"This is the intellect safeguarding [sic] our $22 billion grocery sector."

"The [Government and] Commerce Commission ha[ve] spent two years assembling [their] case [against supermarkets.] Supermarkets, we’re told, hold all the power. The evidence? Mostly grievances. The method? Identify the culprit, then look for supporting facts.

"So, when Foodstuffs released a price comparison of 20 everyday grocery items, suggesting Pak’nSave prices were cheaper than Australia’s (and the UK’s)—after removing GST—Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden had a problem.

"It turns out Australia’s apparently cheaper prices are not so cheap when GST is accounted for. That’s because Australia doesn’t tax grocery food. New Zealand does. Removing GST to compare like with like should be uncontroversial. It’s what every duty-free shopper on earth does.

"But ... the Grocery Commissioner of New Zealand—the [bureaucrat] charged with understanding retail markets—thinks adjusting for tax differences is sneaky. ...

"According to figures published by Foodstuffs ... of every “grocery dollar” [spent] ... supermarkets are responsible for just 19 cents: four cents profit, fifteen for costs like wages, rent, and refrigeration. GST takes the remaining thirteen.

"[The Commissioner's] response? ... Clamp down on the supermarkets and their [four cents profit] for negotiating too hard.

"This is the intellect safeguarding [sic] our $22 billion grocery sector."

~ Roger Partridge from his post 'Grocery Regulation Gets the Lewis Carroll Treatment'

"Trump’s administration has quickly moved beyond normal policy disputes into the realm of constitutional crisis." [update 2]

"Trump’s administration has quickly moved beyond normal policy disputes into the realm of constitutional crisis. His claim of authority to override courts, ignore Congress, and rule by decree presents Americans with a stark choice: They can defend their constitutional system, with all its frustrating checks and balances, or they can embrace an authoritarian leader who promises to impose their preferred policies by force.
    "The former path preserves liberty, even when policies disappoint. The latter leads, inevitably, to tyranny. Those who think Trump’s authoritarianism serves conservative ends should remember that power, once unleashed, outlives its wielder. The precedent Trump seeks to set would be available to every future President — including those with very different ideological aims.
    "America’s founders created a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent the concentration of power they had fled in Europe. They knew that liberty depends not on the character of individual leaders, but on binding all leaders within constitutional constraints.
    "That system now faces its greatest test since the Civil War."

~ Roger Partridge from his op-ed 'Trump’s War on Constitutional Democracy'

UPDATE 1: James Allan, a colleague of Roger Partridge's and a former Otago law professor —and normally one of the good guys — pushes back against Partridge's column. "Silly," he calls it. "Sensible," I would have said.

UPDATE 2: Partridge responds: "While Jim [Allan] and I share deep concerns about judicial activism and bureaucratic overreach, his attempt to normalise Trump’s recent actions ignores their unprecedented assault on constitutional government.

"Take Trump’s approach to executive orders. Jim notes that Joe Biden issued more orders early in his term. But this comparison misses the point entirely. The issue is not quantity but substance — Trump consistently invokes emergency powers to override Congress, courts and the Constitution itself.
    "His declaration of a 'border invasion' to suspend asylum rights exemplifies this overreach. Rather than work with Congress to reform immigration law, Trump simply decreed that America’s legal obligations to asylum seekers no longer apply. This is not normal policy implementation. It is rule by executive fiat."

John Adams famously called a republic “a government of laws, not of men.” The end result here would replace the rule of law by overruling legal restraints by the man on the top..

"NZ does not have a growing income inequality problem. We have a housing affordability problem. That’s the public policy problem our politicians should be trying to solve."

"New Zealand does not have a growing income inequality problem. We have a housing affordability problem. That’s the public policy problem our politicians should be trying to solve. ... 

"The Kiwi households most affected by the high cost of housing are those with the lowest incomes. And low incomes are associated with low levels of education.
    "Unfortunately, levels of educational attainment by Kiwi school leavers are in long-term decline. At the same time, educational outcomes in New Zealand are among the most unequal in the world. Solve these problems and we will lift the incomes of the least well-off, insulating them from the effects of higher housing costs.
    "Addressing the twin problems of housing affordability and educational attainment is critical to solving the country’s poverty problem. Not a mistaken obsession about increasing inequality."

~ Roger Partridge, from his op-ed 'Why the Inequality and Tax Debate is All Wrong'

"It is no wonder submitters have warned that Parker’s new laws will be worse than the RMA he wants to repeal. That is some achievement."

"So just what is wrong with [David Parker's proposed replacement for the RMA] For such a complex reform exercise, the problems with can be succinctly stated.
    "They include multiple conflicting objectives with no mechanism for evaluating costs and benefits to resolve trade-offs.
    "They largely disregard property rights, so will have a chilling effect on investment.
    "They presume that planners know best – and will be able to predict society’s complex and diverse future needs.
    "They will undermine local democracy by conferring planning decision-making powers on new regional entities.
    "And perhaps worst of all, they introduce a Pandora’s Box of new amorphous concepts.
    "A generation or two of lawyers have got rich litigating the meaning of the RMA’s core concept of 'sustainable development.' New requirements like 'enabling the use… of the environment in a way that supports the well-being of present generations without compromising the well-being of future generations,' will have environmental lawyers licking their lips.
    "Not to mention the new 'fundamental principle' of Te Oranga o te Taiao. This principle is defined to include the relationship between iwi and individual hapu and the environment. It places untested, undefined and unpredictable race-based considerations at the centre of the planning process.
    "It is no wonder submitters have warned that Parker’s new laws will be worse than the RMA he wants to repeal. That is some achievement."

~ Roger Partridge, from his post 'Three Strikes Against David Parker's RMA Proposals'

 

RMA: After 25 years, time to euthanase it

 

A fellow called Roger Partridge reminds us that the Resource Management Act is 25-years old this month, a shocking realisation for those opposed – and a timely reminder for everyone appalled at rampant housing unaffordability what is most behind the iniquity: this planning law that shackles the supply of new houses.

Yet over that time few voices have been strongly and consistently opposed. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, “When for a quarter-century the productive have been forced to seek permission from the unproductive in order to produce, with nary a word raised in opposition to that iniquity, then you may know that your culture is doomed.”

Mr Partridge’s headline says what his op-ed only hints at, that this Frankenstein Act must be slayed, but his conclusion at least is sound: that more tinkering will never tame this Frankenstein.

What can be done? The answer lies in the RMA’s great conceit: that planners and politicians are better placed to decide how resources should be used than their owners. As that approach has clearly failed, we need to start afresh.
    It is true that private property rights regulated by the common law will not always lead to acceptable outcomes. [Acceptable to whom, white man? – Ed.]  But that does not require a regime that places all decision-making in the hands of government. 
    The urban planning component of the RMA has been handed to the Productivity Commission for a reappraisal.
     We can only hope this will be a well-considered assessment of planning law that should have preceded the enactment of the RMA 25 years ago. [Cough, cough.]
    Where property is in private hands, the review should ask “what is wrong with letting private owners make their own decisions?” For centuries the law of property, contract and tort – with their focus on harm to third parties – did just that. And great cities were built on this basis.
    Indeed, our own cherished Victorian suburbs with their gracious villas were built with minimal help from town planners. Contemporary planners can learn from this.
    In Mary Shelley's masterpiece, though torn by remorse, Victor Frankenstein refuses to admit to anyone the horror of his creation, even as he sees it spiralling out of control.
    A quarter of a century on, let's hope Sir Geoffrey's heirs can do better.

I remain convinced this monster needs a stake through its heart – and that common law protections of environment and private property must be recognised again, starting perhaps with small consents, or perhaps with a codification of basic common law protections culminating with a re-statement of the Coming to the Nuisance Doctrine.

I remain unconvinced however that in the heirs of Geoffrey Palmer we should harbour any hope of anything whatsoever, except for much more of the same.

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