The Insider: Aussies wield the big stick

Australian treasurer Joe Hockey savagely lambasted the "dirty thirty" multinationals who have been conspicuously using a range of clever schemes to avoid paying tax. Photo / Getty Images

In comparing recent Budgets on either side of the Tasman, there's been a stark difference in the approach to combating multinational tax avoidance. On one hand, egged on by a gleeful Aussie media and supported by a Senate inquiry, Treasurer Joe Hockey (right) savagely lambasted the "dirty thirty" multinationals who have been conspicuously using a range of clever (and hitherto legal) schemes to avoid paying tax. Meanwhile, the New Zealand Budget produced a brilliant side-step, burying mentions of policy work on multinational tax avoidance deep within supplementary papers. With Labour still smarting over the withering putdown last time they raised this issue (remember the "ban on Facebook"?), there doesn't seem to be much appetite for doing anything in a hurry, beyond waiting for someone else to take the lead. While NZ can rightly claim a transtasman leadership on many tax matters, it doesn't seem the same can be said about the erosion of the tax base.

Off the list

The Queen's Birthday Honours list threw out the usual suspects, but civil servants are perplexed by the fact that not one former mandarin managed to make the cut. Once upon a time, some retired public servant would get a gong, but this time it seems no one was deemed worthy.

Gumball Rally

Companies and Government departments share a fondness for using - some would say abusing - the language to make things seem more interesting than they are. New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, for example, named an IT project "Velocity", staff induction was called "Ignite", 90-day plan reviews are "Impact Briefings" and a product development machine was called the "Gumball". A review of NZTE says that its messaging might be seen as having "a slightly evangelical tone", but the reviewers go on to conclude that this sort of language is "in fact catalytic rather than evangelical",

and shows that NZTE is "very purposeful in the way it uses identity, language, symbols and events".

Spinning down

This may come as a surprise to many media folk, but the number of communications and public relations advisers in the Public Service at the end of last year was 277.8 full-time equivalents, down from 288 six months earlier. Cynics might think this reduction has been achieved through the judicious re-categorising of roles to meet the Government's cap on such staff, because it still feels as though there are legions of publicly funded PR staff. Internal Affairs, which formally employs Beehive press secretaries, now has 43.9 communications people on its books, down from 62 at the end of 2008. This still means the Beehive outnumbers almost all the country's newsrooms.

Pot and kettle

Kiwi exporters have been heard to complain about the problems involved in getting their goods across foreign borders, but things may not be much better for foreigners sending goods to New Zealand. The Ministry for Primary Industries is meant to have 80 per cent of import clearance processes completed within agreed timeframes. But the number of clearances expected to meet this standard in the current financial year is just 35 per cent. Not exactly a sign of a highly tuned operation.

Buzzy living

It may not be much comfort to anyone trying to buy their first home in Auckland, but they aren't alone. A Wall Street Journal article points to Hong Kong, where an apartment of less than 17sq m sells for $721,000. The locals call them "mosquito-sized units", though they do have their selling points - in this case, the enterprising real estate agent pointed out that the window sill was a potential area for "entertainment".

God's big bucks

From the novel excuses department: an American who ran a Ponzi scheme claimed his trading system was guided by the Holy Spirit, reports the AP news agency. Regulators in Massachusetts say Charles Erickson defrauded at least 25 investors out of about US$3.5 million. Erickson is said to have claimed the Holy Spirit gave him a proprietary day-trading system for a volatile type of futures contract. Authorities say he guaranteed returns of 96 per cent over two years.