TPP has many dimensions. That complicates any attempt at a cost-benefit analysis.
One dimension is time. The costs and benefits will be different in 15 and 25 years from those on year 1 or 5. Some, particularly some opponents, focus on the near-term impact and some, particularly some supporters, focus on the long-term impact.
There has been much talk this past week about New Zealand’s “special relationship” with Australia. Is there one?
Helen Clark found out how “special” it is when John Howard — with whom generally she got on — canned access by New Zealanders living in Australia to social assistance unless they were Australian citizens.
John Key told the Labour party to “man up” and back his Crosby/Textor flip-flop law change for an additional design on the flag referendum. Earlier this year he told Labour to “get some guts” and back his Iraq adventure.
But does Key “man up” under pressure?
Did he “man up” over his indiscreet comments to John Banks in the 2011 election campaign? Did he “man up” over unlawful spying on Kim Dotcom? Did he “man up” over his office employee’s conspiracy with Cameron Slater to slop dirt over his opponents?
A third-term government risks slipping into torpor and/or pothole-filling. Not the Key-English show.
Potholes have proliferated in the first 12 months of its third term: think of Nathan Guy (kauri logs), Sam Lotu-IIga (Serco), Nick Smith (iwi and housing land) — even John Key (ponytails, refugees, Saudi corporate beneficiary).
John Key has now twice been a figure of international fun. First, for ponying around. Now for his flag.
The Economist, a cheerleader for Key’s sort of economic policy, scoffed last Friday that “farce barely describes the process” for choosing a flag. “Many voters … find it distasteful that their country is being rebranded like a sagging brand of detergent.”
Christine Lagarde had a word last week for Graeme Wheeler’s rate cut this coming Thursday. Or, rather, she had a word for big guys but the little guys can listen too.
Lagarde heads the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some want her as the next United Nations Secretary-General. She told a meeting over the weekend of central bankers of the G20 big economies (Australia is a hanger-on) that they should hold off raising interest rates.
Investment was back in the news last week on two counts. But more by implication than design.
“Investment” has a ring of substance and responsibility. Spending is of the moment.
Was the budget decision to junk the $1000 kickstart for KiwiSaver an investment decision — assessing the return on the investment to be too low — or a spending decision — saving money to help Bill English to a better fiscal balance?
Third-term-itis is an insidious virus. The latest symptom is Michael Woodhouse’s worms/minigolf/curtain-hanging list of dangerous workplaces. The virus can detach from commonsense those it afflicts.
Woodhouse is actually a sensible fellow with a background in practical business management.
But he needed Peter Dunne’s vote for the exemptions in his workplace safety bill required by constituencies such as farmers, constituencies the cabinet must keep onside to get a fourth term. That required exemptions to the exemptions.
As global economic events get bumpier, Bill English is getting fonder of economic “resilience”. But that requires more resilient strategic policymaking.
Top of mind in the economy is the dairy crash.
John Key airily said early this year that what went down last year would go up this year. Instead it has plunged more. Now some economists talk of “recession” — qualified by “possible”, true, but a word nowhere to be heard six months ago.
Almost all laws are intended to change behaviour. What if behaviour doesn’t change or changes only a bit or in a way the lawmakers didn’t intend?
Government agencies are required to implement laws as they are. They tick off “outputs” ministers contract them to do. But increasingly the focus is turning to “outcomes” — actual measured change.