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An apology from the Executive Director
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Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz
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Dear Insights readers,
Last week we published a piece of mine on the alleged Vehicle Management Act in Insights. The article suggested that banning car imports, increasing the costs of servicing cars and an outright prohibition on vehicle manufacturing in New Zealand would be a good way of increasing car prices. In this way, we could all feel wealthier – just as rising house prices may make us feel wealthier, too.
Pity though that this would also reduce our country’s mobility, make it harder for people to own their own car and would have to put up with outdated and less energy efficient cars over time. But then again, the very same negative side effects are also present in our housing market that it is increasingly becoming unaffordable.
The article was so over-the-top and the proposals so ridiculous that I believed it would be obvious it was meant to be a satire. Sadly, I was wrong.
Over the past days, we received a few comments back on my interesting proposals and were asked for further information. Probably because we have become so used to silly pieces of law and regulation, even outlandish and satirical ideas can be confused with reality.
Before any politicians stumble across the idea of a Vehicle Management Act and try to introduce it into parliament, let me just make it clear that this was never meant seriously. We Germans do have a sense of humour, you know. Sometimes it is just a little harder to pick up.
So with apologies for any inconvenience caused, I hope you will enjoy this week’s edition of Insights. We reserve the right to run humorous pieces in the past. Perhaps next time we flag them more strongly.
Best wishes,
Oliver
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Police versus the rule of law
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Dr Eric Crampton | Head of Research | eric.crampton@nzinitiative.org.nz
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The power to say no is also the power to make the rules, or at least in part.
Parliament legislates. But it also makes rules giving other people a bit of legislative power too. Parliament does this whenever it sets policies letting someone hold up or block someone else’s otherwise lawful activities. These "veto players" can demand concessions in exchange for not vetoing.
Suppose your house has heritage features. A heritage society could threaten to make it hard for you to get consent for an addition onto the back of the house - unless you incorporate features that make them happy. Maybe they do not have the explicit right to do that, but because RMA processes let them make things hard for you, their veto power lets them extract concessions.
The Dominion Post this week reported on the police’s use of veto power around alcohol policy. The police recently have seemed to be trying to establish regulatory powers that they were never granted through the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act. Because police and medical officers of health can hold up publicans’ and bottle shops’ liquor licences, they can demand concessions. In Wellington, they are only supporting new bottle stores downtown if the shops run restricted trading hours and only sell expensive products.
Bar and bottle shop owners who do not want trouble with the police play along because that is the safer route. The costs to them of licence objections or of heavy handed police enforcement are too high. While the government explicitly rejected alcohol minimum pricing last year; the police are implementing it anyway, store by store.
Parliament last week had to legislate around some of these veto players. The 2012 Sale and Supply of Liquor Act provided special permits to let bars open at non-standard hours during international sporting events. The Committee Report was explicit that this was one of the points of special permits. But, the veto players have said that international rugby matches on their own do not justify a special licence. And police have objected to World Cup special license applications.
David Seymour’s bill allowing extended hours during the Rugby World Cup is great. But there is a bigger issue at play: the government needs to rein in the police lest Parliament again have to legislate around the veto player it created.
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Policy Quarterly
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Dr Bryce Wilkinson | Senior Fellow | bryce.wilkinson@nzinitiative.org.nz
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The current issue of Policy Quarterly, published by Victoria University of Wellington, has a special focus on Budget 2015. It kicks off with an article by New Zealand Children's Commissioner, Richard Wills.
Its title presumptively asks "Has Budget 2015 solved child poverty"? Given Wills’ position as Children’s Commissioner, his answer "not yet" was a no brainer. But did anyone really claim the budget did solve child poverty?
Wills’ thoughtful article considered that what was missing was a plan to reduce child poverty over time: "That is what we need," he writes.
Really? Do 'we' need a plan or a strategy? Does the government not have one? What if academics, voluntary organisations and whanau have different plans, and there is no agreed plan?
I wrote the second article on welfare. It somewhat supportively put Budget 2015 into the broader context of government's overall strategy for improving longer-run outcomes for welfare recipients. But I considered that Budget 2015 was 'lame' on measures to lift real incomes through greater productivity growth and job creation.
Further articles were more critical of Budget 2015 for not doing more to alleviate welfare problems immediately through greater government regulation (e.g. of rental housing) or greater government spending on social assistance. One of these argued that hardship due to inadequate social assistance was "unacceptable".
Unacceptable to whom? Politicians face a multitude of voices diversely demanding more money for health, education, transport, the environment, workplace safety and much else. Interest groups and government bureaucracies are not known for volunteering to set aside their own 'silo' priorities.
At a deeper level, voters' willingness to spend on social assistance surely depends on their perceptions of the causes of hardship. That question needs to be explored more than was done in this issue of Policy Quarterly, which still makes a worthwhile contribution to the debate.
Victoria University has to be commended for providing such a forum for high-quality and passionate policy debates.
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| On The Record |
- A safe bet on next global crisis, Dr Oliver Hartwich, The National Business Review, 21 August 2015.
- The third Greek bailout package is destined to fail, Dr Oliver Hartwich, Business Spectator, 20 August 2015.
- Greece saved!?, Dr Oliver Hartwich, SBS Radio (in German), 20 August 2015.
- Internet sales GST ‘could drive firms out of NZ market’, Dr Eric Crampton, The New Zealand Herald, 19 August 2015.
- Retailers: Extend online GST to low-value goods, Dr Eric Crampton, 3 News, 18 August 2015.
- Government looking at ways to add GST to online services, Dr Eric Crampton, Radio New Zealand, 18 August 2015.
- ‘NZers have the right to sell their assets to whoever they like’ – NZ Initiative, Dr Bryce Wilkinson, ONE News, 17 August 2015.
- Largest foreign investor in NZ revealed, Radio New Zealand, 17 August 2015.
- Has Budget 2015 solved child poverty?, Dr Bryce Wilkinson, Policy Quarterly, August 2015.
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A Matter of Balance: Regulating Safety finds that WorkSafe regulations for falls from heights have not struck the right balance between increasing safety and additional cost, affecting homeowners and the housing market. Download PDF.
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Un(ac)countable: Why millions on maths returned little finds that the $70 million Numeracy Project rolled out to most schools 15 years ago to teach multiple methods of solving maths problems hasn't delivered results. Download PDF.
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The New Zealand Initiative's 2015-2017 research programme will have a key focus on social policy, local government funding and housing affordability, and education.
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