Issued by the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC)
Asia-Pacific business leaders, meeting virtually this week in the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), emphasised the need for perseverance, cooperation, and sound policies, to overcome the health and economic challenges of COVID-19.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Rachel Taulelei, Chair of ABAC. “But if we don’t work together, we won’t reach the finish line anytime soon.”
Ms Taulelei was speaking after the second ABAC meeting of 2021, where the Hon. Damien O’Connor, New Zealand Minister of Trade and Export Growth, opened the proceedings. She said that had finalised a report to be presented to APEC Trade Ministers at their meeting next month.
RNZ’s deputy political editor Craig McCulloch. “I think it was caught quite off guard by the fury and how quickly the narrative shifted to be about teachers, about nurses, about police officers. “I think it thought that the message was, for example, that the government was cracking down on the pen-pushers, on the well paid Wellington bureaucrats. I think it thought that it would play well with the median voter, this idea that we’re all pulling together, that we’re cutting our cloth – and I suspect they have some sort of polling which backs that up.” But McCulloch says what’s happened instead is the idea of a responsible government reining in spending has been pushed aside and replaced with an image of a miserly, punitive one.
The finance minister’s announcement of a public servant wage freeze for those earning over $60,000 hit all the wrong notes, sparked an outpouring of outrage from unions and the sectors involved, and drew comparisons of Muldoonism.
“I don’t think that Labour was quite prepared for the outpouring from the public and in particular from the unions, says RNZ’s deputy political editor Craig McCulloch.
“I think it was caught quite off guard by the fury and how quickly the narrative shifted to be about teachers, about nurses, about police officers.
“I think it thought that the message was, for example, that the government was cracking down on the pen-pushers, on the well paid Wellington bureaucrats. I think it thought that it would play well with the median voter, this idea that we’re all pulling together, that we’re cutting our cloth – and I suspect they have some sort of polling which backs that up.”