Raw Politics

This week on the Raw Politics podcast: what voters want on climate change policy, will ministers ditch the foreshore repeal, plus Ayesha Verrall's faux pasClimate change is hard and changing New Zealanders' attitudes and behaviour seems harder still for this Government and its predecessors. Should the coalition accept that's the reality and go slow and low in its ambitions for change?The Raw Politics podcast looks at the coalition's latest report on methane from farm animals – a dense scientific fig leaf that could allow ministers to let NZ do less to cut emissions.Newsroom political editor Laura Walters, senior political reporter Marc Daalder and co-editor Tim Murphy ask if the national and international mood on dealing with climate change is enabling National, Act and NZ First to give up, even if just a little, on our national targets.For our second topic, Murphy recaps the short history of the foreshore, seabed Māori customary rights and the Marine and Coastal Areas Act. And he explains the Government's latest options to either withdraw its urgent repeal Bill or stay staunch and restrict Māori from winning claims in the courts.Would the ruling coalition get egg on its face if it backs down, or would that act to lower tensions that exist in Crown relations with Māori over other controversial measures like the Treaty Principles Bill?The panel asks if Labour's Ayesha Verrall went too far in her personal comments against Health NZ chair Lester Levy – and whether that took the focus off the actual scandal of the health commissioners trying to game their annual budgets.--------------------This week's recommendations:Tim: Jonathan Milne’s scoop revealing Health NZ and Lester Levy were stopped by the auditor-general from shifting costs from this year into last, in what could have been embarrassing for the last, Labour governmentMarc: RNZ’s story on the oil and gas lobby asking the Government to underwrite fossil fuel explorationLaura: A piece by Tom Hunt from The Post on the Vision for Wellington lobby group and their communications with the PM and other senior Government ministers --------------------Raw Politics will be available every Friday here on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube too.Read more on Newsroom - https://newsroom.co.nz

This week on the Raw Politics podcast: Remembering Nikki Kaye, assessing the Labour Party one year on, and Christopher and Winston's nostalgia trip on foreign affairsLabour's MPs and party members gather in Christchurch this weekend, a year after a humiliating defeat took them from the historic, first majority MMP government into the wilderness, watching a centre-right coalition dismantle their legacy.The Raw Politics podcast assesses where the party finds itself, with the electorate and members of the public still not answering the phone, but too early to reveal a new strategy, policies or even a new leader.  Newsroom political editor Laura Walters, national affairs editor Sam Sachdeva and co-editor Tim Murphy ask if Labour can do anything to beat the NZ aversion to throwing out one-term governments and if Chris Hipkins is the leader to pull off such a stunning upset.For our second topic, the panel assesses New Zealand's new foreign policy, Sam Sachdeva delivers his views having watched Christopher Luxon's impact at Apec in Peru, and we ask if Winston Peters' exhaustive travel schedule means he's effective at his job.  Raw Politics also marks the death of former National MP and minister Nikki Kaye, a politician with a real difference, unmatched energy and a weakness for long, long phone calls with journalists. --------------------This week's recommendations:Tim: A lovely, poignant podcast chat between Nikki Kaye and the Island Stories host Tim Higham, on politics, life, cancer and hope for the environment.Sam: Newsroom's Laura Walters and Fox Meyer's detailed analysis of Regulatory Impact Statements about new laws and policies from the Govt’s first year.Laura: Our colleague David Williams' story analysing the Brexit possibilities of a referendum here on the Treaty. --------------------Raw Politics will be available every Friday here on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube too.Read more on Newsroom - https://newsroom.co.nz

This week on the Raw Politics podcast: The hikoi’s over, now for a half year of claim and counterclaim, dissent and debate. Plus: NZ speaks out of both sides of its mouth at COP29.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon did not meet the Treaty Principles Bill hikoi crowd, sees “nothing” of merit in the Act-proposed law but the Parliament his Government dominates will spend six months debating a “divisive” measure.That’s because he has accepted there needs to be “aeration” of people’s views on the Treaty, and his party acceded to Act’s pressure to include the Bill in the coalition agreement. So, having made this legislative bed, Luxon will now have to lie in it.Newsroom political editor Laura Walters and co-editor Tim Murphy look at how Luxon has played his cards so far, and how he might withstand an ongoing storm of criticism from Māori and others.For Act’s David Seymour, a possible nominee for most effective politician of the year before this latest play, the hearings on his Bill will finish just as he receives his coalition-deal-bauble of becoming Deputy Prime Minister until 2026.While he’s successfully grabbed the political ground this year, and will no doubt use the new position to continue pushing his policies and views, is there a risk that Act will repeat the sins of its own past in straying away from economic reform, personal freedoms, minimising the state and ending waste, and be diverted by race and stunts?For our second topic, Laura talks to regular Raw Politics panelist Marc Daalder who is reporting for Newsroom at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. He describes the pressures and expectations facing the 60,000 attendees in seeking answers on carbon finance and agreements to hold the world to the Paris targets.And we hear how the New Zealand climate minister Simon Watts has performed, with messages for an external audience that might not fly so easily to the domestic crowd.--------------------This week's recommendations:Tim: A story from Stuff’s Tony Wall who was with the Mongrel Mob in Ōpōtiki on the eve of the ban on gang patches and consorting. A rare example of hearing direct from the gangsters on such a policy.Laura: Also crime-related, the NZ Herald’s Jared Savage profiled the new police commissioner Richard Chambers and revealed where he’d come from and his path to the top.--------------------Raw Politics will be available every Friday here on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube too.Read more on Newsroom - https://newsroom.co.nz

On this week’s Raw Politics podcast: The Act and Māori parties at point-blank range, plus the risk of the Crown apology petering outParliament saw two historic days this week, one of great solemnity and unity, the other a raucous and high-stakes stand-off between political foes over the Treaty of Waitangi.Raw Politics looks first at the volatile reception for Act’s Treaty Principles Bill at its first reading, how parties performed to their voting bases, and what lies ahead now in select committee hearings over the next six months.Newsroom political editor Laura Walters and co-editor Tim Murphy, co-piloting the panel with both Marc Daalder and Sam Sachdeva on assignment overseas, look beyond the heat of Thursday’s drama to search for any light in the arguments both ways for a law change.Before the first reading, Act leader David Seymour had claimed the bill was not “divisive”. National leader Christopher Luxon responded that it was divisive. Parties traded allegations over the origins of division.The optics of the three opposition parties standing together in haka, but the three parties of government divided by Act’s proposed law, were a first this parliamentary term.The panel discusses the motivation of the National speakers who spoke from remarkably similar talking points, dissing Act while seeking credit for their party’s approach to individual Treaty and race measures.Then it’s onto the milestone moment of the Crown Apology to victims of abuse in state care – an occasion unlike the Treaty Principles Bill first reading, that could be the beginning of meaningful, lasting change.But will it? Or might the goodwill and hope and promises of Tuesday dissipate as the bureaucracy, politicians and voters tire of the complexity and burden of creating a just system of redress.--------------------This week's recommendations:Tim: A report by the US broadcaster ABC on satirical site The Onion swooping in and buying from liquidators the assets, brand and database of the far-right InfoWars site that went bankrupt after owner and shock jock Alex Jones claimed the Sandy Hook school massacre was fake.Sam: Marc’s morning-after opinion column on the US election and the threat of Trump to democracyLaura: Tim’s story with David Williams on Newsroom revealing Parliament’s Speaker Gerry Brownlee relented on Monday to allow journalist Aaron Smale to attend the Crown apology.--------------------Raw Politics will be available every Friday here on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube too.Read more on Newsroom - https://newsroom.co.nz