Dominion Post right on Transmission Gully

The Dom Post is right about Wellington’s Western Corridor highway issue.

It says:

“The "solutions" proposed by opponents of the coastal upgrade do not withstand scrutiny.
Tolling the road to pay the difference between the two alternatives is impractical. Officials have calculated that only $115 million could be raised through tolling, and only if the speed limit on the existing coastal road was cut to 50km/h to make it less attractive.

Reprioritising other roading projects in the region is not an option. There are already more motorists inconvenienced by delays in Ngauranga Gorge, in and around the capital and between Wellington and the Hutt Valley than there are up the coast.

Building only the top half of Transmission Gully or a two-lane version of the road would not solve the congestion problems the road is intended to fix.

It appears from Sir Brian's questions that the Western Corridor committee is investigating the possibility of a compromise that could see some, but not all, elements of the current coastal proposal implemented. “

Quite right too. It is a very hard decision – parts of the coastal route would be very hard to consent, but Transmission Gully is a very expensive waste of money – another Think Big project, which has advocates from some who should know better, given the history of their political party. I've blogged so much on this already which you can read in the November and October archives.

David Farrar supports Transmission Gully, but it appears to be because it is more achievable that the coastal upgrade - although the coastal upgrade consists of 4 discreet projects, and the Nats have proposed a major streamlining of the RMA which would make the coastal route more achievable. I haven't seen where the extra $350 million for Transmission Gully is going to come from though, as this presumably must be from not building other projects (Wellington has already effectively been promised its full share of petrol tax money from Labour, with all the Crown contributions that are being made).

The compromise the Dom Post is implying, would be interesting though there are no details.

My bet is that it involves leaving Mana as is for now, given that the recent upgrade has eased congestion there, but will see a 2-lane bypass at Pukerua Bay (to relieve that community of through traffic) and a flyover at Paekakariki to fix that nasty intersection. Given that Land Transport NZ has already approved funding for a median barrier along the coastal section, it could be argued that 4-laning the coast would be premature. The projects north of Mackays and south of Paremata would be unchanged (Western Link Road, Petone-Grenada), and the rail upgrade would proceed as proposed (without the very expensive double tracking north of Pukerua Bay).

That’s what I’d advocate, don’t do Transmission Gully or 4-lane the coast, for now. Most of the route closures are due to head-on collisions, which the median barrier will prevent. Since tolls wont pay for Transmission Gully even taking into account revenue from petrol tax and road user charges from those who are likely to use it, why should non-users pay? I thought that was what National and ACT advocated.

All of which means that we are back to making incremental progress. The cold hard reality is that once the projects listed above are done, the problems north of Paremata are not that serious and don’t warrant throwing a billion dollars at a project with a negative return. The road will be safe, the congestion will be manageable, and eventually, there will be need to be more work done – but by then there may be congestion pricing in Wellington, which may mean there is no need at all for extra road capacity.

Portrayal of Maori on media is fair, but...

Stuff reports According to a study commissioned by the Broadcasting Standards Authority undertaken by Te Kawa a Maui, the School of Maori Studies of Victoria University of Wellington:

"programmes examined were considered fair; while balance was not always achieved in individual stories, broadcasters generally attained balance over time; and the programmes were almost all accurate. Correct pronunciation of te reo continues to be seen as very important."

Now the BSA is hardly an instrument of capitalism and the VUW School of Maori Studies the same - so are the claims that mainstream media (TVNZ, TV3, National Radio and Maori broadcasting) are biased against Maori perspectives (whatever they are, since Maori are not a homogeneous political entity) going to evaporate?

Would a study about whether the media was equally unbiased between statist solutions or criticisms of government policy and non-statist say the same? I doubt it. Most TV and radio journalists are from the left, and believe the solution to problems comes from banning, compulsion and spending more of other people's money.

Brash and racism

There has been plenty about Frogblog's statement that Brash made racism acceptable in New Zealand and linking Orewa to Cronulla. David Farrar has responded with many comments in reply, but my key point is this, and it is the reason Brash got so much support - NOT anti-Maori racism, which exists but not at the levels the Maori Party and the Greens think (which should please them):

Why is it racist to want the state to have laws, and for its tax and spending policies to have no correlation whatsoever to race?

Why is it NOT racist, to give special funding, or special consultation rights to individuals purely because of what their ancestry is?

Why should anyone be judged on their ancestry, at all?

Why not judge individuals on their deeds, alone?

Racism is mindless collectivism, and it exists both with the fascist/neo-nazi "right" (as seen in the brainwashed blonde twins) and with the neo-Marxist collectivist "left", and with religious fundamentalists of ALL creeds (Islamic, Christian, Jewish etc.).

Most on the "left" are proudly anti-racist and get fired up when they think of apartheid, the old racist laws of the American south, Nazism and the corporal punishment of children speaking Maori at school.

What they don't realise is that most people on the liberal "right" have the same passionate loathing of racism.

Remember the nazi teenage blondes?

David Farrar posted the pic of these cute young teen racists a while back.

Julian Pistorius has found a series of articles about them, apparently they form a racist folk band called Prussian Blue . Unfortunately there is another band called Prussian Blue, a British folk band which is NOT neo-nazi.

There is an anti-Prussian Blue blog, but unfortunately it is unlikely that these girls will get any serious exposure to thinking more carefully about the world until they leave home. Remember, most of what they get from the non-racist world is hatred and anger, which wont inspire them to think twice about racism.

The racist Prussian Blue allegedly plan a tour to Australia - um, great timing?

Internet regulation for national content?

This man wants the EU to regulate the Internet.

I don’t mean child porn or bomb recipes, I mean regulating it for “cultural content” you know the same sort of rules that Labour and the Greens long argued about for TV, to ensure minimum levels of national content? It seems that with the arrival of hundreds of TV channels, the European Commission finds it harder to justify special rules for broadcast TV -so now it wants rules for all audiovisual media to be consistent.

Under the aegis of harmonisation, and consistency across media, the EC, instead of simply calling for the abolition of such rules, wants to extend them - because, after all, bureaucrats produce nothing.

Martin Selmayr, a European Commission bureaurat said that rules on broadcast TV may apply to the Internet, "This might involve requirements in terms of the catalogue they offer," says the quote from Macworld. A further report says that it may cover material that may “incite racial hatred” or seriously impare the “physical, mental and moral development of minors”. An excuse for more censorship – after all, what is the moral development of minors? What is a minor in the EU, when the age for sexual consent varies between 13 and 17? European bureaurats aren't keen on free speech (although Europeans aren't keen on much censorship, as any visit to an Amsterdam sex shop will demonstrate!).

One thing is for sure, that in cultural terms, the Internet has it all – and the users choose what they want to see. You can read about objectivism, literature, rugby, felching or the rambling of Chairman Mao.

The only place for the law online is to cover actual crimes, such as when intellectual property is stolen, when computers are used to initial force through hacking, and when recordings of victims suffering crimes are produced and distributed (images of child pornography).

It is worth noting that the same bureaurat also advocated taking control of the internet from ICANN to a new UN type intergovernmental bureaucracy – a less efficient more political one. It isn't broke, so don't fix it - if the Internet had been left to bureaucrats it would never have grown and developed, they would have been far too concerned with trying to make sure it didn't do all sorts of things they want to control.