What's Labour Leader Hipkins' record? Never-ending Auckland lock-downs that tore us apart; inflation; bureaucracy; suffocating red-tape. Education wrecker. Hipkins was PM when failed Reserve Bank Governor Orr was reappointed in 2023. He knows how to pick 'em. Never fear, Hipkins is making a come-back on the back of the talentless Labour's caucus.
Its hard to find anyone to replace him. His cunning plan is to propose new (capital) taxes, probably sold as a "tax-neutral" redesign of our tax-system. Yet Hipkins said those same (capital) taxes were not the answer in his election campaign 18 months ago. His new plan will be the oldest in the book - use the politics of envy to drum up support for a raid on hard-working Kiwis who have built up savings & assets of their own.
In the other corner, we have the current National Party PM. He rejected ACT's Treaty Principles Bill, but presented no alternative. The nation looked to him for a compromise deal that united us. There was none. He's now telling overseas investors NZ is the world's most politically stable nation, when no one can answer our most fundamental questions of nationhood - like do our rights & freedoms depend on ethnicity? Ask the PM for a "yes-no" answer to that question and you will get mumbo-jumbo.
A large part of NZ's population believe our Parliament has no right to pass laws that apply to them. Elsewhere, the PM lost the Cook Islands to China. He's Minister of National Security & Intelligence, but still has no clue what's going on there.
Luxon is also presiding over the deepest, longest period of economic stagnation experienced by NZ for thirty years (the Covid slump was briefer).
National has failed us on health-care. Luxon got back John Key's mate, Lester Levy, as Health Commissioner, & asked Key's other medical mate, Peter Gluckman, to provide answers. Both had none.
Don't tell the overseas investors - but NZ has never been more domestically politically unstable - with Kiwis living in a region of the world that has never been more geopolitically unstable. No wonder the polls are close.
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.
11 comments:
They say economists predicted 8 out of the last 3 recessions......
Robert's thought provoking articles are normally balanced and backed by academic findings.
However, this particular article is in line with economists infamously negative view of the world. Robert doesn't mention the hard work Luxons team are doing behind the scenes and the results that work is producing.
You don't just go out and attract foreign investment, you first have to identify, analyze, and prioritize large scale infrastructure projects....a huge scope of work.
Then you have to change the regulations which have driven nz to the bottom of the oecd foreign investment list,
Then you have to set up a quality organisation separate from the ridiculous underperforming "labour party dei hire" public service to run the infrastructure projects.
Expect to see more results from Luxons team's expert endeavour in the lead up to the election.
But Luxon still isn’t dealing with the uncontrolled Waitangi Tribunal- probably the biggest elephant in the room and why so many hard working NZer’s are leaving the country. Shame!
Is Hanley a “one eyed” Cantabrian?
Neither are suitable candidates. Anyone who does not see that all New Zealanders should have equal rights is not suitable to be PM. Forget the economic progress. If tribalism and co-governance are advanced then the people at the top will always be better off. They will ensure policies benefit only them. They are doing so already. We have many politicians in parliament who are certainly not promoting the wellbeing of all. How do we all benefit from the 'Maori" economy for example? How will we benefit if we can't access certain areas of our country? How will we benefit if we can no longer call ourselves New Zealanders but they want another name for us? These people are in parliament now and they are doing nothing to address these issues.
To anon 6.44, maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I find marks opinions pretty good and worth reading. He has put effort in in order to articulate. Unlike some negative people attacking others with lazy one line retorts.
Keep posting mark.
Mr Hanley:
We challenge you to comment on why Mr Luxon is deliberately ignoring any Maorification-related issue which is moving NZ daily towards an ethno-state with 2-tier citizenship.
Why is he avoiding this?
Who are his advisors? (though easy to guess)
Why is he stopping NZs from voting for democracy or ethnocracy in a legally-binding referendum?
What does he intend to achieve with this deadly policy? (e.g. to exist politics to better prospects out of NZ - as Ardern did.)
We await your views.
PS All this is quite separate from his economy-based efforts of course.
Vote for the I DO NOT CONSENT option. A counted vote against the status quo that you write in capital letters on your ballot form.
Mark, if the only idea for economic growth is infrastrure then we are in real trouble because NZ will be over the "economic cliff" and into third world territory, before much of it gets started.
I'm not saying investment in infrastructure is a waste of time, with a growing population it is an on going need. Plus it takes a long time --just look at some of the roading projects over the last decade.
NZ needs a lot more that that and it should not just trying to get some growth, getting real about cutting costs is also needed. The Government's efforts in cost cutting so far have been pathetic. For example, the number of public servants has hardly changed ---the department heads have played games such as saying "we are cutting 200 jobs" but detail says 80 were advertised jobs that had not been filled --that is a conning the Minister, but they do not do anything. (NB. those figures were made up to just paint picture of what has happened, but Dept of Justice's figure were close to those.)
National are showing they have no interest in taking on the treaty problem, so they will allow it to continue to slowly become the driving part of our political and legal system. Slowly being the problem.
So, with no one wanting to stop it, are we better to just get it over and done with. Vote labour and the maori party back in and let the iwi take over.
No, I believe Hanley is to breakingviews, what kella is to the platform.
Anonymous @ 6:17
Exactly!
There’s no point in building up the economy only to have the benefit distributed to race-based grifters.
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