Category: imported_weekly

This week’s column looks at three anniversaries – the first anniversary of the formation of the New Zealand Centre for Political Debate, the five year anniversary of 9/11 and the ten year anniversary of US welfare reform.

With last week’s newspapers headlines warning: “Keep kids inside after dark, police tell parents”, the public could be excused for thinking the reports were about Soweto, not Auckland.

Next week is the tenth anniversary of MMP, the Mixed Member Proportional voting system that was introduced as a result of a binding referendum in 1993. It was meant to deliver a better standard of government to New Zealand.

As a highly taxed country with the highest interest rates in the western world, it is little wonder that the spectre of local authority rates escalating - seemingly out of control - has the nation up in arms.

Over the last week, three controversies have served to undermine confidence in the effectiveness of state education: the threat of strike action by secondary teachers, the decline in primary school children’s maths skills, and a religious instruction debacle that looks set to result in a massively unworkable bureaucratic nightmare!

Last week, the University of Otago published: “New Zealand in the 21st Century – A Consumer Lifestyles Study”, which provides a five-yearly insight into New Zealand society. The findings present a snapshot of how more than 3,500 New Zealanders view our country.

The 2006 Maori electoral option, which opened in April, closed last week with 15,000 more Maori having enrolled on the Maori roll. This was well down on the 24,000 additions in 2001 and the 18,000 in 1997.

New Zealand’s unsung heroes are small businesses. These enterprises, which largely begin their life as family-based operations, keep the wheels of commerce turning. They provide the goods and services that consumers need and in the process, create the jobs and wealth that are necessary for the healthy functioning of our economy.