Category: imported_weekly
There is no doubt at all that international free trade creates global wealth and raises living standards for all countries involved. It allows nations to benefit from the natural advantages and skills of others, and it allows consumers to enjoy a greater choice of goods and services at lower prices.
At a time when leaders around the world are increasingly concerned about the dangers of social division caused by radical separatism and extremist ideologies, our governments have created and continue to support a privileged tribal elite. This elite lives like royalty on the proceeds of taxpayers’ funding, while disadvantaged members of their wider tribal groups struggle in the country’s worst social statistics.
Last Thursday, the Governor of the Reserve Bank Graeme Wheeler lowered the Official Cash Rate by 25 base points from 3.5 percent to 3.25 percent. With New Zealand’s inflation rate running close to zero, factors influencing his decision included a 55 percent decline in the oil price from June last year, and a 55 percent drop in dairy prices.
The Human Rights Commission has been a strong defender of the public’s right to the freedom of expression in New Zealand. It is therefore ironic that it has now created a permanent register which “names and shames” anyone who speaks out on the thorny issue of race relations, whose published opinions they deem to be negative.
New Zealand’s Director of the Security Intelligence Service, Rebecca Kitteridge, agrees that the use of social media by the Islamic State to reach out to disaffected people in the West, not just to travel to Syria and Iraq to fight, but also to carry out attacks in their own countries, is a major concern.
Islamic State and al Qa’ida have been competing violently on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria over the last couple of years. However a much more insidious aspect of their enmity involves the competing outreach programmes they have both carefully constructed.
Prime Minister John Key described his 2015 Budget as ‘compassionate conservatism’. Some have called it a legacy Budget. Certainly it delivered on his long standing commitment to protect the most vulnerable in society.
Twice a year the Reserve Bank publishes a Financial Stability Report to assess the soundness of New Zealand’s financial sector. A key concern in the Bank’s May report is the impact on the economy of falling dairy prices: “Approximately 25 percent of farmers are estimated to have negative cash flow".
Whanau Ora is the birthchild of MMP. It is the Maori Party’s policy for tribal self determination. It has been designed to direct hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into empowering tribal groups for self-rule - independent from the state but funded by it.
According to surveys conducted by the US polling company Gallup, trust in the media fell to an all-time low of 40 percent last year, from a high of 72 percent in 1976. A loss of confidence in the mainstream media's ability to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly” along with a perception of bias - that the media is “too liberal” – has resulted in a growing disenchantment, as people look elsewhere for their news.
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