China is changing

I'm less surprised that, Lin Maoke, the little girl shown singing in the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, was lip syncing, because Chinese Communist politicians decided the little girl REALLY singing, Yang Peiyi did not meet the criteria that "The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feelings, and expression" (reports CNN). The Communist Party of China has been lying to its people and the world incessantly for the past sixty years.

What is most notable is that the General Music Designer of the ceremony actually revealed the fact, and revealed it on Chinese state radio, and it was reported, and presumably with little consequences for the man concerned - Chen Qigang.

This is the kind of honesty and openness unknown in the China that Sue Bradford went to 35 years ago, and dare I say even 10 years ago. Chinese bloggers are debating it and some condemning it. China is changing if one looks closely.

It goes without saying that the replacement of the child for one "cuter" is rather distasteful to many of us, who find the idea that some aging communist official could deem the appearance of a child to be not good enough for the nation to be abhorrent. I'm sure those who made this decision are hardly picture postcards of beauty themselves, in fact they have proved themselves to be so.

However, allowing this debate does show a change, one that is positive, and which puts China well ahead of the likes of Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe and Burma. May debate on other official decisions flourish.

Georgia: a simple lesson

After the collapse of the brutal Tsarist empire, Georgia proclaimed independence, with a more moderate leftwing government led by the Mensheviks, until the murderous Red Army invaded and absorbed Georgia into the USSR in 1921.

The USSR ceded some of Georgia to Turkey, with nearly a third of the entire territory of Georgia moved into Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republics. From then it was under the tyranny of Moscow, until 1991.

On independence, Georgia went through a coup deposing Zviad Gamsakhurdia as President, replacing him in due course with former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, who was President for eight years. While he ruled a corrupt state, he allowed freedom and civil society to flourish, leading the way for the Rose revolution in 2003

After independence, in 1991, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia became flashpoints for nationalist movements based on Russians seeking to join the Russian Federation. In both provinces, Georgia lost control and many tens of thousands of Georgians forced to flee in the bigoted tribalism that ensued.

Ossetians and Abkhazians have terrorised and murdered Georgians, and vice versa. Nationalists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have spread the same sort of vile bigoted tribalism as is still seen in the Balkans, claiming Georgia will inflict genocide on them - which is nonsense. Georgians in those territories equally claim the locals will do the same to them.

Georgia has now poured gallons of petrol on the embers of those who say "genocide", by attacking South Ossetia. Now Russia is claiming "genocide" and helping the knuckle dragging nationalists terrorise Georgians.

Georgia is not in the right - it is willing to force people within its "territory" to submit to its rule, and as a result it has inspired Russia to be the bullying bear we all knew it to be. Russia could now invade and conquer Georgia, although it is too clever to be that blunt. However it will effectively annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia and know the world will do nothing. Don't be surprised if you hear stories of Georgians fleeing both regions, and massacres - don't be surprised if these too are exaggerated, but essentially true in substance if not scale.

It vindicates NATO not admitting Georgia, but it also raises the spectre of what happens when NATO does not expand. I believe it was a mistake to reject Georgia and Ukraine, rather than to specify preconditions for membership. It was a mistake bent on not frightening Russia - a country that only one as distant from reality as Adolf Hitler, would dare attempt to conquer.

Now Russia has flexed its muscles it may look elsewhere - the second Cold War has not begun, but the winds from the east look mightily chilly to those closest to the bear.

Minto's interdependent fist of statism

John Minto is in the NZ Herald today cheerleading on forcing you to pay for university students to be able to live so they can then pursue their dream jobs.

This economic illiterate assumes its cost wont result in a massive change in behaviour, discouraging students from working and encouraging people to become students, because someone else is forced to pay. He says:

"The cost would be about $700 million per year. It's about the same as Telecom's annual profit or a quarter of the New Zealand profit of our Australian-owned banks. Another reason why the sale of these core assets is such an ongoing disaster."

Yes, because if Telecom had been state owned it would still generate a reasonable profit right John? Because it was bound to be as efficient. Of course you wouldn't want Telecom reinvesting profits in upgrading technology or services, no. The Australian owned banks, except for the BNZ and part of ANZ were never state owned either, but Minto like many socialists doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good myth.

Compulsory student allowances are not the "community working together", it isn't about people caring and choosing to support one another, it is the leviathan state saying "pay us or else" on the one hand and "you get money or you don't" on the other.

Minto has no interest in diving into his own pocket to help students, he wants to get the state to threaten the money out of yours. It isn't interdependent to tax those who don't cost the state very much to pay for those who always do.

Reasons to be on the DPB

So here's a test I'm applying to think about this one - what of the following are a good reason to claim the DPB? I am talking of women here for sake of simplicity.

1. Woman gets pregnant (accident or deliberate is neither here nor there since it is impossible to prove one way or the other), father doesn't want to know. Woman wants to keep the child (I mean as in raise, not adopt) and become a mother. ANSWER: State should pursue father as being legally obliged to provide adequate support to pay for child.

2. Woman gets pregnant, in de facto relationship, relationship ends for whatever reason. ANSWER: State should pursue father as being legally obliged to provide adequate support to pay for child.

3. Woman gets pregnant, whilst married. Couple separate or divorce. ANSWER: State should pursue father as being legally obliged to provide adequate support to pay for child.

4. Women gets pregnant, father of child died. ANSWER: Couple should have made provision for life insurance, other whilst welfare state remains, DPB remains until youngest child of that father, is of school age.

5. Any of the above scenarios, father too poor to pay for child. ANSWER: Father still responsible to pay proportionate child support, mother claims unemployment benefit whilst welfare state exists.

Quite simply, if people choose to breed, which includes taking the risk of breeding, they bear the consequences of it. At the moment the consequences are to be paid and to be not responsible for paying.

If this is moral then I'd like supporters of the DPB to answer why those who raise children by their own financial means shouldn't stop working and just let the state pay - except of course, there wouldn't be any money then to do so!

So what does the left DO about the poor?

National's very modest DPB policy has provoked cries from Helen Clark that it is beneficiary bashing, from the Greens that this is "denying kids having their parents at home" (because taxpayers earn money at home of course), and Idiot Savant saying it's "beating up on the poor".

Do the left really think those on the other side of the spectrum hate the poor, want to do violence to them, want to let them starve and laugh? Are they that detached from reality that they think they have a monopoly on compassion?

Well the truth is that most of them can't claim a monopoly on compassion since they themselves have none. When the Nats introduced some modest tax cuts in the late 1990s, did the left say "we'll donate our extra tax cuts to welfare beneficiaries?". No, they did their usual demand that the "state should care" and demand that everyone be forced to care.

This time it's the same old story. With some distinct exceptions, far too many on the left sit in their Wadestown, Parnell or Mt. Victoria homes, sipping fine wines, chattering amongst themselves about how "awful" those nasty National, ACT people are - how they are racist (Idiot Savant of course thinks racism is when the state ceases to care about race) and how sexist they are, and how they probably want to laugh at poverty.

You see you can take two approaches if you care about people in poverty:
a) Leave it to your taxes and the state to do a fine job of lifting people out of the cycle of poverty, despair and lack of aspiration;
b) Donate to charity, participate in charities, give of your time, money, other property, wisdom to help.

So if you care, what do you do? It's about whether you think a bureaucrat handing out a benefit is more valuable than donating a bunch of books for kids in homes without them, or more valuable than donating time to helplines for kids in need, or more valuable than teaching adult education classes in literacy for next to nothing.

So next time someone on the left says "more money should be spent" on the poor, ask what that person is doing directly for them? Ask them if they have donated every tax cut they ever got to charity. Be astonished if you get answers little more than an uncomfortable, "Umm... well" and maybe an admission to the odd donation.

Then you'll realise that the amount they care for the poor is inversely related to the amount they hate the rich.

4 point DPB policy for the Nats

1. Anyone currently on the DPB can claim no more benefit for any additional children whilst on it.
2. DPB becomes same as unemployment benefit when youngest child reaches school age (almost got that one)
3. 1 year warning that no DPB will be granted to anyone unwilling to name (accurately) other liable parent.
4. No one convicted of a serious violent or sexual offence entitled to receive any welfare benefits whatsoever.

Baby steps really

and Helen Clark? Well, when she spends any time appreciating what it is like to work, raise a family and pay taxes, then she might be someone for whom some of us think she might give a damn. Her political career is partly built on support from people who live off of the back of others, which she facilitates.

Greens seek to nationalise voluntary sector

The Green Party has released its policy on the "community and voluntary sector", which by definition is a sector which, from a libertarian perspective, exists because people choose to participate in it and pay for it (notwithstanding that some in that sector are hardened statists).

The policy, in essence, is about forcing you to pay to support that sector. Phrases like "larger budget allocation", "Enhance mechanisms and resourcing to allow policy input from community organizations", "Fund a sector-led, independent group or group of groups to work with Government".

Then it wants to force you to fund a NEW competitor to Kiwibank "Provide the starting capital for a community owned banking network..."

Remember every time the Greens say "support" they mean to do it by putting their hand in your wallet one way or another.

How is it then a "voluntary sector"?

If you are part of this sector, maybe a car club, or promote free trade, or promote laissez-faire capitalism, or private property rights, or even of a religion, you think you'd get part of this booty?

Takes the Greens to nationalise the non-state sector doesn't it?

Forgotten Posts from the past: Christopher Hitchens on Solzhenitsyn

"Every now and then it happens. The state or the system encounters an individual who, bafflingly, maddeningly, absurdly, cannot be broken. Should they manage to survive, such heroes have a good chance of outliving the state or the system that so grossly underestimated them. Examples are rather precious and relatively few, and they include Nelson Mandela refusing an offer to be released from jail (unless and until all other political detainees were also freed) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn having to be deported from his country of birth against his will, even though he had become—and had been before—a prisoner there....

To have fought his way into Hitler's East Prussia as a proud Red Army soldier in the harshest war on record, to have been arrested and incarcerated for a chance indiscretion, to have served a full sentence of servitude and been released on the very day that Stalin died, and then to have developed cancer and known the whole rigor and misery of a Soviet-era isolation hospital—what could you fear after that?...

As time went by, he metamorphosed more and more into a classic Russian Orthodox chauvinist, whose work became more wordy and propagandistic and—shall we be polite?—idiosyncratic with every passing year.

more in Slate, about the man who helped expose the death and despair of the Soviet system, who later became a supporter of the post-Soviet authoritarian system that now grips Russia in its cold, dark, strangle of fiction and fear.

Big ego small man

Who are you going to believe?

Professor Richard Dawkins: BSc Zoology, MA and D.Phil, D.Sc all of Oxford. Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and five honorary doctorates. Author of 9 books

Christopher Hitchens: BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford, contributing editor to Vanity Fair, writer for Slate Author of 17 books and co-author/editor of 9 others.

or Ian Wishart, New Zealand talkback radio host, author of numerous books of limited NZ circulation.

Yes I'm afraid I had to laugh when I saw that Wishart had written a book called "The Divinity Code" in a vain attempt to confront both Dawkins and Hitchens. I wont buy it yet, as I am sure I'll be able to pick it up in a bargain book sale somewhere in NZ next time I'm there.

Dawkins and Hitchens wont be losing sleep, indeed I doubt they will even give Wishart the dignity of bothering to read his book, if they know the man exists at all.

Wishart's website says it all about his credibility, with the hard hitting publications he has endorsing it:

"A Critically-Acclaimed Writer:

”The closest thing to a John Grisham novel, but it is the real thing” - Waikato Times

A writer who is prepared to tackle the difficult subjects...well researched
and very compelling” - The Advocate

“Wishart..is exceptionally thorough...skillfully blends [an] informative picture” - Evening Standard

“His research is deep and thorough” - Wairarapa Times Age"

Yep, the Waikato Times, Wairarapa Times-Age, global authorities on... the Waikato and Wairarapa. "The Advocate" which surely isn't the gay magazine from the USA. When I type in the phrase to Google I just get "Wishart's quote" hmmm. Could it be the newspaper from Burnie, Tasmania? Could it be the Northern Advocate from Whangarei? Yes probably.

Then the Evening Standard. Wow. A quote that is dotted too, so Googling it doesn't quite work. Must be the Evening Standard in London right? Or am I right in suspecting it is the Manawatu Evening Standard?

Now call me cynical, but I don't regard four provincial New Zealand newspapers to be authorities on a book, and able to tell me whether "research is deep and thorough". Not even the NZ Herald or the Dominion Post, let alone the Times (that's London), Guardian, New York Times or Daily Telegraph, or even the Age in Melbourne. Wishart can't get a good review (or a review?) from a newspaper from any city with a population of more than 200,000.

I know there are thinkers of a religious persuasion who can make cogent, well researched arguments for supernatural beliefs, even though I am unlikely to agree with them, but Wishart?

Save your money, wait till they are piled up like Mike Moore's and Jim Bolger's books have been, in bargain bins - and then have a good laugh.

Councils should have nothing to do with religion

Before anyone brands this as "Islamophobia", let's make it clear Islam and Muslims don't scare me in the slightest. My concern is simple.

In a secular state it is entirely inappropriate for central OR local government to fund, subsidise or otherwise provide any support, promotion or encouragement of any religion, of any kind. So it is from this that I condemn Wellington City Council for its role in what is described as "Islamic Awareness Week".

If Muslims in Wellington wish to promote such a week then fine - let them do so with their own funds, private property they own, rent or have permission to use and have fun.

However it is entirely wrong for non-Muslim Wellington City ratepayers to pay directly or indirectly for the promotion of the religion. It is an insult to those of other beliefs including atheists and agnostics who would prefer that Islam not be promoted or celebrated in any way. It would be the same if it were Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or indeed atheism.

The right to freedom of religion as a private choice, and to express publicly as a form of free speech is fundamental to a free society. However, also fundamental is the right to freedom to criticise religion and to not be forced to subsidise the promotion of any such belief. The only appropriate role for any government in such circumstances is to stand separate - to protect the right of religions to be practised and promoted, within the boundaries of not initiating force or fraud against others, and the right of others to criticise and condemn religions and non-religious philosophies.

Sarkozy insults many countries at once

According to the Daily Telegraph he has been quoted saying "Countries which share a common cultural heritage, such as Germany and Austria, Great Britain and Ireland or the Benelux countries could share a common Commissioner"

By that measure France and Italy should share one, both being near bankrupted economies clinging to socialism, but with a passion for wine, food and love. However, can you see Ireland being represented by an English person? Sarkozy has progressively been losing the plot, will to reform and being interesting in the past year. Disappointing really.

Bush tells China before he goes there

Yes President Bush laid it into China, appropriately and respectfully, before his visit for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. However, the media has been largely quiet about it - no doubt because they almost all hate him and couldn't possibly cheer him for saying something that, if the UN Secretary General or Helen Clark had said it, they'd all cheer.

Bush said "we press for openness and justice not to impose our beliefs but to allow the Chinese people to express theirs"

Indeed. and...

"The United States believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings"

Who could disagree at all? Helen Clark wont say it though, she doesn't want to upset China.

CNN reports China's dictatorship predictably saying "We firmly oppose any statements or deeds which use human rights, religion and other issues to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries"

Yes, it is of course like saying that you can't complain to your neighbour if he is beating up his wife and kids, as it is an "internal affair". It is not an internal affair when people are being murdered for their opinions.

So Bush has done well, he has noted China's progress and welcomes close relations with China - that's more than the loud protestors on the left who were amazingly quiet when China went through its most murderous and brutal period of recent history, under Mao in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The Olympics hopefully will be a glorious event, for the athletes. Some may bravely make a statement of protest against the authoritarian nationalist spectacle the Chinese Communist Party is trying to portray to the world, but regardless it will be a noteworthy event. China has come a long way, but it doesn't mean we should ignore what more it needs to do to become a civilised member of the world community.

If it's good enough for Fiji

Both Idiot Savant and David Farrar have blogged about the proposed charter for Fiji, which essentially forms the basis for a new constitution. One of the key elements is replacing racially divided seats with a one person, one vote system.

So you might ask why Idiot Savant defends the Maori seats, and David Farrar will be voting for a party that will also retain them? After all, they both consider this to be a step forward for Fiji.

Why is Fiji special?

Cindy Kiro's got her hand in your wallet

Yes, further proving the uselessness of the Commissioner for Children role, Dr Cindy Kiro having advocated Stasi like monitoring of all of New Zealand's children, because a small number of parents abuse them, she is now showing her true Marxist colours in calling for the state to take more of your money to give to parents who shouldn't be having children in the first place.

The NZ Herald reports her poverty plan and it is stark in its adoption of the tired old solutions of "gimme more money", and nothing imaginative about incentivising better behaviour among delinquent parents. What does she want?

- To make you pay for other people's children to have MORE pre-school and after-school care. Nice, subsidise more breeding. After all, you MIGHT have thought about the cost of that before you had a child?

- She wants solo parents to be able to earn more before losing the benefit, which of itself may not be a bad idea, but then having an income tax free threshold would help this too (but lower taxes don't figure in the big Nanny State world of Cindy Kiro)

- To make you pay for HIGHER benefits, HIGHER accommodation subsidies, because again you're responsible for other people breeding.

- To abolish penalties for not naming childrens' dad/s, because YOU can pay for that deadbeat's kids, don't let the state go to the effort of making him responsible. What were you thinking you lazy, rich, heartless pig?

Cindy Kiro has nationalised all of the children in New Zealand in her mind, so it's only fair to her to make everyone pay for everyone else's children. Never mind thousands of families see a good third or so of their income go in taxes to pay for deadbeats who breed with little concern about where the next dollar is coming from or the condition the kids will grow up in. It's HER responsibility, as the big sister of the nation to embrace these children by leaving them with their irresponsible parents and get more money pilfered from single people and families that look after themselves.

It's socialism and it is the problem, not the solution.

On top of that how utterly despicable is it for her to use the election to push an avowedly political platform, a leftwing platform that you can be sure the Greens will largely embrace, as will the Maori Party, Labour will selectively embrace and endorse but say some is too expensive, and it puts the Nats and ACT on the back foot to argue against a public servant.

If the Nats can't put their foot down and abolish this clearly quasi-political role, then they aren't worth spitting on. However John Key has said nothing about this control freak in the past, so...

The dire social underclass

I forget to read Dr Michael Bassett's incisive columns as often as I should. Around a month ago he wrote about the underclass in New Zealand and what sustains it.

He tells some stark truths that are far too uncomfortable for policy makers:

"The criminals share several things in common. They are almost all from families where there is one parent on welfare, too many kids from several fathers in the household, inadequate supervision, easy prey from relatives or de factos, and access to alcohol and drugs. Far too many are Maori. The kids exist because they carry an entitlement to a benefit stamped on their brows, and the parent doesn’t care about their welfare for which the taxpayers give them money."

and

"Domestic violence rises on the days of the week when there is enough money to purchase drugs and alcohol, while for the rest of the week hard luck stories emerge about people resorting to food parcels and there being no lunches at school. The Child Poverty Action Group gives us a sermon about poverty and argues for more money for the parents, which sensible people have long-since worked out would go on more alcohol and drugs."

Contrast him to Dr Cindy Kiro who DOES play the "give them more of other people's money" card. The whole article is worth a read. He leaves one of his most damning lines for the media:

"Before going home to their trendy pads in Ponsonby and Herne Bay, the media treat this social crisis like soft porn – titillating details of one tragedy after another. There’s no proper analysis of the cause of the problems. No brains engaged."

How can anyone on the left seriously believe that throwing money at the problem is the solution? How can they ignore the absolute poverty of responsibility, role models, attention, love and aspiration endemic in far too many parts of the country? They have nothing to do with money - as much of the world is poor, but has stable family units, responsible and dedicated parents and esteem to grow onwards and upwards - this was seen in the Great Depression.

It is about ethics, culture and philosophy - and the philosophy of "it's everyone else's fault", "capitalism makes everything unfair so I'm angry and torture my kids", "everyone else owes me a fair life", is bankrupt.

It's about time those who peddle this are confronted, exposed and policy change radically - they've had their chance, and it has failed, miserably.

The Greens rate the Nats!

Yes well after my scoring of the Nat’s 10 point blueprint, the Greens have done the same and, curiously enough, have taken the opposite tack from me on most issues. The Greens don’t take John Key on his very moderate words, they exaggerate them so that the Nats appear to be better than I think they are. So, just for fun, I thought I’d review the review of the Green Party. Why? Because the review says more about the Greens than they may think.

1. An ongoing programme of tax cuts. I thought that this was positive but vague, but no – the Greens have a different way of looking at it. They see taxes as “being whether the government is spending enough to achieve its democratic mandate and the tax is not too onerous for the people paying it”. Which on the face of it seems ok, doesn’t it? Well, it could be “enough” or “too much”, but the Greens rarely seem concerned about too much spending, unless it is roads. The issue of tax is more curious. What does “too onerous” mean? Clearly “onerous” is ok, and more importantly the idea that the people consuming government provided services pay for it is completely off the radar. It’s pure socialism – government spends money and then it squeezes it from those it can get to pay, whether or not it is “onerous”, whether or not you actually use the services provided by the state.

2. Bring discipline to Government spending, and 3. Rein in excessive growth in the public service

Now why would you ever disagree with the government spending money prudently and why would you not want a value statement like “excessive growth”? Quite simple, you want more government, more state. The Greens are priceless on this though:

Surely these two are very hard to reconcile with a promise not to cut government spending. Bureaucrats are not evil, faceless, money suckers. On the whole they are put there because they achieve good things efficiently.

In the world of the socialist, cutting government spending is “wrong”. However saying bureaucrats are not evil, faceless, money suckers is missing the point. Evil is a strong word, but I believe some are – some like Cindy Kiro who earns a significant salary and is seeking to nationalise children with some Orwellian monitoring system. Money suckers is very true, because after all what are many bureaucrats producing?

This “achieve good things efficiently” cuts to the heart of the difference between socialists and liberals. Why are they good? How is it efficient? If it were good why must people be forced to pay for it? If it is efficient, why has commercialisation and privatisation resulted in enormous cost savings to carry out the same tasks in many sectors? Since when has big government been more efficient than small government, except when it restricts freedom?

4. Launch an attack on gangs and the P trade they support. Now I appreciate the concern of the Greens there that the “war on drugs” is unlikely to be successful, but there needs to be an appreciation that there are genuine concerns about drugs and criminal gangs. Gangs are not just another form of whanau as some make themselves out to be, but similarly the Nats only have tired old failed solutions.

5. Introduce a bill to reform the Resource Management Act The Greens will oppose this naturally, since this is a key plank in their policy to stop development as much as is possible, regardless of private property rights. The Greens will scaremonger about this, even though it will see little useful happen.

6. Invite the private sector back to the table. A welcome move of course, but the Greens want to frighten you by asking whether this is about health, education or conservation. Who cares? Why is the private sector “bad” and the beloved state sector “good”? Again it is socialist ideology, big government is about doing “good things efficiently”, no doubt the private sector is “bad things done inefficiently”??

7. Raise education standards. I thought this was bland and meaningless from the Nats, but the Greens have concocted a bizarre plot “John Key means that he will test primary school kids more often so that the failures can be re-identified and then, umm… well moved aside I guess” Yes, there is some grand neo-liberal plot to kick the less bright out of school, it is against the grand socialist plot to reward the less bright with pass marks, guaranteed minimum incomes, guaranteed university places and jobs to do “good things efficiently”.

8. Grow the amount of superannuation paid to senior citizens each week. Well the Greens love this, more state money being spent on people. Never mind that it discourages people for saving for themselves, hell tax them more and we can give more to, their parents and grandparents! No, the Greens ask for MORE money to be found from the money tree to pay to “struggling beneficiaries”.

Socialism = where you get the money you need without having to do anything for it, because we take it off those who did.

9. Repeal the Electoral Finance Act. Bleh, Greens want their “citizen’s assembly” a nice proxy for an event which busy people who own or run businesses wont have the time to participate in because they are earning money to pay the onerous taxes the Greens approve of, but the beneficiaries and others who shouldn’t be expected to work hard for a living can do so, and skew the result. Nice.

10. Hold a binding referendum on MMP. Yes the Greens are bound to oppose this, hardly a surprise for any small party.

So there you have it – the Greens want more government spending, think taxation should be onerous (not “too” onerous though), think that improving education standards is a dastardly plot and that bureaucrats do “good things efficiently”. It would be fair to say Labour is a rather watered down version of that.

Now if only we could have an election based on two opposing views of the role of the state.

Greens ignore where welfare comes from

Sue Bradford is awfully upset that a Work & Income case manager allegedly told a welfare recipient, living off compulsorily acquired funds from other people, to "f' off" after she asked for a "food grant".

Most of the hoo ha about it is simply around her use of the "f" word, which is a bit of a yawn to me. It astounds me what offends politicians - not lying, not taking other people's money and spending it on all sorts of activities or indeed unprofitable businesses that nobody in their right mind would choose to spend it on, not the Police who pursue those who defend themselves, not calls for the state to continuously monitor the lives of every child, not giving food aid to a country that enslaves children as political prisoners.

No.

However Bradford's characterisation of the event she describes is telling in two ways.

First is her absolute abandonment of the idea that people have options other than going to the state in saying that Work and Income "has the power to grant or decline her very means of survival". Oh please Sue, she wasn't malnourished and emaciated was she? Could she not seek work? Could she not ask people to give her money or food of their own, out of their own choice? Work and Income after all isn't dishing out money it has been "given", but money that has been taken.

What it tells me is that the Greens think that the state should be the basic means for us all to survive, which works as long as the majority of mugs don't use it as such.

Second is the more telling refusal to acknowledge the other side of the ledger. Every dollar that a beneficiary receives costs more than a dollar taken, by force, from a taxpayer. The Greens ignore this, treating what beneficiaries have as "entitlements", as if you are allowed to live off of the back of others, by force. Imagine if beneficiaries asked their neighbours for help, or had to go door to door asking for assistance. No, the Greens prefer the clasped fist of the state and it threatening to confiscate your property and imprison you if you don't agree to give up some of your property to pay beneficiaries.

You see I'm more offended by the way taxpayers are treated by the Department of Legalised Theft (IRD). Behind the attempts to be friendly and helpful, IRD is an agency of threats, which it is quite willing to use to extract its cut from you. More importantly, the state treats you with more respect if you murder, rape and steal, than if you don't give it what it deems you should - in a dispute with IRD you're guilty till proven innocent. Funny how all those on the left who are so concerned about human rights and freedoms are happy for the state to live off this presumption of guilt.

See I'd rather like beneficiaries to have to ask for what they want - but not ask bureaucrats, but citizens. To go to a body where people donate money and make a case for having more, perhaps in exchange for doing something in return. I'd like the Greens to acknowledge that their big beloved Nanny State isn't some warm loving entity that can dish out prizes like Santa Claus, but an institution of violence - that takes money from taxpayers under threat of violence. The Greens want it to do more threatened confiscation of people's income and give out the cash as if it came off of some tree. It doesn't - state welfare is money taken from other people, and IRD does a lot more than say "f' off" if you ask to keep more of your own money to spend on food.

Tara Marks (the woman concerned) might think a little more about whether any should give a damn that she was "offended" compared to those who she is indirectly asking to be forced into funding her and her family. Note she is using the media to have a moan about how she was treated, rather than ask for some money - she's clearly hardly on her knees is she?

More education choice? not under National

Lindsay Mitchell blogs about the success of education vouchers in that paragon of New Right neo-liberal Business Roundtable capitalist exploitation of the proletariat - Sweden.

National wont of course. Giving parents more choice, schools running at a profit. It was National policy in 1987 believe it or not, when Education Shadow Minister (as they were called then) was Ruth Richardson. The Nats could have got away with it at 1990, but Lockwood Smith proved then to be a useless inert nothing, incapable of standing up to the bloody minded self-interested Marxists of the teachers' unions.

The time has come to tell parents that National will let funding follow pupils to whatever schools their parents want to send them to. It is a small step, but it unlocks funding from central government control, gives parents more options and starts to present real competition for state schools. The tired rhetoric that "all schools should be as good as each other" is a fantasyland the same as saying "all teachers should be as good as each other" or all restaurants or all houses. It is anti-reason, it denies reality and most of all it is an excuse for centrally planned tolerance of mediocrity.

Nothing is more important to change than education, and it is telling that virtually nobody in NZ will engage on the success of the Swedish model - an approach that only the ex.communist party opposes in the Swedish parliament. So you can see where Labour (and National's) education policies have a spiritual ally!

The Mongrel coalition

Clint Heine blogs on what is a real possibility, Labour's grand mongrel coalition to stay in power that could include:
- Jim Anderton (obviously);
- the Greens (desperate for a chance at power and Cabinet);
- the Maori Party (also keen for power and to extract concessions from government, and to avoid the backlash it may risk in backing National);
- Peter Dunne (he's former Labour after all, and is almost certainly a single MP so he will be seeking a way to retain power);
- NZ First (Winston's done ok from Labour and knows the Nats are baying for his blood).

Clark knows that it only works because she leads it, but the truth is that all of them will want concessions, it could mean all get a Cabinet position.

Heine rightfully warns "I believe that behind the scenes the same sort of failed policies of the seventies mixed with the religious zeal of evangelical green nonsense and the sheer self motivated populism of Winston Peters could be forced on Kiwis if we let it happen."

Which is indeed a reminder of the despicable evil that all these parties represent, an abandonment of the mind for the pandering to fear, dependency and point scoring populism. From the Muldoonist closed minded xenophobic conservatism, to the anti-scientific, anti-rational scaremongering ecological evangelism, and cheap populist "give them what the want" pork barrelling.

Who would want that lot, right?

What party with any sense of seeking good governance and to advance rational politics would enter into a coalition or seek power with any of that lot?

What party can you vote for that wont seek to share power with the racist collectivist mystic led statism of the Maori Party and Greens, or the racist scaremongering of NZ First or power desperate meandering United Future?

United States murderers, Japanese victims?

Idiot Savant has cracked open the bottle of anti-Americanism again with his dismissal of the Hiroshima nuclear attack as an act of murder:

“the United States murdered between 90,000 and 140,000 Japanese civilians when they destroyed the city of Hirsohima with a primitive atomic weapon. It was a war crime of the first magnitude, but no-one has ever been punished for it. Instead, those responsible were decorated and hailed as heroes.” (sic)

Of course, this was an unprovoked attack. The Empire of Japan had long been a peace loving nation, which respect the territorial integrity, human rights and the peaceful right of its neighbours to co-exist. Its government was recognised as such.

The Empire of Japan behaved impeccably, so there is no reason for Idiot Savant to mention the 200,000 massacred by Japan in Nanking, and a minimum of 3 million Chinese, Koreans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians during its imperial period through the 1930s to 1945.

After all, no reason for him to commemorate those murders is there? No post on 13 December to commemorate the fall of Nanking. No, he couldn’t be anti-American now could he?

He wouldn’t mention the over 3,000 killed by medical experiments and biological warfare experiments now. No. He wouldn’t mention that as recent as May 1945 Japan was still taking US POWs to be used in vivisection experiments. No. Japan was simply a victim.

Japan used chemical and biological weapons against Chinese forces and civilians, but no Idiot Savant wont commemorate that and condemn Japan’s murders annually. Japan was simply a victim.

Japan killed 100,000 civil and military POWs building the Burma railway, with up to 10 million Chinese civilians engaged in slave labour, and at least 4 million in Java in what is now Indonesia. No, Japan was simply a victim.

At least 50,000 women primarily from Korea and China, but also women from all of the Japanese imperial conquests were raped as “comfort women” for Japanese soldier. No, don’t see Idiot Savant talking about Japan's state policy of raping and enslaving women, Japan was simply a victim.

So. The United States entered the war against a racist, militarist murdering state, which engaged on a blood thirsty and sadistic rampage through Asia. Japan’s government encouraged and almost compelled young men to sacrifice their lives for the Empire, and when it conquered it treated the civilians and prisoners of war as less than animals. The USA sacrificed over 400,000 of its young men and women to defeat this barbaric regime as well as the despicably evil Nazi Germany.

So was Hiroshima a war crime? No.

Responsibility for the civilian deaths in Japan lies clearly and unequivocably with the Japanese government. The Japanese government waged war against the United States and the whole of Asia. It could, at any point, have surrendered unconditionally, and spared its people – civilian and military - the ongoing death and destruction that war brought upon them. War started by the Japanese government.

The Cairo Declaration in 1943, made by Churchill, Roosevelt and Chiang Kai Shek called for Japan’s unconditional surrender, the return of all of China back to Chinese control and free and independent Korea. It called on Japan to surrender or face “unrelenting military pressure”.

On 26 July 1945 it was made perfectly clear to the Japanese government in the Potsdam Declaration, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, that it should surrender or face “the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland”. On 31 July Emperor Hirohito affirmed that Japan was to be defended at “all costs”.

The United States had a choice. Undertake a land invasion at considerable cost to itself, and lengthening the war, or release the greatest weapon available at the time. It chose to end the war, quickly, at the cost of two cities.

It was a decision not taken lightly, and one that saw Truman refuse subsequently to use nuclear weapons in Korea (when that may have made a considerable difference). Yes, it was indiscriminate, yes the results were horrendous and horrible – indeed perhaps sufficient to contribute towards the fact nuclear weapons have not been used since, but to consider the bombing in isolation of context is disgraceful, despicable and betrays the ultimate responsibility. It also betrays that, by and large, Japanese civilians happily went along with the war effort, offered no resistance and little interest in overthrowing its government, which was spilling rivers of blood across Asia.

The bombs would not have been dropped had Japan surrendered or not even engaged in its imperialist war of genocide and slavery.

Idiot Savant is right to note the sheer awfulness of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. However his refusal to consider the context, to acknowledge Japan was to blame for the continuation of the war, for the murder of many millions of others, and in SPITE of that, the Allies rebuilt, rehabilitated and changed Japan into a modern liberal democratic state, is just pure narrow minded bigotry against the United States.

He doesn’t commemorate those who died under the atrocities committed by Japan’s sadistic regime – only those who died who at best were exposed to risk by Japan’s vile imperialist government, and at worst who happily obeyed their brutal, racist government as it spilt blood across Asia.

It is tired old Marxist anti-Americanism, in which even the deeds and victims of the most vile and blood thirsty regimes can be ignored. What is the psychological process of denial one must go through to treat US military action after many efforts to end a war peacefully, as murderous and unjustified, whereas the most heinous sadistic actions of its enemies are not really worth giving much attention to? Let alone the victims.

Kiwibank really an asset?

No Minister thinks not.

$340 million of taxpayers' money has been poured into it. A profit of $48.5 million has ensued so far. However, it has probably squeezed out private sector competition, like TSB, like PSIS and building societies which could do the same.

So why not let NZ Post be a postal operator and you may as well sell that too. Postal business is under increasing competition from the private sector, and of course the internet. It is starved of capital to grow.

Again - no debate, no discussion, nothing.

Why fear privatisation?

What has National become?

A party with the testicular fortitude of a eunuch doormouse that is terrified of even engaging in the debate on this issue (among many many others).

The snivelling, quivering backdown essentially begging:
- Oh believe us, we're no different from Labour on this;
- Don't believe the guy who we want to be next Finance Minister, he has ideas, but he "doesn't choose his words wisely", just to give you confidence in how we want him to spend a good deal of your money in the next three years;
- Please don't discuss this anymore, it's a bit like discussing sex in front of our parents, it embarrasses us to be reminded that we once had a different policy;
- After all that you'll still vote for us right? Labour is worse remember.

It’s very simple, there are solid strong arguments for privatisation. Arguments that have held sway with governments throughout the world, of both sides of the political mainstream.

There have been very successful privatisations in New Zealand that have gone without a peep. The following were easily successes:
- Auckland International Airport;
- BNZ (after a disastrous bailout following the 1990 election);
- Contact Energy;
- NZ Steel;
- Postbank (despite the wasteful emergence of Kiwibank);
- Rural Bank;
- State Insurance (yes the name remains but it hasn’t been “State” for a while);
- Works Infrastructure (yes the old Ministry of Works);
- Wellington International Airport.

Who would argue any of these haven’t worked, that these haven’t become successes, with new investment and better run outside the state? Well the Greens and various socialist retards of course, but otherwise no. Privatisation has worked in many cases, with little evidence to the contrary.

The ones most subject to criticism are largely criticised on flawed grounds (Air NZ, NZ Rail, Telecom).

Take Air NZ. After privatisation it was hamstrung by two actions, both of governments. It saw expansion as necessary in an increasingly competitive market, and wanted to enter the high cost Australian domestic market, but the Australian government prevented it, so it bought 50% of Ansett, with many government terms and conditions stopping it from making serious efficiency improvements to that airlines. Its second and most fatal problem was that the NZ government effectively vetoed by delay the investment of capital by a willing investor – Singapore Airlines – which had it been allowed, would have avoided the government bailout.

The current Labour government let Air New Zealand fail so it could nationalise it and do a deal to part privatise it again with Qantas – which also failed.

Telecom was privatised at a time when technology in telecommunications was starting to move a lot faster than it had in the previous couple of decades. The market was opened up to competition and Telecom simply required on privatisation to allow interconnection with competitors’ networks.

Privatising Telecom brought in enormous new capital, significant efficiencies, technological innovation and responsiveness to competition. For example, $5 unlimited national weekend phone calls were a Telecom innovation which broke the back of years of complicated expensive tariffs for long distance toll calls. Whilst arguments may be made about the levels of investment, there is little doubt that Telecom was sold for a price well above expectations and needed serious capital. In addition it provided an opportunity for thousands of New Zealanders to own shares in a fairly stable growing sector.

Then there is TranzRail. A great myth around that privatisation is that it was pillaged and stripped, and great profits were carved out of it with nothing left behind. This myth is peddled by the rail religious, when the truth is quite different. There was substantial investment in wagons, including on passenger services during most of the 1990s, and a big drive for efficiency, customer service and logistics. In other words meeting the needs of freight customers not politicians. Now some of the customers had a few issues when Tranz Rail wanted it to invest in wagons, and some lines had come to the end of their useful lives (worth running into the ground, but not worth replacing the wornout lines), but that was it. The anti-privatisation story doesn’t really bear close examination.

But what do the public think? Do they believe Air New Zealand failed because it was privately owned? If so, how do they account for so many privately owned airlines in the world, or do they not think any further?

Do they believe Telecom has failed as a private company? They honestly think broadband would be cheaper and faster if government provided? Well clearly the government and Nats thinks so.

And railways? Do they really think railway lines that they have barely ever seen a train on it would be any better under government ownership? Do they really think railways will do anything more than they have done for years – move containers and bulk freight long distances, besides commuter services in Wellington?

So why is National afraid? Is the fear of privatisation about foreigners? The brainless xenophobia of Winston Peters and the Greens? Is it about capitalism, businesses run as businesses, efficiently and to attract customers, being bad? Is it nostalgia that somehow some businesses that are no longer viable should be propped up?

What has gone so wrong with privatisation that politicians, except those in ACT and Libertarianz, wont engage on it?

Grrr

what the hell have I done with the template?

Why not sell Kiwibank?

National opposed it being set up.

It wasn't even Labour policy it was Alliance policy (when Jim Ol' Son led the Alliance).

So what's changed? It has 550,000 customers? Great, it is worth selling. It isn't core business to postal services.

Why should the government own a bank? There are other NZ privately owned banks and building societies, so hardly any xenophobic excuse (of the sort the Greens pander to).

So why are the Nats obfuscating? Why not simply say, yes we will consider selling Kiwibank if we get a very good offer - we'd be stupid if we turned one down.

No, they look like what so many voters think they are - lying, deceptive, covering up, pretending black is white, and now having to backtrack, gutless and without any principle. Terrified that if there was a policy to actually take things back to where they were in 1999, that the public would say nooooooo. Terrified they couldn't say for certain what would happen to a privatised Kiwibank, when Jim Anderton embarks on a xenophobic scaremongering campaign that big foreign banks will rip off timid little kiwi battlers. Because of course, nothing is certain in an open market, other than poor performance creates opportunities.

So National has the worst of both worlds, a policy that is gutless and wrong, the taint of lies and deception, and the patent inability to argue for the right policy, even though it was what National had as policy in 1999.

So what party makes politics seem unprincipled?

Mobile phones on planes nooooooooo

Yes the beginning of the end of peace.

Emirates is quietly allowing this invasion of tranquility according to ABTN.

Its new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft are equipped to handle text messaging and phone calls, but the Airbus A340s and A330s are being equipped as well. So now you know what airline to choose/avoid for the long haul if you don't want Mr, Mrs or Miss Twat next to you with their inept "beep beep... one second pause.... beep beep" texting notification, or babbling on about "yes I'm on the plane" nonsense.

Emirates Vice President Patrick Brannelly has said that "One worry was passengers would keep other passengers awake during the night, but ... this has not happened." Of course in scum class you'd already be awake with the extra narrow seats on the 777 as it squeezes in 10 abreast when Air NZ, Singapore Airlines and BA all fit nine.

So, do you want to make mobile phone calls? Should it only be allowed in a specific compartment on the plane? Or should people just accept that the world doesn't come to a stop just because they are in the air?

National's blueprint for a teensy bit of change

OK, now I have come to this with no prejudice, I simply want to judge John Key on what he said, so here we go, and you know my expectations are low, but I’ll judge him on whether he:

a) At least re-implements National policies of the 1990s; and

b) Makes a positive step forward to reduce the role of the state where need be, and

c) Is consistent with National’s stated principles.

As he has 10 points, let’s give each one a maximum of 5. 5 means I couldn’t agree more, 4 is fairly impressive, 3 is right direction but nothing bold, 2 is one small step from Labour, 1 is barely better than Labour. 0 is no better and minus marks mean steps backwards.

1. There will be an ongoing programme of tax cuts. OK well good, though the first will be Labour’s and there are no details. I’ll be generous and say 3.
2. National will be disciplined about government spending. Again, sounds good, though as vague as can be. Appreciating the problem is at least something, so I’ll be super generous and say 3 again, though methinks the later points will betray this.
3. National will stop the growth in the public sector. Hmmm it talks of reprioritisation, so at best it is barely better than Labour. No reversal of past growth means a 1.
4. National will launch a full-frontal attack on gangs and the "P" trade they support. Um ok, it also includes “Fresh Start” programmes which could be positive. However, I also know this means giving the Police the sort of surveillance powers that are somewhat frightening, and it is about fighting the “war on drugs” which has failed everywhere else in the world. There would be a point for the attitude to youth crime, but one taken away for the attitude to surveillance. I feel generous giving them 0.
5. Within the first 100 days of our first term, National will introduce to Parliament a bill to reform the Resource Management Act. Well yes, but it is all about making it easier for the state to build things, and very little about you. Yes I fully expect it will make a modest difference, but anything that enables the state to run roughshod over private property rights wont get my support. Again I’m being generous giving it a 1.
6. National will tap into our communities and our private enterprises to rebuild the ladder of opportunity for every single New Zealander. Get past the waffle it means allowing the private sector to provide services funded by the state, like prisons, maybe even healthcare and education. If I’m optimistic about it, it could be a step forward so gets a 3. If, of course, it means contracting the private sector on a regular basis. It might finally convince the public that the private sector can do health and education rather well.
7. We will set national standards in literacy and numeracy for all primary school pupil Well ok, but nothing new to see here either. Hardly more accountability for schools, no more choice for parents. What happens if schools and teacher don’t perform? Again a generous 1.
8. As we cut taxes and grow average after-tax wages, we will progressively increase the amount of super paid to senior citizens. So MORE state dependency, more of a PAYE taxpayer funded burden that is unsustainable. Great. A big leap backwards. Let’s be generous again and say it is only a minus 4. Policy on superannuation since the late 1980s has been about “how can we encourage retirement savings” now the Nats have said “how can we spend more of current taxes on the elderly”.
9. we will repeal the Electoral Finance Act. And once it's gone from the statute books we will reach out to all the parties in our Parliament to reach a genuine consensus about proper, workable, legislation that can replace it. You know if it was just the first sentence it would be a 5. However, National wants to reach “consensus” in a Parliament full of parties that peddle envy, statism and control. It also wants to ignore parties outside Parliament. I’m generous again in saying it loses only 2 points from the 5 for that, so it’s 3.
10. a binding referendum on MMP by no later than 2011 You know, frankly I couldn’t care less. If it means this National Party being able to govern alone it means nothing to me. 1 point for being willing to have the debate.

So 12 out of a maximum of 50. Hmmm, not much really is it? So what should National’s blueprint for change be?

Solzhenitsyn passes away

The Gulag Archipelago, the harrowing tale of life in one of Stalin's notorious Siberian death camps is what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn will be known best for, and he passed away on 3 August aged 89, but it started with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich essentially his story of life in the gulag.

Both should be essential reading for historians and give a flavour of the heartless inhumanity at the heart of Marxism-Leninism, a murderous cruelty that run roughshod over human beings for the pursuit of the socialist dream of equality. Equality in that you all sacrificed yourselves to the great "other", whether your bones were crushed or not, you all feared they would be, if you were smart.

Solzhenitsyn had a brief flourish with freedom and fame in the USSR under Khrushchev who used him to point at the brutality of Stalinism, before the Stalinists took Khrushchev himself, and crushed him and Solzhenitsyn again under the slow long death of Brezhnev.

No, he was no great supporter of capitalism, he was a devout Orthodox Christian and he was saddened that his books were more often read outside Russia than within. He saw the growing kleptocracy of post-Soviet Russia as disappointing, as smart men pillaged the state for what was worthwhile, and bought the government and the law at the same time as generations were left in a drunken stupor, without any spirit, as the great experiment of lies and crushing equality collapsed.

He bravely told the tale that tens of millions would never survive to do so -a tale that is still less well known than the Holocaust, yet cost more lives. Less well known perhaps because for so long the Soviet state couldn't really reveal what it was all about - it was, after all, still locking up and executing dissidents until the late 1980s - and after perhaps a decade of respite, has returned somewhat to its old ways.

He damned the view that Stalin was the root of the evil in the USSR, pointing out that Lenin started the executions and the secret police (Cheka). He rejected the evils of the communist system and ideology and embraced Western determination to fight them, but he also had little time for much Western popular culture (head banging caterwauling methinks). He was lauded by Vladimir Putin as a staunch Russian nationalist, which, along with his Orthodox Christianity, no doubt blinded him enough to describe NATO as no better than Hitler when it bombed Serbia in retaliation for its brutality in Kosovo.

Perhaps he didn't know quite what was best after communism, but he suffered and paid heavily for recording for us all about what was worst. It is also worth remembering some of those who miss the Soviet Union, glossing over the inhumanity of it all. Yes, that's you too Chris Trotter.

AA doing good work, hopefully

That's my reaction to this NZ Herald story.

The AA has written to the Minister of Transport Annette King, and the Chair of the ARC, Mike Lee, concerned that the ARC is going to implement a new regional fuel tax of 1c/l (increased to 3c/l in 2010) without public consultation.

Mike Lee, who is a hardened socialist convinced of the Auckland rail boondoggle, is upset he might have to actually consult about the tax (though he says it was consulted on, before it was legally able to be introduced - you see, this is another Labour tax). The AA says it is only reasonable that those having to pay for the rail electrification project - motorists - should be consulted when they are to be levied a new tax.

Mike Lee of course wont answer the single most important question - what does the average Auckland motorist get for this fuel tax increase? What are the travel time savings and reductions in fuel consumption from (presumably) reduced congestion from electrifying rail? Why wont anyone advocating it give the figures?

One year

Since my birth mum passed, it saved her from the agony of the cancer inadequately treated and misdiagnosed, it was relatively quick and she was 56. It is death that challenges my atheism, that makes me wish more than anything that I'll see her again, but I have joy of the time we did have and the memories that will be with me till my final breath. Nine wonderful years for which I will always be grateful.

National's fundamental problem

Now as regular readers to this blog will know, I'm fairly merciless against the National Party. The reasons being fairly clear:
- Most of its policies are at best a limp-wristed one step better than Labour's;
- Most of its policies are more leftwing than what National implemented when it was last in government in the 1990s, even when it was in coalition with NZ First;
- It obfuscates when asked perfectly reasonable questions such as "how can you fund more spending in some areas of government and bigger tax cuts without cutting government spending in others?".

The response of some of my readers is simple. They essentially believe that what matters is that Labour is ousted from power as it is worse, and when National is in power then the more politically difficult issues can be confronted, such as what spending to cut. Some think National MUST be better, and given their loathing of Labour they see National as the only credible alternative government. Within all of this is a more fundamental political and cultural problem in New Zealand, and this needs to be conquered and fought more than the Labour party.

So when National rejects privatisation, why is that? Is it a belt of xenophobia of the kind both Winston Peters and Jim Anderton built their snivelling little envy milking careers on? Well in part. New Zealanders don't reject foreign investment, but it would be fair to say a majority have the feeling (and it is feelings not thoughts) that a foreign company buying what was once a New Zealand operation is somehow "taking something away", that it will "rip you off" or underinvest. It is no more or less true than a NZ company doing so, and more importantly no more or less true than the state doing so. The state has taking over a billion dollars from taxpayers for the railways and you've seen next to nothing for it. It's just taken another NZ$690 million to buy it back, and most New Zealanders don't really mind.

Why do NZers buy the Labour view that Air NZ's renationalisation was due to it being badly run by the private sector, rather than the more honest truth that Labour stopped Singapore Airlines from bailing it out? It's because National finds the argument too complicated, and because the mainstream media prefers simplicity. The argument requires effort and National doesn't want to take the effort.

Let's go further. Why do NZers prefer that the government tax $1.5 billion of their taxes to spend on telecommunications rather than get out of the way of the private sector to roll it out? Why wont the Nats point to how Vodafone transformed BellSouth into being a mobile phone network to easily rival Telecom, without ANY government involvement? Why wont the Nats points to how under their administration, TelstraClear rolled out a new broadband network to virtually all of residential Christchurch and Wellington/Hutt Valley, again without any government involvement? Why wont they point out that a main reason why this didn't happen in Auckland is because Auckland City Council used the RMA to stop extra cables being strung along overhead poles, and subsequently the change of government saw Labour let Telstra Clear use Telecom's network - then complained Telecom wasn't investing enough in its network.

Again, the Nats wont make the "complicated" argument, easier to say "we'll spend your money".

New Zealanders WANT the government to take charge, take money off them and pick winners - even though the evidence of doing this well is pretty appalling. Most of you may have forgotten than Jim Anderton set up an organisation now known as NZ Trade and Enterprise to subsidy businesses - pick winners. Noticed which of them has taken off and been a roaring success thanks to you being forced to pay for them? No.

So the Nats wont argue for capitalism, for private enterprise, they aren't prepared to say - look it worked before, we just need to get out of the way with lower taxes and abolishing the RMA, because Labour will talk of the "failed policies of the 1990s". What about the "failed policies since 1999"? Instead the Nats will argue for government spending, government ownership, government plans. They want to be seen to be doing something, instead of reiterating the simple truth that was learnt (and forgotten) from the 1980s and 1990s, that the government isn't smart enough to do anything well, often enough to risk taxpayers' money being diverted to those risks.

What incentives do the Nats have to get it right? The same Jim Anderton has had. He has had nine years of spending around $100 million a year and nothing much to show for it - why don't the Nats point THAT out?

No, apparently simpler to say spend money instead of giving it back to you. Yes, really.

Let's not even talk about roads. It's become the new pork for government, when at one time New Zealand governments proudly had moved away from picking winners on roads too - when once the Nats led ground breaking policy that essentially said roads should be run like businesses - not as political porkbarrel games.

So what about social policy? Again, the Nats can't even join the political mainstream of UK and US politics that have seen centre-LEFT governments (Labour and Clinton) reform welfare, and be tough on it. They have embraced the middle class welfare of "Working for Families", unwilling to put together a tax cut package that would be as good as or better for most recipients, and argue that government shouldn't be about welfare. However, they wont say welfare will be tougher.

Then health care. Could the Nats ever argue that it would be better to choose an option based on insurance rather like Australia and Germany, that means you pay more if you live an unhealthy lifestyle? No, if they said "insurance" or "private sector", the rabid left would say "Americanisation" and "Profit" and most New Zealanders would ignore the failure of the state run system, and the Nats just wont argue.

I could go on, but it is something endemic to the New Zealand psyche. It was seen in 2002 when Laila Harre was talking on TV with the "worm" and the "worm" rose when she talked about the government spending a lot more on health and education, and dropped when she talked about higher taxes.

You see people expect government to do things well, and can't accept that it can't do many things that well. People go through a state education system and can't think that it is that bad. The vested interests in state health, education and welfare are loud in their protestations that everything is ok, but there isn't enough money. The railways once said the same, as did the post office, and the Ministry of Energy, farmers argued for more subsidies, once. The truth is that those running and providing government services have little incentive to radically change them so they are under more pressure to perform and deliver what consumers want, rather than what they think is good for them.

That's the fundamental point. New Zealanders trust government too much. They trust it to spend their money, to tell them what to do, to buy their health and education, to buy their pensions and protect them in the event of accident. They damn governments when this doesn't meet their expectations, but can't connect that sometimes governments CAN'T meet their expectations, that government can make things worse, government forces people to pay for poor service, and people get paid for poor service.

That, is basically, why the National Party doesn't offer anything new. That, and its inherent lack of courage and conservatism. That is inexcusable that it wont argue for part privatisation of power companies to attract new capital and investment, it wont argue for funding roads on the basis of best quality of spend, not ones of "national importance", it wont argue that competition for the ACC employer account was good when it was in power and is good now, and it wont argue that the top tax rate was bad in 2000 so is bad now. That gutlessness to not even roll back what Labour has done to National policy in 1999 is an abysmal success for mediocrity.

However if the majority of the population didn't like that mediocrity, wasn't happy with a change in people rather than policies, the Nats wouldn't be doing well in the polls now would they? AND do you really believe after three years of government National will have radically improved health and education, cut people on welfare, cut crime and grown the economy beyond the mediocre 2-3% NZ is used to? You'll be happy that your taxes will have been cut down so there is virtually no waste?

National looks to Muldoon and Pork

John Key announced yesterday National's "infrastructure policy" something which, in the past, has never really existed. I'm absolutely appalled. Two statements describe what this policy is a mix of:
- Think Big;
- Porkbarrel spending.

So what's so wrong with it? Well let's see what John Key said:

"This deficit spans from our roading network through to our energy supply. Nor is it a problem limited to central government. Over the next decade, local government will face an infrastructure deficit of some $30 billion."

Well ok, he recognises there is a problem, although he doesn't really explain why (after all Labour's spending record amounts on roads at the moment), and doesn't explain why it is a government problem. This is the start of his error.

"our infrastructure policy will be comprehensive and bold. This will require leadership. National will appoint a Minister of Infrastructure to reshape, co-ordinate and then oversee the Government’s infrastructure objectives. It will be spelt out in our National Infrastructure Plan."

Rob Muldoon will be proud, Bill Birch will wonder if anything has been learnt. OK, so...

"This 20-year plan will be developed in conjunction with local government. It will set a clear direction for vital national infrastructure investment, including top priority projects. The plan will set out the intended local and central government infrastructure investment in roads, public transport, electricity, telecommunications, and water."

20 years!! Now this WILL be fun, predicting what is needed in the next 20 years. Let's give some examples of how THAT has been screwed up in the past:
- Wellington's Overseas Passenger Terminal, for ships, opened in the late 1960s for passenger liner traffic a few years before they all ceased;
- The Post Office rewiring Wellington's northern suburbs telecommunications networks for triple twisted copper wire, non standard, because it was the "new state of the art" idea in the 1970s. However it was completely incompatible with xDSL for high speed internet service, of course nobody knew of the internet in the 1970s;
- The Post Office/Telecom instituting card phones in the late 1980s that proved to be Y2K non-compliant;
- The Railways Department opening large shunting yards in the 1960s and buying new shunting locomotives in the 1980s, when freight trains were moving towards direct point to point services, not shunting individual sets of wagons between trains;
- The Railways Department introducing the Silverstar overnight luxury sleeper trains for the Wellington to Auckland run in 1971, three years after NAC had introduced Boeing 737s, putting the final nail in the coffin for long distance rail as a transport for business travellers;
- The Railways Department electrifying the North Island Main Trunk railway at the same time as the government allowed trucks to haul freight further than 150km, taking away the capacity pressure from the line, and at the same time as US consultants advised that far more would be gained by restructuring the operations of the railway to be more efficient;
- The government subsidising a new Wellington-Lyttelton ferry in the 1970s, as the Railways introduced a fourth Picton Ferry and NAC bought more Boeing 737s;
- Wellington hospital getting a multi-million dollar electricity generation plant in the 1970s with 2.5x the capacity of the requirements of Wellington Hospital which cost more to run and maintain than buying power from the national grid, and more than having backup generators;
- Invercargill City Council paying for international arrival and departure facilities, even though there have been no scheduled services from a foreign country to and from Invercargill, ever.

Let alone, what government department predicted the internet? What government department predicted international air travel would literally "take off"? What government department predicted mobile phones would start supplanting landlines? Don't worry, John Key and the National Party know the future - like they knew it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a fortune of "infrastructure investments" had their debt written off.

Anyway...

"Changes like the growing price of oil and the need for public transport and roading networks that reflect that. Changes like growing connectivity between countries and people and the need for telecommunications networks that make the most of this."

Actually John, oil dropped in the last few weeks, so well done. Do tell how you can plan public transport and roads to meet this, in fact one of the biggest "public transport" industries is the airline sector, have you predicted what ones will fail and what will succeed John? Oh and do tell what's wrong with NZ's international telecommunications links, since they have been growing in capacity for ages without government involvement- actually Southern Cross Cable happened when the Nats weren't in power.

"our National Infrastructure Plan will include up to $1.5 billion in Crown investment for an ultra-fast broadband network connecting 75% of New Zealanders. And that’s why we will double the Broadband Challenge Fund and refocus it on rural communities"

Crown = money taken from taxpayers John. Don't hid that. You'll focus on rural communities, because of course, it's not enough they are already required to be cross subsidised by urban telecommunications users. Yes, but I hope urban property owners can get big land plots and their parking free of charge in exchange for this bit of pork. Yes, the pork has begun.

"Our National Infrastructure Plan will also include a new category of state highway. We will call these Roads of National Significance. These Roads of National Significance will be singled out as essential roads that require priority treatment. This would include, for example, State Highway 1, the essential backbone of New Zealand’s roading network."

What an appalling idea. This is pork in the worst possible form. State Highway 1 is an essential backbone apparently. So those segments of SH1 where traffic volumes are a tenth of those of SH16 in Auckland or a quarter of SH2 linking Wellington and the Hutt, or a third of SH29 linking Tauranga and Hamilton, are more important than those roads. Forget efficiency, safety and congestion reduction, name the pork barrel road and goldplate it, right John? So presumably Wellington can get a second Mt Victoria Tunnel because that's the "Road of National Significance", but forget widening Dominion Road in Auckland. Presumably SH1 from Invercargill to Bluff is more important than SH2 east of Auckland which has an appalling accident rate.

Forget rating road spending on the basis of objective criteria and getting value for money, getting quality spending like you harp on about with local government. No, name a road one of "national significance" and the money can be diverted to tart it up in any way you can think of. Meanwhile the roads which actually ARE congested, or actually DO have an appalling accident rate, are neglected, but John Key might have opened the new four-lane section of the Desert Road, or the unnecessarily exhorbitant Huntly Bypass or Transmission gully motorway.

Then he avoids fixing the RMA...

"National’s new Priority Consenting process will streamline consents for major national infrastructure. These will not go through the local council but instead will be called in and determined nationally."

Ah get it? So YOU wont get relief from local authorities and the RMA eroding your private property rights, but the state will in building its big grandiose projects. Rob Muldoon tried the very same thing of course.

He wants to borrow from you too...

"First, we will introduce infrastructure bonds. Secondly, we will make greater use of public-private partnerships. These new financing and asset management techniques will open up infrastructure to a wide range of financial investors. This will include Kiwi mums and dads through their super funds and Kiwisaver accounts."

Or he could just privatise the three remaining power companies, resell the railways, sell Air NZ, require councils to commercialise and privatise water, commercialise and privatise the state highways. None of this is unknown around the world, but no. John Key is scared of privatisation, even though his party did it in electricity with no ill effects, even though it has been a success in addressing infrastructure backlogs in the UK with water. He's gutless, unable to make the argument - but willing to be the 21st century's Rob Muldoon.

John, if you want to go on about financing techniques used elsewhere, all the countries you list have embraced privatisation and haven't turned back. In the USA whole highways have effectively been privatised, with the government leasing the roads to private concerns for 99 year periods.

However National ISN'T embracing the future, it is calling for a fortune of taxpayers' money to be used to subsidise the telecommunications sector. That's socialism. It is calling for 20 year plans for central and local government infrastructure. That's Muldoonism. It is calling for infrastructure bonds, like Michael Cullen. That's Labour "me tooism". It is calling for private public partnerships, that MIGHT work in a handful of cases but best works when government gets almost entirely out of the way. It is calling for politically designating roads as "important" implying money spent on those roads is more important than money on others, even if others have worst congestion or safety problems, even if others return more bang for the buck in investment. That's pork barrel funding.

National's infrastructure policy is looking back, back to the age of Rob Muldoon and central planning, with taxpayers paying for a selection of follies and winners. It looks like the sort of pork barrel promises seen in US politics, when "strategic importance" overrides reason and analysis. Most of all it pushes out the private sector. It tells power, gas and telecommunications companies that they should avoid taking risks, the government will do it for them, and it keeps transport stagnated in the politically driven supply side government planning of the past. What's most disgusting is that when National was in power in the 1990s, it rejected most of this nonsense for good reason - now it's trying to buy your votes with your future taxes, and those of your kids.

Don't be fooled. This is virtually indistinguishable from Labour.