A Policy A Day: Wrap-up

The list of articles in this series is available here.

The General Election is tomorrow, so this series of policy analyses comes to an end. We've looked at 24 different policies spanning a variety of policy areas and political parties, and it has been quite a journey. When I started this project I knew there would be a lot of research ahead, but I feel like doing the research on all the topics has taught me more than most of my university courses. It has been an interesting experience trying to push these posts in the wake of many political scandals, and trying to keep the discussion on policy. Shouting into the wind would be an understatement, but hopefully this resource will be here and remain relevant and useful for a few years to come.

I want to thank the guest bloggers who have helped ease the workload significantly by agreeing to write guest posts. Their styles and biases vary wildly from person to person, but all of the posts have been great and I've definitely learnt some things from the posts. These are all young people who are still developing their views about the world and politics, and every one of them is engaged with decision making in our country. Thank you for not only writing guest posts, but also for continuing to fight the stereotype that youth are disengaged from society and democracy.

I asked each of our guest bloggers to answer the question "If you could tell the incoming government one thing, what would it be?"

Charlotte Austin (Compulsory Te Reo Māori):
"Worry more about the New Zealand you are leaving your grandchildren than your reputation."

Gayathiri Ganeshan (Disestablish the IPCA):
"Keep our kids fed and warm; then make sure their parents can earn a living wage that supports a family. Let tertiary students study in a conducive environment (hint: not one in which we have to work multiple jobs to afford study). Break cycles of offending by showing offenders care and decency, especially prisoners. Give primacy to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, protecting human rights and safeguarding the environment. In short: be better." [Editor's note: One thing Gayathiri. One thing.]

Jason Armishaw (Variable Superannuation):
"I would like to see the government reduce distortions in the housing market by introducing a universal capital gains tax."

Maanya Tandon (Food in Schools):
"If you could try and undo as much of the last 6 years as possible - that'd be great."

Thomas Vautier (Universal Basic Income):
"Ignoring the needs of the youth and lower/middle classes will come around to bite you. You should begin to focus policy that will begin to shrink the increasing wealth deficit. It will be the biggest problem you will face in the coming decade."

Rosie Polaschek (Abolish Maori Electorate Seats):
"Remember all the sectors of society and their interests, and to think about all of them in decision-making."

Gina Yukich (Cleaning Our Rivers):
"Ask young people what they want from education. Many teachers are out of touch with their students, and parents' desires for their children can differ from the childrens' desires for themselves."

Bhenjamin Goodsir (Castle Doctrine):
"I would remind them to keep in mind New Zealand’s strong history of protecting and furthering Human Rights. These rights are a fundamental part of our society and we need to do everything we can to continue this history."

Simon Johnson (Capping School Donations):
"Any new government should renew its focus on education. New Zealand should be aspiring to be the most highly educated nation in the world. A new government of any party should adopt a rigorous evidence-based approach and be bold in their thinking."

Camille Wrightson (Targeting Gangs):
"Prioritise people and the planet over profit."

Andrew Chen:
"I look overseas at many governments and just have to cringe. From government inaction to poor policy to political scandal, the government stops working for the people and everyone becomes worse off. New Zealand is a great country to live in - please try to keep it that way."

This election has been a very interesting one to say the least. It tears at my principles internally; on the one hand I want to only talk about policy and make sure that governments are elected on the basis of policy; on the other hand some of the revelations and details released about the current government, from dirty politics to GCSB spying, are unsettling and make me question the ethics of those trusted to lead our country. It makes me lose faith in the political system, and to a certain degree I think that it explains part of why youth are "apathetic" about politics. Hopefully we'll see youth participation in the election skyrocket after the many initiatives that have been put in place, but I'm less hopeful about that making a difference to our government. All I can do is hope that no matter who wins, that they try to keep the interest of all New Zealanders at heart, and that the country keeps trucking along.

If you've read all of the posts, then well done you! A lot of words have been written and I'm glad that someone's been reading them. But this series has to come to an end, so thank you once again to the guest writers and also thank you to the readers for giving us an audience.

A Policy A Day: MMP Reform

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

Today's post is by Pasan Jayasinghe.

Background
In 2010, the National-led Government enacted the Electoral Referendum Act 2010, which provided an indicative (non-binding) referendum on New Zealand’s voting system to be held in conjunction with the 2011 general election. As the majority of voters chose to keep the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system, an independent review of MMP by the Electoral Commission was triggered. The review process included a public submissions phase that considered written and in-person submissions across the country; the subsequent release of a Proposal Paper; a further submissions phase; and the publication of a final report in October 2012. Of the primary recommendations made by the report, lowering the party vote threshold from 5% to 4% and abolishing the one electorate seat threshold for allocating list seats (or the 'coat-tailing' provision) attracted the most attention, particularly across the spectrum of political parties who would all be affected by the changes in different ways. In 2013, then Minister of Justice Judith Collins announced that the National-led Government would not be implementing any of the Electoral Commission’s recommendations as no consensus on implementation was reached by the parties in Parliament. Opposition to the recommendations was expressed by parties such as ACT, United Future and MANA, whilst support was expressed by Labour and the Green Party.

What are the Party Vote and One Electorate Seat Thresholds?
Under MMP, a political party is entitled to a share of MPs that is the same as its share of the party vote if it reaches one of two thresholds: either it gets at least 5% of the nationwide party vote; or it gets at least one electorate seat.

Taking the 2008 General Election as an example, for instance:

• The Green Party won no electorate seats but because it won 6.7% of the nationwide party vote (and therefore reached the 5% threshold) it got nine of the 122 seats in Parliament
• The ACT Party did not clear the 5% party vote threshold (its nationwide party vote was 3.6%) but because one of its candidates won an electorate seat (that is, it reached the one-seat threshold), it was entitled to five seats overall (one electorate and four list seats)
• The New Zealand First Party won 4.1% of the party vote but did not win an electorate seat,  because it reached neither threshold it did not receive any seats. 

Because governments under MMP are formed by political parties who can collectively command a parliamentary majority, and because no single party has ever received more than 50% of the seats in Parliament on its own under MMP, changes to the vote thresholds are hugely consequential. For minor parties, the thresholds determine their very existence. For the major parties, the thresholds determine their ability to form governments they are able to lead.

Policy Proposals
The Labour Party proposes to give effect to the Electoral Commission’s proposals by lowering the party vote threshold from 5% to 4% and abolishing the one electorate seat threshold. The Green Party also supports these provisions. The Labour Party’s proposals were first expressed in a Private Member’s Bill put forth by then leader David Shearer upon the government’s decision to shelve the recommendations.

Arguments for Lowering the Party Vote Threshold to 4% and Abolishing the One Electorate Seat Threshold
It is possible to consider the Electoral Commission’s arguments for the vote threshold proposals here, particularly as they are commonly expressed by the Labour Party in support of its proposals:

Lowering the party vote threshold is seen as a means of striking a balance between proportionality and stability. The present 5% is contested as being too high a barrier for parties to enter Parliament. On the other hand, lowering the threshold too much is claimed to result in a proliferation of minor parties which would make government formation and governance difficult.

With respect to the one electorate seat threshold, it is argued that whilst it increases the proportionality of Parliament, it does so arbitrarily and inconsistently (compared to lowering the party vote threshold). It is held to undermine the principles of fairness and equity, which underpin the primacy of the party vote, by giving voters in some electorates significantly more influence over the make-up of Parliament than voters in other electorates. It also causes excessive focus to be placed on a few electorates and distorts election campaigning.

Analysis of the Proposals to Change Vote Thresholds
Abolishing the one electorate seat threshold is a reasonable proposal. While it does in fact increase proportionality by giving parties who achieve it representation proportional to their party vote (so does not disenfranchise their voters) this proportionality is not uniformly guaranteed as it gives voters in certain electorates a greater and undue influence in choosing the ultimate make up of Parliament. This is best illustrated by the notorious ‘cup of tea deals’ made in the Epsom electorate in the past few elections, where National Party leaders Don Brash and then John Key both encouraged their supporters to vote for the ACT Party candidate with their candidate votes (Rodney Hide in 2005 and 2008, and John Banks in 2011). This allowed the ACT Party to bring in one and four extra MPs in 2005 and 2008 respectively. Comparing this against parties who fail to clear both thresholds despite receiving higher vote shares than one electorate seat threshold beneficiaries – for instance, New Zealand First in the 2008 example above – can be seen as both unjust and illogical. As a result, public opposition to the one electorate seat threshold is high, demonstrated by the high number of submissions against in in the MMP Review.

The 5% threshold is generally seen as too high a hurdle for parliamentary representation; only two parties aside from the two major parties cleared it during the last three MMP elections. However, it is unclear if the 4% threshold (by itself) gives smaller political parties a more reasonable chance of gaining seats in Parliament. There have been only three instances of parties receiving between 4% and 5% of the party vote in all MMP elections to date, proving that it might still be too high a hurdle. The unfairness here is not on the parties denied entry to Parliament, but rather on the voters denied representation. Under the current electoral roll for instance, a party requires the party votes of more than 123,000 voters to clear the 4% threshold; a substantial number. The situation appears even starker when considering new parties and the near impossibility they face in gaining representation given the institutional advantages offered to parties with existing parliamentary representation (including broadcasting allocations during election periods). Indeed, no party since 1996 has been able to break into Parliament without already having representation there.

The proliferation of very small parties is often used as an argument to not lower the threshold below 4%. The Electoral Commission supported this claim with the general principle that the lower the threshold, the greater the risk to parliamentary effectiveness and government stability. To examine this claim, we can look at the six elections under MMP so far, which provide a highly diverse sample of small parties at every possible size, from single MP parties up incrementally to multiple MP parties. These results further provide case studies of parties in various configurations of government, opposition or otherwise. Even a brief attempt at considering all this data shows that very small parties can hardly be seen as having caused undue instability either during government formation or actual governance; the major parties have always been able to produce governing arrangements with the aid of small parties (often numerous in number) without having to resort to another immediate election, and no government has lost its parliamentary majority mid-term. The case of the National-New Zealand First coalition following the 1996 election is an arguable case, as the National Party was still able to retain its parliamentary majority after New Zealand First’s exit from the coalition. And in any case, such a scenario has never repeated itself since. The fear that small parties’ excessive influence would decrease governmental durability and increase the level of instability has not eventuated. More often than not, it is the dog that wags the tail. Finally, there are many benefits to decreasing the burden to smaller parties entering Parliament, including the representation of a more diverse range of interests and views and greater democratic integrity for voters who are able to express truer political preferences.

Perhaps most pressingly, the lowering of the party vote threshold to 4% needs to be considered in conjunction with the one electorate seat threshold’s removal. When doing so, it is clear that there would be a rise in disproportionality from the status quo. When past election results are subjected to the Gallagher Index, which measures electoral disproportionality, there is indeed an average increase in disproportionality under a 4%–no electorate seat threshold arrangement. If the Labour Party’s proposal is implemented alongside some of the Electoral Commission’s other recommendations, such as abolishing overhangs (which restricts Parliament to 120 seats), disproportionality could further increase. This goes against the explicit intention of MMP, which is to produce Parliaments with the least possible disproportionality.

All this is grounds for lowering the threshold lower than 4%. A threshold of 3%, for instance, would lower the number of party votes required below 100,000, slightly increase the number of parties receiving representation, and more effectively counteract the disproportionality caused by the one electorate seat threshold’s removal. In regards to the proposals however, the state of affairs today may be preferable, even with the disproportionate influence it grants voters in some electorates, as that is a less negative outcome compared to the disenfranchisement of a larger numbers of voters, a smaller numbers of parties in Parliament, and increased disproportionality.

The Electoral Commission did make a provision for the 4% threshold to be reviewed in future (in three elections’ time), with a view towards potentially lowering it to 3%, and David Shearer’s Members’ Bill echoed this provision. It is unclear from the current Labour Party (or Green Party) proposals whether this would be retained. However, the waiting period for this of three elections, or nine years, is still a long time for this disproportionality to persist.

Verdict
The case for abolishing the one electorate seat threshold is strong. Unfortunately, its removal when paired with the lowering of the party vote threshold to 4% produces a range of undesirable effects, from potentially disenfranchising many voters to increasing Parliament’s disproportionality. There is a stronger case to be made for lowering the party vote threshold further if the one electorate seat threshold’s removal is desired. As it is, implementing the Labour Party’s proposals is likely to produce an increased consolidation of the larger parties’ representation and power, whilst minimising minor party representation compared to now. If we subscribe to the idea that our Parliament should aim to enfranchise as many voters and represent as many different political views as possible, notions which underlie the MMP electoral system, then the proposals cannot be supported.

Pasan is currently completing a Master of Arts in Political Studies. When not crying over his thesis, he enjoys copious amounts of tea, murder mysteries, and cat appreciation.

A Policy A Day: Targeting Gangs

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

Today's post is by Camille Wrightson.

Law and order policies are easy pickings for politicians. We hear the “get tough on crime” rhetoric most elections, because the public loves it and parties come off as authoritative and austere. Right-wing parties generally take the "hard line" approach to crime, and this election is no exception: ACT and Conservative have flagship policies regarding tougher sentences for criminals. National has taken an interesting approach with its justice policies this year. Their general law and order policies are definitely on the tougher side, but their higher profile gang policy, despite the "getting tough on gangs" slogan, has, partly, a more measured approach.

There are, perhaps unsurprisingly, some significant practical and rights-based issues with the policy. National does have to play to the more extreme of its supporters, including those who commented many times over that a bullet would be an easier way of dealing with gang members.

Policy
Police and Corrections Minister Anne Tolley announced the policy last month, which includes four big initiatives:

1. A multi-agency Gang Intelligence Centre led by the Police and based at their national headquarters. The agencies involved would be Police, Corrections, Justice, MSD, Education, Health, Te Puni Kokiri, Housing NZ, Inland Revenue, and Customs;

2. Start at Home, a work programme designed to encourage reintegration and rehabilitation. Corrections services will be targeted at gang members, including violence and addiction services and support, alongside increased effort towards education, employment, and housing;

3. Two Dedicated Enforcement Taskforces: the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Border Protection Taskforce which targets drug-trafficking, including putting drug-dogs at domestic airports, and the Criminal Asset Confiscation Taskforce which would strengthen asset recovery efforts, prevent the financing of crime and target profits received from crime;

4. Strengthening legislation by amending the Sentencing Act to include 24-hour GPS monitoring of high-risk gang affiliates following release from a prison sentence of less than 2 years, to stop them associating with gang members. It would also stop serious gang offenders from buying weapons, and would penalise those who knowingly supply those weapons.

The funding for this policy has been specified as $1.6 million over two years.

Background
Gangs, for generally good reason, have a pretty bad reputation. The statistics provided by the Minister include that while gang members account for 0.1% of the population (approx. 4000 members), they are responsible for:
· 25% of homicide-related charges
· 34% of class A/B drug offences
· 36% of kidnapping and abduction offences
· 25% of robbery/aggravated robbery offences
· 26% of grievous assault offences
She went on to say that these gang members average 53 offences in their lifetime.

There has been some interesting coverage of gang life in New Zealand recently, including the discussion about whether it was fair that a father wasn’t allowed to chaperone at his son’s camp because he was an active gang member, and the story of the Mumzys group of gang wives in Porirua. Articles like this are slowly opening up the gang world to the public, showing that gangs are not just hotbeds of crime – they are also collections of whanau. In the past, Parliament has largely treated gangs as the former, which may explain why previous efforts to control gangs through legislation have had mixed results.

Analysis of the Policy
The response to the multi-agency intelligence centre have been widely welcomed, including by Police Commissioner Mike Bush, Dr Jarrod Gilbert, NZ’s foremost academic on gangs, and the Herald editor. A broader approach to the problem of gangs has been desired for a long time, and using so many different agencies looks like a really positive step. It has been great to hear Minister Tolley saying things like “It is just an acceptance that you are never going to arrest your way out of the gang culture” and that “law and order is only part of the answer”.

Nevertheless, there are some serious issues with the policy.

It is well-documented that crackdown measures on gangs don’t often work that well. Overseas and local research, including by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington DC, has demonstrated that if legislation further stigmatises gangs, this leads to increased internal cohesion and hostility towards authority, rather than the deterrence that was intended. Unison and defiance of gang-members is precisely what the legislation wants to stop, but if it is too heavy-handed it might actually cause that. The GPS monitoring could have this effect. Dr Gilbert has said that under legislation like this “they feel like they’re being attacked and so they create their own value systems to rebel against that. It creates perverse outcomes.”

There are human rights concerns with the GPS tracking proposal as well. The biggest concern is a breach of section 17 of the Bill of Rights Act – freedom of association. Practical issues also arise – if you are from a small town, and/or your only circle of friends/family/whanau is gang-connected, it is highly unlikely or even desirable that you will avoid those people after your release from prison. Minister Tolley has said that currently there has been no Ministry of Justice vetting regarding implications on human rights with this policy. While presumably the legislation would be checked by the Attorney-General for any breaches as it made its way through the legislative process, the Government hasn’t had a particularly good track record of listening to the AG’s concerns in recent years.

Dr Gilbert has accused the Government of overstating the problem. He has raised concerns with the statistics the Minister used, suggesting that the figure that 28% of inmates are gang members also includes gang associates. This would mean that not just active, patched members were included, but also anyone who has any connection to anyone in a gang. This potentially means we’re dealing with a pool of 60 000 people as opposed to 4000.

Also, the initiatives targeting the drug trade rely on an assumption that gangs are responsible for the majority of drug trafficking. This is not necessarily the case, as apprehension data recorded by the police have gang affiliates making up between just 7 and 12% of apprehensions depending on the type of drug. A focus on gangs while trying to address drug trafficking may well mean that, in the words of Dr Gilbert, “the drug dealers who aren’t in gangs, the vast majority of drug dealers, tend to go under the radar. And that is a problem, it’s a problem for all of us.”

While the multi-faceted approach is a great idea, it’s going to need sufficient funding for it to work. $1.6 million over two years is a drop in the bucket, and isn’t a particularly good omen.

However by far the biggest issue with this policy, and with most anti-gang policies, is that it doesn’t address the root issue. Gangs thrive in communities that have issues with poverty, unemployment and poor education. As long as Kiwis struggle with these issues, we will always have gangs. If the Government is unwilling to seriously address them, then any legislation attacking gangs is bound to fail. The multi-agency approach is a great start, but policy-makers need to look even broader if they want to make a change regarding the underlying causes of gang activity.

Gangs are enabled by social problems as well as by freedoms (of association, of expression) that we have granted all citizens under the Bill of Rights Act. Dr Gilbert warns that “lawmakers must be mindful of chipping away at the latter blindly or due to an inability or unwillingness to tackle the former”.

It would be interesting to know if Minister Tolley has had discussions with leaders in gang communities to better understand their problems and how best to fix them, as Robert Muldoon was well known to do. Those who speak to the media have a very clear message: Denis O’Reilly, lifelong Black Power member, has said that the idea of the Gang Intelligence Centre is a “pathological construct. If we keep on focusing on the illness, we are likely to miss the drivers of wellness. Deal with whanau, not gangs”. Dennis Makalio, Mongrel Mob boss, has said that “what works is when they focus on what the problem is in New Zealand and not a gang… This is not a gang problem, it’s a New Zealand problem. The problem is, if you can’t get employment what are you going to do to feed your family?”

Verdict
The multi-agency approach is a fantastic step forward in addressing the problems that gangs cause, assuming it is adequately funded. A broader, more holistic approach in this manner has been needed for a long time. Further focus on rehabilitation and reintegration is a major plus as well. The other aspects of the policy don’t bode so well, and show a desire from National to play to its more conservative supporters in election year, rather than listening to the experts or to gangs themselves. Positive change in this area is possible, but we need to consider the general social problems which enable gangs, rather than just manage the after-effects.

[Update: The article mentions that there was some confusion about the statistics - Dr. Gilbert has OIA'd the data and it shows that he was correct.]

Camille Wrightson is a left-leaning Law and Politics student at the University of Otago. She likes feminism, public policy, and making brownie-in-a-mug.

A Policy A Day: Carbon Tax

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

Today's policy comes from the Green Party. Climate Change is a serious issue that faces the entire world, and New Zealanders should play their part in helping address it. The New Zealand Attitude and Values Study (from the Dept of Psychology at the University of Auckland) shows that 72% of New Zealanders believe that climate change is real, and that 62% believe that climate change is anthropogenic (caused by humans). This post assumes that climate change is an issue that we want to make a serious attempt at addressing - if you think that climate change is not a real thing then this is probably not the post (or blog) for you. The question then becomes one of how we address climate change.

In the area of controlling carbon emissions, there are two main systems that have been adopted around the world: cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes. New Zealand currently uses a cap-and-trade system called the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The Green Party proposes:
- Phase out the failed Emissions Trading Scheme and instead put a meaningful price on carbon through a charge on polluters (full policy document here)
or in other words, scrap the ETS and implement a Carbon Tax instead. They also propose a number of complementary policies, including using the revenue from the Carbon Tax to bring in income and company tax cuts, but this post will focus on the differences between carbon emission control mechanisms rather than what any difference in revenue would be spent on.

Background

With both a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax system, the idea is to set a "price of carbon" so that some financial cost is introduced for carbon emissions. This disincentivises carbon emissions and helps to reduce the overall level of emissions. Without a price of carbon, companies and individuals could emit as much carbon as they want into the environment at no cost to themselves, but it creates a wider cost to society (an externality in economics jargon) - hence, the government has to step in to regulate carbon. In both systems, companies continue to emit carbon until there is some alternative (such as new technology or a different process) that costs less than the price of carbon. The price of carbon is thus very important, because it essentially dictates whether carbon emissions actually decrease or not, while also being careful not to excessively increase the cost of goods and services which would hurt businesses as well as end consumers.

The existing system in New Zealand is the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). In a cap-and-trade system, the government sets a maximum level of carbon that can be emitted throughout the country, and then distributes permits (or "carbon credits") out to companies for free that allow the company to emit carbon up to the value of the permits they hold. Those companies are then able to trade those carbon credits as necessary - some companies will be given fewer credits than they need, and will have to purchase from other companies who hold more credits than they need. Eventually, the government stops distributing permits, as carbon absorbers (such as forest owners) "generate" carbon credits that they can sell into the market. The idea is that carbon emissions are controlled by market mechanisms - supply and demand drives the price of carbon with as little government intervention as possible. With a floating price, carbon generally becomes more expensive over time as the government tries to reduce the overall cap but companies want to grow. As the price rises, companies are increasingly incentivised to find other ways to conduct business without emitting as much carbon, and thus the goal of the government is achieved. There is a dual incentive because as the price rises it also becomes more profitable for companies to plant trees and earn carbon credits to sell on the market. However, because the price is floating it provides less certainty for businesses, especially since the price of carbon can be difficult to predict. This makes it harder for companies to price their products for customers, who generally expect stable prices. This is one of the biggest problems identified by the Green Party in the existing system - companies are generally forced to pass a larger cost onto their customers (for example, the price of carbon might be $22 per tonne of CO2 but the company uses $25 per tonne of CO2 in their pricing - customers would be annoyed if a bottle of milk cost $2 one week and $2.50 the next week and $2.20 the week after due to the carbon price changing) to allow for price fluctuations and a general upwards trend over time (it's better for the company and customer expectations to just keep the price at the upper level).

The Green Party policy is to replace the ETS with a Carbon Tax. In this system, the government sets a carbon price, and then all emitters are forced to pay a tax on their emissions to the government. In comparison to the cap-and-trade system, the price of carbon is fixed, not floating at the whim of market forces, but it is important for the government to get the price right. Additionally, the government increases their revenue and can spend the money from the tax on other policies such as incentivising forestry (and thus tree planting that absorbs carbon) or providing income tax cuts. The intended effect of the tax is to force companies to avoid the tax by changing their processes to emit less carbon, or alternatively to generate enough revenue to reduce carbon emissions in other ways (such as tree planting), thus achieving the goal of the government. However, there is no limit on the amount of carbon emitted - as long as companies (and their customers) can afford the price of carbon, then companies can continue to emit. Ideally, companies will change their processes to reduce carbon emissions if the carbon tax is high enough, but in reality companies generally just pass the cost of the carbon tax onto consumers (similarly to GST), which may not actually incentivise any behavioural or process changes in the carbon emitters. Purely theoretically, there is also no dual incentive to plant trees because there is no reward for doing so, although in reality most carbon tax systems use some of the revenue to give subsidies/grants to forestry. I should note here that some economists advocate for a hybrid design - some mixture of both; for example, a cap-and-trade system that has government defined price floors and ceilings to restrict the market between reasonable values. At the moment, the government essentially has a price ceiling by selling carbon credits at $25/CO2, so that if the market exceeds this price there is always an option for companies to purchase from the government instead of the market, forcing the market price back down.

Analysis of the Policy

The above background gives a reasonably theoretical view of the two main carbon pricing systems. Theoretically, both systems achieve the same ends - they reduce carbon emissions. The cost to carbon emitters is lower in a cap-and-trade system, but the government doesn't get any revenue (and generally ends up paying more money in subsidies and other schemes). The cost to carbon emitters is higher in a carbon tax system, but the government can generate a significant amount of revenue. Which system a country uses therefore becomes influenced by ideology - a right-wing government that is more business-friendly and believes in smaller government favours a cap-and-trade system (as evidenced by NZ's ETS), while a left-wing government that believes in the welfare state and the power of government to help people favours a carbon tax. A right-wing government also tends to believe in the power of the free market to achieve economic efficiency (cap-and-trade), while the left-wing government supports government regulation and intervention to provide better control to ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved (carbon tax). The ETS was actually introduced in 2008 by the Labour government, before being amended heavily by the National government in 2009 and 2012.

Apart from ideology, it is important to look at whether the status quo ETS is working, and whether a carbon tax would resolve any problems. Pricing carbon is a relatively young strategy (the first was a carbon tax in Finland in the 1990s), and while there are now a large number of countries with either a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax, there is insufficient data to declare one system better than the other through empirical evidence. In general (page 12 of this document), European states have opted for carbon taxes while Asian and American states have gone towards cap-and-trade systems. So unfortunately, we can't look overseas for a "correct" answer. For this reason, I feel a little uncomfortable about Russel Norman's claims that the ETS is failed. We have to give these systems a bit more time to see if they will work; prematurely rejecting them would not only be wasteful, but might send us down the wrong track instead. Having said that, there are certainly some signs that the ETS as it stands in New Zealand may not be working.

At the root of the problems with the ETS is that the implementation in New Zealand does not match the theory. In an effort to appease business interests, the government was forced to phase in the ETS gradually, and the exceptions to the scheme just piled up. Right now, agriculture has been excluded from the ETS, which just doesn't make sense when agriculture is responsible for nearly half of all carbon emissions in New Zealand. The original intention was to include agriculture by 2015, but the lobbyists won and date for when agriculture gets included in the ETS is now not set at all. The argument is that forcing agriculture to pay extra for carbon credits (or a tax for that matter) increases the costs of production and hurts our competitive ability in export markets. This is a legitimate argument but goes against the entire point of carbon pricing, which is to force companies to reduce their carbon emissions by finding alternative ways to conduct their business. As indicated in the previous section, the ETS has also brought harm to consumers, as businesses forced to allow for fluctuating carbon prices have passed on higher costs to consumers than the actual costs of the carbon - some businesses are essentially profiting off the ETS. There are issues with the (free) allocation of carbon credits to certain industries, as well as the (previous) trading of carbon credits on the international market that largely undermine the ETS. There are many problems with the existing ETS, and something probably needs to be done to address them.

The question is then whether a carbon tax would resolve those problems or be otherwise more effective than the ETS. This is where the water becomes a lot murkier because there is little real evidence beyond assertions to show that a carbon tax would do a better job than a cap-and-trade scheme. An ideal carbon tax system as proposed might do better than the broken cap-and-trade system we have now, but realistically any carbon tax system is likely to be modified and weakened to meet the demands of businesses and industry. A broken carbon tax system is unlikely to be better than a broken ETS. It then comes down to which party has more resolve to withstand those demands - there is an argument that the Green Party will be more principled and stand stronger than the National Party. Whether this is true cannot be tested until the Green Party is in government, and cynically I'm not sure if the Green Party (as a support partner for the Labour Party) would be entirely immune from lobbyist pressures.

If we are to switch to a carbon tax, then we need to be aware of the side effects. Firstly is the massive cost in phasing out the ETS, re-educating the public and businesses, and re-implementing a new tax. This compliance cost is non-negligible, and would delay progress towards a working system. One of the most common arguments for a carbon tax is that it provides certainty for businesses because they know how expensive carbon will be - but for a carbon tax to be effective it has to be flexible to respond to changes in global markets and the environment, introducing uncertainty. Leaving the price of carbon in the hands of the government could therefore be dangerous - the intention is for the price to be relatively fixed without constant adjustments, which means that it is difficult and slow for the government to respond to change. Additionally, just like how the OCR is a blunt tool for controlling inflation, a carbon tax rate would be similarly blunt as it has less granularity than a market-set price. It is also difficult for the government to know exactly where to set the price - the Green Party has proposed $25/tonne of CO2 (except for agriculture, set at $12.50/tonne of CO2 (and paying out $12.50/tonne of CO2 to forestry)), but we can't be sure whether this number is too high or too low until it is implemented and we see the effects. At least in a cap-and-trade system, the price can correct itself quickly if the price is too high or too low - in a carbon tax, the price is set and difficult to change.

Lastly, the fact that there is no upper limit of emissions set in a carbon tax scheme means that there is potentially no limit to emissions. Yes, businesses are disincentivised from emissions and encouraged to use cleaner processes, but businesses simply pass the costs onto customers (it is probably important to note that the Green Party policy (page 12) to use the revenue from a carbon tax on tax cuts and a tax-free threshold would supposedly leave households better off even after taking the increase in household costs into account). In a cap-and-trade system costs are also passed onto customers (perhaps less efficiently), but at least there is a limitation on the total amount of emissions allowed. In the carbon tax system, companies continue to emit at will (at a flat tax rate), and pass the tax on. In the cap-and-trade system, if they continue to emit at will the price rises and it becomes increasingly expensive to emit more. From this perspective, it seems that a cap-and-trade system will probably achieve the desired end of limiting and reducing carbon emissions better than the carbon tax system. The only way to combat this in a carbon tax system is to set the carbon price very high, which is not responsive and would unfairly penalise all emitters when only some emitters may be increasing emissions.

Verdict: While I agree that the ETS as it stands is broken and untenable, I'm not convinced that a carbon tax is the best alternative - maybe that's my conservative economics coming through. I don't think that starting again is necessarily the right move - I would prefer to see a government make the ETS work like it was intended to by removing subsidies, enforcing the scheme on the agricultural industry, and in general make it more stable. Maybe some government intervention is needed to set price floors and ceilings, but that would be preferable (in my view) to a carbon tax.

A Policy A Day: Capping School Donations

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

Today's post is by Simon Johnson.

In July 2014 and to great public fanfare, the Labour party announced a package of educational reform designed to reduce inequality and improve social mobility amongst the young people of this fair land. Labour faithfully promises that it will, through the benign and liberal agency of the Ministry of Education, improve the life chances of all young New Zealanders, set the teachers free from the reign of the Hated Honourable Hekia Parata [1], and institute general happiness across New Zealand schools which will be set free from the shackles of poverty and oppression. In short, a new Jerusalem for education in New Zealand's "green and pleasant land." [2]

All good, tub-thumping stuff and an overall aim that no sensible commentator could argue against. Of course, making big political statements is easy but making real change requires detailed policies. Time, and Andrew's patience, prohibits me from examining each of Labour's proposed educational policies in the detail they deserve. Instead, I shall limit myself in this blog to focusing on the policy proposal which caused the most hot air in the public press: the proposed additional funding for those schools which do not charge 'school fees' or ask for 'donations'.

At the moment, a state school in New Zealand [3] receives money from the Government to pay for its day-to-day running costs [4]. The amount of money a school receives is roughly calculated on a per-pupil basis, with an additional sum if the school has a large concentration of the poorest students (through the 'decile system'). This, the Ministry of Education claims [5], gives schools the money they need to deliver the core educational curriculum.  In addition to this government income, a school may raise alternative income through other means – international students, trading income [6] and 'donations' are the most common – to fund the additional extras that a school wishes to offer its students. Crucially, a school is not allowed to make 'donations' compulsory [7]. Despite calling them 'school fees' and – worryingly often – exerting a degree of pressure on parents, a school cannot legally require parents to pay school fees [8].  The new policy idea is that the government will give additional money (at the rate of $100 per student) to any school that does not ask for donations.  In this new world, voluntary 'donations' will still be permitted but, so the Labour party believe, most schools will not ask for them. Instead they will take the easy money from the government. Of course, this is only true if the school currently reliably receives less than $100 per student in donations. Otherwise, they would act in an economically rational way and continue to accept donations [9].

As a starter, a close look at the data makes the Labour party look a little foolish. Their policy paper assumes 78% of schools will take up the $100 per student offer [10] and thus this will cost the Treasury $55M per year. To calculate these numbers, they made the erroneous assumption that most schools in deciles 1-7 receive less than $100 per student in donation income. As part of this paper, I have requested from the Ministry of Education school-level financial data [11].  This new data reveals that only 42% (vs. the predicted 78%) of schools get less than $100 per student in donation income [12]. Hence, assuming schools act rationally and only accept money from the government when it is less than their donation income, the policy is likely to cost the Treasury ~$29M (in 2012 dollars). Labour have miscalculated the price by approximately 50%. Oops.

The politically partisan amongst us can now stop reading and enjoy a nice 'yaa-boo' moment at the expense of a Labour party who have got their sums wrong, again. The non-partisan of us can sigh at another example of quick headline grabbing leading to under-developed policy solutions and make a plea (again) for evidence-based public policy.  However, what really concerns me is why this mistake happened. Why do the Labour party think that giving $100 per pupil will level the income disparity between schools? What does this show about Labour thinking?

Partially, it could be that the Labour party don't want to equalise the financial basis of schools, despite their stated intentions. They could also have just been lazy in the calculations. However, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they intended this policy to have a real impact. In my view, the key reason for this massive misunderstanding is that I don't think the Labour party have got their heads around the extent of the difference in income between the richest and poorest schools in New Zealand.  The richest schools in New Zealand (those in decile 10) have, on average, 59% more income than a school in decile 1. This is additional purchasing power, of the sort of that funds swimming pools, sports facilities and the like. This additional purchasing power is driven by a hefty difference in donation income. 43% of a school's budget in decile 10 is comprised of donation income; 1% in decile 1.  This conclusion doesn't really surprise anyone ('of course decile 10 schools can charge more fees, they have richer parents') but what is amazing is the scale. For every $100 that a decile 1 school spends, a decile 10 school spends $159. This, when magnified over a school's scale, is a phenomenal difference in real spending power – as the next graph shows.

(A technical deviation: the average size of a school in decile 10 is significantly greater than a school in decile 1. Given this, it could be argued that this next graph should not look at the total income per school but instead look at the total income per pupil. If we did this, we would find that decile 1 schools have significantly greater funding per pupil than other schools. However, I would reject the conclusion that follows from this (that there is no issue with regressive funding) – what matters is that high decile schools have a much greater purchasing capacity, which is partially driven by their scale effect.)

Faced with this massive, massive difference in income between schools, $100 per pupil is pretty irrelevant. A government grant of $100 per pupil is simply not enough to rectify the difference in spending power between the poorest and richest schools. The graph below makes this clear: the light yellow bars show the average funding (from all sources) today; the dark yellow bars show the average funding that a school would recevieve under the new model. Nothing changes. The policy does next to nothing to reduce the difference in income between schools of different deciles. Of course, this is not the same as saying that a school will get more money: 42% of schools will get more money to spend. The problem is that this new extra money will be spread evenly across all deciles. If the aim of the policy is to reduce the difference in spending power between schools of different deciles, it will manifestly fail.

So let us ask ourselves a slightly different question: is it a good thing that the New Zealand government should give additional funding to schools (at some amount) if the school agrees to not accept donation income?  In other words, is this a policy which matters?

New Zealand is relatively unusual within the western world for having a culture of school donations. A non-exhaustive benchmarking exercise [13] reveals that UK state schools are completely prohibited from receiving donations by law [14]. Donations, it is argued, would be unfair because they would deliver superior facilities to richer children who could afford to pay for them. As New Zealand shows us, this is undoubtedly true: the facilities offered by a decile 10 school are of a different order to a low-decile school. Crucially, it cannot be shown by any rigorous study that such facilities make a difference to student outcomes. As John Hattie's marvellous book shows, the provision (or not) of sports facilities, drama studios and expensive camps actually makes only a tiny difference on education performance. Much more important to outcome is teacher quality and motivation [15]. If it could be shown that poor children did worse in their exams because they were denied the opportunity that this money can provide, then there would be a compelling case for government invention to level the playing field. This cannot be shown and therefore there is no outcomes-based reason to restrict donations.

(Another technical deviation: due to the mechanics of teacher funding in New Zealand, schools cannot use donation income to pay for teacher salaries or for more teachers [although they can pay for more teacher-aides and teaching assistants]. This is deliberate and limits the ability of richer schools to 'poach' good teachers with higher salaries.  There is a different and much longer argument to be had about whether this protection fully works (a clue: it doesn't) but that is a deviation from this argument. For the moment, it is sufficient to note that being a richer school is not linked in a straightforward way with the ability to pay more for teaching staff.)

This conclusion doesn't feel entirely satisfactory. Even if better sports facilities and drama studios do not lead to better examination outcomes, one could still argue that it is unfair that poorer students are denied the opportunities that the state system (which is meant to be equal for every student) provides to richer students. This is a matter of personal political convictions and a personal definition of what is meant by 'fair'. For myself, I make no clear adjudication on the issue, but I do very clearly acknowledge the political difficulties of abolishing donations in New Zealand.  I leave it for the reader to decide whether they consider this massive difference in income between schools in the state system 'fair'.

Back to the policy. We can conclude:

- The Labour party has got its sums wrong: its proposed change in donations policy is likely to cost 50% less than they predicted and affect only half as many schools as they anticipated [Editor's note: assuming that they stay at the proposed $100/student]
- There is a very real difference in spending power between New Zealand's richest and poorest schools, driven by donation income – and the proposed $100/additional per student does very little to address this.
- This donation income is affecting the amount of facilities a school can provide – but there is no robust evidence that these facilities make students perform better in exams
- Whether to restrict donations comes down to a matter of personal understandings of 'fairness' and whether we think it right that rich schools should have better facilities

The result is that Labour's big new education policy is a bit of a waste of political capital. It will make the budgets of the very poorest schools a bit easier (although it won't bring them up to anything like the level of a rich school) but does not remodel the education system. Rich schools will remain just as rich as they are now; it is not a full-fronted attack on the very real income disparity that exists between schools.  If this is something that Labour are passionate about tackling then they should really tackle it. If it is not a priority, and the evidence suggests that it should not be, then Labour should have spent their time on something which really matters – like teacher quality.

Conclusion of the conclusion: the policy is a waste of political effort. Focus on something which matters.

Simon is a former Treasury official and is now a management consultant. He writes in his personal capacity and has no party-political affiliation. All data is Ministry of Education, released under the Official Information Act and is from 2012. He is happy to share the data on request. He would like to thank the officials who responded so willingly and helpfully to his data requests. He would also like to thank the three people who commented on the article in draft form and whose helpful comments clarified many areas. [Editor's Note: The author no longer resides in New Zealand. He's also rather tall and very British.]

[1] The current Minister of Education, should anyone's memory need a refresh. Refer to also 'Novopay' and 'class sizes' debacles.

[2] As William Blake nearly said.

[3] This paragraph refers to state schools, not integrated schools which have separate funding arrangements.

[4] It also receives money to fund one-off capital (building) expenditure - a different topic.  Teaching salaries are also paid direct by the Ministry of Education, on a national pay-scale, driven by the number of students.

[5] And some headteachers very strongly dispute

[6] e.g. renting out facilities to community groups etc.

[7] The right to a free education is guaranteed by s.3 of the Education Act (1989) – a provision which does not prohibit schools from charging for other non-core expenses (such as school camps, etc.)

[8] This is different for international parents

[9] This is a simplification, obviously, which assumes the transactional costs of donation-receipts to be negligible and no political/ideological reason to act in an economically irrational way.

[10] They don't bother to publish this number. I have worked it out for them based on their stated assumption of 100% of schools in deciles 1-7 accepting the offer and 30% of schools in deciles 7-10 accepting it.

[11] The OIA act is a wonderful thing  - I would encourage people to make more use of it.  This data is now available on request from me to anyone who wants it. [Editor's note: Comment below or tweet at Andrew]

[12] I make two assumptions in this analysis which (unlike the Labour party) I shall make explicit: firstly, this is 2012-3 data, the last year available. It may have changed non-materially in 2013-4. Second, there are a small number of schools who do not report donation income. Unfortunately, I have been unable to ascertain from MinEdu if these are schools which do not report donation income or schools who don't collect them so have excluded all of them. This is very unlikely to change the analysis in a non-trivial way

[13] A fancy term for me google-ing [Editor's note: and not bothering to look very far]

[14] Although new models of 'academy' education are starting to change this, it remains true that there is no culture of parental donation to schools

[15] John Hattie Visible Learning

Who's on The Civilian Party List?

I received my election pack from the Electoral Commission on Friday, which included the party lists for the election. Expecting The Civilian Party to only have one name (and a pineapple) on their list, I was pleasantly surprised to find eight names on the bit of paper. So let's have a closer look at who these people are, using only the first page of Google to see what we can find (Disclaimer: this is just what Google says, these might be the wrong people or it might be the wrong information. Having said that, Google knows everything right?):

1 UFFINDELL, Ben

Ben is famous enough to have his own Twitter account, and is the editor of The Civilian Newspaper (on the internet). His bio on that website lists him as a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury (false), married with a six year old daughter (false), and a belief that he is better able to inform the public of the news than the actual news (plausibly true). He was a finalist for the NZ Herald New Zealander of the Year in 2013 and spoke at TEDx Christchurch, where he revealed that he was actually born in Whangarei (formerly known as Wangarei). His degree from the University of Canterbury is in Political Science. He is the public face of the party, appearing on TV a few times, much like Colin Craig for the Conservatives or Peter Dunne for United Future or Winston Peters for NZ First, so they're all pretty much the same.

2 WALSH, Lucy-Jane

Lucy-Jane appears to be a Business Analyst for the Canterbury Earthquake Digital Archive (CEISMIC) at the University of Canterbury. Her degree from the University of Canterbury is in English Literature (with Honours). She was once reported missing with her father while tramping, but they were found two days later safe although hungry and cold. She once commented on a Civilian post on Facebook, saying "brilliant".

3 GOWER, Marcus

Marcus, a former IT Consultant, is currently a Councillor on the Waipa District Council representing the Te Awamutu Ward. His party is listed as "The awesome choice!" His wife was featured in a rather long article in the Daily Mail in 2008 for being "used" by a gay man who was actually in love with their priest and was later married in Britain's first gay church "wedding". Projects that Marcus has worked on within the Council include a cycle strategy, community gardens, and a new library and museum.

4 TOPP, Michael

Michael is a civil engineer working at Harrison Grierson, graduating from the University of Canterbury with an Engineering Honours (2nd Class Division 1) degree in 2013 (according to LinkedIn). He once wrote an open letter to Nick Smith fighting against fracking that was published in the student magazine Canta in the column that was normally written by Ben Uffindell.

5 O'NEILL, Katie
Katie is possibly a photographer in New Plymouth, a mountain biker from Rotorua, a copywriter/project manager in Christchurch, or a racing horse in 1995 from Matamata. On the balance of probabilities I'm going to guess that she's the one with a BA in English and Japanese who enjoys long walks, good friends and travel (but not Oxford commas).

6 BERGER, Harry
A former Wellington College student who earned four Outstanding Scholarships and one Scholarship (making him one of ten Premier Scholars in 2012), Harry is a student at the Victoria University of Wellington where he has a Victoria Excellence Scholarship. He once debated with the Victoria International Leadership Programme (VILP) on "Is inequality natural?" where his team won 49-43. This may or may not be his Twitter account.

7 McLEOD, Tim
There are a number of Tim McLeods on Google, but he is probably the civil engineer who graduated from the University of Canterbury in 2013.

8 DOWNING, Kim
Kim perhaps wins at keeping her life private - all that could be found was an empty LinkedIn profile.

A Policy A Day: Cleaning Our Rivers

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

Today's post is by Gina Yukich.

The policy:

As part of the National Party’s “Working for our Environment” policy, there are two elements that relate directly to the cleaning up of New Zealand rivers, lakes and aquifers.

- Implement robust national standards for water quality that will make a significant improvement to the way freshwater is managed

- Commit $350 million, a fivefold increase in funding, for lake and river clean-ups

In the media release from the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, there are admissions made by Nathan Guy, Minister for Primary Industries, that the policies work not only towards environment improvement, but also towards profitable primary industries. “Primary industries contribute more than 76 per cent of our merchandise exports and largely depend on freshwater, while tourism also relies on the beauty of New Zealand’s water bodies.” The implementation of this policy is intended to provide both environmental and economic benefits back to the community in the long term.

Background

The Ministry for the Environment says that, by world standards, the water quality in New Zealand is generally good. However this doesn’t mean our rivers are healthy, or swimmable. In fact, 26% of our rivers are deteriorating from high levels of nitrate, 11% deteriorating from phosphate. Only 20% of our rivers are graded good quality for swimming, with 52% at poor or very poor quality. While this might be better than the world average, it leaves a lot to be desired.

When we talk about water quality, three overarching parameters are referred to; pathogens (disease causing bacteria), sediment, and nutrients. Pathogens enter the water mainly through human and animal waste contamination; sometimes this is natural, like a bird colony above a river bank. However, more often than not this contamination is a result of human activity or inactivity. After storms the overflow of sewerage systems can often contaminate rivers, or more commonly beaches. However, the largest cause of this kind of pollution is easily our dairy cows. Unfenced rivers allow cattle to defecate directly into the river, while rain runoff from fields will pick up the manure and wash it into streams.

While the pathogens in animal effluent can pose large risks to human health, the nutrients in the waste can pose a larger danger to the ecosystems they are getting washed into. Nitrogen and phosphorous are two nutrients that are essential to the life of organisms and animals, however in high levels they can cause eutrophication – a system of major water degradation involving large algae blooms, decreased oxygen levels and a hostile environment for aquatic animals. These changes in the growth patterns of waterways can be disastrous to the local organisms and can take decades or centuries to right themselves. Nitrogen and Phosphorous predominantly enter waterways through animal effluent and urine, fertilising of fields, and waste water from dairy factories and paper plants. They are expensive to manually remove from water systems.

Sediment, the last water quality factor has its own damaging impact on our water ways. Sediment enters streams and rivers through erosion of the land, particularly after storms and creates the turbid (cloudy) quality of the water. The erosion itself is a significant problem, but once in the water the sediment also damages the plants that grow in rivers, blocking the sunlight from reaching them. It also affects the fish and whitebait in the rivers by damaging their gills and making it harder to find food in the murky water.

Robust National Standards for Water Quality
What does this entail? Well, when looking at the release document for this policy “Delivering fresh water reform” there is a very detailed description of the current state of water quality in New Zealand, and a section near the end that talks about what efforts are currently being made, and what efforts are being planned for.

Robust national standards refers to the implementation of a scientific ‘bottom line’ for our water quality, based off 4 water states:
· State A – suitable for swimming
· State B – sometimes suitable for swimming
· State C – suitable for boating and wading (secondary contact)
· State D – unacceptable risk for human health

The new National Bottom Line for water quality is placed between C and D. This means that all rivers and lakes must meet the requirements for state C, ‘Suitable for boating and wading’ (but not for direct human contact with the water). These National Bottom line values have been created for a range of water quality parameters, including the presence of E. Coli, nitrates, phosphates, dissolved oxygen, etc. and a water source must be above the bottom line for each parameter to be considered acceptable.

These National Bottom Lines were proposed in the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) in 2013. They cover one of two factors – human health and ecosystem health depending on which parameter you are addressing (e.g. E. Coli or nitrate respectively). In the amendment document, there is a recognition that “The quality of most water bodies is already above the proposed bottom lines” and that the bottom line are mainly being implemented to provide “a degree of protection” for our rivers and lakes. The implementation of a National Bottom Line is meant to support the regional councils in their plans for water management. The councils are now required to set goals for the quality of water sources (they must aim for state C or higher) based upon the value that each water sources has for the community. It is expected the cost of preparation of regional plans will be reduced by the implementation of these standards.

So what do the bottom lines actually mean for our water quality? For ecosystem health parameters, the National Bottom Line is set at a point where 80% of organisms remain mostly unaffected by the water quality parameter being measured. The 20% of more sensitive organisms will experience impaired or altered growth patterns, but major, permanent water source damage will be avoided.

For human health parameters, the bottom line is set at a less than 5% risk of infection for secondary contact activities like boating and wading. If someone was to swim in or ingest the water, the risk would obviously be far greater, so these bottom lines don’t necessarily allow for completely clean rivers. The onus is placed on regional councils to set targets to improve water quality to states A and B which allow for swimming, but there is no requirement to do this.

Therefore these ‘robust standards’, for the most part, simply amount to better classifying of the data we are collecting and the creation of a nationally consistent standard for what is unacceptable in terms of water quality. This is completely necessary for New Zealand if we are ever to move towards a healthy and sustainable relationship with our rivers and lakes. To fix the problem you first need to quantify exactly what is wrong, and how badly.

However, though these national standards have been included as part of the National Party campaign’s environment policy, the amendments to the NPS-FM have already been agreed upon, and came into effect on the 1st of August 2014. With the national standards already in place, any promises the National Party makes from now on regarding water quality should be based around the implementation of the standards and the cleaning of the rivers themselves, otherwise they will be retrospectively making promises to complete a project that has already been carried out.

Comparison with other parties

- The Labour party has announced that their policy on the issue is to “ensure that all our rivers and lakes are swimmable, fishable and suitable for food gathering”. This would most likely be classed as state A quality, which they want to see in all rivers.
- The Green party share a similar policy to Labour, of making all rivers swimmable again.
- United Future has a policy to “Completely revise the National Policy Statement (NPS) on Freshwater Management” with the aim of setting more ambitious quality levels to improve the ecological health of the rivers

- NZ First have a policy to amend the NPS-FM to “recognize the value of wild and scenic rivers”.[4]
- Act, Internet Mana and the Conservative party had no visible policies on freshwater quality

Verdict: The National Party’s policies to provide robust standards for water quality is a good one, and a good first step. However the standards themselves are not ambitious and the bottom line that the regional councils have to meet for water quality is too low for swimming or safe food gathering. Not to mention, the policy has already basically been carried out. However National do deserve kudos for the $350m being sunk into the area. The Labour/Greens shared policy to make all freshwater sources swimmable again is almost too ambitious in my opinion, considering the nature of our nation as an agricultural one. I personally wish some middle ground could be found on the policies, where every regional council had to achieve some percentage of their freshwater bodies to be at state A and state B. Then the cows can continue [doing their business] in some streams, while our kids can play in others.

Gina is a 2nd year student studying a conjoint degree in Civil Engineering and a Bachelors of Arts in Political Studies and Spanish. She is left leaning, but politically neutral with no affiliations to political parties. Her interests lie in using engineering as a means to benefit societies, and mitigate damage from disasters.

A Policy A Day: Free GP Visits

In the lead-up to the election, we are going to examine one policy per (working) day. We've selected policies to be as balanced as possible across a range of policy areas and across the political parties. The idea is to explain the background, analyse the policy to investigate the pros and cons, and give a verdict on the policy at the end. Inevitably, some opinion will make its way in and we make no apology for that - after all, we're voters too. Also, I say 'we' because this series will feature some guest posts from other young people, to share their thoughts and ideas as well. A list of all the articles is available here. Enjoy!

At the moment in New Zealand, free GP visits are available for those under the age of 6. Today's policy comes from a variety of parties, each who have policies to change the status quo for "free GP visits". Free GP visits usually also includes free prescriptions, and in the case of the Greens free transport to the GP as well.
- The National Party has pledged to make GP visits free for everyone up to the age of 13.
- The Labour Party wants to make GP visits free for everyone up to 13, over 65, or pregnant.
- The Green Party wants to make GP visits free for everyone under the age of 18.
- The Maori Party endorses the National Party policy to make GP visits free for everyone up to 13.
- United Future endorses the Labour Party policy to make GP visits free for everyone over 65.
- New Zealand First accuses National of "pilfer[ing]" their policy.
- The ACT Party wants to abolish health co-payments in general and has called National's promise of extending free GP visits to 13 an "election bribe".

Background
Before we go too much further, "free GP visits" means that private practices opt-in to the system - there are some practices around the country that can continue to charge whatever they want (although they may get less government subsidy). The NZ Herald reports that "Of the 1029 general practices nationwide, 1004 practices had opted into the free under-sixes scheme and subsequently 98 per cent of children under six can go to the doctor for free." Some private practices do find other ways to add surcharges - the Ministry of Health only says that "fees for children under 6 are usually lower [than fees for adults]", just short of categorically stating that all GP visits for children under 6 are free.

Beyond this, there is often confusion about the cost of visiting a GP - the government subsidises GP visits already (if you are enrolled with that GP for the purposes of District Health Board funding (this is where Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) come into the equation)), but after the government subsidy the GP can add a surchage up to a maximum value. This has caused the cost of GP visits for children (up to age 18) across the country to vary between free and $70, with an average cost of $21, although the cost is often higher for after-hours visits. This uncertainty is confusing for parents, and perhaps a free policy would help make things clearer for everyone.

Analysis of the Policy
When it comes to health, it is something that is critical to all human beings yet something that we often cannot control or expect. Increasing the age from 6 to 13 is a natural progression that makes sense if the government has found a way to fund it. The success of the policy will still be dependent on the number of doctors that opt-in to the programme - if the level of government subsidy does not sufficiently cover the current costs of private practices, then they may opt-out and continue to extract their funding from their customers (patients). The free visits for under 6 programme has supposedly been provided by many practices at reduced income for practitioners, but offered anyway to achieve social good. Both the Medical Association (representing family doctors) and the Rural General Practice Network have cautiously supported the policy to cover all those up to 13, but need to see what level of subsidy the government will offer before they go further.

One of the most important reasons for these policies is the fact that there are young people who suffer from preventable illnesses due to an inability to afford the GP visit. There are continuing health inequalities that are both a cause and effect of continuing poverty in this country. The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) says "For a household simply “getting by” week-to-week, there is unlikely to be a spare $24 available for an unexpected trip to the GP in-hours, let alone $44 after-hours." The result is that the Ministry of Health reported that 44,000 sick or injured children failed to see a doctor in 2012 due to the cost. There are long-term consequences for delaying medical treatment; complications can lead to lifelong medical conditions, but a family that cannot afford the GP visit is more likely to delay seeking medical attention until the situation is already too late. Dr Nikki Turner sums the problem up with "Kids shouldn't be kept caught in the middle... kids can't chose if they have money or not." As well as free GP visits up to 18, the Green Party also proposes standardised surchages on medical fees as an alternative solution, just to provide certainty across the country.

The government also has an interest in reducing the number of emergency room visits (and thus reduce congestion in that system) by encouraging individuals to go to the GP first. The strain on our hospital system is a continuing struggle; the situation is better than it was ten years ago and has been improving, but some pressure could be alleviated by getting low-risk cases seen by GPs. This does lead to one concern with the policy proposals - in most cases, an increase in GP visits has not necessarily been taken into account. That is likely to increase the cost of implementation of the policy, but more importantly it increases the strain on the GPs. Many GPs already have full schedules (some practices have closed their books to new patients), and it is not clear if there is sufficient capacity to meet any increased demand. The entire medical industry is facing a sustainability problem - I hear from friends that there aren't enough doctors to train enough new doctors to keep the system going. This is a bigger problem that needs urgent resolution first. The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the Public Health Association, and the Nurses Organisation have all said that the free GP visits up to 13 policy is a step in the right direction, but ignores the wider funding shortfall of $224 million in the health system.

There is plenty of suspicion about these policies as an election year "bribe", essentially tempting the electorate to vote for parties that offer "free" things that people would otherwise have to pay for. While the policy to increase the free GP visit age to 13 seems to be a good policy for helping our children, free GP visits for those over 65 seems to be a more obvious attempt at attracting votes from the older segment of the population. There have been some serious questions about whether that part of the policy is financially tenable, particularly when it is expected to be funded from increased tax rates. Additionally, it is harder to sell the policy on purely moral grounds when the population over 65 typically should be responsible for their own finances and should be able to take their healthcare into account. Only 6% of those over-65 say that they have avoided a GP visit due to the cost; this policy targets a relatively small problem and funding the other 94% is probably an ineffective use of limited government funds. It is difficult to justify this policy when the government already spends 13.2% of all government expenditure ($10.9 billion) on superannuation. In fact, the Labour Party has said that they will likely have to raise the superannuation age to 67 (due to the unsustainable cost of superannuation), and raise the age of entitlement for free GP vists to 67 at the same time.

Verdict: If free GP visits are a good thing, then why can't we extend it to the entire population? At the end of the day the government does not have infinite money and it is a question of how much the government can afford. It becomes a matter of ideology - should the government support more people, or should people support themselves? Personally, I would rather see GP visits covered for all children (but not over 65s) in New Zealand than tax cuts, but ultimately this has to be balanced with affordability, and spending large amounts of money to cover all individuals seems excessive when the problem only seems to affect certain groups of people. Perhaps a more targeted scheme is necessary to ensure that our money is being spent efficiently where it is needed.