Inside the Great Hall with Xi and Hipkins
Madeleine Chapman reports from Beijing on the surreal, near-silent scene as China's president and New Zealand's prime minister meet for the first time
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Wednesday, June 28, by Anna Rawhiti-Connell and Madeleine Chapman. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: additional funding for universities unlikely to prevent job losses; NZ study finds vaping is acting as a gateway to smoking; National would repeal RMA reforms by Christmas if elected; but first, Madeleine Chapman was in the room as Chris Hipkins met with Xi Jinping for the first time and reports from Beijing
Hipkins meets Xi (Photo: Nathan McKinnon/RNZ)
Before the meeting can begin, Barbados must be cleared from the room. The blue and yellow flags, at least five of them and each four metres tall, are carried out of the east hall meeting room in the Great Hall of the People by suited men and women, minutes before Chris Hipkins is scheduled to arrive. The New Zealand flags have either already been taken in or have been brought in through one of the other four entrances. Hipkins is at the grand state building to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping, but he’s evidently not the only prime minister on Xi’s schedule. The prime ministers of Barbados, Vietnam and Mongolia are all in town, meaning there’s a room somewhere filled with the giant flags of four nations, ready to be deployed.
A man wearing a bowtie and white gloves exits the east hall with a tray of dishes from Xi’s meeting with Barbados prime minister Mia Amor Mottley. The tea cups are empty but the dessert, which looks like a crumbly nightmare to eat in front of one of the world’s most powerful people, is untouched. Dozens of Chinese officials mill about wearing near-identical dark suits and ties, all wearing masks despite there being no Covid restrictions in China since February. Everything is quiet and feels like being in church.
Like everything in Beijing, the Great Hall of the People is, well, great. Built in 1959 as one of 10 “great constructions”, the hall is 356 meters long and 206 metres wide, with marble floors throughout. Situated on the western end of Tiananmen Square, it’s hard not to think about the 1989 massacre and how much (or how little) has changed since then.
Hipkins, who arrives about 20 seconds after the last Barbados flag has been safely placed behind a giant velvet curtain, is unlikely to discuss Tiananmen. Nor, as we would later learn, is he likely to discuss, at any length, the current human rights issues concerning China – the persecution of the Uyghur people in Xianjing, the ongoing support of Russia in the war in Ukraine, the increasing militarisation of the Pacific.
You can read a full account of being inside the Great Hall of the People as Xi and Hipkins meet, and what was and wasn’t said on The Spinoff this morning
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Job losses still likely at universities
Despite the $128m funding boost for the tertiary education sector announced yesterday by the government job losses are still likely to go ahead at Victoria University of Wellington. As RNZ’s John Gerrtison reports, Victoria University’s vice-chancellor Nic Smith said the extra funding was enough to stave off about a third of the 229 job cuts the university had proposed. At Otago, where several hundred jobs are on the line, acting vice-chancellor, Helen Nicholson said it was too early to say how many roles the government's announcement might save. In the meantime, the university would continue with voluntary redundancies. As Stuff’s Bridie Witton and Gianina Schwanecke report, the funding will provide Auckland University was an extra $29.09m over 2024 and 2025. Otago University will get an extra $21m while Victoria will get an extra $12.3m. The government has also asked for a report by the end of July on whether recently announced changes represent a threat to capability, or provision of programmes nationwide and will review higher education funding in its entirety. That review will take two years, with its scope and approach to be decided by the end of 2023.
Vaping is as likely to increase the uptake of smoking as it is to help people quit
Research published this morning by the University of Otago has found no evidence that vaping helps smokers quit smoking cigarettes. Instead, it found that vaping can act as a gateway to smoking. The three-year study did find that the prevalence of those smoking had decreased but there was a lack of evidence that vaping helped play a part. The decrease was instead likely due to marketing campaigns pointing out health risks and the increased cost of cigarettes. One of the study's leaders Andre Mason said “Contrary to the desired hope, vaping appears to have emerged as just another smoking-related behaviour rather than a substitute for smoking that primarily helps people quit.” Concerningly “vaping appeared to be equally as likely to increase the uptake of cigarette smoking as it was to have a cessation effect,” Mason said.
The Spinoff is looking for its first-ever Wellington editor
Wellington is dear to The Spinoff’s heart and deep in our DNA. From parliament protests to poonamis, hand sculptures to hand gluers, capybaras to Currizza and mould to marae, we’ve been covering the capital for years. But now, for the first time ever, we’re thrilled to be looking for someone to lead The Spinoff’s Pōneke-based current affairs and culture coverage as the editor of a dedicated Pōneke section.
Find out more about the role and how to apply here.
National would repeal RMA reforms by Christmas
The select committee reports on submissions about the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill were published yesterday. Together those bills make up the legislative suite required to overhaul the Resource Management Act (RMA). National, the Act party and the Greens all issued dissenting views as part of the select committee reports. National’s spokesman for RMA reform Chris Bishop said that if elected, the party would repeal the reforms by Christmas. “The RMA is broken, but any reform of the RMA must actually improve things and be worth the considerable cost of change," he said. Bishop said Labour's reforms “will make it harder to get things done, will not improve the environment and will actually be worse than what we have got now.” As BusinessDesk’s Pattrick Smellie reports (paywalled), the Green party said that it was not confident the new regime would "avoid or substantially reduce further environmental harm or degradation.”
Click and Collect
Twitter initially refused to remove a video of Christchurch mosque shootings that resurfaced in mid-June saying the reported account that posted it “hasn’t broken our safety policies”
Christopher Luxon election signs in Far North not legal and must be taken down
Councils warn that “unacceptable” conditions of state highways will get worse and more parts of the network will fail unless something is done
Former director-general of health Dame Karen Poutasi named as new chair of Te Whatu Ora
Mail volume in New Zealand has decreased from over a billion items sent per year to 220m, 750 jobs at NZ Post set to be cut
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