|
You are subscribed as |
Unsubscribe
|
View online version
|
Forward to a friend
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Dr Oliver Hartwich | Executive Director | oliver.hartwich@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
|
But that is roughly where the similarities end. Which makes it surprising just how quickly commentators jumped from the Panama Papers to assumptions about New Zealand’s offshore trusts regime. It is even more surprising since no New Zealanders were mentioned in the papers. For a start, there is an obvious difference in legal and political culture. One only has to look at The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. New Zealand is ranked sixth whereas Panama comes 49th. The claim that New Zealand was home to tax-evasion models similar to those revealed in the Panama Papers is just that: a claim. Thus far, we have not seen any evidence that the practices of the now infamous Mossack Fonseca law firm have any equivalent here. Though it is true that offshore trusts operating in New Zealand enjoy favourable conditions, that does not make New Zealand an offender. New Zealand is a member of international organisations such as the Financial Action Task Force, the OECD and the WTO. Revenue Minister Michael Woodhouse correctly pointed out that the OECD reviewed New Zealand’s tax transparency regime and rated it fully compliant. Rather than following reflexes to draw parallels that may not exist, it would have been wiser to calmly check the facts first. However, political reflexes continued when the Prime Minister announced the review of the foreign trust disclosure regime. This time, the government’s critics focused on the person selected for the job, former PwC chair John Shewan. For full disclosure, John and I are both on the selection committee for the Robin Oliver Tax Policy Scholarships. What he brings to this pro-bono role is not just decades of experience in tax matters but also a genuine commitment to good tax policy. I would imagine that this background was precisely why Shewan was also chosen to review the offshore regime. That he has previous practical experience is not a drawback but the requirement for a thorough review. Before jumping to any premature conclusions, we should give Shewan a fair chance to conduct his review. Maybe that is not the way things are done in Panama, but that is how we do things here. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Martine Udahemuka | Research Fellow | martine.udahemuka@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
|
It sounds like a cliché but it applies neatly to the portrayal of our schools and students. This week the Herald released its annual league tables ranking all secondary schools on the basis of 2015 academic results. If you were a parent wanting to choose a school for your child and you valued academic excellence, you would naturally start at the top of those league tables. And likely to no surprise, you will note that the most successful schools are in the leafy suburbs. Typically, higher decile schools are rewarded with public praise while lower decile schools are punished. Schools that have not met national targets are labelled as poor performers. However the story is incomplete because the rankings fail to show how much each school helped its students to improve. Should a school that brings its students from years behind national benchmarks to only a few months behind be considered a failure? This is an area the Initiative has been looking at in our project on school failure. The first report in the series makes a case that New Zealand needs better metrics of school quality. The issues identified in the report are not unique to New Zealand. Indeed for the second phase of the project, I will visit Washington DC to learn about how improved measures of performance have supported student achievement. The DC Public School district has in recent years revamped their teacher evaluation processes to include measures that show how much students learn in different classrooms. Initial reviews show overall improvement in teacher quality and in student learning outcomes. In New Zealand, current indicators of performance do not take into account students’ backgrounds. Principals and teachers may then be fighting a battle they cannot win if their quality continues to be judged on matters they cannot control. The young students too are impressionable. If their schools continue to be consistently ranked at the bottom of the performance tables, they may start believing that the bottom is all they can do. The DC example provides an opportunity to learn from other jurisdictions that are being innovative in their school improvement approaches. |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Jenesa Jeram | Policy Analyst | jenesa.jeram@nzinitiative.org.nz | ||||||||||||
|
Well, at the risk of making others feel inferior for not observing this, I would like to point out the political brilliance of Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is not your typical Kiwi comedy. It is nuanced political commentary on the rise of paternalism. It may even be the most libertarian film New Zealand has produced. I will admit, I too would have been blind to its genius if I hadn’t been so inspired by recent academic approaches to New Zealand film. But after discovering a doctoral thesis studying the kinds of tourists who visit Lord of the Rings sets, I unequivocally support deepening this pool of knowledge. The genre of New Zealand libertarian comedy is limited, which may explain why it has yet to receive the attention it deserves. Before this cinematic gem, the closest thing was probably David Seymour’s 2014 campaign video, which has clocked 41,491 views on YouTube (though the jury’s still out over whether the humour was intentional). Wilderpeople centres around a young boy, Ricky, who is taken into foster care. When the foster mother dies, the state decides it is not appropriate to leave the boy in the care of the foster father. Rather than surrender to the state, Ricky joins the father in “going bush”. So what are the libertarian themes here? First, the state can be power-hungry. It can be incompetent. And can grossly misinterpret what people want for themselves. In the film, Paula the child welfare officer expresses little concern for the boy she is tasked with taking into state care. Her mission to find Ricky is a test of her ego. The help Ricky receives from the state is neither particularly helpful nor welcome. The film in its entirety is a wonderful ode to freedom. Maybe the New Zealand arts scene isn’t ready to come out of the closet as libertarian yet. Then again, maybe this is all a bit of a stretch: an attempt to add layers of meaning where it is not needed. Either way, I hope someday libertarian comedy receives as much scholarly attention as feminist glacial theory, the cultural impact of Kanye West, and how Harry Potter reinforces white privilege . |
||||||||||||
| On The Record | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| All Things Considered | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
Unsubscribe me please |
|
Brought to you by outreachcrm |