Now you're going to subsidise coastal shipping

Not satisfied with having paid over the odds for the right to run trains on its own network, and the rolling stock. Not satisfied with that including a coastal shipping service (the interisland ferries), the government now wants to spend your money to prop up, wait for it, the competitors to the railways and the ferries, the coastal shipping companies.
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It's not much money, $10 million a year over the next three years. Why?
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Coastal shipping has not been subsidised in New Zealand since the 1980s, when the fourth Labour government cut the subsidies to the Stewart Island ferry service (which was operated by the Ministry of Transport) and the Chatham Islands shipping service. Funnily enough both islands still have services of course. Before that the Kirk Labour government propped up the Wellington-Lyttelton overnight ferry run by the then Union Steamship Company with the ferry Rangatira. The subsidies ended by the Muldoon government because of poor patronage and because competing rail and air services were profitable.
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So what's changed? Well for starters, NZ First's Peter Brown is a shipping fanatic, he thinks it is the answer to many of the nation's transport problems. Harry Duynhoven is into it as well. So personal political missions sound like a good reason to make a decision don't they? So hey, why not prop it up. The goal is to double the amount of freight going by coastal shipping, which is because it is more fuel efficient, but here's the rub.
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You see other than the ferries, coastal shipping is about moving containers and trucks. It competes with rail because rail doesn't feed those ships, trucks do. So the government buys one mode on the pretence of the environment and fuel efficiency, while subsidising another on the same basis, but it also insists on running the roads on a non-commercial basis.
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The irony is if the amount of freight on coastal shipping doubles it could be largely at the expense of rail. You can barely wonder at the brilliance of paying over the odds for a business that you then undermine by subsidising its major competitors. Can transport policy get more stupid?

UK debates abortion and fertility.

The House of Commons has debated and rejected a private members bill to reduce the 24 week limit for abortions to 20 weeks. It has briefly fired up the debate on abortion in the UK (it's permanently fired up in the USA). The BBC reports it was rejected 332 to 190, now the debate is about cutting it to 22 weeks.

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Now as I tentatively dip my toe in this issue, libertarian views on this vary. Some take the feminist view that the foetus has no rights until it is born, others believe it has rights as an independent entity, my view is that abortion should not be allowed except to save the life of the mother, once a foetus is theoretically viable outside the womb, but also abortion should not be state funded (as it is wrong that those who are against it should be forced to pay for it).

On a related issue, the House of Commons has also decided that IVF clinics should not consider "the need for a father and mother" when granting women IVF treatment. The change is that they should only consider "supportive parenting", which according to the Guardian essentially opens for lesbian couples to have IVF treatment. Now as libertarian as I am on these things, in that I don't want the state being involved, I do firmly believe that IVF children have a right to know their genetic identity, unless the supplier of sperm or egg is explicit about blocking that information, and that one of the core problems for many young people today is not having a good father figure/male role model. How to deal with this? I don't know, but ignoring the issue is not the answer.

UK grants Iranian gay teen asylum

I blogged in March about Mehdi Kazemi "Mehdi Kazemi is Iranian, and came to London in 2004 to learn English. Mehdi Kazemi is gay. In April 2006 his boyfriend in Iran was executed. Under interrogation Kazemi's name was mentioned as a partner, as his father informed him by phone. Kazemi feared he too would be arrested, charged and executed - so he claimed asylum in the UK. He was refused in late 2007. As a result he fled to the Netherlands. He now faces a court in the Netherlands where he is also claiming asylum. If he fails, he will be deported to the UK - and there he faces almost certain deportation to Iran - to his certain persecution."

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I pleased to note the BBC reporting that Mehdi has been granted asylum in the UK, according to the UK Border Agency "We keep cases under review where circumstances have changed and it has been decided that Mr Kazemi should be granted leave to remain in the UK based on the particular facts of this case." Anything else risked his certain death.

Just say no

The NZ Herald reports on Auckland local government "Former North Shore Mayor George Wood and former regional councillor Wyn Hoadley called for a collective approach on economic and social issues to tackle issues such as health, housing, job shortages and education."
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In other words a mega council to extend itself into social policy.
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Care for a 100% rate hike anyone? As a start?

Lunatic left rabidly against private roads

According to the NZ Herald, Citizens Against Privatisation, a far left ginger group linked to the Alliance has suggested it would blockade a new tunnel built through Avondale if it was build using (shock) private money and built privately. Apparently the fact they wouldn't be forced to use it and pay a toll isn't enough for these fanatics. One Marxist claim is "This PPP is aimed at putting more of the load on to the poor and the working class". Actually if done right, it will be privately funded, private enterprise will operate the road and yes nobody will be forced to use it (absence of force is an alien concept to socialists who believe in forcing everyone to pay for things).

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These nutcases, who presumably also claim to be environmentalists sometimes, would rather NON road users pay for it through income tax, than it be tolled. So a new road is built by subsidies from those who never use it. Great!

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Now I DO have criticism of the Waterview extension of SH20, mainly because it is overpriced gold/greenplated and should only be built if the benefits exceed the costs or tolls can fund the road. I doubt either are true, which means it shouldn't be built for now. However, I'm happy to let the private sector buy the land and build it and toll it, if it thinks it can make money from it, but I doubt it is true. However if it could, the leftwing lunatics would stop it, because to them "private" is evil. However, they will no doubt align themselves with the equally lunatic Residents Action Movement (who have conspiracy theorists about road policy) and the "make everyone else pay for my water" Water Pressure Group.

Don't tell them there are private cul-de-sacs all over Auckland, they might blockade them with their dribble when they realise how they have existed for decades without them noticing - the outrage, those bloody World Bank IMF international military industrial complex banker types screwing the proletariat again (I'm only half kidding, one of their activists talked with some of that language to me once).