'Productivity is not everything, but it’s nearly everything'

Public Policy / news

ACT Party wants to make it government policy to view all policy decisions through a productivity lens

5th Sep 23, 10:30am by Eric Frykberg

The Act Party celebrates on election night 2020

The ACT Party says it would make it government policy to view all policy decisions through a productivity lens.

This would contrast with current emphases on identity, the Treaty of Waitangi, and the climate, it says.

ACT would set an explicit target for New Zealand to be in the 10 fastest-growing economies in the OECD, and would do this with a range of policies to boost productivity growth.

This was announced in a major economic policy platform for the party on Tuesday.

"The current cost of living crisis is a really a productivity crisis," the party says.

"New Zealanders faced lower wages and higher costs before the (current) inflation set in. Our productivity growth has been woeful for 50 years.

"Yes, Kiwis work hard. We have some of the longest hours and labour participation rates in the developed world. Productivity is about working smarter to produce more wealth for the hours of work and dollars of investment that go in. Unfortunately, New Zealand productivity has declined for 50 years."

It says the problem will get worse in future, with more expensive pharmaceuticals, high costs of caring for an ageing population and the difficulty of attracting skilled people in a global “war for talent”, among other problems.

ACT says higher productivity can help solve these problems, yet it has been mentioned on only rare occasions by the current Government.

To change this, ACT would put productivity at the centre of everything, aim to be one of the 10 fastest growing economies in the OECD, cut taxes to encourage work, saving and investment, remove red tape that it says is strangling initiative and reduce barriers to overseas investment in New Zealand businesses.

GST would be shared with local councils and old rules and regulations would be thoroughly examined. The farming sector would be helped by repealing the ban on genetic engineering. Also to go would be the Zero Carbon Act, He Waka Eke Noa and the Significant Natural Areas Act.

"Productivity is not everything, but it’s nearly everything," ACT says.

"New Zealand’s productivity has been on a long slide, and yet successive Labour and National governments have not even paid lip service to it. In order to have the things people in first world countries expect, government’s attitude to productivity will need to change."

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111 Comments

by KH | 5th Sep 23, 10:45am 1693867507

I really like Seymour's plan to issue "Stop notices"

Some things the government does should just stop. It's make work. Those people should instead be making stuff, that the people need. You know, be productive.

A local group I am involved with had $2.5 million from ??? MBIE maybe. So about $100 million across the country. For wellbeing.

They planned to give pensioners a Christmas hamper. I asked " would I be getting one, or delivering them"

Still not sure of the answer.

$100 million FFS.

by sparrow | 5th Sep 23, 11:19am 1693869576

There's been plenty of research over the years about NZ's poor productivity, and reasonably consistent conclusions - misallocation of capital into residential housing, too much low-skill migration, very low levels of R&D investment.

ACT policies of wide open borders and re-instating tax incentives for residential property investors is hardly going to help with that. They're also going to get rid of the "corporate welfare" of tax credits for R&D.

by Averageman | 5th Sep 23, 11:29am 1693870180

And while it's tax free speculation to moon that will not change. So vote for change and productivity. Promote working, punish speculation.

Land Tax.

by jeremyr | 5th Sep 23, 11:58am 1693871884

We already have a land tax, it is called rates.

There will never be a land tax. The only people that talk about it are TOP, and will get nowhere near the decision-making table ever.

If the worst was to happen. and a land tax did happen, that would mean every householder would be punished by a punitive tax. and every renter would just have the tax passed on to them via higher rent.

People keep referring to this crazy land tax thing as a way to keep property prices down. The way do that is to do something drastic like make investment property purchases, cash only. No debt allowed. The attraction of property investment is quite simple. You don't have to be very smart. returns are tax-free (the capital gain (if any) is after the specified number of years, and the market is generally stable. If you make it cash only for investments, then that takes a big chunk of the market away, as the leverage available from using debt is gone. That removes speculators from the market and negates the need for a land tax. Cash-only purposes should obviously not apply to new builds as that increases the inventory and further enhances market stability.

by BirdieNZ | 5th Sep 23, 12:27pm 1693873653

We had a land tax, for about 100 years. It wasn't "the worst thing to happen". Property was much more affordable during that time, too.

by Averageman | 5th Sep 23, 12:37pm 1693874223

If you read TOPs policy, it includes a threshold of 100% equity on rental houses as well. Many get hung up on the land tax being hnavoidable which simply highlights how's tax avoidance centric it has become.

by Makara | 5th Sep 23, 10:54pm 1693911267

Ultimately the land/property tax is irrelevant as pointed out by Jeremy above.

The problem is property speculation in the housing market which has been driven by loose bank lending. The solution is to properly regulate bank lending so it supports investment in places we want (businesses) and restricts it in places we don’t (leveraged property “investment”).

Quite simply really.

by E46 | 5th Sep 23, 12:58pm 1693875517

Most rates around NZ are property taxes, not land value tax. The disadvantage of property taxes is that they discourage investment and development. As stated above we had a land value tax for over 100 years and the world didn't fall apart then.

by Pa1nter | 5th Sep 23, 11:50am 1693871455

There's been plenty of research over the years about NZ's poor productivity, and reasonably consistent conclusions - misallocation of capital into residential housing, too much low-skill migration, very low levels of R&D investment.

What rarely gets much attention is the big driver of malinvestment is when an economy reaches a certain level of maturation, and investment funds have few places to go.

So it may very well be that unless there's some breakthrough technology in the future, what we have now in NZ could be all the real wealth we have. Maybe not even, if the global economy gets cancer.

China is showing us the way because it's doing the same as advanced economies, just way quicker. Over capitalisation in high speed rail. Thousands and thousands of expensive graduates in STEM subjects, with no jobs to go to. Over construction of buildings with no occupants.

by Averageman | 5th Sep 23, 11:58am 1693871899

Lets look at two examples of their progress. China developed stealth fighter tech all by itself, in record time, tui of the week. Huawei developed routers from nowhere right down to the Cisco branding on the boxes. Just way quicker....cough cough.

Will say their IP theft is first class though.

by Pa1nter | 5th Sep 23, 12:01pm 1693872110

They only developed the ability to produce perfect spheres a handful of years ago.

But yes another good point, much of their growth is in manufacturing, and not IP development. The former can disappear pretty easily.

by yeahnah | 5th Sep 23, 12:24pm 1693873456

China massive investment in R&D - Replicate and Duplicate.

by xingmowang | 5th Sep 23, 12:27pm 1693873658

it is even impossible for NZ to copy Singapore let alone China.👁

by singautim | 5th Sep 23, 1:45pm 1693878316

True. Neither NZ nor China can match Singapore.

by HouseMouse | 5th Sep 23, 4:20pm 1693887618

Singapore is a great middle ground between autocratic communism (China) and neoliberal NZ

by sit23 | 5th Sep 23, 5:40pm 1693892409

A Sigaporean once told me," Singapore is a fine country. If you do anything, there is a fine!" He then waxad eloquent on how NZ is such a good place compared to his own country.

by delboy | 5th Sep 23, 12:35pm 1693874100

In the case of Huawei routers they also copied Cisco’s command line and the software even had the same bugs as the Cisco router software.

by huttman | 5th Sep 23, 2:02pm 1693879339

Huawei spent 1/4 of it's gross sales into R&D, it's rather unfair to call them IP thieves.

If you have lived in China you would know, everything happens instantly, from your restaurant order, to plumber callout, to building equipment etc, while in NZ, you need to wait 3 months for cancer surgery, or spent 4 years to Get Wellington Moving [Nowhere].

Anyone who says the Chinese manufacture industry is easy to replace are ignorant to the fact that, China still have the world largest manufacture industry.

by sit23 | 5th Sep 23, 5:42pm 1693892540

50 years ago, just about everything for sale in NZ was made or assembled here. It can easily be done again. Not a big deal.

by edw | 5th Sep 23, 4:05pm 1693886723

100%, no R&D, no future.

by solardb | 5th Sep 23, 10:49am 1693867757

All buzzwords, no how.

by KH | 5th Sep 23, 10:53am 1693867990

Wadda ya think a "Stop Notice" is. It's a how.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 11:01am 1693868488

Pretty simplistic...not really an answer to "how"

by KH | 5th Sep 23, 11:36am 1693870592

A "Stop Notice" is saying they will cut through the Gordian Knot which so impedes getting anything done. We are stuck within endless bickering and processes so throughly that the people are not being served.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

".... It is thus used as a metaphor for a seemingly intractable problem which is solved by exercising an unexpectedly direct, novel, rule-bending, decisive and simple approach that removes the perceived constraints....."

by solardb | 5th Sep 23, 11:37am 1693870637

Exactly.

by kpnuts | 5th Sep 23, 1:20pm 1693876821

thats the whole point --- all you need to do to stop it is say STOP IT and then it stops -- you dont need to create a massive plan and employ 100 consultants to work out how to say stop it! Simple is best quickest easiest and most productive

by Rumpole | 5th Sep 23, 11:38am 1693870720

If a definition of what a Stop Notice is designed to achieve I would understand.

by KH | 5th Sep 23, 12:02pm 1693872170

First targets for stop notices are things that cost but produce no benefit. "...He told the story about the New Zealand America’s Cup Team who referred every decision they made back to one question, “does it make the boat go faster”. So if there was dissension in the team and someone suggested a team building day, they would ask “will it make the boat go faster?”. And if not, no team building day......"

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 1:17pm 1693876661

Mate,that question should be asked of 90% of corporate NZ...never ending BS.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 1:21pm 1693876861

Countdown is spending $400mill on rebranding...who the f*ck do you think is paying for that,consumers!How much faster do you reckon countdown waka will be after spending that money.

by KH | 5th Sep 23, 2:28pm 1693880908

agree vman

by sit23 | 5th Sep 23, 5:44pm 1693892661

I wouldn't know or be interested. I refuse to buy groceries off a second cheapest foreign company.

by kiwimm | 5th Sep 23, 10:53am 1693868027

The quote from Paul Krugman is “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run, it’s almost everything.”

by xingmowang | 5th Sep 23, 10:54am 1693868055

NZ can get rich very quickly if it allows offshore oil and gas extraction.

And then put $$ to education.

I cannot see other ways for NZ to step up a ladder in personal income.

by IT GUY | 5th Sep 23, 11:42am 1693870935

and start mining for gold more

by yeahnah | 5th Sep 23, 12:29pm 1693873789

We could start mining coal again instead of importing 750,000 tonnes of dirty coal from Indonesia and other countries. We have 400 years supply in the West Coast alone. OK coal burning is the worst green house offenders but how many carbon miles does it cost to ship it in from offshore while were still burning it??

by ChrisOfNoFame | 5th Sep 23, 1:16pm 1693876607

re ... "I cannot see other ways for NZ to step up a ladder in personal income."

Maybe by investing in things that actually create something rather than selling existing houses to each other?

Digging existing stuff out of the ground to sell as a raw material doesn't actually create much new. If we dug it up and created something to sell that might be a different story. But it's a story that is brand new to NZ. Our brains stop thinking at the raw material stage.

by xingmowang | 5th Sep 23, 1:26pm 1693877211

you see how hollow your comment is.

by sit23 | 5th Sep 23, 5:46pm 1693892817

Hi Xing. You will know first hand that one doesn't have to dig up one's own coal. One just buys Aussie coal and runs one's solar panel and electric car factories with it.

by singautim | 5th Sep 23, 1:54pm 1693878857

NZ's income comes from exporting minimally processed agricultural resources. The step up in personal income is easy to achieve if we stop growing the population faster than the wealth. If hypothetically NZ had a population of 2.5 million as it had not so long ago then would total productivity suffer and if so by how much? I reckon if NZ population had stayed at 2.5 million then exports might be reduced by 20% so personal income would increase by 60%. Which is roughly where the Benelux countries are.

China's efforts to control their population growth explains why they are twice as rich as Indians. It's either that or autocracy beats democracy.

by sit23 | 5th Sep 23, 5:48pm 1693892924

Would we still need overseas funds to purchase new Vauxhalls and Wolseleys as was the case last time we were 2.5million strong?

by huttman | 5th Sep 23, 2:17pm 1693880269

please don't bother with oil and gas. NZ has smaller population and vast renewable resources, we should be focusing on that.

NZ can have better income if it has a better tech industry, but it won't.

by sharetrader | 5th Sep 23, 11:02am 1693868554

roy morgan poll has ACT at 18% this morning , i think he will have a HUGE say in things this time around and that will be super uncomfortable for national

by dbbr | 5th Sep 23, 11:26am 1693870015

I think it will too. I like the conviction they have. I don’t agree with all their policies, but there are a lot that I do agree with such as their stance against race based policies.

There are a lot of fed up people after 6 years and national could learn a thing or two from act.

by donny11 | 5th Sep 23, 11:31am 1693870292

Yeah. ACT also have a much younger voter base. They will no doubt stymie National's property investor & geriatrics orientated policy platform.

What will be interesting is if they need NZ First. This will cause a lot more conflict than people realise.

by morepork | 5th Sep 23, 12:13pm 1693872819

ACT don't have a younger voting base.

See the latest poll, for women it's basically the same across the age groups they survey, but for men their supporters skew towards 50+

by Rumpole | 5th Sep 23, 11:40am 1693870853

If it does will prove that National is Labour lite.

by singautim | 5th Sep 23, 1:56pm 1693878978

It will be comfortable for National. It will allow them to kill all manner of dumb policies but blame ACT.

by FCM | 5th Sep 23, 2:00pm 1693879250

I have two young adults in the house, both first time voters and they are going for ACT (if they can be bothered voting they said..sigh). Seymour is very active in the social media space and that really connects with the younger voters.

by M0ralHazard | 5th Sep 23, 11:09am 1693868940

I agree that we need to improve productivity. I disagree with ACT that cutting taxes and reducing regulation are the best ways to achieve that.

by jeremyr | 5th Sep 23, 11:20am 1693869603

The tax that a government collects should be just enough to provide adequate services for taxpayers. No more, no less. Any additional revenue over and above should be returned to taxpayers via lower taxes.

This notion that we can increasingly employ idiots for the sake of making it look like there is lower employment and creating idiotic ministries for the specific purposes of gaining sop votes at the expense of the taxpayer is completely ridiculous, and should really be illegal. Woman's affairs, Pacific peoples ministry, and Maori health are all a pointless waste of money and all need to be closed down, very quickly. The list of these ministries employing layabouts who deliver nothing useful is large. and ripe for the picking.

The staffing levels within the public service need to be decimated. The average salary however needs to increase to incentivize high-performing individuals into the public service to clean up the mess and convert the remaining ministries to be more efficient and deliver to expectations.

Go ACT. Shut it down. now!

by yeahnah | 5th Sep 23, 12:36pm 1693874210

Yes, quite right. It's not the amount of tax that we're paying, but the non-productive and inefficient way our dollars are being spent. My experience is that many public servants don't actually deliver anything. They employ consultants to do that for them. So we are paying 2-3 contractors to actually do the work for every public servant employed.

Go Seymour, drain the swamp.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 12:54pm 1693875268

In my experience there are many in the private sector and corporate world who don't deliver either,and they just pile their inefficiencies on to the cost of their business and charge the customer more.Greedflation anybody?

by jeremyr | 5th Sep 23, 1:10pm 1693876257

Yes, I agree that is also true. But these are private companies that exist to make a profit and it is up to their owners to govern, and govern correctly or they go broke. That does not now and never has given the government of the day some sort of right to waste everyone's money and achieve next to nothing. If I invest in a private/public company, and they fail to deliver, the management gets fired. as do the employees (hopefully before bankruptcy so that the situation can be rectified). The same goes for governments and their departments. This is the exact scenario with the current administration.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 1:23pm 1693877032

Sounding more and more like a Trump rally in here these days...all this talk of swamp draining...that went well for them over there...turns out the swamp was drained to put in some fresh reptiles.

by singautim | 5th Sep 23, 2:04pm 1693879484

Women's issues, Pacifica issues, Māori health are all important. So they should be central to govt which means not hiving them off to stand alone ministries. Having ministries implies leaders of significant political parties are unable to represent all Kiwis. So under Jacinda we needed a ministry of 'men's issues' and if we get a Māori dominated cabinet then we would need a ministry for pakeha and another for Asian immigrants and their descendants. Ministries should be doing significantly important work that applies to all Kiwi families: Education, Health, Defence, Foreign affairs, etc.

by treadlightly | 5th Sep 23, 2:58pm 1693882694

The government spends its currency into the economy first and then it taxes it back out again and if is running a deficit then it stores the rest up in treasury bonds and which are our savings held in the domestic currency. Cutting government spending doesn't leave us with more money but less. We spend the governments money and it never spends ours as taxpayers are not the currency issuer.

https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/Wray_Understanding_Modern.pdf

by Rumpole | 5th Sep 23, 11:45am 1693871117

Moral - Well increasing taxes, legislating obstructionist legislation and adding bureacrats certainly has not improved productivity so are you hoping the tooth fairy comes to the rescue?

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Sep 23, 11:20am 1693869635

Our wages have only grown in real terms over the last twenty years because the flow of bank credit into the economy has been so huge. Our standard of living is built on the spiraling debt of mortgagors, grossly over-valued land, rampant ecocide, and cheap labour overseas. We are f'ing around and we are being found out.

ACT have zero to offer in terms of tackling our actual challenges. Their primary purpose is to enable the wealthy to have a last party at our collective expense - to make super profits from our human and natural resources before the proverbial hits the fan.

by Pa1nter | 5th Sep 23, 11:22am 1693869773

Yeah, but for the meantime

Weeeeeeeee!

by Smudge02 | 5th Sep 23, 11:32am 1693870378

Totally agree with everything you say Jfoe but my question is, who the f*#k DO we vote for!!!

by M0ralHazard | 5th Sep 23, 1:43pm 1693878226

Jfoe for PM!

by IT GUY | 5th Sep 23, 11:45am 1693871122

Our house prices have to drop or young will leave, they won't so they will. My girls looking at Melbourne Uni, then stay.... I am sad but realistic, nothing to stay for at the moment even under Nat/Act, country needs a rebalance and it may need to be very painfull for the correct structural reforms to occur.

by Rumpole | 5th Sep 23, 11:48am 1693871337

IT - too soon NACT is not yet in Govt and the realities after Prefu and the economic situation on taking office may fundamentally change Govt priorities.

by IT GUY | 5th Sep 23, 11:53am 1693871631

Desperate times call for desperate measures.... the reason ACT is polling so well is that 18% of NZ WANT NZ to step to the RIGHT, but dont trust Nats to be more then just Labour blue.... great result in that poll for ACT, and ensures that Winnie is history. I can see 20% on polling day... for Act and Labour

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 11:50am 1693871410

Two of mine have gone,a third will probably follow once study is finished...at which point we will probably follow and spend our money else where,rather than staying in this country sized retirement village.

by Rumpole | 5th Sep 23, 11:46am 1693871211

Jfoe - so which parties do have a solution you support.

by Yvil | 5th Sep 23, 12:17pm 1693873062

"Their primary purpose is to enable the wealthy to have a last party at our collective expense"

Disappointing of you Jfoe, to mindlessly regurgitate nonsense like that. This is absolutely untrue.

by Jonny.Foe | 5th Sep 23, 12:40pm 1693874455

I'm just following the money. ACT are funded by people that want to strip away environmental and social protections to support their personal financial gain.

by The_Golem | 5th Sep 23, 11:22am 1693869767

While government is squarely in the frame for our poor productivity, how much does business itself understand productivity tools and methods? Beyond the issues like scale problems, transport, logistics, oligopolies, and infrastructure, even basic methods and technology to boost productivity and add value seem to have passed NZ by.

Looking at you, building sector. Materials and methods they've been using successfully for 40+ years in North America and Europe keep being hailed as "new" and "fringe" here - while we keep putting up needlessly bespoke and expensive sticks and fluff.

by Pa1nter | 5th Sep 23, 12:03pm 1693872194

Our materials are undergoing a constant amount of change, to be environmentally friendly, faster to put up, cheaper to make, or to comply with new codes, etc. Very few products on a 2023 building site are the same as they were, even 20 years ago (most more like 5).

Technology has changed so much in most businesses in NZ, it's just been so gradual no one notices. I've seen the time to perform many functions fall off a cliff.

Trouble is, a lot of its expensive to implement, and not every worker survives well financially once their jobs made obsolete.

by ChrisOfNoFame | 5th Sep 23, 1:26pm 1693877213

I've worked all over the world. I can honestly say NZ management is the worst in the world.

Short-sighted, terrible at investment "maths", always looking for get-rich-quick-solutions, never holding and building up businesses, obsessed with ticket-clipping, extraordinary lazy once they're 'okay', totally lacking in creativity, heavily invested in the 'old boy networks', terrible at measuring productivity, overly obsessed with 'optics', have no idea about evaluating risk, terrible at analysis, think government should be doing everything, refuse to keep learning and developing themselves, etc, etc.

If, for example, you exchanged Dutch management with NZ management, the Netherlands would be a 3rd world country within two generations while NZ would be one of the richest.

by IT GUY | 5th Sep 23, 2:06pm 1693879599

Many of our biggest companies are owned by aussie or offshore head offices, the tail does not wag the dog..... managers here are farmers not hunters. We used to talk about how leading edge our EFTPOS network and banking was... then we didnt do Fintech as , well we had it all and open banking was not really necessary..... now we are so far behind, the offshore fintechs are coming into NZ at incremental cost as they where supported by their banking regulators. Want to buy a house?

by TheAnalyst | 5th Sep 23, 8:37pm 1693903023

I agree with what you say. However your analogy with Dutch management does not quite hit the mark given the only example of Dutch management in NZ I can think of is Theo Spierings the ex CEO of Fonterra.

He was a grossly overpaid disaster.

by Audaxes | 5th Sep 23, 11:31am 1693870314

One of those articles in the vein of NZ commentaries that run "despite one of the largest non-citizen migration programmes over decades, & still badly lagging productivity, it could all be different if only we increased non-citizen immigration more. Link

by blobbles | 5th Sep 23, 12:06pm 1693872370

No mention of R&D? Seems like another party looking at productivity through an ideological lens. Theirs is just "government is evil", so heading towards libertarianism (which doesn't work anywhere its tried, cos its the stupidist idea you have ever heard of).

You can tell its ideological because nowhere did they mention R&D, the biggest contributor to productivity improvements over time, by giving a heap more funding to universities especially. Nowhere did they mention forcing more competition in our big cartel markets (cos that would hurt their mates, *cough* *cough*), nowhere did they mention pushing immigration settings to only allow highly skilled (cos again it hurts their mates).

Pure ideological spin.

by Due Diligence | 5th Sep 23, 12:06pm 1693872416

Great to see some coverage of ACT's policies here.

Higher productivity is the key to better standard of living in the long run.

Can't recall the exact figures, but Australia's labour productivity is astoundingly higher than ours. Something like 30% higher.

by Pa1nter | 5th Sep 23, 12:09pm 1693872556

That's because one dude with a digger can pull thousands of dollars an hour out of the ground.

The rest of their economy is even less diverse than NZs.

Maybe we need to put dudes back in diggers

by sparrow | 5th Sep 23, 12:23pm 1693873435

And yet Australia has higher taxes and stronger unions than NZ, hardly out of the ACT playbook.

by HouseMouse | 5th Sep 23, 12:28pm 1693873710

Plenty of economists have shown that the kind of policies Act promotes do no necessarily lead to higher productivity.

Ha-Joon Chang has written persuasively on this matter.

by E46 | 5th Sep 23, 1:03pm 1693875824

Could very well end up like the Kansas experiment.

by Due Diligence | 5th Sep 23, 7:50pm 1693900244

And communism works in theory

by Due Diligence | 5th Sep 23, 7:38pm 1693899494

Australia has a lower tax to GDP ratio than NZ. Don’t know what you’re basing the union claim on.

by Yvil | 5th Sep 23, 12:11pm 1693872701

ACT would put productivity at the centre of everything, aim to be one of the 10 fastest growing economies in the OECD, cut taxes to encourage work, saving and investment, remove red tape that it says is strangling initiative and reduce barriers to overseas investment in New Zealand businesses.

And that is why I will vote for Act.

by Audaxes | 5th Sep 23, 12:18pm 1693873127

We need to talk about that red carpet rollout

by morepork | 5th Sep 23, 12:22pm 1693873348

Basically all the productivity reports I've read about NZ indicate that excessive amount of investment in residential property is a key contributor to our relatively low productivity. However ACT want to add more red tape to development by repealing the MDRS. I would ask them to rethink that decision through their productivity lens.

by sparrow | 5th Sep 23, 12:24pm 1693873490

They're looking at it through the lens of the residents of the leafy suburb of Epsom.

Total hypocrites.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 12:55pm 1693875359

Thats what I can't work out when ACT suppoerters say they will fix the housing crisis.From their policy pages;

Restrict the right to object to neighbours who are directly affected by the project
Allow neighbourhoods to vote to exempt themselves from many planning rules
Create a new Planning Tribunal to determine compensation for affected neighbours who hold out from negotiations to loosen planning rules
Reduce the need for consents when infrastructure projects use a Code of Practice to manage environmental effects, saving billions of dollars and reducing years of delay.

These changes would dramatically reduce the cost of building new homes and the infrastructure required to support them, while still protecting the legitimate interests of direct neighbours.

Then they rally against the MDRS...like you said,their rich backers in the leafy suburbs don't want intensification in their backyard,but it should happen every where else.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 1:26pm 1693877205

Sweet,remove the red tape so I can build a 10 story boarding house in a little Ponsonby side street or Epsom.

by blobbles | 5th Sep 23, 2:45pm 1693881915

And you will be deeply disappointed when they don't fix productivity at all, cos they aren't interested in investing in the things that will change it. They only care about smaller government and hoping R&D etc happens without government intervention.

by makechange | 5th Sep 23, 12:15pm 1693872918

Productivity... To what ends? Shall we be amazing at producing things and GDP like China is, but forget what it's for

Productivity is output per unit of input. Useful if you're running a factory floor but not useful if you're not completely clear on customer/society needs and aspirations, especially where those are changing rapidly

by Yvil | 5th Sep 23, 12:23pm 1693873384

"Productivity... To what ends?"

Productivity so more people can afford food and necessities in life,

Productivity so there is more money to pay teachers and the medical profession proper wages

Productivity so that our brightest young Kiiws don't need to go overseas to get a decent income

Productivity so that the government has enough money to build more hospitals, schools, prisons, infrastructure...

Productivity so that today's have-nots don't need to burglar and steal to make a living

by makechange | 5th Sep 23, 3:10pm 1693883424

So like a good capitalist, advocating for productivity for financial return, to then have the option to then spend that on improved standard of living?

Are these the most precious parts of your life? Would more of these create a better life, or just a more comfortable one with more optionality?

by Yvil | 5th Sep 23, 4:48pm 1693889329

"The most precious parts of my life" are the people I love, but having less people living in poverty and fewer hungry qualifies indeed as a better life. Wake up, food and shelter is not free!

by Audaxes | 5th Sep 23, 12:32pm 1693873936

Finance capitalism basically sought to break away all of the public infrastructure. Most financial fortunes and financial fortunes in history were made just in the way that Zola had described, by prying thefts from the public domain.

But the financial capitalism doesn’t say… You don’t have to steal it; you actually make it your policy, giving away the financial domain in the way that President Yeltsin gave away all of Russia’s natural resources, public utilities, electric companies, anything that yields an economic rent that can be just easy income without any investment. And you financialize it.

You’ve had, for the last – really since the 1980s, but even since World War 1 – this movement to prevent industrial economies from being low cost. But the objective of finance capitalism, contrary to what’s taught in the textbooks, is to make economies high cost, to raise the cost every year.

That actually is the explicit policy of the Federal Reserve in the United States. Turn over the central planning to the banking system to essentially inflate the price of housing, with government guaranteed mortgages, up to the point where buying a home is federally guaranteed up to absorbing 43% of the borrower’s income.

Well, you take that 43%, you take the wage withholding for social security and healthcare, you take the taxes; the domestic market shrinks and shrinks. And the finance capital strategy is exactly what it is in the United States today, in Europe. Shift all of the money away from the profits of industrial capital that are reinvested in making new means of production. To expand capital into a shrinking economy where the financial sector intrudes more and more into the economy of production and consumption and shrinks the economy. Link

by makechange | 5th Sep 23, 3:22pm 1693884169

So... monetise the commons, financialise potential revenue streams from that, privatise both.

Alt view - If I were dying tonight I wouldn't give a thought to real GDP per capita. I'd be reflecting on how I've lived my life, my relationships, spending my best moments with loved ones.

Sure, NZ isn't financially as productive, but that's a property of how we've designed our systems.

Societies and ecosystems aren't factories, so to artificially reduce the systems conversation to optimise for a productivity measure instead of for outcomes is poor governance.

by Yvil | 5th Sep 23, 4:52pm 1693889528

Your comments about caring for loved ones are valid, but you're commenting on the wrong website. Interest is a site about money, its motto is "helping you make financial decisions"

by Murray Falconer | 5th Sep 23, 6:28pm 1693895339

...but, but, but they have a green tick!

I'm confused and need to sit down.

by makechange | 7th Sep 23, 11:40am 1694043607

Financial decisions are about applying your financial means to achieve an end. Therefore prompting discussion about the ends and other ways to achieve that are absolutely relevant Yvil.

by HouseMouse | 5th Sep 23, 12:24pm 1693873468

Where’s the ‘real world experience’ in Act, lol

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 12:44pm 1693874697

David is everything he complains about personified;

Student,career lobbyist/politician & TV personality...and no kids,no wife...he is really in touch with the common man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Seymour_(New_Zealand_politician)

David Breen Seymour (born 24 June 1983) is a New Zealand politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Epsom and leader of ACT New Zealand since 2014.

A graduate of the University of Auckland, Seymour worked in public policy in Canada,^[1] before returning to New Zealand and contesting for election to Parliament. He entered the House of Representatives in 2014 as ACT's sole MP, after which he was elected as party leader, replacing Jamie Whyte. He was re-elected in 2017. He led ACT to its best-ever result in the 2020 election, winning ten seats.

Seymour has embraced libertarian social policies since becoming party leader, such as supporting the legalisation of euthanasia, and introduced a bill on this issue. Seymour has appeared extensively on television (including a dance contest, Dancing With the Stars) during his leadership.

by HouseMouse | 5th Sep 23, 12:47pm 1693874832

Yep and as far as I can tell his deputy has next to no ‘real world experience’

by sharetrader | 5th Sep 23, 1:13pm 1693876398

but will he be leader of ACT into the next election, if the support starts to wane (which it will this is his highpoint) during the three years a lot of new Mps will start to look at the new guys that have been parachuted in high up as an alternate saver, his success this time could be a road to him having to move on, I found it interesting this time he managed to move 2 of his mps out and put the other 2 very low so that they looked like not making it back but that has backfired somewhat

This time around he will have an even bigger group to deal with and he does not have the experienced Wips to keep them in line so will be very very interesting. the one factor in his favour is they will all be list Mps so can resign and be replaced. he can use his 90 day no cause termination clause in their contracts when he brings it back

by E46 | 5th Sep 23, 1:32pm 1693877543

The Q&A interview last weekend about Pharmac funding with their candidate who is 4th on the list didn't leave me impressed. Seemed like a bit of a dud to be honest.

by vman | 5th Sep 23, 1:49pm 1693878540

Agreed E46,he looked like he was on the sponsors meds,shifty eyes...more of a concern was that pharmac and whom got the newer treatments/drugs would have a 'productitivity' quotient applied to who got these drugs....implying you have to be worth spending money on so beneficiaries,superannuitants who are extremely non-productive will not be worth investing in.I guess raising the super age + reduced access to medicines could improve the productivity over all by reducing the average age of the country.

Remember to apply the Americas Cup focus he talks of...will giving giving grandad these expensive meds allow him to 'paddle the waka faster' if not,sorry grandad.

by MLSmith1 | 5th Sep 23, 12:52pm 1693875160

Hell yeah!

by HBI024 | 5th Sep 23, 2:03pm 1693879431

Plenty of low hanging fruit out there for productivity gains. How much (time & money) are consumers and businesses spending paywave so banks can profit off each transaction? The tech is staring us in the face and we have to insert our card to save a couple bucks. Rubbish system.

by linklater01 | 5th Sep 23, 2:04pm 1693879447

Surely any real, sustained improvement in our productivity as a country will come primarily from the private sector, not government. If you look at one of our most successful companies- F&P Healthcare, they spend around 10% of their turnover on R&D. Government needs to help enable more R&D through a range of policies of which tax breaks must be one.

by HouseMouse | 5th Sep 23, 2:44pm 1693881899

I get sick of the whining from the private sector. Case in point is the development sector. Always whining about something, usually regulation. Seldom do they look at themselves.

Simplicity Living show what can be done with some innovation and smarts. Then again, the guy that heads them up is an engineer rather than an ex builder or managerial journeyman.

by treadlightly | 5th Sep 23, 3:09pm 1693883373

Even Roger Douglas who founded ACT thinks that they have now gone troppo. https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/123080/act-party-cofounder-rog…

by fat pat | 5th Sep 23, 5:28pm 1693891708

Did anyone notice that Labour shut the country down for over two years and paid people to do nothing while businesses folded up. They said we don’t need tourism anymore, except maybe high paying tourists? They’re turning productive farmland into “carbon farms” which generate no wealth or jobs for the larger community. Meanwhile, they paid a king’s ransom for pharmaceuticals like comirnaty & all the useless boosters, paxlovid, molnupiravir and C19 monoclonal antibodies, much if not all of which is unnecessary. It seems to me that Labour couldn’t have done more to destroy productivity if they tried.