Is New Zealand a capitalist command economy?

Head of Lifestyle Economics at the UK's Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free-market thinktank, has written an excellent piece at The Critic called "On Britain as a capitalist command economy". 

The central hypothesis is that the UK is both far removed from being a free-market economy with a small state and light-handed regulation, and from being a state-owned economy run by bureaucratic, politically driven trading departments.  It is worth reading in whole!  

He describes the conundrum of how to describe the UK economy...

The left call it neoliberal but neoliberals have had no meaningful influence on British governments for thirty years. The right call it socialist but neither the Tories nor Labour have shown much interest in seizing the means of production. Keir Starmer’s government is more left-wing than he wants you to believe, but even if he renationalises the rail and water companies, it will be a nostalgic gesture rather than a heartfelt effort to control the heights of industry. Only on the fringes of the left is there any desire to return to the days when British Airways, Jaguar and Thomas Cook were under “democratic control”.

Arguably New Zealand isn't much different.  Of course the Greens, TPM and parts of Labour will say the country is under the oppressive yoke of neo-liberalism, their latest scapegoat "billionaires" and "foreign capital", and of course people like me will rail against the "commie kids" on the left in Parliament, and in local government, but there's little real evidence of NZ embarking on Douglas/Richardson Mk. 2 or becoming the DDR under the last government.

Jim Bolger put the brakes on free-market liberalisation and shrinking of government after the 1993 election, although the direction of travel largely remained the same until 1999 when the Clark Government starting turning things back - notably by passing legislation to cancel the contracts of private ACC employer account providers to return ACC to a state monopoly insurer.  Clark followed by renationalising Air NZ and the Railways, setting up a state retail bank (Kiwibank) raising income taxes and vastly expanding the welfare state with "Working for Families". The Key Government did little to change this trajectory, and the Ardern/Hipkins Government doubled down, with significant spending increases (even leaving aside the Covid response), and increasing both the size of the public sector and scale of regulatory intervention in the private sector.

On the face of it, the post-Thatcher settlement has held, but there is nothing Thatcherite about this government, nor the ones that preceded it. 

Likewise in NZ. It's not to say the Douglas/Richardson (note it isn't the PMs noted for these reforms) reforms have been unwound. New Zealand isn't returning to rampant protectionism, nor has Labour embarked on vast renationalisation (the Government isn't going to get a national bus company, shipping company, hotel network or life insurance company), but what has happened is an accretion of central command and control.  The UK of course has long had it with the Town and Country Planning Act, the single biggest act constraining housing supply and enabling local government to be the greatest NIMBYs in the UK's history. It was passed in 1947!  New Zealand has only had the Resource Management Act since 1991 (passed during the height of Ruth Richardson's reforms, but inherited from Labour led by Geoffrey Palmer - which speaks volumes), but it too had kneecapped housing supply, inflated the cost of infrastructure and is only now with a chance of being replaced with something a bit less worse.

Snowdon writes about price caps introduced in the UK on energy, the Starmer Government's ban on "no-fault evictions" of tenants and enabling legal challenges on rent increases. 

He highlights the nonsense of the Equality Act in the UK, which is being used to impose "pay equity" claims of the sort Brooke Van Velden has put a stop to, much to the chagrin of retired former politicians. 

the Equality Act ... stipulates that men and women should be paid the same salary if they do work of “equal value”. Grotesquely over-interpreted by activist judges, this led to the bankruptcy of Birmingham City Council and 16 months of strikes after it was ruled illegal for (mostly male) dustmen and gravediggers to be awarded bonuses when (mostly female) cleaners and carers were not. ..

In the Next case, it was revealed that the company offered its 25,000 retail staff a chance to work in the warehouse but only seven took up the offer (three of whom walked out within a year). Despite one of the claimants admitting that she didn’t find the prospect of working in a noisy warehouse appealing but would have considered it if she was offered a lot more money, the company still lost.

The process used to determine what was "equal value" is what Snowdon describes as "that looks like something from a Marxist professor’s fever dream to decide the value of an employee’s labour."  This diagram is the basis for a bureaucratic central planner's view of how people's pay should be set, which bears zero reference at all to how many people want to do the job for the pay offered.  Have you seen a single politician or journalist in New Zealand outline how ridiculous this is? This is exactly the outcome of the philosophy of the capitalist command economy.

Snowdon describes it as essentially the application of activist state seeking to remould capitalism to meet centrally determined goals:

An activist state is systematically coercing the private sector in the pursuit of a range of social engineering goals, all of which are implicitly assumed to be more important than the economy. It is a form of central planning, albeit with a patchwork of different plans rather than one overarching goal.

Following on from my previous post, this is exactly what you can see from the Opportunity Party, whose leader "stepped into the world of... purpose-driven business". The purpose you can be sure is not why people and other businesses risked capital in the business, it's a purpose that is mostly about signalling virtue, and just chips away at its competitiveness, its resources to respond to consumers and competitors (especially in economies that don't have this sort of regulatory impost).

It's commonplace for people to refer to the People's Republic of China as a "communist" country. While it is led by the Communist Party, and has a great deal of central command and control, in many aspects it lets private enterprise run rip and be competitive, especially when exporting and seeking to win against foreign rivals. While it has plenty of state owned enterprises it directs and controls, it is less interventionist in the private sector.  You see China actually cares about economic growth and development, because it works.

In the UK and across much of the developed world, governments are far more concerned about social engineering goals. Snowdon notes Net Zero (regardless of cost) which in the UK sees car retailers fined for selling too many cars that people want (petrol or diesel powered) relative to cars fewer people want (EVs).  The market doesn't price goods the politicians want people to buy cheaply enough, and the public don't want to pay more for them, so the politicians penalise companies selling people what they want.  The Ardern Government did this more softly by taxing the cars people wanted to subsidise the ones the government wanted people to buy. It did it by implementing US style government procurement rules to preference responses to tenders that included Maori enterprises, just because of their ownership, regardless of the value the enterprises offered to taxpayers relative to others. 

Snowdon notes how far the public health lobby has gone in the UK (and it's obvious the same lobby in NZ wants similar steps):

Supermarkets have already been banned from offering multi-buy price discounts on “less healthy” food and are prohibited from displaying these products in certain parts of their shops. Wes Streeting plans to go even further and start fining supermarkets for selling too many calories.

I don't think New Zealand is quite so bad. A cursory look at economic statistics indicates:

- State spending as a proportion of GDP is 41% in NZ, 44% in the UK

- Tax as a proportion of GDP is 27% in NZ, 35% in the UK

- Public debt as a proportion of GDP is 41% in NZ, 98% in the UK.

It's notable that many of the command and control steps in the UK haven't been followed in NZ, although some of these were stopped with the removal of the Hipkins Government.

However, the approach of regulatory control of the private sector remains at the heart of what the Wellington bureaucracy advances to meet social goals, and it has widespread support in academia.  Some elements of the capitalist command economy remain very much in place.

Even with its replacement, the Resource Management Act will still not put private property rights first, and will still mean local government very much is in command.  

The electricity industry remains a weird blend of a market economy, with significant state investment, constrained by the planning system, which neither resembles a free market (given how difficult it is to build new generating capacity, and the state majority owning three quarters of the sector), nor a socialist system (as there is not a monopoly state provider). The previous ban on new oil and gas production (which in the current environment seems absurd) was purely an exercise in social engineering and virtue signalling, to show off a commitment to "Net Zero" even though it made virtually no impact on such targets (and no impact on climate change).  However it certainly scared off new investment in the sector, fearing a change in government could ban its industry once again.

While supermarket competition is not what some would wish, this is largely due to the planning system, although there remain calls to split up the industry in ways unheard of in other countries, with even the Finance Minister having floated it, and it still being a "live" policy with some political parties.  The fact this was even considered by a purportedly centre-right government indicates how far from the 1980s and 1990s NZ has gone. 

New Zealand lacks the compulsory centralised pay bargaining seen in Australia, which bears the cost of it because the wealth generated from mining is so significant, the loss in productivity is diluted.  However, it was only a change in government in 2023 that stopped it being implemented in NZ. 

So I'd say New Zealand isn't quite as far down the path of regulatory sclerosis as the UK, but that is not because of a lack of will to continue down that path. You can see it in Labour, the Greens and the Opportunity Party, as well as within the glance of part of the National Party and NZ First to seek to add "just another" regulation to make business have "purpose" to meet the politicians' goals.

The fascists of the 1930s (actual fascists, not David Seymour) didn't advance communist style nationalisation of the economy because they preferred to use regulation and state control over business and industry to meet their goals. The word is vastly overused by the far-left, but its approach philosophically is not a million miles away from the bureaucratic command and control state regulating capitalism to meet the lofty ambitions of politicians.

One thing is for sure, it sure isn't a free-market capitalist economy.

The Opportunity Party is clearly on the left

What was TOP and founded by the eclectic Gareth Morgan has been through a few leaders, and is into its latest one, and instead of using the acronym, has gone from the “Opportunities” party to just Opportunity. Just one opportunity, presumably for its candidates to get a handle on power.

I last wrote about it in 2020 when I said:

The centre-left policy wonks' party. For clever people that would usually vote Labour, and think they can solve many solutions if only the tax system were tinkered with. There are a couple of clever people here, but it just the intellectual wing of the Labour-Green parties, and takes its support from there.  Long may it do that.

This remains largely the case. While it avoids the Hamas-adjacent one-eyed view of Israel of the Greens, and the self-interested grifting of unions seen in Labour, it is essentially a party of left-wing activists combining those who have made careers in corporate virtue signalling and productivity sapping, or in the public sector. You need only look at the profiles of the leader, deputy-leader and some candidates to get a clear picture that this isn’t a party of free-wheeling entrepreneurs, advocates for freedom of expression and competition and choice in public services.

Leader Qiulae Wong profile states “After studying law and politics, she stepped into the world of human rights, disability inclusion, ethical fashion, climate and purpose-driven business”

Now that fits right into the standard box-ticking of left-wing virtue supporting. Human rights, inclusion, ethical and then the weirdest... "purpose-driven business"

If you think “purpose-driven business” is different from other businesses, then you don’t understand business. The purpose of business is to make a return on capital. However, she presumably thinks that isn’t enough, and business should seek to show off some noble intent beyond providing goods and services at a quality and price that customers are willing to pay for.  

She led the “B Corp” movement in NZ which is a corporate grift that seeks to extract money from businesses to get a virtue signal stamp to: 

“Be part of a growing global movement working to create an economy that benefits people and the planet”

This is largely vacuous nonsense. The economy exists because people produce goods and services that benefit people.

However, if you want to be part of a movement that is about putting productivity and wealth creation secondary to sacrificing shareholder value to identitarian and zero net impact climate change goals, then good for you, but let’s not pretend this is “centrist”. I am sure they will think I am some awful mean nasty capitalist individualist who thinks it's ok to run people over and kill pandas and whales to make a buck, but this sort of language and empty concepts are largely conceived by small groups of people who are very much the same as each other.  They are all trying to prove to one another that despite their considerable wealth, education and relative luxury level of living, they are actually altruistic and generous people who care about something beyond themselves and their family, and this is proven by showing off credentials that are popular amongst themselves.  

You can be sure probably none of them donate to Iranian's fighting the Islamic Republic, North Koreans trying to defect to the free world, Mauritanians fleeing slavery or Ukrainians repelling Russia. It's far more glorious to save a few tonnes of emissions from installing a solar panel or getting equal numbers of highly paid women on the local board of a major accounting multinational.

It could be right from the Green Party.  You see these movements are great for big companies that can afford to waste money hiring people or consultants to do zero-value research, publicity and branding to look good to airhead consumers, finger-wagging politicians and activist NGOs. However, they are deadly for small entrepreneurs just trying to break even, minimise costs and maximise consumers in taking on competitors like this.  

Deputy Leader Daniel Eb is cut from the same cloth. “Dan works to transition Aotearoa New Zealand to a just, regenerative food system”. Wait, what? How is it unjust now? How is not regenerative? Well he might tell you because…

“Dan founded a communications agency to help tell stories about rural innovation, community building and nature-positive farming”

Again, this could be right from the Green Party. Marketing and spin oriented.

Dr Kayla Kingdon-Beb (Wellington Bays candidate - where she is up against Julie Anne Genter) is “a well-known environmental policy leader and advocate. She believes Aotearoa’s most crucial (and undervalued) asset is nature”. She is Chief Executive of WWF-NZ and before that was Director of Policy at the Department of Conservation.  Again, could be right from the Green Party, and probably a good candidate to win votes from the far too frequently angry Julie Anne Genter.

I wont go through all the candidates, although this image of them tells a story that shows how it isn’t like the Green Party. The Green Party isn’t keen on white males as candidates anymore, whereas the Opportunity Party is.  Indeed a majority of candidates are male. Maybe it's centrist to not just select people on identitarian grounds nowadays?

Yet it is policies that tell you how leftwing the Opportunity Party is:

Universal Basic Income: Welfare for all. Paying people to be idle (of course it’s not characterised as that), by taxing some people more is a distinctively leftwing policy. It is directly redistributive, taking from some to give to all, and it is distinctively uninterested in productivity or wealth creation. $370 a week to everyone isn’t enough for some to live on but is a nice handout to the daughters and sons of lawyers, doctors and policy wonks at university. Note it doesn’t replace all benefits. The proposal is that solo parents get extra money, there are extra payments for people with children, housing support. So “admin” savings on this aren’t going to be total. With labour shortages in some sectors, the idea that people should receive other people’s money unhindered by any obligation to do anything is fundamentally socialist.

Fully subsidised Public Transport: This is another transfer from taxpayers to a small number of people, which has been proven elsewhere to achieve little. It is a blunt tool to help the poor (many of whom don’t live in places with much or any public transport, or certainly not public transport that goes to where they need) but is a big hand out to middle income taxpayers who work downtown in major cities like Auckland and Wellington. Overseas experience indicates it does little to relieve traffic congestion but does a lot to attract people from walking and cycling. Making the supply of a service free at the point of use is a fundamentally socialist concept. Imagining it is “just” for a six-figure sum public servant in Wellington to get a free trip into work, but for the shift-worker in Naenae who starts at the airport at 4am to not do so (because she drives) is quite something.  Of course the party also wants to pour more money into public transport, regardless of net benefits (because well… socialism).

Land Value Tax: New Zealand already has this in rates, but this extends it to central government. The premise being that it could replace some income tax, but the proposal is that there would be three income tax brackets – 28%, 34% and 39%. Lower income tax rates are abolished because of the welfare to everyone payments. The point of the Land Value Tax is to encourage more intensive use of land, except in rural areas (the party is keen on zoning of course). There would be lots of exceptions as well including Māori land, conservation land, land owned by NGOs, government and social housing.  Woe betide government be taxed the same as the great unwashed “speculating land bankers”. Now I don’t think Land Value Tax is necessarily left wing, if done simply and lowers income tax equally, but this isn’t it. 

Citizens’ Assemblies: Heaven help us all if this comes in so that the curtain twitching finger-wagging brigade of semi-retired activists get to dictate public policy. This sort of direct-democracy will inherently exclude business-owners and people with multiple jobs (who won’t have the time to participate), but be perfect for lobbyists, activists and retirees who are just aching to get involved in running other people’s lives. It’s exactly this sort of approach to planning that has caused NIMBYism, and which ultimately gets hijacked by people who want to interfere, who want to tax and spend other people’s money and run any policy area like a village.  It’s the atmosphere that has no place for radical individuals, doing something different in business, community, society, art or even just in their own lives that doesn’t harm anyone else.  The Greens would love it.

There’s other stuff like creating a “circular plastics economy” presumably regardless of cost or impact. Implementing Labour’s previous ban on smoking for adults as they age (helping grow the black-market in tobacco for organised crime). Raising youth court jurisdiction to 25 (soft-pedalling on repeat offenders who cause untold harm to victims). 

It’s interesting it has dropped capital gains tax because it wouldn’t have the same impact as a land value tax, but let’s not pretend the Opportunity Party cares much about economic growth and productivity as much as it cares about redistribution and being virtuous. 

It talks about bringing left and right together. Well it brings left for sure, I’m not sure what it brings on the right.

For example, what does it say about fiscal prudence? There is little about saving on government spending, the main emphasis appears to be to let the economy “grow” to surplus (although that seems a bit like Nicola Willis to be fair).

What does it say about foreign affairs? Nothing

What does it say about greater choice in health and education provision? Nothing

What does it say about improving New Zealand’s competitiveness internationally? Nothing. Just keep sliding down below the per capita GDP of Italy (and well below Australia)

I’m very happy for the Opportunity Party to attract some voters from the Greens or Labour, but let’s not pretend this is some haven for disaffected National voters who think there is a chance for any principles of smaller government, personal responsibility and individual freedom to be respected. This is still a party of policy wonks, now led by a grifter of “corporate social responsibility”.

Luxon or not

It's hardly news to most people, other than some members of the National Party caucus, that Christopher Luxon is not doing well as Prime Minister in convincing even a plurality of voters that he is the right person for the job.  He defeated Chris Hipkins in 2023, and now more people think Hipkins would be a better Prime Minister than him, although I suspect a significant plurality think neither of them are any good (and a smaller number dream of minor party leaders, especially Winston Peters).

Luxon was clearly a competent CEO, and his best characteristic is that he is a good delegator. He has largely left most portfolios to their Ministers, and it shows. The Ministers that are most highly rated are those that have shown results, or at the very least, show competence in dealing with difficult issues.  Regardless of what I think of any of them personally or even some of their policies, it is fairly clear that Erica Stanford, Chris Bishop, Simeon Brown and Mark Mitchell (of the National Ministers, as there is competence in NZ First and ACT as well), have all shown themselves to be able to "get things done".  

I would be one of the first to criticise Stanford in many ways, in particular I think she is just another wet who is almost wholly submissive to the teaching unions, but she has shown both a willingness to effect change and a passion for what she does. Her efforts for curriculum reform, pushing structured literacy and passion for lifting standards is clear.  She projects confidence and communicates clearly and competently, even if I think the government is incredibly weak in opening up the education sector to more choice, this isn't about libertarians, it's about the general public believing in competence and leadership.

Chris Bishop on infrastructure has also demonstrated a commitment to results. You can criticise the replacement of the RMA on multiple grounds (as Nick Clark from the NZ Initiative competently did), but you can't criticise his passionate commitment to a long-term fix of the housing crisis, and his efforts to hold Kainga Ora to account, and take interim steps making it easier to build some homes and infrastructure.  Furthermore, I've never encountered a Transport Minister in New Zealand or anywhere in the world who both believes in road pricing and sees it as a tool to improve conditions for drivers, and to make better investments in road improvements. Whether it is housing, transport or social infrastructure, he doesn't just talk in carefully curated soundbites, he speaks off the cuff and shows a passion for change and results. It helps that he has twice won the usually safe Labour seat of Hutt South (Luxon, Stanford, Brown and Mitchell all have safe seats), which takes considerable effort and shows a cut-through to much more than the party base.

Simeon Brown, despite childish and cheap jibes directed at him on social media, has demonstrated calm, capable competence in delivery. In health, traditionally an albatross around the neck of politicians almost anywhere, he quickly got across the issue of Dunedin Hospital, and made a decision about its future. This matched developing a five-year health infrastructure plan and setting five key health targets. As Transport Minister his great achievements were in turning around the spending plans of NZTA to meet those of the government, and to reverse the widespread speed limit reductions.  He has a financial and economic competence as a "dry" member of Cabinet, which reflects his education and previous career in banking.

Finally Mark Mitchell has been the face of National's commitment to law and order, cracking down on criminal gangs and delivering a demonstrated reduction in violent crime, following increases in Police numbers and corrections staff. Although this was undoubtedly supported by policies from both ACT and NZ First, Mitchell is convincing as a Minister against crime.

All of this contrasts with Luxon.  He is unconvincing, he seems unable to show a serious passionate spirit that chimes with much of the population.  As much as delegating is good, people want a Prime Minister to be across it all. Not necessarily like Helen Clark was (as she was a control freak Prime Minister, micromanaging most policies and not trusting most Ministers on major issues), but at least as well as John Key and Bill English could.  PMs need to be able to ad-lib, to respond spontaneously without briefing notes, based on a philosophical and policy grounding about the direction of government and principles. Some might say it is a bit too much to ask a Prime Minister, especially a National Party one to base thinking and what he says on principles, but principles and passion are where authenticity comes from, and authenticity helps win elections.

People want political leaders to believe in something and to express it, showing their passionate commitment to not just results that people want, but the basis for getting there. Luxon hasn't got it, he didn't have it before the last election, but the public were so fed up with the failed performance of the Ardern/Hipkins years, post-Covid, that they were willing to give him a go. That willingness has been eroded considerably.  There is a chance he can pull together enough support at the election to defeat Chris Hipkins, in part because Winston Peters has clearly positioned himself on the conservative right, and David Seymour continues to have a decent base of support for those who think the National Party is too wet, but that chance is far from a safe bet.  

Much more importantly, New Zealanders deserve a Prime Minister who they have confidence in, who can take a clear, principled stand on issues, without fluffing his lines.  I'm not fussed really if Luxon wants to support the US and Israel over Iran, or oppose it because he thinks it may be against international law, or claim that NZ is watching, not involved and does not want to take a stance out of respect of our allies.  Just believe in something. 

So he needs to go. Stanford or Bishop look like the leading contenders to replace him. Mitchell hasn't the breadth and depth for the role, and Brown is too young and too conservative to attract the non-politically engaged middle voters National needs.  However, Brown would be an excellent Finance Minister.

Stanford is Auckland based, and socially liberal, with the undoubted advantage of being a woman, with a clear, pleasant voice. She would need a deputy who is more conservative and able to moderate concerns she is too wet and centrist. Some may think she could look a little like a National Jacinda, but that is under rating Stanford. It seems unlikely she would characterise herself by emotions and over-ambitious targets.  To address concerns about being wet, Brown would be an ideal deputy to Stanford, although two Auckland leaders is not ideal, it is not as problematic as two Wellington ones.

Bishop, notwithstanding the alleged failed plot late last year, is equally as compelling. Being Wellington based is no asset, but the Hutt is a bit different, and he is much more of an "everyman" able to reach across to a broader group of voters.  He would need a deputy who is not Wellington based, and although he isn't a "wet" at all, he is socially liberal, so a more conservative deputy who is either Auckland or regionally/rural based would be ideal. Brown again would deliver this, although the push for a woman would suggest Stanford could be a choice, two social liberals might grate against part of the caucus.

I've not mentioned Willis although some would suggest she is the automatic choice, as the current Deputy. There is a clear couple of reasons for that. Firstly, she has anchored herself as a Luxon loyalist, it's difficult to see his weaknesses as not reflecting on her. Secondly, and far more importantly, she has not delivered on substance, particularly on the cost of living, but also notably in turning around the economy. Rather she has pushed relatively insignificant policy measures and issues with little real result.  You can predict exactly what the Opposition is going to say, because so much of what she has pushed has delivered little.

I doubt more than 10% of voters could name Family Boost as one of her signature policies, because it's achieved little despite her efforts to publicise the handout.  The Opposition has portrayed her as a harsh austerity Finance Minister, which if it were true, would have demonstrated results, with a path to surplus being sooner (and commensurate impacts on inflation and interest rates). She would have upset public sector unions, recipients of government largesse and leftwing academics, but at least would have some respect from the public for taking difficult decisions that were unpopular with some, for the sake of better long term outcomes.  She didn't need to be Ruth Richardson to just take spending down to the levels (as a proportion of GDP) when Labour got elected in 2017. In reality she has stemmed the growth in government spending, but wears the banner of "cuts" and hasn't been able to repudiate it.  What's much worse than her weakness on spending is the populist hobby horses she has chased to no avail.  The utterly fake dressing down of the head of Fonterra for the high price of butter, when no one credible thought anything could be done about it (bear in mind she used to work for Fonterra as a lobbyist), was cringeworthy. Furthermore, she cried wolf so much about supermarkets so when it was clear that the main solution - RMA reform - was actually out of her hands, and given the price of groceries in New Zealand (when GST is taken into account) is not disproportionate to Australia, she couldn't communicate reality and back down after fuelling hype that delivered nothing.  Finally, while she has claimed credit over lowered interest rates, that all about to reverse, thanks to a lowering dollar and now the war in the Middle East.  She couldn't even get the Reserve Bank's profligacy under control.  The public want action on the cost of living, but few believe she can do anything.

She might think she is entitled to be the next Prime Minister, but it's not clear what she has to offer. Most recently, her speech in Parliament about Iran demonstrated a patronising tone that focused not on the events in the Middle East, but what it means for New Zealanders. In foreign affairs, the public wants someone to talk convincingly about what is happening in defence and humanitarian terms, balancing the death and destruction of war, with the optimism of potentially ending a brutal tyranny, and concern about the end-game and what it means for the people involved.  New Zealanders know they are far away, and they are not just concerned about inflation and trade, they do not just think of foreign relations as transactional, but as a matter of what is right and its global impacts.

So no, Willis is not the answer.  She should not be the next Prime Minister and if Luxon is replaced, she should go too and be replaced, with a Finance Minister who understands what it takes to raise productivity and make New Zealand more attractive for starting and sustaining businesses. It isn't tax breaks for movies. 

Of course nothing might happen. Maybe some National MPs want to retire early (!), maybe some think Luxon is misunderstood and the media is to blame, or the polls are missing those who are undecided and will be drawn to him for stability on voting day.  They are all wrong. Luxon has been a disaster. 

Labour has twice had one-term governments, and twice had two-term governments. National has never had a one-term government, or even a two-term government, but it nearly had a one-term government in 1993.  It was saved not just by the voting system, but because voters rejected Mike Moore's second attempt to be Prime Minister as Bolger, just, convinced voters that tough decisions were made for later gain, which proved to be true.

There is a risk in rolling Luxon (and Willis) that it makes the government look like a mistake from the start, that it draws into question the whole period since the last election.  However that risk is smaller than just fumbling along and hoping Labour will look less credible, and people will be frightened by the Greens and Te Pati Maori. 

With a passionate principled Prime Minister, and a competent, economically literate and sharp minded Finance Minister, a blend of time and courage can convince voters than the National Party has listened and wants to give the public confidence in a new Prime Minister and refreshed impetus to focus on what matters the most to them.  It needs to purge the mediocrity, the man who forever says "you know" (when you know he is trying to convince himself as much as you) and give New Zealanders passionate, competent and principled leadership.  The time for change is now. 

Te Pati Maori's populism veers towards danger

When Te Tai Tonga MP Takuta Ferris complained about non-white immigrants campaigning for Labour "against Maori", was he saying the quiet bit out loud, or was he just being a racist moron?

To their credit, Ngarewa-Packer and Waititi disavowed it, but they should know that their own rhetoric about “superior genes”, and Oriini Kaipara’s celebration of the proportionality of her Maori heritage is going to lead towards this. It isn’t the exclusionary racist blood and soil nationalism of the actual far-right, but none of this would be uncomfortable in a far-right ethno-nationalist party.

TPM did once state that it wanted to curb immigration until the supply of housing met demand, but later withdrew that policy. 

The win by Te Pati Maori (TPM) of the Tamaki Makaurau by-election is hardly surprising, although that success is tempered by a low turnout, it reflect TPM’s underlying strength. Its populism. It's that populism that can lead into trouble for TPM, but also lead it towards nurturing dangerous narratives among its members and supporters. 

Most of the media has too much unconscious bias in favour of the Maori national renaissance that it, by and large, neglects to see what a key part of TPM's success comes from. Populist rhetoric, policies and behaviour that promotes a strong emotional response from Maori, especially it would seem, rangatahi wahine.  The decision to get Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke to lead the haka in Parliament was entirely strategic. It made her world famous (I even caught it being mentioned, approvingly, on the Gutfeld! show on Fox News - which is, by and large, MAGA central for US evening talk shows), which for TPM lifted them up for a new generation.

The term populist politics is almost universally used as a pejorative, because it largely plays to gut instincts and emotions, rather than a depth of thinking and reflection. Populism tends to thrive on an "us against them" narrative, which TPM hones very effectively. So much more rhetoric from TPM, from statements to their attire in Parliament is about differentiation, and as much as it may irritate some older people, especially non-Maori, that's the point.  It's very easy to accuse National and Labour for being parties that bend to the wind and are weak on principles, but TPM isn't scared of being controversial. It thrives on it, because it literally doesn't care what the majority think.

It starts by its claim of being unashamedly Maori, but it drifts further into claiming it is the most authentically Maori (because it doesn't need to accommodate the "colonialists", like Labour). 

Populism is all about a simple framing of what is wrong, and a simple framing of how to fix it. We’ve seen this before, as NZ First was built on it. The clue is in the name.  NZ First had at its core anger at what was seen as a “betrayal” of the country ("us") by “them” – being the Lange/Douglas and Bolger/Richardson Labour and National governments. Betrayal to foreign investors and concern over immigration, essentially a xenophobic fear that foreigners who own businesses or foreigners that move to NZ are only in it for themselves and not for "ordinary New Zealanders". 

NZ First was a response to a belief that neither major party put New Zealand first, and “sold out” the country to foreign investors, who bought privatised state businesses, and were “buying up land”. Furthermore, new immigration, particularly from Asia was “alienating” the local population, including Maori. After all, the 1996 General Election saw NZ First win a clean sweep of the Maori seats.  It was a brief time when the dominant policy narrative was on free-market economics (although this had only minor impact on social policy areas like health and education), and NZ First could cater to this disenchantment differently from how the hard-left Alliance did (which was essentially the socialist wing of Labour having broken away). 

Of course what NZ First did in the 1990s was scaremonger about immigrants. TPM isn't too far away from doing the same thing, as fear of immigration resonates with Maori who see it as another wave of newcomers that dilute their proportion of the population.  Those immigrants tend to be wealthier than average Maori, more highly educated, and have children that do better than the local population at school and university. They also are less likely to be engaged with the criminal justice system. In short, because many immigrants are successful, well-behaved and peaceful, they feed narratives among some as to "why don't Maori do the same?".  At its worst this antipathy towards immigrants is seen in violent crime and abuse towards them, and there are plenty of anecdotes of migrants facing racial abuse from Maori as much as other New Zealanders.  Ferris's outburst last week hardly negates that.

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) was built on the belief that Scotland could be independent from the UK and be better off, but it did nurture unabashed Anglophobia. Furthermore, it also promoted the idea that not supporting the SNP was traitorous to Scotland. Of course, the SNP was undone by actually having power and performing poorly, as there is only so much patience for constantly scapegoating Westminster as the source of your ills, when you get significant power to make your own decisions about what you do with your budgets. TPM almost certainly wont face that sort of scrutiny, which makes its own rhetoric potentially more dangerous. TPM knows that without radical and unlikely constitutional change, it will never lead a government at all.  It can always blame the failures to meet the expectations of its voters on the "colonialists".

As much as TPM wants to be seen as inclusive and welcoming of all, its core belief system can easily be interpreted as highly divisive and hierarchical.

Four years ago Debbie Ngarewa-Packer wrote in the NZ Herald outlining the party's division of New Zealanders into three groups:

- Tangata Whenua (us);

- Tangata Tiriti (supporters of "us");

- Everyone else (racists).

For her, that essentially say that unless you embrace the TPM view of the world, you are an outsider. She says that Tangata Tiriti are "comfortable loudly declaring they’re recovering racists, and they teach anti-racism, extremely secure in knowing their place side by side with tangata whenua ushering in a new Aotearoa.... Tangata tiriti accept and appreciate the reason they live in Aotearoa is because the Tiriti gives them citizenship and mana equal to tangata whenua... Tangata Tiriti are people of the covenant that is Te Tiriti o Waitangi. When you find a tangata tiriti that has a heart for the covenant it’s like meeting a long lost friend, the kind you know our tupuna fought to help treasure and protect. They want to make the burden light, hold up their side of the promise, clean up their own mess. They don’t want to lead our space they want to own their own, removing barriers of discrimination and clear the way to let us through, so we can live united in peace."

This is extraordinary stuff. Tangata Tiriti are original sinners who have to recover from their sin of racism and to "clean up their own mess". They only get the right to live in Aotearoa because their citizenship comes from Te Tiriti, not birth-right nor citizenship granted by a liberal democracy. Te Tiriti is like a Biblical text that grants "peace", what happens if you dare disagree?

Tangata Whenua can't be racist, presumably, which gives Takuta Ferris some reason to think he could say what he said.

Ngarewa-Packer, whether she knew it or not, was singing from the populist nationalist playbook. There are Maori (“us”), there are those who embrace our political-philosophical-cultural opinion (“Pakeha allies”) and the enemy. It’s a hierarchy that elevates its voters, as the indigenous people who are simultaneously superior to all others in Aotearoa, but also oppressed and marginalised. The scapegoat is the “colonialist” state.

TPM doesn’t really care about immigrants being upset with it, because its base isn’t keen on immigrants. TPM also doesn’t care too much about non-Maori being upset with it, not least because it sees Pakeha opponents as simply anti-Maori racists (seeing those that ridicule or denigrate Te Reo and claiming Maori just abuse their kids and waste their lives on benefits as being what many Pakeha “really think”) that fuel its base. It ought to care about calling those Maori who don’t support it “not really Maori”. That smacks of the Orwellian nonsense of Marxist-Leninists who claim that workers who don’t support the “workers’ party” are actually traitors to their class.  The idea that Maori who are not with TPM aren’t really Maori is toxic nationalist racism.  It resembles the nonsense concept of Third World Democracy which formed the basis for the one-party states of many post-colonial African states being dictatorships. 

Clearly TPM's populism is working for it. 

However, as much as Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer want to promote an image of inclusion and simply wanting Maori to manage their own affairs (which is entirely consistent with a genuine libertarian view of humanity), it's difficult to reconcile that with populism driven by nationalism which by definition deems them and their supporters as special, and others as redeemable sinners (and redeemable only if they concede to the TPM world view). 

When TPM President John Tamihere tells Maori that they are living under a government "worse than Nazi Germany", he is feeding not just fear, but hatred and a justification to use all means necessary to overthrow the government.  Of course no sane person could possibly equate the government to the Nazis, unless it was to rabble rouse and generate passion and anger.  After all if you are fighting Nazis, is anything out of bounds?  

This is not isolated rhetoric. Claiming the government is "pure evil" is akin to this, along with claiming the government is "erasing our future". This is absolutist eliminationist rhetoric which is alongside the claims of far-right white supremacists of the "Great Replacement Theory" that there is a programme to wipe out people of European ancestry.

Liberal democracies thrive when people with differences of opinions on how to address contemporary problems debate with some respect and acknowledgement that all are entitled to their views and expression of those views. They don't thrive when politicians seek to balkanise the population into a battle between "us" and "them", no matter what historic injustices have occurred by past generations.  Particularly when they push a narrative that paints opponents as evil people who want to wipe their supporters out.

TPM leaders may think that all it does is change how people vote, but if it bleeds into changing how people interact in daily life, including giving succour to those who think they can commit or threaten violence against opponents, then it is dangerous divisive rhetoric that is every bit as racist and unhinged as any far-right ultra-nationalist movement. TPM isn't there yet, but the danger that it emboldens such thinking is very real.

The by-election without much choice

It's hard to get too much enthusiasm for the Tamaki Makaurau by-election. The Maori roll and seats have become more politicised than ever before, as they are no longer an exercise in ensuring a core level of Maori representation in Parliament, but rather an expression of Maori nationalism.  It used to be that the Maori seats would attract candidates from across the political spectrum, but no more. Of course Parliament now has 33 Maori MPs, most not being from the Maori seats, because Maori participation and representation for many is not exceptional. All parties in Parliament have Maori MPs.  The case for the Maori seats to ensure representation is weak, it is particularly so with MMP, as Maori voters (as all other voters) have the same impact in determining the proportionality of MPs in Parliament. 

As the by-election is for the electorate MP (of course) the range of choice is much more limited than at the General Election when voters enrolled in the electorate can pick any of the registered parties for the list vote. In 2023 this made a bit of a difference.

The media have portrayed the election as a two-horse race, which is realistic given the General Election, but in 2023 plenty of voters chose other parties for the party vote.  Over a quarter chose other parties.

Tamaki Makaurau voters picked Labour for the list vote at 42.8%, even though the late Takutai Tarsh Kemp won the seat by 42 votes. Te Pati Maori only received 29.8% of the party vote. 

The Greens came third with 11.9%, National fourth with 4.7% and NZ First fifth with 3.4%. Add in ACT getting 0.9% and there are 9% of voters in 2023 that voted for the current governing parties. It's hard to say they have much of a choice this time.

Hannah Tamaki ran last time and will have a limited following. Sherry-Lee Matene is little known and Kelvyn Alp, who was charged with distributing an objectionable publication (being a recording of the Christchurch mosque attack) is best not mentioned at all.

So what we actually have is a spectre of Peeni Henare, Labour list MP, trying to win "his" seat back by pandering to the far-left student activist nationalist rhetoric touted by the rather clueless Marxist nationalist Oriini Kaipara (who claimed that TPM was "repealing" legislation and wanted to look on her phone to find the party's contributions to Maori).

Henare said "We are faced by the worst government this world – and this country – has seen in a long time" like a slobbering idiot who blanks out the Nazis, Khmer Rouge and the Taliban and countless other examples. 

Kaipara and Henare both want "Iwi-led" supermarkets which of course is possible now, but they are both economically illiterate. 

However, most of all, both major candidates hold a view of the country, economy and Maori that is led by a philosophy of nationalist Marxist collectivism with a stronger state. They offer nothing to Maori who are entrepreneurs, who don't want to be tethered to the State or Iwi to govern them and their choices, and certainly nothing to Maori who don't want to give succour to Hamas, or who don't want to be a part of the tankie collective of haters of Israel, Western liberal democracy and capitalism, by giving a free pass to Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, and any groups engaging in "liberation" (totalitarian terror movements).

I am betting Kaipara will win, because the Greens, who are ideological allies of TPM, are not standing the candidate, and Peeni Henare is inauthentic.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of voters on the Maori roll want more Government, they want more cultural nationalist chest beating, and really have little interest (or concern) about the Marxist anti-capitalist, anti-Western authoritarian cheerleading that TPM undertake.

That's because, whether you like it or not, a key indicator for many Maori is pride is who they are according to their ancestors, culture and the use of Te Reo.  There is a clash of cultural views on this, and as obnoxious as TPM can be on some issues (which resemble "blood and soil" views of nationalism and a willingness to judge those who disagree with them as needing to emigrate or not being "real Maori"), what it does is demonstrate a cultural pride that works just as much as ultranationalists gain support in other countries.

TPM is not a party of ultranationalism, it's a party of socialist nationalism (and no I don't mean THAT), akin to the Scottish National Party, and it makes Maori feel good about themselves for what they are, not who they are.  It constantly rabble rouses Maori into thinking they are being oppressed, silenced and suffering (worse than the Nazis according to TPM President John Tamihere - a grifting shape shifting used car salesman type if ever there was one), all because of a conspiracy of Pakeha white supremacism.

TPM also know they will never ever ever be in a position to be in power to prove that is wrong (unlike the Scottish National Party which has spend much of its political capital in being incompetent and corrupt). 

So on we go. I hope Henare wins, as it denies TPM one more seat and reduces the overhand in Parliament by one seat, not because he is deserving.  From the looks of it, none of them are deserving, but the winner at the very least gets to say she (or he) isn't the fascist candidate.

No to another mega-Ministry

One of the ideas getting traction within the Government is the idea of merging the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MHUD) and the Ministry of Transport (MoT) into a mega agency. The “logic” behind it is threefold:

• More integrated policy thinking that will not only enable more housing to be built, but also the infrastructure to support it;

• Diluting the de-growth and pro-central planning culture of MfE (which most recently decided it was appropriate to submit on the Regulatory Standards Bill);

• Saving money (through administrative rationing).

This is a mistake, because its theoretical basis is rooted in some assumptions that don’t bear close scrutiny. Working backwards the notion that mega-departments are more efficient is largely a chimera. The larger the bureaucracy the slower it works and the less responsive it is, and it more difficult it is to retain specialised knowledge and experience as it gets swamped within multiple layers of management. Treasury likes mega-agencies for two reasons:

• Fewer managers is said to be more efficient;

• Fewer agencies makes them easier to monitor and hold accountable.

Unfortunately, this ignores the behavioural responses of public servants to this sort of structure. In a large department it becomes harder to get the attention of the top layers of management. In some cases that can help, because clever and competent public servants can get on with their work unbothered by the chief executive or deputies, but that also means the less clever and competent have their work not subject to the same scrutiny. The Adam Smith Institute in the UK has called for the UK Home Office to be broken up for exactly that reason. The incremental savings of a few fewer managers (which is disputable when you look at the structure of MBIE – New Zealand’s existing mega-Ministry – which has large units, with branches under them and sub-branches) is lost when there is significant failure both in delivery and public policy.  

The UK already has had experience merging Transport, Environment and Local Government, from 1997 until 2002. Transport was split out again because the cultures of the agencies clashed internally, slowing down progress and making it difficult to get institutional focus on major reforms.  

Australia by contrast does have a mega-agency responsibility for transport policy at the Commonwealth level, in an organisation called DITRDCA (Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Culture and the Arts), which struggles to retain institutional knowledge in any segments of its activity. However, as a Federation, many of the functions in those sectors are carried out by States and Territories, so it is less of a day to day concern. Similar mega agencies do not exist at the State level.

The benefit of smaller agencies is that they can be nimble and responsive, and can pivot quickly when policy priorities change.  They can readily collaborate and work together with each other, if there is clear project leadership across agencies. The idea that collaboration within a large agency, with managers and branches with their own interests is necessarily easier than between smaller agencies is largely theoretical, because it depends on the individuals. Bear in mind MoT implemented radical restructuring of ports, airports, land transport funding, the governance and delivery of urban passenger transport all as a small agency, stripping down its functions over the years.  It's not clear what radical reforms MBIE as a major agency has done, and it is abundantly clear that DIA, with its de facto oversight of the water sector (i.e. next to none) did little until the Ardern Government saw it as a way to bail out local government and start to implement the principles of He Puapua (which remains on ice). 

On the second point, the idea that a key reason to merge agencies is to dilute the culture of the one you don’t like, or which is corrosive to government policy is not a good way of diluting the poison, because it spreads the poison across a wider field. The answer for the Ministry for the Environment is not to merge it, but to cull its responsibilities and split what remains among other agencies.

The Partnerships, Investment and Enablement business group should be abolished because Government should not be seeking to “tangibly shift mindsets and change behaviours in New Zealand through effective partnering and engagement within the public and private sectors”. The culture of MfE is anti-development, anti-growth and it the behaviours that need changing are those ones.  

At best the Environmental Management and Adaptation business group should be placed within the Department of Internal Affairs to work with local government, specifically regional councils on their statutory function, and the Climate Change Mitigation and Resource Efficiency business group should be part of MBIE, which has oversight of economic regulation of natural resources.  

It is so obvious that the next time a Labour-led Government takes power, almost certainly with the Greens, that a Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and the Environment would be rebranded into a Ministry of Sustainable Development or the like. The culture that would be dominant will be the one inherited from MfE and will seek to decimate private provision of housing, as well as turn transport policy into one big behavioural change programme that treats active travel and public transport as being good, at any cost, while treating private motoring and the movement of freight by road as being malignant. 

One of the legacies of Labour Governments is that they implement structural reform of Government that National Governments rarely reverse.  Don’t forget the optics of splitting MfE (“integrating environment across policy”) may not be great and of course the Opposition will cry that it is about decimating the environment, but the public largely will not care (other than the ones who vote Green anyway). Splitting MfE into Internal Affairs and MBIE will dilute MfE’s culture because it divides it. Merging it with MHUD and MoT keeps it intact, despite pleas from some that it will dilute the priority of the environment, it will place it in the centre of two agencies seeking to resolve issues that are, in part because of the prioritisation of the environment through the RMA that stops stuff being built.

The MHUD is essentially an oversight agency for Kainga Ora, as well as the regulator of rental housing and other accommodation. The synergies with the MoT are weak, especially given MoT’s functions range from monitoring the land transport funding and regulatory sector, through to the economic functions of all transport modes. There is little that MHUD can bring to aviation policy, and indeed most of the transport policy issues affecting MHUD are undertaken by local government. 

If there is a case for a merge, then MBIE makes more sense for MoT than MHUD, because MBIE does look after network industries in infrastructure, such as energy and communications, but that was tried before in the late 1990s and ultimately abandoned. 

So the idea of merging agencies should be put in the bin. There is a better case for reviewing their functions and determining whether some should exist at all, and if so, who is better placed to manage them.  Putting climate change policy in the DIA or MBIE is likely to be preferable than having it dominating housing and transport.

Merging MfE, MHUD and MoT smells of something that the Greens or TOP (remember them?) would advocate. MfE is by far the agency with the most dominant culture, and it is one that is philosophically antagonistic to the Government it is meant to be serving. It should not poison housing and transport policy with that culture. 

The Government should run a mile from it.

Does Dame Anne Salmond really want to debate the Regulatory Standards Bill?

Dame Anne Salmond is upset at the use of pejoratives to describe some opponents of the Regulatory Standards Bill. I can understand not liking the use of terms that are explicitly or implicitly abusive, as it is hardly helpful. She doesn't like being called "Victim of the Day" by David Seymour, although his piece on her was not personal.   I struggle to see why an article that largely is about rebutting her original piece is initiating "an online campaign of intimidation" as she claims. Indeed the comments responding to Seymour's post have plenty criticising him as well as supporting him.  She may think I am part of a campaign of intimidation, but she claims debate is fine, so let's have that. She has a wide platform as a public figure, so, as with other critics like Metiria Turei and Willie Jackson (past and present MPs), engaging publicly on an issue means people will support and oppose. 

Let’s remember this is an academic that once wrote that unless you can read the original language any text is written in, you are not entitled to have an opinion on it.  She talks of wanting to “silence” critics but is adept at finding reasons to tell those she criticises effectively that they are not entitled to express an opinion on Te Tiriti.  This is someone who claims the Regulatory Standards Bill expresses a “contempt for liberal democracy” who expresses contempt for people commenting on Te Tiriti if they are not sufficiently fluent in Te Reo. 

Her criticism of the Regulatory Standards Bill strongly infers that those advocating it don’t believe in “public goals and values” (she means the public goals and values she supports).  She opposes it because it lacks a strong democratic mandate, on the basis that most voters didn’t vote for ACT.  Has she ever said the same about Bills advanced by the Greens or Te Pati Maori? 

She opposes the principles focusing on individual rights and private property, which at least she’s explicit about. I’d argue that opposing such principles is “dangerous” in itself, and is the source of much of the harm seen today.  What is fundamentally wrong with respecting people’s autonomy over their bodies and property, and having a society based on that? (leaving aside how inconsistent ACT is in defending this - which is fair criticism. ACT is no libertarian party, and never has been).  

She claims that having an ideological oversight over the legislative and regulatory activities of all government agencies is a “naked power grab”. Power for whom? The Regulatory Standards Board has no power to do anything other than to report, as it would be up to the elected government of the day to respond to it, or ignore it.  What is she really afraid of, that the governments she supports would be asked to justify why they are overriding individual rights and property rights to implement policies she supports?  

If individual rights and property rights are so “dangerous” then she should have no fear whatsoever of a government she supports implementing the policies she supports saying “individual rights are secondary to us banning, compelling or taxing people for this “public purpose””. Sunlight showing the very clear trade-offs between individual rights and the politics of collectivists. 

It takes nothing away from the Executive or Parliament, it is not a constitution upholding those rights and being able to veto policies that degrade them (if only!).

However, Salmond’s real view on this is that it is sinister, because she doesn’t think ACT has honest intent (because she opposes the reform of the pay equity legislation applied retrospectively).  That’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man.  She thinks ACT wants to undermine liberal democracy, which is a serious accusation.  Bear in mind she claims the Government is waging a "war on women". 

Is this the rhetoric of someone who wants fact based debate, or someone happy to jump in, boots and all, into the world of political pejoratives?

She claims on LinkedIn that (the Regulatory Standards Bill) "rhetoric used to support this bill talks about ‘equality,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom, ’trying to force indigenous and other New Zealanders to abide by libertarian understandings of these words – thus stripping them of their rights and freedoms"

Really? How does anyone "force" anyone else to abide by the meaning of any word? How does this even make sense? 

She says there are not enough checks and balances on executive power but claims this Bill will be an example of this, even though it can only come into power by being passed by a majority in Parliament. It can of course be repealed likewise.  This is simply wrong.

The “worst” effect she claims is that the bill “attempts to tie the hands of the state in regulating private activities or initiatives that create public harm”. This isn’t actually what is in the Bill, but an interpretation.  Lot of people claim “public harm” from activities that generate private benefit, ranging from what people consume or do with their bodies through to businesses they engage in with consenting adults.  =Of course, the Bill simply states as a principle that legislation should not take, impair property unless fair compensation is given for that.  =All the Bill requires is that this be reported on, and then Parliament decides whether to do so, or not.  

Then she talks about the "accumulation" of wealth and power by the “few” at the “expense of the many”, which is political agitprop. Of course, globally she is one of the “few” as are most people in New Zealand, who have incomes and wealth exceeding that of the majority of the global population.  She continues with rhetoric of “over-emphasis on private property and individual rights”. She thinks that is what happens in the US, a country with eminent domain over private property to enable private development (an egregious violation of property rights), a country with a long litany of laws against individual freedom ranging from what one can ingest into one’s body, through to the endless need for permits to undertake mundane trading activities.

Salmond appears not to have read the Bill.  If she has, she hasn't understood it.  Maybe she simply imputes sinister intent to ACT, by claiming it is all "doublespeak"?

It's easy to see why David Seymour would get frustrated, with rhetoric of that of Marxist student activists. This Bill does not attack the “fundamental rights of New Zealanders” as Salmond claims and puts up zero evidence for.  What it would do is subject the policies she supports to the scrutiny as to why individual rights and property rights should be reduced to achieve the objectives she may be in supportive of.  Governments could then ignore that or respect it.

Why is that controversial, unless you think it doesn't really matter if individual freedom and private property rights are eroded for "the common good"?

Feeding "our" children

The debate about the compulsorily funded school lunch programme is being characterised by opponents of the government, as one of mean-hearted people unwilling to feed "our" children.

Advocates of the school lunch programme claim:

• There are children going to school without breakfast and without lunches, and they will perform worse at school than had they been fed...  this is true, but not just for the reasons advocates of state feeding of children claim.

• Simply providing food for the children who are in need (and whose parents can't or wont pay for it) is bad, because it makes those children feel singled out because of the negligence of their parents/guardians unlike that of  children who would not get such meals. this is likely to be true, but neglect to note that is likely to be the case more generally anyway.

• If "we" can't feed "our" children, then what are "our" priorities anyway? 

Of course all kids should be going to school having had breakfast and provided lunches, who would argue against that?

The Government is dancing around the key philosophical argument around this, and despite lazy attempts to portray it as a "culture war", it really isn't. It is an argument around both the role of the state and individual responsibility, and it is obvious that there are people polls apart on this.

On one side is what is, in essence, a socialist position, that it is not only morally right, but there is a moral obligation for politicians to force taxpayers to pay to feed all children at school. The argument being that this provides for the best outcomes for children, and demonstrates a kind and caring society.

On the other side is what is both a conservative traditional, but also a classically liberal position, is that the primary moral obligation to feed children arises with those who chose to take responsibility for them - the parents/guardians.  There being two reasons why the feeding doesn't happen.  First, is if there is genuine poverty, this still obliges the parents/guardians to seek support from the existing welfare system or charitable services to put their children first, and of course people are free to support such services if they want to show kindness to those in need.  Secondly, if parents/guardians put their own needs and wants above those of their children, such as simply feeding them, then it is better to address this neglect, either through education or punitive measures.  

Those on the left diminish or do not believe that compulsorily funded state meals for children undermines parental responsibility, even though it fairly obviously does by feeding all children at school (as the predominantly middle class moans in recent weeks demonstrates). Their belief is that the utility of children being fed (and of course the argument is on the detail of what they are fed, and cost is not an issue for those who simply think the state should take the tax it needs to do what they want) outranks any other consideration.

Those on the right do not believe that the utility of feeding, essentially children from low-income families, does not justify forcing taxpayers to pay for feeding all children, and are suspicious of what happens next. Will taxpayers be forced to pay for "free" school clothes, "free" school transport  for families living close to public transport that goes to the school they choose) or more? All of this would mean less responsibility for parents to think about the needs of their children, and more taxes for everyone to pay.  Most would agree that it is ethical to help parents in need temporarily, and for there even to be assistance, whether charitable or not, for kids who don't get fed, but that isn't a universal meal programme.

Of course as a libertarian the idea taxpayers should be forced to pay to feed other people's children is morally unacceptable. If you want to help people with feeding their children, then feel free to do so, indeed that is the kind and caring thing to do.  There is no kindness in letting politicians raid money from other people, including those who disagree vehemently with the concept, to pay for a scheme organised by politicians and officials, rather than actually making a contribution yourself. 

A state big enough to feed children for one (some say two) meals a day, is big enough to parent them even more, and the record of the state as parent is woeful. 

Some conservatives think the socialist objective of free school meals is a plot to undermine the family, and make people more dependent on the state. I doubt that, although the willingness of so many to simply grow the state without any concern for the scale of its presence disturbs me.  The more of people's money that simply gets taken for other people to spend as they see fit, the less agency you have over your life, and the less accountability for it.  Whereas the more you have, the more options people have to advance their lives and those of their loved ones, and support those they want to.

What I think does matter is the issue of parental neglect.  After all, if parents can't do something as basic as provide a meal for their children above their own need for food, what else are they neglecting?  

Most parents dedicate their priorities to their children. They think of their children 24/7, they think of what they need and do what they can to provide. It's concerning if parents fail either by their own lack of competence or more insidiously, lack of care.  

More importantly, let's define what the problem actually is?

For decades the state didn't feed children at school, and did this generate a systemic problem that was distinguishable from the children routinely neglected by their parents?

Are there parents/guardians in such abject poverty that they haven't got a few dollars to provide a bowl of cereal with milk and fruit each morning (compared to everything else they buy)?  There probably are some, and in particular this probably happens over short periods for some families when there is unemployment or an emergency (e.g., having to move home, refridgerator 

If so, those people should be helped and targeted, because it doesn't just affect food, it affects everything else needed to raise those children adequately.

Are there parents/guardians who consistently neglect their children? Then they should be identified and appropriate carrots and sticks used to change their behaviour (both rewards and sanctions).

One of the single biggest factors for children failing are parents who neglect them materially and emotionally, and these are directly linked. Parents in material hardship do all they can to provide for their children, whether working or seeking charitable help directly or from family, friends and neighbours, and that should all be encouraged. It is entirely appropriate for people in need to seek temporary assistance. However those that do not do this, are either incapable of being parents or are simply negligent.

The kids in need should be helped, but the posturing over this programme, which papers over cracks that neither side in politics is keen to address (as the hard left regards personal responsibility to be a conspiracy and the hard right fears the state being a parent), is appalling.

It should be gradually wound down and replaced with a targeted programme organised by the schools themselves, out of their own budgets.  

Wellington is in a funk

The general election has knocked Wellington for six and has put a great deal of public servants and more than a few in the consultancy-industrial complex in a funk, because philosophically and culturally, the change in government has shown up the gulf between them and the government. It has also demonstrated two major issues:

• The dearth of strategic and intellectual grunt in much of the public sector;

• The ideological chasm between many of the (largely young and relatively new) public servants, and the Government they have vowed to serve.

I moved back to Wellington last year after a considerable absence, and I noticed quite a few changes, and there have been a lot more since the election. Not in the sense of the urban form (that hasn’t changed dramatically), nor infrastructure (setting aside the leaks everywhere), but rather in the culture and capability of the public service, and those who provide some degree of heft in fundamental public policy analysis are in short supply.

I spent ten years in the Wellington public service before leaving it (and the country) to be a consultant.  When I first joined it was clear there was a significant cohort of senior and leadership talent in parts of the public service in particular that were formidable in their intellectual capability, commitment to ideological neutrality and interest in an evidence based approached to public policy. Sure there were differences, but overwhelmingly there was one key factor, a deep understanding of what they did and did not know, and what they could not know.  I saw this in The Treasury and the economic sector-based departments, such as what was then the Ministry of Commerce (since morphed into MBIE) and Ministry of Transport.  There was a bit less in the Department of Internal Affairs, but it was still there.  The more social policy-oriented agencies were somewhat different. Health, Education and Environment had less experience of structural reform, and still believed they could be the repositories of all that is best practice in their sectors.  The departments responsible for oversight and regulation of business and the productive sectors knew differently.  

They all knew that, by and large, they had no idea how much of the economy worked in any detail.  These were people who looked at the likes of the telecommunications sector and wouldn’t even pretend to know the details of the technology being used, because it mostly didn’t matter (unless it was related to something the government had to do, like auction radio spectrum for mobile phone use). Nor did they pretend they knew what the cost or price of inputs were, if markets were competitive or not falling between the cracks of the role of the Commerce Commission.  After all, history is replete with examples of how neither bureaucrats nor most politicians have the faintest idea about what changes in technology or markets will come next.  There were bureaucrats who knew that.  I recall sitting in a meeting room in 1997 with a manager at the Ministry of Commerce, who got the IT Department to set up a demonstration of a free application called Real Audio which was streaming radio programmes from across the world.  He said at that moment “this is the future and it will disrupt everything we do in broadcasting, it’s a matter of time”, this was when politicians were mainly fretting about the use of dial-up internet to access pornography.  That manager was right of course, but at the time the Ministry of Commerce was responsible for broadcasting policy, alongside telecommunications, IT and energy policy. Broadcasting is now within the purview of the Ministry of Culture, Heritage and the Arts, which is not an organisation with a primary culture of business and innovation. 

The beginning of change in that culture happened under the Clark Government, which was much more pro-active and wanted to “do more”.  However, that Government did get plenty of advice around the limitation of the public service to actually know what was best for particular sectors (except of course the social sectors, which acted much more as intermediaries between the strong professional producer sector interests and the government, especially since more than a few people in the social public sector would switch employments with the professional producer lobby). While the Key Government paused that change, the Ardern/Hipkins Government put it into overdrive, and the Luxon Government will be seeing the signs of it.

The election of Tamatha Paul as MP of Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter as MP for Rongotai provides a sign of what has happened to the Wellington public service in that time.  It's a far cry from Richard Prebble being elected in Wellington Central in 1996, and the time when it was seen as a marginal seat between National and Labour. No more.  The public sector has seen retirement of many men and women who were part of both the Muldoon era of extraordinary central planning, and the Lange/Palmer/Moore/Bolger era of dismantling central planning and instituting more direct accountability in the public sector for results, and in taking political and bureaucratic decision making away from trading enterprises, ranging from the Post Office to the Railways and Electricity Department.  Those people have retired, moved away or passed away. Some remain from the 90s, but are increasingly pushed aside by the well-meaning, but shallow culture around promoting “new perspectives” around “diversity”, which does not include depth or breadth or critical thinking (not in the post-modernist sense) in public policy.  The Wellington public service grew enormously in the past six years, drawing upon enthusiastic graduates, predominantly coming with support for the Government of the day, bringing with them a leftwing ideological framework, which are not just the traditional enthusiasm for state-intervention and suspicion and cynicism about private enterprise, but rather the wholesale cultural revolution in how they think about the state, society and stratification of the country into people categorised as oppressive, oppressed or allies of the oppressed. MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer characterised it as being Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti and everyone else (the racists). So a combination of left-wing enthusiasm for state intervention, regulation, spending and taxation, with an suspicion around the interests and the views of significant portions of the public, including those of more senior civil servants, because of identity factors (e.g. race, sex, gender).  None of that would matter one iota if they could put that to one side and be highly competent public policy analysts, but that competence is wanting, and it’s clear from plenty of people engaging with the well-meaning, but lacking historical knowledge and being weak on analytical capability.

As a result the mood today in many government departments, particularly the more social and environmental policy oriented ones, is one of fear and depression, as a workforce of relatively young public servants, most of whom did not vote for this government, struggle to cope with being asked to implement policies they don’t agree with. Some act professionally, and it is to the credit of some that they seem to have delivered the Government’s “First 100 day” plan. Few are obstructive, clearly one or two are choosing to leak, but many of them are moping about, worrying about becoming unemployed and are openly, to their like-minded colleagues, unhappy about the choice of voters.

When I was a public servant I was generally not happy with any government that was elected, on a lot of issues, but when it came to the sectors I worked in (and there were a few), I put it all to one side. People knew what my politics was, but I also knew what high quality public policy was as well.  You serve Ministers, you seek to achieve their policy objectives, you analyse alternatives and you implement what Ministers want.  You give free and frank advice, and they either take it, or they continue to do what they want to do, and you can simply say they were told, if the consequences don’t turn out how they wanted. That’s not the mood in Wellington now.

Of course it will change. Although there is significant scope to scale down the numbers of people doing policy in government in Wellington, the scope to scale down the depth and breadth is small, because there is a distinct lack of talented, capable and clever people, who put aside their personal political biases in favour of evidence-based policy advice.  Most importantly, there are few who will admit to Ministers “we don’t really know how to do that” or “we don’t know how that part of the economy works” or “we don’t have the knowledge or experience on that issue Minister”.

I’ll take one example in a field I know something about. “The Aotearoa New Zealand Freight and Supply Chain Strategy”. I’m frankly gobsmacked that a lot of people clearly pulled together something which smacks of the sort of central planning NZ had done away with in the 1980s. The idea that MoT is steward of the freight and supply chain system is so laughable as to be a joke.  There is no remote hope that the Chief Executive of MoT, let alone almost any of the staff, would know how to arrange the consignment of freight from any producer to customers or outlets.  There is relatively little about productivity and competition, yet 62 pages has been dedicated to a “strategy” which has as its main challenge not labour shortages (which have been a major issue), but climate change. Nine immediate actions are proposed, all of which are either about more planning or lowering emissions. It’s a manifesto for central planners.  Nobody was willing to tell Ministers that “we don’t know much about any of this, and we have no visibility into how businesses and transport firms arrange and price their services, or invest in capital”, or if they did the response was “find out, collect data”!

Where does this lead a public service that ought to be focused on delivering on an agenda that many of its staff disagree with?  It's not easy, particularly as getting talent to work in Wellington is tough nowadays.  However the government appears willing to lean down the state sector (albeit not enough), which should provide ample opportunities to send blinkered ideologues with mediocre intellectual grunt to a new life not serving a government they hate. 

There are three strategies that might help as well:

1. Cull activities in Ministries and Departments to enable competent people to focus on the priorities of the new Government. This has already started, but the competent people need to be placed on high-profile, high-risk projects of reform and delivery. This require line-by-line scrutiny of the work programmes of each Ministry, Department and agency, to strike out what isn’t needed. Then offer redundancies to those no longer needed.

2. Don’t be afraid to restructure. Who would trust the Ministry of Education to implement Charter Schools any more than you would have trusted the Post Office to implement a competing mobile phone network or the Railways Department to implement a competing trucking firm? Treasury likes consolidation, but smaller, nimbler agencies can be more responsive, and incentivised to be focused.

3. Push for cultural change in the public service. This means focusing once again on accountability, transparency, delivery and efficiency, and recognising the limits of knowledge and capability. Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit” concept would be a helpful one to promote.  Encouraging understanding of concepts around markets, competition and the "law of unintended consequences" and to be concerned about capture by interests, whether they be business, producer unions or lobbyists, even those with purportedly "altruistic" motives.

4.      Better link the public/consumers to the supply of the services provided by the state to them.  Give them incentives to perform.  This used to be done by setting up SOEs, but the scope for that is largely spent.