John Key brings back Roger Douglas’s band of merry asset salesmen
2009 June 19
John Key brings back Roger Douglas’s band of merry asset salesmen
If you study close enough the taskforce’s formed by the recently elected National Party Executive to look into capital market integrity, tax etc, and the people appointed to them, it is alarming to note the number of Roger Douglas/Ruth Richardson deciples or advisors that were heavily involved in the 1980s receivership at the hands of foreign bankers and the selling off of much of this nations strategic assets to foreign interests at firesale prices. Assets which were in short time resold on the open worldwide exchange for companies for many times what the nation had sold them for, netting the middlemen some very nice profits.
What is just as alarming is that many of these people were also backroom advisors to the recently deposed Labour Government of nine years. Thus, this nations social and economic policy has been influenced by these people from behind the diplomatic curtain under Labour and now under National we have them back in the drivers seat. And, given their credentials and past form, along with the current, Current Account Crisis which they “helped” a lot to cause in which some commentators refer to as a “strategic deficit”, this can only suggest one thing, this nation is once again being prepared for sale at the insistence of our foreign financiers who are holding debt to our head like a gun. All sounds fair enough, take on to much debt and suffer the consequences, but what if you were unable to trade with the outside world if you could not borrow the international reserve currency and those that loan that reserve currency create it out of freshair as computer entries in the international electronic transfer system then cruelly loan you more than they know you well ever be able to repay in order that they can get hold of and monopolise your necessities of life. Sounds bizarre, but unfortunately for us several senior insiders in Joseph Stiglitz, ex Chief Economist of the World Bank and Simon Johnson ex Chief Economist of the IMF have both come out and said as much.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice (Simon Johnson IMF)
http://www.newint.org/features/2004/03/01/imf-failure/ (Joseph Stiglitz World Bank)
In his 1987 book -Toward Prosperity – Roger Douglas wrote of many names who influenced and formed is “self taught” ideas on economics.
page 22;
I began talking to the Treasury officers seconded to the Rowling’s office and the economists in
Labours Research Unit. Between 1976-82 there was a group of them – Paul Carpenter and John
Wilson, along with John Whitehead and Barry Saunders in the Research Unit. Barry later became
one of Rowling’s private secretaries. He had also been in PR before leaving that for senior positions
with first the Manufacturers Federation and then the meat board, but he went beyond just being a
journalist; he had a good economic knowledge. Outside parliament there were people like Murray
Smith and Jim Holt to talk to. It was a good combination. There were the people like me who
were largely self taught alongside those more formal economists. As we argued through the issues
of economic and social situation at that time, I learnt more. And as my knowledge grew I became
more and more dissatisfied with Labours fragmented and unrealistic approach.
page 29;
The informal group discussions on the economy and its direction became even more important to
me after Doug’s(Doug Andrews, Treasury Officer, seconded to 0pposition Leaders Office*)
arrival. He shared a small room opposite Lange’s office and I took the opportunity go up there and
talk and discuss ideas more than any other Labour member of parliament. My ideas on how to
shape the economic policy I believed Labour and New Zealand needed were crystallizing
Together with Doug Andrew and Geoff Swier, an economist in the opposition research unit, I put
together a ‘think tank’ of people with whom we already had formal contacts. The group included
several businessmen and several academic economists from Victoria University. Jim Holt, who had
read drafts of the alternative budget and on whom I constantly tested my ideas, had come south
from the history department of Auckland University as chief historian at the National Archives. He
also attended one or two meetings.
page 130;
Over the last decade their method of going back to first principles, and working out their arguments
from there, has become much more apparent. Although it began much earlier with Henry Lang and
Bernard Galvin who, on joining the department in the 1950s were the first of a new breed with
highly developed analytical skills, in more recent years under Bernie’s leadership, officers like Jas
McKenzie, Graham Scott, John Chetwin, Roger Kerr, Bryce Wilkinson, Rob Cameron and others led the analytical development of the Treasury.
page 137;
The arguments in favour of financial deregulation had been going on for sometime. In 1966 a
report published by the Monetary and Economics Council recommended financial reforms to
improve competition and efficiency. By the time Labour was elected in July 1984 most of the
work to enable a float to be put into practice had been done years before by officials in the
Reserve Bank and Treasury. We did not need to spend time, as we did on aspects of tax
reform, working out the detail. Government and the bureaucrats knew what had to be done.
I’ve Been Thinking, by Richard Prebble 1996
page 95;
Countries call in the IMF when they cannot pay their debts. Repudiating debt for a trading nation is
not a viable option: other countries refuse to trade with you. The IMF as a condition
for providing emergency financial loans requires the recipient government to introduce a very
stringent financial reform program. The UK had to do it. New Zealand was much closer than
most commentators realised
page 96;
Increases in credit by the Reserve Bank greater than any increase in production in the economy in
New Zealand has been very inflationary. When the Reserve Bank increased the M3 by double digit
amounts, inflation went to double digits too. I noticed under Muldoon that inflation rose to within
one percent of what ever the M3 was the year before.
Therefore I used the M3 figures to accurately predict every year in Parliament what next years
inflation would be. Its still there in Hansard.
Helen – Portrait Of A Prime Minister – by Brian Edwards – Published 2001
Pg 166 – 71 -
The in-Fighting led to a leadership spill which Rowling is said to have survived
by one vote – his own. But the attacks on him continued and, not surprisingly, increased in
intensity after the 1981 defeat.
David Lange – ” That’s about the time the Party decided two have two Labour caucuses and
go-away caucuses and all these other things to avoid decision-making.
Caucuses were filled with overseas travellers who were going to do all sorts of derring-do.
They’d say, ‘yes, yes, yes! and they’d go away and plot. Remember that we’d increased the
numbers by 1981 and the bigger the caucus the more likely that you’ll get factionalism. And the
chances of becoming an isolated minority become even stronger.”
Pg – 176
Helen Clark:
“The fundamental divisions within the Party would have been very obvious to anyone on the
inside in ‘81 and ‘84, because we couldn’t produce an economic policy. And in the end
Geoffrey Palmer, who used to in fact run the policy council, went away and wrote a policy that
could have meant anything, in order to satisfy both sides. But everyone knew that we were going
into an election where the Minister of Finance was eventually going to run the rampant.”
So, after ascertaining the sort of company Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson used to associate with, lets now examine just how many of them, or of a similar ilk, have been appointed very senior positions within the bureucracy by the new National.
Government Appointed Purchase Advisors
Murray Horn -
Dr Horn received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1989 and has been awarded a number of academic honours in both New Zealand and the United States. He has previously served on a number of boards, including the New Zealand Tourism Board, and has represented New Zealand at the OECD, as a Governor at the World Bank and as a Director at the IMF.
Graham Scott -
Dr Graham Scott, former Secretary of the New Zealand Treasury, and former advisor to
the Prime minister of New Zealand was a key advisor to the government and responsible
for advice and implementation on major reforms to economic policy and public sector
management in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Since leaving the civil service in 1993 he has provided strategic, economic, financial and
management advice for government and corporate clients. For government clients he
specialises in structural, financial and management reform of commercial and
administrative functions. He also advises governments on economic and fiscal strategy
and policy, and on regulatory policies in infrastructure.
He has worked in over forty countries in all parts of the world, mostly developing and
transition countries but also in the OECD countries. He was invited by Vice President
Gore to address the summit conference on reinventing government in the United States.
He has advised the management of the World Bank on human resources practices and
performance management.
For his private-sector clients he has worked on business strategy and regulatory issues in
the dairy, oil, gas, telecommunications, airline, electricity and rail industries.
Dr Scott earned a PhD in Economics from Duke University and a Master of Commerce
from Canterbury University, and has completed the Advanced Management Program at
Harvard Business School. In 1994 he was a Visiting Scholar at the International
Monetary Fund.
Ross Tanner -
Ross Tanner’s varied career in the Public Service, culminated in his appointment as the Deputy State Services Commissioner from 1993-2001. Ross has since forged a new career as a company director, and as a consultant specialising in public policy, public management and governance. He is Chair of the Crown Health Financing Agency; an independent member and Chairman of the Internal Audit Committees of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet,and of the Education Review Office; member of the Internal Audit Committees of the Office of the Auditor General and the Legal Service Agency, and is a Director of Cranleigh, an emerging merchant bank based in Wellington and Auckland.
Capital Markets Task Force
Chairman Rob Cammeron -
Two of Australasia’s biggest investment banking names have joined forces.New Zealand’s Cameron Partners and Rothschild Australia – the Australian arm of the global Rothschild empire – have formed an alliance to extend their global reaches.
http://socialcreditorbust.blog.co.nz/rob%20cameron%20economic%20hitman%20or%20not/
Rob is the founding partner of Cameron Partners Limited, established in July 1995. Cameron Partners is New Zealand’s leading independent investment bank. It has one of New Zealand’s largest corporate finance teams with 17 experienced professionals and operates from offices in Wellington and Auckland.
Early in his career Rob was a senior advisor at The Treasury where he played a central role in the policy development and formulation of the State Owned Enterprise Model. He joined one of New Zealand’s major sharebroking firms in 1984 and became Head of Research. In 1987 he established the investment banking services of Fay, Richwhite & Company Limited. Here, he was a Director and Head of Investment Banking and led a number of their M&A and capital management mandates. They included advising Bell Atlantic and Ameritech on the acquisition of Telecom New Zealand, and managing the public float of Telecom New Zealand.
Rob McLeod -
Rob is Managing Partner of Ernst & Young New Zealand and is a specialist tax practitioner. He chairs the NZ Business Roundtable, has previously chaired the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants Tax Committee and was Chairman of the Government’s Tax Review 2001. In 2008 Rob was appointed as a member of the Capital Markets Task Force.
Rob has been a specialist tax practitioner for over 20 years with experience in all facets of taxation. His primary specialisation has been New Zealand corporate income tax, but he has also had extensive
experience in trusts, estate planning and international tax.
experience in trusts, estate planning and international tax.
From October 2004 to June 2007, Rob was a professional director and business and taxation advisor. He currently practices in the last two mentioned fields as a barrister sole. From April 2002 – September 2004 Rob was Chairman of Ernst Young. From January 2002 – March 2002 Rob was Managing Partner of Arthur Andersen.
Adrian Orr -
Deputy Governor and Head of Financial Stability
Reserve Bank of New Zealand
Adrian Orr joined the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in April 2003.
The Financial Stability Department is responsible for formulating and implementing public policy to promote and maintain a sound and efficient financial system. Major functions include foreign reserves, domestic liquidity management, analysis of financial markets and institutions, and developing and implementing public policy regarding financial institutions.
Adrian Orr’s previous positions include:
Chief Economist at Westpac Banking Corporation (NZ) Ltd (2000 – 2003),
Chief Manager of the Economics Department, Reserve Bank of New Zealand (1997 – 2000),
Chief Economist at The National Bank of New Zealand (1995 – 1997), as well as
Economist for the OECD based in Paris (1992 – 1995).
Mr Orr has also spent time as a Chief Analyst in the New Zealand Treasury, Economist with the NZ Institute of Economic Research, and Researcher at the City University Business School in London. Mr Orr was educated at Waikato University (NZ), Leicester University (England), and the City University Business School (England). His academic qualifications are BSocSci (Waikato) and MA Economics (Leicester).
Gathy Quinn -
Cathy Quinn has been named in a recent article by the Australasian Legal Business magazine as one of the ‘Hot 40′ lawyers for Australasia. Cathy was one of only four New Zealander’s named in the article’s “The Dealmakers” category. The magazine stated: “Over the course of the last year, these dealers were noted for making the wheels go round. Some were publicly lauded and awarded, and some were just keeping on keeping on”.
“Why Hot: Auckland-based Cathy Quinn enjoys an outstanding reputation amongst her client base. Leading transactions worth almost NZ$2bn in 2006, her work included acting for the shareholders of Independent Liquor (NZ) Limited in the sale of 100% of the shares to Pacific Equity Partners and CCMP Capital Asia. Other work included acting for Next Capital in its acquisitions of Hirepool, Healtheries and Nutra-life, and advising the shareholders of Phil and Ted’s Most Excellent Buggy Company in relation to selling a 20% stake to AMP Pencarrow.”
Scott St John -
Scott was appointed Chief Executive Officer of First NZ Capital in 2002. His experience in the finance industry is extensive and includes roles as a Senior Equity Analyst, Equity Salesman, Head of Equity Sales and Head of Equities. Scott joined First NZ Capital’s predecessor company CS First Boston in 1993 following seven years at Hendry Hay McIntosh.
Mark Weldon -
Mark Weldon is a distinguished scholar, Olympic swimmer and a successful businessman, all before the age of 40.
Mark holds a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University, New York, a diploma in International Law (Hons) also from Columbia, a MCom (Hons) in Economics, and Bachelor degrees in Commerce and Arts from The University of Auckland.
Mark worked as an attorney in New York, and then as senior adviser to CEOs at a number of Fortune 500 companies for McKinsey & Company.
Mark has been CEO of New Zealand Exchange since June 2002. In that time he has led it through its transformation into a mutual listed company, changed the exchange’s overall approach, and brought home the role and relevance of capital markets to New Zealand’s future to both the public and government. Mark’s leadership of the NZX has marked a turning point, creating investor confidence in the New Zealand market, and attracting both national and international buyers.
Nigel Williams -
ANZ National has raised NZ$835 million from its issue of perpetual callable bonds, more than double its initial forecast.
The success of the issue brings the total raised by ANZ National’s perpetual bond issue and a perpetual share issue by BNZ last month to NZ$1.285 billion…….
ANZ National’s Managing Director for Institutional, Corporate and Commercial Banking, Nigel Williams said 75 per cent of the issue by value came from retail investors. “It’s been extraordinarily successful from a retail point of view,” Williams said.
Mary Holme -
Rob Cameron also said Ms Holm would make a valuable contribution to the taskforce’s work.
“She has both a good understanding of the issues we are grappling with and the ability to communicate clearly with the public. As well as helping to shape the taskforce’s recommendations, Ms Holm will lend her considerable skills as a writer to our future reports.”
She lectures in financial literacy at the University of Auckland, and previously worked on the 1997 Todd report on retirement income. She holds an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago, and an MA in journalism from the University of Michigan.
Infrastructure Advisory Board
Rod Carr -
Rod was previously the Managing Director at Jade Software Corporation from 2003 after a distinguished career in the banking sector, most recently as the Acting Governor of New Zealand’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. During a five-year career at the Reserve Bank, he played a key management role as a Director and Deputy Governor, including five months as Acting Governor.
Prior to this, Rod was a senior executive at the National Australia Bank in Melbourne, Australia. During his 16-year career in commercial banking, he worked in senior executive and management roles spanning many aspects of the business at both NAB and its subsidiary, Bank of New Zealand.
During the past two decades, Rod has played a role in various New Zealand government bodies, providing advice on overseas investment, banking regulation, higher education, and healthcare. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board to the College of Business and Economics at University of Canterbury. He Chairs the Advisory Board of NZi3, the ICT Innovation Institute, established by University of Canterbury. Rod was elected to the Council of AUT University, serves as a director of Lyttelton Port Company Ltd and Taranaki Investment Management Ltd, the investment advisory arm of the New Plymouth District Council. He is also involved in several private companies as a consultant and director including the GeoSpacial Research Centre Ltd, a joint venture between University of Canterbury and Nottingham University aimed at commercialising university research.
Alex Sundakov -
You know it’s a global economy when the son of Russian émigrés is working in Wellington with a French company, selling policy advice to a Washington DC bank for a project in the Philippines. Or you may just be talking to economist Alex Sundakov, director of Castalia, a French-New Zealand company advising institutions like the World Bank.
Nice for some, but how does a boy from Wellington get to win highly competitive World Bank or Asian Development Bank projects to, say, reform the Philippines’ electricity regime (as he is doing)? It helps that Castalia is a long-established player in the field. But Sundakov has some pedigree, too. He joined Treasury in 1984 and was thrown deep into the reforms that made New Zealand famous, at least for a bit. Looking back he regards that time with the kind of affection reserved only for economists. “There was a real coherence about it. It’s natural for governments to have conflicting agendas, but what characterised the reforms was the sense of crisis and the coherence of the programme — almost like a template.”
While with the Treasury, Sundakov earned a master’s degree at the London School of Economics, and in 1992 landed a plum role with the International Monetary Fund.
While with the Treasury, Sundakov earned a master’s degree at the London School of Economics, and in 1992 landed a plum role with the International Monetary Fund.
John Rae -
John was involved in banking in New Zealand and London in various treasury and capital market roles for 10 years before returning to New Zealand. From 1991 until he joined Stevenson he undertook a number of private equity, venture capital and corporate finance transactions both here and in Australia.
He is a current board member of NZCID (New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development).
He is a current board member of NZCID (New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development).
Arthur Grimes -
Arthur has a BSocSc(Hons) from University of Waikato, and completed his PhD in Economics at the London School of Economics in 1987. He received a number of academic prizes and awards, including the Ely Devons Prize for best student in MSc(Econ), the Robert McKenzie Prize for Outstanding Performance in MA, MSc, MPhil, or PhD degrees, and the Sayers Prize for Distinguished Thesis in Monetary Economics.
Before joining Motu, Arthur was Director of the Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, and had prominent roles at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and National Bank of New Zealand. He has published papers on macroeconomics, banking and finance, housing and infrastructure topics in international academic journals, and has authored/edited five books. In 2005, Arthur was awarded the prestigious NZIER Economics Award. He is currently Chair of the Board of the Reserve Bank, Chair of the Hugo Strategy Sessions and Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Waikato.
Rob McLeod -
See Capital Markets Taskforce above
Tax Working Group
Rob Cameron -
See Capital Markets Taskforce above
Paul Dunne -
While the ideal would be “an overall systemic fix” to relieve pressure on businesses, KPMG tax partner Paul Dunne says the answer lies in a range of targeted measures. One is that businesses be allowed to claim deductions for bad debts before they are written off at year end. Another – to reduce tax burdens on employers – is fixing the policy stopping employers getting a deduction for employee holiday pay accruals unless the employee is paid this within 63 days after the end of the income year.
Arthur Grimes -
See Infrastructure Advisory Board above
Rob McLeod -
See Capital Markets Taskforce above
Gareth Morgan -
1982 to Date
Managing Director and major shareholder in Infometrics Ltd, a firm specialising in economic forecasting and analyses of the New Zealand and global economies. Besides directing the day to day operations of the company, Dr Morgan conducts over 150 seminars with private sector and government executives each year and is frequently engaged as a keynote speaker to industry conferences. Particular areas of responsibility include investment analysis and advice, international economic trends and forecasts, interpretation of financial markets, strategic management advice to clients. Dr Morgan also carries out contract research projects.
Managing Director and major shareholder in Infometrics Ltd, a firm specialising in economic forecasting and analyses of the New Zealand and global economies. Besides directing the day to day operations of the company, Dr Morgan conducts over 150 seminars with private sector and government executives each year and is frequently engaged as a keynote speaker to industry conferences. Particular areas of responsibility include investment analysis and advice, international economic trends and forecasts, interpretation of financial markets, strategic management advice to clients. Dr Morgan also carries out contract research projects.
Mike Shaw
Finance
Taxation—Business Tax Review 26 Jul 2006
John Key … of numerous tax experts who think the report is superficial and timid, including Mike Shaw, a senior tax partner at Deloitte, who said: “I would have thought on a scale of 1 to 10 it was probably about a 2 or 3 mark.”; in which case, is the …
Geof Nightingale -
PricewaterhouseCoopers tax partner Geoff Nightingale puts it this way: “We’re heading back from a broad-based, neutral, low-rate tax system to one where it’s acceptable again to use the tax system as a lever to influence business activity.
“It’s a really fundamental shift, and that’s perhaps not recognised that widely. If someone had come into my office four years ago and said, ‘I want to spend $1 billion in New Zealand on a broadband network, what tax incentives would the government grant me?’ I’d have said, ‘They don’t give tax incentives and we won’t waste everyone’s time by going in and asking.’
“Today, I’d say, ‘Right, let’s go and see the Minister of Finance and see what we can do!’ Because the thinking has changed, and they may well say, ‘We want to see the development of broadband and we’d be happy to give you accelerated depreciation.’”
Casey Plunkett -
He has extensive experience in domestic and trans-Tasman private equity transactions and has provided structured finance advice to most of the banks operating in New Zealand. Casey advises the New Zealand Government on tax matters and has assisted US investors such as Edison Mission, Brunswick Corporation, Heinz and many US and Australian private equity funds with structuring New Zealand direct investments.
Casey is a member of the International Fiscal Association and a frequent presenter at Law Society and other seminars on taxation. He is the co-convenor of the New Zealand Law Society Tax Committee, and a member of the Government’s Rewrite Advisory Panel. He is also the only practising lawyer to be appointed to the Tax Working Group, a group established to assist the Government in considering the key tax policy challenges facing New Zealand.
Casey lectures in taxation at the University of Auckland and University of Sydney and is a co-author of Income Tax in New Zealand (Brookers, 2004).
He is regularly listed as a leading lawyer in Chambers Global, Legal Media Group Guide to the World’s Leading Tax Lawyers, PLC Which Lawyer? and Asia Pacific Legal 500.
John Shewan -
John Shewan is Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand. He is also a specialist tax partner, and works extensively in tax policy and international tax.
John chaired the New Zealand Government’s Tax Education Office from 1988 to 1998, and is a previous Chair of the National Taxation Committee of the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants. He currently chairs the New Zealand Tax Working Group of the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum.
John is a graduate of Victoria University having completed a BCA at the Faculty. He has a close interest in education, and chairs Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, an independent School in Wellington. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Victoria University’s Centre for Accounting, Taxation and Governance Research.
Mark Weldon -
See Capital Markets Task Force above
John Prebble -
Professor Prebble’s main teaching and research interests are in income tax law, with specializations in basic principles of receipts, expenditure, and timing, international taxation, and anti-avoidance rules. He has developed the sub-discipline, “Jurisprudential Perspectives of Taxation Law”, which examines judicial reasoning in taxation cases from the perspective of legal philosophers. Professor Prebble has advised several governments on matters of tax reform and was a member of the New Zealand government’s consultative committees on corporate taxation and international taxation in the 1980s and of the Committee of Experts on Tax Compliance in 1998. He has subsidiary interests in private international law and the law of elections. He has received a number of awards, most recently the medal of the Australasian Tax Teachers’ Association, 2006.
David White -
David specialises in teaching and researching taxation. He is a Fellow of the Taxation Law and Policy Research Institute, Monash University, Melbourne and an International Research Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London. David is currently a member of the Mirrlees Review, which has bought together more than 50 researchers from around the world to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy in the 21st century, to assess the extent to which the United Kingdom tax system conforms to these ideals, and to recommend how it might realistically be reformed in that direction. He is a member of the New Zealand Branch of the International Fiscal Association and the Canadian Tax Foundation. Since 2002, he has been a New Zealand country correspondent for the International VAT Monitor.
Commerce Commissioner
Mark Berry
Mark Berry was appointed the Chair of the Commerce Commission from 1 April 2009. He is therefore not currently able to accept instructions.
Mark Berry was appointed the Chair of the Commerce Commission from 1 April 2009. He is therefore not currently able to accept instructions.
Mark specialises in competition law and economic regulation. He has acted in many of the leading merger and restrictive trade practices cases since the enactment of the Commerce Act in 1986 including, for example, the Goodman Fielder/Wattie merger, the acquisition by the BIL/Qantas/JAL/American Airlines consortium of their initial stake in Air New Zealand, and the acquisition by Fletcher Forests of certain of the Crown’s forestry interests in the Central North Island. Mark has also served a term as Deputy Chairman of the Commerce Commission and his decisions while on the Commission included the authorisation of the telecommunications number portability deed, the draft determination relating to the Fonterra dairy merger, the acquisition by Shell of Fletcher Energy, and the acquisition by Caltex of Challenge, to name a few.
Gault on Commercial Law, and his recent work on monopolisation has been published by the Georgetown University Law Center.
Commerce Commission Apointments
Pat Duignan -
Patrick Duignan is Principal and Director at Taylor Duignan Barry Limited and Munro Duignan Limited. His previous roles include General Manager Finance for Telecom Corporation, Director in the Investment Banking Division of CS First Boston NZ Limited, Treasurer of the New Zealand Debt Management Office, and Director Policy Coordination and Development at the Treasury. He is currently an expert (i.e., non-board) member of the ACC Investment Committee. Patrick has undertaken a wide range of financial and economic analyses in both the public and private sectors.
Susan Begg -
Susan Begg is a Director and co-founder of the consultancy company Impetus Group Limited. Her previous roles include Vice-President and head of the economic advisory unit of the investment banking division of Credit Suisse First Boston NZ Limited (and its predecessor companies) and Manager of the Macroeconomic Policy section at the Treasury. In her consultancy roles Susan has provided regulatory advice to government and to regulated industries. She was an advisor to the Commerce Commission from 2002 until 2005 on the development of the threshold regime and the Gas Control Inquiry.
Prime Minister John Key -
From his own parliamentary Biographies
“John launched his investment banking career in New Zealand in the mid 80s. After 10 years in the New Zealand market he headed offshore, working in Singapore, London and Sydney for US investment banking giant Merrill Lynch. During that time he was in charge of a number of business units including global foreign exchange and European bond and derivative trading. In 1999 John was invited to join the Foreign Exchange Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY and on two occasions undertook management studies at Harvard University in Boston.”
Minister Of Finance Bill English -
The Hon Bill English is:
Spot the odd one out, Bill English, every decent pyramid scheme needs some muppets that have swallowed the scheme hook, line and sinker to sell it on in a believeable fashion . Its all Bankers, Bankers, Bankers and Bonds, Bonds, Bonds from here on in;
Momentum is building behind the establishment of a Local Government Bond Bank to help councils finance $30 billion of planned infrastructure spending over the next 10 years.
Finance Minister Bill English on Tuesday confirmed that the Government is interested in a recommendation from the Financial Markets Development Task Force that New Zealand set up a bond bank in the wake of the severe tightening of global credit markets.
English said such banks were common overseas and could be one of the options for New Zealand. It was early days but the Government “is sympathetic to any arrangement that lowers the cost of local authority borrowing,” he said.
Task force chairman Rob Cameron said a bond bank was an outstanding opportunity which “looks like a no-brainer” for local government.
New Zealand’s 85 local bodies have about $4b of debt on their books, a figure kept low by years of deferred capital expenditure.
But their long-term capital plans show steeply climbing funding requirements for water, waste water, roading and other infrastructure.
The concept of a local bond bank was raised some months ago by consultants Asia Pacific Risk Management. Cameron Partners, Westpac Institutional Bank and Standard & Poor’s made presentations on the subject to local-government representatives at this week’s Local Authority Sector Conference in Auckland.
May 28 – New Zealand will increase its bond sales by 55% this year as the shrinking economy erodes tax revenue, forcing the government to fund its operations via debt.
The New Zealand Debt Management Office will sell up to NZ$8.5 billion of bonds this financial year, up from NZ$5.5 billion the previous year, with a further NZ$11.5 billion forecast next year, and $15 billion in each of the following two years. The DMO’s weekly sales will rise to between NZ$150 million and NZ$200 million per week, up from a NZ$75 million average in previous years.
The government stressed the importance of controlling debt in today’s budget, and the Treasury estimates both net and gross debt will peak in the June 2017 year.
“One of the benefits of our low debt levels is it gives us time to make considered decisions” in addressing the global economic downturn, said Finance Minister Bill English to a press conference. “Inevitably, an increase in public debt will have some crowding-out affect on private sector activity.”
Government borrowing has increased around the world as policymakers look to raise funds in the face of tightening credit markets and the collapse of financial markets. The U.S. government sold US$35 billion worth of Treasuries today, which pushed up ten-year bond yields.
If you dont think we are allready in the hands of the receivers, you are as dense as a fence post. I will tell you something else for free, larger doses of what caused the last crisis is only going to cause a bigger crisis in shorter time down the track, Think outside the square people or continue to pay for your own slavery!
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