Danyl McLauchlan: Winners and losers in the new government

Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis have formed a government without conceding anything they didn’t want to. Winston Peters as foreign minister? Fine. Peters and David Seymour taking turns at deputy PM? Whatever. But Peters is not Finance Minister or Attorney-General and David Seymour doesn’t have the finance portfolio either. National maintains agriculture. There’s no guaranteed referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi. They still have their tax cuts.

National has given up their policy on taxing foreign buyers, which might look like a loss but it was unlikely to raise the revenues they confidently predicted it would, so even that comes out as a technical success. All their top-performing MPs have the portfolios they want while Willis, holding the joint portfolios of finance and public service, will wield enormous influence. She’ll deliver a mini Budget before the end of the year - although given the amount of time she has to prepare it, even “mini” might be too generous a term.

Winston Peters was never going to come last in all of this. Even though he leads the smallest party in the coalition, he’s secured his coveted foreign affairs portfolio and re-established the $1.2 billion provincial growth slush fund. (Last time they were in power, their so-called provincial fund built a racecourse in the middle of Christchurch and attracted criticism from the Auditor-General for conflicts of interests.) Of course, Peters is also the Minister of Racing. There are rumours that his thoughts have – finally – turned to retirement and succession, and ensuring his party survives him. He’ll be 81 by the next election. Perhaps the end of his 18 months as deputy prime minister will see a more significant announcement.

The English language: Turns out only sign language and te reo are our official state languages and, while English is the default language, it has no legal status. That’s about to change. Under the heading “Strengthening democracy and freedom”, New Zealand First will make English the nation’s lingua franca. It will also compel all public service departments to primarily identify themselves with an English name and to primarily communicate using English. Also, the government isn’t allowed to change the name of the country (currently, Dutch for “New Sea Land”) without a referendum.

Covid mandate critics: New Zealand First pushed along the anti-vax cause during the election campaign, and few of Peters’ promises have made it into the coalition agreements. The hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation he promised for vaccine injuries and for those who lost their jobs due to the mandates are not listed in the coalition agreements, but he has delivered on his commitment to abolish the government’s vaccine mandates. All of which expired in August.

He has also secured “a full-scale, wide-ranging, independent inquiry, conducted publicly with local and international experts, into how the Covid pandemic was handled in New Zealand”. New Zealand already has an inquiry into Covid under way, but it’s being conducted under the near-total secrecy so beloved of the Ardern government. A more open investigation can only be a good thing.

Judith Collins has done very well for herself. Arguably National’s most right-wing MP, she’s Attorney-General and Minister of Defence, New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS), Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), Science and Research, Space and the government response to the Christchurch mosque attacks. Collins is said to be an artificial intelligence hawk, spending much of her post-leadership time in Opposition browbeating her colleagues about the subject.

Fourteen-year-old smokers: In late 2022, the previous government introduced a law that would make it illegal to sell cigarettes or other tobacco products to anyone born after January 1, 2009. That law has gone and the additional excise revenue from budding young smokers will replace the foreign buyers’ tax as a revenue stream for funding next year’s tax package. Also…

People with head colds: Act’s election promise to return pseudoephedrine to pharmacy shelves is locked in. Effective decongestant medication is back!

Lobbyists: It would be hard to beat Jacinda Ardern’s government at being more accommodating to industry sectors or more willing to overlook conflicts of interest and perpetuate the cosy little money-go-round that drives so much of New Zealand politics. But with former Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard as an Associate Minister of Agriculture (animal welfare, skills), former fishing industry executive Shane Jones as Minister of Oceans and Fisheries and former gun industry lobbyist Nicole McKee serving as associate Justice Minister (firearms) the calls for corporate welfare will be coming from inside the Beehive.