No, not gay marriage (though that might). What will end in tears is Labour/the Greens NZ Power policy. I have already blogged how the policy itself is economic incompetence. And, despite Brian Rudman and Bryce Edwards waxing lyrical about the policy being similar to the Pharmac model, I have demonstrated that this is also a [...]

Following on from yesterday’s post Matt McCarten makes a strange comparison between Labour’s blast-from-the past policy of power price control and Pharmac: At home, the parallel in the health sector is Pharmac, which uses its buying monopoly to negotiate prices with multinational drug companies. It saves us billions of dollars. I haven’t heard the Government [...]

Labour and the Green’s odd electricity price control policy has clearly been designed with only one real purpose in mind – to disrupt the sale of Mighty River Power and reduce the amount realised on the sale, to the detriment of National. This type of “scorched earth” thinking from the left is hardly unusual; Cullen’s [...]

Now here is a very bad idea. Only students doing courses that benefit the economy should receive interest-free loans, according to a suggestion from a leading accountancy group. The idea in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2011 was prompted by “long-term decline” of graduates entering agriculture. While I have sympathy for the agribusiness sector, because it is [...]

What is it with those on the left and tax avoidance? Arranging your affairs so that you pay as little tax as possible is a normal business practice, as long as it is legal. In New Zealand we have recently had plenty of people moaning about the use of trust structures and offshore accounts, as [...]

The Myth of the Evil Employer Last Sunday Helen Kelly launched into a revealing diatribe about employee/employer relationships: Council of Trade Unions head Helen Kelly has accused the National government of trying to instil an attitude in which employers should be treated with deference and workers simply grateful to have jobs. Speaking to the Labour [...]

A while ago I blogged about ACC’s increasing propensity to call all injuries with long-term sequelae, “degenerative” (i.e due to wear and tear). Increasingly, patients are taking ACC to the tribunal (and often then on to court) and winning their case, despite ACC having an “expert opinion” from a tame specialist. Today there is an article [...]

It really was a bumper day for left-wing whining today. The 90-day probation was extended to all businesses, the minimum wage went up to $13.00 ph and ACC re-introduced experience rating. All favorite left-wing bug-bears. The Herald shamelessly published a horribly slanted article on the 90-day trail with Helen Kelly in full cry, accusing National of [...]

The Dom Post has run a series of articles on New Zealand doctors earning up to $8000 a weekend doing locum work in Australia. The MacDoctor is uncertain why this might be considered news as this practice has been going on for years. The take on the articles is that the doctors in question might [...]

I see that ACC has now decided that the increase in surgery refusals is nothing to do with their belligerent campaign to kick every long-standing injury off their books, but it is all the fault of the specialists. Some surgeons are putting through claims they know won’t be approved by ACC, its board chairman John [...]