Mike's Minute: Is this why the National vote is soft?

Author: Mike Hosking ,
Publish Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2026, 10:03am

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Environment Canterbury (ECan). Photo / Christchurch Star

Federated Farmers have quite rightly raised what you would loosely call "the alarm" around a rush of new deals between councils and local Māori.

The rush is on because of the Government's new Natural Environment and Planning bills.

They were released late last year, saying you can't do local Māori deals under it. It's passed its first reading and is sitting at committee level and due back soon.

Like rust, councils don’t sleep, so the deals are being inked. Canterbury is the latest, but deals have already been done in Manawatu, Whanganui, Northland, and Taranaki.

Obviously, we could focus on the duplicitous nature of all this. We could focus on the fundamental dishonesty of giving people a say over major matters without having to ever face a voter.

But let us, for this moment in time, wonder aloud whether this very sort of thing might be a reason for the softness in the National Party vote at the moment.

We are late in the term and, yes, there was a lot to do to try and stitch up the chaos Labour left behind.

But the Māorification of this country was a centrepiece for all the players in the current Government, and yet you can argue, and I do, that it never got the attention it needed.

It never seemed to have the urgency.

It started with the smaller, you could argue, simpler stuff i.e. Māori names for everything. There should have been stroke-of-pen edicts that ended the nonsense on the spot.

We had the vote at local level around Māori wards. That was democracy in action as some kept them, some didn’t. But at least we had a say.

But stitch-up deals with local tribes who decide what gets done and doesn’t, simply because of race, is a gargantuan example of what needed addressing on day one.

Here we are on day 962 and we still haven't closed it off and, given it's July and Parliament rises in September, there are only a handful of sitting days left. ChatGPT tells me there's only ten.

I assume they plan to pass it in that time, but in the ensuing period the piss is well and truly being taken.

Delivery is everything in government.

On this, even if they deliver, they have looked lackadaisical in their approach, hence the bleeding of support.