Nicholas Kerr: “Te Reo Māori Only” Sounds Noble — But Is It Sustainable?

A bold prediction: Rumaki, a new “te reo Māori only” cafe in Rotorua, will not survive as a business.

Not because New Zealanders dislike Māori culture. Most don’t. In fact, many support preserving and revitalising te reo Māori.

But businesses survive by expanding their customer base, not deliberately shrinking it.

Nicholas Kerr: Alienation and the Failure of MMP

Bryce Edwards’ column on New Zealand’s growing “alienated” class raises an important issue. The numbers are striking: more than a quarter of the country feels politically disconnected, and nearly half believe the system needs major change or replacement.

That is not noise. It is a flashing red light.

Nicholas Kerr: America broke up with New Zealand years ago....

America broke up with New Zealand years ago – we just seem not to have noticed

Bryce Edwards asks whether it is “time to break up with America”. Don Brash asks whether it is any longer safe to be an American ally. Both are fair questions. Both, however, miss a more awkward truth.

New Zealand is being invited to agonise over the condition of a relationship that, in any serious strategic sense, ended long ago.

Nicholas Kerr: The perils of COVID-zero — manage the endemic

The perils of COVID-zero—how policymakers should manage endemic COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved and we’ve learned more about the virus, the way we manage it should have evolved as well. From a policymaking perspective, step one is acknowledging that it’s one of many risks we face in life; we need to weigh up all of life’s risks as we decide how to tackle this problem.

Second, it’s important to note that, as we learned early on, COVID’s risks differ dramatically across age deciles and health conditions. At the onset of the pandemic, when we knew little about the coronavirus, it seemed reasonable to adopt a stricter set of blanket policies until we could properly assess risk. However, because risks differ dramatically for those two metrics (age and underlying health conditions), we should design policy approaches that are weighed against the risks that each subset of our population faces.

Nicholas Kerr: Unleashing New Zealand’s Potential and Suppressing Washington State’s—Lessons for Texas

This speech was delivered to the Dallas Chapter of the Bastiat Society on June 17, 2021.

In 1847, French economist Frédéric Bastiat, this society’s namesake, published a facetious petition to the king now known as “The Right Hand and the Left”. In it he laid bare the fallacy of some of his contemporaries that if you simply create more work, regardless of whether it’s productive work, everyone will be wealthier. The proposition he makes to the king is to require everyone to work with their left hand and not their right. He proposes:

Nicholas Kerr: New Zealand had no choice but to lock down

"New Zealand hospitals in crisis."

A surprising headline for many. Why are patients being treated in hospital corridors in a country that has essentially eliminated COVID-19? Unfortunately, it’s a familiar story for many Kiwis and those who have studied universal healthcare.

New Zealand has been held up as a model as to how to tackle the pandemic. We’re told that it acted decisively to bring the virus to heel. A more accurate account is that other countries implemented measures in February and early March, while the government there dithered. It wasn’t until mid-March that New Zealand imposed one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. By then, there were 102 cases, which its healthcare system was struggling to deal with.

Nicholas Kerr: Pandemic learning gaps make clear the need for public school reform

Approaching two months of in-person learning this school year, the Catholic Diocese of Dallas reported to parents that no cases of COVID-19 classroom transmission had occurred at its 36 schools.

Only 19 have had any lab-confirmed cases among students or employees, all of which it confidently stated have been traced to outside sources. Positive cases have touched less than one-quarter of 1% of on-campus learners. Schools in the diocese are practicing social distancing, students are wearing masks in class, parents are completing online child-screening forms in the mornings, and children are having their temperatures taken before being allowed to exit cars at drop-off.

Nicholas Kerr: A Eulogy to Sir Ron Trotter by My Father

I came across the eulogy Dad [Roger Kerr] gave at Sir Ron Trotter's funeral almost 10 years ago - and thought you might be interested...

Reflections on a Life Well Lived 

- Tribute to Sir Ron Trotter

Eulogy by Roger Kerr, Old St. Paul’s, Wellington, 17 August 2010

Margaret and the family have asked me to reflect on Sir Ron’s role in business and public affairs and I’m honoured to do so. 

Nicholas Kerr: Socialism’s apologists ignore Venezuela’s human tragedy

Supporters of socialism have taken to suggesting that the human tragedy unfolding in Venezuela has nothing to do with socialism, rather it’s the result of the dictatorships of former President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro. In their view, dictatorships lead to the deprivation we’re witnessing, not socialism. They’re confusing types of government and economic theories.

Dictatorships or authoritarian regimes don’t always lead to economic misery. We only have to look to Venezuela’s south to see that’s true. Chile was under a dictatorship for 17 years, yet President Pinochet pursued free market economic policies that, in spite of the (inexcusable) tyranny and unchecked power, lifted huge numbers of Chileans out of poverty, the exact opposite of what is taking place under Maduro.

Nicholas Kerr: Seattle’s homeless contradictions

Seattle’s ongoing homeless crisis is surrounded by an absurd number of contradictions that if not addressed will only result in a continuation of this human tragedy. 

Leaders and supporters of the city’s current approach claim compassion, but have delivered heartlessness. When residents have been asked for and given more tax dollars, the result is only ever more homeless on the streets. 

Our city council continues with the same failed policies, yet anticipates different results. We elect the same politicians or ones cut from the same cloth, yet expect them to solve something they’ve failed at or made worse. And our councilors say they want more low cost housing, but adopt policies that only increase prices. This city needs change for our homeless to have hope.

Nicholas Kerr: If not economic growth, then what?

In a column entitled “Everything must go“, George Monbiot writes that economic growth “will destroy everything”. While he rails at length against growth, he doesn’t go into any detail about his preferred alternative. Moreover, his diatribe is mostly against consumption, whereas an increase in productivity (for example, doing more with less) is usually the primary driver of economic growth. Increased productivity does sometimes result in more consumption, but also increased savings and investment, among other things.

His main gripe is to do with growth’s environmental impact. However, he ignores the problems low economic growth brings and the benefits of a strong economy. Think about where the major environmental problems are today versus a generation or more ago. For starters, low growth USSR had terrible environmental catastrophes relative to the USA. But even in America we had LA smog and New York pollution. Economic growth brought prosperity and the wherewithal to address these issues, which no longer exist.

Nicholas Kerr: New Zealand’s reforms and lessons for Washington

This is the text of a speech delivered to the Washington Policy Center monthly breakfast on June 27, 2017.

Many of you may be familiar with New Zealand’s reforms from an economic perspective, so I’m going to spend more of my talk focused on two other areas:

1. How policies before and after the reforms impacted individuals
2. How the key players succeeded in implementing the reforms

As a young New Zealander in the period before 1984 and the following decade of reforms, I’ll be speaking from personal experience about their impact. And I’ll be discussing their implementation as the son of an economist who was a key figure in making them come about.

Nicholas Kerr from the US: Charlie Gard and the need for limited government

A few days after our first child was born, our pediatrician commented at a check-up, “Isn’t it funny that last week you’d never even met Penelope, and now you’d lay down in front of a bus for her?” 

I recalled this as I followed the tragic story of 10-month-old Charlie Gard who suffers from a rare genetic condition. Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) determined that nothing could be done to save him, but his parents wanted to try an experimental treatment in the United States. His doctors did not believe this was in Charlie’s best interests, took the case to court, and won. His parents exhausted all their appeals last week and it appears Charlie will soon be taken off life support.

Nicholas Kerr: US health care problems – universal health care is not the solution

Shortly after Bernie Sanders’s recent and weakly argued Twitter pic in support of universal health care, I photoshopped it into a similarly weak counter-argument and Tweeted back. However, it’s a serious topic and deserves a more thorough response.

It goes without saying that the U.S. health care system is far from perfect. But the focus should be addressing the problems without throwing out what’s exceptional about it. 

Nicholas Kerr: The other passion of Sir Douglas Myers – public policy

Sir Douglas Myers was one of a kind and he leaves New Zealand business and public policy markedly better for his having been here. The tributes that have been written in recent days rightly note the beer baron’s business successes. But other than noting that he was involved in the New Zealand Business Roundtable, few, it seems, have given him the credit he deserves in the policy arena.

Myers and other business leaders in the early 1980s came to the realization that the country needed to change course. Successive governments and generations had stifled our entrepreneurial spirt and held back our productivity and potential.

Nicholas Kerr: Trump and our divided country

Let me preface my comments. First, I didn’t support Trump, but I’m an optimist, and like Obama, Clinton and others said following the election, I think he deserves a chance.

Second, I don’t call myself conservative. In fact I try to avoid the use of labels. As I explained in my blog post “Less labels, more meeting of minds,” I don’t think they help debates or conversations. Labeling a person or policy as left-wing or right-wing, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, introduces biases and barriers and does nothing to advance a discussion.

Nicholas Kerr: Obama - The Great Disappointment

Every American ought to have had high hopes for Barack Obama’s presidency. An unsuccessful administration is bad for the country and, given America’s global status, it’s bad for the world too. That’s not to say you should have supported his entire agenda. Rather, as with Bill Clinton, you might have hoped the realities of governing would set in and to succeed he’d be forced to adjust accordingly.

The sad reality, though, is that whether you supported Obama’s policies or not, you’re justified in being disappointed with the results of his presidency.

Nicholas Kerr: The Electoral College and the future of the Democratic Party

For the fifth time in history, the winner of the U.S. presidential election will not have also been the winner of the popular vote. And with it come the predictable calls to end the Electoral College. 

Supporters of Hillary Clinton who believe the electoral system is to blame for the result should both think again and be careful what they wish for.