It is not surprising that despite the Reserve Bank holding interest rates our exchange rate has again started to climb. The Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard fully expects that interests rates will need to rise in a bid to the curb future inflation and rising property prices. Costs like ACC continue to increase in cost.  Poorly drafted law continues to be created. As babies and children continue to suffer abuse the government believes the anti-smacking legislation is working. Is it really? The currency speculators have learnt one thing about the New Zealand economy – its predictable. We never seem to learn from our mistakes.

The only real enemy of inflation is productivity and this is one of the few tools in the cupboard that we seem reluctant to use. In fact we actively ensure the most productive are penalised. Our politicians, at both local and central level, are at pains to make a mess of things. They continue to act in ways that reduce or curb the individual’s ability to be bold. Apart from our elite athletes’, who we expect to win at the highest level, barriers are placed in front of our elite entrepreneurs and innovators.

A public meeting was recently held in Dargaville concerned about the behaviour of the Kaipara District Council.  This council has rewritten their district plan at the cost of millions of dollars. The new plan, written by Auckland consultants, is complex and difficult to understand. As an A4 document it is about eight inches thick and requires several visits to a local gym before you have the physical strength to lift it. It is completely incomprehensible. Is it needed? No. Has the community asked for it? No. Will it improve the social, cultural, and economic well being of the Kaipara? No. Will it improve the environment? No. It is a plan written by consultants to increase bureaucracy and create further work for that same bureaucracy. The whole understanding of governance is simply beyond the elected Council and Mayor. Unfortunately they are not alone. Similar mindless acts of bureaucracy are replicated across the country to a greater or lesser extent.

Despite all the rhetoric compliance costs continue to climb as both local government and central government agencies invent problems and then create expensive solutions to resolve them. We make it hard for development even when little development is occurring. We stop people doing things with little or no understanding of the implications to our communities or society in general. The resource consent process was meant to be enabling but in fact it has become a powerful tool for those who dislike progress or success.

The people in the public sector and the environmental movement are often spectators and armchair critics. They attempt little and criticise those that have the courage to do something. The biggest mistake we make as a country is to train policy makers as brakes on people who try things. Changing this culture is like asking a huge super oil tanker to change course but that is what is needed.