Originally Posted by
iceman
Totally agree with that artemis. The stability has been great for NZ and the result is NZ doing signficicantly better than most other OECD countries and far better than Australia for example, despite our severe setbacks with natural disasters.
The social investment approach lead and championed by Bill English is a long term policy and a radical (and successful it seems) change to Government dealing with social challenges. It seems most stakeholders agree this is showing early positive results and even Labour is not criticising it much.
It is also worth remembering that tha last Labour Government did not leave the country as seen through EZīs rose tinted glasses (good article in NBR today "Memo to Labour. Stop digging"). If I remember correctly we had a $ 7.7 billion deficit in 2008 and had gone into recession well before the GFC hit. So the incoming National Government was faced with fast deteriorating Government accounts, GFC and natural disasters. I think we can be pretty pleased with how it was dealt with and how it is turning out. Of course it has been far from perfect but Iīd say pretty good overall.