Should the Reserve Bank target unemployment as well as inflation? Will the new government abolish the dual mandate?
Back in 1989 – near the end of the fourth Labour government – the inflation-busting Reserve Bank Act was passed. Labour has shifted well away from the Rogernomics of that decade, and in 2021 Grant Robertson added maximum sustainable employment to the bank’s mandate - with the support of coalition partner NZ First.
The next three years – the job ahead for Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori
The Fabians had a session on Nov 14th reflecting on the elections. Our panel of Simon Wilson, Senior Writer at NZ Herald, Bridie Witton, Stuff Press Gallery Reporter and Ollie Neas, freelance writer used the election results as a springboard to target some of the key issues for Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori as they head into opposition.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Pae Ora health reforms with you.
Since I was sacked by the Health Minister I have taken time to reflect on the experience and to make a considered assessment of what I learned in the process. My intention tonight is to share that with you, making the assumption that we share common ground in wanting to have an effective, efficient, excellent and equitable public health service.
If anyone does not want that, I don’t really have anything useful to share with you.
Interview transcript: Ambassador Wang Xiaolong with NZ Fabian Society
Hello, my name is Mike Smith, from the New Zealand Fabian Society. It's my great pleasure today to interview Ambassador Wang Xiaolong from the People's Republic of China to talk with us about China's values. I heard Ambassador Wang speak at a meeting convened by the Institute of International Relations(NZIIA) last year and in the course of that meeting, he addressed the question of China's values and said, "China's choice for values, social system and path to modernity is made by our own people, based on our own history, culture and realities. All these choices have proven to be suitable and effective to solve China's problems and meet the needs of the Chinese people".
Alan Johnson recently gave a challenging talk to the Fabian Society in Auckland on what social housing has become and might become. He made the point that the biggest deficit in the social housing equation is a philosophical one and that any future for social housing is dependent on finding a firm philosophical justification for this programme. Above all, Alan sees that any lasting solution must be firmly grounded in community involvement.
Alan's slides can be downloaded here and his notes here.
Wellington's Connolly Hall was packed full last week for Geoff Bertram's brilliant lecture on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Geoff will repeat the lecture in Auckland next month.
Piketty's book has become an international best-seller, unusual for a treatise on economics. Dr Geoff Bertram summarises it as follows - The economic logic of a capitalist market system with private wealth plus inheritance leads to a highly unequal, but stable, social order with a patrimonial rentier class at the top. Whether this social order is compatible with democracy depends on what a democratic society is prepared to tolerate. If the capitalist distributional equilibrium does not lie within the boundaries of democratic tolerance, one or the other has to give.
Geoff will expand on this summary and explain why he thinks the work will earn Piketty a Nobel Prize. 6:30pm, Monday 1 September, University of Auckland. You can register here.
Robert Howell has recently returned from Canberra where he worked part-time with the Australian Quaker Peace and Earthcare Committees. During his time in Australia he also helped establish the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility to assist investors. He is one of the authors of Right Relationship Building a Whole Earth Economy, and one of a team of authors from Sustainable Aotearoa New Zealand in their publication, Strong Sustainability for New Zealand Principles and Scenarios.
The first presentation looked at the necessary foundations for a resilient economy based on modern science and ethics. The second presentation discussed some policy implications, and in particular ways to adapt to a turbulent future threatened by climate change, peak oil, water and food insecurity, and financial and banking system failures.
Suggestions were made for all sectors on how to change our investment and banking systems that are in keeping with scientific and ethical principles, and some of the ways that New Zealand can adapt and prepare for the rapid changes and crises that will be forced upon us by an international trading regime that can no longer cope.
The diagram from the first presentation is here, and the slides and audio recordings at the links above.
The painting in the photo above is of Fairburn, aged about 23, by Annette Isbey. Obscured is Phil Harington and at right is Christine Rose.In 1944, ARD Fairburn gave a lecture to the Auckland Fabian Club entitled 'The Land Our Life', a prescient inquiry into the relationship of 'modern' NZ society, industrial farming and their relationships with nature. The paper was was recently rediscovered and, last month, an Auckland audience enjoyed a fascinating event that saw Denys Trussell and Christine Rose revisit Fairburn's lecture.
A scan of the original paper is here, with a more legible pdf incorporating Fairburn's corrections here. We also have recordings of Denys Trussell's and Christine Rose's contributions. A PDF of Denys' paper is here and Christine's here.
As part of our commitment to ‘alternative narratives’ we are pleased to return to a topic introduced in 2013 by Professor David Mayes, Prof of Banking and Financial Institutions, Director Europe Institute and NZ Governance Centre, University of Auckland.
Even before the global financial crisis people had a pretty cynical view of ethical standards in finance, assisted by the collapse of the deposit-taking finance company sector. Now they probably view the Alex cartoon in the New Zealand Herald as summing up the behaviour of investment banks, at least. This is in striking contrast to what they do with their money. Most people are happy to lend their money at low rates of interest to banks without any security or hold over how they use that money. They behave as if they have made a deposit in Harry Potter's Gringotts Bank and it is being held for them completely safely in a well locked vault.
The presentation will generate discussion into how the financial system can be better regulated and will review where regulation in New Zealand has got to compared with the rest of the advanced countries. It is essential to consider Australia in particular as the strength of our financial system depends on what happens there. It is also worth considering why things were so much better (if they were) years ago, such as in the 'free banking' period in Scotland in the nineteenth century.
It will help with our planning if you register here.