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| Nick Clark | Senior Fellow | nick.clark@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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Cue the latest attempt, the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill. In my new research note, RMA Reform: Getting the new system right, I argue that the Bills have the right basic shape. But they are missing some critical pieces that would make them work as intended. The Government got the diagnosis right: the RMA had to be replaced. The new system should be based on property rights and make it easier to get things done. After thirty years of failure, this is the closest we have come to getting it right. An expert group drew up a plan, and Cabinet largely agreed with it. But somewhere in the drafting, the sharp edges got filed off. What is missing? The most striking gap is that, despite the whole reform being built around property rights, neither Bill mentions them. This is a serious omission. Moreover, compensation provisions (‘regulatory relief’) are too weak. The Bills also remove a longstanding requirement in the RMA for decision makers to weigh up costs and benefits. This is a problem when so much will be dependent on ministers’ decisions. Think of it like building a new motorway with no speed limits or road rules. The road might be well-designed, but without rules governing its use, things can still go badly wrong. The Government has chosen to keep the legislation ‘lean’, leaving most of the details to be filled in later by ministers through national directions. That can work - but only if the Bills include guardrails that stop ministerial powers from being misused or misread. Right now, those guardrails are not there. The Bills are also packed with multiple, vaguely worded goals without saying which take priority. This is a recipe for years of court battles. And for a reform intended to make housing more affordable, the provisions needed to satisfy the goal of competitive urban land markets are missing. The research note includes targeted amendments to improve the Bills, which are currently before the Environment Select Committee. The Government has signalled its willingness to rework the Bills to deliver on their original intent. That is an encouraging sign. After thirty years of learning what a broken resource management system costs, Parliament should not need another lesson. Explore Nick's research in greater detail through our new research note: RMA Reform: Getting the new system right. |
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| Dr Michael Johnston | Senior Fellow | michael.johnston@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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Everyone knows, more-or-less, what the outcome will be before bargaining even begins. The education budget is fixed, so the government negotiator has very little room to move. Typically, the ritual goes as follows. The government negotiator makes an opening offer, which the unions derisively reject. They advise their members to vote it down. Unions know the government negotiator operates within a fixed fiscal envelope. Their real objective, therefore, is not to radically increase the pay offer, but to achieve concessions on workload and conditions. The fight usually lasts a few months, with offers and counter claims. Sometimes the unions call strikes. Pressure mounts on the unions to settle. Their members don’t receive any pay increase until they do. Eventually, a settlement is reached, somewhere near the original offer, but with some of the concessions the union was seeking. The current round, which began last year, is ongoing. The secondary teachers’ union settled in December, but the primary teachers’ union decided to fight on. That may be a decision they live to regret. Instead of sticking to the choreographed moves, the Commissioner enabled school boards to increase the salaries of non-union members – about a third of the profession – by 4.7%. The union had received the same offer in February. They rejected it without even taking it to their members. Union spokesman Liam Rutherford said the Commissioner’s move was “a serious breach of good faith and undermined collective bargaining.” Good faith or not, Rutherford is right about collective bargaining. But contrary to his view, undermining collective bargaining is a good thing. Teachers’ unions have long used education reform as a bargaining chip in pay negotiations. Moreover, they insist that teachers be paid according to their length of service rather than how well they teach. Teachers should have a four-tier career structure. Advancement should be based on evidence of quality teaching, judged by expert panels. The top two tiers should attract considerably higher pay than any classroom teacher currently receives. Teachers at these levels should be curriculum leaders and train new teachers. The Commissioner has disrupted the ritual. Now it is time to end it once and for all. |
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| Jonathan Swift | Writer and essayist | insights@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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Superannuation reform is politically impossible, so let us not bother. Instead, let us fix the problem the way we have been fixing it anyway, just more honestly. The pension costs more every year because New Zealanders keep getting older. The only reason things aren’t even worse is that younger people keep arriving from overseas and paying taxes. Treasury confirms this. Migrants more than pull their weight. The system works. We just need more of them, and faster. But Treasury’s report was sceptical that New Zealand could attract enough migrants to make things balance. I propose Superannuation Sponsorship Pathways. Every retiree collecting the pension would be required to personally recruit one working-age migrant. Think of it as adopting a taxpayer. Start in Europe. Young Europeans have it worse than young New Zealanders. In Italy, every working-age person already helps cover almost 40% of a retiree. In Germany it is almost as bad. In New Zealand, each worker covers only about a quarter of a retiree. That is a bargain. Immigration New Zealand should put up billboards across southern Europe. Tired of having too much of your pay taken by the elderly? Move to New Zealand. You’ll pay less. Young Italians are not stupid. They know how much of their pay disappears before they see it. Put the offer on a bus and let them do the maths. Sponsored migrants must keep working and paying taxes. Each would get a yearly thank-you letter from their retiree explaining how the money was spent. A hip replacement. A power bill. Three weeks holidays in Tuscany the migrants just left. Top earners may receive a framed photo of their retiree enjoying retirement. Migrants are encouraged, but not yet required, to write back. And if the migrant stopped earning enough, their sponsor would have to help find them a new job, find a replacement or take a pension cut. A 90-day trial period will apply. Appeals may be lodged but will not be read. Retirees who recruit more than one migrant would earn bonuses: a pension top-up, early eligibility, or access to Gold Card Plus. That means priority seating on public transport, free scone upgrades, a dedicated supermarket checkout lane, and one airport lounge visit per sponsored migrant per year. None of this would be necessary if we simply raised the pension age. But turkeys do not vote for an earlier Christmas. |
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