Ross Munro - hero of the week

It is sad that clothing firm Line 7 is going into receivership.

What was more sad was the wearisome offer by John Key that he was "prepared to look at offering assistance if an approach was made", although he preferred a commercial solution. In other words, your money might be used to bail out any business that curried sufficient favour with the government. It's what you expected with Helen Clark, and Barack Obama has shown he is quite willing to prop up failed companies, but John Key? Why is he listening to the philosophy of Jim Anderton, or is it just to grab the middle New Zealand pablum approach that "guv'mint" should always be there to help.

However, Line 7 Chief Executive Ross Munro has shown himself to be a businessman, entrepreneur and indeed a man of principle above any MP (not that hard really) by refusing government help.

On Radio NZ I heard him say "it is not the role of the Government or the taxpayer to prop up the company after its own mistakes. Mr Munro says the company, which was founded in 1963, has made its own bed and needs to lie in it."

Kudos to him, of course he does already get some support indirectly, through tariffs on imported clothing, low though they are, but still it is a welcoming statement that he is saying a flat no to your money.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party is saying not enough is being done (borrowing from your children's taxes and spending more of your money) to fight the recession. It might have been more productive had Labour not frittered money away on flights of fancy like Kiwirail, which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. $690 million for a business that is worth $388 million (which is actually worth far less because it needs subsidies every year worth nearly $100 million to just operate) - that's how the Labour Party creates wealth, by subsidising foreign owners of businesses it wants to play with.

So today go out and buy something from Line 7 - you'll know you're supporting a brand and company that doesn't put its unwanted hands in your wallet.

Random observations while in NZ

In my time back in NZ, I have noticed a few things:
- Hysteria over Swine Flu the moment I arrived at the airport, forms to fill out so my location could be identified (yawn);
- Continued banality of so many drivers, tailgating me while I drive at 85 km/h on a windy road in pouring rain behind a truck I can't pass wont get you there faster, but it will be a bloody mess if I have to stop quickly (but I forgot physics isn't cool in Aotearoa);
- TVNZ must be the worst state owned broadcaster in the semi-free world. News that is more banal, brainless and celebrity oriented than any US TV news, with factual errors dotted throughout items. It shouldn't be privatised, it should be shut down, the frequencies sold and the equipment, broadcasting rights and other assets flogged off. It is second only to the education system in promoting the dumbing down of the broad mass of the population;
- Watch the teaching unions be scared shitless about the publication of the results of pupil performance at primary schools. Scared of providing information because parents are too stupid to know what to do with it, but the largely closed shop friends of the Labour Party know best what is good for your kids. School league tables wont make a big difference, and no they don't tell you what schools are best - but they do give an indication of the levels that schools aim for with students. Teachers' unions are scared of nothing more than performance pay and teachers being held accountable for the results of their pupils, and will do everything they can to obfuscate this issue;
- Local government is scared of Rodney Hide, this is a good thing;
- The recession has yet to seriously hit NZ. Sorry there are not shoots of a recovery, tourism is in for a long cold period of stagnation. Aussies may come to ski, but nobody from the northern hemisphere will be coming soon;
- Labour MPs don't know what to do. I briefly saw Chris Hipkins, MP for Rimutaka, rip into ACT MP Heather Roy for introducing a bill on motor vehicle dealers because it wasn't a bill about creating jobs. Even though Labour was supporting the bill, this junior retarded MP believes governments create jobs;
- Many Wellingtonians fear redundancies, but some of the smart people in the state sector are leaving, so the generically average will remain. It's like voluntary redundancy programmes, which generally incentivise good people to leave (because they always find other opportunities), but the deadwood remain;
- Nowhere is anything busy;
- Thanks to the Labour government, the telecommunications sector is now addicted to regulation. Now there is talk about the state regulating what existing mobile phone operators sell their own network capacity to resellers - apparently because it is unreasonable to expect new entrants to build their own networks, even though in the last 22 years Telecom has built 4 mobile networks and Vodafone 2;
- New Zealand also remains one of the few countries where Sunday papers are worse than weekday papers;
- Why does the NZ Herald National News section have a sub section called Child Abuse? Is it an indictment on the Commissioner for Children position that this is the case, and why are child abusers continuing to live off the back of taxpayers?
- I could buy Lurpak butter and Laughing Cow cheese in a NZ supermarket and the NZ dairy industry doesn't collapse, so why can't NZ dairy products enter European supermarkets at market prices (yes it is a rhetorical question);
- Does Air NZ charge full fares for young children in premium economy class and if not, why not?
- More women are wearing skirts in Wellington (in mid winter) than before, it this just pure coincidence with the disappearance of Helen Clark?
- For the last 5 years the highest priority road project in Wellington has been the Kapiti Western Link Road, a project led by Kapiti Coast District Council. The money exists to build it, and has for some time, but isn't the constant scope changing and the iterations between council, property developers, community organisations and central government symptomatic of the general incompetence of so many in local government to get anything useful done?
- The speed limits in downtown Wellington are now a ridiculous 30 km/h, was this because too many dopey people were being killed, or is it part of a creeping agenda against road transport?
- Why is Phoenix Cola no longer sweetened by honey?
- Why is it damned hard to get pressed fruit juice, not juice made from concentrate, except orange?
- How is it I can phone a GP in NZ and get an appointment the next day, with a small fee, having not lived here for years, but in the UK it is a big deal?
- Why isn't Richard Prebble hosting a news discussion programme on TV, it could be called I've Been Arguing?

Maoist was being spied on - wow

So Sue Bradford has been getting spied on for decades.

From the rather banal, badly researched article by Martin Kay in the Dominion Post, you might think that it was all about high school students campaigning for more rights who were getting spied on.

Well Sue Bradford was a bit more than that, visiting China in the early 1970s as a card carrying member of the Communist Party, while Chairman Mao was still in power, during the Cultural Revolution, would and should have caused some alarm at the time.

Trevor Loudon told more a few years ago, here, here and here.

Catherine Delahunty on the other had is simply crazy, but would hook her anti capitalism, anti reason train onto anything she could find - so now of course she's a Green MP

It's a recession, so have a junket

I don't begrudge MPs travel, after all some of them have constituencies, so it is reasonable to travel from constituencies to Wellington.

However for a bunch of backbenchers to have you pay for them to go on a junket to London, in mid winter (NZ) to mid summer (UK) flying business class is outrageous. It isn't the amount of money, which is piffling. It is the audacity that MPs, some of whom bemoan the tragic life of the poor, and how everyone should be made to pay more, go off in luxury, paid for by you, to "study "aspects of parliamentary practice and procedure"".

No, read the fucking book of procedures and talk to senior MPs you lazy parasitical junket junkies.

The NZ Herald reports that "They would also receive briefings on Britain's constitutional relationship with New Zealand and on issues of interest to them individually such as climate change and health"

Climate change? A Green MP is flying halfway around the planet to receive briefings on climate change? Nice that. The same party that pontificates on people sinfully driving and rich people not paying enough tax, happily pillages taxpayers to send its people business class to London in the northern summer to "receive briefings" and "study".

What's the word for it again? Hypo.....

This trip should have been cancelled, the MPs should be made to pay for it themselves (then decide if it isn't better to read books and receive briefings via the internet or phone), but most of all their constituents should be asked if they think this is a worthwhile use of their money in a recession.

Meanwhile, this single trip should help ensure all the MPs will instantly get Air NZ Silver Airpoints status straightaway, although those already clocking up quite a lot of domestic flights will get Gold this time. Gold Elite next right chaps? Ensures you keep away from the lumpen-proletariat who voted you in.

Which of course I understand, but I'm Gold Elite not thanks to the taxpayer.

UPDATE: Iain Lees-Galloway, MP for Palmerston North (Labour) is even twittering the heartache of flying business class on Air NZ

Local government cargo cult - Hawke's Bay Airport

This from Napier City Council and Hastings District Council, with central government collaboration - they hope.

Hawke's Bay Airport is a joint venture between central government and these two councils, with central government holding 50% of the airport, and the two councils owning the rest. (Napier 26%, Hastings 24%) However, it would be fair to say central government is not driven by wild ideas of expanding the airport for regional development.

So the plan to spend NZ$9 million extending the runway, for airlines that don't fly there yet, and planes nobody wants to fly there, is just local government wasting ratepayers' money for the sake of pride and regional kudos. Air New Zealand generates most of the traffic, and is perfectly happy flying ATR72 and Q300 turboprops, as was Origin Pacific when it existed providing competition on the routes. It does not wish to fly jets. Neither Jetstar nor Pacific Blue have declared serious interest in flying there, and the idea of international flights is ludicrous.

However, when you work in local government you can spend ratepayers' money on a cargo cult. In the midst of the most serious recession in the airline sector in modern history, Napier and Hastings councils think it is time to expand. It isn't a commercially sensible decision, the airport is seeking to borrow money to pay for a runway extension that nobody is prepared to pay to use.

It is a cargo cult, "build it and they will come". It didn't work for Invercargill airport, which wasted money on international facilities. There isn't enough traffic to Hawke's Bay Airport to sustain a competitor on the routes Air NZ flies (which is does show with rather high yields), so why the hell will bigger planes fly there?

The airport should be privatised, the government should flog off its ownership so that a private owner can put in some directors with some business acumen, and the councils should be required to sell off their shares. Ratepayers can then get a windfall they can use to invest on what THEY want, and Hawke's Bay Airport can then be operated on a commercially sound basis, it might start by trying to attract more airlines, rather than worship the rather childish idea that jet airliners can be the only way the airport can grow.