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Why is borrowing to give tax breaks stupid? How could we use some of our superannuation fund to build housing? What’s an economy for anyway?
Shamubeel Eaqub has the gift of making economics understandable and often gives voice to common sense solutions for some of the problems that beset us today.
He has worked as an economist in leading international banks and consultancy in Wellington, Melbourne and Auckland and he is now the Chief Economist at Simplicity KiwiSaver.
He is a columnist, media commentator and a thought leading public speaker and author who has published three books: Generation Rent (2015), co-authored with Selena Eaqub; Growing Apart: Regional Prosperity in NZ (2014); and The NZ Economy: An Introduction (2011), co-authored with Dr Ralph Lattimore.
If you are a Free Subscriber please consider upgrading to Paid. The current government has cut all funding for public interest journalism and the broadscasters are showing little interest in supporting independent investigative documentaries which is why I started this Substack.
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Gareth was a Green MP for 10 years and is now the Director of The Well Being Economy Alliance of Aotearoa which not only examines the neoliberal status quo that drives our current economy but looks a the many alternative economic models we could adopt to have a fairer society.
WeAll have an upcoming conference : Economics in the Public Good ( see details below)
He is is the author of A Gentle Radical, a biography of the late Greens leader Jeanette Fitzsimons which was published two years after her death in 2022.
If you are a Paid subscriber please know that your support for my public journalism work is much appreciated. If today’s post reaches 50 likes from you, I will make it free for everyone to read.
If you are a Free Subscribers please consder upgrading to Paid. The current government has cut all funding for public interest journalism and the broadscasters are showing little interest in supporting independent investigative documentaries which is why I started this Substack.
Your $9 per month subscription will help me keep working as public interest writer, podcaster and film maker- to speak truth to power and give a public voice to those who have none. Thank you.
It’s time to redesign our economy to deliver wellbeing for nature and all our people.Join us at the Economy for Public Good Conference in Pōneke Wellington, we’ll weave a shared purpose for moving beyond a broken ‘business as usual’ economy.If you’d like to build bonds and share ideas with people inspired to create an economy where people and nature thrive, this one day hui is for you.The conference will feature Dr Katherine Trebeck as international keynote speaker, thought leaders discussing the big ideas for Aotearoa 2040, practitioners sharing stories of the new economy in action, and in-depth interactive training and breakout sessions.Tickets for this in person conference are set at only $100 and numbers are limited.https://www.weall.org.nz/economyforpublicgood#EconomyForPublicGood#TimeToRedesign
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Peter Newport has had a long and distinguished journalistic career including becoming European Correspondent and Bureau Chief for Channel 9 , Deputy News Editor BBC TV News and a documentary producer with the Discovery Channel before returning to work in NZ with Mediaworks as a producer on their current affairs programme 3rd Degree.
When he moved to Queenstown he decided to start Crux, a local digital media outlet featuring stories and events in the Southern Lakes and Dunedin districts where he applied his talent for public interest journalism.
His channel got a significant following reaching almost 2/3rds of the population. However after almost 7 years of first rate journalism the funding for Crux has fallen because local business and councils had largely pulled their support and the government’s public journalism fund has been axed.
In this interview I talk with Peter about his new approach which is to publish via Substack as I also have been forced to do because neither of us intend to be silenced.
Thank you to my Paid Subscribers. Your support for my public journalism work is much appreciated. Please share and restack this article if you like it and recommend bryanbruce.substack.com to your friends and whanau.
If you are a Free Subscriber please consider upgrading to Paid. The current government has cut all funding for public interest journalism and the broadscasters are showing little interest in supporting independent investigative documentaries which is why I started this Substack.
Your $9 per month subscription will help me keep working as public interest writer, podcaster and film maker- to speak truth to power and give a public voice to those who have none.
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John Quiggin is a professor of Economics at The University of Queensland, Australia and I first met him 10 years ago when I was making my documentary Mind The Gap . He had not long published his book Zombie Economics about how the dead economic ideas of neoliberalism such as “the market knows best”, deregulation, privatisation and “trickle down” theory, still manage to haunt the corridors of power in our country.
In this interview we discuss how Australian political parties on both left and right have managed to kill off some of these zombie ideas (such as how public hospitals would be run more cost effectively if they were privatised) yet in the New Zealand graveyard of economics such dangerous ideas still walk among us.
And in the wake of Trump’s victory in the American Presidential race last week, John gives his take on what impact it might have on the economies of both Australia and New Zealand and on the geopolitics of the Pacific.
Thank you to my Paid Subscribers. Your support for my public journalism work is much appreciated.As agreed, if today’s post reaches 50 likes from you, I will make it free for everyone.
If you are a Free Subscribers please consider upgrading to Paid. The current government has cut all funding for public interest journalism and the broadscasters are showing little interest in supporting independent investigative documentaries which is why I started this Substack.
Your $9 per month subscription will help me keep working as public interest writer, podcaster and film maker- to speak truth to power and give a public voice to those who have none. Thank you.
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Rebecca is an extraordinary person.
Back in 2011 she saw two problems in her Palmerston North community. A lot of food waste going to tghe dump or feed pigs and a lot of hungry people. So she decided to do something about it - rescue the food and feed those who need it
So she created Just Zilch in a free store, and today she had a full time team of 5 and 100 volunteers who distribute surplus food, and fresh, locally grown produce to people in need - without conditions.
Everyday the Just Ziltch team feed give food to around 350 people a day≥
In this interview Rebecca talks about how the demand is growing and why it is getting harder to meet it..
Head2Head is made possible thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers To help me continue with my public journalism work please consider becoming a supporter by taking out a $9 per month subscription. Thank you.
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What must you believe to be a Christian? In 1967 New Zealand Presbyterian Minister and Theologican Sir Lloyd Geering faced charges of heresy for teaching that the Biblical record of Jesus' death and resurrection is not true.
For the making of my of my documentary Jesus The Cold Case - Who Killed Jesus And Why? - I interviewed Sir Lloyd who was then aged 90 . (At the time of posting 30/6/24 he is 106).
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Worried about the calls to privatise our public health system?
Concerned about falling numbers of doctors and nurses and the increasing difficulty of getting access to medical care when you need it?
Dr Gary Payinda MD MA DDU FACEP FACEM is an Emergency Medical Doctor in Te Tai Tokerau Northland. He is at the frontline of our health care system and he spoke to me frankly about what has gone wrong with our hospitals, what we need to to do to fix them, and why we need to do it .
While the mainstream media tend to uncritically carry the government’s message that cuts to our health system are necessary because the budget is “blowing out”, the fact of the matter is that we have been seriously underfunding the public health service for the last 30 years.
A case in point - “In the 1970’s” Gary told me” there were 12 hospital beds for every 1000 New Zealanders. Today there are 2.5.”
Instead of calls for privatising our hospitals we need to expand our taxation base by making the wealthy top 1% pay their fair share, so that we we can all have free medical care when we need it.
If you are a Paid subscriber please know that your support for my public journalism work is much appreciated.
If you are a Free Subscribers who may be thinking of upgrading to Paid , you may wish to act now as the current fee of $5 a month will be going up to $9 per month starting on the 1st of November.
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There’s avery good chance you have heard of Ruud, the Dutch-New Zealand naturalist whose passion for insects saw him start a talkback radio show (Ruud's Awakening) in in 1987 in which which he offered environmentally friendly tips to gardeners.
It earned him the name of “the bugman” which he carried to the NZTV series Maggie’s Garden Show from 1992 until December 2003.
This led to successful international series for Animal Planet called Buggin with Ruud.
For services to entomology, conservation and entertainment Ruud was appointed an honorary Member of the NZ Order of Merit in 2018.
In this episode I catch up with Ruud and find he is as passionate about communicating the importance of respecting nature as when I met and worked with him on a documentary I directed back called The Bug House in 2001 about the insects that live in our houses which is available under the documentaries tab on my Substack byanbruce.substack.com
Today Ruud is working with teachers and school children as part of his ongoing work to educating us about the importance of nature and why , in his words, we “need to be gentle with it”.
If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. It’s a good idea not get in now because the cost of subscription will be going up to $9 at the end of this month to meet rising costs.
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Michael Belgrave is Professor Emeritus of History at Massey University. He was research manager of the Waitangi Tribunal and has continued to work on Treaty of Waitangi research and settlements. published widely on Treaty and Māori history. His 2017 Dancing with the King, an exploration of diplomacy and peace-making in the decades between the Waikato War and the opening of the King Country, was shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and won the Ernest Scott Prize. He has worked in advisory groups supporting the implementation of the new national history curriculum.
In this interview we discuss his new, and very readable book, Becoming Aotearoa- A New History of New Zealand.
If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. It’s a good idea not get in now because the cost of subscription will be going up to $9 at the end of this month to meet rising costs.
To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.Your support is much appreciated.
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Yesterday I decided to interview the Chat Bot Chat GPT (the GPT part is an abbreviation of Generative Pre-trained Transformer - I’ll let you look that up :).
First of all,let me admit that I have come very late to this particular party which hundreds of millions of users have already been enjoying, because…well, to be honest, I saw it as a gimmicky young person’s thing and not for oldies like me.
I couldn’t have been more wrong!
Frankly I was stunned by ChatGPT’s speed of response to my questiions and the human- like quality of them, and while I’ll admit to trying it out as a bit of fun, the implications of this new technology are as serious as they are scary.
By the end of our brief chat, during which I raised some very light ethical questions, I found the ChatGPT’s constant response that it was there to serve me and I had nothing to fear from it, less assuring each time we touched on an ethical issue.
Now there’s a lot I don’t understand about AI, but I do understand a bit about human behaviour, and I know that whatever we create reflects our unspoken (and often unconscious) personal biases.
So, I wondered, “Who owns and controls Chat GPT?” and no, I didn’t ask the Bot, but resorted instead to old fashioned deep dive research.
And what a frightening rabbit hole that simple question has led me down.
But I’ll save what I have been discovering for another day, because the ethical and moral issues are so complex I’ll need to unpack them over a series of posts from time to time.
For the moment please have a listen to my 9 minute chat with Chat GPT and tell me what you think.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Susan St John Bsc, MA, PhD, QSO, CNZM, is an honorary Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland . With Auckland accounting tax expert Terry Baucher she has been publishing papers on what they term a Fair Economic Return Tax (FER)as a much better solution than either Capital Gains Tax or Land Tax as a way of getting the wealthy to pay their fair share towards the upkeep and future of the society we all share.
What is it? How would it work? These are the question I was keen to ask Susan .
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Aotearoa New Zealand does not have a written constitution, rather a collection of fundamental laws, conventions, and documents, including The Treaty Of Waitangi, the Māori text of which ,Te Tiriti, was the one signed by most rangatira Māori (540, compared to 39 who signed the English version), and it is that text which is recognised in international law (contra preferentem).
David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill is, for many reasons, deeply flawed; not the least of which is that his proposal is based on a mistranslation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
In this interview Dame Anne Salmond, who is a Distinguished Professor of Māori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, takes us back to 1840 to supply the context in which the treaty was signed, before describing, in detail, what each of the articles in the Māori text, Te Tiriti, actually says.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Gavin Ellis is a media consultant and Honorary Research Fellow at Koi Tu, The Centre For Informed Futures at Auckland University.
He holds a PhD in political studies and is a former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Lisa teaches taxation at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research interests include social justice and inequality. She has a particular interest in what is politely termed “the behavioural impacts of taxation.”
White-collar crime (fraud and deception) is the fastest growing crime type in NZ and in our conversation we cover the general attitude to it in our country
The Tax amounts each year that ought to have been paid but aren’t, are staggering - in the most recent year where data is available (2022-23), Inland Revenue “identified” $973 million in revenue. With our population of 5.124 million, that is $190 for every man, woman and child in the country. That’s what was found – what wasn’t found will be much, much more.
In short, if everyone was honest and paid their taxes we would have better public services or we could all pay less tax than we do.
What could we do?
Lisa says:
“We could resource detection and prosecution more – roughly only 40 people are prosecuted each year for tax evasion as complex cases are costly to enforce.
The government has just cut the Serious Fraud Office budget (by 3.5%) – and the SFO will lose around 7% of their workforce as a result. Currently, they only take a small number of prosecutions a year as their funding is quite low – but this will be reduced even further.
See Table 1 below on IR Resourcing.
And we could increase the penalties for tax evasion. Very few tax evaders go to prison or pay a fine (see Table 2 below on sanctions).
There is a lack of transparency around all the cases that receive negotiated outcomes from Inland Revenue. Negotiations are preferable from IR perspective as they generate at least some revenue – prosecutions typically do not.
Most people are unlikely to be prosecuted if they pay the tax that is due (even if it is from evasion) – which means that people can buy justice (this is not an option open to – for example – benefit fraud).
It also leaves honest taxpayers at a disadvantage (because those who only earn wages and salaries are not in a position to not pay their tax). And essentially there is very little by way of “punishment” for tax evasion.
So there is no deterrence – it just returns people to the same situation that they were if they had been honest.
We have a lot of liquidations in NZ of companies that have tax debt – Inland Revenue initiate usually around 60% of liquidations in NZ. Some will be legitimate – but some will be businesses trading while in solvent – but there are very few prosecutions of these companies.
Lisa told me she likes the idea of sentencing guidelines for white-collar crime. They have these in England and Wales – and the idea is that there are set penalties for certain values of offending. The courts can still take into account mitigating or aggravating factors – but it lends a lot of transparency into the sentencing process. Interestingly, tax fraud has higher penalties than benefit fraud.
There are a lot of things that other countries to do ‘encourage’ people to pay tax – there isn’t necessarily crime in this, but Inland Revenue writes off significant amounts of money every year from unpaid tax. Those who earn wages and salaries don’t get the opportunity to not pay their tax, so there are equity issues when those who are (for example) self-employed, can negotiate to not pay some of their tax:
Publish names of tax debtors
·Impose liability on company directors (e.g. Australia – directors become personally liable for tax debts)
Pass debtors details to credit agencies
Use debt collectors
Not allow tax debtors to bid for government contracts”
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Catherine was an MP from 2008 to 2017 representing the Green Party. These days she remains an activist in environmental, social justice, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues. She is Chair of Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki and works in the campaigns against multinational goldmining in the Wharekirauponga Forest and is active in the national solidarity network for a Free West Papua. She is a writer and a tutor on social change issues, and Te Triiti.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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What happened to the coastal shipping network we once had?
Why are we not training young New Zealanders for Seafarers jobs especially with the advent of offshore wind farming on the horizon?
And why are the major transport sectors of our economy - trucking,rail and shipping not working more effectively together?
Find out the sensible solution Carl would instigate if he was MInister of Transport.
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Max Harris describes himself as Public Lawyer. He is a barrister at Thorndon Chambers who also works at ActionStations.
He was an Examination Fellow in Law at All Souls College at the University of Oxford, where he completed a DPhil in constitutional law on the prerogative and third source. He completed BCL (with Distinction) and Master of Public Policy degrees at the University of Oxford as a New Zealand Rhodes Scholar. While at the University of Oxford he tutored philosophy of human rights, taught law for public policy, and participated in (and developed) an education programme at Grendon Prison.
He previously graduated from the University of Auckland with a BA/LLB(Hons.) degree. At the University of Auckland he was Senior Scholar in Law and Political Studies, and Editor-in-Chief of the Auckland University Law Review. His academic work has been published in, among other places, the European Human Rights Law Review, the Journal of Contract Law, and the New Zealand Universities Law Review. He is co-editor of two books on the legal contributions of Dame Sian Elias and Bruce Harris, and author of the book The New Zealand Project. He tutored tort law at Victoria University of Wellington while clerk to Chief Justice Elias at the Supreme Court.
Max has worked as a campaigner and policy researcher, and has a longstanding interest in and commitment to progressive politics. He splits his time between legal research and work as a campaigner for ActionStation. He has authored policy reports on housing policy and a Ministry of Green Works, worked as an economic policy advisor to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in the UK Parliament, and was a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme in New York.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Dr Bryan Betty is a General Practitioner at Union and Community Health , a not for profit health clinic in Cannons Creek, East Porirua, a suburb that is known for its high needs and social deprivation. The practice has 7,000 enrolled patients, 90 percent who are high needs with 25 percent Māori, 50 percent Pasifika and the remainder mainly refugee.
Dr Betty was the Medical Director of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners before stepping down to become Chair of General Practice New Zealand (GPNZ) last year.
I first met Dr Betty back in 2011 when I was making my documentary Inside Child Poverty and I can tell you he pulls no punches about the broken state of our primary care system and what we need to do to fix it.
Over the course of his career, he has been a vocal critic of New Zealand’s rheumatic fever and type 2 diabetes statistics and is a strong advocate for change that will improve health outcomes and reduce health inequities for everyone – no matter where they live.
Free to listen on Apple Podcast.
Funding for independent public journalism has been cut off by the current government. To support my work in speaking truth to power, please share posts on your social media sites. If you are a free subscriber, please consider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Dr Nikki Turner is a General Practitioner who is also a Professor in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care and Medical Director of the Immunisation Advisory Centre (IMAC), at the University of Auckland.
She works part time as a General Practitioner at the NUHS Broadway clinic in Strathmore, Wellington and academic interests are in immunisation, primary health care and preventive child health.
She represents the RNZCGP (College of General Practitioners) in child health interests, and is a health spokesperson for the Child Poverty Action Group.
Her professional qualifications include MBChB., Dip Obs Auck., DCH London., FRNZCGP., MPH Hons MD Auck.
To support my public journalism work and speaking truth to power, please onsider becoming a $5 per month paid subscriber which will also give you access to premium posts, documentaries and podcasts plus the comment and chat facility. To those of you who are already paid subscribers - thank you for helping me to keep going.
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Bryan Gould is one of the Left’s clearest thinkers whose books and articles have certainly influenced my own views economics, political and society. So when the opportunity came up to interview him I asked if we could talk face to face rather than doing a Zoom type computer interview.
The 17 minute segment I have posted here is just a fraction of what we talked about but it contains his challenge to the political Left in New Zealand - a challenge from someone who has not just been a brilliant academic and author, but was an elected MP in the British Parliament for 15 years who almost became the leader of the UK Labour Party.
It was such a privilege to talk with him about the big stuff that really matters.
Thanks Bryan.
Below is just some of his biography an accomplishments.
Bryan Gould was born in 1939 in Hawera, New Zealand. He attended Tauranga College and Dannevirke High School and was dux of his primary and secondary schools. At the age of 15 he won a National University Scholarship. At Victoria and Auckland Universities, he completed a B.A. Ll.B., and an Ll.M. with first-class honours and won the Senior Scholarship in Law at Auckland University.
In 1962, a Rhodes Scholarship took him to Balliol College, Oxford, where he completed a post-graduate law degree, the B.C.L., with first-class honours. He joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1964 as the top entrant of his year and served in the Foreign Office and the Brussels Embassy.
He returned to Oxford in 1968 as a law don and Secretary to the Governing Body at Worcester College. He was an Examiner in Law for the University and in 1971 published an article in the law journal Public Law which was an important contribution to the development of the law on judicial review.
In 1974, he was elected to the House of Commons as Labour MP for the marginal seat of Southampton Test. He was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Rt. Hon. Peter Shore MP. On losing the seat in the 1979 general election, he joined Thames Television as a presenter and reporter on the nationally networked current affairs programme, TV Eye.
He returned to the House of Commons in 1983 as Labour MP for Dagenham. He was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1986 and was the Labour Party’s Campaign Director in the 1987 general election. He served in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary, Shadow Secretary for Trade and Industry, Shadow Secretary for the Environment, and Shadow Heritage Secretary. He founded the Full Employment Forum in 1992. He contested the Labour Party leadership in 1992 but was defeated by John Smith.
He returned to New Zealand in 1994 as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato. He chaired the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee for two years. He is Chair of the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence and at the request of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology served as a Mentor to a newly formed group of younger social science researchers – He Waka Tangata. On stepping down from the University in 2004, he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and in 2006 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Waikato. He chaired the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology for three years from 2008, and the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, and currently chairs the Eastern Bay Primary Health Alliance. He is a member of the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s Council and is a trustee of the Opotiki Community Foundation.
He was a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford in 2005 and was made a Director of Television New Zealand in 2004. He currently lives at Ohiwa, in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty, with his wife Gillian and West Highland White Terrier, Lachie. Gill and Bryan have two children – a son, Charles, who lives in Brighton, England, with his wife Angela and their children Anna, Tom and Hugh, and a daughter, Helen, who lives in Omokoroa, New Zealand, with her children Tessa, Nathaniel and Benjamin.
Publications
Bryan Gould has co-authored a number of books, including A Charter for the Disabled (1981) and Monetarism or Prosperity? (1981). His other books include Socialism and Freedom (1985), A Future for Socialism (1989) and the autobiographical Goodbye to All That (1995). The Democracy Sham: How Globalisation Devalues Your Vote was published in September 2006 and Rescuing the New Zealand Economy in 2007. He is currently working on a book on moral philosophy.
Bryan Gould has written many articles and pamphlets for the Fabian Society, for the House Magazine, for all the leading British newspapers and political journals, and for leading New Zealand newspapers and publications.
Political Interests
Bryan Gould has been a member of the Labour Parties in Britain and New Zealand for over 45 years. He has written widely on political issues, drawing on his expertise in economics, law, education, the media and international affairs. He was an influential thinker and leader in the British Labour Party for many years.
Economics
Bryan Gould studied economics at university level and has become a leading critic of and commentator on many aspects of macro-economic policy, including monetarism, globalisation, Europe, and exchange rate policy.
Legal Issues
His academic training, his work as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, his six years as an Oxford law don, and his experience in establishing free legal advice centres in Oxford and Southampton have all equipped Bryan Gould to take an active interest in welfare law, human rights issues and in organisations such as Amnesty International.
Tertiary Education
More than a decade as Vice-Chancellor (or President) of one of New Zealand’s leading universities, his work for New Zealand’s Tertiary Education Commission, his six-year term as Chair of Ako Aotearoa (the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence) and his frequent contributions to international conferences and to publications such as the Times Higher Education Supplement have made Bryan Gould a respected commentator on issues in tertiary education.
The Media
Bryan Gould has extensive experience as a writer and commentator, and in the broadcast media. He worked in radio for the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, and for Thames Television in Britain as a television presenter. He was invited to apply for positions presenting both Weekend World and On The Record, which were at the time the UK’s two top current affairs jobs. As Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary in the late 1980s, he warned against the danger to democracy constituted by the cross-media expansion of the Murdoch empire.
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