Labour’s pursuit of a ‘National-lite’ approach to tax and fiscal policy continues. Its painfully slow release of policy has finally revealed that alongside its anaemic capital gains tax (to be enacted well after house prices have tanked) Labour has also committed itself to pursuing `a tight time-frame for achieving a Budget surplus. Like National. Labour apparently thinks the balancing of the books is a more important sign of good governance than having a functioning public health system or affordable homes or a socially beneficial level of employment.
In effect, Labour is signing onto the same neo-liberal targets for public debt and the size of government that have put economic growth and public services in a strait jacket here for the past 40 years. Like National, Labour has committed itself to returning to surplus by 2029/2030, although its calculations of how that surplus is to be calculated are slightly more honest. The only advance is that Labour will allow its taxation and state spending package to rise to a slightly less draconian 33% of GDP, compared to the 30% previously mooted.
Blinded by ideology (National) and shackled by timidity (Labour) neither of the major parties are acknowledging the needs associated with our ageing population, decaying infrastructure, disintegrating public health system, housing affordability crisis, overstretched tourism sector, climate change challenges, and a retail economy that the arbitrary public sector job cuts have starved of consumer spending.
But hey, if it can ignore all those needs and systematically underfund them…then by the end of the decade, the books can look as if they’re in balance. Mission accomplished!
Footnote. This morning Bernard Hickey succinctly summed up Labour’s approach to good governance:
Labour’s self-imposed constraints don’t allow room to repair decades of underinvestment in maintenance and expansion in infrastructure and business capital, and keep in place the chokehold of fiscal policy on any attempts to generate productivity growth or solve our inter-locking housing affordability, climate or poverty crises.
New Zealand, the possum in Trump’s headlights
Currently, New Zealand is preparing to spend billions of dollars on Defence in order to remain interoperable within a traditional defence alliance led by the United States – even though Washington (a) no longer has any respect for that tradition, and (b) seems no longer interested in defending democracy in Europe, or in the Western Pacific.
Like a country on autopilot, New Zealand continues to act as if the United States is still a willing and reliable defence partner in Europe, the Middle East and Pacific, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Certainly, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and MFAT seem unable to acknowledge just how much the Trump presidency has shifted the strategic ground.
Over the past ten years, it has become crystal clear that the Trump administration is deliberately undermining the collective US/European defence security alliance. While doing so, Trump has kept on repeating Russian propaganda about the causes (and the solutions) to the war in Ukraine.
In similar fashion over the past week, Trump has now begun to undermine the defence and security of the Western Pacific, by reducing defence ties and strategic planning with South Korea, and making friendly overtures to the belligerent regime in North Korea, a key Russian ally. These gestures will increase the vulnerability of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia to a regime in North Korea that has repeatedly threatened the region with “nuclear annihilation.” Iran got attacked for far, far less.
Trump’s reduction of security exercises with South Korea (and those warm signals sent by Trump to North Korea) have wider implications for Europe and Ukraine. Reportedly, some 15,000 North Korean troops (including a unit of 400 drone operators) have been gaining invaluable battlefield experience in Ukraine. While doing so, Pyongyang has also been shoring up Russia’s ability to sustain its offensive.
US analysts estimate that North Korea is now providing Russia with an estimated 40% of its artillery capability in Ukraine. Kim has also given Putin some 190 long range missiles that the Russians can use to mount further deadly attacks on Ukraine’s civilian population and energy infrastructure. With very good reason, Trump’s friendly overtures to North Korea will be being warmly welcomed by Vladimir Putin.
Inexplicably, Trump also recently ordered US defence and security agencies to collate (into a single list) all of America’s human intelligence espionage assets all around the world. Such a list would be fraught with security implications. If leaked, it would enable America’s opponents (i.e. Russia and China) to virtually dismantle the US security apparatus. As the veteran US journalist Fred Kaplan concluded with respect to this particular presidential order:
Twice in the past year-and-a-half, I’ve written Slate columns that begin, “Donald Trump probably isn’t a Russian agent, but he wouldn’t be behaving much differently if he were.” Consider this the third column.
Trump’s rationale for deciding to “substantially reduce” the joint South Korea military exercises? Here’s Trump’s Truth Social post on the matter:
Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful
Oh and furthermore, Trump added:
While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, “No thanks!”
In response, North Korea ridiculed Trump’s gesture and fired ten missiles into international waters over the following 24 hours.
Footnote: On the matter of cost cited above by Trump…. those scaled back military exercises with South Korea have been estimated to cost between $14 million and $20 million. By way of comparison…War Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Congress this year for $37 billion to pursue the war that Trump launched against Iran.
Left at the crossroads
We, of course, should be thanking our lucky stars that South Korea did keep its distance from Trump’s attack on Iran. Thanks in part to Seoul’s delicate diplomacy with Teheran, South Korea’s oil refineries have continued to be able to supply the likes of New Zealand with relatively affordable shipments of refined oil this year.
New Zealand troops were part of the South Korean military exercise scaled back by Trump. Our response to all this?
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said “it was a surprise, I can’t deny that”.
A couple of months ago, much fuss was made in diplomatic circles about China not giving New Zealand more than a brief “heads up” about Beijing’s intention to conduct a missile test in international waters in the Pacific. Yet when it came to the scaling back of the South Korea military exercise, the United States – our defence partner – gave us no “heads up” at all. Reportedly, our defence and diplomacy staff learned only through media reports that the military exercises in South Korea were being curtailed.
Unfortunately, our hugely expensive purchase of new frigates that’s due to be announced late next year makes little sense as a spending priority, given (a) the lack of an imminent threat from China or anyone else and (b) given that the new frigates will be sitting ducks in the new era of drone warfare. More to the point, those frigates can operate safely and effectively only within an alliance fleet configuration led by an increasingly erratic United States, within a defence partnership that the Trump administration seems to be actively undermining.
New Zealand really is at a crossroads. To repeat: we are proposing to spend billions to join a defence and security configuration led by the United States, but from which the Americans are disengaging. As we get cut adrift, those new frigates look more and more like a very expensive waste of money and lives.
Footnote: We are doing ourselves no favours by staying resolutely silent as the Trump administration undermines the defence of South Korea and flatters North Korea – a key Russian ally in the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine that we claim to oppose. By doing so, Winston Peters is not honouring the memory of the 6,000 New Zealand troops who fought in the Korean War, and the 47 New Zealand soldiers who died over the course of the active fighting/post-armistice period.
This is the sort of debate we should be having on Anzac Day, and elsewhere. Arguably, Gallipoli has little of positive value to tell New Zealanders today. It was a costly example of our unquestioning devotion to our traditional alliances. Today, we need to be rethinking both the worth, and the operational structure of such alliances. If only because Donald Trump certainly is.
Ne plus ultra
The Colombian-born, Brooklyn-based electronic musician who calls herself Ela Minus first rose to prominence during the Covid lockdown. In a couple of self-produced tracks (“Dominique” and “El Cielo no es de Nadie”) she captured those mind-altering days of seclusion. A few years ago, she explained how she manages the connections between her machines and her music.
Since then, Ela Minus has released a stream of subtle, attractive tracks either alone or in collaboration with the likes of Helado Negro…This 2024 track in unison with DJ Python is a personal favourite:
A fortnight ago, she released a single with Nick Leon called “Que les paso a mis amigos?” The chorus asks (in Spanish) some basic questions about the links between music and identity:
What happens if we stop the music?
What happens if I decide not to listen?
What happens if we stop working?
What happens if I leave everything to chance?
Finally, here’s her excellent “Dominique” track from 2020: