Policy purge: Chris Hipkins cuts a swathe of once trumpeted Government projects

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is jettisoning a swathe of Government projects and bills which were once heralded as important Labour policies, many relating to the environment and transport.

During his post-Cabinet news conference on Monday, Hipkins announced a large list of policies the Government once said would be hugely important for New Zealand to reach its climate targets and to reduce waste.

Hipkins denied the cuts would significantly increase emissions.

“The climate policies that we’re talking about today, we’ve made a very small contribution to our overall emissions reductions targets,” he said.

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“There are other ways we’re going to make up those emissions reductions… watch this space.”

Hipkins said his purge on various Government projects would save about $1 billion, which it intended to spend on cyclone recovery and cost of living measures.

One of those measures included cuts to fuel taxes, as well as half-priced public transport.

A range of policies, traversing climate, human rights, health, employment rights, and climate change have been canned or stalled.

He said the policies generally were unrealistic or not a priority for New Zealanders today.

Backtrack on voting age commitment

He confirmed, as reported by Stuff last week, that the Government would not introduce a bill to lower the voting age. However, he said it would look to introduce a bill to lower the voting age for local government elections.

“I support a lower voting age, to the age of 16, but there isn’t a parliamentary majority for that. I don’t intend to progress a bill that’s doomed to fail, because that would be an expensive exercise to simply make a political statement,” he said.

Recycling and alcohol sponsorship stall

Hipkins said two policies would be indefinitely deferred over fear they could pass on direct cost increases to households. The first policy was a bill to limit alcohol advertising in sport, which Hipkins said risked increasing the price for participation in community sport.

The other was a plan from Environment Minister David Parker to pay people to return containers and bottles, to be re-used. Hipkins said while it was a good idea to reduce waste, it could increase the price of everyday products.

Overhaul of transport priorities

The transport policies to be scrapped include:

• The Clean Car Upgrade Scheme. This “cash for clunkers” scheme would pay households to get rid of their inefficient cars and buy new cars. Hipkins said cancelling the policy would save $568​ million.
• The social leasing car scheme. A statement from the prime minister’s office said, “The scheme was to provide leasing arrangements to low income families for clean cars but was proving difficult to implement.”

Some transport policies would be wound back. These programmes would continue, at a slower or smaller scale:

• The Government was pushing for all councils to reduce car trips, in favour of public transport. Hipkins said instead the public transport focus would remain only for the five main cities: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Tauranga.
• Speed limit reduction work. As part of the multi-agency “road to zero” programme, to reduce car crash deaths, agencies have been looking to reduce speed limits. Hipkins said NZTA would focus on reducing the speed on just “the most dangerous 1% of state highways”.
• Auckland Light Rail. Hipkins said it would continue in some form, but it would be delivered in stages. He said more details on how the Auckland Light Rail programme was being rescoped would be announced over the next few months.

Wait and see on employment law

The Government had been set to enter public consultations about who should be considered a “contractor”, “employee” or “consultant”. In a statement, Hipkins said this review would be stalled.

“A recent Employment Court ruling has significant implications on the legal definition of a contractor, so rather than pushing ahead with our proposed consultation on changes we will put our work on hold until all appeals of the case are heard.”