Three bills on Auckland mega city

The NZ Herald reports there are to be three bills setting up the new Auckland uber stadt rat, one to set it up as a legal entity and establish transition boards, a second dealing with representation issues and a third "detailing structure, functions, roles and powers of super Auckland council and local boards".

Maybe we'll get answers about what the new council is meant to do?

Maybe that's the time to demand that the power of general competence be abolished, as is ACT policy (and which National opposed when the Local Government Bill was being put through Parliament).

Let's take the report of the Local Government and Environment Committee in 2002 and what National said then:

"National members of the Local Government and Environment Select Committee strongly disagree with the process, policy, and detail of this bill.

National believes it will result in increased duplication of services and inefficiencies, and, when things go wrong, a lack of accountability and buck-passing. National believes Parliament should clearly define the role and function of local and regional councils.

Councils will have a freer hand to invest in particular activities but not divest in areas such as ports, housing, and water systems. This introduces a structured bias towards expanding councils and their playing an ever-increasing role in our economy and citizens’ lives. National believes that increasing the size and involvement of local government will only make harder the ambition to return New Zealand to the top half of the OECD."

Quite! So what are you going to do about it?

Phones, streets and mail not safe for children

That's my reaction to the Privacy Commissioner's absurd declaration that the "internet is not safe for children".

What is?

Travel? Talking to people on the phone? Sending letters? Talking to neighbours? Relatives? Playing sports? Climbing trees? Swimming pools? Playing in the streets?

It really becomes a matter of applying your mind to the situation, and when children are involved, an appropriate amount of supervision. Smart kids manage risk, and smart adults know the extent and degree of keeping an eye on their kids.

In the scheme of things, the internet isn't dangerous. Physically it does nothing at all other than facilitate information and conversation. Of course if you let your kids take photos and send them without permission it becomes a little riskier. If your kids seek attention from strangers then maybe it is because they can't talk to you about certain things, or they are from a home lacking a parent. As much attention should be paid to those who seek out inappropriate attention, as those who respond to it.

Meeting people you only know from the internet is risky, just as risky as pen pals once were i bet, just easier. Simple rules around never meeting people without someone else present, who is an adult, is key.

This issues comes up perenially, this time because a man was luring underage girls to talk about sex with him online. He of course is now paying a price for that, the law is strict and is in itself a deterrent. However, the internet for many kids is probably far less risky than Uncle Tom, or Cousin Jed, especially if you leave them alone, they are alcoholic, and you as parents spend large amounts of time partying, or being absent. Risks need to be in perspective. The bigger risk comes from meeting people you don't know who might abuse you. These people are often brought in by adults as friends, or partners.

However, all that gets the attention of law enforcement on the internet is not the result of adults. You see the truth is that censorship laws are producing some new perverse results - according to Wired thanks to camera phones and web cams, teenagers (they aren't children and not adults) are now being prosecuted for producing child pornography. Why? Because they take photos of themselves and send them on. In one ridiculous case a teenage couple have been prosecuted because they filmed themselves having sex, and sent it to no one.

The internet is presenting new challenges to parenting, it also means taking a realistic approach to what young people do. It is more an opportunity than a risk. It offers unparalleled access to information and entertainment. It makes it far easier for young people who feel isolated and alone to explore the world, and learn about themselves and others. In short it offers far more good than bad.

Children shouldn't be exploring the internet unsupervised, but as they get older they should be allowed more and more freedom. They will talk to friends online, they may make new ones, and yes, some will explore sexuality - like they have for time immemorial. Yes, they should be protected from being hurt and harmed by predatory adults, but given the rate of teenage pregnancy far too many are experimenting with each other in the riskiest way. Wouldn't many parents rather that their teenagers sat behind a computer looking at pictures and chatting to strangers they never meet, than went out partying, getting drunk, and risking getting pregnant (or someone pregnant) or catching something nasty?

Risk is all around, it is about life. The best gift any parent can give to their children is to nurture their ability to reason, balance risk with opportunity and make informed judgments, and to be monitored, and observed as they mature with that ability.

The internet is no different.

Bludging kiwis should thank Rudd government

$A22 billion of spending on 100 new fighter jets and 12 submarines by Australia is a substantial commitment over the next 10 years, along with confirmation that its military alliance with the US is the cornerstone of its defence policy.

Have no bones about it, this means Australia is maintaining its strong defence presence in the region and its ability to project its air and sea power around its lengthy territorial waters. It is a commitment Australia has maintained throughout the Cold War and since.

Sadly, New Zealand has eroded its military commitment to the defence of the South Pacific in several stages since the mid 1980s. It started with the effective abandonment of ANZUS when the Lange government, following extensive goading from the left of the Labour Party, took an ideological hardline against the US Navy. The Lange government refused to accept a conventional powered, nuclear incapable ship because the US "neither confirmed nor denied" it carried nuclear weapons.

Following that, New Zealand has eroded its blue water navy to 2 frigates, and eliminated its air strike capability. As a result, with New Zealand effectively unable to contribute more than 2 frigates (and the army) to an overseas actions, its contribution to the collective defence of the South Pacific is derisory, through no fault of the forces themselves.

So New Zealand should be grateful at Australian taxpayers continuing their commitment. The truth is that the New Zealand armed forces are capable of maintaining some defence of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) from illegal fishing, but not any serious attack, or assisting Australia in the likelihood of any attack.

From Lange to Clark, New Zealand governments have wimped out of defence, because New Zealanders always felt safe from invasion. The idea of contributing to a defence alliance has seemed fanciful, suiting the "independent foreign policy" stance of the so called "peace movement".

Defence is a core role of the state, and while the current government will be fiscally constrained in a recession to remedy it, it should be addressed over the medium term. Meanwhile, a big "thank you" should be extended to the Rudd government, for maintaining Australia's defence forces over the longer term, and in effect, New Zealand at the same time, whilst New Zealand can effectively contribute proportionately so little in return.

How Turkey put back membership of the EU

One of the more presumptious statements of President Obama in the past month has been to support Turkey's membership of the EU. An understandable position, but I suspect had George Bush said it, Europe would be seething with "imperialist" and damnation that the US was meddling in EU affairs. Given the USA is not a member of the EU, for it to openly express a view that it should accept a new member is rather rude at best.

However, the bigger issue itself has long been a debate between those who believe such membership would promote the acceptance of secular Turkey's modernisation, a predominantly Muslim country accepted into the European club, vs. those who fear the mass migration of Turks into the rest of the EU, swamping the state welfare, health, education and housing systems, and putting EU boundaries at Syria and Iraq, rather than Turkey as they are today. Besides 6 countries of eastern Europe, plus all of the former USSR (besides the Baltic states) remain out of the EU. A bigger case can be made for the integration of the former Yugoslav republics in the EU than Turkey.

Christopher Hitchens argues in Slate that Turkey itself has put its own case backwards by a long shot. It did this by:
- Opposing the PM of Denmark as a candidate for NATO Secretary General, because he refused to interfere with Danish newspapers publishing the famous "insulting to Islam" cartoons because he had no legal right to do so;
- Opposing the PM of Denmark as a candidate for NATO Secretary General, because he refused to shut down a Kurdish language satellite TV channel, accusing it of being sympathetic to terrorism.

Hitchens argues that these show Turkey is not willing to accept the values of the EU of free speech and tolerance, and with its continued discrimination against Kurds, and denial of the Armenian genocide of 90 years ago, Turkey has a fair way to go yet.

"Put it like this: Obama's "quiet diplomacy" has temporarily conciliated the Turks while perhaps permanently alienating the French and has made it more, rather than less, likely that the American goal of Turkish EU membership will now never be reached. And this is the administration that staked so much on the idea of renewing our credit on the other side of the Atlantic. This evidently can't be done by sweetness alone."

3 May 1979 - the day Maggie's revolution started

Yes, it's the 30th anniversary of the day that British voters turned their back on the failures of the Labour minority government of James Callaghan. Persistent strikes, growing unemployment, inflation and the general state of decay of the United Kingdom in the late 1970s meant Labour was voted out (as governments are). Margaret Thatcher was new, a woman as leader of a major political party, with the Conservatives campaigning hard to attract Labour voters. An 8.1% swing to the Conservatives came from Labour and the Liberals, with the Scottish National Party also suffering (as it supported the no-confidence vote). Britain was not to know what was about to hit it.

Thatcher turned the UK economy around, she did not, as widely believed, cut state spending in real terms. In increased on average throughout her period, but the difference is that the economy grew faster, and she shrank the size of the state through privatisation.

Inflation was tamed, a vast industrial sector that suffered from chronically poor productivity was restructured, and limits on innovation and competition were dramatically reduced. Air, telecommunications, bus, rail and energy monopolies were broken up, and entrepreneurship grew once again.

Thatcher took on the militant unions, the unions that hated secret ballots that they couldn't rig, the unions that forced workers to be members, the unions that had funding and support from the totalitarian USSR. She won, as these violent institutions (that bullied and harassed those who valued their jobs more than the unionists) were no longer in control of the economy.

She ejected the vile military dictatorship of Argentina from the Falklands, and with Ronald Reagan confronted the grand evil of the Soviet Union, until Mikhail Gorbachev demonstrated he was willing to let the shackles of Soviet imperialism be removed.

She resisted the growth of the European Community beyond being merely a collaboration of free trade and movement of people, to being an institution of subsidy and regulation. She saw the EC as reversing what she was trying to do in deregulating Britain. She has been proven right.

However, overall she turned the tide on a postwar consensus of socialist mediocrity, a view that individuals knew best how to live their lives (though sadly with a conservative streak that did not stretch to social liberalism), and that success and entrepreneurship would save Britain, not more state sector control and bureaucracy. Allowing people to buy their own state houses at a discount opened up home ownership to thousands, and started to wind back the desolate decaying depression of council house dominated Britain.

Despite much hatred of her by the left, she did not dismantle the welfare state, or the NHS or the state schooling system. All got more funding in real terms under Thatcher's rule, and all were too difficult to seriously confront and reform. She was not without faults, her big mistake was the Poll Tax, as people resisted paying more for local government - when they really needed local government to shrink further. Her warmth towards Pinochet of Chile was a tragic mistake too, her love of the free market and hatred of socialism blinded her to the brutality of his dictatorship. She was, after all, a conservative, not a libertarian.

So today Britain should celebrate what she did. She was so successful it transformed the Labour Party so that, to some extent, the Blair government continued her reforms and did little to roll back the clock (primarily it just spent more on what the government did). She did not defeat socialism in Britain, but she slashed it back - the spirit and philosophy of socialism still pumps through the veins of this country, and is seen in petty fascist local government, the continued growth in the state sector, and the stifling lack of accountability from the NHS behemoth.

Much of Britain still seethes with hatred for success and the wealthy, as can be seen by the majority support for the new 50% top income tax rate, but it at least has had a chance, and as a result of Maggie has not slipped back like Italy and France have over the past few decades. It is a country I enjoy living and working in because of this - and I hope Baroness Thatcher is aware of that anniversary, and can quietly enjoy it with loved ones.

I for one am glad at the revolution she brought, she had more courage and fortitude than any of the spineless little men she led, and the ones she needed to fight to get where she was. The Conservative Party sadly being a repositary of too many privileged mediocrities. I wish the Conservatives could have the courage to complete the job, and that the philosophical arguments for less government can be argued more forcefully. Perhaps one day, and perhaps Britain can start to be grateful for what she did.

UPDATE: The Sunday Times says "It's time to invoke the spirit of Maggie".
The Times reports on seven born at the time, only one who is wholly negative, some have shown the entrepreneurial spirit she helped unlock.
David Aaronvitch (typically centre left) in the Times writes how those in 1979 couldn't have anticipated what was to come, from the winter of discontent and the punk era to...
The Daily Telegraph has comments from friends and foes alike, but has a whole section on her (unsurprisingly)
The Daily Telegraph asks David Cameron to dare to be unpopular

"Mr Cameron will need a degree of commitment and courage at least as great as Margaret Thatcher’s, because if he is to have any chance of success, he will have to pursue policies which generate as much anger, bitterness and unpopularity as those of the “Iron Lady”. That, of course, should not stop him – any more than it stopped her"

Or if you want to see the slithering beast that she helped slay read the comments on the Guardian's pathetic little piece, where she is blamed for British kids being obese

but the leftwing Mirror is at least dignified.

Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail laments how she failed, as Major and Labour afterwards did much damage.