Budget 2021 will be delivered on Thursday 20 May, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced today. “My focus continues to be on making sure spending is targeted at the areas and people that need it the most. “We will manage the books carefully including ensuring we are getting value for money .
5 days ago
Morena ki a tatau, Tena tatau i nga kaupapa hauora, E tuitui nei i a tatau i tēnei ata, Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa. When we were re-elected with a clear mandate for change, our Government made three promises: To keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 To .
Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:31 am, December 21st, 2020 - 30 comments
From a few days ago (it seems like an eternity), RNZ reported “Govt to pump almost $3 billion into its Covid-19 response after report identified failings”. There were several points I’d make about the border controls and generally with our border and the long slow years in constraining this pandemic. But the Sydney outbreak and the UK Xmas Grinch appear to be making them for me already. Written By: Eddie - Date published: 7:17 am, November 30th, 2010 - 65 comments
The annual roll-call’ from the extremely pro-Nat Trans-Tasman says: “Key needs an agenda, not just the consensus he is building around personal trust.” In other words: �
Europe still has community transmission and an inadequate covid response.
I mean, I m all for lessening flights further due to climate change, also happy for NZ to be forced by covid into a more regenerative way of living, but those are different rationales.
Cricklewood 2.2.1
Ive been thinking about international air travel, I like the idea of a progressive taxation system as you dont want to make it impossible for people to visit family etc so for example you get one free flight per year then for every subsequent flight you are taxed at an ever increasing percentage of the ticket value say 10 20 40 80 160….
Written By: advantage - Date published: 9:34 am, December 20th, 2020 - 22 comments
New Zealand like most countries across the world in the last year, has gone deeper and deeper into public debt.
It’s pretty clear that the New Zealand government’s response to economic crisis from lockdowns and global trade crashes by spending tonnes of debt money has been extremely effective.
Yet for some, it’s simple: debts must always be paid back.
We can still remember how Greece was treated by Germany during the GFC: pay the public debt you owe to us, and suffer.
Surely our huge new debt means taxes have to get raised in the future?
We have won so far because geographical isolation gave us about a week of decision-making space to lock down hard.
The extra week was helpful – but much more important was being prepared to make that decision to lock-down hard. The Tory party would have been incapable of such a decision no matter how many extra weeks they were handed – and that was Ed s point. A National government here would have (most likely) been unable to make that decision. Scomo looked like he wasn t capable of that decision – but fortunately state premiers took it out of his hands. It took some guts to defy the belief of the most powerful sectors of society that they have an unfettered right to ongoing capital accumulation under all circumstances. Ardern had the guts and humanity to do it. However this remarkable effort at kicking business into line looks like it was just a one-off.