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| Roger Partridge | Chair and Senior Fellow | roger.partridge@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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None of it was funded by raising taxes. None of it was funded by taking on more debt. New South Wales raised more than A$50 billion between 2012 and 2024 by selling or leasing assets the state did not need to own and channelling the proceeds into a dedicated infrastructure fund. The approach is called “asset recycling” – and research found that 61 per cent of residents supported it once they could see the infrastructure being delivered. New Zealand faces the same problem NSW faced in 2011. The Crown sits on a $600 billion balance sheet, yet the country cannot fund the infrastructure it needs. Most of the Crown’s assets support public services – roads, schools, hospitals, and social housing. But bolted on is a $24 billion assemblage of commercial enterprises. Stakes in electricity generators and an airline. A bank. A courier company. A television network. 112 farms. $24 billion is equivalent to more than a dozen major new hospitals. Treasury Secretary Iain Rennie has warned the country will not grow its way out of its fiscal difficulties. The Prime Minister has called for a more mature conversation about state asset ownership – though subsequent comments cast some doubt on whether that extends to ownership of the national airline. This week, The New Zealand Initiative released Renovating the Nation, a report proposing that New Zealand adopt the NSW model. The report recommends the Crown sell commercial assets it does not need to own and channel proceeds into a ring-fenced National Infrastructure Fund. New Zealand has tried asset sales before. Voters remember what was sold, not what the proceeds achieved. NSW succeeded where New Zealand failed because of three safeguards we should copy. They ring-fenced proceeds so the money could not vanish into the government’s coffers. They ensured additionality so proceeds supplemented rather than replaced normal capital budgets. They chose projects from a menu – independently verified by the NSW infrastructure commission – rather than on political whim. The Infrastructure Commission’s National Infrastructure Plan confirms the scale of New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit – but the Commission has no mandate to recommend infrastructure priorities. The report explains how to close the gap. An election looms in November. Voters deserve to know where the parties stand on meeting the nation’s infrastructure needs. The blueprint is ready. To learn more about Roger’s research, read the full report, watch the webinar and listen to our podcast. |
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| Dr Michael Johnston | Senior Fellow | michael.johnston@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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Older Kiwis witnessed the defeat of fascism and the advent of democracy in Germany, Italy and Japan. Middle-aged New Zealanders remember the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of democracy across Eastern Europe. For our younger citizens, democracy is a harder sell. According to a report from Cambridge University’s Centre for the Future of Democracy, 18-34-year-olds around the world take a much dimmer view of democracy than previous generations did at the same age. This should come as no surprise. Many young people are locked out of the housing market. Real wage growth is anaemic at best. The public square has moved online and become toxic. For all its flaws and foibles, democracy remains the best hope for human flourishing. And the best hope for saving it – apart, perhaps, from fixing the housing market – lies in education. I don’t mean civics classes. While we should teach young people about our electoral system and the separation of powers, there is little evidence that civics knowledge does much to improve esteem for democracy. The heart and soul of democracy is in the willingness of citizens who disagree to coexist, debate, and learn from one another. Data from Pew Research suggest we have got much worse at that in recent decades. Enter American philosopher Peter Boghossian, currently in New Zealand as a guest of the Free Speech Union. Over the next two months, Peter will visit schools around the country, training teachers and students to have impossible conversations. His technique involves laying mats on the ground, labelled with a scale running from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Participants stand on the mat corresponding to their level of agreement with a statement like, ‘New Zealand should become a republic.’ Then they are invited to argue for their opinion. They can move if they are persuaded by someone else’s argument. Changing one’s mind is encouraged. In fact, one of Peter’s favourite questions is, ‘What would it take to change your mind?’ I will accompany Peter to conduct research on whether his exercise makes young people more tolerant of disagreement. I’ll keep you posted on the results. According to Canadian philosopher Joni Mitchell, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” Let’s hope we can prove her wrong when it comes to democracy. |
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| Dr Benno Blaschke | Research Fellow | benno.blaschke@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
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The New Zealand Herald, meanwhile, led with a courier van shooting from eighteen months ago. To be fair, the Herald did not entirely ignore the unfolding global catastrophe. Somewhere in the middle of the page, between butter prices and a rare whale rescued from Auckland harbour, readers could find a reference to Iran. But it was competing for attention with an out-of-work Better Call Saul actor resorting to delivery driving, and a real estate power couple’s big plans for Christchurch. The Post, for its part, gave its top billing to the new All Blacks coach. Dave Rennie’s appointment is undeniably significant. The question of who will guide fifteen men around a paddock with an oval ball clearly rivals the question of whether the Middle East will still exist next month. One could accuse our newspapers of failing in their duty to inform. But that would miss the point. As any economist will tell you, newspapers give readers precisely what they demand. And what New Zealand demands, apparently, is rugby, real estate and the occasional stranded cetacean. It was not always thus. There was a time when New Zealand papers maintained foreign desks and covered international affairs with genuine depth. That era died alongside the classified advertisement, which once cross-subsidised the sort of journalism readers would never have paid for directly. What remains is a media landscape perfectly calibrated to our appetites. And our appetites, it turns out, are parochial in the extreme. This is not entirely unreasonable. New Zealand does sit a very long way from everywhere, and the war in Iran feels remote from these shores. Until, of course, petrol prices spike, shipping routes close and export markets wobble. Then it will suddenly feel rather close indeed. But for now, we can take comfort. The All Blacks have a new coach. The butter situation is being closely monitored. And somewhere in the middle distance, empires are quietly rearranging themselves without us. They do say that ignorance is bliss. If that is true, then New Zealand must be the happiest country on Earth. |
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