Superannuation and Government forecasts

Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, May 25th, 2015 - 197 comments
Categories: benefits, bill english, budget 2015, Economy, john key, kiwisaver, national, national/act government, Politics, same old national, slippery, superannuation, tax - Tags:

The media recently became excited after Andrew Little talked about how there should be a discussion about the future of superannuation.  In my personal view the discussion is perfectly appropriate and is becoming urgent.  National is playing political games with the issue and is boxing New Zealand long term into less and less palatable choices.  Our government is going to have to grapple with this issue sooner or later.

These two charts show the extent of the problem.  The first is from this Statistics New Zealand Paper and shows how the number of kiwis aged over 65 is accelerating.
Elderly population chart

The second shows a graph of the spend from 2005 to 2015 on National Superannuation (click on it for a legible copy).  Note the regular and gradually accelerating spend on superannuation.  The current budget alone allows for an increase of $668 million above last year’s spend.  I have not attempted to summarise other increasing costs such as Health and the Gold card but the cost of Health alone will also increase by significant amounts as the needs of an ageing population grows.

National Superannuation spend 2005 - 2015

National’s response to superannuation policy continues to be disappointing.  Bill English was questioned in a gentle way on Q&A last weekend about the budget.  He showed surprising numerical illiteracy by confusing averages with medians.  He acknowledges that the $25 per week payable to beneficiary families will be abated.  He also claimed that under the forecasts the Government is running National Superannuation remains affordable.

I presume that by “the forecasts” English is referring to Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update which runs forecasts out to 2019.  2020 would appear to be not within Bill’s contemplation.  Way to plan ahead Bill.

There needs to be a discussion about the future of Superannuation and the sooner this discussion occurs the better.  To ready itself for the baby boomer bulge Government can do three things, it can pay down crown debt to give it headroom to borrow more in the future, it can set up a dedicated superannuation fund to make the current scheme more affordable and it could set up a further scheme to persuade individuals to establish a nest egg to augment their retirement income.

Labour did all these things, paying off debt until we became a net creditor nation, establishing the Cullen Fund and setting up Kiwisaver.

What has National done?  Not only has it refused to even countenance any policy to make superannuation more affordable long term but it has run up significant debt, frozen grants to the Cullen Fund and made eight distinct cuts to Kiwisaver.

But we are in the strange situation where any discussion about changing superannuation attracts political opprobrium but refusal to do anything about the future is regarded as a political virtue.

It looks like the next Labour Government is going to have to do what past Labour Governments have always done, cleaned up the mess left by the outgoing National administration and plan for the future.

197 comments on “Superannuation and Government forecasts ”

  1. Gosman 1

    Does this mean you would be willing to support the proposal by Act party leader David Seymour to take the issue out of the realms of partisan politics and try and get change via taking it to the NZ people directly?

    • mickysavage 1.1

      I am at the stage where I think National should come up with a proposal. If they do not they should they should explain why. Seymour’s proposal is essentially a cop out. Politicians are elected to understand things and make hard decisions.

      • Gosman 1.1.1

        This issue is far too partisan and National has too much tied up with the topic at a personal level with Key for that. Both you and I might like National to front up on this subject but it is not politically advantageous for them to do so.

        • The Murphey 1.1.1.1

          All that is required is for [name the politician] to come out and succinctly explain the myths of ‘monetary scarcity’ and why there are in fact no funding ‘issues’ which can’t be easily solved

          Having done that they can outline the path to improved and free health care and educational facilities, free tertiary education, funding for sustainability R&D, social housing, food in schools as a starter for ten

          Enough of the lies

          No more political footballs

          • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.1.1

            +1

          • Gosman 1.1.1.1.2

            Goodo. I look forward to some left wing politician doing that in the near future.

            Which left wing politicial party do you think this person will come from considering none of them that I am aware of seems to promote these ideas?

            • Colonial Rawshark 1.1.1.1.2.1

              We’re working on it. The NZ Govt can choose never to run out of the ones and zeroes which are entered by keyboard strokes, to fund important socioeconomic priorities.

              • Lanthanide

                Yes, they can choose that. And other international trading countries may make their own choices in response, like, dropping the value of our dollar to 25C US, so that importing everything (including petroleum) becomes prohibitively expensive and the economy crashes.

                TANSTAAFL

                • Yep. Short term thinking; bugger the future, let the grand kids pay for our excesses.

                  • Lanthanide

                    Sure.

                    My point is that I don’t really know what would happen if we were to start printing money (although I can guess at some possible outcomes).

                    But just pretending that it is the solution to all of our problems and blindly assuming (and in some cases, asserting, as Draco does) that there won’t be any negative consequences (that could outweigh the benefits) is frankly naive.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Lanth – we can afford to have our currency drop to US65c or so.

                      And look at the Reserve Bank series for M1 and M2 money supply. We ARE producing copious amounts of new NZD year by year.

                    • Lanthanide

                      “We ARE producing copious amounts of new NZD year by year.”

                      Yes, and we’re doing it in a way that is acceptable to our foreign trading partners.

                      I agree the NZ $ could stand to fall to 65c. Where is your evidence that printing money will achieve that outcome, but no further fall?

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Lanth – you simply produce new money incrementally as good productive investment projects in NZ come up.

                      And yes, we need to do this in a way which is acceptable to our trading partners. One where they get a share as well. NB the BoJ, BoE, Fed, PBC, ECB are all printing money. Have the values of their currencies crashed?

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      But just pretending that it is the solution to all of our problems and blindly assuming (and in some cases, asserting, as Draco does) that there won’t be any negative consequences (that could outweigh the benefits) is frankly naive.

                      [citation needed]

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      I didn’t say there that there wouldn’t be any negative consequences, only that the economy wouldn’t crash.

                  • Colonial Rawshark

                    Yep. Short term thinking; bugger the future, let the grand kids pay for our excesses.

                    How many more lines can you steal from the US Republicans, TRP? Goes to show how neoliberal orthodox establishment thinking is.

                    Keep 250,000 NZ kids hungry right now because of a pretend future book keeping/spreadsheet problem.

                    • Lanthanide

                      How is it a pretend problem if the dollar crashes overnight and we can no longer afford petroleum? Will the hungry children be better off then, or merely in the same boat as everyone else?

                    • It’s not a pretend problem, CV, and your ad homs can’t disguise that. If we cripple our economy now, then those kids will be the ones who have to pay for the mistake. Kinda like we are still paying for the mistakes of Muldoonism a generation later. I know economics is a hard area of study, but you really should read up this stuff. The big problem is not the size of the economy, or the day to day value of the money. It’s the equitable sharing of the real wealth we do have. All you seem to be suggesting is ignoring reality and loading up debt for future generations to pay. Put it on the credit card. That’s the kind of thinking that is making an enemy of all our futures.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Lanth – please have a look at the RBNZ series for M1 and M2. Note how the money supply has been increasing rapidly for over ten years now. The economy has not collapsed. The NZ dollar has gone up, it hasn’t gone down. That is because the products NZ makes are in demand (as well as the NZD being in demand for financial speculation).

                      Please don’t fall for the fear mongering of TRP and the rest of the orthodox neolib establishment thinkers who are stuck in the debt-based money creation paradigm. The main question you should be asking yourself – is how NZ should be investing in productive capabilities, goods and services in order to make best investment use of an increased money supply.

                    • Ad homs can’t disguise your economic ignorance, CV. The weird part of your position is just how conservative it is. You want the economy briefly tilted to benefit a few, but you require the majority to pay for that shift for a generation or more. We’ve done that already in the seventies and it was pants then and its pants now.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      More people are figuring out the answers for themselves TRP. I have no problem if you can’t.

                    • Lanthanide

                      @ CV: I never denied we were printing money.

                      You can’t have it both ways: either what you are suggesting is a brand new thing that we are currently not doing, or what you are suggesting is exactly what we are already doing.

                      Clearly the latter doesn’t make sense, so you are suggesting the former.

                      So to say “we are already printing money and it hasn’t crashed the economy”, when you are advocating for a different ‘way’ of printing money, is disingenuous.

                      So I’ll say it even more plainly: you have not adequately explained how your ‘way’ of printing money is not going to cause negative impacts on the NZ economy in the short, medium or long term.

                    • infused

                      NZ dollar goes down, COG goes up. Since most of my services come in the form of USD, all my customers pay more. Since they pay more, you will pay more. You are good at this CV.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      So I’ll say it even more plainly: you have not adequately explained how your ‘way’ of printing money is not going to cause negative impacts on the NZ economy in the short, medium or long term.

                      Fine. I’ll counter in this way. Show me any evidence you have that one ‘way of printing’ money into the NZ economy has greater negative impacts than the other – whether it is $100M spent into the economy by Chinese house buyers, or $100M of consumer credit extended into the economy by the ANZ, or $100M of new money spent into social services by the Government, or $100M being moved from savings into expenditure by an aging retiree population.

                      My position is that on a macro level – each of these is fairly similar (though not identical) in effects re: negative impact on inflation and FX depression.

                    • Lanthanide

                      I’m not the one advocating change, I don’t have to prove anything.

                      And, even if I agree that there could be benefits in moving away from the current system, that doesn’t mean that your proposal is the system we should move to.

                • Draco T Bastard

                  And other international trading countries may make their own choices in response, like, dropping the value of our dollar to 25C US

                  That’s about where the NZ$ should be. Why do you oppose this correction of our over-valued dollar?

                  so that importing everything (including petroleum) becomes prohibitively expensive and the economy crashes.

                  It won’t crash at all. We’ll just have to look to produce stuff ourselves which would probably boost employment and other economic activity which would probably start to boost the value of the NZ$ on the forex.

            • Enough is Enough 1.1.1.1.2.2

              Draco should

              He should stand and put his brilliant ideas up for the population of New Zealand to decide what is the best way forward…

            • Bill 1.1.1.1.2.3

              Which left wing politicial party do you think this person will come from considering none of them that I am aware of seems to promote these ideas?

              Nicola Sturgeon & Scottish National Party.
              Natalie Bennett & English and Welsh Green Party
              Patrick Harvie & Scottish Green Party
              Leanne Wood & Plaid Cymru

              Add to that some Labour back-benchers, various (as yet) unelected parties. Look at it in the light of soaring membership numbers for all of those parties plus massive electoral success for some.

              Then reflect that NZ tends to be a fast follower of UK politics.

              • dukeofurl

                The SNP is the only party achieving ‘massive success’. But we are still talking around 5% of the votes. FPP may give you more seats but it also ignores you totally as even labour doesnt get much look in the Commons with their 30%.

                Its even more bizarre as the SNP wants to keep the pound currency, so no chance of any independent currency and the only feasible alternative is the euro.

                Which left wing party is going to promote these ideas ?
                Unless you are writing policy for SNP that they dont know about, they arent doing this either.

                • Bill

                  FPP is a pig of a system and one the SNP want changed even though they’d get fewer seats. They received 50% of the vote where people could vote for them btw. They may yet pick up Orkney and Shetland, taking their tally to 57 out of 59, when Carmichael resigns over the ‘Sturgeon wants Cameron’ leak.

                  Meanwhile – and the last points I’m willing to stray off-topic on – the pound is Scotlands pound as much as it’s Englands and a proportional voting system for the UK would have to take into account ‘weightings’ to reflect the fact that the UK is comprised of four nations with at least two of them in a Union suggestive of equality.

                  Back on point. The parties I listed satisfy the list put up by ‘The Murphy’ that ‘Gosman’ appeared to challenge as unrealistic.

                  Do you have anything to say on that front?

                  • Colonial Viper

                    Scotland should not try independance without becoming its own currency sovereign- that is, become the sovereign issuer of a currency, not just a user of it like a province or a county is.

                  • dukeofurl

                    Pig of a system, that they want changed /

                    Thats a funny one. The MMP system for Holyrood which gave SNP a majority with 69 seats even though the second vote for party was only 44%!!!!

                    ie they got 53% of the seats even though the list MPs was supposed to balance out and give proportionality. They got 12-13 MSP than proportionality would allow

                    Cant see SNP changing the non proportional system they have in Scotland that puts them in power.
                    The greens with 4.4% of the vote get 2 Mps out of 129. It should be at least 5 if it was a real proportional system

                    [Do you have anything at all to say that’s related to the topic of the post? Any more diversion trolling and your gone for a wee holiday.] – Bill

          • Gosman 1.1.1.1.3

            Why do you think a radical left wing party like Syriza in Greece isn’t promoting this as a solution to their problem given it seems such an obvious solution to trying to fund social spending when there is not enough revenue to cover expenditure and they were meant to represent a major break with the past?

            • Colonial Rawshark 1.1.1.1.3.1

              Greece is not a currency sovereign; none of the Eurozone countries are.

              • The lost sheep

                If just printing your own is such a straightforward solution, why hasn’t Greece already given the Euro the flick and started cranking out Drachma’s?

                • Colonial Rawshark

                  This topic and the limitations around Greece moving to a “New Drachma” has been well covered in the international financial press.

                  • Gosman

                    The issue seems to be that the Greeks want to have their cake (The Euro) and be able to eat it too (spend as much as they like).

                    • Colonial Viper

                      thats true and it isnt going to work…

                    • dukeofurl

                      The Greeks learnt from the Germans after WW1, if you kick up enough fuss no need for reparations. The Germans even tried deliberate hyper inflation to reduce the payments owed.

                      Financially they are in an impossible situation. Thats what bankruptcy is for.

                      Excluding interest payments the greek government runs a surplus.

                      the reality is most of the external debt has been onsold at a fraction of its value ( one of the reasons for Cyprus meltdown, they bought Greek debt cheaply from the original holders)

                      Happened when General Motors went bankrupt, those that held unsecured bonds lost most of their money ($27 bill) and ended up with 10% shares of the new GM.
                      Shareholders lost everything of course.

                • “If just printing your own is such a straightforward solution, why hasn’t Greece already given the Euro the flick and started cranking out Drachma’s?”

                  Because it’s madness, obviously. If it wasn’t, I’d pay my bills with photocopies of twenty dollar notes. What we really need is economic responsibility, balancing macro-economics with social gains. Sadly, we haven’t had anything near it since 2008.

                  • Colonial Rawshark

                    Yes, let’s hear more orthodox neo-classical economic thinking from establishment loyalists.

                    Or, we can have nations empower themselves by regaining the power of being currency sovereigns.

                    • Gosman

                      Seems very much like what Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF used to spout off about just prior to them destroying their own currency and ending up being forced to rely on the USD and the South African Rand.

                    • Colonial Viper

                      its totally different: money which is created has to be done so on a limited basis and then carefully invested in people and in productive enterprise, just like any other monies.

                    • Gosman

                      Those are meaningless terms C.V. Every politician on the planet believes they could control the situation to only have positive outcomes. You have essentially stated the same thing.

                      Would you print money to pay benefits? If so when do you get the money back from them?

                    • And yet more moronic ad homs. Seriously, CV, try arguing the points.

                      Here’s one; is your economic idea around money not just another form of economic orthodoxy? It doesn’t change anything on a macro level, does it? It doesn’t sweep away capitalism, it seeks to adapt it. If I’m correct, then all you are suggesting is a bandaid on a broken leg, economically speaking.

                    • Colonial Viper

                      Gossie – taxes are used to pull money which is being spent in general circulation back into the treasury.

                    • Colonial Viper

                      TRP – yes, it uses and maintains capitalism, it also maintains some structural inequality in the economy. In that sense these proposals are compatible with Labour establishment thinking.

                    • Gosman

                      Ultimately then you have a similar situation as you have today if you rely on Taxation to reduce the extra money in circulation that comes in to being due to the printing of the money to fund the spending. The only real difference from your solution to the current situation then becomes how investment is funded. Under your situation investment flows from Central government rather than from the private sector. Personally I think this is a terrible idea but go ahead and push for it if you think it is worthwhile.

                    • Cheers, CV. That’s how I see it too. If the solutions don’t address the fundamental problem (capitalism) then they can only be temporary at best. That’s kinda the point I was making; short term alternatives (such as Muldoon’s Think Big and wage/price freeze) only put off the day of reckoning.

                      The globalisation of the world’s economy means that individual countries really don’t have much ability to find unorthodox solutions. That’ll get harder still if we sign the TPPA, obviously.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Cheers Gossie. BTW I see an important and continuing role for private sector credit provision in the future as well.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Well TRP, I think our next set of economic solutions have to be ones which can work within a capitalist framework because that is what we have to work with at the moment.

                  • Draco T Bastard

                    Because it’s madness, obviously.

                    No it’s not. Your faith in the status quo is.

                    For a nation to go to a full sovereign currency that doesn’t bring about hyperinflation a number of things need to happen:

                    1. Private banks need to be prevented from creating money. They only get to on loan reserve currency
                    2. The setting of tax rates needs to be removed from government and put to the central bank via some sort of mathematical formula. Note, I said tax rates, government would still set what’s taxed. Government can only create money to spend into the economy
                    3. Banning of offshore ownership
                    4. Capital controls. Specifically, nothing in NZ can be sold for anything other than NZ$

                    This way we’d end up with both a more stable economy and one that’s more dynamic and innovative.

                    • I have no faith in the status quo. Haven’t had since I was as kid. But I also have no faith in your isolationist model either. It’s not going to fly in the current world conditions, because we currently still need to trade and like it or not, that trade is done in cooperation with other nations and blocks, who must also have trust in the monetary representation of ur countries worth. That is, the money must have actual value. Your suggestion has worked in the past, and I suppose is more or less used in some countries currently, but it’s not a runner for an export led country.

                      However, you seemed to have missed my point anyway, Draco. Which is that printing money in the way that has been suggested by others in this and related threads (ie not pinned to value) is madness. Certainly the repeated references from one commenter to running out of digital zeroes and ones is charmingly naive at best.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Which is that printing money in the way that has been suggested by others in this and related threads (ie not pinned to value) is madness.

                      Nah it’s you who have missed the point. It’s the current system of privatised credit creation and central bank money printing which is not pinned to economic and human value. You can see it in the financial bubbles being blown up large all across the world. You can see it in how an Auckland house makes more money in a week than a worker can in a month. You can see it in how the net worth of the 1% has been growing stupendously while the net worth of the bottom 50% has been collapsing.

                      The criticisms you wrongly aim at NZ acting like a true currency sovereign are in fact truer as criticisms of the current system of money creation.

                      I have no faith in the status quo.

                      You’re an establishment loyalist. The establishment system has treated you well so why not. It’s quite understandable. You don’t like radical ideas and you don’t like concepts which threaten the status quo. But the era of pretense is quietly ending and NZ needs to position itself for the coming resource and energy crunch.

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      That is, the money must have actual value.

                      Money has no value and never has had. It’s merely a tool to assist in getting the economy working and not very good one at that.

                      And as CV points out:

                      The criticisms you wrongly aim at NZ acting like a true currency sovereign are in fact truer as criticisms of the current system of money creation.

                      That’s been proven time and time again and yet you still persist in believing the tripe of the status quo.

                      Bryan Gould: Teaching the Facts

                      The money that banks lend has virtually nothing to do with the savings deposited with them. The volume of their lending, which goes on rising hugely year on year, is many times greater than the sums deposited with them, and is the result of a power that banks, alone amongst “financial intermediaries”, possess – the power to create new money out of nothing by making a bank entry that becomes a deposit (and therefore spendable money) in the account of the borrower.

                      This point has of course been well-established on many occasions in the past, and has recently been most authoritatively re=asserted, as noted above, by the Bank of England. It is of the utmost importance. It is the most significant single element in the consideration of monetary policy and its truth invalidates almost all of the macro-economic policy we currently apply.

                      What CV and I have suggested is nowhere near as radical as private banks creating money without limit or restriction. Under the prevailing conditions where does the value of money come from?

                      And, yes, I did note that you didn’t address anything I said.

                    • mikesh

                      [Money has no value and never has had. It’s merely a tool to assist in getting the economy working and not very good one at that. ]

                      In one of his books Michael Lewis tells us about some American who bought $20 million worth of nickels. Apparently the value of the metal in each coin was greater than its face value.

                  • Tracey

                    ” I’d pay my bills with photocopies of twenty dollar notes.”

                    Not quite. That would be a crime of forgery and counterfeit.

            • mikesh 1.1.1.1.3.2

              The Greeks will probably do so when they’ve defaulted, abandoned the euro, and returned to the drachma. Assuming of course they don’t adopt the ruble instead 🙂

          • Colonial Rawshark 1.1.1.1.4

            The Murphey: +1

            How on earth can the NZ Government, which issues NZ dollars out of thin air, ever run out of the ones and zeroes for doing so?

            If Labour cannot get its head around this and how there is going to be decreasing levels of paid employment in the future (and what paid employment there is, will be of decreasing quality) then of course it will pick reductions in benefits to “balance the books” every time, even though there is no need to do so.

            • The Murphey 1.1.1.1.4.1

              There will be a large number of sitting MP’s who understand the lies they are peddling and the reasons why they are lies

              If exposing the lies gets ‘you’ ‘suicided’ so be it you signed up for the job now stop being an accomplice and enabler to murder / war / poverty creation and human suffering…

              Own it

        • Tracey 1.1.1.2

          Yea, so you voted ACT knowing that one of their policies (which you support) could never get through, delaying one thing you think is crucial for New Zealand in the future?

          • Gosman 1.1.1.2.1

            You keep bringing this up as if Act’s very much junior role in government means I should not vote for them because they can’t get their policy platform adopted by the National Party. It seems very FPP type thinking. I’ve also asked you which political party should I vote for given my obvious political views and the parties that are out there in the NZ political landscape.

            • tracey 1.1.1.2.1.1

              Labour campaigned on raising superann age but you voted for a party that could never achieve that given its reliance on National to exist. It’s your choice, just a little wrong-headed is all.

      • KJT 1.1.2

        Politicians are elected to ‘represent’, us!

        It is called, Democracy!

    • Tracey 1.2

      Do you agree with Seymour that we need to raise the age of Superannuation entitlement?

      • Colonial Rawshark 1.2.1

        Labour is a representative of the monetary and fiscal orthodoxy which has been driving world economics for the last 30 years.

      • Gosman 1.2.2

        Yes I do. Are you now going to argue I shouldn’t be voting for Act because they can’t get National to agree to this?

        • tracey 1.2.2.1

          Are you going to say “who should I have voted for?” Cos I am going to say Labour campaigned on raising the super age., So, I guess it really isn’t all that important to you afterall.

          • Gosman 1.2.2.1.1

            Labour also campaigned on a bunch of policies that I disagreed with. So following your own logic I’d be in the same situation I am now in that I would have voted for a party that would be implementing policy I don’t like.

            • Tracey 1.2.2.1.1.1

              Yes. So, it’s about priorities. And clearly raising the super age is way down your list. Which is fine. We all make compromises.

  2. lefty 2

    There needs to be a discussion about UBI, not the superannuation.

    Starting with the symptoms of a broken system can only lead to even more problems and poverty.

    There needs to be a discussion about transformational economics, not the zombie economics that decree superannuation is going to be an unaffordable burden on future generations.

    • Colonial Rawshark 2.1

      Spot on. Labour is on a track to perpetuating the problems brought about by the thinking of the last 30 years.

      The NZ Government is the sole issuer of NZ dollars in the world. How is it that the NZ Government can ever run out of NZ dollars to fund important and productive socioeconomic priorities?

      Does the referee in a rugby game between Japan and the All Blacks ever run out of points to be put on the score board? Does the ref ever say – hey I have no more points in my pocket any more, no matter what you players do on the field I have run out of points to award you for your performance and hard work on the field, so just stop.

      It’s a fucking ludicrous – and dangerous – misconception that our political class is running with.

      • mickysavage 2.1.1

        What about hyper inflation?

        • Tracey 2.1.1.1

          Do you think someone born with a disability preventing them from working OR preventing them from working in higher wage jobs should be on subsistence until they get to 65 (if their condition allows them to live that long) to get a payrise to 65% average wage?

          • mickysavage 2.1.1.1.1

            I am veering towards a UBI. But to finance it will require some fairly fundamental changes.

            I initially supported increasing the age of retirement but have changed my mind. I am not sure that universality is affordable.

            I would like the major parties to debate the issue. Right now National is refusing to.

            • Tracey 2.1.1.1.1.1

              Mr Savage 😉 that was a politician’s answer. You didn’t mention the specific class of people I asked you about.

            • Colonial Rawshark 2.1.1.1.1.2

              Hi MS

              “What about hyper-inflation”

              Good question.

              Hyper-inflation occurs when you do not invest new money created into producing additional productive enterprises, technologies, knowledge and services, but instead greatly increase the money supply with no corresponding increase in supply of valued goods and services.

              The Auckland housing market is actually an example of asset near-hyper-inflation in action.

              The approach should be: when you create money you then invest that new money in developing new capacity, new productivity and new service provision – essentially building up levels of competition and capacity in your economy – hyperinflation will not occur because while money supply is on the up so is the supply of useful goods and services to the population and overseas.

              If we look at 2 recent examples of hyper inflation which are oft quoted by the Right – the Weimar Republic and Zimbabwe – we can see that those governments were in a situation where they printed large amounts of money while their productive economies and manufacturing were destroyed, and they did not invest that new money in creating more productive enterprises and developing real resources. Of course, in a situation like that, hyperinflation will result as large amounts of new money are chasing a very limited amount of worthwhile goods.

              Again quite like the Auckland housing market.

              I trust that we can do better than that because Kiwis actually want to build the nation up and create new capabilities and capacity within NZ.

              • John

                If printing money as you suggest worked, then it would be a simple successful solution that every country on the planet could use, and there would be no economic problems anywhere.

                Which is why it is globally thought of as something failed states do when their dictators are totally desperate to hold onto power.

                • vto

                  What planet are you on?

                  Pretty much all money is printed. Your failed states list would need to include the USA, the UK, the EU, Japan, the list goes on …..

                  wake up fulla

                  • John

                    Clearly you don’t understand the difference between Quantitative Easing and printing money.

                    Firstly, here is a few thousand explanations of why they are not the same –
                    https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=difference+between+printing+money+and+quantitative+easing&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=gWliVdGFKIjw8gWni4DYAg

                    And secondly, even with the most positive examples you can find , you’re still suggesting copying economic policies of countries whose economies are performing WORSE than ours.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Clearly you don’t understand the difference between Quantitative Easing and printing money.

                      QE is a fancy name for pumping lots of new money into large financial institutions. No difference to new money creation.

                      And secondly, even with the most positive examples you can find , you’re still suggesting copying economic policies of countries whose economies are performing WORSE than ours.

                      That’s because I am not suggesting “QE”. I am not suggesting we do what these other countries have been doing. Please pay attention. I am suggesting that we can create money if it is required for investing in our people and our nation.

                    • John

                      Colonial Raweshark says

                      “Please pay attention. I am suggesting that we can create money if it is required for investing in our people and our nation.”

                      Colonial Rawshark says

                      “WTF are you on about? Who said anything about “banknotes”? ”

                      No point me joining the argument when you’re frantically selfdebating.

                      And why are you worried about increasing superannuation costs when you think the govt can just make some more money?

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Politicians (and yourself) need to start focussing on planning and delivering the physical, concrete socioeconomic priorities for the nation in the context of real energy and resource limits, and stop worrying about the self imposed and arbitrary limits of how many electronic ones and zeroes we keep on computer spreadsheets.

                • Colonial Rawshark

                  Please read my comment before you write. If you have a question to ask about my comment I will endeavour to answer it.

                  Also note that the Fed, the ECB, the BOJ, the BOE and the PBC have all been printing copious amounts of new money. Are you now calling all those states failed dictatorial states?

                  Snap VTO

                • Tracey

                  John

                  “Which is why it is globally thought of as something failed states do when their dictators are totally desperate to hold onto power.”

                  Like Mr Cameron and Mr Obama?

                  • John

                    As I said earlier, clearly you’re ignorant of the differences between quantitative easing and printing money.

                    Printing money often seems to be promoted by people who think getting something for doing nothing is a normal situation – and this is just a bigger version.

                    • Tracey

                      You’re ok with quantitative easing then? Just not printing money?

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      John who is suggesting that this will be ‘money for nothing’? Really, only you and TRP are the ones suggesting that.

                      I am suggesting that the money is created by the Government where it can be invested in productive enterprises and activities which build up the nation. The capabilities and skills of our people can also be expanded in order to build up the value of human capital in NZ.

                      Why are you against that?

                    • Gosman

                      I suspect your definition of productive enterprises and activities which build up the nation is so broad as to be meaningless.

                      Are benefit payments an example of activities that build up the nation?

                      Is education an example of an activity that builds up the nation?

                      Is Health spending an example of an activity that builds up the nation?

                      If you think they are then you are basically stating that virtually the entire spend of the Government’s budget could be funded via printing money.

                    • John

                      Colonial Rawshark – you are totally confused.

                      If you want to build infrastructure, you can use money that has an actual value. It represents work done, products made, and tax paid.

                      If you use freshly made money, it represents nothing. If you print 100% more money, you haven’t suddenly got 100% more production. All you’ve done is make $20 billion represent exactly the same work, assets and products worth what $10 billion previously represented.

                      You’ve created 100% inflation, and effectively stolen 50% off everyone.

                      If it worked, every govt everywhere could just print money and use if for everything.

                      Even the extreme left Greens have realised it a dumb idea and dropped it.

                    • Gosman

                      John,

                      It is pretty much exactly the policy that Zanu-PF followed in the early 2000’s to help fund their land reform programme. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe printed Zimbabwe dollars hand over fist and handed them out to the “Productive” sector as loans or just as grants.

                      Of course I suspect those advocating the policy here would argue that they were not doing it correctly hence why it led to massive hyperinflation. People promoting such ideas always blame the failure on something other than the policy itself..

                    • John

                      Gosman,

                      I had some friends living in Harare at the time. Any money earned had to be spent in a day or two as within a week it would only buy half as many goods.

                      I was there two years ago and have some souvenir one hundred trillion dollar notes ($100,000,000,000,000 – now worthless except as souvenirs).

                      When I worked there is the early 90s, the exchange rate was $6z to $1US

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      As I said earlier, clearly you’re ignorant of the differences between quantitative easing and printing money.

                      There is no difference you ignoramus.

                      If you want to build infrastructure, you can use money that has an actual value. It represents work done, products made, and tax paid.

                      All money in circulation is fiat.

                    • John

                      Draco T Bastard needs to go to thousands of investment experts and business schools around the world and tell them they are all wrong –
                      “There is no difference you ignoramus.”

                      Yet the Investopedia definition says “Quantitative easing is considered when short-term interest rates are at or approaching zero, and does NOT involve the printing of new banknotes.”

                      http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quantitative-easing.asp

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      “printing of new banknotes”

                      WTF are you on about? Who said anything about “banknotes”? Why are you trying to obfuscate what the real issues are?

                      To be more precise: all this new money, many trillions of dollars worth since the GFC, has been generated electronically by keystrokes.

                    • Colonial Rawshark

                      Colonial Rawshark – you are totally confused.

                      If you want to build infrastructure, you can use money that has an actual value. It represents work done, products made, and tax paid.

                      If you use freshly made money, it represents nothing. If you print 100% more money, you haven’t suddenly got 100% more production. All you’ve done is make $20 billion represent exactly the same work, assets and products worth what $10 billion previously represented.

                      You’ve created 100% inflation, and effectively stolen 50% off everyone.

                      What the hell are you talking about? Who is looking to print 100% more money? You’re an idiot. Consider the proposals seriously or fuck off.

                      The Crown need never run out of funds for important and productive economic and social investment. That is the bottom line.

                      Stop trying to obfuscate.

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      Wow, John, now you’re just lying. Quoting from your own link:

                      An unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply. Quantitative easing increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital in an effort to promote increased lending and liquidity.

                      And that was actually the beginning part of the paragraph you quoted. I take it you didn’t like the fact that it said that Quantitative Easing increased the money supply – exactly as I said it did the same way that the government creating money would.

                    • mikesh

                      If I have $100 I can either keep it in a demand deposit account at a bank, or I can carry it around in my wallet in the form of notes and coins. So the percentage of notes and coins in the money supply is determined by popular preference. It’s probably better therefore for the country if we use notes and coins as much as possible because the seigniorage on these goes to the government rather than to the privately owned banks.

                      No doubt this would be an argument against becoming a “cashless” society.

                    • Draco T Bastard

                      If I have $100 I can either keep it in a demand deposit account at a bank, or I can carry it around in my wallet in the form of notes and coins.

                      The same is true of digital currency as well. As an example I have an on call account which is the equivalent of cash and a savings account which is the equivalent of a term deposit.

                      No doubt this would be an argument against becoming a “cashless” society.

                      Nope. Seigniorage would still apply to government created money if it was digital and would cost less both in monetary and resource terms.

                      Ergo, no difference between cash and cashless.

                  • mikesh

                    [Nope. Seigniorage would still apply to government created money if it was digital and would cost less both in monetary and resource terms.

                    Ergo, no difference between cash and cashless.]

                    True. But governments don’t seem to create digital money these days.

                • KJT

                  It was also what the USA and NZ did, in the 1930’s, successfully I may add, to get out of the depression.

            • Enough is Enough 2.1.1.1.1.3

              “I initially supported increasing the age of retirement but have changed my mind. I am not sure that universality is affordable.”

              You were pre-election a strong advocate of increasing the eligibility age. What has changed? Do you change your mind with what current labour policy is?

            • KJT 2.1.1.1.1.4

              One of the wealthiest, in resources, per capita, countries in the world cannot afford to feed and house all it’s people.

              Bullshit.

  3. alwyn 3

    Can anyone explain why the Labour Party claim we have to put money into the Cullen Fund, to help pay for future superannuation but that we should convert ACC, which also has increasing future liabilities, into a pay-as-you-go system?
    Why, if we have to finance now the Super can we not do the same with ACC obligations? What is there about Andrew Little that lets him propose such divergent views?

    There is, in my opinion one very simple reason for scrapping the Cullen fund completely. Neither the New Zealand First, the Green Party nor the Labour Party appear able to keep their grubby little paws of the money. All of them are seeing the fund, not as a means of financing future Super obligations, but as a means of financing their stupid “investment” schemes in things they think are “socially desirable” but that no sane person would put their own money into.
    The Green Party, and even more stupidly New Zealand First, are probably worst in that they seem to think people’s KiwiSaver balances are theirs to throw around in the same way and that they can decide where investments will be made..

    • mickysavage 3.1

      The Cullen fund was to make superannuation more affordable in the future.

      Labour put into place full funding of ACC. Remember the claims of crisis cooked up by National when a change in accountancy standards and rates of return increased the cost of full funding?

      The Cullen fund is performing very well and the returns are good.

      Labour has always said the Cullen Fund should be for superannuation.

      And how responsible do you think English’s and Key’s stance on Superannuation is?

      • alwyn 3.1.1

        “Labour put into place full funding of ACC”.
        Why then does Andrew Little want to scrap any future funding at all? He doesn’t just want to scrap full funding of ACC. He wants to scrap any prior funding at all that would help to meet ACC’s future obligations. Why ACC and not Super?

        “Labour has always said the Cullen Fund should be for superannuation”
        Yes but the more money that is in the fund the more they swing toward wanting to bias its investment decisions to favour their desires. Look at Winston’s comments that he would order it to buy up all the power company’s shares or the Greens that it should provide the funds for public transport.

        ” how responsible do you think English’s and Key’s stance on Superannuation is”
        I think that it is quite supportable to provide universal payments, under the current system, to all New Zealanders from the age of 65. We can afford it and we don’t need anything like the Cullen Fund.
        You do realise, don’t you, that the only real way it could help meet its future obligations is by selling off all the assets and running the fund down to nothing at some time in the future? Do you want that?

        • mickysavage 3.1.1.1

          Don’t confuse the raising of issues with policy. Progressives tend to want to debate all options. Conservatives hate doing so.

          • Gosman 3.1.1.1.1

            A rather generalised statement devoid of a basis in reality I would suggest.

        • Lanthanide 3.1.1.2

          “Why ACC and not Super?”

          They’re different things?

          ACC pays for accidents, which happen at a fairly constant and predictable rate across a population.

          Superannuation pays for people retiring. The difference is that we know from the demographics that there is going to be a massive bulge in superannuation costs in the future. But the costs for ACC aren’t likely to raise like that at all (although we should expect an increase in accidents to go hand-in-hand with an aging population).

          The cost bulge being faced by superannuation is entirely different from the outlook for ACC.

          It would be silly to expect that a one-size-fits-all approach must be used to solve what are quite clearly different problems.

        • Tracey 3.1.1.3

          Why do you think ACT supports raising the age? Just part of their general notion that nothing should be subsidised?

          • KJT 3.1.1.3.1

            Just part of their general principle that any “economic unit” should not have a right to survive if it is not making money.

            They do not see the obvious conclusion. If they applied that logic to themselves. Non-contributing anti-social parasites like themselves would be the first to starve, in their ideal society.

    • Tracey 3.2

      Isn’t it cool we have heaps of money in both to have the argument about.

  4. Draco T Bastard 4

    There needs to be a discussion about the future of Superannuation and the sooner this discussion occurs the better.

    There needs to be a discussion but not specifically about Superannuation. We actually need to discuss our economic system and why it’s not providing the best possible outcomes for NZ despite the fact that we do have the resources available.

    Why are people going hungry?
    Why are people homeless?
    Why is it, when we have so much work to do to change our energy generation mix to decrease GHG emissions, that we have ~6% of the workforce unemployed?

    We can ‘afford’ the increasing number of people who may want to retire because we do have the resources but that requires putting in place the automation necessary to reduce the number of people in work that’s not needed so as to free them up to do work that is. In other words, real economics rather than the delusional stuff that we have now that only rewards the few.

  5. Corokia 5

    Superannuation, Climate Change, National don’t do long term thinking for the public good.

  6. Tracey 6

    “New Labour leader Andrew Little says the party should not go into the 2017 election with raising the superannuation age and introducing a capital gains tax on its slate….

    He told reporters Labour’s policies to raise the age for New Zealand Superannuation from 65 to 67 over time and introduce a capital gains tax were reasons people didn’t vote for the party at the last election and the one before that.

    “I’ve made a judgement that the superannuation policy and the capital gains tax policy have been problems for us and are two reasons why people haven’t voted for us, and therefore we need to review them,” he said.

    “We will have a review process, we will go through that. I will argue my case in the forums of the party, but my firm view is that we should not be going to the 2017 election with those policies on our slate.”

    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/andrew-little-wants-drop-super-age-capital-gains-tax-policy-6135059

    Andrew Little November 2014

  7. Atiawa 7

    Of course we require a conversation on superannuation affordability, just as we need a conversation and a government prepared to do something about our low wage economy. The two are inseparable.

    • Tracey 7.1

      Such a conversation will only be useful if it is honest and factual. What are the chances of that? Let’s save money and not have a referendum.

  8. Ad 8

    Little has chosen precisely the wrong debate. Old people used to vote majority Labour, now they are simply the majority that vote. Any instability to these most subsidised of our welfare beneficiaries will lose elections for Little.

    Little should shut up about superannuation. Little should stick to fertile public anxieties about housing, dairy returns, and foreign investment.

    National has got the rest of the political ground. Little is on a massive loser here.

    • Tracey 8.1

      I’m not sure why they are engaging on a topic REALLY important to ACT…

    • mickysavage 8.2

      So how does the political system handle superannuation? It feels a bit like the climate change debate where we are hurtling towards disaster but politics is stopping us from doing anything.

      • Bill 8.2.1

        Economics rather than politics is stopping us from doing anything or, if you prefer, compelling us to do the wrong things.

        Politics survives robust action on AGW; our current economy doesn’t.
        The very narrow type of classical economics we favour makes older people a financial problem, not a political problem.

        • Colonial Rawshark 8.2.1.1

          It also frames children, people in general, and wages, as being a cost on the economy.

          We are sticking to this perverse model of economics where electronic ones and zeroes rule, and the harder we stick to this perverse model of economics, the more morally virtuous we pretend it makes us.

        • tracey 8.2.1.2

          comfort is what is stopping us from doing some of these things. CT frames things in a comfort challenging or assuaging way.

          will this make you feel uncomfortable – it’s ok we point out the problem but not before we have a solution – comfort restored

          we label anyone challenging us with labels evoking fear = loss of comfort

      • Colonial Rawshark 8.2.2

        It feels a bit like the climate change debate where we are hurtling towards disaster but politics is stopping us from doing anything.

        Again, how is it that the NZ Govt can run out of the ones and zeroes required to electronically deposit super payments into retirees bank accounts?

        We need to be worried about the capacity and capability of the real physical economy to produce the goods and services all these retired people will need. Accomodation. Health services. Social facilities. Not about balancing electronic ledgers.

        • dukeofurl 8.2.2.1

          Was your family involved in Social Credit, as you seem to have caught some hereditary disease.

          The only place in the world where this sort of principle was the major platform of the winning party was Alberta Canada, where Social Credit ruled on its own.
          They abandoned core social credit policies of course, but that didnt affect their popularity winning seven consecutive elections.

          AS they couldnt regulate nationwide banks , they created their own ‘non bank’ , Alberta Treasury Branches or ATB as its known now. Not any adding of zeros to electronic registers are done.

      • Ad 8.2.3

        My advice to Little would be “stay completely silent until after 2017, and act on it only once in government”.

        Andrew, stick the worms back in the can.

        As far as National and every retired person thinks, the joint agreement with both sides over both Kiwisaver and NZSuper has been preserved for generations to come. There is no need to relitigate it.

        In the reverse of where Little is headed, I think revisiting how Labour and National got together to forge and settle the NZSuper debate is a model for forming an intergenerational debate about climate change.

        Little should stop framing politics around entitlements (we’ve lost that one for now), and stay with the consistently fertile ground of “how me and mine get ahead”.

        That means shut down these half baked musings, and stick to housing and class mobility and foreign investment and farming. And conservation, if he wants some of the Green support.

  9. Bill 9

    If the argument is that older people are ‘a burden’, then…

    How much employment is created by older people? A lot. And that’s a good thing, yes? I mean, if they weren’t here, then unemployment would be through the roof.

    How much public money goes to private, profit making, rest home providers when an older persons personal and life long savings have run out? I’ve heard figures of $3000 – $4000 of public money per week being payed to them. So bring all care of older people under a state provider system. And pay the workers, at least, a living wage too. I’m guessing there’d still be money left over.

    Question. How the hell did a society clothe feed and shelter all these ‘burdens’ for the 16 -20 years before they worked in a time when women were excluded from the workforce (ie – the workforce was about 50% of what it is now?) If that society could do it (and it did) then this one can look out for them at the other end of their life.

    Do we want a society that uses its monies for the benefit of the people who comprise the society, or for the benefit of institutions that bleed society?

    Time for us, as a society, to re-appraise our priorities and for certain fuckers to hang their heads in abject shame, no?

    • mickysavage 9.1

      And I thought my post was being radical! Agreed that we should have a society where resources should be distributed in accordance with need.

      How does this principle reconcile with the multi millionaire receiving national super?

      • Bill 9.1.1

        I don’t really care about the multi-millionaire receiving super for now. It’s a result of the shit we indulge in economically.

        I do care about reappraising priorities. If we did that, I’m betting there’d be few to bugger all multi-millionaires and a hell of a lot more happy older people not getting ground into the dirt.

        Our choice. Like I pointed out above, there are electorally successful parties in a country not dissimilar to NZ already pushing that barrow or, in government, realising programmes off the back of such notions. (eg – state care for older people…holding the retirement age…raising pension payments and other welfare payments)

        NZ has no excuses.

        • Colonial Rawshark 9.1.1.1

          We aren’t willing to create enough quality jobs in our economy for young Kiwis. Yet we want to keep even more old people in the work force, for longer.

          What a perverse, insane thinking system we are using.

      • Ad 9.1.2

        That’s a nasty slippery slope Mickey.

        A Labour (dare I say Socialist) government should build UNIVERSAL good for all, without fear or favour.

        Everyone treated the same, redistributed the same.

        Don’t try and draw a line. Inevitably, you wall out more than you wall in.

        Don’t for God sake take away the one last socialist win New Zealand has.

        Instead, tax the bejeesus out of the rich. Tax more, then spend more.
        Don’t shrink the slice: increase the pie!

      • KJT 9.1.3

        If the millionaire is paying a fair share of tax, proportional to how much he has benefited from our socialist system, why shouldn’t He/She get the free health care, pension, etc.

        It is very noticeable that as soon as welfare becomes less than universal the rich try and get rid of it.

        Limiting super is just a step towards the right wing wish of letting everyone who is not ‘productive’ starve!

        It can never be a policy of a “Progressive” party.

        It is the main indication that Labour is still a bunch of Neo-liberal acolytes.

    • dukeofurl 9.2

      For once I’m with you on this one Bill

      I saw something that said 65+ paid billions in income tax. Then there is GST.

      If we were going to have the ‘burden’ arguement, shouldnt we be looking at the cost of school and tertiary education.

      Thats a ‘burden’ on NZ too. Lower the school leaving age as its too expensive ? Push students into paying 50% of their costs rather than the current 25%.

      No one is saying this would make sense because it doesnt

      • Ad 9.2.1

        I think we should give them NZSuper, and keep them working as long as possible.

        Nothing worse than wise and hard working people staring over their teacups, soaking up the mall air conditioning. If they want to work, help them!

        Maybe in their 70s they only want to do 3 days a week. Good on them.

        No abatement.

        • Atiawa 9.2.1.1

          So do we ” work to live, or live to work?”

          I think one of our growing problems is that the retired are having difficulty utilising their leisure time. They don’t know what to do with themselves.

          The provinces are in a population decline, towns are becoming smaller, small towns are becoming villages and villages are disappearing. The country is shrinking, the extremities are withering away.
          People don’t want to live where there is a scarcity of others. We want things to do and enough money to allow us to do them.

          • Ad 9.2.1.1.1

            It is not optimal that people over 75 get close to minimum wage as a supermarket checkout operator.

            And I would not advocate as you infer using NZSuper like the Unemployment benefit, in which it is not available to those in isolated communities.

            But it is surprising the roles that they can fill, without being simply volunteers.
            I have an inkling you already know that.

            • Atiawa 9.2.1.1.1.1

              I’m not inferring anything. I’m making comment based on personal observation.
              Work is great if you are happy doing a job you love and have the same passion for it now as you did 40 years ago.
              I just don’t think people know how to best use their leisure time.
              Adult learning classes hardly exist any longer. Our ports are closed off to the public so we can’t spend a leisurely day fishing on them. Drink driving laws keep us away from the boozer & socialising with others. The racing channel is free to view. You have the best seat in the house watching the rugby at home. Our neighbour is a stranger. And winter has arrived.
              Do you want work to become a social occasion for the elderly?

          • KJT 9.2.1.1.2

            It is very obvious in most volunteer and community organizations that the big pool of those born in the 40’s who retired with adequate pensions, plus super are being replaced by boomers who have little income.
            Little income and little savings since the savage “reforms” of the 80’s, failure of financialised super schemes and supporting children without jobs, cut their lifetime incomes.

            The contribution of pensioners to our overall wealth as childcarers, community supporters and teachers is often not acknowledged.

    • RedLogix 9.3

      Question. How the hell did a society clothe feed and shelter all these ‘burdens’ for the 16 -20 years before they worked in a time when women were excluded from the workforce (ie – the workforce was about 50% of what it is now?) If that society could do it (and it did) then this one can look out for them at the other end of their life.

      That was precisely the same question I was going to ask.

      This entire debate is a complete crock dreamed up by neoliberals for the express purpose of laying the ground to gut super.

      That is all.

      • Draco T Bastard 9.3.1

        +1

        • RedLogix 9.3.1.1

          Indeed given the immense labour productivity gains since the boomers where children – we should be able to look after them in their old age standing our our ears.

          The real question will be – do we want to?

          • Colonial Rawshark 9.3.1.1.1

            The boomers are making a terrible mis-calculation. With that asset rich leadership demographic heading into retirement and old age as we speak (those born in the late 1940’s are now approaching 70 years old) we have run down the nation’s people, its infrastructure and its facilities.

            They will retire with more paper wealth than any other generation in NZ – but in a country which will be increasingly unable (or unwilling) to look after them.

            A painfully self-defeating calculation on their part.

            • KJT 9.3.1.1.1.1

              This deserves another post on it’s own, but the meme that “boomers” caused our current predicament, is as false as the super one.

              It is, as always, those who want to steal their way to wealth against the rest of us.

              It is handy to blame Boomers, Jews, Beneficiaries, Chinese, or whoever to distract us from the real culprits. At the moment, NACT, a complicit Labour caucus, and their wealthy funders..

  10. hoom 10

    This needed to be done 10 years ago if anything was to be done.
    Baby Boomers are already several years into Superannuation so anything done now will just fuck over the younger generations in the future some more.

    • Colonial Rawshark 10.1

      And that’s how the generation in power seem to run things, eh.

      Just like Labour’s raise the retirement age policy last year. If you were in your 50’s already – minimal or no impact.

      If you were younger – you get full on screwed.

      Talk about upsizing inter-generational inequity.

  11. Barbara 11

    Because National Super is such a political hot potato for all parties, am I naive when I suggest the two major parties National and Labour grow some cajones, sit down and do some bipartisan agreeing and come to a solution which might be unpalatable to the electorate but have some realistic outcomes. At the moment it is unsustainable and most thinking people know this, why make future generations suffer for our selfishness. At the moment the two parties are acting like children – but as I said some people ( politicans certainly) never grow up and the solution is so simple – am I being naive??

    • KJT 11.1

      “At the moment it is unsustainable”.

      What evidence is there that it is unsustainable?

      However did we feed look after and educate that same demographic bulge in the 1950,s with a much smaller workforce.

      Think about it.

  12. Bill 12

    “At the moment it is unsustainable…” No it isn’t.
    ” and most thinking people know this…” They’re wrong.

    • Colonial Rawshark 12.1

      Real skills, real physical resources, real energy requirements, real goods and services, real creativity and talent…this is what economic thinking needs to be focussed on in an age of growing scarcity and depletion. Not undermining all those things for the sake of balancing electronic digits in spreadsheets.

    • Barbara 12.2

      With respect Bill you are entitled to your opinion – I think you are wrong though.

      • Colonial Rawshark 12.2.1

        Why do you think Bill is wrong? Are we about to run out of electronic ones and zeroes to pay people with?

      • Bill 12.2.2

        It’s a matter of priorities Barbara. NZ is a very wealthy country and society can choose to provide for its citizens. Thing is, it seems we don’t want to.

        Deposit guarantee schemes to re-float sunk banks? tick.
        Regressive tax system filtering money/wealth to a privileged tier of society? tick

        Giving a damn about poor, vulnerable, or aging people? nope

        Like I said above, those on super were clothed and fed and sheltered for the first 15 – 20 years of their life by a state collecting monies from a workforce that was proportionately half of what it is today (women being generally excluded from the workforce).

        • RedLogix 12.2.2.1

          And it can be argued that feeding, clothing, sheltering, doctoring and educating completely dependent children is an even large task than caring for them in their old age.

          After all many retirees will have significant savings and assets and typically only need intensive medical care in the last year of life.

          I completely agree with you Bill. That these simple facts never get mentioned in the public debate tells me that the entire thing is a rigged crock.

          • Colonial Rawshark 12.2.2.1.1

            Yep. NZ’ers buy and sell $3B to $4B worth of houses a month. Those figures don’t include commercial properties. Seems to be plenty of money flowing through the system, if you are in the right parts of it.

  13. PJM 13

    It is evident from reading the comments on this blog that there is widespread ignorance as to how the present banking and monetary system actually works.
    I’m a retired economics teacher and professional engineer. Here’s my new article giving a very brief and simplified explanation:

    A simplified and very brief explanation of money and banking

    25 May 2015 By PJM BE (Mech.), Dip. Teaching – retired economics teacher and professional engineer

    Most people know very little about how the present debt-based money and banking system really works. Worse, almost all of the people who should know – including at least one former governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) – have a false idea as to how it works! Here’s my attempt at a simplified, brief explanation:

    New money is created ex nihilo (out of nothing), as spendable electronic IOUs, i.e. promises to pay, by banks every time they grant a loan.1 We the people choose to make these electronic IOUs money, because we all accept them as our most convenient medium of exchange. Banks are not financial intermediaries – they DO NOT lend out their deposits. “Rather than banks receiving deposits when households save and then lending them out, bank lending creates deposits.”1 However, this truth is not well known, possibly because practically all secondary schools’ as well as universities’ economics students are erroneously taught that banks are financial intermediaries that take in money from savers, aggregate it, and on-lend it at a margin to borrowers! This is known by economists as the ‘loanable funds’ model of banking. 1

    Not all of the money (electronic IOUs) that any one bank creates each day ends up being deposited with the issuing bank, because depending partly on its market share, some proportion gets deposited with competing banks, so every night all the banks engage in a square-up, or settlement, process, and the amount each bank owes each other bank is decided when all their IOUs (claims on each other) are netted out. Banks settle these claims with each other in Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) digital money, called reserves. The RBNZ creates reserves ex nihilo. The Official Cash Rate (OCR) is the interest rate that the RBNZ charges banks that have to borrow reserves from it. If a bank doesn’t have enough RBNZ reserves and cannot borrow them from another bank, that bank borrows RBNZ reserves from the RBNZ, which never refuses to lend reserves to a bank.

    The amount of reserves that any bank needs to borrow is only ever a very small proportion of the sum of the loans it has granted, so despite the claims to the contrary by the governor of the RBNZ and the mainstream media alike, the magnitude of the OCR does not necessarily have much effect on any bank’s lending decisions or profits. This is being proven right now as banks engage in a ‘lending war’ by lowering their mortgage interest rates despite there having been no recent cut in the OCR. To ‘lend’, banks first seek out willing and able borrowers, and then borrow reserves for settlement if they need to do so. So, the rate of money creation by banks depends not so much on the level of the OCR, but mostly on the confidence of potential borrowers and the banks’ assessment of their potential borrowers’ ability to pay the interest charges and make the scheduled principal repayments, plus their reliability in doing so.

    When the OCR is increased and banks follow by increasing their own interest rates, the mainstream media (MSM) often report that the banks are maintaining their “lending margins”, and in so doing the MSM journalists help to perpetuate the popular myth that banks lend the money that they borrow from the RBNZ at the OCR and add their “margins” to arrive at the rates they charge for mortgages. This explains why a proportion of the public believes, mistakenly, that all new money comes from the RBNZ and that banks are merely financial intermediaries in on-lending it. The banks are more than happy to go along with this notion, because they do not want the public to know that their loans are created ex nihilo. A bigger proportion of the public believes that the major source of money that banks lend is their deposits, also at a margin, reinforcing their mistaken belief that banks are merely financial intermediaries. This is the fallacious ‘loanable funds’ model taught in almost all secondary schools and universities.

    Naturally, as profit seeking companies, if banks can find sufficient willing and able borrowers, they tend to create new money at a faster rate than the economy is growing, thus causing inflation, if not in consumer prices as measured by the Consumers Price Index (CPI), then in real estate.

    Years ago, notes and coins, which are Sovereign Money, constituted well over half of the money in circulation. However, with the development of electronics and EFTPOS, etc., notes and coins now make up only about 2% (and falling) of the money in circulation. The rest is the digital bank IOUs in bank accounts that we all use as money.

    One does not need to be highly intelligent to see that this system of interest-bearing debt ‘money’ is naturally unstable, as nobody – not even the governor of the RBNZ – has effective control of the rate of money creation. This inevitably leads to periods of excess money creation, causing asset bubbles, which eventually burst. When a major asset bubble bursts, usually because people and businesses take on too much debt and then find that they cannot meet the interest payments, they start defaulting on their mortgages and loans, and banks get into financial trouble and start calling in their loans. Suddenly, panic selling sets in and asset prices plummet. Many people are bankrupted and businesses are liquidated at fire-sale rates. People and businesses pay back their loans as best they can, and are unwilling to take out so many new loans. Banks get very choosy about to whom they will grant new loans. All this results in the rate of repayment of old loans (the rate of destruction of money) exceeding the rate of banks’ granting of new loans (the rate of money creation) and voilà, the amount of money in circulation (the money supply) shrinks, causing a recession, or even worse, a depression. All this is not rocket science, but barely known!

    When I was a young man, almost all young people wanting to save to buy their first home belonged to a building society and saved their money into an account with their building society on the expectation that when they had enough for a deposit, they would be able to borrow from their building society the necessary amount of other people’s savings by way of mortgage. Building societies were true financial intermediaries, much as finance companies are today. However, in the 1980s, New Zealand’s building societies were demutualised and became trading companies. Even more importantly, their role was usurped by the banks, which rapidly discovered that creating new money out of nothing and ‘lending’ it, secured by mortgage over real estate, particularly houses, was easy and exceedingly profitable, while at the same time being very low-risk, as nobody wants to lose their house.

    In the present debt-based money system, banks are creating an ever-larger stream of new debt (money), regardless of the amount of money being saved, enabling people to bid against each other to drive up the price of real estate at a rate far in excess of the rate of increase of ordinary people’s incomes. Banks are thus taking an ever-larger percentage of people’s incomes in interest and principal repayments, to the point where more and more people are in effect becoming mere debt slaves, similar to the feudal serfs of the Middle Ages. Income spent on servicing debt is income that cannot be spent on consumer goods and productive investments, not only causing lower economic growth than would otherwise be possible, but also a wealth transfer from the middle class to the financial elite.

    One does not need to be highly intelligent to see that the present debt-based money system acts as a ‘fanginormous’ wealth pump that pumps wealth from the people who create it – the entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals, self-employed and all wage and salary workers – to the financial elite who own and control the banks and major corporations, so causing ever-growing inequality, which is already having dire consequences for society.

    However, there is an eminently viable alternative, known as a Sovereign Money system, an early advocate for which was Nobel Prize-winning chemist Frederick Soddy in the early 1930s. In such a system, a nation-state takes back from banks the power to create all new money. An independent statutory body, called the Money Creation Committee, which could be part of either the state-owned central bank, or the treasury, would monitor the growth of the economy and order the creation by the central bank of new digital money, debt-free and interest-free, at a rate to just match, in the medium and long term, the rate of economic growth. There would be only one kind of money, and no need for RBNZ reserves. All new money thus created would be gifted to the government for spending into permanent circulation according to its democratic mandate, with a corresponding reduction in total taxation. In New Zealand’s case, this reduction in total annual taxation would be around $10 billion. New Zealanders would thus have greater disposable incomes on average by around $2000 per man, woman and child and could make larger gifts to the charities or their choice and/or save more money and become investors accumulating personal capital. Also, businesses would be much more able to expand through their investment of retained earnings. Unemployment would be lower, and fewer people would need government welfare.

    There would be a massive power shift, away from banks and towards people and businesses, particularly small to medium enterprises (SMEs). With such “Peoples Capitalism” we could lead better, less financially stressful, and more productive lives. There would be no booms and busts, just steady economic growth, as we grow ever cleverer in our development of innovative technology to produce more and better goods and services while at the same time making less and less impact on our environment. Only well-off societies can afford to protect the environment. Maybe we could even once again become wealthy enough for a couple to need only one income to live well, buy a house and bring up their children, just as it was normal for ordinary New Zealanders to do in the 1950s and 1960s.

    At last, real estate prices could not be bid up beyond the reach of ordinary people, because only people’s savings could be lent or on-lent to buy real estate, whereas the present debt-based money system penalises the weaker people and the young, as we are seeing now, putting home ownership beyond the reach of a higher and higher proportion of the population, causing ever-growing inequality and the societal problems that inevitably follow.

    Those readers up for an intellectual challenge may wish to learn more about the Sovereign Money banking and currency system at http://www.sovereignmoney.eu and http://www.positivemoney.org and http://www.positivemoney.org.nz

    The first New Zealand Labour government (1935-1949) nationalised the RBNZ and then used sovereign money created out of nothing by the RBNZ to lift New Zealand out of the Great Depression. One of the first uses of such sovereign money was for the building of state houses. Other uses of sovereign money were for the planting of state forests and the building of schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. It did not cause inflation, as it was getting formerly unemployed and underemployed people working full time creating wealth. It is more than likely that the state house that John Key grew up in was built with sovereign money. It’s a pity that now that he’s in a position of such political power and influence he’s not yet sufficiently enlightened to switch New Zealand to a Sovereign Money banking and currency system. But then, he was a banker before he became a politician!

    It is my firm belief that a switch to a Sovereign Money financial and banking system should be an integral part of Labour Party policy.

    1 “Money creation in the modern economy”, a paper in the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Q1 2014: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf

    Comments are welcome. The author’s email address is pjm.forensic.eng at gmail.com

    • Atiawa 13.1

      Thanks PJM. Not sure if I comprehend everything you are saying and will need to read a couple of more times to allow it to sink in.
      Would be interested to hear the views of Oram or Hickey and other main stream economists before making further comment/judgement.

      • PJM 13.1.1

        Thanks, Atiawa. Before giving any credence to the views of Bernard Hickey and Rod Oram , bear in mind that they were most likely taught, if and when they studied economics at school and/or university, the fallacious nonsense of the ‘loanable funds’ model of banking. It is being taught at practically every school and university in New Zealand.

        What’s worse, when I asked it to, The University of Auckland flatly refused to stop teaching that BS and teach the truth instead. Its HOD of Economics, and its Vice Chancellor, said that they can teach whatever they like, because they have academic freedom. If you read the Education Act 1989, you will see that in s161 (3) and (4), our parliament put a severe constraint on universities in this regard:
        (3) In exercising their academic freedom and autonomy, institutions shall act in a manner that is consistent with—
        (a) the need for the maintenance by institutions of the highest ethical standards and the need to permit public scrutiny to ensure the maintenance of those standards;
        and
        (b) the need for accountability by institutions and the proper use by institutions of resources allocated to them.
        (4) In the performance of their functions the Councils and chief executives of institutions, Ministers, and authorities and agencies of the Crown shall act in all respects so as to give effect to the intention of Parliament as expressed in this section.

        • Draco T Bastard 13.1.1.1

          By refusing to teach the truth I’d say that they’re in breach of the law. If they aren’t then the law needs changing.

    • RedLogix 13.2

      History shows that mere politicians who attempt to nationalise the money supply do not last very long.

      The top 100 or so hyper-wealthy people in the world do not tolerate that sort of thing.

    • Colonial Rawshark 13.3

      PJM – thank grod for your post.

      The first New Zealand Labour government (1935-1949) nationalised the RBNZ and then used sovereign money created out of nothing by the RBNZ to lift New Zealand out of the Great Depression.

      Echoing RL: that first Labour Govt was forced to account for its actions in front of the Bank of England. My understanding is that it stopped issuing sovereign money within a couple of years as NZ’s trade access to Britain was directly threatened.

      • PJM 13.3.1

        Colonial Rawshark, please provide the URLs for the documents that are conclusive evidence for your assertion that the RBNZ “stopped issuing sovereign money within a couple of years as NZ’s trade access to Britain was directly threatened.”

    • Colonial Rawshark 13.4

      Hi PJM

      Could you please make some comment on how the Core Funding Ratio works and how it encourages banks to seek deposits from savers.

      Thank you

    • Draco T Bastard 13.5

      Great explanation on how money is created but I’m going to have to say that I don’t like the Sovereign Money banking and currency system as it seems too rigid. Much prefer my idea of the Reserve bank simply creating money to meet the governments spending and raising taxes as necessary to constrain inflation (Strict rules regarding government spending of course).

      • PJM 13.5.1

        No, it’s not rigid. Rather, it’s flexible. The independent Money Creation Committee (MPC) would monitor economic growth and be empowered to order the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to create just sufficient money to keep inflation at a medium-to-long-term average of zero.
        We the people by our actions would determine at rate the economy grew. The MPC’s job would be merely to keep monetary growth in line. Those making investments would have to do so by investing their own savings (capital) or other people’s savings. Only government would be given brand new money to be spent into the economy.
        Just think about this — since the RBNZ was nationalised in 1935, inflation as measured by increases in the CPI has been a total of about 6900%. That is, the CPI has increased by a factor of about 70. Yes, that’s right, what cost a shilling (10 cents) in 1935 now costs about $7. If milk was 4 pence a pint (600 mL) in 1935, it would now be about $3.85 a litre — which is about what it is. Land, unfortunately, has gone up by very much more that 70 times, but land — surprise, surprise — has a very, very small weighting in the calculation of the CPI.!

        • Draco T Bastard 13.5.1.1

          It’s rigid in that it constrains the governments options of what it can do as the government will be limited to how much new spending it has available. It also puts money creation out of democratic control and into the hands of a small, unelected, group which is one thing we’re trying to get away from with taking money creation away from banks.

          I suggest rules that control government spending so that they can’t just go round building vanity projects but still be able to build pricey infrastructure. Combine that with the Reserve bank’s ability to increase taxes so as to constrain inflation and we would have a much more flexible system. And, because it will be the government causing the creation of money means that they will be democratically accountable.

          • PJM 13.5.1.1.1

            Draco, government is always limited as to how much new spending it has available. At present, its only two sources are taxation and borrowing. In a Sovereign Money system, those two choices would still be available (but money borrowed from banks would actually be money that people had actually saved, not money created by banks ex nihilo as happens now), and in addition, sovereign money created by the RBNZ at the instruction of the MPC would also be available. It does not put money creation “out of democratic control”, because apart from a short period of time in the mid 1930s, money creation has never been under democratic control. The governor of the RBNZ thinks that he controls the rate of money creation, but the B of E paper shows that he is deluded.

            • Draco T Bastard 13.5.1.1.1.1

              At present, its only two sources are taxation and borrowing.

              This is incorrect. Government only has one source of money – itself. To increase spending it must create the money first and then tax it back out of the economy as needed.

              Government creates money to spend and then taxes it back out to destroy it.

              In a Sovereign Money system, those two choices would still be available (but money borrowed from banks would actually be money that people had actually saved, not money created by banks ex nihilo as happens now), and in addition, sovereign money created by the RBNZ at the instruction of the MPC would also be available.

              In my system borrowing wouldn’t be available to the government at all – it would be illegal as the government should never borrow money. The RBNZ would simply be required to create money to meet the governments spending as necessary and then to raise taxes if necessary.

              As an example say the economy grew by 3% of GDP but government spending required an increase of 5% of GDP over the year. The RBNZ would simply create the money as needed during the year and would raise taxes to recoup the extra 2% of GDP to keep inflation down. If growth was 3% but government spending dropped by 2% then the RBNZ would lower taxes to prevent deflation.

              Such a system is more flexible as it allows greater spending than growth prior to recouping it through taxes and thus could more easily cater to the business cycle.

              • Colonial Rawshark

                This is incorrect. Government only has one source of money – itself. To increase spending it must create the money first and then tax it back out of the economy as needed.

                Government creates money to spend and then taxes it back out to destroy it.

                This is not the current situation. You seemed to have not acknowledged PJM’s important qualifier “at present…”

    • Ad 13.6

      The most instructive thing about this comment is that the “massive power shift” ensures that the alternative banking and debt structure means that such change will never, ever occur, under any imaginable New Zealand or Australian government.

      So there’s no point commenting on such an idea again.

      • PJM 13.6.1

        We still live in a democracy, so yes, we can do it! But not if we’re all as weak-kneed as you.

        • Colonial Rawshark 13.6.1.1

          Well, we live in a heavily managed democracy which is not quite the same thing, especially when you consider which segment of society is the one which does the “managing.”

  14. Old Mickey 14

    Just as well this didnt get any coverage today…
    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/big-post-budget-bounce-national-173255

    • RedLogix 14.1

      Personally I expect John Key’s National govt to eventually be polling in the 60-70% range sometime into their 5th or 6th term.

      Modern propaganda tools are remarkably effective.

      • Colonial Rawshark 14.1.1

        Can;t tell how serious you are being. I do think 4 terms are virtually guaranteed at this point.

        • RedLogix 14.1.1.1

          I can’t tell either.:-)

          But yes four terms at least – because personally I think the old “it’s time to give the other team a turn” model is broken.

          Which means a circuit breaker if we are ever to see a change of govt in my lifetime. Either that or a left-wing leader who breaks JC’s grip on the media. Little is good, but not the kind of great needed to cut through the matrix.

          Anything else is magical thinking.

          • Colonial Rawshark 14.1.1.1.1

            But yes four terms at least – because personally I think the old “it’s time to give the other team a turn” model is broken.

            In Labour Party parlance it’s “waiting for the tide to turn.” But the entire political ecosystem has changed now so that’s not working

  15. Ad 15

    Well, Little did his best to stuff the genie of Superannuation back into the bottle on Morning Report this morning.

    Could he now please STFU on this massive vote-loser, and open his gob about it again only once he has won an election.

    And get back to the remaining political anxieties that are out there, like housing, milk prices, regional economies, growing poverty, foreign investment, conservation, and the like.

    • Colonial Rawshark 15.1

      Could he now please STFU on this massive vote-loser, and open his gob about it again only once he has won an election.

      Indeed. Unfotunately he has revealed that the Labour caucus has still been talking about undermining NZ super.

      • KJT 15.1.1

        Helped along by Micky Savage, who is one of the people who should know better.

        • mickysavage 15.1.1.1

          Given current political realities I do not see Aotearoa reaching nirvana any time soon. Expecting the wealthy to contribute one way (abatement) rather than another way (increased taxation) is a discussion that we will need to have some stage.

          I do not speak for Little or the caucus.

          • Colonial Rawshark 15.1.1.1.1

            The Left will be cutting its own throat if it cannot handle the idea of universal rights any more.

            This also suggests that with Labour, the concept of a UBI is dead before it even starts.

          • KJT 15.1.1.1.2

            Abatement only effects those who declare and pay taxes on their full income. Not the wealthy.

            And I had this funny idea that the objective of having “progressives” in “power” was to improve the lives and well being of everyone. Not just National’s mates or a few Labour MP’s pay packets, while they wait for their “turn” in our rotating Dictatorship.

            • Colonial Rawshark 15.1.1.1.2.1

              “Fiscal discipline” seems to be something that the Left is even more proud of that the Right, nowadays.

            • mickysavage 15.1.1.1.2.2

              Really? You think we are going to hit socialist nirvana and everyone is going to pay their fair share of tax. Good luck with that. In the meantime the clock is ticking.

              The right want to the state to wither and then to drown it in a bath. Running up debt is the perfect way to allow them to do this.

              And speaking as a baby boomer who has been helped very well by the state it is more likely that this can continue if I collect a bit less super.

              • KJT

                And encouraging the cutting of universal welfare, and more borrowing instead of fair taxation is the perfect way to help the right on this.

                The SOP of neo-liberals all over the world is to use borrowing instead of taxes, on those who have made the most out of our society, and then claim they cannot afford to look after people.

                The notion that we “cannot afford it” is one of the recurring memes of the neo-liberal takeover.

                • mickysavage

                  With current policy settings we cannot afford super.

                  You will lose the political debate if your proposal is a drastic increase in taxes. Like it or not humans have become far too venal and greed is far too entrenched for this to ever work.

                  But hey lets get stuck into Labour rather than hold the blowtorch to National’s feet for refusing to do anything whatsoever.

                  • Colonial Rawshark

                    A net $10B per year is siphoned offshore by foreign firms.

                    Of course NZ can’t afford good things for itself as long as this continues, year after year after year. And as long as the NZ Govt refuses to acknowledge that it can make up this drain of NZD out of the economy by spending into the economy we are going to be stuck in a cycle of borrow more or cut more.

                    Labour appears to think it can conduct a future of work review and review NZ Super completely independently. This is a nonsense.

                    Our economy is currently incapable of creating sufficient full time jobs for young people, the international trends suggests that this situation will worsen not improve over the long term, but Labour is still proposing to keep older people in the work force for even longer, or alternatively to take away Super from those who have paid the most income taxes in their life.

                    All of this only makes sense within a theoretical thinking framework which is utterly past its use by date.

                    NZD are electronic balance sheet entries, input by keystrokes. The NZ Government is a currency sovereign and the sole public issuer of NZD in the world. It never ever needs to run out of the electronic ones and zeroes required to pay for NZ Super, or indeed, for anything else which is deemed to be a socioeconomic priority in this country.

                    Is Labour really unable to think of the NZ economy from a multi-faceted systems perspective? What vision is Labour expressing that those who have paid the most taxes are going to be those who are cut out of NZ Super?

                    How is it that a country which is far wealthier in GDP per capita now than in 1950, cannot “afford” NZ super?

    • Kiwiri 15.2

      this massive vote-loser, and open his gob about it again only once he has won an election

      Massive vote-loser indeed to want to reduce super!

      So, the Labour caucus continues every now and then to convey the impression of wanting to reform super. Are they so disconnected that they refuse to cease and desist from undermining it?

      Are you suggesting that the Labour caucus deceptively stay silent from now, but then give super the chop after the election?

      How would masssively generous amounts of “emotional connection” (a la Michael Cullen) bridge the credibility gap between slashing super and winning the voting public?

      Voters, collectively, are not that stupid and may well have sussed out the real measure of the current Labour caucus!

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    51 mins ago
  • Relentlessly negative
    Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 hours ago
  • Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    Bryce Edwards writes –  It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 hours ago
  • Promiscuous Empathy: Chris Trotter Replies To His Critics.
    Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played. “Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
    3 hours ago
  • Don’t run your business like a criminal enterprise
    The Detail this morning highlights the police's asset forfeiture case against convicted business criminal Ron Salter, who stands to have his business confiscated for systemic violations of health and safety law. Business are crying foul - but not for the reason you'd think. Instead of opposing the post-conviction punishment and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 hours ago
  • Misremembering Justinian’s Taxes.
    Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I - Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
    3 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    4 hours ago
  • Bishop scores headlines with crackdown on unwelcome tenants – but Peters scores, too, as tub-thump...
    Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 hours ago
  • Will it make the boat go faster?
    Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    8 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi The fact that a ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    8 hours ago
  • Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    8 hours ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' at 10:10am on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st Century The SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims Stuff Steve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    8 hours ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things on Tuesday, March 19
    It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    10 hours ago
  • New Life for Light Rail
    This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail  Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    11 hours ago
  • Why Are Bosses Nearly All Buffoons?
    Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    13 hours ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on March 18
    TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension l...
    Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 day ago
  • Labour’s final report card
    David Farrar writes –  We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how  went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • “Drunk Uncle at a Wedding”
    I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on Dune 2, and images of Islam
    Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
    1 day ago
  • New Rail Operations Centre Promises Better Train Services
    Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
    1 day ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things at 6.36am on Monday, March 18
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    2 days ago
  • The Kaka’s diary for the week to March 25 and beyond
    TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bitter and angry; Winston First
    New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • Out of Touch.
    “I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The bewildering world of Chris Luxon – Guns for all, not no lunch for kids
    .“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
    Frankly SpeakingBy Frank Macskasy
    3 days ago
  • Expert Opinion: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
    3 days ago
  • Manufacturing The Truth.
    Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet –  is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
    3 days ago
  • A Powerful Sensation of Déjà Vu.
    Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
    3 days ago
  • Can you guess where world attention is focussed (according to Greenpeace)? It’s focussed on an EPA...
    Bob Edlin writes –  And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
    Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Greens’ transparency missing in action
    For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    3 days ago
  • Bernard’s Dawn Chorus with six newsey things at 6:46am for Saturday, March 16
    TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ Herald Thomas Coughlan Simeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • How Did FTX Crash?
    What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    4 days ago
  • Elections in Russia and Ukraine
    Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s six stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15
    TL;DR: Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it:  We want our country to be a ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • National’s clean car tax advances
    The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Government funding bailouts
    Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Two offenders, different treatments.
    See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    4 days ago
  • Treaty references omitted
    Ele Ludemann writes  – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • The Ghahraman Conflict
    What was that judge thinking? Peter Williams writes –  That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 15
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop: Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The day Wellington up-zoned its future
    Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 15-March-2024
    It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    4 days ago
  • That Word.
    Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to March 15
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Labour’s policy gap
    It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024
    Open access notables A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: In the year 2023, we have seen extraordinary extrema in high sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and in ...
    5 days ago
  • Melissa remains mute on media matters but has something to say (at a sporting event) about economic ...
     Buzz from the Beehive   The text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary.  It can be quickly analysed ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • The return of Muldoon
    For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Will the rental tax cut improve life for renters or landlords?
    Bryce Edwards writes –  Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: What Saudi Arabia’s rapid changes mean for New Zealand
    Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    5 days ago
  • Racism’s double standards
    Questions need to be asked on both sides of the world Peter Williams writes –   The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • It’s not a tax break
    Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • The Plastic Pig Collective and Chris' Imaginary Friends.
    I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Who is responsible for young offenders?
    Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on National’s fantasy trip to La La Landlord Land
    How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
    5 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 14
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop: The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • No, Prime Minister, rents don’t rise or fall with landlords’ costs
    TL;DR: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Cartoons: ‘At least I didn’t make things awkward’
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
    5 days ago
  • Solving traffic congestion with Richard Prebble
    The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    5 days ago
  • I Think I'm Done Flying Boeing
    Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • Invoking Aristotle: Of Rings of Power, Stones, and Ships
    The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
    6 days ago
  • Van Velden brings free-market approach to changing labour laws – but her colleagues stick to distr...
    Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • Why Newshub failed
    Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Māori Party on the warpath against landlords and seabed miners – let’s see if mystical creature...
    Bob Edlin writes  –  The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they  follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • There’s a name for this
    Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    6 days ago

  • Government moves to quickly ratify the NZ-EU FTA
    "The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 hour ago
  • Positive progress for social worker workforce
    New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 hours ago
  • Minister confirms reduced RUC rate for PHEVs
    Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    8 hours ago
  • Trade access to overseas markets creates jobs
    Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand.  Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    9 hours ago
  • NZ and Chinese Foreign Ministers hold official talks
    Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    22 hours ago
  • Kāinga Ora instructed to end Sustaining Tenancies
    Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber: Growth is the answer
    Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Singapore rounds out regional trip
    Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships.      “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Minister van Velden represents New Zealand at International Democracy Summit
    Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Insurance Council of NZ Speech, 7 March 2024, Auckland
    ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland  Acknowledgements and opening  Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho.  Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau  My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Five-year anniversary of Christchurch terror attacks
    Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says.  “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024
    Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024  Acknowledgements and opening  Morena, Nga Mihi Nui.  Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau  Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    4 days ago
  • Early visit to Indonesia strengthens ties
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country.   “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • China Foreign Minister to visit
    Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week.  “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Minister opens new Auckland Rail Operations Centre
    Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Celebrating 10 years of Crankworx Rotorua
    The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee.  “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government delivering on tax commitments
    Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today.  “The Amendment Paper represents ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Significant Natural Areas requirement to be suspended
    Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government classifies drought conditions in Top of the South as medium-scale adverse event
    Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • Government partnership to tackle $332m facial eczema problem
    The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced.  “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    5 days ago
  • NZ, India chart path to enhanced relationship
    Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level.   “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Ruapehu Alpine Lifts bailout the last, say Ministers
    Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Govt takes action to drive better cancer services
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Govt takes action to drive better cancer services
    Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Work begins on SH29 upgrades near Tauriko
    Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Work begins on SH29 upgrades near Tauriko
    Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Fresh produce price drop welcome
    Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024.  “Lower fruit and vege ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Speech to the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68)
    Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all.  Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Statement to the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
    Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all.  Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Government backs rural led catchment projects
    The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    6 days ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber
    Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction.   Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Commission’s advice on ETS settings tabled
    Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Government lowering building costs
    The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Trustee tax change welcomed
    Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister’s Ramadan message
    Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness.  It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister appoints new NZTA Chair
    Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Speech to Life Sciences Summit
    Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology.  It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Progress continues apace on water storage
    Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Government agrees to restore interest deductions
    Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago
  • Minister to attend World Anti-Doping Agency Symposium
    Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 week ago

Page generated in The Standard by Wordpress at 2024-03-19T05:38:04+00:00