It's his money not yours

This is what Dr Cullen believes when he talks about what he ISN'T going to give back in tax cuts in the NZ Herald. So he wont institute a tax free threshold for income, so that NZ will remain one of the few countries where the government taxes children for having a paper round.

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This is, fundamentally, the difference between those on the left and libertarians. Dr. Cullen and the Greens (forever talking about "we" and "our" as if the state and individuals are indivisible) believe that taxes are not your money, but their money - their money to be used to pay for setting up a radio station, subsidising a business, buying a train set, paying for welfare - it's all their money. Taxes are moral to the left, they are the way by which the rich (spit) have their wealth (probably not justified) taken to be given to those who deserve it, or for a "higher purpose". The "national interest" being the reason why people are forced to pay for what Dr Cullen wants.

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Now you wont ever see those on the left talking about force, they prefer to ignore what taxation actually is. It isn't something people give up willingly - no. It is taken under threat of more being taken, and imprisonment. Don't forget, the state only presumes you're guilty of not paying your taxes - if you murder someone, you're innocent till proven guilty.

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You see the money taken in taxes is yours, you gained it by salary, wage, dividend, interest, sale or gift because someone chose to give it to you for whatever reason. However, most politicians think that it is their money, and moreover that you can choose between those who will take a bit more and those will take a bit less. That's going to be the parameters of the debate at the election. Dr Cullen is going to throw you a little bit back no doubt, and you'll be expected to be very grateful for that. The Greens will oppose it, because they believe the state should do whatever it thinks is right to make people behave correctly. National will offer you a little bit more than Labour, but still believes it isn't your money - it is the government's money.

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So what i want to ask is this. Whose money do YOU think it is?

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Many of you trust Dr. Cullen to buy you healthcare. Do you think you're getting a good deal from him? If not, why do you think John Key can do a better job?

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Many of you trust Dr. Cullen to buy your kids' education. Do you think you're getting a good deal? If not, why do you think John Key can do a better job?

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Many of you trust Dr Cullen to use your money to support businesses or other organisations of various kinds, including recording music videos, producing TV programmes. Would you choose for this to happen? If not, why do you think John Key would do it better?

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Many of your trust Dr Cullen to buy you a retirement income? Do you trust you'll get a good deal? If not, why do you think John Key would do it better?

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Got the picture?

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This is what arguments about tax cuts are about. Are politicians and bureaucrats better placed to spend your money than you are? Would you choose to spend your money on what they want?

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Ah yes, some of you say. What about schools and hospitals? You're happy to pay taxes for them. Are you? You get good value for money do you? What happens if you don't like the school, you can... no the money stays there. How about the hospital? Oh yes, you can't do anything about that either.

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How about if you gave Dr Cullen some more, so he could buy your groceries, would be simpler wouldn't it? Ah, you get that, but so many don't get why he shouldn't be trusted to buy your education or health care.

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You'll also notice that most politicians want you to pay taxes so you can pay for the education, health care and food of OTHER families. Ask them how many people you're expected to pay for - you wont get a straight answer, but the implication is that you're obliged to otherwise there is something wrong with you.

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You see I think it IS your money. So here's a trick to play this election. Do it at candidate's meetings or whatever way you can find - ask the magic question:

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Do you think the taxes I have to pay are my money or your money to use?

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If they say it is their money, congratulate them on their honesty and ask why they think they have to force you to pay for things they want.

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If they say it is your money, ask you when you can have it back because you think you can buy better healthcare, education and pensions than they can.

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No doubt you'll get all sorts of weasel words about taxation being the price for civilisation - bullshit. So tax havens are uncivilised are they?

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You'll hear something like "what about all the people who can't afford it"? In which case, why should you put up with substandard health care and education for the sake of those who'd rather spend their own money on something else? Why deny you choice because of others?

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You'll hear something like "most people agree with taxes". Say that "most people" once thought homosexuality should be a crime, and that the rights of minorities shouldn't be sacrificed because the majority wants them to be.

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You see a libertarian doesn't believe taxes are moral. Taxes are theft, legalised of course, but still theft. Those who do not produce taking money from those who do. Those who truly believe in less government will phase out taxes, and reduce them without a second thought. They will proudly hand back your money, but in exchange say it is up to you to buy education, health care, a pension and insure yourself against unemployment and the like.

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Will National do that?

Disaster aid for dictatorships

The tragedy that has beset Burma has according to the BBC now claimed 22,000 lives with another 41,000 missing. The cyclone has destroyed so many populated areas near the coast that the need for emergency aid and assistance is clear. In many countries it would be a simple matter of the relevant government allowing government and non-government aid agencies in to provide shelter, food, clothing, water and medical assistance to those now on the brink of their lives, but this is Burma.

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Burma is a military dictatorship, a particularly nasty one, and has been so since 1962. It suppresses dissent with little mercy, and the military exists primarily to keep the government in power. It is notable how absent the military has been during this civil defence emergency, clearly it doesn't exist to help the population.

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You see there is little point giving aid or money to the Burmese government - for the simple reason it wont do anything with it except to enrich itself. It is corrupt and murderous, and few want this regime to do anything short of collapse. It is telling that the French government has been explicit about this, with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner saying that only 200,000 euros is being donated because "we don't really trust the way the Burmese ministry would use the money". Indeed.

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The USA has promised to come to the assistance of Burma, but only on condition that US disaster assessment teams can enter and be in control of searching for missing people and handing out aid. The Bush Administration too doesn't want the Burmese government restricting or taking any of the aid. No doubt some will accuse it of wanting to spy or not caring about the Burmese people - the same accusers probably also protest Burmese human rights, so are never happy.

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Of course the World Food Programme of the UN is throwing food aid at the country, who knows how much of that will be quietly taken by the regime to keep the military fed in fear of insurrection. The United Nations, after all, is morally blind to whether a member state is a dictatorship or a free country.

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So what SHOULD be done? Should Burma be, despite the toll, left to be, on the basis that aid will more often than not be confiscated by the military, and that any aid sustains the regime as much as the public? Is it not possible that the cyclone could weaken the regime enough that it can allow for some civil insurrection to bring it down? After all -the biggest problem Burma has is not the cyclone - the military government has impoverished, killed and imprisoned the population for decades.

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Or should aid flow, on the basis that most Burmese have neither the means to resist the regime, and are facing certain death without food, shelter and medical help? Is it better for them to see western aid agencies and organisations giving help directly, and it is simply human benevolence to help those who can't help themselves in a time of dire need?

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I say the latter, but conditionally. It is tragic to simply ignore what has happened, but Burma has to accept aid on the terms of those who offer it. That means if the US is willing to send in teams of experts at rescue and groups to rehabilitate destroyed villages, it does so on its terms. It means bypassing the military and if there is interference, then aid workers should leave. There is ample testimony that North Korea took western aid during the 1990s floods for high level party and military first, with many people receiving next to nothing. This can't happen in Burma. Medicins Sans Frontieres is one private aid agency that withdrew from North Korea out of frustration that it couldn't deliver assistance directly to those in need. If the Burmese authorities wont accept this, then the blood of the Burmese people will be on their hands again. Certainly the few media outlets the Burmese can access (illegally) should broadcast this loud and clear (BBC World Service and Voice of America in Burmese).

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So if you wish to donate to aid efforts for Burma, be warned. Donate to private charities that are careful to use their own people to assist people directly, not donate to government. That means ignoring UN organisations.

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I note also that the hosts of the Olympics this year have said nothing in their official organ about helping "Myanmar" but have faithfully reported their fellow dictatorship's news. Yes, the People's Republic of China is such a great world citizen isn't it?

Dr Cullen's logic impeccable

Around 30-40% of you still trust a fair bit of your income with this man. Would you trust him spending your money to buy food, clothes, entertainment? Would you trust him to select a partner for you? So why do you trust him to buy you a pension, insurance against sickness and unemployment, accident insurance, health care and education for your kids?

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Just take this comment from the NZ Herald on why he justifies taking your money to buy locomotives, wagons and rail ferries "There were many benefits to the Crown being owner including that the taxpayer buyback meant "we won't be seeing profits flowing out of the country"". Why did he bother using the last five words?

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He also said "a properly integrated rail system could not be run at a profit without some degree of subsidisation by the Government " again why use the last eight words? A profit with a subsidy is not a profit.

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Oh and by the way, why would you trust Bill English and John Key to spend your money on exactly the same things? Especially since they wont dispose of this new taxpayer liability. Meanwhile ACT is condemning it, condemning National but not saying what it would do. What's that about? What's wrong with the "P" word Rodney?

Tame Iti gets to be a thespian

Yes, I know it's obvious to mention this, but who else could get bail on firearms charges that would allow you to leave the country so you can act in a play in Europe?

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Tame Iti is a communist, and has a long history of siding with totalitarian thugs and long has wanted separatism for Tuhoe (wish I actually don't mind as long as private property rights are respected and there is no claim on the NZ taxpayer) as seen in this video.

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However, his politics don't matter as much as how the oppressive occupiers allow him to go on a global trip as a thespian, despite firearms charges (which admittedly may not exist under a libertarian government).

Wellington transport plan reasonable

Well the Greens are unhappy (but building a road and not building a steel church - I mean light railway - means that is guaranteed), but the plan itself as reported in Stuff isn't half bad. A new flyover at the Basin Reserve (long been planned and necessary) will make a big difference as will widening Wellington Rd and Ruahine St. Bus lanes through town and down Cambridge and Kent Terrace could do some good (especially if taxis and trucks are allowed on them too), so all in all a reasonable way to spend some fuel tax.

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The ridiculous light rail fetish, which few of the enthusiasts accurately cost on a per passenger km basis, should be killed. However, second Terrace Tunnel and Mt Victoria Tunnel would be good - but there is no talk of tolls which could fund them. I'd argue that State Highway 1 could be privatised and that would incentivise construction of a decent bypass as it could have variable tolls by time of day, but there is little appetite for this in Wellington.

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Oh and while the Wellington Mayor is enthused, note no MPs will get fired up about modest good road projects - they don't see votes in them (unlike Peter Dunne's fetish with Transmission Gully), so they often get neglected. Not even the Transport Minister, Annette King, whose electorate would benefit enormously from improving the roads between the city and the airport, is too interested - but then maybe she's looking at what her job is after the election?

NZ Herald hits rail issue on the head

Today's NZ Herald editorial has made the point that is ignored by the anti rail privatisation church:

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"If those private owners who put their money into the assets did not maintain their investment, there must have been a reason. They would surely have not let those assets deteriorate if rail was truly competitive with road transport and capable of realising a good profit. Passenger services would not have ended if people had viewed trains as a preferred means of transport. Most recently, Toll had been unable to make the business afford the rent that the Treasury wanted for use of the Crown-owned track network. Clearly, there was a significant distance between the profitability of the rail service and the cost of infrastructure maintenance."

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Absolutely furthermore "People will also take some convincing that modernisation, in itself, will make rail attractive to customers. Evidence supplied by Wisconsin Central and Toll suggests there is a substantial, perhaps unbridgeable, gap between it and roading in purely economic terms."

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So you see, it was economically rational to run down the railway system. It simply wasn't worth it. Unless of course you believe the nonsense about the environment, or you want a train set to run.

So what IS happening with fuel tax?

First, the government announces, some time ago, that to fund more inefficient public transport, and roads that are politically driven, it will allow regional councils to levy fuel taxes on petrol AND diesel (diesel typically has no tax usually).
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Helen Clark says on the 6th that the new regional fuel taxes to subsidise public transport (and fund more roads) wont happen.
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Dr Cullen then says they will. However the government wont agree to a "full tax" immediately. He says that without a regional fuel tax in Auckland, rail electrification can't proceed. You might ask why those who would benefit from rail electrification - users and operators of the commuter rail service - can't pay for it themselves? You might ask by how much congestion will drop because of electrification? You wont get an answer.
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Now Helen Clark says it wont include transport in the emissions trading regime until 2011, so that the punitive 8c/l levy would be delayed. Note the word delayed. She also said the government wont approve a regional fuel tax as high as 5c/l, which means you might get one less than that.
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However, one thing you can be certain of - Labour will increase fuel taxes or levies. You might ask how good the "investments" are that it expects the taxes to be used on.

Reaction to rail nationalisation

Predictably, the soothsayers and faith based activists for rail are bowing their heads in deference to the mountain of taxpayers' money thrown into buying the ferries and railway rolling stock. Don't forget this is $150 of your money taken to be used on this - you might have preferred that be spent on food, health insurance or some books for your kids - no you've been forced to buy a business that will cost you more again, each year, so that a handful of companies can move their freight more cheaply.

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According to Stuff:

Mainfreight is cheering it on, after all, it will be a key beneficiary of subsidised rail freight.

Jim Anderton and NZ First's Peter Brown, both experts of regulatory economics (ha!), are wetting themselves with excitement. Peter Brown claims it "will result in improved service, innovation" though I wonder what he was drinking when railways were last government owned to think that state ownership means innovation and quality service. It was a national joke. Jim Anderton of course simply worships state ownership - remember that he will be deciding, along with other Ministers what trains you'll be forced to buy for the railways. Yes - the $665 million is only the start. It's worth noting that Air New Zealand, being publicly listed and partially privately owned doesn't have any such political interference (or subsidies) in its investment programme. However, you might wonder whether Peter Brown, whose personal policy fetish is coastal shipping - has realised the government is about to own one of the biggest competitors of the coastal shipping sector!

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Richard Prebble claims the buyback may cost as much as $3 million a day in subsidies. He may not be far wrong. He also asks if different companies will be allowed to run train services on the tracks (as is the case in much of Europe and Australia) or whether the government will run a monopoly? It's a good point. Why shouldn't someone wishing to buy their own trains run a service on the publicly owned tracks, especially now the government has bought Toll's monopoly access rights?

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The trucking industry, in the form of Tony Friedlander (ex. Muldoon era Minister of Works) of the Road Transport Forum said it was too early to comment. After all government owned rail is likely to compete with many trucking operations.

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The Greens are of course thrilled that taxpayers have been forced to buy their idol - the railway rolling stock and locomotives. It would be nice if they actually used it more though. Nevertheless Jeanette Fitzsimons is already calling for you to be forced to pay for the slowest motorised long distance transport in the country - passenger trains! It takes six hours to go by rail from Christchurch to Dunedin (without speed restrictions) four hours to drive, less than an hour to fly. It takes five hours from Wellington to Napier by rail, 3.5 to 4 hours to drive and an hour to fly. Auckland to Wellington by rail can, at best, be done in 10.5 hours, seven hours to drive and one hour to fly. Few things excite the Greens more than rail transport - it truly is a faith based initiative.

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National of course is opposing it, but wont reverse it. See that's what being in Opposition is all about - oppose a policy at the time, but go along with it when you get elected. It's called Ratchet Socialism - Labour advances socialist policies, and National can't move the ratchet back, (and has policy worthy of rat shit as a result). The claim the Nats make that it wouldn't get a good price for the sale. However, here's an idea. Don't sell it, hand out the shares to the general public. Give everyone a stake in the railways and hand over the shares. Publicly float them, see if the value is retained, and then people can bail out if they like. It wouldn't be "flogging off the assets to foreigners" it would be handing them to New Zealanders - true public ownership, though not one socialists agree with because it doesn't mean Cabinet is in control. However, David Farrar thinks there is a case for the state to own core infrastructure assets - so he wont think the Alliance is mad in seeking renationalisation of Contact Energy, Auckland and Wellington airports. Meanwhile Maurice Williamson has said National is committed to buying electric trains for Auckland. Why, except for votes?

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I'll expect ACT will advocate privatisation of it again, as it should.

Food prices? Blame government

If ever you wanted to witness the catastrophic effects of government intervention in markets you need only see the international crisis around food prices. The primary reason why food prices have been increasing is demand from middle income consumers in India and China. This increase should easily have been accommodated by a free and open global market for food production. Demand increases, prices rise and this should encourage production in the commodities most sought after. Farmers and wholesalers of such goods would make good profits they can reinvest in growing more, and doing so more efficiently. Consumers benefit as this dynamism and entry into the production market helps keep prices from increasing too rapidly.

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Well it would work that way, but for the European Union, US federal government, Japanese government and other agricultural protectionists.

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Many have blamed the new found fetish for biofuels. They are partly right. Now biofuels are meant to be good because their production absorbs the same CO2 produced when they are burnt, and can replace oil. Sadly, whilst biofuels may have a future, governments in many countries have started subsidising them, making it more economic to grow corn and wheat for fuel rather than food. Half of the growth in crop consumption is due to biofuels, and that would not have happened had the US, EU and the like thrown bad money at it. Rather than letting oil companies choose to invest in the best options for more energy, there has been massive diversion to biofuels - the result is higher food prices. If biofuels were not subsidised they would face the same pressure on prices that oil (and food) has, making their economics more questionable and helping ensure that the balance of agricultural production is not leaning towards fuel.

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The biofuel agenda has been promoted by environmentalists such as the Green Party, keen to mandate compulsory targets for biofuel production. As much as they may wish to plead that it should be "sustainable", the vile meaningless buzzword of the 21st century, the truth is simply this - Government incentives for biofuel production increase the price of food. Environmentalists who want the state to encourage biofuels are doing so at the cost of food - simple as that.

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However, the new fad for biofuels may, at least, have a future. If left well alone, biofuels may well become important, but will be competing with hydrogen fuel cells, solar energy, wind energy, nuclear and dare I say it, new sources of oil.

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There are two far bigger concerns around the trade in food that are hindering, enormously, the ability of the food sector to respond to increases in demand.

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The first can be quickly addressed, these are the failures of the developing countries in the form of price controls, import controls, domestic monopolies and the like which have existed in many of the countries most suffering from the increases in prices. The price controls on food have restricted the economics of food production in those countries, and restrictions on imports have also hindered supply. Deregulating the import, export, production and sale of food should be a priority so that the right signals can be sent to increase production, and for food exporting countries to enjoy the windfall to encourage them to invest in producing more. Sadly the socialism of countries like Venezuela, keeping food prices down, has exacerbated the situation.

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However, for all of these failiings (and in many countries these barriers are being dismantled out of necessity), nothing beats the abject catastrophe created by the European Union, USA and Japan with agricultural protectionism.

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Liam Halligan in the Sunday Telegraph attacks, quite rightly, the French Agricultural Minister Michel Barnier who claims, without a hint of irony, that the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a "good model". Model of what?

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Millions will happily protest against so called US imperialism, and have no doubt about it - US agricultural policy is only slightly better (and the Democratic Party led Congress is now pushing through another Farm Bill to spread pork to the feather bedded US farming lobby), but who protests the multi billion dollar distortions and disasters that result from the EU's CAP.

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Let's review what the CAP actually does.

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For starters it inflates the price of food in Europe by imposing tariffs, quotas and bans on food imports from countries outside the EU. It does this to protect inefficient European farmers, and so hurts European households by making them pay more than they need for food. The knock on effect is that efficient food producers outside Europe get poor access to that wealthy market, hindering their production in favour of the small, energy intensive subsidised farms of Europe. So the CAP first favours the less productive against the more productive, and European consumers pay more, whilst disadvantaging others.

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Secondly, the £33 billion per annum in subsidies - yes £33 billion - is poured into the farms that already have a protected market, so they can produce. Ah, you cry, but if they didn't produce wouldn't the price of food go up? Um hold on, part of these subsidies is to pay farmers NOT to produce, much like in the US. This trick was to eliminate over production, caused by the protectionism and subsidies in the first place. So yes, the EU pays for farm land to be unproductive, as does the US federal government. Be nice to end that straight away so that farm land might be more profitable used AS farm land than as a source for a welfare cheque - but no the French government says "it is a model". However, what is truly destructive about these subsidies is how they decimate food production elsewhere in the world, you see the CAP subsidises exports of inefficiently produced European food to the rest of the world.

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The result? Agriculture in many developing countries has been stunted by the EU's exports of its highly subsidised produce undercutting efficient production elsewhere, whilst shutting its own doors to imports.

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As Halligan says "the CAP, along with other Western subsidies, has delayed the cultivation of, and investment in, vast swathes of potentially fertile land across Africa, Asia and Latin America. And it's this land which should now be supporting the large-scale commercial production of the food these regions - not to say global markets - so badly need."

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So the EU, followed by the USA (and don't doubt Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will keep this going, McCain's opposition to "pork" spending may hold some hope) and Japan (on rice predominantly) have stunted and hindered food production elsewhere by propping up their own inefficient agricultural producers. The insanity of the CAP is such that the more efficient dairy farmers in the UK can't benefit from record dairy prices because of quotas of production within the EU - what rational agricultural policy prevents your farmers from making money from high commodity prices, but ensures your consumers pay more than that for what they buy?

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The CAP was originally about two things - ensuring European farmers had adequate incomes and food security. The latter is a nonsense, given the UK used to consume virtually all of NZ's food exports until the 1970s, and international trade in food with record prices will help ensure food security. The former is even more of a nonsense. The CAP stops European farmers from realising the benefits of high commodity prices, whilst simultaneously hindering production elsewhere. If there were ever a time to remove agricultural subsidies and trade protectionism for agriculture it is now.

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The clear message to Brussels, Washington and Tokyo should be plain and clear. It is time to dismantle your pork barrel laden agricultural protectionism. That means abolishing subsidies so that production isn't distorted in favour of inefficiency, and abolishing tariffs, quotas and bans on free trade in agricultural commodities - so that your own consumers aren't paying over the odds.

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Agricultural subsidies are the invention of socialists and economic nationalists, the truly economic braindead. They are immoral, destructive and a cancer upon the world of food production and trade. Nothing would assist in addressing food shortages more than dismantling these abominations, and meanwhile the enormous money saved might just be a boost to the flagging European, US and Japanese economies. Farmers in these countries need to be told - as prices for dairy, meat, wheat and rice are at record levels - you should stand on your own feet. Meanwhile, it would be nice if the EU's budget was halved and taxpayers got their money back.

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As is said by the Economist, ever the friend of free trade:

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"Defenders of the CAP and other rich-country farm policies cannot have it both ways. They cannot demand more money when prices are low, and then ask for extra protection when they rise. High food prices further undermine their already rotten arguments for support, and offer a golden opportunity to dismantle rich-country farm protection"

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The environmentalist new left movement is propagating a new form of snake oil called "food sovereignty". The UN Rapporteur on the "right to food" Jean Ziegler, a supporter of Cuba's agricultural policies, is a cheerleader for this.

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It's about time that these economic fraudsters were exposed for what they are. Their philosophy is literally killing people, and it is impoverishing farmers throughout the developing world. The time is now for all those who give a damn about food to call for a complete liberalisation of agricultural trade. Nonsense like so-called fair trade and the like should be ignored for what it is, a distraction.

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Meanwhile blame the environmentalist movement for biofuels, along with agricultural protectionism (although socialists and economic nationalists are equally to blame here). However there isn't much hope, with Sarkozy's administration talking about "community preference" as a new form of protectionism, and both Clinton and Obama pushing anti-trade agendas. S0 when will those who claim to care about poverty speak up against agricultural corporate welfare?

Did you want to buy a railway?

Well it isn't a question - you own one now according to the NZ Herald. Clark and Cullen have taken $665 million of your money and have bought a dog. The private sector didn't want it, but now you have it - lucky you. It is another one of those investments that doesn't actually generate a financial return - funny that.

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You see the government's competency is astounding given its record on this.

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First it paid $81 million for the whole Auckland rail network, even though Treasury valued it at best at $20 million. The shareholders of Tranz Rail paid out a special dividend of around $50 million directly because of that purchase - that's YOUR taxes going to Tranz Rail shareholders' back pockets.

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Then it paid a nominal $1 for the rest of the network, and started undercharging Toll (as rail operator) to use it. $10 million a year undercharging, coming from YOUR taxes. The beneficiaries being Fonterra, Solid Energy and several forestry companies and freight forwarders - because your taxes should subsidise their freight shouldn't they??

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Since then it has poured more taxpayers' money into the network. As I blogged about before:

- At least $450 million to upgrade the Auckland rail network (track, signals and platforms) from 2005;

- $100 million per year for six years from 2007 to upgrade Auckland and Wellington rail networks;

- $25 million in 2008/09 and again in 2009/10 to upgrade the national rail network;

- $100 million upfront in upgrading the national network from 2003, and $25 million annually from 2004 to 2007.

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Now it has said that "The Government will now avoid paying subsidies to third parties and we also avoid the on-going disputes over the implementation of the National Rail Access Agreement that had the potential to destroy value in the business and erode the morale of the people who work in it."

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*cough* Bullshit! The subsidy wont be going to Toll, it will be going to rail freight customers and rail ferry customers implicitly. It is reducing freight costs for timber, coal, containers and milk - that's it, by subsidising them - these are third parties. You see railways aren't exactly carrying just air.

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So why buy it? What about the concerns about road maintenance, pollution and congestion?

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Well this is all terribly funny. At a time of record fuel prices, the claims about the efficiency of rail over road would apparently be so self evident subsidies wouldn't be needed - and of course they aren't, since the railways ran happily without them for freight from 1988 till 2003. The difference is the government, as rail owner, wont charge Toll the full price of the cost of rail maintenance. So either rail is very fuel efficient (and conversely has lower environmental impact) or it isn't, or isn't enough to make up for the enormous fixed costs of having lightly used tracks. Not so sustainable now is it?

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So what about road maintenance? Well Road User Charges recover the costs of highway maintenance from trucks attributable to trucks. They get revised regularly to respond to those costs, so they aren't being undercharged (on average). Funny how the government will undercharge trains on its tracks, but not trucks on its roads. An argument can be made that trucks on local authority roads should pay more, instead of ratepayers paying for these costs, but these roads rarely compete with rail for most freight.

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So what about pollution? Well the government's own study indicates that the environmental impact of long haul road freight is sometimes the same or less than that of rail, and vice versa. It is route dependent, so is not as simple as the Greens preach it is.

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and congestion? Well rail freight will do next to nothing to address that, and passenger services in Wellington seem to be getting upgraded quite happily without government ownership of the operations. You're deluded if your think that the Auckland rail upgrade, which will serve locations where only 12% of Aucklanders work, and largely see a shift from bus to rail, will reduce congestion.

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and if that doesn't convince you remember this:

- In 1982 the government wiped what was then $100 million worth of debt from the Railways Department to restructure it. In today's dollars that would now be roughly $250 million.

- In 1988, the government wiped another $350 million worth of debt from the Railways Corporation to pay for the Think Big rail electrification which was a sunk cost and unprofitable project;

- In 1990, the government wiped $1 billion worth of debt from the Railways so it could start with a clean slate, the second time in eight years.

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No amount of ridiculous cargo cult worship of railways will get over the fact that this is a dog of an investment. The main freight customers should have been left to buy it and run it as a business, and if the government wanted the roads and railways to be on a level playing field, it could have run the highways as a business and even, shock horror, sold them.

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Instead the government pours taxpayers' money into poor quality exhorbitant road projects that are environmentally gold plated (like the Waterview extension and eventually Transmission Gully), and makes you buy a railway to shift traffic from the roads it wont manage on market principles.

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oh and you might ask why all the socialists and environmentalists didn't buy rail shares when they were available.

Wishart's all too obvious smear

Now Ian Wishart's book is akin to Nicky Hager's - it is political with the motive of bringing down the political party (and leader) he dislikes.

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I have no time for Helen Clark and her politics. I wouldn't care to defend her and have never voted for Labour whilst she has been leader. I find her a control freak, statist and willing to regulate and tax whenever she sees fit - she sees the state big, growing, embracing and using education and the media to reshape the country in her vision. It isn't a vision of enterprise, freedom and diversity, but a vision of partnership - where the state never lets you go.

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However, Helen Clark's private life is another matter. I know enough to have my own opinion about her marriage and relationships, and frankly her sexuality is irrelevant to me. It does concern me that she chose to dedicate her life to politics, if only because it shows a passion for power - over others - that is cold, calculating and unfriendly towards individual freedom. Woe betide those in the way of Clark. She faced several challenges, in particular being the most hated Health Minister in recent history, then she knifed Mike Moore after the 1993 election to claim the leadership. Subsequently she saw Labour achieve its worst ever election result in 1996 with only 28% of the vote, but came back to win three elections in a row - albeit at all times with the help of Jim Anderton, Winston Peters and Peter Dunne to retain power.

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Wishart wishes to destroy her political career by the shock horror revelation about her marriage. What is disgusting is what a vacuous wasted effort such a revelation is, although Wishart can sell books, so do pornographers.

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Wishart could have brought down the Clark administration by having some real stories about conflicts in Cabinet and Caucus, some of the policies that nearly made it but were carefully avoided, and some of the debacles such as letting Air New Zealand fall so it could be nationalised. He could point at the government's record and see why growth has been stunted so much by the Clark administration.

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No, it was beyond him (and wouldn't sell as many books) to undertake serious analysis, he was into muckraking.

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Psycho Milt at No Minister has eloquently written about what it is all about. "This is where we get a good look into the psyche of the right-wing ranters who fill comments threads with vile abuse whenever the subject comes up (which it does with regularity, right-wing bloggers being what they are). What makes Clark and Davis “gay” is that they don’t fit these guys’ (well hell, you almost always are, and you know it) view of what a “real man” and a “real woman” should be like. "

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So now that Ian Wishart has played being News of the World, let's get down to some real reasons you shouldn't vote Labour.

Congrats Boris

It was prolonged and painful, but the election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of London is a tremendous victory for him personally and the Conservative Party. As I live outside Greater London, I had no opportunity to vote for him, but I did cast a vote for the Conservative candidate in my constituency (only for him to come third out of four and the Green Party to win - again).

Boris managed to beat the accusations of racism - absurd for a man with a half-Sikh wife, homophobia (Johnson responded to the question "have you had sex with a man?" with the careful answer "not yet") and buffoonery by focusing hard upon what was wrong with Keningrad. The mispending, accusations of corruption, the bizarre relationship with Hugo Chavez, and the poor performance on crime. Ken's single greatest achievement was the original congestion charge, although that in itself has been extended by Ken partly as his expression of the class war.

Johnson's greatest asset is his wit and his able mind, he is articulate and with a classical education. Hopefully he can surround himself with able people, slash wasteful spending at City Hall (including curtailing "Ken's Bank" the London Development Agency) and focus on the issues Londoners care about - crime, transport and housing.

On crime, Johnson seeks to emulate the success of Rudi Giuliani in New York by having zero tolerance of "minor" crime, from knife crime to vandalism. He has not the powers of the New York Mayor on law and order, but he can have a significant influence over budgets and priorities. This perhaps would be his greatest achievement if he can make London safer.

On transport Johnson has called for reform of the congestion charge, which is frankly relatively easy. However, he also seeks to improve traffic management and clearly will be more interested in roads than Ken was. The odd pledge to introduce a new generation of Routemaster buses is likely to prove unworkable, but if he can make a difference to crime on buses this may be also his greatest transport achievement. Sadly as Westminster is responsible for most of the transport budget, it is unlikely much innovative can happen whilst central government purse strings are tight on roads. However Boris should quietly privatise the recent TfL attempts to take over two thirds of the tube network and operate "London Overground". He might consider differential pricing by time of day as well for roads and public transport, to reduce overcrowding.

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On housing, the current housing crisis will undoubtedly ease rental pressures, but the key is setting free vast tracts of public land for housing development. Unshackling the ability of property owners to build will help, but Boris will also be responsible for a large budget of state housing that central government has given him to manage. How he deals with this will be interesting.

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Most of all, I hope he holds council tax (for the London Assembly) at constant levels in nominal terms, so that Greater London Authority spending reduces in real terms. London survived and thrived for 14 years without the GLA - if Boris can show he can shrink the GLA while London grows then he will be showing the country that the Conservative Party can deliver something new for Britain.

Post 1000

I have been blogging for over 2.5 years and so today this is my 1000th post.

So why do I bother? What has been the result?

There is some effort involved in having a daily rant. It started and still is about that, but I’ve noticed the hit rate rise and drop. I average about 100 users with about 130 page views a day. I've been linked to by numerous sites from time to time, and am grateful for that.

However, what I want to do most of all is make people think, beyond simply a rant. I blog primarily about NZ politics from afar, but also UK and US politics, international affairs, and occasionally trip reports and personal matters. Given I am a transport sector management consultant I have a lot to say about that, but know the audience is limited. Indeed transport almost highlights why I have a suspicion of government doing good, as in most cases it makes foolish decisions.

So I am a libertarian, objectivist and atheist. You figured out that easily enough. However why? What was my philosophical, political journey to take me to something that is, frankly, a highly minority opinion?

My first ever exposure to politics was my maternal grandfather who was a card carrying member of the Labour Party. I briefly remember the 1978 general election, and that “Mr Muldoon” was the Prime Minister. My grandfather told me why he supported Labour though I understood little, I listened to his criticisms of Muldoon. Sadly he died when I was 10, but from that I followed politics a little more. It seemed to be a contest between good and evil. I remember the 1981 election and more specifically the party political broadcasts that Labour, National and Social Credit put out on TVNZ, which then had a statutory monopoly. Labour argued that income tax was too high, but business tax too low. National argued Think Big “Jobs for our children and our childrens’ children that’s what this is all about” bellowed Muldoon. Social Credit was difficult to understand, but the idea of a third party automatically appealed.

The political environment of the time was full of conflict. The Springbok tour, protests against US nuclear powered/armed ships, and the economic malaise all caused concern and divided opinion. I remember inflation at 18%, and interest rates BELOW that for the bank, thinking I was getting a good deal on my paltry savings at the then Post Office, when in fact Muldoon was ripping me off, like he did hundreds of thousands of children. Those are the days Jim Anderton and Winston Peters remember fondly for some reason. I also recall learning from books how dictatorial East Germany was, with citizens prevented from leaving by big barbed wire fences. I wondered how bad a country can be that it needs to force its people to stay.

The 1984 election was an exciting one, not least because Bob Jones’s New Zealand Party made it amusing. I was loyal to Labour, not least because it was the party that could unseat Muldoon and National, which I thought was a party of economic madness. At school we were meant to do a project on the election, and I remember going to the Social Credit office in Wellington to ask for a manifesto, only to have a weird little bearded man mumble and hand me something. Bob Jones’s diatribes on Skoda driving grey zip-up shoe wearing bearded teachers made some sense at that point. Nevertheless, I was convinced David Lange was honest and would do what was right – in some respects had Labour embarked on a mad socialist programme I would have accepted that at the time, but no…. it was all going to be very different.

I was astounded by the reason behind pulling the plug on subsidies, the opening up of markets and the general willingness by the fourth Labour government to get out of the way of business. The sheer mind numbing ineptness of the Post Office, Railways, Petrocorp and the like was patently obvious. Why couldn’t these be businesses, why should businesses receive taxpayer funds at all? How possibly could politicians know better than consumers, producers and entrepreneurs?

I was convinced by Douglas, so supported Labour even up to voting Labour in 1990. Why? Because of the sheer audacity that politicians would do what is right rather than obtain short term political advantage. The fourth Labour government outraged farmers, manufacturers, unions (albeit somewhat muted) and many others, yet who could argue to retain the bloated state sector and its inane regulations of things such as international air fares! Who could argue that the government could keep overspending ad infinitum?

However, it didn’t all please me. The Treaty of Waitangi became centre stage, and the cries of victimhood and claims that Maori committed crime, did badly at school and smoked, drank and ate themselves to early graves because of Treaty breaches sounded suspicious. The establishment of new Ministries such as Women’s Affairs seemed like an unnecessary increase in the size of the state. On top of that Labour had reintroduced compulsory unionism, and effectively severed military ties with the USA- the anti-nuclear rhetoric appeared largely emotive nonsense, and the anti-American insinuation was ridiculous. Few protested Soviet nuclear weapons.

However National did absolutely nothing to confront any of this, except voluntary unionism. National was totally unwilling to deal with the Maoist attitude to debate on some of these things that I encountered at university – all Maori were disadvantaged and I should be disadvantaged to give Maori a “hand up”. Funny how I noticed some who had such a “hand up” came from wealthier families than I did. I am the first from my family to go to university.

I also was far from enamoured at the conservatism of some in National. Graeme Lee had a strong influence on censorship law in the early 1990s, to the extent that it became an offence to possess “objectionable material” even if you didn’t know it was or reasonably should know, and that definition included depicting acts that are legal.

I believed in freedom and wanted less government, the only voice in the early 1990s appeared to be Roger Douglas and the newly formed Association of Consumers and Taxpayers. However while ACT promised radical reform of health and education, it never spoke about freedom – that was when I discovered the Free Radical.

The notion that adult interaction should be voluntary was so clearly obvious as to make it strange to think otherwise, yet that was what government was all about. I became a libertarian because I was tired of people demanding governments use force to make others do what they couldn’t convince them to choose to do. Those on the left are particularly keen to tell others what to do, but many on the right do too. However it is more than just freedom, it is about life.

That is how I discovered being a libertarian and the philosophical underpinning for it – objectivism. You see I value human life. I don’t seek purpose outside existence, I am alive and I may as well enjoy it. I want to be free to do this, whilst respecting the same in others. My body, my property and my life, and others have the same. I can’t conceive why others can have any right to tell me what to do with any of these, given I do not want it over anyone else. Government should exist to protect people from each other and from other governments, it should not exist to do anything else.

However objectivism goes beyond the role of the state, and is actually about why we live and how to live. A life of reason and passion, enjoying what time we have is what objectivism is about.

Contrary to this is so much in statist politics, whether it be socialism, fascism, conservatism or more recently environmentalism. All are an abandonment of reason. Environmentalism selectively uses science to spread fear of doom and death, whilst often advocating anti-science, in objecting to biotechnology, or anti-economics, in advocating protectionism, subsidies and higher taxes. Religion all too often, besides being explicitly an abandonment of reason for faith, is concerned about the after life, not life. At its worst it has been the banner for murder on a grand scale, at best it is a distraction and a private comfort for some.

My overwhelming mission in this blog is to question the role of the state in almost all aspects of human affairs. The state, after all, is simply a collective of human beings with only one difference from everyone else – the right to use force against them. The idea that in many instances politicians and bureaucrats know better than other people how to spend their money, use their bodies or their property is rather peculiar – yet it is the core belief of those who join the Labour Party or the Green Party, or dare I say it, National.

The liberty of the human individual is a beautiful thing. You can see this most clearly in a child, who unsubconsciously explores the world around her, who smiles, trusts and seeks to learn, and make the world into what she wants it to be. That is before being told not to be “too clever” or “how important it is to be liked”.

Today, thousands of young people grow up concerned most of all about being liked and “belonging”, when they should celebrate being themselves, pursuing their passions and respect others doing the same. Millions live today demanding the state take more money off of others because it is “fair”. Fair apparently that others should live for them, make a living that must be paid to others. The insipid socialism that there is something wrong with the “rich getting richer”, and the “poor” standing still –and that the rich should fix their lot, not the poor.

The violence of the state is every bit as abhorrent as the violence of individuals who mug, steal, attack and take from others as crimes. However it has the veneer of respectability – it is ok to vote for your neighbour to be robbed to pay for what you like. After all, taxation is theft, regardless of any justification one may make or other cliché claimed, taxes are taking money by force.

So I ask you, when you read this blog, or read others or the rants of politicians who want something from you, do politicians not have the powers granted to them by the people they are meant to represent? If politicians only have the powers granted to them by the public, why do they use powers that no member of the public could ever have? You have no right to steal, so how can you grant that to a politician? You have no right to stop your neighbour painting his house the colour he wants, so how can you grant that to a politician? You have no right to arrest someone because he ingests something you disapprove of, so how can you grant that right to a politician?

That is why I advocate freedom – I don’t think politicians and bureaucrats are better than me, or anyone else. What could be more egalitarian than that?

Advice for those in poverty

Others have rightfully blogged about the Marxist group Child Poverty Action Group demanding that successful New Zealanders and their businesses be forced to pay for others.

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It is concerned about child poverty, it fails miserably to note that the primary reason children are raised in poverty is because poor people have them. It is not because those in poverty have been robbed, it is because of irresponsibility.

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It's a shocking concept for many, almost offensive, to say simply this:

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If you can't afford to have children then don't!

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This is why the welfare state, as long as it remains should quite simply not pay any more for having more children. There should be no reward from the state for breeding.

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What do you then say to people who have more kids and can't pay for them?

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Look in the mirror. It is your responsibility. You didn't have to breed. Survive on welfare or get a job or ask people for money.

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BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN, IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT?

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No, but is it mine? Why are all those who work bloody hard to raise their families and themselves have to be made to pay for those who make bad decisions, or don't care?

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Oh and if you care a lot about these people then nothing is stopping you - you can help through charity or maybe directly. It's called benevolence, compassion and is about caring about those less fortunate than yourself.

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Poverty will always exist. Today poverty includes having a TV, car, selection of clothes, video recorder and cellphone. The number one incentive to escape poverty IS poverty, and the state today makes other people pay for the education, healthcare, housing, food, clothing and entertainment of those who are poor.

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Taking money by force for those in poverty has done next to nothing for the last few decades. The key problem is not money, it is poverty of ambition, aspiration and desire to get out of the vile culture trap of acquiescence. Throwing money at the problem has failed miserably to change this, but it has made around 20% of the population dependent on voting Labour. You can't help but wonder if this is far too convenient.

The Great Leader's benevolence will see the proletariat so grateful

How despicably manipulative is it for Helen Clark in the Dominion Post promising "timely relief for families" as if she is Santa Clause, the feudal overlord, the Great Leader or the big chief, from whom all that is good can come.
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It's a bit simple. Give people their money back Helen. It will mean giving less to those who should be earning it themselves, this includes businesses on corporate welfare, artists, and paying people to breed. It means your government itself actually cutting back like people and families are.
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Then you might be able to do the three steps that will make a bit of a difference:
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1. Cut GST to 10%. Hardly a huge step, but it will help and help those on the bottom the most.
2. Introduce an income tax free threshold of at least $10,000. Amazing what that will do, allowing people to start earning money from their jobs or businesses without you rifling through their pockets.
3. Cut all other rates by 2%. It's not much, but it will make a difference to people.
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Of course you'd have less to spend on other things, but then - so does everyone at the moment. No reason why you should be different.

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UPDATE: John Key has, of course, suggested canning the proposed regional fuel taxes. An excellent idea. There is already remarkably high amounts of spending on roads, and far too much on public transport. Previous National Party policy was that increasing fuel taxes wasn't the right way to get more money to spend on roads, maybe there IS hope?

What government is all about

Yep, I'm not the first to point this out. I first saw it on the Have I Got News For You TV show on BBC TV, and it is also discussed in the Times today with libertarian writer Daniel Finkelstein's blog.
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British taxpayers paid London branding agency FHD to come up with this logo for the Office of Government Commerce. Of course you need to look at it horizontally to see how it was meant to be read. As Finkelstein quotes:
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"A spokesman for the OGC said (I kid you not) this:

We concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters 'OGC' - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that's looking to have a firm grip on government spend."

The people who think they know how best to spend your money use it to pay for this - it's beautiful.

Joyless bureaucrats regulating fun

Picture the scene. It is the sunny Kapiti Coast. Families have taken a break for the day or the weekend from their working week or school, to enjoy themselves. Some choose to go to the great family experience of the local miniature railway. The kids like the ride, it's good clean fun. Anzac Day after all is a day when, for the morning, shops are required to close to pay respects for those whose lives were lost at war. However, the work doesn't stop for the eager Labour Department bureaucrat. With the clipboard, cellphone and the eager enthusiasm of someone whose sole purpose is to stop people doing things, one was working that day - yes on Anzac Day - and found the Kapiti Miniature Railway operating, allegedly against the law!
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Half a dozen people were on one of these trains. Trains mind you that don't get a dollar of government subsidy, they are operated by volunteers, people ride it for the purpose of fun, but no... Mr Bureaucrat ordered the railway to shut down.
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Was it unsafe? No, there was no evidence that it was. Given the railway reportedly carries hundreds of people every weekend, the public seem to be satisfied. The joyless petty little man, who produces nothing, shut it down because "the club had not paid its registration under the Fairground and Amusement Devices Regulation Act".
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He couldn't wait could he? He couldn't hand the notice to the club President and threaten its closure. No, far more self satisfying to shut down an outfit run and funded by volunteers, and enjoyed by the public. Having got himself off in the only way such bureaucrats can, he can go home wipe himself off, and think about what a good little cog in the wheel of Nanny State he is.
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The Labour Department spokesman (somehow it's always petty little men who are inadequately endowed who seem most comfortable acting like former East German bureaucrats) said "Amusements are required to be registered and, as part of that, they have to be able to prove it can be operated safely."
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Of course the law does say that. Heaven help you engage in unregistered amusements!

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I can hear it now. "What if something happened"? Like what? The train derailed? Some kid ran in front of a train? A kid ran out onto the road? Yes that's what. The purpose of this law is to deal with fairground attractions, to avoid dodgy little men who make a living from driving around the country with rusty equipment throwing kids around with their dated rides (and frankly most look like they've been around since i was a kid). There may be better ways of doing this, but I wont go into it much here (think private property rights, rights to sue, strict liability for accidents attributable to equipment failure)

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Some of the greatest dangers today are in areas that the state doesn't get too involved in. Kids cross roads all the time, and they are unfenced and their activities are not supervised. Most accidents happen in the home, and there are no home safety inspectors checking if nothing will burn, hit you on the head, trip you up or the like. I don't doubt that poorly endowed Labour Department inspectors will have thought of the merits of this idea. Of course it doesn't help that ACC does away with civil liability for personal injury by accident, or even grant higher or lower premiums for bad or good behaviour.

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However nothing better exemplifies the joyless bullshit of Nanny State that this little man, on Anzac Day, shutting down a miniature railway while little kids are having fun. No MP betters represents him that Sue Kedgley - the high priestess of Nanny State.

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Of course Nanny State can't work without the vile little humourless onanists who haven't the ounce of humanity to let kids enjoy a miniature railway ride on a nice day. I bet he thought he was doing them good, I bet he thought the (largely) elderly men who proudly built and maintained the railway were themselves beneath him. Nothing like ruining a day for kids and the elderly is there?

Rainbow presents the London Mayoral debate

It's far more interesting than the real three.

Simple step to reduce traffic congestion #1

New Zealand, unlike the UK (and indeed most countries) prohibits taxis from using bus lanes. One reason for this has been because (unlike most countries) New Zealand's free market approach to taxis means there are more than most, and cheaper as a result.

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Nevertheless, wherever a bus lane operates significantly under capacity, then other public transport should be entitled to use it - that means taxis. Taxis don't compete with car usage. Most taxi users are either without ready access to a vehicle, without access to a car park, have no viable public transport alternative or are drunk! Allowing taxis to use bus lanes would save taxi users a fortune, and taxi drivers could undertake more trips, and by removing them from parallel lanes would help cut congestion more generally.

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Of course to do this would mean removing the ideological commitment to buses, which themselves need to carry eight passengers to be a better use of road space than a car, and twice as much as that to be more environmentally friendly. If local authorities were more committed to reducing congestion rather than simply encouraging use of public transport, then they might actually support this. Remember that almost all bus lanes in London allow taxi usage.

Anzac Day

As I write this, thousands of New Zealanders and shortly thereafter thousands of Australians will be attending the dawn services in both countries to remember Anzac Day. Writing from London it seems distant, but it is a chance to recall those who gave their lives against the forces of tyranny that threatened both countries and Western civilisation itself.

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The tragic loss of life in World War 1, a brutal war of empires, left a huge scar across the communities of both countries. The cry "never again" did see the end of such great wars of empire. Few can celebrate the "victory" that saw rivers of blood of young men dying for the sake of next to nothing, and the many thousands shot dead as traitors for conscientious objection, or those damaged by the trauma of war. It was the end of an era, and few could ever glorify what was destruction on a grand scale.

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World War 2 was perhaps the great war between good and evil (and two versions of evil). The Nazi dominated Axis in Europe, which sought to transform Europe into totalitarian tyrannies of militarism, racism and genocide was a despicable threat to so many of the freedoms we all take for granted. The signs of that era are largely invisible in today's Europe, with free movement of people, goods and services across borders that were once battlefields, common citizenship between countries that were hostile enemies, and free, open civilised liberal democracies. The price paid to destroy Nazism and its toxic allies in Italy, Hungary, Croatia and elsewhere was high - but who now would imagine how Europe would be had it failed. Whereas Japanese imperialism in Asia also sought to make Asia and Australasia an extension of the rising sun. The brutalism of the Japanese occupation of east Asia from Korea, coastal China, Indochina, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and Burma was rolled back by thousands upon thousands of brave men. Again, as with Germany. Who today can look at Japan and see the signs of what an aggressive brutal coloniser it once was. It too engaged in genocidal acts, and was repudiated at high cost, and at Hiroshima and Nagosaki the suffix of the war showed what might happen next time. New Zealand was spared Japanese occupation, and today Japan is a close friend and trading partner.

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In Korea, Stalin and Mao gave the nod for the totalitarian dictatorship of the North to invade and swallow the impoverished south. Again, bravery saw that occupation rolled back, almost obliterated and then for 2 tragic years lives lost as the stalemate went back and forth. South Korea today exists because of those who fought in Korea to save it - and one need only look at the bleakness of North Korea to see what they were saved from.

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As many have said before, war is one of the most horrible actions that anyone can live through. It is second only to living under brutal tyranny. Anzac Day does not celebrate war, or the need for military action, but it is a time for quiet reflection, acknowledgement of those who lost everything to fight for free Western civilisation in our parts of the world. The old adage that "if it weren't for them, we'd all be speaking Japanese/German" is only partly wrong, it's more likely many of us would have been dead or not even born.

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It is worth remembering that had the so-called "peace movement" had its way, the Nazis would have been appeased until when? The Japanese would have allowed independence like that they granted to Manchuria, I mean Manchukuo. It is worth also noting that North Korea only attacked the South, after the US had withdrawn its post World War 2 troop presence.

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The price for peace is defence, it is deterrence and the willingness to respond to aggression. It is only when belligerence is clearly beyond imagination that this can be rolled back, and western Europe is today an example of countries that could hardly imagine waging war on each other, though they need not go far to find those who will (the Balkans).

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Alastair Cooke's "Letter from America" once stated that the country with the highest per capita loss of combatants on foreign soil was New Zealand - and it is no surprise why. I'd be interested to know if this is still the case, as the USA has lost quite a few over the last decade or so.

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Nevertheless, take time today to remember those who lost it all for your freedom. They did more for peace than anyone who protests for it ever have.

Advice for Bailey Kurariki

You're so lucky, and hopefully you feel shame and remorse. If you had been living in a lot of other countries you'd either still be behind bars or dead.

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Abide by the conditions of your parole. Then you should spend the rest of your life making good of what you did. Find a way to communicate to Michael Choy's mother that you will tithe half of all of your earnings, for the rest of your life, to pay to compensate her and her family for what you did. You can keep enough to keep a roof over your head, food and clothe yourself. Paying half of what you earn to her and her family will be better value than paying a church. Meanwhile you should think about how you can help stop other kids committing the hienous crime you did.

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oh and if you reoffend, you should expect a long long prison sentence. You'll have blown your chance. Mercy is the prerogative of Western judicial systems, be grateful for it, it is time to start making recompense for the life of a peaceful man that you helped destroy. If the rest of your life is spent compensating the victim's family and teaching and supporting kids to avoid a life of crime, then your early release will not have been in vain.

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ADDENDUM: The NZ Herald reports he will have early release with an electronic tag and strict monitoring.

I'm not anti China

Blair Mulholland has an excellent post on how those protesting against human rights abuses in China are NOT anti-Chinese. In response to a NZ Herald report of a planned demonstration by supporters of the Chinese Communist Party authoritarian regime he said:
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"I support China; a China with free speech, freedom of the press, and freed political prisoners, that I will also be going to Aotea Square - to protest against these people and their support for dictatorship. "
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Good for him! I encourage all of you, across the political spectrum who believe in these fundamental rights to join him. If China was free, the Beijing Olympics would be a cause for celebration around the world - like the Olympics were in Athens, Sydney, Atlanta, Barcelona and Seoul.
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The Chinese Communist regime is using its domestic media monopoly (protected literally at gunpoint) and substantial wealth to spread utter lies that the protests are some sort of racist anti-Chinese attack. It claims that people in the West are jealous of China's economic success, which is laughable given that China still has an average GDP per capita a fraction of that of developed countries. After all, the Olympics were held in Seoul, South Korea and people didn't protest that - because South Korea had, finally, thrown off its authoritarian regimes and dictators.

The Daily Telegraph reports on websites set up in China to boycott Western companies like KFC and Carrefour (French supermarket chain), and the absurd "anti-CNN" site. Given CNN does not broadcast freely in China (the government there blanks out anything it doesn't like) it is bizarre for anyone to claim that Chinese people in China actually can know what the Western media says. Free speech is unknown in China as is a free press, but hey it's "anti-China" to expect the Chinese people to have these privileges.

You'll notice the anti-CNN website is itself rather bigoted because those who disagree are "ignorant Westerners", a post it attacked was quite reasonable in pitying those who only get the Chinese government side of the story. He also noted, imagine if Chinese created an anti-CCTV website in China. No. The naive are being led astray, and the mighty forces of those who have a vested interest in the Chinese Communist Party are fighting free speech.

Chinese Ambassador to the UK Fu Ying continues the claim that China is being demonised by the Western media. No. India doesn't get demonised, and it is big, a nuclear power and growing fast. That is because Indians have free speech, free press and liberal democracy. She reasonably said:

"Coming to China to report bad stories may not be welcomed but would not be stopped, as China is committed to opening up.

China is far from perfect and it is trying to address the many problems that do exist. It would be helpful to the credibility of the Western media if the issues they care and write about are of today's China, not of the long-gone past."

Fine. How about letting the Chinese people speak up? How about letting them express openly their concerns about government policy, about corruption, about crime, about pollution? How about NOT executing or imprisoning people who disagree with you?

China has gone a long way since the dark days of Mao - I endorse it and I like China. China has reincorporated Hong Kong and it remains a fantastic example of what China could be. Taiwan itself is very much also a great example. You see civilisation does NOT mean using force against those who disagree with you. Civilisation does NOT mean providing aid, trade and support for those who murder (regimes in Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe being some of China's friends with much blood on their hands).

That's what I want to see from China. I want a China as a world power that is open, that has a vibrant free press and media, that unleashes the dynamism of the Chinese people to disagree, argue and be open among themselves. To do this, the Communist Party has to accept criticism, it has to separate the state and the party, and it has to fight hard to make the Chinese judicial system independent.
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Is someone who wants this for China anti-Chinese? Sadly even CNN still reports some protests as being "anti-Chinese". Is it any surprise that when that phrase is used that Chinese people get upset?
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I hope those who protest in Australia do not just protest for Tibet, as important as that is - this should be about China's own domestic freedoms and China's support for murderous regimes elsewhere. I also hope that Chinese who don't support the Communist regime are not scared by those waving People's Republic of China flags.
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Remember when those who say they are pro-Chinese wave the flag of Chairman Mao, they are waving the flag that represents over half a century of political repression, torture and murder. The Communist Party is not China.

Hillary wins but for what?

Hillary Clinton's win in Pennsylvania is seen by her as showing there is life in her campaign - she won by just enough to remain credible. Perfect from the point of view of someone who doesn't want her OR Obama to win. The left leaning New York Times has widely been reported as describing her campaign as "even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it..... It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

Ouch. The New York Times endorsed her before too.

It hits out at Obama as well "Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign....When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience."

Indeed.

However Hillary has worked her life for this. She is so hungry for power that she wont give in. It is fundamentally disturbing how hungry for power she is. She lies, she evades and pretends to be who she is not. She is strong on foreign policy, but weaker on trade and advocates a grand programme of growing the federal government, with tax increases. She is an electoral liability to the Democrats, which is why so many Republicans can't wait to have her as the candidate. Nothing will get the Christian right, who do not see McCain as their great ally, out to vote like keeping Hillary out of power. If the Democrats are stupid enough to let her win the candidacy then may they reap what the sow.

ALPURT toll road might not be viable

According to the NZ Herald, the Order in Council approving tolling on the motorway extension from Orewa to Puhoi has been amended, in that the Minister no longer needs to be satisfied as to the financial viability of it as a toll road.
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It is not a surprise for two reasons.
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First, ALPURT has been green-plated. Transit deliberately increased the cost of the project because it believed that if a toll road is built it should be of better quality than the similar untolled road. It put a tunnel in where a gully would have done the same job, and made it all four lanes instead of four and three lanes (the latter makes sense, but the tunnel was green-plating). This is even though the toll on ALPURT wouldn't actually pay for the full cost or even more than half of the cost of the road. A road that once was costed by Transit at just over $90 million in 1999 is now $360 million. Part of that is inflation, part of that is the inflation of the contracting sector due to the government spending up large on roads.
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Second, the tolling of ALPURT was politically driven. Transit sought a whole programme of toll roads to be built, including the Tauranga Harbour Link. These would share the cost of the back office and billing systems to operate tolling (which is to be fully electronic free flow with no toll booths). Now with only one and Transit having funding to build the toll system for a whole set of roads, it isn't quite the economies of scale of transactions Transit had hoped. You might think it is odd that road users pay for the cost of building a tolling system, after all shouldn't a tolling system pay for itself? Yes, good question. One that hasn't been properly answered.
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So you see when road users finally pay to use ALPURT as a toll road, they will be using a road other road users have paid for too. Yes every motorist paying fuel tax and road user charges is paying for a road that they have NO right to use. Interesting that. It would be fine if the fuel tax and road user charges used to pay for ALPURT equalised those used by the people USING the road, but this is a subsidised toll road, green-plated for political reasons.
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Will it work? Will it be well used and popular? Will it be empty with people not wanting to pay to use it? or will many use it, fail to pay and face unpopular penalties for not paying a couple of dollars? We can only hope that the new Land Transport Agency - a big government bureaucracy can make it work. Bureaucracies are good at customer service after all....

Future of petrol tax?

Here's a thought. Bearing in mind the report in Stuff today about regional fuel tax being rethought, should the way people pay for roads move away from fuel tax?
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At the moment diesel vehicles pay for road use through road user charges. Now there are some problems with it, but it means you pay directly for the distance you travel. You pay more by weight so the more damage you cause the road, the more you pay. However the system used in New Zealand, while once revolutionary, is being superseded in other countries by an electronic system that allows charging by time and place.
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Now there are plenty of governance issues that ought to be resolved first. For starters who sets the charges and where does the money go. Charges should be set on a reasonably economically efficient basis, to make a commercial return on running roads - and the money should go to road companies. However I don't want to focus on that for now... but on the technology and the practicality of it all.
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Tolls sound like a useful option, but they are really only practical on crossings or motorways which have few alternatives. So that in itself is no solution except for maybe the occasional road - Auckland Harbour Bridge could be tolled and that could pay for another crossing which could be tolled too, for example.
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Congestion charging is more useful, but again you have to be careful how it is applied. It could replace rates funding for cities, but shouldn't be used to pay for public transport. Public transport users should pay for that. If done well, congestion charging can reduce delays and mean road users are paying to use scarce road space. However London is not the way to do it for New Zealand.
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Longer term it would be better if everyone had the option of road user charges, in an electronic form. The first step would be changing the current road user charging system to vary by location, weight and time (if only night and day), so that trucks and diesel cars would pay closer to the costs of using different types of roads - motorways, urban streets, lightly sealed rural roads and unsealed roads. It would also improve enforcement and mean trucks pay according to route, like trains have been. More accurate charging of trucks, buses and diesel cars wouldn't be a bad thing, especially if the money was better linked to the cost of maintaining and building roads. The second step is to offer it to all other vehicles. You pay by distance and road you're on, and you get a fuel tax refund - a full fuel tax refund (including the GST on fuel tax).
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Meanwhile fuel tax can continue to increase, but more and more people would move off of fuel tax onto road user charges, because they would vary only according to what was needed to maintain and upgrade roads. There would also be a change as to how road improvements were funded, because it could be linked directly to money raised from road users on that road. No longer could improvements be made on empty roads, and improvements on busy roads would be less likely to be delayed.
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However there is little sign Labour wants to move away from fuel tax, in wanting to introduce regional fuel taxes for petrol and inexplicably, diesel (for which half is not even used on the roads). National in 2005 supported moving from rates, motor vehicle license fees and fuel tax towards tolls and road user charges.
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Can National get this right? Does it want some help?

40 years since the Wahine

New Zealand's biggest shipping disaster in recent history happened 40 years ago on 10 April. Patrick Dunford's blog reports on the details surrounding that tragedy. It was in the twilight years of the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry service on the long gone Union Steam Ship Company. I remember being taught vividly about this at school in Wellington, it left quite a mark on people in Wellington around at the time.
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The Wahine, along with Tangiwai and Erebus, was one of the three major transport disasters since World War 2. They all seemed to show how small New Zealand's population was (and still is) in that so many knew someone or knew someone who knew someone who was part of it. Indeed, today you can't take a ferry from Wellington to Lyttelton, or an overnight train from Wellington to Auckland or take a sightseeing flight from Christchurch to Antarctica.

Broadband Think Big - so where is the demand?

Well as David Farrar posts there has been a lot of positive about National's proposal to make you pay for a network you may never use. Even some snarking from the left, which of course means nothing, because as Owen McShane pointed out on Kiwiblog - Labour (and the Greens) want to pour over a billion dollars of your money into public transport that hardly anyone will use, and which will lose money and make hardly a dent on congestion in Auckland.
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So in some ways you can see that spending $1.5 billion on broadband makes more sense that on railways. No study asserts that Auckland rail improvements will generate new income or even generate net economic benefits.
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However, it is important to remember Telecom's (ha!) network of twisted copper pairs is not the only telecommunications network to many homes in the country. In Christchurch and Wellington (including the Hutt Valley and Kapiti, but not Porirua except a small part of Whitby) almost all homes have access to, not fibre to the kerb but the next best thing - a hybrid fibre coax network. What this means is that fibre optics provide the backbone, but this is broken out into networks for streets with coaxial cable, which is far higher capacity than twisted copper.
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This network is TelstraClear's and it sells cable TV services and highspeed broadband over that network. In Christchurch it offers 25 Mbps, and 10 Mbps in Wellington.
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So I want to ask, given TelstraClear isn't the majority provider of broadband in either major city, given it is technologically more advanced than current ADSL services, why aren't Wellington and Christchurch enjoying the rapacious economic "boom" promised by National?
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Meanwhile, the reaction from other parties is instructive:
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ACT has actually shown some principles and argued that (funnily enough) it is Think Big all over again (gee who said that first?) . Rodney Hide said:
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Who will invest now, when National is promising one or other company a $1.5 billion investment subsidy?.... Telecommunications has suffered hugely from government-induced risk and an uncertain regulatory environment. National has thrown the existing regulatory framework back into chaos.... It’s 'Think Big' all over again, with John Key 'picking winners' in an industry remarkable for its innovation. He has set an arbitrary goal of 75 percent "Fibre to the Home" by 2014 with no clear analysis of the costs and benefits. And it's a backward step for competition in the industry as the $1.5 billion subsidy will deliver a state-sponsored monopoly."
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Indeed Rodney, well done, although he didn't explicitly say ACT rejects it, it was as good as doing so. Naturally Libertarianz rejects it out of hand.
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NZ First is just stupid saying National wants to do a deal with Telecom. It's almost as if its geriatric voters don't understand the idea of open access or competition. Nonsense that home phones are dear (with unlimited free calling) and cellphones are expensive is just plain old fashioned pig ignorance.
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Peter Dunne likes it, but then he worships the cargo cult of Transmission Gully - another $1 billion waste of money that needs general taxpayers to prop it up. He funnily said ACT "delivered a standard libertarian rant", ah we can dream Peter. You deliver the standard "government should spend other people's money" rant.
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So I do wonder, should National sacrifice Transmission Gully in favour of transmitting broadband? Or should it just remember whose money it is?
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Oh and for all the arguments about lifting GDP - here's one, for National - cut spending and cut taxes! That means company tax at 20% not 30%, the top tax rate not at 39% but at 20%... it means New Zealand being attractive for investors, businesspeople and professionals.
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It's called the level playing field - you might even find telecommunications investment increases then.