Blogging on liberty, capitalism, reason, international affairs and foreign policy, from a distinctly libertarian and objectivist perspective
11 October 2023
2023 General Election: Electorate voting guide Part One: Auckland Central to Northland... and now Part Two: Northland to Wigram
09 October 2023
The Islamofascist death cult of Hamas
The Palestinian Arabs got a raw deal from their leaders in 1948 when their neighbours decided the right response to the UK decolonising the Palestinian mandate by enabling the creation of Israel and a parallel Arab state was to oppose it. You may or may not agree with the creation of the state of Israel, as an act of Jewish self-determination, but it was endorsed by the United Nations and has never been revoked. For nearly twenty years neither Jordan nor Egypt, which held the Arab lands of Palestine enabled creation of a Palestinian state, indeed the concept of a "Palestinian homeland" was invented after 1967 - after the Six Day War when Jordan, Egypt and Syria tried to wipe Israel off the map - and each ended up losing territory to Israel.
It has all come a long way, in that Israel accepted Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza, albeit with power over airspace, marine and land access, by removing Israeli settlements in Gaza and withdrawing completely in 2005. This gave the Palestinian Authority a chance to choose peace, build trust with Israel, and as a first step towards Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank, with the prospect of a land for peace deal, whereby Israel and the Palestinian State would exchange land to provide Israel with easily defensible borders. Of course the issue of Jerusalem remained most difficult.
However Palestinians in Gaza did not choose peace, they chose to break away from the Palestinian Authority and give power to Hamas - an Islamist death cult that by any objective measure of standards on the political spectrum would be deemed to be ultra-nationalist far-right fascist ultra-traditionalists.
Hamas wants an Islamist theocracy, with no tolerance for other or no religion, no tolerance for political plurality. It promotes martyrdom to children, it promotes traditional submisive roles for women, it promotes death to homosexuals and lesbians and it promotes death to Jews. Its ideal is a totalitarian state of obedience to radical Islamism. It is a death cult, that celebrates the death of innocent people. They are nihilists who are antithetical to any sense of life, to any belief that individuals exist to pursue their own purposes, their own lives, their loves, passions, interests and joy. Hamas is in opposition to the values of the Enlightenment and the values of any liberal open modern society, let along liberal democracy.
Hamas are enemies of Palestinians, they don't want peace for Palestinians and certainly don't want peace for Israel, they want it destroyed. They don't want "Palestine to be free" anymore than Beijing wants Taiwan to be free, or Moscow wants Ukraine to be free.
There is plenty of room for criticism of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian occupied territories, and ultimately it will be right only when the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza can govern themselves in secular states with liberal democracy and no ability to wage war against their neighbours - and Israel respects their right to do so. However, there will be no peace whilst Hamas thinks it is better to kill Israelis than to build an economy and society based on Palestinians producing, trading, living and thriving. The most recent attack by Hamas was unprovoked, it has shown the vile horror of people who celebrate death and torture, of people who are the most vulnerable. By contrast you wont see the streets of Tel Aviv filled with people dragging women abducted from Gaza in horror. That's the moral difference between a death cult and a society that has as base of human values.
In the coming days we'll see who are the useful idiots to this death cult in New Zealand. John Minto is an obvious tan, but it was a surprise that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta issued her first statement which effectively called for both sides to stop:
"Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply concerned at the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Gaza. We call for the immediate cessation of violence. The protection of all civilians, and upholding of international humanitarian law is essential."
It blamed both sides. This was followed by a statement by PM Hipkins which condemned Hamas, followed by a similar statement by Mahuta. Does Nanaia Mahuta lack sympathy for Israel or have sympathy for Hamas? Or is she inept or does he just have a partisan advisor? We will probably never know. Both Christopher Luxon and David Seymour damned Hamas quite rightly alongside most of our allies, whereas the Greens condemned attacks on civilians, there are plenty of Green MPs who explicitly called out the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" - which is used by Hamas to mean wiping Israel off the map. Meanwhile the clown show called the Wellington City Council voted recently for the city of broken sewers, crumbling library and town hall to become a sister city of Ramallah, which although under the authority of Fatah in the Palestinian Authority one-party state (not Hamas), is full of individuals cheering on attacks on Israel and the abduction of women and children. That majority on Council includes the former Green Party Chief of Staff Tory Whanau - the Mayor - and the Green Party candidate for Wellington Central Tamatha Paul, who on recent polling stands a good chance of getting elected to Parliament by the Marxist morons in that electorate.
If you sympathise with Palestinians you will oppose Hamas. If you believe in individual freedom and human rights you'll oppose Hamas. However, frankly, I have yet to see any semblance of an organisation set up by Palestinians that is actually about a relatively free open liberal democracy that resembles anything remotely like what exists in either Israel or other former dictatorships like Bulgaria or Georgia.
It would be wonderful for Palestine to be free, for there to be a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel, that shares trade, investment, employment and lives in peace side by side. Some Israelis don't want that, they want the Greater Israel of the full occupation. A lot more Palestinians don't want that, they want the Jews pushed into the sea.
Golda Meir once said "We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us", unfortunately too many of them want their children to be martyrs, and too many useful idiots in the West are happy to support them doing it.
UPDATE: By the way, those voting in Christchurch Central, Auckland Central, Palmerston North and Mt Albert might ask why their Labour (for Christchurch Central) and Greens (for the rest) candidates who are all so vocal about the Palestinian issue previously are keeping quiet now?
Of course it isn't just voters in those electorates it is ALL electorates, who might ask why Labour tolerates Duncan Webb belonging to a Facebook group that openly cheers on Hamas and anti-semitic rhetoric, and the Greens tolerate Teanau Tuiono doing the same, and then Chloe Swarbrick, Ricardo Menendez-March and Golriz Ghahraman who all cheer on Palestinian liberation.
But you should ask more loudly what each of them think of Hamas's actions. What they think of Hamas? What they think Israel should do when Hamas invades Israeli territory, invades civilians' homes and abduct women and children? What should Israel do when Hamas mows down young people attending a concert in Israel? Remember this is Israeli land, recognised internationally, not occupied territory, it isn't land that anyone other than Hamas, Iran and other radicals who oppose the existence of Israel think should become part of a Palestinian state.
So go on? Ask those candidates. Ask ALL Labour and Green candidates what they think. Marama Davidson went on a flotilla to Gaza after all.
Oh and if you think that some of them aren't sympathetic, then do wonder why several Australian Green MPs have explicitly shown their support for Hamas - and of course the Green Party of Aotearoa always cheers on its colleagues over the Tasman.
08 October 2023
Which party to vote for? New Zealand General Election 2023
I’ve been remiss in not offering my opinions on the political parties registered for this general election sooner, but I thought it was about time to do so. I tend to spend a bit of time thinking about it, but basically it comes down to two sets of choices:
• Parties that will on balance take away more freedoms, tax and regulate you more, and overall increase the role of state in people’s lives, and demote the role of the individual over politically-defined collectives vs;
• Parties that will on balance increase freedoms, reduce tax and regulation, and overall reduce the role of the state in people’s lives, and increase the role of the individual over politically-defined collectives.
And:
• Parties certainly or likely to be elected to Parliament vs;
• Parties that certainly or almost certainly will not be elected to Parliament.
So below I have written an alphabetical review of each of the parties seeking to be elected under the party list, with a ranking of their likelihood to be elected to Parliament. My basis for review is whether the policies are libertarian, rational and whether the people behind it are to be trusted or ooze more turpitude than usual for politicians.
For those who can't be bothered reading so far, gere's my overall conclusion.
Of the parties that are likely to get elected, ACT is the best of a fairly woeful bunch, and it’s primarily because of education policy and what looks like a bias towards less government. It’s far from consistent, and so much rhetoric is populist pablum, but it’s worth giving ACT its first chance to be the main supporting partner of National (which it didn’t achieve under John Key, as he could use TPM and United Future to get a majority). So, I’m reluctantly giving it a tick. Sure you could give National a tick instead, but it’s not a party that will move much towards less government and more individual choice and responsibility. It’s better than Labour, but that’s a low bar to cross. You could gamble with NZ First, but the idea Winston would pull National towards less government spending, less regulation and do anything substantial about pushing back against Maori nationalism is almost laughable.
If you don’t really care about a change in government you could vote for one of a few micro parties. Of them, the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party is the most consistently libertarian because it has one policy, although it can’t organise itself to get close to being elected or indeed anything else. Of the rest, the New Conservatives might appeal to socially conservative classical liberals, but not libertarians. The other micro-parties are either blends of socialism with claims about freedom (primarily linked to the Covid vaccine, but also climate change and freedom of speech), or led by lunatics (Liz Gunn) or grifting shysters (Tamaki/Grey).
I will be hoping for a National/ACT government without NZ First, because it gives ACT its best chance to prove it can move the dial and make some substantial steps to implement reforms that are needed.
In short:
ACT: Hold your nose and give a little less government a chance.
Animal Justice Party: Vegan fundamentalist nutters
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: Free the weed, but nothing else.
Democracy NZ: Conservative breakaway with an odd blend of anti-vax and anti-GMO, but it will fade away.
Freedoms NZ: Grifters Tamaki and Grey on their latest con.
Green: Blend of eco-authoritarians and commie post-modernists keen to sacrifice us all for the greater good, and if you don't like it why are you so full of hate and want the planet to burn and children to die?
Labour: Union-tempered version of the above with a focus on much more gradualism.
Leighton Baker Party: Pointless breakaway from the New Conservatives that is worse organised and is for social conservatives.
National: The anti-Labour party that primarily exists to obtain and hang onto power when Labour frightens or angers the public too much to stay in power, but only rarely and erratically reverses anything Labour does.
New Conservative: Social conservatism with some economic liberalism, yet with little to say about cutting state spending. A shadow of its former self having been decimated by the rise of multiple conservative micro-parties led by egos.
New Nation Party: Inconsistent unhinged blend of conspiracy, localism, lower taxes but more government spending.
NewZeal: Alfred Ngaro's conservatives for lower taxes but no plans for less spending. Why bother?
New Zealand First: Like dejavu Winston rises from obscurity to find new causes to advance, this time it's back to opposing racial separatism, transgender activism and to be tough on crime.
New Zealand Loyal: Liz Gunn's mix of quackery and communism.
Te Pati Maori: Maori nationalist socialists
TOP: The party of clever leftwing policy wonks who aren't clever enough to work out how to get elected
Womens' Rights Party: Feminist socialists against transgender post-modernism
The parties
ACT: Certain to get elected. Not at all a libertarian party, but the prime contender to pull a National-led government towards more freedom and less government. In its favour is a revolutionary approach to education, including decentralising roles and responsibilities, including what are in essence vouchers and charter schools for all. There is a tougher approach to welfare promoting individual responsibility, and what looks like a belief in significantly liberalising planning laws and a more rational approach to climate change policy. David Seymour’s rhetoric on reducing government waste ought to instinctively mean a reduction in spending, and a plan to lower and simplify income tax rates, although it is mild indeed compared with previous years. ACT is willing to take on the thorny issues of identity and governance around Te Tiriti, which has been ignored for too long.
However, it is far from being all positive, the policies that are published are weak on some elements of economic liberalising. Water policy can’t suggest corporatisation, privatisation and user pays, but in fact is some bizarre blend of Muldoonism and its over-enthusiastic belief in PPPs (across far too many sectors). Sharing GST revenue with local government is also remarkably wasteful unless local government’s roles and responsibilities are pared back, otherwise the likes of Wellington City Council will just keep building or subsidising more entertainment and convention complexes. Those who rejected Covid vaccines, and the mandates and restrictions placed on people during the pandemic have fair reason to be disappointed in David Seymour’s comments during that period. Finally, it’s approach to personal freedom issues appears largely limited to legalising pseudoephedrine. It would be nice if it campaigned to reverse the absurd tobacco ban.
There is a reason to support ACT, because no other party likely to be elected to Parliament will have MPs who, mostly, have instincts to put the state sector on a diet and to oppose Nanny State moves that National may just continue with. However, it is entirely understandable why some might just find it too hard to swallow David Seymour’s pivoting on issues like housing intensification or vaccine mandates. For me, the number one reason to vote ACT is its education policy. Education more than just about any other policy, is in crisis due to capture by bureaucracy and professional unions who want to take a monopolistic approach to how children should be educated. No other party can do something about this. I might be hopeful about reform of planning laws that could enable more housing, but I’m not optimistic about ACT on this. The cycle of politics in NZ is that ACT will likely peak at this election, especially if National is seen to do well by 2026, in which case this is the peak chance for ACT to effect real change. So on balance, a vote for ACT is defensible as a vote to give National a backbone on some issues. 8/10
Animal Justice Party: Certain to not get elected. Misanthropic lunatics with no chance of getting into Parliament. The party of mandatory veganism and those who want to equate domestic abuse between humans as the same applying to animals (including the emotional abuse of denying your dog its favourite toy – by the way you wouldn’t have property rights over any animal either). With policies to end animals in agriculture, it is fundamentally authoritarian post-modernist nonsense blending a benign hippie-level kindness with economic catastrophe and anti-scientific hatred of humans. The only good thing about the Animal Justice Party is it no doubt take votes away from the Greens, so go on and promote it among your more dull-witted Green supporters. 1/10
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: Certain to not get elected. The ALCP is just about legalising cannabis, so you could argue having one libertarian policy (and not wanting to increase the state’s role in anything else) means it is the purest libertarian party. You can’t be said to have “sold out” for voting for the ALCP, and for some legalising cannabis means more than anything. A vote for the ALCP is making a statement about an issue most parties have chosen to ignore since the ill drafted referendum. However, it is just that one issue, and ALCP have little chance of getting in Parliament. Voting for ALCP indicates you rather don’t care about education, taxes, housing, environmental, economic or other policies. These things matter so 6/10
DemocracyNZ: Certain to not get elected. Matt King’s breakaway party is a breakaway rural oriented conservative party. It prefers climate change adaptation to mitigation and looks to do little about reducing agricultural emissions beyond supporting scientific approaches towards doing so. It does seem to have a preference towards less regulation generally. It is in favour of more education choice and devolving some power. Otherwise, it is primarily about vaccine mandates, and parallels ACT and NZF on race issues. However, it does have an unscientific attitude to GMOs. The latter is irrational and odd. Still, it is likely to be relatively benign, except of course there is no plausible path to Parliament or even influencing it. It gets a 4/10.
Freedoms NZ: Certain to not get elected. Grifting megalomaniac Brian Tamaki and fellow grifter Sue Grey uses the word freedom, but freedoms are selective indeed. Radical on lower taxes (but next to nothing on how to cut government spending), the big pushes are on compensating the vaccine injured. It claims to want to reject Nanny State but has very general statements about “better health and education. There is the touch of the conspiratorial here too, and it wholly rejects climate change and wants to significantly deregulate almost all regulation affecting the rural sector. Prosperity theology is grand-scale grift against the vulnerable and needy, and from a values point of view, someone who promotes this doctrine is not someone who believes in smaller government. Sue Grey in a different manner is a grifter of pseudoscientific nonsense, such as fear over 5G, and although I have respect for those who choose not to take the Covid vaccine, to talk of it being distributed as “genocide” says a lot about who is she and what she is about. This isn’t a party of freedom, it is a party led by confidence-tricksters who target the vulnerable. It gets a 1/10.
Green: Certain to get elected. New Zealand’s party of socialism is the anti-thesis of more freedom, capitalism, belief in the human individual and less government. The Greens want more government, more tax (now targeting not just when you earn or spend money, but also just owning property), more regulation, more government departments, and with the exception of a less punitive approach to drugs (except alcohol), there is almost nothing for anyone who believe in freedom with the Greens. The Greens are also in the frontline of promoting post-modernist concepts of identity defining people as privileged or victims based on immutable characteristics, and of course have little interest in private property rights. Note the Greens want Treaty settlements to include private land, wanting the state to decide that your home has to be bought by the state when you decide to sell. This is also the party that is uninterested in helping Ukraine fight Russia, but happily puts front and centre candidates that chant slogans about wiping Israel off the map. The Greens after all carry the foreign affairs stance of self-styled “anti-imperialists” who don’t care about wars waged by anyone anti-Western including terrorists. Moreover, the Greens are at the forefront of wanting legislation on “hate speech” and are keen to define that based on who is speaking not just what they say. A vote for the Greens is a vote to pass more power over your life, property and the community to the state. It gets a 1/10
Labour: Certain to get elected. Green lite, full of people who wish they could go more socialist, go more identitarian, go more government, more taxes, more regulation, more bureaucracy, but know it wont win them power to do too much. I mean why would you bother? It gets a 2/10.
Leighton Baker Party: Certain to not get elected. If you’re going to have a personality led party, it needs to be a personality that enough people like and know. In Australia, Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter have done it, with constituencies big enough to justify it. For a start, it has three party list candidates. If it crossed the 5% threshold, it wouldn’t have enough candidates. It’s a fairly standard conservative platform, with a few good points, like wanting charter schools, one law for all, enshrining freedom of speech and to ignore climate change mitigation. Yet it also wants direct democracy for decisions like tunnels? Baker is a conservative in the bedroom, and if you can’t rustle up six candidates on the tiny chance you get 5%, then why bother? It gets 3/10.
National: Certain to get elected. The party of free enterprise and individual freedom is generally very poor at advancing policies that reverse the statist policies of a Labour Government, let alone shrinking the role of the state even incrementally, when in power. At this election National’s big pushes are around minor tax cuts, some spending cuts, but a lot of new spending. It’s difficult to see its education policy breaking the bureaucratic/professional union monopoly on delivery and avoiding performance measurement, and likewise for its policy on planning to gut the post-RMA regulation of land use that hinders housing, supermarkets and other development. There does appear to be willingness to turn back race-based bureaucratic and funding measures, towards need, and to place more personal responsibility alongside welfare, as well as repealing the productivity-sapping “Fair Pay” measures. It would be generous to think National would turn the clock back to the spending and regulatory environment of 2017, let alone 1999. Yes voting National stops Labour getting in power, but it primarily stops the march to the left rather than reverses it much at all. You could do worse, but a libertarian would want a lot better. 6/10.
New Conservative: Certain to not get elected. The New Conservatives have clearly been gutted by the plethora of micro-conservative parties. There’s not really a lot here in economic freedom, some useful principles around property rights, but a bigger focus on family. Although I’m more conservative on abortion than many, granting personhood to fertilised cells is not compatible with individual freedom. There is a space for this party to represent socially conservative economic liberals, but there isn’t a lot that shows them to be economic liberals, especially a big pledge of lower taxes with nothing substantial on cutting spending. 5/10.
New Nation Party: Certain to not get elected. Starting with anti-privatisation rhetoric, there is an interesting range of positions. It wants a written constitution to protect freedoms, which is fine. Leaving the UN is conspiratorial nonsense (you don’t need to leave the UN to ignore what you don’t like). It wants a $25,000 income tax free threshold, and no tax on benefits, superannuation or student allowances, but again no policies to cut spending except a generic “reduce powers of central government”. Sure, reinstating oil and gas exploration is fine, but more “provincial” powers is not compatible with more freedom. Then it wants to investigate decriminalising cannabis. It’s quite a mix of opposing He Puapua, more health spending, more funding for tertiary students and effectively defunding RNZ and the media generally. I’m generous giving it 3/10
NewZeal: Certain to not get elected. Alfred Ngaro’s personal project. Another conservative party, but with a few weird policies like enabling housing deposits of only 2.5% for first home buyers. There is little interest in lower taxes and shrinking government, so the real question is why would you bother? 3/10
New Zealand First: On balance likely to get elected. Yes we do all know Winston, the indefatigable face of next generation Muldoonism. Winston put National in power once, Labour twice. He pivots between economic nationalism, anti-immigration and toughness on crime, and this time is opposing Maori nationalism and separatism in the way only Winston can. He is also waging war on “wokeness” which he discovered a few months ago, just under six years after he chose to govern with the blatantly woke Jacinda Ardern and the woke-ultras of the Green Party. The problem is this, I can believe Winston didn’t know He Puapua was being developed when he was a Cabinet Minister because he is fundamentally lazy. He spends two years out of Parliament barely saying boo, and when he IS a Minister he’s happy travelling and having his name linked to a handful of policies. If you think Winston is going to change policies, then I have a bridge to sell you. Winston is a populist opportunist who has three times in 27 years been given senior Cabinet positions (and his floxham and jetsam of followers) and there is no evidence it has made any substantial difference to economic or personal freedom. Yes he might get in, but he is likely to slow down reforms than accelerate them, so 3/10.
New Zealand Loyal: Certain to not get elected. Liz Gunn’s unhinged party that is also incapable of getting enough candidates to be represented adequately if it reached 5%. It’s easily the most conspiratorial party of all, not only is it anti globalism, but it is hysterically environmentalist. It is keen on quack remedies and a financial transactions tax. Anyone talking about Covid response as a “mini-Holocaust” is not just hysterical but vile. It wants to nationalise all communications and energy, so this is no party of individual freedom, but a party of a deranged mix of authoritarian mysticism and hysteria. It’s frankly very sad. 0/10
Te Pati Maori: Almost certain to get elected. TPM has morphed in the past few years into Hone Harawira’s Mana Party, led in the background by a grifter only surpassed by Winston Peters, John Tamihere. The “genetically superior” Rawiri Waititi and the “Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti or the racists” classifying Debbie Ngarewa-Packer have made the party into a radical Marxist nationalist party. On the bright side, there are elements of its belief in self-determination that would be compatible with a small state, it is also the only party that would decriminalise drug use and possession, but on the other side is a strong belief that NZers need to judged based on their classification. You’re either people of the land (Maori), people that are allowed to remain because of Te Tiriti (forget if you are born here and have no other citizenship), and everyone else who is “dying off” and doesn’t matter. TPM wants more tax, wants private land subject to Te Tiriti claims and Mana Whenua would have first right to buy private land up for sale. This is also the party that thinks all countries should be friends with Aotearoa, including the one attacking Ukraine and including the ones that operate literal Orwellian police states (e.g., DPRK and Eritrea). Neither Marxism nor nationalist identitarianism is good for individual freedom, nor can you expect tired old “anti-imperialist” apathy towards leftwing imperialism. TPM offers little for freedom lovers, but a lot for people who think Zimbabwe offers lessons to follow. 1/10
TOP – The Opportunities Party: Almost certain to not get elected. TOP’s priorities are a greater welfare state (putting everyone on welfare), a broader tax base, more taxpayer funded healthcare and public transport, and the reinstatement of the Southerner train from Christchurch to Invercargill. A party of clever people who think they know what’s best. The highlight is wanting to treat cannabis like alcohol, but you could vote for the ALCP and not have the universal basic income policy for people who don’t want to work. It has no interest in liberalising education and of course like the other leftwing parties, wants schoolchildren to be able to vote. It’s main value to freedom lovers is in denying Labour 1 or 2 seats, so go on get your leftie friends to vote TOP. 3/10
Women’s Rights Party: Certain to not get elected. Feminism that is now driven by being gender-critical around trans-genderism. There’s a place for that debate, and the Greens and Labour don't seem to want it, but everything else is just another socialist party for more welfare and more regulation. 2/10.
Footnote: I'll be interested to see how leaders of all of the parties respond to the war against Israel from the Islamofascist Hamas. Labour has already disgraced itself and National has shown backbone.
22 September 2023
New Zealand election 2023 - The case against Labour
02 August 2023
A poor critique of National's transport policy
It’s entirely in keeping with their philosophical bent, for taxpayer funded RNZ to publish as a lead article on its website, a piece by Timothy Welch, senior lecturer in Urban Planning at University of Auckland. It’s also hardly surprising that the taxpayer funded Spinoff has published the same article, as they share a common view of the world, which is predominantly sympathetic to the objectives and ideology behind transport policy in NZ since 2017.
I am sure Mr Welch is a smart man, so it is pity that it seems to have been written in a rush because it is such a poor critique of the National Party’s transport policy. The views he expresses exemplify why I’m sceptical of urban planners. The very problems they seek to fix are in some considerable part because their predecessors had an overly simplistic view of the complexities of cities, economies and the wants and needs and preferences of human beings. However, even more important is to understand that the philosophy of transport policy expounded by the Government, which also comes from some academia and is essentially the ideology promoted by the Green Party, which is to treat transport modal choices as a hierarchy that essentially devalues the personal preferences of the public relative to what the planners think is “good for society and the planet”. It devalues people’s time (by wanting people to travel more slowly), money (by wanting to tax them more for infrastructure and services they don’t use) and comfort (by wanting people to use less comfortable modes), in favour of choices that whilst certainly having merits in many circumstances, are for many users inferior to their own preferences (and do not reflect people’s willingness to pay). What is worst is that much of the argument is based on overly simplistic rhetoric and claims that some of people’s choices are either morally wrong or based on them being “addicted” to driving.
So what about Welch’s article?
It was clearly written as a hit-job on National’s recently released transport policy, which itself has strong hints of central planning, command and control in picking projects it wants to advance, although these are mostly projects to facilitate faster and safer travel of motor vehicles, whether cars, buses or commercial vehicles. Let’s be clear National is hardly advancing a free-market libertarian vision of transport, but it is a contrast from the view of the Greens and the Labour Government, which want to cut kilometres driven by cars and light commercial vehicles by 20% on average across the country (which in cities means much more than that, given the scope to cut driving in rural areas is much lower). Just consider that, Labour wants you to drive 20% less, regardless of whether or not you have an EV. Labour hasn’t quite swallowed the Green approach completely, as the Greens treat any road building as at best a waste of money, and at worst a crime against the planet which fuels people’s “addiction” to their cars (which they would only break away from if they were instead forced to pay for billions in subsidies for other modes of transport).
Welch starts by claiming there is an old joke about “just one more lane” to relieve congestion, even though the main part of this proposal is actually about building intercity 4-lane highways between major centres, in the manner of countries like Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and Ireland. Sure there are a few proposals that expand urban road capacity, but in none of these cases does it involve adding lanes to roads recently expanded. For example, New Zealand's first motorway - Johnsonville to Tawa, has the same number of lanes today as it did when it opened in 1950. Maybe the old trope of the Greens that lanes just keep having to be added isn't universal after all?
He claims that National wants to build a four-lane highway from Whangarei to Tauranga for $6b when the $6b claim is only for four projects that cover only a fraction of the route (noting 205km of the route is already motorway/expressway with 177km remaining). He ties himself up in a rough calculation to say it couldn’t cost $6b, when he could have simply read the policy document in the first place. It literally proposes $6b to four-laning Whangarei to Port Marsden, Warkworth to Wellsford, Cambridge to Piarere and Tauriko West SH29.
He then claims that “The opportunity cost of these projects also needs to account for those who don’t – or don’t want to – drive a car”. That begs two questions, why? And how don’t they? None of these projects hinders people who don’t want to drive, indeed building new highways offers opportunities to improve cycling on existing routes, and can support faster and more efficient bus services, and improves the amenity of towns bypassed for walking and cycling.
Furthermore, what is the opportunity cost of using funds collected from motor vehicle users (fuel excise and road user charges) to pay for roads? He would have a point if Crown (general taxpayers’) funds are being used to pay for them, but it is the opportunity cost of using ANY taxpayers’ funds? It takes money away from people spending on their home, their kids’ education, books, food, investing for their retirement. It doesn’t need to account for those who don’t want to drive, anymore than it needs to account for those who don’t want to consign freight by road. If people don’t want to drive they can catch scheduled bus services between Whangarei-Auckland-Hamilton and Tauranga, they can fly and if they are keen they could bike, but there is a curious blindspot among some planners about intercity bus services. They simply pretend they don’t exist because they see rail as the holy grail of virtuous, environmentally friendly transport, but it’s a shame they actually don’t want to pay for it out of their own funds.
He critiques National wanting to scrap light rail proposals for Auckland and Wellington, but then gets it wrong saying “National argues that additional motorways and tunnelling in Wellington would be more cost-effective”. National is proposing no new motorways in Wellington at all, but rather a second Mt Victoria Tunnel (which is not a motorway) and improved approach roads to it.
The policy says “National supports bus rapid transit and bus priority lanes for Wellington to make it easier to get into and around the city. A duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel will allow for greater bus access to the east, bus priority lanes on the roads leading to the tunnels, and much more free-flowing traffic through the tunnels, including for buses”. So did he just blank-out that National actually thinks bus rapid transit is better in favour of agitprop that it’s all about motorways, when literally no motorway is proposed? Furthermore, the current LGWM Mt Victoria Tunnel proposal doesn’t include light rail anyway, but bus rapid transit.
Welch continues by claiming that light rail is “fast, efficient and equitable”, yet the LGWM proposal for light rail to Island Bay would still be slower than driving and slower than the current express bus service from Island Bay, because it would stop frequently. It wouldn’t be efficient because it could never recover its capital costs, and it would be much worse in recovering the costs of operation compared with bus services. It wouldn’t be equitable because its eye-watering cost would be paid by ratepayers and road users throughout Wellington even though most would never use it (and it would, if LGWM is to be believed, significantly uplift land value along the corridor thanks to that subsidy). He compares it to Sydney’s Randwick and Kingsford lines recently opened, even though the NSW Auditor Office notes that the project, originally costed at $2.1b ended up at $3.1b and that the project benefits have had to be revised downwards. Of course Sydney does have a population greater than New Zealand
Welch continues by claiming buses and trains produce about 80% less carbon emissions per passenger kilometre than cars, which is entirely dependent on patronage. Trains and buses with few people on them are not exactly environmentally friendly, and it is highly dependent on type of vehicle. A plug-in hybrid has lower emissions per passenger km than a diesel bus. Bear in mind the ETS internalises the costs of climate change by putting a levy on the price of fuel, so motorists are already paying for the emissions they produce, and that price will be rising over time. In short, policies to reduce emissions are incentivising people to change behaviour, it’s just that it’s not enough for Welch.
Welch makes the claim that “Given the observable realities of the climate crisis, many have questioned the logic of leaning into road expansion as a policy, especially at the expense of efficient public transport”. I’ll let you speculate on who the “many” are (and let’s leave aside the abuse of the term “efficient” again), but the whole basis of this is a widely cliché’d claim that “More roads encourage more traffic and more driving, often leading to even worse congestion”. Bear in mind that the bulk of the National proposal is for intercity highways to be upgraded and be faster and safer and have more capacity, and is not about congestion. However, the “build more roads, watch them fill up” claim is neither universally applicable, nor takes into account a key element – price.
Most roads in New Zealand carry traffic volumes at a tiny fraction of their capacity, because the mere presence of a road doesn’t generate demand beyond what origins and destinations generate for personal or freight transport. Sure, expansion of an urban highway, especially one parallel to a public transport route, without any price signals to reflect cost and capacity, can encourage more demand and relocation of housing and businesses to reflect the lower generalised cost of travel. Auckland has witnessed this as its population has increased and motorways improved, this has reduced travel times and encouraged more use of them. However, this is not a problem if the roads are paid for by those using them and price signals are set to manage demand. This is where Welch is being wilfully blind because
“National will also introduce congestion charging as a new tool to help reduce travel times in our congested cities”
Congestion charging can mean new roads can be built and not get congested, it can mean motorists pay more to use roads as a scarce resource at times of peak demand and less when there is plenty of capacity. Congestion charging is supported by the Greens (albeit as a tool to punish motorists), but it would do more to reduce emissions than building boondoggles. LGWM estimates congestion charging could reduce car trips into central Wellington by 8%, but you can speculate for yourself as to why Welch doesn’t celebrate this and rethink his narrative. Bear in mind also that the Labour Government received reports on Auckland congestion pricing in late 2019 and has essentially sat on it for three years, and Phil Twyford actively opposed Wellington congestion pricing when he was Minister.
Welch then rightfully points out that EVs are a small proportion of the fleet, yet ignores the significant growth in hybrids and plug-in hybrid vehicles as well, which cut emissions by between 55% and 85% respectively on average. In short, the light vehicle fleet profile is one of lowering emissions, and this is likely to continue as such vehicles get cheaper, and the secondhand import market’s share of hybrids grows so much.
Then we get Welch’s weirdest comment:
“EVs require the same amount of road space and, due to their increased weight, potentially cause more road damage. But EV owners don’t buy petrol, which means they don’t pay excise tax – the same tax that pays for expanding roads”
The differences between EVs and petrol and diesel powered cars in terms of weight are insignificant in terms of road damage, this is why there is one rate for road user charges (RUC) for vehicles under 3.5 tonnes. Around half of road damage costs are due to the effects of weather, and most of the rest are due to heavy vehicles, a few hundred kilogrammes of additional weight in a car are not important in terms of road wear. The bigger error is ignoring road user charges RUC by weirdly saying EVs don't pay excise tax (on petrol), but then neither do diesel vehicles. EVs used to be liable for RUC, but have an exemption until 1 April 2024. Assuming the exemption is not extended, EVs will start to pay on a per kilometre basis then. This comment of his is fairly pointless.
Finally Welch claims the policies are akin to those from the 1950s and 1960s, which is perhaps an overly simplistic view of the time. In the 1950s Wellington had its biggest expansion of electric passenger rail in the country’s history to date, with construction of the line through the middle of the Hutt Valley and electrification to Upper Hutt, along with the development of Tawa that followed EMU service introduction to Paekakariki from 1949. Yes governments did embark on gradual motorway building, but did so in a haphazard manner (Auckland’s North-Western Motorway didn’t even extend all the way to the city until 1983), largely responding to a public that preferred driving to the monopoly local authority owned and operated bus services, which suffered from regular strikes, lack of capital spending on new vehicles and poor quality of service (e.g. exact fare requirement in Auckland for many years). It was also hardly car-centric when central government for decades taxed the importation of new cars by up to 60% or simply restricted the numbers permitted. This saw the price of cars inflated above market prices, and the fleet remain much older and less safe than it would have been otherwise. This didn’t completely end until 1998.
There is nothing behind the claim that the road building of the past made transport “less efficient and less equitable”. Indeed the 1950s and 1960s were also dominated by a law that prohibited freight being moved more than 30-40 miles in competition with railways, because Welch’s predecessors in the world of planning thought they knew best how freight should be moved about in NZ. The shackles of regulation on freight and passenger transport, and tariffs and import restrictions on vehicles were thrown off in the 1980s and 1990s making transport significantly more efficient. The idea it would be more efficient for motor vehicles to be using the Great South Road to travel between the Port of Auckland and Waikato, than the Southern Motorway is just ludicrous. There are sound arguments to be made that the highly invasive motorway building through central Auckland did not take into the opportunity costs of the land used, which could have encouraged an alternative approach such as tunnelling or redirecting through traffic towards the west, but the simple point is that the past saw enormous inefficiencies and costs to safety and the environmental because one set of planners decided they knew what was best.
There are reasons to criticise the National transport policy. Who knows what the net economic benefits are of the proposals? Why isn't there a bypass of Te Aro for Wellington? Is Waka Kotahi the right structure for undertaking so many operational and regulatory activities? What should be the future of road user charges and fuel duty? Should Kiwirail be split to encourage more rail operators to come to the market? What are the barriers to competition in various transport markets? It's unclear how road safety will be addressed, and are there too many road controlling authorities? Is Auckland Transport performing efficiently and responsive to the needs of transport users? What about the public transport funding framework implemented by the Government.
Unfortunately Welch’s rant seems like an ill-focused take that could have just come from the Green Party press office. I expect he can do better than just ‘cars and roads bad, trains and trams good’.