1996

Tertiary education needs a big overhaul
The other day I heard a radio interview with a university professor, close to retirement after 35 years teaching and research at universities both abroad and here, in which he bemoaned the 1990's approach to university education in New Zealand. A repeated strain from him was that the university-educated staff at the Treasury and within the ranks of the...
24 December 1996 - education - Gareth Morgan

Christmas Cheer
The new coalition government has entered into the spirit of Christmas with a sack full of fiscal goodies to cheer us all up. Winston works well as Father Christmas - his charm and bonhomie is in stark contrast with the scrooge-like fiscal attitude of Richardson and Birch. He’s also been blessed with a host of dedicated and energetic Treasury elves who’ve pinched and cribbed for these past six ...
18 December 1996 - politics - Andrew Gawith

What goes around, comes around
"Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season". (Mark Twain). And so National once again proves, political longevity is about being flexible. That's what made Roger Douglas such a freak - somebody that didn't give a damn what the voters thought or felt,...
17 December 1996 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Farmers miss the point
To hear some farmers go on about it, you’d think the exchange rate was the only price that really mattered to their business. Yet for most of them the international price of their basic product fluctuates much more than the New Zealand dollar from year to year. They willingly engage in a business where the final output price for a season ahead is far more variable than the currency in which they ...
11 December 1996 - markets / regulation - Clive Thorp

A Government, But Not at Any Price
In the coalition talks the participants are unwisely trying to form definitive policy positions on major issues before they even form a government. They are deluding themselves as to their mandate to do so. The new government will sag under an avalanche of criticism if it announces formal agreement on such matters as compulsory superannuation, delivery structures in health, the monetary ...
3 December 1996 - politics - Phillip Wrigley

Loonies For Compulsion On The Loose
Here it comes - the Power of One which MMP promised, has arrived. That the vagaries of the coalition-forming process extend so far as to confer some political bit player, refulgent under the spotlight for all of 5 minutes, the licence to overturn rational, consensus policy is a bad but predictable start for the new electoral system. All indications are that Winston Peters’ moment in the sun ...
27 November 1996 - retirement / super - Gareth Morgan

MMP becoming a joke
As the coalition negotiations move into their final stages it is pertinent to consider the trade-offs each parties will have to make in order to participate in the new governing regime. With MMP demonstrating a role for parliament as intermediary in the choice of the government, we will soon see whether this intervention is a positive, negative or...
26 November 1996 - politics - Gareth Morgan

Investment and the art of motorcycle riding
I won't be writing about the health sector again for a while. It is clearly sick, my evidence for which is underpinned by the vitriolic and sometimes anonymous responses from participants who see the realm as theirs and not for the customers. Then there were those providers who suggested that for my next operation I might try Australia as the...
19 November 1996 - markets / regulation - Gareth Morgan

Computing Madness
Businesses continue to pour money into computing to quench the thirst of egos, software and in many cases the vain pursuit of value or even productivity. The old screens and boxes pile up in office corners shunned by staff who find they are useless at running little Johnnie’s gruesome and computer hungry games at home. Businesses have doubled their real spending on computers every year ...
19 November 1996 - industry policy - Andrew Gawith

Do Consumers Really Know Best?
Real growth in service sector sales is prosaic, even though the general perception is that the exuberant middle to high income households are in the middle of a services spending frenzy. The only reason why there is any growth at all in this sector is because of the continued spending on cafes and restaurants. And that is the hardest part of all to fathom. Spending is increasing on cafés ...
13 November 1996 - markets / regulation - Andrew Comber

Economics of health still more than a bit shonky
The current state of the health sector is accommodating a wide diversity of pricing and trade practices, as disparities of hospital charging and availability of health services attest. Depending upon which region one lives in, and/or which private facility one utilises, the access and cost of health care varies. Now in any market we expect to find some price...
12 November 1996 - health - Gareth Morgan

Kiwi Host or Hoax?
The Tourism Board recently provided an ‘inflight’ video to airlines bringing Korean tourists here to inform them about some of our quaint local customs, like paying for entry to tourist attractions in New Zealand, rather than us, dollars, and being free to choose where to shop. It seems that as neophyte tourists, Koreans represent an irresistible opportunity to some elements in the tourism ...
6 November 1996 - industry policy - Clive Thorp

We still haven't got health system right
Last week I cited the apparent overcharging I experienced for an operation I'd needed, as being symptomatic of a health sector that bears a poor semblance to an efficient market. The combination of our public system with queues, with the private pay-for-service health sector largely funded via insurance premiums, seems to me not to be optimal. The core...
5 November 1996 - health - Gareth Morgan