ACT’s new regular bulletin
ACT’s new regular bulletin
We
Rate the Budget Speeches
Free Press observed the
Budget Speeches live. The media underreported the
Government’s momentum and the opposition’s
flat-footedness. It was one-way traffic as the opposition
sat dumbfounded at National stealing their
policies.
Death by
Assimilation
National have returned to their
traditional governing style, managing other parties’
ideas. Labour promised to introduce a capital gains tax and
build houses, the Greens promised to deal with child
poverty, New Zealand First promises to do nothing on
Superannuation, and Peter Dunne promises to do nothing on
the RMA. National are now, to an extent, doing all of
that.
Bill English (7/10)
Bill is the
policy architect of this government. He provides his
colleagues with the alternative to government by pork
barrel, and often succeeds. He has managed to refocus the
civil service on achieving outcomes instead of consuming
inputs. The biggest disappointment was that his courage
cutting the $1000 Kiwisaver kickstart wasn’t matched on
fixing Superannuation. As a result, a generation is paying
twice.
Andrew Little (1/10)
Free Press
feels sorry for Little. His speech has been panned as the
worst ever. Some would have sat down upon running out of
material, so we are giving him one point for speaking right
through his time allotment. He talked about a ‘rooster on
heat’ and then about ‘fiscal gender reassignment.’
Clearly Little needs biology lessons. But he’s got bigger
problems too.
What he Needed to
Do
Little theoretically wants to be the Prime
Minister. His 20 minutes of rage showed he is out of touch
with the country – New Zealand in 2015 is not exactly at a
low point in history. Unless he’s proposing a total
revolution, he could have spent five minutes talking
positives. That would have given him fifteen minutes to lay
out Labour’s alternatives.
There is No
Alternative
The problem is Labour doesn’t have
any. They have abandoned most of the policies they stood for
last election. Changing the electricity market, reforming
Superannuation, capital gains taxes, changing the Reserve
Bank Act, all gone. What do they stand for?
John
Key (8/10)
John Key delivered a tub thumping
speech crowing about Little’s failure. We give him an
eight because he mentioned David Seymour and ACT twice and
endorsed Partnership Schools.
Meteria Turei
(4/10)
Turei mentioned sustainability once, 15
minutes into her speech. RIP the Greens as an environmental
party. The grandstanding on child poverty was cringe worthy.
A person who got free university, lives in a remote castle
and complains about urban sprawl tried to appeal to younger
generations on housing and finance - priceless. A four is
generous.
Winston Peters (5/10)
You
have to hand it to him. We have no idea what he was on about
(did he?) but it sounded great. His main refrain was “I
See Red” a la Split Enz, complete with his caucus holding
up fire hazard signs. Free Press understands “That was my
Mistake” and “I Hope I Never (Have to See You Again)”
have become more popular among Northland voters
recently.
Te Ururoa Flavell
(6/10)
Flavell gave a solid defence of the Maori
Party’s wins for Maori in government.
Peter
Dunne (6/10)
Dunne is an exceptional
parliamentary speaker. Without any notes at all he gives
perfectly structured essay-like addresses. Nonetheless we
don’t know what Dunne’s end game is.
David
Seymour (7/10)
Along with Little, David gave his
first budget speech, certainly the best of the rookie
speeches but he has room to grow. He gave a spirited defence
of Partnership Schools and the people who step up to run
them and change young people’s lives. He also pointed out
that the budget lacks the kind of long-term view that
younger New Zealanders need. Where is the Superannuation
reform, where is the housing market reform? Where, in all
this focus on child poverty, is the recognition of those who
save, sacrifice, and delay having children to bring them up
without poverty? Where are the company tax reductions aimed
at bringing capital and more interesting jobs to New Zealand
in years to come? You can watch David’s speech
here.
Bonus Speech
Parliament
sat late to pass Budget legislation, which makes for some
noisy night-time debate when MPs think no-one’s watching.
But Free Press sees all. If David’s Budget speech was too
proper for your tastes you might prefer this onslaught, congratulating
National on their Kiwisaver action, but challenging them to
show the same courage when it comes to the increasing cost
of Superannuation.
Greens don’t get
Dependency
Catherine Delahunty tweets: Rise in
benefits welcome but extra work expectations and pressure on
sole parents is punitive. No, that balance is essential if
you want to reduce welfare dependence. The government’s
approach is informed by the Nordic model. Nordic states
expect mothers to return to work when their child is 1 to 3
years old. Employment is front and centre in the Nordic
welfare strategy. It works.
Responsible
Parenting
Moves to tackle child support debt and
encourage parents to pay what they owe in child support are
also a welcome move.
Government as Land Speculator
and Land-Banker
After all the months of
commentary about speculators, land bankers and foreign
buyers in the Auckland property market, it now turns out
that the biggest land-banker of them all was the government!
The move to free up Crown land for housing development is
sensible and long-overdue. But again, this is only a short
term fix – we will soon use up the available 430 hectares.
We still need fundamental reforms to allow the market to
respond to rising demand for housing.
Where’s
Maurice Williamson Going?
Betting site iPredict
has opened up stocks for a by-election in Pakuranga, and for
incumbent Williamson to be the candidate by 2017. The
interesting thing is the opening odds, respectively 30 and
25 percent likely. iPredict’s operators, who have deep
political connections, set these odds. Something’s
up.
Seriously!?
ACT’s Board has
unanimously rejected an approach by the hapless Don Brash
(no joking, this is too good for us to have made up) for
Williamson to join ACT’s caucus. “My own party don’t
want me no more” is not an attractive pitch. For similar
reasons, what poor country would accept him as
ambassador?
ends