Free Press

ACT’s regular bulletin

Tete-a-tete

This weekend in the Sunday Star-Times David Seymour argued we New Zealanders are public policy innovators, just not at the moment. Both Labour and National are unwilling to wage the battle of ideas, preferring to duck for the cover of soundbites when difficult issues arise. ACT has always been the party of ideas, prepared to debate tough issues. Read the rest here.

Ideas and Identities

In response to a rather childish effort by Herald columnist Lizzie Marvelly, the paper was good enough to publish ACT’s response. It is ideas not identities and messages not messengers that matter in a healthy democracy, but too often the Marvellys of the world shoot the messenger first and forget to ask any questions at all. As Rodney King said of the L.A. riots, “can’t we all get along?”

Who Needs Justice Anyway?

"I have to ask myself; are the courts in the business of destroying people's career prospects?" So said Judge Bruce Davidson upon discharging Losi Filipo without conviction despite the latter destroying another rugby player’s career. Some people wonder how such people get to be judges, but we’d like to know how the hell he got into law school. Of course reading media reports then opining about judges’ decisions without seeing the judges’ reasoning is a mug’s game, except… searches for Losi Filipo on the Courts New Zealand website were redirected to ‘loss filing.’

Another Idea

Free Press has seen the sentencing note, but it was not easy to get, in fact it is not easy for most lawyers to get. What happened to open and transparent court system? It was obvious the decision would create a firestorm, so why did the Court not put the judge’s reasoning online within the same 24 hour news cycle? Such a practice could have allayed public concern, but in this case we are not so sure. Still, people should be able to decide for themselves off the primary document.

An ACT Success Story

The Productivity Commission emerged out of National and ACT’s 2008 Confidence and Supply Agreement and was modelled on the Australian Productivity Commission. It has been a major success at upgrading public policy in New Zealand, particularly in housing market regulations where the standard of debate is unrecognisably better than a decade ago.

Quality Reports

The Commission works hard to produce useful reports. It consults widely and produces reports that, if they have a failing, are too long and rigorous to be widely read. Nonetheless they are valuable in a small country with few quality think tanks.

Over-regulated Tertiary Education

The Commission’s latest report New Models of Tertiary Education concludes that the sector is highly regulated. One submitter said “the Government only controls the number of students, the amount of funding available, the level of fees and what you can teach. Everything else is up to you.” As a result, “the funding and regulation settings mean that students are presented with a relatively homogenous range of providers and offerings…”

A New Model

The Commission floats the idea of Student Education Accounts. The government spends $2.8 billion on supporting tertiary students each year, the Commission reasons, and that is enough to give every young person a $45,000 Account upon turning 16. Students could use that to purchase (unsubsidised) courses off an open market, throughout their lives. Competing for students’ money without the various constraints government currently imposes would lead to a much more innovative tertiary sector.

More Reverse Gears than a French Tank

Sadly not all politicians are enamoured of the contest of ideas. Most politicians ran a mile from the suggestion, and denied a real debate. Journalists have informed Free Press that the Government even released its attack under embargo, undermining the Commission before the public could decide for themselves. New Zealanders were denied a debate they’d paid for in the form of a 400 page report. Muldoon lives.

Speaking of Muldoon

Winston Peters campaigns on reducing immigration but what has he ever done about it? Well, last time he was in Government was from 2005-2008. The net long-term arrivals for that period were: 78,963(2005) 82,732 (2006) 82,572 (2007) and 87,463 (2008).

ends

© Scoop Media