MORE good news from The Standard

This time how the government is not forcing you (those who own homes outright and those who have yet to buy a home) to pay for people who took out mortgages they can no longer afford.

I guess The Standard supports subsidies for people who borrow to buy real estate. If that isn't a transfer from lower income taxpayers (those too poor to own, or the elderly who are income poor, but many own their own homes) to middle income ones, I don't know what is.

Socialists are funny aren't they, thinking that when the government doesn't take your money to spend it on propping up people who took risks, that you will be unhappy about it.

A rates cap is not enough

A comment by Nick on one of my posts about the Auckland supercity said:

"Rodney Hide has said the LGA will be amended and this will include a cap on Rates to inflation + population growth. That cap will get rid of these quangos overnight even if the power of general competence remains."

Blair Mulholland thinks that:

"The point of the reforms was not to reduce the size of local government, although it may yet do that. The point was not to reduce rates, although it may yet do that. The point was always to destroy the vice-like grip of socialists and busybodies over our fair region."

Blair essentially thinks that the political demographic of the supercity will lean towards the centre-right, which is nonsense. He says "The Left will lose out in such a contest, not because they have less money (as they will inevitably whine) but because they are simply less organised in Auckland."

Blair is naive. The ARC has been centre-left dominated since its inception, it resisted selling the Yellow Bus Company when National last reformed local government, so had to be forced to do so by legislation because it could not fairly be a subsidiser of public transport through competitive tendering, and compete with the private sector in those tenders. The proposals create a grand ARC. It will NOT stop the vice like grip of busybodies over Auckland - not by a long shot.

Nick's more interesting point that a cap on rates (well after inflation and population growth) will be an effective constraint also misses certain key points. Such a cap does NOT restrict the regulatory powers of local authorities, it does NOT restrict the powers of local authorities to borrow and start up public sector businesses. Given the growth of local government in recent years, it does nothing more than slow down future growth.

Like I said before, a supercity for Auckland does nothing to address the core question - what should be the role of local government?

New Zealand is NOT a federal constitutional democracy. Local government has powers purely because central government lets it. Local government currently has unlimited powers because the Labour/Alliance coalition, with Green party support, granted it such powers.

A rates cap should be introduced quickly as an interim step, but a fundamental review of the powers and purpose of local government is needed - now - before super unitary authorities are to be created.

I'd hedge a bet that as long as people are confident their footpaths and roads would be maintained, rubbish collected, water/sewage systems function, and private property rights are protected from encroachment or torts (e.g. nuisance), most would want nothing more from local government.

Moreover, I struggle to find a single useful activity local government undertakes that can't simply be user pays in one capacity or another, or isn't just a matter of delineation of what ought to be property rights.

Maori Mugabe?

If you scuttle over to Scoop you'll find something called the Maori Declaration of Independence made by a self styled "Co-founder and Maori Governor of the Maori Government Of Aotearoa". Chanel Morton-Matene - who is more insane than Catherine Delahunty.

In essence, she is calling for Maori tribes to sign a "declaration of independence" from the New Zealand government. For a split second it sounds curiously libertarian, for a moment, rejecting taxation as it does. However, it is far more sinister - it basically seeks to nationalise all land under the banner of this self styled government. Under the neo-fascist nationalism of this philosophy, you would only be allowed to be a "land holder" and could never sell your land, just have it passed in succession.

"for those of you who have more homes on land than you know what to do with - I will be looking to downsize your property holder portfolios in the interests of moral and restorative justice - and the same goes for Maori people. Just because you are Maori, does not mean that you will escape my long arm of restorative justice that will reach the furthermost parts of our globe".

Nasty stuff.

Apparently any Maori who disagrees is a "sellout", so it's deliberately totalitarian.

Then the real weirdness is that motor vehicle registration will end, but warrants of fitness remain, and manufacturers need to use biodegradeable materials. Yep, priorities right there!

"The New Zealand People As A Collective, Though Not Entirely, Are Using Oppressive Techniques Such As Negative Expressions, Indifferent Body Language, Verbal Jargon"

It gets funnier:

"I can actually see future events before they happen. And yes, I saw 9/11 when I was five years old, and was able to read out the names of the people who hijacked the planes. But who in the NZ government would have believed a five year old little Maori girl right? And yes. I can read tomorows paper today, and see lotto numbers before they are drawn. I can taste food I've never tasted before, and tell you things about yourself that you have never shared with the world. I can see bombs before they drop, and disasters before they happen. I can see business investments go up or down before they actually do. And I can even see horses that win at the races before the races have even begun. I believe that with this gift, I can help create world peace, anull poverty and avert wars which is exactly my intention. And once I prove to the world that I have this gift by winning lotto seven times in a row, all you prejudiced individuals will wish I were on your side."

Go on - win lotto you freak - what's stopping you?

Anyone not Maori is a foreigner or descendent of a foreigner. Not true Aryan Maori, but auslanders. The parallels with Hitler, Milosevic, apartheid era South Africa, or indeed the legions of ethno-nationalist mental pygmies who classify people by who their parents are, not what they do, are clear.

The websites related to it certainly are mindless racist ramblings.

However, more importantly shouldn't the Maori Party unanimously damn this bigoted nonsense, promoting violent theft of land, fascism and well lunatic racism?

Especially given this statement from the self styled "governor" "Therefore, in recognition of your most notable and worthy contributions to Maori causes, especially you Hone, and you Tariana for your letter of support recently, I cordially invite you and all interested parties, to the first signing ceremony of the Maori Declaration Of Independence 2008, at my home here at 546 Whangaparaoa Road, Whangaparaoa, Aotearoa, on September 30th 2009 - Maori Day Of Redemption - exactly one year following the establishment of MDOI 2008."

So Hone and Tariana. Do you agree with the sentiments of this insane Maori version of Robert Mugabe or not?

Catherine Delahunty is clearly quite mad

On Catherine Delahunty's Twitter account her views are simply too bizarre. Is it the appalling use of English, or the evasion of reality, or is someone doing a remarkably good job of poking fun at her?

Yet it seems serious!

Take her Twitter posts:

"greencatherine: Despite the pretty words and new clothes am hoping new puppy at white house will stop killing afghanis and funding Israel wars on Palestine"

The Obama puppy has been killing afghanis and funding Israel? What a wonderdog!

"Awesome Tairawhiti sunshine a good to start our own banks instead of trusting the white boy club"

Yep it's sunny so set up your own bank Catherine. Good luck with that. Banking with sea shells as currency are you?

"Ten thousand families per day lose their home in USA capitallists can fix this?"

No of course not Catherine, socialists can. Go on, make something out of nothing. Support people who borrowed beyond their means to speculate on property prices going up forever.

"If it wasnt for almonds and dark chocolate I would go crazy here."

Clearly not enough almonds and dark chocolate around.

"Iin a beige hotel after some good meetings trying not eat the chocolate as people lose their jobs"

Yep, those magic chocolates that fire people from each one you eat. Must have been made by magic witch doctor indigenous people who can cast spells on the chocolates to punish capitalists!

"Am experiencing a weird desire not to make a speech about nothing in the House, but met some amazing rangatahi yesterday at Challenge 2000"

Wanting to not make a speech about nothing, but doesn't matter I met some kids?

Come on, it must be someone making this stuff up. Surely.

Keep it up Catherine, you're the Green Party's greatest new electoral liability - Jeanette embraced reason by comparison.

More interesting facts from the Standard

Tane at the Standard presents a useful update on how the Labour government increased the largely unproductive sector (state sector - given you have to be forced to pay for it) from 1999 to 2008, whereas the previous National governments and the reformist Labour government cut it back tremendously (and of course unemployment also dropped from the mid 1990s).

Presumably the Standard intends to scare you into thinking that somehow you got a 50% added value from the 50% additional bureaucrats Labour hired over National.

Do you think you got your money's worth? Tane of course doesn't really consider it has been YOUR money that paid for it.

It's a pretty useful guide as to the bare minimum cuts the government should be implementing surely.

A car race not an arms race

The Guardian notes (hat top North Korea Economy Watch) that the ambassadors of North and South Korea in London both have equally flash limousines. Though I'd add that while the number plate of the South Korean ambassador's car (ROK1) makes sense, the number plate of the North Korean ambassador's car (PRK1D) is far too close to Prick 1 for he to have been given useful advice of English colloquialisms.

Remembering Nicky Hager

Given Idiot Savant has linked to far leftwing activist and "investigative journalist" Nicky Hager, I thought it was worthwhile to link to Trevor Loudon's useful bio on Mr Hager.

It is, after all, in the interests of transparency and fairness that people know Mr Hager is anything but an independently minded truth seeker, but has a long standing serious leftwing agenda that puts him to the left of the Green Party.

Rudman smarter than McClay

Yes, I'm astonished! I agree with Brian Rudman. In the NZ Herald he says "the simple solution does seem to be to remove all restrictions and be done with it."

Quite! It is symbolic of the disgusting interfering nature of New Zealand political culture that the ban on opening retail outlets on specific days, because some people hold them to have significance because of ghosts they worship, continues to exist and gets enforced by the most joyless set of government goons.

I blogged about this quite satisfactorily a year ago, saying Easter Sunday is for individuals not politicians, responding to Sue Bradford's own mindless press release.

It is simply fascist to tell business owners when they can and cannot trade - it is such a clear example of a victimless crime that it is beyond a joke that it remains. However, as Rudman says that "both major parties too chicken to stand up to the high priests of Christianity and organised labour on this". Indeed it is true.

Christians who wont mind their own business (because they want to mind everyone else's) and unions who want workers to all follow in unison (!) like a lumpen proletariat.

National's latest gutless MP - Todd McClay (yes you know his dad), has a bill that would NOT do away with this vile law, which should be seen as contrary to the philosophy of the National Party. No. McClay, who has no media releases on his page on the National Party website, is going to let councils decide.

Instead of embracing the freedom of businesses to decide for themselves, he has embraced a new power for local authorities to decide for them. He has done nothing more than proposing the devolution of an authoritarian law from the Labour Department to local authorities. He talks the collectivist claptrap of letting "communities decide", as if it is right that the majority decide whether a business opens or not.

Well Mr McClay, you've proven that you, and the National Party, remain gutless failures in defending the fundamental right of any business to decide when it should trade.

It's time for ACT to propose that the Bill simply remove all restrictions on shop trading hours. It is what Libertarianz would do.

UPDATE: Andrei at NZ Conservative suggests that the Labour Department be prosecuted for having its "workers" "working" on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Lucyna at the same blog disagrees, just to show that Christian conservatives are not all of one opinion on this.

Isn't the Standard funny?

with this. (and I don't support the cycleway at all)

So how about this?

Kiwirail

Time: 9.5 months
Jobs created: 0
Additional freight and passengers carried: 0
Cost thus far: $1.07 billion (purchase plus capital injection)
Wealth created from purchase: -$242 million (Treasury rightdown in November, to be conservative.)
Money saved on road maintenance minus road user charges revenue lost: 0
Enrichment of foreign investors from the New Zealand taxpayers' pockets: $206 million (difference in what Toll paid and what Dr Cullen paid using your money to buy the same thing).

What do you want local government to do?

Well under the Local Government Act 2002, which National and ACT are willing to continue with, for the Auckland megacity, a council can do the following:

Open restaurants
Establish independent and integrated schools.
Open hospitals
Establish welfare benefits
Set up its own bus company
Run its own taxi company
Start its own plumbing business
Open a chain of hairdressing salons
Establish massage therapy centres
Establish bookshops
Open a supermarket
Set up a telecommunications company
Set up a courier and postal operation
Open a florist
Establish an architecture firm
Promote tourism
Open its own hotel
Start a tour service
Start an airline
Open shoe shops
Establish a radio station
Establish a tv channel
Establish a newspaper
Open a bar
Publish local literature
Set up a comedy troupe
Fund any Auckland sports teams
Sell Christmas Trees
Run a harbour cruise company
Establish a bakery
Establish crèches
Set rules on what colours your property must be
Open a clock factory
Subsidise software sales
Buy out a magazine
Buy SkyCity
Establish a museum of erotica
Establish a museum of racism and homophobia
Establish a museum of religion
Establish a museum of socialism
Establish its own trucking company
Establish a water bottling company
Open a chain of stationery stores
Develop its own Wikipedia
Provide gardening advice to home owners
Organise raffles
Establish language schools
Set up a national political party
Start a fish farm
Start a dairy farm
Start a sheep farm
Buy out a deer farm
Buy out a vineyard
Subsidise motor mechanics
Subsidise braille classes
Subsidise home water collection systems
Celebrate Hannukah with a parade
Celebrate Buy Nothing Day with a parade
Celebrate Margaret Thatcher's birthday with a parade
Celebrate the Queen's Birthday with fireworks
Publish recipe books of Auckland recipes
etc etc etc.

Do you want this? or do you want your council to be able to do the bare minimum of planning under whatever happens to the RMA, look after footpaths and parks, let rubbish collection, water and sewerage become utilities, and manage the stormwater network under roads as long as it looks after local streets?

You see, it seems that the power of general competence that Labour, the Alliance (with Jim Anderton then) and the Greens passed, now has the tacit approval of Peter Dunne, the Maori Party, National and ACT - despite the latter two parties voting against it.

Is this what you voted for? Shouldn't you be letting John Key and Rodney Hide know loud and clear if you disagree?

Auckland megacity - what does it mean for transport?

According to the "Great" Auckland website, it means a council controlled organisation responsible for "all local and regional transport". However, it says little more. So let's explore that a bit further.

The key responsibilities in transport today are:
- The territorial authorities are responsible for their own local road network. They all raise rates to pay for between 40 and 60% of the cost of maintaining and improving the network, while bidding to the NZTA for the rest (which comes from fuel tax, road user charges etc). This is by far the most important function;
- ARTA, an ARC subsidiary, is responsible for contracting any subsidised public transport services, and registering commercially provided ones (which it has been discouraging through various contracting arrangements). It leads the rail project.

Note that all state highways in Auckland are the responsibility of the NZ Transport Agency, Transit's successor. Whether these will be handed over to the mega city is unclear. Hopefully not.

The megacity will no doubt take a view that the biggest problem with Auckland transport is not that it doesn't manage local roads well, doesn't build capacity when it is urgently needed and doesn't price the network to reflect costs, but rather there are too many cars.

It will want to use your money to subsidise those who don't drive, and penalise those who do. It wont be content with running the roads as a business, whereby anyone wanting property access pays an access fee, and motorists pay for what they use. It may neglect roads significantly, rather like Transport for London which has an appalling record in badly maintaining signs, and making next to no investment in improving capacity.

You see the megacity will own trains, and want those trains to grow. It wont own the private bus fleets so wont care so much about them It wont own trucks or cars, so they wont even be on the radar screen.

Most importantly, it wont own the motorways or be likely to build major new roads.

So the megacity wont do much, other than encourage more cross subsidisation of roads, and public transport dominating transport thinking across the region, even though it carries a tiny minority of trips.

A better solution would be to spin off the roads completely into arms length companies, responsible for providing access to properties and road space for motorists, and charging appropriately for both.

However, politicians wouldn't have control, and it wouldn't be democratic - which of course, is how everything should be - up to a vote.

Greens promote racist representation

Metiria Turei is upset that the government isn't going to introduce guaranteed race based Maori seats for the Auckland planners' wet dream megacouncil.

What evasion of the truth is it to say "The biggest Maori urban population shut out from their own city"? How are Maori residents shut out?

Have they lesser voting rights? No.
Have they lesser rights to make submissions on consultations? No.
Have they lesser rights to stand for office? No.
Have they lesser rights to apply for and be considered for employment? No.
Are Maori residents treated in any way differently from those of the many dozens of ethnic backgrounds in Auckland? No.

So why make it up? Why lie? Maori will NOT be shut out. Nor would they let themselves be shut out. Metiria is confusing South African apartheid with New Zealand local government. Why?

Because it suits her post-modernist identity politics based worldview of Maori as perpetual victims that can never be equal under systems that are not ethnically defined.

She links the lack of Maori city councillors to meaning Maori are not represented. This is presumably because the brain and views and experiences of a Maori individual can only be adequately represented by another Maori individual - NOTWITHSTANDING, any difference in philosophy, ideology or experience. In other words, your views are not something consciously chosen, but you inherit them from your ethnicity and identity.

This is why the left eschews the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ruth Richardson, because as women they SHOULD have certain political views - but they don't.

It classifies all Maori as shut out, because even though thousands vote for non-Maori council candidates (and Maori candidates), it can't mean anything. They must feel "disenfranchised".

This is like saying that if my local councillor happened to be a Chinese lesbian, I wouldn't feel represented. It is reality evasion, and by evading the truth (Maori vote for non-Maori candidates, and less Maori are interested in becoming control freaks on councils than non-Maori), you create a proposal that evades reality too.

Separate Maori seats are racist - they discriminate and distinguish on the basis of race. However, Metiria would say they are the opposite - evading reality.

So a non-race based system is racist, and a race based system is not - as long as the selected race is identified as "victim" not "oppressor". A glimpse into the mindset of the radical left.

UPDATE: Some are "angry" at not getting special political privileges based on who their ancestors are. Easier to moan and demand apartheid than to actually encourage Maori voter turnout and put up candidates isn't it?

Say no to big local government!

So according to the NZ Herald the government is going to support a modified mega city. A proposal born of the Labour inspired Royal Commission, has support from the National/ACT/Maori/Dunne government.

I already have blogged about what I think should be done with the proposal - it would make a good doorstop. How local government needs to be constrained. How a super mayor will end up being some less than competent personality with more control over your life. Owen McShane described it as fascist.

Without a cap on rates, Auckland property owners will be forced to pay more and more as the megacity grows its functions like a cancer on the life of Aucklanders.

So are Aucklanders going to put up with this? The "strengthening of democracy" only counts heads, not what's in them.

If ACT goes through with it, without a rates cap, without severely constraining the power of local government, it will prove ACT can't even drive policy when its leader is a Minister.

It is time to give the government a strong message if you're fed up with rates increases well above inflation year after year, fed up with central planning local government, fed up with petty fascist politicians and bureaucrats who think they know how to spend your money and regulate what you do with your property.

Say NO to big local government, it's time to put it on a diet, and repeal the power of general competence.

UPDATE: Not PC is eloquently making the same point in a different way.

In my entire life if I do something, I do it properly

so said Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, administrator of the Tuol Sleng torture and murder prison in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge was in power.

The Daily Telegraph reporting on his trial said: "His nom de guerre came from a textbook story about "Duch" a model pupil who always had his hand raised.

"I liked the name Duch because I wanted to be the well disciplined boy who respected teachers, who wanted to do good deeds,"

I remember reading that Khieu Samphan, the number two in the Khmer Rouge was a well disciplined boy too, who never had a girlfriend, and who was constantly teased.

Therein is the mind of the psychopathic mass murderers who obey the state they helped create, and spill blood as if it were water. Typically not that different from the occasional teenager who takes a gun and shoots out his fellow students.

South Africa looking more like Zimbabwe

Two events in recent days show clearly what's wrong with the corrupt ANC dominated democracy that South Africa has become.

First, the South African government refused to grant a visa for the Dalai Lama. Presumably because the ANC had a long relationship with the Communist Party of China over many years. Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela is damning the move according to the Daily Telegraph he said "It's a sad day for South Africa, it's a sad day for Africa. We are a nation which is striving to be a leader the in African continent. I don't think as a sovereign independent country we need to succumb to international pressure". China appreciated it, Xinhua reported how the South African court said there was "no need" for the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa. No need for most things really is there?

Now the BBC reports South Africa prosecutors have dropped corruption charges against ANC Leader Jacob Zuma. It stinks of the judicial system no longer being independent from the government or the ANC.

The new Republic of Southern Zimbabwe?

No More Rates hits the nail on the head

No More Rates suggests that megacity could be disastrous for Auckland. Why?

"The Royal Commission report could well almost certainly lead not only to higher council rates all round, but also a massive redistribution of wealth right across the region"

Now No More Rates isn't a ginger group for user pays or for cutting councils, but its concern is valid.

Local government reform must be driven by the curtailment of the grand centralised planning ideas of politicians and bureaucrats. Those who want local government to do more don't want to pay for it themselves, they want others to be forced to pay.

It is time to fight the socialist's wet dream - the megacity with a power of general competence.

It is time for a review on the role and extent of local government - governed by basic principles of protecting property rights, individual freedoms and promoting economic efficiency.

It is time to end local government being the boot camp for future leftwing MPs.

Obama invents a new language

Drew M on Ace of Spades HQ reports that Obama said whilst in Austria “There’s a lot of -- I don’t know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics"

Yep, you'll be hearing how unwordly and ignorant the US President is now, just like when he said the car was invented in the USA, just like all the finger pointing at George. W. Bush for his gaffes.

Oh no - somehow it isn't cool to point out Obama's mistakes is it? However, many of his supporters didn't know better either.

(Hat Tip - Tim Blair)

Good news from the left

The Greens report that the axe is to fall on some in the Ministry for the Environment. Excellent news, as there is some dead wood in MfE that has long needed weeding out, particularly those who don't understand basic applied economics. Of course it's nowhere near enough, but a good start. All i'd keep MfE for is a transitional role while property rights are assigned to waterways and the air to protect the environment. That would be useful work for a couple of clever people for a couple of years.

Idiot Savant bemoans that the crazy national cycleway idea is not to be funded, as do the Greens. Funny how encouraging more (largely European) tourists to fly to New Zealand on large jets and then bike is good for the environment given the obsession with CO2 emissions.

Finally, Idiot Savant also is upset that Rodney Hide is looking to cap rates. He thinks that the cost of what councils do presumably must always rise faster than inflation. He ignores that on average half of local road costs come from road users through the NZ Transport Agency, so the parallels with California are not close. He also ignores that water and sewage ought to be separately charged for because not all ratepayers are connected, and they use different amounts of water. More importantly, he is under the delusion that councils already do just bare minimum activities, when there is plenty of evidence they go well beyond that. However, he has long supported more taxation, and believes that its ok for democratically elected governments to pillage the money of their subjects as long as it is for the "greater good".

If only Rodney were going much further!

North Korea's fictional satellite

CNN is reporting that the North Korean "satellite" launch was a flop with part of it landing in the Korean East Sea/Sea of Japan, and the rest over shooting Japan and landing in the Pacific.

The Korean Central News Agency is proclaiming a great success "

"The satellite is going round on its routine orbit. It is sending to the earth the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and measured information at 470 MHz.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to put the songs on Itunes for nothing? Why "launch" a non geostationery broadcast satellite? Never mind.

Kim Jong Il was thrilled too. Imagine what sleight of hand terrified North Korean scientists are undertaking to cover up this failure. Or maybe Kim Jong Il really knew it wasn't about broadcasting songs, so he doesn't care about the failure - given it is well known he has much access to foreign broadcasts (unlike most North Koreans).

Greens support racist local government

Why be surprised? Green MP Catherine Delahunty, who treats Maori almost as if they are closer to some god than non-Maori, thinks the model for separatist Maori representation in an Auckland megacity is a possible "good model for others".

Her specious claim is "The elephant in the room is the way tangata whenua are marginalised in decision making structures."

How is this? All have a vote, all can stand for council, all can make submissions to Council. Most non-Maori New Zealanders don't do any of those. Aren't they marginalised? Aren't most ratepayers marginalised by consultation processes they can't participate in because they are too busy working to pay rates and taxes?

No - Delahunty's structuralist post-modernist mental retardation prevents her from seeing how local government marginalises everyone. Or if it doesn't, maybe the tangata whenua don't care that much about roads, libraries, rubbish collection or the like (contrary to Catherine's idealistic vision of the noble native).

Furthemore, she treats existing non-racial based government as inherently racist - a kind of Orwellian doublespeak. Take this "A couple of seats at the Päkehä table ain’t the enactment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi but it might increase the number of voices dedicated to that vision."

"Päkehä table"? Who said it was? Why is it? I am sure Ray Ahipene-Mercer (Wellington councillor who ran for Mayor in 2007) doesn't think so.

Why does Catherine Delahunty insist of pigeonholing everyone into cultural/ethnic categories like some banal Balkan nationalist politician? Do Maori need her patronising hand holding to participate how they wish in local government?