Who likes swinging the wrecking ball?

 Popular vulgarian journalist Andrea Vance has written this:

"With every lurch toward the extreme, politicians become more brittle, reactive and combative... Ministers no longer explain or debate. They post. They lash out at critics in increasingly personal, petulant terms. And they don’t even pretend to hide contempt for the media....

Whether it’s tantrums, teardowns or rule-breaking, the result is the same. Compromise is out, consensus is dead and the behaviour trickles down.

It corrodes public trust and in turn feeds cynicism and ultimately disengagement.

Voters are left wondering: if nothing lasts, and no one listens, why bother participating at all?

There are no rules anymore. In their place, we’re left with grievance, score-settling, and a political class increasingly reckless with power."

Two months ago she wrote about how the Finance Minister did "girl math" and of course famously:

"So long as you are prepared to be a c*nt to the women who birth your kids, school your offspring and wipe the arse of your elderly parents while you stand on their shoulders to earn your six-figure, taxpayer-funded pay packet"

Who is brittle, reactive, combative, lashing out, engaging in a tantrum, grievance and score-settling now?

Forget Goldsmith's media proposals

Since the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (MCH) (in itself a rather Soviet sounding name for a Ministry) took over broadcasting policy from what is now the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Enterprise (MBIE), it has had a policy culture that is quite distinctly interventionist. It’s proposals for “modern media legislation” (one should always be suspicious of anyone claiming that their policy preferences are “modern”, which essentially means next to nothing) are worth reviewing because they reflect the lobbying of vested interests in the uneconomic media industry to try to compete with the media the public actually prefer.

I recall around 28 years ago being in a meeting in the then Ministry of Commerce (MBIE’s predecessor) where a manager had set up a PC to run the RealAudio streaming application to play live radio from around the world. He said at the time that this was the future and it would change broadcasting forever. He was right of course, and while some media have survived and been able to find niches (notably consolidation of commercial radio), others have struggled, such as newspapers and free to air television (the latter in part surviving in part due to politicians not seeking to take dividends from Television New Zealand).

Thirty to forty years ago, media for information (news) and media for entertainment were somewhat distinct. Newspapers were the prime authority for news, followed by news oriented radio and then television news broadcasts. It started to change when the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand was split into TVNZ and RNZ, and TVNZ was given carte blanche to respond to competition, of which it had years to plan for, as TV3 got its licence to operate following a tortuous beauty contest. TV3 essentially revealed in public what it would be showing to viewers well in advance of launching, and TVNZ then made sure it could buy up loads of competing content to undermine it, and it succeeded. At the time TV news was dumbed down deliberately.  Local news was scrapped, and the focus was on the approach of local US TV news broadcasts, focusing on making the news “relevant” and “easy to digest”. A big emphasis was on stories that had dramatic video footage and were easy to understand (disasters, crime, celebrities, sports victories/losses and war footage). The idea being to present a “narrative” of “isn’t that awful” (mostly) or “fantastic”, and leaving complexities around events, particularly public policy and international relations aside. The dumbed down TVNZ news won, and today this remains.

Today people largely obtain news and entertainment online because most people can access the content they want in seconds on multiple devices. If news happens, it is reported through news websites and through social media. Moreover, entertainment largely comes from overseas, whether self-made content on social media, or large boxset productions from the rest of the Anglosphere.

Needless to say the great successes of the likes of Amazon Prime and Netflix have upset those who built careers upon the myth that culture has some nationalist basis for it – the local production industry. Most people no more care about watching programming that is local than they do about listening to local music. People like what they like, and that is not to say there isn’t local content that can be and is successful, but the judgment as to what is good and what is not, is entirely in the eyes and ears of the beholder. Note also that blogging, micro-blogging (X) and the like are all part of this. There are neither state nor indeed financial barriers to most people being able to write, record and publish whatever they like (within the bounds of criminal law). Whereas before people needed to set up a printed magazine or convince an editor to let them write for it, or go on an Access radio station (or buy a frequency from the 1990s onwards), now the barriers to publishing are very low indeed.

Protectionists, legacy medai and politicians with a bent for influencing the public don’t like it that much.

Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith has decided to release a discussion document with five proposals to "save local media". It reflects a very shallow approach to public policy in this space.

MCH’s five proposals are justified by the following statement:

New Zealand’s media and content production sectors are facing an uphill battle to remain viable in an increasingly globalised and continually evolving landscape.

Less local content is being commissioned and is no longer reaching local audiences on all platforms. Seeing and hearing our stories and voices has cultural and societal benefits

I’d suggest the uphill battle is simply due to the public not responding to what they produce.  The truth is there is a lot of local content, it just isn’t being commissioned by traditional broadcasters or the State subsidising outlets. I would wager that more NZers than ever before are writing, recording music or videos and publishing them than ever before. Sure much or indeed most of it is trivial and inconsequential, but what matters the most us that people ARE producing content, it just doesn’t meet the standards of public servants. However that last sentence is of course revealing of how empty these proposals are.

What are “our stories”?  We all have stories, I could if I wanted to, write everyday stories and the 90% or so of the population with computers, tablets or mobile phones could do so, and in fact many do. Tens, hundreds and in some cases thousands read or listen to them.  What are the “cultural and economic benefits” of ignoring this in favour of what is essentially a protectionist industry wanting other people’s money taken from them by force, to prop them up because the public isn’t willing to pay for their content voluntarily?

The state hasn’t stepped in to save newspapers, nor book or magazine publishers, so why should it step in to save video and film producers?

So what are the proposals?

Proposal 1 : Ensuring accessibility of local media platforms

This proposal says everything about how out of touch MCH is. It is to force manufacturers of smart TVs (not tablets or laptops or phones) to carry apps of traditional NZ broadcasters. Notwithstanding that many people don’t consume most of their content on smart TVs (MCH isn’t stupid enough to force all laptops to have apps pre-installed), the idea this would make any meaningful difference is ludicrous.  Of course Australia has such a rule, but it has two large state taxpayer funded broadcasters, and a state-mandated oligopoly of free to air broadcasters (only three are allowed), so it has long been highly protectionist of the commercial TV industry, enriching its owners. A survey in Australia suggests a third of owners of Smart TVs don’t know how to download apps. Well I’d suggest the same applies to laptops and even mobile phones. Why don’t the broadcasters find ways to help people do it? Why must the state mandate manufacturers do it for our small market? What about radios being pre-programmed into local stations, or smart speakers having apps for RNZ, Newstalk ZB etc?

MCH stretches a real long-bow to suggest that not doing this might “undermine democracy”.

Given that local platforms host the vast majority of local content, decreased engagement means that audiences are missing out on important societal and cultural benefits. In turn, decreased audience engagement affects TV broadcaster revenue and brand value, reducing their ability to make local content and remain financially viable. If there were fewer local broadcasters/platforms in New Zealand, this would create specific consequences for plurality and therefore accountability in terms of the vital role local news and current affairs coverage (from a variety of sources) plays in a well-functioning democracy.

This is false, as the vast majority of local content is hosted on foreign platforms like Youtube, Instagram and X, it’s just that the traditional broadcasters and public servants don’t recognise the content produced outside their contracts and visibility. This is a claim that without forcing Smart TVs to have TV apps, it makes them less financially viable and would undermine the “vital role local news and current affairs coverage” plays in a well-functioning democracy. Hold on. You already own RNZ and make all taxpayers fund it.  There is next to no local news (not national news) on TV today.  You’d have to be awfully naïve to think forcing LG to put the TVNZ app on its TVs will save the death of TVNZ’s news (noting TVNZ already decided to withdraw from X, for nakedly political reasons – it doesn’t like its owner and being challenged on it constantly for its statist centre-left bias). 

Proposal 2: Increasing investment into and discoverability of local content

This is proposing to force streaming platforms and TV broadcasters to waste their own money on what MCH’s falsely calls “investment” into the local content MCH approves of.  This is a naked attempt by the failing, already subsidised local screen production industry to force successful businesses to prop them up. It is equivalent to forcing book publishers to publish books that hardly anyone wants to buy, or in forcing theatres to host shows hardly anyone wants to attend. 

The definition of ‘local content’ is intended to capture content that reflects New Zealand stories, places, voices, and faces. Relevant factors could include if the subject of the content is New Zealand or New Zealanders, if New Zealanders hold key roles in production and if it is filmed in New Zealand.

Every time you post videos of your family or friends doing something, it is local content, but that doesn’t count to the MCH. It shows MCH is beholden to the local production industry,and is fundamentally protectionist. This proposal should be thrown in the bin on merit alone, but it fails even further.

New Zealand’s CER agreement with Australia including commitments on audio-visual services which around 25 years ago saw New Zealand TV programmes being deemed to be “Australian” for the purposes of Australian TV stations complying with the country’s local content quota. It is entirely plausible that if this proposal proceeds, that the platforms could all simply pass on Australian content on the basis that CER grants free trade in audio-visual services and give Australian content “National Treatment”.  Furthermore, NZ’s commitments under the WTO Agreement on Trade in Services also include granting national treatment to foreign audio-visual service content, so that other countries could demand that the requirement for New Zealand content actually covers them as well. In short, according to New Zealand’s international trade agreements, the proposal could be meaningless. 

Proposal 3 : Increase captioning and audio description

Mandating this wont do anything to support local content at all, and will actually load more costs on production, which shows how utterly incoherent these proposals are. Weirdly MCH is concerned about the legal consequences of New Zealand not complying with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It’s clearly a sop to some lobbying, but given it runs completely contradictory to the earlier proposals (although there is obviously some merit to this for some people with disabilities), it makes little sense being here.

Proposal 4 : Modernising professional media regulation

In short, the proposal is to expand the scope of the increasingly irrelevant Broadcasting Standards Authority (a better proposal would be to scrap it) to “ensuring positive system-level outcomes”, whatever that means. It would apply to all “Professional Media” whatever that is other than “organisations that commission, produce, or directly pay for media content and distribute it as their primary business”. 

This is clarified further as:

• including New Zealand broadcasters and streaming platforms, global streaming platforms, online text-based media, newspapers, and magazines.

• not including online platforms that primarily host user-generated content or provide access to others’ content, such as social media (like Facebook and TikTok) and search engines (like Google).

Online text based media? Yet not platforms that host user-generated content? Where's the line between those?

This is unnecessary and intrusive. There was once arguably a role for the BSA when free to air TV was dominant and children in particular could be exposed to content unsuitable for them at certain times. However, this is now an anachronism. Parental neglect and naivety todays means many children get exposed to content that would never be seen on Pay TV let alone free to air TV, and the MCH wants to retain and expand the BSA. At best this is silly and futile, at worst there is something sinister and frightening about the call for a wider media regulator. Of course, the MCH didn’t consider abolishing the BSA.  It should be abolished and be simply replaced it with a basic code of practice as a condition of using radio frequencies.  Every other content that passes over the internet should not be subject to more regulation than any other.  

Proposal 5: Streamline Crown content funders

Also could be called merge state subsidisers of preferred content. It is essentially to merge the Film Commission and NZ On Air. I’d abolish them both, as they aren’t needed, there being no more reason for taxpayers to fund TV programmes and films they aren’t willing to pay for, than for them to fund books, haute couture fashion, posters or New Zealand made porn.  MCH didn’t consider this, because it thinks the content that most New Zealanders aren’t willing to pay for, let alone watch in numbers that are attractive to advertisers, is “inherently” some sort of public good. 

What should be done instead?

Stop trying to save something that people don’t want. The Broadcasting Standards Authority should be wound down, and made into a private industry body like the Advertising Standards Authority. That means broadcasters can choose to belong to it, and restructure broadcasting licences to ensure some very basic standards of freedom of speech and protection against defamation and inciting violence.

NZ On Air should be wound down as well. It should be phased out, and if RNZ is to continue to be subsidised, it should be funded directly from the MCH. There is no need to continue to force taxpayers to fund specific content. The Film Commission similarly so. 

Privatise TVNZ. Start by offering shares to every citizen equally and let the public dispose of those shares if they wish.  Beyond a heritage function, for which it might be funded from taxes, it should be unshackled from the state. 

Shift media policy from MCH to MBIE.  Media is a business and deserves oversight by a Ministry that is business oriented, not one that is a taxpayer funded lobbyist for the industry of dress-up and make-believe.

There is a debate to be had as to whether taxpayers should be forced to pay for content they don't want to pay for or don't consume, that's where the focus should be. MCH assumes this is the majority or dominant view, and that is simply wrong. MCH has proven itself to be a poor custodian of the media sector and is beholden to the pleadings of those simply wanted their businesses to be propped up by subsidies either directly from taxpayers or from businesses that provide content people actually want to pay for.

Most of these proposals had their genesis under the Ardern/Hipkins Government as can be seen in the Briefing for the Incoming Minister (PDF). Make of that as you wish, but it demonstrates an ongoing philosophical belief in the role of a interventionist state in forcing others to pay for the production of content that MCH thinks is good for people.

You have until 23 March to submit on these proposals, go right ahead. 

It might be farewell Newshub, but intelligent TV news disappeared over 30 years ago

 I do have a shred of sadness if it turns out that TV3 wont have a news service anymore. A shred because it really is a shadow of its former self.  It seemed like New Zealand had finally joined the rest of the developed world when finally private enterprise had been permitted to broadcast television news in competition with the state-owned enterprise, TVNZ. 

However, when TV3 launched it was in the context of a transformation of TVNZ from the mixed-mode blended commercial/public service broadcaster to a fully fledged commercial broadcaster, which had dire consequences for the depth and breadth of TV news. Under CEO Julian Mounter, TVNZ achieved significant commercial success, but saw its news and current affairs shift towards the model seen largely in US local commercial broadcast news. Serious reporting of politics and world affairs got diluted in favour of crime, celebrities, sport and disaster, as the idea was to maximise the news audience by making it “accessible” (dumbed-down) and “relevant” (relatable). The preference being for stories to be binary in nature, like sport. Crime is easy – “bad person does bad thing to good person”. Disasters “bad thing happens to good people”. Nuance and depth of discussion around public policy and politics, or world affairs has little space in this. Indeed, the focus on international affairs was largely to “make it relevant” which from time to time meant finding a NZer in whatever country something was happening, so we might “understand” what it means. Of course, it worked in getting sheer numbers of viewers and pleasing advertisers, so TV3 entered the market finding it very hard indeed to attract enough people from TVNZ. So much so that TV3 effectively went into receivership in under a year, resulting in liberalisation of media foreign ownership laws so that there could be 100% foreign ownership of broadcasters.

Of course it was what happened to TVNZ that saw Lindsay Perigo leave TVNZ declaring its news and current affairs "braindead", and of course he was right.

TV3 news in the 1990s did have some highlights. It was notable in extending what was the half-hour news bulletin to one hour, at 6pm at the time of the Gulf War.  TVNZ for some time claimed it had a “news hour” because it had half an hour of Holmes, but eventually relented and extended to one hour.  TV3 took direct TV news feeds from NBC during the Gulf War, and TVNZ followed with ABC (US) and ITN.  TV3 also for a while had a weekly current affairs show called The Ralston Group, hosted by Bill Ralston, which had him discussing issues of the week with four journalists/commentators from across the political spectrum.  

Newshub today is a shadow of that, and is essentially indistinguishable from TVNZ.  It’s far from clear why anyone would prefer either channel for news, short of personal preference around personalities. Both channels take a “once over lightly” approach to news, both are more than keen to place a major sports success for a NZ team as a lead story over war overseas. Both channels also have a statist leftwing slant to their bulletins, noting most recently their willingness to report statistics published by Hamas. The fact they are philosophically indistinguishable, and also indistinguishable in terms of depth and emphasis means that it is hard to miss Newshub.  A tweet a few days ago asking what people think of the new Jetstar uniforms rather said it all for me.

So yes, it will be a shame if the only NZ television news comes from state-owned broadcasters. Yes I mean broadcasters, because Whakaata Maori (once known as Maori Television) is another TV broadcaster with news, although it is ideologically also statist, collectivist and left-wing in its bias. However, Newshub offered nothing new or different.  It could have gone more in-depth, less populist and more serious, in the hope it could attract an audience of people with higher incomes, higher education and attractive to a smaller, but wealthier base for some advertisers.  It could have been philosophically more pro-business, less-statist, less-collectivist more in the mould of Sky News Australia or GB News, which might have attracted an audience that was not keen on “woke”, identity politics or the solutions to problems being new laws or new taxpayer spending.  It could have chosen to have a current affairs show at 7pm instead of the woeful The Project, which just was a variation on TVNZ’s Seven Blunt. Given its 200 or so staff, it’s astonishing how light in content Newshub is.

I hope TV3 can come back with some form of news broadcast, even if it collaborates with Sky, relegates international news to a rebroadcast of a foreign broadcaster’s content, and just sticks to reporting a shorter serious news bulletin. Having the state monopolise TV news just feels wrong, as of course there is no hope that the current government, given the presence of NZ First, would privatise TVNZ. 

However, if it doesn’t happen, we wont have lost much, because NZ lost TV news that wasn’t braindead a long time ago.  If you want something akin to Newshub, you just need to switch to One News.

TVNZ7 funeral and braindead TV, where have these people been?

I'm amused at those who chose to hold a "mock funeral" for a little watched state TV channel (TVNZ7) on the basis that without it New Zealand TV would be completely braindead.  As if equating the closure of a TV channel with "death" isn't itself rather childish and unbalanced.   Indeed, quoting the 1.6 million cumulative viewing figure as being meaningful is also rather braindead.  All it means is that at some point, 1.6 million people had the channel on for at least five minutes.  At no point has TVNZ7 had viewing figures representing 1% of all people watching TV at any one point. 

Where were the handful of people who give a damn been?  New Zealand television has been braindead for nigh on 25 years, it all started when then TVNZ CEO Julian Mounter prepared an all out attack against the upcoming TV3, by focusing on adventure, entertainment and by dumbing down national news and current affairs into a simple binary "good vs bad", "us vs them" format.  Lindsay Perigo said so himself not long afterwards.  The focus was on growing the news audience to include the vast bulk of people whose main interest in news is the sport, celebrity "news", disaster and crime stories (so easy to make it a story of victims against adversity) and then some cute kid, animal or quirky piece at the end.

TVNZ7 did not challenge that, it was TVNZ news lite, and had a handful of local programmes with certain high profile commentators who would host debates.  However, viewing figures were abysmal and the standards although higher than TVNZ could hardly be said to have been at the cutting edge of intelligent debate. It didn't present a wide range of incisive opinions with in depth analysis.  National Radio with Pictures it was not (if that is the standard its acolytes were aiming for, though it isn't mine).

However, why the fuss over this channel?

Regional channels did make attempts to have more uplifting TV.  Triangle has done so (excluding Martyn Bradbury) as has CTV over some years, yet the demise of Stratos from nationwide coverage caused far less fuss.  However, it is possible to see more current affairs on free to air TV now than it was 20 years ago, given both TV3 and TVNZ have Sunday morning shows that they did not previously have.

Yet I wont pretend this amounts to anything of particular note.  The reason is simple; regardless of what politicians, pundits, bloggers and journalists think, most people most of the time do not turn on television wanting intellectual stimulus and debate.   Television is an entertainment medium.

Most people, most of the time, don't want the sort of television that the public television advocates want to push.  After all, the Australian ABC has long had audience levels well below that of the big three commercial network oligopoly. The BBC's highest rating shows are indistinguishable from what is on commercial television (talent shows, sit-coms, soaps and sport).

Yet it's not hard to understand the disdain many hold against most TV in NZ, especially given the dominant free to air broadcaster is state-owned.  The bigger question is the chicken and egg one.  Did TVNZ result from a braindead culture of whim worshipping entertainment driven airheads, or is TVNZ in fact part of the problem? (take for granted that TV3 has essentially gone along with it)

I'd argue that TVNZ follows the culture (it wouldn't be a roaring success if it didn't tap into it), but that it also reinforces it.  Not challenging it, not extending people, not trying to go a step above the audience.  Not uplifting,  but in fact embracing and celebrating the "average mediocrity" of "everyday kiwis".  Their interests, their understanding of the world, even how they talk is just replicated by TVNZ, or even lowered.   In fact, my favourite braindead TVNZ moment was in 2000, when a TVNZ "journalist" said the "people of Pyongyang took a day off work to welcome the south Korean President", when Kim Dae Jung undertook his historic visit of north Korea.  Braindead indeed.

This airhead culture predates TVNZ, and is now seen in the regular political discourse of many commentators.  It is seen in the hysterical hyperboles seen lately about part-privatisation, the anti-scientific scaremongering about anything nuclear or anything to do with genetic engineering.  Complex ideas, issues that have more than two perspectives and anything that needs plenty of time to explain doesn't work well on TV after all.

The whole issue about the airhead culture is big in itself, and it's the height of hypocrisy for some of those who embrace shallow, sound bite culture and participate in it, to think that a small TV channel that doesn't challenge any of it is the way to deal with it.  The same people who think paying teachers based on performance is wrong think somehow they are well placed to judge the performance of broadcasters catering to the people those teachers helped churn out.

Yet is there a case to say intelligent TV can help?  Arguably yes.

Of course, intelligent TV is widely available and seen throughout NZ.  It's called Sky.

Sky brought New Zealand 24-hour news in the form of CNN, and more recently multiple options ranging from the BBC, Sky News, France 24, Fox News, CCTV and the new channel for nutty conspiracy theorists who are anti-American - Russia Today.  New Zealanders have never had better access to news about Australia, the USA, UK, Europe, the Arab world, China and Russia.  It also brought multiple dedicated channels for documentaries and then classic movies, arthouse movies and well as the mass market entertainment channels it supplies.

Sky started by paying the government for its first network, a series of UHF frequencies, installed its own transmitters and bought content.  It spent the first seven or eight years losing money, and now gets into around half of New Zealand homes.  People who are prepared to pay for the content it provides, which is not just sport, not just movies, but far more content than state TV can ever provide.  Now we all know Sky succeeds because of sports coverage, but nobody would have predicted what it now brings, thanks to an open market, absence of foreign ownership restrictions and absence of local content quotas.  It isn't just because of the poor standards on other channels, because pay TV thrives in the UK, which has seven state owned national non-commercial TV channels (and which heavily regulates three commercial ones to provide "public service content").

Yet that isn't the point according to public TV advocates.  Indeed, they don't like Sky very much at all.  The Listener, once the state owned magazine with a statutory monopoly on TV listings, has already published an article rallying an unsurprising set of arguments about Sky - with it being foreign owned, owned by News Corp (the "devil incarnate" to much of the left), owning the rights to much compelling TV content, and allegations this is "unfair" against a state owned broadcaster that has existed for over 50 years, 29 years of which was in a monopoly position. 

What isn't braindead about embracing such shallow, xenophobic, anti-big business attitudes? 

You see, the Save TVNZ7 club have moved away from this now, as Clare Curran intimated on Twitter saying:

@publicaddress have pretty much said all of that before. Good to hear Maharey on this though. Things have moved on tho. Time to address Sky

A successful business, which has brought far more choice and intelligence to NZ television that any other broadcaster, is now in the firing line from one of those who asserted that she is against braindead TV.

I'd have more sympathy if those who wanted to Save TVNZ7 had raised money to set up their own TV channel - which of course you can in New Zealand, given that there are no legal barriers to entry and there is a surplus of digital TV frequencies available on Freeview.  It is a matter of money.

The problem is that the Save TVNZ7 people don't want to put their money where their mouths are, they want to make everyone do it.  So when the investors in Sky, have put their money in, have done so with no taxpayer subsidy at all, have been supported by around half of the adult population in subscriptions, you might wonder why they don't like that very much.

I'm resigned to free to air TV in NZ being braindead, because it's what most people want most of the time.  There is better on Sky and some regional broadcasters.  There is more online and that is where the media is heading.

I don't trust politicians to bring me better broadcasting, because I don't trust them to buy me food, clothing or buy me healthcare or a pension.  Those who want better should support what is there now and if so inclined, make their own content.  It is remarkably cheap to do so given digital technology (none of which came from public broadcasters).

The coming years will continue the profound revolution in media that has been going on for the last 20 years, a revolution that is challenging existing free to air broadcasters and newspapers.   The ability to access content from all over the world and publish your own content is transforming media, discourse, journalism and starting to affect politics. 

That is where the future is - not a small state owned TV channel, nor in considering ways to regulate one of the country's most successful broadcasters (particularly when just about any way that a government might consider regulating it will breach the country's WTO commitments on audio-visual services).

UPDATE:  Mark Hubbard has also written well on this.

Brian Rudman - a little knowledge isn't dangerous, just ignorant

Brian Rudman is perhaps the most regular of the NZ Herald's columnists to comment on transport issues in Auckland.  He comes at it from a rather predictable standard point of view which blends the railevangelism of the Greens with the cynical populism of NZ First.  To be fair to him, he does a bit of research, but the conclusions he comes to shows a rather dire lack of understanding of economics, a paucity of depth of knowledge about the sector and an unfortunate tendency to be driven by faith rather than evidence.

His latest column is headlined "tolls alone won't unclog our roads".  The implication being that someone claimed that they would.   A more honest headline in response is "trains wont unclog our roads", since column after column he has been preaching the gospel of the church of passenger railways.

What he is talking about is a proposal to introduce new tolls on Auckland's existing motorway network to "raise revenue" tax road users to pay for Auckland Council's grand transport plans, much of which is to fund infrastructure for subsidised public transport services.

There are three substantive issues here:

1.  Is the NZ$11.7 billion "funding gap" real and justified?  (i.e. should that much extra money be spent on transport in Auckland? What is gained by that? Who are the winners, and are they the same as the losers?  Why should anyone trust Auckland Council on this?  Given that all of the future money taken from motoring taxes and rates is already taken into account, has anyone asked Aucklanders whether they are willing to pay more?

2.  If there is a gap, how should it be funded?  Should users pay more for infrastructure and services they will benefit from?  Should ratepayers pay for infrastructure that increases their property values?  Should existing taxes go up? Should there be new taxes?

3.  Should Auckland roads have direct tolls/road pricing introduced as a different way to charge for road use, which could also reduce congestion by introducing the price instrument?

Is the NZ$11.7 billion "funding gap" real and justified?

On the first question, Rudman fails.  He doesn't ask this question.  With some irony, the Greens are attacking (with some good reason) central government's Think Big highway spending plans for being poor value for money.  Neither the Greens nor Rudman apply a similar test to the Auckland Council project list.  For many years, the former Auckland Regional Council had unfunded transport wishlists, is it any surprise the new Auckland Council has simply grandfathered that wishlist and added to it?

He simply parrots the simple line that Auckland "needs more public transport " and the myth of "building the passenger transport options that might well help unclog the roads without the need to build more".  Might well? Where in the new world have major rail projects actually unclogged roads?  What city has accomplished this successfully?  It's a simple belief system - it is one the Greens share - but it is just that, a belief.  The bare fact is that no new world city has significantly reduced traffic congestion from construction of a new rail link - none.  Advocates may argue that congestion would be worse without them, but that's just hypothesis, and it isn't based on any significant difference in mode share from car driver to rail after a line has been opened.

So let's take the highest profile project that he and the Greens advocate - an underground CBD rail loop.

The Treasury/MoT report that reviewed the Auckland CBD underground rail tunnel states that this project, estimated to cost NZ$2.4 billion in capital, with ongoing additional costs of NZ$37 million per annum (although revenue offsetting that is not mentioned), will only reduce car trips into the CBD by 2,000 a day - out of a total of 40,000.  Now 88% of commutes in Auckland are not to the CBD.  That stark fact is constantly ignored by almost all advocates of rail in Auckland.

Of the remaining 12% around, 42% of motorised commutes to the CBD in Auckland are by car - yes a majority go by public transport now. You might ask why that is a problem.

So his pet rail project, will reduce 5% of 42% of 12% of Auckland commutes, which means only 0.25% of Auckland commutes will be shifted from car to public transport.  It's a brave person indeed who claims that is worth NZ$2.4 billion.

However, he completely blanks out the other effect.  The CBD rail project reduces bus trips to Auckland CBD by 10%, with double the number of people taken from existing bus services, both subsidised and unsubsidised, than from cars.  NZ$2.4 billion would in part be about shifting more people from buses than cars.  In short it is estimated to accommodate only 19% of the growth in future trips to the Auckland CBD.  The rest would be travelling by bus, car and ferry.  In his own article on this very report he blatantly misses this point by saying that other improvements wont be able to "cope with the predicted 32,000 extra passengers into the CBD in the 2041 morning peak. For that we need the rail loop." No Brian, only 6,000 of those 32,000 will use the loop.  It's deception to claim otherwise.

So it has a negligible impact on congestion, in fact the effect is so low it will be more than offset by forecast growth in traffic.  It reduces bus use more than car use, and only 1 in 5 future Auckland CBD commuters (which are themselves a subset comprising 1 in 5 of all Auckland commuters) would use it.

Even if you presume that all of the car commuters to the Auckland CBD benefit from the 5% reduction in car trips (and presumably a handful of fewer buses), that means that only 5% of all Auckland commuters experience a reduction in the negative externality of congestion.  So quite why should anyone pay over NZ$2 billion, plus ongoing operating subsidies, for 6,000 new rail commuters and for 5% of car commuters to save time (which they would do, on the margins), is a mystery.  It either hasn't occurred to Rudman (the report is rather clear on this) or he is evading it.

If there is a gap, how should it be funded?

However, let's leave that to one side, because his column does.  How should the money be raised if it was legitimate in the first place?  He doesn't spend much time on how it should be funded, rather how it should not be.

The solutions be posits are to both spend existing funds differently and raise new taxes from motorists.

He wants the state highway budget "redirected" towards public transport. Beyond the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway project, he isn't too clear on what other funded road projects shouldn't proceed.  In the past he has bemoaned other parts of the country getting money for roads, when his beloved Auckland can't get enough to pay for what it wants.  What he neglects is that outside Wellington and Tauranga, virtually all state highway projects are about reducing accidents, not reducing travel time.  However, he is an Auckland advocate so let's just accept that bias as being natural to him.  To be fair to the Greens, they do seek to abandon large swathes of road projects, including the Waterview connection, Puhoi-Wellsford and Waikato Expressway series of projects. 

For new money, he supported the regional fuel tax Labour tried to introduce, but which the National government scrapped.  This was a stupid idea, and tends to be embraced only by those with a paucity of understanding of such taxes and their role in New Zealand.

For a start, regional fuel taxes in the past have been opposed by oil companies because of the administrative cost in applying differential taxes for a commodity distributed nationally.  Service stations near the boundaries of Auckland (which most people wont be aware of) would be winners or losers for fairly obvious reasons if applied regionally.   National tried regional fuel tax in the early 1990s and had to abandon it because oil companies calculated the revenue that should have been collected based on consumption in the regions, but applied the tax nationally to save on the administrative costs and boundary effects.  Regional fuel tax for Auckland risks being applied nationally again, unless government applies stiff enforcement procedures to stop oil companies repeating this - which adds another cost.  Something Brian curiously ignores given his pleading on the cost of operating tolls.

Secondly, he ignores the effect on diesel.  There is currently no fuel duty on diesel, because diesel powered vehicles are liable for road user charges (RUC), paying in advance for distance travelled on roads based (shortly) on maximum vehicle weight.  There are various reasons for that, but what it means is that RUC, in its current form, cannot be applied regionally because diesel vehicles have distance bought before they travel regardless of where the roads are.  So regional RUC wont work for now, without a significant change in technology.  Regional diesel tax would mean the 36% of diesel usage off road would have to have a refund scheme (as applies to petrol tax), which imposes an administrative cost on the agriculture, industrial and fisheries sector to which this largely applies - unless Brian thinks that off road users of fuel in Auckland should pay for Auckland transport, in which case he is arguing to get rid of refunds for off road use of petrol and LPG as well (and why only abolish refunds in Auckland).   He simply wont be aware of these implications of imposing new costs outside the transport sector.

In other words, his bright idea for new money is full of holes, but since Labour tried to do it (against official advice) it must be ok, because he trusts politicians of a leftwing bent.

Should Auckland roads have direct tolls/road pricing?

Most of Brian's latest comment is a diatribe against road pricing.  That puts him firmly in a camp I describe as populist left-wing opposition to tolling - he shares this with NZ First.


I am, in principle, in favour of road pricing as a replacement for taxation of motorists, because it creates a direct relationship between the road user and road provider, sidestepping the interfering influence of politicians seeking to spend motoring taxes on pet projects.  However, from an economist's point of view, it enables the price instrument to be applied to roads.  That alone means road users can be charged directly for the costs of the roads they use, accordingly to the proportion of usage, according to the wear and tear they impose on the roads, and according to the vagaries of demand and supply.   Congested roads would cost more, managing demand, but generating revenue that might be enough to remove bottlenecks and build new capacity, or may simply mean off peak charges are lessened to spread demand.  It is this lack of the pricing instrument, which affects both demand for road use, and the funds to supply roads, that is the biggest single factor in facilitating traffic congestion, and the negative externalities from that in the form of wasted fuel and increased pollution.  Even when applied bluntly, the effects of pricing on congestion have been seen clearly in Singapore, Oslo, Stockholm and London.

It would appear Rudman is almost oblivious to this, or at best dismissive of it.


He claims tolling is "not fair", because he doesn't believe Aucklanders should pay more for their roads and public transport than other New Zealanders.  Rather odd that, if Aucklanders actually wanted more roads and public transport than other New Zealanders, they shouldn't pay.  Who should pay?  Aucklanders pay more for land and property now, does he suggest people living in Oamaru pay a land tax to equalise it, or should Auckland land be subsidised? However, this is a man advocating a REGIONAL fuel tax, which would mean Aucklanders would pay more.  He can't make his mind up. It is a specious "argument" worthy of a drunken talkback caller.   Aucklanders should pay for the transport they want, maybe if they did, they may want less of it (and nothing could be "greener" than that).

He repeats the claim by Chairman of Auckland Council's business advisory panel Cameron Brewer that "tolling is a flat tax that hit the poor the hardest".  Yet I have never seen Brian advocate that poor motorists get a discount on their petrol tax (the equivalent to a toll now), or discounted train fares, or discounted phone line rentals.  Why is a user charge for one service a "tax" when it doesn't apply to others?  Again, a specious argument.  Even though Brewer's sensible suggestion that "it be levied at a reduced rate for service sector shift workers in off-peak times" has economic merit in that tolls should be lower at times of low demand.  Brian's regional fuel tax, which would be paid most by those in least fuel efficient (i.e. old) vehicles on slow lengthy trips would be paid more by them, but he blanks out even considering that.

His next claim is that tolling targets private motorists, whereas commercial road users and councillors (cue NZ First type rhetoric here) can pass it on.  Well what would a regional fuel tax do Brian? 

However, moving beyond this rather facile rhetoric, his big opposition to tolls appears to be because the collection costs are higher than fuel tax.  Now I've already fisked him on fuel tax given that the regional fuel tax would cost more than he thinks, and so would mean costs for administration by both government and oil companies, and for those off-road users of diesel facing a new refund regime.  However, he does use both the Northern Gateway toll road and the earlier Auckland Road Pricing Evaluation Study work to back up his claim that, yes indeed, having a direct customer relationship with users one by one and being accountable to them is more expensive than a tax.  However, as I have written before, the costs now claimed are for a government specified bespoke system that is far more expensive than it should be.  Work I've done elsewhere indicates the costs of collection can be much much less if you have the volume to sustain it and outsource much of it effectively, like utility companies do.  So this argument is less worthy that it appears on the face of it.

Yet the real benefit of tolls, compared to taxes, is that they can charge according to costs and demand.  The benefits to Auckland of road users paying tolls to use roads, compared to more taxes, is that they could be charged more for roads close to capacity and could be charged less for roads at off peak times.  This can spread demand, encourage use of other modes at peak times, and cause people to think again about whether it is worth using that rather expensive piece of infrastructure when it is highly priced.   Yes for "revenue" alone it isn't clever, but if that was the only measure, then electricity would be free and everyone would have paid for it through their taxes, so would phone calls etc.  The effect on use of electricity if it was paid for through your rates or income taxes would be dramatic.

To be fair to him, he is right in quoting the Auckland Road Pricing Evaluation Study work in opposing tolls on the motorways only.  I don't believe this can be justified in Auckland today, but I do believe that a shift from rates and fuel tax based funding of roads to tolls is justified.  The issue is how that is done (privatising Auckland Harbour Bridge might offer a clue).

If Auckland did have largely privately owned roads, charging usage on various basis (e.g. tolls, distance charging, property access charges), it would transform transport in Auckland, particularly by eliminating rates funding of roads (cutting your rates by 10-15%) and fuel taxes (cutting fuel prices by 20%).  It would mean users of main roads at off peak times would probably pay less, whilst at peak times they would pay more.  It would mean buses wouldn't need bus lanes in most locations, except where bus companies were willing to pay for special access.  Truck operators would probably change times of travel.  Short car trips would be more likely to be replaced with walking and cycle trips.  The legacy railway might even have a financially sustainable life, somewhere where it parallels road corridors too expensive to expand (or it gets taken over by them).  

Quite simply, it is Rudman who doesn't have a transformational state of mind.  He, and the Greens, are trapped in tired old solutions implemented en-masse in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s that have failed - in the form of new government provided rail transit systems.  He ignores road pricing, like it was ignored then (except at least then, technology was a bigger limiting factor than it is today).  He swallows the hackneyed and overused line that "building more roads leads to more traffic" (given Auckland has had a lot of new roads lately but no more traffic, he has failed to join the analytical dots).  He wants taxpayers to spend a lot of money for what are pet schemes, whilst he resists economics and employs contradictory arguments.

Auckland's transport could be transformed, with technology, pricing instruments and a more commercial and market oriented approach to the provision of infrastructure and services.  Cities from London to Stockholm to Singapore to Tehran even, have had success in better pricing of roads to reduce congestion, yes reduce.  New technologies in San Francisco and Los Angeles are offering real time information on parking availability with the scope for dynamic pricing of parking.  Bus rapid transit has demonstrated enormous success in Auckland in limited form as it is, and has also been a success in cities in the US, Brazil, Germany and Australia.

It is overwhelmingly clear that the advocacy of rail in Auckland is not about transport policy outcomes, but a broader agenda that is about intensification of the Auckland CBD, moving more Aucklanders into high and medium density housing, for environmental policy reasons, and because of a warm fuzzy feeling that electric trains are just great, but cars and roads are just wrong.

It isn't about Aucklanders making the best choices about how to get around based on the costs of travel, it isn't about balancing what people want in homes, businesses and leisure activities, it isn't about real environmental outcomes (because road pricing would deliver a bigger constraint to sprawl and reduce pollution due to traffic jams, than any rail scheme), it is about grand centrally planned visions that look nice in drawings and in theory, but don't actually deliver the real-world trade-offs people actually want.

The biggest irony is that the greatest beneficiaries of this agenda, if it gets pursued, are owners of commercial property in downtown Auckland.  Now they are far from willing, it would seem, to pay for more than a tiny fraction of the grand CBD rail project.   Is it not ironic then, that Rudman and the leftwing promoters of this plan are advocating a massive transfer in wealth from taxpayers across the country, to this small, some may say, elite group?

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 21^st 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 said “We 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 said “The 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 shops” what 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?

How does offering Maori the same democratic rights as all other citizens shut them out of participation?

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?

Why do the Greens think that if central government doesn’t tell primary schools how to teach arts,science, technology, or physical education, that the schools are incapable ofknowing what or how to teach?  Does only the Ministry of Education know how to write a curriculum?

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

Do the Greens still stand by the view of Sue Kedgley that heavy freight be forced to go by rail?  Do the Greens still believe it is ok for their MPs to make speeches that are full of errors, hyperboles and misrepresentations?

Does Russel Norman still think that if customers of a shop want plastic bags, the shop shouldn’t offer them?  How is that democratic decision making?

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 is it that a New Zealand Government following the US when a Republican is a President is “imperialism” but when a Democrat is a President, New Zealand should follow the US which is “leading the way”? Isn't it just about what policies you like and dislike? 

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).