With Monday’s announcement on moving to level three next Tuesday the adding of an extra week to level four shows complete ignorance of how business operates, the overheads involved, staff costs, compliance costs and the slim margins they operate on. As Bob Jones has pointed out in his last couple of articles, noting Roger Douglas’s comments about incoming Labour Governments. Their backgrounds are rarely commercial, but from academia, unions and the like. Most since the war have been out of Government for a considerable time so tend to rely heavily on ‘experts’. This is what has happened in the current crisis. I have a problem with where they have sourced their advice. It’s been from academia.
The Government has barely consulted business at all through this crisis. Fran O’Sullivan says it’s time for business journalists to be included in the daily pressers. She’s right. They should have been there from the start. All Jacinda has allowed in are her political leftie luvvies. No hard questions there. Letting the business journalists loose would be the equivalent of having to go back home to Mummy to practice with the cabbage. In other words, beyond her ken. Without having to field questions beyond her comprehension she can be the ringmaster of the Jacinda Ardern daily circus. Better that than look the clown. Which raises the question – is the Minister of Health still around or is he the circus’s disappearing act? After beaching and biking, he seems to be setting a perfect example of self isolating.
I hear on Newstalk ZB that Grant Robertson took no advice on the effect this latest decision would have particularly on small to medium businesses. He appears to have simply agreed with the decision made. Looking at Robertson’s professional life, the nearest he has come to an understanding of small businesses was while with MFAT running the NZ Aid programme to Samoa. This included the development of small businesses. Hmm. This is how the Government has operated from the outset. A tiny cabal of we know best politicians making all the decisions.
Parliament should have been in session throughout. The big decisions should have been debated with the whole House involved. The reasons for not doing so are fairly apparent. The last thing a bunch of academics and unionists want is to be shown up by those on the other side who have a better understanding of the business issues involved. The likes of Seymour, Goldsmith and Woodhouse.
It’s a disgrace the way this crisis has been handled.
Deborah Russell, a Labour MP, was on ZB yesterday exclaiming that she can’t understand why businesses are in so much trouble after just four or five weeks. Let’s look at her background shall we? She has worked in the private sector as an accountant, and in the public sector as a policy analyst. Russell has lectured in universities in both Australia and New Zealand in taxation, ethics, business ethics, political theory and philosophy. She was a senior lecturer specialising in taxation at Massey University. Wow! What a perfect fit for the Labour Party. With all that experience behind her and she still can’t understand why businesses are hurting. I certainly wouldn’t want her as my accountant.
Russell fits Roger Douglas’s description perfectly. These people are clueless of the practicalities of, and potential difficulties that can arise in operating a business. They are all theory and have no idea of what actually happens on the front line. It is my belief that when the dust has settled on all of this, when the repercussions start to kick in, when the chickens come home to roost, Jacinda and her bunch of derelict colleagues will have some difficult questions to answer. There needs to be a public realisation of what has played out. The resultant fallout may turn out to be less than palatable for the Government.
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