Willis launches Covid Monetary Kangaroo Court Atlas Network Inquisition due to report back just before election
Government instigates surprise inquiry into Reserve Bank’s $55 billion Covid money-printing binge
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced a surprise inquiry into the actions of the Reserve Bank during the Covid-19 pandemic.
NZ Herald
The Government says this inquiry is about accountability for the Reserve Bank’s Covid-era quantitative easing programme. Critics argue it is about something else entirely — reframing pandemic economic management through a hard-right ideological lens just months before voters head to the polls.
What Is Nicola Willis’ Covid Monetary Inquiry Really About?
This is nothing short of a sick manipulation of process to generate an Atlas Network attack on NZ Democracy.
Of course we need scrutiny of a once in a century pandemic to ensure we can do as well as we did coming out of this last Covid pandemic, but this is a Kangaroo Court due to release a biased report just before the election!
Who Are Athanasios Orphanides and David Archer?
The people Willis has appointed to lead this Covid Inquisition are Dr. Athanasios Orphanides and David Archer, and who are they?
Surprise, surprise, Atlas Network Acolytes…
The Atlas Network Connection
Orphanides appears linked to Atlas Network, the alleged fossil fuel, tobacco, libertarian and conservative network Canadian, Australian and UK media have covered at length.
He is a Professor at MIT but is featured on Atlas Network’s Manhattan Institute’s website1 where you can “schedule an interview” with him, as well as being a member of their Shadow Open Market Committee.
Orphanides is also frequently cited by Atlas Network libertarian think tank journals and himself writes for Atlas Network’s Cato Institute, quoting David Seymour’s libertarian idol Milton Friedman within those articles.
…Willis has appointed Far Right Goons to review our Covid spending.
Far Right Goons who consider public health and public education to be crimes against Milton Friedman.
A Report Timed Just Before the Election
This is a farce and a political stunt manufactured to get then most right wing perspective possible.
It would be as pointless as a debate between Willis and Ruth Richardson, this Covid Inquisition Kangaroo Court has all the intellectual worth of the sound of one hand clapping.
This is an outrageous waste of time and resource to create a biased political weapon.
Is This Scrutiny — Or Political Theatre?
No one from the Left should agree to appear.
This is McCarthyism in jandals.
Pandemic scrutiny matters. Economic transparency matters. But so does intellectual honesty. If this inquiry is about learning lessons, it should be broad, balanced and forward-looking. If it is about rewriting history through an ideological filter weeks before an election, voters deserve to know that too.
