Simple Swarbrick

"Mainstream Media reports that the Green Party will campaign on mass electrification for the election, saying the sun, wind, water and geothermal energy 'don’t come through the Strait of Hormuz.'

"Chloe Swarbrick with that wild-eyed enthusiasm that only she is capable of offers a simplistic solution. I use the word 'simplistic' advisedly. She herself says the solution is simple. ... Swarbrick said the Government needed to create a national electrification plan ...starting with improving access to 'cheap, easy loans for solar panels and batteries' ... 'tak[ing] control of our country’s own needs by powering ourselves, with every renewable resource available in abundance around us.' Would that it were so easy. ...

"[T]hink about a few things.;

• Is what Swarbrick proposes really a solution?
• Does she really know what she is talking about?
• Is she aware of the pervasiveness of the petrochemical industry in our day to day lives and how much we depend upon it?
• Have she and the Greens really thought through this policy or is it an easy one to articulate.
• Or in fact are Swarbrick and the Greens speaking and policy making from a position of unawareness or ignorance of the nature of the problem?

"And if the answer to the preceding question is in the affirmative, do they have any business being near the levers of power. ...

"Think about it and ... about the pervasiveness of the petrochemical industry and how much we depend upon it."

~ David Harvey from his post 'Unawareness, Blind Ignorance and a Sense of Unreality'

"The Greens are proposing one of the most aggressive tax regimes of its kind anywhere in the developed world..."

 

"The Greens are proposing one of the most aggressive tax regimes of its kind anywhere in the developed world, resulting in a broad-based raid on Kiwis who’ve worked hard, saved, and built something over a lifetime. 

"The idea this only hits the wealthy simply doesn't stack up. One in five Kiwi homes is held in a trust, and the Greens would tax those assets from the first dollar. In Auckland, that means an annual bill of over $18,000 on a mortgage-free family home, or $3,600 for first home buyers with a twenty-percent deposit.

"And it doesn't stop there. A 33 percent death tax would force many families to sell farms, homes, or businesses just to pay the bill. Inheriting the average dairy farm would trigger a $1.2 million tax bill. There is nothing fair about taxing grief, or taxing the same income again when it's earned, saved, and finally passed on.

"Most countries that have tried wealth taxes have scrapped them because they drive investment and talent offshore. Death taxes are even worse, New Zealand tried one and abandoned it in 1993 because it crushed farming families and raised almost nothing.

“This package is light on evidence, heavy on populism, and green with envy.”

~ Austin Ellingham-Banks on the Taxpayer Union's 'NEW REPORT: Green With Envy: Wealth, Death, And Trust Taxes Examined'

"One 'solution' to inequality ... is the wealth tax. ... This taxing away of capital means less means of production and thus less production and higher prices. At the same time, it means less demand for labour and thus lower wages. [The] programme is a call for mass impoverishment....

"Taxing wealth is not merely a levy on individuals but a direct seizure of the capital required for production, which ultimately harms everyone's standard of living. ...

"As [Ludwig Von] Mises observed* ...., almost all of the technological advances of the last centuries are available to and can be fully understood by engineers in even the most impoverished corners of the world. What stops the implementation of those advances is not any lack of technological knowledge but a lack of capital. Thus, a farmer in India who has seen a tractor on television can easily understand the value of using one. What stops him from using one is certainly not any lack of technological knowledge. It is certainly not that he does not know how to operate a tractor or could not easily be taught how to do so. What stops him is that he cannot afford a tractor. He does not possess the capital necessary to buy a tractor and cannot find a lender to provide it. This is a lack of capital that probably could not be made good by any rise in the local capital/income ratio. It reflects generations of insufficient local capital accumulation."

~ George Reisman from his comment on 'The Problem with the Wealth Tax' and his 'Piketty’s Capital: Wrong Theory/Destructive Program' [emphases mine]

"New Zealand’s productivity challenges are strongly linked to low capital intensity. ... New Zealand’s slowing labour productivity growth is likely to reflect both slowing growth in innovation and declines in the capital to labour ratio. ... New Zealand’s capital intensity [already] lags other countries...."

~ Treasury from their 2024 report 'Causes of New Zealand’s low capital intensity'

* Ludwig Von Mises, in his chapter 'Capital Supply & American Prosperity'--in which he observes that "the average standard of living is in [America] is higher than in any other country of the world, not because the American statesmen and politicians are superior to the foreign statesmen and politicians, but because the per-head quota of capital invested is in America higher than in other countries."

Chloe Swarbrick's Green Party are promising a 2 percent annual cap on rent increases. At first glance that might sound compassionate, but as Matthew Horncastle observes, "In reality it is a textbook example of bad economics."

As virtually every economist has told us for decades, “In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city except for bombing.” Politicians keep promising the same thing not so they can actually fix the problem -- even the most inept political reptile is aware of this -- but to win votes from people who still think that emotions can trump the reality of a rent cap.

As Marcos Falcone points out in this guest post, it's not even necessary to understand the reasons for rent control being do destructive. In contrasting the experience of Spain and Argentina, where xxx, he shows what the Greens and Green voters should realise before helping to destroy rental accommodation here...

Rent Control Always Fails—Argentina Shows a Better Way

by Marcos Falcone

On Friday, March 20, in light of the Iran war, which has pushed up energy and other prices, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced measures to lower the cost of living. Rent control was included among those measures, even though it is already failing in Spain.

Reportedly under pressure from one of its left-wing coalition partners, Sánchez decreed a nationwide contract extension at current prices for rentals about to expire, effectively amounting to a rent freeze. He has also instituted a 2 percent annual cap on rent increases through the end of 2027, which will apply to existing contracts currently indexed to inflation.

Ironically, a report published by the Instituto Juan de Mariana the same week as Sánchez’s announcement shows the extent of the harm that various forms of rent control are already causing in Spain. Following the introduction of rent caps in the region of Catalonia in 2024, the supply of rental housing has declined by 23 percent. Even more dramatically, the city of A Coruña and the region of Navarra saw rental supply fall by 44 percent and 51 percent, respectively, only six months after they designated certain areas as “stressed” housing markets and also imposed rent caps. 

In a country with an estimated deficit of 700,000 housing units, rent control is making things even worse.

Rent control in Spain not only cuts supply but also fails to improve conditions for renters. As the Instituto Juan de Mariana shows, wherever rent control has recently been introduced, average rental unit space has decreased, and prices per square meter have either stayed the same or increased—in Barcelona, for example, prices reached a record high in the third quarter of 2025.

The Spanish experience contrasts sharply with Argentina’s, which has adopted the exact opposite approach since Javier Milei became president in December 2023. 

Before then, listings had plunged by a massive 53 percent following the passage of a rent control law in 2020. But after Milei repealed it ten days after taking office, supplies rose by a staggering 180 percent less than a year and a half later. (My colleague Ryan Bourne and I documented that extensively here). 

As of December 2025, rental prices in the city of Buenos Aires were still almost 30 percent down in real terms from two years before, and supply has not declined.

Rent control does more harm than good, as Ryan Bourne explains in The War on Prices. Hopefully, Spain will correct course as Argentina did before things get much worse.

* * * * 

Marcos Falcone is a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. His research interests range from contemporary public policy in his home country of Argentina to the history, theory, and language of classical liberalism. His essays have received awards by the Mont Pelerin Society, Caminos de la Libertad, and the European Center for Austrian Economics, among others. His columns appear frequently in Argentine and US media.

His post first appeared at the Cato at Liberty blog.

Catastrophic sewage failure starts with pisspoor decision-making

"[T]he cause of the calamity are ... sitting, neatly itemised, in Wellington City Council’s own records. ...

"On 27 May 2021, Wellington City Council’s Long-Term Plan Committee faced a clear fork in the road."Officers presented councillors with water investment options, including one — Water Option 3 — that contained a $391 million wastewater renewals programme... to reduce sewage pollution, starting with the central city and south-coast catchments now making headlines.

"At the same meeting, officers recommended Cycleways Option 3, with capital expenditure of $120 million over ten years. ... An amendment was moved by then-councillor [and now Green MP] Tamatha Paul ... to adopt Cycleways Option 4, expanding the programme to $226 million — nearly doubling it.

"That amendment passed.

"Accelerated wastewater renewal did not.

"The vote is on video. The numbers are in the Long-Term Plan. The consequences are now floating in Cook Strait."

~ Peter Bassett from his post 'Wellington’s Sewage Crisis Wasn’t an Accident. It Was a Vote — and Everyone’s Pretending Not to Remember'

The Return of Chloe's Wealth Tax

Watch any rant by Chloe Swarbrick and, after the obligatory nods to te reo, to Palestine, and to passing laws to change the weather, she'll tell you that it's time for "the wealthy" to fund everything every government could dream of. 

It's really the only substantive policy she can articulate. Yet she remains blithely unaware that the fortunes she want to sack are not gold bars under the mattress but ownership stakes in operating companies, real estate, and other productive assets, so her Wealth Tax would function as a direct penalty on those investments. That penalty doesn’t remain confined to the wealthy. Capital formation is what drives productivity growth and wage gains, and policies that discourage it ultimately leave everyone worse off.

As Adam Michel explains in this Guest Post, the chronic government spending growth she advocates cannot be paid for by ever more aggressive taxes on a narrow subset of high-income taxpayers.  Not even in a US more stocked with billionaires than she'll ever see here ...

The Return of the Wealth Tax, Evidence Against Them Is Stronger Than Ever

by Adam Michel

Wealth taxes are back in the policy conversation— a good opportunity to review how wealth taxes work and why they have been called “one of the most harmful taxes ever created.”

Wealth taxes are unique in that they are not levied on an annual flow of income or consumption (like a sales tax). Instead, wealth taxes apply to a stock of assets and are usually intended to be primarily redistributive, aiming to reverse a perceived inequality in the distribution of resources.

Wealth taxes promise redistribution but more often deliver high economic costs, administrative complexity, and disappointing revenue. California’s proposal  to impose a broad-based wealth tax on the state’s billionaires illustrates how these taxes distort investment decisions, magnify fiscal volatility, and tend to evolve from one-time levies into permanent features of strained budgets.

Wealth Taxes In the Real World

Wealth taxes impose an additional layer of tax on the income generated by the underlying asset. Most wealth consists of productive assets deployed in the economy, such as active businesses and other physical investments. The annual income streams generated by the underlying assets—capital gains, dividends, and interest—are taxed through the normal income tax system.

The existing tax system already charges the wealthiest Americans high tax rates. A Biden administration Treasury study found that the wealthiest 92 Americans faced total state, local, federal, and international income tax rates of 59 percent. Recent research by four prominent liberal economists concludes that US billionaires pay higher tax rates than their counterparts in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and France, and, contrary to the headline claim, the wealthiest taxpayers also pay the highest tax rates among all Americans.

Because wealth taxes are assessed on a stock instead of an annual income flow, expressing the tax rate as an equivalent income tax rate is more informative. Unless the taxpayer is expected to slowly sell off their underlying assets, the tax will be paid from annual income. Table 1 shows the equivalent income tax rate on underlying assets with different rates of return at different wealth tax rates. At the California top wealth tax rate of 5 percent, any asset earning less than a 5 percent annual pre-tax return would face income tax rates above 100 percent before paying other taxes. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign proposal included a top wealth tax rate of 8 percent.

Net wealth taxes have been tested in other countries and repealed due to high economic costs and administrative burdens. Peaking at 12 in the 1990s, only four Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries still impose broad-based net wealth taxes today: Colombia, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. The figure below shows the trend of wealth taxes over time.

Economic and Administrative Costs

Wealth taxes can impose confiscatory effective tax rates with predictable economic consequences. By directly reducing the after-tax return to saving and investment, they weaken incentives to build businesses, expand productive capacity, and take entrepreneurial risks. Because most large fortunes are not gold bars under the mattress but ownership stakes in operating companies, real estate, and other productive assets, a wealth tax functions as a direct penalty on those investments. That penalty doesn’t remain confined to the wealthy. Capital formation is what drives productivity growth and wage gains, and policies that discourage it ultimately leave everyone worse off.

Wealth taxes also distort capital allocation. Investors have a strong incentive to shift portfolios toward assets that are harder to value, easier to shelter, or more mobile across borders, rather than toward their most productive use. This encourages tax avoidance rather than genuine economic activity. It can mean less investment in long-term projects, more leverage, and greater reliance on complex financial arrangements to reduce reported net worth.

Wealth taxes are also administratively complex. Valuing a broad range of assets every year is extraordinarily difficult. Unlike easy-to-value publicly traded stocks, most wealth is tied up in closely held businesses, partnerships, real estate, artwork, and other illiquid or unique assets. Annual valuation invites avoidance and disputes, which raises compliance costs for both governments and taxpayers. It took 12 years for the IRS and the Michael Jackson estate to reach a court-mediated agreement on the value of its taxable assets. Going through such a process every year for all taxpayers with assets above or near the tax threshold is administratively impracticable.

Because of persistent administrative difficulties and taxpayers’ behavioural responses, wealth taxes raise comparatively little revenue. Countries that experiment with wealth taxes repeatedly find that taxpayers adjust their behaviour or move in large numbers, undermining optimistic revenue forecasts. Before France repealed its net wealth tax in 2018, the government estimated that “some 10,000 people with 35 billion euros worth of assets left in the past 15 years.” 

Spain experienced a similar behavioural response following the 2023 “solidarity tax,” which raised just 40 percent of the projected revenue. Cato’s Chris Edwards summarises that “European wealth taxes typically raised only about 0.2 percent of GDP in revenues. Given the little revenue raised, it is not surprising that they had ‘little effect on wealth distribution,’ as one study noted.”

California’s Proposal Is a Warning for the Country

California’s proposed 5 percent wealth tax is especially notable because it would layer on top of the most progressive tax system in the OECD. The state already relies on taxpayers making over half a million dollars a year (the highest income 2.5 percent) to pay 49 percent of income tax revenue. They do this by combining high marginal income tax rates and heavy reliance on capital gains taxation, which makes revenues volatile and highly sensitive to the fortunes and domiciling decisions of a small number of taxpayers.

The initiative’s own findings make clear that this will not be a one-time tax. The ballot text explains that the wealth tax “would only modestly slow” the growth of billionaires’ fortunes in California. That admission undermines the premise that the tax solves any underlying fiscal or wealth distribution problem. If a tax leaves wealth largely intact, political pressure to repeat, expand, or permanently extend it is inevitable. This is what happened in Spain, when its “exceptional and temporary” wealth tax became permanent. California’s proposal should be understood in this light, not as a one-off correction, but as a test case for permanent wealth confiscation.

The lesson extends beyond California. Chronic spending growth cannot be solved by ever more aggressive taxes on a narrow subset of high-income taxpayers. Wealth taxes are not a solution to budgetary or economic gaps; they are a symptom of a broken fiscal system grasping for short-term revenue while postponing the difficult but necessary work of restraining spending growth. 

* * * * 

Adam Michel is director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, where he focuses on analysing the economic and budgetary effects of taxation in the United States.
    He is widely published and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. He has also appeared on Fox News, CNN, and CNBC to discuss tax policy and its economic effects. In addition to numerous book chapters, his scholarly work has been published in the Journal of Public Budgeting and Finance and Tax Notes.
    His post first appeared at the Cato at Liberty blog.

Yes, this is pathetic.

The reason for the punishment. Threats not immediately obvious.

Yes, it's accurate to call Te Pāti Māori a racist party — both its constituencies and policies are race-based. Like Wee Willy Jackson, who spoke yesterday against them being banned for 21 days, they view everything through a lens focussed on race.

"The world is watching'" said Jackson, "and this type of punitive punishment will enshrine and entrench in world political commentators, and certainly the Māori Party, that this place is indeed racist and that there's no hope for this place. That's how bad that decision is."* TPM MPs and other were happy to pile on and magnify his point. "Everyone can see the racism," said Takuta Ferris. " It is hardly being hidden." "Racism-whistling," said Marama Davidson. "Racism," said Ms Hapi-Clarke. Racism, racism, racism.

Baloney.

It's just a Parliament trying to maintain the illusion that its members deserve any sort of respect. 

As Chloe Swarbrick pointed out, it's a place full of of humbug: Winston stood up and preached about "contempt" — TPM's "utter contempt for the whole institution." Yet "the last time ... that the Privileges Committee did not make a consensus-based decision," cited Swarbrick in her speech, "in fact it was—and here I am reading explicitly from the Privileges Committee report back then—'for the Member, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, who knowingly provided false or misleading information on a pecuniary interest.'" MPs of course caring nothing for how much they lie to you, but who get upset (or pretend to) when they're seen to lie to each other.

But as for those wanting to punish these MPs by removing them from the House for an unprecedented period?

Don't be so bloody precious.

The Parliament needs some formality in order to function, to allow violently-opposed views to be heard and debated. But it also needs some theatre — and no-one could argue that Han-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's defiant rip-up-and-haka conclusion to the Treaty Principles Bill wasn't great theatre.

And let's not get all uptight about the alleged "threats" against the ACT Party front bench. If threats alone were enough to ban an MP for three weeks then Julie Anne Genter might be permanently on leave.

It was National Party MPs who escalated all this by arguing for a 21-day ban. And let's not forget it was ACT Party MP Parmjeet Parmar who investigated imprisonment as a possible punishment. Imprisonment!

Was that racism? No, it was simply irresponsible. (And in Parmar's case, authoritarian.)

Yesterday the Māori Party co-leader was still berating the "coloniser government" for punishing them. Maybe they should take a leaf out of Sin Fein's book, who also refused to concede the legitimacy of their Parliament. But in the Westminster Parliament Sinn Fein take their stand seriously: their seven MPs refuse to front at all.

* * * * 

* To be fair, Jackson was a bit more subtle than that. "These people on the other side," he said, "they're not all Ku Klux Klan members .... Some of them are quite good."

"The Greens' vision a pathway to Venezuela"

"LET'S STRIP AWAY THE political gloss and assess the Green Party’s 2025 budget for what it is: a document heavy on ideology, neo-Marxist buzzwords, and te reo, but dangerously light on pragmatism, economic credibility, and operational realism. ...

"Fundamentally, their budget is about lifting government revenue by taxing New Zealanders an extra $88billion over four years. They have no plan for growing the economy. ... for additional capital, the Greens have decided to simply borrow more. ...

"Included in the Greens tax grab are following revenue channels: Inheritance Tax [i.e., Death Tax]... Private Jet Tax ... 10-year Brightline test ... Labour’s removal of interest deductibility for residential property ... Companies/Corporate Tax [hike] ... Income Tax [threshold] change ... Mining Royalties [hike] ... Wealth Tax...

"It is worth remembering that the Green Party only claims these policies will generate nearly $90 billion in new revenue over four years. This is an implausibly optimistic figure. The reality is you can’t just plug in tax rates and expect static revenue. People adapt and restructure in reaction to law changes and shifting systems. Sometimes they just straight up leave. These are not 'guaranteed billions.' They are some pretty wild assumptions disguised as policy. ...

"CLAIMING TO HAVE FOUND $88 billion in additional revenue thanks to taxing the shizzzzz out of New Zealanders, the Greens have gone to town spending big. ... their budget is more manifesto than fiscal plan. At the heart of the document is the assumption that profit should be avoided and the state should act to hamper it as much as possible. Other assumptions of note relate to their allergic reaction to anything that remotely suggests that adults should be responsible for their own wellbeing. ...

"In classic modern Marxist fashion, they are determined to try things that have already failed multiple times over in other jurisdictions. ...The biggest problem with [their] extensive list of spending [outside the morality of altruism and theft, Ed.] ... is that there’s clearly a lack of capacity in our systems to deliver any of these services. ...

"It is also a strategy that assumes infinite government competence. The Greens are highly critical of our existing systems and yet they want to expand them, give them vastly more power, and put them under further pressure. ...

"'As Venezuelans have learned over the past 20 years of socialism, “free things” come at a high price'.' ...

"Most depressing of all, in my view is the way the Greens would set out to cause lifelong structural dependency on the state. Accusations of Marxism and socialism are often overblown, but in this case they are truly warranted. This plan contains no serious expectations of any personal responsibility nor any incentives to engage in commerce and grow the economy. Guaranteed incomes, regardless of effort, encourage longterm unemployment or permanent student life. There’s no point in saving, working hard, starting a business, or taking financial risks. In fact, those who do would be penalised severely by the Greens through taxation. This is a social model built not on empowerment, but entitlement. ...

"This budget is a blueprint for turning our country into the next Venezuela. It is easy to dismiss the insanity of the Greens as the fantasies of the irrelevant, but the assumption that will not get close to the levers of power is a naive one. ... unless MMP is overhauled ..."

~ Ani O'Brien from her posts 'The Greens' vision a pathway to Venezuela' and 'Greens' moral crusade masquerading as an economic plan

WATCH: Greens's co-leaderette Chloe Swarbrick attempts defending the impossible against Jack Tame's timid prodding:

"The Greens’ Budget is more than just a Budget. It is their utopian vision for a different country."

"[T]he Greens’ ... 'Green Budget' ... is more than just a Budget. It is their utopian vision for a different country. Unfortunately, it is also based on ludicrous assumptions and bad economics. ...

"The cornerstone of the Green revenue plan is a wealth tax raising $72.5 billion over four years. That is, well, optimistic. Just ask Germany, France and Sweden why they abandoned similar taxes. The reasons were capital flight, tax avoidance and administrative nightmares. ...

"Their plans for universal dental care ...is magical thinking, not policy. ...

"Their public housing plans ... offer no realistic plan for quadrupling construction capacity in a sector already facing severe workforce shortages and supply chain constraints.

"Their $395 weekly Income Guarantee ignores inevitable [inflationary] market responses. ... [guaranteeing] a return to similar inequality but with vastly higher government spending.

"The Greens have presented us with a textbook case of utopian thinking. And not coincidentally, 'utopia' literally means 'a place that does not exist'.”

~ Oliver Hartwich from his post ' The Green Budget fantasy'

Helen Clark is now *against* corruption!

 

Helen Clark's eponymous foundation has come out against corruption in politics, which is a bit like coming out in favour of apple pie with cream.  

As I outline below, you'd think an organisation using Ms Clark's name might stay quiet on the subject of corruption. What her foundation's report calls corruption however included in one neat package deal the putrid practices of political lobbyists, and the act of people donating to their favourite political party.

These are two very different things.

One has the stench of cronyism. Of peddlers of political relationships forming a parasite class that Ayn Rand once called an "aristocracy of pull." The other is, well, for the most part it is just people donating to a political party because they like the party's policies and/or people.

Yes, cause and effect sometimes goes the other way. There are parties who do sell policies to donors. The ACT party's pathetic capitulations to Auckland council amalgamation and on abolishing the RMA has for years been predicated upon the many consultants who donate to and infest the party, and who never see a trough they don't like. The National Party's silence on China's many misdeeds may be connected to large donations from organisations like the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse group. The link between Winstons First's racing and fishing policies and his racing and fishing donors is oft ignored simply because major parties seek a sweetheart deal with him every three years,  but is tangible, not to mention the link between Labour's policies (education policies for example, favouring teachers unions) and trades union donations of time and money to Labour's campaign. And not to mention all the "green" projects subsidised with taxpayer money to help out the businesses and of Green donors.

But for the most part, donations are small beer. And are fairly transparent. It's the hole-and-corner parasites of political pull who are the biggest evil. And they're everywhere.

PJ O’Rourke used to delight in pointing out that this corruption, the buying and selling of political favour, is simply the price of Big Government — the sort of government that Clark herself has always favoured. Favours for cronies. Jobs for the boys (and girls). Big Government's power and money on sale to the highest bidders.

No one should be surprised. As O'Rourke used to remind us, when legislation proscribes what is bought and sold, the first things to be bought will be the legislators -- and the more legislation is written the higher the demand, and the higher the price.

The answer of course is a separation of state and economy, in the same way and for much the same reasons as the separation of church and state.

But that is not what Clark's foundation prescribes. 

It's not what Clark herself is after.

Helen Clark and her followers have long favoured direct payment of political parties by taxpayers. That's what this is about. Taxpayers forced to donate to parties whose views they may abhor. To political parties whose power would only become more entrenched by the regular involuntary AP from taxpayers' pockets. Clark favours this because her own Red Team suffers by comparison with donations to the Blue Team. (Not that money on its own can win elections, otherwise the ACT Party would have been in power for the last three decades.)

This was the impetus behind then-Prime Minister Clark's infamous user of illegal taxpayer money for her own election campaigns — "illegal" was the Auditor-General's word — passing retrospective legislation to legalise what commentator Chris Trotter called "acceptable corruption." ("Acceptable" because it was his own favoured political regime ransacking the public purse.) And for then-Prime Minister Clark's subsequent passing of the Electoral Finance Act to muzzle her opponents during election campaigns.

Corruption? If there's anyone in New Zealand politics who knows about corruption it's Helen Clark. When I read that Helen Clark's Foundation is "targeting corruption," I immediately searched here at NOT PC for "Helen Clark corruption." It's quite a trove. It runs for three pages. if you feel like diving in, start with the post near the top: ' Cancerous and corrosive and un-democratic and, and, and ...

Or of you want a fuller story, download this PDF copy of The Free Radical from 2006 explaining, as the cover story describes 'How Labour Stole the Election.'

"The people who incoherently scream mixed messages into their megaphones about a range of unrelated topics are not the people to lead that environmental debate for us"

"Whether we talk about a business, a school, a sporting body or indeed a political party, plenty of organisations lose their way from time to time. In strategic planning reviews, we are often forced to consider the fact that our progress is not taking us towards our intended goal or our purpose. Sometimes it’s because we are off course. Alternatively, the destination or target may have changed without us noticing. Either way, a conscious change is usually required.
    "In the case of the Greens, that target is no longer the environment. Instead, their attentions are focused on the impoverished, the Palestinians, Māori and, most recently, each other. If these are the causes they wish to pursue, that’s okay. But these are not the aspirations of a genuine Green Party. In any review of their performance, it is awfully tempting to talk about the inappropriate behaviours in the parliamentary chamber, the shoplifting, the immigrant labour or the tantrums. But we don’t really need to, do we? Because there is a bigger picture.
    "In New Zealand, we don’t deserve the hard time we give ourselves on environmental issues. While our environmental standards might not meet the expectations of the protesting few, the reality is that we do better than most countries. ...
    "One of the reasons we do better than most is that those earnest Green party politicians from the 1990s ... I often wonder what [Rod] Donald and [Jeanette] Fitzsimons might have achieved if they had the social media channels available today.
    "However, the current Green Party show no signs of using those social media channels to lead another generation to a better environmental place. They don’t talk about the oceans or the bush. They talk about Palestinians, indigenous rights and the rainbow community. ... Are they off-track? Or has their purpose changed? ... the aspirations to be our environmental conscience have been overtaken by the desire to champion those whom they believe to be the downtrodden ...
    "I’d like to see us do the obvious things around our waste, our waterways and our oceans. And I’d like to see us acknowledge the challenges in each of those areas and to develop a plan that would see us lead the world.
    "But the people who incoherently scream mixed messages into their megaphones about a range of unrelated topics are not the people to lead that environmental debate for us."

~ Bruce Cotterill from his post 'Green Party's Identity Crisis Should Be Cause for a Rebrand'

The Green Party under Swarbrick calls for "a Zero-Sized Economy"

"Chlöe Swarbrick says tax reform is needed in NZ.
She says that adopting a capital gains tax is just "basic economic sense."
 I wonder which books in economics she is reading? Das Kapital..."

"Chlöe Swarbrick ... says that adopting a capital gains tax is just 'basic economic sense.' I wonder which books in economics she is reading? 'Das Kapital' by Karl Marx? ...
    "[P]roductivity is particularly weak in NZ? [Why?] Because we are a 'capital shallow' economy ... Poor countries have lots of labour and little capital, which leads to low wages, whereas in rich countries it's the other way around. At present, NZ is driving up labour with record-breaking immigration — whilst GDP per capita, and productivity, are plummeting. So what is Swarbrick's mind-bogglingly contradictory intervention into the tax debate? That in order to improve our prosperity, it's 'basic economic sense' to tax capital more. Since when did you get more of something by taxing the pants off it?

    "The Green Party under Swarbrick has a new way to achieve its Net Zero carbon goal - its by aiming for Zero Capital and a Zero-Sized Economy."

~ Dr Robert MacCulloch from his post 'Chlöe Swarbrick says capital taxes are "basic economic sense", which goes to show she doesn't have any'

New Left vs the Masses

"There is one line by [New Left hero Herbert] Marcuse that is quite telling about the essence of the New Left:

"‘If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television programme and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population. (…) The people recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment’. (One-Dimensional Man, pp. 10-11). 

"For Marcuse, a worker who can afford a resort place, a working-class girl having access to amenities that were previously only available to the elites, and a person of colour owning a car, are all problematic. People escaping the drudgery of millennia means they can’t anymore play the convenient role of the victim in the intellectual’s schemes of class warfare. Which is why Marcuse gives up on ordinary people as political agents, and looks instead to the ‘lumpenproletariat’ for his new revolutionary subjects. 

    "The masses and their aspirations are a problem!

    "Notice also the anti-materialism: how dare these proles enjoy amenities! How dare they enjoy that split-level home! They’ve lost their souls, but I, Marcuse, can tell them what’s good for them - know your place proles! 

    "No one saw as clearly this shift of the Left, from promising abundance to problematising working class people having stuff, than Ayn Rand: 

'The old-line Marxists used to claim that a single modern factory could produce enough shoes to provide for the whole population of the world and that nothing but capitalism prevented it. When they discovered the facts of reality involved, they declared that going barefoot is superior to wearing shoes'."

~ Nikos Sotirakopoulos

"Wellington's consultancy-industrial complex is in a funk." Good.

"[Wellington's] consultancy-industrial complex [is] in a funk, because philosophically and culturally, the change in government has shown up the gulf between them and the government. It has also demonstrated two major issues: The dearth of strategic and intellectual grunt in much of the public sector; and the ideological chasm between many of the ... public servants [sic], and the Government ...
    "[Ten years ago] there was a significant cohort of senior and leadership talent in parts of the public service [sic] that were formidable in their intellectual capability, commitment to ideological neutrality, and interest in an evidence-based approached to public policy.... [along with] a deep understanding of what they did and did not know, and what they could not know. ... They all knew that, by and large, they had no idea how much of the economy worked in any detail. ...
    "The beginning of change in that culture happened under the Clark Government, which was much more pro-active and wanted to 'do more.' ... the Ardern/Hipkins Government put it into overdrive, and the Luxon Government will be seeing the signs of it. ...
    "The elections of [Tory Whanu as mayor], Tamatha Paul as MP of Wellington Central and Julie Anne Genter as MP for Rongotai provides a sign of what has happened to the Wellington public service [sic] over that time. ... The Wellington public service [sic] grew enormously in the past six years, drawing upon enthusiastic graduates, predominantly coming with ... left-wing enthusiasm for state intervention, regulation, spending and taxation, with suspicion around ... the views of significant portions of the public, including those of more senior civil servants, because of identity factors (e.g. race, sex, gender &c.) ...
    "None of that would matter one iota if they could put that to one side and be highly-competent public-policy analysts, but that competence is wanting ... lacking historical knowledge and being weak on analytical capability.
    "As a result the mood today in many government departments ... is one of fear and depression, as a workforce of relatively young public servants [sic], most of whom did not vote for this government, struggle to cope with being asked to implement policies they don’t agree with. ...
    "[T]here is significant scope to scale down the numbers of people doing policy in government in Wellington ... because there is a distinct lack of talented, capable and clever people, who put aside their personal political biases in favour of evidence-based policy advice. Most importantly, there are few who will admit to Ministers 'we don’t really know how to do that' or 'we don’t know how that part of the economy works' or 'we don’t have the knowledge or experience on that issue ... '
    "[T]he government appears willing to lean down on the state sector (albeit not enough), which should provide ample opportunities to send blinkered ideologues with mediocre intellectual grunt to a new life not serving a government they hate."

~ Liberty Scott, from his post 'Wellington is in a funk'

Parliamentary entitle-itis is catching

It's not just Christopher Luxon with a bad case of entitle-itis. There is a raft of other MPs and ministers who think taxppayers — you – should help them pay their mortgages on their Wellington homes.

MP expenses came to almost $1.7m and Ministerial expenses came to more than $670,000. ... The National Party - which has the largest caucus in the Parliament - spent the most on expenses in the period, totalling almost $731,000.

Here's a list of the scum currently or recently claiming large "expenses" and accommodation allowances from you (costs are for three months, unless stated):

• Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was the biggest expense of the lot, at a cost of just more than $57,500 - including VIP transport of more than $39,000. The rest was made up of costs of almost $7500 for accommodation, air travel of $9500 and "surface" - ground travel, such as taxis of more than $1300
• The next highest expenses cost in National's caucus was Auckland-based Defence Minister Judith Collins, at a cost of more than $24,200, made up of more than $6000 for accommodation and just over $18,000 on travel. Also giving the trough a decent nudge were West Coast's Maureen Pugh at just over $21.500; Taupo's Louise Upston at $21,000; and Christchurch-based Matt Doocey and Rotorua-based Todd McLay at just under $20,500.
• During the last Government, there were four ministers in the same situation as Luxon, living in their own homes in Wellington and claiming the ministerial accommodation allowance, which is up to $45,000 a year. These were Willy Jackson, Jan Tinetti, Deborah Russell and Duncan Webb. All are likely to claim again this year, but on a lower accommodation allowance.
• In addition, last year four other Labour MPs were living in their own Wellington properties while claiming the allowance. These were: Jenny Salesa, Arena Williams, Jamie Strange and Sarah Pallet.
• And in 2024, there are now 20 MPs (not yet named yet) with second-homes in Wellington who are claiming up to $45,000 so that taxpayers can help pay their mortgages.
• Labour's David Parker and Manurewa MP Arena Williams both claimed around $23,000 on expenses. Ingrid Leary in South Otago and Tangi Utikere in Palmerston North.
• Greens's Manurewa-based co-leader Marama Davidson enjoyed almost $26,000 of largesse in her last two months in the ministry trough. Third-assistant speaker Teanau Tuiono declared almost $25,000 of expenses, while Auckland-based Chloe Swarbrick grabbed $17,500 and former Greenpeace activist Steve Abel claimed just over $17,000. 
• ACT's Mark Cameron, based in rural Northland, declared almost $21,000 in expenses, the highest of any ACT MP. That included almost $10,000 on accommodation and a similar amount on travel. ACT's second-highest grasper is Todd Stephenson, living in Queenstown, claiming just under $19,000.
• NZ First's Jamie Arbuckle, from Marlborough, spent more than $16,000, while Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi - who lives in a remote part of his Waiariki electorate - spent $36,500 of your money, and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer nearly $22,500.
• Other big spenders in the last few months include and Grant Robertson, given $42,369 to go see the rugby, 

A nice rort, if you can get it.

The lowest spenders [include] new Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds, who is based near Wellington. She spent $521, most of which was $403 on flights. ... and [Labour] Leader Chris Hipkins - who is based in Upper Hutt - declared $1129, all of which was on flights. 

Good for them. On this, if nothing else.

China's history "presents some interesting and broader lessons for us, even in New Zealand"

"Frank Dikotter ... has written a number of books on the modern history of China. Of particular note are three titles which form 'The People’s Trilogy' and which cover the history of China under Mao Zedong. ...

    "Dikotter’s books present some interesting and broader lessons for us, even in New Zealand. The lessons are considerable but as I read the following matters occurred to me.
    "Communist rule thrives in an authoritarian atmosphere where a single line of thought and expression prevails. There is no room for contrary opinions. There is no tolerance of dissent. ...
    "Communist rule cannot tolerate any expression of individualism. Everything and everyone must be subordinated to the interests of the State. Individual initiative, individual betterment, individual ambition cannot be tolerated. Individual economic improvement is unacceptable. ...
    "The sort of levelling that is anticipated by a wealth tax – proposed by the Greens and by some element of the Labour Party - is typical of the type of levelling that took place in Mao’s China. The motives and the methods may be different as may be the context within a supposedly democratic environment — but the outcome is the same — the subordination of the individual to the interests of the State.
    "Finally there is the casual attitude towards human life — indeed the lives of the citizens which, under a civilised State, the State is duty bound to preserve and protect. Lives became numbers to the Communist bureaucrats and those numbers became quotas for the widely scattered cadres who not only tried to fulfil but at times endeavoured to exceed the death quotas dictated from Beijing. The message is clear. Under Communism even the life of the citizen is subordinated to the State.
    "These are but three of the lessons that come out of Dikotter’s study. Clearly he is no friend of Mao or his methods and how could he be. Indeed, how could anyone be."

~ David Harvey, from his post 'The Tragedy of Liberation'

Swarbrick & the currents of Green unreason

"The weakness [interviewer Jack] Tame homed in on was Swarbrick’s political inflexibility – a flaw which has only grown as her time in Parliament has lengthened. ...
    "While, on paper, the Greens’ determination to arm their politics with the weaponry of reason and science [makes] it a perfect fit for the serious, almost scholarly, Swarbrick, there were risks [with her choosing to join them]. The currents of unreason that were flowing with ever-increasing force beneath the surface of Green Party politics were bound to end up battering her core intellectual and political principles. ...
    "Her six years in Parliament appear to have diminished her faith in democracy as the most effective political system. .it appears to have hardened her and made her brittle. ... 

    "Swarbrick’s declining faith in representative democracy is reflected in her conviction that “the people” possess a power that overmatches the tawdry compromises of professional politicians. In her pitch to Green members Swarbrick hints that this power may be sufficient to bring the whole rotten, planet-destroying system crashing down. That, with the masses at their back, the Greens can build a new and better Aotearoa.
    "How many times has revolutionary zealotry offered this millenarian mirage to an angry and despairing world? How many times has it all gone horribly wrong? And how sad is it that a politician as talented as Chloe Swarbrick now finds herself wandering this arid trail?"

~ Chris Trotter, from his post 'Iron in Her Soul'

So ... Golriz [updated]

 

I hate pile-ons.

And I think we should always presume innocence until or unless guilt is proven.

Based on media stories I see folk nonetheless insisting that she should resign -- even before her guilt is nailed down.

I think this is a mistake.

The best result is not Golriz’s resignation -- which would just put another Green MP's arse in the same seat.

The best result is for her to brazen it out with her damaged reputation , and for the Green Party to further damage theirs in trying to defend her/cover for her. That looks more like a win-win to me.

That said, she is still innocent until proven guilty …

UPDATE:

Bugger:

"Eric's Principle of Green Energy: Green policies are self limiting. The ultimate backstop on political climate ambition is the catastrophic economic mess green policies cause."

 

Pic: Tadeáš Bednarz, via Jo Nova

"When climate advocates say 'Net Zero,' are they actually referring to how much cash green investors will have left when the last bubble bursts?'
    "It seems people only wanted renewable energy if they got cheap loans.
    "The general US S&P shares index gained 15% this year but The Invesco Solar ETF (Fund) which invests in solar energy stocks around the world — fell by a dire 40%. Even the [ill-named pork barrel subsidy-packed] US 'Inflation Reduction Act' couldn’t save the solar sector. As finances tighten with rising interest rates, apparently solar panel orders are among the first to be cancelled.
    "Some of the worst performers in the whole US share market are solar shares ... Solar panels [are] a luxury item. If only solar panels were cheaper, in tough economic times, everyone would want them. [Instead, some headlines:]

• Solar Stocks Shaken By High Interest Rates And Supply Chain Issues ...
• What happened to solar stocks? Investors ‘pick up the pieces’ after a brutal earnings season ...
• Solar Stocks Still Searching For A Bottom ...

"This once again demonstrate’s Eric [Worrall]’s Principle of Green Energy – green policies are self limiting. The ultimate backstop on political climate ambition is the catastrophic economic mess green policies cause.
    "The high interest rates which are crippling green energy and EV supply chains are largely due to energy price inflation, which is a direct consequence of green obsessed regulatory hostility towards fossil fuel. Green energy policies are directly driving the demise of the green energy industry.
    "Personally if I was invested in companies with exposure to this insanity, I’d be calling for the scalp of whichever intellectually challenged executive decided to gamble with my shareholder capital. This crash was inevitable and obvious, it was only the timing of the crash which was uncertain."

~ composite quote from Jo Nova and Eric Worrall, from their respective posts 'Solar Stocks crashed in the last quarter too, down 40% so far this year around the world' and 'The Great Green Crash – Solar Down 40%'

RELATED:

"Does that mean the annhilation of Israel?" "Yes, of course." [updated]

 

Hamas's "useful idiots" were out in Auckland's Domain over the weekend. In a month or so, they will be in Parliament. 

"Useful fool" was Lenin's phrase for his western dupes -- those shallow thinkers in the West whom the Communists manipulated.

On the weekend's evidence, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is officially Hamas's useful fools.

Let me give you some context.

On Saturday's pro-Palestine rally, Labour's Phil Twyford was granted a speaking spot by organisers, the NZ Palestine Solidarity Network. He condemned the violence. But he made the mistake of condemning Hamas's violence as well as the IDF's. The crowd turned on him, organisers asked him to leave, he was booed off, and without a police guard his escape from the grounds would not have been guaranteed.

Immediately after -- immediately -- the increasingly shrill Chloe Swarbrick got up to speak. She began by making "absolutely clear," in front of a gaggle of cheering new Green MPs and co-leader Marama Davidson, that "just after what we've witnessed, I want to say strongly, clearly and vehemently, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand stands for a free Palestine.... From the river to the sea, Palestine" she chanted, "will be free."

"Free free Palestine!" they shouted. "Free free Palestine!" they chanted. But I have a question: Free Palestine? From what? for what? of what? of whom? 

"It's not complicated," shouted Swarbrick.

And it's actually not.

In the end, what really matters is what matters to Hamas, who rule the geographically-western strip of Palestine, their launchpad for their attacks on October 7th. And all the fools, tools and useful idiots should be absolutely clear what Hamas's own "Leader Abroad" Khaled Mashal means by "freeing" Palestine, about with he is abundantly clear. For him, it is not at all complicated. Speaking from the safety of his multi-million dollar apartment in Qatar, he makes it absolutely plain of whom he wants Palestine to be freed:

" ... We will repeat the October 7 massacre time and again, one-million times if we need to, until we end the occupation. 

Q: "Occupation where, of the Gaza strip?"

No, I am talking about all the Palestinian lands.

Q: "Does that mean the annihilation of Israel? 

"Yes, of course."

Annihilation.

All the way from the river -- that's the whole Jordan Valley on the east-- right down to the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Annhilation.

From the river to the sea.

UPDATE: 

Just to be absolutely, pellucidly clear here .. it cannot be Gaza of which they say "the Israeli occupation" must end. Because rightly or wrongly Israel stopped occupying Gaza 18 years ago,

'Co-governance is not our term ... not the final destination."

"This young cohort of new [firebrand Green and Te Pati Maori] MPs will undoubtedly have an influence in the House and on political discourse in the country. The self-described kōhanga reo generation promises to be vocal and controversial. To borrow Rawiri Waititi’s phrase, they represent the 'unapologetically Māori' perspective that he and his co-leader, Debbie Ngawera-Packer championed over the course of the last government.
    "It’s a strategy that has paid dividends for both Te Pāti Māori and the Greens in this election cycle, and has seen both Hipkins and his Minister, Willie Jackson, express their disappointment that Labour was not rewarded in a more fulsome manner for their government’s work progressing Māori issues over the last six years. ...
    "Much of that disconnect[ion] must be put down to co-governance. Whilst the term proved massively unpopular with the public, for politically active young Māori, co-governance is not an aspiration and certainly not a final destination given that it falls short of self-determination which they consider to be enshrined in tino rangatiratanga. It is, therefore, a concept that only retains popularity amongst Wellington’s political establishment. ...
    "Iwi leaders, such as Tūhoe’s Tamati Kruger, have been very clear about this point in the past.
    "'Co-governance is not our term. Mana Motuhake is our term. ... raising maximum authority for Tūhoe people.'
    "'I don’t see it as the final destination. ... I think it’s the next bus stop in a journey that has to be made. It’s everyone’s journey. It’s like gravity, you can’t defy it. It’s on its way,' Kruger said last year."

~ Philip Crump, from his post 'Gen Z in Da House'

"Contrary to the fanatical belief of its advocates, compromise [on basic principles] does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to be all things to all men, end up by not being anything to anyone. And more: the partial victory of an unjust claim, encourages the claimant to try further ...
    "[And], so often, compromise sacrifices the higher value to the lesser. It comes down to the parties’ fundamental principles: The three rules listed below are by no means exhaustive; they are merely the first leads to the understanding of a vast subject.

1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.
2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.
3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."

~ Ayn Rand, composite quote, from her articles 'Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?' and 'The Anatomy of Compromise'