Dominion Post right on Transmission Gully

The Dom Post is right about Wellington’s Western Corridor highway issue.

It says:

“The "solutions" proposed by opponents of the coastal upgrade do not withstand scrutiny.
Tolling the road to pay the difference between the two alternatives is impractical. Officials have calculated that only $115 million could be raised through tolling, and only if the speed limit on the existing coastal road was cut to 50km/h to make it less attractive.

Reprioritising other roading projects in the region is not an option. There are already more motorists inconvenienced by delays in Ngauranga Gorge, in and around the capital and between Wellington and the Hutt Valley than there are up the coast.

Building only the top half of Transmission Gully or a two-lane version of the road would not solve the congestion problems the road is intended to fix.

It appears from Sir Brian's questions that the Western Corridor committee is investigating the possibility of a compromise that could see some, but not all, elements of the current coastal proposal implemented. “

Quite right too. It is a very hard decision – parts of the coastal route would be very hard to consent, but Transmission Gully is a very expensive waste of money – another Think Big project, which has advocates from some who should know better, given the history of their political party. I've blogged so much on this already which you can read in the November and October archives.

David Farrar supports Transmission Gully, but it appears to be because it is more achievable that the coastal upgrade - although the coastal upgrade consists of 4 discreet projects, and the Nats have proposed a major streamlining of the RMA which would make the coastal route more achievable. I haven't seen where the extra $350 million for Transmission Gully is going to come from though, as this presumably must be from not building other projects (Wellington has already effectively been promised its full share of petrol tax money from Labour, with all the Crown contributions that are being made).

The compromise the Dom Post is implying, would be interesting though there are no details.

My bet is that it involves leaving Mana as is for now, given that the recent upgrade has eased congestion there, but will see a 2-lane bypass at Pukerua Bay (to relieve that community of through traffic) and a flyover at Paekakariki to fix that nasty intersection. Given that Land Transport NZ has already approved funding for a median barrier along the coastal section, it could be argued that 4-laning the coast would be premature. The projects north of Mackays and south of Paremata would be unchanged (Western Link Road, Petone-Grenada), and the rail upgrade would proceed as proposed (without the very expensive double tracking north of Pukerua Bay).

That’s what I’d advocate, don’t do Transmission Gully or 4-lane the coast, for now. Most of the route closures are due to head-on collisions, which the median barrier will prevent. Since tolls wont pay for Transmission Gully even taking into account revenue from petrol tax and road user charges from those who are likely to use it, why should non-users pay? I thought that was what National and ACT advocated.

All of which means that we are back to making incremental progress. The cold hard reality is that once the projects listed above are done, the problems north of Paremata are not that serious and don’t warrant throwing a billion dollars at a project with a negative return. The road will be safe, the congestion will be manageable, and eventually, there will be need to be more work done – but by then there may be congestion pricing in Wellington, which may mean there is no need at all for extra road capacity.

Portrayal of Maori on media is fair, but...

Stuff reports According to a study commissioned by the Broadcasting Standards Authority undertaken by Te Kawa a Maui, the School of Maori Studies of Victoria University of Wellington:

"programmes examined were considered fair; while balance was not always achieved in individual stories, broadcasters generally attained balance over time; and the programmes were almost all accurate. Correct pronunciation of te reo continues to be seen as very important."

Now the BSA is hardly an instrument of capitalism and the VUW School of Maori Studies the same - so are the claims that mainstream media (TVNZ, TV3, National Radio and Maori broadcasting) are biased against Maori perspectives (whatever they are, since Maori are not a homogeneous political entity) going to evaporate?

Would a study about whether the media was equally unbiased between statist solutions or criticisms of government policy and non-statist say the same? I doubt it. Most TV and radio journalists are from the left, and believe the solution to problems comes from banning, compulsion and spending more of other people's money.

Brash and racism

There has been plenty about Frogblog's statement that Brash made racism acceptable in New Zealand and linking Orewa to Cronulla. David Farrar has responded with many comments in reply, but my key point is this, and it is the reason Brash got so much support - NOT anti-Maori racism, which exists but not at the levels the Maori Party and the Greens think (which should please them):

Why is it racist to want the state to have laws, and for its tax and spending policies to have no correlation whatsoever to race?

Why is it NOT racist, to give special funding, or special consultation rights to individuals purely because of what their ancestry is?

Why should anyone be judged on their ancestry, at all?

Why not judge individuals on their deeds, alone?

Racism is mindless collectivism, and it exists both with the fascist/neo-nazi "right" (as seen in the brainwashed blonde twins) and with the neo-Marxist collectivist "left", and with religious fundamentalists of ALL creeds (Islamic, Christian, Jewish etc.).

Most on the "left" are proudly anti-racist and get fired up when they think of apartheid, the old racist laws of the American south, Nazism and the corporal punishment of children speaking Maori at school.

What they don't realise is that most people on the liberal "right" have the same passionate loathing of racism.

Remember the nazi teenage blondes?

David Farrar posted the pic of these cute young teen racists a while back.

Julian Pistorius has found a series of articles about them, apparently they form a racist folk band called Prussian Blue . Unfortunately there is another band called Prussian Blue, a British folk band which is NOT neo-nazi.

There is an anti-Prussian Blue blog, but unfortunately it is unlikely that these girls will get any serious exposure to thinking more carefully about the world until they leave home. Remember, most of what they get from the non-racist world is hatred and anger, which wont inspire them to think twice about racism.

The racist Prussian Blue allegedly plan a tour to Australia - um, great timing?

Internet regulation for national content?

This man wants the EU to regulate the Internet.

I don’t mean child porn or bomb recipes, I mean regulating it for “cultural content” you know the same sort of rules that Labour and the Greens long argued about for TV, to ensure minimum levels of national content? It seems that with the arrival of hundreds of TV channels, the European Commission finds it harder to justify special rules for broadcast TV -so now it wants rules for all audiovisual media to be consistent.

Under the aegis of harmonisation, and consistency across media, the EC, instead of simply calling for the abolition of such rules, wants to extend them - because, after all, bureaucrats produce nothing.

Martin Selmayr, a European Commission bureaurat said that rules on broadcast TV may apply to the Internet, "This might involve requirements in terms of the catalogue they offer," says the quote from Macworld. A further report says that it may cover material that may “incite racial hatred” or seriously impare the “physical, mental and moral development of minors”. An excuse for more censorship – after all, what is the moral development of minors? What is a minor in the EU, when the age for sexual consent varies between 13 and 17? European bureaurats aren't keen on free speech (although Europeans aren't keen on much censorship, as any visit to an Amsterdam sex shop will demonstrate!).

One thing is for sure, that in cultural terms, the Internet has it all – and the users choose what they want to see. You can read about objectivism, literature, rugby, felching or the rambling of Chairman Mao.

The only place for the law online is to cover actual crimes, such as when intellectual property is stolen, when computers are used to initial force through hacking, and when recordings of victims suffering crimes are produced and distributed (images of child pornography).

It is worth noting that the same bureaurat also advocated taking control of the internet from ICANN to a new UN type intergovernmental bureaucracy – a less efficient more political one. It isn't broke, so don't fix it - if the Internet had been left to bureaucrats it would never have grown and developed, they would have been far too concerned with trying to make sure it didn't do all sorts of things they want to control.

EU agricultural subsidies for the wealthy

The Times from London now has some figures showing the absurdities of agricultural protectionism in Europe. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is an abomination and French farmers receive more than British and German farmers combined from this obscenity.

Bono and Bob Geldof would have done better campaigning to abolish the CAP in order to assist the poor of the developing and developed world, than to bleat on about aid.

The Times reports:

131,000 French farmers receive €20,000 or more a year from the EU. 3,200 get more than €100,000 per annum, the biggest beneficiary was a rice farmer who got €866,290 in 2003. How can European taxpayers justify that?

French farmers received €7.38 billion in subsidies in 2003.

The average French farmer receives €16,693 per annum in subsidies – this is more than five times what the average person in the world receives in income.

Prince Albert of Monaco receives around €300,000 a year in subsidies for his farms. The Queen and Prince Charles also get subsidies for their farms.

Rémy Pointereau, a French senator, received €121,000 last year, and Luc Guyau, an ally of President Chirac, received €50,000 in subsidies.

Cees Veerman, the Dutch Agriculture Minister, received €168,000 for farms in France and €22,000 for farms in the Netherlands.

In Denmark, four Cabinet ministers received money from EU farming subsidies in 2004, as did the husband of Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU Farm Commissioner.

70,000 French farmers receive no subsidies from the CAP.

One word for all of them - parasites!

This exposes the utter bullshit of the arguments of poor French farmers that will get kicked off their farms unable to fend for themselves, since 70,000 fend for themselves now (admittedly in a protected market). It also exposes the level of political disinterest there is in some European quarters to end this outrageous waste of money.

3 steps for the EU:

1. Abolish agricultural subsidies;

2. Abolish restrictions on agricultural imports;

3. Abolish tariffs on agricultural imports.

Blair's days start to be numbered?

I’ve already stated before on this blog why I, on balance, like Tony Blair. This was only enhanced by the release of his education white paper, which essentially called for the administration and running of state schools to be transferred to self-governing trusts. These trusts would allow the schools to be responsible for their spending, the curriculum, their property and what staff are paid.

This would be a major step forward in shifting education away from bureaucratic state control and being autonomous – maybe even private (though even New Labour could never countenance such heresy). New Conservative Party leader David Cameron has stated that he will support all of these measures to give more autonomy to schools, and so he should.

However now the left of the British Labour Party has smelt blood. The teachers’ unions oppose these moves, because it will mean they wont be able to lobby for a collective approach to pay and the last thing they want is for schools to be accountable to parents and local communities. After all they are teachers, it isn’t their fault when children fail at school, or if parents think they are poor performers – for some reason teachers’ unions believe they must be immune to the performance pay and accountability measures others have in their professions. Around 100 Labour MPs are reportedly not happy about the proposals – which could put them in jeopardy, unless the Tories back them. However if that happens, then Blair will feel like a lame duck, needing the Opposition to pass his legislation. This plays into the hands of those who want him to resign and pass the banner over the Gordon Brown sooner rather than later.

The reform agenda of the Blair government appears to be waning. The Daily Telegraph (leftwing wits call it the Torygraph) claims Blair is a lameduck PM, which is going a bit far - but it looks like the Labour Party left is starting to come out from under the rocks as it sees a time to get Gordon Brown into number 10. At that point it would have four or so years of stalling reform, moving policy to the left, with the intention of getting a mandate for it at the next UK election which is unlikely to be before 2009 (there was one earlier this year after all!).

It may well be that as Blair loses his ability to implement reforms of education and welfare, that the Conservative Party, revitalised with a young and vibrant leader in David Cameron is in the ascendancy.

Qantas orders 65 Boeing 787s

Qantas has announced it has ordered 65 Boeing 787s for itself and its el cheapo Jetstar subsidiary (which is going to fly low cost international services long haul) with options on another 50. These will replace the 767s which have long provided some of the services to and from New Zealand.

Besides fuel economy etc etc, the most notable thing about 787s is that there will be larger windows and higher humidity levels, so you wont be so dehydrated on long flights. The plane will be largely made of composites, so higher humidity levels will not corrode the fuselage. I'll be happy with larger windows and more humidity, it is not pleasant spending 12 hours in the air and waking up feeling dessicated by the artificial atmosphere.

Air NZ has already ordered 4 787s as the second customer for the plane to replace its 767s on medium distance flights to Pacific destinations, Australia and Asia.

Related to this, Qantas is not buying any aircraft to operate London-Sydney non-stop, partly because neither Airbus nor Boeing could make a plane guaranteed to fly that long non-stop fully-laden, and also because the demand was unlikely to be sufficient (it would have commanded a premium fare).

Greens on poverty

The Green’s have a press release out saying there is a “need to tackle the causes of child poverty”. Sue Bradford is upset that some poor children in South Auckland didn’t know when their birthday’s were – which is sad. At the most it indicates their families can’t afford presents. Then she lists other tragedies of poverty as having not traveled over the Auckland Harbour Bridge, or not traveled on the adjacent motorway.

Now at worst these are sad signs – it is a sad that a child doesn’t get birthday presents, though it isn’t really a big deal if they don’t get to travel on a road. This isn’t a big deal in terms of poverty, not compared to starvation, lack of shelter or clean drinking water.

However, you guessed it, Sue Bradford wants Nanny State to throw more money at these families (although the causes of child poverty aren’t noted).

Charity is a fine way of giving people in poverty a leg up, and a chance to move forward- but having the state use force to take money from others to give to these families is not. It is state violence justified because some children have “sad lives”. Whose fault is that? Well the primary responsibility for children lies with their family – it is up to them to have children when they can afford them and provide for them.

The main causes of child poverty come from people having children when they cannot afford them. Taking more money from those who can and giving it to those who can’t increases the incentive to continue the behaviour of breeding irresponsibly.

The Greens want to use welfare to "fix" this problem, a problem that is better fixed by people choosing to give, and by actively assisting those who are poor, such as the work Auckland City Mission does. You’ll do far more for the poor giving to organizations such as them, instead of paying more in taxes so bureaurats can dish out money.

In fact a good start would be to abolish taxes for people on the lowest incomes - Libertarianz support the Green Party policy for a tax free threshold to be implemented immediately. Of course Libertarianz would ask for a higher one - I think $10,000 tax free would be a good start, of course you wouldn't have state welfare either :)

Government murder toll

Hat tip to PC for his linking to the story about democide or death by government action.

The left like to focus on what companies do, and on the cost of war in terms of lives, but war is a drop of blood in the bucket compared to what government’s do. Democratic peace defines democide as:

“any murder by government, and includes genocide, politicide, massacres, mass murder, extrajudicial executions, assassinations, atrocities, and intentional famines”

He categorises democide into several groupings, and has detailed results on his website here.

262 million people murdered by governments – over 76 million in communist run China alone, 50 million from colonial governments (a good deal being Leopold’s Congo, probably the most brutal colonisation in history).

This is six times higher than those killed in combat. That is why peace between countries is important but not the MOST important pre-requisite for civilisation.

The WTO is good!

The WTO is the one intergovernmental organisation that I hold in high regard. It advocates consistent, non-discriminatory rules on trade, has a dispute settlement mechanism for it and is pro free-trade.

There are umpteen protestors now in Hong Kong claiming that the WTO is unfair. Mostly these are South Korean farmers who can afford to fly to Hong Kong protesting against the looming opening up of the South Korean rice market to cheaper foreign rice from the likes of Thailand (which is far poorer and a far more efficient rice producer). South Korea is a very small country with a high population, so in all likelihood there will be less rice producers in South Korea over the longer term, as the pressure for land shifts the country further from agriculture to manufacturing and services (which it is very good at).

The WTO puts pressure through its members for global liberalisation in trade of all goods and services. It puts the same pressure on the EU to abolish its export subsidies for agriculture as it does to India to abolish tariffs on car imports. All countries should liberalise – but what is happening is that the two largest blocs at the WTO are saying “you first”.

The US is willing to abandon agricultural export subsidies if the EU does so, and developing countries also abandon protectionist policies for agriculture.

The EU is willing to provide special access to products from least developed countries, thwarted the MFN principle which states that all WTO member states should be treated equally (though the EU itself is a great example of thwarting MFN!).

Both the EU and the US want liberalisation in manufactured goods and services in developing countries. Developing countries want an end to export subsidies and protectionism for agriculture and textiles in developed countries.

Most of them are right! However, no deal can be struck without agreement between member states - which is more fair than any United Nations organisation (the WTO is not part of the UN) which works on majority most of the time (and since the majority of countries are corrupt and often despotic, the result is clear).

New Zealand fortunately can step to one side given that it has almost totally liberalised trade (tariffs remain thanks to Jim Anderton’s deal with Labour when the Clark government was first formed), and can argue philosophically for free trade in agriculture, goods and services.

Even this French dairy farmer admits that New Zealand dairy farmers can produce milk at half the cost French ones can. If the Greens were in France, they would argue that New Zealand (foreign) milk cannot be allowed to undercut local producers- in short, the Greens would argue to render New Zealand a small country backwater unable to earn foreign exchange from agricultural products, and unable to afford the capital goods produced in other countries.

Interesting the steel worker in this BBC interview in Brazil understands things a lot better than his US counterpart – arguing that US car manufacturers would be more competitive if the cost of steel were lower for them (which means importing steel from more efficient producers), and that Brazilian steel mills are more up to date and competitive than US ones. Remember Bush agreed to reintroduce tariffs to protect the US steel industry.

Free trade is a no brainer. Professor Jagdish Bhagwati is a world renowned author on free trade. His website contains copies of many papers and articles he has written on trade and related issues. His latest book is In Defence of Globalization which I am currently reading.

If you think that the government should limit imports from other countries or tax them, then explain why you need to be forced to buy local, or penalised if you don’t. Also explain why the arbitrary national boundaries that exist are so precious to anti-free traders? Why not impose tariffs on products moved from the South to the North Island (that damned Mainland cheese!) and vice versa, why not impose tariffs on products coming from Northland or the Bay of Plenty into Auckland, or vice versa? Silly? Well imagine the USA did this, with 50 states – looks a bit like Europe then. Consider Africa, which is covered in protectionist states, most of which have GDP levels a fraction of New Zealand, with many times the population – see what a lack of free trade does for them.

If you are still not convinced, what if we extended the protectionist principle to its logical conclusion. You are now heavily taxed if you buy anything from outside your own home, but not on anything you grow or make yourself – see how wealthy you are now? Free trade is what happens everyday between you and your community, town and country – if it works within your country, where councils have differing levels of taxes and laws, it will work between countries.

Australian - or rather proletarian racism

A combination of common racism and a latent desire for random thuggery has surfaced in Sydney, with the riots in Cronulla. The Sydney Morning Herald has umpteen articles linked about it here.

Those on the left want to paint this as something encouraged by the Howard government’s approach to refugees, those on the right want to downplay the racial component of it – both are wrong.

There is an undercurrent of violent potential among a certain calibre of young men in Australian (and dare I say New Zealand, British and American society as well) which in certain circumstances sees them willing to act in ways that they wouldn’t as individuals. They get courage they wouldn’t have on their own, and they seek to prove themselves to their “comrades” by being destructive towards other people and their property – it is a brutal, cold, mindless savagery. It is a savagery seen at times with football hooligans, street gangs and when some of them get drunk on a Saturday night. It comes from being, by and large, pathetic little nobodies who don’t feel like they control the world, the probably don’t own a house, haven’t travelled much and don’t have children. Their main interests are watching sport on telly, getting pissed with their mates and shagging whatever they can find. Being tough is important to them, using their brains and being articulate isn’t.

The left like to put this down to capitalism, unemployment, dispossession and the downtrodden working class being angry – which is bollocks. At a time of low unemployment and relatively high prosperity in Australia, these people still exist – they are not poverty stricken, but they don’t like people who are different from them. It is an ancient tribalism, which in nature makes sense – back in caveman days you feared the tribe that looked different from you, because they might be after your stock, land or women – so it made evolutionary sense to be racist. Civilisation tore that away, now these ordinary Australian men are jealous of young people from other ethnic origins who look wealthier, more successful and who also commit crimes, though no more than “real Australians” (Australians of British origin). It just takes one of them to criticise the bloke who looks a bit different, and his mates go along with it- followers sticking up for their mates, and it doesn’t really matter what you do, you stick up for each other. A few people of non-white Australian origin commit crimes, and it's time for "payback" - alluring to those small minded local men.

It’s a simplistic view of the world – and a fear that people who don’t look like you are taking over “your” public space. “your” beach “your” park and “your” women. The classifying of anyone of another race as "probably the criminals" or the same as someone who committed an awful crime - it is how all racists demonise a group. It is the same mentality that saw Anthony Walker attacked in the UK because he was black with a white girlfriend. No doubt the men who did this were offended because one of “their” girls was with one of “them”. Savage gutter collectivism.

However, those on the right who say it is “just thuggery” and racism isn’t important are wrong. The crime is no different no matter what races are involved, the same people are hurt, but it is the collective brainlessness of racism that is behind all this – and it is a brainlessness that does not only lie on one side. People of all ethnic origins can be racist – it just so happens that the racist undercurrent of part of Australian society has come out. However it also exists in Britain as shown by this lot. New Zealand has its share too.

There are plenty of racist people about – they largely wont admit it. You’ll hear “I’m not racist, I just don’t want there to be too many Asians here”. Remember Australians voted in 1968 about whether to allow Aborigines to become citizens – yes 1968! A majority of “true blue Australians” said yes, how generous of them.

The racism of the past is well known, but it takes a lot to remove the instinctual natural racism based on fear of those who are different from you, particularly with people driven by a close tribal instinct of mateship and being “local”. The only way to do this, is for people to leave, travel and find out what people elsewhere are really like, because if an Arab man is shagging your sister – it might be because she wanted him rather than your slopehead mates?

and may they be sodomised by the erect phallus of a bull

Boycott Telstra Clear - hypocritical supporters of fascism

Yes, I am calling a private company, that claims to compete with a large, formerly government owned company, hypocritical supporters of fascism. I also believe in free market economics.

Why?

TelstraClear is a company I hold in the lowest regard for several reasons but more on that later.

It has accused Telecom of lobbying the government to not introduce local loop unbundling. In short, Telecom, on behalf of its shareholders, was pleading with the government to not interfere with its property rights.

Remember, Telecom owns its network, the most ubiquitous local phone network in the country, not the government, not “the people”. The “people” (represented by the government) sold it – and the proceeds were used to pay off debt held by “the people” and pay for some current expenditure. Telstra Clear doesn’t own Telecom’s network either. Telecom’s owners on privatisation agreed to allow interconnection so that competitors could connect with Telecom customers, and this allowed competition in long distance, international and mobile calls quite early on. Local call competition emerged when what was then Clear Communications, Telstra and Saturn (which have all since merged into one) established their own local networks. Since then, the government has forced Telecom to resale its network to competitors for local access as well. During that time, of course, another operator provides what could be seen as local phone service- Vodafone, and nothing is stopping anyone else legally from building competing fixed or mobile phone networks. However - it's a lot easier to not bother isn't it Telstra Clear?

Now having the ability to do long distance, international and local calls using its own network, and reselling Telecom's, Telstra Clear wasn’t happy. It wanted full access to Telecom’s property – akin to Woolworths telling New World that it must be allowed to open a store inside New World’s premises, where it didn’t have premises of its own. How about if Air New Zealand was forced to wholesale part of the seats on its planes to Origin Pacific to promote “competition”?

Now one of the reasons I hate Telstra Clear and its predecessor Clear, is because they mistakenly milked New Zealand public sympathy for years, by claiming to be the telecommunications underdog, even though Clear did next to nothing to provide real competition. When Clear entered the NZ market, the prices for international and national calls did NOT change for retail customers. $5 capped national calls were introduced by Telecom in response to competition from smaller operators, Clear copied this. Clear was hardly ever the innovator - Saturn Communications (which was bought by Telstra and then absorbed into Telstra Clear) was. It was looking to expand its local network across Auckland and into Hamilton, Dunedin and Tauranga, before cost and the moans of local authorities who didn't overhead cabling to be installed put paid to that idea.

When prices dropped, it was either because Telecom led it, or responded to reductions in prices from companies like Worldxchange and Compass Communications, Clear copied this. It has almost never been a price leader, the price leaders have either been Telecom or smaller operators.

I know this because I advised the government on telecommunications policy at the time! At no stage did Clear make a dent in the market based on price.

My other beef with Telstra Clear is the drop in standards of service. I was a Saturn customer when it laid its own network in Wellington (note to Telstra Clear – your OWN network, spend your money, build your own network then compete) and it provided an excellent phone, internet and cable tv service at a very reasonable price. The takeover by Telstra and the subsequent merge with Clear saw standards drop. On one occasion the weather damaged my phone line, and the company came out and changed the wires around so my second line (for the internet) had switched numbers with the first line. So people phoning me would get my computer and vice versa, and it took three weeks for them to fix it, after umpteen calls and the impudent bitch at the other end arguing that I had never called. On top of that, I found their switch to Voice of IP saw call quality drop so that I couldn’t always hear conversations to friends overseas. In short, the service became shockingly bad – even when I was leaving NZ, the company claimed to have sent me a pack to post my cable TV box in, but never did, even though I rang 3 times over 2 weeks asking where it was- the company said it was “my fault” because I apparently hadn’t checked my mail box (I had!).

Telstra Clear is not a typical private company trying to provide services with its own resources and compete in the market – it is a leech forever whinging about how it can’t compete because it doesn’t have access to its competitor’s network.

It accused Telecom of threatening the government that if forced to open up its own network to competitors, its share price would drop and it would have a negative effect on the economy.

Now it has come out that Telstra Clear has threatened that if the government does NOT do this, it is in breach of the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications negotiated with other countries under the aegis of the WTO. So why is it ok for Telstra Clear to lobby the government but not Telecom?

Besides which, Telstra Clear’s argument is utter bollocks. Why? Well for one, I was involved in the negotiations of that agreement at the WTO – the text was very carefully agreed and it does NOT require local loop unbundling. It does not prohibit countries from doing it, but it only requires interconnection.

On top of that, Telstra Clear talked utter bullshit claiming that the Australia-US free trade agreement requires local loop unbundling. It doesn’t.

Telstra Clear should butt out, and start doing what it is meant to do – compete. The service compared to Telecom is shocking – and I nearly switched to Telecom twice, and Telecom was only too willing to help me. Telstra Clear should provide good service, at good prices and win people over through their products and services. It has access to Telecom’s network at a wholesale level and for interconnection, it also has its own local network in the Auckland CBD, and through suburban Wellington and Christchurch.

However, here is my biggest complaint - Telstra Clear wont open up its network. If you are a Telstra Clear local customer, you cannot use any of its competitors, like IHUG or Worldxchange for toll calls – because Telstra Clear wont let its smaller competitors use its network. I tried, as an IHUG net customers to use IHUG for phone service, but Telstra Clear doesn't let it happen - Telecom does.

Fascists? Yes. It wants the state to effectively control private property rights of its biggest competitor, so that Telecom holds its property, but Telstra Clear can do what it wishes with its property.

That is why I am calling for libertarians and believers in free enterprise to boycott Telstra Clear – tell the company you don’t want to do business with anyone who does not believe in private property rights for anyone else other than themselves.

and Labour got this one right in refusing to listen to Telstra Clear's moans.

The immorality of executing drug dealers

BZP has commented on the execution of Nguyen Tuong Van in Singapore, for the crime of trading in a banned substance. Yes I know that doing this through Singapore is a risk, and you take the risk when you do it - but I agree with BZP that what is particularly vile is Marc Alexander - former United Future MP, and one of the more sensible ones - agreeing with the view that drug dealing is like mass murder.

It isn't. Most people who take drugs are not addicts, they are people choosing to ingest a substance for their own pleasure. Most drug users do so occasionally for a certain period of their lives, and then drift away from it. Some are addicts, as there are alcoholics, addicts to gambling, porn and food. Those people need to help themselves, but just because they exist is not a reason to criminalise all of the others. Criminalisation also means that the quality and price go down and up respectively - many drug related health problems are related to the impurity of the drug.

However, for people like Marc Alexander a drug dealer - someone selling to a willing buyer - is no different to an executioner, someone applying force against another individual.

The Economist magazine some years ago stated, in essence, that drug use may not be smart or even safe, but that it is no reason to ban it.

Abolish Auckland City Council

Rodney Hide has announced he is resubmitting his private member’s bill on capping council rates increases to the rate of inflation, after reporting that Auckland City Council will be increasing rates by 55-196% over the next ten years.

Of course this was going to happen for three reasons:

1. Local government is full of petty bureaucrats and inexorably works to increase its size and influence. It is cancerous, it doesn’t seek to shrink.
2. Labour (and the then Alliance) and the Greens voted in 2001 to give local government a power of general (in)competence. This means that councils can get into whatever activity they wish, as long as they consult “the community”. Since most of “the community” spends its time working and living, and can’t be bothered responding to these consultation processes, most things councils do get rubber stamped. Council were set off the legal leash with the Local Government Act 2002.
3. The lefty council elected last year by Aucklanders is even more enamoured by more interference and more council spending – so Aucklanders made things even worse.

So there you have it – until local government is slashed to the bone, or better still, abolished it will grow and grow, like a tumour. Rodney’s Bill ought to be supported by the Nats and United Future (since United Future campaigned on abolishing GST on rates), so we should let NZ First argue in favour of growing local authority rates. You might ask National Party member and Auckland City Councillor Aaron Bhatnagar what he thinks - after all, Auckland City Council simply grew SLOWER under the Banks/CRN council that got voted out in 2004.

If Libertarianz were in Parliament, it would support the Bill too, although would be working on amendments to at least cap rates for ten years, if not slash them.

The truth is that rates shouldn’t be capped at inflation, councils need trimming, so they should have rates capped indefinitely, and prohibited from entering into any new activities and required to privatise (by whatever means) any businesses they operate.

User pays should apply to all services that can be charged that way practicably, and what is left to councils should be the remaining “public good” activities that are most difficult to shift to the private sector.

Within three years, Auckland City Council could have sold or given away shares in all businesses it is involved in, and sold all surplus property. Subsidies would have been abolished. User pays could apply wherever it could be practically implemented.

Within six years, Auckland City Council could have given to the voluntary sector all of its social activities, such as community centres and pools and parks. Activities unable to be operated by user pays would be transferred to the voluntary sector, or adjacent private property owners (e.g. trusts for footpaths).

Within nine years, the remaining planning functions of Auckland City Council could have been abolished, as property rights were granted in a wider range of factors (airspace, noise, pollution). Roads would be held by either body corporates for local streets or a company for major arterials - and the relevant owner would charge for road use.

See, Auckland City Council could be abolished within ten years.

and kneesocks would be compulsory for all women 18-35

Greens opposing more state violence?

Well, just to be fair to them, it appears the Greens have dropped the gun in one case – the regulation of dietary supplements. Now I suspect this is largely because of a warm fuzzy feeling the Greens have towards so-called natural remedies, you know all those extracts of plants, bugs and whatsoever that are vastly overpriced, and tend to do anything short of promise better sleep, fitness, sexual performance. The Greens don’t tend to like the pharmaceutical sector (all that science and cold hard analysis using chemicals), but like anyone who can take a lemon and make a cold and flu tablet out of it – forgetting that all substances are chemicals and just because it is natural, doesn’t mean it is good for you. Uranium, arsenic and lead are all very natural and pure.

Sue Kedgley is right, regulating dietary supplements through a proposed Trans-Tasman Therapeutics Goods Agency is not in New Zealand’s interests. It would be a highly bureaucratic system with huge compliance costs. A better approach would be to return to the right to sue (tort law not Kedgley) and opening ACC up to competition, so that producers of dietary supplements that sell products that are negligently harmful can be held to account.

Unfortunately, Sue having dropped the gun for the big bureaucracy, is still holding a baton when she says that “we can begin work on a sensible, New Zealand-based scheme to improve the regulation of dietary supplements”. Imagine there’s no regulation, it’s easy if you try, no bureaucrats or authorities, above us only sky.

Green Party promoting more state violence - Example 2

As the next part of my series into how the Greens are pro-violence. There is Sue Bradford’s private member’s bill to compel employers to pay 16 and 17yos the adult minimum wage.

Now the concept of a legal minimum wage in itself is state interference in the actions of individuals. If a person is willing to work for less than the minimum wage, why should an employer be required – under threat of state violence – to pay that person more? This is Nanny State in action once again.

The Green’s argument is that “age discrimination is arbitrary, inequitable and unjustifiable under the principle of equal pay for work of equal value”. Well if only it were as simple as that.

The “value” the Greens are putting on work is arbitrary, inequitable and unjustifiable. Who else, other than the employer and employee can decide what the value is in performing a certain task? The value may be $20 a hour or $1. The employer determine whether the task generates enough wealth to make that worthwhile, and how easy it is to get others to perform the task – unskilled jobs pay little because a lot of people are unskilled. The employee decides whether the time and effort cost in the job is worth the money that is offered for it.

None of this involves force. Now some would argue that you are “forced” to work otherwise you starve, which of course is not “force” it is reality. Human beings will die unless they undertake tasks to find food, or trade value for food. It has nothing to do with force – the world does not owe anyone a living.

16 and 17yos typically face no risk whatsoever of starving or not being able to survive without a job. For them, employment is about gaining some valuable early experience in the workforce (which is a good way to get a CV started) and then to have some surplus money to pay for entertainment, clothes and other lifestyle accessories. Most live off the back of their parents for housing, food, utilities etc.

To say that a 16yo should be paid the same as an 18yo for the same job ignores so many factors that the state has no right to question. The fundamental factor is this- the employer created the job and is offering money (the employer’s money) for performing a duty, often on the employer’s property. The employee can accept or reject this. It is not for Sue Bradford or anyone to interfere in this. Exploitation? Well assuming the 16yo entered into the contract wilfully, it is not exploitation – the contract can be ended, it is not slavery and it is not compulsory. Whereas the creepy concept of equal work for equal pay (assuming some great oracle can determine what equal work means) socialises jobs, makes employment an intimate matter of the state whereby bureaucrats determine what value is put on what people produce.

The argument that "High school students are often required to work long hours in evenings and weekends to support their families, who are themselves often facing the same wage issues." put forward by Young Greens Spokesperson George Darroch is bollocks. "Often required?" since when? Just another socialist unsubstantiated assertion.

The minimum wage for 16 and 17yos should not be increased, it should be abolished. If 16 and 17yos want to work they can choose whether to take a particular job or not – take the experience and the pay, or do something else. The argument that such wages do not reflect the cost of living is irrelevant - the employer doesn't set that, and these jobs are more often than not part time supplements. Should part time employment be banned because it doesn't reflect the cost of living? The claim that 1 in 5 children live in poverty has little to do with lower wages for young people - the people to blame for that poverty are, by and large, the parents who produced the children and did not take steps to ensure they would be looked after.

Nobody owes them a living.

ACT and National should vote against this Bill, as it is not only immoral, but will effectively ban many jobs that exist right now. Many jobs for 16 and 17yos exist only because the employer cannot justify paying them more for the tasks these inexperienced people bring to their jobs. The jobs are valuable short term work experience, which can move onto better pay in the future. The Greens want to destroy these jobs, although they THINK they are simply going to raise the wages in those jobs. The formula is simple- if the jobs do not generate wealth for a business at the adult minimum wage, the jobs will go. If the person doing the job is likely to leave and he or she would be hard to replace, then the employer will pay more to retain that employee. There is no such thing as a right to a job

and why is this an example of state violence? It is using the threat of injunction (with fines or imprisonment to back it up) to prohibit employment contracts below a certain price. There is nothing peaceful about that!

Goodbye London Routemaster

Well everyone, after an awful week after going to Munich for a day, and then getting a virus that had me stuck in bed till yesterday – I am back and enough is getting me angry or excited to start posting regularly again.

In London, the big news last week was the demise of the much loved Routemaster double deck buses. These buses replaced the trolley buses in London from the 1950s, and are one of the symbols of the city. Mayor Ken Livingstone who when elected said you had to be a “ghastly dehumanised moron” to want to get rid of the Routemaster. Well he did it – the remaining Routemasters have been withdrawn from scheduled service, though some retain for tourist routes.

Funnily it was a Labour Transport Secretary in 1967, the leftie nutcase Barbara Castle, who sounded the end to the production of Routemasters by nationalising bus services and subsidising the purchase of rear-engined buses.

Now I’m not one to say the public should subsidise an adequated mode of transport. If private bus companies can run more efficient modern buses, that are cheaper to maintain and operate than the Routemaster then so be it. However, this is not what has happened here. Instead the Mayor mandated the ending of the Routemaster, and he did it because the disability lobby have cried about how inaccessible the Routemaster buses are to people in wheelchairs. The fact that most tube stations are completely inaccessible, and that a subsidised maxi-taxi service for the wheelchair bound does not concern these “human rights activists”. To them, there is a right of everyone to use private property, and if they can’t fit, then make it happen.

"Those who defend the Routemaster should have a long hard think about the impact of their views," said Bert Massie, chairman of the Disability Rights Commission. "Wanting to hang onto a vehicle that many people can't use is based on the principle of segregation - in effect you cut off a large number of people from using one form of transport."

There have been the odd murmurings that Air NZ is breaching the Human Rights Act with its upgraded Boeing 747s, because people in wheelchairs cannot access the new Premium Economy Class cabin which is only located upstairs. The next nonsense will be rental cars with chauffeurs for the blind because “they have the right to independent travel” anything else would be “apartheid” or “segregation”.

I'm sorry, you don't have a right to any product or service - you have the right to offer to purchase a service, if the seller agrees, but you cannot dictate that someone must provide a service for you - regardless

On top of the disability argument (which holds less water with a survey that claimed 81% of disabled people wanted Routemasters retained), is the safety one. People get killed or injured falling off of the back of buses. Well tough! I am all for more stupid people getting killed from being stupid – it removes their chance to breed, and claim more from the rest of us. Every time some idiot walks or drives in front of a train at a level crossing, there are whinges and whines for “something to be done about it”. Something was done, human beings were equipped with brains – when you approach a level crossing, use your brain, if you don’t then you die – if you don’t have enough incentive to stop and look, then why the hell should we all be forced to pay for your incompetence?

So the Routemasters are gone, partly due to a politically correct obsession with people in wheelchairs, partly because of an obsession by the left to wrap people in cotton wool in case they hurt themselves, but also because they are old and not very fuel efficient. If Transport for London abandoned subsidising buses and let the private companies operate the routes and buses they wanted, then we’d know whether Routemasters should be retained. I’ve ridden on them a couple of times, and while they are quaint, by and large they have rough hard suspension and are not that comfortable – but then I don’t find riding by bus to be much fun most of the time for the same reason most public transport isn't much fun - there are lots of other people sharing your space and air!

Transmission Gully advocates defy economics

I noticed Porirua City Council is talking nonsense about the coastal highway route vs. Transmission Gully claiming that a broader economic evaluation was needed. You can see Porirua's submission here. I've read it, and it has the holes of Swiss cheese.

It is nonsense to say the coastal route will take 24 years to complete.

It is nonsense to say there is an "over-emphasis" on cost - whose money is it?

It is nonsense to say the coastal route will destroy tourism assets - find one that anyone in Wellington regards as significant!

It’s rather simple, Transmission Gully isn’t worth it – it is a $1.1 billion investment that returns benefits worth $550 million, and the coastal 4-laning will be worth it eventually, but not yet.

Porirua City Council – which wont for a minute commit any of its ratepayers money to Transmission Gully, is keen to commit other people’s money to it.

It reckons Transmission Gully is affordable if you:

- defer “lower priority road projects”. In fact, lower priority projects don’t get funded ahead of higher priority ones. What this means is defer higher priority, higher quality projects – and to do this you need to defer every single other new roading project in the region for 10 years, such as the proposed Basin Reserve flyover, and any improvements in the Hutt – all projects that return benefits several times their costs. The same time the submission says that all these sorts of projects can still proceed

- toll the Gully (brings in around 10% of the funds and reduces the benefits down to around a third of the costs, because few will pay to use the Gully when the current road isn’t congested );

- securing funds from the National Land Transport Programme (Land Transport NZ is only meant to fund efficient projects, which does not mean projects with benefits half those of costs).

Porirua City would kill the Petone-Grenada link road because it wouldn’t be needed – though Ngauranga Gorge and the Hutt motorway will both still be congested – and Petone-Grenada has the net benefits of Transmission Gully at a quarter of the costs.

If you left the running of highways to the private sector, you’d know whether Transmission Gully is a good idea or not. Mountains of analysis say it’s a dog – and the private sector could try and build it now, nobody is stopping them – it just doesn’t stack up as a road that enough potential users would be willing to pay enough money for, not by a long shot.

Porirua City Council wants to waste taxpayers money and road users money on a project that would mean no other major roading improvements are undertaken in Wellington for 15 years – it wont raise rates from the anticipated increased property values for landowners near the current highway – which shows it wont put its money where its mouth is – its mouth isn’t connected to a brain applying economic rationalism, and should be ignored.

No matter how you hold your mouth, nobody can get beyond this fact.

I don't care about Winston either

I agree with PC - I am not interested in what Winston does every day. Yes it is weird that such an important portfolio as Foreign Affairs is held by a Minister outside Cabinet leading a party that still wants to be seen as the Opposition, even though it is granting confidence and supply to Labour.

That's it. Nothing more interesting so far.

The obsessive reporters who think that every utterance about Winston or everything he does is interesting are WRONG. They remind me of the royal watcher parasites who spend lifetimes reporting on whether Prince X sneezed, who Princess Y gave a blowjob to and whether the Queen likes marmalade or strawberry jam - people with NO lives - and they play right into Winston's hands.

I once sat on a plane next to Winston, a few years ago when there was domestic business class - he shifted to the empty front row after takeoff - obviously fearing sitting next to a single unaccompanied male. Is that exciting news??? I don't think so.

The media hate him, it is so obvious and he knows it. They don't give half the scrutiny to anything Clark or Cullen does. So Winston can simply claim the media hate him, don't treat him fairly, and his supporters can nod their heads and say "yeah the poncy Auckland bastard journos always trying to bring our man down".

The Nats are out for blood, because he was once one of them - and now he wont sleep with them to put them in power - they are jealous of Helen. If Winston supported a Nat led government, they would be defending him, with grating teeth.

Until Winston says something interesting - such as opposing something the government is doing, or is found to have a young gorgeous lover, or punches some reporter in the face - I simply don't care. At best he is doing no harm - at worst he keeps Labour in power, but there is no alternative government.

National has little credibility criticising a man it made into Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer after the first MMP election - Labour and National, political prostitutes ready to sleep with whoever it takes to be in power. Winston knows this, and good on him for exploiting their unprincipled gutter instincts.