Health and water reforms will remain but the TVNZ/RNZ merger will be the sacrificial lamb that shows National is different from Labour after all
Opinion: The Government may feel it has fixed the entrenchment "mistake" by moving to repeal the controversial clause in the Three Waters legislation, but many questions remain.
Was it just serial ineptitude that led the entire Labour Caucus, from the Prime Minister down, to discuss the Greens' proposed amendment, agree to support it and then, only after it had been passed, come to realise what it meant? And, if it was not just incompetence, what was Labour's real agenda in supporting the amendment, and why was this never shared with the public? Whatever the truth, the whole saga has dealt a further blow to the Government's overall credibility.
But the issues relating to Three Waters go beyond this, notwithstanding that the Government has now used its majority to pass the legislation through its final stages. Significantly, while Three Waters has been strongly opposed throughout by National and ACT, neither party has, even at this late stage, promoted any substantive alternative approach to the issues Three Waters is seeking to grapple with. Yet both these parties could be the government within a year.
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This is not unusual in New Zealand politics. Over the past 80 years of Labour/National dominance, a comfortable pattern of policy development has evolved: Labour governments propose, and National Oppositions oppose, only to modify their stance when they look likely to come to office.
When the first Labour government proposed a universal social security system in 1938, National leader Sid Holland dismissed it as “applied lunacy”. Within a decade, when National realised it would never win an election by opposing social security, he promoted the policy as one of the cornerstones of decent family life. Similarly, in the 1980s, Jim Bolger shifted National from its vehement opposition to Labour's popular anti-nuclearism to clear that issue off the agenda before the 1990 election.
And under John Key, Working for Families went from being derided as "communism by stealth" to being the primary building block of National's approach to family assistance. (Such policy flexibility is less common in the Labour Party - Helen Clark's acceptance of a modified Employment Contracts Act after 1999 is perhaps the exception.)
Perhaps more importantly, after making such a call, each of those National leaders went on to become long-term prime ministers.
On that basis, National’s lack of an alternative to Three Waters is not all that surprising. If it does lead the next government, National at best seems likely to make only minor amendments to the Government’s plans, that do not otherwise detract from the broad thrust of the changes. This is partly because National knows the parlous state of water infrastructure, having initiated the inquiry after the Havelock North water crisis of 2016. That inquiry has led to the current changes. National also knows how complex and potentially unwise it would be to try to unwind the current legislation.
It is more likely to make some amendments to co-management arrangements, to satisfy its core constituency, but even this will be difficult, given the intricate way co-management and co-governance have been woven through the current legislation. These complicated and carefully interrelated representation arrangements in the current bill will be extremely difficult to unpick. In many ways, they are a more effective form of entrenching change than the Greens' controversial amendment could ever have been.
It is likely to be a similar story with Labour’s health reforms. While opposing them consistently, National has shown no sign of wanting to go back to district health boards. Its main opposition to the Government’s reforms seems to be to the independent Māori Health Authority/Te Aka Whai Ora. It would be a comparatively straightforward piece of political sleight of hand for National to meet its commitment to abolish the independent Te Aka Whai Ora, while at the same time re-establishing it as a stand-alone entity within Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand. Never forget it was a National government in 1991 that met its election promise of 900 extra police officers by turning the country’s traffic officers into police officers.
In the same vein, and slightly under the radar, are the Government’s plans for an earnings-based employment protection insurance scheme. National has said it opposes such a scheme. However, subject to where Labour gets to by election time (its plans are still being developed), do not be surprised if a modified version emerges a little later if National comes to office.
National-led governments have generally been less innovative and more pragmatic, knocking off the rough edges of Labour initiatives, and thereby letting a new equilibrium settle.
But Labour’s proposed merger of TVNZ and RNZ may be less favourably treated by an incoming National-led government. These plans are unlikely to be at an advanced stage by election time as Three Waters and the health reforms and would be easier to unravel. Also, the inept way Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson has promoted the merger, including the fear his often-inflammatory language has raised about the maintenance of editorial independence, makes it a much easier public target.
All this is consistent with our essentially bipolar political history of the past 80 years and the steady return to normality as Covid-19 restrictions have been removed. Over those years, Labour-led governments have been the greater idealists, often pushing the boundaries of reform beyond what initially appears acceptable. National-led governments have generally been less innovative and more pragmatic, knocking off the rough edges of Labour initiatives, and thereby letting a new equilibrium settle.
In essence, it has been a steady process of continuity and change, and the cycle now seems set to repeat itself, should the government change next year. On that basis, water reforms will remain, although with a new name and some change to governance arrangements. The health reforms will also remain, with Te Aka Whai Ora shifted inside Te Whatu Ora, but the TVNZ/RNZ merger will be the sacrificial lamb that shows National is different from Labour after all.
New personnel administering broadly the same programmes and policies as before; continuity and change assured; and politics as usual restored. All done without anything needing to be entrenched.
