Evaluating the Coalition Agreements - Part two
Fun fact: the words most used in both agreements are work, infrastructure, tax, economic, and progress. Below are three areas and what I agree with and what I don't.
This series aims to unpack the two coalition agreements and determine what matters most. Last week, I published part one of this three-part series, which I think might be a longer series because there is a lot to unpack in these agreements, and I'm not sure I'll have time or bandwidth to do it in three parts. So bear with me.
I provided a summary of the third clause of the agreements that outlined this government’s priorities and a brief section to define and differentiate coalition, confidence and supply, and collaborative agreements that each government has with each other.
I also provided a list of the areas I thought needed a bit more airtime and provided two examples of areas that are getting a lot of attention, like ACT and its regulation changes and their views on democracy and its impact on Māori as tangata whenua of Aotearoa.
Here are the links to the two agreements I reviewed:
Today’s post evaluates a few sections that I think are not getting enough airtime and that matters: immigration, employment and seniors. I also wanted to cover democracy and regulation, but they must be next week. So this just turned from a three-part series to a four-part series.
Immigration
Link to NZFirst policy website - immigration is buried at the bottom of the link, so scroll down.
Immigration Minister: Hon Erica Standford - National
Immigration Associate Minster: Hon Chris Penk - National
Immigration Associate Minister: Hon Casey Costello - NZ First
The agency responsible: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
ACT and National
Increase the cap on the number of workers under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme to increase the flexibility of the quota allocation system.
Introduce a five-year, renewable parent category visa, conditional on covering healthcare costs, with consideration of a public healthcare levy.
Remove median wage requirements from Skilled Migrant Category visas.
Liberalise the rules to make it easier for family members of visa holders to work in New Zealand, beginning with Skilled Migrant Category visa holders.
NZ First and National
Immigration
Improve the Accredited Employer Work Visa to focus the immigration system on attracting the workers and skills New Zealand needs.
Ensure Immigration New Zealand is engaged in proper risk management and verification to ensure migrants fill genuine workforce needs.
Investigate the establishment of an “Essential Worker” workforce planning mechanism to better plan for skill or labour shortages in the long term.
Commit to enforcement and action to ensure those found responsible for the abuse of migrant workers face appropriate consequences.
Address and provide solutions for the long-expressed concern of the OECD into the lack of focus on New Zealand Immigration Policy
My take
What I agree with
I agree with everything National and ACT say. I think these are important and reasonable things to aim for. Especially after the failure of Labour to re-establish adequate infrastructure to support immigration needs. For example, I can't bring my mom over because there is no clear, reasonable, or straightforward process to support him. So she is alone in one country while I am over here, which is not great for my or her well-being. Even when willing to pay heaps of money for their health care. So ACTS policies hit me in the heart, and I wholeheartedly support them.
What I don’t
NZFirst, on the other hand, is a bit weird and problematic. Reading between the lines, there is some important xenophobic1 subtext: NZFirst is against immigration, which is problematic. This is not only because of my mom and me but also because of different sectors that rely strongly on immigration to be able to provide services. Like front-line workers, agriculture, education, and healthcare. However, I do agree with their point that “Commit to enforcement and action to ensure those found responsible for the abuse of migrant workers face appropriate consequences.”
This point below, though, I just said: fuck off!
“Ensure Immigration New Zealand is engaged in proper risk management and verification to ensure migrants fill genuine workforce needs.”
Like what do they mean by ‘ensure migrants fill genuine workforce needs’? Like what is the alternative? Made up workforce needs? It annoyed me!
Employment
Minister for social development and employment: Hon Louise Upston - National
Associate Minister for social development and employment: Hon Penny Simmonds - National
The agency responsible: Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
ACT and National
Repeal the Fair Pay Agreement regime by Christmas 2023.
Reform health and safety law and regulations.
Expand 90-day trials to apply to all businesses.
Consider simplifying personal grievances and, in particular, removing the eligibility for remedies if the employee is at fault and setting an income threshold above which a personal grievance could not be pursued.
Maintain the status quo that contractors who have explicitly signed up for a contracting arrangement can’t challenge their employment status in the Employment Court.
NZ First and National
Strengthen obligations on Jobseeker work-ready beneficiaries to find work and make use of sanctions for non-compliance with work obligations, and consider time limits for under 25s.
Commit to moderate increases to the minimum wage every year.
Investigate the establishment of an “Essential Worker” workforce planning mechanism to better plan for skill or labour shortages in the long term.
My take
What I agree with (partially):
Expand 90-day trials to all businesses. I agree with this, but with caveats. An interview process is insufficient to determine whether an individual fits your company, team, or project culture and needs. This is relevant to the public and private sectors. The government gets a lot of flack for having a lot of ‘dead weight’, and it's because it’s impossible to fire people. This is hard work. I say this as a strong advocate for the rights of the workforce, especially migrant women of colour from non-English countries. You can see my master's thesis here; it’s all about this. However, this doesn’t mean a company shouldn’t be able to fire people when they are not performing at the level they agreed to when they took the role or start lying and breaching serious code of conduct issues.
Strengthen the obligations on Jobseeker work-ready beneficiaries to find work and use sanctions for non-compliance with work obligations. Consider time limits for under-25s. I agree with this too. I think nobody is dignified if they are on the benefit. Our goal should be to support individuals in returning to their own lives. I understand that applying for the benefit is a sign of more serious underlying issues, but I think we need to do both: work on how to get people out of poverty and aim to get people back into work. Also, our tax system doesn’t support having many people on benefits for a long time. It's a value-based thing but also an economic-based one, one of those complicated areas that the Left alone can’t solve, and neither can the Right fix alone. You need more creative ways to solve it. The groups I think should be exempted are seniors, mentally healthy patients, people with mental and physical disabilities, and single parents. I also think incentives work, but not always. There are strong objections, but incentives work. Especially for groups of people that are free of mental health and mental and physical disabilities.
What I don’t
Consider simplifying personal grievances and, in particular, removing the eligibility for remedies if the employee is at fault and setting an income threshold above which a personal grievance could not be pursued.
Maintain the status quo that contractors who have explicitly signed up for a contracting arrangement can’t challenge their employment status in the Employment Court.
Filing a personal grievance is already hard at best and impossible at worst for the workforce, especially minority groups, so I’m happy they want to simplify the process. But it shouldn’t be capped depending on your salary. So this says that if you earn a certain amount or are a contractor and are exposed to institutional racism, institutional violence, or institutional gaslighting, you pretty much can’t hold the institution accountable. Hard pass! Again, this is a topic I am very passionate about and an area I wish would get more scrutiny, especially from Labour supporters, but I’m not sure I see any.
Seniors
Minister for Seniors: Hon Casey Costello - NZ First
The agency responsible: Ministry of Social Development
What the two agreements say:
ACT and National
There is no mention of seniors beyond the third clause, where they list their priorities.
NZ First and National
Keep the superannuation age at 65.
Amend the Building Act and the Resource Consent system to make it easier to build granny flats or other small structures up to 60sqm requiring only an engineer’s report.
Progress the review of the Retirement Villages Act.
Upgrade the Super Gold Card and Veterans Card to maximise its potential benefit for all Super Gold Card and Veteran Card holders.
Investigate the funding formula for new residential care beds.
Engage openly and constructively with the aged-care sector.
Undertake a select committee inquiry into aged care provision to include supporting people with early onset conditions and what asset thresholds are appropriate in 2023/24.
Explore options to build on the Local Government Rates Rebate Scheme for Super Gold Card holders.
Work on establishing bipartisan agreement to fund both care and dementia beds that New Zealand needs now and with a focus on the long term needs by 2040.
Liaise with retirement village owners and occupiers to seek a mutually agreed way forward to safeguard the interests of the 50,000 plus New Zealanders living in retirement villages.
My take
What I agree with
I strongly agree with NZ First's focus on seniors. Seniors are one of the most vulnerable groups and one group that is only growing in size, issues, and complexities. The idea of ignoring them because they have had their shot, or we think they are all conservative, racist, rich dicks, is naive at best and dangerous at worst. I think this is the biggest inconsistency with the Greens campaign last year. Their focus on young people is great and one I wholeheartedly support, but their refusal to support seniors was baffling to me.
New Zealand’s population is ageing.
In New Zealand, the number of people aged 65+ is increasing, while the birth rate has been decreasing since the mid-1970s.
Sometime in the next decade, there will be more people aged 65+ than children aged 0–14 years.
The proportion of older people compared to the rest of the population is increasing.
By 2034, there will be 1.2 million people aged 65+ (21 per cent – just over a fifth of the population).
Democracy and Regulation
These are two big topics that I wanted to include this week, but I think they deserve their own section because they are large parts of the coalition agreement, and I have a few thoughts on them. This just turned from a three-part series to a four-part series.
I agree with some points and disagree with others on both coalition agreements
My intention is to highlight that when we say we are all Left and completely reject the Right, it is unhelpful given our politicized state. Maybe 10 years ago, we could get away with strong convictions about politics and ideals, but not anymore. Like the incredibly wise Yin Paradise said in the Te Tiriti-based Futures + Anti-Racist 2024 Conference:
The left and the right are two wings of the same bird, we need a different bird.
If we continue with our Left and Right views, it is not only a wrong, misleading, and problematic stance but also further polarizes us. It tells me you do not understand the practical, economic, and logistical realities of the machinery we have and use. Yes, we are the change, but the Left will confuse advocacy with governing, which is a big problem with the Left.
My intention with this series is not to defend this government. Agreeing with these policies definitely doesn’t mean I like or dislike the individual politicians. I tend not to talk about what I think about individual politicians. Its purpose is to inspire us to be more flexible in our thinking, enabling us to talk to each other with more tools, patience, and understanding.
I tend to focus on the policies, ideas, systems, processes, and ways of working and governing the parties and the government as much as possible. It doesn't matter whether you like Christopher Luxon or not. I know we have created a politics of personality culture, but I will always try to provide a perspective on moving away from that. It’s unhelpful, narrow-focused, and doesn’t really matter.
I want to finish with a quote from Councilor Nīkau Wi Neera. I heard him talk about democracy at a speaking session from the Social Change Collective in Parliament last year. I asked him if we could coexist with each other despite our disagreements. I thought his answer was very profound. He said:
Its not about us agreeing with each other, but building trust with each other. Shared and repeated acts of service build trust with anyone, no matter whether they agree with them or not. People like to be able to predict how you’ll act; if you consistently behave conscientiously, then they discern your behaviour as displaying a pattern that can be predicted and trusted. There is also the element of shared adversity, which always brings people together, no matter their beliefs.
Xenophobia is the fear of people who are different from one's self. Usually used to reject citizens born outside the country or immigration in general.
https://www.greens.org.nz/seniors_2023
I agree with most of what you've said but the labeling of the Greens as "refusing" to have policies aimed at improving the lives of seniors is uncharitable at best and a gross exaggeration at worst. It just seems counterintuitive to what you've been saying to use such strong words when a quick look at their manifesto shows that they had policies aimed at improving the lives of seniors. I enjoy reading your substack but just thought that needed clarification.