Fear unbridled government? The answer isn't a coalition

When Geoffrey Palmer wrote "Unbridled Power" his concern was primarily about the lack of constitutional limits on government in New Zealand, and how Cabinet would dominate single party government which itself would almost always dominate Parliament.   Jonathan Milne has taken the latter tack in his latest article in the NZ Herald.  His hypothesis is that small parties will do badly this election, and that there is a real chance of something "dreadful" - one party government.

Of course he might think he looks like he is making a rather generic point about the advantages of coalitions and minority governments compared to single party majority government.   Yet he hardly hides his colours at all.  He doesn't pick on Rob Muldoon "banning inflation", spending billions on Think Big and bribing voters with national superannuation, he doesn't pick on Norman Kirk for creating big government businesses, expanding the welfare state and greatly expanding subsidies for government trading departments.  He wouldn't.  You see he isn't exactly an economist, or a historian or a political scientist, he's a leftwing reporter.  What other explanation is there for this comment:

The controversial free market reforms of the Rogernomics era were pushed through by the all-powerful fourth Labour Government without warning or by-your-leave. Similarly, there were few fetters on the National Government when Ruth Richardson presented her slash-and-burn Mother of All Budgets. No presidential veto, no senate or upper house sitting in oversight, and no small coalition partners to soften the hard edges of these governments.

All governments are "controversial", but you'd only say that if you thought that.  Except Jonathan is naive.  In 1987 Labour asked for a mandate to continue the reforms, got one and continued.   "Softening the hard edges" is the sort of comment one would only make if you disapprove, and those who disapproved were Jim Anderton and Winston Peters, and their bands of socialist, nationalist and xenophobic state worshippers they founded.

I opposed MMP in 1993 primarily because I had seen the previous two governments implement the most politically courageous policies in modern history.   Governments that cut subsidies, cut public spending, including cutting benefits.  They restructured government departments, made thousands redundant and privatised in the face of venal xenophobic hysteria.  Farmers, state sector workers, beneficiaries, pensioners and unemployed people were unhappy at the time, not a state of affairs most political parties are keen to promote if they want to be re-elected.  Contrast that era to the smile and wave of John Key, and Helen Clark's middle class welfare, and cash thrown at various interest groups (and craven acceptance of support from Winston Peters).

Even at the time of the 1984-1993 governments, the "hard edges" had plenty going the other way.  The fourth Labour Government opened up the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process, created bureaucracies for conservation, the environment, womens' affairs, youth affairs, Pacific Island affairs, and sowed the seeds for the Bolger government to pass the RMA.  Foreign policy saw New Zealand effectively step away from being aligned with the United States in the Cold War.   Education and health care remained firmly within the grip of the state sector and the rent seeking unions that dominated them. 

For Jonathan, stopping governments doing all they want is a good thing.  Which of course would be all very well, if what they wanted to do is more.  However, Jonathan's opposition to single party government is not that, indeed he rejects it because of history when governments were deliberately pulling back from spending money they didn't have, and telling people what to do.

He showed a childish thrill to think of the Greens and National working together on transport policy - because two conflicting ideologies must produce the best results.   He mentions NZ First, ACT,  Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and the Maori Party, as if he misses them having influence (remember the positive influence of NZ First after 1996?).

Somehow he links Brian Tamaki to Peter Dunne, and then concludes while the Greens might not be good on "roading policy", one party government is "far worse", and his only evidence is the reforms of the 80s and early 90s.   That's just being rather vacuous.

Frankly, if either National or Labour were committed to privatisation, commercialisation, cutting government spending and winding back the state, I'd say bring on one party government.  However a Labour-Green-Maori-Mana government would be a four headed hydra of disaster, which would easily spook foreign investors and send more aspiring New Zealanders abroad. 

Unfortunately Jonathan hasn't really bothered to check what the two main parties have on offer.  National is hardly driven by a desire to engage in major reforms, it is instinctively conservative.  Labour is hardly seeking to engage in radical reforms, although is at least masochistically more interesting than National.

So no Jonathan, one party government after this election wont be perilous or dreadful, it will be "meet your new boss, same as old boss".  Politicians wanting to boss people around, spend their money while saying "it's good for you".  The only difference with a coalition is that the flavour changes.  Maybe if National needed ACT, and ACT gained 10 seats, there might be something more radical - presumably that's when Jonathan gets upset because that's not what he meant.  You see to him, like so many reporters in New Zealand, government should be there to fix problems, not get out of the way.

So you're having an election

Get a feeling it is a little like 2002?

Elections in New Zealand haven't been the same since 1996 when MMP meant that "winning" wasn't all it used to be.  However, sadly, neither the media nor the public have fully got to grips with it.  The simple truth is that it is extremely unlikely that National will get to govern alone, just as it was the same for Labour in 2002.  

A cycle has commenced.  In 1999, 2002 and 2005 Labour cobbled together coalitions, in 2008 National did, and it will likely do so again.  However, it cannot be guaranteed.  You see after one term, with a media essentially presuming a simple result, voters get complacent.

National will desperately want to ensure it gets a good turnout, for it will fear a low turnout will mean things are far closer than usual.  Bear in mind MMP means that it is getting party vote out that counts, and that means all electorates.  The flipside is that Labour will also be seeking a turnout, when it knows most assume it cannot win.

Yet it isn't quite as simple as that.  2002 is an object lesson for the two main parties, because it saw a significant shift in votes.

In 2002, Labour saw polling say it might win an absolute majority, yet it gained only a small swing of 2.5% in its favour, primarily because it gained at the expense of the Alliance.   National was decimated.

One interpretation of what happened was that support for the government, which had been slim, shifted around a bit, from the Alliance to Labour and the Greens.  There isn't quite the same parallel for National.  The Maori Party isn't a natural ally, and ACT is more likely to face fear of oblivion seeing its support go to National.

In 2002, the decimation of National was due to an assessment by many of its supporters that it had no chance, so they voted for United Future to give Labour a tolerable coalition partner.  This time, it is Labour that may be seen as having little chance, but Labour supporters aren't going to back Peter Dunne the same way (why would they? he is back to being a one man band), unless he gets some lucky media traction.

Some Labour supporters may choose to vote Green for the same reason ACT did better in 1999 and 2002, because they prefer a more principled opposition. 

This time round there is another dynamic - the Maori seats.

Mana Maori is making them a three horse race, and my pick is that it benefits National. 

You see, Mana Maori is more likely to take votes from the Maori Party than Labour.  Odds are this will not see Mana Maori pick up seats besides Hone's one, but could decimate the Maori Party.  It could eliminate the Maori Party overhang (but create a one seat one for Mana Maori), which can only benefit National.  Moreover, if Labour has a clean sweep of the Maori seats, the overhang is gone, but it only takes seats away from Labour's list allocation.  It can only be good for National.

Except of course, if ACT doesn't get Epsom or North Shore, and National is just short of 60, and Peter Dunne isn't enough.

National is playing its traditional game, being the classic "do next to nothing" party that saw it win most elections since the war.   It impresses the masses who like the smile and wave.  Labour will get out its core vote of public servants, low level aspirational control freaks, beneficiaries and some of the working classes.   What's left is who votes for the other parties.

The Greens have the clearest consistent brand for those who want someone else to do the thinking for them, or at least the emotive neo-Marxist posturing.  It's the party for people who believe the end is nigh, but also those who think they know best for other people.  The classic authoritarian party.

ACT is on its last legs, on life support, but still offers - just - a more "National than National" party with policies that are closer to National's own principles.

The Maori Party has shed its most racist, Marxist, pro-violence wing in the form of the Mana Maori Party.  However, will it have satisfied its supporters?  Has it handed them enough in coalition?

Beyond that, we are saying bye bye to Jim Anderton's personality cult party as he retires, and Winston Peters is having another go at attracting malcontents, but most of his past voters have passed away.   Peter Dunne faces his repeated challenge from two sides, and the only minor parties that remain outside that which have survived are the Alliance retards, Libertarianz and the ALCP.

Of that lot, only three parties offer any hope of less government.  ACT has a leader who talks the talk, and policies that mostly face the right way.  Libertarianz is consistently pro-freedom, with a nicely refreshed lineup, and ALCP maintains its single policy.

I hope to do a bit of a quick review of the main people on the party lists and the electorates, if the psephologist in me gets the time.

Libertarianz in 2011

Libertarianz members are having their annual conference this weekend.   I've been a member of the party for 14 years, so it is hardly surprising that I have supported it every election since.   However,  as I get old it raises some fairly fundamental issues about my participation in politics and my desire to change the terms of the political debate in New Zealand, and change New Zealand public policy.

The first time I was ever able to vote was 1990.  I voted Labour.  Why?  Because for months beforehand I watched National oppose the privatisation of Telecom, with Jim Anderton.  Because for the years before I watched Roger Douglas transform the economy, largely in a rational and extraordinarily courageous manner - for little he did was popular or for short term gain or popularity.  I was less than comfortable with the new bureaucracies for "Women's Affairs", "Youth Affairs", the reintroduction of compulsory unionism, and the new leftwing racism and subjectivist mysticism seen in the creation of the Treaty of Waitangi industry, but I grew up under Rob Muldoon.  I saw National as the party not of free markets, but of kneejerk resistance to change.

Yet in 1993 I voted National, for I saw the same courage in Ruth Richardson.  I despised National's embrace of an authoritarian feminist agenda for censorship, the sellout on education and Jim Bolger's ridiculous embrace of electoral reform, but the big political push at the time was from the authoritarian thieves of the Alliance, and the bottom feeder Winston Peters and his personality cult of followers.   Of course, Bolger sacrificed Richardson on the altar of pragmatism.

In 1996 I voted ACT, because I hoped that following Roger Douglas's first act, there could be hope of a National-ACT coalition implementing further reforms, especially exposing the health and education sectors to competition, and choice.  However, ACT was profoundly disappointing.  From talking of abolishing income tax, to flat tax, to lower tax.  More fundamentally, I had moved on philosophically.  I had read Hayek some years before, but had now read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and became an objectivist.

My philosophical position became clear.  I had long been an atheist, but as an objectivist I had a rational grounding for not only believing in small government, but also an ethical basis for capitalism and for life.   I joined Libertarianz.

Of course it isn't very hard to become disheartened belonging to a small political party that has not come close to being elected.  However, there has been influence, with terms like Nanny State being used more and more, and political discourse starting to talk about government not being the solution to everything, but it would be fair to say it hasn't met expectations.

The alternatives have not been promising either.  ACT under first Richard Prebble and then Rodney Hide, was all very well talking about economic freedom, but personal freedom was uncomfortable.  Simple libertarian points like questioning the war on drugs or censorship were not where ACT could go - for it had more than a few fundamentally conservative backers.

Of course there was also Don Brash and the National Party in 2005, campaigning in part to end the leftwing racism that had the state privilege Maori above others, regardless of their need and personal position.  However, that campaign was ruined by the mainstream of National, which like Bolger in 1996, prostitute it all to try to win elections, and which is conservative in the small "c" sense.  As in do as little as possible to change.

So the issue has been and remain simple.

Do I remain pure and honest and principled, and continue to put my full New Zealand effort into Libertarianz, or do I compromise and put efforts into ACT, or even National to influence those that do have entrees into actual political power?  Are they in conflict?

This election, libertarians nearly faced an obvious answer.   Rodney Hide's performance in ACT has been roundly disappointing.  He's been little different from a National Minister, with his great performance being in largely implementing Labour's local government policy.   The only crowning success will be Roger Douglas abolishing the compulsory membership of the University branches of the Labour and Green Parties known as student unions.

Don Brash led ACT looks like it could be different.  Despite the blunderings of some who are incapable of being truly racially colourblind AND wise to how others can portray it,  it may be different.

As I get older, I get impatient, and I want change to happen sooner rather than later.  I have priorities for change which are focused around education, reform of the welfare state and protection of property rights, as well as a fundamental shift of the criminal justice system away from victimless crimes, but being focused on deterrence and protection of the public from the violence of others.

I also want a cultural change, a philosophical change that embraces the celebration of creativity, producers, innovators, science and reason.  One that embraces self-esteem and personal responsibility.  One that resists the post-modernist cultural meme that everything is ok, that all cultures are equal, that no values are more important than others.  One that celebrates life, that treats the inviolability of the bodies and property of others as sacrosanct, that embraces honesty, good will and benevolence in human relations.  Not the nihilist claims over the property of others, demand for rights that are actually demands on other people to be forced to surrender their bodies and property.  Most of all rejection of the racism, sexism and collectivist bigotry of the left, as well as of the far-right. 

In politics, I am keeping an open mind.  Beyond that, there must be other means and other ways to change the terms of debate.  However, my hope is that Libertarianz knows it is more than a party, but as a touchstone for those who believe government should only exist to protect people from the initiation of force by others, whether internal or external to a country - and that it is a monumental job to change a culture where it is considered absolutely normal for government to initiate force, and there is a preponderance of political parties who embrace MORE state violence.  The Greens, for example, are a party that positively embraces ever more state violence, in the warm, smiling shrouds of "fairness and equality".  

So I wish Libertarianz well.  It is the party I am most likely to vote for in 2011.  Yet I am keeping an open mind.  I would not be unhappy if there was a National-ACT coalition that saw substantive changes in education policy alone, to break the back of the dominant state sector, or which torn up the RMA in favour of private property rights or another major step towards more freedom.  However, I am yet to be convinced that there is enough substance for me to positively support ACT.  

Even if I did, it does not mean Libertarianz does not have a role.  However, it does have to be more clever about its messages and it needs to remember that the mass media only understands easy concepts.   For me, it is less government, more freedom.  It is about consistently believing that government shouldn't spend other people's money taken by force to give to others.  It is about believing laws should only exist to protect people's bodies and property from force or fraud, and that human relations should always be voluntary.

Banks backs boondoggle blow out

Cut wasteful spending, implores ACT Leader Dr. Don Brash.

Build the underground rail loop, using taxpayers' money says ACT candidate John Banks according to the NZ Herald.

For every dollar of costs it generates benefits of 40c, says an independent Ministry of Transport/Treasury review of Auckland Council's wildly optimistic demand for taxpayer funding "business case", even taking into account so-called "wider economic benefit".

So why is Don Brash supporting him?

Does a party that supports smaller government and less government spending believe in pouring NZ$2.4 billion into a project that:

-  Will continuously require subsidies to be used and maintained because the people who would use it wouldn't pay the fares necessary for the trains to operate, let alone dig the hole and build the stations for the trains to use;

-  Is based on a substantial portion of new Auckland commuter trips being from as yet unbuilt high density housing built adjacent to railway stations, even though there is little evidence Aucklanders want housing more closely akin to London, Manhattan and Paris, than New Zealand;

- Will not cater for the majority of increased trips forecast, as buses are meant to cater for those;

- Will only remove 3,800 car trips a weekday from the roads, which over a thirty year period is over $100 per car per day if you consider the capital cost over that period including interest.   It would be cheaper to give all of those people a free daily commute sharing a door-to-door shuttle with six people in each one;

- Wont cater for the 89% of Aucklanders employed who do not work in central Auckland.

So does Don Brash have to give John Banks a slapdown, otherwise nothing will really have changed.

Botany by-election shows all that is wrong with NACT

The resignation of Pansy Wong for her corrupt misuse of taxpayers' money to pay for her husband to embark on a trip for his own business purposes was always right, but to hold a by-election a matter of months out from a General Election is quite absurd.  It was inappropriate for her to remain in Parliament, but remarkably wasteful to hold a by-election for such a short period.  A bit like Chris Laidlaw's hilarious winning of the 1992 Wellington Central by-election following Fran Wilde being elected Mayor of Wellington City, only to be turfed out in 1993 when Labour nearly won the General Election (but Pauline Gardiner won for the Nats in Wellington Central).

So a by-election it is, in a seat where Wong won around 56% of the vote in 2008, and National 61% of the party vote, it would appear that it is a sure thing for the National candidate Jami-Lee Ross (no, not a Vegas porn star).

This young man just about embodies the National Party in 2011.  Young, looks presentable (as a real estate agent), obsessed with running other people's lives and without a principle worth taping to a twig.   To him, contributing to his community means being a politician.  He has no background in business, either starting one or even working in one.  His whole adult life has spent deciding how to spend other people's money and how to regulate their lives.  

In the Press it was reported that his great achievement was this:

"The local athletics club really wanted a new athletics track and that was a big deal for them because they have got one of the best clubs in Auckland. So, together with my council colleagues, we built them an all weather athletics track."

What he should say is "together with my council colleagues, we co-opted some money forcibly taken from ratepayers to spend on the group that got my attention, and paid some people to build it for us".   Now he didn't build anything, didn't put his own money into it, but takes the credit for it.  How grateful people should be that he was there to choose the lobby group to benefit from money taken by force!

He thinks election is about the economy, crime and infrastructure, not that he expressed any ideas on any of it.  In fact his campaign website is bereft of anything of substance beyond a basic profile.   He is keen on there being a budget surplus, to be spent on the "services Kiwis expect and deserve", not to cut debt or taxes.

Of course he is following the script of National, say nothing, do little more and show no ambition for serious reform or change.  Maybe he has something more to offer, but a lifestyle politician is not someone who has learnt anything useful about the world - except a desire to tell people what to do.

You'd think ACT might take a chance by putting forward a candidate who embraces the old ACT policies of abolishing income tax, allowing people to buy private education and healthcare, set up their own superannuation accounts, and radical reform.  No, it chose Lyn Murphy, possibly its wettest candidate yet who puts herself to the left of Jami-Lee Ross.   She has championed a few environmental causes and to get some cables buried, achievements that rival those of Ross!  She is a senior lecturer in management, and a member of the Counties-Manukau DHB, an entity that ought to be abolished.  She is campaigning on cutting government waste, zero tolerance on burglaries and ending Maori separatism.  Lots new going on there then.

Such a complete waste.  ACT knows it has no chance of winning this seat, it could have stamped free market and small government principles and policies all over this by-election.   Given Kenneth Wang got a credible 15% of the electorate vote in 2008, you might have thought it could have chosen someone who believed in something.

No.  National showed itself to be the conservative party of do nothing that selects career politicians with no experience of business (or even private sector employment).  ACT showed itself to be devoid of principle and devoid of anything left in a brand that can't even stand up for Sir Roger Douglas when the Prime Minister criticises him.

Labour naturally is standing someone to soak up the "give me something for nothing vote", although it has fierce competition from National and ACT candidates with similar views.    Then the wacky dimension is rounded off with the pro-Intellectual Property theft Pirate Party, the Asian immigrant New Citizen Party, the Join Australia Party and the foaming at the mouth rabid leftwing nutcase conspiracy theorist Penny Bright (I know this from a single phone conversation I had with her).   Other independents are just having some fun I suspect.

The only candidate a libertarian or even a small government classical liberal (or anyone who actually believes in the principles of National or ACT) could endorse is Leo Biggs from the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party.   Why?  He's the only candidate standing on a platform that actually explicitly endorses less government, in one area (although I suspect he personally has little else going for him, if all he does is vote on this issue, then it is something).

Standing back from this you can see the stark options for those who want less government in this year's general election.  In 2008, thousands voted National to oust Clark and bring an end to Helengrad, but Keynesia is Helengrad-lite, with more smiles and less principles.   Thousands voted ACT to give some backbone to a Key led government, and got a Minister for Local Government who adopted  and implemented most of Labour's local government policy, creating Australasia's largest local bureaucracy.  ACT voters elected Sir Roger Douglas, the man who did more than any politician in the last 30 years to stop the rot of New Zealand being the most socialist free-world economy, only to find ACT's leader wouldn't back him when he was telling the truth.   Now ACT is the party that brought you nothing.

Libertarianz on the other hand may not get anyone elected, but if 1-2% of voters who would have voted ACT or National tick Libertarianz, it will be a right shock to both parties.  Why?  Because it will deny them seats, show that there are quite a few New Zealanders who want less government, and may shock ACT in particular into actually reforming and becoming a proper party that advocates less government.   Given current polling nobody who would prefer to keep Labour out is likely to fear a change of government, but it would change politics and the political discourse in ACT and National.   It would show that there are enough people, who are not purist libertarians, who want governments committed to less tax, less government, one law for all and private property rights.   

If not, are you that enamoured by John Key after nine years of Helen Clark that you can't wait for another three years of it?