What lies in the wake of Meka Whaitiri's shock defection?

The Labour caucus was blindsided and constitutional lawyers stumped by a very unconventional resignation.

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Thursday, May 4 by Duncan Greive. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: Hipkins pulls out of NZ-China business event; unemployment remains at historic lows; and a measles case at an Auckland high school. But first, measuring the fallout from a very rare political event.

‘A self-interested publicity stunt’

Political defections were commonplace in the early MMP era when significant new parties were regularly concocted – 35 occurred in the 90s alone. They have become much more scarce lately – Meka Whaitiri is only the fourth member of parliament to skip out on her party since 2010. That she was a minister with multiple crucial portfolios only served to compound the sense that yesterday’s press conference, announcing a switch of loyalty to Te Pāti Māori, was an extraordinarily rare event.

The Gone by Lunchtime podcast team assembled to record an essential emergency edition, and Toby Manhire noted incredulously that at the time of recording, “one thing we don't know is whether she's an MP anymore”. This was a crucial plot point, drilled into in detail on The Spinoff by Otago law professor Andrew Geddis, who wrote that if we were to take Whaitiri at her word, she seemed to have triggered waka jumping legislation with her resignation email. Eventually house speaker Adrian Ruarahwe resolved the situation by declaring that she would in fact remain an MP. What remains confusing to Geddis, however, is how the Speaker could both accept that she wished to withdrawn Labour’s ability to cast her vote in the house and was “then able to declare Meka Whaitiri to be an independent MP” without triggering the legislation. More to come here, surely, as RNZ is reporting this morning that opposition parties, including National, are asking that the Speaker release correspondence from Whaitiri.

While RNZ’s Mata podcast had former Te Pāti Māori co-leader Marama Fox hailing the recruitment as a “master move” from party president John Tamihere, other news outlets were not as impressed with the staging of Whaitiri’s switch. Newshub’s newish political editor Jenna Lynch held nothing back, describing the the now ex-Labour minister’s defection as “launching a missile” at PM Chris Hipkins. He landed in the UK to the news, taking the shine off what should have been a merry week of gripping and grinning on the global stage.

The NZ Herald’s political editor Claire Trevett (paywalled) called the move shabby, but pointed out that thus far the worst has been avoided for Labour, as Whaitiri has refrained from explaining her reasons for leaving, beyond that being in Te Pāti Māori has her feeling that she has “unlocked the shackles”. Speculation is landing on the failure to return her to cabinet, despite an unblemished record following allegations of bullying in the last term, but for now Whaitiri is citing the pull of her new party over the push from her former – much to Labour’s relief.

And then there were 62

For much of this term Labour has seemed invulnerable: thanks to its extraordinary victory in the 2020 election it had 65 MPs this time last year – more than all other parties combined. Events of the last few months have chiselled away at that fortress, first through hard-typing rebel MP Gaurav Sharma, then the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, before yesterday’s defection of Whaitiri took the party down to 62 out of a 119 member parliament.

Yet while there remains a question mark over another recent ex-minister, the dejected Stuart Nash, even if he were to take up the overtures of NZ First, Labour alone would still hold a narrow majority. Still, as the election nears, marginal electorate MPs and those likely to be on the lower ranks of the list would be forgiven for watching what Whaitiri has done and thinking about whether their best post-election path back to parliament might also be with another party.

Can she hold Ikaroa-Rawhiti?

“Ikaroa-Rawhiti bleeds red through and through,” said Annabel Lee-Mather on that excellent emergency edition of the Gone By Lunchtime podcast. It’s been 27 years since the party last lost there, and she made the salient point that through the Foreshore and Seabed legislation, “it’s been argued that no-one lost more than the people of Ikaroa-Rawhiti, by virtue of the fact that they own a lot of the whenua along the coastline.” Yet even that controversy, which helped drive Te Pāti Māori into being in the first place, was not enough to unseat Whaitiri’s mentor, Parekura Horomia.

Whaitiri won a huge majority there in 2020, hauling in two in every three votes cast. 2023 will test whether she has built up sufficient transferrable personal loyalty to override the political loyalty to Labour which exists in the electorate. One major factor in her favour is that Labour will be starting from scratch in selecting a candidate – the whole parliamentary party, including its large and influential Māori caucus, seemed completely blindsided by Whaitiri’s defection. Perhaps Labour might call on Whaitiri’s own cousin, Heather Te Au-Skipworth, who is suddenly available, having awkwardly already been selected as Te Pāti Māori’s candidate for the seat. As if to show just how chaotic this whole process has been, as of this morning, Te-Au Skipworth remains listed as the party’s candidate on its website.

A message from Alex Casey, senior writer and host of The Real Pod

Over the years we’ve broken news, investigated and entertained with writing in a unique way that values independent journalism above all else. With your support, we can keep telling the local stories that nobody else will.

If you value our work, please consider becoming a member, making a new contribution or encouraging your organisation to donate today.

Hipkins disappears from the line-up of NZ-China business event

Newsroom has the scoop on an event from the NZ-China Business Club which had been promoted with PM Hipkins as the headliner. The group was founded in 2021 by ex-National MP Jian Yang, who was revealed to have worked at a Chinese state-linked spy school before moving to New Zealand. Tim Murphy reports that the event was sponsored by a prominent Chinese baijiu, or brandy.

In response to inquiries from Newsroom, Hipkins office said that he had planned to attend on the basis that it was an Auckland Business Chamber function which had been held for a number of years. "He accepted on that basis, but subsequently is unable to attend."

Strong jobs numbers suggest interest rates will rise again

Almost lost amidst Whaitiri’s news was fresh Stats NZ data which showed New Zealand’s job market so far remains impervious to the overtures of Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr. Unemployment remains at an extremely low 3.4%, while the underutilisation rate, which records those working but seeking more hours, declined materially to 9% from 9.3%

The NZ Herald’s Liam Dann reports ASB senior economist Mark Smith as saying the continuation of a buoyant job market “seals the deal” on a further rate rise when the Reserve Bank next meets to set interest rates later this month, as it tries to return inflation to its target 1%-3% band, from the current 6.7%.

Stresses rise for mortgage-holders, but Reserve Bank remains sanguine

RNZ reports on the half-yearly financial stability report issued by the Reserve Bank, noting that the number of households behind on their mortgage payments has risen, albeit from a very low baseline. Rising interest rates are “testing the cash flows of some households, particularly those that borrowed at high debt-to-income multiples during the period of low interest rates," the report said.

Despite its governor admitting to deliberately attempting to engineer a recession late last year, it continues to view a sharp rise in unemployment as the biggest risk to financial stability. The report did address the three big bank failures in the US, but maintained the view that "New Zealand banks have well developed approaches to managing and mitigating interest rate risk, and are therefore not generally exposed to the problems that have emerged in some overseas banking systems in recent months."

Measles case confirmed in open plan Auckland school

Stuff reports on an evening announcement from Te Whatu Ora that staff and students from Albany Senior High School are being asked to stay away while health workers identify close contacts from a measles case. A student attended school while infectious last week, and while their household contacts are in quarantine, there are fears it might have spread, particularly given that the school has an open plan learning environment.

National public health service interim clinical lead, Dr William Rainger​ told Stuff that “although many students will be fully vaccinated with two MMR doses, we need to close the school, so we can check the immunity of all 100 staff and 900 students.”

Click and collect

• ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner tells Stuff’s Rob Stock about the ‘misery index’ – what it is, why it’s spiking and why it’s not yet influencing people’s spending

• BusinessDesk’s Ben Moore has a great (paywalled) interview with the New Zealand company which topped the Fast50 index of hypergrowth businesses this year with a Dungeon’s and Dragons-style table top game.

• The NZ Herald has live coverage of the atmospheric river bringing heavy rain and corresponding slips to Northern and Western parts of the North Island.

• PM Chris Hipkins has announced an increase in support for Ukraine while on his coronation tour – our live updates has the details.

• RNZ In-Depth’s Anusha Bradley has the inside story on the ACC’s precedent-setting recognition of trauma caused through the leak of a sex tape.

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

If you liked what you read today, share The Bulletin with friends, family and colleagues.

Right now on The Spinoff

Today on The Spinoff: Toby Manhire meets the activists gluing their hands to the road in pursuit of passenger rail. Stewart Sowman-Lund has more from the Invercargill Council where mayor Nobby Clark is facing claims of a "cover-up" as a councillor is urged to resign. Tara Ward contemplates a glimpse of a possible (road cone) hostage situation on the breakfast news. Charlotte Muru-Lanning reports on the bitter end of grapefruit Frujus, at least for now. Chris Schulz explains what the Hollywood writers strike could mean for upcoming movies and TV shows.

Sporting snippets

• As I write, New Zealand is well-placed to pull a win back in its men’s ODI series against Pakistan – the game is scheduled to finish around the time we publish, head to Cricinfo for the coverage. (Update: we found a way to lose)

• Thrilled to see the NZ Herald’s Kris Shannon make the case for a player draft to liven up Super Rugby.

• ESPN reports that Steven Adams’ Memphis Grizzlies have elected not to re-sign Dillon ‘the villain’ Brooks, the prickly player who epitomised their swagger but also helped them slump to a first round exit in the NBA playoffs.

‘Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That’s scary.’

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been increasingly consumed by the pace and implications of advances in generative AI lately. I try and remain a tech optimist, looking at the arc of human history and finding that mostly it works out for the better – but this New York Times story gave me pause. It’s a long, thoughtful, paywalled interview with one of the “godfathers of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, author of some key conceptual breakthroughs in the field. He was disturbed enough by recent advances to resign from Google, saying ominously of the technology that “it is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things”. Eek.