Many of you will know that parts of Australia are currently suffering a once-in-a-lifetime mouse plague. The plague is affecting rural parts of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, resulting in the destruction of crops and people’s livelihoods. This is a tragedy for all concerned… but according
Michael Bassett bassettbrashandhide.com Political historian Michael Bassett CNZM is the author of 15 books, was a regular columnist for the Fairfax newspapers and a former Minister in the 1984-1990 governments While Grant Robertson was announcing increased benefits and higher spending on social services I couldn’t help thinking that
Jon Miltimore fee.org Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller,
Hon Judith Collins judithcollins.national.org.nz A Budget for benefits not jobs The government has surprised everyone with their policies over recent weeks as they softened us up for their fourth Budget announced last week. It was interesting that we saw announcements that public sector employees would face a
The Government’s newly named Provincial Growth Fund isn’t anything new, it merely demonstrates its inability to deliver for New Zealanders, National’s Economic Development spokesperson Todd McClay says. “In 2017 Grant Robertson said the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) ‘says everything about what I want this Government to be
Dr Muriel Newman nzcpr.com Budget 2021 was the most political budget we have seen in recent years. From the new railway assembly workshops in Dunedin – to keep the trade unions happy – to the major income boosts for beneficiaries of up to $55 a week, it represented a major payback
Karen Chhour ACT’s Social Development spokesperson As long as the Government has its hands over its ears screaming “la la la” about benefit numbers, they will keep rising. There are 365,937 working-age people receiving a main benefit as at the end of March 2021. That’s an 18
Sir Bob Jones nopunchespulled.com An extraordinary article in a recent Economist put the foreign exchange revenue yielded from British courts at an amount slightly higher than all of New Zealand’s export earnings from all sources. In one sense this is dismaying as it reflects the mainly corruption-caused inadequacies
Jeff Thomas internationalman.com Traditionally, inflation has been defined as “an increase in the amount of currency in circulation.” Such an increase almost always causes an increase in the cost of goods and services, since, more plentiful currency units lowers their rarity, as compared to the supply of goods and
Hobson’s Pledge Trust The proposal to spend $1.3 billion in the next financial year on “Maori” cannot go without comment. Proposed spending includes: 1. $427.8 million supposedly for “Crown-Maori” relations, but actually for Treaty settlements. 2. $380 million to deliver 1000 new homes for Maori including housing
Okay. Let’s take a look at the proposed Employment Protection Insurance, dangled like a carrot at middle New Zealand by the benevolent Grant Robertson while reading the 2021 Budget. On the face of it, such a scheme would have a couple of major benefits. The first is that those
Reading two articles relating to the Budget in the Weekend Herald served to illustrate the different thought processes of the right and the left on matters of a political and economic nature. One was by journalist Claire Trevett; the other by Steven Joyce, a man with a good dose of
