Category: imported_weekly

The latest data from Statistics New Zealand shows that over the first three months of this year our economy contracted by 0.3 percent, the first period of negative growth in two and a half years. If the economy shrinks in the June quarter, as is expected, then New Zealand will officially be in a recession.

According to the Christchurch Press, a 35kg greenstone pounamu travelled first class to China, accompanied by two members of Ngai Tahu, as part of a sister city exchange with the Christchurch City Council. In their editorial the Press describes the whole event as a farce, “Its journey from Fiordland to Wuhan provides the basis for a novel of the absurd, in which the voyage is preposterous, the characters pretentious and the implications portentous”.

Whether voters feel that New Zealand a better country now than when Labour was first elected in 1999 is one of the questions they will answer on Election Day. Not since the sixties has a New Zealand government had it so good with year on year record surpluses. In fact, since taking office, Labour has spent $85 billion more than if core government spending had been held at 1999 levels. The question is whether this massive additional spending has been of benefit?

The latest Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Statement will be of very serious concern to the Labour-led coalition government, given that it comes only months ahead of the 2008 general election. The Reserve Bank forecasts a seriously declining economy, inflation at an 18-year high of 4.7 percent, escalating food and petrol prices, falling house prices, 50,000 more unemployed, and even greater numbers of people leaving to live in Australia. It’s hard to see how the forecast could be any worse.1

In spite of not being able to accurately forecast next week’s weather, New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has just released climate predictions for 2090.

“The cupboard is bare”… “I’ve not merely stolen their fox I’ve eviscerated it, strangled it and thrown it into their back garden.” These were the retorts of Finance Minister Michael Cullen during the Parliamentary Debate on the 2008 Budget.

Last week the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment came out in support of the Government’s Emissions Trading Bill as the gateway to a ‘carbon-constrained future’: “We should not forget the principle at the core of the emissions trading scheme of ‘polluter pays’. ’Polluter pays’ is actually a variant of ‘user pays’; we are using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for waste gases.”[i]

In the recent local body elections, Britain’s Labour Government was delivered its worst election defeat in 40 years. Commentators called the rout a “citizen revolt” against the carbon taxes and nanny state regulations that have been driving up living costs to unsustainable levels.

Last week the Child Poverty Action Group called for an increase in welfare payments to beneficiaries with children. They claimed that increasing benefits would end child poverty in New Zealand. They want to see New Zealand adopt an official poverty level of 60 percent of the median household disposable income after housing costs and then set net beneficiary incomes to this level (See Report ).