Key: "Donald Trump is driving very much an America First and a more isolationist kind of view. Actually, it’s quite different, it’s a very different foreign policy than we’ve ever seen. So that probably doesn’t help New Zealanders much. But on balance, I think he’s probably better for the economy.“
I’m very left wing so obviously my opinion is very biased in that direction, but I think Key gets a great deal of pump up from the political commentary classes because he did the politicking part of running a government successfully. He was able to keep the National party on message, was able to fudge away a bunch of different controversies without getting tarred by them and is still probably the most popular National leader of the last 20+ years.
However, if we look back at what Key’s government actually did its pretty clear to me that the outcomes of their policies are bad, are being felt now and will be felt for a long time to come.
As one example, tax cut obsession, plus austerity during and after the GFC downturn has seen a huge degradation and under-investment in infrastructure. The only reason they “balanced” budgets is by not putting money in where it was needed. That’s why Dunedin, Nelson, Hawke’s Bay etc are so desperate for new hospitals and why they are so expensive now.
Its a bit of a blunt exaggeration but the infrastructure you build today is almost always going to be cheaper than what you build tomorrow. And then the infrastructure they did build, such as Transmission Gully, was done as a PPP, which in the long run basically always costs more than doing it ourselves. Massive over-investment in roading and under-investment in rail & coastal shipping also locked in (and now Simeon is doubling down) transport emissions for decades.
PPP’s always cost more; if the government would just spend from their own balance sheet. The private portion of the costs include the profit that needs to be generated.
The only time a PPP would cost less than a purely public project, is when the people running the public project are so incompetent that they constantly fuck up.
But if the government hired the same people, on the same money as the private sector, they would achieve the same result at a lower cost!
If the government only hired great project managers; and they got the subcontractors to do the relevant bits (like private firms do) they would spend less than a PPP.
PPP’s could be a good idea, if you as a government absolutely cannot hire good people.
Some councils are in this position, they simply cannot offer the same rates as the private sector, thus cannot hire the best project managers.