Latest news with #DavidSeymour
RNZ News
14 hours ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Despite decades of cost cutting, governments spend more than ever. How can we make sense of this?
By Ian Lovering* of International relations academic Ian Lovering delves into some of the history and social structures at play behind decisions about the national budget. Photo: RNZ Analysis : Recent controversies over New Zealand's Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunch programme have revolved around the apparent shortcomings of the food and its delivery. Stories of inedible meals , scalding packaging and general waste have dominated headlines. But the story is also a window into the wider debate about the politics of "fiscal responsibility" and austerity politics . As part of the mission to "cut waste" in government spending, ACT leader and Associate Education Minister David Seymour replaced the school-based scheme with a centralised programme run by a catering corporation. The result was said to have delivered "saving for taxpayers" of $130 million - in line with the government's overall drive for efficiency and cost cutting. While Finance Minister Nicola Willis dislikes the term "austerity", her May budget cut the government's operating allowance in half , to $1.3 billion. This came on top of Budget cuts last year of around $4 billion. Similar policy doctrines have been subscribed to by governments of all political persuasions for decades. As economic growth (and the tax revenue it brings) has been harder for OECD countries to achieve over the past 50 years, governments have looked to make savings. What is strange, though, is that despite decades of austerity policies reducing welfare and outsourcing public services to the most competitive corporate bidder, state spending has kept increasing. New Zealand's public expense as a percentage of GDP increased from 25.9 percent in 1972 to 35.9 percent in 2022. And this wasn't unusual. The OECD as a whole saw an increase from 18.9 percent in 1972 to 29.9 percent in 2022. How can we make sense of so-called austerity when, despite decades of cost cutting, governments spend more than ever? In a recent paper , I argued that the politics of austerity is not only about how much governments spend. It is also about who gets to decide how public money is used. Austerity sounds like it is about spending less, finding efficiencies or living within your means. But ever rising budgets mean it is about more than that. In particular, austerity is shaped by a centralising system that locks in corporate and bureaucratic control over public expenditure, while locking out people and communities affected by spending decisions. In other words, austerity is about democracy as much as economics. We typically turn to the ideology of neoliberalism - democracy as much as economics. We typically turn to the ideology of neoliberalism - "Rogernomics" being the New Zealand variant - to explain the history of this. The familiar story is of a revolutionary clique taking over a bloated postwar state, reorienting it towards the global market, and making it run more like a business. Depending on your political persuasion, the contradiction of austerity's growing cost reflects either the short-sightedness of market utopianism or the stubbornness of the public sector to reform. But while the 1980s neoliberal revolution was important, the roots of austerity's managerial dimension go back further. And it was shaped less by a concern that spending was too high, and more by a desire to centralise control over a growing budget. Godfather of 'rational' budgeting: US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara (right), with US president Lyndon B Johnson (centre), in a Cabinet meeting, in 1968. Photo: Yoichi Okamoto - Public Domain Many of the managerial techniques that have arrived in the public sector over the austerity years - such as results-based pay, corporate contracting, performance management or evaluation culture - have their origins in a budgetary revolution that took place in the 1960s at the US Department of Defence. In the early 1960s, Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was frustrated with being nominally in charge of budgeting but having to mediate between the seemingly arbitrary demands of military leaders for more tanks, submarines or missiles. In response, he called on the RAND Corporation, a US think tank and consultancy, to remake the Defence Department's budgetary process to give the secretary greater capacity to plan. The outcome was called the Planning Programming Budgeting System . Its goal was to create a "rational" budget where policy objectives were clearly specified in quantified terms, the possible means to achieve them were fully costed, and performance indicators measuring progress were able to be reviewed. This approach might have made sense for strategic military purposes. But what happens when you apply the same logic to planning public spending in healthcare, education, housing - or school lunches? The past 50 years have largely been a process of finding out. What began as a set of techniques to help McNamara get control of military spending gradually diffused into social policy . These ideas travelled from the US and came to be known as the " New Public Management " framework that transformed state sectors all over the world. Dramatic moments of spending cuts - such as the 1991 " Mother of all Budgets " in New Zealand or Elon Musk's recent DOGE crusade in the US - stand out as major exercises in austerity. And fiscal responsibility is a firmly held conviction within mainstream political thinking. Nevertheless, government spending has become a major component of OECD economies. If we are to make sense of austerity in this world of permanent mass expenditure, we need a broader idea of what public spending is about. Budgets are classically thought to do three things. For economists, they are a tool of macroeconomic stabilisation: if growth goes down, "automatic stabilisers" inject public money into the economy to pick it back up. For social reformers, the budget is a means of progressively redistributing resources through tax and welfare systems. For accountants, the budget is a means of cost accountability: it holds a record of public spending and signals a society's future commitments. But budgeting as described here also fulfils a fourth function - managerial planning. Decades of reform have made a significant portion of the state budget a managerial instrument for the pursuit of policy objectives. From this perspective, underlying common austerity rhetoric about eliminating waste, or achieving value for money, is a deeper political struggle over who decides how that public money is used. To return to New Zealand's school lunch programme, any savings achieved should not distract from the more significant democratic question of who should plan school lunches - and public spending more broadly. Should it be the chief executives of corporatised public organisations and outsourced conglomerates managing to KPIs on nutritional values and price per meal, serving the directives of government ministers? Or should it be those cooking, serving and eating the lunches? * Ian Lovering is a lecturer in international relations, at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. This story was originally published on The Conversation .
NZ Herald
18 hours ago
- Health
- NZ Herald
Why US$42b DataDog is going all in on AI
Melatonin to be available over the counter at NZ pharmacies Associate Health Minister David Seymour announcing Melatonin will be available at pharmacies. Video / Mark Mitchell
NZ Herald
21 hours ago
- Health
- NZ Herald
Matariki 2025 art trail map
Melatonin to be available over the counter at NZ pharmacies Associate Health Minister David Seymour announcing Melatonin will be available at pharmacies. Video / Mark Mitchell
The Independent
a day ago
- Health
- The Independent
Another country approves use of ‘magic mushrooms' to treat depression
New Zealand has approved the restricted medicinal use of psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in " magic mushrooms." The approval is specifically for patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. Only one psychiatrist, Professor Cameron Lacey, who was behind the first clinical trials of psilocybin, is authorised to prescribe it under strict reporting and record-keeping requirements. Associate Minister of Health David Seymour hailed the policy change as a "real breakthrough" for individuals who have exhausted other treatment options. New Zealand joins other regions, including Australia, Switzerland, Oregon, and Colorado, in allowing some form of legal or restricted access to psilocybin for medical purposes.
The Independent
a day ago
- Health
- The Independent
New Zealand approves use of ‘magic mushrooms' to treat depression but only one psychiatrist is allowed to prescribe it
New Zealand has approved the restricted medicinal use of psilocybin, a hallucinogen found in ' magic mushrooms ' for patients with treatment-resistant depression. David Seymour, New Zealand's associate minister of health, said on Wednesday that the rules have been relaxed on the use of Psilocybin in the country for the first time but only a highly experienced psychiatrist has been allowed to prescribe it to patients. He said the new policy is a 'real breakthrough' even as the drug remains 'an unapproved medicine'. 'Psilocybin remains an unapproved medicine, but a highly experienced psychiatrist has been granted authority to prescribe it to patients with treatment-resistant depression,' Mr Seymour said. 'This is huge for people with depression who've tried everything else and are still suffering. 'If a doctor believes psilocybin can help, they should have the tools to try.' The psychiatrist, Cameron Lacey, who was behind the first clinical trials of psilocybin, has been identified as the only medical practitioner to prescribe the drug. The professor at the University of Otago 'has previously prescribed psilocybin in clinical trials and will operate under strict reporting and record-keeping requirements', Mr Seymour said. Mr Lacey told RNZ that it had taken "a long time, a lot of energy and perseverance' to get the approval. New Zealand also announced plans to allow the use of melatonin, which is used to help with insomnia and allow its over-the-counter sale as the policy change on psilocybin was announced. 'Many New Zealanders have asked me why people can buy melatonin overseas but they can't buy it from their local pharmacy. Medsafe has assessed this and decided there's no reason why it shouldn't be available on pharmacy shelves right here at home,' Mr Seymour said. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain species of mushrooms, commonly known as 'magic mushrooms'. Found in over 180 species of fungi these mushrooms have a long history of use in Indigenous spiritual and healing rituals in parts of Central and South America. Studies have found that 80 per cent of patients who were given psilocybin experienced a drop in anxiety and depression that lasted for six months or more. New Zealand has become the latest country to allow the use of Psilocybin. In 2023, Australia allowed some psychiatrists to prescribe the drug for the treatment of certain mental health conditions. In the US, only while some states allow restricted access to the drug.
