Kate Wilkinson unintentionally put her finger exactly on the issue over mining on conservation land. “Let’s stop all the grandstanding,” she said. The Economist magazine agreed.
Wilkinson, bottom-of-the-cabinet Conservation Minister, was bollocking green and political attacks on cabinet No 3 Gerry Brownlee’s mining ambitions. The Economist, reporting those ambitions, was bollocking the tourism industry’s “100 per cent pure” slogan, which Tourism Minister John Key extols.
Back in 2002 the Clark government made local councils responsible for the “social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing” in their areas and characterised that as a “power of general competence”. One mayor enthused that the “horse can now gallop round the paddock”.
The Reserve Bank again flagged on Thursday that it will start raising its official cash rate mid-2010 or thereabouts. We are getting back to “normal”. Or are we?
The Clark government thought “normal” was the post-2000 boom when the Treasury’s revenue estimates were falsified monthly by waves of unexpected cash (actually at base funded by excessive consumer and house-buyer borrowing). So, claiming Treasury authority for its view, it spent up, in part to outbid John Key’s 2005 promise of cornucopian tax cuts.
The government went big on investment this week — on infrastructure. It wants to go big on minerals investment. Will it go big on investment in children?
The best infrastructure, the biggest mineral bonanza, the lowest taxes and the best balanced regulation won’t catch Australia if too many children get a bad start in life. They are the Australia-catching future workforce.
ACT MPs have a message for their annual conference this weekend: ACT is making a difference in the government. But how much of a difference?
ACT isn’t the big-money, big-crowd party of the mid-1990s. It fits in a school hall. It depends on Rodney Hide to win Epsom with National party votes and needs all of Hide’s oomph to stay in business.
Don’t get excited. Simon Power is a measured man. If you want a change from MMP voting, you can’t till 2017. And then it might not be a big change.
The principled reason for a referendum on MMP is that it makes democratic sense to affirm or not the decision made in anger (against radical Labour and radical National) in 1992-93. You have had five elections to try it out and test its governments.
Between Bill English’s budget last May and John Key’s opening statement to Parliament on Tuesday the government lighted upon some rocket science: that innovation is critical to economic growth.
It’s not rocket science, of course. It’s commonsense. And it is a long way from the 2009 budget’s cut in research, science and technology (RS&T) funding. That was a puzzle, given that Key had contemplated taking the RS&T portfolio.
Today is a day drenched in symbols — for those who go looking for them. For most it is just Saturday. We don’t think enough of our “national” day to make it a weekday holiday.
Contrast that with our most respectful Monday-holiday commemoration of the Queen. Holiday-wise, she gets bigger billing than the nation. That is an intriguing symbol.
Phil Goff cooks sausages to a turn on the barbecue. But can he cook up a strategic future for Labour?
Here’s Labour’s record for the five decades years since the end of 1959: in government 19 years, out of government 31 years. Its best five decades were 1929-79, when it had 20 years in government, its worst just 12 in 1949-99. Of the 60 years since 1949 it has held office for 21 — one in three.
John Key said all last year he wanted a “world class tax system”. Now Bill English’s working group has granted him his wish, with a stern injunction to get on with it. This is his big first-term test.
When English told the Treasury and Victoria University’s Centre for Accounting Governance and Taxation Research to form a group to research tax reform, officials thought they would be doing some repairs. By August Bob Buckle’s group had convinced officials the system was “broken”.