National, Labour agree to disagree over two policies they agree on

Having agreed to join forces on a social media ban for under-16s, National and Labour are squabbling over the process and time taken.The two parties' finance spokespeople have also clashed over bed taxes and rates capping - the latter of which Labour has also agreed to support to Select Committee.National's Nicola Willis and Labour's Barbara Edmonds began on Morning Report's weekly Wednesday political panel by agreeing over favourite Dolly Parton songs - after the country music legend died overnight - and ended by sharing how their families have been handling the worst flu season in a decade.But basically all the political discussion in between was spent disagreeing over policies their parties agree on.Social media banEdmonds said the party "absolutely agree" that social media could be harmful to children and wanted to get the first reading done before the election."The government now, the ball is in their court. They've introduced it, let's have first reading and while we're campaigning let's open it up for submissions to give it to give New Zealanders plenty of time to provide us their views on it," she said."This is the perfect time for young people, for their parents, to be able to submit ... give them the full six months so that ... when we form government in November we can pick up from the submission process and get that work under way."Willis said National welcomed Labour's support but "we only have 11 sitting days left to go. We've got our replacement to the Resource Management Act going through the House. A number of pieces of priority legislation, and we're running out of House time".Barbara Edmonds.RNZ / Baz Macdonald"It's unlikely it will get a first reading [this term of Parliament]. What's important is that it makes it into law, and the fact that Labour have signalled they will support it is positive for New Zealand," she said.They clashed over what had held the process up.Willis: "I wish you'd had this sense of urgency weeks ago when the Minister of Education Erica Stanford was engaging with your spokespeople, during which they dragged their feet ad infinitum and now suddenly you're in a hurry."Edmonds: "The bill was introduced on Monday. We had caucus the next day, and we decided to support it."Willis: "You'd already seen it weeks ago."Edmonds: "The minister restricted who was actually able to have access to the bill. So therefore, if you want a genuine bipartisan agreement on this, there could have been a lot of work that could have been done earlier. We sent through a list of questions last Friday. The minister announced that the bill was introduced the bill on Monday. We made a caucus decision the very next day because on that Monday night the minister responded to our questions."Rates caps and bed taxesWillis said double-digit rates rises in some council areas were out of control."Putting in a framework that caps those rates increases makes them predictable, requires financial discipline from councils. That is a positive thing for all New Zealand ratepayers, and I'm sure that councils are up to the challenge," she said.Local Government Minister Simon Watts on Tuesday had confirmed the rates cap legislation announced in December would not be passed before the election, and would not limit council fees for services.Edmonds said Labour has agreed to support the rates cap policy - which would require councils to keep increases under 4 percent and above 2 percent - at least as far as Select Committee.Nicola Willis.RNZ / Baz Macdonald"That way, councils can show us what would they need to cut, what are the practical implications if they need to keep rates within the range, and what are the mechanisms that they're looking for to support them, to support the infrastructure that they need, and to ensure that the public services ... are still affordable."Rates did need to be affordable but the big increases in recent years were partly a result of deferred maintenance - a failure to spend on upkeep - over previous decades, she said."They do need to tighten their belts but they've been tightening their belts for a long time - the key thing is what services ... would they need to cut back on? Will swimming pools be more expensive? Will libraries will there be extra charges in the libraries? Will parking charges come up?"The government had agreed as part of its regional deal with Auckland - and another deal with Queenstown Lakes - to explore accommodation levies or bed taxes, but National's commitment to "no new taxes" as part of its election campaign has put those commitments on ice.Councils have been outraged, arguing the bed taxes were a way of having tourists pay the costs of tourism while keeping rates under control.The move has also drawn the ire of NZ First leader Winston Peters, who accused Prime Minister Christopher Luxon - who campaigned at the last election on the regional deals - [of https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/1117704/a-deal-is-a-deal-bed-tax-still-government-policy-according-to-winston-peters going back on his word.]Edmonds said Labour was open to bed taxes."If councils want to drive this, then we're open to having that conversation," she said.Willis said the reason National had scrapped its commitments over bed taxes was that two thirds of bed nights were New Zealanders travelling domestically "and we don't want to be going to the election promising to tax New Zealanders more on their holiday now".Edmonds said the problem was people could not afford to even go on holiday."Ultimately, the cost for tourism infrastructure falls on the ratepayer, that falls on the New Zealanders who are having difficulty in choosing what they can pay for at the moment ... councils are calling out to help their ratepayers to bring down their rates and to pay for the infrastructure."