How do the Greens spread misinformation? Part 1 - Background

I could have called this “Sue Kedgley makes things up for an audience”, but I think what this post is about is wider than that. Sue is speaking on behalf of the Greens, so what she has done in this speech is presumably endorsed by the party. However, what she has done is express a litany of simple falsehoods, so false that I would question whether she really believes they are true, in which case why say it, other than to whip up hysteria for propaganda purposes.

First some brief background. The issue is whether to build a 4 lane expressway on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington to relieve the current highway. The government has put forward three options, widening the current highway, partly widening the current highway, partly using an existing designation for a bypass of Waikanae and fully using the existing designation to bypass Paraparaumu and Waikanae. Why? Besides congestion through Kapiti becoming increasingly severe, wasting time, fuel and increasing vehicle emissions, the original plan was for a major arterial road to be built, 90% funded by central government, to allow a lot of local traffic to bypass the highway. Kapiti Coast District Council was to build the road, but since the last local body elections, it has taken a “Green” tinge, and started seeking to alter the route, narrow the road and effectively make it far less useful to relieving congestion. Some of the antics in altering the route have some rather disturbing elements of parochialism and partisanship for special interests. The government has had enough of this, it wont fund the narrow winding road with bridal path, so has decided one option is to use the land already set aside for that road for an expressway. Given that the road was originally set aside for a motorway since the 1950s, it should hardly be a surprise, and anyone who bought land adjacent to it should have known a major road would go there eventually. So property rights really are not an issue.

The Council is fighting this along with a local environmental group which is against any major highway development. It should know that it can’t get funding for the winding local road option, so given the government owns the state highway it would seek options to upgrade it. However, those opposing it are painting it as not a story about an incompetent council that has backtracked on its original plans to build a major new road, but some sort of conspiracy between the trucking industry and the government to “ruin Kapiti”. Fortunately, some local residents are fed up with this and have strong views counter to that of the council. These are people who own properties between the existing highway and the road designation, as well as others. This blog has a different view, supporting the original full local road option, and is also damning of the council.

So in wades Sue Kedgley on automatic, she makes this speech. What’s wrong with it? In summary Sue Kedgley has:
- Used heavily emotive language to describe what she hates (massive juggernauts, massive motorway, destroy communities), exaggerating for effect;
- Blanked out facts about the proposed expressway possibly being on land set aside for a motorway in the first place;
- Grossly misrepresented the Government’s proposals and justification for them, exaggerating them ridiculously;
- Claimed evidence for an effect which demonstrably isn’t true in numerous cases;
- Used a report to back her position that was not even on the topic in question, and which also supports a position she vehemently opposes;
- Talks extensively about a solution that is only slightly related to the issue at hand and talks not at all about the proposal at question (or even the counter proposal by those opposing it), maybe she doesn’t know anything about it;
- Says nothing has been done about rail, then lists several expensive projects that are being done;
- Claims rail isn’t the priority, yet the rail projects are the ones under construction, the road ones are being debated;
- Uses mega cities like London, Paris, Tokyo and New York as examples of how Paraparaumu and Waikanae can follow;
- Misuses official statistics about rail patronages;
- Is wrong about the age of the trains by over 20 years;
- Claims her preferred solution is cheaper than the ones proposed, when it isn’t;
- Misrepresents the cost of the proposed expressway and the economic appraisal;
- Makes a false claim that 51 tonne trucks need 4 lane motorways, when previous reports said the current state highway network can handle them no problem;
- Wants to ban long haul freight going by road, a new radical policy;
- Implies the current government is to blame for no toilets on new trains, when it isn’t, and none of the trains ever had toilets.

Read the (long) part two for the details.

A republic, any republic

Asking if you want a republic, particularly when dreamt up by former communist Green MP Keith Locke, is a bit like asking if you want something to eat, and not knowing if you'll get a gourmet meal, fast food, some expired food from a supermarket bin.

A republic in and of itself it not necessarily a good thing. Not PC akins it to accepting a kidney transplant from a bureaucrat, but I think it is more like a trojan horse. It looks like something good, but you don't know what's inside, or why you got it. The motivations of some advocating a republic should be cause for worry.

You see a republic can range from being a constitutionally limited one, that is meant to constrain the role of the state, like the United States, or it may be a corrupt dictatorship, like the Republic of Tajikistan. I don't expect Keith Locke wants a "People's Republic" although he has been cheerleader for this in the past, but I also don't expect he wants to emulate the United States.

So whilst a debate on this is good, indeed very good, be wary of those who push a republic for the sake of a republic. If a republic appears in the coming years, it is a once in a lifetime chance to fundamentally change the constitutional structure of New Zealand and ringfence the role of the state - and equally to constitutionally demand an expansion or entrenchment of it.

Have a guess to what extent Keith Locke wants to constrain the role of the state, and to what extent he wants to expand and entrench it.

Then ask yourself if you really think that those who will advance a republic will predominantly share that view, or will they advance a republic should tightly define the state as an entity to protect individual rights and freedoms.

I doubt it is the latter, and as a result, whilst I would advocate for the latter, I'd prefer the status quo to any vision of a republic Keith Locke has.

Idiot Savant's analysis woeful (updated)

Idiot Savant's latest post exclaims "The way the right talks, you would think that government policy was all about wealth and increasing GDP. Today, we have a stark reminder that that is not the case, in the form of the European Quality of Life Index".

Well no, some people talk about freedom as well, he chooses to select what he listens to about standard of living.

He continues "According to the index, the UK has the lowest quality of life in Western Europe...This is where NeoLiberal growth maximisation gets you: a country where no-one wants to live and everyone feels miserable. The lesson for New Zealand ought to be obvious."

So what IS the Index? Where does the data come from? How comprehensive is it? The answers are, a shonky piece of publicity, difficult to tell and not at all. Even with that, the conclusions he draws are little to do with neo-liberalism. All in all it's very woeful analysis that doesn't stack up.

The European Quality of Life Index did not come from a university, government institution, think tank or international organisation. It came from a private company that makes money running a price comparison website for consumers to choose the best value utility companies. Uswitch. Frankly, whilst it is nice for private companies to do a bit of research that they pay for, I'd like some robustness around it. So how does it fail?

1. Idiot Savant claims this is about Western Europe, yet it leaves out at least 10 other countries. Norway, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Iceland, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal. Given it includes Poland, you might ask why not also Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. So really who knows if the UK ranks bottom?

2. The dates for data used are often missing with the sources. In some cases there are no sources (e.g. average working hours a week), others quote a date with the source but is that publication date (as some look like) or year? If years are not common across data, then it should be justified, as you are not comparing like with like.

3. GDP per capita is used, not GDP per capita adjusted by purchasing power parity, although the report looks like creating its own PPP measure. Frankly, I'd rather trust the more widely used ones. PPP matters for the same reason anyone comparing earning £ to NZ$ without looking at purchasing power makes it look like anyone living in the UK is rich.

4. Under wealth the report talks of council tax and travel expenses in the UK, but doesn't say the same for similar taxes or charges elsewhere, or housing costs. The UK may cost more than many for both, but is the highest?

So all in all, it looks a bit shabby. More shabby are the conclusions that this is about "neo-liberal" policies. Why?

1. One of the measures is "hours of sunshine", no need to explain why the UK comes out worse than France and Spain on this measure. Not a lot to do with government.

2. Education spending for the UK is similar to the average, as is France, Spain is less. So how does spending more on this matter? Finland is the interesting case as it is seen by some as a model, but it isn't included. Note Sweden spends more and has a voucher system.

3. The UK has one of the most centralised health systems of all, and the outcomes are relatively poor. The NHS is a huge central bureaucracy, compared to insurance based models in France, Germany, the Netherlands and others. However, that's been ignored as well as something "neo-liberal" when the UK is anything but.

4. One of the measures is cost of fuel, alcohol and cigarettes, all very high in the UK because of? Tax. Yes, nothing "neo-liberal here". The Netherlands and the UK have the higher fuel tax in Europe, so surprise surprise, they have they highest prices of fuel.

So what does this piece of work prove? Precious little. The data is hard to compare, but what can be compared shows that the countries with the best standard of living, have the most sunshine, spend the same or less on education, have insurance based health systems and lower taxes on commodities.

Hardly neo-liberalism vs socialism is it now, even if you do think a price-comparison website operator is a sound source for analysis.

UPDATE: Seems he has removed the link to this post from his website, doesn't like criticism does he? You'd think something ostensibly interested in free speech would allow his reliance on a pathetic piece of publicity driven research to be critiqued?

Hottest political leader?

According to this blog John Key ranks 72, ahead of Gordon Brown and Kevin Rudd (84 and 93), but beneath such gods as Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus.

Does Kim Jong Il really deserve last?

Besides of course, it strictly speaking isn't heads of state. Queen Elizabeth the 2nd is the Head of State for more than couple of countries.

Of course you can all guess the obvious question, what would the country rankings have been a year ago when some of those were different?

Geert Wilders allowed into the UK

Geert Wilders says he is a libertarian. He is a Dutch MP. He hates Islam with a passion and was banned from entering the UK earlier this year. He was banned because Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said ... wait for it... "his opinions threatened community security and therefore public security".

Land of the free? No. Except the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal have overturned the ban. It has disappointed the neo-fascists at the Home Office who "oppose extremism in all of its forms", and have done such a stunning job at stopping it.

Even the Quilliam Foundation, which finds his views offensive, did not want him banned, but wanted his views on Islam debated. The British Government couldn't allow that. You can publicly criticise Christianity, you can be a Muslim preaching anti-Western sentiments, but you can't be a European citizen hating Islam (not Muslims he explicitly says).

You can hate Christianity, capitalism, fascism, environmentalism and communism in the UK, but not Islam.

So that is why Geert Wilders has been branded "far right" although many of his policies are quite libertarian, with much lower tax, smaller government, much smaller role for the EU, although he also seeks to ban non-European immigration, founding new mosques and Islamic schools and some populist statements about public services.

The point is that he expresses an opinion about a religion, which should be protected free speech in the UK. I hate Islam, I have no time for religion preaching submission, and I have yet to see anything in it to like. I also have no time for any other religion, but should I be banned from expressing that view?

What's most galling is the House of Lords got to see Wilders's controversial film criticising Islam which is here. His visit to the UK might inflame and upset some people, but so what? As long as he does not do violence and does not incite violence, then he is not to blame. If others seek to do violence to him or his supporters, the law should punish them.

The UK should be a country where people accept the right of free people to have freedom of speech, religion (or no religion) and political belief. That means tolerating the spectrum of opinion and philosophies. Those who don't like it may also express that view, but if they wish to impose their views on others, they should simply leave.

There are plenty of countries in the world that tolerate only an official line on religion and politics. Europe was once overrun with such governments. Today it should proudly assert that it rejects this, and anyone who lives in Europe or enters Europe who seeks to use force or democracy to destroy free, secular, liberal democratic government, should simply be asked to go.

British politicians misuse taxpayers' money

SO Gordon Brown finally catches up threatening MPs to pay back money or else he will consider withdrawing the whip from them, after David Cameron said he would ban Tory MPs from standing in the next election unless they paid back the money.

Yawn.

So they mismanage money that isn't theirs. This is a pittance, because every day the British government borrows £500 million. Yes, it is equal to £8.33 per man, woman and child every day in extra debt. About the only significance of this scandal is it has brought politicians into disrepute for how they spend other people's money.

Yet it hasn't changed fundamental opinions on whether such people can be trusted to make decisions on buying healthcare, education, pensions or infrastructure.

Of course it happens in New Zealand too, yet most people still trust them.

Why? Why would you trust a significant number of not particularly clever people to spend between a third and a half of your money buying services from providers you might not choose otherwise? Do you really think you can't do better? Do you really think the private sector would provide something worse?

Is nuclear disarmament a good idea?

The Greens think so. That's why MP Kennedy Graham has written to Barack Obama calling for, among other things, the end to nuclear deterrence:

"To reduce the numerical surplus of nuclear weapons, from some 20,000 in the national arsenal to some 5,000 is laudable, but it does not confront the central challenge – which is to cross the threshold of minimal deterrence. Russia and the others will follow, but the lead can only come from the US."

So the Greens WANT the US to make the first move, and somehow trust Russia and China, let alone India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to follow. Really?

Let's be clear what he is advocating is for global security to be ensured through conventional weapons, under UN auspices:

"So the twin challenge is to wean the US, and the world, off nuclear deterrence and replace it with a credible alternative means of securing global governance through conventional weaponry."

Now who would doubt the usage of nuclear weapons is truly horrible to imagine. It is why it is an effective deterrence.

While some may doubt it, nuclear weapons kept the peace in Europe from 1948 to 1989. The USSR knew if it rolled east it would face tactical nuclear weapons in response, and strategic weapons on its capitals. A horrible proposition, but the credibility had to be there for the deterrence. Better to threaten annihilation than to face war and totalitarian tyranny.

Similarly, Japan and South Korea were protected by nuclear weapons. North Korea has always wanted to take over South Korea by force, but the US nuclear umbrella has made it clear that Pyongyang would be flattened if it tried. The credibility of that threat has been critical to protecting South Korea.

Today the Korean situation is little better, with the USSR no longer shielding North Korea. However, elsewhere there remains instability and risk of conflict. One need only look at some of the other nuclear powers.

Russia is effectively a one party state with a strong military and substantial interest in expanding its sphere of influence back to some of what it once had. Who could seriously trust Putin and Medvedev to undertake arms control given how Russia has acted towards Ukraine?

China always claims peaceful intent, but whilst relations with Taiwan have warmed, China has never withdrawn the military option for "reunification". China also has border disputes with India, and in the South China Sea.

India and Pakistan will say "you first" to each other, and frankly until Kashmir can be solved and Pakistan is no longer a breeding ground for Islamist terror, neither will abandon nukes.

North Korea will abandon nukes when there is Korean reunification, on the South's terms.

Israel will abandon nukes when Arabs and Iran stop calling for its destruction and treat it as a trading partner and friend.

In this environment, why abandon nuclear deterrence? For Israel it has kept the peace on a large scale since the Yom Kippur War. For the Korean peninsula it has prevented a second Korean War, and elsewhere it makes Russia think how far it can push the West.

In such a world, it is immoral for the US, UK and France to abandon nuclear weapons, for they are the only relatively moral states to hold them, the only ones that can keep the dictatorial other two members of the UN Security Council honest (and any other states that acquire them).

For until aggressive dictatorships are wiped from the face of the earth, there will be governments that seek to be aggressive against their citizens and citizens of other nations. They will seek war, and some will seek weapons of mass destruction (treaties on chemical and biological weapons have not stopped the most egregiously aggressive states from having both - like North Korea, Syria, Russia and Libya). Sadly, only by holding similar firepower, and a clear willingness to use it if provoked, can we talk a language they not only understand, but have used their whole political career.

Any other belief is naive - as naive as anyone who trusts Putin, Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Or as evil as one who sees any of them as morally equivalent to any US President.

Treasury still has some thinkers

Flat tax was put forward to Bill English as an option according to the NBR.

Pearls before swine some may think, as Bill English could never have the gumption to argue for a flat tax. He has none of the backbone needed to argue that just because people earn more, does not mean they should pay an ever higher proportion of their income to the state. You do not consume more of what the state spends its money on just because you earn more. Too many of the envy brigade on the left would say it is "giving money to the rich" when in fact it is letting people keep more of THEIR money.

Flat taxes are common in former communist countries like Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia and Slovakia. Indeed even former Yugoslav republics of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia Hercegovina have adopted it. Hong Kong has close to a flat tax system.

So moving towards a flat tax IS good policy, it isn't extreme, it isn't uncommon, it is a sensible way to show New Zealand as a low tax small government economy, and it would help attract people. It does mean getting rid of the two top income tax rates, and that means some proper culling of the state. Not the limp wristed "efficiency gains" that haven't delivered.

It means abolishing agencies and functions.

It means saying the government needs to do less.

You'd think a government with ACT in it, might start to do something about it. Wouldn't you?

Kim Jong Il to Barack Obama

Dear Great Leader President Barack Obama of the United States of America (hope I have all your titles right).

Well done on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

I wanted it, but the Nobel Committee keeps ignoring the nomination every year. I mean I've never attacked any countries, not since my dad died, and besides he IS still the President, so any rescuing I undertake of civilians oppressed in other countries is not entirely up to me.

You'll find the international peace movement recognises that your country not mine has been a grave threat to international peace and security for years. I come from a land of peace, nobody fears crime or war walking our streets, except for the nuclear threat from your country.

Still, I am grateful you haven't threatened the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, haven't interfered with our peaceful possession of nuclear weapons and desire to reunify the country by expelling the South Korean puppet clique, destroying the abomination of Seoul and peacefully negotiating a surrender peace treaty with the United States. All of the people in Korea excluding the traitors and their children and grandchildren in the gulags and the expendable south Korean lackeys of imperialism seek swift reunification and friendship with peace loving peoples of the world.

So in that spirit of peace, I hope you will immediately withdraw US troops from South Korea, just as previous President Jimmy Carter once indicated, but then abdicated on.

To show our glee at your win, my country has celebrated in the traditional way.

In solidarity, Kim Jong Il, Chairman of the National Defense Commission, Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, and General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea.

Gordon can do it, but John?

Pause for a moment, I am going to praise Gordon Brown.

You see he's about to announce a privatisation programme. Yes you read right. Privatisation, eight months out from an election. It is worth around £3 billion of assets in the first phase, but up to £16 billion overall.

What sort of assets? Well it isn't just surplus pockets of land. It include the sort of assets juveniles would call "strategic":
- Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Folkestone to St Pancras);
- Dartford Crossing (the eight lanes of highway crossing the Thames that completes the M25 ring);
- its stake in Urenco (nuclear fuel enrichment company);
- a third of the debt in student loans;
- The Tote (government owned bookmaker).

So yes, you can privatise a road, a major one at that, which has no serious alternative routes for many miles.

The reaction of the other parties? Would that play this against Brown? Well no:
- The Guardian reported a Conservative Party spokesman saying "Given the state the country is in is probably necessary but it is no substitute for a long-term plan to get the country to live within its means";
- Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesman Vince Cable said "Given the state of the public finances, asset sales, at least in principle, make sense" but he expressed concern about selling land in a depressed market and how badly the government was in getting value from its privatisations.

So in other words all three main political parties support privatisation.

However in New Zealand it can't be so. National ruled it out to get elected, Labour was the nationaliser extraordinaire, and only ACT of the parties in Parliament warms to privatisation (and even then not too loudly).

Now the UK government could sell much more than that list, but the nature of what is on the list is what is positive. Particularly, given my interests, the Dartford Crossing. It's a tolled crossing comprising two 2-lane tunnels for northbound traffic, and a 4-lane bridge southbound, and it is heavily congested (with plans proposed for an additional crossing). Selling it and letting the private sector choose the best way to expand it will demonstrate to the naysayers who think roads can't be privatised.

Imagine, for example, Auckland's Harbour Bridge and approaches privatised (and tolled) so that another crossing could be financed and built.

However we know it wont happen, for now, but it would be nice if the debate could be had without ghosts of Winston Peters and Jim Anderton taking things to the level of the banal ("but it's strategic, what happens if they want to sell it for scrap").

The New Zealand Government has a whole portfolio of SOEs that could and should be sold, easily, without even going near roads, schools, hospitals or dare I say Kiwirail. There is no good reason why Genesis, Meridian and Mighty River Power are in state hands, when Contact and Trustpower are private sector competitors, and most people don't know whether their power company is private or state owned.

It's time to talk about privatisation - if it isn't controversial in the UK, with its plethora of nanny state quangoes and laws, why so in New Zealand?

ACC deficit shows monopoly failings

ACC has a statutory monopoly. Labour claimed this is the most "efficient" way of insuring personal injury by accident, yet it has proven incapable of managing its own finances in a way that doesn't mean taxpayers and levy payers have to bail it out.

No other country has the socialist style no-fault statutory monopoly state insurance scheme New Zealand has. The claims by its advocates that it is "lauded" the world over seem very empty when no others follow, and this sort of news comes to light.

I've written before on how to change this, individualise the whole system so everyone buys ACC cover for non-work accidents, open it up to competition, so the risk is spread among multiple insurers (coverage for past accidents would either remain with a legacy ACC or tendered among competitors), and then return the right to sue between insurers and let people choose not to be insured. Care would need to be taken to ensure tort law was based on objectively reasonable criteria, but if it came about after a culture of personal insurance, the risks of aggressive tort claims could be minimised. Besides, if you insure yourself against what others do to you, then you have little to complain about.

Of course at the same time, road owners could demand drivers be insured before using their roads, as could others when you use their property, but overall the risk would be spread and shared. Those who undertake risky behaviour would pay, those who don't, wouldn't.

The monopoly has failed, miserably, once again. The measures National are announcing are trying to patch up a system that is breaking. It's time to move fast to open the employment and motor vehicle accounts to competition as a first stage, then individualise the whole system. Then those paying to cover the liabilities of past poor decisions end up being those the system carries the most risk for.

Obama gets unwelcome supporter

Fidel Castro said of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize "I must admit that in this case, in my opinion, it was a positive step" according to the Daily Telegraph.

The best sentiments I've noticed on this, is that Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been mooted for the prize, has been imprisoned, tortured, beaten up repeatedly, lost his wife in an accident, and STILL decided for peace in Zimbabwe, to form a joint government with the murdering gangsters of Zanu-PF.

Apparently that wasn't good enough. Not good enough for an African man in Africa at the front line of essentially civil war and insurrection, in a truly bankrupt economy, to risk himself so much to bring peace and justice to Zimbabwe. He may have been able to do much for Zimbabwe with the US$1 million prize.

Instead, a group of Norwegians worshipped words not deeds. Obama did not need encouragement to pursue he soft approach to international relations, and did not need the money to give to charity.

It is enough now that the Nobel Peace Prize has been discredited umpteen times in the past, next year I can't wait for the latest joke to come from the Nobel committee. Maybe Oscar Wrigley can win the prize for science, because no doubt he has great potential.

Prince Charles frustrated using Youtube

Well I'm guessing that's whats going on.

Imagine being Prince Charles. Never a worry about where to live or how to afford to do anything really, never a concern about being unable to generate publicity, and then not actually having a coherent philosophy about anything at all. More recently, this man with many a car to his name, called on Britons to drive less and walk more - the height of elitist hypocrisy if ever it could be.

Now he wants to make Britons pay so that rural folk can have broadband, presumably because he sits on one of his estates unable to watch funny videos on Youtube because of a lack of broadband access at prices he is willing to pay.

He is fighting for rural Britain, which he could well do with his own ample resources and fundraising. Good luck to him doing that. However he's more concerned about farms going to the wall when subsidies drop in 2012:

"Quite frankly, the fear that many of us hold is that after 2012, when support from the E.U. will alter so dramatically, it may be simply impossible for our family farmers to continue – particularly in the remote uplands, where farming is at its toughest. If they are to stay on the land they will need all the help they can get, and denying them broadband, and effectively cutting them off from the Internet, will only be more likely to drive them off the hills and into the towns and cities taking with them generations of inherited knowledge. "

Yes Charles, where farming is uneconomic, where the environment should be left to be as it was. Nobody denies them broadband, they just aren't willing to pay for it. It could be available via satellite and other means, but people in cities, who pay much much more for living space, face chronic congestion and overcrowding on roads and public transport, don't expect a subsidy for their high costs.

A better approach would be to encourage farms to consolidate, become more efficient and to attack the one tax that hits rural areas unfairly - fuel tax. Fuel tax recovers four times what is spent on roads in the UK, and given rural areas disproportionately face relatively low road costs (getting little capital investment), it should drop or be replaced with road pricing.

Charles, farmers are struggling in many countries. Farmers in Europe are among the most feather bedded in the world, and if they were so efficient they'd have nothing to fear from reduced subsidies, as their European compatriots would face even tougher conditions.

Of course, given you're own status as one of the bigger receivers of EU subsidies for your own properties, you can excuse someone for claiming that this is a hint of vested interest in this.

To say "the stakes could not be higher" shows how incredibly out of touch he is, peculiarly so. Farmers in Australia and New Zealand were weaned off of many and all subsidies respectively a couple of decades ago. It's time to grow up, and to find stakes that are higher. I'd have thought the living conditions of children growing up in homes of violence, neglect and poverty would be more important a charitable cause than subsidised farmers who find it hard to use the BBC iPlayer or video porn.

Herald on Sunday so wrong about TV

The Herald on Sunday has joined the chorus of defending TPK (read "your taxes") paying for the Maori Television Service to bid for the free to air broadcasting rights to the Rugby World Cup.

For some it might be petty minded racism, but for me it's simple.

It's anti-competitive and grossly unfair. It gives a state owned broadcaster an advantage over privately owned broadcasters using money taken by force.

If those interested in Maori broadcasting think it is "money well spent" then spend your own money. That's what the shareholders of Sky Television in the early days (when it was primarily owned by NZ entrepreneurs) did. It is what regional broadcasters across the country wish they could do as well. What a shot in the arm it would be for them to get such rights for their regions, but don't expect that to be considered special - and quite rightly so.

You see TVNZ does NOT spend taxpayers' money bidding for sports broadcasting rights. It is financially self sustaining, and the only taxpayers' money it gets is essentially the same as the Maori Television Service is entitled to, funding for specific programmes through NZ On Air (Te Mangai Paho for the MTS).

To quote TPK's remit as "to contribute to "Maori succeeding as Maori, achieving a sustainable level of success as individuals, in organisations and in collectives ... Our investments in Maori development build resources."" is facile. TPK takes from Maori as much as it gives, it spends money taken money from people who succeed and dishes it out, whilst taking a share for its own staff.

It's this blatant inability to acknowledge where the money came from, and that MTS's competitors do NOT get the same privileges, that is at issue here. For you see, if MTS borrowed the money and won the rights, then made money from it, then at least at a time of budget deficits there would be less reason to be concerned.

When Chris Trotter is partly right

From Bowalley Road:

"As New Zealand’s leading conservative party, founded in 1936 to restrain state power and protect the rights of the individual citizen, National should be the most avid defender of the ancient rights and privileges of the people. Sadly, on matters of law and order, National long ago surrendered to the irrational populism of the Mob."

He's not entirely correct, some of the "irrational populism" is a genuine sense of frustration at how repeat offenders get the opportunity to create new victims, but he's right. National shows precious little interest in restraining state power.

I don't share Trotter's view that "a huge number of otherwise sensible and compassionate people are no longer able to see that, for all but a few moments of life-transformingly bad decision-making, most lawbreakers are indistinguishable from themselves", which minimises when people DO use violence, rape or break and enter a property as being a "bad decision", rather than a violation of the rights of another, but he is indeed right that the presumption of innocence is fundamental.

However, whilst in principle he is right, is he right about the proposals he listed?

- Tougher bail laws when the issue is a person being a likely threat to public safety is not inconsistent with protecting individual rights.
- Abolishing the right to silence is not quite what it seems, it is in fact allowing it to be mentioned in court in evidence that the accused used the right and the Jury can interpret it as they see fit. The state should not force someone to speak. I hope I am correct in the interpretation.
- Cutting back on legal aid is essentially a welfare matter, but in essence nobody should be without defence counsel in court.
- The use of "teleconferencing" should not be ruled out because Trotter is old;
- Finally, the right to a jury trial, which Power intends to restrict only to offences where one faces 3 years in prison or not, IS fundamental. Power also suggests an inquisitorial approach to rape cases. This is a fundamental change to the entire criminal justice system, for one crime. One should tread carefully before considering this.

Jury trials are expensive and slow, but they are critically important. Though to be frank, I doubt I'd choose a jury over a judge if I was accused.

Note Power also talks about a "positive definition" for consent in sexual crime cases. At its extreme this would mean a signed form for sexual encounters to say you consent, which of course wouldn't obviate a last minute "no" for whatever reason. Rape is an inherently difficult crime for the justice system because it involves the greatest physical intimacy combined with violence, and too often includes people who already know each other, and circumstances that allow reasonable doubt to be presented.

However, that is not a reason to destroy that assumption.

So Trotter is somewhat right.

You see Simon Power's biggest error is this claim "The people in our prisons right now are there because they committed crimes against other New Zealanders.". For many he is right, for a few he is dead wrong. Not all crimes in New Zealand have victims. Remove victimless crimes from the books and he would be right.

However he made the point in a wider context in that the high prisoner population "is primarily a symptom of a much more fundamental problem – crime itself."

So the focus COULD be on removing victimless crimes from the books, emptying the prisons of those with such convictions, and focusing on real crimes with real victims.

That WOULD be a reason to celebrate law and order reform.

Obama Nobel Peace Prize?

Yes, Reuters states Obama has won it.

For what? You might ask. Have tensions with Iran eased? Has he improved the situation in Iraq? Have the Taliban been defeated? Has North Korea agreed to stop calling for seas of blood in South Korea and Japan? Has Russia stopped seeking to dominate its neighbours? Has the risk of Islamist terrorism dramatically reduced? Has the Arab-Israeli conflict lessened? Has Sudan stopped oppressing the people of Darfur?

Well given the Nobel committee gave it to Al Gore two years ago, one can see the value of this prize deteriorating rapidly (although Martti Ahtisaari was deserving last year).

The list of all Nobel winners is here on Wikipedia.

Of those, surely the deserving ones are the likes of Mikhail Gorbachev, John Hume and David Trimble, Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk, Sadat and Begin, Lech Walesa and Norman Borlaug (not an exhaustive list).

However, Barack Obama?

Surely, even his greatest enthusiasts would struggle to say anything substantive has been achieved in a matter of months.

UPDATE: Benedict Brogan at the Daily Telegraph is damning.

"President Obama remains the barely man of world politics, barely a senator now barely a president, yet in the land of the Euro-weenies (copyright PJ O’Rourke) the great and the good remain in his thrall. To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let’s face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That’s not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with."

Even the usually pro-Obama Guardian online poll is 2 to 1 against him winning it.

It's not easy stopping P

There is little that need be said about the crackdown on P purchasers and suppliers that hasn’t been said before. Many users of P may be nihilistic and destroying themselves, and causing heartache for those who love them or depend on them, but criminalising them and the suppliers of what they seek will not change that.

Legalising P is the long term answer, but in advance of that much else needs to be done, in order that people become responsible for their own actions, and suppliers having to consider product liability. However, as there are already links on this I’d like to suggest something else that is more important, and nothing directly to do with politics.

Culture.

Most people take illicit drugs because they make them feel better, feel good. It is for pleasure. That, in itself, is not necessarily bad. However, it is clear that excessive use is about something else, escaping reality.

Whilst escaping reality is seen as a legitimate way to cope with overwhelming emotions, it is hardly a solution. Regular use of P helps people escape reality, with the logical consequences of abandoning reason – self destruction.

The decline through the 1950s to 1970s of the Christian-oriented basis for how many people saw life and existence saw holes filled with a range of philosophies. One of those was a nihilistic approach to life “there is no point”, “nothing means anything” etc. A destructive attitude that sees the only point to life the immediate satisfaction of pleasure, with the inevitable need for more of the same, greater, faster, longer, bigger, until ultimately you wake up from it all needing to eat, wash and find money so you have somewhere to live and pay for all of it. Whereas people once found solace in religion to cope with grief, relationship stresses, anxieties and the trials of life, some found solace in escaping it all.

None of this is new of course. Alcohol has a long history of supplying such escapism, but P has a completely different level of intensity. The problems attributed to both have the same source – philosophy.

The answer is to have a personal philosophy of embracing life, applying reason and enjoying existence for what it is. Enjoying your potential in whatever fields you get passionate for, whether business, the arts, sport, science, travel, social activities or anything else. For reality can be a pleasure of the senses, and a reason to live. The point to your life being to live it, enjoy it and share it if you wish with whoever shares your vision and values. The only limits being reality and respecting the same rights in others.

If the dominant cultural meme was like this, the prevalence of escaping reality would reduce, and then people would focus on assisting loved ones or others who needed help through difficult times. Criminalising those seeking to escape reality is likely to increase their willingness to escape reality. Making people responsible for their actions, through the health care system, welfare reform, criminal justice system and reform of ACC/tort law would be a step along the way to addressing it. These are all ways drug users escape the reality of any consequences of their actions (and indeed everyone else).

It is clear the status quo has both failed and is immoral. National is perpetuating it in the vain hope it will make a substantive difference, when the main effect will be to inconvenience people with cold and flu symptoms, and to harass tourists bringing in now restricted medications.

Meanwhile, guess how many pharmacies will have such medications in short supply by the end of the week?

Bono appears at Tory conference

After years of ingratiating himself with the Blair/Brown regime, Bono decides if the electorate likes the Tories "I will follow". In the hope that with David Cameron two hearts beat as one on aid, he wants to save people living in cities where the streets have no name. You see talking about helping Africa, spending other people's money to help Africa is even better than the real thing to him. Bono believes sometimes you can't make it on your own, so he needs the support of the incoming government to continue his campaign (yes I know, enough of the song "humour").

Sadly he undoubtedly will get vertigo if he actually learns about the problems of Africa, how much it is to do with poor governance, a lack of individual right protection and property rights, how much the protectionism of the EU on agriculture impoverishes, and how the solution to Africa's problems is to look at other continents that are far more prosperous and see that it's about capitalism, it's about government that protects rights and is impartial.

So Bono asking that the UK government spend 0.7% of national GDP on aid, is not just morally dubious, it simply wont work. It is good money after bad. Aid has made Africa addicted to other people's money, addicted to the notion that its problems can be solved if only other people wiped debt and paid it more money. It's simply wrong.

Bono has good intentions, I don't doubt that, but he needs to understand that the causes of Africa's relative poverty are multifaceted, and perhaps the biggest external limit on Africa is trade policy. If he embraced free and open trade he'd be embracing trading out of poverty. However, beyond that Africa needs good small government, it needs a culture of respecting individual rights and rejecting mysticism, tribalism and socialism. It needs the rest of the world to stop providing any form of comfort and support to the gangsters who run too much of that continent.

Who is the thief?

Let's say the mafia strongarms money out of you and your business regularly, say it does so to "protect" you, but is not very good at it.

Let's say your much bigger neighbour finds ways to evade the mafia strongarming so much money out of his business, quite successfully.

Then is the fact the mafia got less money from your neighbour, because your neighbour hid its money in clever ways, means your neighbour has effectively stolen from you (because the mafia might have taken less had it had what it thought it should have got from your neighbour)?

Just a way of looking at this.

In rebuttal to this.

No service means no subsidy

Again, rare for me to agree with Idiot Savant, but whilst NZ Bus services are suspended due to strike action, it shouldn't be getting subsidies for services not being provided.

Funny how the ARC Chair Mike Lee is pointing this out, but admitting that ARTA, which is a branch of the ARC, is still doing it.

Does he not realise how this strengthens the case for the abolition of the ARC?

Indeed it strengthens the case for abolishing bus subsidies. I'm neutral on the industrial dispute. That is between two groups of people negotiating payment and conditions for the provision of services.

However, part of the leverage in that dispute is that NZ Bus loses fare revenue when services are not provided. Yet, when it gets subsidies of, on average, $2 a passenger trip from ARTA, regardless of whether services are provided, then the main losers are Auckland ratepayers (who pay 60% of that subsidy) and motorists/commercial road transport operators (who pay 40% of the subsidy through fuel tax and RUC). It used to be that around half of all bus services in Auckland were fully commercial, in that fares more than covered costs and that the market was open to competition.

Now the proportion is much less, I have heard an estimate of around 20%, but it isn't clear. ARTA has "contracted over" commercial routes, so that one subsidised operator is paid to provide a set of routes. This effectively shuts out competition, which ARTA can prohibit if it undermines a contracted service.

Now, if NZ Bus relied wholly on fare revenue it might seek a settlement more quickly, as the business would be dependent wholly on pleasing customers, not a bunch of transport planners.