Parliament ignored rules to benefit corporations
Our corrupt capitalism wins again, this time to expand Corporate power…
Govt warned fast-track bill broke rules in benefiting business
Text messages and letters reveal a behind-the-scenes struggle to pass the coalition Government’s contentious Fast-track Approvals Bill, despite concerns it broke Parliament’s rules about benefiting private companies.
The Government was warned that including private projects like mining and housing in the legislation would make it inadmissible as a government bill, as only private bills can benefit private entities.
The conflict was resolved only after Speaker of the House, National’s Gerry Brownlee, considered, then ultimately rejected, official advice to make the bill law anyway.
RNZ approached Brownlee for comment on this story after its publication. He declined to comment, but clarified his position in the House.
Speaking ahead of Question Time in Parliament on Thursday, Brownlee declined a request from Labour’s Kieran McAnulty to debate the matter, following the publication of RNZ’s report.
“Ministers and members regularly receive advice from the Clerk, that is in itself not remarkable,” he said.
“The substantive matters arising from this particular piece of advice were traversed during the Committee stages of the Fast-Track Approvals Bill. I do not think that the business of the House should be set aside today to revisit them.
“For clarity, I would reiterate that the rules and practices of the house regarding private legislation have not changed.
“Existing standing orders and Speakers’ rulings still apply. Bills or amendments for the particular interest of individuals or groups are still classified as being in the nature of private legislation, as it states in Standing Order 257(1)d, regardless of whether they are deemed to be public policy.
“In the case of the Fast-Track Approvals Bill, I drew a different conclusion to the Clerk, having taken his advice and considered that the individual benefits to the projects listed in the schedule were not sufficiently clear given the bill itself prescribed the process they must still go through.”
One legal expert said Brownlee’s decision was “borderline”, and allowed companies to side-step an avenue for legal challenges.
Labour and the Greens criticised the move as “unprecedented” and potentially dangerous, fearing it sets a precedent for including private companies in government legislation.
…so National’s donor mates get all the deregulation they paid for and we pass law that allows it.
This is such an outrageous abuse of power and as TDB has been arguing for almost 2 years now, National’s Policy Platform was totally dominated by donors and as such, National have no actual policy OTHER THAN crony capitalism deals with their donor mates.
This hard right Government are strangling the common good for their donors interests.
How angry must you be at Jacinda for this to be preferable?
We warned you about Nicola Willis coming from the hard right think tank NZ Initiative!
We warned you about the hard right international think tank Atlas Network.
We warned you that National traded in any actual values for donor interests.
We warned you ACT would attempt to introduce privatisation and champion corporate power.
We warned you that all of this would happen because of far right ideology, but because most News Producers in NZ shit their pants at having to use an award like ideology, (because they believe you as the viewer is too stupid for that word), we get a Government of far right free market extremists destroying the common good for their corporate right wing masters – don’t believe The Daily Blog?
Read it and weep clowns…
The core reason why the coalition is failing
Robert MacCulloch is the Matthew S Abel Professor of Macroeconomics at the University of Auckland. He blogs at Down to Earth Kiwi.
OPINION: About 10 years ago, when ACT was on 0.2% of the vote with turmoil in the party, and on the back of the departure of its leader, John Banks, who was being prosecuted over Kim Dotcom’s donations, a friend who worked in ACT’s office in Auckland asked me to present at its meetings and help rehabilitate it.
The party was under threat of extinction. Two other folks about my age, Jamie Whyte, who became president, and David Seymour, back from Canada, were amongst others of the new generation (non-Don Brash, non-John Banks) who the party drafted in and bet its future on.
About that time Roger Partridge and Oliver Hartwich became chair and executive director of the NZ Initiative, which arose from the defunct Business Roundtable. I attended their meetings on behalf of a founder of the Roundtable.
Christopher Luxon also attended, as chief executive of Air New Zealand. I remember him presenting a proposal for a bed tax on foreign tourists. The news in 2016 read “Tourism leader [Luxon] calls for bed tax”. Later, in 2023 the news read “Luxon doubles down on bed tax opposition”.
Why is this history important? Because decisions made then underlie a gaping weakness in the coalition and explain why it is behind in the polls today when it should be miles ahead.
During those post-John Banks times, I got to know Jamie. He had a PhD in philosophy from Cambridge University in the UK. His interest was in applying “libertarian” and “classically liberal” philosophies to real-life politics.
David Seymour also held a philosophy degree, from Auckland. He was similarly attracted to those philosophies. I was not.
When Jamie gave me a lecture one day about the difference between “libertarianism” and “classical liberalism”, telling me off for calling ACT libertarian when he said it was instead classically liberal, my eyes glazed over. A rift developed between me and them.
ACT was founded to provide practical economic solutions, often, but not always, using the power of competitive markets to promote prosperity for all. It was never meant to be a party for the wealthy who wanted the top rate of tax to be cut and their big business interests protected. Quite the opposite; ACT began as the Association of Consumers & Taxpayers. Promoting abstract philosophies like “libertarianism” and “classical liberalism” had nothing to do with its formation.
Now here’s the thing. As time wore on, a transformation occurred. David discovered taking sides on non-economic moral issues, like euthanasia, freedom to have guns, legalisation of drugs, and race, all with a libertarian bent, gave ACT more publicity and attracted enough votes to push it over 5%, compared to rolling out more boring economic reform plans of the type folks like me had been doing.
But ACT’s (and National’s) pre-election budgets became lame. They could be summarised in a line: cut what they labelled as “waste” and use the cuts to reduce taxes. As if 3000 years of economics could be summarised in one sentence.
Libertarianism and classical liberalism, which mean nothing to the average Kiwi, also gained traction with National, but behind the scenes. PM Luxon’s economic adviser, Matt Burgess, who worked at the NZ Initiative, adheres to these philosophies, as do Luxon’s other advisers, Oliver Hartwich and Roger Partridge.
And there you have it. National and ACT (and so now the whole New Zealand Government, bar NZ First) acquired an empty, non-economic growth policy stance which has little to do with economics and everything to do with philosophy.
It is why Finance Minister Willis is lost, with no answers to the nation’s stagnation. It is why she has no plan. It is why she ran to Business NZ last week asking them what to do. It is why she runs to the NZ Initiative asking them what to do. It is why the PM runs to his economic adviser Burgess asking what to do. It is why they get no practical answers.
…New Zealanders do not understand just how economically extremist this Government really is with their Austerity Budget that borrowed billions for tax cuts while hollowing out public service budgets.
Here’s the kicker from Robert MacCulloch…
So we’re left with a National-ACT coalition that is giving free, competitive markets a bad name; which sides with big business and wants to give it freedom to do what it likes; which doesn’t support sensible savings policies that necessarily require some compulsion, since a market failure exists around setting aside funds rather than consuming them now.
On health care the coalition is also lost, since the solution involves a mix of government funding – redistribution being a requirement to help those who cannot afford to pay themselves – but combined with public and private provision of services in competition with one another.
This current group of National-ACT politicians lack imagination. They’re devotees of taking an impractical, pre-reformation, philosophical, religious, doctrinal approach to economics – one nobody who studies the modern subject relates to.
…TDB warned you right wing libertarian free market acolytes were taking over the Government.
You didn’t believe us, well here is a person who set ACT up highlighting all of this as true.
Comrades, you can read it first here on TDB or wait for the mainstream media to read it first on TDB and then attempt to copy it.
This Government is led economically by free market fanatics, at some stage as voters you are going to have to wake up to this reality!
Why are you living on your knees for corporations?
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One if not the best columns I have read on TDB.
This is conclusive of the most corrupt government in our history and the blame lays squarely at the feet of one man in allowing this to happen, Gerry Brownlee. But as we all know the guy has history. Brownlee ignored the rules, it is out in the open now.
Preaching to the converted will not matter.
The converted need to preach.
THE world economy is near to collapse and the shit going on in the USA will speed things up .The fst track to nowhere is all this COC is going to give NZ
People are moaning that the banks are making a profit ,well maybe if the past governments had not privatized home lending NZ INC would be making those profits and the money would be reinvested in things like hospitals and pipes .While we continue to have an economy based on selling each other houses for stupid prices TAX FREE we will continue to see those big profits .Those same big banks would have left long ago if we were not feeding them by borrowing from them to keep the inflation causing house market alive .People are already have the next house price increase orgasim in the media because the RBNZ has slashed the interest rate because the economy is going to hell in a hand basket .Later on the Skin head gang leader will be making out all is great because he has increased the house prices and flooded the country with people wanting to go to the toilet cue .He will call that growth .