Does Dame Anne Salmond really want to debate the Regulatory Standards Bill?

Dame Anne Salmond is upset at the use of pejoratives to describe some opponents of the Regulatory Standards Bill. I can understand not liking the use of terms that are explicitly or implicitly abusive, as it is hardly helpful. She doesn't like being called "Victim of the Day" by David Seymour, although his piece on her was not personal.   I struggle to see why an article that largely is about rebutting her original piece is initiating "an online campaign of intimidation" as she claims. Indeed the comments responding to Seymour's post have plenty criticising him as well as supporting him.  She may think I am part of a campaign of intimidation, but she claims debate is fine, so let's have that. She has a wide platform as a public figure, so, as with other critics like Metiria Turei and Willie Jackson (past and present MPs), engaging publicly on an issue means people will support and oppose. 

Let’s remember this is an academic that once wrote that unless you can read the original language any text is written in, you are not entitled to have an opinion on it.  She talks of wanting to “silence” critics but is adept at finding reasons to tell those she criticises effectively that they are not entitled to express an opinion on Te Tiriti.  This is someone who claims the Regulatory Standards Bill expresses a “contempt for liberal democracy” who expresses contempt for people commenting on Te Tiriti if they are not sufficiently fluent in Te Reo. 

Her criticism of the Regulatory Standards Bill strongly infers that those advocating it don’t believe in “public goals and values” (she means the public goals and values she supports).  She opposes it because it lacks a strong democratic mandate, on the basis that most voters didn’t vote for ACT.  Has she ever said the same about Bills advanced by the Greens or Te Pati Maori? 

She opposes the principles focusing on individual rights and private property, which at least she’s explicit about. I’d argue that opposing such principles is “dangerous” in itself, and is the source of much of the harm seen today.  What is fundamentally wrong with respecting people’s autonomy over their bodies and property, and having a society based on that? (leaving aside how inconsistent ACT is in defending this - which is fair criticism. ACT is no libertarian party, and never has been).  

She claims that having an ideological oversight over the legislative and regulatory activities of all government agencies is a “naked power grab”. Power for whom? The Regulatory Standards Board has no power to do anything other than to report, as it would be up to the elected government of the day to respond to it, or ignore it.  What is she really afraid of, that the governments she supports would be asked to justify why they are overriding individual rights and property rights to implement policies she supports?  

If individual rights and property rights are so “dangerous” then she should have no fear whatsoever of a government she supports implementing the policies she supports saying “individual rights are secondary to us banning, compelling or taxing people for this “public purpose””. Sunlight showing the very clear trade-offs between individual rights and the politics of collectivists. 

It takes nothing away from the Executive or Parliament, it is not a constitution upholding those rights and being able to veto policies that degrade them (if only!).

However, Salmond’s real view on this is that it is sinister, because she doesn’t think ACT has honest intent (because she opposes the reform of the pay equity legislation applied retrospectively).  That’s not playing the ball, that’s playing the man.  She thinks ACT wants to undermine liberal democracy, which is a serious accusation.  Bear in mind she claims the Government is waging a "war on women". 

Is this the rhetoric of someone who wants fact based debate, or someone happy to jump in, boots and all, into the world of political pejoratives?

She claims on LinkedIn that (the Regulatory Standards Bill) "rhetoric used to support this bill talks about ‘equality,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom, ’trying to force indigenous and other New Zealanders to abide by libertarian understandings of these words – thus stripping them of their rights and freedoms"

Really? How does anyone "force" anyone else to abide by the meaning of any word? How does this even make sense? 

She says there are not enough checks and balances on executive power but claims this Bill will be an example of this, even though it can only come into power by being passed by a majority in Parliament. It can of course be repealed likewise.  This is simply wrong.

The “worst” effect she claims is that the bill “attempts to tie the hands of the state in regulating private activities or initiatives that create public harm”. This isn’t actually what is in the Bill, but an interpretation.  Lot of people claim “public harm” from activities that generate private benefit, ranging from what people consume or do with their bodies through to businesses they engage in with consenting adults.  =Of course, the Bill simply states as a principle that legislation should not take, impair property unless fair compensation is given for that.  =All the Bill requires is that this be reported on, and then Parliament decides whether to do so, or not.  

Then she talks about the "accumulation" of wealth and power by the “few” at the “expense of the many”, which is political agitprop. Of course, globally she is one of the “few” as are most people in New Zealand, who have incomes and wealth exceeding that of the majority of the global population.  She continues with rhetoric of “over-emphasis on private property and individual rights”. She thinks that is what happens in the US, a country with eminent domain over private property to enable private development (an egregious violation of property rights), a country with a long litany of laws against individual freedom ranging from what one can ingest into one’s body, through to the endless need for permits to undertake mundane trading activities.

Salmond appears not to have read the Bill.  If she has, she hasn't understood it.  Maybe she simply imputes sinister intent to ACT, by claiming it is all "doublespeak"?

It's easy to see why David Seymour would get frustrated, with rhetoric of that of Marxist student activists. This Bill does not attack the “fundamental rights of New Zealanders” as Salmond claims and puts up zero evidence for.  What it would do is subject the policies she supports to the scrutiny as to why individual rights and property rights should be reduced to achieve the objectives she may be in supportive of.  Governments could then ignore that or respect it.

Why is that controversial, unless you think it doesn't really matter if individual freedom and private property rights are eroded for "the common good"?

New Zealand politics in 2024

2023 was a year when New Zealand voters most adamantly said they wanted change. The near personality-cult around Jacinda Ardern had well and truly eroded, as the rhetoric around the government of “kindness” (implemented using the monopoly of legitimised violence of the state) and the budget of “wellbeing” (implemented by taking money from current and future generations) seemed increasingly empty. The government so committed to ending poverty had presided over the fastest increase in personal wealth by homeowners in modern history and its primary response was to tax landlords who didn’t want to rent out their properties for fewer than ten years without selling them.  It presented itself as a victim of external forces, whether it be Covid or inflation which NZ was constantly told was due to the war in Ukraine, even though many of NZ’s trading partners had lower inflation.

Although there was a brief flurry of excitement about Chris Hipkins, appearing to recalibrate Labour on “what matters”, voters were largely unconvinced. Hipkins follows Mike Moore and Bill Rowling in leading Labour to landslide defeats, albeit for different reasons. Jacinda Ardern is nearly invisible in the country that was hailed internationally for keeping Covid out, and she is now hailed internationally by those who never visited NZ, and she is now at Harvard, whose President Claudine Gay is surrounded by scandal around claiming that if a student of Harvard advocated for genocide against Jews, it would “depend on the context” as to whether it breached its policy on harassment and bullying. Claudine Gay is also now facing accusations of plagiarism in her earlier work.

The former Prime Minister of kindness hasn’t been approached for comment on what she thinks about the head of her new gig’s ambivalence about anti-semitism, but then again why would she abandon her career of highly-paid talkfests?

Meanwhile the 2023 election saw a threeway split in positions. While 27% were willing to give Chippy a go, 15% thought Labour had been far too timid and voted for the Greens and Te Pati Maori to advance a much more radical socialist, intersectionist, ethno-nationalist set of reforms including more tax, more spending, much more transfer of power from the state and Parliament to Iwi, and radical central planning around provision of health, education and the economy, let alone expansion of the welfare state to a universal benefit. 

The Greens and Te Pati Maori saw the changes as being that Labour didn’t do enough to address what it said it was doing about key issues such as climate change, poverty and Tino Rangitiratanga.  He Puapua was seen as a step along a journey of major constitutional change that would see Iwi standing side-by-side with Parliament and the “colonising” Government sharing power. Te Pati Maori successfully sold this vision to voters in almost all of the Maori seats, but Labour couldn’t sell the path of radical change to the general population, especially when questioning or criticising the path of more co-governance was simply labelled as racist and ignored.  

Fortunately around 55% (including some of the minor parties) voted in the other direction, with a mix of centre-right incrementalism (National), classical liberalism (ACT) and a touch of conservatism and nationalism (NZ First), with a couple of bones thrown at traditionalists.  It’s a historic switch in electoral support for Labour to lose 46% of the votes it gained in 2020 as a proportion of votes cast.  

The 2020 election was extraordinary, Labour got an unprecedented majority based almost entirely on having kept Covid 19 out of the country and life being relatively normal (albeit with foreign travel restricted for all but select politicians, officials and others chosen by the Government) compared to countries enduring extended lockdowns. Labour took that as a chance to embark on a series of radical reforms that ultimately saw its undoing. As it borrowed and spent to at first save businesses from collapse during the pandemic and then stimulate the economy, it went on to literally pay people money for nothing, and then blame inflation entirely on outside factors. As it increased benefits in order to address poverty (due in no small part due to a persistent housing shortage that can be blamed on governments of all stripes over the previous 25 years). it was no surprise that as baby boomers reached retirement age, a shortage of staff would emerge, as a generation withdrew from the labour force (bolstered by National Superannuation and inflated housing prices) and a growing number simply opted out of paid work altogether. Since 2017 the statutory minimum wage had been increased by just over 44%, even though prices in that same time had increased 25%. 

Reports of increasingly aggressive crime including ramraids were far too often dismissed or minimised, at least for those who were the victims of it, as it appeared that crime increasingly did pay.  Meanwhile, much needed reforms to the water sector had layered over them a complex governance structure that was to see Iwi, in four groups, deciding half of the members of boards, who would determine the members of another set of board, that would govern fresh, waste and stormwater infrastructure across the country.  This was all apparently because Te Tiriti now meant Iwi would have governance rights over whatever sectors the Government said it should – and infrastructure was now part of that.  It wasn’t enough for territorial authorities that own the infrastructure to consult with Iwi, not enough for there to be Iwi representatives on councils through exclusively Maori wards (which are democratically elected), but that Iwi would have equivalent powers to local government. Although some of the backlash against Three Waters was ill-directed mindless racism, the core issue – why should the future management of ratepayer owned assets be half governed by Iwi (who were already at the table of local government)?

Other completely unnecessary measures also gave the impression of a government less concerned about inflation and crime, than it was on social engineering and seeking to look as if it was addressing what it thought was important, when much of the public were concerned about the cost of living and threats to their families.

The aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque attack generated calls, particularly from parts of the Muslim community, to toughen laws on hate speech, primarily around religion. This raised concern that proposals advanced by the Ardern Government would constrain speech around ridiculing religions as “hate speech”.  Ultimately this was suspended, but it helped fuel a mix of genuine concerns around freedom of speech and conspiratorial concerns about a much more sinister intent.  Jacinda Ardern’s tone-deaf but well-meaning claim during the pandemic that if information “doesn’t come from us, then you can’t believe it” sounded straight out of the playbook of a dictatorship. No liberal democracy can or should claim it has the monopoly of truth, because it simply does not and cannot. 

The Public Interest Journalism Fund came from criticism that it was funding journalism that supported the Government’s policies, which although in some ways unfair, did include funding that specifically indicated a philosophical approach to some issues that was controversial, particularly around Te Tiriti. The lines between government and activism became blurred, including by the “Disinformation Project” which was clearly endorsed by the government, but which itself had its own ideological line.

The Disinformation Project of course has its own blind spots. It’s regular reporting of research by Byron Clark, former supporter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (a breakaway communist led terrorist faction of the PLO) and the communist Workers Party of New Zealand, who was particularly focused on what he called the “far-right” didn’t ever reflect on the perspective someone clearly from the far-left would have on what is “extremist”. 

The 2021 controversy over the so-called “Listener 7” who claimed Matauranga isn’t science, and the long list of academics who sought to humiliate and denigrate them was also part of this dominant discourse in academia, media and politics. It was seen as an attempt to “cancel” and “close” debate on the topic, which extended to Dr Richard Dawkins in the UK, and responses claiming racism and colonialism emerged.  The debate around transgender rights, and the visit by “Posie Parker” supported by a coalition of womens’ rights activists and social conservatives saw similar discourse emerge, with a vehemence of anger and hatred.  All of this rubbed of on Labour, with a strong indication that there were opinions that brought “consequences” around employment and being accepted by academia, media and even business as having “correct” views on controversial topics. 

It's a side point that many of the same people who wanted “consequences” for challenging trans and Te Tiriti discourse run frightened when supporters of the Jewish community and opponents of Hamas condemn their Hamas-inspired rhetoric and slogans.

The majority of the voting public took in a mix of the narrative around the government, the cost of living crisis and concern about a lack of delivery (and performance personally about a growing list of Ministers who simply failed to meet standards of behaviour that should be expected of them).  ACT voters were dominated by those who had had enough of the growth in spending and taxation, and the politics of intersectionality and identity. National voters were primarily concerned about performance and lack of delivery, including the money wasted on expensive schemes seen as “out of touch” with what voters cared about. NZ First happily hoovered up the Covid 19 vaccine sceptics and opponents, but also returned to opposition to Maori nationalism and separatism and hitching onto other culture wars for convenience (see trans-rights).

There is now a National-led government that appears to clearly want to stem the growth in the state and, at the very least, return its size to that seen in 2017. It has clearly reversed some policies and is winding back reforms such as the centralisation of tertiary vocational training, the separate Maori health authority and Three Waters. Although some of the discourse around the government is catastrophism and projection of deranged phobia around its objectives (claims it wants to “erase” Maori or trans-people are unhinged nonsense), it is promising as a National-led government that actually is changing direction, which seems in part driven by ACT and NZ First both wanting to make their mark on the government. This should not be a surprise, as National did not win 40% of the vote, and is more dependent on both minor parties than it had been in the Key/English era.  There is also a generation of younger National, ACT and NZ First politicians who are fed up with a centre-right government simply pausing the advance towards more government and more compulsory collectivism.  

So far so good with most measures taken. It is obvious that Fair Pay Agreements had to go, along with the labyrinthine replacement to the RMA.  It’s particularly encouraging from an individual freedom perspective to see the removal of the tobacco prohibition measures, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth of neo-puritans on the left some who rightfully campaign to legalise cannabis but can’t see the inconsistency of prohibiting sales of tobacco to a growing number of adults.  We will wait to see what will come to replace the RMA.  

What I really want to see is for charter schools to flourish, to expand in number and for the thumping fist of the bureaucratic and professional union monopolies weakened in the control of the education system. I want the RMA replaced with private property rights. Nicola Willis has promisingly indicated willingness to cut core spending of many departments to 2017 levels, and for tax cuts.  

Of course, it wont be a libertarian government, but it looks like being a government that will turn back at least some of the spending and some of the regulation, and even some of the philosophical culture of the previous government. A government that is more interested in productivity and growth of private enterprise, rather than confiscation and distribution of the proceeds of production, and regulation and control of private individuals and their property. 

I can only hope that the calibre of Ministers will be on a significantly higher level than that of the Ardern/Hipkins era, and to be honest it wont be that hard. Nobody should pretend that it is easy to address crime or healthcare, because the fundamental reasons for both of this are long-standing and difficult to confront, but this government ought to focus on some key issues that it can start to turn around.  Educational choice and performance, and the barriers to enabling more housing.  If only it can adeptly take on the inevitable barrage of criticism from academia, media and the Opposition, who are eager to call it out as racist, misogynist, transphobic, white supremacist, neo-colonialist, neo-imperialist and every other blanket collectivist pejorative that can be lazily thrown around. Hopefully the front bench will have the testicular fortitude to respond intelligently and confidently to critiques, but more importantly give minimal reasons for criticism based on performance.

So in 2024 the National Party appears revitalised, and despite the critics, Christopher Luxon has emerged as Prime Minister, it is too early to tell whether the man as PM can prove to be greater than as Opposition Leader.  However, National might actually look like a government that isn’t conservative (in the sense of not changing) about Labour policies.

Labour is scarred, having few seats outside the main centres (Palmerston North and Nelson hanging on), and about to embark on a battle between the hardliners who think it lost for not being socialist enough (although if that were true, then those voters would have gone to the Greens and Te Pati Maori in sufficient numbers to give Labour a chance at government), and those who wonder how it could moderate its image and gain the confidence of voters again. For now, it looks like Labour will spend some time in the wilderness.

The Greens are buoyant because they have done very well indeed, winning two more electorates in Wellington, demonstrating very clearly the yawning gap between many Wellingtonians (including public servants, students and those working for industries supporting government) and the rest of the country, but maybe also the arrogance of Labour which thought it could parachute whoever it chose into two relatively safe seats, and win.  

ACT has a right to be pleased, because it will now have a more influential role in government than ever before. Hopefully it will be a greater success than Rodney Hide implementing Helen Clark’s vision for a greater Auckland Council, and it should enable ACT to stamp its mark on key issues such as education, gun regulation and freedom of speech.

Nobody rules out Winston anymore, as he pivoted and succeeded in being the voice for those who felt like their views, whether on Covid or Te Tiriti or on trans-issues, NZ First became the new conservatives, and a voice for those who felt unheard. The test for Winston Peters is whether he is seen as putting enough of a mark on this government to keep support for the following election. 

Finally Te Pati Maori will feel vindicated in reviving radical nationalist socialism with its support for the destruction of Israel and indifference to Russian irredentism. At best it showed Labour’s arrogance in assuming it still could own Maori voters, but at worst in indicates the outcome of many years of the promotion of intersectionality and structuralist theories in parts of Maoridom and by the state more directly. Labour funded and supported this philosophy while in government, and those who support it have found an authentic voice in favour of it – but it is not a position a majority of Maori, let alone voters in NZ, share.

Have a Happy 2024.

Which party to vote for? New Zealand General Election 2023

I’ve been remiss in not offering my opinions on the political parties registered for this general election sooner, but I thought it was about time to do so.  I tend to spend a bit of time thinking about it, but basically it comes down to two sets of choices:

• Parties that will on balance take away more freedoms, tax and regulate you more, and overall increase the role of state in people’s lives, and demote the role of the individual over politically-defined collectives vs;

• Parties that will on balance increase freedoms, reduce tax and regulation, and overall reduce the role of the state in people’s lives, and increase the role of the individual over politically-defined collectives.

And:

• Parties certainly or likely to be elected to Parliament vs;

• Parties that certainly or almost certainly will not be elected to Parliament.

So below I have written an alphabetical review of each of the parties seeking to be elected under the party list, with a ranking of their likelihood to be elected to Parliament. My basis for review is whether the policies are libertarian, rational and whether the people behind it are to be trusted or ooze more turpitude than usual for politicians.

For those who can't be bothered reading so far, gere's my overall conclusion. 

Of the parties that are likely to get elected, ACT is the best of a fairly woeful bunch, and it’s primarily because of education policy and what looks like a bias towards less government. It’s far from consistent, and so much rhetoric is populist pablum, but it’s worth giving ACT its first chance to be the main supporting partner of National (which it didn’t achieve under John Key, as he could use TPM and United Future to get a majority). So, I’m reluctantly giving it a tick. Sure you could give National a tick instead, but it’s not a party that will move much towards less government and more individual choice and responsibility. It’s better than Labour, but that’s a low bar to cross. You could gamble with NZ First, but the idea Winston would pull National towards less government spending, less regulation and do anything substantial about pushing back against Maori nationalism is almost laughable.

If you don’t really care about a change in government you could vote for one of a few micro parties. Of them, the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party is the most consistently libertarian because it has one policy, although it can’t organise itself to get close to being elected or indeed anything else. Of the rest, the New Conservatives might appeal to socially conservative classical liberals, but not libertarians. The other micro-parties are either blends of socialism with claims about freedom (primarily linked to the Covid vaccine, but also climate change and freedom of speech), or led by lunatics (Liz Gunn) or grifting shysters (Tamaki/Grey).

I will be hoping for a National/ACT government without NZ First, because it gives ACT its best chance to prove it can move the dial and make some substantial steps to implement reforms that are needed. 

In short:

ACT: Hold your nose and give a little less government a chance.

Animal Justice Party: Vegan fundamentalist nutters

Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: Free the weed, but nothing else.

Democracy NZ: Conservative breakaway with an odd blend of anti-vax and anti-GMO, but it will fade away.

Freedoms NZ: Grifters Tamaki and Grey on their latest con.

Green: Blend of eco-authoritarians and commie post-modernists keen to sacrifice us all for the greater good, and if you don't like it why are you so full of hate and want the planet to burn and children to die?

Labour:  Union-tempered version of the above with a focus on much more gradualism.

Leighton Baker Party:  Pointless breakaway from the New Conservatives that is worse organised and is for social conservatives.

National: The anti-Labour party that primarily exists to obtain and hang onto power when Labour frightens or angers the public too much to stay in power, but only rarely and erratically reverses anything Labour does.

New Conservative: Social conservatism with some economic liberalism, yet with little to say about cutting state spending. A shadow of its former self having been decimated by the rise of multiple conservative micro-parties led by egos.

New Nation Party: Inconsistent unhinged blend of conspiracy, localism, lower taxes but more government spending. 

NewZeal:  Alfred Ngaro's conservatives for lower taxes but no plans for less spending. Why bother?

New Zealand First: Like dejavu Winston rises from obscurity to find new causes to advance, this time it's back to opposing racial separatism, transgender activism and to be tough on crime.  

New Zealand Loyal: Liz Gunn's mix of quackery and communism.

Te Pati Maori: Maori nationalist socialists

TOP: The party of clever leftwing policy wonks who aren't clever enough to work out how to get elected

Womens' Rights Party:  Feminist socialists against transgender post-modernism

The parties

ACT: Certain to get elected. Not at all a libertarian party, but the prime contender to pull a National-led government towards more freedom and less government. In its favour is a revolutionary approach to education, including decentralising roles and responsibilities, including what are in essence vouchers and charter schools for all. There is a tougher approach to welfare promoting individual responsibility, and what looks like a belief in significantly liberalising planning laws and a more rational approach to climate change policy. David Seymour’s rhetoric on reducing government waste ought to instinctively mean a reduction in spending, and a plan to lower and simplify income tax rates, although it is mild indeed compared with previous years. ACT is willing to take on the thorny issues of identity and governance around Te Tiriti, which has been ignored for too long. 

However, it is far from being all positive, the policies that are published are weak on some elements of economic liberalising. Water policy can’t suggest corporatisation, privatisation and user pays, but in fact is some bizarre blend of Muldoonism and its over-enthusiastic belief in PPPs (across far too many sectors). Sharing GST revenue with local government is also remarkably wasteful unless local government’s roles and responsibilities are pared back, otherwise the likes of Wellington City Council will just keep building or subsidising more entertainment and convention complexes. Those who rejected Covid vaccines, and the mandates and restrictions placed on people during the pandemic have fair reason to be disappointed in David Seymour’s comments during that period. Finally, it’s approach to personal freedom issues appears largely limited to legalising pseudoephedrine. It would be nice if it campaigned to reverse the absurd tobacco ban.  

There is a reason to support ACT, because no other party likely to be elected to Parliament will have MPs who, mostly, have instincts to put the state sector on a diet and to oppose Nanny State moves that National may just continue with.  However, it is entirely understandable why some might just find it too hard to swallow David Seymour’s pivoting on issues like housing intensification or vaccine mandates. For me, the number one reason to vote ACT is its education policy.  Education more than just about any other policy, is in crisis due to capture by bureaucracy and professional unions who want to take a monopolistic approach to how children should be educated. No other party can do something about this. I might be hopeful about reform of planning laws that could enable more housing, but I’m not optimistic about ACT on this. The cycle of politics in NZ is that ACT will likely peak at this election, especially if National is seen to do well by 2026, in which case this is the peak chance for ACT to effect real change. So on balance, a vote for ACT is defensible as a vote to give National a backbone on some issues.  8/10

Animal Justice Party: Certain to not get elected. Misanthropic lunatics with no chance of getting into Parliament. The party of mandatory veganism and those who want to equate domestic abuse between humans as the same applying to animals (including the emotional abuse of denying your dog its favourite toy – by the way you wouldn’t have property rights over any animal either). With policies to end animals in agriculture, it is fundamentally authoritarian post-modernist nonsense blending a benign hippie-level kindness with economic catastrophe and anti-scientific hatred of humans. The only good thing about the Animal Justice Party is it no doubt take votes away from the Greens, so go on and promote it among your more dull-witted Green supporters. 1/10

Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: Certain to not get elected. The ALCP is just about legalising cannabis, so you could argue having one libertarian policy (and not wanting to increase the state’s role in anything else) means it is the purest libertarian party. You can’t be said to have “sold out” for voting for the ALCP, and for some legalising cannabis means more than anything.  A vote for the ALCP is making a statement about an issue most parties have chosen to ignore since the ill drafted referendum. However, it is just that one issue, and ALCP have little chance of getting in Parliament. Voting for ALCP indicates you rather don’t care about education, taxes, housing, environmental, economic or other policies.  These things matter so 6/10

DemocracyNZ: Certain to not get elected. Matt King’s breakaway party is a breakaway rural oriented conservative party. It prefers climate change adaptation to mitigation and looks to do little about reducing agricultural emissions beyond supporting scientific approaches towards doing so. It does seem to have a preference towards less regulation generally. It is in favour of more education choice and devolving some power. Otherwise, it is primarily about vaccine mandates, and parallels ACT and NZF on race issues. However, it does have an unscientific attitude to GMOs. The latter is irrational and odd. Still, it is likely to be relatively benign, except of course there is no plausible path to Parliament or even influencing it. It gets a 4/10.

Freedoms NZ: Certain to not get elected. Grifting megalomaniac Brian Tamaki and fellow grifter Sue Grey uses the word freedom, but freedoms are selective indeed.  Radical on lower taxes (but next to nothing on how to cut government spending), the big pushes are on compensating the vaccine injured. It claims to want to reject Nanny State but has very general statements about “better health and education. There is the touch of the conspiratorial here too, and it wholly rejects climate change and wants to significantly deregulate almost all regulation affecting the rural sector. Prosperity theology is grand-scale grift against the vulnerable and needy, and from a values point of view, someone who promotes this doctrine is not someone who believes in smaller government. Sue Grey in a different manner is a grifter of pseudoscientific nonsense, such as fear over 5G, and although I have respect for those who choose not to take the Covid vaccine, to talk of it being distributed as “genocide” says a lot about who is she and what she is about. This isn’t a party of freedom, it is a party led by confidence-tricksters who target the vulnerable.  It gets a 1/10.

Green: Certain to get elected. New Zealand’s party of socialism is the anti-thesis of more freedom, capitalism, belief in the human individual and less government. The Greens want more government, more tax (now targeting not just when you earn or spend money, but also just owning property), more regulation, more government departments, and with the exception of a less punitive approach to drugs (except alcohol), there is almost nothing for anyone who believe in freedom with the Greens.  The Greens are also in the frontline of promoting post-modernist concepts of identity defining people as privileged or victims based on immutable characteristics, and of course have little interest in private property rights. Note the Greens want Treaty settlements to include private land, wanting the state to decide that your home has to be bought by the state when you decide to sell.  This is also the party that is uninterested in helping Ukraine fight Russia, but happily puts front and centre candidates that chant slogans about wiping Israel off the map. The Greens after all carry the foreign affairs stance of self-styled “anti-imperialists” who don’t care about wars waged by anyone anti-Western including terrorists. Moreover, the Greens are at the forefront of wanting legislation on “hate speech” and are keen to define that based on who is speaking not just what they say.  A vote for the Greens is a vote to pass more power over your life, property and the community to the state.  It gets a 1/10

Labour: Certain to get elected. Green lite, full of people who wish they could go more socialist, go more identitarian, go more government, more taxes, more regulation, more bureaucracy, but know it wont win them power to do too much.  I mean why would you bother? It gets a 2/10. 

Leighton Baker Party: Certain to not get elected. If you’re going to have a personality led party, it needs to be a personality that enough people like and know. In Australia, Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter have done it, with constituencies big enough to justify it. For a start, it has three party list candidates. If it crossed the 5% threshold, it wouldn’t have enough candidates.  It’s a fairly standard conservative platform, with a few good points, like wanting charter schools, one law for all, enshrining freedom of speech and to ignore climate change mitigation. Yet it also wants direct democracy for decisions like tunnels? Baker is a conservative in the bedroom, and if you can’t rustle up six candidates on the tiny chance you get 5%, then why bother? It gets 3/10.

National: Certain to get elected. The party of free enterprise and individual freedom is generally very poor at advancing policies that reverse the statist policies of a Labour Government, let alone shrinking the role of the state even incrementally, when in power. At this election National’s big pushes are around minor tax cuts, some spending cuts, but a lot of new spending. It’s difficult to see its education policy breaking the bureaucratic/professional union monopoly on delivery and avoiding performance measurement, and likewise for its policy on planning to gut the post-RMA regulation of land use that hinders housing, supermarkets and other development. There does appear to be willingness to turn back race-based bureaucratic and funding measures, towards need, and to place more personal responsibility alongside welfare, as well as repealing the productivity-sapping “Fair Pay” measures. It would be generous to think National would turn the clock back to the spending and regulatory environment of 2017, let alone 1999. Yes voting National stops Labour getting in power, but it primarily stops the march to the left rather than reverses it much at all. You could do worse, but a libertarian would want a lot better.  6/10.

New Conservative: Certain to not get elected. The New Conservatives have clearly been gutted by the plethora of micro-conservative parties. There’s not really a lot here in economic freedom, some useful principles around property rights, but a bigger focus on family.  Although I’m more conservative on abortion than many, granting personhood to fertilised cells is not compatible with individual freedom.  There is a space for this party to represent socially conservative economic liberals, but there isn’t a lot that shows them to be economic liberals, especially a big pledge of lower taxes with nothing substantial on cutting spending. 5/10.

New Nation Party: Certain to not get elected. Starting with anti-privatisation rhetoric, there is an interesting range of positions. It wants a written constitution to protect freedoms, which is fine. Leaving the UN is conspiratorial nonsense (you don’t need to leave the UN to ignore what you don’t like).  It wants a $25,000 income tax free threshold, and no tax on benefits, superannuation or student allowances, but again no policies to cut spending except a generic “reduce powers of central government”. Sure, reinstating oil and gas exploration is fine, but more “provincial” powers is not compatible with more freedom. Then it wants to investigate decriminalising cannabis. It’s quite a mix of opposing He Puapua, more health spending, more funding for tertiary students and effectively defunding RNZ and the media generally.  I’m generous giving it 3/10

NewZeal: Certain to not get elected. Alfred Ngaro’s personal project. Another conservative party, but with a few weird policies like enabling housing deposits of only 2.5% for first home buyers. There is little interest in lower taxes and shrinking government, so the real question is why would you bother? 3/10

New Zealand First: On balance likely to get elected. Yes we do all know Winston, the indefatigable face of next generation Muldoonism. Winston put National in power once, Labour twice. He pivots between economic nationalism, anti-immigration and toughness on crime, and this time is opposing Maori nationalism and separatism in the way only Winston can. He is also waging war on “wokeness” which he discovered a few months ago, just under six years after he chose to govern with the blatantly woke Jacinda Ardern and the woke-ultras of the Green Party. The problem is this, I can believe Winston didn’t know He Puapua was being developed when he was a Cabinet Minister because he is fundamentally lazy.  He spends two years out of Parliament barely saying boo, and when he IS a Minister he’s happy travelling and having his name linked to a handful of policies. If you think Winston is going to change policies, then I have a bridge to sell you.  Winston is a populist opportunist who has three times in 27 years been given senior Cabinet positions (and his floxham and jetsam of followers) and there is no evidence it has made any substantial difference to economic or personal freedom.  Yes he might get in, but he is likely to slow down reforms than accelerate them, so 3/10.

New Zealand Loyal: Certain to not get elected. Liz Gunn’s unhinged party that is also incapable of getting enough candidates to be represented adequately if it reached 5%. It’s easily the most conspiratorial party of all, not only is it anti globalism, but it is hysterically environmentalist. It is keen on quack remedies and a financial transactions tax. Anyone talking about Covid response as a “mini-Holocaust” is not just hysterical but vile. It wants to nationalise all communications and energy, so this is no party of individual freedom, but a party of a deranged mix of authoritarian mysticism and hysteria. It’s frankly very sad.  0/10

Te Pati Maori: Almost certain to get elected. TPM has morphed in the past few years into Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, led in the background by a grifter only surpassed by Winston Peters, John Tamihere. The “genetically superior” Rawiri Waititi and the “Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti or the racists” classifying Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have made the party into a radical Marxist nationalist party. On the bright side, there are elements of its belief in self-determination that would be compatible with a small state, it is also the only party that would decriminalise drug use and possession, but on the other side is a strong belief that NZers need to judged based on their classification. You’re either people of the land (Maori), people that are allowed to remain because of Te Tiriti (forget if you are born here and have no other citizenship), and everyone else who is “dying off” and doesn’t matter. TPM wants more tax, wants private land subject to Te Tiriti claims and Mana Whenua would have first right to buy private land up for sale. This is also the party that thinks all countries should be friends with Aotearoa, including the one attacking Ukraine and including the ones that operate literal Orwellian police states (e.g., DPRK and Eritrea). Neither Marxism nor nationalist identitarianism is good for individual freedom, nor can you expect tired old “anti-imperialist” apathy towards leftwing imperialism. TPM offers little for freedom lovers, but a lot for people who think Zimbabwe offers lessons to follow. 1/10

TOP – The Opportunities Party: Almost certain to not get elected.  TOP’s priorities are a greater welfare state (putting everyone on welfare), a broader tax base, more taxpayer funded healthcare and public transport, and the reinstatement of the Southerner train from Christchurch to Invercargill.  A party of clever people who think they know what’s best. The highlight is wanting to treat cannabis like alcohol, but you could vote for the ALCP and not have the universal basic income policy for people who don’t want to work. It has no interest in liberalising education and of course like the other leftwing parties, wants schoolchildren to be able to vote. It’s main value to freedom lovers is in denying Labour 1 or 2 seats, so go on get your leftie friends to vote TOP.  3/10

Women’s Rights Party: Certain to not get elected. Feminism that is now driven by being gender-critical around trans-genderism. There’s a place for that debate, and the Greens and Labour don't seem to want it, but everything else is just another socialist party for more welfare and more regulation. 2/10. 

Footnote:  I'll be interested to see how leaders of all of the parties respond to the war against Israel from the Islamofascist Hamas. Labour has already disgraced itself and National has shown backbone.

So I'm voting ACT... quelle surprise

It wont be surprise to many, but I'm be voting ACT for my party vote.  I've been critical of ACT for many years, and until lately, David Seymour was struggling to get recognition and attention.  So why ACT?

1.  Freedom of Speech: David Seymour has been forthright in defending freedom of speech from proposals to expand laws on hate speech.  Sure he has had a few unsavoury supporters from that, but my view is that embodied in the US Constitution First Amendment.  The law prohibits threatening speech now, and there is no evidence that restricting what angry violent people say will protect anyone, but there is a risk that criminalising speech against people because of their religion will be a new blasphemy law by default. Free speech is under sustained attack from structuralist theory touters on the hard left (who seek to not only police language but police speakers because of their race, sex and political views) and from theocrats (particularly Salafist and Wahhabists).  With the exception of the New Conservatives (who get wobbly on free speech involving sex and drugs), no other significant party is strong on free speech.  National passed the Harmful Digital Communications Act, although I suspect Judith Collins is better on free speech than some of her predecessors.  ACT's view on academic freedom, specifically requiring taxpayer owned and funded institutions to ensure freedom of debate is maintained is also important.  Sure, it will mean some vileness will be permitted on campus, but this already happens, from activists on the hard-left, whether it is for the destruction of Israel, or for Islamism, or for radical Marxist perspectives, including structuralist views around Maori ethno-nationalism. 

2. Property rights:  Libertarians have been arguing to abolish the RMA for many years (2004!) but it has taken David Seymour to bring ACT on board with this properly.  Sure EVERYONE is talking about replacing the RMA, but be VERY clear, the Labour/Green version of this is a tinkering, mainly to let government build what it wants and to sustain the central planning approach that the RMA has facilitated since 1991 (note that the RMA has origins with Geoffrey Palmer under the Lange Government and then gleefully pushed forward by National under Simon Upton (so-called Hayekian).   The RMA needs to go, and be replaced with a planning system centred NOT on central or local government planning, but private property rights.  ACT's plan is much weaker than I'd like, but a strong ACT vote means the party has a chance to significantly influence replacement of the RMA, and this is one of the key steps needed to address the housing shortage.

3. Role of the state:  ACT has a plan to get back to balancing the books by cutting clearly wasteful spending, whilst simplifying and lowering taxes.  It could do a lot more, but it's a start when both major parties are promising more borrowed money spent.  ACT is also likely to be much more critical on regulation and interventionist approaches to addressing economic and social issues.

4. Climate change:  The Zero Carbon Act is an absurd waste of the legislative process. It is a law to bind governments with their policies, rather than a law that binds individuals or citizens, but is a exercise in virtue signalling (as was the one in the UK).  ACT will replace the ETS with a transparent price of CO2 that is linked to that of NZ's major trading partners, so that it doesn't undermine NZ's competitiveness internationally.  NZ can make its contribution, without it kneecapping its economy, and by having a single price it avoids the need for a panoply of interventionist policies on fossil fuels, transport or farming, among others. 

5. Smarter on Covid19: Taiwan is the great international success story on Covid19 by using technology and ACT advances this. New Zealand will suffer if it goes through another lockdown and New Zealand needs to progressively open its borders to other countries for safe travel.  National wouldn't have done much different from Labour and the NZ economy is running on a sugar hit of borrowing and printed money. This has to come to an end, by having an open economy and a long term sustainable policy to be open, but protecting the most vulnerable and taking simple steps around sanitising and use of masks where appropriate, whilst staying open.

6. Foreign Affairs: ACT is campaigning on strengthening foreign affairs and defence ties with New Zealand's traditional allies, which is important as China continues to pursue a more aggressive approach to foreign policy in the region.

Sure there is a lot else I am less enthused about.  I'd like ACT to be much more pro-active on education choice, with charter schools, funding following students and funding all schools equally per pupil, and to decentralise teacher pay. I'm more conservative on abortion than David Seymour (but not as conservative as many in the New Conservatives).  I'm non-plussed about firearms personally, and I'd love local government to get less power.  I LIKE the proposal for an independent infrastructure corporation, as a step away from politicisation. 

Will ACT bring people into Parliament who I am little uncertain about?  Possibly, but it is the same for all parties and I trust Seymour to keep them in line. What about the alternatives?  Well more on them later. 

Harmful Digital Communications Act indeed

Turn away for long enough and I find the NZ government does something outrageous to curtail freedom and to expand Nanny State, sure enough it has with the Orwellian sounding "Harmful Digital Communications Act".  Even if I supported it, if I was a Minister getting that title passed over my desk by a Ministry of Justice manager, I'd have tore a strip off of her or him for having had a complete lack of any education in either literature or history to give ANY legislation such a title.

The purpose of the Act as well has shades of Big Brother:

"to deter, prevent, and mitigate harm caused to individuals by digital communications; and

provide victims of harmful digital communications with a quick and efficient means of redress"

It's a curious post-modernist trend for laws to be created not to protect rights based on well worn principles of individual rights and freedoms, property rights, contracts and torts, but to "prevent harm" - to have laws to sanitise life so that "everyone" is protected.

However, the term "harm" doesn't mean physical harm.  There is no need for new laws covering an actual infringement of your body (although the digital dimension does justify ensuring laws protect your property and covers contracts and torts), for such laws exist - in abundance - including ones to protect you from yourself.  The harm being covered is, what "The Flight of the Conchords" would say are "hurt feelings".

Being offended, is to be harmed.  To be distressed by what someone else has said, is to harmed.  This goes beyond defamation, which is - indeed - damage to one's property in the form of your reputation. It's an almost childlike drive to make everything structured and inoffensive.  In the UK, it came out in its most absurd form a few months ago with the National Union of Students Women's Conference saying:

"Some delegates are requesting that we move to jazz hands rather than clapping, as it's triggering anxiety. Please be mindful"

I didn't make that up.  If someone is a little bit upset, then everyone else must conform to avoid upsetting that person.  It's the radical so-called "progressive" identity politics champions being manufactured by post-modernist university departments out of air headed students raised on this form of Newspeak. 

So the Harmful Digital Communications Act is about "serious emotional distress".  It is now a crime in New Zealand to make someone else upset, digitally (now now!).  I know I did that when I separated from my wife, thankfully I didn't do it by text message today, or I might be in trouble.

However, let's see how you might get into trouble, because Amy Adams, the National Party, the Labour Party, the Maori Party, NZ First and much of the Green Party thinks your freedom of speech should be curtailed, in case it distresses someone.  Kudos to ACT's David Seymour for standing up to it, and indeed Russel Norman, Gareth Hughes, Julie-Anne Genter and Steffan Browning for having thought about it.  

I know this legislation has had much coverage online for what's bad about it, but it deserves constant attention, and every single MP who voted for it needs to be exposed for their moronic endorsement of it.  It's a disgrace to all who voted for it, and if anything indicates clearly how utterly incompetent they are in being able to apply principle and concepts to problems and issues, it is this law.

I encourage all to push the boundaries of this law to expose this incompetence.

I'm voting ACT

New Zealand citizens who live abroad are entitled to vote in the New Zealand general and local elections, provided they have visited the country once within three years.  Since I have been to New Zealand no less than five times since January 2013, it was hardly an issue for me, and I do have an interest in what happens in the land of my birth.   So I am going to vote.

It is just coincidence that Peter Cresswell has written a lot of what I was going to say about ACT, that it has finally become the party I long wished it would be.  

So I'm coming out now to say I am going to party vote ACT.  

Why?  Because it offers the best (indeed only) chance at influencing a future government towards focusing less on violating people's rights, and more on protecting them.  

Yes, there is room for improvement, indeed a lot.  After all, I haven't supported ACT since the 1996 election (and in 1999 I voted for Richard Prebble in Wellington Central if not the party).  Rodney Hide was utterly disappointing as Minister of Local Government, and John Banks is far away from m position on so many issues as to have almost rendered ACT extinct.

However, there are now some people leading ACT who are, by and large, facing the way towards more individual freedom, less government where it should be doing less (whilst undertaking its core role more effectively).  The original principles of the party are coming to the fore. 

The other choices are:

• to vote for a cozy, comfortable, corporatist National Party, which has lazily slipped into how it traditionally was on policy, by scaring people about the "other lot";
• to vote for the "other lot", a toxic swill of an increasingly deluded Labour Party led by a smug, self-satisfied bully, grouping with an increasingly confident socialist Green Party expertly shrouding their control-freak instincts with warm words about clean rivers and child poverty, and the corrupt coalition of communists, ultranationalists and Al Qaeda supporters called the Internet Mana Party;
• to vote for one man bands (Dunne, Peters, Horan) largely focused on their own aggrandisement;
• to vote for a well-meaning control freak who hasn't ruled out supporting the smug bully (Craig);
• to vote to legalise cannabis, but otherwise support any of the others;
• to vote for various other has-beens, or funny money lunatics.

My real choice was ACT, ALCP or National.  Of course I personally support ALCP's policy, but it is highly unlikely to progress, after many years of trying, and although you can argue such a vote is "clean" from a libertarian point of view (you are voting for less government, albeit in one sense), ALCP would grant confidence and supply to any government legalising cannabis.  Including one that would take away many other liberties.  

National ought to be the party of less government, and occasionally you hear the phrases about it wanting people to keep more of their own money.  It isn't the National of Rob Muldoon, but it also isn't the National of Ruth Richardson (and even that barely was).  National will offer three more years of tinkering, more spending and will do absolutely nothing to increase individual freedom or deal effectively to the RMA or the state education system's continued dominance of young minds.

A vote for National may be "safe", but it is a dead-end for freedom.  ACT's chances this time are dependent on David Seymour winning Epsom, but assuming he can (given that ACT managed it with John Banks before), a party vote for ACT can deliver a handful of MPs, and so give National a coalition or confidence/supply partner that will influence it in the right direction.  At a time when the Maori Party is shrinking, Peter Dunne at best will lead a one man band and Winston Peters looms as the back up choice, it makes sense to support ACT now.

Could the campaign have been improved?  Hell yes.  It could have embraced a more positive message for government that is about getting out of the way, that makes it easier for property owners, that lowers taxes by scrapping agencies that few people would ever support, that emphasises school choice with vouchers that will allow far more kids to go to independent schools, that takes on the welfare state and the corporate welfare state equally (a major criticism of the left).  

It could have been the party that attacks privilege granted by the state to anyone, whether it be race based boards, corporatist claims for subsidies, trade unions seeking higher pay for public servants with no performance, monopolies, and all of the rent-seekers wanting government to give them help at the expense of others.  

ACT can survive this election and get around 2% of the vote and build upon that for a result in 2017 that is closer to the 6-7% it got in previous elections.   It can stake a place being the only party that is consistently against more welfare for business and individuals, and less tax for both.

However, that's for the future, for now ACT's transformative changes deserve endorsement.  It really is a party that we can build more freedom on.

As far as electorate votes are concerned, I'll be writing my familiar voting guide for freedom shortly, but for now it's fair to say that two electorate votes matter more than any others right now:

- Epsom - David Seymour (for the reasons outlined above).

- Te Tai Tokerau - Kelvin Davis (Labour), to evict Hone Harawira and so keep Laila Harre and Annette Sykes out of Parliament.

So how does ACT measure up against what I said in 2008 it ought to do?

One law for all?

Jamie Whyte's "one law for all" speech was disappointing.  Not because of what his end goals are (which are largely ignored by his critics because he gave them so much else to aim at), but because the rhetoric was clumsy and in my view, counter-productive.

One of the most corrosive elements in New Zealand is the widely held consensus amongst most political parties and indeed the bureaucracy and media, that there remains a strong element of racial determinism around the lives people lead, at least for Maori.  This being the idea that the reason Maori on average perform worse in terms of a wide range of social indicators compared to individuals from other ethnic groups, is due to a mix of the legacy of what happened to their ancestors (which seems not to hold back refugees from genocides from living memory) and a system that doesn't "meet their needs". The latter because "the system" is "designed for Pakeha" (not because state provided services aren't necessarily very tailored to individual need).

It is post-modernist structuralist theory which posits that because Maori are (the descendants of) the indigenous people of a land that was colonised (and then gained independence), they are structurally disadvantaged.  With this thinking you can conveniently blank out individual cases that prove how flawed all of this is, like the young Maori woman I once met who got a government scholarship to pursue her law studies, a scholarship open only to Maori - she was proud, because her parents were lawyers.  Not exactly a scholarship that was lifting someone from a below average background.

The view perpetuated by the Greens, Labour, Mana/Internet/Opportunist, Maori Party and much of academia is that she is inherently disadvantaged because she is a Maori woman (doubly disadvantaged).

Forget that her family easily had an income several times that of the average household (so one can argue that her family long ago climbed out of disadvantage), that gets blanked out - the system structurally disadvantages her against a young man from a single parent household with no family history of tertiary education.  Her race was deemed to transmit disadvantage in a system that "creates" it.  The same quackery justifies all sorts of affirmative action programmes, which when government funded (I couldn't care less if private companies run them) are picking winners on the basis of race, out of a sense of "fairness", as if treating individuals differently on the basis of race somehow "redresses collective unfairness".  That is, of course, nonsense.  There is no collective brain or life, just individuals living their lives, and if the state decides that one individual on the basis purely of characteristics she can't choose, deserves privilege over another, then it is simply engaging in the unfairness it is purporting to address.

Unfortunately Jamie Whyte's rhetoric hid the real point, which was I think a major strategic error for those of us who want to move on from racial determinism and neo-Marxist structuralist interpretations of power, capitalism and society.  The mistake many have jumped on is misconstruing a detail around educational quotas (which is not where the debate should lie) and the pre-revolutionary France comparison (which was historically wrong), but I think his two biggest mistakes were:

- To not focus on how the current system privileges a few Maori over everyone else (including other Maori);
- To not sell the optimistic case for individual empowerment and diversity.

Libertarianz and a new liberal party?

Unfortunately I can't attend the Libertarianz conference this weekend, not the least because I left NZ seven years ago and haven't looked back.  Unfortunately because it promises to be the best ever, largely because the political environment for a political party that explicitly believes in less government and a smaller state has changed, dramatically.

You see the primary political debate today, as it has been throughout the last century, is the role of the state.  Leaders of major parties try to evade this, because politics has become, to a large part, an exercise in show business, slogans, imagery and trivia.  Rare is there in depth discussion about policy, philosophy or principles, but often is then commentary about politicians' backgrounds, their empathy, how they speak, look and whether they care.

With the rise of television, a medium primarily of entertainment, politics has become the dark science of the sound bite, of imagery.

However, it isn't just about that.  The internet has opened up the opportunity for anyone to comment on politics, to write or talk about it.  That has started to change political discourse, so that what people see and read is not just what the mainstream media wants them to see.

For those of us who seek to advance a consistent stand for less government, both in economics and in people's private lives, politics in NZ is at a turning point.

ACT has shrunk to a rump that is unlikely to be sustainable, and is led by John Banks, a man from the past, with a past that is simply not credible in advancing smaller government on both economic and social matters.  As Peter Cresswell said, its principles are sound, but its policies and strategies have failed to come close to sustaining a party that builds a core support of those who do not want the automatic answer of a politician to any issue of the day to be "I'll pass a new law" "I'll spend some more of other people's money".

Libertarianz has never managed to pass an electoral threshold to make it more than a dedicated club of people who simply couldn't stomach compromising their principles.  Both the presence of ACT, and the very low probability of electoral success, saw Libertarianz largely ignored, perpetuating that lack of success.  Indeed, the two most successful outlets for libertarian ideas and policies have not been the party, but the radio shows hosted by Lindsay Perigo in the 1990s and most recently Peter Cresswell's excellent blog.

So what now?

Maybe this is what I would say if I had a chance to talk to the conference this weekend...

NZ politics is dominated by political parties that share one philosophy - statism - the belief that the state should intervene, should spend other people's money, should borrow on their behalf, should pass new laws and regulations, and that there is no principled reason why it shouldn't do so.

The mainstream media echoes this.  All too often journalists ask politicians what they would "do", not "do you think the government should do something about this" or "should the government get out of the way"?  The education system is dominated by statists, nurtured by leftwing unions and academics, who all sign up to a carbon copy set of beliefs.  At best capitalism is seen as a necessary evil, but along with that are the post-modernist identity politics, the neo-Marxist belief that people are defined by their race and sex, and most recently even religion and body size.  

The legitimate concerns over pollution have been transformed into an all-encompassing religion of environmentalism, where evidence is skewed to suit a particular monologue - that man is a disease, pollution is ever increasing, that key words like "nuclear" "genetic engineering" "fossil fuels" are all placed in a basket of horror.  Where legitimate concerns are exaggerated, where evidence contrary to the monologue is ignored and the message is given that without massive state intervention in the economy and people's private lives, the environment will be destroyed and so will humanity.   

Have no doubt, environmentalism is the hijacking of universal opposition to pollution and appreciation of nature, to embrace an almost misanthropic desire to control, to attack capitalism, to grow a paternalistic, regulated state that tells people what to do, what not to do and takes their money to penalise what they don't like (e.g. flying) and support what they do like (windfarms and railways).

The Greens, of course, the ones carrying the banner for this.

Never is there a problem that doesn't demand a new law, or for more money to be spent on it. 

Behind the smiling faces of bright eyed bushy tailed people who claim to be speaking for what is clean, what is good, what is right and to help the poor, are people who sometimes tout xenophobia (if you doubt me, see how they talk about foreign investors, and how that parallels communist parodies of capitalists), who claim to use science and evidence, but peddle scaremongering.  I remember in 1999 Jeanette Fitzsimons said it was the last Christmas when we could trust a potato.  The genetic engineering armageddon hasn't happened, more than a couple are only wishing the global warming one does.   Most recently has been scaremongering about mobile phone transmitters, purely on perception. 

 

They believe in big government, with the small exceptions of scepticism about unlimited state surveillance powers and drugs, it is a party that thinks the state is people.  It sees children as not the parents' responsibility, but everyone's.  It sees people not as individuals, but as races, as sexes, as sexualities, as classes, as labels.  A party of Marxists, nationalists and even misanthropes.  People who believe the way to help people is to give them more of money taken from other people.  People whose contradictions are endless.   

I'll take one favourite of mine.  CO2 emissions should be cut, they say, but foreign ships carrying freight to and from NZ, that visit several ports along the NZ coast, shouldn't be allowed to carry freight between NZ ports.   Even though a ship that is travelling anyway emits hardly any more pollution carrying some freight from say Lyttelton to Auckland, it shouldn't be allowed.  Why?  Because the Greens sympathise with the workers on board those ships, as they aren't paid as much as NZ seafarers.  So the Greens, who say they believe in the environment, and believe in jobs and say they aren't racist, would rather have more pollution to shift freight, would rather deny Filipino seafarers jobs that are, rationally, better than others they have, all to protect their well above average salary (i.e. rich by their measure) union mates.

It doesn't take long to get down to what they really believe.  The Greens want more and more laws, more and more of your money and to spend more and more of it on their pet projects.  Precious little of it is about freedom, and for them the state is your friend, even when it is telling you what to do, spending your money on what you don't want and frightening your children with talk of Armageddon. 

Of course Labour has done a lot of that as well, for much longer.  Between the Greens and Labour it's purely a matter of degree, but I recall when Helen Clark said "the state is sovereign".  She didn't think there was anything that should stop government and politicians from doing as they think is best.  It simply made me realise what drives Labour politicians today - the desire to tell people what to do, to change society by passing laws, by spending other people's money, but most of all the cold, humourless, finger pointing oppression of the suppression of free speech.  The willingness to call anyone racist, who dares question special treatment on the basis of race, or sexist, anyone who doesn't want to introduce quotas for women on boards, has infiltrated our universities, our media and the state sector, and has been a method to deny debate and to debase argument, whilst smearing those who question in like a Red Guard from Maoist China.  Phrases like "cultural safety" have spread a climate of fear in some institutions.   A belief that people should never be offended, never be upset and that the state should police this has been one of the more insidious developments in the last twenty or so years.  It parallels the demand for faux respect of young thugs who gleefully lash out violently at those who look at them the wrong way, as if everyone should be ultra-vigilant about their behaviour and language to not offend these empty esteem-less flowers.

Being able to be open, honest and unafraid of offending people is the hallmark of a liberal society.  Labour has cultivated a culture that has eroded that.  Dare criticise Islam without being labelled an Islamophobe.  Dare criticise Maori organisations or Maori specific initiatives without being labelled as racist.  Dare criticise calls for laws to enforce quotas for women on corporate boards, or to challenge the DPB, and be called sexist.   It's not just intellectually lazy, it's aggressive, confrontational and authoritarian.  Name calling is not an argument.  The left do it all the time, we must resist doing so, unless the facts speak for themselves.

Labour's saving grace is to have courage of its convictions, meaning that almost every Labour government makes changes that endure.   It is a point those of us who want to advance freedom should grasp.   However, for the good that Labour has achieved - and most of us may look back at some of the dramatic changes pushed through in the 1980s - it has also given birth to a welfare state that has promoted and sustained intergenerational dependency, it took the just cause of redress against historic state racism and property theft to create a new taxpayer funded Maori elite, to which it is blasphemy to challenge or to hold accountable.

Labour is driven by the desire for state intervention, by the desire to change people through government, and has been responsible for so much corrosion of individual responsibility, of pride in individual success, of promotion of moral relativism and envy, that it is simply the Greens diluted.

How about National then?  What a relief so many of us felt when it was 2008 and finally we said farewell to Helen Clark, as she was about to embark on a new job, in New York, ending world poverty, on a US$500,000 a year tax free salary, travelling first class and staying in five star hotels.

However, the euphoria didn't take long to end.

The National Party, like ACT, has founding principles that I can largely agree with, but in reality it is a party with one single purpose - to be in power.  With the exception of three years when Ruth Richardson saved the country from bankruptcy, National's legacy has been at best to slow Labour, at worst to preside over a mammoth growth in the state that would make any socialist blush in the form of Think Big.  Right now it is, once again, the party of fiscal incontinence, with a new Think Big focused on building roads and a state broadband network.  National brought us the Resource Management Act, and sees reform of it largely to allow it to embark on its Think Big programme.  National sees the criminal justice system as going only one way, with new laws to allow stop and search of anyone, to allow search of property without a warrant.   National can sometimes throw us a tax cut, can sometimes ever so courageously try to sell a minority stake in a power company, it might even reverse the powers given to local government.

However, for all that, there is little sign National will advance real reforms to liberate planning laws by supporting private property rights, luke warm interest in opening up education to choice and liberating it from centralised command, control and rent seeking from teaching unions.  National is building, once again, the corporatist state, with fervent state intervention and investment in telecommunications.  It wont dare touch the Maori corporatist state or the race based electorates.   Beyond all that National offers absolutely nothing on personal freedom.   It wont even contemplate questioning the war on drugs, despite such radical forces as The Economist calling for an end to it.   It's behaviour on law and order says all you need to know - little respect for the presumption of innocence, little respect for due process.   To National, the people the police question or arrest are not "their" people, they are probably guilty anyway, so aren't really deserving of sympathy.

For a party that's meant to be about aspiration, individual achievement and respect of freedom and private property, this is contemptible.

Beyond all that, we have two race based parties, born from the belief that Maori, as a people, must have parties that mean the state specifically looks after them.   Parties that embrace the corporatist Maori elite, parties that believe that it is racist to have a colourblind state, that it is racist for an election to mean one person one vote, that it isn't possible for Maori to be individuals, and to not want Maori statist politicians to represent them.

No other party offers anything that consistently supports less government, less tax, more freedom, and a presumption that the answer to policy issues is not for government to do more.  

That's why we should.

ACT failed because it sold out principles for populism, for bending as the wind blew and so being a party like every other, slippery, slimy and more interested in power than principle and policies.  It is as good as finished.

Libertarianz failed because it has been unable to gather momentum for ideas, for principles and sell a convincing message about less government.   Quite simply not enough NZers believe in a future without the welfare state, without universal basic education and healthcare, and they aren't convinced that capitalism, free markets and most of all, individual initiative, can be an effective as well as a moral substitute for government.

There are good people in the National Party, people who do believe in less government.   They may mean that, in the long term, there is some hope.   However, they are in a party that exists to straddle the mainstream.  They face opponents who embrace the state, who talk of "investing" other people's money and passing new laws, and of being modern and "reinventing" politics, when virtually all of them are just rehashing statism, again and again.

Those good people in National are our allies, but National will not and cannot be a sufficient platform in itself for disseminating liberalism.   

So what do I mean by liberalism?

It isn't the leftwing definition, whereby it means being liberal with other people's money or being a moral relativist about crime.  It doesn't mean letting murderers and rapists out of prison in a handful of years because it wasn't really "their" fault.  I am using it as a synonym of libertarianism, classical liberalism or whatever you want to call it.  

I mean belief in less government.  The belief that government can't and shouldn't pick winners in the economy.  The belief that the state sector's role in the economy exists primarily to protect law and order, enforce contracts and protect property rights.  The belief that state welfare should not incentivise its usage as a choice, rather as a last resort and that those who wish to help those less fortunate should be encouraged to do so, with their own money.  The belief that the state shouldn't dominate the education system, but allow it to flourish with diversity, variety and choice, so parents choose and their choices are reflected in where the money goes in the system.  The belief that healthcare policy is not a choice between a paternalistic centralised state system or the broken US corporatist/state system.   Finally, the belief that pensions and retirement cannot be guaranteed by a ponzi like state scheme.   I do not fear foreign investment, but embrace the idea that state owned enterprises should be privatised, perhaps by handing out shares to taxpayers as well as sales to cornerstone investors.

I also think that the basis for a free, secure society is rule of law, which means reviewing all criminal laws, to decriminalise or abolish victimless crimes, including reviewing drugs policy.  A point that needs to work with welfare, education, health and even ACC policies.   The Libertarianz policy of legalising drugs needs to answer real concerns from parents that it will mean schools are awash with brain damaging substances - one of the answers is to look at Portugal.

It means that the rule based RMA, driven by local planners who just think they know best how your property should "fit in" to their grand ideas, is replaced by a property rights based framework, so that what you do and don't do with your property is based on how it affects the rights of others to do the same with theirs.

I also think that monetary policy's role in the recent financial crisis needs to be investigated and the fundamentals of monetary policy reviewed.

A new party needs to come up with some clear messages.  It needs to defend capitalism without shame, it needs to take on every attempt to create a new law, a new regulation and a new tax, with arguments based on principle, experience and reason.   It needs to harness the natural scepticism most people have of politicians and bureaucracy.  

After all, would people really expect their MPs to buy their groceries, their clothes, their holidays?  Why should they trust them to buy them homes, their healthcare, their pensions and their kids' education?

Why should the future of Maori be defined not by what they themselves achieve as individuals, as employees, employers, entrepreneurs, parents, as people - but by what the government gives them in money, jobs or "rights"?

The new party will not have the policies of Libertarianz, not because they are wrong, but because they are unrealistic in a Parliamentary term for a small party.  What we need is a clear statement that the new party will vote consistently for steps to reduce the size of the state in its non-core functions, that it will support fiscal responsibility, so that a tax cut means a spending cut, that it will support property rights and enforcement of real crimes, but not creating new crimes just on the whim of the latest outrage.  It means rejecting Think Big whether it be roads or railways, broadband or solar energy.  It means supporting steps towards individuals having more choice in health and education, and weaning people off of welfare, by making it easier to start up and sustain business without the state wanting its share from day one.

It means changing the terms of the debate. 

It means arguing for less state, not more, for the state to do what it is meant to do well, and to leave everything else to businesses, voluntary groups and individuals.

and to do so proudly.

Where to from here for those of us who believe in freedom?

ACT, Libertarianz, Freedom Party, Liberal Party, whatever name there is for the future of those at the libertarian/freedom oriented end of the political spectrum is not important right now. What is important is that those of us who share some fairly core values and principles agree to sit down and talk. The options that have been taken up till now have been somewhat spent. ACT has long been the pragmatic option, but until 2008 was never part of government. In government, many (including myself) believe it under-delivered, and certainly the strategy taken by the leadership the past few months has been an abject failure. I wont repeat my previous views on this, but needless to say ACT as a liberal force for more freedom and less government cannot limp along simply led by John Banks to the next election.  I suspect even he realises that the status quo isn't sustainable.

To be fair to Libertarianz, every election since the 2002 administrative debacle has been an improvement, both in campaigning style and result. Yet without getting virtually any media attention or having enough money to buy advertising, it struggles to get heard. Even when it had its peak in 1999, it was due to Lindsay Perigo’s leadership and presence on a nationwide radio station. Yet this end of the political spectrum has been sadly filled with the sorts of chasms and arguments that are not entirely dissimilar from that of the far left. It occasionally has been a little like the Trotskyites vs. the Stalinists vs. the Maoists. ACT has blamed Libertarianz for being too purist, Libertarianz has blamed ACT for being soft sellouts and others have said that Christians have felt excluded, along with non-objectivists, or even those who are conservatives in their personal life and have conservative values, but don't believe the state should impose them.  Bear in mind I’m an objectivist libertarian and Libertarianz member who has voted Libertarianz four times and ACT twice since MMP came along.

The bare faced truth that needs to be admitted is that there is a difference between seeking to win Parliamentary representation and influence, and to be a lobby group that seeks to influence more widely than that. Those on the left, including the environmentalists are expert in doing this, having set up a number of moderate to high profile lobby groups that focus on specific issues. Those of us who want less government, need to do more organising, less in-fighting and recognise the difference between running a successful political party, lobbying on issues and being movements of populism or philosophy. 

I agree with Peter Cresswell that those of us who are freedom lovers need to start talking. So I suggest there be a conference of some sort in that light.

The default invitees being senior members of ACT and Libertarianz, and others specifically invited by people from both parties (who may come from National or elsewhere inside or outside politics). It should be a session to think, not necessarily to decide what to do, but to spend time to chew the fat and provide the catalyst to do more thinking, before acting.  It shouldn't be a session to grandstand or for publicity seekers, but a serious closed conference.   It wont be to make final decisions, but to make substantive progress on what to do next.  It should form the basis to produce proposals for discussions with existing party members, and to reach a conclusion within a year.

The agenda should be as follows:

- Introductions ;

- What sort of objectives should exist for a political party of freedom;

o Principles and values; 

o Political goals 

- Understanding philosophy (where do our principles and values come from ((intention to understand, not debate, how different people came to the freedom/liberal/libertarian end of the spectrum));

- Key policies and issues (identifying policies that unite us, and those that divide us. Not looking for detailed discussion about tax rates, but to establish common ground and to understand clearly the issues that cause some of us problems and finding a way to address, discuss them);

- What’s right about ACT and Libertarianz, and what is wrong;

- What a successful party of freedom would look like, campaign like, and focus on;

- What to avoid (Open, frank and honest discussion about what a future party should avoid);

- Options (revitalising ACT, strengthening Libertarianz, starting from scratch, rebranding and merging) with the objective of narrowing down preferences to two;and

- Next steps (widening discussion with respective parties, another meeting to create concrete proposals). 

This should happen next year, around mid-year (so people will want to stay inside). It should be good willed, good natured and well disciplined. It shouldn’t just be a meeting of suits, or a meeting of loud mouthed angry ranters, but a meeting of good people, with good intentions, who have by and large, shared values, but haven’t been talking from first principles and objectives with each other.  Bear in mind also that what may finally come could be a two pronged strategy - one involving a political party, another involving a think tank/lobby group (or two?).

The most important thing of all, for everyone, will be to listen. 

In advance of that, those of us in ACT, Libertarianz, and indeed freedom oriented members of National, ALCP (and others if they find themselves in a less conventional political home) should sit down and talk amongst ourselves, and with each other.  It is time to rise above the morass of noise, detail and personality clashes.  Nothing should be in or out, but it should be obvious that unless there is a consistent belief in there being less government and more freedom, then we will get nowhere. 

It’s time to not be too solipsistic and realise that this election less than 1.5% of the public voted for parties that expressly espouse less government. Many of us have been doing this for some years, but we also have eager, hard working and enthusiastic young people who reject the mainstream view that the answer to any problem is automatically that the government should do more. Let’s do it for them, do it for us, do it for the country we want New Zealand to be - I believe that at the very least it means free, prosperous, optimistic, where people are judged not by their ancestry, sex or background, but by their deeds and words. A country where being a tall poppy is not something to sneer at, but something to celebrate and aspire to. 

The conservative right has got its act together, and has built a highly credible platform that could cross the 5% threshold in 2014. 

We must do the same, but better.

Who’s with me?

P.S.  The reports that John Banks is talking to the Conservative Party to consider some sort of relationship, simply exemplifies the fact that ACT is finished.  LET Banks take whatever is left of ACT with him, let him go.  He'll never win Epsom under that banner.   I'd don't need to say the three word phrase that starts with "told", but I am SO glad I did not vote ACT to be represented by Banks.   It isn't schadenfreude at all, it's just frustration when this whole debacle is res ipsa loquitur.