Great launch of the Stop Asset Sales Billboard yesterday with a huge number of toots from passing cars. If that reaction is anything to go by, this issue really strikes a nerve. Good Labour turn out – including activists who came up from the central North Island.
Watch out for other launches later in the week.
Even better was that Phil pulled off the cover of the Billboard effortlessly in the gale force wind.
For more photos from the launch, check out the Stop Asset Sales Facebook page.
What’s happening in science and to our Crown Research Agencies? Well, it’s difficult to work out, but Minster Wayne Mapp has been musing out loudthat it might be good idea to shrink them down from 8 to 3, or maybe 4 or 5. Why? Well that’s unclear. The Association of Science put it down to a ‘rush of blood to the head’. Vernon Small put it quite aptly in Stuff.
In fact it’s difficult to work out whether it’s Mapp’s idea or whether Bill English had a word and asked Wayne to make it look like he’s doing something – like some of the other mergers in the past few months.
Usually we have a plan and any restructuring follows to meet the plan’s objectives. The problem here of course is that there is no plan, just a rush of blood.
Schools in Christchurch deserve real praise for reopening so quickly after 22 February – not to mention the courage and professionalism many teachers showed in the face of the earthquake taking care of students while not knowing about their own families.
There is immense value getting back kids back into a familiar environment with their peers doing structured activities. In my earlier life I worked in mainly man-made disasters but it was widely recognised that opening the schools was the one thing that probably did the most good for the most people. Just kids mixing with their friends chatting about issues they face in their own way, together with a school work programme that can divert attention from whatever situation they face at home, is really healing.
It’s the best type of trauma counselling out there, though some may need individual attention.
So good on the schools for being so proactive and innovative in getting going again. The only question in light of all that is why have a memorial service so soon. It would actually be better for schools to stay open.
I’ve been listening to reports from the Middle East and the phrase that keeps coming up is ‘ the genie is out of the bottle’. By the end of this year, we may well see a complete change of order in the Middle East.
Already the tide has rapidly turned against Gaddafi in Libya, one commentator predicting his departure in 24 – 36 hours; the loyalty of the army and security forces is now questionable. At the end of the day, soldiers all have families and friends and they do not want to be the ones firing on their own people.
For us it means the fuel prices are likely to go through the roof. Egypt was a very small producer. But Libya produces in the order of 1.6 million barrels a day when the world’s surplus is less that one million. Bahrain is also a producer. Watch our use of public transport skyrocket.
It’s revealed the anger in these socities and a mix of young populations (Egypt’s median age is 23, Libya 24 and Yemen a staggering 17), lack of jobs (unemployment for under 30s is up around 50% in many societies) and greater technological connectivity through the internet which has meant the young see what could be, rather than what is.
But perhaps the most important ingredient is the lack of fear of repessive authorities. It took a man who set himself alight in Tunisia, a grocer who was beaten to death in Egypt to act as a rallying point. It’s clear that the brutal reaction by dictatorial governments has backfired, incensing and steeling rather than intimidating crowds into silence.
Meanwhile the streets have done what Al Qaida has failed miserably to do despite a decade of heinous acts and vitriol.
Afghan leader Hamid Karzai lashing out against foreign provincial reconstruction teams reflects a pretty inevitable tension . PRTs are not a perfect intervention. They are not neutral or impartial and have a reputation for freqently working to their own agendas or those of the country that put them there.
I doubt that’s the case with NZ’s contribution – both our forces and aid personel – because we don’t carry too much strategic baggage and I think genuinely we want Bamiyan to get on with it themselves asap. Our work is pretty coherent and brings together the 3 ingredients of development, stability and governance.
But he is voicing his frustration of having foreign troops in his country in order to maintain stability. No Afghan – and I would imagine nobody in any country – want foreign troops on their soil. It undermines their sovereignty, the authority of their government and it makes Afghans feel they are not shaping their own destiny. For them it’s a loss face, important in proud cultures like Afghanistan.
But Karzai also realises that for all foreign troops to leave now would likely spell the return of the Taliban. Yet he also needs to reflect the frustrations and appeal to the nationalism of his people. As we would likely do in the same circumstances. His words, remind us that we need to tread sensitively and in step with what the Afghans want – and nobody else.
These past few days I’ve been fascinated watching history being made in the Middle East -extraordinary, hopeful events that just a over a week ago were simply unimaginable.
Without a foreign invasion or outside support, Arabs are saying ‘enough’.
The most amazing aspect to it is that it’s a bottom up revolution, spontaneous and largely leaderless. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic group and the main opposition party in Egypt which has also been suppressed and many of its leaders imprisoned, has not yet played a major part.
Its swiftness and the genuineness of the upwelling has been the real surprise. For the past decade, Middle East experts have viewed the region through Bin Laden glasses – seeing events through the lens of the rise of radical Islam. They have ignored the real grudge – poverty, lack of opportunity, corruption and self-serving rulers.
In fact more could probably be learned from Das Kapital than the Koran in these protests. Visit the backblocks of Cairo and it’s easy to see the reason behind the anger: squalid, impoverished communities lacking hope. The people on the streets are not Islamic militants and most probably don’t believe Islam is necessarily going to bring them anything better.
They are the poor, the young, who are – or want to be – educated but can’t get jobs. They are people who are mobilising themselves through cellphones, who access the internet and have grown angry that they are missing out.
They are also less fearful than their parents to challenge authority.
Those unaccountable at the top until now didn’t want to listen. They’ve certainly got every Arab leader’s attention now.
Mubarak has announced he will step down at the next elections, but it won’t be enough. He’s made promises before. The crowd want him to go – immediately – and will press on.
That leaves the US and the West very nervous. Mubarak has been a great friend who they were happy to arm to maintain his support against Bin Laden and continued backing of the Arab-Israeli peace plans. But in doing so the West has turned a blind eye to the homegrown issues of growing poverty and not been serious about democracy.
Ironically Egypt’s uprising resembles the histories of many Western countries.
Lots of questions remain. Can this spontaneity build to something positive to have a peaceful transition; can the opposition parties maintain solidarity? What role will the army play?
But it’s big. For the first time Arabs across the region have shown that regimes can be toppled, leaders can be held to account and democracy in their countries can be meaningful.
That’s both remarkable and wonderful.
Jarbury has done a comparative graph of the benefits of all the Roads of National Significance attached. This says it all.
It’s finally out. The business case for the Auckland’s CBD rail loop. And what a compelling case.
The pure transport cost-benefit is 1.1 (at the standard Treasury 8% discount rate). But the wider economic cost-benefit take it up to a whopping 3.5.
As it says, “the benefits of the CBD Rail Link far exeed the travel time savings due to enhanced transport efficiency”. It “increases CBD employment by 20,000 to 25,000 without requiring additional road capacity or using scarce CBD land for additional parking. This enables the Auckland CBD to become a much more vibrant and exciting pedestrian environment … .”
The overall impact will be a “more exciting and vibarnt sense of place enable Auckland to serve as New Zealand’s outward facing global city for retaining and attracting the highly educated younger workforce that will underpin productivity growth (and also international competitiveness) in the future”.
Now compare the figures with Joyce’s Holiday Highway. It has a transport cost-benefit of 0.8 – less than a dollar back for every dollar spent.
And the wider benefits? Just 1.1. Pathetic versus 3.5 for the CBD loop. We certainly need to upgrade SH 1, it’s just that we don’t need to do it with a brand new motorway.
How can Joyce justify spending up to $2 billion on that road when this case is so compelling.
Our rear-vision minister will need to be creative with his figures to justify his spending.
It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion: Steven Joyce will stand for Rodney now that Lockwood Smith has announced he will stand only on the National Party List at the 2011 General Election.
Key has been grooming his Minister of Motorways for this role since National was elected in 2008. It’s now clear why the Puhoi to Wellsford Road of National Party Significance is being fast-tracked. Why otherwise would a road with a rate of return of less than a dollar be given priority?
But just to show that there are better cost effective solutions to improving this road have a look at this. Transport Blog has a thorough analysis of the economics of the holiday highway.
The new head of the newly created Ministry of Science and Innnovation is Murray Bain (formerly the head of the Foundation of Research, Science and Technology, FRST). He was touted by Wellington insiders as the one who would get the job long before recruitment began.
Is he the best person for the job? He could be, it’s just we’d never know.
The job was advertised for just 2 and half weeks – hardly what I would call a concerted international search to attract the best and the brightest in the world which is what this new position demands. Did we approach world leading countries in innovation, such as Finland, Denmark, Singapore? In that time I doubt it.
The government is spending money and energy amalgamating our science departments, supposedly to herald a step change in science and innovation. Mostly, it’s activity to give an impression it’s doing something. This nudge, nudge, wink, wink approach to recruitment that the government seems to stand behind is further proof it’s not serious.
Steven Joyce might want to think about the Herald’s digipoll that asked what Aucklanders most want. Top of the list – and what they’d be willing to increase rates for – is a rail link to the airport. Improving public transport was right up there too. In fourth place was improving roads – Joyce’s infatuation.
Joyce’s rear visionary thinking is not in line with what Auckland wants, or needs.
An inner city loop rated lower but is necessary before a link to the airport becomes feasible. It’s impossible to run the frequency of trains from the airport without it. It’s fair to say the case for the loop has yet to be made as clearly as it could to Aucklanders.
So let’s sink the Holiday Highway – one of the Roads of National Party Significance Joyce is blindly championing – and get in behind what people want, rather than fight on with 1950s thinking.
The hi-tech sector is in the NZ Herald today – telling a story that many of us already know, but doesn’t get much coverage.
Our top 100 hi-tech companies earn $6.7 billion and still show positive prospects for growth. Greg Shanahan, the founder of the Technology Investment Network predicts the sector could outstrip dairying. Bold words, but wouldn’t it be good see this sector growing – and diversifying our economy?
If we want to catch Australia (a pretty naff goal if you ask me) we’re going to have to grow dairy 5 times. Can’t imagine 5x more cows or that amount of new productivity. The hi-tech sector – commercialising smart ideas on the other hand has less or no carbon miles, produces smart, high paying jobs and generated export revenues. It has more potential if we get behind it.
Nearly 80% of what our top 100 hi-tech companies produce is exported.
A good story that gets too little attention.
It’s been a week meeting more of our clean, green — and sensationally clever companies. These are the ones that are leveraging off our branding and developing clean, green products with some smart technologies and creativity — ‘clever’ stuff. They’re high value, highly skilled and good for the environment. See the Listener’s good cover on Philip Mills this week.
LanzaTech the other day: it has found a way to convert the waste from steel mill smoke stacks into fuel. It’s all to do with a bacteria found in rabbit shit apparently. What was it we said about NZers being
able to think outside the box?
The world’s biggest steel maker – by far – the Chinese, are hugely interested of course and have also invested in the company. If it goes to plan it will match the revenue of our wine industry in the next few years.
Lots of great ideas, some are havin difficulty getting them to market.
As Trevor mentioned in his Alicetown blog on 1 September there’s a number of us very excited by what’s out there and how to develop some creative policies around how we back them better.
On Monday the State Services Commission opened applications for the new CE for the new Ministry of Science and Innovation. It’s the new ministry formed by amalgamating the Ministry of Research Science and Technology (that provided policy and advice to Wayne Mapp) and the Foundation Research Science and Technology which funded science.
The ministry’s new name is a really good one, I admit – and it reflects the importance science plays both for its own sake and driving innovation and our economy.
The question is can the new ministry live up to it?
As I’ve said in an earlier blog, this should be our opportunity to really launch a new vision for science that can drive innovation in NZ like they’ve done in Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Israel and other like-sized countries. They have really impressive science and innovation programmes, their economy depends on them.
The key point will be the person selected to head the Ministry to set that vision. So it makes sense that we cast our recruitment net wide for a new CE to attract the best international expertise and best practice.
That might not be what’s happening, however. Vacancies for the CE opened last Friday 25 June and will close 14 July. That’s a bit over two weeks. Tell me how you troll the world for the best in the business in that time?
The answer is you don’t. It’s looking more like pat, pat, wink, wink.
In the meantime, I’ve sent in a few written questions to Mr Ryall (Min of State Services) to ask what procedures were followed.
It might well be that the best applicant is here in NZ, but will we really know? And, wouldn’t it be good if we did select a Kiwi from a top class talent pool?
Good one Dr Mapp – tell me, what directions did you give? Here’s your aspirational, step change new Ministry.
Yeah right.
There was a Welsh TV crew down at my local Eden Rugby Club on Saturday where the seniors were playing. They were putting together a short film for Welsh rugby supporters coming for the World Cup to consider going to the local rugby clubs and other venues for a beer and to meet Kiwi rugby enthusiasts.
The club chairman was very open to the idea – not only would the club welcome the guests, but bar sales wouldn’t go amiss either.
The TV crew told me that most Welsh would rather be mixing with a bunch of Kiwi rugby fans – or just ordinary Kiwis – than hanging out at a big venue with other tourists. If I was in the Welsh position I’d want to do the same.
Which got me thinking that local, warm and friendly was better than cold, draughty and impersonal – which is what Party Central is shaping up to be.
Not only that, but the other areas in my electorate – Kingsland, for example, and other clubs and venues around Auckland, of which there are plenty – could really benefit if they were promoted. Most could easily ramp up to provide Kiwi hospitality that overseas fans would really remember.
And, the small amount of money needed to be invested in these places wouldn’t be wasted but would go on benefitting those communities. From what I can gather, only a small amount of that is happening.
We seem to be overlooking the obvious and it took a Welsh TV crew to point it out.
I was struck by the sheer size of Fieldays at Hamilton when I visited yesterday. It’s truly extraordinary. It covers a huge area and is expected to be visited by over 130,000 people over its four days. It was also great to see the face of NZ agriculture at its finest – particularly as this year’s theme was innovation.
They even advertised my arrival. In Labour colours and font. Thanks to Tim MacIndoe who took the picture.
That event, and the MAF forecast of future prices is encouraging. Dairy, forestry, lamb are all set to rise. Even wool, which has been performing rather poorly is expected to rise over the next four years. That’s good news for the NZ economy.
I just hope it won’t be used as further proof by those who believe that shipping out commodities is our future.
We believe that at our peril. We need to be developing higher value products from our commodities, not just shipping ever larger quantities.
This was the message delivered in KPMG’s agribusiness report. It forecast increased demand for our commodities, but that demand is likely to be met with increased supply from Chile, Eastern Europe, China and others – some of our most welcomed exports is the farming expertise we’re delivering to less developed farmers in those countries.
Green, ethical, clean commodities from NZ will be our defining difference – and provide the premium – that our wealthier customers will be willing to pay. So too will be the new products that our R&D will create. They need to be sophisticated, clever, responding to our markets and with a low carbon footprint.
What we don’t want to do, with these optimistic forecasts is take our eye off that ball.
Another aid boat is on its way to Gaza. No doubt this boat – the ‘Rachel Corrie’ will be stopped by the Israelis too, hopefully less violently. The ‘Rachel Corrie’ is named after a 23 year old woman who dared to stand in front of an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 which was demolishing Palestinian houses in Gaza. She was run down and killed.
It will be interesting too to see whether the aid from the boats impounded by the Israelis actually makes it into Gaza. In my time there, getting anything through the Israeli checkpoints other than the most basic humanitarian items was an enormous struggle. (See the piece I wrote for the DomPost yesterday).
The Israelis maintain that anything other than humanitarian aid is a security risk. Quite how cement, essential to rebuild the houses destroyed during Operation Cast Lead in early 2009, or most other building supplies rate as a security risk, I’m not sure. Along with a long list of other items they are either heavily restricted or banned.
What about exports? Gaza once shipped out vegetables, flowers, furniture and other manufactured items. As these exports need to go through Gaza’s borders into Israel most are turned away. The businesses closed. A security risk too? More likely collective punishment that has added to the massive unemployment – and ensures a population stays dependent on aid.
Its about punishing all Gazans because Hamas – considered a terrorist organisation by the Israelis – happens to rule Gaza. Hamas won the election in 2006.
So when critics of the Save Gaza flotilla say that the activists should have simply handed over their goods to the Israelis so the Israeli military could transport them into Gaza it demonstrates a lack of understanding about what is really happens – and what quietly the international community quietly ignores.
Perhaps we might see a change now.
I’ve done a bit of modelling comparing the latest R&D budget spend announced by Key last week compared to the Treasury predicted impact of the Labour Government’s 15% R&D tax credit.
The results you see below are both astounding and deeply tragic for New Zealand. This budget results in an almost complete absence of new business R&D spend. Why? Because businesses will get their R&D through voucher and grants – Govt handouts in other words.
In comparison, the tax credit that the Labour Govt put in place more than doubles our business R&D spend in four years. Simply, because, businesses have an incentive to invest in R&D, rather than get a handout. See in the second graph where the blue bar (National’s impact on business R&D) which remains static versus the red bar (the impact of Labour’s 15% tax credit).
The graphs are based from p7 of Mapp’s new publication ‘NZ’s Science and Innovation Pathway’.
This was a real opportunity to increase our business R&D spend which is woeful compared to other like-sized countries.
National’s decision to axe the 15% tax credit for R&D in 2008 was simply crazy. I know English was obsessed about the possibility of the tax credits being gamed, but Treasury was confident that it could close those loopholes and there’s enough experience around the world to show how it can be limited. That’s why it recommended the new Govt keep them.
We’ve all missed out as a result. Tragic.
There’s a cabinet paper from 2006 on the tax credit projections: It projects $350 million a year of government spending (the cost of taxes not collected) after four years with a 15% credit. So, that would have been $350 million in 2012 when the GDP is projected to be $200b. That makes additional government spending on R&D of 0.175% of GDP and (assuming the business spending is all new money) just shy of $2 billion or 0.99% of GDP from business – that more than doubles our current business spend and introduces a new culture of R&D in our business world.
Despite the $750 million announcement for KiwiRail, the Auckland-Northland rail link appears to be under threat. I can’t understand the logic.
Steven Joyce is intent on building the ‘Holiday Highway’ from Puhoi to Wellsford – a road with a negative cost-benefit ratio – at a cost of up to $2.1 billion as part of his Roads of National (Party) Significance. That’s three times the amount he is spending on the KiwiRail nationally.
Here’s the incomprehensible part –
- the reason for the Holiday Highway is to optimise movement and freight to the north. Cutting the rail link simply shifts freight on to our roads. (It occurs to me that maybe that’s part of the Joyce masterplan to lift the Holiday Highway’s negative BCR.)
- increasing heavy trucks on these roads and congesting it further for other motorists raises safety issues, another reason he has cited for the Holiday Highway. Obviously much of that pressure could be relieved with more freight going by rail.
- our deepest – and alternative main port – is at Marsden Point. The rail link there is strategically very important.
Yes the rail line needs some long overdue upgrades, but the potential is enormous.
Btw, what KiwiRail appears to be doing is making small, non-headline grabbing improvements to rail that should greatly lift its efficiency. That same strategy for SH1 in the north would result in much more cost-effective improvements: a diversion around Warkworth for example, or straightening and widening other parts of SH1 would remove the need for a brand new motorway and at a fraction of the cost.
Non-headline grabbing I said. I guess that’s not so attractive National’s new Mr Think-Big.
Key announced the budget’s R&D package today. The fact that it was done a week out and Mapp was pushed out of the limelight signals that this is the good news of the budget. If this is the good news it doesn’t give us much hope for what’s coming.
The bottom line: there is $56 million a year in new money for science and R&D. On the face of it good news and I welcome any support we can give to our scientists and innovators.
But the 15% tax credit that National axed when it came into office gave double the money in today’s announcement. And, we’ve been waiting 18 months and will probably wait another 6 months before the various schemes are actually implemented. That’s two years when our companies could have beefed up their R&D during the recession and rocked out of it. Time wasted.
Most of the new money will be given to companies to do R&D in the form of grants and vouchers. That means they’ll have to apply to some bureaucrat who will decide which company gets money – and which one misses out.
I happen to believe if our most innovative firms put their brains and their butts on the line doing R&D then we should give them a decent tax break. Not ask some risk-averse bureaucrat to make the call. Let’s trust our entrepreneurs. (By the way, Australia just announced 45% tax credits to its most innovative companies).
Our private R&D spend is one-third the OECD average. Today’s package simply ups state spending. Grants for just three years encourage companies to depend on the state. Tax credits encourage companies to invest in R&D and change their investment culture.
Add to that the Government’s axing of the Fast Forward Fund and replacing it with the ‘Primary Growth Partnership’ – a scheme that has yet to pay out one dollar – and it’s pretty clear that today’s fanfare is a small step that won’t even catch up to where we were a few months ago.
Good news? No, sad.
