New Ideas & Other Stuff

Well the signals are going out to say the future tax cuts may not eventuate. The reason being given is the economic down turn. There seems to be some sort of irony in this as the tax cuts were one of the major planks put forward in the last election campaign. Another inferred justification is that the initial tax cuts which were meant to be the first of three are not stimulating the economy as it was thought they would. People have not rushed out and spent their extra money preferring to save the money or use it to service debt. I also think that many have used the money simple to help bridge the ever widening gap between the out goings and the income received.

Well the fall out continues with even wider dissatisfaction in the Maori community. A large protest is planned for the 25 May and many of the Maori comunity feeling they should have direct representation on the council as of right based on the treaty. The current regional Mayors seem less than satisfied with the proposed super city and are in discussion with the minister of local government.
As an aside there are also calls for a separate prison system for Maori as the current system is said to fail Maori. During all of this Mr Key Prime Mister is out of the country and the acting Prime Minister is extreemly low key, no pun intended.

Well the National Government has backed the Super City proposal and Auckland will become one of the biggest cities in the southern hemisphere. Many small councils will disappear. The public seem to be far from unanimous about the decision. Government has also removed the option of Maori representation. This has angered the Maori party and all in all there seems to be a lot of people dissatisfied with the decision. It seems that Auckland will be the “guinea pig” and the same process may be applied to other cities.
The whole process will be a very expensive and although there are predicted cost savings in the long term. There are some questions that can only be answered by implementation and many predicted outcomes are by no means certain. A number of prominent academics feel that in the current economic climate a decision such as this is badly timed and will not in any way assist New Zealand’s economic recovery.