Posts by Rob Stowell
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Nicholas Davidson on the trail of responsibility and negligence -
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Sorry for posting this here: just back from a meeting of staff and parents of Ferndale School in Chch. The Ministry of Education (with Hekia's blessing) are proposing to move it into the 'super school' at Aranui, and merge the governance of all three of Chch's Special Schools.
It was weird because noone made any attempt to sell the idea. The school community has 6 weeks to decide if we back it, because, I gather, that's when the Aranui PPP needs to be signed off.
The mood of the meeting was mostly against, with a few guarded folks who wanted to hear more. Apparently advice from the local Ministry is that if the community don't back it, it shouldn't go ahead.
What the Minister will make of that is anybody's guess. It's unsettling, to be sure. -
Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Russell Brown,
She’s misled Parliament. There’s no way around it. Ministers who do that are customarily sacked.
Don't care was made to care.
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The OIA dump Friday is still smoking. The MFAT briefing request prior to the ‘private dinner’ (and the debate about whether the ambassador should attend) was bad. Rob Salmond at polity pin-points the bad smell coming from this MFAT briefing on the ‘drop-in cuppa’.
Bad faith. I’m not inclined to cut Collins slack, but at first felt there might not be much in the Oravida business. The continuing donations to National, with this stuff going down via MFAT is just wrong. -
Collins must be looking very shaky now documents show just how planned the ‘private dinner’ with the Orivda boss and a Chinese official was. (MFAT briefings probably don’t cover table manners :))
It’s a tough decision for Key. She’s got powerful friends in caucus and cabinet; she’s been a major player in this govt. Quite the opposite of Williamson.
So four and a half months from election - sack or stand her down now, and try to limit the damage? Or keep toughing it out? Rock or hard place? -
Speaker: Facing the floods, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Crap like this from The Press doesn’t help one bit!
From Moaning Report to parsing the Press - frying pan to fire in one small skip! :)
- the Conway line is ludicrous. But it's clear there's a fast-emerging talking point from the right: pin everything bad in Chch on Lianne. It's palpable BS but it's beginning to take. (And similarly, any story about Govt problems becomes about Cunliffe. Go figure.) -
Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to BenWilson,
If you don’t want to see it as a tax, no one can make you.
No. It just isn’t a tax, by any definition of tax I can think of.
And you won’t be able to stop most people seeing it as one.
Like the 2 million kiwis who have already opted , by your ‘definition’ to pay more tax? You can keep saying it, but that won’t make it true. You may be right. But what makes you so sure?
(I definitely don’t know ‘how people see kiwisaver’. It would seem reasonable that of those currently not enrolled, a significantly higher proportion will regard it as an imposition, cf those who’ve opted for it already. But you’re very ready to disregard the opinion of the many who have opted in.) -
Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to James Littlewood*,
What about the people who are already donkey deep in non KS plans,
Most plans have (or will develop) some sort of 'Kiwisaver compliant' option. Mine did. Stupid not to, with all the carrots there were for KS. Even stupider if they didn't once it becomes compulsary.
Of course only applies to standard investment funds. Putting money into rental properties, forestry blocks, gold bars, under sofas etc isn't going to qualify. -
Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to BenWilson,
Do you see why an economist picking a number out of their arse about how to compare OCR and VSR movements might be starting to annoy me?
Well, you did it :)
I agree, the degree to which this would work to control inflation is unknown. But it seems pretty straightforward that it should help. Taking money out of the economy is exactly what raising the OCR is intended to do. Why is enforced saving of some of that money, rather than spending it on higher interest rates, such a crazy idea? -
Hard News: A Big Idea, in reply to BenWilson,
But the longer that horizon is, the more like a tax it feels, and acts.
I just don't think that's true. Even if the *effect* is the same (and I don't think it is), psychologically it feels different.
Kiwisaver has seriously changed how much we're saving for retirement (and, ahem, first homes.) But by your reckoning, over 2 million NZers have *opted* to pay more tax?