A platform to challenge the conventional wisdom.

I have finally changed the tagline on the blog.  I hope it represents a slightly more positive view of things.  Helengrad is no more.  In a previous post I called it A Toxic legacy.  The point that was made to me was that in order to be taken more seriously the language needs to be toned down.

I look at the last 9 years as a wasted opportunity.  There have been marvellous economic conditions.  But New Zealand has continued to slide in relative terms.  Cullen has a left the Super fund and KiwiSaver.  Both heading in the right direction.  Michael Bassett has summarised the remainder of Clarks legacy much more eloquently than me and with a well informed perspective.  If you have not read it I commend it.

I believe Key has started to demonstrate to the New Zealand electorate why he was so successful in financial services.  Reaching out to Maori was a master stroke.  They are no longer marginalised like the Greens.  That decision will win the next election.  Key and the NAMU government have the opportunity to change the historical perspective of Maori and end 70 years of being patronised by Labour.  The example of Ngai Tahu is sufficient to explain why economic self determination is to be strongly preferred to patronising short termist welfarism.

There is an opportunity to complete treaty settlements, embed constitutional change and completely change the approach to Maori welfare and education.  To be fair Pita Sharples and his colleagues have recognised this and the opportunity is there to work with rather than impose upon.

In a positive scenario I see the following.  National savings in the super fund and elsewhere will be invested in improving the infrastructure of the country.  Building energy production, broadband, roads and bridges.  That spending will increase the wealth of the country by providing jobs and increasing the productivity of other export generating parts of the economy.

I see Maori participating in that as owners and not just as unskilled labour.  Rome and was not built in a day and Maori self determination will not be resolved in 3 years but there will be important steps in the right direction.

National spent broadly the same if not more of GDP on Health and Education.  Despite what the wilder accusations of the left might have you believe National is not about to chop spending to pieces.  What they will do is to involve the private sector and through that competition improve productivity both in the speed and cost of what the private sector does but also by forcing the state sector to examine its practices.

Electoral Finance, the Constitution, Police governance will be addressed.  They are important but not game changing.

There are some important missing parts of the jigsaw which I have only seen references.  I want to make it part of a separate posts because they are so important.  I hope they will remain themes of this blog and I hope to argue from a new philosophical perspective that encompasses the willingness to accept state intervention of the left and the libertarian aspects of the right.  These are the issues of

à         educating and skilling the underclass and

à         motivating and incentivising  productivity increases from  the export sector

à         Increasing the wealth of New Zealand through refining the brand

à         New Zealand’s contribution to global peace and prosperity

 

The state and John Key’s government have a role to play in all of these.  Leaving them to the market will simply not work.  New Zealand has been trickling slowly down the GDP per capita league tables.  That might seem a meaningless statistic but it has a hard reality in the amount of leisure time, the length and quality of life and in the natural urge of humankind to progress.