A video of the Maui creation myth set off the Valuing Nature conference last week. That was hardly the way to get feet-on-the-ground business to value natural capital seriously.
Then at the tea break conference-goers were shooed out to coffee by a deafeningly thumping soundtrack of an American-accented song about “nature”: a subliminal injunction, it seemed, to hammer nature, not value it.
You’re 30 and want to know how much government superannuation you will get when you hit 65 and whether you will get a new hip at 75? Tune in on Thursday for some clues on how to start working it out.
One calculation you probably will make is that you won’t get any government pension at 65 — that is, the qualifying age will rise well before 2048.
Australians habitually think of New Zealanders as backblock islanders, to be joked about at a bit more than Tasmanians. But Canberra is the place to find yokels right now.
Government and politics got to such a state in Australia last year that senior businesspeople were saying to New Zealand counterparts: “We wish we could have your government.” John Key and Bill English go over a treat there.
On Saturday Labour catches the long east fish again. Or so it reckons — or needs to reckon. If the fish escapes Labour’s net a hunger will set in.
And history tells us that if hunger turns to starvation, good souls can turn self-destructive or worse.
The first rule about by-elections is that not much can be read into them about the country’s state of mind. The second rule is that each party can read self-serving tea-leaf wisdoms into the result.
Labour used to be called the “class warfare” party. But it is now at risk of sharing that title — with the National party.
The latest addition to a series of workplace deregulatory law changes proposes that workers who strike or are locked out can be replaced. That builds on a change allowing proportionate docking of pay for strikes or go-slows. A raft of other law changes, some still before Parliament, make it increasingly difficult for employees to combine to negotiate wages and conditions. One, on treatment of workers when a contract is sold or transferred, is even opposed by a business lobby, the Building Services Contractors.
Another sparkling cameo on Friday and the curtain falling on a 30-year political performance, most likely for good. As we blink out of the political theatre into the dull winter daylight the Reserve Bank is grimly waiting.
Back in 1994 Peter Dunne’s ambition was to build a centre force. He oscillated between the two big power centres, twice in each side’s ministries. But even under MMP voters vote for or against a government (or make a statement against the governments on offer).
Yesterday was the official birthday of the most unequal person in our realm, the Queen. Inequality reigns, you might say.
Inequality also rules. The Queen is above politics. Inequality is embedded in politics. It will be a dividing line in next year’s election.
The cabinet is clear about its dominant objective: more and faster GDP growth. To that end, for example, it is radically reshaping the Resource Management Act and trampling over local councils, especially council staffs whom one senior minister calls “zealots” who stifle enterprise.
Two years ago at its Queen’s Birthday weekend conference the Green party agonised over whether to go into the government if asked. There will be no such agony this coming weekend — at least not at the leaders level.
Metiria Turei and Russel Norman are clear: if their side of politics gets the numbers in the next election they will be in a Labour-Green cabinet, provided only that they do not have so few MPs they lack real influence.
There are two time measures of a budget: what it does now and what it sets up for the longer-term. How did Bill English do last week?
Short-term — the next five years — he has set up a track out of fiscal deficits and into rising surpluses. Labour’s David Cunliffe on Friday detailed a list of nifty accounting manoeuvres that generate the microscopic 2014-15 surplus but that does not deny the trend. Labour’s David Parker on Friday reaffirmed Labour’s commitment to a 2014-15 surplus.
Last year’s budget stumbled on education. Class sizes were to rise to pay for more professional training of teachers. Middle class parents killed that. Bill English beat a humiliating retreat.
The policy came from the Treasury which had latched on to a germ of an idea. The public was not led through the argument so Hekia Parata’s hospital pass was to sell the unsellable.