Maori TV reports a successful first year?

One of our compulsory pay TV channels – Maori TV reports a successful first year.

Well, if someone gave me oodles of other people’s money to set up a business and there was little threat the supply would be cut off, I’d be “successful” too.

Its surplus of $3.2 million is much like the “profits” that the Railways Corporation made in the early 80s, because they were after enormous subsidies had been pumped in.

Of course the measure of success is that it showed vast amounts of NZ content and had a cumulative audience of 426,300 in April 2005. Note that it doesn’t mean that that many people watch it at any one time, just that many have watched it ONCE during a MONTH. Cumulative audiences are used by broadcasters to demonstrate big figures for audiences, but they show very little. It is a bit like saying 400,000 shopped at a supermarket during one month, but most of them could have only bought a bar of chocolate. Cumulative daily audiences and share of audiences at key times are better measures. I doubt Maori TV gets 1% of all viewing.

Gerry Brownlee is calling for the audience share figures to be released, but then it isn’t clear whether National would scrap funding for Maori TV – it almost certainly wouldn’t scrap NZ On Air funding for TVNZ/TV3 and Prime – and what is good for Maori TV is also good for commercial TV.

Anyway, none of this would matter a jot to me at all if it wasn’t getting taxpayer funding. There is nothing wrong with anyone setting up a Maori TV channel and broadcasting whatever they wish – just it shouldn’t be compulsory pay TV. I remember some years ago Saturn Communications (now part of Telstra Clear) offered cable TV capacity for a Maori channel, but it wasn’t taken up (it would only have covered Kapiti and Wellington then, but better than nothing).

Taxpayer funding for Maori TV should end, along with NZ On Air and Te Mangai Paho. There should be no taxpayer funding for any television on any channel.

The cost of producing television is lower now than it has ever been, with digital technology – so those who want it should pay for it and enjoy it. I am sure that with the will, there would be a commercially sustainable Maori TV channel – it might not broadcast long hours, and it might not have expensively made shows, but neither do Maori magazines or newspapers.

Greens and violence

Given the belief by many Greens supporters that their party is one of peace and non-violence, I thought I would post every time the Green’s put out a press release advocating the use of state violence against people who are not initiating force against others or their property. Remember that initiating force means everything from incarceration, to fines, taxes, assault, theft and trespass. It does not mean upsetting or offending you, or terminating a contract. Every time I find a clear example of the Greens supporting the state initiating violence, I will list it – other times I may list the odd occasion the Greens aren’t clear about what they would do.

Today I will start with Nandor Tanczos concern about the imminent closure of the Anchor milk factory at Hornby and the Meadow Fresh yoghurt factory in Christchurch. He asks Graeme Hart to reconsider this – which is fine, in itself. You can ask anyone to do anything. However, would the Greens stand back and let the closures happen if they were in government? Either they would force the owner of a business to operate parts of the business which were not worth operating (after all it IS his business) and pay for that himself, or force others to pay for it? Both involve fascism.

See Mr Hart wants to continue the viability of his whole business, which delivers wealth to him and other shareholders, people who have risked their own property in a competitive business. It also employs other people not in those factories and it provides products for willing consumers – out of choice. Tanczos says running a successful business is about more than profits. Is it? Is being an employee about more than making a wage? Is trading about more than receiving more value than you give? Mr Hart could run his businesses as a social service, meaning than he and other shareholders get less money for their investment, and spend less on other investments, or other goods and services – all of which also involve employing people – but isn’t that waste and aren’t the Greens against waste?

Would the Greens in government leave Mr Hart alone, or would they use the power of the state to force him to do their bidding? It isn’t clear – but if I were him I wouldn’t want to find out.

Infratil and Stagecoach

Stagecoach UK has sold its New Zealand bus operations to Infratil – the local utilities investment company. Nothing exciting there, except that Stagecoach was an exceptional owner of companies that local authorities had let run down over many years. There is little doubt that both Auckland and Wellington now have far more modern bus fleets, and better bus systems than they had when the ARC and Wellington City Council ran services as ratepayer funded monopolies.

Stagecoach NZ never paid a dividend to Stagecoach UK (despite what the NZ Herald report says Ross Martin claimed), although it did go for a good premium over the original purchase price – and rightfully so – Stagecoach poured a lot of money into new buses, albeit with some help from local and central government subsidies - around half of the services in Auckland were commercial - getting no subsidies at all. Certainly Stagecoach Auckland and Wellington are a far cry from the union run, antiquated Yellow Bus and Big Red bus fleets they took over from local authorities in both cities.

The government is reviewing the regulatory regime for public transport – this is in response to calls by some in local government to get rid of the right of bus companies to run commercial services. Some want bus companies to be regulated, and subsidised so that local authorities can control them. I suspect Stagecoach was fleeing a regulatory regime it saw as having potentially a limited life – which is a shame.

Infratil is a good owner though, and no doubt will do its best - but lest we forget what Stagecoach did for urban buses in Auckland and Wellington - it actually wanted to run them as businesses for customers.

Treasury to review Transmission Gully vs. the coastal highway costs

The Dominion Post reports that Treasury will undertaken an independent study into the relative costs of the two routes. This is unprecedented open interference into the affairs of Transit and Greater Wellington Regional Council – but it is about spending Crown money. I don’t doubt Treasury will have a good go at this.

Hopefully that should sort it out – since the proponents of the Gully think Transit would rather not build a big 27km motorway instead of a handful of smaller projects (unlikely) and that the Greater Wellington Regional Council – which previously strongly supported the Gully route – is biased against it!

Poor Treasury. If it comes out in favour of the Gully, it will be in favour of a half built option that needs to be completed at some point to be really worthwhile. If it supports the coastal route, it will get the mountains of abuse from the pro-Gully lobbyists – including Porirua City which keeps coming out with some nutty ideas.

However, Treasury can hardly be seen as having a vested interest, and is not as hated as Transit is on this issue – yet!

Have the Gully proponents noticed that the congestion at Paremata is gone?

Hey Jim - Matt's gone!

Jim Anderton’s personal – I mean Progressive – Party website still lists Matt Robson as an MP.

Given, like most small parties, the Jim Anderton party lost votes and is down to one seat, Jim needs to wake up - it's just you Jim - ask Peter Dunne what it felt like.

However, NZ First's link on its website to the confidence and supply agreement with Labour wasn't working when I checked it either. To its credit, United Future has its whole agreement posted.

Fundamentalist religion – the ugliest cancer on the planet?

I hate religion, I really do – people can get whatever comfort or whatever they want from whatever ghosts they believe in, build churches and change their lives for their ghosts, and even try to convince people to believe in their ghosts, but that is where it should end. Believe in whatever you want, but don't infringe on the rights of others justifying it through your faith.

I am sick of hearing how humane and loving Islam is – frankly about as sick as I am hearing about how Christianity is the same. Those who say this confuse the religion with those claiming to follow it. Now I couldn’t give a flying fuck about whether the true Islam is Osama Bin Laden’s or not, much like whether Christiantiy is led by the bigoted Pope, Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, Brian Tamaki or Benny Hinn (now THAT’s an evil little fucker!) – but I do care about the evil pricks who use religion to justify slavery, torture and rape.

The Daily Telegraph today in this story that a village council in Pakistan has decreed that five women ranging from 15 to 22 should be abducted, raped or killed because they refused to honour marriages forced on them when they were.. wait for it … aged 6 through 13. To their credit, the girls’ fathers are supporting them, and as a result have the death penalty imposed upon them.

See it all started when a father of one of the girls shot dead a member of another family, following some dispute where there were shots from both sides. The village council said appropriate compensation for the family was to make the girls of the family (both the man who killed the other, and his brother) marry male members of the other family – in other words, children were chattels to be given over. Of course it was a mullah in the village council who imposed this sentence.

Evil barbaric scum. The same scum who supported the Taliban banning girls from school - treating women as illiterate little slaves.

The Pakistani government recently prohibited this practice, but its fair and unbiased police seem to be doing little to enforce this law.

Oh, but all cultures are the same, don’t judge other cultures say the postmodernist cultural relativist vermin.

Duncan Bayne gives a good summary of why he regards all religion as fundamentally irrational here.

On top of this, The Times in London reports how a film in the Netherlands made by a Somali refugee (and now Dutch MP) about Muslim oppression of homosexuals carries no credits, to avoid murderous Islamic nutters making those who helped produce the film into targets for their peaceful religion. The report shows how some Muslims, who chose to move to the Netherlands, a highly liberal country, are basically out to shut down criticism and dissent. The semi-libertarian gay MP Pym Fortyn was shot by an ecoterrorist – a Green nutter who did it for the Muslims and hated Fortyn railing against environmentalists forcing railway lines to be built under cow pasture, because they hated any disruption to nature.

The true murderous life hating philosophy of these lowlives is obvious – they have no place in a liberal tolerant society which would allow their views to be expressed, but would not allow their violence to be.

Islam, at the very least, needs to go through a period called the Enlightenment. It happened to Christianity, and the worst excesses were buffed off, mainly by separating church and state – then it needs to go through a steady level of secular decline, as it has in western Europe.

Religion does nothing for me, at best it is historically quaint and gives some people quiet comfort and support – but I would rather it fade away.

That means all of the evangelical nutters as well - the proponents of "intelligent design" (such rot!) and the life hating, sex hating, freedom hating mullahs of Christianity. They would turn the world into a fundamentalist state little different in effect from the Taliban.

May they all rot.

Mark Blumsky's maiden speech

Mark Blumsky, former extravagant Mayor of Wellington and new Wellington National list MP has made his maiden speech, and besides some good stuff about less government and tax, he made 3 statements that show he can’t keep his hands off of things:

1. “We need to see progress on Transmission Gully. We need to see it now; it is necessary” I need say little more on this as I have blogged extensively about. Mark, lower tax and building a billion dollar road with a negative benefit/cost ratio don’t add up. Stop trying to waste our money.

2. “Out at the airport, it is vital that the new generation Boeing 787 jets are able to land in Wellington” Why Mark? What do you know about aviation? I believe they can land, but there is no indication Air NZ wants them to, because there is not enough demand for long haul flights from Wellington beyond Australia and the Pacific. Wellington-Singapore isn't going to happen, when they don't do Christchurch-Singapore anymore. Besides the 787s don't come for 5 more years. Shannon in Ireland played this cargo cult mentality – built a big airport and nobody came. Leave business to business Mark, you know shoes, you don’t know transport.

3. “We need to look seriously at some level of local government amalgamation.” As a libertarian you might think I believe in less local government, and I do. However, Owen McShane some time ago wrote that the optimum size of local authorities was not necessarily bigger. Yes some councils are too small – Banks Peninsula clearly is and is merging with Christchurch. Excessively small councils find it hard to attract talented staff and face high overheads due to poor economies of scale. However there is a more insidious face in big councils – big councils can waste money more easily because a tiny rates increase means a decent windfall in revenue – so big councils think they can undertake any lunatic scheme individual councillors dream up, because the cost of each scheme is relatively low. So you get art, business subsidies, video libraries, youth cafes and all sorts of utter nonsense that councils shouldn’t be doing – Mark should know, he led a council that embarked on continuous increases in local government spending.

The answer to local government is NOT to amalgamate, although if councils want to, it shouldn’t be stopped – but to eliminate unnecessary functions, which ultimately are all of them. Councils should be forced to get out of all activities that they can charge users for, and get out of social activities like housing and community centres. If you like something council does, pay for it yourself! Big councils want to do more, they want to interfere and tax more - bigger councils are not better!

Mark doesn't really believe in the free market, he believes in being popular - and frankly has not been impressive as much beyond a businessman and a cheerleader for Wellington.

Mark, do you want councils doing less, rating less and if so, what would YOU cut, or is the National policy on local government to do nothing?

Welcome New Zeal

Trevor Loudon has researched the left extensively, and has a new blog here. While I don’t get too heated up about Keith Locke’s indiscrepancies from the past – after all he deserves credit for defending Ahmed Zaoui in my book, and his support for the Khmer Rouge was thirty years ago – it is important to note these, and after all any National MP who once warmed to the Ian Smith regime of Rhodesia would get a LOT of shit from the left. Trevor’s outing of the idiot Rodolfo Stavenhagen who thinks he can judge New Zealand race relations for the UN (and of course National Radio cowtows to anyone from the UN, because the UN MUST be good) is well worth a read.

Welcome Trevor, as others have said, you will be a great contributor to the blogosphere.

School of depravity!!

Ferguson Intermediate School in Upper Hutt is facing a new depravity, that is completely inappropriate for 10-12 year olds. It appears it is a same sex activity between girls that is causing grave concern among staff, something even Queen Victoria would not believe existed. No, not drugs, no they are not pulling knives on each others, not beating each other up, not even masturbating each other, they are…. hugging. Yes I kid you not, it is reported here that the school is taking action - with an image of the brazen hussies performing such a lewd and lascivious act.

You know what comes of inappropriate hugging – just like washing nude, it encourages other behaviour – some of the girls might become not just friends, but CLOSE friends. They might enjoy the warmth, comfort and affection of another – the hugging isn’t forced, thank Clark, and it isn’t from teachers, after all teachers who want to give children any physical contact must be perverted!

Hopefully they will create cubicles for all pupils to change in when they do PE, and that ankles will be covered soon, and of course there is no holding hands, you know how intimate THAT is.

We ought to ban images and videos of them hugging too, I bet they see older teenagers and adults doing it – that’s where it all went wrong.

If not stamped out, hugging will lead to kissing, which will lead to French kissing and then touching legs and arms and bellies, and you know what comes from that AIDS and pregnancy! After all, girls should be told to save themselves for their husbands and wear burkhas so that they don’t get any bright ideas, and so boys and, eventually, men don’t. Thank Blair I’m in the UK where the main problem is that 70% of schoolkids report having been bullied – as least they are not behaving like perverts with each other!

Sprawl, transport and choice

PC has a wonderful series on why sprawl is good and the abolition of town planning even better. Most of the links are on his latest post on the topic, here.

The crux of so much of this is that planners get concerned about traffic congestion (which is a result of roads not being managed or charged like private property), insufficient use of public transport, energy use in homes and the disorder of capitalist societies. Most of this is out and out nanny statism.

To those who espouse this, they look at figures for energy use, public transport use and for them the less energy and more public transport the better- in short, Pyongyang in North Korea is the ideal city.

Frankly, who cares if people use more or less energy in their homes, or whose homes are energy efficient or otherwise? It doesn’t matter any more than whether those people buy a new pair of shoes every week or every year, or have a huge collection of CDs. The key is- as long as they PAY for it, a person should be able to consume whatever they wish. Pay meaning, the cost to purchase it and dispose of it, and that means no subsidies for production or distribution and no subsidies for rubbish collection or disposal or recycling. Remember how in so many countries energy and rubbish are run by central or local government, and are directly or indirectly subsidised.

Also who cares if public transport is well used or not, as long as those using it pay for it. Much public transport in the world is not subsidised – think of long distances buses and trains in New Zealand, and most airlines.

Planners are busybodies, they want to nanny us all, because we don’t know what is good for us. They want to protect us from using cars unnecessarily, from wasting energy and eating the wrong foods. They are do-gooders, and many have their hearts in the right place, but they need to be told to “fuck off, leave me alone, it’s my life and my money and I will do what I want with it”. Many of their messages are not bad in themselves – I don’t want to waste power or petrol, but sometimes I want a hot wash in my washing machine, sometimes I want to drive with the accelerator to the floor, sometimes I want to eat fast food. Sue Kedgley is the ultimate nanny – a hypocritical bitch who gets driven around, while calling on people to use public transport. John Prescott was the UK Transport Secretary, and did the same.

I want to live in a house, in the suburbs, with as many rooms as I can afford, as big a car as I can afford, and travel whenever I want in the class I can afford, and buy whatever I want – and live my life the way I want to. I don’t want anyone else’s money to do it. You can suggest ways I could do things better, but if you dare tell me where I should live, in what sort of house, how I must go to work or tax or subsidise things I don’t want to do because you don’t like my choices, then fuck off!

Jewish Council is wrong

Now I understand why the Jewish Council is calling for a banning of the sale of Nazi memorabilia.

There are a handful of freaks out there who get off draping their bedrooms with swastikas and feeling proud that they can follow someone who tells them what to do and how to run their lives and everyone elses. Fortunately almost all of the those with these views are almost completely incompetent – remember there was a National Front in New Zealand that couldn’t register as a political party and the British equivalents, the National Front and BNP are almost entirely a rabble of semi-insane losers who can barely organise themselves. A club of mostly useless men (and their vile female companions).

David Harcourt, a Wellington antiques dealer is rightfully defending his right to sell Nazi material. Banning it would of course raise the price for such stuff, and the claim that making money from it glorifies it is nonsense – the same claim can be made for selling t-shirts with Che Guevara on it, or Castro, or the mountains of communist era junk that gets sold in eastern European markets. I bought a few bits and pieces in Bratislava when I was there a year ago, out of curiosity and because, one day, I want to show my children and grandchildren the sort of crap that evil regimes gave to people – to show appreciation, while they oppressed them and denied their individuality.

I shouldn’t have to even state the obvious, the Holocaust was an absolute abomination, particularly as it was so carefully calculated, ordered and ran in what had been considered a civilised, modern Western society. Nazi Germany was one of the most evil regimes to have existed in modern times – but so was the Soviet Union, Ceaucescu’s Romania, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Mao’s China, Saddam’s Iraq, Hoxha’s Albania, Mengistu’s Ethiopia, Bokassa’s CAR, Amin’s Uganda. Banning anything from any of the above is no better than what those regime’s did – they banned what they didn’t like. The USA does not ban Nazis, in fact they are easy to find, but there are very very few of them, and there is no chance whatsoever that they will gain the means to do evil.

The Jewish Council’s sensitivity towards anything from the Nazi era is understandable – but the answer is not to ban it, but to ignore it. We are not ever served by banning that we find most offensive, but by exposing it for what it is. Banning it and focusing on the misfits who get excited by swastikas gives those misfits, and Nazism more excitement, attention and allure to the few who may also find some thrill in the forbidden. That is the least thing the Jewish Council should be encouraging.

What the Police want - more speeding tickets

David Farrar has already demonstrated that the Police are back on about speeding again. The Police briefing for incoming minister has asked for them to get a lot more money and people, surprise surprise. This is something the public tend to LIKE, but is also fraught with danger.

Now, as everyone says, the Police have a hard job, but politicians have a harder job making them accountable. The Police are not easy for accountability, partially because:

1. Most people love them, they perform duties few of us would want to do ourselves, and they are essential to a peaceful and free society – and they know it and they know how to pull on public heartstrings. Much of the time they do their job very well;

2. It is a highly unionised profession, meaning they stick together to protect each other. This is a mentality that suits the job they do, but means when anyone is out of line, there is some willingness to cover each other’s trails. This is not a place to be too independently minded.

3. Management of the Police is in house. In other words, military like, every level of the Police hierarchy is managed by cops – not managers. Companies run by the core staff are often far from successful – airlines used to be run by airline people until it was realised that professional managers were needed – people who are not sentimentally attached to parts of the operation and who can ask the hard questions. Hospitals are the same by the way, they shouldn’t be run by GPs.

4. There is no competition or threat of competition.

Having said that the NZ Police are light years ahead of many of their overseas counterparts, although in some cases that hasn’t been hard.

The main risks that the Police present are:

1. Poor performance: Not responding to what the public – taxpayers- demand of them. This is responding to incidents that threaten themselves, their families or their property. This does not mean sending for a taxi for a distressed woman or not responding to 111 calls. The flak over this is a systematic lack of performance incentives – and the union and organisation will say this is too hard.

2. Lack of budget control: What the Police want, the Police get. The INCIS project is the classic example, no proper management and money just going down the plughole to IBM for a system that ultimately was not delivered. Anytime a politician considers making the Police more efficient, the Police stick together and say “that means removing a community constable from Manurewa” or whatever. The Police always say budget cuts affect the frontline, so the administrative overheads continue to blowout.

3. Police threat to individual liberty: As the frontline of the monopoly of legitimised state violence, the Police have powers to initiate force against New Zealanders. They should, of course, do this very sparingly, with priority on cases when there are victims or potential victims – and not at all in other cases. The Police always claim they enforce the law, but for many many years they have done this selectively. They are tough on drugs, but I don’t see them following around teenage girls to check if their boyfriends are 16 and over and breaking the Crimes Act with them. They ceased routinely enforcing the law against homosexual acts a few years before it was repealed. The Police can change their law enforcement emphasis – but all in all, they always advocate more power and discretion. If the Police had their way we would all have ID cards, electronic tracking devices attached to us at all times that they could check up on, and CCTV cameras on every street corner. The Police would also change the burden of proof so you are guilty till proven innocent. Don’t have any doubts about it, the term Police state isn’t something many of them think is a bad thing, and if you spent half your day dealing with lowlifes, you might have some sympathy for that.

So what have the cops asked for?

A need to increase frontline response and investigator numbers.

Attrition is 350-400 a year, so the Police propose double that recruitment rate per annum. Of course the actual numbers needed are not suggested, so that the numbers could presumably grow ad infinitum, along with the budget. Of course, they could stop enforcing victimless crimes, though Libertarianz is not in government.

A need to reduce staff safety risks, bolster field supervision and improve investigation file quality for Court with more sworn positions at Sergeant and Senior Sergeant level.

These are several different things, but this means more money to promote experienced cops.

Considering next steps in areas of road policing enforcement alongside education and engineering options

Here the cops take the easy out – lowering speed limits, blood alcohol limits and more use of speed enforcement and tougher sanctions. Now given Transit and the Police recently admitted that in one location (Tokoroa-Taupo) speed wasn’t the key factor, it seems that as speed enforcement is really easy, they want to slow everyone down.

My view is that the biggest road safety problem comes down to punishment – people who kill others on the road due to stupidity should be banned from driving, for life. If you can’t stay on your side of the road, or obey a red light – then tough – and if you are caught driving again, you get imprisoned, for trespass. In a world of private roads, an unauthorised driver would be trespassing – but in New Zealand, it is a far bigger offence to be smoking cannabis than it is to be an idiot driving a car and killing someone. Speeding is an issue, on some roads in some conditions, but it is an attitude in New Zealand that you can’t punish bad driving – but you can punishing breaking rules. I don’t care if this means underprivileged stupid people are in prison for reckless driving causing death – better that than them being in prison for having the odd joint!

and the Police? Abolish victimless crimes, to give the Police more chance to follow real crimes -and make them locally accountable. Split the Police into several dozen precincts, each individually accountable to an electable sheriff - maybe not as many precincts as there are local authorities, but somewhere around 40. Then bulk fund according to the local population, let the Police pursue the local priorities, and anything that goes across precincts can remain the purview of a centralised investigation unit. Now that would be a change!

Wellington: Paremata congestion gone

Stuff reports that it seems that the much maligned Mana highway upgrade has done the job – morning and evening peak congestion has been eliminated. After much criticism that the $24 million upgrade was a waste of money and it should have been spent on the cargo cult called Transmission Gully – the $24 million upgrade works! A bit cheaper than the $1.1 billion price for Transmission Gully, but then the advocates of Transmission Gully have almost a social credit view of economics. The Mana upgrade had a benefit cost ratio of over 5:1, Transmission Gully is around 0.5:1 - it is obvious which project is a good investment.

The upgrade was based on a simple premise – the problem is that two lanes of free flowing traffic merge into one for several kms. So the solution was fairly straightforward – ensure two lanes flow between those points. The bridge was duplicated to create two lanes each way, and the road widened from Mana Esplanade to the 4-lane highway north of Plimmerton. In between those points parking is banned at peak times so an extra lane can operate in one direction. Five sets of traffic lights ease the flow from side roads, improve local and have not hindered the flow. In fact, the cops are concerned about speeding along the road now!

Who needs a 27 km hilly 4-lane motorway to fix this problem? Only stupid central and local body politicians addicted to spending other people's money promote this, along with a small number of local residents who will benefit from their properties not being on such a busy highway.

Now this wont be a long term solution, Transit says ten years and traffic growth will have filled up the road capacity. In the meantime, some consideration can be made about how to plan to fix that - a bypass at Mana is the best answer at around $220 million.

Ten years saving $1.1 billion on Transmission Gully (or $220 million on a Mana Bypass) is worth a good bit of money – at 5% interest a year, minus inflation it is still over $200 million in net savings from NOT building Transmission Gully. It is time to stop building roads well in advance of them being needed – if Transmission Gully or a Mana Bypass are to be built they it shouldn't be before 2015-2020 – and by then there may be congestion pricing, which could mean nothing need be done. The money can be used for something else.

So the pressure should be off – Paremata is no longer a traffic bottleneck, for now – another reason why politicians shouldn’t decide road building based on media driven popularity contests – I doubt if any Members of Parliament given a list of roading projects could decide what are the best ones.

Post Election Departmental Briefings

Having been involved in a couple of these over the years, they are interesting exercises. Departments/Ministries choose whether to give free and frank advice that may – to some – show ideological colours – or they dish out pablum - something plain and boring, which doesn’t represent a challenge to the status quo. Some of these briefings have been out this week and reported. A GOOD department will step aside from current policy and talk about outcomes, the current situation and what should be done to improve outcomes. This is a carefully calculated briefing about moving forward, rather than criticising past policies. Government departments can’t be seen to support or oppose previous policies, but simply advise on what they believe – professionally – is best.

Now the cynics amongst you will say this is highly political – there is no way that Treasury will NOT say cut spending and tax, or that the Minister for the Environment wont say tax pollution, regulate activities and spend money on green things. There is some truth to that – but I think that is the difference in flavour among many in the public sector. The difference between the statist and the economic rationalists, and each government department has a greater or lesser number of these.

For example, you are less likely to find some socialist statist nutcase working for The Treasury than an Austrian school free-market advocate – some would say like attracts like, I would say that this is simply good old fashioned commonsense. Treasury also, mostly, attracts highly skilled intelligent hard working people – the crèm de la crem of the public sector. This is one reason why Treasury gets involved in most areas of the public sector – not only does it have to advise on spending, but it actually contains high quality analysts generally. New Zealand could do worse than have the government run by The Treasury (though it could do better too). See much of what Treasury does is stop money being wasted and stop bad ideas from being implemented – so it attracts people who have the brains and the balls to say “wait- why are we doing this? What’s the evidence this is worth doing? Prove it!”. I can say that, on average, 4 out of 5 Treasury officials I dealt with were very smart people who I could engage with intellectually about issues. They had to go to Health, Education, Te Puni Kokiri, Environment and Social Development and say no – or ask questions of those who wanted to spend your money on their ideas. Treasury provided a brake on spending, and many times it would offer alternate recommendations in Cabinet papers which opposed what other departments were proposing- and it was really up to Dr. Cullen to take or leave that advice, and convince his colleagues if he took it.

On the flipside, the kooky useless nano-kleptoMinistries (Pacific Island Affairs, Youth Affairs, Women’s Affairs) tend to attract, mostly (I say this because I get surprised when the occasional intelligent rational person I know somehow gets hired by these agencies), lefty post-modernist deconstructionist types, or simply the vacant “I wanna help people” crowd who sleepwalk their ways from largely useless university degrees. These are the ones who see government as this great moneybin which Uncle Scrooge (Treasury) guards, and they want to save the world- they think that with the money taken from the productive, they can someone make a difference. They think that the country would be worse off without these little tags on the skin of the country, when in fact many of us can remember before they existed and would be happy to see those tags surgically removed. It would hurt the people there, but we would all be better off. These nano-kleptoMinistries could all be gone tomorrow, and virtually nobody in the country would be worse off, or miss them.

More disconcerting are the mega-kleptoMinistries – Education, Heath, Social Development, and many others, which constantly suck up large amounts of money, and play on the political heartstrings of MPs. They are driven almost entirely by socialists of some variety, who think what they do is so important and the only reason it isn’t done as well as it could be, is lack of money. Having convinced most New Zealanders that their health care and education is a matter for nanny state, they want to spend more, intervene more and regulate and tax more. They are the ones living it up under Labour, and they hate National governments. They are from leftwing academic, professional or union backgrounds and have every excuse in the world as to why they shouldn’t be accountable for performance – after all health is about people dying, and education about children – and what heartless soul would cut money for that!

I recommend you read post election briefings from The Treasury at least, and any other department you have a particular interest in. The media wont report on these critically – as New Zealand has precious few journalists, just reporters that take as given what departments say – except Treasury, because journalists are wary of anyone talking economics – they don’t understand it.

Privacy and the Motor Vehicle Register

I see that it has been reported in Stuff that “thieves track cars on vehicle register”.
You see you can, for a small fee, find out the name and address of any owner of a registered motor vehicle in New Zealand – useful if someone runs you over and you can recall the rego number, but also useful for marketing companies and stalkers. Although in some parts of the country the register is not exactly up to date, because the Police aren’t too keen on enforcing the law on such matters where it is rough.

Transport officials are drafting a Cabinet paper that would stem abuse of the system, including protecting against the disclosure of vehicle owners' personal information.

This is very old news, as Cabinet agreed in 2002 to tighten up privacy of the
Motor Vehicle Register it is about time – it simply hasn’t been a legislative priority since then.

Of course if roads were not run by the government there would still be a Motor Vehicle Register run collaboratively by the road companies, as there would be a need to ensure that there was a consistent level of information for charging vehicles, and enforcing conditions of using roads (currently traffic laws).

North Korea's new soulmate - Turkmenistan

If you thought the North Koreans were nuts then check out the imitator – Turkmenistan under President for life Niyazov, who took the ending of the Soviet Union as a chance to go back to Stalin – he calls himself Turkmenbashi and has written his own philosophy in the Ruhnama The BBC has an article about it here .

Or you can go to the Turmenistani government website yourself here and work it out for yourself. Make sure you have a firewall operating – websites of authoritarian governments are notoriously nosey on people’s PCs.

Bush on China

I read that President Bush has been acclaiming the freedom and democracy of Taiwan, and suggested that mainland China continue to open up and follow a similar path.

There is nothing in this that I think anyone who supports liberal democracy, whether libertarian or even the Green party could fundamentally disagree with. Taiwan and South Korea have both transitioned from authoritarian governments to being fully fledged vibrant and fairly free liberal democracies. Protest and free speech is open in both countries – leaving their counterparts (the People’s Republic of China and North Korea) far behind. Mainland China has made much progress, but it still executes political opponents and cracks down on freedom of expression from time to time.

And I don’t want to see any nonsense about the United States abusing human rights – organise a political party, print a newspaper, run a protest in New York, then try Taipei, then try Beijing – only in the last one will you face a long prison sentence and probably torture.

Bush is right - and only the George Galloways and other sycophants of murderers would disagree.

Demise of First Class

I miss first class.

This is an unashamedly elitist post – because I think it is slightly sad.

Air New Zealand quietly ceased providing a First Class service on its long haul flights earlier this year. This is in line with the introduction of its new class structure. It keeps economy - I mean scum class – by providing new seats and a fully interactive entertainment system. It provides premier economy class, which is like business class 15 or so years ago, with 6 inches more legroom, double the recline and a slightly classier food and drink service for more money –and business class has seats that recline fully to a flat bed with pillow and duvet – very nice indeed, not the sloping flat seats of (summaries of the business class products on these links) Qantas, Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific - but not first class.

Now admittedly Air New Zealand’s First Class seats are not as good as the new business ones, and its first class service was not quite up to that of the likes of Singapore Airlines or British Airways, but there was something about providing 5 star service on a plane that made it special. Touches like having a soup course, as well as a choice of entrees, constant attentiveness and separate quieter cabin – more amenities for the bathroom, and more separate check in from business – it was something for those who wanted nothing spared for their comfort and enjoyment inflight – and now the top product is for the well heeled business traveller or tourist, not the CEO.

Other airlines have dropped first class – Qantas dropped it from Auckland-LA flights, KLM, Scandinavian, Alitalia, Austrian, Finnair all have dropped first. Virgin Atlantic never had it – calling its top Upper Class- first class service at business class prices, and they are right, to a point.

Maybe it’s because few New Zealanders can afford first class or few first class travellers fly to New Zealand, maybe business class is just so good, that the next step isn’t worth it, maybe it costs so much to upgrade plane cabins to the next level (some Emirates planes have almost separate cabins for first class) that they better be filled or there is no point having them.

I remember when business class (and first class initially with Ansett) came to New Zealand domestic flights – that all disappeared when Air NZ realised that almost all of those seats were either taken up by MPs, or international travellers connecting to flights – very few wanted to pay to fly Wellington to Dunedin business class. Even Trans Tasman flights used to have first class with Air NZ and Qantas, now it is a cheap business class.

Still the market provides what it can bear. I flew first class four times on Air NZ, always upgrades from paid business class seats- it felt special, although a bit antiquated most recently. It was like a mini 5 star restaurant – and I got offered a separate DVD player (as it was recognised that the current tape based in flight entertainment system used in business class is kind of crappy) or Video Walkman with a selection of films to choose from. I sat in the former first class a couple of months ago flying to London- seat 1A no less – with business class service. It’s not the same, the big elaborate fruit and cheese board is gone, instead of selecting those I wanted, I got a small plate, pre-selected, handed to me. The rest of the meal was a good, albeit small, business class meal – and the service was still good- but it wasn’t first class.

and if you are thinking "what a wanker, I only fly economy class" then tough - I find flying long distances economy class to be little better than being shipped like cargo. You queue up like sheep at airports, at gates, cram yourself into tiny spaces in small seats, and expected to sleep upright while periodically some other pleb asks you to wake up and get out of your seat so they can join the 15 minute queue to go to the toilet. You wait for half an hour to an hour for your luggage at the other end. I'm 35, I've done that a few times and I will avoid it for trips of more than 5 hours now. Premium economy class can be a good compromise, but real travelling is business or first class- and the only people who deny it are those who haven't done it!

Wrapping children in cotton wool

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the Australian Federal Government is considering laws banning unauthorised photo taking in public places and publication of said photos. This is to cover cases of pedophiles taking what would otherwise be perfectly innocent photos of children at the beach or in the playground, and then publishing them on websites - a kind of legal voyeurism which creeps people out. Well it is creepy, but what is really going on here?

Nanny state is rearing her ugly head again - ready to stop all well meaning good people from taking photos in public places which may or may not include children - without permission from the parents. What if parents do this with their own children? (after all a fair proportion of child molestation cases involve relatives). One approach is commonsense - if you see someone creepy taking photos of your kids - tell them to fuck off, take your own photos of them. It also reflects the tragedy of the commons - in that publicly owned space cannot set limits on who goes there - I'm not suggesting gates around beaches and parks necessarily, but if such places WERE privately owned - the owner could set rules about taking photos, and the Police could intervene if someone breaks them, because then it would be trespassing. Private parks exist in the US, UK and other countries.

One of the problems of any laws on this are that is presumably this also covers TVNZ when it has a reporter on Lambton Quay at 4pm in the afternoon when countless school kids walk past – otherwise the defence will be “I was photographing the park, the children happened to be in it”.

I know what this is trying to do – people feel uncomfortable about images taken in public places when they are published. I, like countless others, have numerous photos of strangers that happen to be in photos of places I have photographed. There are photos of me as a child that my parents took in playgrounds, with other children there.

However, if anyone wants to understand why I fight rigorously against nanny state – this is one example. Yes there are perverted (mostly) men who masturbate about children – there always will be – unless we adopt a Taliban type approach and cover children in burkhas, this will happen. Most will never do more than that – in fact there are people who masturbate about strangers every day, including those they photograph. Ah, you say, but photographing children is creepy – no it is not. The only thing that is creepy is the motive. There are plenty of parents, relatives, caregivers who happily photograph the kids they are responsible for, or looking after, with their friends, and the motive is - 99% of the time – not sexual. You’ll never know when it is. There are strangers, photographers, journalists who will take photographs which include children, and again, it wont be sexual – but occasionally it is. When it is, 9 times out of 10 you will never know – and most importantly, the child is not harmed, anymore than it is harmed because someone has an image in their mind. See a photograph (not including child pornography here) of a child will to almost everyone be that – it wont have any consequence, and wont be sexual. However it will be to a pedophile. Fetishes are another example – there are countless people into all sorts of bizarre fetishes that would otherwise be seen as nonchalant – women holding balloons, white socks, knee high boots, watching people eat – all sorts of everyday things that if photographed mean nothing to anyone, except the fetishist. Frankly if everyone knew everyday everyone who thought something sexual about them, many times they would be horrified (though often intrigued!).

The line is crossed when the pedophile either acts on his desires upon a child, or threatens to – that is where the law steps in. The law simply cannot tell patrol thought crimes – though it often tries.

Even the Swiss are in on the act, with the Society of Saint Nicholas banning children hopping on Santas laps at Christmas time. This is incredibly sad. I sat on several Santa Claus laps when I was little, I don't recall Santa offering me some "special gift" from his pants, or trying to find one in mine, but it was special - now the society is reflecting fears of parents. What evidence is there that Santa Clauses are perverts? Except of course for workplace Christmas party ones - where it is the perfect excuse to get women to sit on your lap (I was work Santa for four years in a row and it paid off very well one year, and I am going to miss it this year!).

This sort of nonsense needs to end – just like the ban on parents videoing their children in a play or at the pool. Yes there are perverts out there, and yes a tiny minority hurt kids – but until they act or threaten to act to hurt the child, the law should not step in, and it certainly should not ban what are otherwise harmless activities. Pedophiles probably record kids talking too, they probably draw them and probably buy kids clothes because they turn them on – so are we going to ban everyone doing those things without permission too?

The one thing that is most ignored in all of this is that technology is also meaning that children, or more particularly adolescents also take their own photos, of each other - clothed and unclothed, and they distribute them. Not smart perhaps, but it happens - so do you ban 14yos taking digital photos of each other dressing up, or in bedrooms? Again, the law is really not the solution, it is just a tool.

Rod Donald

I was at Heathrow Airport checking my email before flying to San Francisco when I read the news. For all of the profound political differences I had with the man, I heard much more about him from a good friend of mine, who was his friend - who also had political differences. For me, Rod Donald was perhaps the brain of the Green Party - he carried more intellectual grunt than any of the others, and was a warm individual who liked a drink and enjoyed life. He was not one of the joyless hate filled mongers of nihilism that spme on the political spectrum are.

I will add more later, but he is a loss, as a human being, a warm character and someone that could be debated with - using minds. That, I respect.