Column: Cullen fund maybe closer than you think
Good Returns' new columnist Pattrick Smellie provides an insight into happenings inside the Beehive.
Wednesday, June 21st 2000, 12:00AM
The sudden attack of despondency has been real, if somewhat media driven, and there are real reasons for it: the dawning realisation that the Employment Relations Bill does change things, the fact that interest rates are 2.5 per cent higher than they were last November, the sense that the tumbling dollar is a black mark against us from international investors even if it does rev up exports.
However, it is worth remembering that some of the most quoted business confidence indices are indicative rather than scientific.
And even more to the point, business sentiment tends to track economic performance less accurately than consumer sentiment.
The Westpac Trust consumer confidence survey by McDermott-Miller shows a stronger correlation than business opinion surveys to the GDP track.
The Westpac survey hasn't been updated since the wave of corporate gloom descended in late May, but McDermott-Miller are just analysing their latest data, collection of which finished last week.
It would be surprising if it didn't show some impact from the recent, heavily reported corporate negativity, but it would be equally surprising if it showed anything like the volatility coming from the business community.
It seems that businesspeople project their own fears and prejudices into their expectations of consumer behaviour. However, consumers aren't generally worrying about what it costs to hire staff, fretting over forward orders, receiving a stream of mail from Opposition political parties talking up gloom, or mourning the loss of the National-led government which many in business had grown used to.
Old hands in the public relations game say business sentiment often takes a tumble shortly after an election as fear, ignorance, and failure to develop good relations with the incoming government while it was still in Opposition typically hamper the early relationship.
Also looming to distract sentiment-obsessed business journalists is Finance Minister Michael Cullen's forthcoming unveiling of his superannuation savings plan.
It may be closer than we think. Unreported hints Cullen was dropping at a post-Budget small business lunch in Wellington last Friday suggest that he has almost overcome some crucial technical obstacles and will be ready to argue his case at Cabinet very soon.
With a Cabinet paper in preparation, Cullen said the issues outstanding related to the fundamental question of "how one ensures that transfers into the fund are paid for out of (Budget) surpluses and not by borrowing, which would be silly".
However, the Crown's attachment to accrual accounting, which usually improves fiscal disclosure, is a problem in this instance because revaluations in the fund could skew the surplus figures and "can make you feel a lot better or worse, yet nothing's actually happened except for a revaluation".
Furthermore, Cullen explained, while transfers to the fund had to be treated as capital items in the Crown accounts, he wanted to be able to treat them "conceptually as an expense so that they are paid out of the operating surplus".
"I'm trying to establish rules to make it clear what we are doing," he said.
After that, however, there will still be political arguments to win.
"I'm still hopeful that other parties will be able to accept that this is a sensible idea. Some are pre-empting their decision before they see the proposals. This is too important for that," he said.
* Pattrick Smellie is a Wellington-based freelance writer and correspondent for the Australian Financial Review and TIME magazine
| « Making forward provision for the ageing population | King builds an empire » |
Special Offers
Commenting is closed
|
|
Printable version |
|
Email to a friend |
