Wellington is too small for anything to stay secret. Café discussion spreads.
Yesterday morning Treasury had a meeting addressed by Mark Weldon NZX CEO and Key spokesperson.
- Weldon as part of a speech on behalf of Key suggested that SOEs boards should develop strategic plans on the basis of privatisation or partial privatisation over a two to five year time period.
- Jim Bolger was very critical of Weldon, NZX performance as a monopoly and the fact that all around the world taxpayers have been forced to pick up after the excesses of so called financial experts. This won’t endear him to Key.
Good ol’ Spud.
What Speedo really meant was that everyone must privatise and compete in a free market, except his business.
Mark Weldon’s speech sounds quite alarming, if this rumour is true. It would be nice to have some physical evidence of its content.
Is there a way to OIA that information? Or are the speeches of individuals to government officials not covered by the OIA?
You can ask for any information under the OIA. The question is whether or not the ministers feels they can survive the embarrassment of giving it to you. The meeting happened at Treasury. So, a request to the Treasury is certainly appropriate.
My word next time Bill English talks about how terrible a situation Labour left the economy in, could someone please quote what HE said on December 18th:
http://blogs.nzherald.co.nz/blog/audrey-young/2008/12/18/things-must-be-bad/?c_id=1501219
I have that article and I quote it often to Tory supporters who claim Labour left the economy in the toilet.
I usually ask them first “do you think Bill English actually nows much about the economy”. They all jump right in waxing strong about how he worked for treasury Bla Bla and how fantastic he is. Then I read his quote then follow it up with so does Bill English know what he is talking about or what. The response every time has been “I didn’t know he said that”.
Of course you gentleman all quietly forget what the situation would be like if Cullen had the chance to actually implement his “scorched earth” budget.The % debt to GDP was going to go through the roof.
My childrens children would still be paying the debt off.
Please remind me how much Kiwirail is worth again? Such a good buy.
Captain Crab, debt to GDP ratios always go up during recessions. That doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.
The USA at the end of World War II had a debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. Well above what the situation is at the moment actually. However, all that borrowing in the 1936-1945 period had brought them out of the Great Depression, won them a world war and re-created an industrial powerhouse that would then drive them to 30 years of pretty much uninterrupted, unprecedented economic growth.
We have to look at the bigger picture here. Debt isn’t always a terrible thing (heck even Bill English was saying that prior to last year’s election), it’s what you do with that debt that is important.
Thats right Jarbury in fact Key told the country that most business people have to borrow to invest in capital and that they all understood that and that this was what NZ would have to do. The big issue becomes how much debt is acceptable and where and when to invest.
It always made me laugh hearing Key say that because from what I can find out Key has not started a business from ground Zero that actually produces any thing.
So what has National done reduced spending on education taken 35 Million from the public Ed and given it to Private Schools. sacked public servants, and created more unemployment.
It’s very disturbing to hear Weldon speak of preparing SOE’s for privatisation. Echo’s of the Round Table. Their new voice? Bravo Bolger for speaking out. He’s got the wisdom. But there’s obviously a powerful cabal of business interests and politicians slowly revealing their privatisation agenda.
PS – You can tell who these blokes are. They all say, ‘Hey Look’ when answering questions. Is it a code?
Go read Deregulator: Judgment Day for microeconomics by Steve Keen. It has an interesting observation in it – competition is more expensive than a monopoly. This isn’t to say that competition is bad, it certainly helps in some cases, but it certainly doesn’t help with natural monopolies such as
Telecommunications (Just imagine how good ours would be if all those profits since Telecoms’ sale had been fed back into the network like they were beforehand instead of lining a few peoples pockets)
Power
Health
Roads
and a few others
Another observation that he makes is that the dead weight loss that is usually attributed monopolies is actually due to profiteering. Yes, he also includes the proofs of that in the paper.
@jarbury @Craig Glen Eden
Those comments by English are useful. So are these ones by Key:
http://www.johnkey.co.nz/index.php?/archives/687-New-Zealands-Economic-Prospects.html
He spends much of the early part of the speech waxing lyrical about the strength of the NZ economy…
Explain how private ownership of public monopolies is in anyway good for NZ? It increases foreign ownership causing profits to go offshore, removes capital from more productive, export driven enterprises, forces higher prices for consumers and stops government from reinvesting in socially, economically and environmentally desirable infrastructure.
Just dumb all round.
It’s not, even Milton Friedman said that natural monopolies should be owned by the state. I should have made that clear.
Mallard [edited, abuse - admin] I have read the speech, and Weldon says nothing of the sort. Clearly you would have had one of your cronies who is an SOE director – you probably appointed them – call you and suggest you make political capital by raising the red flat. There is nothing wrong with Weldon’s suggestion to maximise value through a thought test
Reading it, you see why Bolger reacted. He is Chair of Kiwirail, which is an economic disaster (and nobody made him take that Chair role), and NZ Post is famous for all sorts of events full of politicians l. This would have stung Bolger. Post shoudl get real. ALso, look at Post’s performance absent Kiwibank – pathetic. He clearly cannot chair for growth, just politics. No wonder, he bit back…. [edited, abuse - admin]
Rather a large amount of debt than the poor on the streets and an American style health system.
The SOEs we still own were damaged over about 14 years because they were in “prepare for sale mode.” Weldon is right it changes the way they do business – makes their focus much more short term and means they take much less notice of New Zealand’s economic and social interests.
Draco T Bastard, do you have a problem with productive people who don’t put a gun to your head into buying their products being a monopoly? Microsoft’s monopoly in some sectors of the software industry was earned, ie, they didn’t force consumers with gun to buy their products, besides the windows operating system doesn’t belong to consumers nor the DOJ (dept of justice), which prosecuted Microsoft under anti-trust for bundling its own IE (internet explorer) with its own windows. Anti-competitive? Nope! It is Microsoft’s inalienable rights to do whatever it sees fit if it chose to bundle with its own product.
Dang! I want to be a monopoly in one sector of the software industry (as a new startup), but I will be pissed off with unproductive people like you who would complain or lobby the state at some stage in the future when I achieve market dominant to cripple my company for reasons of monopoly. That’s pathetic attitude.