Category: Economic Issues

How long will New Zealand voters tolerate under-investment in all other public services to accommodate massive over-investments in the ambition of some politicians to ‘lead the world’ in Climate Policy?

The last eight months have seen 3,000 more deaths than expected – an unfolding disaster. Over 1,000 are unrelated to COVID-19. Health authorities and politicians should face more scrutiny over the causes of these unexplained excess deaths - especially as they are concentrated in age groups eligible for boosters.

The climate crisis is a political crisis – not one rooted in the real world. It has arisen because successive governments have adopted the radical socialist agenda of the UN to restrict emissions of carbon dioxide as a means of regulating their economies.

Escalating power prices and frequent shortages seem to be inevitable. If the government takes prompt and effective action, the magnitude can be mitigated. If the government continues its blind pursuit of “carbon zero” increasing economic damage will force it to abandon the policy.

Given Jacinda Ardern's dismal track record of policy failure, with the housing merger, the polytech merger and the health board merger all turning into disasters, how can New Zealanders possibly have faith that Labour’s plan to centralise council-run water services into mega bureaucracies controlled by iwi is going to work out well?

The most likely long-term outcome of the 3Waters reform is that the assumed cost and capital efficiencies will not materialise, due to a cumbersome governance structure subservient to cultural interests. The water reform is a high-risk proposition, with much higher risks that that faced by the 67 local authorities individually.

Both Boris Johnson and Jacinda Ardern have suffered a loss of public trust and confidence in their leadership. For the former British Prime Minister, it was largely the result of a series of missteps, while for our ideologically-driven Prime Minister, government incompetence is largely to blame.

Overseas health professionals have called for booster vaccinations to be discontinued for safety reasons. A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the COVID-19 booster rollout should be conducted: Given that over 2.5 million booster doses have been administered, this amounts to over 400 excess deaths.

What we have seen is false advertising and orchestrated ‘news’ items on mainstream media to promote a perception that there is a need for reform. We have been given false assurances that the councils will retain ‘ownership’ of their water assets despite councils having no benefits of ownership and a report prepared by the Internal Affairs Department for Standard & Poors admitting water entities will have “limited Local Authority oversight”.

There is a widespread public misunderstanding about the testing the vaccines underwent in the pivotal trials underpinning their approval, with over 95 percent of New Zealand’s voting-age public believing that the vaccines were tested against more demanding criteria than was actually the case.