NZCPR Newsletter: Budget Challenges

As the new Government puts the finishing touches to this month’s Budget, they will undoubtedly have had their hands full dealing with the economic mess that Labour created.

Not only was Labour a grossly incompetent manager of the economy, but they also set out to sabotage the new administration’s ability to balance the budget and deliver on their election promises.

Brian Gaynor: Red tape tying business in knots

The massive increase in rules, regulations and compliance is one of the major issues facing New Zealand businesses. This regulatory imposition is accelerating, even though we have a right of centre, supposedly business-friendly Government.

Board and management meetings are now clogged with compliance issues and attendees often have little time to discuss long term strategic plans.

Matt Ridley: Britain should adopt the Innovation Principle

An open letter to George Freeman MP, chairman of the government’s policy board.

Dear George, as a former biotech venture capitalist, you are a passionate champion of innovation. It has pulled an average of 137,000 people out of extreme poverty each and every day of the past 25 years. It’s the only thing that can pay off our £1.9 trillion national debt while keeping our grandchildren prosperous. You are on record as saying: “We have a once-in-a-generation chance to seize the opportunities to make the UK the innovation capital of the world, defying the doubters and being clear that we will go on leading the world in science and technology.”

NZCPR: Out of Control Regulations

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week's NZCPR newsletter we look at government over-regulation and what is driving it, our Guest Commentator is artisan cheese producer Biddy Fraser-Davies who explains how the Ministry of Primary Industries is regulating her business “into extinction”, and our website poll asks whether you believe government regulation is out of control. We would also like to encourage readers with horror stories about regulation, to share them with us via the poll comments – and please feel free to ask others to do the same.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To take part in the poll click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Karl du Fresne: The road toll statistics they tried to bury

I checked the latest road toll statistics a few days ago. Interesting.

For the year from January 1, road deaths were up from 291 last year to 300. For the 12 months to Tuesday, they were up from 315 to 328. For driver fatalities, the figures were up from 138 to 151 (for the calendar year to date) and from 146 to 170 (over 12 months).

Karl du Fresne: The rise and rise of control-freak government

The ancient Greeks left us several words describing various forms of government: democracy, autocracy and oligarchy, to give just three examples.

But there was one omission, probably because it describes a type of administration that the Greeks never envisaged. For want of a better term, I’ll call it control-freak government.