Last Updated: Nov 19th, 2009 - 11:07:39 Newsletters : 2005 Newsletters : 8 April 2005 Thought for the Day Robert Heinlein; American science fiction author: An elephant - a mouse built to government specifications. In "Time Enough for Love" 1972 Apr 8, 2005, 13:05 Newsletters : 2005 Newsletters : 8 April 2005 Rodney Hide Speech on Growth - What he said. Peter Gallagher was present at the Rodney Hide Speech and has written these notes about what Rodney actually said. Of significance are his thoughts concerning a Regulatory Responsibililty Act to stop politicians continually trying to legislate for everything and every cicumstance until we are strangled in this plethora of red tape. Peter's notes: On the evening of Thursday April 7th Rodney Hide spoke to us about economic growth. He is an accomplished speaker and there can be little doubt that his speech was scintillating to say the least even given that it was delivered to a largely sympathetic audience. One person I spoke to afterwards commented that he must immediately make a significant donation to the ACT party. Rodney’s theme was essentially that: firstly we know what causes economic growth and secondly that in effecting economic growth politicians are the problem. As a good Classical Liberal he understands the importance of having competition in as many areas as possible – in particular health and education. He could easily have added Energy to this list! It is clear to him (as it is to many of us) that the reason these do not perform as well as they should is due to their being strangled by government monopoly. He noted the excellent outcome of two very important pieces of legislation, namely the 1991 Fiscal responsibility Act and the 1989 Reserve Bank act. The importance of these was that they effectively tied politicians’ hands. They didn’t literally do so but this was in fact the practical outcome. A major reform would be a Regulatory Responsibility Act. This would be a piece of legislation which as for the above two acts would help to constrain politicians from introducing dysfunctional legislation. The biggest problem that politicians have, and Rodney admitted to suffering this himself, was the need to be seen to ‘be doing something’ in response to any perceived problem. It is very difficult to do nothing, even when this is clearly the best course, when confronted by an aggressive interviewer demanding to know ‘what are YOU going to do to solve this problem’. Examples of such ‘knee jerk’ reactions have been the legislative responses to dog attacks and the fencing of swimming pools. Bryce Wilkinson has written a book on this subject - ‘Constraining Government’ which is available on the NZBR website (www.nzbr.org.nz). For economically minded students of political science the sections on Public Choice theory will be of special interest. He felt that the madness of much legislation, in particular OSH related, could be prevented by such an act. In thanking Rodney for his talk, Phil Scott noted how the Thorndon Tennis club had suffered at the hands of OSH by being obliged to put in a wash basin alongside an existing sink – something which to this day no-one uses! Another required major reform, perhaps an extension to the Fiscal Responsibility Act, is to prevent politicians from building up large surpluses as the current coalition government has done. The Minister of Finance is, by switching from accrual to cash accounting, trying to pretend that these surpluses are illusory. For anyone interested, Bryce Wilkinson has written (another) book on this subject - ‘Restraining Leviathan’ which is also available on the NZBR website (www.nzbr.org.nz). In terms of educating the populace to understand economic growth he admitted to having given up – a bit of a worry for groups such as PFG! He was keen on the idea of NZ adopting a foreign currency, in particular the US dollar although, in response to a question, acknowledged that the Australian dollar would do. Adopting another country’s currency however is not a straightforward issue. It has potential problems as well as advantages. One particular downside, which indeed the US suffers, is that a single policy covering the entire country cannot allow for local (State) variations. Also, Ireland has suffered from higher inflation, as a result of being tied to the Euro. In summary: Although PFG is politically neutral, there can be little doubt that in terms of economic growth for New Zealand, that ACT policies are the best. Apr 8, 2005, 12:34 Newsletters : 2005 Newsletters : 8 April 2005 ACT on growth Last night we continued with our programme of visiting politicians speaking to us of their attitudes to growth and what they are doing about promoting growth in our economy. As you will recall Jim Anderton spoke to us last year and promoted his party's new philosophy of reducing tax for business. Well, last night we listened to Rodney Hide speaking about what ACT would do about economic growth in New Zealand. His speech was very entertaining and not at all like the written speech notes that he brought along. Click on the heading to read Rodney's speech notes. Apr 8, 2005, 12:22