the appropriate diagnostic tests or medication in a timely manner.

More Reading

The fact that most scientific research is conducted on men isn’t a secret. But scientific research doesn’t just live in academic journals. The findings underpin the diagnostic and clinical care plans physicians use to treat real people. “The whole medical care system is trained to look for patterns of disease. But because those patterns are based on years and years of research on men, when you go see your doctor or come to the emergency department, a lot of times disease states aren’t recognized in women,” McGregor says. It leaves doctors handicapped when trying to provide the best care.

In sport, a plug for an outstanding and well-informed column. The NZ Herald’s (paywalled) Any Given Monday column by Dylan Cleaver is always pretty good, but this week’s edition cuts through the spin on a range of topics that haven’t yet been thoroughly canvassed. Among them – the leadership of the Black Caps, and what exactly the philosophical differences between Kane Williamson and coach Gary Stead are based on. There’s also an analysis on how rugby’s business model will need to change, and whether the massive government funding boost for sport will end up where it is actually needed.

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

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New National leadership team Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye, at their post-coup press conference (Photo: Getty Images)
New National leadership team Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye, at their post-coup press conference (Photo: Getty Images)

The BulletinMay 25, 2020

The Bulletin: After winning brutal coup, Muller’s National looks ahead

Staff Writer
New National leadership team Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye, at their post-coup press conference (Photo: Getty Images)
New National leadership team Todd Muller and Nikki Kaye, at their post-coup press conference (Photo: Getty Images)

Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Muller settles into National leadership after brutal coup, government issues concern over Hong Kong, and parties reveal election candidates.

National has rolled the dice on changing their leader several months out from an election. Our political editor Justin Giovannetti arrived in Wellington just in time to see it all go down, and writes that “Todd Muller, a second-term MP from the Bay of Plenty, has risen from near obscurity as his party’s agriculture spokesperson to being its leader.” Muller will be joined by Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye as deputy leader, after a coup against Simon Bridges that took about a week to execute, and perhaps quite a bit longer to plan.

We’re yet to see much detail on the rest of his team, along with whether there will be any actual policy changes to mark the transition. However, there have been a few early moves. Newshub reports Muller will take the small business portfolio from Todd McClay, who incidentally was a close ally of Bridges. Muller says he will be “an advocate in Wellington” for that part of the economy, and that such a move was consistent with how other leaders had picked an area of focus – for example, John Key picked tourism, and Jacinda Ardern picked child poverty reduction. Muller has also said he would be pushing for more information on how quickly New Zealand’s borders can be reopened, indicating a potential area of clash with the government.

At this point, you may still be asking yourself – who is Todd Muller again? I had a crack at summing up his life and career to date in a mostly serious cheat sheet, but the point should be made – Muller steps into the top job as a largely unknown figure to the wider public. I’m not trying to be cruel here, but one advantage he will have here is that he is not Simon Bridges, who polling showed had become a widely disliked figure, in particular over the course of the Covid crisis. Muller says that he has learnt from that, and doesn’t plan to reflexively oppose the government – the implication being, at least not in the way that his predecessor did.

How did the coup itself come together? The events themselves are covered in detail in several excellent examples of parliamentary journalism. Stuff’s top political pair have outlined how despite the plans for the challenge being rushed by Bridges, the team around Muller was always a step ahead when it mattered. And the NZ Herald’s (paywalled) Claire Trevett has detailed some of the more sordid elements of rolling a leader – such as unnamed figures within the party leaking to the media about what was about to go down, and allegations of MPs promising to vote one way, and then going the other way. And Politik’s Richard Harman has analysed the coup as the party’s centrists taking back control from the right, and includes some hints that the wider party hierarchy of non-MPs was comfortable with it taking place.

Those insider-y type matters may not make a great deal of difference to the face National presents to the public for the election. But it’s fairly clear that the week revealed divisions in the party, which may take some time to heal. The widely quoted but unconfirmed margin of victory was just one vote – even allowing for that to be not true, it still indicates that it was a deeply bruising contest. One big question for the party will be over the future of Bridges himself – as yet there has been no indication of what job he might take on under Muller, or if he will instead head straight to the backbenches. Announcements will be made on this today, and the NZ Herald’s Claire Trevett reports this morning that a request from Bridges for the foreign affairs portfolio has been rebuffed.

Much of the weekend’s coverage of Muller centred on whether or not he should have a Donald Trump ‘Make America Great Again’ hat on display in his office. That whole brouhaha was sparked by a photo taken by me, and the context is explained in this profile from last year – and as an aside, thank you to those news organisations who asked for permission before using it. In short – he says he just collects American political paraphernalia, while others have argued that MAGA hats are symbols of white supremacy and an emerging fascistic movement being built around the American president. Without getting into whether it’s an appropriate or foolish item to have on show, I’d just say that Muller didn’t really strike me as a big Trump guy, either in his defining political beliefs or how he expressed them. It might be best to wait and see how he actually conducts himself as National’s leader before making the association.

Finally, there’s a weird side-plot in the potential staffing of Muller’s new team. Lobbyist and political commentator Matthew Hooton has reportedly been a member of Team Muller and apparently may soon be formally working for him – and according to Business Desk (paywalled) “most journalists know that Hooton has been working on Muller’s behalf to help achieve this outcome.” For clarity, I don’t really agree with the assessment that it was widely known about. Many organisations (including the NZ Herald, Newstalk ZB and Radio NZ) used Hooton heavily over the course of last week as the coup was gathering steam, and Hooton repeatedly pounded out the message that Bridges needed to go. Since then, he has stepped away from commentary, according to Mediawatch. Those media organisations probably need to take a hard look at whether they allowed themselves to be cynically used by a highly skilled political operator. But as we saw when The Spinoff reported on the Labour government using a lobbyist as their chief of staff, many in the inner circle of politics will just see this as part of the game.

A survey for you: We’ve had a number of readers get in touch over recent days with thoughts on their experience at cafes, restaurants and bars under level two rules, particularly as far as contact tracing is concerned. We’re keen to know what you’ve encountered. Click here and let us know. It’ll just take a few seconds.

The NZ government has issued a statement of concern over an attempt by China to impose new restrictions on political freedom in Hong Kong. Stuff reports the statement from foreign minister Winston Peters raises the possibility that the proposed new law could end the “one country, two systems” principle. Other Five Eyes countries have also protested the move from Beijing. For more on what a psychological blow this proposed law will be for those who are campaigning for a democratic Hong Kong, I’d encourage you to read this lament by Wilfred Chan in US publication The Nation. The alternative view is put by Yonden Lhatoo in the South China Morning Post, who says “blatant interference” from US-led countries has left Beijing with no choice, and that the current fears are being sensationalised.

Two important candidate lists for the 2020 election have been revealed. The Act Party has revealed the 49 people who have been selected as candidates, with the final list to be revealed later. And the Green Party has put out the final version of their list for the election, with Chlöe Swarbrick in particular being bumped right up to 3rd place. Toby Manhire has analysed the Green list through various lenses.

A couple of criticisms worth reading on the current rush to build infrastructure to boost the economy: Writing on Newsroom, Forest and Bird’s Kevin Hague says that a lack of transparency around resource management changes risks pushing the environment out of the picture. And the NZ Herald’s Kirsty Johnston reports on criticisms that the recovery will favour men over women – while women are more likely to have lost their jobs, much of the recovery spending has been targeted at male dominated industries.

Waste from an old landfill has been seeping into the Rangitīkei River for more than a year, reports Samuel Kilmester for Stuff. Heavy rain in 2018 altered the course of the river, and it cut into the Putorino landfill to the south of Hunterville. The total cost of fixing could be a mere $2 million, though work will not begin immediately, because a report has found that most of the waste isn’t plastic.

Congratulations as always to the winners of the Voyager Media Awards, and in fact all those who were nominated. A full list of the winners can be found here, and I’d like to make a special mention of cartoonist of the year Toby Morris, whose art of late has provided defining images of issues and events. I would like to make a more sad shout out to the fine folks who used to make Metro magazine – along with a whole lot of other former Bauer titles and staffers it was a deserving winner on the night, sharing the magazine of the year award with NZ Geographic.

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

A mannequin of Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, is cleaned at Sudeley Castle. (Photo: Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)

Right now on The Spinoff: Professor Robert Patman writes about the geopolitical changes that will emerge from Covid-19, and where New Zealand can fit in. Liam Hehir writes a lament for Simon Bridges, and how his set of political skills were badly mismatched with the moment he found himself in. Danyl McLauchlan reviews the latest “masterpiece” from Hilary Mantel. George Driver walks the streets of Queenstown as a tentative recovery starts getting underway. Felix Geiringer gives a view of a very different set of Covid-19 challenges being faced by South Africa. Richard Smith writes about disaster resilience, and how preparation is worth far more than any reaction after the fact. Mark Amery looks at the emerging video artworks being created since lockdown began. Karyn Henger writes about the challenge of trying to fix a broken friendship.

And finally, this piece is what we in the industry would call a ‘great get’ – when a writer is perfectly matched to the subject matter in front of them. Margaret Hayward, former parliamentary secretary to and biographer of PM Norman Kirk, has given her assessments on the similarities and differences between the late former Labour leader, and the tenure of Jacinda Ardern.

For a feature today, a profile of an organisation that we see very little of, but matters a lot. The NZ Herald’s (paywalled) David Fisher has looked at the office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, which will now be held by Brendan Horsley. Basically, these people keep an eye on the country’s spies, and so are a critically important line of oversight over a group of people who don’t always come out looking that good when their actions are revealed, especially under the strict watch of predecessor Cheryl Gwyn. Here’s an excerpt:

How Horsley does that work will be the focus of intense fascination at Pipitea House, where our spies are based. From a public perspective, the work of the enhanced IGIS office under Gwyn has been revelatory.

Today, New Zealanders know more than they have ever known about how its spy agencies operate and the purpose they are intended to serve. We can also have greater faith than ever our intelligence agencies are operating in the way they are meant to – legally and proportionately. This confidence is a function of good oversight and a good oversight structure.

A large part of that is the way Gwyn went about her work, but also the remit she had to carry out that work through laws passed in 2013 and 2017. The changes followed bungling around entrepreneur-fugitive Kim Dotcom here and the heightened demand internationally for accountability after the disclosures of whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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