Brian Easton: Credit Ratings And International Financial Standing

The recent reduction in the US credit rating signals that market lenders are not happy with the US fiscal arrangements. New Zealand’s lower rating is a warning that we could do better too.

Fitch recently lowered its long-term credit ratings rating of US government debt from the top grade of AAA to AA+. Financial markets hardly moved – they had already incorporated Fitch’s reservations in their thinking.

Chris Trotter: Three Waters. Three Mayors. Three Cheers!

The three Mayor's proposed revision of Three Waters is timely, sensible, and ought to be accepted by the Labour Government. If Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues press on regardless, then the electorate will know just how little Three Waters has to do with securing an affordable upgrade of New Zealand’s water infrastructure, and how much the controversial scheme is now about mandating the co-governance of water.

Not that the Prime Minister will admit that co-governance is the driver of the proposed reforms. To do so would be to lay upon the table, for free and frank debate, the fraught issues of radical constitutional change, and the future of our democracy. Ms Ardern is, almost certainly, in possession of poll data indicating that any such debate would be lost by her Government – decisively.