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Editorial

As Idealog goes to press, Helen Clark’s government has held the Treasury benches for 3,180 days, and presided over budget spending of around $510 billion. We know what this government does with our money and its time.

But what would the National Party do? We asked finance spokesman Bill English about the Nats’ economic policy and received a bland response: cut personal taxes, control government spending, remove red tape, invest in infrastructure, boost education spending and rein in the public service. Well, duh.

Most of those would be Labour policies, too—at least in theory. And that’s the catch, of course. Every incoming government believes it will spend money more sensibly than its predecessor; that it will better control inflation and bureaucracy and find the money for infrastructure, health and education spending. Which is why incoming governments should have targets—so they have something to measure their efforts by. But when we asked English if National would announce specific economic goals—and if not, why not—his answer was succinct: “No. We’ll deal with the New Zealand economy on its own merits. Our goal is to lift New Zealand’s growth rates.”

Maybe he’s learned from Labour’s experience. In 2002, the government announced it aimed to return New Zealand to the top half of the OECD’s wealth chart by 2011. Then, we were ranked at number 20; today, we’re at 22, and it’s been a while since the target was mentioned in public. On page 120, Vincent Heeringa looks at the Clark government’s economic record, and outgoing New Zealand Institute chief executive David Skilling comments on page 30. Both reckon the government’s record is one of lost opportunity. Still, Clark’s ministers knew what they had to do, even if eventually they were unable to get there. We’d welcome a similar stake in the ground from the National Party.

Elsewhere in this issue, we’re heading offshore. Stephen Jewell reports on a new path for Kiwi musicians, who are setting up their own deals with offshore indie labels instead of trying to get on the roster of a major label; Gena Tuffery watches Christchurch students pitch in Paris; Karryn Cartelle meets three Kiwis businessmen running an ambitious empire in Tokyo called Japan Inc; and Graham Reid casts an envious eye across Seoul’s astonishing plans to reinvent itself. In New Zealand, where valuable urban design projects seem to be suffocated by red tape while cheap and nasty developments spring up with depressing haste, it’s nearly unthinkable that a city could embark unified on a US$100 billion-plus project. But the Koreans aren’t timid in their plans, and they want nothing less than the most liveable city in Asia. The secret to their success is the fruitful relationship between the private sector and the State—exactly where the Clark government has most clearly failed.

We reckon the top-half-of-the-OECD aim was the right one. And we hope the new government—be it Labour, National or whatever unlikely alliance is cobbled together this time—restates the target and gets on with the job.

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