Showing posts with label Drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drugs. Show all posts

28 August 2014

Forgotten posts from 2009 : Banning smoking in public places

The Standard reports, disapprovingly, that Western Bay of Plenty District Council is banning smoking in public places. One of the rare occasions I agree with the Standard.

However, it is clear it isn't actually a ban - you see I don't believe any council has the clear legal authority to do this. It can put up signs saying "no smoking", but by what power can it do this?

Bylaw making powers of local authorities are quite constrained. The Local Government Act 2002 grants many (though not all) bylaw making powers to councils. Section 145 grants apparently wide ranging general powers, but then Section 146 is more specific, and Section 147 is very specific, around alcohol. Given the similarities between how alcohol and tobacco are treated legally (both controlled drugs) it is likely Parliament did not intend to give councils power to ban smoking in outdoor locations, it may have granted them power to very specifically ban smoking in circumstances clearly applicable in Section 145, but NOT across beaches or across parks. You see bylaws against nuisance, public health and offensive behaviour are seen as about regulating berrant behaviours. This includes excessive noise, unhygienic activities or behaviour more akin to the Summary Offences Act, than smoking. Bear in mind smoking does not, per se, create a nuisance, public health problem (to others) or offence.

So, quite simply, I don't think any such bylaw is legitimate.

What IS legitimate is using property rights to ban smoking, which works in buildings of course, but on public land the question is whether the council should have the rights of any other property owner? A private park or beach should of course, ban what it sees fit, but not public space.


29 November 2012

Minimum alcohol pricing is empirically and philosophically wrong

If you want to see the "conservative" in the Conservative Party and see how little "liberal" there is in the Liberal Democrats then you only need consider that the UK Government is about to announce plans to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in England and Wales (the Nationalist Socialist People's republic of Scotland has already announced similar plans, but half of the population there is probably so sloshed it hasn't noticed yet).


- 45p per unit of alcohol will be the minimum price set;
- BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offers with alcohol will be banned.

Of course the plan is motivated (isn't it always) by a desire to do good.  It is to save alcoholics from themselves, to save binge drinkers from themselves, to put a price barrier upon behaviour that politicians and bureaucrats have deemed to be bad for people (and of course, drinking to excess your entire life can kill you).  It is also being sold, absurdly, as an antidote to anti-social behaviour in evenings, because it is believed that people wont be drunk and obnoxious in any serious number any more.

Few policies can show such a direct distinct gap between the general public and what they perceive as a ruling elite of politicians and health do-gooders who believe they know what is good for others.

Of course, it punishes everyone who drinks alcohol, particularly the poor.  Of course retailers agree, because it will obvious reduce sales, even though minimum pricing raising their revenue per product, they obviously know that this isn't market pricing, so wont be revenue maximising.   Those on the left and health do-gooders  of course have no time for the retailers, as they profit from high levels of consumption, but unlike them the retailers are actually making two sets of people happy - themselves and their employees, and the people buying the products, who health do-gooders want to treat like children.

It is easy to picture the average pensioner who likes a wee dram in the evenings, now having to pay more, because highly paid health do-gooders want her treated no differently than a lager lout.

How dare they?

The two public policy problems identified are:
- Criminal behaviour whilst drunk; and
- Diseases due to excessive alcohol consumption.

In both cases it is grossly unfair to target all those who drink alcohol.  Only a small minority of people who drink alcohol get drunk and assault, vandalise or threaten others.   That is where the state has a role.  At the places and times where such behaviour becomes an issue, the Police should be present as a deterrent and to take away those creating danger to others and their property.   More could be done if the public areas where this happens were privatised, and placed under the control of adjoining property owners - who could then choose to ban drinking outside, they could choose to hire their own security staff who could order people to leave if they are causing trouble.   Bear in mind that shopping malls don't tend to have this behaviour, because of that reason.   

On the health concerns, there is already taxation on alcohol that is meant to reflect this, but the bigger issue is that the vast bulk of people in the UK (and in most Western countries) have decided that the costs of health care are to be socialised, and so everyone pays in proportion to the taxes collected from them.  If you accept this then part of accepting it is that some people will not look after their own health, others will do so, and it will seem very unfair that some impose enormous costs upon taxpayers and others do not.   Yet if you want to fix this, the only fair way to do so is to have people pay either directly or to an insurer that assesses risk.  Fiddling with alcohol pricing becomes the thin end of a wedge that already includes tobacco, and should also target foods high in saturated fat, salty foods, foods high in sugar, adventure sports and contact sports (for injuries), sunbeds, holidays in the sun, sedentary jobs, driving or riding buses short distances, etc. 

The potential scope for health do-gooders to tax and regulate everyone's lives to protect a few is substantial, and it is philosophically ground in the view that some adults not only know best what is good for other adults (which objectively may be true in some circumstances), but that they have the right to force them to do what we want or force others to penalise or reward them, whether by regulation, taxation or subsidy.

Furthermore, the Adam Smith Institute has released a study that demonstrates that the empirical evidence for the value of minimum alcohol pricing is flawed.  It argues that "the estimates of how minimum pricing will affect health outcomes have overwhelmingly come from a single computer model—the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model." the study "argues that the model is based on unreasonable assumptions which render its figures meaningless."

The executive summary states it as follows:

"Amongst the problems with the Sheffield model is its false assumption that heavy drinkers are more likely to reduce their consumption of alcohol as a result of a price rise. Its calculations are based on controversial beliefs about the relationship between per capita alcohol consumption and rates of alcohol related harm. Its assumptions about the relationship between price and consumption have frequently been refuted by real world evidence."


The Sheffield model provides figures without estimates of error and ignores statistical error in the alcohol-harm relationship. Data is drawn from different populations and applied to England and Scotland as if patterns of consumption and harm are the same in all countries. When data is not available, the model resorts to what is essentially numerology. Insufficient data is provided for the model to be recreated and tested by third parties.

The model ignores the likely effects of minimum pricing on the illicit alcohol trade, it disregards the health benefits of moderate drinking and fails to take account of the secondary poverty created by regressive price rises. The decline in alcohol consumption seen in Britain in recent years has not led to the outcomes predicted by the model.

We conclude that predictions based on the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model are entirely speculative and do not deserve the exalted status they have been afforded in the policy debate.


Minimum alcohol pricing may have a modest effect on alcohol consumption, but it will have that effect disproportionately on the poor, and disproportionately on people who do no harm to others.   As such it is a grotesquely regressive measure that should be opposed not just by libertarians, but those on the left who purport to care for the poor.

It will have a negligible effect on alcohol abuse, and a negligible effect on health, but will look as if "something has been done", which is the pressure that the predominantly statist media puts on politicians.

It should not be implemented.  If the concern of government is about behaviour, then it should undertake its core function and police the streets, and change welfare from being a handout of cash to being another form of payment that can't be used for alcohol, at least directly.   If its concern is about health, it should challenge the state religion of the NHS.  

Of course what it really cares about are small groups of feral welfare dependent chavs being drunk and obnoxious to middle class restaurant and theatre goers on Friday and Saturday nights.   That's a matter for the Police, but also to note that the welfare state is funding many of those people to drink.   The left wont tackle that, because it will see the idea that welfare recipients drink away their benefits as being a generalisation and unfair on those who don't - which is correct - yet the fact remains that taxpayers do pay for the alcohol consumed by those on welfare.

Meanwhile, it should emphasise that alcohol consumption is a matter for adults to decide for themselves, and get off their backs.

20 July 2012

What struck me this week....

Obama - slicing tall poppies down, you're not so smart... it's not your business, you didn't build that

This is likely to be as controversial as Hilary Clinton's famous "it takes a village to raise a child" statement, which many conservatives took as denying the primary role of families.  

Obama said thislook, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something—there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

So DON'T be proud, you're not an individual, success is always a collective effort.  Don't think you're clever, lots of people are.   You're success is because someone gave you help, you CAN'T be successful through your own hard work and intelligence.  Be grateful for the roads, because you wouldn't succeed without them (the fact others didn't do what you did is blanked out).

Presumably he thinks Olympic Gold Medals belong to lots of people, not the people winning the races.

Not PC wrote about it, and I concur.  I also like his post that includes satire about it.

Pure unadulterated anti-individualist, pro-collectivist drivel.  If Mitt Romney can't capitalise on this to grab the votes of most small business people, of indeed most Americans who strive and believe in recognising individual success when it happens, he doesn't deserve to be President.

Helen Clark gives an award to a tobacco entrepreneur

The warrior against smoking is hoisted by the petard of the profligate mega-bureaucracy she leads, not that she isn't a stranger to hypocrisy.  After all, few things are more hypocritical than a woman who has never created a business in her life getting US$500,000 a year, from global taxpayers, tax free, flying around the world flying first class (not just business class), staying in 5 star hotels, being chauffeured around telling the world that it should do more to address poverty.   Well done Helen, you cold, hypocritical, control freak.

Auckland's Mayor wants more taxes

Len Brown thinks that there is a "funding gap" of NZ$15 billion for Auckland transport.  Truth is that he can't convince users of government provided transport infrastructure or services to pay more to pay for his wishlist of totemic projects, especially the nearly NZ$3 billion Auckland CBD underground railway (given railway users already only pay a third of the cost of operating the existing trains, and not one cent towards the pending electrification and new trains).

He's arguing for a regional fuel tax (ignoring that it's unfair to those who don't use fuel on the roads, and those who wont use his totemic projects), tolls for new roads (all well and good, but there are few of those) and congestion charging (which Labour says is unfair, preferring regional fuel tax, and National rejects).

The real answer is to cut his spending plans to what fits within budget.  State highways are not Auckland Council's responsibility.  Maintain the local road network, pay out the existing public transport subsidy contracts and after that, bid to NZTA for new capital projects.  Understand that when ratepayers will throw you out for raising rates to pay for a railway, that means they don't want to pay for it so you shouldn't do it. 

Portugal's drug decriminalisation has worked

The number of drug addicts has halved since Portugal decriminalised all drugs in 2001.   Gutlessness prevails in mainstream politics in the English speaking world.

New Zealand continues the war on drugs
  
A report that 2573 people have been arrested en masse by the NZ Police for the victimless crime of consuming, selling and producing cannabis should have anyone with a liberal bent outraged.  The sheer scale of this is horrifying.  Of course it wont be the sons and daughters of MPs, lawyers, doctors, journalists, company directors and the like who are targeted, it will be largely lower class, brown skinned people and other reprobates who “deserve it” in the war on drugs.  Because, of course, the war on drugs doesn’t actually mean treating everyone who has drugs the same way – it means letting middle class successful people off the hook for dabbling in them whilst they wag their finger at the people who they don’t think are capable of making the same decision for themselves.

As Lindsay Perigo says, will the Police not stop until all 450,000 people who smoke cannabis are in prison?  

How Greece's government destroyed US$140 million of national wealth with one policy

You ban the government from selling surplus assets at less than 75% of their book value.  Meaning you're ultimately forced to sell them for 22% as the market collapses in the three years of prevaricating over the sale.

Romania's government slides towards authoritarianism

What do you call the EU's reaction to one of its newest Member States governing under emergency powers, politicising the entire public sector including the judiciary, making the state media an arm of the ruling party, overruled the Constitutional Court (so changing the constitution)?  Pathetic.  Why?  Apparently because so many MEPs are aligned to the socialists (successors of Ceausescu's communist party) who are annexing Romania's entire political system to suit themselves, and because the EU can't admit that it made a mistake in admitting Romania when it was subject to serious issues of corruption.  The EU COULD cut funding across many areas, immediately, such as agriculture and regional funding for infrastructure, but it wont.  The Party of European Socialists, including the British Labour Party, are keeping quiet. 

06 July 2012

Conservative MP admits to having used drugs, so shouldn't she be in prison?

On  BBC Question Time last night, Conservative MP Louise Mensch, admitted she had used Class A drugs (she didn't specify what they were, and "A" is the "most dangerous" category including cocaine, MDMA, etc) and that they had had a "lasting effect" on her brain.   I'm not one to deny that, and I'm certainly not condemning her for it.

Yet I will criticise her hypocrisy.

See she thinks drugs should remain illegal and criminal, and supports the "war on drugs".

In which case should she now not hand herself into the Police and face charges, trial, conviction and sentencing?  Should she not also forward names of all of her family and friends who have done the same?

After all - if it's so bad, and criminalising drug users is the "right thing to do" by implication, why shouldn't upper class English catholic Tory MPs and their associates face the same legal sanction as young poor Afro-Caribbean or white working class boys?

You see it is very easy for those living in relatively cozy middle and upper class communities to support a "war on drugs", until you confront them with "how many people do you know have taken drugs" and then "shouldn't they be in prison too"?

Because of course it isn't those people that are allowed to "make a mistake".  Louise Mensch is smart, successful, married to a wealthy husband, herself a successful writer. She "knows better".  She wants to protect the ignorant, stupid, vulnerable poor folk who aren't capable of making such decisions.

She wants the war on drugs fought in Tottenham, Newham, Mossside, Brixton, Toxteth etc, not Kensington, Highgate, Hampstead and Tunbridge Wells.

So why don't the Conservative, Labour and "Liberal" Democrat MPs who believe in this simply say that the "war on drugs" is about poor people having drugs.  Rich people, the middle classes and the like often "make mistakes" when young but they shouldn't be condemned for it, because it only hurts themselves.   Louise Mensch has been allowed to get away with ingesting what she chose without prosecution, why does she deny that right to others, or why doesn't she insist the law she supports gets applied equally?

Just to be clear.  I wouldn't throw her in prison.  I think it would be absurd and unjust for her to be in prison for possession and ingestion of Class A drugs.  However, unlike her, I also think that everyone else in prison for such offences should also be set free and have their convictions expunged.  Had she been convicted, she could not have pursued the career choice she now has.  Why subject others to the same because the Police happen to more readily patrol their neighbourhoods and communities?

24 November 2011

Why do the Greens get such an easy ride? Part Two - 50 questions that should have been asked of the Greens

As I wrote previously, it appears the Greens are having a media honeymoon.  However, is this justified?  Do the Greens not have policies that could be seen as controversial?  Do their MPs not make statements that deserve further scrutiny?

Well I have composed a long list of questions I think journalists should ask, and more importantly questions YOU should ask your local Green candidate, especially if you are thinking about voting Green.   You may wonder if the Greens are quite so cuddly and inoffensive as the media makes them out to be.

So here it is - 50 questions to ask the Green Party (and one light-hearted one at the end)
My only other question is, why hasn't anyone else been asking them?...

Does your Treaty of Waitangi policy that “All claimants to have the opportunity to have their land and resources returned to them” include claims of private land?  If not, why is that not clear?

Do the Greens still believe Sue Kedgley’s claim that it is wrong to “shift responsibility for health and improving diets from the state to society and to convince people that public health is all about personal responsibility"?  If so, how do see the state leading responsibility for people changing their diets, how would the state adequately replace personal responsibility?

What are “all reasonable steps to prevent immigration numbers and the sale of land to rich immigrants from having an adverse impact on Aotearoa/NZ and its Taonga.”?  How can they have an adverse impact?  What is a rich immigrant?  What will an immigrant do to land than a locally born New Zealander wouldn't? 

How does the Green Party plan to implement its policy to ”Minimise exposure to electromagnetic radiation especially for children and pregnant women”?  How many TV and radio stations would you shut down?  Will you want to close wifi networks at schools and home?  Will you demand children and pregnant women not use laptops, TVs or any other electrical appliance?  Will you demand all homes with children and pregnant women to be outside mobile phone coverage?  Does the party understand how pervasive EMR is and has been for decades?  Does it understand that visible light is electromagnetic radication, and if not, how can anyone trust the Greens on science in other fields?

Do the Greens still believe it is ok to frighten people about non-ionising radiation from mobile phone towers, despite the complete absence of evidence about negative health effects? Is it appropriate for the leader of a major political party to engage in name calling when someone calls him out on not scaremongering Radio NZ transmitter sites, which emit more of the same type of radiation and have done so for decades?

Do the Greens still believe there is a media conspiracy against them on this issue because telcos advertise in the media? What evidence do they have of this?  Could it just be that your science is extremely flimsy and the media refuses to engage with such ignorance?

Do the Greens trust potatoes still, or do they stand by Jeanette Fitzsimon’s press release of 1999 that it was then "the last Xmas when you could trust potatoes"?  Wasn’t all of the fuss over genetic engineering in 2002 just scaremongering?  How many people have been killed, hurt or harmed by genetic engineering anywhere in the world? 

What do the Greens mean about  “Recognise ancestral land ownership in rural areas” for Maori?  Why shouldn’t private land owners in rural areas be worried?  What will you stop them doing?  What isn't recognised now?

What did Catherine Delahunty mean when she said that the Pakeha nation is "racist"?  Does she stand by her use of the term “genocidal spindoctors” to describe National Party speechwriters in 2005?  Does she stand by her hope that Maori will be the largest cultural grouping in New Zealand by the late 21st century?  Is this also Green policy?  Why is it that other parties don't care about the ethnic composition of the country?

When Catherine Delahunty saidWe have plenty of beaten women; gutted communities and whanau living in state housing that have never had proper electricity or water supplies. But lots of Pakeha are drinking wine and surfing, and they say so loudly without saying a word, would you please shut up about the connection between racism and poverty” is she blaming Pakeha for Maori women being beaten up?  Why are Pakeha who drink wine and surf to blame for beaten women?

Do the Greens agree with Catherine Delahunty when she describes Pakeha as having "colonial privilege" even if they were born in New Zealand?  At what point can Pakeha be described by Catherine Delahunty as being equal to Maori as New Zealand citizens with equal rights, if ever?  Do you think Pakeha voters of the Greens know that you believe that?

Do the Greens agree with Kennedy Graham when he saidThe political rights we enjoy today are to be calibrated by the responsibility we carry for tomorrow.”?  What political rights does he think should be “calibrated” and what does he mean by that?  When he said “Individual freedoms are no longer unlicensed, but henceforth subordinate to the twin principles of survival and sustainable living”, what freedoms do the Greens want to “licence”?  What individual freedoms must be subordinate?

Don’t the Greens think Kennedy Graham flying to London to discuss climate change at taxpayers’ expense is remarkably hypocritical?  How many more long haul flights will Green MPs seek to undertake to support fighting climate change and why?

Does the Green Party still share the view of Sue Kedgley that “We need to challenge the doctrine of free trade and accept that people's right to food, to be free from hunger, must have priority over an ideological fixation on allowing market forces to prevail at all costs” so abandoning New Zealand’s long standing bi-partisan trade policy goal of opening up markets to its agricultural products?  Does it share her view supporting the official French policy to effectively continue the EU’s highly subsidised highly protectionist Common Agricultural Policy?  Does it believe that free trade actually really means highly subsidising exports?  If so, why? What future do the Greens see in New Zealand's farming sector if farmers face a world that is protectionist, subsidised and engaging in "food sovereignty" policies?  

Why is it good value for taxpayers to have spent $1.3 billion on a railway that private companies would only have paid a quarter of that for?  Why do you think the private sector hasn't bothered investing in it, despite you being convinced of "peak oil" and that the end of mass use of the private car and road transport is nigh?

Do the Greens still think that it was appropriate to blame the Brisbane floods on climate change linked to the coal exported from Queensland, as if Queensland was getting its just desserts?

How do the Greens think that making membership of student unions voluntary “takes away choices?  Isn’t it the exact opposite?  Would you think differently of student unions if they had been  hot beds of free market capitalist and pro-entrepreneurial activism?  Doesn't this make you claims about believing in human rights superficial?

The Greens want to force electricity companies to generate a proportion of their power from expensive renewable sources.  In the UK a similar policy is estimated to be putting up prices by an average of 50% in real terms by 2020, with a fully privatised sector. How much will this policy of renewables put up power prices to New Zealanders? 

When Metiria Turei says “We need to get smokes out of our homes and out of our shopswhat will you do to achieve this? Do you really want to stop the sale of tobacco products altogether? Why don’t you have the same attitude towards marijuana?  Why don’t you think tobacco smokers should be left alone? 

Do the Greens still believe Don Brash wants to smash Maori culture and force women to be subservient?  Do you have any evidence for such exagerrated claims?

How will the Greens “Support equitable access for Māori to secure employment and decent wages”? How do Maori not have equitable access?  Who is stopping them? 

Do you think Maori can be racist? Why do you think people of Maori descent should be given different political structures from those of other citizens? Why do you think this should be constitutionally entrenched?  Why should the accident of your birth determine how the state interacts with or consults with you?


What examples do the Greens have of “unnecessary production and consumption”, and how do they propose to curb them?  Will this mean banning the production and sale of certain goods?  If so, what ones?

What products will be banned when the Greens implement their policy to  “Require domestic and imported products to be durable and recyclable”? Does this mean every producer of goods that are neither will be regulated out of business?  Does this mean no New Zealander could import a product that is neither durable nor recyclable?  Doesn't this ban anything perishable?

What exactly is "hugely harmful" to the public in private companies being contracted by local government to manage water services?  Where in the world has this proven to be the case?

Does the Green party still believe all of the Cuban government’s claims that its health care system is fantastic?  Is it in the habit of believing the official reports of one party states that imprison political dissidents as mental patients?  Why is Cuba exempt from the sort of scrutiny on human rights that the Greens apply to China or Burma?

Why do the Greens think parental choice of schools is a myth?  Why do they think the state always knows what’s best in education?

When you want to “Ensure all new houses and buildings fully comply with disability access requirements unless specifically exempted.  Will this mean anyone building a house on a hill about a road having to build a ramp or lift unless they get a special exemption from a bureaucracy?  Wont this make it prohibitively expensive to build homes anywhere that isn't on flat land adjacent to a road?  Wont this just increase the price of homes and reduce the supply?

When the Greens want to regulate broadcasting and the press with an authority that will “have the power to impose appropriate sanctions against media outlets in cases where it can be clearly demonstrated that it has exhibited wilful or negligent abuse of power and by doing so has either visited material harm on another party or pursued its own self-interest at the expense of the public interest.”, what examples of the media pursuing its own self interest do they have in mind? Doesn’t this mean introducing newspaper censorship in New Zealand for the first time in decades?

Why do the Greens fear foreign investment?  Do you share this fear of New Zealanders owning land and businesses in other countries, if not why not?  Why do you want to welcome refugees and migrants from all and sundry, but if anyone from another country wants to own a business, you treat them like the devil?

More specifically, what was the security threat posed by a Canadian company buying a New Zealand airport?  Should the British government be fearful that New Zealand company Infratil owns Prestwick Airport near Glasgow for the same reasons?

The Greens repeatedly criticise the trade choices made by New Zealanders in such banal terms as “swapping water with China”.  What exports do the Greens want stopped? What imports do they want stopped? Why do they think they know best what people should sell and buy?

Does the party’s support for taxpayer funding of the voluntary sector not make it the state sector?  Why should taxpayers be forced to support political advocacy groups?

What are the implications of “Requiring the inclusion of environmental science and ethics in all study programs.” involving science education?  Why is this relevant to physics for example?

What does “Support legislation that increases the reliability of the Internet” mean?  How do the Greens propose improving the reliability of a disaggregated global network by a law passed in New Zealand?  Can you pass laws to fix most problems?


How many other traffic laws do the Greens endorse breaking besides walking on a motorway?



Does Russel Norman stick to his belief that the London riots were caused by poverty, not opportunistic criminals seeking designer goods and electronics?

Do the Greens support the view of their blogger “Toad” that democracy doesn’t have to be secular, or liberal, and that it’s “ok” if democracies start a war if the people support it?  In which case, would the Greens support a Christian theocratic state that sent troops to Iran if it was democratically elected?

If the Greens think there should be fruit in schools, why don’t they set up a charity to raise money for it?  In fact, why don’t they ever advocate people raise money themselves voluntarily rather than make taxpayers pay?

When you expect that “significant time for environmental education” will be included in the teacher training curriculum, what should be excluded from the curriculum to allow for this?

Why do you think small business owners should be criminalised because they want to open on a religiously based public holiday?  How do owner-operator shops with no employees exploit people by merely opening their shops for people to choose to enter?


Why do you dismiss electric cars so flippantly, but treat electric trains as being the saviour to all of Auckland’s transport problems?  What proportion of trips in Auckland do you expect will be by train by 2014?

Do the Greens still support a Hamilton-Auckland train service, even though it would be slower than a bus, lose money and the local authorities wont pay for it? 

What’s Green about banning foreign ships that happen to be going from port to port within New Zealand as part of an international voyage, from selling empty space to carry cargo around New Zealand –when the ships would still be sailing regardless?  Isn't that policy just about pleasing militant  maritime unions?

The Greens paint a picture of the environment getting worse,and Russel Norman selectively quotes the Environment 2007 report from the Ministry for the Environment to support stopping road building, even though the report does not say that and provides plenty of facts that are inconvenient such as “Home heating is the main cause of air pollution in populated areas in the winter”  yet the Greens beat up on cars and trucks. The report also said  “Levels of PM10 particulates at roadside locations in Auckland appear to have fallen over the past 10 years”.  Why does a party that purports to be about the environment ignore good news about it?

Do any of you laugh at Catherine Delahunty’s tweets too? Like “Despite the pretty words and new clothes am hoping new puppy at white house will stop killing afghanis and funding Israel wars on Palestine"?

So ask yourself if the Greens DO get around 10% of the vote on Saturday, how much they might have got if a few of those questions had been asked over the campaign, or the past few years, and why the mainstream media seems to have its tongue up the Green Party's proverbial.  Moreover, ask yourself why the National Party hasn't been doing that - is it because it has seen this party as a partner?  If you're planning to vote National, how will you feel if that is exactly what happens?

P.S.  Go here, register instantly and tick an up for this post if you like what you see, it seems the obvious people have been doing the opposite (and I have inspired over 100 comments there).