NZ Politics Daily: 12 April 2021

Covid: India travel ban
Sandeep Singh (RNZ): Indian travel ban leaves Kiwis stateless
Audrey Young (Herald): Was Jacinda Ardern’s decision on India racist? (paywalled)
Tess McClure (The Guardian): New Zealand suspension of travel from India questioned amid fears of racist backlash
Siouxsie Wiles (Spinoff): The data behind the decision to suspend arrivals from India in NZ
Golriz Ghahraman (Spinoff): Why NZ’s south Asian communities are so nervous about the halt on arrivals from India
1News: Temporary India travel ban is not racist, Jacinda Ardern tells Q+A
Stuff: Editorial – An inconvenient truth: Undermining rights key to securing our freedoms
1News: Human Rights Commission probes Government’s India ban
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Government right to suspend flights from India
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Golriz Ghahraman insinuates Jacinda is racist – cue eye-rolling now
Brent Edwards (NBR): Fact or Fiction: Australia: yes. India: no. Coal: no. Christopher Luxon? (paywalled)

Covid: Vaccinations programme and border
Marc Daalder (Newsroom): Vaccine rollout: We’re making it up on the fly
Alison Mau (Stuff): Vaccinations are the new frontier — has one DHB already shot itself in the foot?
RNZ: National calls for all unvaccinated border workers to be removed
Audrey Young (Herald): Covid 19 coronavirus: Jacinda Ardern says border workers must get jab by end of April
Nikki Turner (The Conversation): Vaccination alone will not provide full protection. When borders open, NZ will still be managing Covid-19
Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Is Ashley Bloomfield up to the job?
Heather du Plessis-Allan (Herald): Jacinda Ardern’s treatment of the Cook Islands is paternalism(paywalled)
Herald: Editorial: Vaccine rollout at a snail’s pace (paywalled)
Chris Keall (Herald): Government’s vaccination register ‘just putting money into a Silicon Valley billionaire’s pocket’ (paywalled)

Government and wellbeing
Tess McClure (The Guardian): New Zealand’s ‘wellbeing budget’ made headlines, but what really changed?
Girol Karacaoglu (Interest): Why Budget 2021 is a historic opportunity for wellbeing, leaving no one behind
Ryan Boswell (1News): Government putting more beneficiaries into greater debt, with loans totalling almost $2 billion
Ryan Boswell (1News): Economist believes more beneficiaries will end up in debt after Government loans total revealed
Bernie Smith (Herald): Budget a chance to address insufficient income support (paywalled)
Bruce Cotterill (Herald): List of Government policy flops grows longer by the day (paywalled)
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): Why Jacinda will win 2023 despite housing, poverty, inequality & mental health crisis
David Farrar: Why so few Labour Members’ Bills?
Dan Satherley (Newshub): More funding needed for schemes ‘by Māori, for Māori’ – Willie Jackson
Scott Palmer (Newshub): ACT MP Karen Chhour takes patu to Labour MP Willie Jackson for accusing New Zealand of ‘institutional racism’

Housing crisis
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says house sale ‘across the road’ in her neighbourhood showed market unsustainable
Siobhan Wilson (1News): Jacinda Ardern hopeful Government’s moves will curb NZ’s ‘unsustainable’ housing market
Dileepa Fonseka (Stuff): Yes in my back yard: The millennial movement rebelling against Nimby baby boomers
Rob Stock (Stuff): No rent rise threat from Government housing policy, Westpac says
Rob Mitchell (Stuff): Wellington’s developing drama: City taking the low road when high rise is answer to housing crisis
Michael Andrew (Spinoff): The laughable quest of saving a first home deposit in 2021
Newstalk ZB: Government spending $1 billion every three months on housing support
RNZ: ‘We need a building ministry’: doco reveals high-rise horrors
Geraden Cann (Stuff): Descendant of Māori chiefs says housing crisis has cost her whānau their identity
Rob Stock (Stuff): Parents are ‘silent co-borrowers’ on their children’s mega-mortgages
Tom Kitchin (RNZ): Housing pressure surging in Gisborne with many still on street
Nadine McDonnell (Daily Blog): The new gold rush…. housing in the 21st Century?
Don Brash: More on housing
Catherine Masters (One Roof): ‘If you’ve got $2m, there’s no housing crisis’
One Roof: Why buy in a Kāinga Ora-led development?

National Party leadership
Bryce Edwards (Democracy Project): Political Roundup – Rumours of Collins being rolled by Luxon and Bridges
Monique Poirier (Kiwiblog): National must prove it is ready to govern again
Mark Quinlivan (Newshub): ‘I don’t see the point’: Political pundits dismiss National Party leadership change talk
Newstalk ZB: Former ACT leader says National at risk of losing status as main opposition party
Newstalk ZB: Sunday Panel: ‘Covered in the stench of failure’ – is Collins’ time as leader up?

Local Government
Tom O’Connor (Stuff): Māori Wards must be decided by ratepayers, not councils alone
David Farrar: WCC refuses to give the public any say on voting rights
Joel MacManus (Stuff): Councillors to decide Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s priorities, two years after programme was launched
Bernard Orsman (Herald): The Super Rich and the Super City: The companies pocketing $10b of ratepayers’ money (paywalled)
Stuart Crosby (Stuff): Blurred boundaries risk leaving people feeling cut off from issues directly affecting them
Joel MacManus (Stuff): Wellington City Council failing on cyclist safety, audit finds
Tom Hunt (Stuff): Wellington council poised to start ditching ‘dirty money’ pokie machines

Drug reform
Audrey Young (Herald): Coalition calls for health-based approach to drug use in open letter to Govt
Hamish Cardwell (RNZ): Dozens of social service and health organisations call for drug laws to be overhauled
Joel Maxwell (Stuff): Dozens of organisations pen open letter calling for drug laws to be dumped and replaced

Mental health crisis
Henry Cooke (Stuff): Government set to spend far less on mental health than promised in 2019
Jenny Nicholls (Stuff): My family’s learned the painful truth about mental health services
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Mental health: Labour MP David Parker accuses Mental Health Foundation of not telling the truth about state of services

Health
Andrea Vance (Stuff): Why do women put up with the gender health gap?
Michelle Duff (Stuff): A woman was asked to change her own pad hours after surgery. Where’s the $35m maternity plan?
Ian Powell: Ministry of Health: feudal fiefdoms and a culture of obliviousness
Louisa Steyl (Stuff): Cancer treatment costs ‘crippling,’ Southland advocate says
Siouxsie Wiles (Stuff): MP’s cervical cancer diagnosis a wake-up call

Economy and work
Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): OCR review: Year on hold is over, what comes now?
Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Power struggle: industry warns thousands of jobs at risk due to electricity prices (paywalled)
Sasha Borissenko (Herald): Legal loophole leaving contractors and shift workers out in the cold(paywalled)
Fran O’Sullivan (Herald): Grant Robertson tightens Government’s grip on Air New Zealand (paywalled)
Jamie Gray (Herald): NZ Reserve Bank in no hurry to shift rates yet, say economists (paywalled)
Tamsyn Parker (Herald): Business Insider: Ron Brierley’s parting gift, fund manager’s 61% return, Don Brash-chaired bank in breach (paywalled)

Defence and international relations
Robert Ayson (Newsroom): Defence Minister goes absent without leave
Thomas Gregory and Larry Lewis (Herald): Defence order unlikely to prevent another Operation Burnham(paywalled)
John Minto (Daily Blog): Foreign affairs officials sell us out on human rights
Aaron Leaman (Stuff): Kiwi firm Gallagher gets Five Eyes’ spy alliance favour by avoiding China
Paul Buchanan: Principled, pragmatic or expedient

Climate change
Jamie Morton (Herald): Covering Climate Now: How do we decarbonise New Zealand’s energy sector?
Jamie Morton (Herald): Covering climate now: How can we play our own part? (paywalled)
Guy Salmon and Jim Sinner (Herald): Fairly sharing the burden is necessary for climate success(paywalled)
Debra Blackett (Stuff): Companies, not households, have the power to go fast on reducing emissions

Media
Steve Braunias (Herald): The secret diary of Mike Hosking and Jacinda Ardern (paywalled)
Victor Billot (Newsroom): An ode to Mike Hosking
Martyn Bradbury (Daily Blog): The Sunday Night Grill with Bomber Bradbury – wrapping the weeks politics, culture, current affairs & UFOs

Public service
Steve Stannard (Stuff): Public servants’ ‘rock star’ workplace a utopian dream for most of us
Andre Chumko (Stuff): Record-keeping in public sector still worrying — Archives New Zealand report

Other
Jessie Chiang (RNZ): Anti-Asian sentiment in NZ – it’s real, it’s everywhere
Peter de Graaf (Herald): Former Deputy PM Winston Peters keeping mum on political future
Holly Walker (Stuff): We’re at risk of leaving some marginalised and excluded in a post-Covid world
Jared Savage (Herald): Gangs and guns: New police Firearms Investigation Team to crack down on illegal weapons (paywalled)
Martin Van Beynen (Stuff): We don’t need another survey to tell us the obvious
Joris de Bres (E-Tagata): The Dawn Raids of 1974
Dan Satherley (Newshub): Can racism be expelled from the police force?
RNZ: Taxpayers’ Union OIAs to Hamilton council cost $60k in staff time
Dahlia Malaeulu (E-Tagata): Rejecting the System
Sam Hurley (Herald): Artist Mika X and linked entities were awarded $100,000 by Creative NZ when facing police investigation, charges for aiding rich-lister (paywalled)
Herald: Beehive Diaries: PM Jacinda Ardern’s newfound love for Australians (paywalled)