Well worth a look is this "manifesto" as a model of its kind. The purposes are clear:
"We hope that political parties will adopt [the recommendations] as much as possible." and
"The chambers of commerce throughout New Zealand intend to scrutinise parties’ policies and compare them with this set of policies, which we think provide the best platform for the New Zealand economy to grow."
The recomendations are substantive. But there is enough explanation, reasoning, quailification and blandness to make it hard for ideological critics to get traction, unless they misrepresent it.
It will have a small and earnest market though it deserves serious consideration. Our fearless media will no doubt find it far too worthy. Only a few items should scare the horses though they’ll feel sure there are weevils in the oats.
There are plenty of revealing graphs. For example, the graph on NZ interest rates (highest in the developed world) is followed by:
"High interest rates and an overvalued exchange rate reveal more about the failure of other policy settings than problems with the monetary policy framework. A series of policy settings have worked against monetary policy in recent years and contributed to inflation and interest and exchange rates being higher than they should otherwise be.
The following are just some of a list of counteractive policies, many of which are discussed more fully later in this manifesto, which need to be addressed so that pressure can be taken off interest and exchange rates and so that the productive sector does not have to bear the burden of controlling inflation: –
increases in government expenditure and taxes;
the expansion of local government;
increased labour market regulation, which has pushed up labour costs;
cost increases arising from the Resource Management Act and
other cost-raising regulations.
All of these policy settings need attention from the government – for their own sake and also so that monetary policy can operate more effectively."
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