POLITICS : After the makeover queen
(September 2010)
Political parties’ brands are defined by their leaders. Can John Key build a brand as strong as the Helen Clark makeover.
ECONOMICS : Selling the family China
(September 2010)
As the spotlight falls on foreign interests bidding for large land holdings, Bob Edlin examines the debate: to sell or not to sell?
JUST GOOD BUSINESS - SUSTAINABILITY : Business saving the planet
(August 2010)
Chief executives globally are more convinced than ever of the need to embed environmental, social and corporate governance issues within their core businesses. The imperative to act is moving from a moral to a business case, according to the findings of the largest-ever global survey of CEOs on their sustainable business views and practices. In many ways it mirrors the values of New Zealand business decision-makers.
POLITICS : What style is our leader?
(August 2010)
As the world changes, so do politicians’ leadership styles. It’s not business as usual. After every big technology-induced economic boom and crash, things are done differently. After the “great financial crash”, politics, like business, requires a different sort of leader and a different sort of leadership. This is only partly because governments think they need to re-regulate those who caused the crash. It is also only partly because most governments in the rich world have mountains of debt and huge budget deficits to defray.
ECONOMICS: It’s a question of management
(August 2010)
Finance Minister Bill English obviously enjoys answering patsy Parliamentary questions that have been crafted to allow him to claim or infer that his economic management is greatly superior to that of his Labour predecessor. An example: an innocent-sounding question from MP Amy Adams about challenges in the economy to creating permanent and sustainable jobs.
JUST GOOD BUSINESS BUZZ - SUSTAINABILITY : Lost in the bush
(July 2010)
At one Coromandel tourist spot I visited last year with my family I was invited to donate a gold coin for a stop-mining bumper sticker. This possibly sums up our ambivalence about mining. The catalyst in my hybrid car may use platinum, but I’d like to be able to use it without any mining. The mining industry’s a perfect example of why behaving sustainably is crucial to an industry’s future. And why the industry is having such a hard time selling the idea of mining high-value conservation land.
POLITICS : When better is better than more
(July 2010)
Last year John Key, ex-banker, went to his first National party conference as Prime Minister as the adulated winner who had restored the party to power. This year he is the Prime Minister who has taken the party into uncomfortable territory in his dealings with iwi leaders. Next year, will he be the economic game-changing Prime Minister? Key’s prime ministership so far looks like one aimed more at keeping the party in power than at finding pathways to new riches.
ECONOMICS: It’s fragile out there
(July 2010)
The global financial markets remained “fragile”, Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard said when releasing the latest Financial Stability Report. The sovereign debt concerns facing some European economies presented “a risk of further turbulence” and New Zealand happens to have a whopping external debt, making it vulnerable to any renewed deterioration in global debt markets. The good news for financial stability was that New Zealand households had increased their savings, but households must remain cautious about piling up more debt as the recovery continued.
THOUGHT LEADER : Why isn’t education working?
(June 2010)
Education for work – vocational and tertiary education – is vitally important to New Zealand’s economy, but it is less successful than it should be. Despite a huge investment of taxpayer dollars, the outcomes from polytechnics, universities and other tertiary education organisations have been criticised. And a large proportion of New Zealand workers have no qualifications at all. Low completion rates are one problem, with as many as 40 percent of all students in tertiary education failing to finish their course or qualification.
POLITICS : What has the Maori party really won?
(June 2010)
Which major party is harder-nosed on bicultural issues: the supposedly soft-centred left-of-centre Labour party or the supposedly hard-nosed right-of-centre National party? The answer will be obvious from the mere posing of the question. The Maori party hates the Labour party for its foreshore and seabed law. It basks in the National party’s indulgence on whanau ora, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, repeal of the foreshore law and, still to come as this was written, a constitutional review. It doesn’t like much of National’s social and economic legislation.
ECONOMICS: Kicking profits into touch
(June 2010)
The World Cup was still more than a year away in early May, when news media reported that accommodation providers in Auckland were ramping prices several hundred percent above usual rates and adding long minimum-stay provisions. Property owners were asking for several thousand dollars a week to rent out their homes to rugby fans. One Mt Eden bed and breakfast establishment asked $1600 a night. But Bruce Robertson, from the Hospitality Association of New Zealand, told TVNZ’s Breakfast programme several major factors would make $1600 a night in fact a valid amount to charge.
