Category: Pre-ODT Columns

Michael Cullen has set a platform for personal tax: at least this year’s levels. His promise to raise bracket thresholds in 2008 and every three years thereafter — but not cut rates — embeds the huge rise in tax over the past five years.

And the platform will likely rise. Cullen is to raise thresholds by 2 per cent a year, the midpoint of the Reserve Bank’s target. But since inflation has almost invariably run above the midpoint and since wages run faster than inflation, the thresholds will continue to fall behind and most taxpayers will year by year pay a higher cut of their income in tax. read more

OK, Michael Cullen’s had his pleasure. Now the party is ending, what has this Budget set up for himself — or John Key — for the next term?

This next three years is the crunch. After the 1984-92 policy revolution came 10 years of expenditure-side efficiencies and then the export and consumer booms of Labour’s lucky past few years. read more

We have got to know the boxer in the pink corner pretty well over the past five and a-half years. His sixth Budget tomorrow will run along well-worn tracks. But what about the guy in the light blue corner?

John Key is at last getting a frame around his thinking. He has left it a bit close to the election but there is now a set of principles to go with his determination to fire public servants and cut tax rates across the board — a switch he reckons at about 2 per cent of GDP (about $3 billion), if you add up the overs and unders. read more

The past is the present in politics. Rodney Hide and Judith Collins last week reasserted that as a principle. Heaven help half of Parliament.

Hide and Collins fronted accusations that David Benson-Pope’s past behaviour as a teacher was inconsistent with his promoting an anti-bullying programme.

Benson-Pope denied inappropriate behaviour. Some ex-pupils fronted, with their names, in support. But his accusers came out of the woodwork and he is out pending legal advice — yet another casualty in this cabinet. read more

An eerie transformation began to steal over Michael John Cullen’s features a few years back. He came to look more and more like the sainted 1935-40 Labour leader, Michael Joseph Savage.

But underneath there has been another transmogrification: Cullen’s Budget’s bear a passing resemblance to those of Sir Walter Nash, Labour’s first finance minister from 1935-49. read more

Winston Peters was at his worst/best last week, flaying Saddamist Iraqis and Paul Swain. The result was panic-policy to hunt down and throw out “undesirables”.

We are in pre-election mode. Good policy is made on evidence and taking a broad and long view. But near an election the telescope is turned round and the long view vanishes. read more

A notice in a South Island country pub bluntly tells guests: don’t drink the water from the tap. A sly way to boost bar sales? No. Just as in India, the water might make you sick.

Tell that to tourists. Then tell them “100 per cent pure”. It doesn’t add up.

Tell them why: we need more exports to pay for our lifestyle and dairy farms are export stars. But cattle wastes seep into our waterways and pollute them. read more

What to do with Australia? Easy: go out into the world together. Actually, that is not easy at all.

First, what is the world? Fifty years ago it was the north Atlantic rim. That was where the money was, where the power was and where “we” came from.

Now the “world” for Australasia is the western Pacific. That is where, increasingly, the money is and will be and where the power increasingly is and will be. read more

Yesterday was a time to reflect — on a defeat and a journey.

It is a journey in parallel with Australia, though Australians seldom see it that way and we have for long periods travelled wide apart from each other. And it has been a journey of many hesitations, only now gaining firm direction.

Gallipoli punctured the imperial triumphalism of a young, ultra-loyal colony. It scythed through the raw settlements. Worse followed on the western front. read more

If the government gets involved in business it is taking risks. That’s the nature of business. But should a government take risks with taxpayer money?

ACT’s Rodney Hide is adamant: it shouldn’t. Business is business and government is not business. Hide says the best contribution would be lower taxes, lighter regulation and less red tape. read more