Did Nicola Willis just appoint Atlas Network connections to her surprise RBNZ Covid Inquiry?
Willis launches a surprise Covid inquiry with results to come out 6 weeks before the election. Most NZ publications noted her hiring of "independent" experts. I looked further into it.
Public interest article: Open to all.
This afternoon, the government, under sustained heat for their $1 billion minimum LNG gas tax, that they were told in advance would be passed onto consumers and businesses, needed a way out.
They’d been here before.
Last year in May, when the Coalition repealed pay equity under urgency, redacting all human rights advice, and ignoring the critical “good lawmaking” practice of a Regulatory Impact statement (RIS), and having successfully kept their plans secret for a year and a half while they led on applicants, were able to flip the narrative, seizing on a statement by Labour leader Chris Hipkins that pay equity applicants would see a pay cut as a result.
Technically, Hipkins was more than right.
Applicants, including nurses, hospice workers, and teachers had spent years meticulously putting together their pay equity cases and were near the end of the process.
That process would see them with improved pay equity i.e. see their wages rise to reflect their skills and value.
By repealing pay equity under urgency within a day, those hundreds of thousands of Kiwi workers would no longer see their pay rise - they were served an effective cut.
National seized on that to claim “Hipkins is a liar.”
Their MPs flooded social media en-masse, mocking Labour and Hipkins while deflecting from their own actions - amid the “ram raid no-one was expecting”.
Then, when The Post’s Andrea Vance wrote an article criticising the pay equity repeal with one “c***” word embedded within it, ACT and National seized that as an opportunity to flip the narrative further; attacking Vance with the full might of their collective three way party mouthpieces, and claiming the moral high ground for being female empowerers.
That’s right - the government which just upended years of painstaking, serious pay equity reform for primarily women professions, that saw Kristine Bartlett break down in tears after hearing of the repeal, became the heros of the feminine.
This week has not been as easy with their LNG corporate subsidy.
After claiming that the levy is not a tax, before being informed the definition of a levy is that of a tax, Simon Watts tried to pivot to other words.
The point is this: A levy is a tax, as defined in the English dictionary.
But the greater question it raises is the persistent dishonesty of National.
Faced with widespread questions, confusion and anger about National’s gas tax that will see Kiwis experience higher energy costs, in order to subsidise private corporates within a sunset fossil fuel industry , and with no ability to flip it on Labour or a journalist’s head this time, Willis came out today with a “surprise” announcement:
She is soliciting an “independent” review into Covid era monetary policy and spending.
Just in time for the 6 o’ clock news cycle.
Hipkins called it out for what it is:
“Cynical political manipulation by Nicola Willis.”
“If she really wanted to know whether the Reserve Bank had handled the Covid pandemic accurately, she would have launched this inquiry when she became the minister of finance, not right in the middle of a general election.”
NZME could hardly contain their excitement. Thomas Coughlan’s un-paywalled article was designed for maximum damage to Labour:
“Government instigates surprise inquiry into Reserve Bank’s $55 billion Covid money-printing binge”
This video is for Coughlan:
And Atlas Network’s Taxpayers Union, fresh from lamenting why National would hurt their chances at election success with a gas tax, predictably, joined in.
Stuff’s Jenna Lynch headlined with the cue card too:
Government orders independent review of Covid-era monetary policy
Except we all know that National’s “independent inquiries” have always been anything but independent.
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All reports today, however, missed a key when announcing the appointment of Dr Athanasios Orphanides and David Archer.
Orphanides appears linked to Atlas Network, the alleged fossil fuel, tobacco, libertarian and conservative network Canadian, Australian and UK media have covered at length.
He is a Professor at MIT but is featured on Atlas Network’s Manhattan Institute’s website1 where you can “schedule an interview” with him, as well as being a member of their Shadow Open Market Committee.
Manhattan Institute is presently chaired by former Trump Administration official Betsy Davos.
Orphanides is also frequently cited by Atlas Network libertarian think tank journals and himself writes for Atlas Network’s Cato Institute, quoting David Seymour’s libertarian idol Milton Friedman within those articles.
Now there is certainly no suggestion of any wrong doing on anyone’s part here, and while Orphanides is has relevant qualifications as past Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, but my question is why the New Zealand government is engaging an individual with this particular and, arguably background review to NZ’s Covid fiscal response?
And at this juncture - setting it up so that Orphanides’ “findings” are released 6 weeks before the election.2
Now the other interesting thing amidst all this is, as I’ve covered before, Nicola Willis’s father is a well known New Zealand oil and mining executive James Willis.
He was a partner in Bell Gully and later became Chairman of New Zealand Energy Corporation.
Wikipedia notes that NZEC ”owns and operates gas and oil fields in Taranaki and has exploration permits in the East Coast Basin.”
The documented relationships between Atlas Network and fossil fuels is quite immense globally.
For example, on the rise of Atlas Network think tanks in Australia, Professor Jeremy Walker notes:
The founding grants of the [Atlas Network Australian think tank] were supplied in 1979 by Santos, Shell, BHP, Rio Tinto, Western Mining Corporation (WMC) and [Rupert Murdoch] News Corp’s Adelaide Advertiser, arranged by Newman, Bonython, and Hugh Morgan (Kelly 1992, p. 47).
Morgan was a powerbroker in Australian and international mining politics
Observatoire des multinationales (Multinationals Observatory) an investigative organisation, writes:
Its members in the United States include influential think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Heartland Institute. Behind the Atlas Network are right wing billionaires and foundations such as the Koch’s and the Templeton Foundation, as well as major corporations in sectors such as oil, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. The Atlas Network is a reflection of a wider alliance, in the US, between economic libertarians – with their anti-climate, anti-regulation and anti-social justice agenda – and ultraconservatives which focus on issues such as abortion, migrants and minority rights.
And in Canada, researchers write:
Network analysis reveals extensive and deepening board interlocks and joint memberships between these think tanks and the fossil fuel industry, other policy-planning organizations within and beyond Canada, and academic institutions.
Consistent with and rooted in network ties, Atlas members produce a large and growing volume of climate-related content, including content that denies the reality and impacts of climate change, promotes and defends the fossil fuel sector, and opposes climate policy and action.
So my speculation is that it would be easy for Willis and/or Seymour to identify someone like Orphanides within their networks.
Questions still abound within New Zealand’s context as it pertains to this government’s clear and persistent links with Atlas:
- Who funded David Seymour’s Atlas Network junket to Argentina?
- Why was he in London on an Atlas Network speaking tour last year, selling New Zealand as a successful libertarian experiment?
- Why is Atlas Network covered openly in Australian media, but outside of Newsroom and MATA in New Zealand, untouched?
- Why does this government persist in making anti-climate, anti-environment, anti-science and anti-evidence decisions at all costs? What could drive them?
- Why did Shane Jones boast about willingly seeing NZ native species die for mining companies?
- And, why has Nicola Willis commissioned a “surprise” Covid inquiry years after it happened, and months before an election, and commissioned an apparent Atlas Network connected figure to do so?
Inquiring minds really want to know
Addendum:
Post publication, I’ve confirmed the inquiry specifies its scope as “coordination of monetary and fiscal policy” - that gives it a direct line to Labour 6 weeks out from the election.
In addition, I then received a public jibe from this libertarian account (Atlas Network is a libertarian network)
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MI was founded by Atlas Network founders British Antony Fisher and CIA’s William Casey. ↩
I can only surmise it is to inflict maximum damage onto Labour in the style of US Republican tactics e.g. “Hillary Clinton’s emails” but these same individuals will look away when there is literally millions of concrete and proven documented files of paedophilia and sexual abuse within Republican circles. ↩
