Category: imported_weekly
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!
The Rugby World Cup is showing New Zealanders what is possible when we all unite behind a common purpose. Imagine how far we could go as a country if we all got behind a goal like lifting our living standards! Becoming a wealthy county again would certainly be within our reach.
The world is in a danger zone. In 2008, many people said they did not see the turbulence coming. Leaders have no such excuse now. And dangerous times call for courageous people. Some developed country officials sound like their woes are just their business. Not so. I still think that a double-dip recession for the world’s major economies is unlikely. But my confidence in that belief is being eroded daily by the steady drip of difficult economic news. A crisis made in the developed world could become a crisis for developing countries. Europe, Japan, and the United States must act to address their big economic problems before they become bigger problems for the rest of the world. Not to do so is irresponsible. But I know well that acting on them means honest and difficult discussions with parliaments and publics. Delay will narrow choices and make them harder and more costly. All of us across developing and developed economies have a stake in how they handle it. - World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick, Sept 22, 2011.
A Maori academic who says that immigration by whites should be restricted because they pose a threat to race relations due to their white supremacist attitudes, is leading an Independent Maori Working Group on constitutional reform. According to Iwi Chairs Forum member Margaret Mutu the group will develop a constitution to be given to the Crown as a model for New Zealand. She claims that their working party has the blessing of not only the Maori Party leader Pita Sharples, but also National Party leader and Prime Minister John Key.[1]
For those New Zealanders concerned about the relentless rise in the price of power, the New Zealand Energy Strategy, released last month by the National-led government, offers little hope of relief.[1] The strategy is a complex mix of common sense and green ideology. On the one hand there is a strong emphasis on utilising New Zealand’s natural minerals and fuel resources to drive energy security and economic growth. That can only be good for the country. But on the other hand, much of the report could have been the work of a Labour-Green government with its green mantra of sustainability and its overarching focus on extreme environmentalism.
To those of you who have experienced difficulties with our New Zealand Centre for Political Research website at www.nzcpr.com over the last few weeks, our apologies for any inconvenience caused. The technical problems with the server that hosts our NZCPR website have now been resolved by our ISP, and the full functionality of the website has been restored. However, the difficulties we experienced have highlighted the fact that the NZCPR website has outgrown our current technology platform - and the server.
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