Author: Richard Preeble
OPINION: All parties disappoint. National used to stand for property rights. Labour has abandoned taxing landlords. The Greens have gone from environmentalists to socialists. Sir Roger Douglas campaigned for zero income tax. ACT now says the country cannot afford a tax cut. But no party has ever abandoned its founding principles faster or more completely than Opportunity. Garth Morgan spent $3 million of his own money promoting a guaranteed income and land tax. He believes that AI will cause huge unemployment and that land tax will lower house prices. Before the campaign, before a single vote, let alone negotiations, TOP…
New Zealand First’s big promise this election is a Future Fund. The Future Fund looks like a recycled version of the Provincial Growth Fund, but this time on steroids. The Provincial Growth Fund was to be a $3 billion fund for “regional development”. Regional development turned out to include refurbishing 347 marae. It also included $52 million for the loss-making Whakatōhea mussel farm in Ōpōtiki. The Auditor-General questioned the administration and evaluation of the fund and expressed doubt about whether taxpayers would get value for money. This time the promise is not $3 billion but up to $100 billion for…
OPINION. The real election campaign is taking place on social media. Those on the other side of the digital divide do not even know this campaign is happening. But even those who scroll through social media do not see campaigns that are reaching tens of thousands of voters. Algorithms select posts that we will like. I am sure the algorithms have me profiled. With that warning, the best campaign posts I have seen are Erica Stanford’s. It is difficult to talk straight to a camera and be authentic. It is even harder to explain a complex message. Stanford does both.…
Opinion: Richard Preeble Whenever Hager publishes one of his hit jobs it reminds me that I once was a target. The memory makes me burn with shame. Hager wrote that Roger Douglas and I were part of conspiracy to appoint Don Brash, Governor of the Reserve Bank. If Hager had done any checking before publishing, he would have learned that when Brash was appointed Governor, it was not an appointment of the finance ministers. Reserve Bank Governors were appointed by the Governor-General in council, that means the Prime Minister. David Lange knew Don Brash and believed he had the character…
Opinion: Richard Prebble. We rarely lose a constitutional principle abruptly. It is chipped away until one day, when it is too late, we realise it is gone. A politically neutral public service that we can trust is one such principle. On 9 September almost 10,000 public servants went on strike. A coordinated public-service strike 47 days before voting begins is unprecedented. The PSA has always been a political union. It says it campaigned against the National Government in 1999. But this year it has gone much further. It has registered as a third-party election promoter. Its campaign is called “Change…
OPINION: Richard Prebble. Politicians make mistakes. They are human. Decisions must often be made with inadequate information. It is easy to be wise in retrospect. We should be understanding. What we should not be forgiving is reckless decision-making — when politicians ignore the safeguards designed to prevent foreseeable errors and then refuse to take responsibility for the outcome. Officials are not always correct, but when ministers choose to disregard official advice, they should be accountable for the consequences. Mistakes were made in response to Covid-19, but Covid was unprecedented. The most reckless decision with profound consequences today was made by…