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New Zealand’s border is its first line of defence against Covid-19. The gross failures exhibited this week cannot be repeated and require a complete reversal of the Government’s border procedures. Read more
Wellington, 19 June 2020 - To plug the fiscal gap created by Covid-19, the Government must rethink its retirement income policies, according to a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. So far, the Government’s primary responses to the challenges of Covid-19 appear to have focused on spending more money to help New Zealand’s lagging economy. Read more
On this week’s podcast, reports this week show that New Zealand’s quarantine protocols are not as robust as people thought and the question of what to do about protecting the border from fresh Covid-19 cases is now front and centre. Our chief economist Dr Eric Crampton is outlining a gold standard quarantine system which may need to involve the private sector and require a deep rethink from the Government. Read more
Never have governments and central banks spent other people’s money more freely to support incomes and boost banking system liquidity. Never before have the world’s major central banks’ policy interest rates been clustered so close to zero, if not already in negative territory. Read more
Wellington, 16 June 2020 - The Government’s refusal to let its skilled public servants advise a Select Committee about new legislation is “deeply concerning,” said The New Zealand Initiative. Today, the Environment Select Committee published its final report on Minister Shane Jones' Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Bill. Read more
This week, Trade and Export Minister David Parker was exposed to one of the world’s worst ailments: trade protectionism. After nearly two years of negotiations, the EU leaked its agricultural “offer” to New Zealand to European media. Read more
For the last couple of decades, public debt and banking system liquidity has been ratcheting up around the world after each recession or market correction. But no one appears to have any credible plan for restoring public debt, liquidity or central bank policy rates to normal levels. Read more
In just a few months, Covid-19 travelled from China to more than 200 other countries, has now killed more than 330,000 people, forced organisations and individuals to embrace new practices such as remote working and plenty of tech shifts. The term “frequent flyer” will now be an anachronism and many think the pandemic spelled the death of market economies and globalisation. Read more
Wellington, 12 June 2020 - New Zealand is now on a dangerous path to higher public debt and unprecedented money printing with no credible plan for unwinding the situation before the next crisis, warns a new report by The New Zealand Initiative. Covid-19 and the various types of lockdown responses have caused many governments to go even more heavily into debt and print money to sustain asset prices with borrowed money. Read more
Ten weeks later, the coronavirus has revealed the government’s tightrope of managing the deeper changes happening to New Zealand’s economy. Crises always show the cracks. Read more