30/30 Fiscal Rules - Or one reason things are dilapidated
When MBIE's Te Ara Paerangi - Future Pathways process was underway I did a lot of reading of late 1980s early 1990s materials regards research, science, innovation, and education. This was to get some understanding of what shaped the system we have today. Again, and again, I found calls to increase the R&D spending to 2% of the GDP. It has never happened. There have been promises, hand waving, etc. that it will happen sometime in the future. Never did.
We have decades of under investment in the drivers of prosperity (not to mention infrastructure of all kinds). Why was this the case no matter who was in government? When I learned about the 30/30 fiscal rules, I realised that those rules would impede any change until they were done away with.
In the piece below, Bernard Hickey explains the 30/30 fiscal rules and reports on Labour's change of heart. Getting our government policy out from under the constraints of outdated rules is a necessary (but not sufficient) step towards a better future for Aotearoa and its people.
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