I want to vote ACT

but I'm unconvinced.

Rodney Hide's record the past three years has been bitterly disappointing.  I am glad I didn't vote ACT in 2008, for I'd be, in part, to blame for the gargantuan planners' wet dream called Auckland Council.  

However, ACT has purged Rodney Hide and installed Don Brash, a man for whom I have immense respect, a man who almost single-handedly rescued National from near oblivion to near victory in 2005 - a mission that failed because of the National Party and some ill-advised campaigning.

The candidates are largely a fairly impressive lot.  Brash and Isaac top the bill rightfully, but there are two issues.

Firstly is John Banks.  How he got admitted to be a candidate is beyond me.  Peter Cresswell says much of what I think of him.  It's not that he's a bad man, he is certainly interesting, but he is not a lover of individual freedom.   Indeed, his profligacy as Mayor (remember how he once opposed the grand plans for Auckland's rail network then supported them?) is not what you'd want from someone seeking to keep the National Party's spending in check.  Actually, as a man who held Rob Muldoon as a figure of respect, you'd already be wondering why he could ever be trusted to help reduce the size of the state, and that's ignoring his vocal and solid opposition to the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in the 1980s.  

Now it wouldn't be so bad if he was an electorate candidate in Whangarei, and lower down the list, but he isn't.  He is ACT's lifeline.  ACT is betting on him winning Epsom to stay in power, so ACT will owe John Banks everything.  Now I'd like to think the people of North Shore might choose Don Brash instead, but Banks is still number three on the list.   In other words, he is hard to hide from.

Choosing Brash as leader appears to be in part a purge of gutlessness and the remnants of pro-state conservatism, but why include John Banks?  Nobody can pretend he has a profound belief in smaller government and individual liberty.  Similarly, what delusion can ACT have that Banks is some sort of high profile "celebrity" candidate, in the mould that Hone Harawira, Jim Anderton, Winston Peters and Richard Prebble have been for minor parties before?

Let's say I swallow Banks and look at policy.  How does that look?  Let me rank the policies out of 5.  1 being virtually worthless. There are 18 policy areas, possible score of 90.

Defence - Positively allowing nuclear powered ships, and strengthening the armed forces, including rebuilding relationships with the US and Australia.  4 out of 5.

Economy - Cut spending to 29% of GDP (the level Labour left the country at in 2005), cap spending increases to inflation and GDP, cut regulation and privatise.  Hardly bold.  Nothing on flat tax. 2 out of 5.

Education - Increase school autonomy, increase state funding of independent schools, increase school choice in assessment systems, more scholarships for underprivileged children.  Less ambitious than National's 1987 manifesto.  1 out of 5

ETS - Remove agriculture from ETS and suspend the rest till majority of trading partners have caught up.  A quite respectable approach.  4 out of 5

Environment - Push road pricing, market pricing of water, support mineral exploration and "acknowledge" the role of voluntary groups.   With RMA elsewhere, this largely looks positive.  4 out of 5

Health - Encourage competition, target subsidies on the poor, reduce taxes so people can buy health insurance, review occupational licensing and reduce bureaucracy.  Promising, but a bit vague.  3 out of 5.

Immigration - Lower administrative barriers to entry, favour productive workers, ensure it is no drain on the welfare state.  Reasonably positive, although somewhat vague.  3 out of 5

Law and order - Review procedures around self-defence, consider re-introducing Sentencing Council, sanctions for prisoners who reject opportunities for rehab/education, "broken windows" approach, victims to receive reparation payments.  Nothing on victimless crimes or National's authoritarian approach to drugs.  1 out of 5.

Local government - Pressure local government to focus on core role, reduce restrictive land use planning.  Less policy than before.  Such an opportunity to reform!  1 out of 5

One law for all - Allow more choice in education and health (yet not really mentioned much in either policy), accelerate Treaty compensation process, remove RMA requirement to consult by race, no Maori seats, no local authority Maori seats and no statutory boards.  It goes much of the way there, but could be clearer. 4 out of 5

Primary industries - Reduce spending, dump ETS, streamline RMA.  It could be worse, but could include property rights as well.  3 out of 5

Regulation and red tape - Continue Productivity Commission, pass Regulatory Reform Bill, reform RMA.  Could have been a long list, but it is aiming the right direction 3 out of 5

RMA - Separate planning and approval functions from councils, limit consents fees, widen powers to order costs against objectors, increase rights to compensation from planning decisions, removing "intrinsic values" from consideration.  Nothing on property rights, but otherwise it is a positive step forward. 2 out of 5.

Spending cap - Pass Spending Cap (People's veto) Bill, promote culture change and innovative policies.  Not a lot to say about this.  A step forward, but not nearly enough. 3 out of 5.

State owned assets - continue a rational evidence based debate about the government's role?  Well yes, but you can do better than that.  Much better.  You say so in economic policy, so I will say a 3 out of 5.

Tertiary education - Remove fee caps, introduce market interest rates for student loans, open trade courses to competition, lower taxes so students can pay back loans quicker.  A useful step forward, but not more so 3 out of 5.

Transport - Invest in projects with higher benefits than costs, embrace better pricing, streamline the RMA for building infrastructure, push government to invest in any modes.   RMA streamlining shouldn't interfere with property rights, and the government should be investing less. What about the private sector?  Disappointing 2 out of 5.

Welfare - Youth minimum wage, tougher approach to welfare, reform Working for Families, and more detail.  Definitely the best thought out policy of the lot.  A generous 4 out of 5

50 out of 90.   Is that enough?

I wish I could say yes, but there are three things missing.

Property rights

Where are they? Where is putting property rights at the centre of the RMA?  This should be central to any liberal party.  They are alluded to, indirectly, but why just that?

Tax

Nothing specific about taxation, about reducing it, about flattening it.  Yes, spending caps are all very well, but there isn't even a focus on deficit elimination and then lowering taxes.  That is disappointing.

Victimless crime

I don't expect legalisation of drugs, but I do expect something to be mentioned.  I do expect a review of criminal laws to consider how there might be a reduction in regulation overall and interference in people's private lives. 

It's a shame.  I wanted to vote for ACT,  I really did.  I like Don Brash a lot.  He could make a very positive difference to a government,  but what I've seen so far is very very disappointing.  Can it be saved?

Farewell Roger Kerr - one of New Zealand's intellectual giants

I am genuinely saddened at the news of the premature passing of Roger Kerr, news we all knew would come in due course. I only met him a couple of times, and we talked about – unsurprisingly – a free market approach to transport.  He came on a march FOR capitalism, remembered my name and we had a great chat about a wide range of issues. He always was softly spoken, gentle, intelligent and played the ball, not the man.   For those unfamiliar with him, he was one of the architects of the free market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, as a public servant and then as Executive Director of the Business Roundtable.  A role that saw him receiving nasty brickbats.

I can confirm what Lindsay Mitchell said of him:

He was very experienced and accomplished. I was out of my league. But neither the audience nor myself was made to feel as though Roger was superior, above us, imbued with some god-given truth. Roger knew that persuasion meant honest and non-personal debate. In fact I think he was Mr non-Nasty. A rarity in the emotional arena of philosophical ideas.

Roger made time for people. He was humble and magnanimous. He could never have met the low standards of politicians and political debate in the house.

Cactus Kate’s comments about the strength of his writing are also true. He was one of the best writers to synthesise free market economics and public policy in a coherent, intelligent and eminently readable way:

What he leaves behind for us younger members of the VRWC is literally a lifetime of wonderfully written literature, speeches, opinion and research….It is not often in life you get to meet someone so academically smart who doesn't sit in an ivory tower on the taxpayer tit.

David Farrar has pointed out how Roger could have easily gone overseas and earned much much more money, but his interest was in New Zealand and in making New Zealand a happier, wealthier, more prosperous and free country:

Roger had a great love of New Zealand. I have no doubt he could have earnt much more money if he had not devoted the last 25 years to establishing and growing the Business Roundtable. While of course his views were controversial and often unpopular, Roger was only motivated by a genuine desire and belief that they would make New Zealand a better place.

Roger was genuinely a man who was easy to respect, whose mind was that of a giant, and who didn’t let the insults and hatred spun by some on the far left affect how he communicated. He wasn’t baited by the intellectual midgets who couldn’t respond to him with their minds, so responded to him with threats.

He lived a life of remarkable achievement, got to see his ideas implemented in many ways, and saw the fruits of it. However, there was always so much more to do. It was shown in that he blogged up to the end with a post from the 28th. He is a tremendous loss from New Zealand public life. His contribution has been immense, the likes of which puts the political circus of the election look so shallow and frankly inept.

The only wonder I have is why this man did not become Sir Roger Kerr. Given some of those who gain such a title, he is undoubtedly one of those who deserved it so much – although his own modesty and personality was hardly one of a man who demanded or expected such a thing.  He CNZM was so late,  no doubt because both National and Labour politicians were either too gutless or churlish to recognise someone who was out of their league. 

The NZ Herald has an excellent tribute to him in pictures.

However, one of the more poignant tributes come from Lindsay Perigo's interview with him earlier this year.  His introduction is written here.  

I wish his wife (former ACT President and now candidate, Catherine Isaac) , family and loved ones sincere commiserations. His legacy is one to be proud of, and his memory, influence and contribution will long be part of New Zealand’s history.

Told you so - Kiwirail's bullshit asset valuation is written down

The NZ Herald has reported that Kiwirail has proposed writing down its asset value of NZ$13 billion by NZ$6 billion, and splitting the firm into a property company (with a NZ$5 billion value for the rail corridor and land), which is essentially the old New Zealand Railways Corporation and the operating business (with a NZ$1 billion value).

I predicted this in 2009 saying:

The NZ$12 billion book value of rail on the Treasury accounts is a nonsense, equating it to all other SOEs combined (e.g. 3 power companies, Transpower, NZ Post) which all make profits. Most of the value is based on a replacement cost if it was built today, which of course would never be done. I'd argue it is probably worth 4% of that at best.

That was based on a presentation by David Heatley from the NZ Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation called"The Future of Rail in New Zealand".

I would still argue Kiwirail is grossly overvalued.  Its business and related assets are not worth NZ$1 billion, indeed they are probably about a third of that.  The value of the land is more significant, but I would question the NZ$5 billion for that, especially given the Surface Transport Costs and Charges study valued the land in 2001 as being worth NZ$462 million.   Property prices haven't inflated over 1000%.   Indeed there may be more value in the scrap of the track.

The key point is that The Treasury was being seriously disingenuous accepting that ridiculous over valuation of Kiwirail in the first place.   To consider an infrastructure business as being valued on a replacement cost basis is ludicrous, for it would see all of the electricity SOEs valued on the basis that you would - once again - build a Clyde Dam, for example.

The real asset value of Kiwirail is the optimal value that can be gained for the business either as a going concern, or if it was split and sold for the sum of its parts.   As much as there is much romanticism about it (and I carry a fair bit myself, as I have loved trains since I was a child, and have many fond memories of riding on them), that shouldn't be allowed to distort objective appreciation of what Kiwirail is as a business.

I believe it has a future, providing a core freight service on higher density lines, and given the fortune poured into the black hole of commuter rail in Auckland (and not so much in Wellington), it may as well be used for that until those assets need replacement.  However, it is telling that, at a time of high fuel prices, and with RUC rates having recently been increased, the railway still struggles.   The reasons why are partially explained by Heatley's presentation, and are in part because there simply isn't enough freight with enough frequency being moved in New Zealand on the routes serviced by railways, to make most of the lines sustainable in the long run.

Could it be that a further writedown will be on the cards, and is the reason it hasn't happened that much yet is to protect debt related to Kiwirail?

What do we want, more Nanny, we're the 0.99%

The 99%.  It's laughable and ridiculous.  The New Zealand mob is claiming it represents 99%, which obviously means it should set up a political party and then sweep to power in the November elections.  After all, with the MMP electoral system, it would mean they would have power, could pass all the laws they want, raise the taxes they want.  

Except of course, they aren't 99%, not even 9%, but quite possibly 0.99%.

More seriously, what are they about? It is very easy to dismiss them as the usual leftwing mob who demand government does more violence to the property and people of whom they don't approve.   However, there is one point - opposition to bank bailouts.

Government should not prop up business.  There shouldn't be subsidies for any businesses or protection from competition.   Corporatism should be fought.  Banks that make foolish loans that they can't recover should not have their risky behaviour bailed out by taxpayers.  That includes loans to governments.  Shareholders, bondholders and ultimately depositors should bear those losses.

Yet the "occupy" mobs think all banks are bad, they oppose capitalism and demand other people's money to pay for all the things they like.  Yet they use mobile phones invented and built by capitalists, on telecommunications networks invented by capitalists, wears clothes sold by capitalists, drinks coffee and eats food produced and sold by capitalists.   They think capitalism is bad, yet they can't conceive of what it is like to eliminate capitalism - which after all, is simply the freedom to establish your own business trading goods or services, to make a profit (or loss) and hire who you wish to supply labour.   The alternatives have tended to at best result in sclerotic stagnation, or at worst created rivers of blood.

By contrast they embrace government, the institution with the monopoly of legitimised violence.  They want new taxes, they want to take money by force from people who they think have too much.  Yet on a global average, virtually everyone in everyone developed country meets that definition.  The average GDP per capita (PPP) is US$11,000 per annum.  Every country in the European Union, every OECD country (including Turkey and Mexico), even Botswana is above that level.  By rights surely at least half of the people in those countries should have more tax taken from them, to pay for?

Public health care monopolies, education monopolies, state welfare and state make work programmes.  

They want more Nanny State and they think people who earn higher incomes will keep doing so, just to pay for what they want.  Even if they don't think that, they want to confiscate wealth and give it to the state, as a trusted party to "look after everyone".

So childlike.

Old Holborn went to visit the London mob and concluded:

Bottom line? These protesters want MORE taxes, an enlarged welfare state, a bigger Government, State jobs and death to bankers – and a bath. Marx would have been proud of them. I give them a fortnight at most. The Police have already removed the portaloos and it can’t be long before Starbucks and Pizza Express get fed up with toilets blocked by Lentil casserole and organic dysentery. As much as I hoped people had woken up from the stupor of a decade of Labour benefit addiction, the OccupyLSX protest is nothing more than a cold turkey sweat of the terminal welfare junkies.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

He also points out how intellectually inept the mob are, because they somehow think that public debt is the responsibility of capitalists:

No one has EVER forced me to buy shares. Contrast if you will, the £100,000 of PUBLIC debt carried by EVERY family in the UK, thanks to Politicians and the Central Banks raiding our currency, yet no one has demanded to occupy Parliament or the Bank of England. Germans are protesting outside the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, thousands of them who know EXACTLY where the criminals are. Us? Sitting on the steps of St Pauls Catherdral and being kettled once again by the laughing Policeman.

There are good reasons to be angry.  Angry at politicians who ran budget deficits endlessly to bribe voters with their children's and grandchildren's money, without their consent.  Angry at politicians who required banks to lend to the feckless and who ran the fiat currency system that provided an ongoing supply of credit to banks, expecting them to lend, and then who promised to save the banks when they loaned out too much.   Angry at politicians who were never straight about the ponzi schemes they created of public debt, pension and health promises.


Yet they should also be angry at themselves.  How many of them would vote for any politician who pointed out the overspending?  How many of them would vote for politicians who would let banking be free, who would let banks be very tight and conservative on credit? 

You see in a liberal democracy people are to blame for the governments they elect.  In the UK, US, EU, New Zealand, all over, the majority voted for governments that favoured some businesses over others, that spent more than they gathered in taxes, that protected some with the money of others, and which refused to say "no" when people kept wanting more and more without paying for it.

No.  They are hooked on being protected from reality, being protected from the consequences of their own decisions.  They want the government to give them jobs, give them health monopolies (anything else is like "America where people die bleeding on the streets because they don't have their credit card handy to pay the ambulance" (bullshit)), teach their kids what they should learn, give them homes, tell them what to eat, look after their families, wipe their bums.

They offer at best confused anger over a situation they don't understand.  At worst, they are a mob who want what other people have out of pure envy, and are hopelessly addicted to government fixing their problems.

In Rome they were violent criminals, hopefully this time the mobs will quietly dissipate under the contradictions of their own incredulity about economics.

Abolish child poverty by not having kids you can't afford

An Institute for Fiscal Studies report in the UK has said that government changes to welfare policy will result in it failing to meet targets to eliminate child poverty by 2020.

There is an absurd “legally binding target” to eliminate child poverty by 2020 in the UK. That in itself is a gross misuse of the law. Laws should not be passed to demand that government ensure certain social outcomes arise (there is a similar stupid law requiring the government to reduce CO2 emissions, who gets penalised if the government fails?).

Child poverty in 2021 is largely preventable now. There is no need for any children under 10 to be raised in poverty by 2021. This is my strategy for eliminating child poverty for the under 10s by 2012.

If you can’t afford to raise children then:

1. Contraception is free (taxpayer funded), use it;

2. If it fails, there is a waiting list of financially secure people ready to adopt;

3. First trimester abortions are available for free on the NHS;

So don’t have children you can’t afford.

Some people have children they can afford but circumstances change. That is not preventable, although if taxation were lower, more could afford to take out insurance to cover such situations.

Child poverty is first and foremost the responsibility of the people who brought the child into the world in the first place. Parents have the responsibility to consider how to bring up their kids, how to pay for them, how to provide them what they need.

Nothing would be more important than for government to make this, seemingly obvious point, clear.

In addition, don’t allow anyone to immigrate with children if they also cannot afford to keep them.

One way to do that would be to painlessly phase out the child benefit. Declare that one year from now, no one will get child benefit for any future children. 

Child poverty is not a disease you catch, it is not the responsibility of everyone who doesn’t have children and those who have them, who can afford them.

It wont be eradicated by governments, political parties and “charities” calling for taxpayers to be fleeced to constantly pay for people to raise children they should not have had in the first place.

Depending on government to fix a social problem is deluded and misguided. The best way government can help is to get out of the way. Make the first £10,000 EVERYONE earns be free of income tax and national insurance as a start, and stop paying people to breed.  Raise the income tax free threshold according to GDP growth every year

Steve Jobs - he lived!

So much can and is being said about Steve Jobs. Creator, businessman, salesman, innovator, capitalist. He turned computing, music, telecommunications, publishing and media all on their heads.

The likes of him does not come from the death worshipping stone age cult infested cultures that rule Iran, Afghanistan (still), Iraq (now), Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. They don’t come from the conformist, respect authority for the sake of it, what is yours is everyone’s and what is everyone’s is yours, culture that rules China. They don’t come from the “it’s my right to have what you have”, “equality above everything”, “demonise success and wealth” culture of the trade union movements. They don’t come from the technology scaremongering, armageddon chasing, state violence worshipping, new age fascists and forked tongue demagogues of the environmental movement. They don’t come from the envy dripping, reality evasive, faux “pride” and control obsessed culture embodied by the European Union and its acolytes. They don’t come from the lawless, “might is right”, “the ends justify the means”, lying, hedonistic, crass culture of nihilism seen in Russia. They don’t come from the superstition laden, misogynistic, tribal, faux nationalistic culture of willful blindness to atrocity that infests sub-Saharan African politics.

When the news is dominated by politicians who blithely borrow, tax, spend and print money that they never earned, from wealth that has nothing to do with them, with bureaucrats and commentators, keen to tell others how to live, what to do, and to control the judgments, the passions and thoughts of others. When culture is flooded with mediocrities preaching nihilistic hedonism, and generating mass market pablum that resembles other mass market pablum. When business and marketing is so utterly full of those who worship surveys, cliches, short termism, image over substance and platitudes over invention. Steve Jobs was a breath of fresh air. When he would launch something new, people would watch, because it WAS new - it WAS innovative, and it wasn't because he was looking after the "greater good", it was because he wanted Apple to sell something people would want because it was great. It so happened that millions agreed. Firms worldwide would love a Steve Jobs. A manager, who understands the detail of the products, but also design and what people would want. However, such people wont come from production line education systems or cultures of conformity or aversion to risk.

They come from a culture where individuals can be themselves, where diverse pursuits that many may seem odd, most don’t understand, can provide fertile grounds for minds, imagination, creativity and risk taking. Where those who do take risks to produce, create and sell can keep (most) of the fruits of their endeavours, and bear the consequences when they get it wrong. Where success is lauded and admired, because people see in those who climb to the top, a piece of them, of what it is to be great, to live life pursuing your dreams, your ambitions, your ideas and your passions. They aren’t there to grab their share, to chop down the tall poppy, or to demand that people exist and work for a “greater good”, for the greater good is in all individuals pursuing their dreams, and in free people interacting, sharing, relating and standing on the shoulders of the giants who make their lives that much better.

In a world where so many are obsessed with intricacies of trivia of nobodies, where so many are obsessed with what others think of them, where so many are out to force others to give them what they haven’t earned or created, and demand rights to the fruits of the minds and labour of others, Steve Jobs was none of that.

He wasn’t the nihilist who saw humanity as a problem, he wasn’t the second-hander who claimed what others had done for his own, he wasn’t living for the sake of other people, was not seeking to control the lives of others, to tell them what to do, or to tell people how to be. He was himself, he led companies that created what he thought were good products, and let them speak for themselves.

He was a man who lived his life for his own purposes, for his own dreams, and was a stunning success. The pecuniary reward he got was a tiny fraction of what he generated for Apple shareholders, Apple employees, sub-contractors and Apple customers, and indeed its competitors who have aped him, and now generate further wealth and happiness for millions.

The legacy of what he did for Apple, what he created for millions, pales in comparison to the example he created for the most fundamental thing of all – he lived.

Infrastructure for Britain - an agenda for growth

One of the themes that all party conferences have suggested so far is that the government can help the economy by spending money on infrastructure.  Certainly the Conservatives believe they are doing that.  However, there are only two major ways government can help out in this sector, and the main reasons are because it is such a hindrance more often than not.

Firstly, it can get the hell out of the way of the private sector provision of infrastructure, by not negating its private property rights or stopping it from engaging in large, profitable projects.  The key areas the private sector gets involved in are energy, airports and telecommunications, but it should also be set free to put money into roads and railways (good luck with that, by the way). 

The second way is for it to invest in the infrastructure that it happens to own and run for now, but transition that infrastructure to commercial then private ownership.  What this means is roads and railways, but could arguably even stretch into health and education (though these are so far removed from being commercial as of yet, I'll ignore that for now).

Energy

In energy, the key intervention is the effective "tax" on electricity bills imposed by electricity retailers to pay for the compulsory "sustainable" generation of electricity, at prices far in excess of efficient forms of generation. The motive behind this policy was to chase the ghost of climate change (every new Chinese coal fired power station more than destroys the reduction in CO2 by this measure) and to pursue the illusion of industrial policy.  The latter is more effectively pursued by lowering corporation tax to a level competitive with all of Europe (15%), the former shouldn't be pursued at all.   The "sustainability" agenda is costing British businesses and households, it makes electricity more expensive in the UK than it need be, and diverts investment in power generation from economically efficient (and largely environmentally friendly) sources to more ephemeral, expensive and lower capacity ones.   Modern gas and coal fired power stations produce virtually no deterioration in local air quality.  It is time to truly deregulate the energy sector.

Little need be said about the other intervention in energy, which is the absurd "windfall" tax on oil and gas exploration.  Politics winning out over economics, and jobs.  Why would Britain ever want to deter oil and gas exploration while existing North Sea fields are in decline?

Telecommunications

The key intervention here is the heavy handed regulation of OfCom which regulates, bizarrely, a mobile phone market that is vibrant with competition, and continues to intervene in the supply of telecommunications infrastructure to an extent that hinders facilities based competition.  Why should there not be competing broadband networks being developed to homes?  Why should BT's investment be forced to be shared with others?  The legacy of the twisted copper network should be all that remains as a mandatory, regulated priced shared facility - because that was the deal with privatisation.   Beyond that, the role for Ofcom is difficult to see in this sector.  It is time for a bottom up review of whether heavy handed telecommunications regulation still makes sense.

Airports

No infrastructure sector is suffering from a blindness of economic analysis or vision than this one.  With all three major parties effectively stifling growth of airports around London, you would have to assume they all think that it is time that British Airways and Virgin Atlantic simply never grew again, and that the future for air travel from Britain is based on people flying to the growing hubs of Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol, Frankfurt and Munich airports, and to fly on Air France/KLM and Lufthansa, or better yet fly from regional airports to hubs in Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, on airlines owned by authoritarian misogynistic oil-rich plutarchies.   For that is the future guaranteed by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted could all be expanded, today, with private money.  For a government willing to run roughshod over NIMBYs in building its own taxpayer funded totem - HS2 - to kowtow to NIMBYs in rural Essex, west London and west Sussex is hypocritical and economic lunacy.   The arguments against it on climate change grounds are again nonsensical in the context of new airports springing up in China, and the expansion of Heathrow's competing hubs in continental Europe.  Why should European (and Middle Eastern) airlines gain such capacity, but British ones not? 

Stansted is the easiest to expand, the land is held by BAA, the transport links to it are good, and it would facilitate a transfer of some low-cost airline traffic from Gatwick.  There is no sound reason to continue to restrict capacity there. 

Gatwick suffers from 32 year old planning decision to not build a second runway before 2019.  Given the lead times for such projects, it should be made clear that this will be supported.  Gatwick is a mini hub for BA and Virgin Atlantic, and is useful for leisure routes short and long haul, that are less suited to Heathrow, as well as servicing the southeast.

However, it is Heathrow where the need is greatest.  Unless the government were to treat a new Thames Estuary Airport as a grand project (which would have to be part funded by property development at the current Heathrow site and a tax on the property value gains for those on Heathrow flight paths), Heathrow is Britain's international hub airport.  Transit traffic does benefit Britain, enormously, because it makes routes to destinations that would otherwise be marginal, profitable, by feeding in passengers from North America and Europe. A third runway would alleviate the chronic delays in both takeoffs and landings that waste fuel, time and increase pollution.   However, most of all it would allow Britain's premium airlines to grow, to add more routes, more frequencies and compete with Air France/KLM, the Lufthansa group, Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, United Airlines and others.  It would generate employment not only from construction, but in airlines and the airport itself, but more importantly by lowering the cost of travel and freight for British based businesses and residents.

Let's not continue the lie that high speed rail, which wouldn't be finished for 15 years, would make any meaningful difference, given 96% of flights at Heathrow are not on routes serviceable by domestic rail services.  Let's also admit that the business case for Crossrail was partly based on providing better connections between Heathrow and the City, Canary Wharf and east London.

Railways

The one sector where private investment is almost certainly unlikely to be seen on any great scale, is in rail infrastructure.  With the network not well priced, it should be getting run on a commercial basis so that the franchisees of the future pay demand based prices for scarce slots.  Expansion of the West Coast Main Line should be funded not by taxpayers, but by Network Rail borrowing against future revenues.  High speed rail should be considered on the same basis, but it wont be - because it would never be built.  The government is taking steps to correct the excessive subsidies in this sector, but it should be considered, along with reforms of the roads sector, for commercialisation.

Roads

There will be a handful of opportunities for the private sector to develop new toll roads (e.g. another Dartford Crossing), and it should be set free not only to respond to government proposals,  but to generate its own.  If a company wants to build a new London south circular, why shouldn't it feel free to plan a route, buy land, build and toll it - for example.

However, there needs to be a more fundamental change.  In France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Taiwan and China, major highways are frequently privately owned.  In the UK, the motorway network should be sold, and local authorities required to put local roads into commercial structures.   Roads should be funded through borrowing, paid back through tolls, or (for now) fuel tax revenue.  Given motorists pay five times as much in motoring taxes as they get in government spending, arguments about the private sector ripping off motorists are derisive.  Then let the privately owned networks contract directly with motorists, who could choose to pay tolls or pay fuel tax, and watch there be enough funding for road maintenance and improvements - whilst introducing road pricing in a non-intrusive, cost-effective and low risk way. 

Furthermore, there needs to be a culture change that rejects the failed 13 year policy of allowing road projects to be cancelled, and the land acquired for them sold - which has destroyed opportunities for improved corridors in London.   The answer to traffic congestion is not to stop improving roads for fear it will generate traffic, but to improve pricing (toll new capacity).  In that light, Transport for London should start developing a strategy on capacity of London's arterial road network, instead of considering the network as static.

Conclusion

Sadly, this government has shown little real interest in being revolutionary on infrastructure.  Energy and telecommunications policies are largely a continuity of the previous administration.  Airports policy is anti-growth and says the government has little real interest in the growth of that sector, other than for regional airports being served by foreign carriers.   Railways policy has some promise, but is overshadowed by the ridiculous totem of HS2 - a project to provide massive subsidies to business people based in London travelling to the north, which wont deliver most of what is promised.  Roads policy shows a little promise, but needs radical governance reform, which is seen by the almost Soviet-era handling of maintenance.

It is time to get government out of the way of infrastructure investors, and to stop crowding them out.  Furthermore, it is likely to destroy wealth through projects such as HS2 and the fascination with inefficient energy generation sources.  It should allow more airport capacity around London, it should move rail investment onto a longer term, commercial basis, and should shift the road network onto a commercial basis as well.  Now is the time to be brave.

Leninism loses as students get freedom of choice

Finally, you are allowed to.  An issue I have followed for some time.

Despite the Orwellian double-speak of the compulsion touters, a majority finally appeared in Parliament to eliminate one of the most absurd authoritarian laws in the country - the one that demands that university students belong to and pay for a student union to represent them and provide services, whether or not they actually want it.

The critical central focus of the argument on this issue is one of whether rights reside in an individual or a collective.  Indeed this argument is one of the last gasps of true Leninism in New Zealand politics.  Some on the left argued that student unions are akin to "government" and that making them voluntary is akin to making tax voluntary.

When the Greens,  or the Labour Party would talk about "what students want", they weren't talking about individuals, they were talking about the people who students have been forced to pay for, and forced to have represent them.   Neither party, nor their philosophical comrades in the student unions could conceive that it was right for students to be represented, not by themselves making informed choices about whether or not to be represented at all, and if so, by whom, but by organisations that they were forced to belong to.  It had the odour of the people's democracy approach of one-party states that there need only be one party which represents "the people", not any others, because as long as it represents "the people" and "the people" are forced to support it, then how could it do wrong.

Well human beings do not have collective brains, they do not have a "general will", they are individuals.  They can make their own choices, and if most students do not want anything to do with a student union, then to demand them to belong and pay for it, is simply a form of petty authoritarianism.

Of course the true reason Labour and the Greens love the student unions is because they have been fertile, compulsorily funded training grounds for their junior politicians.   As most students are more interested in studying and their own lives, they ignore student politics, so the ones who often have been involved have tended to be those from the left who find warmth, comfort and friendship among the like minded.

The left thinks student unions will disappear, which speaks volumes about how much confidence they have that students actually value them.  When the heavy hand of state violence is taken away from students, the left is scared that they will run away from their comrades in the student unions.  If a student union can present itself as a body that offers services, opportunities and representation that students want, they will join.  If not, it will fail.

It is Labour, the Maori Party and the Greens who don't want their comrades to fail, who want people to be forced to pay for what they don't want or even hate.   No longer will the "anti-ANZAC Day" appeasers of Nazism, communism and Islamism be able to claim they represent students.

As a footnote, some time ago I asked what National MPs would vote it and vote against it.  I can't wait to find out who, if any National MPs disgraced themselves by being Leninists.

Calling the Euro project for what it is

On BBC's Newsnight, the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne confronts a European Commission bureaucrat (Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio) for his defence of the Euro being a great success, because it is a "political project" not an "economic project". Calling him an idiot, and then he proves it.

He said the UK had a budget deficit the same size as Greece, yet ignored that Greece's public debt was already two-thirds greater (per capita) than the UK, and the Pound had devaluated during the recession allowing exporters to become more competitive and reducing imports.  Greece had no such devaluation.  The comparison is meaningless.  He claims the Euro has "protected" economies, even though it has clearly damaged the prospects for the poorer southern economies.

Then former editor of the FT, Sir Richard Lambert is confronted for having supported Britain joining the Euro some years ago, claiming "the facts changed" when it was France and Germany breaking the rules in the first place (as if Britain would have been able to respond to that).   Peter Oborne then gets his back up because he is confronted with a book about the mistake it would have been to join the Euro by claiming that the title "Guilty Men" means Peter Oborne equates Angela Merkel with the Nazis - an emotive non-sequiter.   Then Lambert proves Oborne right by saying Germany should support Greece withdrawing from the Euro.

Oborne calls the bureaucrat idiot enough times that he storms out of the studio in Brussels.  

It's rather simple, the bureaucrats in Brussels, and the primarily French and German politicians pursuing their grand political project, have caused immense damage and they are unwilling to do what is needed to fix it.  Their only answer is more tax, fiscal union and to print more good money after bad to prop up a failed single currency project.

Watch and if you're not from the UK, note how television journalism can be professional, can have people with wildly differing views and be compelling.

Labour's lying, bullying, hectoring self is back

In the UK, the party conference season is rather curious, as all three major parties present themselves to themselves and the nation as offering solutions, answers and a critique about what is wrong with Britain.

The Liberal Democratic Party - the party without any coherent purpose - was patronising in it presenting itself as "In Government, On Your Side", as if the Conservatives are not.   However, it was more curious to watch senior Lib Dem MPs be reminded that they advocated Britain joining the Euro some years ago, as did the entire party.  None of them are willing to confess how wrong they were, and although there was a plea that the relationship with Europe cannot be abandoned, they all know they are on the wrong side of history.  Neither the party of economic responsibility, nor the party (anymore) of spending promises they need never consider having to keep, they face oblivion.

However now it is Labour - New New Labour.  The Labour of Ed Miliband, the unions' choice for leader.  The party that on the one hand opposes every single cut in growth of spending of the current government, has its Shadow Chancellor say "we wont promise to reverse any of the cuts".   The party that blames "the banks" for budget deficits, yet was running structural (non recession based) budget deficits every year after the 2001 election.  A small fraction of the government's public debt is attributable to bank bailouts, most of it is due to overspending over many years.   The party that in government loved the high tax revenues from a thriving financial services sector, now declares open war on it - even wanting a discriminatory company tax rate on that sector alone.   The party that in government happily schmoozed the entire news media, now declares war on one firm that owns two daily newspapers and one TV news network, calling it, bizarrely a "monopoly" (ignoring its ever beloved compulsorily funded dominant national broadcaster - the BBC).

A series of speeches have revealed more about how nasty, vindictive and utterly specious and false the British Labour Party is, and how willling it is to lie about the past and create a simplistic binary culture of "us and them" to fire up its drones, and those who it has nurtured to suckle on the state tit.

Ed Balls said that Britain entered the financial crisis with lower public debt than the US, France, Germany and Japan.  He picked those carefully.  The US, which had ballooning debt due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Bush's legacy of bribing the electorate with money.  France, which has not run a budget surplus for two generations.  Germany, which has had a legacy of reunification that it is addressing through growth, and Japan, which has been stagnant for well over a decade.  The UK actually had a higher budget deficit than all of them.   However, Labour likes to mix up the words debt and deficit, because too many journalists are too stupid to know the difference, but some are not.   Ed Balls pointedly refused to engage with Channel 4 journalist, Krishnan Guru-Murphy about why Labour ran a structural deficit for so many years.  

Like a vampire, Ken Livingstone, good friend of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's authoritarian socialist President, made a speech making promises to cut public transport fares, with no money to pay for it.   He wouldn't dare discuss raising council tax, which is his main source of income.  Then he dares compare the obnoxious antics of the Bullingdon Club of Oxford, which Mayor Boris Johnson once  belonged to, to the rioters.  Given Ken blamed the riots on spending cuts before, he is a dirty politician, an apologist for criminality and an opportunist.

Then Labour rolled out Rory Weal.  A fifteen year old.  Who pleaded about how the welfare state saved his family, about the family home being repossessed, with childish hyperboles about how the welfare state is being "destroyed" by the "vicious Tories", not noting it remains the highest item of state spending.  He went on about what would be done if he couldn't afford to go to school.  Well the Daily Mail has revealed what a ruse that was.  Rory is the son of a millionaire property investor whose business went bust, and the homes repossessed went for £359,000 and £500,000 each, now he lives in a 4 bedroom home with his mother and sister.   Hard life I think not, but good propaganda while it lasted. 

Less publicity was given for Ivan Lewis, Labour's shadow culture secretary, who called for licensing of journalists.  Continuing to claim that News Corporation is dominant in a market where others have the vast majority of readers and audiences, he wanted a system to "strike off" journalists who commit "gross malpractice".  Of course before that he said free speech was "non-negotiable", except it obviously is?  What happens to a journalist struck off who write a story for a newspaper, or a blog, or a broadcaster?  Rupert Murdoch was told that he cannot "assert political power in the pursuit of your commercial interests or ideological beliefs", how about the owners of the Guardian, or the Independent, how about the state as owner of dominant broadcasters BBC and Channel 4?  As Allister Heath said today:

journalism is a trade, not a profession; the idea that its practitioners should be licensed, that it should be a closed shop that only people who have passed a test can enter; and that a politically created quango can determine who is “right” and who is “wrong” and should therefore be banned is appalling and dangerous. It is a sure route to eliminating free speech and ensuring that only “approved” views can be aired.

However, it was Ed Miliband who has topped it off.  Talking about "good" and "bad" businesses, about "predators".  After citing only one example (a care home firm bought by a private equity fund that sold properties off), he and his acolytes couldn't name others.   He talks about a "a something for nothing culture" yet it was Labour that celebrated the growth of the welfare state, that never questioned allowing people from across the EU to come to Britain to suckle from the British taxpayer for a free home, income, education for the kids and healthcare.  He talks about the "the people who don’t make a fuss, who don’t hack phones, loot shops, fiddle their expenses, or earn telephone number salaries at the banks"... "the hard-working majority who do the right thing".

Who stood up for phone hacking, or looters?  How many Labour MPs fiddled expenses?  How are people who earn large salaries at banks NOT hard working?

Labour's new scapegoats are people who work at banks.  Ed Miliband's attitude is effectively to let the City of London go, to gut the financial sector of the country. 

He talks of "An economy and a society too often rewarding not the right people with the right values, but the wrong people with the wrong values.  Who are the right and wrong ones Ed?  Who is going to tell?  You? What are you going to do about it?  What is a "fast buck"?  What sort of regulatory environment will you create to make sure the economy and society reward "the right people"?  How do you know best?  He says "we must punish those who do wrong".  What is "wrong" to you Ed?  Given you support a 50p top tax rate, presuming earning more than £150,000 is "doing wrong".

He said "You believe rewards should be for hard work. But you’ve been told we have to tolerate the wealthiest taking what they can."  Taking?  Is it taking when you get paid a salary for hard work, or get a profit from a business that is thriving? 

Well here are presumably bad businesses "Big vested interests like the energy companies have gone unchallenged, while you’re being ripped off."  Unchallenged Ed?  You mean like how when YOU were Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for 1.5 years?  You mean when you implemented policies that force electricity customers to pay extra to subsidise the uneconomic renewable energy programme you forced on the energy companies to meet your fatuous commitment to hindering Britain's economy to let China grow unchecked and not address climate change. "

"So let’s break the dominance of the big energy companies. Let’s call a rigged market what it is. And get a fairer deal for the people of Britain." The six Ed?  The "rigged market" you were happy to support as Secretary for Energy?  Are you going to the Competition Commission about this, or just making up accusations again?

He claims Sir Fred Goodwin was paid too much when RBS collapsed, so will he be in favour of laws restricting executive pay?  How many businesses will want to stay in the UK after that?

He says "Are you on the side of the wealth creators or the asset strippers? The producers or the predators".  Who wants to wait until they are accused of being the wrong sort of business? What does that even mean?  Does it mean that when a factory shuts down, nobody should sell off the remaining assets for what they are worth?   Rory Weal's father was a speculator, he presumably wasn't a "producer" or "wealth creator".  He got loans to buy lots of properties and when the market turned, the bank foreclose and sold the properties for much less than he had paid for them.  The bank lost out because of his foolishness.   He was exactly what Labour opposes.

He cites "good businesses" which happen to be dependent on state contracts like "companies like Bombardier and BAe systems. Being sold down the river by this Government."  So Ed wants more defence spending?  He wants to break EU rules on government procurement and competitive tendering, to destroy a system that Labour set up for it to buy railway rolling stock in government?  He implies that Nick Clegg should intervene - parochial politics should win out over economic rationalism.

He said of the next Labour government "That we will manage your money properly".  Why?:  Whose money is it?  Who asked you to manage their money?  Did you fail to do so over the previous 13 years?

Finally, he tops it off with his worship at the altar of Britain's greatest religion.  The NHS, the biggest health authority in the world, and the second biggest government agency in the world that is not in China. He loves the religion so much he would sacrifice everything for it by saying:

"no greater public interest than our National Health Service" So if Hitler had won the war, but set up the NHS it would have been the top priority?

"Cherished by all of us". Bullshit

"Founded by Labour. Saved by Labour. Today defended by Labour once again" Ignoring the Tories are spending the same as you promised to spend. 

"Why does Britain care so much for the NHS?" Because you treat it as a religion that anyone who attacks it should be pilloried as a blasphemer?

"Because, more than any other institution in our country, the values of the NHS are our values. It doesn’t matter who you are. Or what you earn. The NHS offers the highest quality care when we need it" Bullshit.  I know of several who would have faced months of pain and agony on the NHS who went private.  It is not the highest quality, it does not have people coming from overseas to pay for it.

"And nobody asked me for my credit card at the door" What other public health systems do Ed? 

So let's really lie profoundly Ed "Hospitals to be fined millions of pounds if they break the rules of David Cameron’s free-market healthcare system. The old values that have failed our economy now being imported to our most prized institution: the NHS."  Free market healthcare system?  Really? So I can stop paying for the NHS and buy healthcare from whoever I like?  Oh no.  It's not.  It is like claiming North Korea has a free press.  The reforms, as little as they are, are not free market, but they are about putting accountability into this institution of centralised socialism, this monolith of bureaucracy, buck-passing and producers' interests.

You see the NHS exemplifies the "something for nothing", "vested interest", "cartel", "unaccountable" culture Miliband talks about, but it is his cherished state entity.  The NHS can do no wrong, it should just get hundreds of billions of money to just keep doing as it does, allocating health care by bureaucratic/political fiat, giving people health care regardless of who they are or where they came from, whether they are taxpayers, illegal immigrants or criminals.  It exemplifies Labour values - an international class centrally planned taxpayer funded monopoly dominated by strong professional unions, with no ethos of efficiency or customer service.

You might wonder if Ed has dreams of the same for journalism, energy, the financial sector or other parts of the economy.

Ed Miliband and his team have shown themselves for what they are.  A bunch of leftwing authoritarians, who want to label businesses as "good" and "bad",   Who talk of fiscal responsibility, but oppose any cuts in spending.   He wants rules on executive pay and rates bankers who earn large salaries alongside looters.   He wants to break up a "cartel" in energy and regulate prices, while (ignoring that he was once in charge of this sector) celebrating the health cartel of the NHS and lying blatantly about the severely cauterised reforms being implemented.  He wouldn't know a free market if it danced in front of him.  He talks of good businesses who are being let down, because the government didn't spend enough money it doesn't have, on them, or rig the rules to favour them.   

Most astonishingly, he almost completely ignores the global economic crisis.  One that was not saved by the pseudo-Keynesianism embraced by his party, one that the EU is mismanaging and which he is clueless about.

Labour's lying and spinning was legendary under Tony Blair, it continues with aplomb.  Lying about the budget deficit, lying about NHS reforms, lying about the "monopoly" and "dominance" of Rupert Murdoch (which was just great when NewsCorp papers loved Labour) and finally having a kid lie about his family's "poverty", when the kid's father exemplified exactly what Labour (now) despises in business.

It is a party of authoritarianism.  It likes to spend other people's money, like to tell businesses what to do.  It likes having a punitive tax on the financial sector.  It damns private equity firms generically, because it neither understands them, nor does its drones of envy dripping supporters.   The latter was perfectly exemplified by a chap from "the North" on BBC's Newsnight angrily demanding money from "the bankers who created this recession" and blaming everything bad on the Tories.  Angry, vacuous, intellectually dishonest.

I'll leave the end once again to Allister Heath:

Liberalism is dead in the Labour party: it believes in telling people who can and cannot be journalists, what is and what isn’t morally acceptable, and levying arbitrary double and triple-taxes on people it doesn’t like. Unfortunately, it has also lost touch with economic reality. The only good businesses Miliband mentioned were “real engineering” companies and those who “train, invest, invent, sell” (anybody knows a single firm that doesn’t do at least two or three of these?). The only “good companies” he mentioned by name were Bombardier and BAE Systems; the only business leader he name-checked was Sir John Rose, ex boss of Rolls-Royce. All three are long-established, manufacturers and sell lots to governments; I have nothing against them but it says a lot about Miliband’s priorities. What about the dominant services sector? And aren’t all firms that follow the law, create jobs and thus fund HMRC “good”? The only other firms he likes are small businesses “who can’t get a loan” (what about those that can?).

Labour has abandoned Blairism and is once again a party of the old left. Miliband has no credible plan whatsoever to boost the UK’s growth and competitiveness. How incredibly depressing."

Sloppy Dominion Post

I don't know Bronwyn Torrie, but her article called Councillor headed for North Korea demonstrates once again my point that journalism in New Zealand is hard to find.

She should be ashamed, the article should be withdrawn and rewritten.

The story is about how the Deputy Mayor of Porirua City Council has been invited to North Korea by the regime.  She is going paying 40% of the cost of the trip herself, the rest paid for by North Korea's useful idiots in New Zealand, the wholly sympathetic Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)- New Zealand Friendship Society.

Bronwyn's first faux pas is in calling it the "Korea-New Zealand" Friendship Society, as if there is one Korea.  Her second one is failing to do any research on it, otherwise she would have found out that the Society is very pro-North Korean.  Its own website admits this with the vapid comment "We were impressed by the DPRK position of forming an independent political philosophy and system which was Korean".  Impressed by the Orwellian pseudo-Stalinist ultra nationalist, ultra-militarism behind the most pervasive and absurd personality cult ever known?  Oh please.  Wouldn't have taken long to find that gem Bronwyn.   I can excuse that she didn't do the research to reveal that Society Chairman Don Borrie (who has visited North Korea many times) praised Kim Il Sung publicly in the 1970s in a book published in North Korea a copy of which resides in the Victoria University of Wellington library.

However, it is after she has reported the basic "ins and outs" of the story that she makes the biggest and most embarrassing amateur mistakes:

She said "Relations between North Korea and New Zealand have been cool since Kiwi troops fought to prevent South Korea falling to communism in the 1950s.

Relations became more frosty when North Korea began testing nuclear weapons in 2006."

What? So New Zealand's relations with North Korea were worse when it had diplomatic relations (which it did in 2006) than when it was fighting with the UN Police Action to overthrow the DPRK after it invaded the south.  How could it be MORE frosty when New Zealand had diplomatic relations from 2001 (which were suspended in 2006) compared to fighting a war?

"The North Asian country has been largely closed off from the rest of the world since it became a communist state in 1948."

Well Bronwyn, it didn't exist before being a communist state in 1948.  There was no "DPRK" or "North Korea", there was Korea, indeed the north was claimed by the Republic of Korea which was declared weeks beforehand.  Better to say that "after it was formed as a result of the division of Korea by the Soviet refusal to recognise the government in Seoul" beforehand.

Other statements were correct, but then she comes out with this banality:

"foreigners have to gain permission to enter the country"

Wow, amazing.  Like getting a visa?  Like you need to do for China and Russia?  Like permission you get at every single border control point?  With the exception of the Schengen area in Europe and the British-Irish border, this isn't unusual.  Do you really expect to enter most countries without visas?

Finally, she finishes with this awful statement:

"Although the New Zealand Government opposes North Korea's regime, politicians have made visits there".

Bronwyn.  Where did you get this from? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade?  The Minister of Foreign Affairs?  Your own laptop? How does the government "oppose" the regime? Do you think the DPRK would maintain relations with a country that "opposes" it?  How do you think the Ambassador from the DPRK accredited to New Zealand would take this report?

This article is best when it is reporting the basics, but it falls apart when Bronwyn tries to write about history or politics.  It has mistakes akin to a high school newspaper.

It's just another reason why New Zealand newspapers are NOT world class, indeed articles like this are simply unprofessional.

Shame on you Bronwyn Torrie, shame on the editors for letting this get published.

Brash and cannabis UPDATED

I voted for ACT, once, in 2006.  It has disappointed me consistently since.

In 2006 I suggested to Rodney Hide to invite Don Brash to stand in 2008.  Well Don is standing now, without Rodney.

In 2005 I suggested Rodney Hide campaign in that election on legalising cannabis.  I was ignored.  Now Don is doing it.

The arguments in favour of it then are still valid now:

"ACT needs to be more than the party of Business Roundtable economics - sound though that is.

It needs to sell freedom...

Why?

Because there is nothing more fundamentally liberal, than asserting that adults own their own bodies, and have the right to ingest a substance on their own private property without the state criminalising them for it...

The Economist called for this two years ago - hardly a newspaper of the lunatic fringe."

As I said then, this move changes the political landscape.  A position monopolised by leftwing authoritarians (the Greens) is now taken by a party that has long purported to believe in freedom.   ACT can advocate for a change in cannabis laws based on principle as well as pragmatism.

It may risk a loss of conservative votes, but they will go to National anyway.  Brash can minimise it by being himself.  Hardly a dope-head, he can argue, convincingly, that the status quo has failed and that the problems of cannabis are better addressed by:

- Employers retaining the right to require testing under employment contracts;

- Drug testing as part of road safety legislation;

- Strict enforcement of laws against supplying to minors;

- Encouragement of educational and health measures warning of the health risks.

Don Brash in recent weeks has come out in favour of replacing the RMA with a property rights based approach, including putting such rights in the Bill of Right, ending Auckland's experiment with US style "new-urbanism", which is about restricting the supply of housing that people want, to encourage people to buy the housing the planners want, to use the transport they are making everyone else pay for.

These are great leaps forward for ACT in terms of being a party that believes in individual rights and individual freedoms.   I look forward to more!

UPDATED:  Unsurprisingly, ACT's replacement for Rodney Hide -John Banks - is having none of it.  It raises the obvious point, that for ACT to return to Parliament and actually be in favour of freedom, it is far better for North Shore voters to elect Don Brash and for Epsom voters to not vote for John Banks.   If ACT is going to have a purge of its anti-freedom factors then the man who left Auckland with huge public debt, and who voted against the legalising of consensual adult homosexual acts is hardly going to be any help.

Why is the left scared of the Tea Party?

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne, is a Liberal Democrat Minister. He has presided over policies that inflate electricity prices (by forcing power companies to spend money on highly expensive "sustainable" power stations and charging consumers for it) and constrain the British economy so that China, India and the Arab oil sheikhdoms can increase CO2 emissions as much as they want. A month after the general election last year, when he campaigned with leaflets showing him with his wife and family, he was found to be having an affair. His estranged wife has claimed he pressured people to take penalty points for driving "for him", this matter is still with the Police. So he's quite a character.

Now he has attacked the "Tea Party tendency" in the Conservative Party, and so is calling up the demons painted by many others on the left, assisted by the left-leaning media (The Guardian, The Independent, BBC, ITN), that the Tea Party is a group of racist, theocratic, gun-toting nutters.  What he says he means is opposing those who want to renegotiate the UK relationship with the EU.  Yes, astonishing stuff - especially given the Labour Party in the early 1980s wanted the UK to withdraw completely.  That's called the Tea Party to the Liberal Democrats!

There are many Tea Parties, but their common theme is not racism against Barack Obama, it is not religious fundamentalism, it is not ultra-conservative views about sex, sexuality or religion. It is a belief in small government, fiscal responsibility and lower taxes.

Daniel Hannan, rightly identifying himself as the most like "Tea Party" oriented elected Conservative, says:

The Tea Party, perhaps more than any other contemporary movement, brings out the 'Yeah, but what they're really saying…' tendency...Many Lefties pretend – or perhaps have genuinely convinced themselves – that the Tea Party is clandestinely protesting against immigration or abortion or the fact of having a mixed race president; anything, in fact, other than what it actually says it's against, viz big government. The existence of a popular and spontaneous anti-tax movement has unsettled the Establishment. They'd much rather deal with a stupid and authoritarian Right than with a libertarian one. Hence the almost desperate insistence that the Tea Partiers have some secret agenda

You see to argue against smaller government and lower taxes would require some thinking, and justification as to why government is better at doing some things than the private sector, and why politicians and bureaucrats are better placed to spend your money than you are. That requires arguing on a point of principle. Far easier to just engage in scatological rhetoric, just make things up, or to claim it is some sort of corporate conspiracy that has fooled the stupid (or rather the poor bedraggled working classes the left love - when the vote correctly).

A solid argument between more and less government, more or less taxes would be healthy, and would involve challenging status quo politics.  It hasn't been had in the US, as Ronald Reagan was severely limited about what he could do, as he had a Democrat House of Representatives, and both Bushes have been decidedly uninterested about shrinking government. 

So the left should embrace that debate.  Give up its cheap empty and childish shots of racism and jingoistic smears and their own form of bigotry against ordinary people (many with limited education) who actually want to be left alone by the government.   Their patronising disdain, and unconcealed hatred for those trying to change the terms of political debate (the Vice President called them "terrorists" for wanting to constrain government spending), shows fear about engaging with the fundamental point.   It should be the core issue about politics in any liberal democracy.  It isn't minutiae about education or environmental or health or transport policies.

It is - what should be the role of the state?

From that, come the question about whether there is too much or too little involvement in specific areas.  However, that is the debate that is the nexus dividing politics in the US today.

It is about time that it became the very issue that politics elsewhere was based upon as well.

Time for Assange's defenders to apologise

You've been backing an evil, self-aggrandising cunt.

Time for Keith Locke to resign, and for the Green Party to apologise, for their sycophantic embrace of this vile little man.

Time for the vapid conspiracy theory making tabloid scatologist Bomber Bradbury to apologise, and the smug Idiot Savant to do so as well.

Julian Assange had his moment in the sun about a year or so ago, when he was heralded as a hero by his publishing of stolen US diplomatic communications.  

Of course Assange has an agenda, I made that point late last year.  It is avowedly contrary to that of US and Western foreign policy, so like the vacuous kneejerk activists as they are, the hard left feted him as a "freedom fighter".   He fitted their world view beautifully. He was fighting the power, he was showing up how arrogant the US is, about its plans around the world, about its private meetings with diplomats, politicians and businesspeople.  Good old Julian, fuck the USA right?

Well I said a few weeks ago that he has published the names of anti-government activists in Iran and China, and informants from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Now it looks a lot worse.  Nick Cohen in the Observer has written further about how vile Assange really is.  He talks of the David Leigh/Luke Harding book Wikileaks with this story.

"A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths."

See for Assange, members of the TALIBAN are more moral than people who oppose them and support the US in opposing them.  Think about how much blind hatred is behind that view of his, how the worshippers of the dark ages, of totalitarian terror, of misogynistic tyranny are better than their opponents.

Then there is Assange's relationship with Israel Shamir, a friend of the Belarus dictatorship:

"On 19 December 2010, the Belarus-Telegraf, a state newspaper, said that WikiLeaks had allowed the dictatorship to identify the "organisers, instigators and rioters, including foreign ones" who had protested against rigged elections."

Nice that, of course this shouldn't surprise you.  Israel Shamir  (not his real name) was appointed as the Wikileaks Russian/Eastern European representative.  Shamir collaborated with the Lukashenko dictatorship in Belarus - Europe's last dictatorship, one that is little different from the USSR.   Shamir is anti-semitic, moving among such groups in eastern Europe.   Nice touch, means Israel can be so much easier to attack when you ask if you can get everything the State Department has "on the Jews".

Cohen says it goes further, as Wikileaks endangered opposition journalists in Ethiopia:

"Argaw Ashine fled the country last week after WikiLeaks revealed that the reporter had spoken to an official from the American embassy in Addis Ababa about the regime's plans to intimidate the independent press. WikiLeaks also revealed that a government official told Arshine about the planned assault on opposition journalists. Thus Assange and his colleagues not only endangered the journalist. They tipped off the cops that he had a source in the state apparatus."

Freedom fighters? No. Assange is uninterested in political freedom.  It's far from clear that he even understands it.  He is a the small town boy desperate for attention.

Cohen demands that his supporters be confronted and held to account:

"First, there needs to be relentless pressure on the socialist socialites and haggard soixante-huitards who cheered Assange on. Bianca Jagger, Jemima Khan, John Pilger, Ken Loach and their like are fond of the egotistical slogan "not in my name." They are well-heeled and well-padded men and women who know no fear in their lives. Yet they are happy to let their names be used by Assange as he brings fear into the lives of others."

Some are empty heads, others are typical left wing no thinkers.  However, it's hard to beat Bomber for the utterings of hyperbolic vacuity:

"Assange and wikileaks will be seen as a threat that needs utter annihilation because he disrupts the balance of power in a way no person ever has".

Bomber's an idiot, but Assange is a vile evil little prick who revels in his celebrity status, whose kiddi-socialism has gained him lots of sycophantic followers with similar levels of adolescent simplicity in their beliefs.   The types that attack the West, while living in it, because they like to be rebels, they want to believe that politicians don't tell you everything, that there are grand conspiracies between business, government and media to make sure you don't know the truth.  They ignore real dictatorships because that's not counter-establishment enough, after all the US, Europe and other Western countries already oppose Syria, Belarus, North Korea and the Taliban. 

I hope Wikileaks goes under, I hope Assange loses it all and has to get a real job, and I hope his vapid sycophants apologise for supporting this monster.  Then I hope they give donations to Reporters Without Borders to atone for their stupidity, and start supporting people who do support freedom.