Kiwirail?

Yes you see according to the Dominion Post, that's the new name. Kiwis have bought it, kiwis will subsidise it.

Got to love "Insiders said the trains' new livery would include a "non-Labour reddish" colour as well as the yellow front and rear required for safety reasons."

Why does it NEED new livery? Can't we just wait until the current coat of paint needs replacing? We already have three sets of colours on the network, surely Kiwis can be spared the re-branding - or is there something political about the country suddenly having Kiwirail Red on trains all over the place? Just to remind you of who made you buy it back?

However, the name may not be wrong. Nowhere else in the world does a government name a national railway after an endangered flightless bird, that was ravaged by the modern world and which today, without enormous amounts of protection, would be eaten alive by predators. It is largely loved for sentimental rather than practical reasons, is almost never seen by the everyday public except in museums zoos unless they go out at night in certain places in the middle of the North Island (ok I know that's an exagerration).

Surely the funniest thing though is that when "Kiwirail" seeks to buy trains, most of the manufacturers will think it's some third world outfit that ships furry fruit about.

Oh well, wonder where the Toll people will be now, besides booking their winter holiday to the Northern Hemisphere thrilled they ripped off a small centre-leftwing government so royally, making a handsome capital gain AND keeping the profitable road freight business on favourable terms. Well done men, you wont find a Dr Cullen again that quickly elsewhere.

No Minister rightfully criticises the "pretence of man-on-the-street, good-cunt, ordinaryness", and yes what is wrong with New Zealand Railways or Railways of New Zealand. The acronym NZR was well known (and somewhat loved) for generations.

Nicky Hager author?

Nothing shows how unbelievably lazy too many New Zealand reporters are in the MSM than their treatment of Nicky Hager. The treatment being that he is somehow an impartial "author" who strikingly only seems to produce revelations of national interest in election year, as he now has done as reported by Stuff (in the same vein).

Hager has an axe to grind/barrow to push that is too obvious to anyone who is intellectually honest. He is a long standing leftwing activist. Trevor Loudon outed Hager a couple of years ago on his blog. He is no different from Ian Wishart, except Wishart holds a different part of the spectrum, a conservative one. I treat both the same way, some interesting revelations but in substance they are both muckraking to find something worth throwing at their political opponents. They are by no means quality investigative journalists or truth seekers.

Hager is a chardonnay socialist par excellence, a member of a wealthy family (though who knows if he spends any time sharing that wealth with the needy he apparently cares about). Reagan did once say that Jimmy Carter was so obsessed with poverty because he didn't have any when he was a kid, perhaps Hager is in the same vein.

Hager campaigned against US nuclear ships entering New Zealand waters, a campaign largely directed at undermining ANZUS of course wich had widespread leftwing support. His long term involvement with the so-called "peace movement" (or rather the West unilaterally disarm and the nice Soviets and Chinese are bound to follow...) and continued association with the far left surely bring his credentials into question.

The appropriate response by the National party should be clear - yes we have consultants assisting us with our campaign. However Mr Hager, given your strong interest in having a centre left government elected why should anyone believe you will ever give more than one side of the story?

Hager is a partisan hack - his affiliation is almost certainly that of the Greens given his behaviour. My question is when will the MSM actually describe him for what he is? He isn't just an "author", he is "author and leftwing political activist". He is no more objective and balanced on the National Party than Michael Moore is on the Republicans.

Deregulating education becomes Tory policy

Well at least a move towards the Swedish model, which the left in the UK, US and NZ all remain willfully blind about. The Spectator describes it in some detail. It was discussed, wholly positively, on the BBC today. In summary in Sweden:

- Anyone can set up a school, a charity, church, private trust or private company. It can operate for profit.

- The school must demonstrate it meets certain conditions for registration (committing to a bare curriculum), but can then teach whatever it wishes and however it wishes beyond the state defined minimum.

- Parents choose the school, and funding follows the student. Parents can change schools and funding follows.

In Sweden it is a roaring success, so successful that all political parties in Parliament support the policy, except the communists. It means that consumers (parents) have the power, the schools have to be attractive to parents and pupils, and that decisions on how teachers are paid and how schools operate are made at the school level (you can see how scared teachers' unions get when central bargaining gets undermined). Some government schools have folded as a result, some local authorities have sold schools - and the sky hasn't fallen in.

It would be a great step forward if this policy came to pass in the UK, it would be too much to ask for the New Zealand National Party to actually be so bold as to consider this. Wouldn't it?

Margaret Pope

Following the NZ Herald article by Margaret Pope, repudiating Dr Michael Bassett, I have a small tale to tell about her. Quite simply I actually knew her briefly at university at around the same time as her relationship with David Lange became public.

Margaret Pope was a mature student studying law at Victoria University. She was in the same contract law class as I and to give her fair credit, she was witty and quite clever. Certainly you could see how Lange's speeches could come from this articulate and well-read woman. I was 19 at the time admittedly and of course, several of us would have casual conversations about politics. She made it abundantly clear that she despised Roger Douglas, and was quite devoted to Lange. Of course none of us knew at the time that she was Lange's mistress, that would appear in the papers later that year (1989). Pope did not come across as some hard socialist, but she also was uncomfortable with the policy focus on economic liberalism, she was supportive of the anti-nuclear policy. My impression was that she was somewhere between the left of the likes of Helen Clark and Margaret Wilson, and the Mike Moore, David Caygill centre-right.

Of course what happened between Lange and Douglas was simply that Lange used a press conference to repudiate a Cabinet decision, an experience that was bound to critically undermine confidence by Ministers in Lange's leadership. Why Lange did so is never going to be known, for those of us on the liberal right, we will simply believe he lost courage to sell flat tax and many on Labour's left contributed to his doubt, Pope presumably was part of that. Those on the left are likely to believe it saved the Labour government from splitting apart. As always, speculation on history at this level is little more than mental onanism - I look forward to reading Bassett's book because he has often come across to me as being intellectually honest, despite some on the left who prefer insults to actually debating him. After all, there is ample evidence that Lange became beholden to the Labour left on the anti-nuclear policy, wrecking NZ's relationship with the US by forcing Lange to backtrack on a commitment to the US to allow a non-nuclear powered non-nuclear capable ship into NZ (the USS Buchanan), because the US still maintained its "neither confirm nor deny" policy - but then I guess it was ok for him to do that, and to overturn Cabinet decisions when it suits him, because it suited the left. Indeed, to this day neither flat tax or nuclear ship visits are on the agenda of either major party. I doubt whether this was due to machinations by Pope, but I also don't doubt that she was unhappy with the outcome.

No WE are not at fault Tapu Misa

Tapu Misa in the NZ Herald has claimed "We are all at fault for bad kids"

What rubbish. What a completely abrogation of parental irresponsibility. I'm not to blame at all, and neither are millions of others. Bad kids have themselves and their families to blame, not the amorphous cop out called "society".

You see she is claiming kids reflect the "values around them". Indeed they do, the values they see at home whether it be hard working courteous and loving parents, or lazy, abusive and hedonistic ones will speak volumes - but it isn't my fault. She paraphrases Plato rather ignorantly saying "Plato talked about the best of us being the wise and the virtuous, guided by the idea of the common good for the benefit of the whole community." You know, the philosophy that most dictatorship and autocracies have adopted? The idea of telling others what to do because it is in their interests.

She then goes into "we" mode. Who does she think she speaks for? "We" this "we" that. You don't speak for me Tapu Misa, so get rid of your "we" statements, when you mean "me". Or don't you even mean that, in which case, who the hell are you meaning? Why don't you like people having individual responsibility?

She says:

"we more enlightened beings place a higher value on individual success, as measured by the accumulation of wealth; we have nurtured greed, cynicism and the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake."

Do you? I think individual success is measured by the individual, as long as you don't seek to force others to make you live, you should live your life as you see fit. Why do you nurture greed and cynicism? By the way, there is nothing wrong with the pursuit of pleasure, as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others at the same time.

"We have been so intent on throwing off the shackles of religion that we have thrown out spirituality with the bath water, and with it the idea of morality, of the virtuous citizenry that a civilised society needs."

Have you? You said you went to church. Again, it's partly nonsense. There is a problem with ethical nihilism and a non-culture of hedonistic cannibalism. A culture fueled in part by welfarism, in part by cynical envy of the successful and a culture of blaming others for your own inate lack of self belief. That is more the point, but you're far far away from the solution. You see your article is about abrogating personal responsibility for one's own life and that of your children. I'm not at fault for other people's children. Maybe you need to go back to some rather simple points:

- When you have children you are responsible for them, that means materially, emotionally and spending time with them;
- The very basic values you should teach them are that they are in control of their life, but they should respect the right others have to control theirs. That means your property and body is your own, but so is everyone else's. It means you have to earn more, you have to be clever to do this, which means work;
- Success is up to you, live your life as you see fit, but respect the right of others to do the same. Do what makes you happy under these limits, and be proud, enjoy yourself, embrace and enjoy life;
- What other people think of you is not as important as what you think of yourself. Don't live for the sake of others, or how others will judge you, live for you, and let those you associate with be those who support who you are.

However, it's not as simple as saying "it's society's fault" is it?