Category: imported_guest

Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. Arguments in favour of private property rights and free market exchange do not set the pulse racing in the way that fiery speeches about socialism, fascism or environmentalism can. Capitalism can justifiably boast that it is very good at delivering the goods, but increasingly in countries like New Zealand , this fails to win hearts and minds, for we have come to take our affluence for-granted. We want something more than just comfort to believe in.

It is now eighteen years since I first visited New Zealand as a guest of the New Zealand Business Roundtable. Yet that period of time is long enough to document the early rise in growth during the period between 1992-2000, followed by the much more anemic growth in the period between 2000 and 2006. The trend rate of labour productivity growth in the measured sector was about 2.7% in the first period and 1.3% in the second. The point of the divide is no accident, for the year 2000 marks the rise of the current Labour government to power, and the gutting of the Employment Contracts Act of 1990, which I am happy to say I helped promote on my first visit to New Zealand.

We may all be Environmentalists now – but we must beware of the Dark Greens.

The 2008 4th Edition Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey released recently, illustrates clearly why so many young and vulnerable New Zealanders, are being denied the right to the opportunity of affordable housing.

For some reason that I simply cannot fathom we fail as a Nation to understand or respond to this hugely embarrassing and destructive issue. If we are not embarrassed by it, we damned well should be. We are rated by the OECD to be at the top of world statistics for child abuse and murder.

A happy and a prosperous new year based, one hopes, on the commonsense of resource efficiency not sleazy carbon trading.

I have been involved in the electricity and energy business in New Zealand for the last fifty years. From 1992 to 2003, I produced the only independent review of electricity generation and demand in New Zealand.

What is a basis point, and what does it have to do with changes in interest rates? Should your savings be put into Kiwi Saver or into paying off a house mortgage? Should you be worried about the recent collapse of so many finance companies over the past 18 months? What is an exchange rate and why does the New Zealand Exchange Rate change so much? Should I sell my Warehouse shares or buy more?

The Electoral Finance Bill is quite simply an unacceptable attack on the human rights of New Zealanders. This is not simply my view, but also the views of the Law Society and the Human Rights Commission. Even with the Select Committee modifications, they oppose the Bill being passed into law.

Speech to the NZ Business Round Table by The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson.