Rod Oram: Why new leaders and policies are neededProvided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex >issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same wont deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasnt done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor >parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this
column focuses almost entirely on them.
Nationals track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and >shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political >journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldnt do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This >quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in Nationals second term were markedly different
from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes
of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others
such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, its still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our
tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international >competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGPs 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from >government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost
half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the governments early targeting of oil, gas, mining and >back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
Nationals third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the
global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorps assets to
young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little >financial return to taxpayers, Nathan Guy said. We think that some
of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental
best practice.
Clearly Guy, who is Nationals long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesnt know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive
farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and >environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of Nationals governance GDP per capita has grown by
barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has
fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of
living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of Nationals
2025 goals: catching up with Australias GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says theres no need to change policies. It says current ones
and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth
term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges >outstanding.
But thats not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last
month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline.
The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 just before the next election.
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of >improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely
outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term >average; and our current account deficit the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will
worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic
focus. In the New Zealand Heralds Mood of the Boardroom survey before
the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order,
as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and >homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community.
It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election, Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers
and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the governments
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment
and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and
they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%,
up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
Nationals top three priorities for business are: train kids;
continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world,
Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood
of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labours are: A relentless focus on skills and retraining; lifting
R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, theres little difference between the two parties. But
in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of,
and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertsons emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labours
Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labours policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts
our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new >thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about
how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home >construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
governments recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own governments
data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have
grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same wont deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders
and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news >elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of >international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote: >https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
Rod Oram: ‘Why new leaders and policies are needed’
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex >issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same won’t deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasn’t done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor >parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this >column focuses almost entirely on them.
National’s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and >shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political >journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it >wouldn’t do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This >quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in National’s second term were markedly different >from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding >Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes
of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others
such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, it’s still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our >tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international >competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGP’s 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from >government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost
half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the government’s early targeting of oil, gas, mining and >back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
National’s third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the >global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorp’s assets to >young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
“There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little >financial return to taxpayers,” Nathan Guy said. “We think that some
of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental
best practice.”
Clearly Guy, who is National’s long-serving minister for primary >industries, doesn’t know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive >farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers >overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering >sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and >environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of National’s governance GDP per capita has grown by >barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD >average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has >fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of >living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of National’s
2025 goals: catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says there’s no need to change policies. It says current ones >and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth
term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges >outstanding.
But that’s not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last >month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline.
The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 – just before the next election.
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of >improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely >outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term >average; and our current account deficit – the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will >worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic >focus. In the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey before >the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order,
as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and >homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
“New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community.
It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election,” Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers
and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the government’s
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment
and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and
they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%,
up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
National’s top three priorities for business are: “train kids”; >continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world, >Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood
of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labour’s are: “A relentless focus on skills and retraining”; lifting >R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, there’s little difference between the two parties. But
in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of,
and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertson’s emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labour’s >Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are >rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their >employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labour’s policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts
our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new >thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about
how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home >construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
government’s recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own government’s >data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have >grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same won’t deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders >and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties. >Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news >elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole >edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better >products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of >international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in >Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Provided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choiceProvided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
Rod Oram: Why new leaders and policies are needed
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex
issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same wont deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasnt done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor
parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this
column focuses almost entirely on them.
Nationals track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and
shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldnt do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This
quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in Nationals second term were markedly different
from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes
of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others
such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, its still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our
tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international
competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGPs 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from
government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost
half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the governments early targeting of oil, gas, mining and
back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
Nationals third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the
global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorps assets to
young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little
financial return to taxpayers, Nathan Guy said. We think that some
of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental
best practice.
Clearly Guy, who is Nationals long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesnt know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive
farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and
environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of Nationals governance GDP per capita has grown by
barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has
fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of
living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of Nationals
2025 goals: catching up with Australias GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says theres no need to change policies. It says current ones
and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth
term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges
outstanding.
But thats not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last
month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline.
The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 just before the next election.
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of
improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely
outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term
average; and our current account deficit the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will
worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic
focus. In the New Zealand Heralds Mood of the Boardroom survey before
the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order,
as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and
homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community.
It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election, Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers
and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the governments
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment
and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and
they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%,
up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
Nationals top three priorities for business are: train kids;
continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world,
Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood
of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labours are: A relentless focus on skills and retraining; lifting
R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, theres little difference between the two parties. But
in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of,
and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertsons emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labours
Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labours policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts
our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new
thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about
how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home
construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
governments recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own governments
data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have
grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same wont deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders
and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news
elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of
international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
Rod Oram: ‘Why new leaders and policies are needed’
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex
issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same won’t deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasn’t done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor
parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this
column focuses almost entirely on them.
National’s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and
shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldn’t do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This
quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in National’s second term were markedly different
from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes
of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others
such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, it’s still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our
tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international
competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGP’s 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from
government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost
half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the government’s early targeting of oil, gas, mining and
back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
National’s third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the
global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorp’s assets to
young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
“There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little
financial return to taxpayers,” Nathan Guy said. “We think that some
of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental
best practice.”
Clearly Guy, who is National’s long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesn’t know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive
farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and
environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of National’s governance GDP per capita has grown by
barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has
fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of
living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of National’s
2025 goals: catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says there’s no need to change policies. It says current ones
and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth
term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges
outstanding.
But that’s not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last
month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline.
The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 – just before the next election.
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of
improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely
outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term
average; and our current account deficit – the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will
worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic
focus. In the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey before
the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order,
as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and
homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
“New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community.
It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election,” Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers
and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the government’s
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment
and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and
they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%,
up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
National’s top three priorities for business are: “train kids”;
continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world,
Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood
of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labour’s are: “A relentless focus on skills and retraining”; lifting >> >R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, there’s little difference between the two parties. But
in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of,
and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertson’s emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labour’s >> >Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labour’s policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts
our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new
thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about
how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home
construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
government’s recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own government’s
data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have
grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same won’t deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders
and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news
elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of
international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Provided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
Then you'll be able to back up what you say by simply putting up your own >coherent and unbiased opinion that patently betters Oram's.Don't be so childish.
Meanwhile, don't forget to thank mother for the rabbit.I am not going anywhere, you?
jmschristophers@gmail.com wrote:lifting
On Monday, September 18, 2017 at 9:45:35 AM UTC+12, nor...@googlegroups.com wrote:
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
Rod Oram: ‘Why new leaders and policies are needed’
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex
issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same won’t deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasn’t done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor
parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this
column focuses almost entirely on them.
National’s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and
shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldn’t do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This
quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in National’s second term were markedly different >> >from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes
of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others
such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, it’s still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our >> >tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international
competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGP’s 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from
government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost
half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the government’s early targeting of oil, gas, mining and
back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
National’s third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the
global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorp’s assets to >> >young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
“There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little >> >financial return to taxpayers,” Nathan Guy said. “We think that some >> >of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental
best practice.”
Clearly Guy, who is National’s long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesn’t know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive >> >farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and
environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of National’s governance GDP per capita has grown by >> >barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has
fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of
living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of National’s
2025 goals: catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says there’s no need to change policies. It says current ones >> >and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth
term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges
outstanding.
But that’s not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last
month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline.
The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 – just before the next election. >> >
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of
improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely
outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term
average; and our current account deficit – the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will
worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic
focus. In the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey before >> >the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order,
as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and
homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
“New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community. >> >It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election,” Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers >> >and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the government’s
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment
and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and
they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%,
up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
National’s top three priorities for business are: “train kids”;
continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world,
Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood
of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labour’s are: “A relentless focus on skills and retraining”;
R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, there’s little difference between the two parties. But >> >in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of,
and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertson’s emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labour’s >> >Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labour’s policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts
our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new
thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about
how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home
construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
government’s recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own government’s >> >data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have
grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same won’t deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders >> >and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news
elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of
international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Provided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
Then you'll be able to back up what you say by simply putting up your own >coherent and unbiased opinion that patently betters Oram's.
Don't be so childish.
On Monday, September 18, 2017 at 11:48:45 AM UTC+12, nor...@googlegroups.comwrote:
ourjmschristophers@gmail.com wrote:
On Monday, September 18, 2017 at 9:45:35 AM UTC+12, nor...@googlegroups.com
wrote:
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
Rod Oram: ‘Why new leaders and policies are needed’
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex >> >issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the >> >same won’t deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasn’t done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor >> >parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this >> >column focuses almost entirely on them.
National’s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and >> >shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or >> >so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldn’t do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This >> >quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister, >> >says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in National’s second term were markedly different >> >from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market >> >gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes >> >of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others >> >such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, it’s still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of
sometech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international >> >competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGP’s 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from >> >government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost >> >half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the government’s early targeting of oil, gas, mining and
back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
National’s third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the >> >global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorp’s assets to >> >young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
“There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little >> >financial return to taxpayers,” Nathan Guy said. “We think that
onesof these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental >> >best practice.”
Clearly Guy, who is National’s long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesn’t know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive >> >farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in >> >its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and
environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of National’s governance GDP per capita has grown by >> >barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has >> >fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of >> >living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD. >> >
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of National’s
2025 goals: catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says there’s no need to change policies. It says current
election.and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth >> >term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges
outstanding.
But that’s not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last >> >month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline. >> >The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 – just before the next
before
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of >> >improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely >> >outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the >> >next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term >> >average; and our current account deficit – the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will >> >worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic >> >focus. In the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey
community.the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order, >> >as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and
homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
“New Zealand has made a generational change in the business
liftingIt seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that >> >may be reflected in the election,” Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers >> >and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the government’s
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment >> >and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and >> >they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%, >> >up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
National’s top three priorities for business are: “train kids”; >> >continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world, >> >Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood >> >of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labour’s are: “A relentless focus on skills and retraining”;
Labour’sR&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, there’s little difference between the two parties. But >> >in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of, >> >and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertson’s emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading
leadersFuture of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labour’s policy to reintroduce >> >the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains >> >tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts >> >our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop >> >some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate >> >far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate >> >urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new >> >thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about >> >how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home
construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
government’s recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak >> >next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of >> >the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own government’s >> >data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have >> >grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same won’t deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new
and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news >> >elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of
international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Provided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
can't meet the challenge I logically pose simply because he knows it's way beyond both his learning and his grasp to do so.Then you'll be able to back up what you say by simply putting up your own >coherent and unbiased opinion that patently betters Oram's.
Don't be so childish.
The only childish one around here is the peevish little boy who now shows he
How boorish and peevish of you.jmschristophers@gmail.com wrote:
On Monday, September 18, 2017 at 9:45:35 AM UTC+12, nor...@googlegroups.com >> wrote:
Rich80105<rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
Rod Oram: ‘Why new leaders and policies are needed’
This election comes down to a simple choice on a vast array of complex >> >> >issues. Rod Oram looks at National's record and concludes more of the
same won’t deliver for New Zealand.
National says vote for us: Our policies have delivered what New
Zealanders need, and will continue to do so.
Labour says vote for us: We know how to do all the things National
hasn’t done, and will fail to do.
If only government were so simple.
Thankfully, our electoral system gives us a bit more choice. We can
split our constituency and party votes; or we can vote only for minor
parties. But National or Labour will lead the next government, so this >> >> >column focuses almost entirely on them.
National’s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and
shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or >> >> >so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
As it promised in the election, National established a tax working
party, which later proposed many remedies to the distortions in our
tax system. But the government ignored them. Instead it cut the top
rate of tax; and it raised GST, which it promised in the election it
wouldn’t do.
By early 2010 the government unveiled its Economic Growth Agenda. This >> >> >quickly morphed into the current Business Growth Agenda (BGA). It
focuses on six ingredients: infrastructure, exports, innovation,
capital markets, natural resources, and skilled and safe workplaces.
Note, Agenda not Strategy, a word Steven Joyce, the Finance Minister,
says he has a deep aversion to.
Economic conditions in National’s second term were markedly different >> >> >from the first. Growth was resuming here and abroad. Rebuilding
Christchurch, booming global dairy markets and a soaring stock market
gave ample scope for the government to be opportunistic with the likes >> >> >of the partial sell-down of state-owned electricity companies.
The government progressed the regulatory reworking of financial
markets and some other frameworks. But it was abysmally slow on others >> >> >such as workplace safety and the environment.
The BGA was fleshed out with hundreds of government initiatives,
ranging from ambitious to trivial, and from new to co-opted from
existing activity.
The two most important for developing a more sophisticated, higher
value economy were Callaghan Innovation and the Primary Growth
Partnership.
It took the government four years to establish Callaghan as its
dispenser of R&D funding. While the tech sector is expanding at a
decent clip, it’s still not clear how useful Callaghan is. Most of our >> >> >tech companies are still lagging seriously behind their international
competitors, the Productivity Commission has reported.
PGP’s 22 projects to date have attracted some $750m of funding from
government and the private sector. The meat sector accounts for almost >> >> >half of that. Yet, it has utterly failed to reform itself. Its very
limited improvement augers badly for PGP overall.
Likewise, the government’s early targeting of oil, gas, mining and
back-office financial services as boom export sectors have all been
busts.
Booms and opportunism
National’s third term has benefited from big booms in migration,
tourism, housing, and construction. Again, the government has been
highly opportunistic, but it has lagged badly on strategic policies
and investment to cope. Infrastructure, housing, construction
capacity, the environment and climate are just five of the crucial
areas.
It has managed government finances well. But it has been weak on
economic strategy. For example, it offers no views on how rapidly the
global economy is changing; or on how to reorient technology,
education, skills and other policies New Zealanders need to seize
those abundant opportunities.
On Thursday, National gave yet another example of its failure to
understand the future. It said it would sell off Landcorp’s assets to >> >> >young farmers on a lease-to-buy basis.
“There is no clear public good coming from Crown ownership and little >> >> >financial return to taxpayers,” Nathan Guy said. “We think that some >> >> >of these farms are better off in the hands of hard working young
farming families who are committed to modern farming and environmental >> >> >best practice.”
Clearly Guy, who is National’s long-serving minister for primary
industries, doesn’t know Landcorp is our largest and most progressive >> >> >farmer. It is starting to shift away from commodities by investing in
its farms and by working directly with retailers and manufacturers
overseas; by diversifying away from dairying; and by pioneering
sophisticated management systems for its farms, and the people and
environment on which they depend, as I reported in this column.
Landcorp has made a lot more progress in the two years since.
Under nine years of National’s governance GDP per capita has grown by >> >> >barely 1% a year in real terms, which is not much ahead of the OECD
average. Wealth inequality has risen, environmental sustainability has >> >> >fallen and productivity growth, the factor determining our standard of >> >> >living and economic resilience, remains among the lowest in the OECD.
On current trends and policies, we will achieve none of National’s
2025 goals: catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita; lifting
exports from 30% of GDP to 40%; and doubling the value of exports.
The near future:
National says there’s no need to change policies. It says current ones >> >> >and the strong economy will deliver much more, enabling it in a fourth >> >> >term to make big inroads on the big economic and social challenges
outstanding.
But that’s not the future Treasury or the Reserve Bank forecast last >> >> >month. They said GDP growth will peak next calendar year then decline. >> >> >The Reserve Bank is the more cautious of the two, forecasting growth
of 2.1% in the year to September 2020 – just before the next election. >> >> >
Treasury forecasts multifactor productivity -- the key determinant of
improvements in our wages and wealth -- will actually decline in the
next two years, then grow weakly in the following two years. We will
remain near the bottom of the OECD on this vital measure of economic
health and competitiveness. As a consequence, wage growth will barely
outpace inflation.
Treasury also forecasts the growth of export volumes will ease in the
next two years to less than 2% a year, which is below their long-term
average; and our current account deficit – the key measure of our
trade and investment relationships with the rest of the world -- will
worsen.
Business is changing its mind
Meanwhile business leaders have made a sharp change in their strategic >> >> >focus. In the New Zealand Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom survey before >> >> >the 2014 election they had listed their top five priorities, in order, >> >> >as: budget surplus: economic growth; international trade;
strengthening of Chinese relationship; and our place in the world.
Their bottom five were:
tackling housing; mental health (including suicide); poverty and
homelessness, environment and water quality, and the wealth gap.
Their top issues this election are: infrastructure; housing;
productivity; education; and inequality, the Herald reported on
Tuesday.
“New Zealand has made a generational change in the business community. >> >> >It seems to have developed a much greater social conscience, and that
may be reflected in the election,” Kim Campbell, CEO of the Employers >> >> >and Manufacturers Association, said at the launch of the survey.
The survey asked business leaders to rate the government’s
performance. The lowest scores were housing 2.43 out of 5; environment >> >> >and water 2.5, and homelessness 2.43.
Moreover, 63% of companies said they expect their business to change
more in the next five years than they have in the past five years; and >> >> >they want a government that can help them do that.
The mood is changing too at the small end of town. MYOB says its
recent survey of 400 SME operators saw support for Labour jump to 29%, >> >> >up from just 10% at the same time last year, while National remains
strong at 44%, although it is down 13 percentage points in the past
year.
The choice:
National’s top three priorities for business are: “train kids”;
continue to grow R&D; and ensuring New Zealand was open to the world,
Steven Joyce, its finance spokesman, told business leaders at the Mood >> >> >of the Boardroom breakfast on Tuesday.
Labour’s are: “A relentless focus on skills and retraining”;
lifting
R&D; and to give small businesses more access to capital, Grant
Robertson, its finance spokesman, told the audience.
Superficially, there’s little difference between the two parties. But >> >> >in those brief lists, Robertson demonstrated greater understanding of, >> >> >and ambition for, New Zealand businesses than Joyce.
Robertson’s emphasis on retraining reflects his work leading Labour’s
Future of Work Commission on how technology, trade and economics are
rapidly changing the way companies operate and the reskilling their
employees need to remain relevant.
His emphasis on lifting R&D reflects Labour’s policy to reintroduce
the R&D tax credit. Then all companies get help to lift their
innovation. That is the international norm, rather than selected
recipients being funded by taxpayers via Callaghan, which is a Kiwi
quirk.
His emphasis on capital for business reflects the way a capital gains
tax encourages investment in productive assets rather than housing.
Capital Gains Tax is the international norm; its absence here distorts >> >> >our economy and diminishes our productivity.
Labour has far from all the right answers, and hopefully it will drop
some of its seriously wrong ones such as removing the urban/rural
boundary in Auckland. That would cause cheaper housing to proliferate
far from jobs, to the great disadvantage of lower income families;
push up the cost and inefficiencies of infrastructure; and accelerate
urban sprawl. By and large, though, Labour is pushing some useful new
thinking.
National, in contrast, is far too busy defending its record of the
past nine years to admit where it has failed, let alone to think about >> >> >how it might do better.
Joyce, for example, denies there is a housing crisis. He says home
construction will boom for the next six years. But his own
government’s recent construction pipeline report shows it will peak
next year then fall back, for example, in Auckland to the previous
peak in 2005. The government had done nothing to grow the capacity of
the construction sector, nor is it offering any policies to do so.
English says productivity is growing nicely. But his own government’s >> >> >data and analysis show he is absolutely wrong. He also says wages have >> >> >grown twice as fast as inflation. But that assertion surprises many
voters.
More of the same won’t deliver for New Zealand. Hopefully, new leaders >> >> >and policies will.
Support parties:
If Labour forms the next government, it will need support parties.
Depending on election results, it will have some options:
New Zealand First would offer the most MPs. But its leader is
irascible, and his policies muddled and too favourable to people as
old as he is.
The Maori Party would offer a few MPs and a strong Maori perspective
and connection.
The Greens, if they survive, would offer some MPs and plenty of
policies on green growth, a concept novel in New Zealand, but old news >> >> >elsewhere. Back in 2009, the Harvard Business Review devoted a whole
edition to the subject. Among its conclusions:
"Our research shows that sustainability is a mother lode of
organisational and technological innovations that yield both
bottom-line and top-line returns. Becoming environmentally friendly
lowers costs because companies end up reducing the inputs they use.
"In addition, the process generates additional revenues from better
products or enables companies to create new businesses. We find that
smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new
frontier."
If the Greens clawed their way back to 8% of the party vote, Barry
Coates would resume his seat in parliament. A 25-year veteran of
international negotiations on climate change and sustainability, he
knows far more about those subjects than any other MP.
If we change our government on September 23, we would join voters in
Canada, France and Ireland. Like them, we would embark on a new
political, economic, environmental and social era which promises
greater progress for all.
Provided you don't want a balanced and unbiased opinion.
Then you'll be able to back up what you say by simply putting up your own >> >coherent and unbiased opinion that patently betters Oram's.
Don't be so childish.
The only childish one around here is the peevish little boy who now shows he >can't meet the challenge I logically pose simply because he knows it's way >beyond both his learning and his grasp to do so.
Nationals track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political journalist.
On 2017-09-17, Rich80105 <rich80105@hotmail.com> wrote:Not what Rod Oram is saying - read the article: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/09/16/48321/column-rodoram-election2017-choice
National?s track record:
It came to power in November 2008 at the height of the Global
Financial Crisis. It was singularly unprepared for the job. It had
spent the previous nine years in opposition micro-managing issues and
shuffling leaders seeking to regain power. It had failed to develop
its policies to respond to the fast-changing world.
A year later, its economic strategy still consisted of only a dozen or
so A3 sheets of paper, reported Colin James, the veteran political
journalist.
Good grief this is where Labour is at now.
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