The Sorry Story of Earthquake-Prone Buildings. The Treasury requires that when new or amended legislation is proposed, a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) be provided – ‘a high-level summary of the problem being addressed, the options and their associated costs and benefits, the consultation undertaken, and the proposed arrangements for implementation and review’. In its hurry…
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Public policy towards tobacco consumption remains politically sensitive. In 1983, a young researcher was told by a medium-level Treasury official that Treasury policy was to abandon excise duties on tobacco. The senior Treasury economist that I consulted, famed for his commonsense, snorted ‘we need the money’. He explained that no-excise-duty was the ambition of a…
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This is a background to my column ‘Te Tiriti as a Social Contract’. (February 2024) In 1956, historian Ruth Ross presented her investigations of the treaty signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 to a seminar concluding, ‘The [Māori and Pakeha] signatories of 1840 were uncertain and divided in their understanding of [Te Tiriti’s] meaning;…
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Interpreting the agreement made at Waitangi as a social contract is a way to move forward on treaty issues. (This column follows ‘Our Understandings Of Te Tiriti Has Evolved Organically’.) Te Tiriti is in the form of a social contract of the sort that political theorists have discussed since the seventeenth century to explain how…
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Why try to stop that evolution? In 1956, historian Ruth Ross presented her investigations of the treaty signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 to a seminar concluding, ‘The [Māori and Pakeha] signatories of 1840 were uncertain and divided in their understanding of [Te Tiriti’s] meaning; who can say now what its intentions were? ……
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And even more from the book it is based upon: “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Christopher Nolan’s award winning film Oppenheimer is based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus. I really liked the title. Prometheus was the Greek god who gave mankind fire, and was punished for…
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Luxon has to address the need to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s social cohesion. Dear Christopher Luxon, The greatest challenge you face is that of the nation’s social cohesion (rather than the economy). The problem has been with us ever since Hobson arrived. New Zealand is a diverse society. For over a century we suppressed…
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The New Zealand economy is struggling; the new government will struggle to implement its economic promises. There is not a great deal of difference in Treasury’s projected GDP growth patterns between the May 2023 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) and the December 2023 Half Yearly Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU). But there are some…
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Note written for circulation January 2024 In 2023 the New Zealand Health System was further centralised. As usual, the reasons given for the redisorganisation were unclear, thin and unconvincing. There have been no immediate benefits evident from the new structure; experience suggests that if there are any, they will take time to manifest themselves. Downsides…
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Robert Solow transformed the way we think about economic growth. When you are in the trenches, you may not always realise what the war is about. Years later you read an account and see more clearly. Thus it was with me in the 1960s when economic analysis went through a revolution. My insight came later…
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Note written for circulation, December 2023 Ethnicity is not a well-defined notion for the majority of the population, but when asked for ‘official’ purposes (usually with a choice of tick boxes) most can ethnically identify themselves. (Typically, they may check as many ethnicities as they wish.) In the Population Census data used here there is…
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The new Minister of Finance implied that Treasury’s ‘books’ were deceptive. Can’t see it myself. I was disturbed by media reports that the new Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, had criticised the previous Labour Government ‘for leaving the books with “nasty financial surprises” that National will have to clean up’ and that ‘after looking at…
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In his Economists in the Cold War, Alan Bollard contrasts Saburo Okita of Japan with Zhou En Lai of China to highlight a critical issue. Saburo Okita (1914-1993) was in Manchuria (northeast China), in the port city of Darien (Chinese: Dalien) which was occupied by Japan at that time. Because they were politically unsympathetic to…
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I have not weighed in on the vigorous and welcome discussion on the dual mandate of the Reserve Bank to both target inflation and maintain maximum sustainable employment. This note is about why the new government gave so much priority to abolishing it. One reason for not joining in is that I am unsympathetic to…
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Alan Bollard, formerly Treasury Secretary, Reserve Bank Governor and Chairman of APEC, has written an insightful book exploring command vs demand approaches to the economy. The Cold War included a conflict about ideas; many were economic. Alan Bollard’s latest book Economists in the Cold War focuses on the contribution of seven economists with each one…
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A comparison of the coalition party agreements shows commonalities but also some serious divergencies. They are mainly about returning to 2017 when National lost power. The two coalition agreements – one National and ACT, the other National and New Zealand First – are more than policy documents. They also describe the processes of the new…
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A previous column looked at Winston Peters biographically. This one takes a closer look at his record as a minister, especially his policy record. 1990-1991: Minister of Māori Affairs. Few remember Ka Awatea as a major document on the future of Māori policy; there is not even an entry in Wikipedia. The impression is that…
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The picture the commentariat presents of Winston Peters is a misleading caricature. If we don’t try to understand the complexity of the man, we cannot understand what is going on in New Zealand politics. Winston Peters has been active in New Zealand politics longer than any other current politician. He stood for Northern Māori in…
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Did you think the incoming government promised to extend bowel screening to 50-59 year olds? The promise was more limited – and more feasible. National’s Manifesto promised: Bowel cancer is the second highest cause of cancer death in New Zealand, while we have one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world. More…
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There is a view that the world economy is entering a period of higher inflation and higher nominal interest rates, but who knows? Presumably New Zealand has to follow. If you know everything about the inflation process, and are totally committed to central banks targeting inflation at 2 percent p.a., then there is no need…
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