Posts Tagged ‘government’

1. New chums in a unique cause

   Published on Friday, November 19th, 2010
   

   Another deserving beach

   I’ve not been there, but New Chums Beach on the eastern side of the Coromandel has now become a political cause celebre.  I suspect that this is not so much for its beauty but its value as political leverage on the part of the opposition parties, Labour and Greens.

   Beautiful I’m sure, but New Chums is far from as unique as its protagonists would have us believe. If you don’t believe me, just get out and look around.

   That the Greens and Labour have formed some sort of coalition to save the beach is a communication triumphant for the initial advocate for banning any human habitation in sight of the beach, one Linda Cholmondeley-Smith. This New Chums champion is a descendant of a former owner who obviously received their 30 pieces of silver, but didn’t have the wit to place a caveat on building, which would of course reduce the value of the land to them.

   Cholmondeley-Smith’s strategy was invite media up to the beach and wax eloquent and tearful about its uniqueness. Of course, everyone likes a day at the beach on full pay, so they were quickly on board.

   The Greens will subscribe to anything that dips into the public purse without seeming self interest, while at the same time poking a stick in the eye of the obviously wealthy and vehicle-loving owners, so they could definitely be counted in on this campaign.

   Labour was more cautious and wanted to see which way the wind was blowing.  Understandable given they’d declined to buy the beach when in government – something we need a better explanation of. Out of government it’s a whole new ball game, and the objective now is to points-score at any cost to the taxpayer.

   The question I can’t resolve is, why New Chums?  To claim uniqueness is simply rhetoric.

   What Cholmondeley-Smith and her new found political friends are “selling” is the concept of unique – something few of us will ever visit and fewer of us could afford.  While the deficit grows by the day, I can think of a dozen other unique beaches our money could also be spent on. These I expect would be more affordable and probably easier for most of us to access.

2. Three countries, three voting systems, same end result

   Published on Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
   Prime Minister John Key has voiced concerns that the Act Party’s ‘debacle’ is likely to turn the public off MMP.

   He is quoted as saying “I think it will increase the likelihood that people will vote MMP out”.

   What he doesn’t make clear is whether he thinks that in voting out MMP the electorate will turn back to first past the post or to some other form of proportional representation

   Based on the recent elections in Britain, Australia and in New Zealand, perhaps the answer doesn’t matter.

   In Britain the voting system is ‘first past the post’, and in their most recent election the British ended up with a coalition government.

   In Australia they have AV (alternative vote) where preference voting is used until a candidate emerges as the winner, and in their recent election they too ended up with a coalition government.

   So in three different administrations, three different systems produced the same result – no one party having sufficient votes to govern by themselves.

   One positive is that in all three countries the party that had the highest number of votes attracted enough support from smaller parties to become the leader of the government, so there is some legitimacy to the claim they govern ‘by the will of the people’.

   The challenges facing parliamentary democracy go far deeper than the voting system employed.

   Society has changed. Less of us are prepared to give unequivocal, life-long allegiance to any cause or institution, whether its politics, religion, sport or brands. We are more questioning, privately and publicly, and we have greater access to a variety of opinions and information from global sources.

   When we do get the chance to vote for a method of electing our MPs let’s hope we end up with a clear winner – a close result would really cause consternation.

3. The perplexing topic of food pricing

   Published on Thursday, July 15th, 2010
   The past week has shown that grocery foods are a perplexing topic, as media have prominently featured several items and angles relating to food and supermarket pricing.

   Green MP Sue Kedgley led off last week with calls for a government enquiry and a code of practice for fruit and vegetable margins. Not surprisingly she was joined by fruit and vegetable interests giving dire warning of the industry’s demise.

   No sooner had we digested that than we were reminded of the Bill to come before Parliament next week proposing to exempt GST from Healthy Foods.  However, by day’s end we learned the National Party is going to nip that proposal in the bud and the Bill is as good as “dead in the water”. Meanwhile Labour is finalising its proposal to exempt GST from fresh fruit & veg. This and the healthy foods exemptions, we are told, are because of the need to encourage healthy eating and make food more affordable. (Curiously in discussions about Kedgley’s supermarket margins and the proposals for GST exemptions, the cheaper prices offered by dedicated produce stores are largely overlooked! The reality is many consumers are willing to pay more for convenience.)

   Move on one day, and the Department of Statistics trumpets officially that food prices have dropped year-on-year and it’s the biggest such drop in the life of most of us – over 50 years.

   We are funny creatures, on the one hand we (and our media) tut-tut when Kedgley tells us that fruit and veg margins are extortionist, a claim not supported, as far as I have read, by growers who are also produce marketers. On the other, we rejoice at the news of falling grocery prices. I see many papers actually featured decreases in grocery prices as “Good News”.

   For the average Kiwi it is difficult to make sense of all this, and I think it is mainly because of glib use of statistics.  For example, compared with May, lettuce prices for June were up 77%. Yet the June to June year lettuces were down 30%.

   I followed up on startling grocery prices presented to us by one weekend paper, based on data from the Department of Statistics. One popular grocery item was shown to have increased in price, between July 2008 and May 2010, by 43%. On investigation it seems clear that our official statistician compared the pricing of the item when it was promotional (discounted) with the non-promotional pricing. In fact, this product is most frequently purchased at the promotional price.

   While statistics are excellent headline grabbers, they seldom tell a full and honest story and distortion is not uncommon.

4. Government showing deft communication touch

   Published on Friday, February 12th, 2010
   The Government’s handling of the tax changes to be announced in the May budget show a masterly understanding of managing long term communications.

   Delegate the task of putting forward ideas to a third party (a commission) and then immediately reject the most controversial (phew, it’s not going to be as bad as it could be!); talk up some of the remaining unpalatable ideas, and then in the first formal statement of the year reject them too (saved again!).

   Now we have a pretty clear understanding of what will be in the budget some three months in advance, even if we don’t have the detail. By the time the announcements are made in May all the best emotional and rational condemnations from opponents will be out in the public domain, and Government can fine tune its final decisions to ease back on those that will upset us most.

   By the time the changes are finally introduced in October (10 months from raising the issue to their implementation) we will have mentally adjusted, and rather than outrage we will take them in our stride.

   It is good strategy, and the Government’s media managers are demonstrating a deft implementation touch.

   Cast your mind over some of the other contentious issues – mining in conservation reserves; fundamental economic reform to ‘catch up with Australia’ and even the national standards for primary schools have been on the agenda for months.

   When the going started to get tough over national standards, Key & Co showed their ability to up the game aggressively with a ministerial realignment, Key personally entering the confrontation, and outspoken challenges to the teacher’s union and boards of trustees.

   Labour will undoubtedly have the skills to win a few skirmishes as we move into the year, but they are going to need to be at the top of their game to outmanoeuvre National.

5. Who Would Want To Be In Politics!

   Published on Monday, March 23rd, 2009
   John Key has my admiration for the way he is publicly handling the issue of ‘retaining jobs’ for New Zealanders.

   Within weeks of leading from the front at the ‘jobs summit’ where he looked great urged employers to do all within their power to retain their workforce, he is now placed in the embarrassing position of defending the decision of TVNZ to make some 90 people redundant so that it can meet its required dividend payment to the Government.

   Getting his head around the key messages to talk about both situations publicly while not appearing hypocritical is no mean feat.

   My perception is that he is pulling it off, in part because he still comes across in public as being honest, earnest and facing up to the issues.

   When Parliament first reconvened, John started to develop a reputation among media for being a bit of a word and meaning ‘mangler’. He is no dominant, razor sharp Helen; or silken, motor-mouthed Michael.

   However, what John lacks in the way of a persuasive tongue is compensated for by his honesty, believability and his freshness.

   Conversely, Phil Goff struggles to make any cut through in the believability stakes because we have been seeing and hearing from him for 20 plus years. Try as he might, his theme that Labour ‘lost contact’ with ordinary New Zealanders and it is now on a journey of ‘reconnecting’ just does not make it in the credibility stakes.

   In the months ahead John’s challenge is to retain his believability as the nation becomes more exposed to him. It is a far easier challenge than the one facing Phil, which is to prevent himself becoming a stop gap leader before a new leader emerges 12 to 18 months ahead of the next election.