Robert MacCulloch
Robert MacCulloch is a native of New Zealand and worked at the Reserve Bank of NZ before he travelled to the UK to complete a PhD in Economics at Oxford University.
We've just witnessed ferocious debates in the US concerning the future of their country. How applicable are they to NZ? Will the same sorts of debates determine the outcome of our next election? First and foremost, although my subject of economics is the one that we prefer to focus on, there is a view that the US election was fought on non-economic issues.
Senator Pelosi argued the Republican Party effectively redirected public discourse towards non-economic cultural issues. She stated that Democrats faced a cultural assault centered on divisive issues like guns, LGBTQ+ rights, and religion – a triad Pelosi referred to as “guns, gays, and God”. For example, abortion featured as one of their most hotly argued topics.
Is there a parallel in NZ? Yes. Former PM Ardern, more than any other NZ leader, threw herself into the center of culture wars – into gun control (after the Christchurch shootings) and God (as she self-anointed herself as the Patron-Saint of Kindness). She propelled Treaty-related issues into being at the forefront of national divisions. Ardern’s Harvard Commencement speech was all ‘guns, gays and God’ – the economy was never mentioned, not once. It got her a standing ovation at that University. It also got her and Harris booed out of office.
Former PM Ardern’s interest was never on economic and cost-of-living matters. She burnt through money on the problems that arose during the pandemic, borrowing and spending, and printing cash on a reckless scale never before witnessed in NZ. But like Pelosi in the US, and Kamala Harris, she misjudged how much people cared about their standard of living. Harris was asked during the election by a member of the US public, “How would you reduce the cost of living?” and could not answer. Ardern also had no answer to that question, other than more income support. Like Harris, Ardern was thrown out when Kiwis elevated the cost-of-living to their chief concern. Kiwis tired of her moralising and playing at identity politics.
Consequently, what we have in common with the Americans has been our joint concerns over inflation and rising costs. What we do not have in common is concerns over protecting Kiwi jobs from cheap imports, as well as immigration issues. Why not? NZ is classified as a “small open economy”. Ours is far more dependent on exports than the US. We need free-trade agreements. Exports to GDP are 25 per cent in NZ – in the US they are less than half that amount. On immigration, ours is nearly entirely legal, and the electorate has shown itself remarkably tolerant to it – with the main issue being the skill mix. By contrast, the kind of immigration in the US that became an election issue was illegal immigration, from Mexico.
In spite of these many differences between the US and NZ, there is one over-riding issue that does unite us: namely, that we have both lost our mojo. NZ was once proud of “Kiwi ingenuity”, of being a place with an old US-style “wild west” culture, where people could try out new ideas, do extreme sports, experiment and be free to pursue their own ‘lifestyle’.
Kiwis were people who could get the job done and ‘cut through the crap’ – we were very desirable overseas as workers for that reason. Now it takes us 10 years and counting to build a stupid little convention center in Auckland after a Monty Python catalogue of mistakes. The Christchurch Cathedral lies in ruins 15 years after the quake. Both are symbols of national decline – of how we can no longer deliver the goods on time – of endless wrangling.
If one wants to be tightly controlled, regulated and highly taxed, then go live in Europe. Kiwi beliefs are shifted more in the direction of US ones – we believe hard work and effort should be, and largely is, rewarded in the market. We want freedoms to pursue our dreams. We don’t share French beliefs that life is overwhelmingly unfair and, in spite of our best efforts, its unlikely we will ever be successful. We have a big thing in common with Americans – we both want to be living in stimulating, cutting-edge economies: ones where there are opportunities for young Kiwis so they don’t flee. President-elect Trump wants to return more powers to the States, to get them competing more and to make them more edgy. Elon Musk left over-regulated California to move his businesses to Texas. The equivalent in NZ is Kiwis leaving to go to one of the States of Australia. The problem for NZ, however, is that moving to Australia is leaving this nation. Moving to Texas is not about leaving America.
This article was originally published by Down to Earth Kiwi.
