So we have now got a new Government and Parliament has sat for its
first week. So far so good - everyone is settling into their new
roles.

It is interesting that the new government was formed from a 3-party
coalition. In fact, National concluded two separate agreements with
ACT and NZF with all 3 parties aware of the contents of the 2
agreements, both of which have reportedly been made public (I could
only find the National-NZF one on the NZF website. There was none on
the Parliament.nz website, nor any on the National or ACT websites.
Google was not of much further assistance).

The Government's plan for 'the first 100 days' has also been
published:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/coalition-government-unveils-100-day-plan

No surprises here. There is the minor issue of defining a plan based
on the number of calendar days during a period of the summer break. In
the remainder of December there are 6 sitting days out of 22 calendar
days. The 2024 calendar has not yet been published. It would have
been more definitive to have couched a timetable in terms of
Parliamentary sitting days. Missing is legislating for tax bracket
adjustment (commonly referred to as a tax cut) so clearly this is not
urgent enough. I have made clear my preference that reducing national
debt trumps tax reductions as a priority.

There has been a predictable response to the policy objectives in
respect of things Maori such as requiring all government departments
to use English-first names, the removal of the Maori Health Authority
and all instances of co-governance. It will be interesting to see how
this actually progresses - much of this is not in the 100-day plan.

While the Maori Health Authority should be disbanded as planned, I
believe it is appropriate to have a part of Health NZ that looks at
the issue of disparity in accessing health services - everyone, not
just Maori, no matter what the cause is.

While the composition of the Government is unique I remain wary of
anything that has Winston Peters involved. We well know of his
volatility - although the nature of the coalition agreements will make
it hard to credibly cause disruption and dissent, he is well-versed in
doing this if someone like Luxon or Seymour makes a mistake that he
takes exception to. I hope this never happens, but National in
particular needs to have a snap-election plan in place in case it
becomes politically tenable because of the actions Winston is capable
of.

Now comes the hard part - getting stuff done in the timeframe that the government have allowed themselves.



--
Crash McBash

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 09 Dec 2023, Crash <nogood@dontbother.invalid> wrote:

While the composition of the Government is unique I remain wary of
anything that has Winston Peters involved. We well know of his
volatility - although the nature of the coalition agreements will make
it hard to credibly cause disruption and dissent, he is well-versed in
doing this if someone like Luxon or Seymour makes a mistake that he
takes exception to.

Jim Bolger said that Peters was easy to work with, and that it was his
own party which caused the disruption (when they kicked out Bolger and
put in Jenny Shipley).

Peters rode herd on Labour in 2017-2020 and kept them to all coalition agreements -- if anything, the media concealed how well he kept them
under control. Once Labour got their majority in 2020, it was 3 years
of unleashed lefty government after that.

I hope this never happens, but National in particular needs to have
a snap-election plan in place in case it becomes politically tenable
because of the actions Winston is capable of.

You mean like Muldoon did, or Theresa May? How did that go for them?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2023-12-08, Crash <nogood@dontbother.invalid> wrote:

So we have now got a new Government and Parliament has sat for its
first week. So far so good - everyone is settling into their new
roles.

It is interesting that the new government was formed from a 3-party coalition. In fact, National concluded two separate agreements with
ACT and NZF with all 3 parties aware of the contents of the 2
agreements, both of which have reportedly been made public (I could
only find the National-NZF one on the NZF website. There was none on
the Parliament.nz website, nor any on the National or ACT websites.
Google was not of much further assistance).

https://www.national.org.nz/national_act_and_new_zealand_first_to_deliver_for_all_new_zealanders

(I know not a humble link)

Scroll to the bottom of this page and boththe monor coaltion members
agreements are there. (links in blue, of course)

The Government's plan for 'the first 100 days' has also been
published:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/coalition-government-unveils-100-day-plan

No surprises here. There is the minor issue of defining a plan based
on the number of calendar days during a period of the summer break. In
the remainder of December there are 6 sitting days out of 22 calendar
days. The 2024 calendar has not yet been published. It would have
been more definitive to have couched a timetable in terms of
Parliamentary sitting days. Missing is legislating for tax bracket adjustment (commonly referred to as a tax cut) so clearly this is not
urgent enough. I have made clear my preference that reducing national
debt trumps tax reductions as a priority.

There has been a predictable response to the policy objectives in
respect of things Maori such as requiring all government departments
to use English-first names, the removal of the Maori Health Authority
and all instances of co-governance. It will be interesting to see how
this actually progresses - much of this is not in the 100-day plan.

While the Maori Health Authority should be disbanded as planned, I
believe it is appropriate to have a part of Health NZ that looks at
the issue of disparity in accessing health services - everyone, not
just Maori, no matter what the cause is.

While the composition of the Government is unique I remain wary of
anything that has Winston Peters involved. We well know of his
volatility - although the nature of the coalition agreements will make
it hard to credibly cause disruption and dissent, he is well-versed in
doing this if someone like Luxon or Seymour makes a mistake that he
takes exception to. I hope this never happens, but National in
particular needs to have a snap-election plan in place in case it
becomes politically tenable because of the actions Winston is capable
of.

Now comes the hard part - getting stuff done in the timeframe that the government have allowed themselves.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)