The ANZ Bank is NZ's own Colonial East India Company, indistinguishable from the government, shipping the gold bounty away to the motherland.

Who was sitting next to Prime Minister Luxon on NZ's Airforce One, which conked out and got replaced by Air NZ One, on his trade-trip to Japan recently? Antonia Watson, the CEO of ANZ Bank, of course. Who was the Chair of ANZ, who stood down a short time ago? The current NZ PM's mentor and close friend and confidant, John Key, who helped get him his current job. Who's on the Board of the NZ Initiative, the National Party's unofficial economic adviser? Another former Chair of ANZ. Who did ANZ hire to deflect bad publicity that the company is a blood-sucking monopoly? Jessica Mutch McKay, who is Head of Government Relations at the bank. She's formerly TVNZ's highest profile reporter, who conducted the Leaders Debates at the last election. If you're a journalist these days, working for a State broadcaster, then the deal is to be a chameleon. One day you're a raving leftie. The next you're a born-again far-right supporter of Big Business. All in a flash. A mercenary for hire. ANZ is Australian registered but a majority of its shareholders are Americans. It's a modern incarnation of England's East India Company. Indistinguishable from government. Shipping the loot made from exploiting the locals back to the mother ship.

There's no worry about bad publicity. Mutch McKay and ANZ's sophisticated Comms and Marketing Team will kill that kind of story in the Main Stream Media and ensure it never gets traction. And next time the Main Stream Media want to play "lets pretend to help the public with useful economic advice", it will mysteriously wield out ANZ's Chief Economist, Sharon Zollner, to give the bank a truck-load of free publicity. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Willis has sent the Commerce Commission's Banking report to Treasury asking for advice (because she has no plan and doesn't want one). What will be the outcome? The status quo. If the NZ right-wing thinks its smart playing the public for suckers, it doesn't know what's coming its way. It will win the battle and lose the war. Public anger is growing. Sooner or later the attack on what are seen as illegitimate Big Business interests made up of useless people who've never invented a single interesting product in their life will begin. It will start with capital & asset taxes. The root of the problem is that most folks running our big corporates are not inventors or producers of the Steve Jobs (of Apple) type. Most have little specialized knowledge of their industry. Most have got there by virtue of Old Boys and Old Girls clubs. Before scoffing at NZ's public sector, our private sector should take a look at itself and see what an ugly picture it has become.

Seymour's Ministry of Regulation will be ACT's greatest legacy - Radio NZ is talking garbage trying to paint it as a money wasting hypocrisy

What has been the one of the biggest drags on NZ's economic performance the past decade? Regulation and red-tape whose costs way exceed its benefits. Have our Councils, in particular, done cost-benefit analyses to assess whether many of their stupid projects, like Wellington's idiotic new conference venue, or cycle ways that are barely used, to name but a few of thousands, were value for money? No. How do I know? When John Key's government was in power, I investigated that specific matter and, at the time, discovered there was only one economist with this kind of expertise working in the entire Auckland City Council. His employer gave him hundreds of tasks to do, though was barely ever asked to devote any time to working out whether the projects the Council was embarking on were justified (by producing a net benefit for Auckland and the country). I tried screaming this outrage from the rooftops. I asked a former Chair of the Reserve Bank of NZ, Arthur Grimes, about what was going on. Arthur told me our public sector "doesn't take cost-benefit analysis seriously". The only people interested in this issue turned out to be ACT party folks, and in particular, David Seymour. The new Ministry is being done correctly. It should be staffed by a relatively small number of highly paid staff with specialized knowledge of costs and benefits of regulations. Hipkins is talking nonsense when he argues it's hypocritical to be doing so at a time when the public sector is downsized. Where's the hypocrisy in laying off the thousands of people who Hipkins hired to "work" from home, and replacing them with 90 highly skilled folks to create efficiencies in the economy? The White House in the US has an Office for Information and Regulatory Affairs which does similar things that Seymour's Ministry is going to do. It's a Federal office that Congress established in the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act. It's disappointing even the Taxpayers Union doesn't seem to understand the necessity of the huge task Seymour is correctly embarking upon.

Sources:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/525769/new-ministry-paying-staff-average-salary-of-150k-despite-public-sector-job-cuts