Category: Economic Issues

The new Government has announced a timetable for implementing their Coalition promise to restore the Marine and Coastal Area Act to what Parliament had originally intended. This was in response to activist judges misinterpreting the law in such a way that Maori tribal groups would have gained control of the entire coastline out to the edge of the Territorial Sea.

The right thing to do would be to shut the door on customary title. The entire marine and coastal area should be returned to Crown ownership and managed for the benefit of all New Zealanders. That is the simple and correct solution. Unfortunately, the coalition government, and National in particular, appears to lack the testicular fortitude to do that.

We hear lots of claims that inaction in emissions comes with a massive financial bill from the Paris Agreement. Nonsense: the Agreement does not have penalties. Given its futility, New Zealand should either opt out of the Agreement or, like many other countries, ignore it. Given that Article 2(b) says that we should not do anything that threatens food production, why are so many people complaining about removing agricultural emissions from the ETS?

If we are to succeed the myth of racial superiority must be replaced with an overarching commitment to equality – valuing all members of our society equally and ensuring no one is left behind. Our leaders need to refocus on building success, rewarding those who work hard and condemning those who demand racial privilege.

The greatest cost burden of the climate extremism promoted by well-to-do elitist urbanites pushing their anti-growth “reset” falls on the poorest in society. The hypocrisy of elites flying business class to warm locations while preaching the perils of climate change, was not lost on those who can’t afford the electricity bills to heat their homes.

We seek boldness from the Coalition and industry to tackle the huge injustice of condemning farmers for being polluters when the latest science is clear: ruminants are not a problem. Saving millionths of a degree by decimating our most successful industry is as ludicrous as cutting off your hand to spite your elbow. Could we return to sanity, please?

The Coalition will need to keep a laser focus on eliminating wasteful spending and reducing the size of the State sector if the New Zealand economy is to really take off and deliver the prosperous future to which we all aspire.

From 2011 through 2023, failure to index the income tax thresholds pulled about a million wage and salary earners from the bottom 10.5% tax bracket into the 17.5% range and another eight hundred thousand from the 17.5% range into the 30% tax bracket.

If Sir Roger is right in his prediction that none of the existing political parties will support the proposed reforms because they don’t want to relinquish their tight-fisted grip on power, then we will need an army of Kiwis who are prepared to help us create the momentum we will need for a change of this scale...

Most politicians are tribal, they support their political party right or wrong, often in the hope of getting a ministerial job down the line. I never fitted into that category of politicians. For me, policy always came first - that is policy I believed to be in the best interests of New Zealand. Today, I still find it impossible to stay silent...