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What was NZ Trade & Enterprise thinking? Its announcement, "A NZ business delegation, led by Air New Zealand and ASB Chair, Dame Therese Walsh, will join NZ Prime Minister Rt Hon Christopher Luxon on a mission to Japan" is truly remarkable. Two of our most heavily concentrated, least competitive industries, aviation & banking, top the list. Domestic-monopoly carrier Air NZ doesn't make much from its international routes, like to Japan. It makes most of its money from squeezing local Kiwis on their domestic flights. I'm not sure why the airline & its auditor are not under investigation for not reporting the single most material item in its annual accounts - namely exactly how much profit Air NZ makes out of its domestic, compared to international, flights. Qantas reports that number - Air NZ does not.


Who else got invited? The Big Banks, of course, ANZ and ASB. But why? The Kiwi division of ANZ bank makes little money internationally - most of its dough comes from tapping local Kiwis on their mortgage interest rates. When you're part of a local banking oligopoly, why bother making a buck in Japan? The former CEO & Managing Director of ASB Bank from 2011-18 is Deputy Chair of the NZ Initiative, the National Party's think tank, so I guess it is politically well connected. As for ANZ, its former Chair was John Key, of course. Who else?


Yes, what a strange guest list the Prime Minister drew up to accompany him on his trade trip. The NZ Super Fund is also going to Japan, courtesy of the Kiwi taxpayer. Since when did the Super Fund export anything? It's a fund, for goodness sakes, and this is a "trade mission", led by the Trade Minister. Last time I read an economics book, overseas balance of payments was divided into two types - trade (exports & imports) and capital (money) flows. The contribution of the Super Fund to our trade flows is zero. Why take its managers on a trade trip when they don't sell anything? The contribution of the Super Fund to the NZ economy is actually quite perverse - it takes Kiwis hard earned money and invests it primarily overseas, where the funds are used by other countries to help increase their GDP. Is that what the Super Fund managers will ask the Japanese? How can we provide you with Kiwi money to invest in your infrastructure & help earthquake-proof your country, whilst NZ is starved of funds to be invested in exactly those same kinds of way?


Why did Luxon say, "I am excited to be accompanied by a senior business delegation". When will the elite, tired old business establishment of NZ hand the torch over, in the words of John Kennedy, "to a new generation". Give us up-and-coming junior business types any day over this delegation. National is still not looking like a government that promotes more competition & more small business types to take on the big players. In this sense, it looks far more like a pro-big business, rather than pro-market, government. As competition is practically the only known way of reducing the cost-of-living, what is the Nat's plan?


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Never one to be out the news for long, Professor Michael Baker has penned an article for the (deservedly) bankrupting Newshub. Apparently we could be on the verge of yet another pandemic. Seems we must live our lives in constant fear of imminent annihilation. But don't fear. NZ could always invite Jacinda Ardern back from her foreign exile, vote back in our former never-ending-Auckland-lockdown Covid Minister, Chris Hipkins, as PM, and the two of them could then bring back the likes of Professors Baker & Hendy to start back up where they left off last time. The thought of it.


Anyhow, Baker says the following in his Newshub article, "Some commentators [at a recent World Health Assembly meeting] had advocated to incorporate the experience of countries in the Asia-Pacific region that used an elimination strategy to delay the spread of Covid, giving time to roll out vaccines & other interventions. Such measures protected both high-income islands (Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, .. ) as well as low & middle-income nations in continental Asia (Vietnam, Thailand ..)". However, having read Baker's British Medical Journal (BMJ) article, Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 closely, as well as listened to his pronouncements, my understanding was that he never advocated elimination to "delay the spread of Covid" in order simply to buy time. His BMJ article (below) states repeatedly his aims were "Achieving & sustaining disease elimination". That is the heading of an entire section of his article, in which he argues that the "NZ & Australian experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic offer lessons for achieving & sustaining elimination". The Key Message of his paper is elimination is "achievable and sustainable".


Today in Newshub, Baker reverses himself by saying only that NZ "used an elimination strategy to delay the spread of Covid". This Blog argued at the time it was important to delay Covid's spread until scientists knew what we were dealing with (that was obvious to all of us - you didn't need a medical degree to work it out). However the pursuit of a long-term "sustainable" policy of keeping the virus out of NZ forever was never achievable. Instead the pursuit of the sustainability objective by Baker, Arden, and Hipkins, even way into 2022, imposed massive economic costs that NZ is still paying for now, in terms of high borrowing, inflation & a cost-of-living crisis. Our health system is presently starved of funds because of our stagnant economy, which was the direct cause of the aim of "sustainable" elimination.


To now try pretending the Ardern-Hipkins Covid health experts, like Baker, only ever viewed their policies as temporary attempts to buy time is, in my view, a re-writing of history.


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