Thanks to the new look Independent arriving a day late in the mail we were able to compare this paper with yesterday's NBR and the Friday Herald Business supplement.
Most interesting in the Herald was a long article looking at the move leftward by all political parties. It interviewed Barrie Saunders, Mai Chen, Roger Kerr and Phil O'Rielly. Unfortunately we can't find an electronic link to this article.
The Independent has been changing for a while. Some journalists have been dropped (we miss Bob Edlin), and some have joined Jenni McManus is back. Vernon Small is also now contributing. Thursday, the appearance changed also - well the front page anyway. And its day of publication has moved from Wednesday to Thursday.
Most alarming was an article by Nick Smith about moves by Labour to make redundancy payments compulsory. Jenni McManus suggests that the regulators are about to crack down on finance firms. Don Brash defends the Reserve Bank's anti-inflation focus. The Editorial is critical of the Green Party's calls for enquiries into the price of milk and supermarket prices. Vernon Small follows up with a great article telling the Greens to back off Fonterra. Chris Trotter tries his best to help Labour Alan Shanks recalls the days of the Mike Moore led trade mission. All up a worthwhile read.
The NBR had the advantage of being written after Bollard's announcement on Thursday morning (Bollard usually announces on Thursdays so this is something that The Independent should think about when next considering publication days).
Rob Hosking summarises the Reserve Bank statement and has another article revealing National's ACC policy. Mark Peart looks at the prospects for the Korea FTA following the recent protests there over beef imports. He has another article complete with photo of Crawford Falconer on the prospects for the WTO Round (he is not optimistic). There is an analysis by Ben Thomas of where to from here now that Rodney Hide's Regulatory Responsibility Bill has been defeated? James Allan compares the smug sanctimoniousness of the New Zealand and UK Labour Parties. Neville Bennett's article on economic growth disturbed us a little so we are doing further work in that space including reading the World Bank report in question. There were also two good articles on Auckland local body related issues - transport by Tony Garnier, and Andrew Body on the need for agreement on local body function. Finally we wish to highlight another good article on Taiwan - China relations. There was much more.
The NBR is the more expensive at $9.50 but the most substantive. We will, however, keep buying the Independent $6.90. We hear next week there is going to be an interesting debate on the future of trade policy which will make it a must read for many in Wellington.
