Say no to big local government!

So according to the NZ Herald the government is going to support a modified mega city. A proposal born of the Labour inspired Royal Commission, has support from the National/ACT/Maori/Dunne government.

I already have blogged about what I think should be done with the proposal - it would make a good doorstop. How local government needs to be constrained. How a super mayor will end up being some less than competent personality with more control over your life. Owen McShane described it as fascist.

Without a cap on rates, Auckland property owners will be forced to pay more and more as the megacity grows its functions like a cancer on the life of Aucklanders.

So are Aucklanders going to put up with this? The "strengthening of democracy" only counts heads, not what's in them.

If ACT goes through with it, without a rates cap, without severely constraining the power of local government, it will prove ACT can't even drive policy when its leader is a Minister.

It is time to give the government a strong message if you're fed up with rates increases well above inflation year after year, fed up with central planning local government, fed up with petty fascist politicians and bureaucrats who think they know how to spend your money and regulate what you do with your property.

Say NO to big local government, it's time to put it on a diet, and repeal the power of general competence.

UPDATE: Not PC is eloquently making the same point in a different way.

In my entire life if I do something, I do it properly

so said Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, administrator of the Tuol Sleng torture and murder prison in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge was in power.

The Daily Telegraph reporting on his trial said: "His nom de guerre came from a textbook story about "Duch" a model pupil who always had his hand raised.

"I liked the name Duch because I wanted to be the well disciplined boy who respected teachers, who wanted to do good deeds,"

I remember reading that Khieu Samphan, the number two in the Khmer Rouge was a well disciplined boy too, who never had a girlfriend, and who was constantly teased.

Therein is the mind of the psychopathic mass murderers who obey the state they helped create, and spill blood as if it were water. Typically not that different from the occasional teenager who takes a gun and shoots out his fellow students.

South Africa looking more like Zimbabwe

Two events in recent days show clearly what's wrong with the corrupt ANC dominated democracy that South Africa has become.

First, the South African government refused to grant a visa for the Dalai Lama. Presumably because the ANC had a long relationship with the Communist Party of China over many years. Nelson Mandela's grandson, Mandla Mandela is damning the move according to the Daily Telegraph he said "It's a sad day for South Africa, it's a sad day for Africa. We are a nation which is striving to be a leader the in African continent. I don't think as a sovereign independent country we need to succumb to international pressure". China appreciated it, Xinhua reported how the South African court said there was "no need" for the Dalai Lama to visit South Africa. No need for most things really is there?

Now the BBC reports South Africa prosecutors have dropped corruption charges against ANC Leader Jacob Zuma. It stinks of the judicial system no longer being independent from the government or the ANC.

The new Republic of Southern Zimbabwe?

No More Rates hits the nail on the head

No More Rates suggests that megacity could be disastrous for Auckland. Why?

"The Royal Commission report could well almost certainly lead not only to higher council rates all round, but also a massive redistribution of wealth right across the region"

Now No More Rates isn't a ginger group for user pays or for cutting councils, but its concern is valid.

Local government reform must be driven by the curtailment of the grand centralised planning ideas of politicians and bureaucrats. Those who want local government to do more don't want to pay for it themselves, they want others to be forced to pay.

It is time to fight the socialist's wet dream - the megacity with a power of general competence.

It is time for a review on the role and extent of local government - governed by basic principles of protecting property rights, individual freedoms and promoting economic efficiency.

It is time to end local government being the boot camp for future leftwing MPs.

Obama invents a new language

Drew M on Ace of Spades HQ reports that Obama said whilst in Austria “There’s a lot of -- I don’t know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics"

Yep, you'll be hearing how unwordly and ignorant the US President is now, just like when he said the car was invented in the USA, just like all the finger pointing at George. W. Bush for his gaffes.

Oh no - somehow it isn't cool to point out Obama's mistakes is it? However, many of his supporters didn't know better either.

(Hat Tip - Tim Blair)

Good news from the left

The Greens report that the axe is to fall on some in the Ministry for the Environment. Excellent news, as there is some dead wood in MfE that has long needed weeding out, particularly those who don't understand basic applied economics. Of course it's nowhere near enough, but a good start. All i'd keep MfE for is a transitional role while property rights are assigned to waterways and the air to protect the environment. That would be useful work for a couple of clever people for a couple of years.

Idiot Savant bemoans that the crazy national cycleway idea is not to be funded, as do the Greens. Funny how encouraging more (largely European) tourists to fly to New Zealand on large jets and then bike is good for the environment given the obsession with CO2 emissions.

Finally, Idiot Savant also is upset that Rodney Hide is looking to cap rates. He thinks that the cost of what councils do presumably must always rise faster than inflation. He ignores that on average half of local road costs come from road users through the NZ Transport Agency, so the parallels with California are not close. He also ignores that water and sewage ought to be separately charged for because not all ratepayers are connected, and they use different amounts of water. More importantly, he is under the delusion that councils already do just bare minimum activities, when there is plenty of evidence they go well beyond that. However, he has long supported more taxation, and believes that its ok for democratically elected governments to pillage the money of their subjects as long as it is for the "greater good".

If only Rodney were going much further!

North Korea's fictional satellite

CNN is reporting that the North Korean "satellite" launch was a flop with part of it landing in the Korean East Sea/Sea of Japan, and the rest over shooting Japan and landing in the Pacific.

The Korean Central News Agency is proclaiming a great success "

"The satellite is going round on its routine orbit. It is sending to the earth the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and measured information at 470 MHz.

Wouldn't it have been cheaper to put the songs on Itunes for nothing? Why "launch" a non geostationery broadcast satellite? Never mind.

Kim Jong Il was thrilled too. Imagine what sleight of hand terrified North Korean scientists are undertaking to cover up this failure. Or maybe Kim Jong Il really knew it wasn't about broadcasting songs, so he doesn't care about the failure - given it is well known he has much access to foreign broadcasts (unlike most North Koreans).

Greens support racist local government

Why be surprised? Green MP Catherine Delahunty, who treats Maori almost as if they are closer to some god than non-Maori, thinks the model for separatist Maori representation in an Auckland megacity is a possible "good model for others".

Her specious claim is "The elephant in the room is the way tangata whenua are marginalised in decision making structures."

How is this? All have a vote, all can stand for council, all can make submissions to Council. Most non-Maori New Zealanders don't do any of those. Aren't they marginalised? Aren't most ratepayers marginalised by consultation processes they can't participate in because they are too busy working to pay rates and taxes?

No - Delahunty's structuralist post-modernist mental retardation prevents her from seeing how local government marginalises everyone. Or if it doesn't, maybe the tangata whenua don't care that much about roads, libraries, rubbish collection or the like (contrary to Catherine's idealistic vision of the noble native).

Furthemore, she treats existing non-racial based government as inherently racist - a kind of Orwellian doublespeak. Take this "A couple of seats at the Päkehä table ain’t the enactment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi but it might increase the number of voices dedicated to that vision."

"Päkehä table"? Who said it was? Why is it? I am sure Ray Ahipene-Mercer (Wellington councillor who ran for Mayor in 2007) doesn't think so.

Why does Catherine Delahunty insist of pigeonholing everyone into cultural/ethnic categories like some banal Balkan nationalist politician? Do Maori need her patronising hand holding to participate how they wish in local government?

Obama's nuclear plan naive and premature

I can foresee a world without nuclear weapons. It will be a world with no terrorist organisations, and one where all countries operate as closely as those in Western Europe, when war is inconceivable. Considering recent history, it is worth remembering that Germany today is a very close ally of France, the UK and the USA - for those past a certain age, this is a difficult concept to grasp (it was for Margaret Thatcher for example).

However, Barack Obama's declaration that he will convene an international summit to look at the elimination of nuclear weapons is hopefully just posturing, because the global environment to abolish nuclear weapons is far from benign.

Start with Russia, which has a government that is anything but transparent, and which could not be trusted to verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons any better than the old Soviet Union. As long as Russia remains an aggressive mini-power that seeks to exercise power outside its borders rather like the USSR did, then it would be wholly wrong to remove the nuclear deterrence. It would be a brave politician who predicts an economically beleagured Russia could not threaten its neighbours again.

Then there is China. You think it would abolish nuclear weapons? Not with Russia having them of course, nor India. China also is far from having a government that could be trusted to verify abolishing its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea's existing nuclear capability, and Iran's planned capability both do not bode well. It would also be madness to remove the nuclear deterrent from the Korean peninsula, nor to remove the ability to deter Iran. Finally, will India or Pakistan blink first? While Pakistan remains an unstable state, that risks falling to Islamism, you must wonder why India would remove its arsenal?

I need not state why Israel would never abolish its nuclear option either, given the existential threat it faces from Iran and others.

John Key and Phil Goff have parroted support for it. Sadly neither noted that nuclear weapons kept the peace in the Cold War between those countries that held them. New Zealand included of course.

As long as there remain state enemies of open transparent liberal capitalist societies, nuclear weapons should be held by the Western allies. The alternative are those who execute political opponents, censor opposition and wish to command control over the West having a monopoly on nuclear weapons. That is utterly unthinkable.

Helen Clark felt right

The NZ Herald reports on how Peter Davis on TVNZ said Helen Clark felt "rejected" by the New Zealand public in the last election.

"I think she felt rejected, because she felt she had done a good job - which I also believe - and had put her best foot forward and had been an almost incomparable Prime Minister and yet somehow the public had not seen that the same way" he said

Yes Peter, she was rejected. Almost incomparable? Well perhaps, by wasting away the fruits of a recovery on growing the bureaucracy and the state, flushing hundreds of millions of dollars away of (now this is what they don't understand) OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY in buying back a railway and an airline.

Fortunately New Zealand is a liberal democracy, and enough got tired of "the state is sovereign" Helen. She won 1999 following a growing send of tiredness of National's cobbled together and increasingly repulsive flotsam and jetsam minority government. 2002 she won because Bill English hadn't met a principle he could embrace and stand for anything at all, and the recovery was keeping enough people happy. 2005 she barely won helped ever so slightly by breaking the law by using parliamentary funds to do electoral campaigning.

Of course, the truth is she only got into power thanks to Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne and Winston Peters bringing their parties into coalition and confidence/supply agreements. All of their parties have paid a high price for such arrangements.

Let's constrain democratic local government!

The Standard warns ominously that the government might take steps to hinder the growth of local government's role saying:
- A bill is to be introduced "to ‘cap rates at the rate of inflation’ will cripple councils ability to fund essential new projects" ;
-The Auckland report INITIATED BY THE PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT will provoke "another round of amalgamation to create ’super-cities’". Which will, of course, "sell assets such as airports whenever they can" (yep those privately owned airports never work);
- As part of RMA reform the government will "axe Regional Councils"; and
- Water metering will be introduced.

Now apart from the second point (as I completely oppose supercities for reasons explained here), bring it on!

The Standard shows once again enthusiasm for pilfering from people's salaries, but also notably continue economic ignorance.

What are these "essential new projects" that councils can't convince people to pay for voluntarily? It doesn't matter, as long as people vote for a council, the Standard thinks it can rate the public as much as it likes, until the next election. A cap on rates being at inflation only is a bare minimum to stop councils growing in their thieving from ratepayers.

It shows continued bigotry against privatisation, because the predominantly privately owned Auckland and Wellington airports are so badly run, compared to council owned Christchurch. Seriously, get a grip.

The axing of regional councils is feasible despite the bogus claim that "most Regional Councils manage important public functions and are fat targets for selling off major parks, water and transport assets worth many tens of billions of dollars". Most regional councils are actually glorified water catchment boards, with boundaries that reflect that. Only Auckland and Wellington ones have substantially additional functions. Most have no parks or transport assets of any consequence. Creating water catchment companies with property rights would address the relevant issues, and public transport assets in Auckland and Wellington could be held by territorial authority owned companies.

Then the real ignorance is in opposing water metering. You'd think the Standard ought to support those who use the most water paying for it, paying a bigger share of the infrastructure and water purification costs (and sewage disposal), but no. You'd think ensuring that demand reflects shares of costs would help ensure that expansion of water supplies was done when it is efficient, not when politicians get their act together (or build think big options). No. Of course, it all ignores the decades of mismanagement of water infrastructure by councils that did not replace or repair the network (something Thames Water is addressing in London). The Standard presumably thinks everyone should pay the same for water - yep, good old Marxist "economics".

Of course I don't for a moment believe the government will do ANYTHING The Standard suggests - sadly, as it would mean Rodney Hide will have done some good.

Oh and democratic local government? Give me a break. Turnout for council elections is abysmal, and democracy is never accountability when councils just vote to increase charges on the public year in year out. It is the majority (non ratepayers) voting for the minority to be pillaged for their pet projects. It's time local government was shackled.

So what about supporting the child?

I am unsurprised that Maia is supporting the woman who gave birth on a plane, who clearly was so distressed she isn't fit to be a mother (you can't look after a child if you can't look after yourself), but more curious that she is supporting her in prison (as is her right)- but doing nothing about the completely helpless baby she gave birth to.

I don't doubt Karolaine Maika is a seriously disturbed woman - but mothers, unless they adopt, have responsibilities for their children. If they fail to take even basic steps to ensure that someone else can look after them, then they are beyond the pale.

For regardless of how disturbed she is, the baby is completely and utterly helpless.

Although Maia has previously said that when people are so poor, you can understand them torturing a three year old. "it's part of a bigger project to blame people in poverty for making bad choices on an individual level, rather than seeing the structural issues which leave people so broken that they torture a three year-old".

Need I say more?

NZ's best political satire is on Twitter

It sadly lacks, I'm unsure whether a small country lacks comic genius, or whether there is some cringe among those in broadcasting to give it a fair go (and to be fair I don't watch NZ TV for a fairly obvious reason), but the best political satire I am finding now is on Twitter.

If you're not following

Trevor Mallard
Parekura Horomia
David Cunliffe (no this one doesn't deserve the silent "T") and
Clayton Cosgrove

you are missing out. It's the main reason I log onto Twitter, and now I found

Shane Jones
Maryan Street

and there are more.

UPDATE: Oops Darren Hughes is real, it's not that funny. Any more MP satirical Twitters?

Wanaka's National Front school?

Seriously, is Mt. Aspiring College the least worldly most naive high school in the country? Or a secret hot bed of neo-Nazi knuckle draggers?

Wanaka is such a beautiful location, does it just mean people there don't read, watch TV or read history?

Does it mean the school curriculum is so utterly devoid of history that so many of the staff and students are just plain ignorant?

Someone better find out - I bet the semi-evolved grunts in the National Front will be getting their tiny penises (they are 90% "men") all excited about how they need to have their conference in Wanaka as a result of this story.

Life in Wanaka is clearly far too mundane because the Southland Times reports

"many students have already got their costumes organised after depleting all the stocks of white coveralls from Wanaka's Mitre 10 hardware store. Manager Mark Watson said he had no idea the $7.98 clothing item had been so popular when contacted last night, but after a quick check of his database confirmed he had only large sizes of the boilersuit-type clothing left."

Only the slim to average sized stupid and racist students are going. Although one report does suggest a bit of mischief making:

"Last year they went on sale two weeks earlier and this year it was only a few days before. They were hiding them until the last minute. "Those kids are not as dumb as the principal is making out."" says "angry mother".

Bloody hell! Parents of Wanaka. Airfares to Australia are NOT expensive, probably cheaper than to Auckland if you scoot to Queenstown. Take your kids at least to Aussie (well Sydney and/or Melbourne anyway) at least twice before they are 13.

Buy them books.

Show them where the news channels on Sky are.

and most of all, show them images of white supremacists in their natural environment (above).

(Credit to Stuff for the image)

The G20's declaration against you

The full text of the declaration is here.

Despite some nice words about markets and recovery, there isn't a lot to cheer about, unless you think it could have been worse.

A lot more money for the IMF to lend to governments which overreached themselves. Rewarding the profligate wasters and overspenders.

A commitment to sustaining the fiscal child abuse that pours a fortune of borrowed money into unproductive activity under the guise of stimulus.

Creating a Financial Stability Board to punish countries that grow "recklessly".

Punishing countries that offer taxpayers protection from the thieving claws of the likes of the US IRS and the legalised thieves of other national tax mafias. Public finances are important, your finances are not important.

A limp wristed pledge to not increase trade protectionism for the next 20 months. Given Barack Obama already had a hand in increasingly US farm subsidies, it's hardly surprising. A statement on progressing the Doha round, a bare minimum really.

So for all the cheshire cat grins of Gordon "Britain always is in deficit under me" Brown and Barack "no more pork, except my pork laden budget" Obama, this summit was a wet blanket. It has done next to nothing, done little to avoid future harm, and has shown an inadequate regard for how the global economy is dependent upon producers not governments.

Well at least protestors should remain disappointed.

Standard distorts G20 protests

It reports tens of thousands protested, yet the BBC reports there were only 5,000. (The post on the Standard links to BBC News but clearly doesn't read it).

It ignores the direct attacks on Police which I saw live on TV, refusing to take sides of course. It ignores the rampant vandalism of the RBS branch in the city for being the reason why the Police contained the protestors.

See I watched the coverage on BBC News and Sky News channels for most of the day yesterday. The Standard is getting its news secondhand. Funny how it writes about inaccuracy when it writes such shoddy nonsense as this.

What I fear about One Auckland

At Not PC Owen McShane characterises the proposal for a single megacity for Auckland as fascist.

Now, while this risks derision by the mere use of the word fascist, it is worth noting only the differences between TRUE fascism and what is being described for Auckland.

Yes, you will be able to leave Auckland, you will be able to criticise the megacity with the same free speech rights as now, you wont face more censorship, you wont be conscripted into an army to invade Ethiopia.

However, you will face more co-ordinated attacks on your private property rights, you might face the megacity regulating your business, or even competing with you. The megacity will have a substantial budget for propaganda publicity, and with one grand plan you'll know what is expected of you, your land use decisions and your property in the future. You are likely to face ever growing demands for money from your pocket, through rates. A megacity after all can increase rates by a small amount and get so much from it. Besides, few of you objected with relatively large ARC rates increases, so that can continue right?

A megacity will dilute your influence. By this I don't mean that there should be more democracy. That will simply mean those with the greatest lobbying strength (either by numbers or money) will use a megacity to regulate, tax and subsidise as they see fit. The left fears this ends up being business, the right fears it ends up being leftwing activist groups - both are right - Auckland does not need governance by lobbyist.

However, what will happen is just that. Loud lobbyists will work full time to lobby a megacity, and a megacity will have an army of planners out to ensure land use, transport use, energy use and indeed almost all aspects of day to day life are monitored and regulated if they can be legally empowered to do so.

In fact, I expect one of the first things a megacity will ask for is a review of local authority regulatory powers and tax raising powers, which were not substantially changed in the 2002 Local Government Act. The megacity will complain it isn't sufficiently empowered (to have power over you), or can't make you pay enough for it to do what it want otherwise known as raise revenue.

Auckland is over governed as it is.

The Royal Commission on Auckland report should be treated as follows by the government:

- Thank you, very interesting;
- Raises some important issues about current problems with local government in Auckland;
- Royal Commission operated under a mandate determined by the previous government so did not address some fundamental issues about the role of local government that this government has;
- We believe there are more fundamental issues to the performance of Auckland based on local authorities going far beyond certain core principles that should limit want councils do;
- As such we will be undertaking a more fundamental review of local government across the country, and will take into account Auckland as part of that review;
- (Thanks for the doorstop, the Royal Commission on Social Policy documents were getting a bit yellow).

Time to consider what the hell local government ought to be doing.

Time for those who say "not very much" to make their voices heard loud and clear, before the Nat/Act/Maori/Dunne government takes what Labour has done on local government (give it an almost unlimited mandate), and make it much much worse.

Otherwise, Rodney Hide's position as Minister of Local Government will have been for nothing.

George Galloway refused entry into Canada

I am slightly late on this, but it is curious that George Galloway, who supported the ban of Dutch MP Geert Wilders (because free speech is not an absolute) is complaining about the Canadian government refusing him entry because of his views on Afghanistan and his support for Hamas and Hizbollah. The decision has been upheld by a court appeal.

Galloway, you see, has said explicitly that he provided financial support to Hamas - an organisation that trains and arms suicide bombers, that produces television calling for children to be martyrs against Israel. Here is a video of him supporting suicide bombing and Hamas, Hizbollah and

He also has denied the genocide in Darfur, defended the Islamist dictator of Sudan Omar al-Bashir who is subject to an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Of course who can forget him saluting Saddam Hussein for his "courage and indefatigability", his friendship with dictator Fidel Castro. He also has spoken of how lucky Syria is to have Bashar al-Assad as President - who holds onto power much like Saddam did - running a one party state.

Galloway is a vile creature, who tells one story to the mainstream British media, whilst essentially befriending the enemies of Western civilisation and liberal democracy. He is a willing whore to murdering dictators and terrorists. It is no wonder Canada excludes him, as he happily supports enemies of Canada.

If I were a resident of Bethnal Green & Bow for the 2010 General Election I'd vote Labour to remove this vermin of the political system.

Hat tip: "Tony Blair" blog (well not really him)

Are we losing Afghanistan?

No, it's not April Fool, it's not even the Taliban winning, it's the government we are supporting. The Daily Telegraph reports that Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has signed a new law legalising marital rape. The Telegraph continues that the unpublished law...

"is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor's appointments with their husband's permission.

Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women."

The Guardian reports:

"Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam," she said."

It is believed the law is part of a strategy to win votes in the upcoming election. The US government has raised it directly with Hamid Karzai.

The point should be clear. Aid is dependent entirely on Afghanistan moving towards more individual rights and freedom, and should be pulled if the opposite happens.

Idiot Savant thinks it calls into question New Zealand's military commitment to Afghanistan, (Which he opposes, preferring Afghanistan be left to the Taliban presumably). What it SHOULD do is question all aid, and New Zealand should support a united front of all countries with military presence supporting the fragile democracy in Afghanistan to demand that this means protecting individual rights.

It is important to fight the Taliban, it provides succour for Al Qaeda, part of the Iraqi insurgency and is pushing into Pakistan. It is the dead enemy of Western civilisation. Afghanistan's government should not look like a Taliban-lite.

Afghanistan should be a constitutional liberal democracy that guarantees basic individual rights and freedoms. If foreign troops are not there defending, nurturing and protecting that, they are doing less than half their job.

A hole in Lenin's arse

A hole has been blasted in Lenin's arse by vandals in St Petersburg according to the Daily Telegraph.

Quite right, the bastard was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands, and famine of millions in the 1920s. He was a deliberate mass murderer, and his name deserves to live in infamy, and he started a revolution that would bring Stalin to power bringing tens of millions to their deaths, and his satellites in eastern Europe, North Korea and Africa (be fair to say China's revolution was separate).

Something to remind the next spotty idiot wearing a Lenin tshirt.