Author: Colin James

Is Bill English, reformer, really investing?

In a pre-budget speech on Friday Bill English made much of “social investment”. It will be a central feature of the budget on May 21.

What is it? And is it really investment?

Throw in two other cues.

One is that John Key has said he wants his prime ministerial legacy to be what his government does for disadvantaged children. That in part stems from his own downscale period — though with a battler-mother who valued education and the sort of values that set a child up in life whatever the material start. read more

The "I" factor in fiscal political practice

When is a Prime Minister a political person and when the voice of the nation?

Opening the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington on April 18, John Key said: “I feel proud of the decision to make Pukeahu a reality…

“The commitment and dedication that has gone into creating this space reflects how strongly everyone involved wanted to ensure that the National War Memorial finally had the setting it deserved. read more

Mateship, sacrifice, a fair go and all that

Hands up if you agree that Anzac encapsulates “the unique qualities that gave birth to our national identity: courage, mateship, sacrifice, generosity, freedom and a fair go for all”.

I can see almost all hands are up. That is in the spirit of Anzac: the quote is from Australia’s Veterans Affairs Department saying what a gold logo it designed for approved firms’ use signifies. read more

The climate may be changing in climate change

After the world cricket cup superhyperbole comes heroic Gallipoli. Periodically New Zealand mutates into Jingoland.

On Saturday our soldier Governor-General and non-soldier Prime Minister open the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park. That day Te Papa launches “Gallipoli: The scale of our war”, designed by Weta Workshop’s Sir Richard Taylor, with videos. read more

Bloke or statesman: a choice with Easter overtones

When should the Prime Minister be a bloke? And when a statesman?

On the day of Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral John Key chose bloke over statesman to be with the New Zealand cricket team at the world cup final against Australia. Australia’s Tony Abbott chose the funeral.

Leave aside the jinx factor, at which in any case Steven Joyce is more practised, as in the America’s Cup and Northland by-election debacles. Sport does have a people-to-people dimension. (Again, leave aside Abbott’s adoption of his cricketers’ sledging in his standoff with Indonesia.) read more

History made, history celebrated, history-in-the-making

History was made on Saturday (and not made on Sunday). History will be celebrated tomorrow. Today a speech will touch on history-in-the-making.

Winston Peters’ win on Saturday is not simply local. To turn a 5691 September election night candidate majority over Labour-plus-Greens (there was no New Zealand First candidate) into a 4012 New Zealand First majority over National six months from the general election that generated that majority, is big. read more

A by-election can have some meanings

Some of the most thoughtful political writing these days is coming from — Peter Dunne.

Dunne, who leads, and is, United Future in Parliament, has been sounding more like he did in 1994, when debating breaking with Labour.

He then aimed to be a centre force in politics, perhaps even a power-broking Prime Minister between Labour and National in the impending MMP politics of coalition. He wanted to do that from a middling-liberal perspective. read more

A small country on the planet of the apps

Colin James to Golden Bay University of the Third Age and public meeting in Takaka, 20 March 2015

It’s 2015 and you have a health issue: the doctor will see you now.
Imagine it’s 2020: the robot will see you now.
Now stretch your mind to 2025: the customer (patient) will see you now.

This time travel is not as wildly fictional as it sounds at first hearing. The 2010s are a remarkable decade. The science and derivative digital technologies that gave us the transistor in 1947, the integrated circuit (which we now call the chip) in 1958, the ready-to-use personal computer in 1977, the public internet a decade later and the smartphone in 2007 has come of age. It is a new industrial revolution – but very much faster than the first in the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries. There is a loose parallel with the coming of age in the 1920s of the technologies developed from the science of electricity a century earlier which transformed many aspects of daily life. But this industrial revolution is much faster than that one, too. read more

Labour: will 2015 mark "the end of the beginning"?

Last week the Reserve Bank stayed stoutly within its orthodoxy. The Labour party’s challenge is to make a new orthodoxy from its old principles. Both have found mid-2010s realities don’t fit pre-2008 conventions.

The bank talked of its difficulty in “these days of unconventional monetary policy”. Labour’s 25 per cent last election told it that conventional Labour did not work. read more

Falling prices used to be a good thing

On Thursday Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler will pronounce on the economy’s track and where interest rates should or might go and when. He is likely not to cut the official cash rate (OCR) but the slope of any future rise has been getting less steep by the quarter and the start date more distant. read more