Progressive Turmoil

It is commonly believed that NZ is a low wage economy compared with Australia. Lets assume that’s true, even when adjustments are made for the cost of living. How do we close the gap? The last government said we needed economic “transformation”; this government says its all about “productivity”. But neither of these terms mean much to ordinary voting folk unless some of the benefits flow through into wages.

The size of the pie matters of course, when thinking about how it is shared. So thanks should go to the nice people at Grant Thornton who have compared (pdf) the market performance of groups of companies in NZ and Australia. The sample is biased by being bourse-bound (listed firms) but is still interesting.

Here are the rates of return on assets over the 5 years to September:

Notice that for industries supplying many of the essentials of life in NZ, the rates of return are much higher in NZ than Australia: food, building products, telecommunications, construction materials, airfreight & logistics. Further digging required.

The diversity of FaceBook groups is amazing, and I’m speaking here as a very occassional dabbler. Who knows what a deep search would uncover?

The last one that got me interested was the superb “Should assault, as part of a good relationship be a criminal offence in NZ?” group that attracted almost 2000 members and many more hilarious spoofs on the ridiculous referendum question.

But now I’m following this little cracker. It was set up as “A group for people who are against Maori getting a free pass to university with no qualifications”, in which form it attracted over 7000 members and elicited opinions every bit as repulsive as the worst of David Farrar’s unmoderated comments sections.

More recently, David Small (who is my brother) has acquired administrative control, changed the description to “This group is a demonstration of the nature of racism in New Zealand”, and started challenging the group. Join the fun here.

The concept of ‘NZ Inc’ is used a lot these days  to refer to things where the national interest could benefit from more centralised planning/action (eg education, politics, science). The meaning is not entirely clear. It seems to lean towards the Singaporean, presumably with more freedom of expression.

Here is a thought experiment: suppose we wanted to refresh/develop New Zealand’s brand. How would we do that, and what would be the result? If this question seems crazy, ask yourself what foreigners think of when they hear “New Zealand”. Like it or not, New Zealand already has many brands: they are whatever people associate with the country. (more…)