Economy

Once again it is up to Chris Trotter from the left to insert some sanity into the often shrill debate about free trade:

And if we, the people, were serious about preserving our patrimony, a majority of us would’ve voted for the political parties  the Alliance, NZ First, the Greens, Mana  which promised to do exactly that.

But, the closest the New Zealand electorate’s come to voting against free trade (27 per cent) was the election of 1993. In 2011, the anti-free trade vote was just 19 per cent.

It’s a little late, now, to shout: “Stop!”

The usual suspects are upset about the appointment of Catherine Isaac to a role overseeing the Charter Schools programme. But the best ever reason for actually appointing Catherine Isaac was provided by the head of the teacher’s union PPTA:

Mr Duff said the committee overseeing the trial was a “farce”, and Mr Banks was not interested in consultation with people in the sector.

One thing we have learned is that there is little point inconsulting with the feather-bedding teacher’s unions. It is a pointless exercise.

Listen to the full rant:

And following up that little tirade from Robin Duff is Catherine Delahunty, providing the best ever reason why Catherine Isaac is the best person for the job:

Delahunty said there had been no public discussion about what a charter school was.

“And then we get an appointment of somebody not from the education sector but entirely from the ideology of privatisation.

She certainly won’t be listening to the carping of the vested interests of the various teacher’s unions.

The government was hardly going to appoint equally political appointees from union hacks and flacks were they?

Bernard Hickey is becoming ever shrill theses days. Take his latest article in the Herald. He is having a fit about John Key and borrowing and a swipe at selling the Crafar Farms to the highest bidder rather than the knock down price that Michael Fay was seeking.

But the single line that makes his whole article farcical is this one:

The only way to end our addiction to overspending is to throw out the enablers of foreign borrowing and selling assets to foreign interests.

As one of my commenters notes that is “one” way, but i’m not even sure that Hickey’s suggestion would break the addiction to overspending.

Electing fiscal conservatives and responsible guardians of the public purse is probably the best way. Weaning the population fo their addiction to welfare is certainly another way too..in fact fiscal conservatism, weaning off welfarism, and the time honoured proven method of cutting our coat according to our cloth would solve a great many ills in this country.

This country has an entitlement epidemic. We need to inoculate ourselves from debt fueled by “entitlements” voted by a population of net tax takers rather than the net tax payers.

Maurice Williamson has done the right thing and approved the sale of the Crafar Farms to the Shanghai Pengxin bid. The creditors of Alan Crafar have got the best deal that they can rather than the discounted attempt by Michael Fay to screw the scrum in his favour.

Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson and Associate Minister of Finance Dr Jonathan Coleman this morning said they had accepted the recommendation of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) to grant consent to Milk New Zealand Holding, a subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin Group, to acquire the 16 Crafar farms.

“It is clear that all criteria under sections 16 and 18 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005 have been met, therefore we accept the recommendation of the OIO to grant consent,” Williamson said.

“We are satisfied that Milk New Zealand’s application for consent meets the criteria set out in the Act,” Coleman said.

A condition of the sale is that a joint venture company to be owned 50/50 by the Chinese and Landcorp would develop and manage the farms.

The majority of the planning, budgeting and reporting relating to the farms would take place within the joint venture company and Landcorp would operate the farms, providing operational services and advice.

David Farrar posts about the Crafar Farms, compared with Labour’s record on land sales.

The small circle represents the size of the Crafar farms at 8,000 hectares. The large circle represents the amount of land sold to foreign owners under the last Labour Government at 650,000 hectares.

Under Labour, the equivalent of the Crafar farms were sold each and every month they were in office.

The Ports of Auckland is making it’s move against the union and from their latest hire things aren’t looking too promising for the union:

Ports of Auckland is employing Jon Mayson, the former Port of Tauranga chief executive who helped set up more flexible labour relations at Port of Tauranga, as a consultant.

Ports of Auckland told BusinessDesk Mr Mayson is assisting with its plan to contract out labour.

Ports of Auckland has requests for proposal out with potential new labour suppliers which are due back by the end of the month. The port expects to make a decision in principle about whether or not to outsource labour in early February.

Mr Mayson was chief executive of Port of Tauranga from 1997 to 2005 and knows the background of labour relations in New Zealand’s ports better than most.

He was assistant operations manager at Port of Tauranga and was seconded to a group that drove through reform of that port’s labour relations in 1990.

Matt McCarten blurts out another anti-capitalist rant in today’s Herald on Sunday. But he finishes up with some breathtaking hypocrisy:

Twice as many children grow up in poor families now than in the 1970s and 80s, so the disparity will get even worse.

The solution to the poverty gap is for the state to raise enough taxes to fund schools, hospitals and housing. Then have economic policies and industrial laws that aim to create high-waged jobs.

Instead, our economic model requires the opposite. It seems it’s now a crime for a worker to have well-paid full-time job. Just look at the waterfront.

The solution for the problem of not enough taxes is for people like Matt McCarten to actually pay their taxes rather than steal employees PAYE. If people like Matt McCarten actually paid their taxes that were due I think we would find we would be a whole lot better off.

Meridian Energy has bailed out of a $2 billion wind farm.

Maybe because wind farms are a crock, difficult to make money, wreck skylines and are generally bad for the environment.

But then I saw “greenie” (and hypocrite) Anton Oliver objected to the wind farm. FFS  is he a greenie – therefore should be pro-wind farms, or is he not?

So what I’d like to know is what it was that turned Anton oOliver against wind farms?

Perhaps, like Bio-fuels, electric cars, genetic engineering, and organic food, wind turbines are an utter and complete con and Meridian have come to understand this.

Cactus Kate is really doing a sterling job of busting the unions myths and today she has probably got the killer blow for their arguments about casualisation:

The problem with MUNZ’s, Fenton’s and the left’s argument about casualisation is that right now MUNZ is pursuing a case against POAL in the Employment Court to prevent the Port offering permanent jobs to “lashers”.

This is not a joke. They are AGAINST casuals getting permanent jobs. The POAL has proceeded to employ on a permanent basis.

Hang on some may say, is the Union not bravely leading the struggle against “casualisation” along with Third Woman on the Wharf, Helen “Clean Up” Kelly and the left?

You may think so, but not when the Union bullies (mainly old, white crusty’s like the charming couple we met yesterday on this blog) have the top jobs and like to take the overtime at their much higher rates rather than allow the lower paid workers to get permanent jobs.

See – it is never quite that straightforward with Union bullies is it Darien? Best you stay out of it then and go back to watching the Mad Butcher specials for some weekend shopping.

There is a reason that David Shearer is in charge. He’s actually thought about this, spoke with all sides and decided to stay out of it.

So let me get this straight…the union, a bunch of blokes who hate women working on the wharf are against casualisation in public but on the down-lo have a court case against the Ports of Auckland attempting to prevent the employer from making jobs that they like permanent because under current terms and conditions they are creaming it by the job being casual.

I think we can safely say the union has really over-stepped the mark now. Nothing they ever say can now be believed.

Fran O’Sullivan challenges David Shearer to look at Norway:

It will be a test of Labour leader David Shearer’s mettle if he overrules the troglodytes in his own caucus and puts Norway at the top of the list of small nations he promotes as exemplars for New Zealand’s economic development.

Norway’s 4.99 million citizens enjoy a standard of living New Zealanders can only dream of. The country has the highest human development ranking on the OECD index. It has a comprehensive social security system, has universal health care and subsidised higher education.

It also has oil.

This is a major asset which Norway hasn’t hesitated to exploit to grow a thriving economy which, on a GDP (PPP) per capita basis, scores double the performance of New Zealand. This can be seen on the International Monetary Fund’s 2011 index where fourth-ranked Norway registers US$53,376 on the chart measuring gross domestic product at purchasing power parity per capita basis. New Zealand is way down the list at 32nd place (US$27,966).

While Labour’s policy is to lock it all up underground they can’t really moan about kiwi workers going to Australia to dig up their minerals.

Good on old Gareth Morgan who has sold out his KiwiSaver fund to KiwiBank. Here’s hoping it was nice and lucrative for him so he can continue to fund the funerals of homeless people, and provide fattened penguins to South Seas orcas.

That’s tongue in cheek. It is nice to see anyone get rich, or richer.

But since Gareth Morgan has been calling for a capital gains tax, I invite him to do as he preaches, and pay some of his capital gain for his business back to the government. IRD helpfully has an online provision for this.

After all, as Gareth lectured us in the Herald in July of this year:

“The principle of taxation is that those with the greatest ability to pay tax should shoulder the greatest burden and those with the least should be the greatest beneficiaries of State redistribution.”

Get on with it Gareth. Lead by example. Pay out 28% of your capital gain on GMI to the state.

Cheers, and thanks again for your generosity. First penguins, then Blanketmen, then this selfless act of self-taxation. Homeless people and desperate penguins are counting on you.