We now know who bust NZ's economy: the Judiciary wrote a Communist-style Constitution without Consulting

The Treaty Debate is great. We've just found out, courtesy of our Kings Counsels, what has broken the economic back of this nation. It has only just been revealed, thanks to their letter to the PM, that the judiciary invented their own set of Treaty Principles, the main one of interest to economists being the requirement of "equitable outcomes", which are now part of our Constitution. So much so, that the Counsels call them "settled" law, unable to be adjusted by Parliament, let alone ACT's Seymour, the likes of whom they swat away - referring to his type as the "government-of-the-day". According to the lawyers, we, the little people, vote for day-to-day administrators, whereas the profound, unalterable constitutional principles governing our lives in an enduring sense must be written by a handful of law graduates with bigger minds, called judges. Most of us had heard about the "principles" before, but until the Treaty Debate was opened recently, we had no idea they were embedded into our Constitutional arrangements.

I know of no country that has a constitutional requirement of "outcomes", not opportunities, being equalized amongst citizens, other than a few Communist States that failed and no longer exist. The reasons are obvious to economists, but not to our Judiciary. They maybe proud of their "equitable outcomes" principle, but there is a principle in economics that an inexorable trade-off exists: attempts to make outcomes equal and equitable lower efficiency and productivity. So our Judiciary signed us up to being a poor country - but that's okay with them, provided we're all the same. They probably thought they were only talking about "equitable outcomes" between two ethnic groups, but that is not how it works in practice. How do you compare two groups? Do you use mathematical averages? But that ignores within-group inequality. What happens if there is high inequality within one ethnic group, but the average outcome is the same as the other? What happens if every member of Ethnic Group A becomes better off than every member of Ethnic Group B, except for one very wealthy member of Group B who makes the average outcome of that group higher? Do you redistribute? None of it makes sense.

Because equalizing outcomes is a hopeless quest & consigns nations to a lack of prosperity and dynamism, economists focus more on equality - or freedom - of opportunity, of equal rights. And so do most Declaration of Independences and Constitutions - except for, it now turns out, New Zealand's. Many nations have affirmative action programs. But they are nothing to do with having Constitutional requirements of achieving equality in outcomes. For that reason, such programs are often even charged with being unconstitutional. Again, our Judiciary seem not have the foggiest idea of the practicalities of the problem. Once you put equitable outcomes, not opportunities, in a Constitution, you're requiring governments to raise massive tax revenues to achieve equalization. You're shifting taxation powers from elected officials to judges. Lets at least be grateful to our Kings Counsels for explaining why NZ's standard of living has been falling, harming the livelihoods of all ethnicities.

Message to All Graduates: don't Apply to Finance Minister Nicola Willis' Social Investment Agency. Its a PR Scam.

Finance Minister Willis has declared its business-as-usual in Wellington, where insiders get the top jobs, and tax-payer funded window-dressing is the order of the day. Her new Social Investment Agency was never her idea - she picked up that hobby horse from one of her old bosses, Bill English. What is the "social investment approach" anyhow? Its a mathematical technique that relies on actuarial modelling. For example, maybe there's a scheme that proposes spending public funds to improve child nutrition, like school lunches, whose main effect may be to reduce poorer health outcomes when children get older, in turn reducing future health-care spending. The public cost of the scheme can be weighed against the future fiscal savings to society. Actuaries can put probabilities on the likelihood of the better future outcomes to estimate whether the scheme makes financial sense. The Ministry of Social Development has already been employing actuaries to do these sorts of calculations.

Finance Minister Willis, however, wanted her own whole new agency. She made a political appointment in the form of former Police Chief Andrew Costner to head it. He's a lawyer. Who has he appointed as his Deputy Chief Executive? A chap who "has an extensive background in public relations, having worked for some of the world’s leading public relations firms in London, Hong Kong & Wellington". His other Deputy is another lawyer. Meanwhile Finance Minister Willis has hauled out of retirement career civil servant Graham Scott to be Chair of the Board - he's now into his 80s. I cannot count a single member of the Board who has any actuarial qualifications whatsoever, even though the entire new agency is meant to be based on doing actuarial calculations. One new Board Member has been "a director on government boards, including KiwiRail & Auckland Transport". Amazing. Another says he was a "Professorial Fellow" at Waikato University, even though he was not. He was a Professorial Teaching Fellow - there is a world of difference.

My advice to University Graduates in maths, finance, economics, actuarial studies, statistics & related subjects in NZ is: don't work for Willis's Social Investment Agency, nor Seymour's new Ministry of Regulation. Why be bossed around by Boards & Senior Leadership Teams comprised of Wellington insiders with flakey backgrounds who've played Board Games all their lives and never done a social investment calculation on a real-life proposal, nor a cost-benefit analysis. The world has changed, except for in NZ. Those of us with tech skills aren't taking orders anymore from the kinds of boss-clowns that Willis wants on her Boards and Management Teams. To all hard-working students of NZ - go overseas where your hard earned skills & work experience will be rewarded. Finance Minister Willis has sent you a message. Nothing has changed. Its jobs for boys. Its business as usual under National. She is failing to deliver change. We're back to Ardern-style public relations & comms games, as symbolized by the PR appointments at Willis' new Ministry.