The risk of the forward pass

Every time you get on the field with a team in any particular sport ( although rugby is in mind here of course) you know that you face the risk of having to endure an underarm bowl, fellow players who fail to tackle, forward passes or poor-sighted refs who sin-bin the sinless. Knowing that these risks exist never stops the team from fronting up and giving it its best shot in the next game, wherever that might be.

And so it is in business

I am in Hong Kong, en route to the Phillipines, where I am promoting satellite/teleport consumer technology.

One of the things I have really come to appreciate in practice (rather than just in theory) about New Zealand since I left Parliament is how very transparent, fair and straight-forward it is doing business in our country compared with many other places. We have an excellent rules-based business environment which has the least red tape and the best referees and touch judges around.

It is no wonder that we have the highest employment growth on the planet and the lowest unemployment rate! New Zealand is winning in the race to create jobs because we have a great team, a good pitch and fair, efficient and consistent rules of engagement.

When you are overseas promoting New Zealand exports, you give it your best shot but you can't help but notice sometimes that other countries' business environments and rules are not always so fair, efficient and consistent as back home.

National is practising its forward passes with its bill for its tax cuts-for-the-rich to next generation

Thanks to the Internet I can keep an eye on political developments back home and the headline that grabbed my attention in the Sunday Star Times was the one about National’s finance spokesman, Bill English, entitled "more debt better than more tax".

National’s line remains for the government to go overseas and borrow money in order to fund personal income tax cuts for high income earners and then to just hope for the best.

In a nutshell, the National Party proposes to blatantly forward pass the bill to the next generation of New Zealanders; todays young people that have no vote with which to protect their generation's interests in next year's election.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4229066a13.html

In an ideal world, the media would be the fair referee

In an ideal world, the media would be the referee, the protector of the public interest, by asking the obvious questions and keeping the competing teams honest.

In an ideal world, our Sunday paper would ask:

1. Does that mean every mortgage holder and every business that borrows will by definition face high repayment costs under National?
(The answer is of course yes).

2. What are the downside risks, exactly, of this National policy?

But the Business Media is no fair referee in New Zealand politics. The obvious questions are not asked, not answered.

Anyone old enough to rember the wake of the last time we had a National-led government on a personal income tax cuts-for-the-rich spending spree knows the answer because we've been there, done that.

When Mr Bill English was last sitting in a National Cabinet in the 1990s and there was turbulence in some Asian financial markets, the National-led government showed the price of its tax-cutting, high-borrowing policies: It hit the most vulnerable in society.

When the heat went on, a high-debt carrying National-led government's immediate, instinctive response was to reduce the floor of NZ Super - hitting those unable to defend themselves - the elderly retired on fixed incomes.

The job-enhancing, tax-cutting record of this progressive government

This government's job-enhancing corporate and international tax changes announced earlier this year, together with tax changes to encourage research and development in 2004, are costing the government around a thousand and five hundred million dollars each and every year going forward in foregone revenue.

The progressive government already has made very significant reductions to the tax burden of working families, it is called Working For Families - far more far-reaching and financially beneficial to working families that the record of the last National-led government with its flawed-by-design across-the-board income tax rate reductions which managed to give most of the benefit to the richest that least needed it.

The record of the Labour-Progressive Government on the issue of reducing the tax burden completely dwarfs anything that came out of the National-United-NZ First governments that were supported by the ACT Party between 1990 and 1999.

But we can never expect complete and competent referees in the media in New Zealand. The media organisations' objective is advertising sales targets and listener/viewer ratings - not being a fair referee.

It is clear that, as always, the only referees to keep everyone honest in next year's election campaign are the people of New Zealand.

And contrary to what the Fairfax media says (that the government is in "near crisis" after the last opinion poll), the Labour-Progressive Government's record and policies for the future are far more reflective of the aspirations of a majority of New Zealanders than the high-debt, reckless nightmare being offered by National and its mates. In spite of the less than complete, competent, or fair refereeing by the media, the Centre-Left Team is still the favourite to win next year in New Zealand.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4229066a13.html

And from our Oz correspondent: Australia looks Left

If Labor Leader Kevin Rudd emerges from the next Australian general election as Prime Minister, it nevertheless looks highly unlikely that his party will also win a majority in the second chamber or Senate. Usually, enough Australians exercise their Upper House vote for an alternative to the two big parties which stops the government of the day gaining a majority in both Houses of the Federal Parliament.

Without a majority in the Senate, a Rudd-led Labor government will have to negotiate with third parties to enact its legislative programme.

It is rumoured that Rudd has been courting Family First's Steve Fielding who has said publicly he would have no problem with Kevin Rudd as PM, even though his natural sympathies lie with Howard’s current Liberal-National coalition government. In return, Rudd has agreed to have family impact statements included in new government policies.

Labor can also look forward to working in the Senate with the Greens although the relationship between the two parties is of course affected by the fact that at one level they are competing for the affections of the same broad pool of centre-left voters. The Greens will want to drive the Government to the Left. Australian politics hasn't looked so interesting in over a decade!

ENDS

© Scoop Media