Letters: Use our own public money before taking money from foreigners

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon taking aim at a “culture of saying no” in his State of the Nation address last week. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Letters to the Editor

State of the Nation

If Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is serious about economic growth and investment (Herald, January 23), he should say “yes” to using our Reserve Bank to fund infrastructure, such as water pipes and hospitals.

I am not talking about the $55 billion, incompetent LSAP QE money-printing done under the last Labour Government for Covid, which hugely enriched banks and contributed to runaway inflation. I am talking about Direct Monetary Financing, whereby the Reserve Bank buys very low-interest infrastructure bonds from the Treasury.

We should use our own cheap, public money first before taking money from foreigners.

Foreign investment is valuable if we need foreigners’ expertise or materials. However, we don’t need foreign money to fund infrastructure at the cost of billions of dollars in interest when we are a sovereign nation with our own currency, with our own Reserve Bank just sitting there unused.

Direct Monetary Financing can fund infrastructure cheaply without causing inflation, and support a long-term infrastructure pipeline, as it has done successfully in other countries.

Let’s end the culture of saying “no” to innovative, inexpensive, intelligent funding. Look local first.

Cliff Hall, Blockhouse Bay.

In his State of the Nation speech, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: “mining needs to play a much bigger part in the economy”.

There was limited mention of any other industry. The mining industry plans to double its revenue from $2 billion to $4b a year by 2035.

The $20b digital technology sector earns $15b a year in foreign exchange and is growing by more than $2b yearly. In one year, it achieves what the mining industry plans to achieve in 10 years.

I suggest the Prime Minister, his Economic Growth Minister, and other key ministers in charge of health, transport, energy and education, focus on growing already medium-to-large sectors in their portfolios.

Ones that have low environmental footprints and limited trade barriers rather than trying to help small extractive industries that have challenges meeting sustainability and environmental requirements.

Let’s maximise the return from the efforts being made.

Why do the hard, small stuff when big, easy stuff could be done instead?

Jon Eriksen, Parnell.

Privatisation debate

In his State of the Nation speech, David Seymour suggests we debate whether privately owned businesses or government ownership works best – and I agree.

Let’s start with National’s privatisation of Electricorp 27 years ago, creating Genesis Energy, Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, and Contact Energy. Privatisation has been a disaster, regularly creating a series of artificial energy crises.

Clearly, privatisation in the case of Electricorp was a mistake, so let’s put those companies back into public ownership. The resulting government corporation could then be 49% privatised, like Air New Zealand.

John Caldwell, Howick.

We are told, presumably due to a pre-announcement announcement, that the Act Party leader will “blow open the privatisation debate” (Herald, January 24). Really? If so, then he and his supporters must have short memories.

An Act founder, as a minister in a previous Labour Government, privatised New Zealand Rail. The result was a rail system run down to non-functionality by lack of maintenance while the private owners extracted value. The system was then renationalised and resuscitated at taxpayers’ expense.

The National Party broke up and then partially privatised electricity. The result is that household power prices are estimated to be 50% higher than costs while the power corporations extract dividends for their owners.

The Transmission Gully highway was contracted as a “public-private partnership”. The result was a highway delivered years late, and there is such disagreement over whether its targets have been met that the Government, of which Seymour is a minister, has terminated the partnership.

I believe history has settled the debate over privatisation already, and Seymour is about to align himself with the losers.

Ross Boswell, Christchurch.

Why is Act promoting privatisation? Isn’t the answer obvious, assuming the “landlord plus” class want the rest of us to subsidise the tax rate down to a low flat rate? They pay for private healthcare. It’s paying twice for them.

The wage slaves are essential for now until AI develops sufficiently to replace everyone (including newspaper editors) with their biased profit-driven mantra. Back to the future – annihilation by right-wing AI.

Steve Russell, Hillcrest.

NZ Magna Carta

Gary Carter’s letter (Herald, January 24) is very interesting. In it, he equates the development of a New Zealand Magna Carta with Nelson Mandela’s “equal rights for all” in 1994.

Given Mandela’s status as tangata whenua of South Africa (the Netherlands and Britain colonised the country), I suggest that our tangata whenua oversee any Magna Carta development for Aotearoa.

Maybe headed by our Māori Queen, assisted by our Governor-General, and ably supported by the likes of Dame Naida Glavish, Dame Anne Salmond, and Dr Lance O’Sullivan.

Perhaps we may have equal rights for all in our country. We could even call it “the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Edith Cullen, Te Kauwhata.

Rental income

As an Auckland landlord, I think that your correspondent Paul Minogue’s proposal of pegging residential rents to a percentage of the value of the house is a marvellous idea.

I rent out a house with no mortgage at pretty much market rent. Last year, after paying all the ownership costs of insurance (up 27%), council rates, fixed water charges, and some basic maintenance, my return on the value of the house was 1.6%. That’s right, just 1.6%. Any mandated percentage return above that level would be most welcome.

I would be better off with the money deposited in the bank right now.

Peter Lewis, Forrest Hill.