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?

Obama's nuclear plan naive and premature

I can foresee a world without nuclear weapons. It will be a world with no terrorist organisations, and one where all countries operate as closely as those in Western Europe, when war is inconceivable. Considering recent history, it is worth remembering that Germany today is a very close ally of France, the UK and the USA - for those past a certain age, this is a difficult concept to grasp (it was for Margaret Thatcher for example).

However, Barack Obama's declaration that he will convene an international summit to look at the elimination of nuclear weapons is hopefully just posturing, because the global environment to abolish nuclear weapons is far from benign.

Start with Russia, which has a government that is anything but transparent, and which could not be trusted to verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons any better than the old Soviet Union. As long as Russia remains an aggressive mini-power that seeks to exercise power outside its borders rather like the USSR did, then it would be wholly wrong to remove the nuclear deterrence. It would be a brave politician who predicts an economically beleagured Russia could not threaten its neighbours again.

Then there is China. You think it would abolish nuclear weapons? Not with Russia having them of course, nor India. China also is far from having a government that could be trusted to verify abolishing its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea's existing nuclear capability, and Iran's planned capability both do not bode well. It would also be madness to remove the nuclear deterrent from the Korean peninsula, nor to remove the ability to deter Iran. Finally, will India or Pakistan blink first? While Pakistan remains an unstable state, that risks falling to Islamism, you must wonder why India would remove its arsenal?

I need not state why Israel would never abolish its nuclear option either, given the existential threat it faces from Iran and others.

John Key and Phil Goff have parroted support for it. Sadly neither noted that nuclear weapons kept the peace in the Cold War between those countries that held them. New Zealand included of course.

As long as there remain state enemies of open transparent liberal capitalist societies, nuclear weapons should be held by the Western allies. The alternative are those who execute political opponents, censor opposition and wish to command control over the West having a monopoly on nuclear weapons. That is utterly unthinkable.

Helen Clark felt right

The NZ Herald reports on how Peter Davis on TVNZ said Helen Clark felt "rejected" by the New Zealand public in the last election.

"I think she felt rejected, because she felt she had done a good job - which I also believe - and had put her best foot forward and had been an almost incomparable Prime Minister and yet somehow the public had not seen that the same way" he said

Yes Peter, she was rejected. Almost incomparable? Well perhaps, by wasting away the fruits of a recovery on growing the bureaucracy and the state, flushing hundreds of millions of dollars away of (now this is what they don't understand) OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY in buying back a railway and an airline.

Fortunately New Zealand is a liberal democracy, and enough got tired of "the state is sovereign" Helen. She won 1999 following a growing send of tiredness of National's cobbled together and increasingly repulsive flotsam and jetsam minority government. 2002 she won because Bill English hadn't met a principle he could embrace and stand for anything at all, and the recovery was keeping enough people happy. 2005 she barely won helped ever so slightly by breaking the law by using parliamentary funds to do electoral campaigning.

Of course, the truth is she only got into power thanks to Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and Winston Peters bringing their parties into coalition and confidence/supply agreements. All of their parties have paid a high price for such arrangements.

Let's constrain democratic local government!

The Standard warns ominously that the government might take steps to hinder the growth of local government's role saying:
- A bill is to be introduced "to ‘cap rates at the rate of inflation’ will cripple councils ability to fund essential new projects" ;
-The Auckland report INITIATED BY THE PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT will provoke "another round of amalgamation to create ’super-cities’". Which will, of course, "sell assets such as airports whenever they can" (yep those privately owned airports never work);
- As part of RMA reform the government will "axe Regional Councils"; and
- Water metering will be introduced.

Now apart from the second point (as I completely oppose supercities for reasons explained here), bring it on!

The Standard shows once again enthusiasm for pilfering from people's salaries, but also notably continue economic ignorance.

What are these "essential new projects" that councils can't convince people to pay for voluntarily? It doesn't matter, as long as people vote for a council, the Standard thinks it can rate the public as much as it likes, until the next election. A cap on rates being at inflation only is a bare minimum to stop councils growing in their thieving from ratepayers.

It shows continued bigotry against privatisation, because the predominantly privately owned Auckland and Wellington airports are so badly run, compared to council owned Christchurch. Seriously, get a grip.

The axing of regional councils is feasible despite the bogus claim that "most Regional Councils manage important public functions and are fat targets for selling off major parks, water and transport assets worth many tens of billions of dollars". Most regional councils are actually glorified water catchment boards, with boundaries that reflect that. Only Auckland and Wellington ones have substantially additional functions. Most have no parks or transport assets of any consequence. Creating water catchment companies with property rights would address the relevant issues, and public transport assets in Auckland and Wellington could be held by territorial authority owned companies.

Then the real ignorance is in opposing water metering. You'd think the Standard ought to support those who use the most water paying for it, paying a bigger share of the infrastructure and water purification costs (and sewage disposal), but no. You'd think ensuring that demand reflects shares of costs would help ensure that expansion of water supplies was done when it is efficient, not when politicians get their act together (or build think big options). No. Of course, it all ignores the decades of mismanagement of water infrastructure by councils that did not replace or repair the network (something Thames Water is addressing in London). The Standard presumably thinks everyone should pay the same for water - yep, good old Marxist "economics".

Of course I don't for a moment believe the government will do ANYTHING The Standard suggests - sadly, as it would mean Rodney Hide will have done some good.

Oh and democratic local government? Give me a break. Turnout for council elections is abysmal, and democracy is never accountability when councils just vote to increase charges on the public year in year out. It is the majority (non ratepayers) voting for the minority to be pillaged for their pet projects. It's time local government was shackled.

So what about supporting the child?

I am unsurprised that Maia is supporting the woman who gave birth on a plane, who clearly was so distressed she isn't fit to be a mother (you can't look after a child if you can't look after yourself), but more curious that she is supporting her in prison (as is her right)- but doing nothing about the completely helpless baby she gave birth to.

I don't doubt Karolaine Maika is a seriously disturbed woman - but mothers, unless they adopt, have responsibilities for their children. If they fail to take even basic steps to ensure that someone else can look after them, then they are beyond the pale.

For regardless of how disturbed she is, the baby is completely and utterly helpless.

Although Maia has previously said that when people are so poor, you can understand them torturing a three year old. "it's part of a bigger project to blame people in poverty for making bad choices on an individual level, rather than seeing the structural issues which leave people so broken that they torture a three year-old".

Need I say more?