Greens rule out Nats - thankfully

Jeanette Fitzsimons states the obvious, courting the Labour vote, at a time when the Greens look like a party of Nanny State loving control freaks. The Greens clearly feel confident that they can play a strong role with Labour, as it is highly likely neither NZ First nor United Future would be adequate to give Labour a majority after the election.

The NZ Herald report says the Greens said "both major parties scored poorly on genetic engineering and food safety issues." Thankfully again, as the Greens are on the wacko fringe on both, obsessed with opposing GE, and obsessed with food safety (but not if it is organic).
"National did worse than Labour on climate change, energy efficiency and road building." Again, thankfully. Though I see little difference in all of those, notice road building is bad, not poor quality transport spending. The Greens are experts at that.

Take the most twisted perverted version of the truth the Greens have in saying National supported to "change the legislation in order to make sure NZ homes stay cold and damp".

Yes! Stupid me, you are no longer allowed to pay to insulate your own home. In the Green world of state socialism, only the government can make sure your home is cold and damp.

Complete nonsense!

More ominously the Greens see a lot in common with the Maori Party "and would consider negotiating as a bloc if that was something the other party wanted." Given Maori give precious little support to the Greens, I'd have thought there was little point in the Maori Party supporting this and being tied to Labour.

John Key warned people to be "very cautious of that arrangement because that means Helen Clark is going to be prepared to sell your jobs down the river and economic growth is going to go on the backburner" which is putting it mildly.

Of course I'm glad Jeanette Fitzsimons has ruled out giving confidence and supply to National, National wasn't going to rule out governing with the Greens after all!

Rule out tax rises, go on

With PWC NZ Chairman John Shewan saying GST would have to go up to 15% and the top tax rate to 45% to fund the big spending promises of both parties, you do have to wonder if that was a strategic press release designed to undermine Labour's one time pledge to spend up large.

Thankfully that seems to have evaporated, perhaps as taxpayers didn't respond well to the government spending up big when others can't afford to.

Curiously, John Key didn't rule it out, just saying that if National does a half decent job at growing the economy, raising GST wouldn't be necessary. He should have said that National would rather cut waste and be more efficient than increase tax.

ACT - no tax cuts for two years?

ACT's launched its campaign, it's clearly aiming for the disenchanted National supporters who want more than Labour lite. With Sir Roger Douglas at number three on the list it definitely tempts those who want less government to give Roger a second go, if only to give National the coalition partner it ought to have, instead of the Maori Party or Peter Dunne.

Rodney Hide's interview with the NZ Herald certainly seems promising. For the first time in ages I have seen an ACT leader prepared to be honest about health:

"I believe that the state health system has been a failure and that what it does is take our money and then ration health care by queuing us up in pain and agony. "

Indeed.

"I much prefer that we use the private system and focus the Government's attention on ensuring that everyone has access."

Sounds a lot like Unfinished Business, and is half of the libertarian solution. It is one I can see being a big leap forward for healthcare. So what else is new? Well it's all in this policy PDF.

Well ACT wants to keep growth in government spending capped to inflation, EXCEPT for law and order and a one off injection into health spending. Hardly ambitious, something National ought to embrace if we were lucky. This means government growing slower than GDP. Oh how far we have slipped back when this is seen as radical.

39% top tax rate would be gone immediately, again good, but National voted against this tax rate and isn't promising to abolish it.

Then two years of NO tax cuts. Yes ACT offers you nothing till 2011. Presumably it's about fiscal prudence, because after then there is a rolling programme of cuts to a flat rate of 15% by 2018 (12.5% on the first NZ$20,000). Yes 10 years from now! Yes better than nothing, but this ought to be mainstream. National supporters should be embracing this.

GST down to 10% as well, in the same timeframe. Hmmm, public servants really have nothing to fear.

However there is one gem in ACT's policy, but not one I expect the mainstream media to publicise widely.

It is offering a taxfree threshold of NZ$25,000 for those who want to opt out of ACC, the right to claim sickness benefits and state healthcare. It talks of offering a top up for such people to cover their children too for all of that, and education.

So, a chance to opt out of nanny state. THAT is revolutionary, but in parallel with two years of no tax cuts, it is hidden in the mix.

This is what National should be offering, at the very least slower growth in government spending, progressively lower tax cuts to a low flat level, and the chance to opt out of state provided health cover. However ACT should be offering more. ACT offered a flat tax in 1996. It should be pushing for tax cuts every year. It should be calling for serious cuts in spending.

I did think that there was much promise with Rodney Hide, and with Roger Douglas back on board, and yes, ACT shows National what a change in direction could be.

However, it remains profoundly disappointing. I do not see the point in voting for no tax cuts for two years, besides abolishing the 39% top rate.

Zimbabwe writhing like a tortured corpse

The world turned away for a while, after Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai signed a power sharing deal - a deal that seemed incredible to most of us, that the murdering tyrant would surrender any real power to his popular nemesis. I wrote at the time that I feared Tsvangirai being cauterised like Mugabe did to Joshua Nkomo in the early 1980s. Mugabe wants Tsvangirai for two reasons:
1.) To shut up the international community and present the facade of power sharing, whilst maintaining a monopoly grip on power;
2.) To obtain booty in the form of loans, aid and trade from the world to boost his destroyed economy, claiming credit for as President for the revival, and being able to damn Tsvangirai if it goes wrong.

Tsvangirai isn't playing ball, much to the chagrin of Mugabe and his idiot mate, Thabo Mbeki.

Mbeki remains confident, he can't see why his murderous mate can't have what he wants, and can't see the absurdity of a negotiation between a murderers and the one leading the victims, led by a friend of the murderer.

Mugabe chose to hold onto defence, foreign affairs, home affairs (Police, courts, media, local government, land policy and the mining sector) and offered to hand over finance. Tsvangirai insisted on also having home affairs. He could not countenance the corrupt judiciary, electoral system and police forces remaining in the hands of the man who used them against his own people.

The Economist writes that Mbeki should stand down, as he is a lame duck politically, and that Kofi Annan should step into the mediating role. Meanwhile, 80% of the population is unemployed, a quarter of the population has fled across the porous borders, the media remains tightly under Mugabe's control, spreading lies about the negotiations, and people are on the verge of mass starvation.

Inflation is 231 million % per annum. That's over 5% a day, every day, cumulative. Doesn't sound much? That means prices double in just over nine days. After another six weeks, prices have gone up tenfold. In another 6 weeks it is one hundred fold.

Zimbabwe is sadly an ongoing disaster, and more power to Tsvangirai if he can hold Mugabe to account - but it still shows the place will be better when the old tyrant has a bullet through his skull, and his murderous comrades can be strung up and their ill gotten gains given back to those who they stole them from.

Economist gives McCain one last chance

The Lexington column in this week's Economist gives John McCain some advice. I can only hope he takes it.

Basically it reminds us that Reagan was 8 points behind Carter 10 days before the 1980 election. Tells him what not to do (forget dumb populism, forget attacking Obama's links to dodgy people) and to look forward in three ways:

1) Obama is one of the least business-friendly Democrats in a generation. Obama has been close to the union movement, which has strongly supported his campaign. It is calling for the end to secret ballots and the removal of laws prohibiting closed shops. During these times of low business confidence this is the last the USA needs, and Obama's credentials for letting business be free are low.

2) Having one party control the Presidency and both houses of Congress is not preferable if you want to ensure accountable government. McCain could usefully veto pork barrel budgetary matters, but most importantly Americans have rarely allowed one party to control both legislatures and the White House.

3) Obama has never taken on his own party, or even seriously tried. As a Senator he has voted Democrat 97% of the time, an astonishing result. McCain is known to be a maverick in his own party. The odds are Obama could be the vehicle for the most leftwing administration since the 1960s. Obama has not at all demonstrated that he can be a maverick and confront the mainstream of his party - defeating Hilary Clinton was a personal not a philosophical mission.

McCain can fight a respectable campaign and could, on balance, win, just. However he is running out of time, and chances.

Powell and Hitchens nailing more into McCain's campaign coffin

The Sunday Telegraph reports that long standing Republican, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell is endorsing Barack Obama. Powell talked of Obama's "ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America". This contrasts with McCain's lacklustre approach to the economy "Almost every day he had a different approach to the problems we were having". I suspect Powell is looking to be part of the incoming administration, and indeed it may be the case that if an Obama victory happens we would all be better off if Powell was part of it.

Meanwhile, strong supporter of the war to topple Saddam Hussein, writer Christopher Hitchens is also backing Obama in his Slate column. Hitchens loathes the Clintons, and is no friend of Bush, but backed Bush over Iraq. He feels pity for McCain's performance:

"Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out."

It appears that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin has been the death knell of McCain's credibility to Hitchens:

"It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses."

So, Hitchens supporting the man who opposed the war in Iraq? Well he believes Obama can be convinced to change, Hitchens is no "true believer":

"I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke."

Only a few weeks ago Hitchens called Obama "vapid, hesitant and gutless" in that he doesn't ask questions straight and clear. I suspect Hitchens has largely been too disappointed by McCain and angered by Palin to go anywhere else.

Now I want to know what the Ayn Rand Institute thinks. I'm betting it will back Obama too. It's backed Kerry and Gore in the last two elections.

Labour's talent continues numbers 24-20

Yes people, I haven't forgotten getting through the Labour list. So...

Sua William Sio – Mangere – number 24: Profile only (and facebook). Nothing about Sua on the profile but “I will strive with you to build a strong, safe, inclusive and vibrant society where we are united in our diversity. A society where our children receive the best opportunities to achieve economic independence and reach their fullest potential. Where our families will access to jobs with incomes that will sustain them into the future. Where the elderly, sick, disabled, destitute and weak are protected and supported with access to affordable housing, education, healthcare, and transportation.” Now this was David Lange’s electorate and Taito Philip Field’s so this will be more interesting. Field got a staggering 70.6% of the vote in 2005, with Labour getting 72.9% of the party vote. Against that, Clem Simich wasn’t getting more than 13% and National 13.6%. So the issue is whether Sio can unseat Field. Field’s personal standing is clearly high, but without Labour it will lose a lot of cache. Prediction: I don’t want to say too close to call, but the record of incumbent independents holding on in NZ is rather poor. Field has no support outside his electorate, but his electorate has uncharacteristically strong support for him. The question is whether Mangere votes for the man or votes for Labour - I suspect more will tick Labour and Sio, than remember Field.

Mita Ririnui – Waiariki – number 23: Profile and photo. Mita is a sitting list MP. “My parents instilled very strong religious and political views in myself and my 9 siblings and I believe it has been through this, that I made my transition into politics.” So he hasn’t changed his views from them? Good to know he questions his own orthodoxy. Hmmm.
“I began my adult working career in the private sector, working at numerous levels. I then shifted into the public service in the early 90’s and progressed until deciding to enter into politics.” Hmmm not a great path really.

“My main focus is Maori development, whether it is through Treaty Settlement, developing and providing quality health, education and social services or any other facet of public service and politics. Maori development has been and will always remain my main focus within politics.” Which is, of course, why you want him elected on the list vote, which will be what happens again. Mita believes in big government, nothing new or exciting there. Mita lost this seat to Te Ururoa Flavell of the Maori Party in 2005, by 54.6% to 39.5%, a rather substantial margin. Though Labour did get 53.1% against 30.8% for the Maori Party. This is unlikely to be reversed. Prediction: Mita wont unseat Flavell, he'll be another Labour list MP.

Sue Moroney – Hamilton East- number 22: Photo, profile and believe it or not she is an MP! Yes, who’d have thought, she did so much. She is an another ex trade unionist, and trainer of health and safety personnel. “ I am committed to constantly improving our public health system. I am also a keen advocate of the need to improve wages for all hard-working New Zealanders.” Which she thinks is about making bosses pay more, the petty Marxist that she is. “In my first term of Parliament I have ensured that all workers get the right to decent breaks at work. I have also secured $4m of Government funding for Stage II of the Waikato Innovation Park at Ruakura and $9.8m for the clean-up of Te Aroha's toxic Tui Mine.” Really? Because those slave bosses make it so hard for them? Oh or is it the 30-40% of taxes taken from them to pay for what you want to spend their money on. Oh dear, she’s not the brightest spark. Take this from her maiden speech (yes she is currently a list MP):

"Strictly speaking, the term political correctness means the correcting of power. Power is corrected when rights and recognition are given to those who previously didn’t have them and this has the effect of taking power out of the hands of the few and putting it in the hands of the many. Therefore, when I hear people complaining about something being “politically correct” I know that they are worried it will pass some power onto another group. It’s called power sharing and I’m all for it."

She likes power. You must wonder why anyone would want power over anyone else. National’s David Bennett took this seat from Dianne Yates in 2005, with 51.1% of the vote against 36.8%, so Moroney has little chance. National won the party vote on 45.4% against Labour’s 35.5% as well. Prediction: Moroney will be a list MP, again, sadly.

Raymond Huo – number 21 list only: Profile only, no photo or website link (but he does have a website). Raymond is a Chinese born lawyer. “Raymond believes the Labour Party’s vision of strong and inclusive communities is important to everyone given that it promotes understanding between the diverse groups that cal New Zealand home. His professional background and track record helps bridge the now Asian community and the wider communities.” So if you’re a Chinese candidate it is only about diversity, not policies, not trust, not a vision of what government should and shouldn’t do? Hmmm nothing much to see here. He’s clearly a clever guy, but what does she stand for, other than he’s not a petty Marxist unionist like most of his comrades will be. He immigrated from Beijing in 2004 – it would be interesting to know why. Raymond's website says that he supports Labour because "They have a vision of building a strong and inclusive community and I share that passion". I hope he hasn't joined Labour because he thinks you need to join the ruling party to get anywhere in politics. Prediction: He’s in on the list of course.

Jacinda Ardern – number 20 list only: Profile and a website called kiwivote.co.uk. She is working for the British government using my money! It’s so clever, it pretends to help overseas kiwis vote then says “We'll throw our hands up now and declare that we're biased. Here at kiwivote we support a labour led government. They're better by far.” Oh those big Labour banners fooled me. “A job that will continue when she heads back to New Zealand to run as a candidate in the Waikato.” Funny that, she isn't an electorate candidate.
“Over the past few years I've been lucky enough to travel the world working in international politics” doing what?? “We must continue to play an active role on the world stage, through a strong and independent foreign policy, and we must work to strengthen and protect our clean, green environment.” Oh an ambitious anti-American greenie, nice. Just what those successful expats want, someone voting for New Zealand to become more leftwing, like the UK! Prediction: She’s going to get elected, a young leftwing Labour MP. Can't have too many of those of course!

My overall sensation is why? Why do you all want to run other people's lives? What do you gain from wanting to do things to people, spend their money, regulate? Why oh why? At least not all of you are unionists.

You're your own sex offender

The United States sadly has far too many stories like this. Sadly too many on the conservative right is only too quick to resist any reforms to address it.

Cases of child sexual abuse are always cause for concern, when children are violated and harmed it rightfully causes outrage. The law is based on a simple precept, that those under the age of consent only engage in illegal sexual behaviour because they have been forced or persuaded by some perverted adult. It is, of course, a nonsense. The law draws a line for certainty and to protect (and deter) against such activity, but it doesn't draw a line between sexual innocence and precocity.

This is why law and order conservatives ought to think carefully before they embark on mandatory sentences, mandatory sex offenders' registers and the like.

A New Jersey girl of 15 has been arrested for taking nude photos of herself and distributing them. You see she has a cellphone with a camera, as do many (if not most) her age, and so she snapped away and forwarded them on to some of her peers. Incredibly, she has spent a weekend in jail and is charged with producing child pornography (illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material), a second-degree felony, and possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony. She could face being a registered sex offender and being required to register her address for 20 years, and being screened for a whole host of employment.

She is being treated no differently than if a man twice her age had done it. Why? Well combine the understandable visceral outrage about sex offences against minors, a complete wilful blindness about the sexuality of minors (who have always shown off and experimented in fairly harmless and embarrassing ways) and zero tolerance for crime, and these things slip in.

Worse "the investigation into the incident remains open, including exploring whether charges will be filed against the minors who received the photos." Yes, you didn't even ask for it and you're a criminal!

Yes, there are problems when children are violated, yes it needs to be deterred, but this?

and it isn't just because it is in Licking Valley - I kid you not.

Vile extension of Green population policy

Is this.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. It's an organisation that believes the best future will be when people decide not to breed, so the earth is without humanity at all. It's logo is disturbingly Orwellian.

" Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of hope shines through the gloom. When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons. "

Could there be a philosophy that is more anti-life, anti-achievement, anti-reason? Now the difference between this movement and, those who would murder to achieve this end is the MEANS not the end. The website goes further, in language that wouldn't be out of place on the Green Party website:

"The Movement is voluntary. We are promoting reproductive freedom, not "population control".

The Movement is life-affirming and will benefit all life. We are not advocating suicide, nor an increase in human deaths.

The Movement is pro-child. Every existing child deserves a good life.

The Movement is pro-parent. Existing children are in need of good parents.

The Movement is opposed to bad stuff."

It just wants humanity to die off.

Go on, ask your local Green candidate if it wouldn't be better if nobody ever had children. Ask if the earth would be a better place if there were no people around to appreciate it. Ask why your local Green candidate has chosen to breed, if he or she has done so.

Banality of Green population policy

So what are the Greens up to?

A population policy (not family policy)- which of course in itself implies that one is needed. The overall tone is disturbingly collectivist and Leninist in outlook. It harks of course to the nonsense that is Malthus. Statements like "Ministry of the Environment current modelling estimates put our carrying capacity at 5.7 million" imply that somehow if that population is above that "something bad will happen". One of the principles is "New Zealand's population should not exceed the ecological carrying capacity of the country".

What does that mean? Who does this "carrying"? Besides which, consider the central planning behind this principle and the whole policy.

It continues... "Uneven regional distribution of the population will be remedied through regional development measures" Yes, vee cannot have zee uneven population diztribution can we comrades? No. It vill be REMEDIED! Who distributes this population? Actually it is individual decisions - people choose to live where they want. It's called freedom you planning zealots. What the hell is a "regional development measure" other than perhaps:
- Laws banning development where people want to live?
- Subsidies bribing people to develop where they don't want to live?
- Taxes discouraging people from living where they do want to live?

You'd think property prices would be a clue, but no, the authoritarian planning fetishists don't believe that's enough.

It continues "Informed decisions about family size and spacing will be made by the parents concerned" Will they?? You see I would have thought that when Keith Locke says "it would be quite wrong to take from this that we are asking parents to have less kids" that he's wrong.

Read it yourself.

Of course i'd make one simple point - if you care so much about the size of families and people breeding, why they hell do you want to increase subsidies for people who do breed?

Let parents make their own decisions and, amazingly, pay for them.

Either your stupid, or you have some fetish for centrally planning and managing everything, control freaks that you are. You LIKE people being dependent on the state - which you think is some proxy parent or version of society. You LIKE making people pay to your beloved leviathan state, telling people how to live their lives, how best to live, how to meet with the plans of "society".

It's about time this benevolent, loving the trees nonsense was revealed for what it is, a barely shrouded desire to grow a big Nanny State that has policies on absolutely everything.

It ISN'T based on results, it ISN'T based on empirical evidence, it ISN'T based on science, it ISN'T based on anything beyond an ideological fervour to control.

It is statism through and through.

New Zealand doesn't need a population policy, it doesn't need you telling families how to live their lives when you want to force GOOD families to pay more taxes to pay welfare to all families, including abusive, negligent, lazy and even criminal ones. You treat everyone the same, except you want to tax the successful and control them, and pay more money to the least successful, the ones that aren't responsible. You want the state to reward the bad, and penalise the good.

Green policy promotes violence - but it is the violence of the state regulating, taxing, compelling and threatening. It promotes state control and authoritarianism, despite proclaiming peace and justice. It is, basically, a bunch of do-gooding control freaks in love with the idea of pushing people around with the state, instead of convincing people to make different choices, voluntarily, and tolerating when they don't.

The Green Party is, undoubtedly, the party of an intrusive invasive and disturbingly ubiquitous Nanny State.

Greens and the dole

Ah remember the days when Sue Bradford was a professional protestor. Once heading the "union" called the "Unemployed Workers' Union" (which since I was a kid I always found oxymoronic - you're not a worker if you're not actually working), which was simply a leftwing protest group.

Now of course she defends the "right" of people to receive an income confiscated from other people. According to the NZ Herald, she doesn't like the suggestion by the Maori Party that the unemployment benefit be scrapped. Tariana Turia said "I'm opposed to the dole. I have to be very frank with you - I don't think it is healthy for the spirit of our people, to be getting money for doing nothing".

Indeed, although make work schemes may only be slightly better - they are at least paying people for doing, what may be lowly productive work, but still work.

By contrast, defender of the demanding welfare recipients Sue Bradford describes the Green Party policies which are pretty simple:
- Government to create jobs (presumably by taking money from those with jobs);
- Nobody be "forced" to work for a living;
- Increase welfare benefits (so you get more for not working for a living);
- Forcing taxpayers to pay for the voluntary sector.

The Greens believe in more state dependency, they believe that you should be forced to pay for people to live and those people shouldn't be forced to do anything for it.

Bradford clearly thinks people on benefits are useless saying abolishing the dole would mean "we will see family breakdown, child poverty, crime, begging and homelessness at levels way beyond anything we can conceive of at present". Family breakdown doesn't happen at record levels? Beneficiaries are criminals we are paying off to not rob us? Which of course means Sue wouldn't actually do anything herself to help these poor people - she wants you to be forced to help them, in exchange for them doing nothing.


Tariana Turia, to her credit, has seen the poverty of ambition and aspiration this has produced for two generations. Although the Maori Party is full of statists, and lacks any common philosophical thread (other than a primary concern for Maori), it does have the advantage of being, somewhat, open minded. Although let's not use the railways for jobs shall we?

The Greens think, cynically, that they can get the vote of unemployed Maori, because they will protect the dole and increase it, and so that would be cool then right?

No. Even at the last election, when National campaigned against the Maori seats, National won more party votes than the racist, identity politics laden Greens, in every Maori seat. That tells you how enthused about the Greens Maori voters are.

Key cuts to bureaucracy?

Hmmm it swings all over the place doesn't it - National policy I mean. One week government spending cuts aren't going to happen, and now the NZ Herald states "National would ask state sector bosses to find savings in their departments" and John Key "would call state sector chief executives in to talk with him after the election and ask them for a "line by line" of their expenditure with an aim to make savings."It's very important that we get value for money because that's what New Zealanders are being forced to do around their kitchen tables every day,""

Great stuff! Just what is needed, in fact not dissimilar to what I recommended a while ago. Get every departmental head to justify its existence and budget, and cut projects.

You know it is good policy because one of the biggest advocates of making you pay for people who don't actually produce anything you want to pay for growing bureaucracy, the PSA, is bleeting utter nonsense "If people lose their jobs because of the crisis, they will need support from public services to ensure they can feed their families and to try and get them back into the workforce".

Excuse me? If you lose your job, it is important that we continue to tax you on what you earn, invested and buy so that we can give you help you weren't willing to pay for in the first place? Besides that - how many policy advisors help people feed their families?

No, the PSA should shut up and be accountable to the people who pay their wages - they are called taxpayers, and if they vote for a change in government one reason will be because they are fed up with the PSA thinking taxpayers can be milked endlessly to pay for their jobs.

What will happen to the Maori seats?

So let me get it clear. Let's assume National forms a government after the election. There are several configurations, but the following appear possible. However, what will happen to the Maori seats under these options?

1. National majority government: Maori seats stay until Treaty settlements process concluded. So no change over that term.
2. National coalition/confidence & supply agreement with Maori Party (or Greens): Maori seats stay.
3. National coalition/confidence & supply agreement with ACT: Who knows?

Only Libertarianz explicitly has as its policy (I can't find it on the ACT website, so am happy to be corrected) to abolish the Maori seats and Maori electoral roll, so Maori votes can be counted as with all others, in both electorates and the party vote. So that's where good National Party policy came from in 2005 and has gone again.

Oh and if you think it is racist, then ask the Royal Commission on the Electoral System which saw implementing MMP as rendering the Maori seats as unnecessary, with a 4% party threshold that could be suspended for Maori political parties (hmmm).

Winston's old tune

The NZ Herald reports Winston calling for immigration to be cut to "protect NZ jobs". How big a yawn can that be? Immigration is by and large good, because as long as your immigration policy does not open up the welfare state to the world, immigrants tend to be better motivated and harder working than locals - especially those who never leave!

I have a very simple approach to immigration. It is a halfway house whilst there still is compulsory state health, education and welfare.

You are welcome to New Zealand if:
1) You have no criminal convictions for offences that would be violent/sexual/property/fraud offences if they happened in New Zealand. A false declaration to this effect will result in deportation;
2) You accept you are ineligible for welfare, state health, housing and education (including for your family). After three years you are either eligible or you receive a tax credit to recognise your self sufficiency from the state (which also can be offered to current residents);
3) You have employment or sufficient funds to provide for yourself and your family (jointly if a couple) for three months, including an airfare to your previous resident country;
4) You swear allegiance to not engaging in any criminal activity, under threat of deportation.

After all, if an immigrant isn't a criminal and doesn't claim from the taxpayer, then why would you NOT welcome them?

Unless you're just a whinging xenophobic loser?

Green's uncosted transport policy

Well so you may think, the Greens have launched a transport plan for Auckland without a single cost for construction, let alone any (undoubted) subsidies for ongoing operations. Like a bunch of 13 year olds doing a project.

So the tooth fairy might fund it, because the Greens don’t give a damn about costs. Benefits? No. The Greens haven’t evaluated the proposal, you don’t get to see how many minutes travel time you might save, how much emissions will reduce, even how much it would cost to ride this gold plated transport system. I don't mean exact economic appraisal, but some ballpark so that it can be rebutted.

No – the Greens just say that you’ll get less congestion, cleaner air, “healthier lifestyles” (you’ll walk more) and a rather sinister “more room on the roads for essential travel” (they know when your travel is essential and when it is trivial – the petty fascists that they are).

How can they possibly be taken seriously on this? Like I’ve said time and time again, it is religious worshipping of rail. However they’ve outdone themselves this time. Some blatant mistakes:
- Funding will shift from ratepayers to government, reducing the burden on ratepayers (but no mention of taxpayers);
- The Waterview connection of SH20 is mentioned for scrapping, except their own map indicates a motorway on that route – for buses. What’s that about?;
- “BRT (bus rapid transit) is much faster and cheaper to build than rail” they say, which begs the question, why are you obsessed with rail?
- Funding that goes to Transit New Zealand for motorways would go to ARTA they say, except Transit New Zealand was abolished by legislation the Greens supported. Are motorways to not be maintained??

Don’t forget, since 1999 the Greens have worked closely with Labour on transport policy. You might think that since transport matters to the Greens they may bother costing and evaluating their policies. No. Like I’ve said before, it’s the Green religion – railways good, cars and trucks bad, don’t ask any questions, just write out the cheque. I mean cheques, because by no stretch of the imagine will people riding this flash new public transport system be paying the full costs of operating it.

Greens like National's super theft policy

When the Greens say "it’s nice to see that National does have some good ideas. Investing 40 percent of the Super fund in New Zealand is a positive way to support New Zealand businesses and jobs, as well as protect and diversify New Zealand’s economy."

The most diehard National supporter must surely start being suspicious.

This from people who launch a grand transport policy for Auckland, without any costs attached to it, (except they want to divert $1.9 billion from a road project, but no indication that this is enough), it ought to make you wonder when economic illiterates support you.

Or was this National's grand plan to divert votes to ACT?

NZ Superannuation Fund fraud

Think of a superannuation scheme or pension fund that you join - or rather, are forced to join.

Your contribution to the fund varies according to your income. The more you earn the more you pay.

What you receive from the fund depends on one thing: How long you live.

If you don't reach age 65, you'll get nothing, your inheritance will get nothing, in fact your contributions will just have gone to someone else.

If you do reach 65, you'll get - whatever the government thinks everyone who reaches that age will get. If you spent your life on welfare or low income jobs paying next to no tax you'll get the same as a successful entrepreneur who has spent many years on the top marginal tax rate.

You wouldn't choose such a fund now would you?

So why do you vote for political parties that set it up, want to maintain it and even want to use it to play political games as if it is a sovereign wealth fund it can throw at "investments" it makes.

Greens want to deflate house prices more

Yes, the Greens think the time is right to pillage more of your children's taxes (it's called borrowing) to build more state houses. Even though property prices have been heading downwards, increasing the affordability of buying a home, the Greens remain outside the planet where price is a factor demand and supply, and think that forcing people to pay for more housing is a good thing.

So the Greens pillage your money and encourage your house price to drop too. Of course they want it in places where there is "excellent public transport" - ignoring whether that public transport actually would take you where you want to go, because a railway station is like a church to them.

Great stuff, check out the loopy economics. Easier to afford a home (cheaper), easier to move around without a car (cheaper) AND you are forced to pay for it whether you own a home, use public transport already or not.

Hopefully voters will simply say - f-off and leave my money alone in a recession you thieving socialists!

British banks to lend you your own money

Satirical website Daily Mash has an excellent take on the UK government's recent welfare subsidising nationalising handout to banks.

"THE government is to invest £500bn of your money in British banks so they can lend it back to you with interest"

The best line has to be this:

"Meanwhile, Emma Bradford, a sales manager from Bath, said: "Why doesn't the government just give my money to me so I can buy stuff from businesses who will then make a profit and put it in a bank?"

But Mr Darling insisted: "Shut up.""

Earth to Jeanette Fitzsimons

Jeanette. You're in the Herald complaining about why motorways get fully funded but railways don't. There is a reason why the Government foots the full cost of motorways.

The revenue for it comes from - road users. The people using the roads pay for the roads (well the state highways anyway). Understand the concept? Fuel tax and road user charges are fully dedicated to the National Land Transport Fund, which funds motorways. Most people would see that as being fair, if a bit blunt.

Let's look at your beloved "urgent public transport improvements", you want the whole Auckland rail network electrified and a NZ$1 billion-plus (yep note the plus, I'm guessing half a billion more) tunnel for a two-way rail loop through central Auckland to the western line at Mt Eden. Where do you want the revenue to come from to pay for that? The people who will use the trains? No. In fact at best they will pay perhaps a half of the operating costs of the trains (if they can match Wellington).

You want ROAD USERS to pay for your rail schemes, even though only 7% of all trips in Auckland are by public transport, and of those a majority are by bus and ferry.

Not only that you want road users to pay to subsidise the operation of the rail scheme too. However you begrudge road users expecting their motoring taxes being spent on the roads they actually use?

Yes I know you'll argue that the road users benefit because someone has decided to ride a train, instead of drive. Well of course that person riding the train has apparently benefited more, because the road user is subsidising their travel. Why should that person not pay the costs of their travel?

Jeanette, don't you realise the reason the roads are congested is because capacity is built according to politically determined funding criteria, and roads are charged the same no matter wherever and whenever you drive, unlike how airlines, hotels, phone calls and other services are charged. Don't you realise your beloved Soviet style management of highways is the problem, not the lack of a goldplated public transport system?

So go on Jeanette - tell motorists that the Greens believe that the majority of fuel taxes and road user charges they pay should be used to pay for transport modes they don't use. Tell them how many minutes they'll save in trips, how much fuel they'll save from this approach - show you've done the research.

Oh, it's just a "belief" isn't it. Yes, that damned religion of yours.

Destructive scum should be denied welfare

The Dominion Post reports on the sort of people who will live off the back of others, who gain great pleasure in destroying what others produce - they aren't a big focus of the criminal justice system - and the welfare system will happily pay them to live, and breed.

It's a very simple policy to stop paying criminals to live and breed. Those convicted of such an offence should be denied any claim on the welfare state, and required to pay full compensation for the damage.

While the compulsory welfare state remains, why should those who wantonly destroy what others create, get the proceeds of it all?

What a leap forward it would be if National just promised to deny welfare benefits to those convicted of property offences, for at least ten years.

What's a bet Sue Bradford would say those who did this are "disadvantaged" (as if the intellectually disabled users of this IHC workshop are not), and deserve more of your money to keep them from being so destructive.

National policy "akin to communism"

So says a man who should know – Dr Michael Cullen according to Stuff.

He was commenting on the absurd policy announcement by John Key that National would direct the New Zealand Superannuation Fund – the only superannuation fund in the country that pays out the same regardless of how much or little you contribute to it – to invest 40% of its funds in New Zealand companies.

Key’s announcement is completely banal. It risks not only reducing the returns for the fund, but also concentrating too much risk in New Zealand investments. Furthermore, he talks about it investing in “infrastructure bonds”, which means simply, funding government borrowing. You don’t need infrastructure bonds if you let the private sector build, operate and charge users for infrastructure – such as how the country’s two mobile phone networks have been financed and built, and how the internet has been developed, how Auckland and Wellington airports have been developed. No – John Key is in Think Big land.

Dr Cullen is right – regardless of the merit of the NZ Superannuation Fund – not letting the fund managers invest where they see fit will devalue the fund. Furthermore, to suggest that it should finance “Think Big” style central planning government infrastructure projects on telecommunications, water, roads or whatever, is further reducing the likely return (or increasing government borrowing costs, you can’t have both), as well as supplanting private sector investment (increasingly used overseas) with compulsory taxpayer funding.

Of course, renationalising an airline and a railway are also “forms of communism”, so Dr Cullen is very experienced in what he is talking about.

The right answer is to do what, ironically, Winston Peters once advocated. Divide the NZ Superannuation Fund into individual accounts, and hand them to taxpayers to keep, invest in or sell. The consequence is that you are responsible for all or part of your retirement income (with some pro rata adjustment for those currently retired or relatively close to retirement).

Imagine - politicians for individual responsibility.

Cullen leaves Air NZ vulnerable to bloodbath

According to Stuff Qantas, through Jetstar, is about to wage war on the NZ government state owned airline. The statement "Jetstar also plans to use the two centres as a hub for direct flights to the United States and Asia using the new Boeing 787 Dreamliners." (meaning Auckland and Christchurch) will send shivers down the spines of Air NZ's minority private shareholders.

Who should be surprised - it is exactly the consequence of Michael Cullen's decision to not allow Air NZ to be bought by Singapore Airlines in 2002.

Many will have forgotten how Michael Cullen effectively vetoed by indecision Singapore Airlines increasing its stake in (the 100% privately owned) Air New Zealand/Ansett from 25% to 49% in 2002, despite the Air NZ board voting unanimously for the deal, despite Air NZ desperately needing the capital to re-equip its fleet and Ansett's fleet, despite the deal being recommended by officials (who saw it as critical to enable the airline to grow and have a strong strategic future). Dr Cullen did it because Qantas made a rogue bid to invest in Air NZ, which Air NZ's then shareholders opposed, which would have kneecapped its strongest competitor to enable them to merge. A concept Qantas's cunning management sold to the Labour Government, with the undercurrent that it was better for Kiwis and Aussies to stick together and face the world as one (with an enormous monopoly airline), than for NZ to sell out to... others.

Dr Cullen wanted to consider both the Qantas and Singapore Airlines bids, whilst in the meantime Air NZ bled red ink, lacking capital, desperately needing to restructure Ansett - until finally, following September 11 2001, the airline was to fall over, and Dr Cullen renationalised it, on condition that Ansett was left to fail. The rest is history.

Qantas saw its longest standing competitor on domestic and some international routes fall over, granting it complete dominance over the lucrative domestic business market in Australia, it saw its growing international competitor - Ansett/Air NZ/Singapore Airlines - pull out of Australia. Qantas faced only a new and budget market driven Virgin Blue, and saw competition reduce on the lucrative USA and Japan routes.

Qantas owes Dr Cullen a great deal for letting its competitor fail - because Dr Cullen would rather own the airline himself, than let owners of one of the world's best and most successful airlines own it.

So after all that it tried again, and Dr Cullen supported Qantas buying the rump Air NZ - despite competition authorities saying it would be disastrous for the state owned carrier to be owned partly by its biggest competitor.

Thankfully that brought it all to an end. Air NZ restructured, became a profitable carrier, Singapore Airlines bailed out after Dr Cullen severely diluted its ownership, and as a result felt cheated by the Labour government. Air NZ is a shadow of its former self in terms of size, although it has upgraded its fleet and products to compete. Its long haul international network largely comprises routes it monopolises or dominates, with only traffic to Europe and Hong Kong facing serious competition. It does it very best, its efforts of late to install personal video screens on 767s and Airbus A320s for all Trans Tasman flights is a clever competitive move, as it providing more legroom for frequent flyers on its domestic 737s.

However it lacks capital and lack a strategic investor from a large foreign airline.

Dr Cullen would say it should have been Qantas, ignoring that this would decimate competition on domestic, Trans Tasman routes and from Auckland to LA. If the airline continues to be majority state owned with no new capital, it will face all of its lucrative markets under pressure from Qantas-Jetstar. It is already facing a significant decline in UK, Japan and US origin tourism.

Jetstar has a huge advantage over Qantas, in that it has a lower cost base, because the employment contracts were signed outside the legendary generous Qantas pay structure. Jetstar has the economies of scale of the Qantas group, and will aim at the primarily low yield NZ tourist market (the business market will remain with Air NZ, but this is rather small beyond domestic routes, USA and London routes).

So well done Dr Cullen - your own xenophobic preference for Australian capitalists over Singaporean capitalists, your bizarre refusal to give a damn about competition in the aviation industry, and your desire to own an airline come what may, has left Air NZ - which to its credit has improved its game enormously in recent years - vulnerable to the Qantas group waging a war of attrition against it.

Singapore Airlines wont buy it while Labour is in power, for obvious reasons, and indeed there will be little interest in the airline unless it has a presence in the Australian domestic market - already crowded with three airlines (Qantas-Jetstar, Virgin Blue and Tiger Airways). The choices are simple:
- Seek a substantial foreign investor (preferably a Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, um that's about it in this environment);
- Pour taxpayers' money into financing a competitive battle;
- Let the airline withdraw from markets that are decimated by Qantas/Jetstar.

Well done Mr economic genius.

Greens take from the wise to pay for the foolish

The Greens are all in a funk about the Nats proposing to drop Labour’s “subsidise the wasteful” policy of paying for homeowners to insulate their own property. Their approach to this issue speaks volumes about what it thinks about incentives, rewards and penalties. Stuff reports on Jeanette Fitzsimons moaning about how she thinks it is a huge return on investment - which of course makes you wonder why people wont do it themselves.

Now having said that I support insulating state houses, as it increases their value for a future sale, but that isn't going to happen soon.

If you own your home, you either bought one with insulation or had it installed yourself, in either case you paid for it – with your own money. It’s called private property, a concept the Green Party has remarkably little time for. Presumably you did it for all of the good reasons the Green Party outlines, it saves money on heating, reduces risks of dampness and the related health problems (and damage to other property). In short, it can make very good sense to have insulation. However this is where the Greens, freedom and responsibility separate.

Choosing not to have insulation is a valid choice. The Greens don’t think it is, so want to bribe those who choose not to install insulation. What they don’t get, because they believe the state is some sort of benevolent Santa, is that the money to pay for this bribe comes from those who did choose to install it (and those who didn’t).

It is NZ$1 billion, not a paltry sum, over NZ$650 per household (more when you strip out state and council housing), a fair contribution to paying for installing insulation. That money could be returned to those who have and have not got insulation, and they could choose if they prefer insulation or prefer new clothes, a holiday in Australia or to invest it. Choices the Greens would disapprove of, because nothing is as important as the religion of “reducing emissions”.

So the Greens want to penalise those who have made a “good” choice and reward those who made a “bad” choice. Why? Jeanette Fitzsimons gives this banal explanation “This will keep people in worthwhile work during the recession, reduce power bills, improve health, especially for children with asthma, and reduce our climate change emissions”

Worthwhile work!! Because the way YOU would have spent your money wouldn’t have been for worthwhile work, those shops, that business you own, the airline and hotel you may have bought a holiday from – that isn’t “worthwhile work”, no.

National has made the right move. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for those who don’t see value in insulating their properties anymore than they should be paying for new carpet, better heating, new hot water cylinders or curtains. The Greens should butt out of the decisions that property owners make about their own properties, and if they want to help people get insulation, give them their taxes back, instead of rewarding those who can’t be bothered paying for insulation themselves.

Their press release that the Nats plan to keep homes cold and damp speaks volumes of their statist centrally planned mindset. The message kiddies is simple, if you own a house YOU are responsible for whether it is cold and damp. If you depend on a politician to fix it then you are too stupid and irresponsible to own a home, and if your child's asthma is exacerbated by it, what kind of a parent are you? The sort who votes Green and Labour to get other people to tell you what to do and give you money to do it I suppose.

Tragic failure of the McCain campaign

John McCain has sadly failed to demonstrate positively why he should be elected President of the United States. I say sadly because he is quite a man in and of himself. He is not of the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party, but unfortunately those who aren’t don’t get agitated enough to propel that party along.

John McCain could have campaigned as himself, a man who is deeply committed to the USA, committed to its security and opposed both in word and deed to the existential threats made upon it over his lifetime. At one point it was Marxism-Leninism, today it is Islamist led terrorism. He took his own principled, and unpopular stance in favour of overthrowing the murderous gangster Hussein regime, and in favour of the surge which has turned the tide of the Iraqi insurgency and granted Iraqis the peace and freedom they should have had after the fall of Hussein – but failed to do so because of the Bush Administration’s crass errors. The Middle East and the world are a safer place because of that.

Beyond that John McCain has been promising on two fronts domestically. Firstly he has opposed pork barrel politics in government spending, something that Barack Obama can’t ever say without his nose growing. The use of pork, a cancer of theft and corruption that infests so much of the US body politic, is something that war deserves to be waged on. A McCain Presidency could, at least, veto pork wherever it came up, to tame a Democrat dominated Congress. Not that the Republicans are averse to some pork – but McCain himself is. Finally, McCain’s principled belief in free and open trade has been a beacon of reason in a world where protectionism is becoming de rigueur once more, led by the irrational response of developing countries to high food prices, whilst Europe remains in a statist coma. A revitalised Doha round would have helped contribute to a global recovery.

There are many reasons to criticise McCain. His desire to move forward on health care reform while well intentioned has been misguided, although shifting tax preferences for private health insurance from employers to individuals would do wonders to shift this regulated market to one of personal responsibility. He is patently incapable of moving his party to a more liberal stance on individual freedom issues. His performance in the Presidential debates has been stilted and unfortunate, Obama is clearly the better speaker, and Obama also has the advantage of believing in what he says – even though most of what he says is drivel.

McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin was thought by some, including myself, to be inspired from a political point of view, even though on the face of it she didn’t offer much from my perspective. No doubt the selection of Palin was hoped to attract three different constituencies, a strategy that has backfired in several ways.

Palin was first and foremost intended to fire up the conservative Christian base – a base that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004, and a base that has felt distinctly neglected by the Republican primaries when both Mitt Romney and more importantly Mike Huckabee looked unlikely contenders. As an evangelical, it was thought Palin could connect with those voters and give them a reason to back the far more secular talking McCain. Secondly, it was hoped Palin being a woman would help swing middle America female voters who may have backed Hilary Clinton (and less enchanted with Barack Obama). As the only woman on a ticket, this on itself would attract attention. Thirdly, her youth was seen as a contrast to his age, almost a mirror image of the Obama-Biden camp.

She gained media attention, but beyond the superficial and the curiosity value Palin has demonstrated one thing overall – her inexperience. The Vice Presidential role is largely a symbolic one, I say largely because it is about stepping in if the President is incapable of acting – something that admittedly didn’t stop Americans voting for George Bush senior when he had the idiot Dan Quayle running with him. However, Palin has come across as a fool – indeed one that takes the stereotypes of insular, unworldly and ignorant and shows them up to be true. To talk of foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia – to not be able to name a single newspaper she relies on for international news (even if she didn’t read it) – this is not someone that many Americans, including most definitely many women and young people want one step away from the ability to wage war with nuclear weapons.

Palin’s conservatism is unsurprising – perhaps the saddest tragedy of US culture today is the yawning gap between the closed minded authoritarian Puritanism of the conservative right, and the moral equivalency, sacrifice worship, anti-science statist identity politics of the so called “liberal” left. One side preaching God, the other side preaching the environment, collective identity and “all cultures are as good as each other”. One side preaching family, hard work and co-operative communities, another side preaching non-discrimination, respect for individualism and secularism.

Barack Obama is likely to win not because he offers anything substantial to the US voting public. He doesn’t. He is an image and a brand, with hype based on his race, his speaking style and his slogan of “change”. On foreign policy he is keen on putting more effort into Afghanistan, whilst pulling out of Iraq, and talking to “everyone” (although his position on what he’d say is far from clear). Domestically he believes in tax cuts for the “middle class” and tax increases for the “rich”, whilst he has an enormous plan for pork, subsidies and government spending that is understandable given his left wing political roots. He is suspicious of free trade, and his response to the global financial crisis is to inanely say it’s Bush’s fault. Meanwhile, he wants to force the health insurance industry to accept everyone regardless of risk.

He has fired up the Democratic base because of his short centre-left credentials, his race, and his inspirational way of speaking (without saying very much at all). That in itself should ensure his victory.

McCain’s remaining chance is small. He can’t ditch Palin and choose another. He can’t undertake the TV debates again, but he can be himself. He can talk about how the USA built its wealth on freedom, markets and business not government. He can talk about his consistent opposition to government programmes and spending at a time of recession, against Obama’s desire to spend his way out of the recession. He can talk about his strong determination to protect the national security of the USA, and willingness to be firm against its enemies, and to seek peace but not at any cost – and not at the cost of sacrificing Iraq to Islamism.

It is hard to fight with a media who is smitten with style over substance, who sees the relatively young multi-ethnic Obama as being more than what he is – and has little time for negative attacks on him – contrast its treatment of the Bush administration.

The campaign is not over yet – Obama could make an awful mistake, McCain could prove himself yet to be the one more Americans might trust, and perhaps some of Obama’s shady past could haunt him more than smiles and slogans can rebut. Whichever way the election goes it will devastate the party that loses. The question should be, at a time when the economy comes first and foreign policy a close second, who should Americans trust to lead them through this troubled time. Sadly the conclusion at the moment is that neither can offer inspiration and substance that is worth enthusiasm.

The best I can muster is that McCain appals me less than Obama - and that both appal me less than the vile Hilary Clinton. Great.

How should Maori Party voters vote?

Yes yes, they shouldn't, I know - they should vote Libertarianz, but seriously it’s not really me to help out those who I think are voting for statist collectivist racially based party, but the thing is that MMP does it for them, and Maori Party voters figured it out last time anyway. They have something supporters of virtually all other parties have – a party vote that is best NOT given to the party they support. Why?

The magic of the overhang. You see last election the Maori party won 4 electorate seats, but only won just over 2.1% of the party vote. Typically, a party is entitled to its share of the seats in Parliament according to the party vote, as long as the party wins either 5% or one electorate seat. Yes, I know most of you already knew that. However, the Maori Party won more electorate seats than it won proportionate to the party vote, which means an overhand. The Maori Party has one more seat than it would’ve got had it won one electorate seat and then just had its party vote counted.

So what does this mean? Well for starters the size of Parliament crept up by one, which meant that the number of seats for a majority crept up too.

More importantly it shows that the party votes for the Maori Party were as good as wasted – and indeed many Maori Party voters, probably unconsciously – reflected that, since in all seats won by the Maori Party, Labour won the party vote.

Maori Party voters got the best of both worlds, from their perspective. represented by a Maori Party MP and Labour list MPs.

What it means is that voting for the Maori party on the list is pretty much futile if you believe the Maori party will win more electorate seats than it is likely to get as a proportion of the party vote – which is highly likely.

For those of us who believe in less government it means, ironically, that we can either encourage those who vote for the Maori Party on the electorate vote to vote for a party that supports private property rights and less government (Libertarianz or ACT) or encourage them to, vote for the Maori Party (stopping Labour getting their vote. You see if the Maori Party wins many more party votes then the overhand disappears, there are less MPs in Parliament representing the Maori seat voters, which probably means less Labour MPs – a good thing from my perspective.

If National (or ACT or Libertarianz) were clever they would accept and welcome Maori Party supporters vote Maori party in their Maori electorates – but seek the party vote wholeheartedly. For whilst there may be an overhand, the party vote would be held by someone other than Labour.

Perverse? Yes, but that is what the electoral system allows. I once saw an ACT video pre-1996 proposing that National voters vote National in their electorates and ACT for the party vote, for the very same reason. Of course any major party actively pursuing this would be incentivising the other major party to split into Labour- electorate and Labour – party vote, parties, an absurdity, to create an enormous 65 seat overhang of constituencies.

So remember that this election, the Maori Party has every chance of winning more seats than its party vote would entitle it to do, which no doubt is what the Maori Party would want. The bigger question is whether the Maori Party listens to its supporters who will, undoubtedly, predominantly vote Labour on the party vote – or whether it will support National. The latter, surely, would be enormously risky for the Maori Party, but more importantly, if successful, such a partnership would be much much riskier for Labour.

Would Maori Party supporters dare risk a party vote for one other than Labour? Which political party has said it would repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Bill, and defend Maori private property rights? It begins with L - and it isn't Labour.

Labour list candidates 29 to 25, any better?

Continuing my lengthy series on Labour party candidates are list positions 29 to 25. Yes they are all a shoo in, but will any make it on the electorate vote? I'm guessing just one.

Kelvin Davis – Te Tai Tokerau – number 29: Photo, profile, no website (he's not this Kelvin Davis). Kelvin was a teacher and school principal. He states: “Maori will achieve greatness by becoming educated, by attaining influential and meaningful positions in society and business and assisting to make decisions and inform policy that will help us all become ‘great’. Maori need to be proactive, positive and inclusive.” Much true, although an element of “being great through government” isn’t good. He wants to “create the conditions where all Maori achieve beyond their potential. I am going to make a difference.” If only it was about encouragement of the cultural change needed to do it, but surely he holds some hope. You could do worse than elect this man.

However, he is up against Hone Harawira, a great statist and populist. Harawira won with 52.4% against Dover Samuels on 33.4% in 2005, a yawning gap. However Labour did get 49.3% of the party vote against the Maori Party on 31%. Kelvin sounds like a major step up from Hone Harawira, but his chances can’t be great. Prediction: Harawira will hold on comfortably, he has the image and profile to be secure.

Carol Beaumont – Maungakiekie – number 28: Photo, profile, no website (but the CTU has a profile on her -down the page). Carol says “I have always been involved in representative and advocacy roles seeking to make positive change.” Is she a unionist then? “ I am proud of the changes that we have benefited from under Labour but there is more change we all want and need. For all New Zealanders I want to work to strengthen our democracy”. Pablum for the proletariat, because the Electoral Finance Act has really strengthened democracy hasn’t it? This is Mark Gosche’s electorate, so his retirement will mean Carol will face a tougher race. He won in 2005 with 53.3% against National’s Paul Goldsmith on 31.6%, and party vote was very similar with Labour on 50.7% and National on 33.5%. National is putting up Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga, who may appeal to this electorate with a relatively high Pacific Islander population, so the race may be more interesting than it first looks. However, a gap of over 20% is considerable and so it is likely Carol will get through. Prediction: Carol Beaumont will take Maungakiekie, but with a far narrower majority than Mark Gosche.

Charles Chauvel – Ohariu – number 27: Photo, profile, and no website link, but he does have a website. Charles is a list MP. He claims credit for doing this:
• “open a new park in Korokoro,
• lead the 2007 Carbon Challenge in the Ohariu Valley,
• support childcare centres and schools across the electorate,
• advocate for improved transport - from new tunnels on the Johnsonville line through to the improvements to SH2”

I can fairly say I did more for lowering the floors of tunnels on the Johnsonville line than Charles ever did, so there he is claiming credit for decisions that have virtually nothing to do with him. Charles does say on his website he is into more integration with Australia - Schengen agreement style - which can't be a bad thing.

Now the interesting thing is that this is about Peter Dunne, and so both Charles and Katrina Shanks of National (a list MP also) are battling to unseat. Dunne has a big majority in this seat, and if votes are to go from him they are unlikely to go to Chauvel as, after all, they are both in the same government. However, Dunne’s local presence is substantial, and despite all the best will in the world, he is likely to remain the local MP. Prediction: Dunne will hold on reasonably comfortably, but the swing to National will see Chauvel coming third behind Katrina Shanks.

Phil Twyford – North Shore – number 26: Profile and website, which has only a photo on it! “After living in the United States it was wonderful coming back to a New Zealand that is optimistic, confident, moving ahead on so many fronts, and sure of our place in the world. I think a lot of the credit for that goes to the Labour-led Government of Helen Clark. Labour’s prudent economic management has delivered economic growth that has allowed overdue investment in our infrastructure, established the superannuation fund that will give security to New Zealanders when they retire, and allowed significant new investments in health and education.”

Idiot. He thinks government is so important, he thinks that it hasn’t reaped the benefits of the previous reforms.

“The Shore offers a great quality of life and unquestionable beauty but it is feeling the strains of rapid growth and development.” Not any more it isn’t! Given Wayne Mapp took North Shore in 2005 with 59.6% of the vote against Phil Twyford with 33.3%, he hasn’t a hope in hell of winning. Even the party vote is a lost cause, with National getting 53.5% in 2005 against Labour’s 29.9% Prediction: Phil Twyford will become a list MP, but Wayne Mapp will keep North Shore with no threat.

Moana Mackey – East Coast – number 25: Profile and photo (looking a bit different). She’s a biochemist! Done the union thing too, but what a waste – a scientist telling others what to do. Now she’s currently a list MP. “Over the last three years I have made the East Coast electorate my number one priority, and I hope that my work securing funding for local projects, lobbying on local issues, and assisting hundreds of you personally through clinics proves that I get results and shows that I am the right person for the job.” She likes chasing pork for the electorate too. However, she hasn’t much chance. In 2005, Anne Tolley won the seat with 44.8% of the vote against her on 40.8%. National got 42.2% of the party vote against Labour’s 39%, so this is nearly a bell weather electorate. Moana hasn’t really got much a chance this time when the tide is turning against Labour. Prediction: Anne Tolley will remain MP, but Moana will be in on the list.

So there you have it people, more outstanding talent pretty much guaranteed to walk into Parliament - because one in three New Zealanders think the Labour Party is so good for them.

Labour rescues rich students from the horrors of reality

Yes, the poor bubbas, so needy are the students of the middle and upper income earners.

According to the NZ Herald, Helen Clark is looking to take NZ$210 million a year (which of course is one year, it will grow) of your taxes to pay for the daughters and sons of doctors, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, senior bureaucrats, politicians to all have a “universal student allowance”. It is of course grand theft to benefit the most advantaged.

It isn’t about students from poor backgrounds, because they already get an allowance. Let’s make it clear it is a blatant election bribe aimed at middle to upper income likely National voters and their voting age children.

Clark bemoans the current income tested allowances “Most of these students would receive no allowance under the current rules and need to borrow… “ Borrow! Horrors! So they actually would have to think before they claim their 75% + taxpayer funded education as to whether it will enable them to earn more money? They might have to take a risk? It gets worse for the poor bubbas “…, receive help from their parents…” NOOO anything but that, anything but rely on mum and dad, no far better to keep taxes up and make them dependent on Auntie Helen – your new parent.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it gets worse, you may have heard that some students are, according to our great Comrade Leader Helen Clark, deciding to “… work part-time, to make ends meet.” Nooooooooo. How COULD they? How unreasonable to spend your life learning that you actually have to earn your way? How WILL they learn life as a bureaucrat when they have to spend time EARNING their money?

So, a great filthy fat election bribe, the piggies are in trough playing with your future earnings eager to bribe others with it.

I’ll ask students one simple question – why do you think it is moral to force other people, who don’t know you, who may thoroughly oppose what you are studying, who may have a mortgage, their own kids, their own businesses and their own needs, to pay for you to live whilst you study with the primary aim of living an above average standard of living?

Oh and need I say the National response? "We will indicate a more generous scheme but it won't be universal at this time" Just another "me too".

UPDATE: Libertarianz Education Spokesman and Hutt South Candidate Phil Howison is concerned that this bribe could encourage students to stay at university endlessly:

"this is a blatant attempt to buy votes. It is bribery. It is corrupt. It is also part of Labour's agenda to make every New Zealander dependent on the state - just as Welfare for Families put middle-class families on benefits, even the richest students will be given their Universal Student Bribe. Welfare dependency destroys motivation, independence and self-reliance. We should be getting people off welfare, not putting our best and brightest on it and simultaneously removing the incentive for them to ever leave university"

Libertarian radio

Adding to the NZ libertarian media sphere is Libertarian Radio it contains links to a number of free market libertarian podcasts and broadcasts including Lew Rockwell, Free Capitalist Radio and Libz radio.

UK acts Nanny on alcohol

According to the Sunday Telegraph the British government is looking to address alcohol abuse in the UK not by requiring those who have accidents due to their own alcohol misuse to face the medical bill, no - by regulating how businesses can sell alcohol.

A government draft code of conduct, which could be made into law includes:
- Requiring wine to be sold in glasses that identify exactly the volumes sold;
- Banning promotions of free drinks to women;
- Restrictions on free samples;
- Bans on promotions that link drinking to "social, sexual, physical, mental, financial or sporting performance";
- Bans on drinking games that relate to speed and volume of drinking.

Yes, Nanny would rather penalise everyone, limit everyone, punish everyone - like children in a school yard, than target those who abuse, those who cost others. No.

There are bigger reasons why so many Brits drink far too much - it wont be fixed by regulation - it is cultural.

£500 billion of socialism

Sorry kiwis, even Auntie Helen can't undo Gordon Brezhnev Brown with socialism - and certainly Gordon outdos the US Federal government.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that the UK government is going to inject £50 billion into British banks, in particular HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland, to save both banks, making them both majority government owned. This adds to Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, giving the UK government control of four of the biggest financial institutions in the country. This is despite a deal by Lloyds TSB to buy HBOS which it reports is still on track. The government is also seeking to inject funds into other banks, like Barclays and Lloyds, making the government a shareholder of them all.

United Soviet Socialist Kingdom or what? Well this is part of a £500 billion rescue package. Yes that isn't a mistaken zero. It is more than NZ$1.4 trillion. That is ten times the GDP of New Zealand. Half of it is to underwrite debt, £200 billion injection into money markets and the rest to partially nationalise banks. Compared to the US$700 billion package from Washington, given the US has five times the population of the UK, it shows new Labour is old labour once more.

Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph points out that with Gordon's nationalisation while painted as saving the UK from disaster "the consequences of his having done so could be catastrophic, too, because the socialist experiment rarely ends up with people feeling happier, richer and more free until it has ended."

"The liability and risk to the taxpayer is terrifying. The political cost to Labour if all this fails will be as nothing compared with the cost to the British public.This is what socialist economics brings. The intervention, or rather interference, of the state in financial and economic matters can only lead to sclerosis, the suppression of enterprise, the raising of taxes, starvation of investment, lack of innovation, technological retardation and the rise of the power of organised labour."

"The partial nationalisation of banks would provide a golden opportunity for Labour to return to the glory days of the George Brown National Plan of 1965, which saw the then Secretary of State for Economic Affairs write to every company in the country and ask them how they did their business. This included such fatuous questions as what they expected to be producing in five years' time. Protests from industrialists that that depended very much on what people were demanding in five years' time were met with incomprehension by the Labour government. "

Indeed some on the left in the US and UK are asking that, if the government can conjur up incredible sums of money to bail out banks, it can do so to build state hospitals, schools, businesses and there is no end to what the benevolent state can do.

What the great wish of Brown is that the financial sector will be buoyed and that there will be no need to guarantee debts, and government capital in banks will result in a significant return that can be privatised.

However the main discourse today is how "capitalism has failed" and how "Roosevelt saved the US in the 1930s". What is most important is for those of us who believe in freedom over statism, and markets over central planning, to ensure that this discourse is not dominated by the left. As PC says in an excellent article at Solopassion "When we see the destruction caused by the depression of the thirties and the means by which the Roosevelts of the world both extended it and then used it to permanently enthrone big government, it should be clear to anyone with eyes to see that what politicians do in the next few months will effect us all for good or ill for at least a generation."

Greens campaign on irrational authoritarianism

The Greens launched their campaign last weekend, and unsurprisingly I am far from impressed. The Greens you see hold at the forefront a brand of environmentalism - the notion that nothing, absolutely nothing, could be more important than clean water, air and the natural environment. It is the notion that without that as a number one priority, everything else comes second - implied with that is the "what if you didn't think like us" impression that it is bleak.

The Greens, by using images of children, are playing with heart strings, it is a clever tactic that hides what they are really about.

The website says that it "takes advice from experts", ignoring that it listens to those who tell it what they want to hear - I've read enough banality from the Greens on transport to know that they don't let contrary evidence get in the way of their quasi religious like beliefs. Better for foreign ships to be empty plying our shores than to carry goods!

The Green website is insipidly deceptive. It paints a happy picture of people co-operatively getting on with each other - the words "ban" "require" "compel" "tax" "support" "fund", which all mean the thud of nanny state pushing people about - are absent. Sadly the Green vision, which could be achieved among themselves without politics, is big government statism. It is all about using state violence. It is authoritarianism, and blindly irrational - because most of what they believe, is about faith not fact.

Take this "The Green Party is working for a society that values caring, co-operation, nurturing, and sharing relationships between its people." That's nice, except it has a funny way of showing it. What's caring about state dominated and controlled education? What's caring about compulsory almost unlimited eligibility for social welfare payments funded by the grim hand of Inland Revenue which treats you guilty until you prove innocence? What's co-operative about wanting to ban, compel and regulate?

The Green Party"accords equal opportunity (and obligations) to people of all race, ages, and abilities; it does not value one sex above another" Equal opportunity - so the 80yo quadraplegic should have the same opportunity as the 20yo champion swimmer. The genius mathematician the same obligations as the armed robber. How do you get equal opportunity, without smashing down the chances of those with successful, wealthy, loving parents and throwing buckets of their cash at those with abusive negligent ones? Vacuous nonsense. The state should not discriminate, but that should be the end.

The Green Party "guarantees the provision to all of the basic human needs of food, shelter, health care, and education". Well give up your job, the Green Party guarantees all - from the Green Party money tree. Oh no, hold on, this isn't achieved through faith, or even "caring, co-operation, nurturing, and sharing relationships" it's achieved through the state - the state takes money from everyone else, by threat of force, to give people all those things listed by the Greens. It is a basic need, guaranteed - why bother working?

Russel Norman, Green co-leader, had some curious things to add with his interview with the NZ Herald.

He said the three key policies are:
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (this is simply a religious view, with absolutely no inkling that if New Zealand does nothing beyond pursue policies that don't interfere with energy efficiency, it will make a shred of difference);
- Reducing dependency on oil (by spending more money on alternatives, because outcomes are not as important as being anti-oil);
- Food safety (noticed how unsafe your food is now?).

None of these would be achieved without massive regulation and taxation. He also adds "clean water" later on, although again this isn't about private property rights and the tragedy of the commons, it is about regulation. The Greens aren't big on private property, probably because they want to control and regulate so much of it.

I've written much about the Greens the last few years. I welcome the times they actually do believe in what they call "civil liberties". They represent a more consistent voice on this than does National or ACT. I also welcome their more sane view on drugs, albeit it is tempered by the instinct to regulate, the Greens at least listen to those who say that criminalising drug users doesn't work. Sadly this has sometimes been combined with the implicit "it's cool to smoke dope" message some people got from presuming (fairly) that Nandor Tanczos smokes it. Many Green Party members have good intentions, and like bird, whales and nature - which I can understand.

However the Green Party isn't a party of science and reason - it is a party that too often resorts to hysterical scaremongering. You can see it when the word "nuclear" comes out, and more recently nonsense about cellphone transmitter towers and genetic engineering. This isn't applying science to the environment, it is applying populist hype -and you can't seriously engage on it. It is the same with food safety. New Zealand made and organic good, foreign made inorganic suspicious. If the Green Party did actually listen to science and wasn't driven by the armageddon like religion of ecological extremists I might give it some credence.

Beyond the irrationality is the hypocrisy. The Greens are the party that calls for bans, compulsion, regulation, taxes and subsidies more than any others. There is barely a corner of life that they don't want the state poking its finger in, even if it to throw other people's money at it. Whether it be television programming, food labelling, transport, education, parenting, housing, clothing, healthcare, entertainment, sport, the Greens have a policy or an approach that means the state should be involved. It is a party of authoritarians dressed up as a party of loving caring hippies.

It is an absolute travesty that the mainstream media in New Zealand has failed to point out the two biggest weaknesses of the Greens - their irrational rejection of evidence when it contradicts their quasi-religious view, and their authoritarianism. Jeanette Fitzsimons has gone through election after election without being asked "why do the Greens have the word "ban" more on their website than any other party?".

The prospect of a Labour-Green coalition government after the election should send cold shivers down the spines of all those who fear more tax and more regulation. Helen Clark wanted a coalition with the Greens in 2005, but the numbers wouldn't add up as the Maori Party wouldn't support Labour, and NZ First and United Future refused to deal with the Greens.

Funnily enough the Greens share one point with Libertarianz "we know we have succeeded when people no longer need us". Well go on New Zealand, show them you don't need them!

In that vein I am adding to my blog the "Don't Vote Greens" banner, it goes nicely with "Don't Vote Labour".