Ryan Bridge: We need less fighting, more long term thinking in Wellington

There's no reason parties on left and right in New Zealand politics can't work together to get stuff done. 

This week we've seen it with the India FTA. It's essentially just deal-making. 

It'll pass because a party not in government joined forces with two in government to make it happen. 

We've seen it with a member's bill, put forward to Labour's Arena Williams, on international money transfers. 

When you transfer money to somebody overseas, the banks and transfer companies can basically say what they like about fees and commissions then charge you what they like. They don't need to up front about it. 

The bill would force them to tell you what they going to charge before you're charged, rather than find out once the money's left your account.

It seems like pretty sensible law-making to me. 

It passed its first reading this week. A Labour MP's bill. 

National didn't support it. But that didn't matter, because ever other party in the House —including ACT and New Zealand First— did.

The modern slavery bill had similar bi-partisan support. 

Imagine if we could get that same sort of love-in on energy and infrastructure?

The fact our politicians are trained like pit bulls to attack each other —the Opposition is literally called the Opposition— is an advantage to a single party state like China, don't get me wrong. 

But where the Chinese, and others who don't have to worry about that pesky wee thing we call democracy, benefit is that they have one plan. One team. One dream. 

They build roads and trading routes with the next 50 to 100 years in mind, rather than the next three. 

Business and industry —and therefore jobs— depend on and plan around things they know to be true. 

Getting Beijing-style plans without resorting to dictatorship requires a few grown-ups, a little less mongrel, and little more long-term thinking in Wellington. 

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