RNZ · Fri, 27 Mar
Earlier this month, Hipkins said the Ministry of Health never passed expert advice about potential risk to teenagers on to ministers.
The specific claim — that expert advice about risk to teenagers wasn't passed to ministers — is either accurate or it isn't, and the documentary record of what was advised when and to whom should be retrievable, which means this dispute is resolvable with evidence rather than assertion. Covid decision-making accountability matters for public trust in health institutions and future crisis response, so getting the factual record right is more important than protecting any individual's reputation. If the advice flow was as described, that's a serious institutional question about how risk information moved through the system; if it wasn't, that's a different kind of serious problem.
RNZ · Sun, 29 Mar
New Zealand First has revealed former Buller mayor Jamie Cleine will stand for the party in the West Coast-Tasman electorate, in November's general election.
A former mayor as a candidate is a sensible local credibility play for NZ First — West Coast-Tasman is exactly the kind of resource-dependent, economically anxious electorate where NZ First's energy sovereignty and economic nationalism pitch should land, and Cleine brings name recognition that party list candidates rarely have. The West Coast has been a bellwether for rural discontent for decades, and with a fuel crisis and cost-of-living squeeze running simultaneously, the conditions for a protest vote are unusually favourable. Whether Cleine can convert local profile into an actual electorate win against an entrenched National incumbent is the harder question.
The Kākā · Thu, 26 Mar · Bernard Hickey
Retailers set to force Govt to reverse ban on card surcharges after lobbying campaign with ACT & NZ First; Another example of vested interests blocking pro-consumer reform that would lower inflation
A lobbying campaign that successfully reverses a pro-consumer, anti-inflation policy reform is a case study in how well-organised industry interests consistently outmanoeuvre diffuse consumer benefit — retailers have concentrated motivation and access, consumers have neither. Card surcharges are a regressive cost that falls hardest on people who can least afford them, and the government abandoning the ban under pressure from ACT and NZ First coalition partners signals that the reform agenda is negotiable when the right lobbyists are in the room. The inflation framing is important: this is not a neutral outcome, it is a choice to allow a pricing practice that adds cost to every transaction to continue.
RNZ · Sun, 29 Mar
Mining plays a vital role in NZ's economy and is expanding, the party says, so approvals need to be easier and more efficient.
Returning half of mining royalties to local regions is the most politically astute part of this package — it converts an abstract national economic argument into a concrete local benefit for the communities that bear the actual environmental costs of extraction, which is a harder proposition to oppose. Limiting DOC's role in approvals is the more contested element: the conservation estate exists precisely because economic short-termism has a track record of extracting and moving on, and the institutional memory of what that looks like is sitting in the West Coast's own landscape. The tension between streamlining approvals for economic development and maintaining meaningful environmental oversight isn't resolved by calling one side 'red tape' — it's a genuine trade-off that deserves more than an election year slogan.
RNZ · Sun, 29 Mar
The Ministry for Regulation is now urging businesses, fuel users, freight operators, and the wider public to report issues.
Crowdsourcing regulatory friction points during an active fuel crisis is a reasonable use of the Ministry for Regulation's remit — the people who know where the rules are causing problems are the freight operators and fuel users actually trying to move product around the country right now. The risk is that 'avoiding red tape' in a crisis can become cover for waiving safety or environmental compliance that exists for good reasons, so the quality of the filtering process matters as much as the volume of feedback collected. If the ministry acts quickly on genuine blockages, this is useful; if it becomes a post-crisis deregulation wish list dressed up as emergency response, that's a different outcome entirely.
