Roger Partridge: Britain's Labour government can be a party of growth – but not like this

This column was first published by CapX, the online newspaper of London’s Centre for Policy Studies. It was written for a British audience, but its central argument comes from this side of the world. New Zealand's Fourth Labour Government and Australia's Hawke-Keating Labor government showed that centre-left parties can use market reform to achieve progressive ends. This piece suggests Britain's Labour Party should borrow that tradition.

“It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down,” Andy Burnham said in his first major speech since returning to Parliament. “Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up.”

He is right. The man about to enter Downing Street has seen what much of his party denies: prosperity is grown, not decreed, and the hand that tries to direct it from the centre usually throttles it instead. But the premise has a second half Burnham flinches from.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: A prescription that fits

This week’s Budget confirmed what most New Zealanders already suspected. The government’s finances are tight, the deficit persists, and there is no pot of money waiting to be spent on the country’s problems.

Just as well, because government spending never delivers growth or prosperity. The question is, what will?

Roger Partridge: The Nobel’s Timely Reminder - Prosperity Cannot Be Planned

This month’s Nobel Prize in Economics arrives at an opportune moment. The award to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for having explained innovation-driven economic growth provides a salutary reminder about what drives prosperity. And what does not.

Ryan Bridge: New Zealand needs a growth spurt

I’ve had it with people whinging about state of this county and people fleeing to Australia who then refuse to stop and ask why we got here and how we get out of it.

Chucking up a post up on TikTok or waving a banner at a protest won't cut it.

Productivity (that’s how much we get out for what we put in) is crap. It's been getting worse or flat-lining for decades.

Ryan Bridge: The Government should go all in on Auckland

There’s a very good reason National’s talking about a revamping the major events fund - or as the PM said on Monday, stuffing the pipeline with more events.

It’s the same reason you’re seeing them announce just half an hour ago they’re creating a new business investor visa - foreigners will get a fast-track to residency for chucking $2m into a Kiwi business.

Robert MacCulloch: Chumocracy is Threatening NZ’s Future

Long-run economic prosperity is built on there being rewards for a person's efforts and ingenuity. However, when top jobs are handed out on connections, not on merit, it falls apart.

Why acquire skills and work experience when there is little in it for you? Why bother?

So it is now in New Zealand. We are in the midst not of a temporary downturn, but of a longer-lasting loss of living standards; stagnation unlike we’ve ever experienced.

NZCPR Newsletter: Halftime Stocktake

As New Zealand stands at the halfway point towards the 2026 election, let’s do a quick stocktake on the state of play.

The polls have remained tight throughout the entire period National, ACT, and New Zealand First have been in Government. While they tend to show the Coalition is slightly ahead, the ruling parties have struggled to present an inspirational vision for a united and prosperous future.

While restoring economic growth has been relentlessly championed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon the situation they inherited from Labour was so dire that it was never going to be a quick fix.

John Raine: Better Times 2027 – Vision or Hallucination?

Imagine for a few minutes that it is late 2027 and things have miraculously taken a turn for the better. Here goes…………

Economic and social progress was sufficient in its first term for the Christopher Luxon-led coalition government to be re-elected in 2026. The Act Party, still pressing for a nationwide constitutional discussion, secured 16% of the vote and were needed at the table, which with National’s 37%, and NZ First retained in the team at 7%, gave the Coalition a strong mandate. Labour suffered even more than expected at the polls through the extreme policy demands of its expected Green and Te Pati Māori partners around taxes, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) agendas, and policies beneficial to Māori but not to other New Zealanders.

Roger Partridge: Willis holds a trump card for RBNZ’s capital review

The Reserve Bank has finally acknowledged it must review its controversial 2019 bank capital decision requiring large banks to increase their capital reserves from 10.5% to 18% by 2028. The timing is revealing. It came on former Governor Adrian Orr’s final day as Governor, just four weeks after his shock resignation.

Bob Edlin: Marama Davidson focuses on social inequality.....

Marama Davidson focuses on social inequality, but other factors come into NZ’s poor productivity performance

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson has a somewhat simplistic view of productivity, as she demonstrated in Parliament yesterday.

At question time, she asked:

Dr Eric Crampton: Aiming at the right targets

The government has made increased competition a highlight of its economic growth agenda.

So, one might have hoped that a targeted review of the Commerce Act would aim at the big problems blocking open and competitive markets.

Peter Dunne: Corporate Tax Rates

From the Prime Minister’s state of the nation speech onwards National has made it very clear that its unrelenting focus this year will be on catching the economic growth wave. It clearly hopes that this, along with Reserve Bank-engineered falling interest rates and, unless Donald Trump gets too much in the way, steadily falling inflation, will both help it to overcome stubbornly high unemployment rates and give the “squeezed middle” sufficient incentive to vote National once again at next year’s election.

Roger Partridge: Growth objections - A symphony in no major

Prime Minister Luxon’s State of the Nation speech has already orchestrated an immediate response. The naysayers have identified the possibility of success as a threat to our national way of life. Luxon’s reckless plan to improve living standards has mobilised the country’s recession-preservation society.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand’s ‘No’ culture threatens growth agenda

“There’s always a reason to say no, but if we keep saying no, we’ll keep going nowhere.”

With these words in his ‘State of the Nation’ speech last week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon diagnosed a critical barrier to New Zealand’s economic growth: a culture of negativity and excessive caution.

Only a few days later, his government provided the perfect test case for Luxon’s diagnosis.

Dan Brunskill: Not in my (Mr Luxon's) backyard

The Prime Minister wants to 'end the culture of saying no' but won't say whether he now supports or still opposes construction in his own backyard

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon won’t say whether he's now throwing his support behind an economic development opportunity he has previously opposed in his home electorate, after asking New Zealanders to say yes to growth.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 28/1/25

Simeon Brown steps out as Minister of Health

Your PoO monitors of ministerial doings have noted that, since we last reported, Simeon Brown has stepped out to deliver his first media statement as Minister of Health.

The PM and his refreshed Cabinet team have been …

Dan Brunskill: The Coalition Government promises an economic growth plan within weeks.....

The Coalition Government promises an economic growth plan within weeks, but can it deliver results?

It is awkward for a Government, elected to get the economy back on track, to have spent its first full year in office watching output shrink almost $2 billion in inflation adjusted prices.

2024 was a year of recession by any definition of the word, although a more useful definition would show the New Zealand economy has been in a recession since September 2022.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Growth agenda needs fiscal consolidation

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech yesterday presents a clear shift towards economic growth. While familiar aspirational rhetoric featured prominently, his initiatives deserve support. However, the absence of fiscal discipline raises concerns.

The speech’s centrepiece announcements make sense. A dedicated investment promotion agency could help attract foreign capital, following the model of Ireland’s highly successful Industrial Development Authority (IDA). This reform is crucial. New Zealand currently ranks as the most restrictive OECD country for foreign direct investment.

Bob Edlin: PM’s turbocharging plan...

Science sector is overhauled and overseas investment fostered as part of the PM’s turbocharging plan (but is hot air involved?)

Hot air – by the sounds of things – is, or will be, making a vital contribution to the country’s economic recovery.

The PoO team (we acknowledge) is not strong on the intricacies of turbocharging. But we determined to learn more after the PM proclaimed:

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 19/9/24

While Peters deals with war in the Middle East, our Transport Minister (armed with data) aims to rid us of those potholes

There were just two press releases on the Government’s official website when Point of Order checked on what our ministers have been doing earlier today. Women’s Affairs Minister Nicola Grigg was telling us she knew what day this is (Suffrage Day) and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was announcing his intention to fly to New York next week to attend the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, then visit French Polynesia.