Things I’d have hoped we could all agree on

• Eric Crampton writes –

This week’s Budget Policy Statement was disappointing.

There are a few things I’d have thought we could all have agreed on. They seem pretty basic.

Labour’s crime legacy of the last three years

• Michael Bassett writes –

The Labour Government lost the 2023 election when its support halved from 2020. It deserved to lose on economic grounds alone. Covid lockdowns that went beyond the prudent and wrecked livelihoods in the name of saving lives; an orgy of careless spending of borrowed money; and a failure to ensure that the 16,000 extra bureaucrats improved crucial services in meaningful ways; plus sloppily handled infrastructure plans, were all counts against Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins.

But this is only part of the case against that government. We are still experiencing aftershocks from the Maorification policy that Nanaia Mahuta and Willie Jackson foisted on the ministry, starting on the day the results of the 2020 election made it clear that Winston Peters’ steadying influence was gone from the cabinet table.

Here’s hoping road users don’t depend only on ministerial advice to stay alive

Buzz from the Beehive

Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend.

But how many road users got the message?

Luxon’s challenge – Fiscal discipline or tax cuts

• Oliver Hartwich writes – 

New Zealanders recently learned about a new feature film. It will be about former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – and taxpayers will subsidise it to the tune of NZ$800,000.

Ardern had nothing personally to do with either the film or the subsidy. But her government’s loose spending habits left New Zealand’s public finances in a parlous state. That includes items like throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a hagiography for a retired politician.

Why NZ First shouldn’t get any apologies for the SFO’s failed prosecution

• Bryce Edwards writes –

New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure.

The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On the face of it, the court found in favour of the NZ First side, saying that the SFO hadn’t fully proved its case for a criminal conviction over the large amounts of political money raised between 2015 and 2020 which were never declared to the public.

Past plans are undone by a government keen to make the most of ocean resources and cut that “dam red tape”

Buzz from the Beehive

Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so.

Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected to fall on eastern and northern holiday hotspots.

After hogging out on the Budget Policy Statement, media had less appetite for science reform “plan” (which is to seek advice)

Buzz from the Beehive

The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities

This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver urgently needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders” while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track.

Public service cuts and context

• Eric Crampton writes – 

Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing.   

Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that a big number or a small number relative to growth in the overall public service?

 

The public service in 2023 had headcount 38% larger than it had in 2017, when National was last in office, and 19% larger than in 2019, before Covid. 

Free speech has a freedom problem…

• Mike Grimshaw writes – 

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t agree with, especially if you are centre-left or a leftward progressive.

On the face of it, such critique might have a point.  For it can seem it’s only ever those from centre-right positions who are wishing to claim and enact free speech so as to oppose, limit, or shut down positions, statements, and individuals or groups they don’t agree with.

Banks and climate change – the law is an ass

• Don Brash writes – 

As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created by humankind, and a strong view that all countries have a responsibility to take policy measures to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions.

Successive New Zealand governments, as governments in many other countries, have adopted policies designed to discourage the emission of greenhouse gases, or to encourage measures which would absorb such gases. By far the most logical of these measures is the Emissions Trading System (ETS).