Nicola Willis blindsided by disability support controversy as public service scrambles to cut costs - Audrey Young
OPINION:
This is a transcript of Audrey Young’s subscriber-only Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click on your profile at nzherald.co.nz and select ‘Newsletters’. For a step-by-step guide, click here.
Welcome to the Politics Briefing. There was plenty of grim news this week: of large-scale redundancies in the public service, a crackdown on disability support funding, and New Zealand being back in recession. None of that was a surprise, except perhaps to the workers and families personally affected.
National and Act campaigned vigorously on cutting waste in public expenditure. National set out some exceptions - then set the exceptions aside in coalition negotiations. All agencies will be expected to make savings. But for some agencies, including Whaikaha, the Ministry of Disabled People, the savings will be used to fund cost pressures on front-line services. It turns out Whaikaha was running out of the $863 million budgeted last year and, without warning, it issued a notice on Monday tightening up previously flexible rules on respite care and equipment.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis was blindsided as well and was clearly unhappy with how it had unfolded. She said in Parliament yesterday that Whaikaha is expected to get “vast orders of magnitude more in additional funding for front-line services ... more than any small changes they make to ensure their back office is more efficient”.
Robertson spills the tea
In other news, former Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson gave a fantastic valedictory speech on Wednesday. A particular highlight was the way he revealed a few truths about his time as Finance Minister using his trademark humour. He revealed that Chris Hipkins regularly threatened to resign as Education Minister during Budget bids and that Willie Jackson had asked him why he “hated the Māoris” having just allocated $1 billion in spending. Claire Trevett has compiled some of his greatest hits from the Wednesday general debate (see below).
GCSB’s spying slapdown
Meanwhile, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) issued a report saying the GSCB, without the knowledge of ministers, had hosted the hardware of a foreign intelligence agency that allowed certain signals, collected by the GCSB under authorisation, to be transmitted to the foreign agency in order to help it find remote targets.
It was used at least 45 times between 2013 and 2020. An equipment failure in 2020 revealed its existence - presumably to the director-general at the time, Andrew Hampton - and the realisation that, since its inception, the “capability” had not been specifically described to ministers, nor had their sign-off. It was then referred to the minister, Andrew Little, and to the IGIS.
The people probably least shocked by the latest revelation about the GCSB are members of the leftist Anti Bases Campaign who protested at Waihopai every summer against what they saw as essentially a spy base that for many years was used for, if not by, the United States as part of the Five Eyes intelligence network.
The report does not identify Waihopai as the place that hosted the “capability”, nor the US as being the foreign partner agency. But if it was, and the Americans had come up with some new hardware to improve intelligence gathering, there are two plausible scenarios: either the deputy secretary at the GCSB - who signed off on the terms of conditions - thought it was pretty much business as usual and of course New Zealand would want to get better equipment when it was offered; or the dep sec thought it could be politically volatile and it would be better to disguise the installation of the hardware in a coverall authorisation rather than risk a minister saying no to it.
In the event, the Inspector General found it improper but within the rules and lawful. The extraordinary thing is that was happening at a time of unprecedented focus on the GCSB, with a report from Rebecca Kitteridge showing extremely poor compliance practices. One thing is clear: the law has changed and it would now be unlawful to not seek ministerial sign-off. And the culture of the CGSB has changed. It cares a lot more about compliance and oversight. Speaking of which, all of this is likely to be the subject of discussion next Tuesday evening when Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee meets.
PS: The Inspector General’s office tells me the reason the report took so long to do (from 2020 to 2024) was because it required a review of nearly 20,000 documents and emails over a period of 11 years and there was a lengthy declassification process involved to enable a public report. Also, the review did not speak with politicians or former politicians for the inquiry to find out what they remembered. “We have oversight of the GCSB, not ministers.”
Quote unquote
“I want to offer my sincere apologies to the disabled community. We absolutely accept that the engagement with the community over this change was inadequate and has created unnecessary uncertainty. We have taken that criticism on board and we will do better in the future” - Penny Simmonds, Minister for Disability Issues, in Parliament yesterday on sudden changes to support services.
Micro quiz
What does GCSB stand for, who is the minister responsible for it and who is its current director-general? (Answers below.)
Brickbat
Goes to National MP Joseph Mooney, whose most important job in the House on Wednesday was to ask Finance Minister Nicola Willis four patsy questions about the economy so she could talk about an IMF report. Only he lost the questions.
Bouquet
Goes to Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith. Despite some initial scepticism (from me included) about his plan for Parliament to wish Dame Kiri Te Kanawa a happy 80th birthday on Tuesday, it all went very well - and she sang!
Latest political news and views
Public service cuts: The Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Health have told staff they plan to slash hundreds of roles.
Election spending: Act spent more than $100,000 on advertising aimed at keeping NZ First out of Parliament, as revealed in the release of political parties’ election campaign spending.
Seymour interview: Associate Finance Minister David Seymour says he’s still committed to cutting back on public spending to fund tax cuts.
Disability funding: Disabled people and their families are appalled by sudden restrictions on their funding, which they say amounts to a cut to their support services.
PM’s inner circle: Audrey Young profiles the people Christopher Luxon depends on in politics, the public service and business.
PM on recession: Christopher Luxon has laid the blame for New Zealand’s recession on the previous Labour Government, saying they should stay out of power for a generation.
Robertson valedictory: Grant Robertson bowed out of politics with a measured, humourous and emotional valedictory speech.
Robertson roasts: From Paula Bennett in a kimono to Chris Luxon in Te Puke, Claire Trevett picks the best of Grant Robertson’s many roasts of his political rivals.
Veterans’ support: Veterans’ Affairs is restricting access to a home-help programme that the previous National-led Government lauded.
Quiz answer: The Government Communications Security Bureau; Judith Collins is the responsible minister; and Andrew Clark, formerly head of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, is the director-general.
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.