RMA replacements "look like an improvement (which wouldn't be difficult), but it still relies excessively on trusting politicians"

"[T]he replacement of the RMA, it looks like an improvement (which wouldn't be difficult), but it still relies excessively on trusting politicians to protect property rights.

"There is clearly potential for improvement, but I fear that National Policy Statements, once the other lot get into power, could make it all much worse, by having a nationwide de-growth approach to put development into sclerosis. Chris Bishop and Simon Court talk a lot about private property rights, but it's unclear quite how important they are [here'.

"Certainly on the face of it, this isn't a reform that puts private property rights first. It could have, but the idea that MfE (which didn't exist before 1986) would ever do that or that an expert group dominated by planning lawyers would propose that, is a stretch.

"More simply there does not need to be any kind of 'resource management' law. There should be property law protecting people from infringements of property, and there are commons (that aren't going anywhere soon) that need protection from tort and nuisance from private property."

~ Liberty Scott 

A coward's budget [updated]

The New Zealand Government's gross debt — the amount taxpayers must service — will now increase by another $73b by 2029, reaching a massive $283b.  That's $94,000 for every New Zealand family (with nearly $6000 of that just to pay the government's interest!).

Things are desperate. It's the middle year of an election cycle. Time for something bold.

No?

No.

Its not about doing more with less, or vainly trying to to. It's about doing less with less. Less with our money.

Ms Willis has failed us on both counts.

Let me give you two examples. (Three Four if you count my polite suggestion yesterday to gradually raise superannuation age, and include Lindsay Mitchell's today to time-limit welfare assistance.")

Several years ago when Helen Clark's Labour Party was about to lose an election , then Finance Minister Michael Cullen placed a fair proportion of New Zealanders onto welfare. His Welfare for Working Families programme made sure that, until ended, more than half of the country will now be beneficiaries. On the mooch. More than half of the country pulling down more from other taxpayers than they can ever give back.

This National Party Finance Minister could have done nothing with the programme — allowing inflation to make the maximum threshold for the programme dissolve.

She could have ended it altogether — signalled in good time, of course, to let folk plan ahead — but ending it could have saved $2.5-3billion. 

Instead, she raised that threshold below which working families get welfare. Around 142,000 New Zealand families. Which means even more working New Zealanders will continue to be moochers off (further normalising the behaviour perpetuating the Welfare State).

Many years ago a National Party Finance Minister introduced an Accommodation Supplement to, supposedly, help out poorer renters. Of course, it did nothing of the sort: instead if helped out their landlords, who could simply raise their rents to meet this new "supplemental" monetary demand for their supply. The Supplement — a grant to landlords — currently costs around $5 billion.

This National Party Finance Minister could have announced a lowering of the Supplement, saving some of those billions.

She could have announced it would end altogether, saving them all (while lowering rents). Instead, another expensive, destructive market-distorting subsidy continues.

I highlight these two measures because, for all Nicola Willis's hand-wringing about being prudent, about being responsible, about needing to achieve a surplus — and with the economic system flatlining while government debt vaults up decade by decade, bold measures to get there are not just a nice-to-have but a have-to-have — this budget is neither prudent, nor careful nor responsible.

Not being bold is to be irresponsible.

It's to be a coward.

Opposition parties are trying to paint this as an austerity budget. National Party pollster David Farrar boasts that it isn't.

It bloody should have been.

More here from others:

The Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Budget 2025 as a waste of time and hype, asking ‘is that it?’

"Nicola Willis has failed,” says Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman Jordan Williams. “This Budget could easily have been delivered by Grant Robertson."

“Willis promised to tackle the last Government’s ‘addiction to spending’. Spending is going up as a proportion of the economy in this year’s Budget compared to the current year. Core Crown Expenses are forecast to be 32.9 percent in 2025/26 compared to 31.8 percent under Robertson in 2022/23.

“She promised to balance the books. The OBEGAL never gets into surplus according to Treasury forecasts. Willis has had to make up a new measure to exclude the ACC deficit to create an illusion of a laughably small surplus in 2029.”

“And she promised growth. But the headline measure – an accelerated depreciation regime – is basically no better than what the last Labour Government tried immediately after COVID.”

“According to the Budget documents, the Government's headline ‘growth’ policy adds just 1 percent to GDP over 20 years. It is laughable in its small size.”

“More spending, more debt, and nothing to materially shift the dial and grow the economy. It’s not a Growth Budget, it’s a fudge-it."

Further:

"Spending as a share of GDP is materially higher than in the last fiscal year Grant Robertson was responsible for."  

Liberty Scott:

It's very much a centrist budget to not please those wanted a balanced budget and shrinking of the state, and of course isn't a budget of new grand larceny and profligate handing out to preferred causes, it basically just holds the line of NZ's Jacinda-era bloated state. ... a[nother] kick-the-can-down-the road budget.

Eric Crampton mentions some political sleight-of-hand:

"At some point, we have to wonder about the fiscal responsibility provisions in the Public Finance Act matter, because those effectively say you should not be running structural deficits for a decade, and we will have been running structural deficits for a decade. The ones during Covid were excusable - now, not so much. ....

"If you want to see the state of the government's books on the more traditional OBEGAL measure, rather than the one that excludes substantial ongoing ACC deficits, you have to go to the "Additional materials" in the online appendix. 

"Here 'tis. No return to surplus."

Michael Reddell:

"The Growth Budget" has just one growth-oriented policy [i.e., accelerated depreciation for business investment], estimated by Treasury to raise GDP by a mere 1% over 20 years (0.5% in total in the next five). 

"We were, of course, promised 'bold steps.' 

"Simply unserious."

UPDATE: More from Michael:

"[T]he government chose to title its effort [yesterday] 'The Growth Budget.' The Minister spoke today against a backdrop emblazoned repeatedly with that label.... the Prime Minister made a big thing of the need to accelerate growth ... The Minister of Finance in announcing the Budget date ... [boasted] 'the Budget will contain bold steps to support economic growth' ...

"They did not deliver.

"There was a single growth-oriented initiative in the Budget ... [T]he best Treasury estimate is that it will lift GDP by 1 per cent, but take 20 years to do so

"This year’s Budget represents another lost opportunity, and probably the last one before next year’s election when there might have been a chance for some serious fiscal consolidation. The government should have been focused on securing progress back towards a balanced budget. Instead, the focus seems to have been on doing just as much spending as they could get away with without markedly further worsening our decade of government deficits. ...

"We used to have some of the best fiscal numbers anywhere in the advanced world, but as things have been going – under both governments – in the last few years we are on the sort of path that will, before long, turn us into a fairly highly indebted advanced economy, one unusually vulnerable to things like expensive natural disasters. ...

"The government seems to have become quite adept at rearranging the deckchairs (cutting spending that they consider low priority and increasing other spending) but they are choosing to make no progress at all in reducing the structural deficit. ...

"Which brings us to the most recent IMF Fiscal Monitor released a few weeks ago [showing how our] primary deficit now compares ... Depending on your measure we were (based on HYEFU/BPS numbers) worst or close to worst in the advanced world. Today’s Budget will have done nothing to improve that ranking."

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage is a Soviet-sounding name for a Ministry, with proposals for 'modern media legislation' to match

"[T]he Ministry of Culture and Heritage ... is a rather Soviet sounding name for a Ministry ... [with] a policy culture that is quite distinctly interventionist. Its proposals for [so-called]'modern media legislation' ... reflects the lobbying of vested interests in the uneconomic media industry to try to compete with the media the public actually prefer. ...
    "Today people largely obtain news and entertainment online ... on multiple devices. If news happens, it is reported through news websites and through social media. Moreover, entertainment largely comes from overseas ...
    "[T]he barriers to publishing are [now] very low indeed. ... Protectionists, legacy media and politicians with a bent for influencing the public don’t like it that much. ...
    

"Media and Communications Minister Paul Goldsmith has decided to release a discussion document with five proposals to 'save local media.' It reflects a very shallow approach to public policy ... 'New Zealand’s media and content production sectors are facing an uphill battle to remain viable' [says the minister] 'Seeing and hearing our stories and voices has cultural and societal benefits' [he claims]... I’d suggest the uphill battle is simply due to the public not responding to what they produce. ...
    "We all have stories. ... 90% or so of the population with computers, tablets or mobile phones [tell them every day]. Tens, hundreds and in some cases thousands read or listen to them. What are the 'cultural and economic benefits' of ignoring this in favour of what is essentially a protectionist industry wanting other people’s money taken from them by force, to prop them up because the public isn’t willing to pay for their content voluntarily?
   

"... [Goldsmith's] proposal says everything about how out of touch the Ministry is. It is ....

"...to force manufacturers of smart TVs (not tablets or laptops or phones) to carry apps of traditional NZ broadcasters. ...
"... to force streaming platforms and TV broadcasters to waste their own money on what the Ministry falsely calls 'investment' into the local content the Ministry approves of. ...
"... to expand the scope of the increasingly irrelevant Broadcasting Standards Authority (a better proposal would be to scrap it) to 'ensuring positive system-level outcomes,' whatever that means. ...

"Most of these proposals ... demonstrate an ongoing philosophical belief in the role of a interventionist state in forcing others to pay for the production of content that the Ministry thinks is good for people. ...
    "What should be done instead? Stop trying to save something that people don’t want. ...
    "The Broadcasting Standards Authority should be wound down ... NZ On Air should be wound down as well. ... The Film Commission similarly so. Privatise TVNZ. ...

"You have until 23 March to submit on [the Ministry's] proposal"s, go right ahead."

~ Liberty Scott from his post 'Forget Goldsmith's media proposals'

Paying bureaucrats is not a stimulus programme

"It would be a mistake to view public sector staffing as a stimulus programme for Wellington and cafes and bars."

~ Eric Crampton (and Liberty Scott) on Tova's tosh

 

Govt still 'colonising' individuals and their property

"Colonisation happened, but New Zealand is no longer a colony. Citizens [with too-few Maori ancestors] are not 'colonisers' but people with as much right to live in the country they are born in, or admitted as immigrants in as anyone else. Inferring anything else is racist, even if it doesn't meet the definition of the post-modernists.
    "Similarly, the idea that white supremacy is somehow endemic is ludicrous and deranged. However, the New Zealand state DOES erode tino rangatiratanga, for EVERYONE, by increasing its power and diminishing the freedom of citizens and residents to live their own lives peacefully....
    "There is a LOT that can be done to liberate Maori, such as decentralising education, ending the next to peppercorn leases enforced on some Maori land, granting Iwi (and indeed all) property owners real property rights to use their property as they see fit....
    "The report [from the ill-named Human Rights Commission] wants ... Maori to determine their own lives and make decisions over their own resources. This is libertarian, it is freedom and property rights. There remain two questions though...
    "Is giving Maori this power actually power as individuals with the choice to act together, or [as part of] purely collective entities? If it is the latter, it is just another form of government; I suspect it is the latter.
    "[And the other question:] Why can this not apply to EVERYONE in New Zealand? Why shouldn't we all be able to determine our own lives and make decisions over our own resources? ...
    "Colonisation saw many atrocities committed, but it is over. The non-Maori who live in New Zealand are not 'settlers.' Liberal democracy and rule of law are not invented to benefit Pakeha, and the only human rights are individual rights, for without the freedom of the individual, everyone is at risk of violence being initiated by the state, Iwi or any other collective that thinks it should govern you.
    "Set Maori free by setting us all free."

~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Abolish the Human Rights Commission (but give everyone Tino Rangitiratanga)'

"So what's actually wrong with private companies providing water infrastructure and services?"

"Even the Government's own report acknowledges that
it is PRIVATE water companies that perform well."

"What virtually NO-one in the media has asked ... is: why the fear of privatising water? ...
    "It is thanks to muddled-headed Marxists like [Pennie Bright and] Eugenie Sage that water remained the most unreformed infrastructure sector [in the 1990s], leaving it in the idealised world of 'local democracy' ... largely staying away from people paying for what they use, but rather taxing everyone so the biggest users of water (typically businesses) get subsidised by the smallest users (typically people living on their own). That's socialism for you.
    "Yet what does privatisation of water look like? DIA's own report ... has a handy chart [comparing] the relative performance of ten [privately-owned] English water companies, with government-owned water companies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and New Zealand council-owned water providers.
    "All of the private water companies outperform the others.... In other words, not only are private water companies in England performing better than the New Zealand council owned examples, but they have been outperforming Scottish Water - which has been the pin-up case study for the Ardern Government....
    "So what's actually wrong with private companies providing water infrastructure and services?
    "Why wont any Opposition MPs say there are benefits ... ?"

~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'The horrors of water privatisation are largely imaginary hysterics in the heads of leftwing politicians'

#MakeIt16 is not about political principle; it's about political self-interest

"There is a curious cultural disjunction between those who want younger teenagers to vote, and demand they be given 'a voice' for their often ill-informed, inconsistent views (and they have no monopoly on that), but also think they need 'protection' from the consequences of their actions....
    "So let's not pretend this is about young people having a 'stake in their future' because the politicians eager for their votes don't think young people can make competent decisions ... [I]t's just a call for 'more votes for my side'..."
          ~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Voting age is about power'

'Which wannabe busybodies do you want on your council?'

"Academics, journalists and politicians bemoan every three years how little interest there is in the local body elections in New Zealand. The narrative being that if more people voted, then local government would be "better" and people being more "engaged" would result in bette Councillors, better decisions, better cities, towns and districts.
    "It's utter nonsense....
    "Local government has little to do with many issues, such as healthcare, education, justice, policing, but it DOES have a lot to do with areas that are in crisis, such as water ... housing ... supermarket competition.
    "Local government also attracts a particular type of person. More often than not it attracts busybodies, planners, pushy finger-wagging types who think they know what's best, over what people actually indicate according to their willingness to pay....
    "So vote if you must, but the real problem is that local government has too much power.... So pick candidates who want to get out of the way, of new housing, of new supermarkets, of enterprise and don't want to promise grand totemic projects that you have to pay for.... Maybe pick those who actually have some understanding of the limits of the ability of local government."

~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Which wannabe busybodies do you want on your council?'

 

Words without meaning. Politics without ideas. [Updated]

 

Don't bother looking for meaning within the platitudes. The cliches are the meaning.

Christopher Luxon's acceptance speech reminds me of nothing so much as Peter Sellers' famous 'Party Political Speech' -- like that, it's utterly devoid of anything approaching substance.

UPDATE: Liberty Scott, bless 'im, outlines what a National Party political platform that meant something might look like; a realistic nine-point plan from Luxon, Willis et al that, first of all, would avoid backsliding on the National Policy Statement (NPS) on the Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), and then begins with:

1) A declaration of principles that form the basis for making decisions on policies...
2) Differentiation from Labour based on [those] principles.... [and]
3) Policy that is thoughtful not knee-jerk opposition.

Too much to hope for? Yes, probably.

'Mandatory Vaccines?'

"So no, there should be no mandatory vaccines for private citizens not employed by the state, nor mandatory vaccine passports to travel internally, but property owners and individuals have every right to impose their own rules on who they allow onto their property, who they hire, trade with and interact with.
    "You don't have a right to force someone to get vaccinated, but you also don't have the right to force someone to employ or trade with you if you choose not to."
          ~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Mandatory Vaccines?'

"Improper Laws Multiply the Chance for Fatal Police Encounters"

Three perceptive observations on American news:

When you multiply laws excessively, says philosopher Greg Salmieri, when you insist that police can stop and arrest people for the most trivial manufactured offences, you multiply by the thousand the chances for fatal police encounters. "What government does is wield force; and force should only be wielded judiciously and when it's appropriate. And it's deadly dangerous to have it in areas [of life] where it doesn't belong."

Full video here:

And the problem of containing government force is compounded when due process is so routinely ignored. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, Iona Italia reminds us, 

and even if manifestly guilty the job of a policeman is to secure the perp, not to indulge his sadism. Only enough violence should ever be used to protect people if they are directly threatened & to make a safe arrest. Not an iota more. A policeman is not a judge, nor an executioner. It's not up to him to decide who deserves what treatment. It's vital that the police treat everyone in accordance ONLY with what the situation demands.

Don't expect top-down change either, says Liberty Scott: 

There is no conceivable way that there will be reform of policing in the US without bipartisan leadership to confront everything from qualified immunity to militarisation to legacy racism to criminilisation of micro-economic regulation [i.e., all the petty intrusions Salmieri is talking about]. And that isn’t remotely Trump or Biden.

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Virtue signalling, a definition

Virtue signalling, aka halo-polishing, n., "the act of publicly flagging your alleged moral piety, while shaming others who aren’t on the same holy plane;  a bedfellow of ‘clicktivism’ and hashtag activism– or ‘hashtivism'."

A form of second-handed activism: parading convictions you know in advance are acceptable to others simply to enhance your group status (see also People's Republic of Grey Lynn); conspicuously posing rather than actually doing, esp., loudly expressing opinions or sentiments intended only to demonstrate one's adherence to the cause of the day; acting so as to look morally superior to others, when factually there is no substance to your claim, and actually you intend to do no no more about it than make noise. (See also Unintended Consequences.)

“Virtue-signalling is making a statement because you reckon it will garner approval, rather than because you actually believe it. It’s a form of vanity, all the worse because it’s dressed up as selfless conviction.” Often from keyboard warriors claiming they’re saving the world, but for all the talk about virtue,it's noticeable that virtue-signalling often consists simply of saying you hate things.

One of the crucial aspects of virtue signalling is that it does not require actually doing anything actually virtuous. It takes no effort at all. Just whining.

 Examples in use: 

‘For British Labour party leaders, Europeanism is just a virtue-signalling gesture -- like wearing a charity ribbon.’

‘A lot of what happens on Facebook, as with Twitter, is “virtue signalling” — showing off how right on you are.’

'Led by global luminaries such as Michelle Obama, Malala and Piers Morgan, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls has been used 4.8 million times by 2.3 million users on Twitter. Some of the girls escaped but, tragically, 218 remain missing, and virtue signalling celebs quickly moved on to the next fashionable hashtag.'

'Expect a year of virtue signalling from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, particularly on plastic trash in our oceans. And as with nearly all virtue signalling, expect Trudeau’s blather to be more about shining his environmental apple than about doing anything meaningful.'

'Jacinda Ardern's Government is putting 'virtue signalling' above energy reliability.'

See also:

• I invented ‘virtue signalling’. Now it’s taking over the world - James Bartholomew, SPECTATOR

[Hat tips Liberty Scott, Balance Media, Toronto Sun, Cambridge English Dictionary, Urban Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary]   

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Quote of the day: On this new government

"For the second time in over 20 years of MMP, the left has got, pretty much, what it wanted in a government....
This government is already opposed to capitalism ... [yet] doesn't even realise that the biggest problems it campaigned on in the election, such as housing, healthcare, education, river pollution and welfare, are almost nothing to do with capitalism, but rather government intervention...    "This government won't do much different from National (yes you'll see uneconomic railway and tram line built instead of motorways), the difference is this lot actually believe in what they are doing."~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Don't like the government? Blame the National Party'

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Dear Stephen Franks: It was not ACT’s principles that killed the party, it was its people [updated]

Dear Stephen

You write at your blog about the ACT Party’s future, if it has one, about which your headline makes the promise to explain why no libertarian party rules (or thrives) anywhere.

Your headline is incorrect, and in relation to the ACT Party, irrelevant. But it seems to me that answering you helps explain what it is about ACT's approach that hasn't worked.

I will always respect you as being the only person in Parliament who argued against the Architects Institute maintaining their legal monopoly over a word. But as you yourself made clear on many occasions then and since, you yourself were not a libertarian, and neither, it’s clear were many other ACT MPs.

It’s not even clear that that party itself is libertarian — as David Seymour reminded me sharply a week before the election, instead it's something called “centre-right,” whatever that ill-defined term might mean.

You say, Stephen, that libertarians are "zealots [who] ignore and deplore what drives normal humans”; and that voters “will never trust a party, and people, who do not understand and reflect our collective impulses.” This, you imply, is to answer the promise of your headline.

Where to begin?

Perhaps, to start at the very beginning, you need to be reminded, Stephen, that the United States of America, one of the greatest nations on this earth, was founded on those very values you say are so ignored and abhorred. Yet, in the estimation of many of us, it was those very values that made America great, and their abandonment that has condemned it to the slow death we have all observed. If America is ever become great again, it will need to rediscover those values, and to embrace them.

So too, perhaps, with the ACT Party, which was founded on fine principles but which the party’s own people too often ignored.

Frankly, Mr Franks, it was not the ideas that disgraced the party’s people; it was the people who disgraced the ideas they purported to represent — a succession of both major and minor disgraces with which the honesty and integrity of everyone associated with the party are now tainted.

It was the party’s people who made the party toxic, not the principles they claimed to represent.

The abandonment of those principles began at the party’s very founding, the man who composed those fine words — that individuals are the rightful owners of their own lives and therefore have inherent freedoms and responsibilities; that the proper purpose of government is to protect such freedoms and not to assume such responsibilities — running from the party he helped form when he saw there was very little interest from party bearers in upholding them.

Today those words are nowhere to be found on the party website, replaced instead with heaping helpings of blancmange.

If the party’s own people frequently appear too embarrassed to uphold the principles they claim to follow, why indeed should the voting public take them seriously?

And just look at those who purported to uphold them.

Rodney Hide, allegedly a proponent of small government, dropped whatever principles he may have had when a Ministerial limousine beckoned, and promptly ran amok in Auckland — a city in which he can still no longer even show his face.

John Banks, presented to the party by Don Brash as a gift that just kept not giving, a man who never knew a principle even when he fell over one, was instead taken by the public to represent them, and as he fell so too did the party’s reputation.

It has never recovered.

A small party may may have survived one of these oafs. It could never survive them both. A short story is representative of many: One of the few announcements made by the party in recent years squarely based on its principles, Don Brash’s clarion call to legalise marijuana, was scuttled very public when Banks himself opposed it. The party quickly dropped the policy. It should have dropped the politician. The public, those who had already begun to embrace the policy, saw where things were going and dropped the party.

It was the people that let the principles down, not the principles themselves.

And it was not just the luminaries, and not just in recent years. The behaviour of the party’s minor figures over many years has also seemed to suggest that integrity is the very least of things to expect from this party’s people — or at least have allowed the media to present that notion this way.

Owen Jennings, for example, let his office be used for a madcap Get Rich Quick pyramid scam, after which he disappeared from public life.

Donna Aware-Huata distinguished herself before selection for nothing more than selling Maori stick games to government departments, and once near power for little more than putting her fingers into her charity’s till.

David Garrett: best known not as he might suppose for the three strikes legislation he introduced, but instead for acquiring a passport derived from a viewing of a dead baby’s grave. (“Can't say I blame David Garrett for creating a false identity,” responded one wag. "His real one is hardly something to be proud of.”)

And Deborah Coddington who, in her first year, made such a splash she was awarded accolades for being the most effective debutante in the Parliament, went —after achieving such wide public notice — off to Oxford for a year to pursue a programme of private study while still taking the taxpayer's dime. (And she was not the first ACT Party MP to so openly enjoy the parliamentary perks to which the party is supposed to be opposed, was she.)

These are only some of the minor constellation of party luminaries who have appeared in the public eye and given continual ammunition to the growing view that to be a classical liberal in these times must also to be a cocksmack. A succession of these ghastly people have made the party grate.

Even the founders - Quigley, Prebble and Douglas — are known in the public mind at least as turncoats. The whiff of Muldoonism never left Derek Quigley, nor the memory of how many years he purported to believe things to which his behaviour in government said otherwise. And Prebble and Douglas ... whatever you may think of the policies they carried out as Labour ministers, it’s fair to say that in their first round at least the public was entitled to wonder why they were never properly presented to them at election time. It seemed to suggest that to promote what its opponents call “neoliberalism” is somehow to necessitate duplicity in the policies’ promotion. (That the then-Labour MPs’ policy salesman himself, David Lange, resiled from the selling only seemed to reinforce this impression, particularly since neither Douglas nor Prebble themselves ever seemed to fully acquire this very necessary political skill.)

This miasma of betrayal also sadly infects Ruth Richardson who, in the estimation of many of us, did great things as Finance Minister — but did them without the previous imprimatur of having first presented them to public vote, the public instead feeling they had voted for something else and rebelling when they were offered ‘Ruthenasia’ (the public description) instead. (Her boss, Bolger, being far less gifted at selling the policies, and with even less interest in the principles represented, rarely even bothered to make a case.)

No, Stephen, it’s not the ideas the ACT party claims to hold to which the public appear implacably opposed*. It’s very possible the public don’t even know or understand what the party stands for at all. It was not even clear this election that all the party’s candidates did.

What the voting public do despise however is that the party seems associated not with principles and powerful persuasion but with duplicity and deception.

Is it any wonder the general public now associates the ideas with which the party sometimes dabbles, what their opponents call "neoliberal,” with these self-same toxins? With so powerful a toxicity that it drags down even the good principled people the party did and does still contain. No wonder Jamie and David could never build a real fire under the party.

Even the one principled thing at which the party did once achieve serious traction, its very public perk busting, was disgraced by Douglas and Hide themselves in loudly and proudly embracing the concept of sucking up expensive travel perks for themselves and their whanau for the period of their natural existence. “I’m entitled,” they both whined when found out.

What a disgraceful pair.

No wonder the voting public despises them.

They have, all of these entities, disgraced the ideas with which the voters associate the party. And very clearly, Stephen, it is that way around — there is no need for yet another party to reflect what you allege to be "most people’s need and respect for altruism, nationalism and other expressions of the social and collectivist part of our nature."

What there is a desperate need for however is a party of principle that can sell individualism to the public — sell those principles written for the party’s founding — and sell them untainted by these toxic monstrosities from the past.

It needs a top-to-toe transformation if it is to survive as a real force instead of as a limp and occasionally useful appendage to the Blue Team.

If it is ever to be able to slay dragons, it needs to kill the ghosts first.

It needs its own "Clause Four Moment."

* * * * *

* Indeed, the public in their ill-informed wooly way seem to the think the Blue Team which has already won three terms is some kind of soft representative of those free-marketish ideas. Strange, but true.

UPDATE: As part of his excellent post-election analysis, Liberty Scott writes:

ACT lost badly in part due to the Nats successfully scaring voters on the right to voting National, but also because David Seymour moved too far away from having a coherent position on issues.  He was seen as backing National, but whether it was too hard for him to get traction on multiple issues or he lacked ground support to campaign, the only policy that got a lot of publicity was in increasing teacher pay.  ACT once had a coherent less government, lower tax position that promoted more competition in public services, was tough on law and order and rejected identity politics.  Yet Seymour couldn't break through with such a message.  The brand is mixed, he made statements about abortion which would alienate some, but he tried hard.  ACT needs to work out who it is targeting and what message it is giving.   There is a gap on the right, one that will open up large when a certain Maori ex. National MP finally retires.  ACT can't fill much of that gap, but it sure can grab some of it...

And what now?

ACT needs to refocus

For those who think government does too much, who think individuals alone or with others should have more power and responsibility to find solutions to the problems of today, there is little to offer.   The best hope might be for ACT to be in Opposition, regardless.  To campaign more clearly on principles, which should be around private property rights, everyone being equal under the law (including the abolition of Maori-only political representation), opening up education to choice and diversity, tackling the culture of welfare dependency, opposing state subsidies for business, more taxation and more state ownership.  ACT should firmly come down on limiting the scope and powers   of local government, on ridding central government of wasteful politically-correct bureaucracies and taking on identity politics.   Yes it should support other parties when it comes to victimless crimes, but there should not be a unified view on abortion.  It should be tough on real crime, tough on parental responsibility, but also take on measures that governments have done that increase the cost of living.  This includes the constraining of housing supply, and immigration policies that mean new migrants utilise the capital of taxpayer funded infrastructure, without actually paying for it.

What Winston does as his possible swan song is of minor interest, what matters is there being a party that stands up for something different.  For now, only ACT can do that.

Quote of the Day: On Brexit howling

 

“One doesn’t have to be an expert on European politics to instinctively understand that if the governments, the central banks and all their connected crony capitalists are howling there will be Armageddon if you do X, it is virtually always in your best interests to do X.”
~ Tom Mullen, from his post ‘Brexit: Hated By All the Right People’

[Hat tip Australian Libertarian Society (ALS)]

 

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• EU to launch kettle and toaster crackdown after Brexit vote – TELEGRAPH
• Don’t be bamboozled, Brexit creates huge opportunities for the U.K. – FINANCIAL POST
• Brexit: An opportunity that could be wrecked by politicians – LIBERTY SCOTT
• Two Cheers for Britain’s Healthy Rebellion – LIVING RESOURCES CENTER
• "European Union, United Nations, World Bank, WHO, IMF, Paris Agreement, etc., are collectivist organizations & concepts...." – VERMA POST
• Nine Key Takeaways from Brexit – DANIEL MITCHELL
• Brexit: A Brilliant Revolt Against the Political Classes – SPIKED
• What Is the Charter of the Land? – THE TRACINSKI LETTER
• It's Brexit—so what now? – DEVIL’S KITCHEN
• An outsider’s view of Brexit – SAMIZDATA
• Americans Confused By System Of Government In Which Leader Resigns After Making Terrible Decision – THE ONION

 

 

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The European Union: A critical assessment [updated]

 

Guest post by Marian Tupy

The European Union (EU) is a culmination of a long process of economic and political integration among European states. The EU started as a free trade area and a customs union. Over time, it has become a supranational entity that resembles a federal state and is governed by a byzantine bureaucracy in Brussels. The EU claims to have brought about prosperity and stability in Europe, but those claims are increasingly at odds with reality. Europe is becoming worryingly unstable and is falling behind other regions in terms of economic growth. The EU model, which is marked by overregulation and centralization, seems increasingly out of place in today’s world. What European countries need in the coming decades is openness, rather than regional protectionism, and flexibility, rather than overregulation from Brussels. Above all, what European governments need to do is to reconnect with their increasingly restless electorates, rather than ignore the latter for the sake of the unwanted goal of a European superstate.

Continue to full version…

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RELATED POSTS:

• “I have repeatedly talked about how the very structure of the EU self-selects for sociopaths and/or worse, but perhaps not enough about how that was deliberately built into the design. A feature not a flaw.”
  The European Union’s Dark Secret—–It Was Founded In Deception With An Anti-Democratic Design – David Stockman, CONTRA CORNER
• “Britons voting in the referendum to leave the EU should be reminded that leaving the EU does not mean leaving Europe… Britain is already outside both the monetary union and Schengen agreement on free travel (making the Brexit vote nothing at all about immigration), while countries both inside and outside the EU are outside and inside both.”
  From what exactly would Britain be Brexiting? – NOT PC
• More ignorance put to the sword than a Martin Bradbury blog post being fed through a very sharp shredder.
  NZ Herald wrong about EU referendum – LIBERTY SCOTT
• “I don't delude myself that Britain is suddenly going to become a paragon of individual liberty if a majority votes for Brexit next Thursday…
  “A win for Leave [however] will be a small step on the way back to the truly liberal society Britain once was. A vote for Remain will be the very end of the road for that great tradition.”
  Brexit could be a small step back to Great Britain – KIWIWIT
• British Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan invites British voters to make him redundant.
  Brits: Make this politician redundant – NOT PC
  
  

Brexit B.S.

 

Liberty Scott points out that Granny Herald knows even less about the Brexit vote and Europe than it does about the news happening under its feet.

…its editorial on the issue is  woeful, it misses the point and is dotted with errors.  There is nothing in the editorial about the key problems with EU membership, around how EU laws are developed undemocratically (introduced by the European Council, MEPs can't introduce legislation), how the EU is inordinately wasteful including on policies that harm New Zealand's economy (including the Common Agricultural Policy) and harm developing countries.  Nothing about the protectionism of the EU slowing the ability of the UK to trade freely with growing economies in Asia and Latin America. 

But apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the show? Not much:

• “It's not true that no country has ever left the EU…”
• “It's true that Brexit could encourage a break up of the EU, but is that necessarily a bad thing?”
• “The Herald editorial paints the picture that Brexit somehow increases the chance of Russia invading the EU? Why?  NATO provides the security guarantee for its members, it isn't weakened by the UK leaving the EU - at all.  Why would it matter?”

More ignorance put to the sword than a Martin Bradbury blog post being fed through a very sharp shredder.

Read it all: NZ Herald wrong about EU referendum – LIBERTY SCOTT

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London’s Muslim Mayor [updated]

 

Commentators around the globe have leapt on the victory of a London Muslim in the London mayoral election as “the beginning of the end" for the west. The first electoral sign of the “demographic deluge” that (in an echo of Progressives Past) alt-right loonies and tantrum-throwing Trumpeters tar as “race suicide.”

Contrary to what many critics both foreign and domestic have argued, it could be however that

the victory of London’s new mayor as a non-Islamist Muslim is as much a blow to Islamist bigots as it is to anti-Muslim bigots. This victory speaks to the possibilities of integration. It offers hope for our country’s new immigrant families. And as a symbol of social mobility, it provides aspiration to those from humble backgrounds.
    Sadiq Khan’s victory is probably the only bit of good news [from Britain’s local government elections that] Jeremy Corbyn’s far-left-led Labour Party can truly celebrate….

Says Maajid Nawaz, author of that paragraph – a former Islamic radical who renounced jihad and today promotes a Secular Islam – holds that

Sadiq Khan is no Muslim extremist. And it is not only his track record voting for gay rights that proves this. Having known him when I was a Muslim extremist, I know that he did not subscribe to my then-theocratic views.
    Many conservatives who desperately opposed Khan jumped the shark when they called him a “radical Islamist,” and linked him to sensationalist headlines that declared he had a“hardcore Islamist past.” Nuance is the friend of truth.

So, what about the claims of Islamist association that were raised during the campaign?

In deference to the seriousness of the subject, and the lives lost over it, what came up about Khan’s alleged links to extremists is pertinent. Those questions needed to be asked. I cannot emphasise enough that I write as a liberal, who voted for a Liberal Democrat in this race, and not as a conservative. So now that the election is over, and London has its first Muslim mayor, let us step back and consider the smoke to this conservative fire.

Nawaz offers abundant detail, noting against him however that

Khan is no Muslim extremist. Indeed, this cannot be repeated enough. Nor can the fact that Khan clearly has a record of terribly poor judgment in surrounding himself with Islamists and Muslim extremists, and in using them for votes.

But that doesn’t make him either a terrorist or a terrorist sympathiser; it simply means he’s a modern politician – for which he should be roundly criticised.

Nor does his electoral victory mean the end of western civilisation. It simply shows again that western civilisation embraces all who choose to embrace it.

UPDATE: A good start:

There is no greater responsibility for a Mayor of London than keeping Londoners safe.
It's a responsibility that I take extremely seriously.
London faces a deadly threat from extremism, radicalisation and terrorism.
It’s a threat that I will act to tackle as Mayor.
I will be the British Muslim who takes the fight to the extremists.
Who ensures London has the response capability we need to keep Londoners safe.
Who backs police to do what is necessary during terrorist attacks.
And who acts to tackle the underlying conditions that allow extremism and radicalisation to take root…
* * *
The appalling reality is that a growing number of people in London are being indoctrinated and radicalised into a perverse and disgusting ideology.|
Extremists are exploiting the young, the vulnerable and the weak.
It is online grooming by any other name.
Extremism is a cancer eating away at our society and it is a problem that is getting worse.
Neither the Government, nor our wider society are doing enough to tackle extremism and radicalisation.
Young British children are still being tricked into running off to join Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
Like the three school girls from Bethnal Green who ran off last year to marry terrorists in Syria.
As a Dad, I worry about my daughters
And that’s a fear that I know is shared by many parents in London.
* * *
I’ve always been open about the fact that I have seen the hatred and venom of the extremists up close.
I started my mayoral campaign with a speech in which I talked about how the extremists have targeted me and my family because of our mainstream British views.
Extremists have protested at local Mosques in Tooting and told people I’ve known since I was a boy – my friends and neighbours – that I am going to hell because I believe in democracy.
They have criticised me for taking part in what they call ‘man made laws’ and said that anyone who votes for me will be going to hell too.
I had death threats from extremists when I voted for same sex marriage. I had to discuss police protection with my young daughters – something that no parent should have to do.
It’s what makes me so determined to tackle extremism.
And why I unashamedly say today, that I will be the British Muslim who takes the fight to the extremists.
**
I’ll act to keep Londoners safe.

And

As Mayor, I will be the British Muslim who takes the fight to the extremists. I will keep focusing on keeping Londoners safe, and my positive vision for London's future – most importantly fixing the Tory housing crisis.

RELATED POSTS:

• “Despite some concerns, Khan is not an Islamist, and is less offensive than the vile old Castro-phile Ken Livingstone, but he has had poor judgment with those he associated with…
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  Three elections, none are likely to please: 1. London election – LIBERTY SCOTT

.RELA

Bill English’s 30-year plan

The Kremlin used to write 5-year Plans—at the end of which they would admit that the last five years was not exactly a total success, but rest assured that the next five years would be glorious. Five years later, that same announcement would be made again.

The Kremlin’s planners have now moved to Wellington and appear to be writing Bill English’s speeches—for he has just announced an exciting Thirty Year Infrastructure Plan, that “sets out New Zealand’s response to the infrastructure challenges we will face over the next three decades.”

This would be something like the Auckland motorway network, which although planned for the world of five decades ago will only near partial completion in the next (like the Russian five-year plans, there is little flexibility in government planning once begun), and which has helped New Zealand enjoy among the worst traffic flows in the modern world.

As Andrew Galambos famously observed, the traffic jams we observe are the the result of a collision between capitalism and socialist planning: capitalism builds cars quicker than socialism build roads.*

But never say that a small country with a big govt like ours can’t over-underachieve in planning for tomorrow what might already be obsolete yesterday.

So. “Infrastructure.” Last year government spent nearly four billion of your money on transport infrastructure alone. Over the last five years they’ve spent over twenty billion. This was just part of their quiet plan to pump “stimulus” into the economy and, not incidentally, help elevate all construction prices. They achieved the latter; of the former, there neither is nor could be any.

Oh, and they borrowed every cent of those billions, and are borrowing still.

And now, with Bill’s new 30-year plan, they boast about spending $110 billion in the next ten years—every cent of which will, no doubt, be added to the present $100 billion debt mountain (and climbing) that Bill English continues to build up.

Can I get a Hallelujah?

A while ago I made some excellent points (if I say so myself) that public "investment" in infrastructure:

1. sucks capital away from profitable private investment; and
2. since real infrastructure investment repays the investment whereas public investment doesn't, the lion’s share of government spending on infrastructure is always and essentially consumption spending.

To say nothing of what government-borrowing to pay for deficits does to further bid real capital away from businessmen and entrepreneurs -- the ones we actually need to grow the economy. Nor of how little government planners today know about the world in which we’ll be living in 2045.

Six years ago almost to the day, when National began this conceit with a grandiloquently-titled 20-year Plan, Liberty Scott called it for what it was then and still is now in its current incarnation: another Muldoonist Think Big scheme, but with asphalt.

And even six years ago in their 20-year plan (the 30-year plan simply being that last plan plus inflation) they were talking of being “comprehensive” and “bold.” Of twenty-year plans and multibillions of borrowing.  Of “leadership” and “co-ordination.”  Of wisdom and clear direction. Oh, and of things like their long-promised and little-delivered ultra-fast broadband (which we might have already enjoyed by now if govt hadn’t crowded out would-be providers) and of “the growing price of oil” –which, let’s face it, is just another example of how governments can’t even pick losers, let alone winners.

Scott’s post deserves re-reading just for his many examples of earlier government planning failures.

Mind you, those ones didn’t cost as much as this one will.

Even the cost of government failure has risen.

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* Or even cycleways. Look at this as a small case study: the Wellington to Hutt Valley cycleway, about which “over a century ago, when cycling was a main mode of transport for many urban New Zealanders, there were Parliamentary debates over what should be done to improve the road for cycling, and working bees to remove sharp objects from the pre-existing gravel cycle path. However, nothing much got done…” Because that’s generally what happens –i.e., what doesn’t happen -- when building anything must begin with a parliamentary debate. Nothing much. And what’s happened here is that cyclists have waited a century for a cycleway that’s really not one.

Not #Grexit but #Greviction?

Even in the Eurozone hall of monetary mirrors there is only so long you can keep eating your cake and have someone else unwillingly pick up the tab for it. Greece may not exit; it may simply be evicted.

Five months of negotiations in which its left-wing Government destroyed goodwill among creditors that have lent it hundreds of billions of dollars have cost Greece dearly in its frantic attempts to save its economy.
    With its banks closed, cash machines rationing withdrawals to just 60 ( $99) a day, pharmacies running short of drugs and businesses teetering on bankruptcy, salvation for Greece now lies in the hands of half a dozen European politicians exasperated by what they see as a litany of lies, insults and deviousness….
    "There is a major issue of trust," said Jeroen Dijsselbloom, the Dutch Finance Minister who heads the 19-nation group of countries sharing Europe's single currency. "Can the Greek Government be trusted to do what they are promising in coming weeks, months and years?"

Now they’ve been repeatedly slapped around the face with it, the answer to that question is finally sinking into the minds of those 19 European finance ministers – and with it the Greek government’s chances of continuing the charade. Germany, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Holland all want to suspend Greece EU membership for 5 years. Which probably means indefinitely.

What’s happened? Syriza is finally being exposed for its emptiness, explains Liberty Scott. Having removed his “rockstar economist” – who proved even less long-lasting than this hemisphere’s “rockstar economy”—Prime Minister Tsipras  gained parliamentary support for raising a lot of taxes, increasing the pension age, some modest spending cuts and privatisation of ports and airports to seek a third, yes third, bailout with Greece's Eurozone partners. 

The problem for Tsipras is that other Eurozone countries are losing patience, and it is more the Finns, Slovaks and Baltic States that are fed up with Greece, than the Germans.  
    Why?
Because many Eurozone countries don't trust the Greek Government.
     The first bailout saw Greece granted loans between 2010 and 2012 of 107 billion yes billion, Euro on condition that Greece would get its budget deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2014.  Part of this deal was to end the practice of paying public servants two more months of pay a year every year. 

They didn’t.

The second bailout saw 50% of Greece's debts with private bondholders written off and the remaining debt on an interest rate of 3.5% (so much for the rhetoric about the evil foreign bankers profiteering), knocking 100 billion Euro off of Greece's debt.  Again, the Greek government was expected to cut its budget deficit.

Which it did. A little.

However, the extent of reforms of the Greek economy that were expected simply didn't happen. State pensions for "dangerous professions" such as hairdressing (yes really) were still paid out at age 50. Defence spending exceeded the 2% of GDP expected for being a member of NATO (and there was little scrutiny of where that money went).  In short, Greece maintained big government, corporatist for the centre-right, large public sector for the centre-left, but little welfare state besides pensions.   
    Syriza got elected promising an end to "austerity" that was part of the deal for the two previous restructurings of public debt, but found no appetite at all [outside Greece for them] to do this.  After all, why would other governments expect their taxpayers to pay for Greece to continue its corrupt, unreformed bloated inefficient state?
    So Syriza embarked on two rather vile strategies to frighten the Eurozone. 

One was to start talking about German debts from World War Two. The other was to cosy up to Putin. Both backfired. And now too has Syriza’s third stratagem, the “no” vote, leaving them up a creek full of crap with nary a paddle to be found.

And why should any European financier care? Who would want to swallow more Greek government debt, or the lies that always go with it?

The right response of the Eurozone is to say no.  To tell Greece that if it wants to save its banks, it needs to live within its means, default on privately held bonds if it wishes and expect not to borrow any more.  The xenophobic socialists that are governing Greece are the [political] descendants of those [Marxists] who fought on the Soviet side in the Greek civil war.  Had they won then, Greece's fate would have looked a lot like Bulgaria and Albania to its north.  It would be nice if some in Greece realised how much they are to be grateful for and face down the rent seekers of the state that are holding their country back.

That may now have to happen, if it ever does, outside the Eurozone they hoped would forever pick up the tab. Because finally they’re being called on it.

[Hat tip Frances Coppola for the Greviction quip.]

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