Written By:
- Date published:
12:29 pm, December 16th, 2025 - 17 comments
Categories: act, david seymour, employment, erica stanford, nz first, winston peters, workers' rights -
Tags: Foreign Home Buyers Ban, uber, urgency
Last night I posted the following snippets, but this deserves its own post and clarifications –
Winston Peters and David Seymour align to sell assets, land and homes to wealthy foreigners. Photo source: Stuff
A Newsroom article by Alice Peacock reveals the government, led by ACT’s Van Velden, will effectively quash “Uber’s landmark win for employee status.”
And that “Labour and Green Party MPs on the committee say the bill “represents a direct attack on the rights and dignity of working people”, with the changes … “flying in the face of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the operational control held by Uber meets the threshold for employment”.”
However, an employment lawyer says this will give employers more “flexibility” when engaging contractors.
Last month, Uber lost their appeal in a historic employment ruling in New Zealand’s Supreme Court, that saw Uber drivers confirmed as employees. All five justices unanimously agreed on the ruling, observing in its ruling that:
“Uber offers a rider the fare for the trip and the rider accepts that offer. Neither drivers nor riders can effectively select one another, and they are practically anonymous vis-à-vis one another throughout the entire transaction…”
“Uber earns its revenues by charging riders for trips, and resolves any difficulties which might arise during each trip. A passenger could not reasonably be expected to think they were contracting with the driver when they got into the car.”
And last October 2024, Green Party workplace relations and safety spokesperson Teanau Tuiono, accused Brooke Van Velden of being “deep in the pockets of Uber” after it was revealed ACT had effectively copied and pasted Uber’s position on contractors – and adopting it as government policy.
Firstly, the thanks for all yr mahi pointing out all the many and various ways that this is the worst government of this century and a whole lot worse than most of the last century too.
I trust the pollies going on holiday will give you a chance for a well earned break.
If ever there is someone who doesn't understand why faith in institutions is falling look no further than ACT and it's enablers, National and NZ 1st.
On one hand they have ushered in a bill that is designed to get improved law making while at the same time, enthusiastically help ram poor legislation through under urgency, at record levels.
It’s only right Van Velden overturns a Supreme Court decision, after all she’s been a lobbyist… / sarc.
Thank you gsays, appreciate your comment
Completely agree. 100%
Labour should adopt a policy of imposing a stamp duty on all homes over $5M (legal).
They should also review the OIO rules.
Oz
5.5-6.5% top rate of stamp duty from c$1M
SPC – see my last point above. It will be hard for Labour because of our trade agreements per the article
I think Hipkins is wrong.
Having a foreign buyer ban before signing TPP+ allows us to go back to that, if we want to.
And applying a stamp duty to all properties over $5M is within equal treatment (the FTA with China).
So nothing prevents there being a stamp duty, or a CGT (or the former OIO foreign buyer regulations).
As for a higher rate stamp duty for foreign buyers in Oz (China etal) that is, whether the once proposed 15% stamp duty rate over $2m for foreign buyers proposed by the government was doable is not a known.
If you read the article he specifically states"
"We know when we introduced the foreign home buyer ban, we did that before the CPTPP [Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership] came into force, and a number of those other free trade agreements came into force, so we'd need to look very closely at whether we could reverse it and still stay compliant with our international trade obligations."
Agree other measures can be imposed – that's why the people who pushed this will be buying before Labour win again and doing everything they can to prevent Labour getting back in power
Labour should stop signing away our sovereignty.
It is not a known, that this is not possible.
As I said, having a foreign buyer ban before signing TPP+ allows us to go back to that, if we want to.
That was the state, as at membership, so is a reasonable course.
When Uber lost in the Supreme Court, business groups were crying the decision could collapse the gig economy.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/579161/uber-drivers-supreme-court-decision-could-collapse-gig-economy-business-groups-say
The specifics of any given policy are almost secondary at this point. The deeper problem is the normalisation of urgency as a day-to-day governing tool.
One of the core reasons New Zealand adopted MMP was to break the pattern of an overmighty executive. Governments using disciplined parliamentary majorities to ram through policy without adequate scrutiny, consultation, or accountability. MMP was intended to rebalance that dynamic: not by weakening parliamentary sovereignty, but by strengthening Parliament’s practical ability to scrutinise the executive.
The routine use of urgency cuts directly against that purpose. When urgency becomes normalised, a majority government can re-create executive dominance in procedural form, even under MMP. Debate is compressed, select committee scrutiny is bypassed or trivialised, and policy is insulated from the political cost of being poorly designed or publicly unpopular.
In that environment, bad policy isn’t just more likely: it’s cheaper. Urgency allows governments to avoid the friction that normally exposes weak ideas, because once something is a fait accompli most people lack the time or energy to mobilise against it.
The constitutional danger isn’t that Parliament ceases to be sovereign per se. It’s that sovereignty is hollowed out in practice: the executive continues to govern through Parliament, but increasingly without being meaningfully checked by it.
I absolutely agree about the routine use of urgency to manage parliamentary business becoming common.
It's decried by the opposition, who then turn around and do the same thing in government.
I don't know what the answer is.
Perhaps a review of the whole way Parliament operates. As most of the time in the debating chamber is purely performative 'for the record' speeches and interjections. Many speeches are made to largely empty benches. Why not just submit them directly to Hansard…..
TBH – I don't really have an issue with accelerating legislation through the house – so long as it's been through the full select committee process. Filibustering doesn't really achieve anything in terms of preventing legislation being passed. If the government has the numbers, they have the numbers.
I don't think that the executive has been meaningfully checked by Parliament in NZ for a very long time. The highly regimented whipping process, of all parties, to marshal votes as required by the leaders; and the fact that most backbenchers can rarely vote their conscience (except for the rare conscience issue votes) – means that Parliament is largely a performative rubber stamp for decisions already made by the executive, and opposed by the opposition.
The lack of an upper chamber exacerbates this.
It's very different to the way that Westminster behaves.
I think this gets close to the heart of it, but I’d draw a slightly different line.
I’m not especially concerned about filibustering or long speeches per se. You’re right that much of the chamber is performative, and if a government has the numbers then, in the end, it has the numbers. That’s been true since before MMP and it isn’t going away.
What matters more is the bargain that underpins our system.
New Zealand’s constitutional trade-off has never been strong procedural vetoes. It’s been political accountability. Governments are allowed to move comparatively fast and face fewer formal barriers, but in return they accept exposure to public submissions, select committee scrutiny, and sustained parliamentary debate
That friction isn’t about stopping legislation; it’s about forcing governments to carry the political cost of their choices.
In that sense, party discipline really is a feature, not a bug. It makes responsibility clear. Voters know who owns a decision.
Urgency becomes a problem when it’s used not to manage the House, but to evade that bargain. When urgency is routine, governments are no longer just accelerating passage; they’re actively minimising scrutiny, compressing public engagement, and reducing the time and attention available for opposition, media, and civil society to respond.
The end result is to make bad policy dangerously cheap.
You’re also right that Parliament hasn’t meaningfully checked the executive for a long time, and the absence of an upper house makes that worse. But that’s precisely why select committees and normal legislative timeframes matter so much here. They’re not decorative. They’re the last remaining places where non-executive voices can still exert real pressure before decisions are locked in.
So, for me the concern isn’t nostalgia for some imagined Westminster golden age, nor a belief that debate itself restrains power. It’s that we’re hollowing out the few accountability mechanisms we actually still have: not by abolishing them, but by normalising ways to step around them.
I think that we're largely in agreement – especially over the importance of the full select committee process – my original quote (italics added)
In the absence of this change (and, let's be real, both major parties have made extensive use of it in government – regardless of how much they decry it in opposition) – then I'd be happy for it to require a formal decision by the Governor general for Parliament to sit in urgency. Which would cover things like wars, or disasters – but not routine business that the government just hasn't got around to.
I also think that urgency has been used more frequently because the government just doesn't have enough sitting days for routine passage of legislation. And I'd support an extension of the time for select committees combined with a reduction on speaking time on the passage of a bill in the House (speeches could still be submitted to Hansard, in order for MPs to get their opposition and reasons for the same, on the record).
Of course, I don't actually think that meaningful reform of parliamentary process is at all likely….
However, I do think that the stringent whipping of MPs along party lines does no service to democracy. The ability of backbench MPs to vote their conscience (or the interest of their electorates) on a bill, is, I think, important.
It doesn't take away from the 'ownership' of a decision – it's still really clear that the government/parties, who have mustered the majority to carry the legislation, are the ones responsible. And voters are in do doubt.
In addition, making whipped party votes the norm increases the fragility of our MMP government. Where it is so uncommon for an MP to 'cross the floor' – that it becomes a major issue – and may even result in expulsion from the party; or alternatively, result in ongoing resentment if a vote in support is enforced. The 'broad church' of the major parties (and even some of the larger minor ones), where MPs can be in broad overall agreement with the general policy thrust of the party, but differ on specific minor areas – is threatened by the straitjacket of the whipped party vote.
I see this as a weakness in the current NZ parliamentary system (or the way that the current parties operate within it), not a strength.
NZ Losing Democracy rapidly – https://open.substack.com/pub/mountaintui/p/new-zealand-losing-democracy-rapidly
Is there any mention at all in what passes for media they've sold out the courts again along with the now expected further sellout of kiwi's.
This is a govt that wants to avoid scrutiny on the fast tracked sellout they're about to saddle NZ with before the election.
Some legacy Winston’s leaving with the ferry debacle something he should equally wear.
Not just Queenstown, but all of Queenstown Lakes and out into Central Otago and Southland. QL has a housing crisis, both shortage of housing and cost. People commute to jobs in Queenstown and Wanaka but live further out. The higher the prices go in those towns, the more the next level down will live in Cromwell or Alexandra, thus putting up the prices there too.
I'm sure the old boys network in Queenstown will be delighted, ordinary residents not so much.