Inside the government’s beleaguered bid to reduce violent crimeThe Spinoff Daily, Wednesday September 18
Ahiahi mārie, welcome to The Spinoff Daily. Today on The Spinoff: Celebrating the lynchpin of our democracy, parliament’s online petitions page. Plus: What’s up with the changes to employment law for contractors, and why educators are worried about the new curriculum.
Alice Neville: “Just over four months into his government’s first term, all the random shiny particles of Christopher Luxon’s corporate-inspired political philosophy crystallised perfectly into ‘nine big rocks’. Nine targets across law and order, health, education, housing and the environment, each designed to whip a flabby public sector into shape, to drive bureaucrats to strive for the ‘outcomes’ the prime minister is so keen on – and to do so without throwing taxpayer money around. Yet, at the same time as they were given these ‘ambitious’ new targets, government agencies were under strict instruction to trim the fat. In the five months since that early April announcement, the targets popped up from time to time in press releases, speeches and debating chamber banter, but a midyear progress update still hadn’t eventuated by the time September rolled around. According to documents released to The Spinoff under the Official Information Act, lead ministers for each target were meant to be signing off on delivery plans in June, approving quarterly target reports for the quarter ending June 30 by July 16, then providing them to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) to submit to Cabinet’s Strategy Committee for its meeting on July 30 – after which they would be proactively released. Seven weeks later, on Monday, September 16, an abbreviated ‘quarterly report summary’ was finally made public, attached to a Christopher Luxon press release with the title ‘Targets data confirms rise in violent crime’. While promising results were seen for some targets, for others the scale of the challenge had become apparent, read the press release. The spikiest thorn in the government’s side? The reduced violent crime target.”
Church leaders oppose it. Christopher Luxon is increasingly exasperated by getting asked about it. And David Seymour has reworded a critical part of it. Is the Act leader on the back foot over a treaty principles bill that is dead on arrival, or is this all playing out to his advantage, with a six-month select committee process that will keep the issue alive and his party accordingly defined as the next election roars into view? And, ask the Spinoff’s politics podcast trio, Annabelle Lee-Mather, Toby Manhire and Ben Thomas, what risk does it present to the three-headed coalition? All that, plus a word on the crime statistic puzzle and the power-blasted mill closures. Follow Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Celebrating the lynchpin of our democracy, parliament’s online petitions page What’s up with the changes to employment law for contractors? It’s time we called out Māori brands too
Aware and alive: Why motorcycle safety is an issue for car users too
I’m a school principal. Here’s why I’m worried about the new curriculum The changes to author payment scheme the Public Lending Right, explained ‘I am a proud reader of some objectively terrible books’: Time Out’s Abby Irwin-Jones
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Inside the government’s beleaguered bid to reduce violent crime
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