Fair trade is free trade, right? Yes and no. Profits can be made out of fair trade that is not free.
This is not to be confused with the profits to be made out of unfair trade that is not free because of government policy or structural failure. United States’ mollycoddled cotton farmers, Japan’s geriatric rice farmers, Europe’s timorous farmers of all sorts live fat on government subsidies and protection. Huge companies control trade in some commodities on which tariffs are low or zero.
A year ago Don Brash laid down a challenge to the National party at its conference: did it really mean to constrain the government’s role and spending? If it did, Brash stated, some tough consequences would follow.
Brash laid out eight goals in a sort of credo. Among them:
* Hold government spending to its present level per person in inflation-adjusted terms. Over 10 years that would cut spending as a proportion of GDP by at least 5 per cent.
This month there will be much reminiscing on the 20th anniversary of the election of the fourth Labour government which turned this country inside out. But there is a 30th anniversary the National party might recall as it gathers for its conference on 9 July.
It was on that day in 1974 that Sir Robert Muldoon was elected National’s leader. It was a fateful appointment. The party is only now emerging from the after-effects.
It is a week for constitutional moments — in Baghdad yesterday and in Wellington on Thursday.
The Baghdad moment was the official handover by the American occupiers to an Iraqi regime. This is supposed to be a step towards a “democratic” Iraq.
If so, it will be a long journey. Iraq has no tradition of democracy, lacks a sufficient middle class on which to build democratic traditions and is riven deeply by religion and ethnically, three nations rather than one. And next-door Iran is fomenting discord.
At first sight James Buwalda looks and sounds a harmless chap: soft-spoken, slight of build, an easy target, you would think, for Murray McCully hunting a bureaucratic scalp.
Then you notice a set to Buwalda’s jaw that bespeaks determination and an inner toughness. That has been felt full force in the Labour Department, which he took over as chief executive a year ago and is radically restructuring.
Colin James’s speech to the NZ Veterinary Association, 25 June 2004
Start up Mount Taranaki in light clothing. Get lost in cloud, get very cold and get hypothermia. Expect a helicopter to come to the rescue, courtesy of the taxpayer. You are not responsible for your predicament and you count on the taxpayer to neutralise the risk you took.
Bill English is back. No, not the leader. The thoughtful, modern-conservative policy wonk.
Having mused on a career outside politics but not being of the age when cushy diplomatic posts or board appointments are bestowed, he has found redemption in education.
No, not his own. Others’. Though he has been educating himself in the process.
Speech by Colin James to the Institute of Directors, 16 June 2004
1. Start out on the right with Rodney Hide. His job is to make ACT credible: to ACT’s core supporters after a divisive leadership contest; to enough voters to get
ACT 5% of the party vote; to National as a realistic coalition partner. To do this Hide has to acquire gravitas and he has to project ACT’s core values while also commanding attention. He started well the day he was elected leader, declaring he would do less scam-hunting and more promotion of the market-liberal case.
ACT is polling around 2.5%. It has been that low before and recovered. But that was when National lacked credibility and a good number of National voters put their votes with ACT, either to ensure it got over the 5% or out of frustration with National. With Don Brash as leader National has higher credibility with those people so they will be less inclined to switch to ACT, especially if there is doubt it will be in Parliament after the next election.
At one early ACT conference Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble were the after-dinner act. It was a laugh a minute, smart, intelligent and sharp, a great evening’s entertainment.
Hide, you will gather from that, has a great sense of humour, irrepressible like the rest of his personality, plus a skill at sound bites. He has huge energy. He has bravery, bravado and braggadocio.
Stand by for the Labour-Green government. It is just one of many possible combinations but it is distinctly possible. It is one with important implications for business.
The Greens’ impact is already visible in the outcome of the agreement after the 2002 election to cooperate on transport legislation. The Land Transport Management Act bears the marks in its extensive consultation requirements, accent on sustainability and demand management and exhortation to walk and cycle.