Category: Pre-ODT Columns

The government is about to make one of the most critical decisions of its first term — maybe its whole life. It will decide policy on genetic modification (GM). Whichever way it jumps, there will be no way back to where we are now for a long time, perhaps eternity.

The cabinet will make this critical decision amidst a frenzy of lobbying and propaganda from GM’s opponents (who call it genetic engineering, which sounds more sinister) and proponents, some of whom have had the Prime Minister’s ear in recent weeks. read more

Jenny Shipley is gutsy. She showed that in a losing campaign in 1999. She showed it again on Monday night, conceding defeat to Bill English’s promoters. Can English match that gutsiness?

He will need to. He is now head to head with a hardened campaigner in Helen Clark, pragmatic to her back teeth when the public opinion chips are down. See how quickly she read the mood on troops for America. See how she wrapped herself in the flag over Air New Zealand. read more

This is a green government. That can’t be said too often and Marian Hobbs was at it on Monday evening, celebrating a decade of the Resource Management Act and promising “strong government leadership” to achieve the act’s objectives.

Her report card: “…enables communities to manage their environment . . . ground-breaking framework for achieving sustainability . . . largely successful, achieving a great deal to improve the environment.” And democratic: “If you provide people with a way to have their say, there will inevitably be disagreements.” read more

It looked an innocuous little measure, with a tightly limited purpose. But the bill enabling the Stock Exchange (NZSE) to demutualise contains within it some meaty issues that go to the heart of the government’s approach to regulation of the markets.

The New Zealand Stock Exchange Restructuring Bill is a “private bill” — that is, a bill (pro forma sponsored by Environment Minister Marian Hobbs as MP for Wellington Central, where the NZSE head office is) to empower it do what it cannot otherwise do lawfully. read more

Tomorrow Pete Hodgson will announce the government’s energy conservation strategy. It will be ambitious and far-reaching, digging into our wallets to save the planet from greenhouse gases.

More policies will follow. This government is determined to meet the Kyoto targets (though it appears set to eschew the option of genetic modification of fodder to tame this country’s worst offender, animal methane emissions). read more

Could any bunch of bumbling bureaucrats have done as badly with Air New Zealand as the private sector geniuses?

They’ve reduced a good little airline to an orphan on the taxpayer’s teat — maybe killed it. They’ve wrecked the livelihoods of thousands of decent Australians. They’ve tarnished the koru’s image and the country’s standing and put exports at risk. read more

Parliament has in the past week been expending much energy and hot air perpetuating an injustice. But could it have done differently?

Here’s the injustice. Had erstwhile ACC minister Ruth Dyson that fateful night last year crashed while driving over the alcohol limit and suffered a work-impairing head injury she would have received a state benefit (ACC) related to her six-figure income. read more

Commerce Minister Paul Swain will soon produce new car dealers legislation which will be more light-handed than the National government wrote. Last Wednesday he claimed to be responding positively to 90 per cent of his business compliance costs panel’s recommendations.

And, he said in an interview, the “tweaks” the government has been making to competition law has reached high tide. The re-regulation of the economy and social services to correct what the Labour party saw as market failures or inappropriate application of market principles will be completed next year. read more

Tom Scott once famously said that King Country was the sort of seat a gumboot could run for National and would win. Well, the gumboot in that seat got to be seven years Prime Minister, an able Ambassador in Washington and now New Zealand Post chair. What next?

Jim Bolger turned out no gumboot. A slow burner, perhaps. But this tortoise has plugged on past a lot of hares. The outsider became the ultimate insider. read more

Winston Peters is on to a good thing, eh?. Asian refugees will stop the greyhairs getting operations. Worth a few votes, that.

Except that this time he starts from the pits of micro-support, not the trampoline of rising stardom, as with Asian migrants in 1995-96. And he is up against a Prime Minister who, unlike Jim Bolger, is cogent with the media. read more