National’s new guard
There are a number of younger faces on the opposition’s front bench as Christopher Luxon appoints National’s new shadow cabinet
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Tuesday, December 7, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: Government orders Covid-19 antiviral drugs; northern iwi celebrate planned checkpoints; another beach purchased by New Zealanders; but first, Christopher Luxon and the new faces of National.
National leader Christopher Luxon at Parliament. (Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
What National’s new shadow cabinet says about the opposition. Christopher Luxon has put his stamp on National, appointing a new caucus team to face off against the government. The National MPs who showed the most skill over the past year have been promoted—namely Erica Stanford, Chris Bishop and Matt Doocey. Writing for The Spinoff, Toby Manhire has looked at the new match-ups in parliament. Luxon promised that his MPs can match any on the government benches and the new dynamic at parliament will be immediately visible later today. It remains to be seen how Simon Bridges, now holding finance—the most powerful portfolio the leader can hand out—will go about the difficult job of reestablishing National’s credentials as the party that can best manage the economy.
The new top five
Christopher Luxon: Leader, national security and intelligence
Nicola Willis: Deputy leader, housing, social investment
Simon Bridges: Finance, infrastructure
Chris Bishop: Covid-19 response, shadow leader of the house
Shane Reti: Health, Māori-Crown relations, Pacific peoples
What happened to Judith Collins? The former leader slipped to 19th place. Luxon didn’t even bother ranking his caucus below the top 20. Collins has been tasked with being the critic for research, science, innovation and technology. While she made technology a significant part of her stump speech during the campaign last year, it’s not a high-profile position for the crusher. Stuff reports that a number of Collins’ allies have joined her by tumbling down the ladder. For Luxon, there’s a need to keep peace within the party. He’s promoted from both the liberal and conservative wings and has aligned himself with centrist ideas on the climate and economy in recent days, telling One News that he’s a “big fan” of further minimum wage increases.
One of the biggest promotions doesn’t have a number attached to it. Mere months ago, former leader Todd Muller was exiled from caucus by Collins and was on his way out of politics, having announced that he wouldn’t run again. He told One News yesterday that he’s feeling “highly invigorated” and will be on the ballot again in 2023. While he’s unranked, he’s back in caucus and will hold the ocean and fisheries, as well as internal affairs portfolios. Muller had been punished by Collins for speaking critically about a colleague. It was an unsavoury episode that had an element of heavy tactics, so it’ll be nice to see him back and representing the Bay of Plenty in full at caucus meetings.
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NZ to buy 60,000 courses of Pfizer’s new oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19. The new drug, which is expected to soon get approval from medicines regulator Medsafe, is likely to arrive in April according to Stuff. The drug is given to people with mild symptoms and stops them from getting very sick. The government has already put in an order for 60,000 pills from Merck for its molnupiravir drug. There are a number of other treatments already being used in New Zealand hospitals that are successfully aiding a number of delta cases in care.
The Covid numbers: There are 76 cases in hospital and 7 in ICU/HDU. There are now 9,171 cases in the delta outbreak. 125 new community cases were reported in Auckland yesterday, 8 in Waikato and 2 in Canterbury. 11,931 people were vaccinated on Sunday.
The Spinoff’s Covid data tracker has the latest figures.
Northland iwi say planned roadblocks shows a new model of partnership. Iwi and police will begin patrolling roadblocks north of Auckland after the region’s hard border opens next week. According to RNZ, iwi can set up the checkpoints, alongside police, with the permission of the director-general of health under a revised public health act. Act’s David Seymour has labelled iwi “thugs” for the checkpoints. They’ve responded that they only plan to check for vaccination and test status. As a reminder, only fully vaccinated Aucklanders or those with a negative Covid-19 test will be allowed to travel over Christmastime.
Do we need to start paying $7 for a flat white? Stuff reports that café owners are warning prices need to go up if they are to survive, citing soaring rents, wages and inflation. The owner of a Wellington coffee shop and Flight Coffee beans, said a fair price for a large coffee should be around $6.50 to $7 now, while many patrons expect it to be around $4.50. He supplies cafés around the country and some of them have had a rough time putting up prices in recent years. “A cup of coffee is not immune to inflation,” he told Stuff.
A note on Christmas lunch from our partner Freedom Farms: This Christmas, whether you’re going all-out or keeping it low-key, hosting the family at yours or gathering in a park, acing the ham is essential—and easy!
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Earth will get a ‘black box’ in Tasmania. A massive steel monolith should be completed on an extremely geologically stable part of Australia next year. According to ABC, it’s supposed to mimic the role of a flight recorder and will tell a future civilisation what caused ours to fall, should catastrophic climate change happen. It’s built to download massive amounts of climate data as well as the context of our times, through headlines and social media posts. The entire thing is built to outlast us all.
New Chum’s headland on the Coromandel bought by New Zealanders. It’s considered one of the most beautiful spots in the country and it now won’t be developed, Newshub reports after a fundraising campaign has purchased the area around the beach. The land behind Wainuiototo Bay, or New Chum, had been privately owned. There’s still work to be done to close the deal, but the long-term plan is to look at building walking paths on the headland.
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Hobbiton was obviously worth it. (Hagen Hopkins/Getty, additional design: Tina Tiller)
Right now on The Spinoff: Madeleine Chapman writes Lord of the Rings has cost the country $1 billion and counting, was it worth it? Dylan Reeve reports on RealMe and why so many find it a real pain. Bernard Hickey argues that contrary to many assumptions, NZ’s economic response to Covid was among the worst in the world. Johanna Cosgrove looks at what happened to independent artists over the delta lockdown. Russell Brown (partner content) explains what the Wellington and Auckland City Missions are doing for Christmas.
For a longer read, the one country still doggedly sticking with an elimination strategy. Covid-19 was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but nearly two years later the country of 1.4 billion has lower case numbers than New Zealand and it plans to keep its domestic and international borders closed. Lucy Craymer writes for Stuff about why the world’s most populous country is sticking with elimination. Here’s some of what she wrote:
Rodney Jones, who has provided Covid-19 modelling and advice to the New Zealand government, says China’s ability to do large scale testing and to use the likes of the military to get this done have allowed it to continue to eliminate new outbreaks of the virus.
“You can’t separate China’s success from it being an authoritarian state,” says Jones, who has worked extensively in an economic advisory role in Asia. “Elimination does work, but it relies on the authoritarian tool box.”
Special meeting to keep America’s Cup in Auckland scuttled. RNZ reports that there had been enough votes to force a meeting requiring the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron to keep the America’s Cup in Auckland. However, after some arm-twisting and threats that it would mean the end of sailing in New Zealand, the special meeting was dropped. There’s no wind in the sails to keep it here.
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