To help solve this country's economics woes, our Universities have jumped into action. Yes, Waikato has unleashed its 2025 New Zealand Economics Forum Conference, marketed under the title "Unconstrained Thinking for Constrained Times". So who is unleashing this new wave of thinking about how to fix our broken system? Well, the conference kicked off this past Thursday with an Opening Introduction by a guy called Matt Bolger, a Senior Fellow in Waikato's Management School. Ring a bell? His father is Jim Bolger, the former NZ Prime Minister. Jim was Chancellor of Waikato University for 12 years from 2007 to 2019. Bolger Senior really dislikes Ruth Richardson & her fiscal austerity program that got NZ's spiraling debt under control in the early 90s, leading to him discontinuing her as his Finance Minister. He's attacked the market economic reforms of the 80s-90s. The gossip I heard was that Bolger Senior never wanted Ruth as Finance Minister, but the Business Round Table insisted, threatening to withdraw support unless he relented.
After Bolger Junior kicking off the conference, its "I've-got-no-plan" Finance Minister Willis up next to pretend her government does have a plan when she actually spent six years in Opposition not working on a plan to break up our monopolies & make NZ competitive, and lower the cost of living. She's only just now commissioned reports on those issues, but its still all talk & no action. After Willis - and I kid you not - are the Big Monopoly Bank Chief Economists, from ANZ & ASB, pretending to be concerned about solving NZ's problems with "unconstrained thinking", when in fact their job brief is to strengthen their own Banks monopoly position and increase the cost-of-living for down-trodden Kiwis, so they can send more profits back to their US & Aussie Shareholders (and get paid more themselves).
Not to be outdone by a Finance Minister with no plan and Big Monopoly Bank economists, Wellington accountant Sir Brian Roche, Boss of NZ Post from 2010-17 under Sir John Key's government, is next up at Waikato's Economics Forum as a Key Note Speaker. National has appointed him to be Public Services Commissioner. He's no Elon Musk. To the contrary, Roche teamed up with Labour Party insider Heather Simpson. Together, in 2020, they were chosen by Ardern to lead a group to "improve COVID-19 border security". Part of the group responsible for locking NZ down harder & longer, stuffing our economy as those lockdowns dragged on too long. Now the same folks are telling us how to un-constrain our thinking? On becoming Commissioner last year, Roche attacked the last time NZ did significant reforms in the 1980s, describing them as, "you throw everything up & hope something lands well". How insulting. Roche ain't no economist. Does he object to the RBNZ being made independent? To cutting income taxes? To introducing GST? To more competition to bust monopoly power, which importers had back then? To floating the NZ dollar? Seems Roche prefers "steady as she goes". The Commissioner ain't half the man Sir Roger Douglas is.
Up next is the new Treasury Secretary (and old timer Wellington career bureaucrat) Iain Rennie. He worked in Jim Bolger's Office - so I guess that makes this Waikato Forum a Jim Bolger Convention. Rennie has worked as a career civil servant for 30 years. He was Public Services Commissioner under both Labour PM Helen Clark and National PM John Key. For that entire time, his day-to-day job had next to nothing to do with economics. Why on earth, when there are amazing Kiwi talents in economics - we have several of the highest ranked economists in the world, including a chap who has been ranked number 1 in the world in the profession for many years - did Finance Minister Willis appoint this guy to be Treasury Secretary a few months ago? Does he symbolize "unconstrained thinking"?
Lets finish with some of the other star speakers chosen by Waikato University as the types who can unleash a new era of prosperity for us. There's Waikato's own Vice Chancellor who moonlights as Chair of the Reserve Bank of NZ, I-Wanna-Medical-School-and-Former-Nat-Minister-Steven-Joyce-will-Help-me-Get-One, Neil Quigley. Quigley presided over the $50 billion money printing program & slashing of interest rates by the RBNZ which fueled out-of-control inflation. He's a great supporter of the Governor. Quigley bears responsibility for our stagnation as he supported the Bank's "engineering" of NZ's on-going recessions, which in large part were due to the RBNZ's excessively lax monetary policy in the preceding period. Another star speaker to un-constrain our thinking is Rebecca Wright, a journo from Main Stream Media outlet, Newshub. Hang on, aren't they bankrupt? Wasn't it on Wright's show that Shamubeel Equab called ACT leader Seymour "economically illiterate"?
Yes, Waikato University's conference on mapping out NZ's future stands as a symbol of our economic decline. How come an establishment of well-connected types keep bobbing up again & again in the big jobs, blocking career paths of a talented young generation of Kiwis who were passed over for those positions & so decided to leave the country? Waikato's speakers are not symbols of the types of people required to take NZ forward - who are genuinely interested in "unconstrained thinking". Shame on Willis for not promoting this new type who is capable of leading change. Shame on her for reaching backwards, not forwards, and surrounding herself with the old guard. She cannot pretend she wants change when not a single one of her appointments intends to disrupt the old order.