Six months into the government’s term and things could hardly be more different from the rosy glow of the three-month mark. What has changed?
In March as the 100 days peg was passed the country was in a bubble. The summer had been kind, with jobs from Y2K and money in farmers’ pockets, and “we” held the America’s Cup. A new, confident, vigorous cabinet promised a fresh face after 15 years of economic reformation.
Helen Clark and Phil Goff are harmony in action on foreign policy: the brainy daughter of conservative small farmers and the brainy working-class kid who left home young both learnt their political analysis at Auckland University in the 1970s.
In the 1980s they were factionally separated, he as the protege of the Douglas-Prebble-Bassett team, she in a rearguard action against it. That, plus a modish conservatism on law and order after 1993, have given Mr Goff a right-wing reputation.
Michael Cullen’s often wounding sarcasm is legendary. The man who linked the Greens to Mugabe has one of Parliament’s most cutting tongues and he uses it freely on those who annoy him or whom he thinks fools.
Business has not been spared. Consequently, many think he doesn’t like business. If this attitude is left to harden, it will get in the way of the government’s social policy ambitions. So yesterday at Auckland’s chamber of commerce Dr Cullen was in bridge-building mode.
The government was in a helpful phase last week: the Greens were given a free publicity hit over rimu logging; National’s morale was lifted by a swarm of jolting errors and mismanagements.
No earthquake has yet followed the tremor-swarm. Pronouncements of the end of the government’s honeymoon with the public are premature until the polls speak.
“We’re drinking their beer here”. Sic transit Steinlager. Along with other icons of our boozy past and present. We can’t even hold on to our liquor these days.
Lion Nathan’s move to Sydney is in impressive company. Fletcher Challenge is being broken up and sold to foreigners, Carter Holt Harvey is contemplating moving west and Telecom may follow in time.
Where did the money to fight the honey bee mite come from? From something else the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) was going to do but now has put off till next budget year. Is this the way to protect our national livelihood?
There is no contingency fund for dangerous pests. A procedure which I have been assured does exist for fast release of new funds appears not to have been triggered. If the honey bee mite did not trigger it, one wonders what will.
The first “new economy” was the Dutch “tulip mania” in 1637. There was joint stock company madness in London a century later, investor obsession with rickety railway ventures in the mid-nineteenth and an assembly line revolution in the 1920s. Crash, crash, crash, crash.
It is too early to say whether the 1990s “new economy” bubble is bursting or just subsiding and thus what economic effect will follow. But the weekend’s turmoil is a reminder of our vulnerability to overseas events.
Next week Steve Maharey will launch another scheme in the Clark-Anderton ministry’s reshaping of government: a new arrangement with the voluntary sector.
Yawn. That sounds almost as boring as debating the constitution – earnest people saying earnest things to each other. What can a “compact” with the voluntary sector say to a pocketbook public?
Is there a justification for Richard Prebble’s assault on the Waipareira Trust? Yes, regardless of the final outcome.
His characteristic rough-house, blood-sport style must be distinguished from the deeper issue in this matter.
Waipareira’s money is not a capital sum as Tainui’s is. Tainui’s money came by way of compensation for land taken illegally off the tribe and it is the tribe’s business what it does with the money, whether it uses it wisely or stupidly and which individuals benefit.
Jim Anderton was the first senior MP to take seriously the balance of payments problem. Most economists at the time – this was four or five years ago – dismissed his concern as cranky but now they and most other MPs have joined him.
Mr Anderton’s early concern was sharpened by his opposition to opening up the economy.