This is what a Luxon-led Government means by being "pro-business"

This Luxon-led Government is pro-business.

That is to say, it's pro particular businesses. Particularly one that begins with an 'F' and ends in 'letcher.' Have a city to rebuild, or a convention centre to build (and burn down), and that particular business will assuredly get the nod -- along with a large cheque paid for by you and I.

Ronald Reagan famously observed the principle of pro-business governments like this one: “If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidise it.” All three are in operation in the decision to shell out $60 million of your money (along with a new tariff) to subsidise Fletcher's to keep open a cement business. 

Why do Fletcher's need the subsidy? Because National's Emissions Tax Scam was going to stop the business moving. And a business that doesn't move, along with any associated businesses needing Fletcher's cement, don't pay any tax.

Does the Emissions Tax Scam make any sense? Nope, not unless you think shackling producers makes sense -- shackling and then subsidising to avoid the scam's implications. To quote a friend back in 2009, the scheme is "criminally absurd," and a decent government would by now already scrapped it (in favour, perhaps, of a subtle and sensible carbon tax).

“An ETS is the best tool to reduce emissions," says the Taxpayers 'Union' in response to the subsidy's announcement, before going on to pontificate that "it should not sacrifice industry at the altar of net zero, only for taxpayers to fund the rescue. ... It is a false economy," they say, "to make businesses unviable through carbon charges, then bail out those with the best lobbying teams in Wellington. The Government must review its industrial allocation settings [sic] across all trade-exposed sectors.”

In two sentences this illustrates everything wrong with this government, with the Taxpayers 'Union,' and with the so-called policy 'settings' about which they argue.

Yes, it's false economy. But it's worse than that. The whole Emissions Tax Scam is a gun pointed straight at producers' feet. To impose the tax, and then subsidise its payment, makes no sense on any level. It's simply insane. The argument isn't about tinkering with 'policy settings,' it should be about removing the insanity, and danger of the slippery slope back to the Muldoonist 'picking losers' policies we once escaped with so much pain. 

In reality, as RD points out below, it's a strong example of Luxon and Willis’ net-zero scheme being unworkable (not to mention immoral), then socialising the cost of the failure by picking favourites at taxpayers' expense.

Expect to see more of it in the very near future as its unworkability (and immorality) become more obvious even to those who espouse it.

"Chris Penk asked for a conversation. The adult answer is to have one."

"What [PM Luxon] does not appear to understand is that the nuclear issue reaches well beyond the Bomb. Nor does he seem aware of the actual limits of New Zealand’s 'anti-nuclear' legislation, which does not prohibit the peaceful use of nuclear energy at all. But the more troubling thing is the arrogance of trying to close a conversation down.

"This article challenges that dismissal — a dismissal aimed squarely at the modest proposal of his own Defence Minister, Chris Penk [who suggested it would help to distinguish nuclear propulsion from nuclear weapons when we think about our nuclear-free position]. It may well fail to change the Prime Minister’s mind. But if he reads it, he might at least be better informed. ...

"What the law actually says
"The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 does three principal things: it bans nuclear weapons, it bars nuclear-armed and nuclear-propelled vessels and aircraft from our territorial zone, and it forbids the dumping of radioactive waste at sea.

"What it does not do — and never did — is outlaw land-based nuclear power, nuclear research, or the use of radioactive isotopes ... [for] nuclear medicine ... 

"The safety story we got wrong

"[I]t is the fear that has driven the policy. Most people’s sense of nuclear risk is anchored to three events — Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima — and in each case the popular memory is worse than the record.

"No one died from radiation at Three Mile Island. At Fukushima the reactor releases have been linked to a single confirmed radiation death, with the overwhelming majority of that disaster’s toll caused by the earthquake, the tsunami and the chaos of a panicked evacuation.

"Chernobyl was a genuine catastrophe — but it was the product of a uniquely flawed Soviet design operated with its safety systems switched off, a machine and a culture no modern regulator would permit.

"When you stop reasoning from headlines and start counting bodies per unit of energy, the picture inverts. Oxford’s 'Our World in Data' project, drawing on peer-reviewed modelling, puts nuclear power at roughly 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity once Chernobyl and Fukushima are included — comparable to wind and solar, and on the order of hundreds of times safer than coal, which kills around 25 people per terawatt-hour, mostly through everyday air pollution that never makes the news.

"Put differently, nuclear causes something like 99.8 per cent fewer deaths than coal and around 97 per cent fewer than natural gas. The source we have feared most turns out to be among the safest we have ever built. The deaths we don’t count — the steady toll of fossil combustion — are the ones that should frighten us. ...

"The demand that changes the math
"For years the nuclear debate could be treated as a luxury argument, a matter of preference among abundant options. That era is ending, and the reason is electricity demand of a kind the grid has not seen in a generation. Artificial intelligence and the data centres that run it are the most visible driver....

"[T]he policy direction is now broad and international. ... Global nuclear generation reached an all-time high of about 2,667 terawatt-hours in 2024. The major energy-modelling bodies — the IEA, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the IPCC — broadly agree that reaching net zero by mid-century is harder and costlier without a substantial expansion of nuclear, not easier. Treating nuclear as the enemy of climate action gets the physics exactly backwards.

"Why this time can be different: Small Modular Reactors
"The strongest historical objection to nuclear is not safety but cost: the giant bespoke plants of the past ran years late and billions over budget. The most promising answer is a change of strategy — building reactors small, standardised and in factories rather than enormous and custom-built on site. Small Modular Reactors aim to turn nuclear construction from a series of one-off megaprojects into something closer to manufacturing, with the cost discipline that repetition brings. ... Small Modular Reactors will not, on their own, meet all the new demand — honest advocates concede as much — but they reopen the door that cost overruns had slammed shut. ...

"Have the conversation
"[T]he Prime Minister ... should be willing to think, and to let the country think alongside him. ...

"We would be Luddites to turn our backs on the nuclear [energy] option without so much as examining it. Chris Penk asked for a conversation. The adult answer is to have one."

~ The Halfling from his post 'A Nuclear Conversation: A conversation the Prime Minister would rather not have'

Co-Governance is still quietly bubbling away

Whether it knows it or not --whether by Coalition design or by bureaucratic subterfuge -- it appears that legal implementation for co-governance has been strengthened under this Government's term rather than diminished.

A recent post pointed out that the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights, the underpinning that creeping implementation, was a poison pill quietly smuggled in with the Indian Free Trade Agreement (FTA ). It was Gary Judd KC who spotted the clause in the signed Agreement calling on the parties to "affirm" NZ's commitment to this race-base Declaration. As Judd notes this morning, this is an escalation on previous Free Trade Agreements with the UK, which called for the parties to "note" the commitment, and with the EU to "further note." 

This is not simply harmless playing around with words. In legal terms, as Judd himself notes, it is "a significant escalation."

And it's not the only escalation towards co-governance. 

Remember that what underpinned the moves made by Ardern's Labour Government towards co-governance -- towards sharing government power with tribal leaders -- was that UN Declaration. That gave legal strength towards their quiet moves towards what Elizabeth Rata calls "re-tribalisation."

In 2007, the position of Helen Clark's Government was in opposition. Clark was many things, but she wasn't stupid.

John Key was. In 2010, his Government sent Pita Sharples to the UN to "support" it. That "support," when ratified here, underpinned the Ardern Government's support for He Puapua and for every flavour of co-governance emerging since.

And then in 2023, Hipkins's Government moved from endorsing the UN Declaration to a commitment “to upholding the rights affirmed in the Declaration.” These weren't just a small change in words. As a result, the Hipkins's Government then sought advice “to support the drafting of a plan to achieve the ends of the UN Declaration in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Those ends, of course, called for "self-determination" for so-called indigenous people. As Judd explains it, this is when "Non-binding aspirations morphed into affirmed [legal] rights." Once the NZ Government regarded self-determination as a cornerstone of the UN Declaration it then meant tribal participation in government decision making.

As the New Zealanders who claim indigenous status are Māori and governmental decisions affect all New Zealanders including Māori, this means the New Zealand position had become one where Māori should have the right to participate in all or most decision making. That is co-governance between a democratically elected government for all New Zealanders and Māori. Māori protocols ensure they are represented by an essentially self-selected elite.

Words, in politics, are so much fluff. Words, in law, do matter. 

[B]y the affirmations of the declaration and New Zealand’s position, has confirmed that the UN Declaration has binding status (for that’s the meaning of affirm in legal parlance) with a double whammy by confirming New Zealand’s position when that position at the UN and in international law is the July 2023 position.

The Minister and MFAT officials may try to justify themselves by claiming that New Zealand saying in an international agreement that it is bound by the UN Declaration and committed to upholding the rights contained in it is not the same as acknowledging that it has binding effect in New Zealand but that is sophistry which will not wash.

For reasons given in [my earlier post], there is little doubt that the courts will take the affirmations for what they plainly are: New Zealand’s acceptance that the UN Declaration is binding such that its principles may be utilised in the interpretation of legislation and as influencing the common law.

As Rata says in her own post on this, "today's politicians [should] look closely at all re-tribalisation language." Especially if it is being smuggled in through political stealth.

"Ironically, New Zealand First did not place New Zealand first."

 

"We are discussing the soon-to-be ratified NZ-India free trade agreement and the opposition by Messrs Jones and Peters. It’s proving a popular strategy, but it has been my observation, perhaps unfairly, that New Zealand First can sometimes be a little, shall we say, imprecise when it comes to their interpretation of the facts. ...

"[T]he treaty allows for 1000 software engineers, 1000 civil and mechanical engineers, 700 construction managers, 500 teachers and 1200 nurses. That’s 5000 in total. This isn’t 5000 a year. It is 5000 at any one time. And then they have to go home. ...

"[W]hat [else] do we get in this agreement? ... We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. Not billions. And without dairy this isn’t a game-changer as the Prime Minister describes it but it is, for those industries affected, transformational.

"The other nonsense being peddled by NZ First is the obligation to invest US$20b into India; this is not what the document says. The wording is clear; we shall promote foreign direct investment '…from investors of New Zealand into India with the aim to increase investment by US 20 billion dollars within 15 years…'

"This is an aspiration, not a commitment. I suspect that this was included to give New Delhi cover to justify the internal political cost of reducing tariffs. ...

"It is significant that the Labour Party stepped up to support a treaty that was in the nation’s interest. They [belatedly] placed country ahead of party and for this Labour deserves our appreciation. Ironically, New Zealand First did not place New Zealand first. ...

"Like the trade deal with China, the initial document isn’t the final one. It opens a bilateral economic engagement that will improve the quality of life for residents of both countries.

"Luxon and his trade minister deserve respect and credit for this achievement."

~ Damien Grant from his column 'Reading the NZ-India free trade agreement made my stress levels rise'

The fuel crisis delivers a chance for genuine political leadership

"New Zealand does not possess the people, the capital, or the institutional settings to maintain our first world status. We are moving from the bottom of the OECD to the top of the developing world.

"[It's a] problem [when] ... the price of construction is the highest in the OECD, more than double the average, and ... the cost of capital formation '…which covers machinery, equipment and construction -- is 70% above average in New Zealand and also the highest in the OECD.'

"Meanwhile, global rating agency Fitch confirmed [this] gloomy assessment by downgrading the outlook for New Zealand from dismal to hopeless. I am paraphrasing. They noted that our promised return to fiscal surplus is perpetually delayed due to weak economic growth and expenditure proving more persistent than anticipated. ...

"[T]his [fuel] crisis [however] represents a greater opportunity [for real leadership]. It is chance for the Prime Minister to explain that we cannot borrow our way out of every economic shock. That the path back to fiscal solvency and economic vitality lies not in leveraging the sliver of headroom on the Crown’s balance sheet to avoid addressing our structural deficiencies but in aggressively dealing with those deficiencies.

"I do not mean to diminish the real progress his administration has been achieved but the underlying structural issues of over-regulation and lax fiscal discipline mean all we are doing is slowing the rate of decline.

"Leadership is about telling the electorate what they do not want to hear but need to understand; and that extends well beyond the prospect of a temporary fuel shortage."

~ Damien Grant from his column 'Is this moment that the PM forces me to eat my words? I hope so'

"The Maori seats encourage people to ghettoise themselves"

"It has become starkly obvious that the Maori seats are being used by activists to [ghettoise Māori: to isolate them, separate them, cut them off, according to a cultural identity]. ...

"Ghettoisation can be done to a person or group, or people or groups can do it to themselves. ...

"Israr Kasana, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to the Canadian city of Calgary, explains why he and his family rejected the temptation to adopt the comfortable way of establishing themselves within a Pakistani community. He says 'Ghettoisation or marginalisation of any kind is bad for society. It creates exclusion, imbalance, envy, anger, ignorance and, more importantly, distrust.' ...

"The Maori seats encourage people to ghettoise themselves according to cultural identity, whereas what we must surely want is a society in which people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law." ...

"[Then National leader Bill] English said [in 2003] the National Party 'stands for one standard of citizenship for all.' ... 'That’s why a National-led Government will abolish the Maori seats.” Of course, it did nothing of the sort when National came back into government in 2008 under John Key. Instead, the Key government abetted the infiltration of all parts of New Zealand society by elements who would substitute authoritarian tribal rule for a free and democratic society, a process which was accelerated by the Ardern/Hipkins governments. ...

"Under pressure from ACT and New Zealand First, the coalition government has walked this back a bit but not to the extent needed to offer meaningful restraint of the authoritarian tendencies which unthinking acquiescence by most of us has unwittingly allowed. ...

"Leadership is needed. We need a Prime Minister who will say loudly and clearly what English said in 2003 ... Today, when NZ First has advanced a Bill for a referendum and ACT says get rid of the Maori seats now, the opportunity is ripe for that sort of leadership.

"Getting rid of the seats, especially by or endorsed by referendum to show it is peoples’ will, would not only remove an anti-democratic excrescence, but also be a signal that enough is enough and that henceforth we shall be a 'multiracial society [where] people of all races are able to coexist together in peace and cooperation as equal citizens under the law.'

"Yet the National Party is silent. ..."

~ Gary Judd, composite quote from his posts 'Ghettoising the mind' and 'National could signal its support for democracy'

SOME HISTORY: 

"[T]he Māori seats were created to bring Māori into the parliamentary system and guarantee representation, rather than exclude them.
 

"By 1867, when the Māori Representation Act 1867(1) passed, Europeans outnumbered Māori roughly four to one. ...

"The Māori seats addressed a real problem: under the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 [2] voting required individual property or household qualification. Most Māori land was communally held, leaving Māori largely unable to meet the franchise. ...

The Māori electorates solved the voting problem by granting all Māori men over 21 the right to vote, decades before universal male suffrage applied elsewhere in New Zealand [3]. Far from limiting Māori rights, the law expanded them. ...

"The seats also guaranteed meaningful participation. Four electorates—three in the North Island, one for the South—were superimposed over existing electorates. Māori with qualifying property could still vote in European electorates, giving many a dual vote. [4] Officials went to extraordinary lengths to ensure participation: in 1890, a returning officer undertook a six-day trek through dense Urewera bush to establish a polling station at Maungapōhatu. [5] Such efforts are hardly consistent with a strategy to suppress Māori voices. ...

"Seats were originally intended as temporary until Māori qualified under the general property franchise [6] ...

"While Māori were under-represented by modern proportional standards [when the Māori seats were created in 1867, each European electorate represented roughly 3,500 people, while each Māori electorate represented around 12,500 people [7]], the four seats ensured guaranteed parliamentary representation, at a time when European immigration was rapidly outpacing Māori numbers. This was enfranchisement, not suppression.' ...

"However today the original rationale for the Māori electorates has disappeared. In the current Parliament 33 MPs identify as having Māori heritage — about 27% of the House — far exceeding Māori’s roughly 17% share of the population. Even without the seven reserved seats, Māori representation would remain substantial, the historical purpose of the Māori electorates has now been fulfilled and, consistent with the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System and with Article 3 of the Treaty of Waitangi, they should now be abolished in favour of equal representation for all voters."

NOTES

1. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats

2. New Zealand Parliament, “History of the Electoral System,” https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/history/history-of-the-electoral-system/

3. New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
4. McRobie, Alan, Electoral Atlas of New Zealand, GP Books, 1989.
5. New Zealand History, “Polling in isolated Māori communities,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats
6. Ibid.; New Zealand History, “Setting up the Māori seats,” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/setting-maori-seats

7. Te Ara, “Māori representation,” https://teara.govt.nz/en/nga-mangai-maori-representation

"One long filibuster to keep poor people out of her area"

This is an amusing account below of an important public meeting. Important in the context of making Auckland an affordable city.

Here's some quick context: Auckland's town planners have strangled the city in red tape for years. In recent times however, many planners and councillors (and mayor Wayne Brown) have come around to the realisation that the fewer houses built, the higher the prices for those houses: that, just maybe, people might be allowed to do a bit more on their land, to maybe build a little more densely. 

Opposing this, of course, are the councillors and politicians of the leafier suburbs like Christine Fletcher -- and of course David Seymour, who's dropped his party's alleged principles about property rights to wring his hands instead about there being 'no density without infrastructure.' 

There's no greater hand wringer than Christopher Luxon however, who decided over summer that Auckland Council must 'downzone' their proposed plan change that would allow greater density.

So this meeting Wednesday night was to confirm where the push for greater density would be maintained in the upcoming Plan (where would be upzoned), and where that push would be relaxed a little (where would be downzoned). 

And with that introduction, here's Hayden Donnell ...

When the government’s efforts to intensify Auckland were debated at council back in August last year, critics took turns wringing their hands about the strain it would place on infrastructure. Plan Change 120 [which will allow greater density] could end up putting apartments in places that weren’t set up to handle them, they fretted. “Ultimately you can’t do all this upzoning without making the commitment to provide the infrastructure that will support it,” warned Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa ward councillor Christine Fletcher ...

Yesterday the worriers got their wish. Thanks to a government backdown wrangled over chardonnays and summer barbecues, councillors are allowed to reduce the capacity in the new plan from two million to 1.6 million houses. Council’s policy and planning committee was meeting to decide where to make those cuts, and its chair Richard Hills started out explaining the staff recommendations to prioritise places 10km or more from the city centre. Asked why those areas should get first dibs on downzoning, council planner John Duguid was clear: it was because the land within 10km of the city centre had the best access to public transport, employment opportunities, regional amenities like parks and pools and three waters capacity, as measured by Watercare:

Three waters capacity in the central areas is set to improve even more when the Central Interceptor comes online soon. (Image: Watercare)

It should have been a celebration. But what would you know, most of the people who were once so concerned about ensuring housing is near infrastructure weren’t happy. Instead they were stewing over the revelation that the places with the best infrastructure were in their well-to-do wards. North Shore councillor John Gillon had looked at the maps and found that a 10km radius from the city centre would include the entire area he represents. He moved an amendment, seconded by Fletcher, to delete the 10km clause, saying he was “concerned” about the figure.

Waitākere councillor Shane Henderson was having none of it. He pointed out that west and south Auckland had accepted the vast bulk of the new houses in Auckland since the Unitary Plan passed in 2016. As for strain on infrastructure, those areas have limited pipe capacity and less access to public transport, and we see the effects of that outside-in planning in rush-hour congestion, parking shortages and sewage overflows, he said. Henderson argued Fletcher and Gillon were engaged in “a poorly dressed up move to take away intensification from the best-equipped parts of the city”. “The intention is simple: to downzone wealthy suburbs. There is no sensible reason for excluding central isthmus communities – again –  from doing their part.”

The mayor was, if anything, more blunt. He said Gillon’s motion was aimed at putting housing in Pukekohe rather than areas close to “all the infrastructure”. “I don’t want to see endless sprawl just so nimbys in Parnell and politicians can get re-elected,” he said, in what appeared to be a shot at his political nemesis, Act leader David Seymour. “That’s disgraceful, I can’t vote for it.” ...

As Brown saw it, his colleagues’ first purpose was elitism. But if they had a second priority, it was delay. Gillon and Fletcher also put forward an amendment proposing to ask the government for more time to enact Plan Change 120. ...

The demand was familiar. Fletcher has asked for more consultation in just about every planning meeting for years, and the mayor was incensed. “I want to get out of this without further delay and dithering,” he said. “God almighty, it would be great to do something this three-year period.” ...

“For fuck’s sake, get on with it,” he said, as Fletcher spoke for the final time. ...

Afterward, Brown expanded on his frustration with Fletcher, saying the meeting was “one long filibuster to stop poor people living in her area.” 

Read the whole thing here. It's an entertaining lunchtime read.

[Pics from Spinoff]

Not so sunny solar

I've been reading an 

RNZ investigation [that] has found that [Luxon's] ministers were presented with clear evidence [sic] that rooftop solar is now among the cheapest sources of electricity households can access; that upfront cost is the primary barrier to uptake; and that Australia's rapid expansion was driven by more than $11 billion in state subsidies. But [that] the coalition government [here] chose not to follow the same path. ...  

[The investigation says that] one in three Australian homes now ... [have solar panels installed] saving those families an average 40 percent on their electricity bills each year ...

As part of their work, officials prepared detailed material comparing New Zealand's approach with overseas subsidy regimes, particularly Australia's small-scale solar and battery incentives.

[Documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act ] noted Australia's "solar revolution" was aided by $11.5 billion AUD in government grants, which reduced upfront costs by 30% and allowed the industry to achieve massive economies of scale.

Total cost to Australians then, if subsidy covers only 30% of the cost of installing rooftop solar, is $38.3B billion AUD (a subsidy to wealthy home-owning Australians of almost $1000 per Australian taxpater).  Which the "investigation" says has reduced prices for those 1 in 3 subsidised Australian families by an average of 40%. Not a great return for all those billions, I would have said. 

Note that Australia's entire peak demand is roughly 35,000 MW. So at a typical capital cost of ~$1.5–2M per MW, if one were to spend that $38.3B on, say, a system of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants, then Australians could theoretically have built enough extra gas capacity to supply the whole country!

Or, maybe, spent those billions on something else. (For that money, going to those already wealthy enough to afford the cost of installation, you could have around 300 new schools, or 30 new hospitals, or one hell of a tax cut ... )

Meanwhile, in New South Wales, this morning, here is where power is coming from ...

What does this mean? It means that to have reliable power, Australians need to build duplicate capacity anyway for when the sun is not delivering. That's the main problem with unreliables.

So much for that "clear evidence."

"Everyone wants growth. But will ... they have the courage to upset vested interests on their own side?"

"The problem is that politics is not about good intentions, but trade-offs and results. Everyone wants growth. But will ... they have the courage to upset vested interests on their own side? The government still has promising changes in the pipeline on housing and infrastructure. But elsewhere? ...

"[H]ere’s [a] strategy, one advocated in a fascinating essay from 1989. The author opens by arguing that 'politicians tend, worldwide, to avoid structural reform until it is forced upon them by economic stagnation, a collapse of their currency or some other costly economic and social disaster. Politicians tend to close their minds as long as they can … because they believe that decisive action must inevitably bring political calamity upon their governments.'

"But the writer goes on to make precisely the opposite case: 'Political survival depends on making quality decisions; compromised policies lead to voter dissatisfaction; letting things drift is political suicide.'

"Voters, he argues, 'ultimately place a higher value on enhancing their medium-term prospects than on action that looks successful short-term but which sacrifices larger and more enduring future gains … There is a deep well of realism and common sense among the ordinary people of the community. They want politicians to have the guts and the vision to deliver sustainable gains in living standards.'

"Strategically, he also advises pursuing reform in 'quantum leaps' rather than small steps; 'otherwise the interest groups will have time to mobilise and drag you down.'

"The whole 35-page paper, 'The Politics of Structural Reform',' is worth reading, not least because so much strikes a chord today ('Inadequate politicians see instant popularity as the key to power. If their rating slips, they feel threatened. They look for policies with instant appeal to create continuous public bliss').

"But what is most striking is that the writer is a Labour politician: Roger Douglas, who, as minister of finance — equivalent to [the UK's] chancellor — led New Zealand through one of the most bruising periods of free-market reform in any nation’s history (a programme known as Rogernomics) and saw his party re-elected with an enhanced vote share at the end of it.

"Starmer’s Labour came to power by taking the opposite of Douglas’s advice. It told the public that spending would rise, growth would rise but taxes and borrowing would not. That no one would have to feel any pain. And when that turned out to be a lie, it got hammered for it.

"Wherever the government goes next, it is unlikely to be down a path of Douglas-esque, business-friendly radicalism. But I believe — I have to believe — that the public will still reward politicians who are honest about our country’s problems and visibly try their damnedest to fix them. Because if not, what hope have we got?"

~ Robert Colville from his London Times column 'https://archive.fo/E7HXi'

Another frickin' housing backflip!

Christopher bloody Luxon has now announced his fourth major housing policy backflip as National party leader.

I say "announced," but since the pissweak pipsqueak is too pusillanimous to even consider openly putting his head above that particular parapet, he's instead allowed news of his latest flip-flop to leak out from the likes of the oleaginous Matthew Hooton.

Sadly, since most of those backflips have come when Luxon's party is in government, the big loser here is anyone who wants sufficient certainty to plan, build, lend on, borrow against or borrow to buy a house. Let alone several houses. Which means: Almost all of us.

Ever wondered why the Auckland residential construction industry is in a hole? One big reason is the hole in Luxon's head that swings from NIMBY to YIMBY like a weather vane in a storm —making him first abandon bipartisan agreement on housing intensification, then talk about "going for growth," then abandon that again, then talk up Auckland's planned intensification, and now, apparently, abandon it once again. If it's certainty you're after to plan and build, then this Prime Minister and his weather-vane brain is not doing much for you.

Asked for details this morning of his latest backflip, suggesting a reduction in the requirement for Auckland Council to zone for a minimum two-million sites, the pissant Prime Minister spoke to Radio NZ for eight minutes while saying effectively nothing beyond we'll all just have to wait and see. So there.

Asked if it would make a difference if the two-million housing figure was pulled back to 1.5 million, [Scott] Caldwell [from the Coalition for More Housing] said lowering the two-million figure would undermine the feasible capacity of new homes.

And so it will.

“Any pulling back would be compromising Auckland’s housing affordability,” he said.

Which it will.

Caldwell said constant back and forth over new planning rules for more housing since 2020 inevitably meant more delays, and it could be the 2030s before more houses were delivered.

Which is true.

“Waiting until 2035 to deliver real cost-of-living wins is a generation too late for those struggling to find affordable housing in our largest city,” he said.

Which it is.

Have political parties begun to get some rat cunning into how to best manipulate MMP to their advantage? [updated]

I don't want to be conspiratorial here .... but could it be that major political parties have begun to get some rat cunning into how to best manipulate MMP to their advantage.

Both Labour and National may have finally recognised that their odds of winning a full majority in an MMP election are about as likely as Winston Peters agreeing to selling off state assets. So is that why Luxon expressed mild but undefined interest this week in doing just that? Was it to give a hoped-for future coalition party a prop upon which to launch next year's election campaign?

It seems as likely a notion as that Labour and the Māori Party have recognised the huge advantage for them both to be gained by the 'overhang' that happens when a party has more electorate MPs than can be justified by their party vote—so they've done their best to bust their party vote while simultaneously raising the profile of those electorate MPs.

That's a risky game to play, of course, but there's no real risk to Labour. Is that why Willie Jackson is walking around looking so pleased with himself.

UPDATE: I hate to say I told you so. Here's Tākuta Ferris pontificating:

Here’s the truth under MMP:
   When Labour wins Māori seats, it does not create the political leverage of a OVERHANG! It simply reduces the number of MPs they bring in from their party vote. And in doing so, it hands the keys to the Beehive straight back to Luxon, Seymour and Winston.
   The only guaranteed mechanism that increases the potential to actually change who governs is an OVERHANG! Created when independent Māori MPs win electorate seats.

Four years of housing uncertainty. Thanks National.

Important to remember that on top of Chris Bishop's announcement this week of recommended changes to the Resource Management Act, unlikely you'd think to be passed before the next election (with all the uncertainty that that will generate), is his and his boss's other injection of uncertainty into housing — i.e., what the planners will and won't allow on a building site — with an admission, buried in a speech yesterday, that this uncertainty will persist until at least 2027!

Dan Brunskill spotted the admission tucked into the speech, calculating that "National's U-turn on the bipartisan accord caused a three-year delay to housing reform"! He explains:

In a speech to the Property Council summit in Auckland on Thursday, Bishop said "Going for Growth” and other reforms would only be bedded in “from 2027 or so onwards.” 

This delay follows the National Party’s decision to abandon a bipartisan housing agreement, called the MDRS (medium density residential standards), negotiated from the National side by Judith Collins and Nicola Willis in 2021.

At the time, Willis said Labour and National had come together “to say an emphatic ‘yes’ to housing in our backyards.” [And this gave every developer certainty.] 

But new party leader Christopher Luxon sided with his NIMBY caucus colleagues in the run-up to the 2023 election and forced [sic] Bishop to rush out an alternative policy after letting his opposition to the arrangement slip during a public meeting.

National’s new policy allowed councils to opt out of the denser housing rules, provided they zoned their cities for 30 years of growth "immediately" — but, almost two years later, not a single council has formally adopted the policy.

Bishop said on Thursday the finer details of the policy’s first phase were still being worked through by officials and local councils should be ready to implement them in 2027.

This is partly due to a “sequencing problem” as the Government is also planning to introduce an entirely new resource management regime towards the end of next year. ... 

Housing reform and the new resource management rules will be implemented as part of the 2027 Long Term Plan cycle [they hope], or roughly four years after Bishop backtracked on the MDRS.

Four fucking years! George Gregan would be proud.

Speaking of NIMBY numpties, here's Bishop's idiotic boss protesting a new apartment development on the site a of a decommissioned and abandoned mechanic's workshop:

"The PM is right about the problem of our negative and utterly risk-averse culture. But changing our bureaucratic culture requires more than speeches."

"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he wants a bureaucracy that says 'yes.' He is right to want that of course, but a lot of current rules would need to change. ...
    "New Zealand’s regulatory culture of “no” has become so pervasive that even the simplest reforms now spark fierce resistance. ... This reflexive negativity illustrates a deeper problem. New Zealand’s economy is being strangled by excessive caution and regulatory overkill.

    "Some numbers are telling. Property developers now spend $1.29 billion annually navigating consent processes. ...
    "The Port of Tauranga’s expansion would boost exports for forestry, kiwifruit and dairy. Yet bureaucratic delays have stalled the project for years. Eden Park operates under council-imposed event caps while New Zealanders fly to Australia for concerts in packed stadiums.
    "Even our tax system seems designed to say 'no.' When businesses invest in new machinery to boost productivity, New Zealand’s depreciation provisions are among the most restrictive in the OECD. ....
    "Similar patterns emerge in construction. .... The building code and certification process favour established products and make it slow and expensive for new or imported products to gain approval. Even common materials used safely for years in Australia or Europe face lengthy and costly verification processes here. The result is higher costs for builders and homeowners alike.
    "Meanwhile, the banking sector faces its own regulatory headwinds. ...

"Reform need not be complex. Sometimes it simply means removing bureaucratic obstacles. Trust regulators in other developed countries rather than retesting everything here. ... But ... every change, no matter how sensible, must overcome a chorus of imagined risks and hypothetical problems. ... 
    "Those objecting to developments need to be confronted with the lost value to the community of getting their way.
    "The Prime Minister is right about the problem of our negative and utterly risk-averse culture. But changing our bureaucratic culture requires more than speeches. It demands sustained effort to identify and eliminate unnecessary rules, requirements and restrictions. ...
    "The alternative is continued decline."

~ Bryce Wilkinson from his post 'Bureaucracy is strangling NZ’s potential for growth'

... the *state* of this nation! [updated]

"Brief thoughts on [the PMs'] 'State of the Nation' [speech]: Focus on economy is good. Saying 'economic growth' a lot & renaming the Economic Development portfolio doesn't do much.  [I'm] confused as to what the role of Invest NZ is compared with NZ Trade & Enterprise (NZTE). 

    "The idea of less saying 'no' is great but it is not a policy or a roadmap. 

    "There was a whole lot of nothing in that speech. Aspiration, ideas, hopes. We need some steel spines & brass balls when it comes to the economy. Nicola & Luxon need to stand up & unapologetically declare that they are going to be brave, bold, ruthless. Spending has to come down. Growth doesn't matter if spending outstrips it. 

    "I am underwhelmed and anxious. I'm a swing voter; past two elections I've voted centre-right. That State of the Nation speech has given me anxiety. With scores of advisors, comms people, ministers etc that was what they came up with? I WANT THE GOVT TO SUCCEED!! Because I want to live in NZ. 

    "That was depressing."

          ~ Ani O'Brien

"Luxon’s ‘going for growth’ just grows the government bureaucracy. ...

    "Christopher Luxon’s State of the Nation speech on the economy strikes, but misses the mark, with no announcements that will increase New Zealand’s productivity, or unshackle the private sector that drives growth. 

    "[T]he speech was more about 'feels' and repeating old announcements than concrete policy changes to improve New Zealand’s prosperity.

    "The only exception is, bizarrely, another government agency, apparently to attract foreign investors.”   

    “The speech represents shifting deck chairs, not the sort of economic reform the times call for.” 

    “People don’t invest in a country because a government agency tells them to. Claims that this model is seen in Ireland or Singapore are fantasy. Investors in those countries don’t have among the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Today’s speech would have meant something had it tackled our tax settings or securities law which make investing here so unattractive.”

    “New Zealand’s lack of foreign investment isn’t because of a lack of bureaucrats. It’s because we don’t offer competitive investments. Today’s speech lacks the seriousness or urgency in ‘going for growth’.”
          ~ Jordan Williams

[Hat tip cartoon Dr Stephen Clarke]

UPDATE:

Eric Crampton tries for more optimism. Like Denis De Nuto, it's all about "the vibe," he reckons: 

A shift in vibe has to be backed by more than speeches. The culture in our bureaus and agencies needs to change, along with the regulatory regimes. That will take real work.
    But the shift in vibe is welcome. It’s time to build.

Luxon: "Holding power for the sake of holding power."

"I asked people of all political hues what they saw as the two biggest missteps of this government.
    "The responses were all quite similar - they didn't know why ... the Luxon-led ... Government would do A, but then also do B, when A and B seemed incongruous with one another.
    "People who were opposed to ACT's Treaty Principles Bill were annoyed it had been supported to its first reading - saying it had created a highly divisive national debate, only to avoid blame by abandoning it - and weren't later won back when Luxon's National decided to not support it beyond the first reading.
    "People who supported ACT's Treaty Principles Bill were annoyed it had only been supported to its first reading - saying it had started a productive national debate, only to abandon it before anything could be resolved - and felt betrayed when Luxon's National decided to not support it beyond the first reading.
    "Both sides saw it as cynical politics over a principled stance. ...

"Last Wednesday Prime Minister Luxon told councils they must stick to their knitting. No frivolous spending.] On Thursday afternoon Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee announced the government would stump up $750,000 from its major events fund to go towards the inaugural World Dance Crew Championship in Auckland next year. ...

"This is a government that thinks beneficiaries need scrutiny and suspicion, but poorly-run media enterprises deserve government support and favourable legislative changes. ... Can you stand in judgement of beneficiaries while also coddling an entitled media sector? ...

"[This all] speaks to a lack of philosophy or ideology.
    "When you combine this with recent concerns about a lack of clear vision for what New Zealand should be, this creates a picture of a man without non-negotiables.
    "Luxon is the ... type of politician ... [who] isn't ideologically driven, nor are they practical 'here's-what-we-want-the-country-to-be, but-we're-flexible-about-how-to-get-there' pragmatists.
    "They are something more base, someone just happy to be elected in the first place. Holding power for the sake of holding power."

~ Haimona Gray, from his post 'Christopher Luxon - A PM without conviction'

"The National Party's Monty Python health (non) reform is a comedy. In order to cut layers of management, new layers are being introduced."

"The National Party's Monty Python health (non) reform is a comedy. In order to cut layers of management, new layers are being introduced. ...
    "First, old man Levy ... has been brought back to be the super-duper CEO boss of existing Health NZ CEO boss ... Four new 'Deputy CEOs' have just been appointed below [that] to manage each of four regions NZ has been divvied into. ... The funniest part of National's Health Minister Reti's 'plan' to get health back on track is that [not one] is a doctor. ...
    "What's most amusing is how Minister Reti is trying to portray these moves as a profound reform in which more power is being returned to regions. Bollocks. Both National & Labour supported abolishing the 20 District Health Boards that existed in 2020 to 'centralise' health-care. The only difference is National argues the system should not be quite as centralised as Labour wants. Big Deal.
    "The thrust of the reforms both parties are pushing is to keep our existing single public payer-single public provider system intact (bar a limited role for private provision). Whether one decides to have it administered by 20, 4 or one Board wont change service provision quality. ...
    "Luxon and Reti better get their head around the idea of centralised payment yet decentralised (private) provision fast, or our system will fully implode. The current reforms, based around calling everyone a super CEO, a CEO or a Deputy CEO, titles which are dishonest in the public sector since its a private sector title, will go nowhere."

~ Robert MacCulloch from his post 'More Layers of Management Kick in under National as the Frontline of NZ's Health System is wiped out - Not one Doctor is Appointed to Lead a Region'

"On present form, Luxon is looking like a watered down version of John Key, and Willis a watered down version of Bill English."

"The Prime Minister was elected on the basis that his previous career as CEO meant he had a much greater business acumen than Labour's leaders. ... However, yesterday it was revealed .... that the builder of the now cancelled new ferries ... has put in a claim stemming from the terminated $551 million contract ... [and] KiwRail don't know what will be the size of the claim that the NZ taxpayer will ultimately end up paying. ... [I]t's not up to Kiwi Rail's lawyers to decide what is "fair" - it depends on what HMD's lawyers also believe what is fair - and should the two not agree, it ultimately must be decided in court. Furthermore, the government cannot tell anyone what will be the cost of smaller, scaled-down ferries.
    "The crux of the matter is ... the question ... how could PM Luxon & Finance Minister Willis pull out of a billion dollar deal with no idea of the legal consequences?
    "With no idea of the costs of the claims that will arise?
    "With no idea of the price of a replacement deal?
    "PM Luxon talks a big game but has he ever done a three-billion dollar deal before? No. Has he ever pulled out of a billion dollar deal before? No. Elon Musk tried pulling out of a multi-billion dollar deal to buy Twitter. It was a nightmare - so costly that he ended up going ahead with it.
    "If Luxon and Willis don't smarten up and prove they know how to do deals ... show they know [for example] how to do a quality-enhancing health-care reform (rather than pretending abolishing the Māori Health Authority is a reform plan) then we will know in quick order that both are not the real deal.
    "On present form, Luxon is looking like a watered down version of John Key, and Willis a watered down version of Bill English. Labour were so bad that anything is an improvement. But these two are so far looking like not much of one."

~ Robert MacCulloch from his post 'Who, with an ounce of business sense, pulls out of a deal with no idea of what legal claims will arise, and with no idea of the price of a replacement deal? PM Luxon and Finance Minister Willis.'

Climate: Revealed preference

"[A] very large number of voters have a great deal in common with those raised-in-the-faith Catholics who genuflect reflexively before the holy imagery of their religion without giving the gesture much, if any, thought. Like conservatives the world over, New Zealand’s Coalition Government is of the view that although, if asked, most ordinary voters will happily mouth environmental slogans, considerably fewer are willing to freeze in the dark for them.
    "Minister Jones’s wager is that if it’s a choice between watching Netflix, powering-up their cellphones, and snuggling-up in front of the heater, or, keeping the fossil fuels that power our extraordinary civilisation 'in the ground,' so that Freddie the Frog’s habitat can remain pristine and unmolested, then their response will be the same as the Minister’s: 'Bye, bye Freddie!' No matter what people may say; no matter how superficially sincere their genuflections to the 'crisis' of Climate Change; when the lights go out, all they really want is for them to come back on again. Crises far away, and crises in the future, cannot compete with crises at home – right here, right now.
   "The Transport Minister, Simeon Brown, knows how this works. Everyone supports public transport and cycle-ways, right up until the moment their holiday journey slows to a snail’s pace among endless lines of road cones, or a huge pothole wrecks their new car’s suspension.
    "Idealism versus realism: that’s the way the [parties of Luxon's Government] frame this issue; and they are betting their electoral future on the assumption that the realists outnumber the idealists. There may well have been 50,000 pairs of feet “Marching For Nature” down Auckland’s Queen Street [the previous] Saturday afternoon, but the figure that impresses the Coalition Government is the 1,450,000 pairs of Auckland feet that were somewhere else."

~ Chris Trotter from his post 'Numbers Game'

" The 'vision' seems to be to catch Australia. Wouldn’t that be great?"

"[T]he Prime Minister announce[d] a bold new economic performance goal. ... His 'vision' seems to be that economic growth in New Zealand over the next 16 years will be so strong that we’ll have matched – perhaps even exceeded – what is on offer abroad. .... The 'vision' seems to be to catch Australia.
    "Wouldn’t that be great? ...
    "[Luxon] ... reminded us of his firm focus ('resolutely and unapologetically') on 'delivery.'

"So having set out a bold vision what is the Prime Minister offering as a policy programme to achieve it? It isn’t, after all, a small ambition. ...
    "The Prime Minister does lay out some substance on the [first-hundred] days [etc.] ... but to a first approximation what it mostly does is undo stuff the previous government did and restore something like the policy set of 2017. ... [but] we weren’t making any progress then either in closing gaps to the rest of the advanced world ...
    "[I]t is welcome, and sounds good, but…..we’ve heard lines about fixing the RMA before, including from the previous National government.
    "And that was sort of the problem with the entire economic strand of [the PM's] vision. It brought to mind ... [John Key's] 'concrete goal' [in 2008] of closing the income gap with Australia by 2025.' ... [I]t all made no difference whatsoever. ... the goal ... would have greatly benefited New Zealanders had it been seriously pursued. It wasn’t. ...
    "[T]here ha[s] been a lot of talk over the years. ... Who knows if Mr Luxon is any more serious about his 'vision' – laudable on its own terms – than John Key was about the 2025 goal. ... but Key and his government did nothing even close to being equal to the task to make it happen. There seems little basis – whether in [Luxon]’s speech, his campaigning last year, or anything about what his government is and isn’t doing now – for believing it will be any different this time. ...
    "It would be great to be proved wrong on that, because the people who pay the price of empty political aspirational rhetoric never matched by policy seriously equal to the task aren’t Prime Ministers, who eventually move on to gilded retirements, but the children and grandchildren of ordinary New Zealanders.
    "If, as he should be, the Prime Minister is serious about that aspiration of New Zealanders (net) coming home not just because mountains and beaches make it a nice place for many to live, but because economic performance means you don’t have to leave for a higher income, the concrete policies need to start matching the rhetoric.
    "In the PM’s own words, delivery matters."

~ Michael Reddell from his post 'Words and (in)actions'

 

Nailing those targets

A target

It's nice to have a target. If you don't aim, you won't hit. 

Or that's the argument coming from the Blue Team about their just-announced targets.

But when their aims are all calibrated towards a date of 2030 — just far enough away not to be politically challenging — can we really take them seriously?

And even if you do aim, doesn't it matter what you aim at?  The Soviets knew all about setting (and meeting) production targets, didn't they. Set a target for a large number of nails, for example, and you'd get many, many very small useless nails. Set the target by weight, by contrast, and you get many fewer much heavier nails. Or one very, very big one.

Manager of a Soviet nail factory being awarded

the Order of Lenin for exceeding his tonnage

There's something that Christopher Luxon could learn there about his own targets: that their very specific focus look to be just as easy to get around.

• "95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged, or transferred from an emergency department within six hours," says the target. How easy would it be to "triage" patients before they officially arrive at ED to reduce the number appearing there.
• "95 per cent of people wait less than four months for elective treatment," says Luxon's target. Again, easy to reduce the number permitted elective treatment.
• "15 per cent reduction in the total number of children and young people with serious and persistent offending behaviour," says the naive target. Yet how easy it will be to simply redefine what "serious" and "persistent" look like.
• "20,000 fewer people who are victims of an assault, robbery, or sexual assault," says the wish list — and you'd damn well hope it were achieved. But aren't we already seeing the word "victim" politically redefined?
• "50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support Benefit," says the hopeful headline. Hard to "create jobs." Easy to simply create a new benefit for which those 50,000 might be "entitled."

I'll leave the remaining four for you to do as an exercise. You already get the point. Despite Luxon's comical business-speak about "chunking down" and "laddering up," even in their relative modesty these are pious hopes, not real targets. (Since he's so focused on business-speak perhaps he could read about Goodhart's Law while he's chunking up, often stated as: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".) And in their specificity they (like Building Minister Chris Penk's naive hope for quicker Building Consents simply because he's set a new target) could even make their targeted problems worse.

So perhaps it's a good thing that we have to wait until 2030 before any rubber really hits the road.