Is nuclear disarmament a good idea?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

China always claims peaceful intent, but whilst relations with Taiwan have warmed, China has never withdrawn the military option for "reunification".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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Treasury still has some thinkers

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

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

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

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

It means abolishing agencies and functions.

It means saying the government needs to do less.

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

Kim Jong Il to Barack Obama

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

Well done on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordon can do it, but John?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ACC deficit shows monopoly failings

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

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

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

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

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

Obama gets unwelcome supporter

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

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

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

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

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

Prince Charles frustrated using Youtube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Herald on Sunday so wrong about TV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Chris Trotter is partly right

From Bowalley Road:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So Trotter is somewhat right.

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

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

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

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

Obama Nobel Peace Prize?

Yes, Reuters states Obama has won it.

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

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

The list of all Nobel winners is here on Wikipedia.

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

However, Barack Obama?

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

UPDATE: Benedict Brogan at the Daily Telegraph is damning.

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

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

It's not easy stopping P

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

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

Culture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bono appears at Tory conference

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

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

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

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

Who is the thief?

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

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

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

Just a way of looking at this.

In rebuttal to this.

No service means no subsidy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Telegraph headlines this morning

Gay man 'tried to poison lesbian neighbours over three-legged cat feud'

Female predator pedophile stalked public lavatories

The pill gives women a taste for boyish men like Zac Effron

German banker used fake documents to work as a surgeon

Get the sense that Britain really IS about tabloid headlines?

French Minister of Pedarasty?

So you defend Roman Polanski.

Then someone reads your biography from four years ago where you say:

"I got into the habit of paying for boys . . . The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide"

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously ... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

Let it be clear the age of these boys is not clear, they may be legal age.

However, it is a big oops.

He COULD come out and say the boys were legal age, I have no shame about exploiting prostitutes from developing countries who consented and were (young) adults (!). There is no proof he has broken any laws.

However defending Polanski does not make for a good look. Polanski no doubt was excited enormously and was in a state of desire, so he drugged and raped a young girl.

It is THAT that denies his moral authority for certain, whether his rapacious hedonism also does so is something we may not ever know.

TVNZ is not a Taonga

Brian Rudman is sad that TVNZ is to broadcast programming of a wide appeal, which he describes as "lowest common denominator pap". He ignores, like all of the elitist snobs in the cultural subsidy industry, that the very people he claims to give a damn about - the poor, the less well educated, the needy - are in fact the broad mass of people who like what he calls "lowest common denominator pap". They are, the lowest common denominators. Those celebrated by the left are also sneered at, for their cultural (lack of) taste, in preferring cheaply made entertainment to local content, American sitcoms to documentaries about the union movement in the 1950s.

They wont admit it, but the overwhelming attitude is supremely condescending, like a ruling elite intellectual class that knows what's best for those poor unfortunate souls that capitalism has rendered victims of its heartless system. Woe is they who must watch TV of such low brow that we must tax them and force them to pay for what is good for them.

To fix the appalling choices of the proletariat, Brian Rudman calling for TVNZ to get special taxpayer money for New Zealand programming (which is also a breach of CER and a breach of New Zealand's GATS commitments). He thinks TVNZ is a treasure and harks back to better days at TVNZ, when it had programming he liked.

He is right that news and current affairs were better, but not by much of course. He then misrepresents considerably the TV licence fee, which ceased directly funding TVNZ in the 1980s, as NZ On Air was created and the licence fee was used to fund programming to all broadcasters on a case by case basis. Indeed all of the licence fee money was replaced by taxpayer funding when it was abolished in 1999, much to the chagrin of those who wanted rid of NZ On Air altogether. The statement "Government was supposed to make up the $100 a household licence fee but that never eventuated." is dead wrong.

The Ministry of Culture and Heritage, which has a demonstrable vested interest in maintaining and expanding this role, said "Important parts of our cultural life would simply not be present without intelligent intervention from the government."

Important to whom? People unwilling to pay for it? The suppliers who couldn't get people to pay for what they provide if given the choice?

Public broadcasting makes cultural elitists feel good, and the left like it for providing more in depth news and current affairs that inevitably has a statist bias. Why? Because by being forcibly funded by the state, such a broadcaster can find it difficult to build a culture to challenge the role of the state in that and other arenas. How CAN you question state funding of businesses, health, education, welfare and the like if YOU are a beneficiary of it?

Public broadcasting becomes a creature of the status quo and an advocate of statist solutions. How often on Radio NZ do you hear someone arguing for less government against one arguing for more government, rather than 3 all talking about different ways of having more government to resolve an issue of the day?

No. TVNZ is not a Taonga. TVNZ is a commercial broadcaster that seeks to maximise audiences, it is no more special than TV3. The fact it thinks it is, is a good reason to shut it down.

Maori TV offended - so what?

I didn't see the TV3 sketch obviously, I don't care whether I did or didn't, but notwithstanding that TV3 should have a right to free speech. It is privately owned, you don't have to pay for it or watch it. If its customers are offended then they can pull advertising if they wish.

There is no right to not be offended. It doesn't matter if you didn't find it funny.

In a free country nobody else is required to please you.

After all, the Maori Television Service is highly offensive to those who don't want to be forced to pay for any TV channels. I have never considered TVNZ to be anything to do with my values or my culture, for example.

The Broadcasting Standards Authority is increasingly anachronistic when anyone can easily obtain video and audio content from across the world via the Internet, not that international broadcasting is new. It is time to wind it up, and for people, parents especially, to be reminded that:
1. Owning a TV is voluntary. I know of at least two families who deliberately do NOT.
2. Turning the TV on is voluntary, and you can turn it off too.
3. What is broadcast by television is the choice of the broadcaster. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
4. Unless a broadcasting is inciting commission of an actual crime, the broadcaster is party to a crime, engaging in defamation of an individual or breaching copyright, there should be no legal remedies against it.

So next time TV3 offends you, turn it off. Next time Maori TV offends you, turn it off.

Shame you can't stop paying the state when it offends you.

Helen sends UNDP back into North Korea

Despite a major report outlining questionable UNDP practices in North Korea before (such as hiring North Korean staff selected by the regime for sensitive job positions), the UNDP is back.

UNDP Watch notes:

The regime employees filled such critical jobs as UNDP finance officer; program officer slots that helped to design and oversee UNDP projects in the country; technology officer, who maintained all of UNDP’s internal and external communications and servers; and even the assistant to the head of the UNDP office, who presumably was in a position to see much, if not all, of the boss’ paperwork.

The staff were paid in US$, and the capacity for fraud and diversion of aid for political purposes was enormous. $9.13 million was paid directly from UNDP to North Korean government agencies for projects approved by UNDP.

Who says the UNDP is back? Well the Korean Central News Agency. All other reports rely on that coverage. So who knows how true it is.

The Heritage Foundation is outraged for a very good reason. In a totalitarian state, any aid given is approved by the regime and benefits it. The regime's top priorities are:
- The tightly knit senior leadership surrounding Kim Jong Il and his non-estranged family;
- The military and secret police; and
- High ranking party members.

By NO means can money or aid going to North Korea that is used by its own government agencies ever be verified as having delivered assistance to those in need. It would be like funding Concentration Camp commanders to assist their captives.

So how is Helen Clark justifying this? Or is it just plus ça change... ?

I'm sure the New Zealand mainstream media are working hard to investigate this one, like they did before entered the role.

Pictures from a nearly car free society

The Times has a new photo-gallery of, where else?

(and yes it is a trolley bus not a tram)

Police accountability

I'm astonished that I'm going to agree with both David Garrett and Idiot Savant, but maybe there is a bit a belief in individual rights that can be nurtured?

Garrett describes a case as follows "Last month, while attending a call-out in Khandallah, police used force against a teenager they mistook for a gatecrasher at an out-of-control party. During the incident, the teenager suffered broken vertebrae in his neck after being struck with a baton. When he asked for the officer's badge number, he was told to 'eff off' – in direct contradiction of long-standing and established police guidelines"

Idiot Savant, beyond some cheap nastiness about Garrett caring about "rich kids", agrees. The question I would have is whether both men can ever possibly be consistent on this. Garrett after all has little history about caring about individual rights, Idiot Savant of course thoroughly embraces the thieving leviathan of a socialist state.

The fundamental problem with the Police, as I have described before, is that the separation of powers between the law enforcement, judiciary and legislative arms of the state means that the Police believe themselves to BE the law, and not accountable to those who pay for them, but most of all that their attitude to civilians - you're a suspect until we're satisfied otherwise- just wont do. The Police attitude to criminal justice policy is telling.

The Police exist as an extension of our own rights to self defence, they are paid for that purpose. When they turn on people without warning they are going completely against that.

Both myself and Trevor Loudon have presented options for Police reform. It would be good if some government would consider them.

Nanny Tories to tax alcohol more

Why be surprised? It is in the school prefect, oh "the working classes as so incompetent we must save them" holier than though attitude that the party sadly personifies too often.

You see the problem isn't the drinkers, it is apparently those who sell to the drinkers. Well you shall not do that, of course young bankers who get bladdered on champagne wont be affected, after all drunk upper class people are just funny aren't they?

Nice cheap way to excuse not focusing the criminal justice system on real offenders.

Tories announce cuts

Conservative Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, presented his plan to cut spending to eliminate the budget deficit at the Conservatice Party conference. Is it bold? No. Is it acceptable? Just. Is it enough? Not by a long shot.

His ideas are:
- One year pay freeze on all state sector employees earning more than £18k a year, excluding the Armed Forces (this includes teachers, doctors and the police);
- £50k cap on pension payments for state sector employees;
- Reducing "size of the Whitehall bureaucracy" by a third;
- Abolition of "baby bonds" and welfare tax credits for those earning over £50.
- Increase state pension age to 66 from 2016 (for men);
- NOT to abolish the forthcoming 50p tax rate on earnings over £150k;
- Increase inheritance tax allowance to £1m.

To be fair he laid it into Gordon Brown saying:

“The Iron Chancellor has turned into the plastic Prime Minister. Free social care. Free hospital parking. Free child care places. We would all like those things. But where is the money coming from? He is treating the British people like fools,”

Quite right, but whilst this is a start, I still think far more can be done as I outlined before:
1. Abolish all corporate welfare, stop trying to pick winners;
2. Lead a call to cut the EU budget at Brussels;
3. Sell Channel 4, Royal Mail and the tolled bridges/tunnels of the highway network;
4. Cancel plans for a high speed railway, no new taxpayer spending on rail infrastructure;
5. Scrap the ID card scheme;
6. Scrap a wide range of government IT projects;
7. Scrap subsidising rural broadband;
8. Abolish regional development agencies;
9. Fund Scotland on a per capita basis, forcing it to make budget cuts;
10. Eliminate additional welfare payments for those on welfare who have extra children;
11. Negotiate an end to EU welfare tourism;
12. Freeze NHS spending, introduce charges for "no shows" at appointments and charge for more than 1 GP visit a year for those between 18 and 65;
13. Freeze all public sector pay until there is a budget surplus;
14. Terminate public sector pension scheme membership growth;
15. Abolish all NEW agencies established since Labour was elected.

So far we have only number 13. 1 out of 15 George, must try harder.

and I wasnt even being libertarian.

Is Maori TV rugby bid a breach of WTO obligations?

New Zealand is bound by the General Agreement on Trade in Services to have no limitations on market access in the audio-visual services sector and no limitations on national treatment. This was a commitment signed up in 1994 under the previous National Government. It has effectively stopped local content quotas being introduced on television and radio.

Whilst there remain no limitations on market access, it is the commitment to no limitations on national treatment that is at issue here.

National treatment means that you treat foreign owned suppliers on an equivalent basis to domestically owned suppliers. In practice this means NZ On Air cannot discriminate between broadcasters on the basis of ownership, and it does not. However, it becomes a little more complicated when we talk about Maori broadcasting.

New Zealand limited national treatment for Maori broadcasting as follows:

"The Broadcasting Commission is 3)directed by the Government, pursuant to the Broadcasting Act 1989, to allocate a minimum of 6 per cent of its budget to Maori programming. From 1995 all public funding for Maori broadcasting will be controlled by Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (Maori Broadcasting Funding Agency)."

However, Te Puni Kokiri is responsible for the money being given to the Maori Television Service to bid for the broadcasting of the Rugby World Cup free to air. Not Te Reo Whakapuaki Irirangi (commonly known as Te Mangai Paho). Indeed you might ask whether bidding for broadcasting a rugby match is "Maori broadcasting" but it is moot.

That limitation does not apply as the money has not gone through the right agency. So the exception doesn't work.

Is there a potential breach of New Zealand's WTO commitments?

The state granting funding to a broadcaster that would not be available to a foreign owned broadcaster, for the same purpose, would appear to be so. Subsidies, you see, are meant to have national treatment.

TV3 and Prime should be entitled to national treatment, and be eligible for the same funding for a similar purpose, but are not. Indeed, one could not even begin to argue that there was a process to allow them to apply for such funding.

The foreign owners of both broadcasters could, theoretically, get their national governments to formally complain to the New Zealand government of this breach. Indeed, they could go to a WTO Disputes Panel and thoroughly embarrass the government as a result.

Wouldn't this have been picked up? Well no. You see Te Puni Kokiri is hardly versed in trade agreements. The Ministry of Culture and Heritage, which is responsible, was not actually responsible for broadcasting policy and GATS at the time it was signed. It was the then Ministry of Commerce (now Ministry of Economic Development). The institutional knowledge about this is not located in the Ministry of Culture and Heritage nor TPK.

I also doubt whether anybody thought it was necessary to get Ministry of Foreign Affairs sign off on this funding.

So the Parliamentary Question is:

"Has the Trade Minister received any advice as to whether the Te Puni Kokiri funding of the Maori Television Service to bid for free to air Rugby World Cup broadcasting rights is in compliance with New Zealand's international trade obligations? If not, why not?"

Supplementary:

"How does the Trade Minister reconcile New Zealand's commitments to national treatment in audio-visual services with the granting of a subsidy to a New Zealand owned broadcaster to acquire broadcasting rights that could not and would not ever be available to a foreign owned broadcaster?"

UPDATE: This also applies to CER. New Zealand is bound to offer national treatment to Australian broadcasters. So there could be a breach of CER as well.

Manufacturing rights

One of the trends in recent years from statists of both sides of the political spectrum is the manufacturing of "rights". Not genuine rights, the rights to free speech, rights to control the use of your body, rights to your property, rights to interact peacefully with others. No. Rights to something someone else has produced which is to be supplied to you by force.

It started with the "right to life" not being the right to repel anyone else trying to do violence to you, but the "right" to compel others to provide you with food, clothing, housing and warmth.

Then came a "right" to education. A "right" to health care. A "right" to a job. Nobody asserting these ever wanted to make it clear what rights would be infringed upon to deliver this, or indeed what would happen if everyone demanded a "right" to a living and sat around waiting for it.

You see the difference between a genuine right (sometimes referred to as a negative right) is that your exercise of it does not take away from the right of others to do the same. My right to free speech does not take away from yours. Oh, and to be clear, my right to free speech does not demand anyone else supply a platform for it, but it does demand that others not stop me from producing or negotiating to acquire my own. For example, if blogger stopped allowing me to publish this, it wouldn't be infringing on my right to free speech, it would be asserting its own property rights. Indeed, it has granted me limited property rights here, so I can write as I see fit and can block commenters if I like - blocking your comments doesn't infringe on your right to free speech.

So called "positive rights", require taking from others. You see everyone on earth could have free speech, and it would take away from no one (except perhaps the superstructure upon which many regimes are built). However, to grant everyone a "right" to a home, education, health care, broadband or whatever is the latest trend, would cost. Indeed, assuming rights should be the same for everyone, imagine the cost. Notice how none of the statists arguing for such "rights" assert them across international borders. Your "right" to broadband doesn't apply in Chad, nor does your "right" to heart surgery. You might ask why not, if it is a "right". The truth is that it is no such thing - it is a claim upon others using language to place what is a fundamentally socialist concept on a higher ground than it actually is.

It is worth remembering the main reason "positive" rights came about was because the Soviet Union reacted against TRUE rights being advanced at the UN. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was created in 1966, as a Western attempt to push true freedoms onto the UN agenda. It is far from perfect, but does include rights to freedom from torture, the right to not be arbitrarily deprived of life, freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom of movement including leaving one's country, freedom of association, freedom of speech etc.

However, this perturbed the USSR, which of course routinely ignored all of the above. So it created the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It included a "right to self determination" (not individual self determination mind you), the rights to work, social security, a minimum standard of living, etc.

None of this really matters, as New Zealand is a signatory to both, but then, so is North Korea. The US did not ratify the latter, but did the former with reservations.

So why raise it now? Because Brendon Burns, Labour's Broadcasting spokesman, has said you have a "right" to watch the Rugby World Cup on free to air television.

Yes, presumably in asserting this "right", he should provide you with a TV as well as the programming. Indeed, why can't I assert this "right" in London? If it is a "right" then why not?

Brendon is of course complaining about the ridiculous taxpayer funded Maori TV bid, but it's not just about that. He wants state TV to carry it. He specifically shuts out Prime TV, because of coverage reasons, and ignores TV3. So in other words, the Labour Party wants to force the NZRFU to give TVNZ the rights to broadcast the Rugby World Cup. Nationalisation of programming if ever it was.

Of course it is genuinely pathetic. Nobody has any "right" to watch anything. The Rugby World Cup is no more special than watching M.A.S.H, Ed Edd and Eddy, Bro-Town or championship fencing. Just because a lot more people want to watch it, doesn't mean there is some magical "right" imposed on the suppliers of the Rugby World Cup to hand over the rights.

Tory conference

Given that the current Labour government in Britain is morally bankrupt as it:

- Calls for MORE big government to try to get elected;
- Lies about the need for spending cuts, then admits they are needed after no one believes it.

and is third in the polls, you might hope the Conservative Party would be worth looking forward to.

Well the party conference is a chance to present itself as a government in waiting, so what have we seen so far?

- Boris Johnson demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, even if every other country ratifies it. I'll believe it when I see it, as William Hague has said the CURRENT policy is a referendum. Frankly, all that matters to me is that the UK relationship to Brussels is renegotiated;
- Promises that every town will have a school for tradespeople. Oh dear.
- Boris Johnson noting that he has freezed the Greater London Assembly portion of Council tax for another year, and will again next year, and wants the forthcoming 50p tax rate abolished;
- National Insurance (a tax) to be abolished for new companies for the first two years;
- Waffle about cutting "NHS red tape" to save money;
- People on incapacity benefits to face tough tests to check if they are capable of working.

Yawn.

Janet Daley in the Sunday Telegraph made a great point when she demanded the Tories put forward the moral case for spending cuts.

"The Conservatives must stake their claim to be the party that has a positive account, a morally attractive case, for saying that public spending – which is to say, the power of the state – can and should be reduced permanently. Sounds like heresy? Only if you buy into the lexicon of the Labour-Guardian-"equality" lobby – which is, of course, precisely what Mr Brown wants you to do."

"David Cameron's Tories can present themselves as sole custodians of the future in which a smaller state will mean a stronger society."

I'm not holding my breath. This is, after all, the party that still believes in stopping a private company expanding its airport.

Change you can believe in: Tibet

Barack Obama on Tibet and the Dalai Lama before being President.

Barack Obama on how President Bush should have boycotted the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in protest for human rights abuses in China, including Tibet

President Barack Obama cancels meeting with Dalai Lama, because US foreign policy interests are more important -which means getting Chinese support for action on Iran and North Korea.

Yep, awfully easily to play the moral high ground when you're not President isn't it?

Who really wants to be car free?

The Duke of Wellington famously loathed railways because he said it would "only encourage the common people to move about needlessly". Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes the comment by Prince Charles, himself the owner of six vehicles, on a similar vein. He believed one should be "elevating the pedestrian above the car". I like underpasses too, but he didn't mean that. He certainly didn't mean it for himself.

What is always missing from the anti-car language of the environmentalist movement (and a more peculiar "public transport religion") is the value people attach to having a car. It is so often portrayed as "car addiction" or "car dependent", but the counterfactual put forward, a fanciful notion that everyone was "better off" without cars doesn't bear close examination.

Put it this way. If you live in a modern new world city, consider the locations of jobs you can access with public transport conveniently, and those you can drive to within a reasonable time. The liberating influence of the car is dismissed by the doomsayers, as is the trend of those in China and India seeking to buy cars - as if it is some whim of the ephemeral.

"Living car-free may be fine for many people during some phases of their lives, and it may be fine for some people for all of their lives, but it’s no way for most of us to live — regardless of what Prince Charles and his fellow aristocrats may think" says Sam, and he's right.

Intensification for Auckland

One of the core philosophies of the Auckland Regional Council's planning approach for the region is intensification. It believes it is good to encourage people to live in higher density housing, close to "nodes", which happen to be railway stations. Indeed it is one of the key reasons why the ARC has embraced rail transport instead of bus transport. You see at one point, the then ARA advocated converting most of the rail lines into busways, busways would mean buses could travel around the central city hop on a busway, then exit to reach your home in the suburbs. However that wouldn't meet the intensification objective, as it would mean you'd STILL live on your quarter-acre section in the suburbs, when you SHOULD live in an apartment or semi-detached townhouse close to others. That is one key reason why taxpayers are being forced to pay for rail instead of bus.

So the theory is simple, people live closer together near a railway station, means they walk to the train to go to work, less people drive, all sounds good right?

No.

For starters it assumes that putting more people together means less driving, but it appears not to be the case. For if the development works, and there is retail and more reasons to go to the "transit oriented development" location, people drive there from further afield. It attracts people who go by car as well.

Secondly it assumes that because the railway is there, your job is on another station on the line. Wrong. Most jobs are not located within walking distance of the line people live on, and even if it was originally, as jobs change you may be less likely to find another job located also on that line.

Don't believe me? The LA Times did an investigative report into some such developments there, and the conclusions were rather clear. They did nothing.

This is one conclusion of the LA Times:

"In Los Angeles alone, billions of public and private dollars have been lavished on transit-oriented projects such as Hollywood & Vine, with more than 20,000 residential units approved within a quarter mile of transit stations between 2001 and 2005.

But there is little research to back up the rosy predictions. Among the few academic studies of the subject, one that looked at buildings in the Los Angeles area showed that transit-based development successfully weaned relatively few residents from their cars. It also found that, over time, no more people in the buildings studied were taking transit 10 years after a project opened than when it was first built."

Now it went on to claim Portland is working, but is it? Cascade Policy Institute, based in Oregon, says there is precious little evidence of this. It gave evidence to Portland City Council using official stats to demonstrate:

1. Despite high spending on public transport, the share of public transport for commutes into downtown Portland declined between 2001 and 2008 from 46 to 43%. It was static across Portland at 15% between 1998 and 2008. The goal of 60% share for downtown commutes by 2010 looks unattainable.

2. Portland's light rail system achieves ever growing ridership, although this isn't attracted from car users. However the proportion of operating costs paid for by users is less than 3%.

3. Dense housing advocated by Portland costs around 100% more than lower density housing, per person.

The question to advocates of the great Auckland experiment is this.

Where is the evidence that intensification and rail electrification will be any different for Auckland? Who should pay if it fails?

London's free Evening Standard

When I first arrived in London, the Evening Standard was the only evening paper. It started in 1827, It was owned by Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail, and I noticed it mainly because it loathed Mayor Ken Livingstone (not without some just cause, and the feeling was mutual). Of course, it didn't stop Ken getting re-elected. The Times notes it sold 450,000 copies a day on average five years ago. However, it soon faced intense competition.

From September 2006, TheLondonPaper was launched by NewsCorp, the difference was it was free. Associated Newspapers launched London Lite, to pre-empt it, another free evening paper, which was primarily focused on entertainment news and lifestyle items. London Lite was aimed at young female readers (unlikely to buy a newspaper).

The London Paper distributed over 470,000 copies, London Lite around 401,000 copies, but the Evening Standard had plummeted to 236,000, according to a June 2009 survey reported by the Guardian. In short, free papers had cannibalised the evening market.

The Evening Standard has been losing money for some years, so much so that Associated Newspapers sold 75.1% of it to Russian businessman, Alexander Lebedev for £1 in January 2009.

A couple of weeks ago, NewsCorp announced the end of TheLondonPaper, largely because of the collapse of advertising due to the recession. So now, the Evening Standard is to be relaunched at the end of next week. Free. With 650,000 copies to be circulated. Presumably, London Lite will disappear at the same time.

What remains, of course, are paid for national papers in the morning, but when London can't sustain an evening paid-for newspaper then it says a lot about trends in that industry.

The Evening Standard expects that by commanding the evening advertising market, it can be profitable, and it may well be. I found value in having a good paper on local issues, but admittedly I bought it less than once a week on average. I never pick up London Lite, but did use to read TheLondonPaper from time to time. In the mornings I read City AM, a financial news freesheet, as there is no newsagent between home and central London on my commute route.

Oh, and if you want to get some order of magnitude of the Evening Standard, if the Evening Standard is a giveaway of 650,000 copies, the NZ Herald SELLS around 171,000 and the Dominion Post around 90,000. Bear in mind also that greater London has a population of around 8 million.

Ireland votes yes and no

According to The Times, it looks like Ireland's second referendum on the same subject in two years is a "yes" to ratify the Lisbon Treaty of the European Union. Now given it was "no" last year, isn't it now one all?

Not to the European Union though. What was once a welcome lowering of borders and barriers between countries has become an arrogant statist project to impose a vision of regulation and uniformity across Europe. It is dominated by the economically and environmentally destructive Common Agricultural Policy, a massive transfer from British, Dutch and German taxpayers to French farmers (whilst farmers in eastern Europe get a third of the equivalent subsidy).

So when a country votes no, it is dismissed and it is time to have another vote. It is a disgraceful piece of hypocrisy that a customs union that purports to be in favour of democracy, ignores it when it doesn't go the "right" way.

As far as Ireland then? Well with an economy that was particularly badly hurt by bubbles in banking and property, many Irish were convinced that they needed to EU to be saved (given Ireland uses the Euro).

Of course, there needs to be another referendum next year doesn't there?

Just sell them

Labour is moaning about big dividends from electricity SOEs. Labour of course took big dividends when it was in power. However, the idea of cutting dividends and having this flow on to power prices is completely absurd. It would be unfair, because private power companies have less capacity to refuse dividends, and it would mean the taxpayer getting ripped off by the capital investment in the SOEs being undervalued. Of course, non-customers of the SOEs would get nothing, and given around 30% of the market isn't with the state, that's quite a bit.

So the best solution is simple: Privatise.

Partly by sale, when market conditions improve. Partly by giving away shares to taxpayers. Then the dividends wont just be money for the state to spend, but for people to choose how they wish to spend it.

That's true public ownership. However, those on the left don't like it, because they think they know better. You see you might spend a dividend on food, clothes, a holiday or your mortgage repayments, they'd spend it on state health, education and picking winners (or losers) in business or the voluntary sector.

However, you know the state will hold onto these for now, because the National Party thinks that the majority of you lot think privatisation is a dirty word.

Police create market opportunity

Closing down one supplier, puts up the price, and a new opportunity emerges.

Someone will be celebrating this, it wont be the customers, who will pay more, but the competition.

So what good has been done?

So, if you're in Queenstown, have you found the Police very responsive to thefts, burglaries, car conversions and vandalism?

Drinkers' licences - a joke?

Here's an idea:

"One possible solution could be an entitlement card that people would carry and swipe when every time they buy Alcohol or Tobacco and record their usage. Is that too radical? I don't think so. For a long time the Government have controlled motorists with a system of licences where people enjoy the right and freedom to drive - as long as they conform to certain rules.

With the card, people who got into trouble for, say, minor crimes or drunk and disorderly conduct in public would receive a fixed penalty notice and 3 points on their entitlement card with points disappearing over time for in the same way works on driving licences.

More serious offences would result in endorsements on the entitlement card and the cardholder would not be able to purchase alcohol, tobacco or other drugs available for sale through the entitlement card scheme."

This comes from a Labour Party Parliamentary candidate, John Cowan on a British Labour Party blog.

I kid you not.

This lot rightfully call the BNP fascists, but methinks the proverbial pot is calling the kettle.

I'd like to think this nonsense will just be dismissed, but experience tells us it gets embraced by statists, who think it's a great idea.

Pop at "Beware Mad Socialists" says it is justified by the "cost to the NHS" and says "The 'cost to the NHS' is used by totalitarian socialists to justify many of their evil plans. If the NHS doesn't want to treat people, they should simply give people their money back and let them sort out their own medical care - private health companies would be delighted to sell people the care they really want."

Ration cards for what you consume.

Of course, then it could help with obesity couldn't it? You wouldn't get more points to buy chocolate if you didn't get points from going to the gym. You wouldn't get more points to buy petrol if you didn't get points from catching the train. You could all be good boys and girls and do what we say, rather than do what you want - as if YOU know what's good for you.

You think I'm kidding don't you? It is like Not PC's recent post on NZ in Print, one jokes about calorie taxes, and then someone thinks it is a great idea. In fact, Google "calorie tax" or "drinkers' licences" and discover how many are jokes and how many think it is worth considering.

Hat Tip: Old Holborn

People don't care about state TV

Uh oh Labour MP Brendon Burns thinks you all love the beloved nanny state broadcasting to you:

"New Zealanders expect a state commitment to quality and relevant broadcasting. The Government must provide it by looking at the future of the industry and determining how it can best ensure TVNZ remains a key player"

He wants protectionism for TVNZ and private free to air broadcasters. Why? Because he thinks they are special, as they lose viewers and advertising to the internet and pay TV.

Frankly, Brendon, I doubt most New Zealanders could tell you whether TVNZ was state owned or not, particularly TV2. Indeed, more than 1 in 3 households pay for TV content themselves. (Those listening to Radio NZ know taxpayers pay for it, but that's 1 in 5 radio listeners at best).

Most people wouldn't give a damn if TVNZ were privately owned, it's only statists on the left who think there is something warm and nationalistic about having a government owned broadcaster to show people what's good for them.

Personally, I think TVNZ has done more than any other state institution, besides the education system, to promote the systematic dumbing down of the population and sensationalism about news and current affairs. So while I'd be helping selling it off, I wonder if New Zealand wouldn't be better off if it was shut down and its assets sold off. Let someone else start up a couple of TV networks from scratch, and ditch the inane, image obsessed "broadcasting to 12 year olds' "approach of TVNZ.

Remaining tariffs to stay for now

National is replicating Labour's trade policy with this announcement "Import tariffs will remain at their current levels until 2015 at the earliest, Trade Minister Tim Groser and Commerce Minister Simon Power announced today."

Admittedly they are low, a maximum of 10% now (that early agreement to freeze them in the first Labour-Alliance coalition quietly expired with that coalition), and the government has said they are subject to negotiation at a WTO round, or free trade agreements. Apparently 80% of the value of all imports is tariff free (oh the horror say the Greens, I expect), and there is already 100% tariff free trade with Australia and Singapore. Other free trade agreements will see tariff free trade with Thailand, Chile, Brunei, China and the remaining ASEAN countries over the next

This is understandable, it provides a small amount of leverage. After all, without tariffs what does New Zealand have to offer in trade negotiations? Particularly in a world with a US President with precious little interest in trade liberalisation (yes Bush actually was a positive force on free trade compared to Obama).

However, this isn't the point. Much work in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrated that tariffs are a deadweight cost on the economy, by increasing the prices of goods for consumers. There are benefits in abolishing all tariffs on all imports. Tariffs make clothes, carpets, some processed foods, shoes and some other products more expensive than they otherwise would be, to protect a few businesses from real market competition.

While the government may pursue free trade agreements with remaining major trading partners, the likelihood is that the US will go nowhere under Obama, neither will Japan under the new government, whereas the EU and South Korea would shut out agriculture - which frankly is the main point.

Meanwhile, New Zealand could instead be a free trade zone that is an example to the world, rather than retaining a few puny tariffs that simply punish New Zealanders.

It's time to have some courage - and to meet the commitment New Zealand made, as an APEC member economy, to have free and open trade with other APEC nations by 2010.

That would be a start.

60 years of Communist led China

Yet China could hardly be more different today than it was when Mao declared the “People’s Republic”. It is remarkable how the Communist Party of China (CPC) can even begin to claim that the China of today is a natural evolution of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse Tung Thought and is progressing towards communism. The truth is that it happens to be the centre of power, with the armed forces, for a burgeoning market economy. Even China's official media now celebrates the 30 years of opening up.

China one day, publicly, will be able to reflect with a bit more balance on the first 30 years of that period. It was a period when Mao directly through oppression and indirectly through shockingly insane economic policies was responsible for the deaths of around 60 million. Mao famously said that he didn’t fear nuclear war, because if half of China’s population were killed, there would still be over 300 million left to fight.

Today he bears the not widely recognised title of being the political leader with the most blood on his hands. Blood because the “People’s Republic” became a place where sacrifice to the common good became the guiding philosophy, the cult of Mao the national religion, the Great Leap Forward that proved to be the exact opposite, and an insane level of mass mobilisation during the Cultural Revolution that saw China stagnate and nearly break down into civil war. It is curious that Western academic and radical interest in China was primarily during that period.

China today is an astonishing contrast. With Mao gone, and the Gang of Four of totalitarian thugs arrested, China got on its feet in the 1970s, opened up to the world and Chinese people were allowed to enter business, and have private lives, again.

The results have been astonishing, China now approaches the economic output of Japan, which it is about to exceed to become the second largest economy. Instead of famine and virtually universal poverty, China has a burgeoning middle class. Instead of regimented socialist realism, Chinese citizens are part of the global community, with now the largest number of internet users of any country.

That isn’t a China under Maoist regimentation any more. For all of the symbols of Marxism-Leninism and statements about communism, the truth about China is that it is an authoritarian capitalist state, which happens to be run by the Communist Party. It is becoming more akin to the authoritarian capitalism of Taiwan in the 1960s and 1970s under the Kuomintang that it is to Mao’s China, although there is undoubtedly less freedom than there was in Taiwan, China is not the totalitarian state it once was.

Media is under tight state control, but debate and discussion and criticism of current events is vigorous, as the sphere for what can be criticised ever inches wider. Education still indoctrinates into a positive history of the last 60 years, but the facts speak for themselves. China changed direction in 1978 and has not looked back.

China’s phenomenal growth has happened in spite of Mao and in spite of the Communist Party. Hopefully it will be less than 60 years before the Chinese people can more openly discuss the rivers of blood of the era (error) of Mao. Until there is a genuine free press and freedom of speech, China cannot fully progress and hold its leaders accountable, and fight corruption.

Meantime, it is no wonder, that despite the brutal mistakes of Tiananmen Square, Chinese people laud Deng Xiaoping, who surveyed years of purges to be the architect of China's transformation for the better. China's celebrations are full of communist imagery, yet celebrating a largely capitalist led transformation. Although, the authoritarianism still remains as the Daily Telegraph notes:

"The people have been told to stay away from the celebration of the People's Republic today; those whose homes overlook the route have been instructed not to hold parties. The government has banned the flying of kites in Beijing, an innocent pastime enjoyed in the city's parks by old men with weary smiles."

Note also the irony of the country that most resembles China's first 30 years, hailing its paymaster now. Many Chinese who visit North Korea today say it reminds them of life before 1976.

My hope for China is that its leaders continue to tell the people less what to do, and trust them more, and to make the grand step to make themselves accountable to the people directly, by allowing free speech, criticism and separating party, state and judiciary. Most think democracy is the key to unlocking it. It may be a consequence, but what matters most for moving China forward is freedom - and most of all, freedom of speech. No politicians should fear criticism so much that they lock people up for it. May it take much less time for the CPC to humble itself to make China really a republic for the people, as individuals, with rights. They are already halfway there.

Rudman shows why politics and transport don't mix

Brian Rudman has a cheek to call the Minister of Transport an ideologue when he is one of the true believers of the Auckland rail religion. Rudman doesn't call into question the "business cases" the ARC puts together on rail, or Mike Lee's strong leftwing political background in being mischievous towards the government before he is put out of a job.

Bear in mind a "business plan" for something that produces ongoing financial losses is a curious thing, and that scepticism from central government officials about the veracity of the ARC's work doesn't motivate Rudman to question his fellow true believers.

He damns the proposal for a Puhoi-Wellsford motorway. A project which may not be worthwhile, but only money to investigate it has been approved. Money paid for by road users of course. The same can never be said about capital expenditure on Auckland's railways. Rudman in a rather arrogant style dismisses the only major link between Northland and the rest of the country as a road to John Key's holiday bach. I guess he thinks nothing exists north of Puhoi.

Auckland's Regional Transport Committee, a hodgepodge of political interests, naturally wouldn't think so. Given it is advocating a billion plus underground rail tunnel in central Auckland, which would also run at a continued loss, it is clear it worships at the same church as Rudman and Lee.

Rudman doesn't understand why central government time and time again has said no to pouring taxpayers' money into Auckland local government's railway flights of fancy, except the last government. Maybe he should check his premises, these being the following key features of the religion he subscribes to:

- Auckland rail projects all result in ratepayers and motoring tax payers losing money year after year, but that's ok. It is for their own good, even if few ratepayers will see their property values increase as a result, and motorists wont notice a jot of difference to congestion.

- Auckland rail projects always fail conventional economic cost-benefit appraisal, compared to other public transport projects or road projects. That's because the wrong things get counted. People don't value saving travel time that much (they speed, use shortcuts and overtake because they are mean spirited), accident reductions aren't that important, and it is just really really special for people to ride by train instead of, bus.

- Just because the majority of Auckland rail users come from buses or wouldn't have taken the trip in the first place, doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile subsidising them at $4 a trip.

- It doesn't matter that 88% of Auckland jobs aren't in the CBD, where the railway is focused, it doesn't matter. Just ignore that. It will change when there is a railway, you'll see. Aucklanders who work elsewhere don't matter anyway, and we'll build more railways to serve them.

- It doesn't matter that 7% of Auckland trips are by public transport (most of those by bus), spending over a billion to get it to 15% (by 2051!) is good for you all (although 17% of trips are currently by foot).

- It doesn't matter that between 33 and 45% of peak trips to Auckland's CBD are by public transport, predominantly by bus as it is. It doesn't matter that this split is high by international standards.

- It doesn't matter how much money is spent on rail in Auckland, it must all be good, it must be good, even though the whole network was only worth $20 million to start with and wont be worth much more after $550 million is spent electrifying it. You couldn't sell it off for what has been spent on it, you couldn't sell it off for a quarter of that. However, in the church of Auckland rail, spending other people's money is a core sacrament.

- It doesn't matter that the impact on traffic congestion of Auckland rail is virtually nil. Traffic congestion is good. Car users are addicts and must be weaned off their addiction. They really don't want to drive, many don't really want to own cars, they just haven't learnt it yet.

Brian wants government to treat Aucklanders as adults. Brian, they would be better treated as adults if you let them spend their own money, respected the fact that most Aucklanders most of the time choose the transport modes that best suit them, respected the fact that most of the money you want spend on railways comes from people using roads, and respected the fact that this religion of yours is completely useless for the trips most Aucklanders do most of the time.

Maybe you should go to Penrose/Mt. Wellington, Auckland's second biggest employment hub, and ask workers there what the electrified railway will do for their trip to work?

Nationalising sports broadcasting rights

That is exactly what has now been done with your taxes, now that the government has approved taking your money so Maori TV can outbid TVNZ, TV3 and Sky (which owns Prime) in buying the free-to-air broadcast rights to the Rugby World Cup.

In short, the government has kneecapped two private companies, and its own company, in order to subsidise an already highly subsidised broadcaster. MTS gets $16.5 million of your money, through the ever accountable Te Puni Kokiri, in this year along just to broadcast. This is clearly a big piece of pork for the Maori Party. Given Maori TV is meant to exist to promote the language, not be a platform to broadcast sports, you do have to wonder about how this is compatible with it.

Of course, the strategy presumably is to get more people to get their TVs tuned into the channel, and more watching it, to boost the ratings, the advertising revenue and for that to have a follow on impact on ratings for other programmes. It's not enough that MTS gets over $300,000 a week in subsidies, no it needs the government to buy the broadcasting rights for it.

The NZ Herald reports the cost is NZ$3 million. It is, of course, worthless to you as you would have been able to see it anyway on whatever channel it is on (notwithstanding coverage issues).

Just another day in the life of a government that happily spends your money, like the last lot did, buying special interests when it feels the need to do so. Maybe Maori would have preferred the money as a tax cut?

Time to abolish NZ On Air

David Farrar has written apparently sympathetically about the idea of extending the state broadcasting subsidy body - NZ On Air - to other media. This was because Fran O'Sullivan proposed it, and Janet Wilson appeared to endorse it.

What nonsense.

As people consume media increasingly online, they are doing so without state subsidy (although Labour poured a little into subsidising infrastructure and National is keen to pour vastly more into it). In the meantime, it has never been cheaper or more accessible to produce video footage or recordings. The excuses of the expense of local production making it difficult to make "Kiwi Kontent" now lie in only one place - the salaries of those working in the sector.

NZ On Air is, in effect, a job subsidy programme. It pays for people to work in the film and television industries (and state radio), from actors to producers, directors, camera crew, editors and the rest. A labour of love for many.

The argument that without NZ On Air, national culture on broadcasting would suffer is only true if you believe that the people whose jobs are supported by this subsidy would do something else. Many wouldn't. The question really is, who should pay for something that those working in the sector say is so valuable?

Should you be forced to pay for programmes you don't watch and didn't ask for? No. Of course not.

Plenty of people provide online content and do not get subsidised. Of course a significant number of households choose to pay for TV they want, through Sky and Telstra Clear cable television. People want what those companies offer, and those who don't aren't forced to pay.

So who SHOULD pay? Those who are such loud advocates for it. The people who say it is good for you. However, most importantly, all those working in the sector should do their bit - and work for free.

How can the humble taxpaying public be expected to embrace culture they are forced to pay for, if so much of what they pay goes into the pockets of those proclaiming how good it is for them?

No. If you work in the NZ On Air subsidised sector and think it is so valuable, then you do it for free and ask people to donate for your time.

Otherwise, isn't it just another form of rent seeking?

NZ On Air should be told that no more money will be available for any future allocations. Existing contracts will be honoured, but that is it. Radio NZ will face a similar fate, but can start to tout for donations, subscriptions and sponsorship.

Suddenly, TVNZ, TV3 and Sky will find it cheaper to make New Zealand content, because a whole host of people, whose jobs were dependent on the taxpayers, have to cut their income expectations in the hope of working in the sector they love. The time has come to stop propping up this vestige of protectionism.

Whoopi Goldberg's excuse for Polanski

Just when you thought you'd heard everything, Whoopi Goldberg, who one would think of as being a feminist and someone who would embrace protecting young people from violence says:

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don't believe it was rape-rape", according to the Daily Telegraph.

Hmm drugging then telling a minor to submit to having sex with him is what then? So when a 13yo girl doesn't struggle and fight, then it's what?

Oh that's right, it's the entertainment industry. You're special, you do so much for us, it's not so serious when one of you rapes a young girl right?

You pontificate about politics, judge so many other sectors, yet far too many of you give excuses for your friends to do violence to others.

The ONLY person with any right to say anything about this case is the victim, who happens to want it all to be left alone. That is the only mitigating factor as to how it is treated now.

Oh and she isn't the only one making excuses. Here is a petition (in French) signed by more than a few famous people, appeasing the man's forcible rape of a young girl.