Fire the "All Talk" NZ Treasury Secretary. Throw Out his Rubbish All Talk "Te Ara Mokopuna 2025 Consultation"

Readers of this Blog have long known about our frustration with Wellington's lack of action by career bureaucrats over practically every important issue facing NZ. The pointless party has continued under National. Take the latest Treasury Report for example. Its called, "Te Ara Mokopuna 2025 Consultation on the Draft Content of the Treasury’s Long-term Insights Briefing: Sustainable & resilient fiscal policy through economic shocks and cycles". With a long-winded title like that, the report is bound to be nonsense, and so it is. What's the point of this 111 page exercise in stupidity? The new Secretary Treasury sums it up when he says, "We hope this Briefing will encourage New Zealanders to talk about whether we are leaving enough in the public purse for future New Zealanders". All talk, no action. The nation is fed up with talking and debating. Its fed up with Finance Minister Willis saying she is "taking advice" on every single issue because she has no plan and no clue about economics and finance. Why is the Treasury Secretary being paid to talk all day? Why was he even hired?

I recommend filing this yet-another-rubbish Treasury Report in your bin. Its a waste of one million $ of taxpayer money. It reads like a First Year Macroeconomics Textbook. Why didn't Finance Minister Willis buy Principles of Economics by Greg Mankiw for $90 rather than ask Treasury to write an imbecilically patronizing version of it? It provides not one solution to the primary underlying question posed by the report, namely how to avoid NZ's long-term fiscal challenges stemming from population ageing. That demographic change is putting rising pressure on our health-care and pensions systems. Are we also, like Treasury, do-nothing hypocrites on this Blog? Are we also just all talk? We long ago provided a costed plan, with a set of Budgets completed by a former Finance Minister out to 2060, which fully balanced the budget, paid down debt, and solved the questions posed by this latest Treasury Report. Our plan provides all Kiwis with a million dollars in their Kiwi Saver accounts by the time they retire, just like Australians are on track to do, whilst lifting our health system to French and Singaporean standards. The latest updated version is forthcoming in NZ Economic Papers.

I remember visiting the Treasury to present the plan, together with Sir Roger Douglas. We were scheduled to meet the then-Treasury Secretary at around 9am. An hour earlier one of his minions called & said the Big Boss Man couldn't make the meeting. So I said we couldn't make it either. Then they called back and said he could make the meeting. The Treasury never cited our article and never gave a damn about coming up with a concrete plan to solve New Zealand's rising debt and deficits. All it does is talk. All it wants us to do is talk. All the new Secretary wants to do is talk. All Willis wants to do is talk and "seek advice".

Regards Free Trade, did NZ get conned by the European Union? Our trade agreement with it cost our government $280 million a year.

Former Trade Minister David Parker & Prime Minister Ardern signed a free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), which they touted as an amazing victory. How good a deal actually was it? Since tariffs are in the world news now, lets take a quick look at that deal. The EU saved itself $280 million per annum in tariff payments to the NZ government. The Euros couldn't believe their luck. Dunedin could've renovated its hospital by now and a ton more infrastructure projects been underway had NZ's government not lost those revenues. But, you may argue, the deal must've been reciprocal, so Kiwi's tariff payments to the EU fell by the same amount, right? It turns out, in exchange for EU firms paying the NZ government $280 million less, the EU only lowered tariffs on NZ firms by 1/3 as much, so just saved us $100 million. That amounts to a net loss to NZ of $180 million per annum. Why was the deal so biased? Aside from Ardern & Parker being unable to strike a good deal, the EU exports three times more to us than we do to them. To quote the European Commission, "The EU exports to NZ goods worth €5.5 billion a year and imports NZ products of €2.3 billion", so NZ has a trade deficit with the EU of around €3 billion (or $NZ 6 billion).

Why does NZ have such a huge trade deficit with the EU? Because the EU strictly limits access of our biggest export, agricultural products. Although I've only had a quick look, seems to me the Europeans couldn't believe what suckers the Kiwis were to sign a "Free Trade Agreement" with them, since it was not a Free Trade Agreement. The EU said at the start there was no way it'd budge from its strict entry controls & quotas on NZ agricultural products. The European Parliament stated, in relation to its trade deal with NZ, "The EU committed to taking European agricultural sensitivities fully into consideration in its negotiating strategy". On the other hand, former PM Ardern & Trade Minister Parker sold us out. They opened free, non-tariffed access to NZ for European agriculture, but went along with Europe keeping its door slammed shut to our agricultural exports (apart from limited quotas). Below is a European Parliament graph celebrating its booming unrestricted exports to NZ (light blue line) compared to our small exports to them (dark blue line). NZ's deficit with the EU is rising as we speak. Our PM should stay calm before hysterically embracing the EU as a bastion of free trade. Before he makes fun of America, he should look at the stupid "free trade" deals that NZ has made with the world, that aren't about free trade at all.