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V0025926 An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by 
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images 
images@wellcome.ac.uk 
http://wellcomeimages.org 
An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by looking at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Engraving by Sharpe after Crowley, 1842. 
1842 By: Nicholas J Crowleyafter: Charles W. SharpePublished: 1842 
 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
V0025926 An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by looking at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Engraving by Sharpe after Crowley, 1842. 1842 By: Nicholas J Crowleyafter: Charles W. SharpePublished: 1842 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

PoliticsJune 2, 2017

Reading the tea leaves: What the budget tells us about how the government thinks

V0025926 An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by 
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images 
images@wellcome.ac.uk 
http://wellcomeimages.org 
An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by looking at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Engraving by Sharpe after Crowley, 1842. 
1842 By: Nicholas J Crowleyafter: Charles W. SharpePublished: 1842 
 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
V0025926 An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org An old fortune-teller is reading a young woman’s fortune by looking at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Engraving by Sharpe after Crowley, 1842. 1842 By: Nicholas J Crowleyafter: Charles W. SharpePublished: 1842 Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Money may not be important in the big scheme of things, but where money gets put, and how much, tells us volumes about what the government thinks it is doing right. And our government thinks things are going pretty well, writes the Morgan Foundation’s Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw.

As peculiar as it is in the context of a budget, I’d rather not talk about money but what the government’s intentions are for New Zealand. However, since funds allocated represents a government’s intentions for its citizens, we are going to have to talk about the money.

According to a Budget 2017 analysis by researchers at Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research (NZIER), in real terms (once we account for inflation and population growth) this government intends to spend no more and no less than it ever has. The money spent in this budget, for this year and in the years to come, leaves us in the same place we have always been.

Source: NZIER and School of Government (May 2017)

No surprises there – the government has been pretty clear on this idea of a ‘limited and diminishing fiscal envelope’, ie low public debt and reducing government spending where it can (there is of course a whole other discussion about whether limiting public spending is actually helpful or harmful to citizens). For now lets look at the ‘where’ of the money because it tells us much about the government’s views of how New Zealand is doing.

The second graph from the NZIER and Toby Moore at the School of Government gives us a per capita spending breakdown in specific areas.

Source: NZIER & School of Government

So what do these funding decisions tell us about how the government thinks?

Belief 1: There’s no need to worry about welfare (except Superannuation)

We can see from the graph that while the real welfare spend on New Zealand Superannuation will rise rapidly through to 2020/21 (by 6.5%), all other welfare spend is forecast to shrink by 5.5%.

The data on how well low-income individuals, families and children especially are doing has shown no movement for many years and is not predicted to unless our approach changes in a major way. By shrinking the spending on these groups, the government signals clearly a ‘nothing to see here folks’ attitude in terms of poverty and wellbeing in New Zealand. The funny (not funny at all) thing is that the government continues to show strong support for keeping the elderly out of poverty, through increases to their basic income (superannuation), and no commitment to do the same for anyone else.

Belief 2: Defence and prisons are still a priority

A ‘moral and fiscal failure’ they may be, but the government is still OK with prisons as a crime and justice policy. We see in the graph that per capita spending on law and justice is ticking up on a steady trajectory. In absolute terms government is spending just over a $1 billion in this budget on prisons. It is a lot to spend on what Katie Bruce from prison campaign group Just Speak calls “the most expensive and secure social housing in the country”. Defence spending will grow even more rapidly than prisons in real per capita terms (6.3% to 2020/2021). I’m unclear what need drives this increased spend on defence.

Belief 3: There’s no housing (or climate or transport) crisis

The analysis from NZIER tells us that ‘other services’, which include transport, housing, environmental protection and economic and industrial services, are going to shrink in per capita terms by 5.7%. Hmmm.

Rents have been rising exponentially since 2005, when the accommodation benefit was last adjusted. While there is a little bit extra in the budget for that payment, the per capita spend is unlikely to rise (the caveat being housing was not analysed separately by the NZIER analysis). House prices are more than any average avocado eater could hope to afford. The signal here is that housing is a small challenge right now, but that the current way of dealing with those exponentially rising costs is not going to change in any major way. This is despite numerous warnings about the threat housing costs pose to the New Zealand economy and society.

Climate change got about $1 million a year in absolute terms for ‘policy analysis’. Pause and consider that this is the issue that will cause the most significant change to our way of life. The government intentions there are well signalled.

Government still intends that we drive in our cars everywhere and put our freight on trucks as capital investment in transport continues to be dominated by motorway projects. There are also subsidies and investments for irrigation schemes in this budget, a key contributor to the degradation of our waterways.

Protection and even restoration of our native species, on whose back we have built our tourism industry, is a non-issue. Forest & Bird calculates that the budget delivered a $12m reduction in real terms for core biodiversity funding. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has a lot to say about this and not much of it good.

Belief 4: Health and education might be OK in the future

Heath and education are the largest areas of government spending and together account for around 40% of total current spending.

Health spending is, in the NZIER analysis, projected to increase by 1.2% in 2017, and is set to rise relative to population and inflation by 2.1% by 2021. This is good news. We do need however to see the break down of that spending. Is it focused on ambulance at the bottom or fence at the top of the cliff policies? Prevention-f0cused interventions (stopping people needing costly treatment in the first place) have unfortunately become as rare as many of our bird species.

Real per capita education spending is projected to decrease slightly in the coming year (-0.3%). However, it is projected to increase above current levels by 2021 (+3.4%).

What is the take home message about the government’s intentions?

If we follow the money it is clear the government has no intention of increasing the overall public spend. Many economists argue there is clear evidence that this is not the best way to protect your economy or citizens from future shocks. Regardless, the decreased per capita spend in a number of critical policy areas – on low-income citizens under aged 65, housing, environment, climate, transport – tells us the government is not concerned (or concerned enough) about the future impact of such issues on Aotearoa New Zealand. Money indicates intentions; it seems the intention is to just ignore that looming iceberg.

Feature image: An old fortune-teller reading a young woman’s fortune by looking at tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Engraving by Sharpe after Crowley, 1842. Wellcome Library, London. CC BY 4.0


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David Seymour. Original portrait by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
David Seymour. Original portrait by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

PoliticsMay 31, 2017

How I tried, and failed, to make Act leader David Seymour fall in love with me

David Seymour. Original portrait by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images
David Seymour. Original portrait by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

The 36 Questions Project is a new series in which Meg Williams takes a politician on a date and asks them the 36 Questions, a series of conversation-starters designed to make two people fall in love. In this inaugural installment, Young Greens co-convenor Williams dates Act leader David Seymour. Will opposites attract?

This is an edited version of a story that first appeared in Craccum, the University of Auckland student magazine. It is republished with permission.

In 2015, the New York Times’ Modern Love column published a piece by Mandy Len Catron about the 36 questions that can supposedly make any two strangers fall in love. The 36 questions are divided into three sections, each more personal than the last. To finish, the pair are instructed to stare into each other’s eyes for four whole minutes. Catron discovered these questions in a study by Arthur Aron called ‘The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings’, which resulted in two of the research subjects falling in love and getting married.

The idea behind the questions is that being in a vulnerable position with another person fosters closeness, and so naturally the questions really force you to dig deep and to feel awkward and embarrassed (the questions themselves are listed below).

Catron’s article makes its way back onto my Facebook newsfeed every now and then, and when I saw it pop up again recently I had a wild idea: what if I, co-convener of the Young Greens, did the 36 questions with David Seymour, leader of the Act Party? I’m a girl with some gumption, eager for a good story, so I went ahead and sent him a Facebook message with my pitch. David is well-known for being a good sport, so of course he said he was keen. He did have his initial concerns, however.

“What if it worked?” he wrote. “Then we would end up as star-crossed Romeo and Juliet with Jeanette Fitzsimons and Richard Prebble as Montague and Capulet.” He agreed to go ahead with it, but only do the first third of the questions, and definitely not do the staring into each other’s eyes for four minutes thing. I wasn’t too keen on staring into his eyes for a whole four minutes either, to be clear.

My friends were not without their own concerns. “Meg,” they’d say. “What if it does work?!”

“Well,” I’d reply, “I guess I’d just have to carry out a secret love affair with David Seymour.” There are probably worse things, right?

David Seymour photographed by Hagen Hopkins for Getty Images, April 2017

We arranged to have dinner at Spacca, a little Italian place on Remuera Road David recommended because of the chef’s comical enthusiasm (as well as the delicious food).

I arrived late because I was stuck on a bus in horrendous traffic. When I did finally arrive, I had to stop myself from channeling my inner Julie Anne Genter and begin our date with a seminar on the state of public transport in Auckland.

I sat down and got stuck into the pinot noir David had ordered for me. Gaetano, the enthusiastic chef who David reckons is straight out of the mafia (“Just look at his tattoos,” David said), came over and spoke at a million miles an hour. “Yes,” I said, not really knowing what I was agreeing to. Moments later the table disappeared underneath an abundance of beautiful Italian food. I was instantly impressed – I’m terribly fussy about Italian restaurants because their food can never quite match the Italian food I make at home (I make a damn good seafood marinara), and I don’t mean to turn this into a restaurant review, but shit this food was good.


More drinking with David: Toby Manhire has a 7.30am beer with David Seymour


To avoid small talk and to get the conversation flowing, I suggested we jump straight into the questions. It wasn’t long before one of the questions led David to opine that the worst teacher in New Zealand shouldn’t be paid the same as the best teacher in New Zealand. Of course, what he was referring to were collective agreements won by teachers’ unions which guarantee fair pay for all teachers. The socialist in me found these comments to be a bit of a boner-killer, so I set a rule: no talking about policy. “We can save that for the 36 questions to make two people fall out of love,” I said.

We pushed on. The whole process is only supposed to take about 45 minutes, but after two hours we had only reached question 14. Each question would spark a new conversation; one got me talking about my mother’s breast cancer diagnosis a few years ago, the genetics of breast cancer, Nikki Kaye’s recent recovery; another got David talking about his sports car he built himself in high school. We talked about religion and my religious background and found common ground on our respect for the Anglicans. One question prompted me to explain John Rawls to David, attempting to get him to admit that under the Veil of Ignorance he would believe that all resources should be distributed equally like a communist paradise. We slipped back into talking about policy; David mentioned charter schools, so I snapped us back to the questions.

After we’d gotten through a decent chunk of them (yes, we had gone further than David was initially willing to go with the questions, probably because I’m so darn charming after a few wines), we thought we should probably leave Spacca, having been in there for two hours. We went over the road to a pub to finish the questions, and to continue getting sufficiently sozzled. While we were there, a fan of David’s came over to get a photo with him, which was a little bizarre. We had a couple more beers, meaning we were up to drink number four or five.

David Seymour celebrating a World Cup win in 2015. Photo: Toby Manhire

We didn’t do all of the questions. Some of them were just a little too personal – I don’t think either of us were prepared to share our most terrible memories with each other, and the question about the roles of love and affection in our lives seemed a little inappropriate. There had to be, after all, at least some level of politician-journalist professionalism. Though I definitely wouldn’t say the relationship that developed between us was as dry as most politician-journalist relationships.

There was one point in the night where I really was taken aback by David’s genuineness. One of the last questions was, “Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be?” I set a rule that we weren’t allowed to choose our iPhones, since iPhones are just an extension of our limbs. I said that I would save my teddy bear, which my dad bought for me the day I was born, and has slept in my bed with me every night since.

David’s answer was, to be quite honest, pretty gorgeous. He said that before his mother passed away a few years ago, she recorded a video, put it onto a DVD, and addressed it to David’s future partner. David said that this is what he would save.

“And you’ve never watched it?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.” You have to admit that that is fairly adorable.

The end of the night came around and we realised we had taken approximately three and a half hours to not even finish the questions, and we decided to call it a night. Tipsy David decided it’d be unwise to drive home, so we got into an Uber and shook hands goodnight as he was dropped off at his Remuera flat.

I really didn’t know what I was expecting to get out of this bizarre experience. What I did end up getting out of it was actually a nice night with someone who was easy enough to get along with. Did the co-convenor of the Young Greens and the Leader of the ACT Party fall in love? I don’t think so, but (I don’t know about David) it definitely made me realise how possible it is to make a connection with someone, even if that someone is anti-unions, pro-charter schools, and once compared Marama Davidson (the Beyoncé of politics and my dear friend) to Trump… eek.

He did pay for my food, drinks, and Uber home though.

*

The 36 Questions

David and I only discussed some of them – and sorry, I’m not going to share his replies this time. But stay tuned for future installments in which we’ll dig deep into politicians’ answers.

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

2. What is your most treasured memory?

3. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

4. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?

5. What would constitute a perfect day for you?

6. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

7. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you choose?

8. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

9. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

10. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

11. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

12. Take four minutes and tell you partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

13. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

14. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

15. Is there something that you’ve dreamt of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

16. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

17. What do you value most in a friendship?

18. What is your most terrible memory?

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

20. What does friendship mean to you?

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “we are both in this room feeling…”

26. Complete this sentence “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them: be honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.


This content is brought to you by LifeDirect by Trade Me, where you’ll find all the top NZ insurers so you can compare deals and buy insurance then and there. You’ll also get 20% cashback when you take a life insurance policy out, so you can spend more time enjoying life and less time worrying about the things that can get in the way.

This election year, support The Spinoff Politics by using LifeDirect for your insurance. See lifedirect.co.nz/life-insurance

Politics