Fran on National’s business vision
June 21st, 2008 at 1:03 pm by David FarrarFran describes the vision John Key and Bill English are spreading to business audiences:
Picture a New Zealand where profit is not a dirty word and where those who make it are not called “rich pricks”.
Picture a New Zealand deeply focused on international competitiveness, where risk-taking is again exciting, where young people are enticed to stay and with a greater discipline on government spending so the private sector can play a bigger role in the country’s fortunes.
Picture a New Zealand where rolling tax cuts, possibly even indexed to inflation, become the norm just like in Australia.
Sounds a good start!
English met visiting Australian Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese at last weekend’s Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum. He reckons the programme the new Australian Labor Government has up its sleeve would be regarded as extremist in New Zealand.
The fact that Australia’s Labor is pursuing big public/private sector partnerships and kept the increase in government spending to a mere 1 per cent in its debut Budget shows how out of step New Zealand’s Labour-led Government has become with international norms, leading New Zealand into a cul de sac, he says.
People have no idea how true this is. Not all left wing Governments are like this one.
Within Australian senior circles, the NZ Treasury is seen as something of a wallflower – a department that is publicly whipped into submission by Cullen whenever it has promoted obvious economic boosters like personal tax cuts.
Sadly a fair degree of truth in this.
Consider the Peters factor. English is crystal clear that the monetary policy targets agreement between the Government and the Reserve Bank should not be altered again if National wins the election (Peters wants changes). He’s also indicated National will not buy into Labour’s “what Winston wants Winston gets” approach.
Taking English’s messages at face value, it seems National retains considerable hostility to Peters.
Would Labour’s Helen Clark be prepared to concede the prime ministership to him?
This refers to Winston on Agenda giving the example of George Forbes in 1932 becoming PM even through his party was not the largest one making the Government. Winnie sure doesn’t lack ambition.
June 21st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
i called it by asking w.t.f. o’sullivan had been smoking..
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/would-labours-helen-clark-be-prepared-to-concede-the-prime-ministership-to-himpeters/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Facinating to see Labours diehard supporters foam about the filthy right wing politics advanaced by National (to say nothing of ACT), when pretty much everything proposed by them is at, or left of, policies of other socialist governments. Oh how our electoral frog has been boiled slowly.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Its not Peters lack of desire for baubles – which is evidently being maistaken for “ambition” – that is his problem. As a natural born leader its his lacking a horde of natural born followers thats going to keep him out of our Parliament.
phool extreme irony day was last week if YOU are going to be asking who has smoked what you’ve picked the wrong day.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
The rich prick tag is not because slippery has umpteen houses but because his slur about Helens lack of children.
Vote:But it certainly opened doors very very quickly for him in national. They couldnt wait to kiss his hem and hope some of the gold would rub off
June 21st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Ghost
And of course you can provide proof of this “slur”…
Of course there are those of us who will think that again you are talking shit, perhaps Key made a statement of fact but I am not sure how anybody (apart from a Labour fuckwit) could describe it as a “slur”
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Winnie for PM! Yeah …… ok. Has it really come to this? What a glorious epitaph that would be to Helen’s Career, given that she likened Winnie to Jean-Marie Le Pen in a BBC interview this year!
Except:
I think that Winnie is past his sell by date and he knows it. So he has a policy of ‘speaking the unspeakable’ in the hope that it will win enough votes from the older constituency who admire Winston because ‘at least he tells the truth’, when in fact what he tells is bullshit designed to make him look like a loveable maverick. He isn’t a loveable maverick, he’s a borderline sociaopath who is intersted in two things only – continued prestige and a secure salary. The electorate – are ‘morons’ as far as he is concerned, he insults denigrates and attacks, and is clearly content with his role as ‘court jester’ in the house.
This is the man who people once tipped as a possible PM. He is the Orson Welles of NZ politics. He started out as contemporary, cutting edge and groundbreaking with his unorthodox personal vision and ended up flabby, isolated and only fit to advertise Sherry. that’s when he isn’t appearing on Question-Time sounding dangerously close to having been tasting the merchandise prior to endorsing it…
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Yep, it’s old news that NZ Treasury has been got to. It would be good to have more statutory independence for Treasury. A public disclosure regime similar to Dept of Statistics would be an enema that would alleviate government throttling too.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Lee C …. ain’t that the truth but the sad thing is that I suspect that Helen would cave in and offer him the premiership just to retain power. Winston has a feral dislike of National and it is reciprocated with bells on.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
This sentence came through loud and clear:
“with a greater discipline on government spending so the private sector can play a bigger role in the country’s fortunes.”
Sounds like privatising state functions. We’ve been there before. You end up paying more for less and the funder / provider split leaves the users of the service with no one accountable to them for it. “We only fund it” / “They didn’t give us enough money”.
Been there a hundred times – ARTA and private operaters in Auckland’s public transit mess are merely the latest example I’ve directly suffered – and I’m frankly sick to death of that crap. It’s a recipe for full pockets for insiders and avoiding accountability.
I guess we will get see once again why National isn’t fit to govern New Zealand: Faith in markets wins over reason and evidence far too often.
Evidence is what you ignore on the way to way to trying to make markets do what they do not do well: provide reliable, accountable public services at reasonable cost.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Shit Ghost the view must be great perched on the bow of the H.C. Titanic as it lifts above the waves, I hope you can swim.
Winnie for PM?. No way, he’s all piss and wind. He would poo his pants if he had to say something that actually meant something.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Quite a bit depends on what one includes in the list of ‘accountable public services’. Accountable is good, but shouldn’t accountability also include an assessment of necessity?
I think it should.
We have legions of policy analysts and media staff working in the public service. I’d contend that few are accountable, and fewer still are necessary.
Out they go.. chop chop. Health and education bureaucrats? Cull them. Don’t just shuffle their functions elsewhere, stop them altogether. Focus resources liberated from ending this failed social engineering experiment on things that improve the education, wealth, health and international competitiveness of all NZers.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Steve: You end up paying more for less and the funder / provider split leaves the users of the service with no one accountable to them for it.
Sounds like a really good description of the current state of the health services. The non-privatized ones…
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Ghostie is here all alone while the rest of the Clarktanic crew are below decks hacking holes in the hull to let the water out again with such briliant ideas as cracking down on bottle stores for daring to robbed making Dear Leaders keystone cops look bad.
Here ghostie, take this cement lifering.
It’ll float. Trust us.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
BB says
“Ghost
And of course you can provide proof of this “slur”…
Of course there are those of us who will think that again you are talking shit, perhaps Key made a statement of fact but I am not sure how anybody (apart from a Labour fuckwit) could describe it as a “slur””
of course you have no problem assuming that Cullen referred to Key as a “rich prick” to point out that rich people are pricks
Vote:rather than Key being a prick for his comment and rich being a throw in
June 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
People have no idea how true this is. Not all left wing Governments are like this one
While that is true, I disagree that Kevin Rudd leads a left wing Government. More to the left than the Liberal/National coalition, but centre-right by any balanced analysis
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
There is not that much difference between the John Key National PArty and the Australian Labour Party, which shows just how extremist the NZ Labour Party has become. The NZ Labour Party under Clark has never managed to get over 40% of the vote. They will have to do much better than that if they wish to get back into Government. It seems maori are leaving Labour in droves especially those who aspire to something more than a life of dependancy on welfare, drugs and prison.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Fran writes:
Sadly, true.
New Zealand Treasury, wake up!
Gone are the days when New Zealand Treasury was highly regarded — when it had incredibly intelligent, extremely energetic, economically knowledgeable, courageous and influential individuals like Graham Scott, Roger Kerr and Murray Horn.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
“People have no idea how true this is. Not all left wing Governments are like this one
While that is true, I disagree that Kevin Rudd leads a left wing Government. More to the left than the Liberal/National coalition, but centre-right by any balanced analysis”
Well no wonder Aussie is doing so much better than us. Even their lefties are right-wingers.
Vote:June 21st, 2008 at 11:17 pm
So Fran describes a “Vision” – what about the “Policy”?
Vote:Just a big Void eh?
I laugh.. – Polls without policy! – how stupid? – or just a Vindication of the bell curve of stupidity!!
Good on ya John Key. May your professed “technical” ascendant glory ascribe you a place in the pages of history. I’m sure it will be erased one day.
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:36 am
Fair enough Valeriusterminus, please enlighten us on your version of “what should be”.
Vote:June 22nd, 2008 at 8:24 am
Steve: You end up paying more for less …
Umm, Telecom? Definitely paying less for more than in the old Post Office days.
Vote:June 22nd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Short Shrivelled and Slightly to the Left
Vote:Doesn’t matter how you parse it-Cullen’s “rich prick” comment revealed the deep seated loathing in Labour’s ranks (and that of its apologists on the left) of capitalism and its successes. I constantly get asked in the US “Why would you leave such a beautiful country like NZ?”. My answer, after agreeing with NZ’s beauty, is to say that in NZ, if you succeed in business, there is a depressingly large number of people who whisper under their breath that somehow something crooked must’ve happened for you to become so successful-this attitude is wedded to a hostility to the notion of capitalist profit, an automatic assumption of corporate malfeasance and a smug assertion that socialism is a higher and holier state. In the US, if you succeed, people admire you, seek to emulate you and don’t care a fig if you want to buy a new Cadillac every year. On the flip side, in NZ, if you stumble in business, there is a chorus of tut tutting and “I told you so” – an attitude of “well he had it coming” coupled with a tendancy to never forget and to continually raise prior mistakes long after they were erased by future success. Again in the US, the converse is true. There is little stigma attached to business failure – the overwhelming attitude is “pick yourself up and have another go – most of our most successful businesses involved founders who made mistakes before their successes.”
June 25th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Is karma -11 significant??
Vote:That’s at least 9 (gutless) readers not prepared to leave rebuttal or comment, but just “click on da dthumb”
No less than expected.
Oh SSB – thanks – let me just describe my Vision as a manifestation of “Open Source” vs Microsoft. Non-competitive collaboration will always triumph over Corporate secularism.
Is this an “Open Source” blog – or not??
June 26th, 2008 at 12:05 am
KIA – just read you appalling diatribe – please stay there – what did David Lange say? – need not be restricted to Australis.
Vote:1/ Do you include Petrevic and Bryers and Alexander in your list of people that we should not “tut tut” about, “sorry that was just a stumble”??
2/ So – if the Cadillac is at the expense of defrauded investors should we still “say yay”?
3/ Americans are becoming aware that their “Goldenites” are often a product of corruption. Tease me to list the malfeance!!