On the pod this week: Wellington’s pipes, Waitangi, Henare and Collins bid farewell, the LNG debate and more.
A catastrophic failure at the Moa Point wastewater plant in Wellington has laid bare a short-term crisis and a crisis of short-termism. Fortified by nothing but the balm of poo jokes, Ben Thomas relates the mood in the city and the measures under way in response, in a new episode of the Spinoff’s politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime. Does the debacle say something deeper about the country and the state of its piping?
Plus: a review of events of Waitangi, where the spotlight fell more directly on the parties of opposition than those of government. Just days after its divisions played out in the High Court, Te Pāti Māori’s internal struggles manifested on the paepae, while a show of unity from Labour and the Greens was overshadowed by the announcement of Peeni Henare’s exit from politics, and the sense of a story not being fully told.
Ben, Annabelle and Toby discuss Henare’s legacy, and where it leaves Labour’s Māori caucus, as well as another big political departure, Judith Collins. What were the highs and lows of her remarkable parliamentary career, and is the step into the Law Commission presidency entirely legit?
Meanwhile, energy minister Simon “Mega” Watts has announced the government will commission a billion-dollar import facility for liquefied natural gas to plug the gap in New Zealand’s energy mix, to provide an “insurance policy”. But is the levy to fund it really a tax, and is this even the right question to be fixating on?
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