Daily review 15/10/2024

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, October 15th, 2024 - 17 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

17 comments on “Daily review 15/10/2024 ”

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  1. SPC 1
    15 October 2024 at 6:37 pm

    The "$100B Infrastructure Fund" new idea of Peters.

    First, it is unwise to have the money just sitting in a fund for spending over a 30 year period.

    It is an infrastructure investment/spending plan.

    So what is really going on.

    National’s Infrastructure for the Future Plan:

    1. A National Infrastructure Agency to coordinate government funding, connect domestic and offshore investors with New Zealand infrastructure, and improve funding, procurement and delivery.
    2. Innovative funding and financing tools to boost investment in infrastructure, and create investment opportunities for ACC, the NZ Super Fund and KiwiSaver funds.
    3. National, City and Regional Deals to partner with local Government to create long-term pipelines of regional projects.
    4. A fast-track consents process to make it easier to build the infrastructureNew Zealand needs for the future.
    5. A 30-year infrastructure pipeline to deliver long-term certainty, enable more effective planning, and reduce project costs.

    https://www.national.org.nz/infrastructureforthefuture

    The Treasury is leading work on the Government’s commitment to establish a National Infrastructure Agency (NIA) by 2025.

    https://www.treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/nz-economy/infrastructure/establishment-national-infrastructure-agency

    A good start would be a 30-year plan that all political parties can get behind, like the United Kingdom's National Infrastructure Assessment. This would give us a real long-term vision rather than promises that change with each election cycle.

    We should also look at more innovative ways to fund projects. Value capture, which leverages rising property values near new infrastructure to help finance its development, helped build London's Crossrail. And Australia is "asset recycling" from old infrastructure into new projects.

    These are not just theoretical ideas. They could change how we build what New Zealand needs without the risks of entirely relying on taxpayers.

    An agency and a ministry and Infrastructure New Zealand with some independence from influence on political parties perhaps?

    https://infrastructure.org.nz/

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/530855/winston-peters-100-billion-infrastructure-fund-is-the-right-idea-politics-as-usual-is-the-problem

      • SPC 1.1.1
        15 October 2024 at 7:26 pm

        Well, the reason for the planning as per infrastructure is

        1.we have not done enough

        2.there is no spare government capability to fund it, where there is not self-funded (Road Transport Fund – petrol levies).

        We are being prepared for others investing (local and foreign) to extract profit.

        A sovereign wealth fund need not come from a trade surplus – we built up the NZSF simply by saving and or borrowing and investing money for CG.

        One could build up an Infrastructure Fund by placing a 1% tax on workers and companies.

    • Ad 1.2
      15 October 2024 at 7:45 pm

      This is the Blackrock + Macquarrie + ACC + NZSuperfund etc wet dream.

      Peters should call Twyford and recall how it went in 2018.

  2. Drowsy M. Kram 2
    15 October 2024 at 6:52 pm

    Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? [14 Oct 2024]
    The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heating

    “We are lulled into a comfort zone – we cannot really see the crisis.”

    No no, our CoC govt sees clearly – "it's a case of slower to go faster". Yeah right.

    https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/new-zealand/

    https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

  3. SPC 3
    15 October 2024 at 7:15 pm

    A tale via two polls.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/10/15/poll-just-over-half-think-pm-luxon-out-of-touch-with-voters/

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/10/15/poll-54-of-voters-think-hipkins-should-stay-as-labour-leader/

    Fortunately for Hipkins the level is at 75% for those who voted Labour and highest otherwise with those who voted ACT.

  4. joe90 4
    15 October 2024 at 7:45 pm

    The interviewer puts the slipper in.

    .

    Q. & A.

    Rationalizing the Horrors of Israel’s War in Gaza

    The novelist Howard Jacobson has argued that too much press coverage of dead Palestinian children is a new form of “blood libel” against Jews.

    […]

    Since Hamas’s attack on October 7th, which killed approximately twelve hundred Israelis, Jacobson has been increasingly outspoken about antisemitism, and critical of those who question Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than forty-two thousand people. Earlier this month, in a controversial piece published in the Observer, Jacobson wrote that the sustained media coverage of children being killed in Gaza was functioning as a new “blood libel” against the Jewish people. “Such bias as I have described—conscious or not—has contributed not just to the anxiety level of Jews but to the atmosphere of hostility and fear in which they now live,” Jacobson wrote. “The litany of dead children corroborates all those stories of their insatiable lust for blood.”

    https://archive.li/BaHfL (thenewyorker)

  6. Muttonbird 6
    15 October 2024 at 8:17 pm

    As far as I understand it Winston Peters is agitating for a lower corporate tax rate mirroring Ireland 12.5%, Singapore 17%, and Taiwan 20%.

    The current corporate tax rate in NZ is 28%. Halving this would see a large difference between the top personal tax rate and the company rate. The NZ elite are an incredibly greedy bunch. There'd be a huge transfer of tax burden from the wealthy to the workers, making it even more unequal than it already is.

    • SPC 6.1
      15 October 2024 at 8:31 pm

      The official

      There are three rates of tax on corporate profits in Ireland.

      A rate of 12.5% applies to the trading income of a company and a rate of 25% applies to non-trading income and income of an “excepted trade” e.g., mining activities and certain land dealing. A rate of 33% applies to capital gains.

      The practice

      Apple has been ordered to pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn; $14bn) in unpaid taxes by Europe's top court, putting an end to an eight-year row. The European Commission accused Ireland of giving Apple illegal tax advantages in 2016, but Ireland has consistently argued against the need for the tax to be paid.

      and

      While much discussion in recent years has centred on once-off windfall corporate tax revenues and how these revenues should be used, it is important that Government look at the role that recurrent corporate tax revenues plan in the Irish economy as it prepares to implement a forthcoming minimum effective rate of corporation tax as part for global corporate taxation reforms. In 2024 Government will introduce relevant measures to levy a minimum effective rate of corporation tax of 15 per cent for large firms with a global annual turnover of over €750m in at least two of the last four years.

      https://www.socialjustice.ie/article/corporation-taxes-ireland

  7. SPC 7
    15 October 2024 at 9:06 pm

    The actual commitment to the so called beloved policy of Bill English, adopted by Nicola Willis – social investment, is being questioned.

    To cut costs, as directed by the Government, Oranga Tamariki has completely axed funding to 190 providers. A further 142 have had their money reduced.

    The Office of the Attorney-General today launched an inquiry into the decision-making process. Oranga Tamariki said it will fully cooperate with the investigation.

    The terms of reference include criteria and evidence, communication, and concerns about transitioning to other providers.

    The criticism

    Social Service Providers Te Pai Ora o Aotearoa chief executive Belinda Himiona said a lack of transition planning "effectively means that someone may be in a service, including care, and the contract arrangements were being changed, but there wasn't a transition being put in place for children".

    The ministry is in the process of procuring at least 50 new services for next year, but could not be drawn on the amount the current cost-cutting would save.

    However, the community groups say the work they do saves taxpayer money in the long-term.

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/10/15/inquiry-launched-over-oranga-tamariki-provider-funding-cuts/

    More generally, the base is children in healthy homes, with access to nutritious food (food in schools* or access to food banks when necessary) and community health providers. There have been cuts in funding (planned)* in all these areas as well.