AWOL_muppet

A former Labour Prime Minister says Parliament is passing too many laws without proper scrutiny.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer told Nine to Noon the government was increasingly pushing through legislation under urgency, which allowed it to skip stages such as public consultation and select committees.

But Leader of the House Chris Bishop said just nine Bills have been passed in that way, and there were good reasons for all of them.

Palmer said the normal checks and balances were stripped out when laws were made at pace.

"Urgency has become the default mechanism for dealing with Parliamentary legislation and the standing orders are not followed and you also have extended sittings - and both of those mean the Government's agenda is completely at the will of the Government," he said.

Palmer said the Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024 - and its amendment - was a classic example of a trend that "ministers know best" and was "ministerial dictatorship".

"It was criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment then, Simon Upton, the amendment bill puts the process that was enacted in 2024 on steroids.

"It gets faster and faster. It will be a fast-track to environmental degradation, [more] than it already is."

Bishop was approached for further comment.

The legislation, which passed under urgency at the end of last year, is back before Parliament with an amendment that the government intended to push through by the end of 2025.

It said the amendment to the Act would increase competition in the supermarket sector.

Despite being open for just over 10 days, it received 2158 submissions, with about 95 percent opposed.

Palmer said legislative checks and balances - which he already considered lacking - were further reduced when legislation was made at pace.

"What is the hurry? Legislation is law-making. You want to get it right. You have to analyse it, you have to do proper research, you don't bang it through because a minister has an idea.

"It needs to be properly drafted by Parliamentary council. We have had a degradation of our legislative system in New Zealand in recent years."

Bishop said the government had a big legislative agenda and limited hours in ordinary house time to get it done.

Regarding the use of urgency, he said: "I am reluctant to use urgency to avoid select committees outside of the standard Budget urgency process, and it is only done so when there are good reasons."

"McDonald's is back for round two in Wānaka after strong community opposition scuppered its first bid to build a restaurant in the lakeside hotspot."

I completely understand the towns resistance (and applaud it, frankly). I wonder if they'd have better luck if they didn't include a drive through... (My limited understanding is the primary resistance was rubbish-related)

A gap in production in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle allowed Chinese canned peaches to get a perch in the market - now they're undercutting the local offering and are here to stay.

The cost of living crisis has landed a hit on another industry, and this time Hawke's Bay peach growers are bearing the brunt of it.

Wattie's have told about 20 growers their contracts are being canned.

New Zealand peaches will still be produced at the company's Hastings cannery, but the premium offering is far more expensive than foreign fruit, and consumers are voting with their stretched wallets.

In a statement to The Detail Wattie's said it was working with affected growers, "many of whom we've partnered with for years".

"We recognise this is a difficult time for them and their businesses and are committed to helping them through this transition phase.

"The reduction has been a necessary response to an ongoing decline in demand for New Zealand grown product, as more Kiwis opt for cheaper imported alternatives.

"Since Cyclone Gabrielle hit in early 2023, the disruption to local orchards not only affected our ability to supply fruit but also opened the door for more imported products. Since then, we haven't recovered to the volume we saw before the cyclone."

Wattie's says there are no plans at this stage to discontinue Wattie's canned peaches, or for the company to import peaches. It says it remains "committed to offering a range of canned fruit that is New Zealand grown, including peaches".

Hawke's Bay Today journalist Gary Hamilton-Irvine says it is a sad situation, as Wattie's has a long legacy in the region, where it was founded more than 100 years ago. (Wattie's is now foreign-owned, and trades under Heinz Wattie's.)

Growers he has spoken to used their summer peach crops as a cashflow bridge until the money from autumn apples came in, and the apple crop was a good one this year. Some orchardists will be pulling up their peach trees and expanding their apple production capacity.

Hamilton-Irvine says they are generally realists about the hit they are taking, but the move is causing concern.

So are there fears for pears?

"I tried to ring around as many fruit growers as I could to see if it was wider than peaches ... at the moment certainly Wattie's, what they've told me, is it's just peaches - not to diminish the role of peaches here, it's big - but in terms of calling it a massive blow for Hawke's Bay that might be a little harsh.

"A lot of people are watching this space... just to see if there's flow-on effects from it, if other fruits are going to be impacted, if jobs that rely on the horticulture industry are impacted. There's a lot of people employed at Wattie's."

He says it is a reality check for people browsing the supermarket shelves to look for 'NZ made' on the labels.

"It might be $2 more or whatever it is, but it might be helping employ someone here in Hawke's Bay. It certainly would taste better."

Newsroom business reporter Andrew Bevin says Wattie's is very protectionist of New Zealand's peach industry - and we are seeing more and more foreign imports.

In July, Heinz Wattie's got the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to begin a dumping investigation against China over their canned peaches.

The accusation with dumping is that an exporter is trying to take a slice of another market by selling goods for less than the price of producing them. International trade rules let you level the playing field by imposing tariffs if an investigation proves it's happening.

"It's a rare thing in New Zealand," Bevin says. "New Zealand only has live anti-dumping duties against a few products. Basically wire from Malaysia and China, some steel coming out of Korea, and preserved or canned peaches from Spain, Greece and South Africa. And there's also a live investigation into dumping coming from China.

"Each one of those peach actions was brought by Heinz Wattie's."

China has had dumping duties placed on its peaches before, for a period between 2006 and 2019.

A previous investigation that ended in 2023 found that China had dumped preserved peaches on the country but that was not harming the domestic industry, so no duties were imposed.

But Bevin says Wattie's ending agreements with Hawke's Bay peach farmers gives them more ammunition on that count for the investigation this time around.

I'm wanting to see more well-rounded policy that can be supported by the major parties regardless of 'who floated it', hoping for better enduring government rather than this 'rip and replace' bullshit.

Obviously with the right wong think tanks invading, this is nothing more than a thought exercise, but i reckon its worth exploring.

My heretical angle is significantly reducing thenterms that parties have in power - not extending to 4 years but instead reducing to 1 or 18 months. The thinking being: If you cant get anything done because the only work one is interested in doing is ideological nonsense that caters to a narrow part of society maybe it shouldn't get off the ground in the first place?

This sounds like an amazing development for them

While I'm never excited about these general uses, it seems like they did a reasonably good job with this experiment. Hopefully other Dept's don't just loosely 'throw it in'...

Some tidbits:

The AI operated on a fixed dataset. It did not collect information, nor did it tap into the main client record systems, so privacy risks were low.

It did not learn from the queries staff made or the information they used with it, and did not add that information to its learning banks, the reports said.

The two tests - first with 25 staff, then with 300 - found that along with boosts to service came gains in employee wellbeing, such as helping people with ADHD or poor hearing focus more in meetings, or those with dyslexia to revise content.

I was curious to hear what people think of the telecom breakup into chorus (and wasn't there a third party as well?) after all these years?

I was working there at the time, so some of the staff training was entertaining. I felt like they seemed to be on board with the general thrust of the changes, which I was a little surprised about (I expected a little more lip-service, I guess?)

Has it been a good change? I feel like the national fibre has been great but that's not actually related (but may have relied on the breakup as a precursor?)

What got me the most was:

"I am really comfortable with asking government agencies to consider, are there ways that you can innovate to deliver the same level of service while taking less taxpayer dollars to do it."

"In fact, that should be how we conduct ourselves every day, not just in the lead up to a Budget"

Honestly, we've been doing that every year for decades, now!