1[The House] "Plans on top of plans": Being parliament’s scheduler Ever wanted a job that combines a very public tight-rope walk with solving fiendish puzzles? Helping The Leader of the House wrangle Parliament’s Order Paper is just the thing. On The House we often refer to a government minister titled Leader of the House. Currently that minister is Chris Bishop. In the previous administration it was Chris Hipkins and later Grant Robertson. As you can tell, it’s a role typically held by a senior minister. One impossible job among many The Leader of the House is responsible for managing a government’s entire legislative agenda, including what is debated and passed by the House and when. They coordinate with the Parliamentary Counsel Office (legislative drafters), and chair the Cabinet Legislation Committee (quality control). It’s a job that necessitates ‘managing’ ministerial colleagues, so seniority helps. This all may sound difficult, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. With politics as its oil, parliament seldom runs smoothly. Any plan will be quickly upset: by a crisis, a political consideration, a late amendment, or even a tricksy coalition partner. Being Leader of the House is a full-time job, but no senior minister has only one portfolio. Chris Bishop is also Minister for RMA Reform, of Housing, of Infrastructure, of Sports and Recreation, and an Associate Minister of Finance. There are entire ministries to keep on top of those other roles, but only a solitary staffer assists with the Leader of the House role – the House Advisor, Louis Donovan. The House chatted with Louis Donovan recently. You can listen to that chat (and a little from his predesessor at the link above). Donovan points out that it is Chris Bishop, as Leader of the House, who makes the ultimate calls; but this underplays the three-dimensional sudoku that is Donovan’s job. It’s not a job for someone who likes certainty. Anytime you think you have all the ducks lined up, one will fly away or get shot by circumstance. “That's one of the fun challenges of this job, I guess,” says Louis Donovan, “I've got quite a few spreadsheets that get changed every day, multiple times a day, but, yeah, it's my job.” There are endless pitfalls. “My plans have to be able to adapt to everything… I don't think there's been a single sitting week yet where the plan that I wrote has been the plan that has ended up happening, but that's normal, and that's to be expected.” The Parliament’s calendar and it’s hazards One problem is where to fit everything. It would be easy to run out of time for crucial things. “When you look at the parliamentary sitting calendar, you quickly run out of days to schedule these bills”, says Donovan. Let’s get down among the weeds for a moment to see what he means. Parliament has a set calendar of sitting days agreed for each year (though governments can and do add to them with urgency and extended sittings). The House sits for three days each week and 30 weeks each year (for 17 hours per week). Total that up and you get 510 hours to debate legislation (plus any extra sittings). That may sound like a lot of time but it gets eaten up quickly. Two weeks are devoted to select committee scrutiny of the government – leaving 476 hours. An hour(ish) every day is question time – 392 hours. An hour every Wednesday is given over to general debate – 363 hours. Every other Wednesday is devoted to member’s bills – leaving around 281 hours. A calendar eaten by obligations But it doesn’t stop there. From that total you also have to subtract all the set-piece debates that must occur. Donovan begins ticking them off his fingers. “The Parliament has to set aside time for the Estimates debates [totalling about 24 hours], and for the Annual Review Debates [10 hours]. At the start of each parliament there's the Address in Reply Debate [19 hours], and at the start of each [other] year there's the Debate on the Prime Minister's statement [13 hours]. All of this actually chews up time quite quickly.” Those events take between 46 and 53 hours, which is more than another four sitting weeks. There are also Urgent Debates, Special Debates, Ministerial Statements, Maiden Speeches and Valedictories to fit in. Some of those happen without warning. Plus passing the taxation provisions, validating secondary legislation and various Treaty Settlement Bills. Around all of that, a government gets to squeeze in the legislation it actually wants passed. And the Advisor (and the Leader of the House) have to make it fit – somehow. To achieve this, Donovan works backwards. “Particularly working back from when you want the bill to become an act – when do you want it to be law. You’ve got to work backwards from there.” There is still guesswork – select committees and the Committee of the Whole stage can take longer than expected. You can imagine that each week must be an adventure. “What are the bills that we need to pass this week? What are the bills that we'd like to pass? And you've got to make sure, is the Minister going to be available – are they going to be free to show up in the House? Is the bill ready? Because you might have lots of bills on the Order Paper (we've got roughly 20 at the moment), but that doesn't mean they're necessarily all available for debate next sitting day.” Just when you think you’ve got it all nailed down, something will happen to screw it all up and send you back to the drawing board. A media story might mean an issue needs to be dealt with sooner (or quietly put on the back-burner); a coalition partner might have second thoughts (this seemed to happen a lot during the Labour/NZ First government); a bill that is ‘ready to go’, will instead require revision, a court case will land an urgent fix in your lap… . Anything you can imagine might go wrong, probably will. Louis Donovan professes to having lots of constantly changing spreadsheets with “plans on top of plans”. Because ‘just in case’ is a daily occurrence. Note: Back in 2018, The House chatted with Peter Hoare when he was House Advisor to Chris Hipkins. He now advises the Labour Whips’ office and co-ordinates a fair bit with Louis Donovan who is now in the Minister’s office. [Sunday 21 July 2024, 07:00]

2[The Detail] The rollercoaster rides of Wayne and Tory | A tale of two mayors Two years into their mayoral terms, the civic leaders of Wellington and Auckland have pushed through controversy, opposition and calls for their resignations. One is still not a hugger, the other has had to put wild parties behind her. A look at how the mayors of Auckland and Wellington have fared over the last two years. When Wayne Brown started his term as Auckland mayor, he was lambasted for his poor communication, lack of engagement with the media and inability to get consensus around the council table. While in the capital - Tory Whanau's ascension to the mayoralty was heralded as a huge step forward - she was the first wāhine Māori mayor and talked of a progressive future. It's nearly two years into their three year terms and the narrative has somewhat changed - Brown has secured the lowest rates increase of any metropolitan council across the country, while Whanau's left-leaning colleagues have accused her of selling out her progressive stance. On today's episode of The Detail, two New Zealand Herald reporters, Simon Wilson in Auckland and Georgina Campbell in Wellington, analyse how their mayors have performed. Brown notoriously criticised Wilson for being a "prick" just before he became mayor. "I'd like to think that my relationship was straightforward with Wayne and his was complicated with me," says Wilson. Brown's performance around the Auckland floods in January 2023 has been widely criticised, and some called for him to resign. "He has, from that point, applied himself a lot more diligently to the task," Wilson says. Despite a controversial annual plan process in 2023, Wilson believes Brown has done a better job this year, with the 10 year long-term plan. "He had developed stronger relations with councillors by that stage, he had worked out who was going to support him and who wasn't, who was likely to," Wilson says. "He had a probably more functional mayor's office by that stage and that meant that the process of establishing the long-term-plan budget was smoother. He didn't get everything he wanted, but he got a much stronger sense of 'we the council are committed to this'. "He has kept his rates increases under 10 per cent, which is an enormous achievement in the country at the moment." However, Wilson believes Brown struggles with emotional intelligence. "He cannot help himself - he sits in council meetings and quietly manages to say things about other councillors that - if they were sensitive - they'd feel highly abused about." He also questions his relationship with government ministers, such as Minister for Auckland, Local Government and Transport, Simeon Brown. "You can boil Wayne Brown's situation down to one thing - he has to have a good working relationship with the government.... in order to get the progress that he thinks should happen. His job is to persuade the government of that. If he wants to do that, he's going to need considerably more empathy skills, considerably more negotiation skills than he's shown us so far. "For all intents and purposes, most of what he wants to do are good things, and that wasn't clear before the election, but it's more or less clear now, but his ability to actually do them is stymied by his inability to build working relationships with people." In the capital, Campbell says Whanau's election in 2022 was a "landslide" - but she's had a difficult term. Many of her plans to revitalise the city have been dismantled due to the change in government. Furthermore, she's struggled with things she didn't campaign on - the Reading Cinema complex controversy and the sale of the council's shares in Wellington airport. Much of this goes against her Green Party background and left-bloc support. "You think about the airport sale - Labour and the Greens - they're not keen on asset sales," Campbell says. "There's also been a lot of cuts that have been made in the budget. I think it's interesting in terms of how the cuts build in to this narrative of a mayor who campaigned on being progressive and transformational and is now selling assets and making cuts.'' Whanau has also had personal struggles - dealing with alcoholism, then an unexpected ADHD and autism diagnosis. "Some people questioned whether she was up to the job... but I think she sees this diagnosis as quite positive for her, she feels that a lot of things have actually fallen into place as to why she thinks a certain way." Campbell also talks about some of Whanau's successes - such as her crisis communication during the Loafers Lodge fire. "She was there on the scene...she was visibly emotional.... she showed very good leadership that day." [Friday 19 July 2024, 05:00]

3[Sporting Witness] Conchita Martinez: The woman who stopped Navratilova In 1994, the 22-year-old Spanish tennis star won Wimbledon. The 1994 Wimbledon Championships were dominated by one story - whether Martina Navratilova could bow out with style. Her opponent, Conchita Martinez, hadn't read the script. The 1994 Wimbledon Championships were dominated by one story - whether Martina Navratilova could bow out with a record-breaking tenth title. The 37-year-old looked on course to do so, making it to the final where she'd face 22-year-old Spanish player, Conchita Martinez. The scene was set but Conchita hadn't read the script. Thirty years on, she shares her memories of that day with Matt Pintus. Released on: Saturday 13 July 2024