Peter Dunne: Government funding bailouts

This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it would enable the coming ski season at Whakapapa to proceed. Given the ski field’s substantial annual contribution to the Ruapehu district’s economy, the relief in some quarters at the government’s was understandable. It is estimated that since 2020 the government has advanced $32 million to keep the ski field operation open, but it has made it clear that the latest payment will be the last.

Robert MacCulloch: A Solution to the Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (in Liquidation) Quagmire

The government can't decide what to do about the bankrupt Ruapehu ski-lift outfit, Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL). Meanwhile Leader of Opposition Luxon messed up the answer - he said to Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB, "That has to be solved by commercial interests". Wrong. Luxon better sharpen up on public policy matters, fast. He's no longer a CEO. By the way, Air NZ of which he was once CEO, has never been commercially viable - it bankrupted in 2001 & was bailed with a billion bucks of public money - then took another billion dollar "relief" package (on top of the wage subsidy of almost $200 million) when it bankrupted again during Covid. So what is the way out of the quagmire?

Point of Order: How the Treaty of Waitangi is determining the direction in which state-funded science will be taken (or dragged back?)

We have come – or gone – a long way, in the past two decades. In which direction is open to discussion.

Writing for The Independent Business Weekly on 22 January 2003, I noted how a localised Māori belief in a taniwha had obliged Transit New Zealand to stop work on a stretch of new expressway near Meremere for several weeks.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority was consulting people about ways to incorporate Māori spiritual values in a revised policy. The authority (according to newspaper reports at the time) might regard Māori spiritual concerns as sufficient reason for rejecting research applications for genetic research approvals, even if there was no physical biological risk.