John Key has signalled that his major speech in the morning will detail solutions for the economy.
Remember Key’s promise to bring wages up to the Aussies.
Every move of this government have us headed well south of that. Aussies stimulated well, had a much shorter downturn.
Maybe we will get the plan tomorrow – but I’m not holding my breath.
John’s comments in the Herald hints at actions to support business which suggests that if business gets support then jobs will flow on to the workers. A trickle down effect? I bet that there will be no actual jobs for the workers!
The solution is a simple one – ensure that New Zealand is never again subjected to the devastation of a Labour regime.
The last nine years of taxing the economic activity to a standstill, flushing the entire tax take down the welfare toilet, encouraging emigration of our best and brightest and replacing them with the diseased and illiterate of the third world should not be forgotten.
What a load of rubbish Simon, even Bill English accepted (back in December last year) that Labour had left the economy in pretty good shape to face the recession.
Trevor, do you actually believe Aussie is out of the woods? Stimulating – public works, free money for everyone, et al – may have led to a short term hold off of reccesion, but you must be mad if you think this is going to last. Government stimulatation is at our peril, or more importantly, at my children’s peril. This Keynesian house of cards you, Key & English love so much is unstoppable; it is how bad you and they make it, with your subscription to continued interference that will really affect everyone, especially the ones you claim to care about the most.
Government is not the solution – it is the problem!
Hooligan you are well named. No I don’t think aussie is out of the woods but I do think they are much better positioned to deal with imported economic probelms trade issues etc than we are. Part of their solution has been a major investment in skills (an area the Nact govt have cut back), that means they will be well placed to ride the upswing when it comes.
Really there are only two levers for government to pull to improve productivity and therefore wealth – one is skills and the other is investment. Key has gone backwards on both.
Trevor Mallard wrote: Really there are only two levers for government to pull to improve productivity and therefore wealth – one is skills and the other is investment.
Yes, let’s invest more billions in Wananga skills training. Tertiary degrees in flax weaving and guitar strumming are the cure for recession!
Simon remember I was the Minister who cut and capped the Wananga after your National lot deregulated and let a lot of rubbish not all of it at wananga get subsidies. Remember SIT charging the taxpayer for CDs as if they were full time taught courses. Most rip offs were from non Maori institutions.
Trevor Mallard wrote: Simon remember I was the Minister who cut and capped the Wananga after your National lot deregulated and let a lot of rubbish not all of it at wananga get subsidies. Remember SIT charging the taxpayer for CDs as if they were full time taught courses. Most rip offs were from non Maori institutions.
Abuses aside as I’ll take your word for it, the Labour regime flushed billions down the Wananga toilet that could have gone to actual tertiary institutions for actual skills development and training.
Thanks to the Labour regime, we got tertiary qualified Poi dancers at the expense of fewer qualified doctors.
To correct a historical inaccuracy that you lot subscribe to;
Karl Marx neither wrote nor inspired the Gospel of Waitangi.
Maybe we were too slow to reverse the Bradford reforms in tertiary education.
Trevor, governments don’t improve productivity, unimpeded people do. You say that there are only two levers for government to pull to increase productivity and wealth, yet it is government in control of the levers that impede both in real, long range terms by: 1. creating money – as in the last 5-7 years, and every other major artificial boom before it – the result being easy money that creates massive mal-investment (see housing, Dot com before it, and so on) that has led to what Labour & the Nat’s and most NZ’s know as growth, unfortunately that massive growth was in areas that it wouldn’t have occurred in – at least at such an enormous rate – had the government not been in control of the levers in the first place; on the other hand the market is trying to tell us is that the economy needs a correction; you lot are trying to forestall it – no doubt well intentioned – to stop the pain; you can’t! You can only push it out for the next poor bunch of taxpayers, probably our children Trevor to pick up the enormous tab. 2. By continually raising minimum wages, that is higher than what the market will pay for low or unskilled labour, you prevent the least skilled from getting work, in realty the government meddling in wages doesn’t raise the lot of people at all, it’s the government forbidding people from being able to gain skills – thereby improving their productivity – in a profession that the market has determined it actually does need people in. So, as for the government investing in a ‘skills-based economy’, it can no more plan what everyone wants for dinner let alone plan for what the markets’ labour needs will be — although it sounds like Kedgley want to plan our dinners for us too, but I digress.
Crikey this blog attracts its fair share of “government is evil” [deleted abuse - Trevor].
Glad to hear you questioning whether you got tertiary education right Trevor. Tertiary education and transport are two areas where I think Labour were very slow to finally start turning things around. But anyway, that’s old news.
I hope that if John Key’s announcements tomorrow are very underwhelming (like I suspect they will be) that Labour has some good ideas to propose as alternative ways in which they’d do things.
Jobs is the key focus here so it would be good to see some ideas Labour would have to reduce the number of people becoming unemployed each week.
Crikey Charlie, difficult decision here: on the one hand, various reputable international organisations and Bill English have told us that Labour left us as the easiest place in the world to do business (and with a healthy economy, the lowest unemployment rate and the second-best health system in the world), but now along come NACT supporters Simon (whose careful scholarship leads him to believe that our immigrants are “the diseased and illiterate of the third world) and Hooligan (who is unable to spell “reality”) who claim the opposite. Gosh, whom to believe?
It stands to reason that our productivity will improve if our most productive workers are working in NZ and not Aussie. Cutting programs and causing more unemployment is one way to ensure this is not going to happen. As the wage gap increases skilled workers will start migrating away so their partners and children can take advantage of the Australian education and job market when they reach university age.
If anyone gets the chance, read Paul Krugmans Blog where he argues that government spending actually creates wealth by virtue of the fact that skilled workers are put back into work in productive capacities, which produces value and demand fo services (multiplier effect). This is pretty much what is happening in Australia as business confidence is rising.
In NZ, the opposite is happening as the government’s policies have locked us into a negative vicious circle. In places like Auckland- where the proposal is to take out 20-40% of council workers (many of which are highly trained and skilled) this process is set to accelerate. You are already seeing council projects and spending being cut a back to nothing because no-one wants to start anything, whilst workers are leaving to Australia and elsewhere in NZ because of the lack of certainty given to them.
Whether National bow to the inevitable and decide to backtrack on their contractionary policies will be interesting to see. I certainly don’t give the Auckland economy much hope in the short term.
I find it interesting that the people that use insults as part of their posts “Crikey this blog attracts its fair share of “government is evil” deleted explanation below Trevor.” are Labour supporters and those that disagree refrain from such attacks and rely on logic and reason to carry their arguments.
Stuart have deleted the abusive term both on your comment and above – while it might be acceptable on most blog sites I’m not happy with it here. And don’t assume everyone who disagrees with your views supports Labour. From my reading of Jabury you are not correct.
I have supported Labour except for the Douglas F—wits. But I would like to see some intelligent ideas about reversing our decades long decline. How about changes to the reserve bank act so that businesses do not get hit with the own goal of high interest rates and a high dollar whenever they look like getting of the ropes. The lunacy of being the only western country to not have some type of industry protection and encouragement. Stop allowing bubbles such as the over investment in dairy farming. Encouragement of sustainable and “green’industries for the future. Encourage innovation especially in sustainable technology. Leave education to teachers and parents instead of Government ideology. Educators design curriculum. Resource all schools properly. Have sources of finance for growing businesses at reasonable rates.
With great respect, Mr Mallard might add to his two drivers of productivity, a third and fourth. Capital and (skilled) labour are crucial, but so are, I suggest, management capability and workplace organisation. Only when you have all four factors aligned will sustained productivity improvement take place.
Oh dear Stuart. Can dish it out but not take it. I guess for the record, and to confirm Trevor’s suspicions, I did vote Greens at the last election.
TopCat, yes I read Krugman’s blog when I have the chance. It certainly makes for interesting reading. If you haven’t read his book “Conscience of a Liberal” then I suggest doing so – quite staggering his conclusion that median real wealth in the USA hasn’t gone anywhere since the early 1970s. Those at the top have done pretty well though!
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I can’t see Key swinging wildly to the right in order to reduce job losses, so perhaps it will be another idea proposed in the Green New Deal that National will adopt. Can I suggest the housing policy?
It’s a very significant difference and it appears to be working. Federal Labor’s pumped significant additional funding into skill formation through various programs but most significantly the Productivity Places Program. This was signalled before the current crisis as a way to lift productivity and labour participation and has been extended since.
Federal and State Labor governments have also increased funding for capital in TAFE (Feds have invested $200m), increased support for retrenched workers with various gaurantees and are investing in transformational skills in green industries. In NSW for instance, there’s new funding for a range of training programs, short and long for existing and new workers, in green skills (for builders and plumber for example the funding is for short on-the-job training in technology and skills for retrofitting and this links to funding for installation of PV cells, putrescable waste management etc).
The comments upthread about faith in the Keynesian house of cards read like some graduate economics essay – uninformed by observation and/or practice.
Anything of substance in Key’s speech today???
Thought not.
Vision. Ambition. Key strategic objectives. Economic Growth.
Err… think I missed the detail, oh wait, there wasn’t any. Most notably absent from any from of real discussion was an addressing of the issue that there has been a failure to halt, dealt\ to in any way shape or form or even slow the rate of increase in the numbers of people losing their jobs this week, next week and every week after that this government languishes in its own inaction.
Where are the jobs John? The job Summit was a disaster and the media, the public and the National Party don’t seem to mind a bit. What a triumph it is to ensure that major companies have access to job security schemes, pity about the lack of job security in the state sector where a large proportion of these workers are suffering the indignity of being told they are no longer required.
For those who don’t mind this, I’d like to ask “where is it your kids are going to end up after finishing their degree at University if they haven’t got a job?” yeah, that’s right, just in behind the 1200 other people who just lost their jobs that week.
Why have thousands of New Zealand workers been consigned to the scrap-heap and why was the Prime Minister’s “Major speech on economic growth” so lacking in anything real?
Oh, he’s such a nice guy.
Here is one idea Johnny K, Invest in major, job-rich infrastructure projects. But for the love of Christ, stop dithering about and trying to convince me I should be grateful to see 8 people get a part time job paying minimum wage, when you did nothing to stop thousands of others having to go to Work and Income to claim a benefit to support their kids.