Of all the Finance Ministers that MainStreamMedia & Jacinda Ardern could attack, how ironic they turn their fire on our first ever female one, Ruth Richardson, and second female one, Nicola Willis. Newshub's front page characterization of this year's budget is that it was the Mother of All Disappointments.
The budget did not "disappoint". That implies a surprise. Yet most of us never expected the Nats would surprise us with something radical - and there's plenty to be said for doing what you were elected to do. Instead, Newshub directly connected Willis' budget to Ruth Richardson's Mother of All Budgets over 30 years ago that cut welfare generosity to reign in deficits in the early 1990s. Willis' budget did not cut welfare. Willis' budget had nothing to do with Richardson's budget - yet Newshub was determined to link the two women to one another, desperate to falsely paint Willis as a Ruth-style wicked, mean, mother witch.
For those of us who follow these things closely, Willis' budget was in the tradition of a conservative Bill English Budget. When the Nats came to power back in 2008, the size of government had been increasing under Labour's Michael Cullen & PM Clark. I remember English showing a graph at a presentation I attended tracking how spending & taxes as a proportion of GDP had gradually decreased over his tenure. So why didn't Newshub do what this blog did? That is, link Willis to English, who she used to worked for, to explain the ethos of Budget 2024? But no. Newshub targeted the women. It wrongly associated Willis with the only other woman who has been NZ Finance Minister - even though their budgets had nothing in common. In a recent speech at an Italian University, Jacinda Ardern also referred to the Mother of All Budgets and linked it to her neighbour's suicide in Morrinsville. How come Ardern, Labour & Newshub are going after Women in Finance & Economics with such negative zeal, especially when there are already relatively few in these professions? The NZ media scene will be the better for it when Newshub disappears, by popular demand.
For those of us who follow these things closely, Willis' budget was in the tradition of a conservative Bill English Budget. When the Nats came to power back in 2008, the size of government had been increasing under Labour's Michael Cullen & PM Clark. I remember English showing a graph at a presentation I attended tracking how spending & taxes as a proportion of GDP had gradually decreased over his tenure. So why didn't Newshub do what this blog did? That is, link Willis to English, who she used to worked for, to explain the ethos of Budget 2024? But no. Newshub targeted the women. It wrongly associated Willis with the only other woman who has been NZ Finance Minister - even though their budgets had nothing in common. In a recent speech at an Italian University, Jacinda Ardern also referred to the Mother of All Budgets and linked it to her neighbour's suicide in Morrinsville. How come Ardern, Labour & Newshub are going after Women in Finance & Economics with such negative zeal, especially when there are already relatively few in these professions? The NZ media scene will be the better for it when Newshub disappears, by popular demand.
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
The best response to Newshub, TVNZ news, Stuff and rest of the gutter press is simply to ignore them. Just take away their advertising audience. Also make the mornings far less stressful.
More cheap shots by the media.
The gutter press was ever thus. So what? It's an angle any woman with an ounce of gumption and a spine can take in her stride. Willis isn't a Finance Minister she is a sock puppet for that miserable visionless skinflint Bill English . Who far from being a safe pair of hands throttled the life out of the economy. Ruth Richardson was a sock puppet for Bill Birch, a vile individual who destroyed wages and working conditions for New Zealanders forever.I have absolutely no faith in Willis or this government to grow the economy as they are afflicted with the same spineless attitude as Ardern and co and equally economically illiterate.
The top tax rate needs to raised in line with Australia at 45c in the dollar. The second tier tax rate needs to kick in at $95,000 p.a. not $78,000 which is barely a living wage.
And finally they all need to get a grip and bring in a CGT!
Sugar Tax . Financial Transaction tax and get the GST OFF staple food. Since they're all so thick and innumerate down in Wellington send a working party of final year high school accounting students to Canberra to gather the information on how Australia does it.
And stop farting around with worthless window dressing tax cuts!!!!!
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