Who said this and when: “Unless there is planning now for a good environment, economic progress will be hindered”.
Answer: the physical environment committee of the National Development Conference, (NDC) in April 1969.
Some things haven’t changed much in the 40 years this coming week since I first reported on politics — for the Dominion as it then was.
Michael Cullen is a very funny man, capable of a belly-laugh one-liner a minute for 20 minutes without notes. He is also a very deep man. As often as not, when the laughter had died and the wound had healed his one-liners were worth pondering.
Cullen is also a very smart man, the smartest politician I have dealt with. He is a man of strong values — what used to be called principles or ideals before managerial politics took over.
Here are three ways to mark Anzac Day: remember the dead; celebrate who we are; and know the potential for peril.
The first is less poignant now than half a century ago. Then war and its ruthless scything of young lives was a living memory for most at Anzac Day commemorations, the second world war being not long past. Most of the town turned out in sombre and thankful spirit.
John Key and Russel Norman have done a deal. It’s no big deal but it gives Key a green tinge. But is a tinge his limit?
The policy preoccupation, through this big downturn and beyond, is with saving, then growing, jobs and material welfare. Rich country leaders are drafting the next generation’s earnings (that is, borrowing) to buy jobs now.
It’s Easter. A time of redemption. But of what?
The traditional Christian Easter story is of the redemption of sins through a symbolic death.
In behind it lies a notion of reciprocity — debt and obligation. Maori call it utu. We each incur debts to others of widely varying sorts (including money) which create obligations to others. The “others” might include nature and, in green parlance, the planet.
Geoff Mulgan worked on Tony Blair’s “third way” for seven years. He thinks that in the changed world that comes out of today’s big mess there will be a bigger place for social innovation. He will bring that message here next week.
Mulgan is one of a growing number of heavyweights who think the world — at least, the rich world — will not, upon economic recovery, revert to how it was before debt got big and trust vanished and the financial system popped.
Mike Moore, Don McKinnon, Helen Clark: top multilateral jobs after top domestic jobs. What has New Zealand got?
First, connections and track record.
As trade minister in 1984-90 Moore was a great mixer, a vigorous proponent of free trade despite his early socialism and a perennial generator of a wide variety (and quality) of ideas — plus books to convey them. McKinnon resolved the Bougainville standoff with Papua-New Guinea.
State-owned enterprises make money for taxpayers. But do they make enough? John Key’s government wants more. But Key has “contracts” with the voters which limit his options.
SOEs were set up to be sold. For that they had to be turned into fully commercial operations, making profits and paying dividends to the taxpayer.
John Key take note: Kim Jong Il, whose dynasty has impoverished and starved his people, has been re-elected to North Korea’s legislative assembly with a 100 per cent vote. In a world that is in economic reverse, are the North Koreans on to something?
For two decades there has been anguish about our economy’s slide down the OECD wealth and output ladder. We are now in the bottom third of the 30-nation group. Miracle-economy Ireland, once a sick joke, roared past.
Commonsense is a common casualty of theory and ideology — and of policy when theory and ideology get too big a run.
The world is in a banking pickle because some brilliant mathematicians parted some excited bankers from commonsense with a formula which purported to reduce risk to once-in-a-universe-lifetime levels, provided there was a diversified portfolio. Commonsense would have advised a scan of history: there had been three of the sorts of events which falsified the formula in the previous 80 years.