Focus on Politics

In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Deputy Political Editor Craig McCulloch delineates the nuclear destruction of Judith Collins' leadership and assesses the fallout.

"This is not our best day," - Shane Reti

In July 2020, at what seemed like National's nadir, Judith Collins took the helm and promised to rebuild the party. She was - somewhat presciently - described as the nuclear option.

This week, she leaves the job with the party in ruins, turfed out by a shell-shocked caucus after her ham-fisted attempt to take out a rival.

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The unravelling began Wednesday - about 9.30pm - when an email dropped in reporters' inboxes.

The press release titled "Simon Bridges demoted following complaint" referenced "serious misconduct" and said Collins had been left with no option.

It caught the media and MPs off guard, and the timing and process led them to believe more was at play.

Bridges later explained he had been at a caucus function at Wellington's Premier House in early 2016 with MPs including Jacqui Dean, and made an off-colour comment about the best way to conceive a daughter.

Dean took offence and complained; Bridges was spoken to and apologised; all of it dealt with five years ago.

Collins' actions then seem a rash overreaction, an attempt to take out a former leader widely known to be plotting a comeback; a bombshell demotion that began to look to the caucus less like appropriate discipline and more like a hit job.

Read more:

How Collins crushed her own leadership

Simon Bridges: 'It was a very poor process from Judith Collins'

Collins and Bridges should consider leaving Parliament - Finlayson

Analysis: MP disputes should allow some natural justice

Voter reaction to leadership fiasco: 'The National Party are a lost soul'

Collins may be gone but New Zealand's search for a credible, viable opposition far from over

The following morning, as MPs returned to Parliament, Bridges called it desperate. Fellow National MP and brother-in-law Simon O'Connor also did not mince his words.

"I cannot work with Judith Collins as leader and I'm handing over all my portfolios this morning. I cannot and will not work with her ... there are times when the party and its values need to come to the fore and one of the reasons this party is struggling is leadership has stepped away from those values."

Just over three hours later, Judith Collins had been voted out of the leadership, …

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Editor Jane Patterson and Health Correspondent Rowan Quinn examine New Zealand's ICU and health capacity as Covid-19 spreads, and elimination shifts to suppression.

"We want to be able to provide the standard of care that we're used to providing ... the other thing that I'm concerned for is even for business as usual we're shortstaffed from a nursing point of view" - ICU nurse Tania Mitchell

Doctors and nurses are at the pointiest end of Covid, caring for the sickest of the sick, people struggling to breathe, their organs maybe starting to fail.

In the height of the pandemic, it would seem logical that those working in intensive care units (ICU) would be first in line to get what they need to keep New Zealanders alive, but staffing those beds around the clock requires about five staff per bed, and New Zealand is 90 short right now.

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As we head into the traffic light system, it's difficult to predict exactly how many cases there will be, how many hospitalisations and how many deaths.

The most recent modelling lays out the worst case scenario of 16,000 weekly cases, but senior health officials are playing down the likelihood of a sudden surge.

Vice president of the Australasian College of Intensive Care Rob Bevan says the group is meeting twice weekly with the Ministry of Health to try to lift ICU capacity.

"Intensive care bed numbers can be counted and reported in different ways ... the most meaningful would be the actual numbers of patients we can provide best ICU-level care to today with staff who are currently in post, and trained, and working."

He says a New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ) article concludes that number is 176 beds - 15 of them specialised paediatric beds.

"That number rises from 176 to 280 if we incorporate the 104 physical beds that are not staffed at this point. And there are many concerted efforts by DHBs supported by the ministry to close that gap, primarily with nursing staffing."

Read more:

Warnings mount over health system's ability to cope with more Covid-19 cases

Vaccine mandate: 'Incredible pressure' on remaining hospital staff

'Disaster waiting': Four ICU beds to 116,000 people

Healthcare, inflation concerns rise - survey

Minister of Health Andrew Little says 1400 nurses have been trained up to provide enough support to bring New Zealand's 289 ICU and high-dependency units up to 550.

However, College of Critical Care Nurses chair Tania Mitchell says the training is just a four-hour online module, with some DHBs also providing a few days practical training…

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Reporter Anneke Smith looks into the Family Court system as it nears its 40-year anniversary.

"It's something that just hangs over someone's head constantly ... to be under that constant stress is just not good for families and it's not justice, really," - Family Court lawyer Marieke van den Bergh

Trish  - not her real name - has been waiting 16 months for an urgent protection order application hearing. In that time, her ex-partner has showed up unannounced to her house, which scared their autistic son so much he climbed out his bedroom window.

"Coming up to a year and a half waiting, I'm having my hearing for my protection order application  ... I found it really hard to get mentally prepared for it, I think because I've had to push it to the back of my mind for so long," Trish says.

As the 40-year anniversary of New Zealand's Family Court nears, some lawyers believe it's falling short of its own standards while Māori leaders say their efforts to engage with the court's leadership have been ignored.

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Born out of a Royal Commission on the Courts report, the Family Court was set up as New Zealand's first specialist court in 1981.

The Commission reviewed the entire court system and, among other things, concluded the Family Court should be its own division with a two-fold purpose - both judicial and therapeutic.

It was considered innovative at the time, but lawyer Tania Williams Blythe says it has not changed much since, and traditional formality and delays in the system are entrenched.

"There's always been a distance between the community - those that come into the court - and those professionals including the judiciary that participate in that process."

"Part of the problem I guess, in terms of significant delay and the damage that that causes, is by the time you get into the court, the damage is already done."

Read more:

Dames say their concerns ignored by top Family Court judge

Te Ao Mārama - new approach to district courts announced

Extensive reforms introduced in March 2014 were intended to encourage people to resolve parenting disputes out of court, but the changes had unintended consequences.

The legal profession saw the changes as majorly disruptive; removing parties' rights to legal representation in parenting and guardianship disputes and wiping legal aid, with the exception of urgent protection order applications. …

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Editor Jane Patterson hits the brakes and looks ahead to the traffic light system, and what it means for Covid-19 in New Zealand.

"If we do follow the rules, if a lot of people continue to work from home, if we don't all rush back out to try and get back to that level 1 life then the system will work better" - Covid-19 modeller Shaun Hendy

On 23 March last year life changed forever with the pandemic wreaking global devastation but after nearly two years of alert levels and lockdowns, New Zealanders will have to get used to a new kind of response that includes Covid-19 actively circulating in the community.

Replacing the alert levels will be a traffic light system - green, orange and red.

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Auckland may move to the new system - into red - ahead of the rest of the country once its three DHBs hit 90 percent of the population double vaccinated. Everywhere else is expected to move together when all DHBs reach that target.

Covid-19 modeller Shaun Hendy says the system means tolerating some Covid-19 in the community, and he expects we'll remain in the red for much of next year.

"We might find ourselves spending, you know, three quarters of next year in the Red, and maybe a quarter in Green or Orange. That's given our current vaccine targets which is 90 percent of the over-12s. If we move on and do go on to vaccinate the 5-11 year olds ... then that might shift us for example to spending 50 percent of our time in the red traffic light zone, with less impact on schooling."

He says the kind of outbreak seen in Victoria or New South Wales with thousands of new cases a day is unlikely, but 400 to 500 new daily cases would put real strain on the healthcare system.

"I think even the coming peak between 200 to 300 cases per day that we think is most likely will put strain on the system. It'll certainly fill up the capacity we have within Auckland to deal with Covid."

He says retailers will play a big role with just a few rule-breakers being enough to lead to a bigger outbreak, and the public will also need to toe the line.

Read more:

'We're not going back to that kind of level 1 life' - Covid-19 modeller

New 'traffic light' Covid-19 framework and vaccine certificates announced

Churches ponder on Covid-19 vaccine certificates and balancing safety with values

How are DHBs across Aotearoa faring in vaccination rates?

Covid-19 'just got real' in Te Tai Tokerau…

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Reporter Katie Scotcher takes a deeper look at New Zealand's free trade ambitions with the UK and Europe.

"We've scrummed down, with packed tight and together we've got the ball over the line, and we have a deal - and I think it's a great deal." - Boris Johnson

New Zealand is on the hunt for new trading opportunities across the globe, both to help the economic recovery, and diversify away from China.

The in-principle free trade agreement secured with the UK last week - worth an estimated $1 billion over 15 years to the New Zealand economy - was good news for local exporters.

But a global pandemic has forced much of the negotiation online, and attention turns next to the EU.

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Trade Minister Damien O'Connor has twice travelled to Europe to discuss trade - both with the UK and the European Union.

EU negotiations were formally launched in 2018 but progress has been slow and there have been a few very large bumps in the road along the way.

Work is continuing, however with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern describing the talks as having  reached "a critical juncture".

Read more:

Hello to global Britain - our new best free trade friend

Dropping tarrifs won't necessarily make British gin cheaper here

Exporters celebrate UK-NZ trade deal

Geoffrey Miller: Geopolitics behind NZ-UK free trade deal

UK-New Zealand free trade agreement 'substantial and comprehensive'

Investor state dispute rules  - which allows allows foreign firms to sue governments - caused major controversy in previous trade negotiations and was a particular bone of contention in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations as well as its descendent, the CPTPP.

Trade Minister Damien O'Connor says they were ruled out of the UK FTA from the start.

NZ International Business Forum executive director Stephen Jacobi would've preferred they were included - on the basis they give added protection for foreign investors and for New Zealand investments in offshore markets.

"Between the UK and New Zealand would be most unlikely that we would have to have recourse to ISDS because both of us have systems on the rule of law, very similar legal systems and there are plenty of remedies that can be taken through the domestic legal system to address problems between investors and and governments," he says.

"But I think the broader point is that why do we put in place these protections if they can't be adequately backed up?"…

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In Focus on politics, Is New Zealand ready to move to the new Covid future?

"The whole of the system is already under pressure ... they're anticipating what the next shift is gonna be like, are the gonna have enough nurses to be able to cope with the demand?" - Nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku

Once New Zealand moves to the traffic light system, that's an acceptance that Covid will be circulating within the community - which will lead to more cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

The great fear, as seen elsewhere, is that the hospital system is over-run and unable to cope. At the end of the week there were 51 Covid-19 cases in hospital in Auckland and Waikato, and five in ICU or high dependency.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday laid out the government's new traffic light system, which would replace the alert levels. It would do away with nationwide lockdowns, taking into account vaccines and the spread of Delta.

She said the major differences from the alert levels of the past 18 months included the use of vaccine certificates at businesses which could continue operating no matter the alert level if they used them, and a shift to more localised lockdowns based on vaccination rates and vulnerabilities.

The question being begged - will New Zealand be ready?

Read more:

'Our patients trust us': GPs prepare to treat Covid-19 patients at home

New 'traffic light' Covid-19 framework and vaccine certificates announced

Auckland hospitals getting Covid-19 ready at slow pace

DHBs ramp up ICU, Covid-19 wards, oxygen supply capacity

Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank says case numbers could double in coming weeks and while it's hoped vaccination rates could temper them from rising further, there is a risk they could get much worse.

"One of the dangers is that if the contact tracing system really struggles to keep up with the number of cases ... the cases could really accelerate and if that happens we could see a much higher number of cases."

College of Emergency Medicine president John Bonning says for every Covid-19 patient needing intensive care, he expects up to eight times more will be treated in emergency departments.

Nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku told RNZ that DHBs were not well enough prepared, and nurses are already under incredible pressure.

Otago University Professor Phillip Hill last June recommended the system be stress tested in anticipation of higher numbers of community cases, he's seen no evidence that was done…

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In Focus on politics, Katie Scotcher explores the challenges and priorities in the inherently political transport sector.

The government is at a transport crunch point - Labour's first year as a majority has seen it scrap or reshape major projects and programmes, while decisions about the future of others loom.

The usual challenges of the inherently political sector are being compounded by the financial pressures from the pandemic and the urgent need to respond to climate change.

National's Transport spokesperson David Bennett is critical of Labour's approach so far.

"Transport is vital for a growing country like New Zealand going forward and we need to make sure that we build the infrastructure that will deliver a strong economy, the ability for commuters to get where they want to go and in a safe and efficient manner. What we're seeing at the moment is this structure that has been set in place for many years, has now become politicized.

"We're seeing personal projects being put forward that have no rationale behind them and are just nice to haves that political leaders want to make sure happen."

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The transport sector faces serious challenges because of Covid-19. There's a critical shortage of materials because of world-wide supply chain issues and border closures mean there aren't enough construction workers in the country.

Infometric's Brad Olsen said major demand for materials is also pushing prices up "because you either can't get a good, or if you do want to get a certain type of good you have to fight with everyone else to get it".

Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter was Associate Transport Minister in the last government and said "in the political debate, it has been too easy "mock spending money on active transport as not important."

"It's a minority of cars and trucks on the road that actually have to be in cars and trucks and if we've got plenty of roads, if we use them better, the best way to use them better is to invest in the alternatives that make it viable for the ordinary short trips people are making to school, to work, to the shops to either be by active or public transport."

Changes in transport will be key as the government works to make New Zealand carbon neutral by 2050.

Transport is the second-largest source of emissions, after agriculture. The Climate Change Commission has said the scale of the changes needed in the sector cannot be overstated.

Michael Wood said those changes are his number one priority…

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Editor Jane Patterson takes politicians' temperature on Covid-19 and the economic response, and how that impacts efforts to combat inequality.

"We have a program around reducing inequality that's been running throughout our time in government but when we're in a crisis we work with those local communities ... we've worked closely, for example, with gang leadership..." - Finance Minister Grant Robertson

The government's response may have been staving off some of the worst economic impacts of lockdowns, but Covid-19 has only exacerbated inequalities across New Zealand that were already posing a big challenge.

With an extended period of restrictions in response to the Delta outbreak, how long can heavy borrowing keep things afloat, and how can those entrenched inequities be tackled?

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The economy rebounded faster and stronger than expected after the 2020 lockdown, but Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says this time is different.

"From the absolute grassroots level, there is not the same quick recovery or bounce up - and I don't know that that existed in 2020 for a lot of Māori whānau anyway."

"It's absolutely worse, and I think what you've got to remember is we're also in a political battlefield where if you belong to a gang family, if you come from this particular area ... there's already separatisation but it's actually heightened. And I think this creates real issues where people are too ashamed and they just they don't want attention drawn on them to ask for help, so by the time they do, things are extremely acute."

Read more:

Government's Covid-19 roadmap slammed by other parties

Reserve Bank announces first cash rate rise in seven years

Inaccessibility of rural healthcare reflected in low vaccination rates - expert

Waikato Mongrel Mob says Covid-19 cluster resolved

Effective vaccination campaigns must include Pacific and Māori leaders - immunologist

Government defends gang leader border exemptions

Finance Minister Grant Robertson says the government is acutely aware of the problem, and the government cooperating with gang leaders to encourage vaccination and public health order compliance is part of what's needed to stay connected with harder-hit communities.

"We can all make judgments about their behaviors and so on but it's not helpful when we're dealing with Covid. We need to make sure that we've got cooperation, that we've got support, and that's what we've done is make sure that we've been as close as possible to the communities affected."…

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In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Editor Jane Patterson dives into the three waters debate, plumbing the depths of local governments' opposition to the centralisation of water infrastructure.

"There is near universal agreement that the status quo is not sustainable. Our three waters assets are now liabilities" - Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta

Water is one of Aotearoa's most precious resources and the government's embarked on an ambitious plan to better manage drinking, storm and wastewater around the country.

It says major reform is needed to avoid a significant crisis, but many mayors say they would lose control of assets their communities have built up and paid for over many years, and are questioning - or outright opposing - the proposed solution.

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Under the reforms, ownership of storm, drinking and waste water - the three waters - would be transferred from councils to four regional entities the councils would own.

The entities would be managed by a board appointed by a selection committee, who would be appointed by representative groups, in turn appointed by councils and mana whenua.

Read more:

Independent analysis raises concerns on proposed reforms

Mahuta won't rule out forcing councils into Three Waters reforms

'Asset grab' - entrenched local opposition to Three Waters plan

The Detail: The government's water infrastructure plan

Three Waters too big to fail? National, Greens predict councils will be forced to join

Some mayors fear the effect of having little input from their elected representatives over some of the services that have been central to local government in New Zealand.

Others are concerned their hefty investments in water infrastructure are not matched by other councils who would be serviced by the same water entity, despite the government splashing $2.5bn on keeping things equitable.

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta is set to respond to councils' concerns after a consultation period ended on Friday. She says she's always been open to looking at aspects of Three Waters after feedback from local government, including the governance arrangements, and would consider "refinements" but there are some bottom-line principles.

She has refused to rule out making the reforms mandatory, and her National Party counterpart Chris Luxon says the government is heading for some "ugly" politics.

"It's very obvious that the New Zealand people think these assets ... are being stolen from them, having paid for them."…

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Focus on Politics, is New Zealand moving away from elimination?

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