What a load of codswallop from Matt McCarten today. If he was right about ACT than I would be an utter misfit. I would never have been placed on last election's list, let alone within cooey of becoming an MP. First he launches into the Business Roundtable;
Its ideology is quite simple: we're all essentially greedy and we should be free to make as much money as we can. If we exploit others in the process - well, that's just the free market at work. Now it seems Labour may be defeated this year, it appears to be getting ready to get back into the driving seat. No doubt it would have been behind the recent manoeuvre to bring Douglas back into Act.
We are all essentially self-interested. Greed and self-interest are completely different things. They produce different outcomes. The NZBR would concur with Adam Smith's defence of self-interest. In a personal sense I am self-interested. Those things that matter most to me are to be protected and cared for or I will become unhappy. I am protecting my own interests when I protect those of my children, family and friends. Business is the same. Self interest in one's own business success requires creating an environment where everyone employed or traded with is gaining something. When exploitation occurs - personally or professioally - unhappiness and failure result.
The NZBR is behind Roger Douglas's re-emergence? The person behind Roger's re-emergence is Roger. I am sure some people have been persuaded to stand for ACT indirectly via the NZBR simply because they promote (very well) sound ideas similar to those ACT promotes. We share the philosophy of individualism. This grand plan conspiratorial stuff is just self-gratification of the loopy left temperament.
It would have been devastated when John Key, a moderate, took out Don Brash as leader. Therefore it had to resort to a Plan B and coax decrepit Douglas out of retirement. With the support of his Roundtable cronies, Douglas is now effectively co-leader of the Act Party. I'm wary of political ideologues who claim our economic and social ills can only be cured if we adopt their plan. Apparently, Douglas and Act have a new 20-point plan. Most of us are probably tempted to roll our eyes about this nuttiness. But don't think they are harmless fruitcakes.
So what's your plan Matt? Drive New Zealand right off the bottom rung of the OECD ladder? All pre-election policy is a plan. Could we have some credit for being transparent about ours? No. I didn't think so. Because that blows another right-wing conspiratorial theory - the cloak and dagger hidden-agenda one. That's the one you now save for John Key.
Unfortunately for the far right, there is a major block to their success - the Maori Party......Therefore it should be no surprise the Business Roundtable released research it has sponsored which runs along the supposedly reasonable line that as we now have MMP, the Maori seats are unnecessary and allow a disproportionate number of Maori in parliament. Funny how the Roundtable didn't produce a report about the over-representation of white males in parliament.
.....The Business Roundtable doesn't give a fig about the role of Maori - good or bad. The report is merely propaganda to influence the public so National sticks with its promise to hold a referendum on Maori seats. Ask our country's 86 per cent non-Maori population if these seats should remain and the answer is a foregone conclusion. They will go, as the Roundtable intends.
This has nothing to do with Maori. It's the far right removing obstacles so it can get in a government it can influence to finish off the neo-conservative agenda begun in 1984.
That the NZBR (and by implication ACT) "doesn't give a fig about the role of Maori" is a ugly misinterpretation. One can care about people as individuals without agreeing to tribalist, collectivist notions and practices. That is the most important concept and maybe Matt McCarten just can't comprehend it. If New Zealand prospers (and prosperity is undeniably linked to freedom, not government) the people who will experience the greatest improvement in the quality of life are those who currently have the least.
Matt, if you are right, and the Business Roundtable and ACT are run by 'greedy, white, rich men' wouldn't they also be of the selfish 'I'm- alright- Jack ilk?' Why would they be spending their time and energy and MONEY bothering with ideas, philosophy and politics? Especially in their 60s and 70s. It doesn't stack up Matt.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
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5 comments:
Matt shouldn't be allowed anywhere near TV screens.
Let along economic policy or government.
At least he admits that MMP - and the Maorimander - are built into the electoral system he designed to help his own party retain power even when the rest of NZ wants rid of him!
I don't think National should bother with a referendum on the Maori seats: it should just abolish them - and switch to geographically proportional electorates & appointed members when they're at it.
I'm not surprised in the slightest:
MCCarten is an avowed socialist and has made his unionist career of selling envy.
He'll never understand the way the capitalist market work, and will the poorer for it.
Cactus Kate gives Mad Matt a good slapping.
Far from ignoring Maori, they have had a maori chairman for six years.
Rob McLeod!!
Ahhh the 'rich white male ACT' supporter stereotype.
Who let me out of the kitchen?
Neo-girl
Don't worry - just as the NZBR is behind ACT, the Soviet Union is behind the Alliance/Green/Far left parties.
You'd think someone might mention to them that the USSR collapsed in poverty almost twenty years ago, and it's time to "Move on".
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