They are not C-listers, they’re top of the class
Sir Ian Taylor is understandably annoyed at being labelled a C-lister (Opinion ODT 24.6.24).
All the other negotiators who scored great deals for farmers and growers must be just as cross. Under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern and her team, they secured five major free-trade agreements, as well as upgrading existing agreements with China, Singapore, and Asean states.
Just one deal with the European Union, the fifth major trade deal in five years, cut red tape by 97%, benefiting exporters of kiwifruit, fish, seafood, beef, butter and cheese (July 2022).
It came into force from May 1, 2024, meaning that export revenue to the EU will grow by $1.8 billion annually. 73.5% of our global exports are now covered by FTAs, up from about 50% when the previous government took office. Over their time in government, New Zealand’s food and fibre export revenue grew by 39%, boosting our food and fibre export revenues from $38.2b to $53.1b.
Let’s hear no more about C-listers. These remarkable negotiators can go to the top of the class.
Making ACC A-OK
I never imagined agreeing with anything said by the New Zealand Initiative. But I found myself doing so when I read the report on health and safety in employment written on its behalf that observed the failure of the last government to do anything effective to implement the strategy it developed.
I was even more surprised when I read that business owners were said to be keen to reduce the number of deaths and injuries in their businesses. That is not my impression at all.
One way that objective could be achieved is to make ACC responsible for reducing the incidence of personal injury in workplaces; after all, this is meant to be one of its statutory purposes in section 3 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001.
The government could, and should, increase the employers’ levy, one of five funding streams for the ACC scheme and the only one that has not been increased in recent years.
Instead, ACC actually cut the levy in the 2021-22 year, before restoring it to its 2020 level, where it currently remains, making it an effective cut for employers and a disincentive to taking workplace injuries seriously.
The BRICS waka
Christopher Luxon’s recent comments in Japan on how the rules-based order is being destroyed by Russia and China is ironic, given it is the US that is daily destroying it by going against and undermining all the mechanisms and institutions that have been built to protect it to feed its military industrial complex, after dragging the world into failed and failing wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Israel.
Meanwhile the unipolar world is becoming multipolar through the formation of the BRICS organisation whose nations have already woken up to the threat the US poses. Mr Luxon has failed to see where the world is heading and the latent potentiality BRICS presents.
The BRICS waka is drifting away and we are somnambulantly climbing on to the militarily weighed down waka of the US with other European powers. The multipolar world in BRICS is challenging for us, as we must hold on to the values that we have forged through the merging of our many cultures, but it can be done with respect and co-operation.
Can an airline please take a punt on Dunedin?
I wanted to share my story and the importance of getting international flights back to Dunedin.
I had to rush to my father’s bedside recently as he became seriously unwell very quickly. I got the first flight out of Dunedin to Brisbane but this was via Christchurch, where I had a several-hour wait.
If the flight had been direct then potentially I would have had the chance to be with him as he passed away, but unfortunately not.
I know from reading the reinstate campaign Facebook page that other people have shared similar experiences and what a difference it would have made to them. There were lots of Dunedin people around me on the flight who were all saying the same things — we need the flights back, what a great job Benjamin Patterson is doing, and what will it take for an airline to take notice?
Why are we being forgotten about down here in the South? We count as people too, we deserve connectivity. Possibly this is a way of getting hospital workers into Dunedin, a FIFO scheme?
How about an airline takes a punt on Dunedin and even supports us for a year to see how it goes and if it really is supported as everyone is saying?
Splashing cash and cutting a coat afterwards
It is time for Ingrid Leary, Rachel Brooking and their followers to research why the present government is having so much difficulty in budgeting and finding funding for completing all compulsory, important and necessary projects.
Apparently they have inherited a government burdened with huge debts and so little money now available to fund everything. We all have our ideas for priority funding but wise Finance Ministers should always prepare Budgets where excessive borrowing and debts are not left for the next government to clean up.
Unfortunately all borrowed money must be repaid and usually with huge interest rates. No-one should ever splash money around just to satisfy certain groups — especially when this money belongs to other people.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Misdirected energies
It is becoming increasingly tiresome seeing your correspondents accuse the government of breaking promises over the completion of the new hospital. They seem to forget that it was the tragicomically inept Labour administration that promised to build the facility for $1.4 billion.
They promised this without having a resolved design, a complete knowledge of geotechnical issues, and no idea of the final cost. What could possibly go wrong?
It is hardly a surprise that the incoming government, which should have been entitled to rely on Labour’s construction assessments, found them to be hopelessly inadequate. When we finally get the inpatient building in six-seven years, and it was probably never going to be earlier, the final bill will likely be about $2.5b.
However, it’s not all bad; we still have a functioning hospital, so perhaps your complainants could direct their energies towards having a PET scanner installed there, and then move it down the street later.
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