Category: imported_weekly
This is the final NZCPR Weekly column dealing with the 2011 General Election. We hope you have found value in our coverage. Before the election we wanted to inform you of the policy prescriptions being promoted by the various parties to assist you in making your voting decisions. Since the election, we hope our analysis has provided you with useful insight into issues and agendas that will influence the direction of the country over the next three years. In particular, this newsletter details the promises outlined by the four coalition partners in the National-led government.
While the coalition negotiations between National, ACT, United and the Maori Party continue on in their indeterminable way, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe deepens. Amid fears of loan defaults by Italy and Greece,...
Last month, with the Rugby World Cup in full swing, the country was painted black in support of the All Blacks. Now, the country is painted blue in support of a National-led government.
John Key was right to take a principled stand to prevent the release of an illegal tape recording of a private conversation between himself and John Banks. If he hadn’t, the whole boundary between what is private and what is public would be forever blurred. Certain members of the media would feel perfectly entitled to snoop and engage in covert recordings across the board in the hope that they could get a ‘scoop’ and the rewards of an “exclusive” story. And those political leaders who are saying that the recording should be released are particularly disingenuous. In fact they should be ashamed of themselves because if they were the target instead of Key and Banks they would probably be calling for privacy too.
As the Head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde was warning about the bleak global economic outlook last week, New Zealand politicians were digging deeper into taxpayer pockets and promising to spend more. With our General Election on Saturday week, it is disturbing that so many parties are totally ignoring the dark clouds that are gathering as they try to bribe voters with money they don’t have.
As predicted, the biggest issue of the 2011 Election campaign is the economy. And the major question on people’s minds is which party is better placed to run the economy and protect us from the sort of disasters that we can see playing out in the Euro-zone.
The campaign for New Zealand’s 2011 General Election on 26 November has started. The jostling and jockeying, shaking hands and kissing babies, meetings and protests, promises and bickering, the battle of ideas for the hearts and minds - and more particularly the votes - of New Zealanders has begun!
With the Rugby World Cup now almost behind us – and a HUGE congratulations to the All Blacks for their win and to all of those who made the tournament so successful – the country’s focus will soon turn to politics. With the 2011 general election just four weeks away, we should expect a flood of well rehearsed policy announcements from all political contenders aimed at attracting our votes. Since this is the season for new ideas we thought we would share some of the initiatives that we have come across during our NZCPR research work, that are being used by countries around the world to address their public policy challenges.
In 2006, property investor Terrence Stirling applied to the Christchurch City Council for a resource consent for a bulk retail centre on a two-hectare site some 50 metres from the central business district. The site, which was used mainly for car sales, was in an industrial zone where any retail development needed Council permission. The proposed complex was to have two large-format stores selling items such as furniture, carpets, or appliances, along with five smaller shops. He thought it would be a straightforward matter. It wasn’t.
The Maori Party is claiming that New Zealand’s justice, police, courts and corrections processes systematically discriminate against Maori. Co-leader Pita Sharples says that he has based his stance on a series of top-level reports. But it is clear that he is ignoring overwhelming evidence that show his claims of prejudice to be not only blatant electioneering, but blatant racism as well!
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