Not just a plane

Boeing recently announced it was launching a completely revised and extended version of the Boeing 747 – called the Boeing 747-8 (pictured). Now to some it is just a response to the enormous Airbus A380. It has a longer fuselage, more fuel efficient and quieter engines, greater range and new interior (larger staircase and scope to put bunks on a level above the main cabin).

However, none of that is too important – I think it is time to celebrate what the Boeing 747 is – it is not just a plane, it was a revolution in travel and changed society far greater than any recycling scheme or whingeing anti-globalisation activist ever did.

In January 1970 Pan Am started flying the first commercial Boeing 747 service -London-New York. The 747 was originally developed to meet the call for a large military transport, a contract Boeing failed to get, so it was adapted to be a passenger airliner – which was almost three times the capacity of the Boeing 707 – then the most successful long haul airliner.

The revolution the 747 introduced was to make long distance air travel affordable and easy for millions of people. Only fifteen years before the 747, aviation was the preserve of the very wealthy – ships were the means for most to get between countries, and trains within them. The Boeing 707 made some difference, as it halved the travel time for international flights – but the 747, by providing enormous capacity truly made economy class the dominant means of air travel. It was more comfortable as well – the wider body being more spacious than single aisle aircraft, and in flight movies became the norm (now superseded by individual screens at all seats).

It was the 747 that finally killed off the scheduled ocean liner business – few wanted to spend days or weeks to cover distances that could now take hours. When you next cross the Pacific or the Atlantic by air, look down at the vast void of the ocean and imagine that for every hour you are travelling it would take a day by sea (24 hours) – the Wright Brothers would have been astounded.

Airlines now had an airliner, which was more fuel efficient than the 707, with 2-3x the capacity, to fill. It was no faster, but in order to fill those seats airlines had to be innovative with fares, offering discounts for early purchase – and it was in the 1970s that easy, affordable international air travel became accessible for the average person in developed countries. To take one example, the price for a return economy class flight from New Zealand to London in 1983 was around $2200 – a price that is largely unchanged, while incomes and other prices have risen dramatically. That is testament to the improved fuel efficiency of aircraft and competition in aviation.

The 747 of today uses 25% less fuel than the first 747s, and produces half the noise – that from a profit motivated American company (aren't they meant to destroy the environment?).

That travel has seen the rise of the “OE” (overseas experience) whereby young people can now afford to fly halfway around the world to live and work, and experience a foreign culture and way of life. Families that were long divided through migration could visit each other regularly – people could have friends in other countries that they could actually meet up with from time to time. The world became smaller thanks to the Boeing 747.

It also has changed business. The appearance in the late 1970s of business class, to fill the price and service gap between first and economy demonstrates that – businesspeople could now go from one side of the world to the other, economically, within 30 hours – reduced to 24 hours as the range of the 747 reduced the need for refuelling stops. The enormous growth in business travel has complemented tourist travel – as the price of business and first class tickets helps keep economy class tickets cheap. On top of that, the 747 revolutionised air cargo – not just for mail, but perishable commodities and small high value products. The first orders for the new 747-8 are for cargo versions. The Boeing 747 has encouraged growth in wealth, jobs and trade.

This big bird isn’t exactly the most attractive creature of the sky to most, but I think it is magnificent. On 5 October 1905, Wilbur Wright flew a record 39 minutes in the air for a distance of 39km, largely circling – today at any one time there are hundreds of machines of around 400 tonnes, carrying around 300 or so people, flying 11km high, at 900km/h, watching movies, eating meals, drinking wine, sleeping, reading – as they go non-stop between locations such as London and Los Angeles, Tokyo and Sydney, Singapore and Frankfurt.

Yes there are many other planes that have followed on, the Airbuses (thanks to European subsidies) and all the other, smaller Boeings, and others. However, in almost all cases, they followed in the footsteps of the 747.

However, Boeing risked bankruptcy in proceeding with the 747 – had it failed, shareholders, employees and the world would have been worse off – and most of those who don’t even think twice about the 747 would not have helped them out. Boeing even thought the 747 was an interim model, until supersonic flight had become widespread and economic – which was to prove wrong.

So salute Boeing – the 747 – and all that succeed it. It is one of the great inventions of capitalism that has changed your world for the better, and just imagine where the minds of the 21st century will take commercial aviation.

Thanksgiving Day and Buy Nothing Day

Oh dear, the Greens have gotten far too overexcited about this – using their electricity and no doubt fossil fuels getting to work, or to surf the internet.

For people in dozens of countries it is always buy nothing day - because there is nothing to buy! But in one country it is a far more important day – Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a time for Americans to celebrate what they are grateful for – their country. I am grateful for it too.

Today I salute the United States – the world is full of those who hate it, but use the devices, techniques, science, entertainment made by its citizens. I salute the United States because it is the birth of an idea – implemented by the Declaration of Independence – that government does not exist for its own purpose, but as a servant of citizens. That government exists to protect fundamental rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – not to take away those rights for some other purpose. It separated church from state, and so was a fundamental break away from the European monarchy, church based governments of the time. Despite the best efforts of some on the religious right, that separation is entrenched.

Since then, of course, there have been amendments, some good, some bad. The USA has slipped closer towards statism over the last century, with property rights and personal rights increasingly being limited – but with that constitution still protecting some rather remarkable freedoms – such as speech. For some steps forward (recognising that all adults, men and women of all races have the same legal status), there have been steps backward (income tax, eminent domain) – and the US is now more bureaucratic, taxed and regulated than it has ever been.

Nevertheless, it is still a country of dreams – where, by and large, you are free to set up business, to be yourself, to own property and pursue your happiness. Contrast that to its most formidable opponents – the USSR, an evil empire of soulless, lifeless destruction, bulldozing its ideology of sacrifice over the minds, hearts and limbs of all under it, - Nazi Germany/Japan, violence worshipping sacrificers of life and destroyers of beauty, - Islamic fundamentalism, a cave-dwelling slave owning (called wives) mongerers of anti-life. In none of those countries could you say you owned your life -the state or a mullah did for you, these were countries of abject slavery - and the Islamic fundamentalists would make the world this way if they are not eliminated.

The United States, with allies saved most of the world from the tyranny of Japanese militarism, Nazism and Marxism-Leninism from the 1930s to the 1990s – for that I am eternally grateful and consider Thanksgiving a day when I am myself thankful for the USA.

As the US is now waging war against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism – for that, most of the world hates it, to those who hate it, may you all go live in a country that espouses the anti-Americanism you espouse. Reject the goods produced in the USA, the inventions made in the USA and the ideas – treat the world as if the USA does not exist – there are countries that do that, and they don’t let their people leave freely. The terrorism propagated by the haters of America is not to be negotiated with - there are not reasons for attacking innocent civilians time and time again - unless you too hate life. Nobody tries to excuse or understand a rapist, so why try to understand a terrorist?

That is why today – on Thanksgiving Day – I am going to shop, and buy something I want – and have a drink tonight to the USA, and to capitalism. The USA was the birth of an ideal and a project for government to exist only to protect freedom.

P.S. Those who bought nothing can feel some sense of accomplishment in having saved money, but little else. If you want to help the poor, then buy something from them that you want – give to a charity that genuinely helps them help themselves.

Women’s Refuge

I was struck by a comment on David Farrar’s blog on his post about today being the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and his suggestion that it is an appropriate day to donate to Women’s Refuge. A comment was that “I'll donate to them when they drop their anti-male feminazi stance.”

Now it should be without question that anyone who initiates any violence against women, men and children, is an uncivilised barbarian. Violence is only ever legitimate in defence against violence – and the real issue in New Zealand are cases of domestic violence. Yes, men are victims of violence too, mostly from other men, occasionally by women. Children are also victims of violence from women, more often than is acknowledged given that women are still the primary caregivers of children (and women typically get lower sentences for any violent offences against children than men do).

Women's Refuge undoubtedly does a great deal of good – it provides a place for women in crisis to go if they fear violence, and take their children. It is somewhere where they can feel safe, and for that alone, Women's Refuge gets my support. I am unsure where men who fear violence should go, but Women's Refuge has no obligation to do anything about that – nor should it.

However, I thought I would take it upon myself to check out the claim that Women's Refuge has an “anti-male feminazi stance” by simply looking around the website. If this is true, then Women's Refuge deserves criticism for that – if not, then good people may be withholding support for what is just a rumour.

Feminist philosophy flows through the pages, but I found nothing that was blatantly “anti-male”. Certainly I’d question whether there are “systems in our society that blame the victim”, but much of what is said is arguably true. The “wheel of equality” (yes I know, this sort of thing isn’t my way of doing things either) certainly mentioned a lot about listening to “her” and respecting “her” opinions, when a good relationship has all of thing listed running both ways, but that is a minor error. The Lesbian Power and Control Wheel was interesting, particularly in a section called “using heterosexual privilege”, but there are issues of inter-lesbian violence and whatever they want to do to deal with it, is their concern. There is a sense of the world being a big patriarchal power structure, where men control everything and think in a “man like” way, and sustain structures that oppress women.

I don’t think Women's Refuge would agree with most of my politics or philosophy, but then again – that doesn’t really matter to me. Women's Refuge does not exist because a bunch of women hate men, but because some rather cowardly men beat up women – instead of being alone or treating people they profess to love with some respect, they use women and their kids as punchbags – and that in my mind is a far greater sin than being ideologically different from me.

Nowhere on the website did I see the hate filled venom of the true feminazis – Catherine Mackinnon and Andrea Dworkin – who have written about how heterosexual sex is like an invasion of a woman’s body, and that all penetrative sex is a form of colonisation. That sort of nonsense, written by the Hitlers of feminism – should be consigned to the dustbin, but nowhere on the Women's Refuge website is there any support for initiating violence against men. All men are potential rapists just as much as all women are potential child beaters – whoop de do – just because the occasional bitter twisted woman carries hatred towards men, the sort akin to the racism of the National Front, shouldn’t taint what good this service does.

Women's Refuge does a good service – and if you want it to disappear then ostracise everyone who initiates violence. In the meantime, donate and men, tell them what a good service they do. Remember, most of the women in these places largely deal with men who are abusive, they could do with seeing that in most cases, most men are peaceful and intolerant of violence.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that almost everyone on the free market "right" and those who are libertarian, despise domestic violence or indeed any form of violent or sexual abuse. It is a construct of some on the fringes of the left who think that those on the "right" are conservative, United Future type family values supporters who want women chained to the kitchen sink and obeying their husbands - this is, with few exceptions, utter nonsense - but that belief helps keep them angry.

Stan Newens – Ceausescuphile

Following the discussions about Keith Locke’s Marxist-Leninist past, I thought I’d add one of the more loathsome former British MPs to a list of shame.

Stan Newens. He was a British Labour MP in the 60s through to 1983. Then became a MEP (European parliament) from 1984-1999. None of this would be important if he hadn’t written a tome on Nicolae Ceausescu that was glowing called “Ceausescu- The Man, His Ideas, His Socialist Achievements” in 1972.

Remember Ceausescu, the megalomaniac dictator who levelled suburbs so a grand palace could be built, who used torture and political executions as a matter of course, and did virtually nothing useful his entire life, along with his wife who called the Romanian people “rats”. This is the country where HIV was spread by using infected blood donations to feed abandoned children – abandoned because contraception and abortion were banned to increase the birth rate, which had declined because the standard of living had declined. Ceausescu was a murderer, his eldest son was a rapist – and the family was reviled throughout Romania for good reason. His hated Securitate would kill political opponents, and were known to work in New Zealand – as some who fled the regime travelled that far.

Of course the 1970s British Labour government feted Ceausescu, effectively requiring the Queen to give him a knighthood and hold a reception for him. There was even one of those cool leftwing trade deals, where British intelligence and expertise were gifted to Romania - Romania started making British airliners, which nobody wanted (nobody wanted BAC 1-11s back then anyway). Margaret Thatcher, a chemistry graduate and then Leader of the Opposition amusingly started a conversation with Elena Ceausescu about science (Elena claimed several "degrees" in chemistry and other sciences ) which turned ugly because Elena knew absolutely nothing about it, and couldn't hold an intelligent conversation about her "degrees".

Unfortunately Ceausescu fooled a few Western governments by not allowing Soviet troops to be based in Romania - they thought he was independent and gave him intelligence, which was passed onto Moscow with little effort.

Stan Newens was a guest of Ceausescu’s Romania and contributed to its propaganda and aggrandisement. One of his books sits in the Victoria University Library. He would also write against human rights abuses and the lack of freedom in Bahrain – he isn’t wrong there, but one is staggered by his utter hypocrisy. I don't know if Stan Newens ever rethought about his book on Ceausescu, but there is no apparent evidence he ever apologised for it.

The wilful blindness of some of the left to the horrors of Marxism-Leninism is unconscionable – as would be similar blindness of those on the right to anti-Marxist dictators like Suharto, Pinochet and Somoza.

Wellington: Median Barrier on Centennial Highway

Given my penchance for going on about Transmission Gully, it is great news that Land Transport New Zealand has agreed to fund the construction of a median barrier along Wellington’s Centennial Highway between the Fisherman’s Table restaurant and below Pukerua Bay. See your petrol tax can be used on something useful!

Transit hopes to use this funding to start construction in March 2006, although if it needs resource consents and some useless entity opposes it, it will hold it up for far longer. I don't expect environmentalists should, as it shouldn't mean building out over the coast (but probably means some widening), only some trenchant Transmission Gully supporters may oppose it, because they think letting more people die along this road will increase pressure for their pet project.

Admittedly, following on from the congestion relief from the recently opened Mana upgrade, this project, for only $15.2 million does reduces pressure for accelerating Transmission Gully at its $1.1 billion cost (or even the 4-laning along the coast). This will make the road much safer (hopefully nobody will cross the line between the barrier and Pukerua Bay – it isn’t being installed on that hilly section) and because of that, it will be closed far less often (it is almost always only closed due to accidents) - meaning far less pressure for an alternative route. Whether Transmission Gully is built or not, the existing highway should be safer and this will make a big difference!

Buy something tomorrow

Tomorrow is apparently International Buy Nothing Day. This is a ill-conceived attempt to make people in wealthier countries feel guilty about their consumption, based largely on the theory that everything that exists on earth is part of a zero-sum game, whereby what you consume is a loss to someone else, rather than a traded value for value. It is on the premise that the way forward is to consume less and trade less, which is completely wrong.

Now if it was a way to encourage people to save and invest for themselves, rather than use credit, there might be some value in that - but it isn't.

The Green Party is unsurprisingly promoting this. Unfortunately there are plenty of places in the world where the idea of buying nothing is just a daily fact of life, and it is not because of too much capitalism, in fact, quite the opposite. Chad, Burma, North Korea and Cuba come to mind.

You are far more likely to make the world a better place by buying something (with your own money mind you) that you really want -regardless of where it comes from - because you are doing something very simple, trading value for value. Buying isn't a one way process - you only buy because the money in your hand is worth less to you (as it is, or for other goods or services) in your hand than the good or service you are purchasing. After buying you (should) have more value than before you bought - similarly the merchant regards your money as having a higher value than holding onto the good or performing the service. Both of you receive "profit" from this. This is capitalism - and it is moral.

You see money is the root of much that is good - it is a means of exchange that enables people to translate what their minds and their labour create into something they want. Trading has been responsible for the enormous increase in wealth and standards of living worldwide in the last couple of centuries, and the ones who have missed out have been those who haven't traded. North and South Korea, West and East Germany are stark contrasts that should be obvious. One traded and has property rights, the other didn't - and one is poorer, less safe and more polluted than the other. Taiwan and China before it opened up, are the same. How many failed countries need to exist before people learn?

With a higher standard of living people demand cleaner air and water, and better standards of safety - because they can afford to. Higher standards of living come with property rights and with property rights people protect their property from destruction through pollution. People can also afford to own and protect land as parks, reserves and other places of natural beauty because they are not subsisting for food and shelter.

This article from the New Individualist argues that the sustainable development agenda is a major attack on individual liberty and is an excuse for destroying property rights.

Buying nothing means you have some money in your pocket - and someone else doesn't. Free trade is beneficial to all. Take this example:

Lets say that Vietnamese companies can produce shoes for $1 a pair whereas NZ companies can only produce them for $20 a pair. Under free trade, New Zealanders will buy their shoes from Vietnam. This benefits people in both countries. Vietnamese will have more money to buy food, clothing and shelter. New Zealanders will spend less on shoes and have more money to buy CDs, books and furniture, and the investment capital formerly spent on shoeswill be put to more productive uses, such as new technology or creative industries or pharmaceuticals. Multiply this by millions of products and hundreds of countries and over time the benefits run into the trillions of dollars.

These benefits already have - imagine the wealth of humanity had the whole world been consumed by the anti-capitalism of Nazi Germany or the USSR.

So go out and buy something -celebrate capitalism.

The website promoting this buy nothing doggerall is full of nonsense:

1. “at a global level its been said that to satisfy consumption demands of everyone, if they were to consume like the affluent West, we'd need 3 more planets worth of resources.” Well “it has been said” is a good way of saying something without knowing a damned thing about it. “It has been said” that environmentalists routinely engage in coprophagia – see, just as valid a quote! Regardless of the source, this is absolute nonsense, as when a resource becomes scarce, the price goes up and either more can be extracted economically, or alternatives are found (including recycling).

2. “A 1998 UNDP report points out that one child in a developed country will consume, waste and pollute the equivalent of more than 50 children in a developing country.” Well one UN employee probably consumes more than 3x the average person in a developed country, as hypocrisy runs deep in one of the most inept and morally bankrupt organisations on earth. However the real point here is that the child in the developed country enjoys a good standard of living – is the solution to halve the standard of living of the developed country child to boost the others? Should the state funded welfare system be extended to be global (if not, why not on the basis of this philosophy) and are you all prepared to pay enormous taxes for that?

3. “So from the prospect of being fair - acknowledging that less developed countries have the right to the same standards of living as the West - our consumption is unsustainable.” This is a non-sequitur. Why is our consumption unsustainable? Saying it doesn’t make it so. Besides, nobody has a right to a certain standard of living, how is this right to be delivered? How do you force people to give others a standard of living. People have standards of living and have the right to pursue improved standards of living, but there is no right to a particular result regardless of your circumstances.

4. How do you lead a fulfilling life? Only you can answer that, finally.” WOW, something libertarian in it. The choice is ours – so it wont be forced on us, an enormous relief (and some hope)!

5. “Buy Nothing Day is also concerned with other issues related to consumption and consumerism - the use of sweatshops and prison labour to produce more and more of the goods we buy (what does that mean for our own jobs, and the lives of those who now have those jobs, but often at unlivable wages?);.”

Hold on. People queue up to get sweatshop jobs because earning a living wage in countries with such sweatshops is more liberating than working in subsistence agriculture when a bad season can mean you starve. They are not unlivable wages in the countries these people live in, quite the opposite. There is no evidence given that sweatshops and prison labour produce “more and more of the good we buy”, as it is just as likely that production is increasingly automated. However, what does “the inability of our current political system to measure social progress and relate that to economic progress; support of locally made and ethically based products and investments” mean? Presumably it means paying well above the market value for goods and services. Which is fine if you get value from that, but if you’d rather spend the money on buying your kids another pair of shoes, then it probably is better than you do that.

6. “The effects of over-consumption on the environment (such as toxic pollution and climate change) are widely known. These mean we need to reduce consumption, especially in many Western countries like New Zealand that are consuming much more than their fair share of resources.” Toxic pollution exists as a tragedy of the commons, and should be controlled by introducing private property rights to those commons. Besides, in the quest for efficiency many processes are becoming cleaner and less polluting – the almost non-existent growth in petrol tax revenue (except for increases in the tax) despite growth in traffic is due to the improved fuel efficiency of new cars.

What are a “fair share of resources”? Who decides this? The resources you are entitled to are those you own or legally acquire through purchase, gift or inheritance – your greatest resource is your brain. Are you to be forced to give up some of this for someone you don’t know? Who will enforce this? Funnily enough it would appear the countries with the greatest “share of resources” (the advocates of this like the word share, as if there was some higher power who dished out the shares rather than the wealth being created) actually created it.

The USA is the wealthiest country on earth because the people who live there used their minds to apply to the natural and human resources they acquired. It is capitalism – people traded value for value, whether it be labour, goods or services, and they discovered how they could apply their minds to the world around them. Bauxite was not a resource a few centuries ago, because nobody knew how to smelt it into aluminium, now it is valued because aluminium can be used for all sorts of construction (and is often recycled – the aircraft industry recycles virtually all plane fuselages).

7. “Every product we buy has an effect on the environment - extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacture of products and dumping products at the end of their lives causes pollution, creates toxic waste, wastes energy and destroys precious wildlife habitats..”

Well yes it does have an effect, but most of the time the effect is virtually nil. Many products decompose, and most pollution dilutes until it is unnoticeable. Paper products are almost always made from plantation pine forests that are constantly renewed, glass is virtually infinite (think the planet will run out of sand do you?) You think not? Well every day you urinate ammonia and urea – and breathe out carbon dioxide and produce methane, so feel guilty. Don’t have children, that will do more to reduce consumption than anything you try to do.

The more concerning notion is that “Transporting products internationally is often extremely wasteful of fuels, if the product can also be produced nationally”

What nonsense! What is so important about national boundaries that it is ok to ship something from Invercargill to Auckland, but not from Sydney? Are people in Luxembourg not to buy chocolate from Belgium? More importantly, why should anyone put up with goods made locally that are poorer quality and more expensive? The Trabant car was east Germany’s great experiment at that- expensive, poor quality and environmentally disastrous. Argentina went for import substitution in the 1940s and by the 1970s had gone from being up with the rich countries to being with the third world – import substitution makes people poorer.

That is not to mean that competitive import substitution is bad, it isn’t – just that the state shouldn’t tax people for importing or regulate it.

So all in all, international buy nothing day is based on a large number of unsubstantiated assertions. Besides, I bet nobody who adheres to it will switch off their electricity, gas, water, phone or not catch the bus or drive anywhere. If you are that concerned about your consumption, then stop the lot – don’t look at blogs, because you are helping empty a dam or burn fossil fuels. Buying nothing for the sake of it does not make you think – it means you are buying into a simplistic jingoism that does nothing to make a real difference to toxic pollution or poverty.

Maori TV reports a successful first year?

One of our compulsory pay TV channels – Maori TV reports a successful first year.

Well, if someone gave me oodles of other people’s money to set up a business and there was little threat the supply would be cut off, I’d be “successful” too.

Its surplus of $3.2 million is much like the “profits” that the Railways Corporation made in the early 80s, because they were after enormous subsidies had been pumped in.

Of course the measure of success is that it showed vast amounts of NZ content and had a cumulative audience of 426,300 in April 2005. Note that it doesn’t mean that that many people watch it at any one time, just that many have watched it ONCE during a MONTH. Cumulative audiences are used by broadcasters to demonstrate big figures for audiences, but they show very little. It is a bit like saying 400,000 shopped at a supermarket during one month, but most of them could have only bought a bar of chocolate. Cumulative daily audiences and share of audiences at key times are better measures. I doubt Maori TV gets 1% of all viewing.

Gerry Brownlee is calling for the audience share figures to be released, but then it isn’t clear whether National would scrap funding for Maori TV – it almost certainly wouldn’t scrap NZ On Air funding for TVNZ/TV3 and Prime – and what is good for Maori TV is also good for commercial TV.

Anyway, none of this would matter a jot to me at all if it wasn’t getting taxpayer funding. There is nothing wrong with anyone setting up a Maori TV channel and broadcasting whatever they wish – just it shouldn’t be compulsory pay TV. I remember some years ago Saturn Communications (now part of Telstra Clear) offered cable TV capacity for a Maori channel, but it wasn’t taken up (it would only have covered Kapiti and Wellington then, but better than nothing).

Taxpayer funding for Maori TV should end, along with NZ On Air and Te Mangai Paho. There should be no taxpayer funding for any television on any channel.

The cost of producing television is lower now than it has ever been, with digital technology – so those who want it should pay for it and enjoy it. I am sure that with the will, there would be a commercially sustainable Maori TV channel – it might not broadcast long hours, and it might not have expensively made shows, but neither do Maori magazines or newspapers.

Greens and violence

Given the belief by many Greens supporters that their party is one of peace and non-violence, I thought I would post every time the Green’s put out a press release advocating the use of state violence against people who are not initiating force against others or their property. Remember that initiating force means everything from incarceration, to fines, taxes, assault, theft and trespass. It does not mean upsetting or offending you, or terminating a contract. Every time I find a clear example of the Greens supporting the state initiating violence, I will list it – other times I may list the odd occasion the Greens aren’t clear about what they would do.

Today I will start with Nandor Tanczos concern about the imminent closure of the Anchor milk factory at Hornby and the Meadow Fresh yoghurt factory in Christchurch. He asks Graeme Hart to reconsider this – which is fine, in itself. You can ask anyone to do anything. However, would the Greens stand back and let the closures happen if they were in government? Either they would force the owner of a business to operate parts of the business which were not worth operating (after all it IS his business) and pay for that himself, or force others to pay for it? Both involve fascism.

See Mr Hart wants to continue the viability of his whole business, which delivers wealth to him and other shareholders, people who have risked their own property in a competitive business. It also employs other people not in those factories and it provides products for willing consumers – out of choice. Tanczos says running a successful business is about more than profits. Is it? Is being an employee about more than making a wage? Is trading about more than receiving more value than you give? Mr Hart could run his businesses as a social service, meaning than he and other shareholders get less money for their investment, and spend less on other investments, or other goods and services – all of which also involve employing people – but isn’t that waste and aren’t the Greens against waste?

Would the Greens in government leave Mr Hart alone, or would they use the power of the state to force him to do their bidding? It isn’t clear – but if I were him I wouldn’t want to find out.

Infratil and Stagecoach

Stagecoach UK has sold its New Zealand bus operations to Infratil – the local utilities investment company. Nothing exciting there, except that Stagecoach was an exceptional owner of companies that local authorities had let run down over many years. There is little doubt that both Auckland and Wellington now have far more modern bus fleets, and better bus systems than they had when the ARC and Wellington City Council ran services as ratepayer funded monopolies.

Stagecoach NZ never paid a dividend to Stagecoach UK (despite what the NZ Herald report says Ross Martin claimed), although it did go for a good premium over the original purchase price – and rightfully so – Stagecoach poured a lot of money into new buses, albeit with some help from local and central government subsidies - around half of the services in Auckland were commercial - getting no subsidies at all. Certainly Stagecoach Auckland and Wellington are a far cry from the union run, antiquated Yellow Bus and Big Red bus fleets they took over from local authorities in both cities.

The government is reviewing the regulatory regime for public transport – this is in response to calls by some in local government to get rid of the right of bus companies to run commercial services. Some want bus companies to be regulated, and subsidised so that local authorities can control them. I suspect Stagecoach was fleeing a regulatory regime it saw as having potentially a limited life – which is a shame.

Infratil is a good owner though, and no doubt will do its best - but lest we forget what Stagecoach did for urban buses in Auckland and Wellington - it actually wanted to run them as businesses for customers.

Treasury to review Transmission Gully vs. the coastal highway costs

The Dominion Post reports that Treasury will undertaken an independent study into the relative costs of the two routes. This is unprecedented open interference into the affairs of Transit and Greater Wellington Regional Council – but it is about spending Crown money. I don’t doubt Treasury will have a good go at this.

Hopefully that should sort it out – since the proponents of the Gully think Transit would rather not build a big 27km motorway instead of a handful of smaller projects (unlikely) and that the Greater Wellington Regional Council – which previously strongly supported the Gully route – is biased against it!

Poor Treasury. If it comes out in favour of the Gully, it will be in favour of a half built option that needs to be completed at some point to be really worthwhile. If it supports the coastal route, it will get the mountains of abuse from the pro-Gully lobbyists – including Porirua City which keeps coming out with some nutty ideas.

However, Treasury can hardly be seen as having a vested interest, and is not as hated as Transit is on this issue – yet!

Have the Gully proponents noticed that the congestion at Paremata is gone?

Hey Jim - Matt's gone!

Jim Anderton’s personal – I mean Progressive – Party website still lists Matt Robson as an MP.

Given, like most small parties, the Jim Anderton party lost votes and is down to one seat, Jim needs to wake up - it's just you Jim - ask Peter Dunne what it felt like.

However, NZ First's link on its website to the confidence and supply agreement with Labour wasn't working when I checked it either. To its credit, United Future has its whole agreement posted.

Fundamentalist religion – the ugliest cancer on the planet?

I hate religion, I really do – people can get whatever comfort or whatever they want from whatever ghosts they believe in, build churches and change their lives for their ghosts, and even try to convince people to believe in their ghosts, but that is where it should end. Believe in whatever you want, but don't infringe on the rights of others justifying it through your faith.

I am sick of hearing how humane and loving Islam is – frankly about as sick as I am hearing about how Christianity is the same. Those who say this confuse the religion with those claiming to follow it. Now I couldn’t give a flying fuck about whether the true Islam is Osama Bin Laden’s or not, much like whether Christiantiy is led by the bigoted Pope, Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, Brian Tamaki or Benny Hinn (now THAT’s an evil little fucker!) – but I do care about the evil pricks who use religion to justify slavery, torture and rape.

The Daily Telegraph today in this story that a village council in Pakistan has decreed that five women ranging from 15 to 22 should be abducted, raped or killed because they refused to honour marriages forced on them when they were.. wait for it … aged 6 through 13. To their credit, the girls’ fathers are supporting them, and as a result have the death penalty imposed upon them.

See it all started when a father of one of the girls shot dead a member of another family, following some dispute where there were shots from both sides. The village council said appropriate compensation for the family was to make the girls of the family (both the man who killed the other, and his brother) marry male members of the other family – in other words, children were chattels to be given over. Of course it was a mullah in the village council who imposed this sentence.

Evil barbaric scum. The same scum who supported the Taliban banning girls from school - treating women as illiterate little slaves.

The Pakistani government recently prohibited this practice, but its fair and unbiased police seem to be doing little to enforce this law.

Oh, but all cultures are the same, don’t judge other cultures say the postmodernist cultural relativist vermin.

Duncan Bayne gives a good summary of why he regards all religion as fundamentally irrational here.

On top of this, The Times in London reports how a film in the Netherlands made by a Somali refugee (and now Dutch MP) about Muslim oppression of homosexuals carries no credits, to avoid murderous Islamic nutters making those who helped produce the film into targets for their peaceful religion. The report shows how some Muslims, who chose to move to the Netherlands, a highly liberal country, are basically out to shut down criticism and dissent. The semi-libertarian gay MP Pym Fortyn was shot by an ecoterrorist – a Green nutter who did it for the Muslims and hated Fortyn railing against environmentalists forcing railway lines to be built under cow pasture, because they hated any disruption to nature.

The true murderous life hating philosophy of these lowlives is obvious – they have no place in a liberal tolerant society which would allow their views to be expressed, but would not allow their violence to be.

Islam, at the very least, needs to go through a period called the Enlightenment. It happened to Christianity, and the worst excesses were buffed off, mainly by separating church and state – then it needs to go through a steady level of secular decline, as it has in western Europe.

Religion does nothing for me, at best it is historically quaint and gives some people quiet comfort and support – but I would rather it fade away.

That means all of the evangelical nutters as well - the proponents of "intelligent design" (such rot!) and the life hating, sex hating, freedom hating mullahs of Christianity. They would turn the world into a fundamentalist state little different in effect from the Taliban.

May they all rot.

Mark Blumsky's maiden speech

Mark Blumsky, former extravagant Mayor of Wellington and new Wellington National list MP has made his maiden speech, and besides some good stuff about less government and tax, he made 3 statements that show he can’t keep his hands off of things:

1. “We need to see progress on Transmission Gully. We need to see it now; it is necessary” I need say little more on this as I have blogged extensively about. Mark, lower tax and building a billion dollar road with a negative benefit/cost ratio don’t add up. Stop trying to waste our money.

2. “Out at the airport, it is vital that the new generation Boeing 787 jets are able to land in Wellington” Why Mark? What do you know about aviation? I believe they can land, but there is no indication Air NZ wants them to, because there is not enough demand for long haul flights from Wellington beyond Australia and the Pacific. Wellington-Singapore isn't going to happen, when they don't do Christchurch-Singapore anymore. Besides the 787s don't come for 5 more years. Shannon in Ireland played this cargo cult mentality – built a big airport and nobody came. Leave business to business Mark, you know shoes, you don’t know transport.

3. “We need to look seriously at some level of local government amalgamation.” As a libertarian you might think I believe in less local government, and I do. However, Owen McShane some time ago wrote that the optimum size of local authorities was not necessarily bigger. Yes some councils are too small – Banks Peninsula clearly is and is merging with Christchurch. Excessively small councils find it hard to attract talented staff and face high overheads due to poor economies of scale. However there is a more insidious face in big councils – big councils can waste money more easily because a tiny rates increase means a decent windfall in revenue – so big councils think they can undertake any lunatic scheme individual councillors dream up, because the cost of each scheme is relatively low. So you get art, business subsidies, video libraries, youth cafes and all sorts of utter nonsense that councils shouldn’t be doing – Mark should know, he led a council that embarked on continuous increases in local government spending.

The answer to local government is NOT to amalgamate, although if councils want to, it shouldn’t be stopped – but to eliminate unnecessary functions, which ultimately are all of them. Councils should be forced to get out of all activities that they can charge users for, and get out of social activities like housing and community centres. If you like something council does, pay for it yourself! Big councils want to do more, they want to interfere and tax more - bigger councils are not better!

Mark doesn't really believe in the free market, he believes in being popular - and frankly has not been impressive as much beyond a businessman and a cheerleader for Wellington.

Mark, do you want councils doing less, rating less and if so, what would YOU cut, or is the National policy on local government to do nothing?

Welcome New Zeal

Trevor Loudon has researched the left extensively, and has a new blog here. While I don’t get too heated up about Keith Locke’s indiscrepancies from the past – after all he deserves credit for defending Ahmed Zaoui in my book, and his support for the Khmer Rouge was thirty years ago – it is important to note these, and after all any National MP who once warmed to the Ian Smith regime of Rhodesia would get a LOT of shit from the left. Trevor’s outing of the idiot Rodolfo Stavenhagen who thinks he can judge New Zealand race relations for the UN (and of course National Radio cowtows to anyone from the UN, because the UN MUST be good) is well worth a read.

Welcome Trevor, as others have said, you will be a great contributor to the blogosphere.

School of depravity!!

Ferguson Intermediate School in Upper Hutt is facing a new depravity, that is completely inappropriate for 10-12 year olds. It appears it is a same sex activity between girls that is causing grave concern among staff, something even Queen Victoria would not believe existed. No, not drugs, no they are not pulling knives on each others, not beating each other up, not even masturbating each other, they are…. hugging. Yes I kid you not, it is reported here that the school is taking action - with an image of the brazen hussies performing such a lewd and lascivious act.

You know what comes of inappropriate hugging – just like washing nude, it encourages other behaviour – some of the girls might become not just friends, but CLOSE friends. They might enjoy the warmth, comfort and affection of another – the hugging isn’t forced, thank Clark, and it isn’t from teachers, after all teachers who want to give children any physical contact must be perverted!

Hopefully they will create cubicles for all pupils to change in when they do PE, and that ankles will be covered soon, and of course there is no holding hands, you know how intimate THAT is.

We ought to ban images and videos of them hugging too, I bet they see older teenagers and adults doing it – that’s where it all went wrong.

If not stamped out, hugging will lead to kissing, which will lead to French kissing and then touching legs and arms and bellies, and you know what comes from that AIDS and pregnancy! After all, girls should be told to save themselves for their husbands and wear burkhas so that they don’t get any bright ideas, and so boys and, eventually, men don’t. Thank Blair I’m in the UK where the main problem is that 70% of schoolkids report having been bullied – as least they are not behaving like perverts with each other!

Sprawl, transport and choice

PC has a wonderful series on why sprawl is good and the abolition of town planning even better. Most of the links are on his latest post on the topic, here.

The crux of so much of this is that planners get concerned about traffic congestion (which is a result of roads not being managed or charged like private property), insufficient use of public transport, energy use in homes and the disorder of capitalist societies. Most of this is out and out nanny statism.

To those who espouse this, they look at figures for energy use, public transport use and for them the less energy and more public transport the better- in short, Pyongyang in North Korea is the ideal city.

Frankly, who cares if people use more or less energy in their homes, or whose homes are energy efficient or otherwise? It doesn’t matter any more than whether those people buy a new pair of shoes every week or every year, or have a huge collection of CDs. The key is- as long as they PAY for it, a person should be able to consume whatever they wish. Pay meaning, the cost to purchase it and dispose of it, and that means no subsidies for production or distribution and no subsidies for rubbish collection or disposal or recycling. Remember how in so many countries energy and rubbish are run by central or local government, and are directly or indirectly subsidised.

Also who cares if public transport is well used or not, as long as those using it pay for it. Much public transport in the world is not subsidised – think of long distances buses and trains in New Zealand, and most airlines.

Planners are busybodies, they want to nanny us all, because we don’t know what is good for us. They want to protect us from using cars unnecessarily, from wasting energy and eating the wrong foods. They are do-gooders, and many have their hearts in the right place, but they need to be told to “fuck off, leave me alone, it’s my life and my money and I will do what I want with it”. Many of their messages are not bad in themselves – I don’t want to waste power or petrol, but sometimes I want a hot wash in my washing machine, sometimes I want to drive with the accelerator to the floor, sometimes I want to eat fast food. Sue Kedgley is the ultimate nanny – a hypocritical bitch who gets driven around, while calling on people to use public transport. John Prescott was the UK Transport Secretary, and did the same.

I want to live in a house, in the suburbs, with as many rooms as I can afford, as big a car as I can afford, and travel whenever I want in the class I can afford, and buy whatever I want – and live my life the way I want to. I don’t want anyone else’s money to do it. You can suggest ways I could do things better, but if you dare tell me where I should live, in what sort of house, how I must go to work or tax or subsidise things I don’t want to do because you don’t like my choices, then fuck off!

Jewish Council is wrong

Now I understand why the Jewish Council is calling for a banning of the sale of Nazi memorabilia.

There are a handful of freaks out there who get off draping their bedrooms with swastikas and feeling proud that they can follow someone who tells them what to do and how to run their lives and everyone elses. Fortunately almost all of the those with these views are almost completely incompetent – remember there was a National Front in New Zealand that couldn’t register as a political party and the British equivalents, the National Front and BNP are almost entirely a rabble of semi-insane losers who can barely organise themselves. A club of mostly useless men (and their vile female companions).

David Harcourt, a Wellington antiques dealer is rightfully defending his right to sell Nazi material. Banning it would of course raise the price for such stuff, and the claim that making money from it glorifies it is nonsense – the same claim can be made for selling t-shirts with Che Guevara on it, or Castro, or the mountains of communist era junk that gets sold in eastern European markets. I bought a few bits and pieces in Bratislava when I was there a year ago, out of curiosity and because, one day, I want to show my children and grandchildren the sort of crap that evil regimes gave to people – to show appreciation, while they oppressed them and denied their individuality.

I shouldn’t have to even state the obvious, the Holocaust was an absolute abomination, particularly as it was so carefully calculated, ordered and ran in what had been considered a civilised, modern Western society. Nazi Germany was one of the most evil regimes to have existed in modern times – but so was the Soviet Union, Ceaucescu’s Romania, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Mao’s China, Saddam’s Iraq, Hoxha’s Albania, Mengistu’s Ethiopia, Bokassa’s CAR, Amin’s Uganda. Banning anything from any of the above is no better than what those regime’s did – they banned what they didn’t like. The USA does not ban Nazis, in fact they are easy to find, but there are very very few of them, and there is no chance whatsoever that they will gain the means to do evil.

The Jewish Council’s sensitivity towards anything from the Nazi era is understandable – but the answer is not to ban it, but to ignore it. We are not ever served by banning that we find most offensive, but by exposing it for what it is. Banning it and focusing on the misfits who get excited by swastikas gives those misfits, and Nazism more excitement, attention and allure to the few who may also find some thrill in the forbidden. That is the least thing the Jewish Council should be encouraging.

What the Police want - more speeding tickets

David Farrar has already demonstrated that the Police are back on about speeding again. The Police briefing for incoming minister has asked for them to get a lot more money and people, surprise surprise. This is something the public tend to LIKE, but is also fraught with danger.

Now, as everyone says, the Police have a hard job, but politicians have a harder job making them accountable. The Police are not easy for accountability, partially because:

1. Most people love them, they perform duties few of us would want to do ourselves, and they are essential to a peaceful and free society – and they know it and they know how to pull on public heartstrings. Much of the time they do their job very well;

2. It is a highly unionised profession, meaning they stick together to protect each other. This is a mentality that suits the job they do, but means when anyone is out of line, there is some willingness to cover each other’s trails. This is not a place to be too independently minded.

3. Management of the Police is in house. In other words, military like, every level of the Police hierarchy is managed by cops – not managers. Companies run by the core staff are often far from successful – airlines used to be run by airline people until it was realised that professional managers were needed – people who are not sentimentally attached to parts of the operation and who can ask the hard questions. Hospitals are the same by the way, they shouldn’t be run by GPs.

4. There is no competition or threat of competition.

Having said that the NZ Police are light years ahead of many of their overseas counterparts, although in some cases that hasn’t been hard.

The main risks that the Police present are:

1. Poor performance: Not responding to what the public – taxpayers- demand of them. This is responding to incidents that threaten themselves, their families or their property. This does not mean sending for a taxi for a distressed woman or not responding to 111 calls. The flak over this is a systematic lack of performance incentives – and the union and organisation will say this is too hard.

2. Lack of budget control: What the Police want, the Police get. The INCIS project is the classic example, no proper management and money just going down the plughole to IBM for a system that ultimately was not delivered. Anytime a politician considers making the Police more efficient, the Police stick together and say “that means removing a community constable from Manurewa” or whatever. The Police always say budget cuts affect the frontline, so the administrative overheads continue to blowout.

3. Police threat to individual liberty: As the frontline of the monopoly of legitimised state violence, the Police have powers to initiate force against New Zealanders. They should, of course, do this very sparingly, with priority on cases when there are victims or potential victims – and not at all in other cases. The Police always claim they enforce the law, but for many many years they have done this selectively. They are tough on drugs, but I don’t see them following around teenage girls to check if their boyfriends are 16 and over and breaking the Crimes Act with them. They ceased routinely enforcing the law against homosexual acts a few years before it was repealed. The Police can change their law enforcement emphasis – but all in all, they always advocate more power and discretion. If the Police had their way we would all have ID cards, electronic tracking devices attached to us at all times that they could check up on, and CCTV cameras on every street corner. The Police would also change the burden of proof so you are guilty till proven innocent. Don’t have any doubts about it, the term Police state isn’t something many of them think is a bad thing, and if you spent half your day dealing with lowlifes, you might have some sympathy for that.

So what have the cops asked for?

A need to increase frontline response and investigator numbers.

Attrition is 350-400 a year, so the Police propose double that recruitment rate per annum. Of course the actual numbers needed are not suggested, so that the numbers could presumably grow ad infinitum, along with the budget. Of course, they could stop enforcing victimless crimes, though Libertarianz is not in government.

A need to reduce staff safety risks, bolster field supervision and improve investigation file quality for Court with more sworn positions at Sergeant and Senior Sergeant level.

These are several different things, but this means more money to promote experienced cops.

Considering next steps in areas of road policing enforcement alongside education and engineering options

Here the cops take the easy out – lowering speed limits, blood alcohol limits and more use of speed enforcement and tougher sanctions. Now given Transit and the Police recently admitted that in one location (Tokoroa-Taupo) speed wasn’t the key factor, it seems that as speed enforcement is really easy, they want to slow everyone down.

My view is that the biggest road safety problem comes down to punishment – people who kill others on the road due to stupidity should be banned from driving, for life. If you can’t stay on your side of the road, or obey a red light – then tough – and if you are caught driving again, you get imprisoned, for trespass. In a world of private roads, an unauthorised driver would be trespassing – but in New Zealand, it is a far bigger offence to be smoking cannabis than it is to be an idiot driving a car and killing someone. Speeding is an issue, on some roads in some conditions, but it is an attitude in New Zealand that you can’t punish bad driving – but you can punishing breaking rules. I don’t care if this means underprivileged stupid people are in prison for reckless driving causing death – better that than them being in prison for having the odd joint!

and the Police? Abolish victimless crimes, to give the Police more chance to follow real crimes -and make them locally accountable. Split the Police into several dozen precincts, each individually accountable to an electable sheriff - maybe not as many precincts as there are local authorities, but somewhere around 40. Then bulk fund according to the local population, let the Police pursue the local priorities, and anything that goes across precincts can remain the purview of a centralised investigation unit. Now that would be a change!

Wellington: Paremata congestion gone

Stuff reports that it seems that the much maligned Mana highway upgrade has done the job – morning and evening peak congestion has been eliminated. After much criticism that the $24 million upgrade was a waste of money and it should have been spent on the cargo cult called Transmission Gully – the $24 million upgrade works! A bit cheaper than the $1.1 billion price for Transmission Gully, but then the advocates of Transmission Gully have almost a social credit view of economics. The Mana upgrade had a benefit cost ratio of over 5:1, Transmission Gully is around 0.5:1 - it is obvious which project is a good investment.

The upgrade was based on a simple premise – the problem is that two lanes of free flowing traffic merge into one for several kms. So the solution was fairly straightforward – ensure two lanes flow between those points. The bridge was duplicated to create two lanes each way, and the road widened from Mana Esplanade to the 4-lane highway north of Plimmerton. In between those points parking is banned at peak times so an extra lane can operate in one direction. Five sets of traffic lights ease the flow from side roads, improve local and have not hindered the flow. In fact, the cops are concerned about speeding along the road now!

Who needs a 27 km hilly 4-lane motorway to fix this problem? Only stupid central and local body politicians addicted to spending other people's money promote this, along with a small number of local residents who will benefit from their properties not being on such a busy highway.

Now this wont be a long term solution, Transit says ten years and traffic growth will have filled up the road capacity. In the meantime, some consideration can be made about how to plan to fix that - a bypass at Mana is the best answer at around $220 million.

Ten years saving $1.1 billion on Transmission Gully (or $220 million on a Mana Bypass) is worth a good bit of money – at 5% interest a year, minus inflation it is still over $200 million in net savings from NOT building Transmission Gully. It is time to stop building roads well in advance of them being needed – if Transmission Gully or a Mana Bypass are to be built they it shouldn't be before 2015-2020 – and by then there may be congestion pricing, which could mean nothing need be done. The money can be used for something else.

So the pressure should be off – Paremata is no longer a traffic bottleneck, for now – another reason why politicians shouldn’t decide road building based on media driven popularity contests – I doubt if any Members of Parliament given a list of roading projects could decide what are the best ones.

Post Election Departmental Briefings

Having been involved in a couple of these over the years, they are interesting exercises. Departments/Ministries choose whether to give free and frank advice that may – to some – show ideological colours – or they dish out pablum - something plain and boring, which doesn’t represent a challenge to the status quo. Some of these briefings have been out this week and reported. A GOOD department will step aside from current policy and talk about outcomes, the current situation and what should be done to improve outcomes. This is a carefully calculated briefing about moving forward, rather than criticising past policies. Government departments can’t be seen to support or oppose previous policies, but simply advise on what they believe – professionally – is best.

Now the cynics amongst you will say this is highly political – there is no way that Treasury will NOT say cut spending and tax, or that the Minister for the Environment wont say tax pollution, regulate activities and spend money on green things. There is some truth to that – but I think that is the difference in flavour among many in the public sector. The difference between the statist and the economic rationalists, and each government department has a greater or lesser number of these.

For example, you are less likely to find some socialist statist nutcase working for The Treasury than an Austrian school free-market advocate – some would say like attracts like, I would say that this is simply good old fashioned commonsense. Treasury also, mostly, attracts highly skilled intelligent hard working people – the crèm de la crem of the public sector. This is one reason why Treasury gets involved in most areas of the public sector – not only does it have to advise on spending, but it actually contains high quality analysts generally. New Zealand could do worse than have the government run by The Treasury (though it could do better too). See much of what Treasury does is stop money being wasted and stop bad ideas from being implemented – so it attracts people who have the brains and the balls to say “wait- why are we doing this? What’s the evidence this is worth doing? Prove it!”. I can say that, on average, 4 out of 5 Treasury officials I dealt with were very smart people who I could engage with intellectually about issues. They had to go to Health, Education, Te Puni Kokiri, Environment and Social Development and say no – or ask questions of those who wanted to spend your money on their ideas. Treasury provided a brake on spending, and many times it would offer alternate recommendations in Cabinet papers which opposed what other departments were proposing- and it was really up to Dr. Cullen to take or leave that advice, and convince his colleagues if he took it.

On the flipside, the kooky useless nano-kleptoMinistries (Pacific Island Affairs, Youth Affairs, Women’s Affairs) tend to attract, mostly (I say this because I get surprised when the occasional intelligent rational person I know somehow gets hired by these agencies), lefty post-modernist deconstructionist types, or simply the vacant “I wanna help people” crowd who sleepwalk their ways from largely useless university degrees. These are the ones who see government as this great moneybin which Uncle Scrooge (Treasury) guards, and they want to save the world- they think that with the money taken from the productive, they can someone make a difference. They think that the country would be worse off without these little tags on the skin of the country, when in fact many of us can remember before they existed and would be happy to see those tags surgically removed. It would hurt the people there, but we would all be better off. These nano-kleptoMinistries could all be gone tomorrow, and virtually nobody in the country would be worse off, or miss them.

More disconcerting are the mega-kleptoMinistries – Education, Heath, Social Development, and many others, which constantly suck up large amounts of money, and play on the political heartstrings of MPs. They are driven almost entirely by socialists of some variety, who think what they do is so important and the only reason it isn’t done as well as it could be, is lack of money. Having convinced most New Zealanders that their health care and education is a matter for nanny state, they want to spend more, intervene more and regulate and tax more. They are the ones living it up under Labour, and they hate National governments. They are from leftwing academic, professional or union backgrounds and have every excuse in the world as to why they shouldn’t be accountable for performance – after all health is about people dying, and education about children – and what heartless soul would cut money for that!

I recommend you read post election briefings from The Treasury at least, and any other department you have a particular interest in. The media wont report on these critically – as New Zealand has precious few journalists, just reporters that take as given what departments say – except Treasury, because journalists are wary of anyone talking economics – they don’t understand it.

Privacy and the Motor Vehicle Register

I see that it has been reported in Stuff that “thieves track cars on vehicle register”.
You see you can, for a small fee, find out the name and address of any owner of a registered motor vehicle in New Zealand – useful if someone runs you over and you can recall the rego number, but also useful for marketing companies and stalkers. Although in some parts of the country the register is not exactly up to date, because the Police aren’t too keen on enforcing the law on such matters where it is rough.

Transport officials are drafting a Cabinet paper that would stem abuse of the system, including protecting against the disclosure of vehicle owners' personal information.

This is very old news, as Cabinet agreed in 2002 to tighten up privacy of the
Motor Vehicle Register it is about time – it simply hasn’t been a legislative priority since then.

Of course if roads were not run by the government there would still be a Motor Vehicle Register run collaboratively by the road companies, as there would be a need to ensure that there was a consistent level of information for charging vehicles, and enforcing conditions of using roads (currently traffic laws).

North Korea's new soulmate - Turkmenistan

If you thought the North Koreans were nuts then check out the imitator – Turkmenistan under President for life Niyazov, who took the ending of the Soviet Union as a chance to go back to Stalin – he calls himself Turkmenbashi and has written his own philosophy in the Ruhnama The BBC has an article about it here .

Or you can go to the Turmenistani government website yourself here and work it out for yourself. Make sure you have a firewall operating – websites of authoritarian governments are notoriously nosey on people’s PCs.

Bush on China

I read that President Bush has been acclaiming the freedom and democracy of Taiwan, and suggested that mainland China continue to open up and follow a similar path.

There is nothing in this that I think anyone who supports liberal democracy, whether libertarian or even the Green party could fundamentally disagree with. Taiwan and South Korea have both transitioned from authoritarian governments to being fully fledged vibrant and fairly free liberal democracies. Protest and free speech is open in both countries – leaving their counterparts (the People’s Republic of China and North Korea) far behind. Mainland China has made much progress, but it still executes political opponents and cracks down on freedom of expression from time to time.

And I don’t want to see any nonsense about the United States abusing human rights – organise a political party, print a newspaper, run a protest in New York, then try Taipei, then try Beijing – only in the last one will you face a long prison sentence and probably torture.

Bush is right - and only the George Galloways and other sycophants of murderers would disagree.

Demise of First Class

I miss first class.

This is an unashamedly elitist post – because I think it is slightly sad.

Air New Zealand quietly ceased providing a First Class service on its long haul flights earlier this year. This is in line with the introduction of its new class structure. It keeps economy - I mean scum class – by providing new seats and a fully interactive entertainment system. It provides premier economy class, which is like business class 15 or so years ago, with 6 inches more legroom, double the recline and a slightly classier food and drink service for more money –and business class has seats that recline fully to a flat bed with pillow and duvet – very nice indeed, not the sloping flat seats of (summaries of the business class products on these links) Qantas, Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific - but not first class.

Now admittedly Air New Zealand’s First Class seats are not as good as the new business ones, and its first class service was not quite up to that of the likes of Singapore Airlines or British Airways, but there was something about providing 5 star service on a plane that made it special. Touches like having a soup course, as well as a choice of entrees, constant attentiveness and separate quieter cabin – more amenities for the bathroom, and more separate check in from business – it was something for those who wanted nothing spared for their comfort and enjoyment inflight – and now the top product is for the well heeled business traveller or tourist, not the CEO.

Other airlines have dropped first class – Qantas dropped it from Auckland-LA flights, KLM, Scandinavian, Alitalia, Austrian, Finnair all have dropped first. Virgin Atlantic never had it – calling its top Upper Class- first class service at business class prices, and they are right, to a point.

Maybe it’s because few New Zealanders can afford first class or few first class travellers fly to New Zealand, maybe business class is just so good, that the next step isn’t worth it, maybe it costs so much to upgrade plane cabins to the next level (some Emirates planes have almost separate cabins for first class) that they better be filled or there is no point having them.

I remember when business class (and first class initially with Ansett) came to New Zealand domestic flights – that all disappeared when Air NZ realised that almost all of those seats were either taken up by MPs, or international travellers connecting to flights – very few wanted to pay to fly Wellington to Dunedin business class. Even Trans Tasman flights used to have first class with Air NZ and Qantas, now it is a cheap business class.

Still the market provides what it can bear. I flew first class four times on Air NZ, always upgrades from paid business class seats- it felt special, although a bit antiquated most recently. It was like a mini 5 star restaurant – and I got offered a separate DVD player (as it was recognised that the current tape based in flight entertainment system used in business class is kind of crappy) or Video Walkman with a selection of films to choose from. I sat in the former first class a couple of months ago flying to London- seat 1A no less – with business class service. It’s not the same, the big elaborate fruit and cheese board is gone, instead of selecting those I wanted, I got a small plate, pre-selected, handed to me. The rest of the meal was a good, albeit small, business class meal – and the service was still good- but it wasn’t first class.

and if you are thinking "what a wanker, I only fly economy class" then tough - I find flying long distances economy class to be little better than being shipped like cargo. You queue up like sheep at airports, at gates, cram yourself into tiny spaces in small seats, and expected to sleep upright while periodically some other pleb asks you to wake up and get out of your seat so they can join the 15 minute queue to go to the toilet. You wait for half an hour to an hour for your luggage at the other end. I'm 35, I've done that a few times and I will avoid it for trips of more than 5 hours now. Premium economy class can be a good compromise, but real travelling is business or first class- and the only people who deny it are those who haven't done it!

Wrapping children in cotton wool

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that the Australian Federal Government is considering laws banning unauthorised photo taking in public places and publication of said photos. This is to cover cases of pedophiles taking what would otherwise be perfectly innocent photos of children at the beach or in the playground, and then publishing them on websites - a kind of legal voyeurism which creeps people out. Well it is creepy, but what is really going on here?

Nanny state is rearing her ugly head again - ready to stop all well meaning good people from taking photos in public places which may or may not include children - without permission from the parents. What if parents do this with their own children? (after all a fair proportion of child molestation cases involve relatives). One approach is commonsense - if you see someone creepy taking photos of your kids - tell them to fuck off, take your own photos of them. It also reflects the tragedy of the commons - in that publicly owned space cannot set limits on who goes there - I'm not suggesting gates around beaches and parks necessarily, but if such places WERE privately owned - the owner could set rules about taking photos, and the Police could intervene if someone breaks them, because then it would be trespassing. Private parks exist in the US, UK and other countries.

One of the problems of any laws on this are that is presumably this also covers TVNZ when it has a reporter on Lambton Quay at 4pm in the afternoon when countless school kids walk past – otherwise the defence will be “I was photographing the park, the children happened to be in it”.

I know what this is trying to do – people feel uncomfortable about images taken in public places when they are published. I, like countless others, have numerous photos of strangers that happen to be in photos of places I have photographed. There are photos of me as a child that my parents took in playgrounds, with other children there.

However, if anyone wants to understand why I fight rigorously against nanny state – this is one example. Yes there are perverted (mostly) men who masturbate about children – there always will be – unless we adopt a Taliban type approach and cover children in burkhas, this will happen. Most will never do more than that – in fact there are people who masturbate about strangers every day, including those they photograph. Ah, you say, but photographing children is creepy – no it is not. The only thing that is creepy is the motive. There are plenty of parents, relatives, caregivers who happily photograph the kids they are responsible for, or looking after, with their friends, and the motive is - 99% of the time – not sexual. You’ll never know when it is. There are strangers, photographers, journalists who will take photographs which include children, and again, it wont be sexual – but occasionally it is. When it is, 9 times out of 10 you will never know – and most importantly, the child is not harmed, anymore than it is harmed because someone has an image in their mind. See a photograph (not including child pornography here) of a child will to almost everyone be that – it wont have any consequence, and wont be sexual. However it will be to a pedophile. Fetishes are another example – there are countless people into all sorts of bizarre fetishes that would otherwise be seen as nonchalant – women holding balloons, white socks, knee high boots, watching people eat – all sorts of everyday things that if photographed mean nothing to anyone, except the fetishist. Frankly if everyone knew everyday everyone who thought something sexual about them, many times they would be horrified (though often intrigued!).

The line is crossed when the pedophile either acts on his desires upon a child, or threatens to – that is where the law steps in. The law simply cannot tell patrol thought crimes – though it often tries.

Even the Swiss are in on the act, with the Society of Saint Nicholas banning children hopping on Santas laps at Christmas time. This is incredibly sad. I sat on several Santa Claus laps when I was little, I don't recall Santa offering me some "special gift" from his pants, or trying to find one in mine, but it was special - now the society is reflecting fears of parents. What evidence is there that Santa Clauses are perverts? Except of course for workplace Christmas party ones - where it is the perfect excuse to get women to sit on your lap (I was work Santa for four years in a row and it paid off very well one year, and I am going to miss it this year!).

This sort of nonsense needs to end – just like the ban on parents videoing their children in a play or at the pool. Yes there are perverts out there, and yes a tiny minority hurt kids – but until they act or threaten to act to hurt the child, the law should not step in, and it certainly should not ban what are otherwise harmless activities. Pedophiles probably record kids talking too, they probably draw them and probably buy kids clothes because they turn them on – so are we going to ban everyone doing those things without permission too?

The one thing that is most ignored in all of this is that technology is also meaning that children, or more particularly adolescents also take their own photos, of each other - clothed and unclothed, and they distribute them. Not smart perhaps, but it happens - so do you ban 14yos taking digital photos of each other dressing up, or in bedrooms? Again, the law is really not the solution, it is just a tool.

Rod Donald

I was at Heathrow Airport checking my email before flying to San Francisco when I read the news. For all of the profound political differences I had with the man, I heard much more about him from a good friend of mine, who was his friend - who also had political differences. For me, Rod Donald was perhaps the brain of the Green Party - he carried more intellectual grunt than any of the others, and was a warm individual who liked a drink and enjoyed life. He was not one of the joyless hate filled mongers of nihilism that spme on the political spectrum are.

I will add more later, but he is a loss, as a human being, a warm character and someone that could be debated with - using minds. That, I respect.

Transmission Gully - The Real Story - Part 5

Having summarised the history up till now and the debate, this is my final post on the Transmission Gully story. The situation today is that 4500 submissions have been sent to the Greater Wellington Regional Council on the draft Western Corridor plan - I bet most are asking for money that hasn't been confiscated from people yet - to be spent on Transmission Gully. That is the flipside from the consultation on the Wellington Inner City Bypass, when plenty all wanted a road not to be built - even though the money from road users was there and it is a worthwhile project. Following that consultation, Transit and the Greater Wellington Regional Council will produce a final Western Corridor Plan, for endorsement or revision by the Transit New Zealand Board and the Wellington Regional Land Transport Committee - good luck to them both! There is a report back to Cabinet on whether there is an agreed Corridor Plan in order to access the $405 million additional funding I have mentioned in this posting - it requires agreement on a plan and agreement on how to pursue consenting for any upgrade on the current highway. The big issue is whether Cullen throws more general tax money at Wellington for Transmission Gully, whether Wellington can agree on a plan and what Transit's board thinks. This final major posting attempts to show why Transmission Gully is a lousy idea - not because I'm a Green, I like roads, but because it is a waste of money.

What should happen?

If Transmission Gully was around the same cost as the coastal upgrade, I would argue for my Option 3 in my previous post. However, the study and the peer review indicate that the difference in cost between the coastal option and Transmission Gully is around $250 million - $300 million. That is money I’d like to see going to other things.

The Transmission Gully advocates say it must be built regardless of cost – which Fulton Hogan and other construction contractors must be thrilled about, along with property owners. Why not pay all property owners $1 million minimum? Why not pay for all construction workers for the road to have annual first class holidays around the world and new Ferraris? After all – “bugger the cost”. Those examples seem extreme, but what IS the difference? What if that $250 million or so went on hospitals, or schools instead of a more expensive road to do the same job as a cheaper one?

The environmental arguments are somewhat specious once you get rid of the NIMBY syndrome. In my view, people who live on Mana Esplanade bought into their environment – they chose to live on State Highway 1 and now want to have their suburb exempt from that – which of course would not happen anyway, as 40% of the traffic would remain on the current route.

None of these areas have endangered species along them nor have any great natural significance – you’ll notice that the Greens or other environmental groups are on the side of the Gullites.

The first priorities for the part of the corridor between Paremata and Mackays Crossing (I take for granted that the other ends have higher needs) should be:

1. Build the median barrier from Pukerua Bay to Paekakariki: I believe Transit is pursuing this as fast as it can. I believe it is at the design stage and will be seeking consents to widen the road sufficiently for this to happen, at a relatively modest $16 million. This will significantly improve safety and reliability along the route.

2. Construct some sort of flyover/interchange at Paekakariki: Access to and from Paekakariki is far from safe, and something akin to a flyover over the current intersection for north-south traffic would help. The claims that Paekakariki Hill Rd would need $400 million spent on it as a result are nonsense, as Porirua City Council only needs to maintain it and manage it, not upgrade it to a 100 km/h highway!

3. Bypass Pukerua Bay: This is easy and should be built either to 2-lanes or 4-lanes, it will relieve that community, ease the queuing going north (as there is some loss of traffic at Pukerua Bay) and leave the most difficult bit till last.

4. Start pursuing options for routes for a Mana Bypass: Although the Mana upgrade that is now open seems to be working well and ensuring traffic flows reasonably smoothly – in the longer term Mana should be bypassed, which means some land around the Ngatitoa Domain would need to be used. The process for sorting this out will be lengthy, so should start as soon as it can.

Transmission Gully as a route can be retained as a long term option, but there is no need for 6-lanes between Wellington and Kapiti – 4-lanes is enough. Transmission Gully will make it 6-lanes, until Tawa when it becomes 4-lanes again!

The coastal 4-laning can be sought and eventually built, but is hardly the top priority. What has come over far too many people is a hysteria about congestion and road closures that nobody would say is worth spend $1.1 billion to fix. That is over $7000 for every Wellington household.

Government funding offer

As the final part of this saga up to now, Cabinet agreed earlier this year to two Crown contributions to a solution on the Western Corridor over the next ten to twelve years. These are:

1. $225 million to fund public transport and roading improvements along the entire Western Corridor (this can include Petone-Grenada, additional stages of the Kapiti Western Link Road, essential upgrades of the current route, and the modest rail upgrade plan). This funding is unconditional, and is to fund the highest priority parts of the Corridor.

2. $405 million to fund a solution for the access and congestion issues on State Highway 1 between Linden and Mackays Crossing. This is a contribution towards either the coastal route or Transmission Gully. It will not fully fund either – the only catch is that parts of the coastal route could be built (and benefits from them arise) and it is likely that other parts could be liable to get standard National Land Transport Fund funding anyway in the future.

A total of $885 million of taxpayers money for Wellington transport on top of the dedicated funding from road user charges and petrol tax - better than Auckland on a per capita basis!

Conclusion

The case for Transmission Gully does not stack up because:

1. It costs too much : At $1.1 billion it is a staggering amount of money, equivalent to all of the other conceivable roading projects that could be built in Wellington combined – it is worth more than all of the petrol tax collected in Wellington in 7 years, including all of the money spent on road maintenance and all other projects. Assuming the coastal route was not built, the next most expensive project proposed in the next ten or so years is the Petone-Grenada link road at $180 million – even a second Mt Victoria Tunnel and 4-lanes out to the airport would be around $250 million – the cost difference between Transmission Gully and the coastal route.

2. To build it would mean a subsidy to road users: To fund Transmission Gully would mean non-road users paying for a road – this should offend all supporters of user pays and the free market, as much as it should offend the Greens. The government has pledged to grant Wellington $885 million of taxpayers money for land transport in the next ten years. This is more than equal to all of the petrol tax paid in the Wellington region to the Crown Account – so essentially matches the National policy (for Wellington at least) for road funding. As Transmission Gully cannot be funded by tolls (only pays for less than 10%) and all the funding from petrol tax wont fund it either, then either general taxpayers have to fund a road to the capital or ratepayers do. Since the loudest councils on this (Porirua and Kapiti) are very silent when they are asked to ask their ratepayers for a contribution, the calls for Transmission Gully are piggies at the trough – Peter Dunne is seeking a porkbarrel, as is Porirua and Kapiti. This nonsense was supposed to have gone with Muldoon – it should remain in the past. The people living in Mana/Plimmerton who want others to pay for it are no surprise, but why should other people be made to pay for their prospective property value increases?

3. Transmission Gully is a bad investment: It doesn’t stack up on economic efficiency grounds. It has a benefit cost ratio of, at best 0.5:1, so it is like putting $1.1 billion in the bank and coming back 25 years later and finding only $550 million left – like Think Big. Not only would non-road users have to pay for it, but it wouldn’t even generate net economic benefits for the nation. It doesn’t even pay its costs. ACT and National, which rightly condemn poor investment in rail projects that are just as bad, can’t see a bad road when it stares them in the face. Losing $550 million in national wealth is an outrage, when there are hundreds of millions of dollars of roading projects elsewhere in New Zealand that generate positive returns. Simple measures like eliminating all traffic lights on Highway 2 from Wellington to Upper Hutt could save time and accidents, a second Mt Victoria Tunnel would all be positive investments. Anyone advocating a negative investment is simply plain stupid – why doesn’t everyone pay for some road users and property owners to benefit to half the extent of the cost.

4. The problems of the current route can be solved by other cheaper means: The reasons Transmission Gully is advocated are:
- Accidents along the coastal highway (not fixed just reduced in number by the Gully- largely fixed by a median barrier);
- Congestion at Mana (fixed, for now, by the now open upgrade – can be fixed longer term by a bypass at Mana for 20% of the cost of the Gully);
- Occasional road closures (usually due to accidents, largely fixed above. The very rare slip is hardly a reason to spend $250 million on insurance – and 4-laning the current road should enable it to remain open with at least one lane I each direction, even if part of the lanes are blocked.

Other congestion is less serious than many other locations in Wellington (e.g. Ngauranga, Mt Victoria Tunnel). For $220 million Mana can eventually be bypassed, and Pukerua Bay bypassed for $70 million. The coastal section does not need 4-laning for some years as congestion will not be severe enough to justify it, but the 4-laning of it will provide a far more reliable route than Transmission Gully – the second route mantra comes at a $250-$300 million premium. Why do something for quarter of a billion more than you need to?

5. The coastal route can be upgraded in stages: Transmission Gully is only worth building as one route, which would take five years construction and around four years pre-construction. It requires an enormous amount of funding and enormous construction effort for one project, once, with all the costs that the equipment would present for just one project (it would sit around largely useless for years after that or need to be moved to multiple locations to get used on smaller contracts). The coastal upgrade can be built in stages and the benefits realised progressively. The so-called disruption is what happens with all road projects – Transmission Gully would disrupt the motorway south of Porirua and the highway north of Paekakariki, the inner city bypass disrupts central Wellington. Auckland’s central motorway junction (spaghetti junction) is having several new ramps and lanes installed – on the busiest part of the roading network, and this is managed to avoid worsening peak congestion, and undertaking much work at night. Within 10 years, there could be a Pukerua Bay Bypass and the coastal 4-laning would be finished in year 11 along with a Paekakariki flyover. All that is left is a bypass at Mana. Transmission Gully would not be finished for 15 years.

6. An alternative route is unnecessary: The Hutt Valley has no realistic alternative route to Wellington if the Hutt motorway is closed. Auckland’s North Shore does not have one to Auckland if the Auckland Harbour Bridge is closed, the Wairarapa does not if the Rimutaka Hill Road is closed. New Zealand cannot afford to build parallel routes for the sake of it. Paekakariki Hill Road is a viable light vehicle alternative, and 4-laning (with a median barrier on) the coastal route will not only avoid most accidents which cause closures, but provide ample room for diverting traffic around incidents (which are unlikely to block 4-lanes with shoulders).

In addition, in the longer term there is likely to be some sort of road pricing to replace petrol tax - differentiating by time of day and location, which means congested roads cost more to use. Demand management, such as airlines, hotels and phone companies use to get people to use networks at off peak times and charge a premium at busiest times, will be the norm. Under that environment, people may think very carefully indeed before using scarce road space at peak times to commute to work. That is when very large expensive roads start to look rather redundant and you concentrate road investment on making what you have safer and more efficient (e.g. removing traffic light controlled intersections, additional lanes, realignments). That is a far more efficient approach.

The Transit New Zealand Board and the Wellington Regional Land Transport Committee should drop Transmission Gully for the reasons I have outlined above. ACT and National MPs should come to their senses with economic rationalism, and stop advocating a mindless Think Big Roading project, and advocate user pays - the pork barrelling they are pursuing should be above them. Peter Dunne should give it a rest and stop advocating for a road that will do nothing for his local constituents (when Petone-Grenada will), and Dr Cullen should stay out of it.

Transmission Gully is a bad project which needs consigning to the proverbial dustbin of history, someone needs the courage to put it to sleep.