Thursday 17 July 2014

Labour/National–relevance/reform?

Hugh Pavletich asks if Labour has the capacity to reform and become relevant – which prompted me to wonder if National will ever have the balls to become meaningful, and enact reform.

Hugh reckons New Zealand Labour has massive problems, but the issues are much deeper than New Zealand Labour and David Cunliffe …

Voters everywhere have had enough of bloated and dysfunctional governments, says Britain’s Daily Telegraph. In the US, a recent Gallup Poll reveals that the number one US problem for those polled is the US Government,)

And here in New Zealand, the New Zealand Productivity Commission reports there is an army of 10,000 overseeing outdated and poorly written regulations that are not keeping pace with what New Zealand needs.

  • •Only 23% of the 1,526 businesses surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that ‘regulatory staff are skilled and knowledgeable’ and 25% agreed or strongly agreed that ‘regulators understand the issues facing your organisation’.
  • •Two-thirds of regulator chief executives reported they had to work with ‘legislation that is outdated or not fit-for-purpose’.
  • Only 10% of the businesses surveyed believed that regulatory requirements in New Zealand were ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ contradictory or incompatible with each other.

Yet neither of the major parties see this as a problem, and while National administers the failure Labour simply ignores it – preferring that people like the Productivity Commission who point them out would simply disappear.

But you’d still have folk explaining lessons overseas that have relevance here at home; people like Leith Van Onselen who reports:

The Financial Times‘ Robin Hardin has produced a thought-provoking article arguing that the best way to reduce inequality is to relax supply-side constraints on urban land supply and make homes homes more affordable.

Such voices are only going to get louder.

Does  Labour – and National -- have the capacity to reform and become relevant – and meaningful ?

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