Markets don't work perfectly, but they are the best wealth-creating mechanism yet discovered. New Zealanders, and the New Zealand Government, need to embrace them, not bet on the ability of smart officials or ministers to outperform them.
There is a gaping hole in NZ politics presently for a party focussed solely on the economy, one that embraces the above sentiment. There is no doubt Key is personally popular but I think National's support is very soft. Labour poses little danger to it but a new entity could.
12 comments:
I imagine daily what havoc could be wreaked on the welfare state and the grievance industry with a political entity based on Orewa MkI and Ruthanasia.
If only. NZ would now be in a much better place. I live in hope.
Lindsay - when 50% of "workers" pay no tax;
when 90% of children are in socialist "schools";
when 80% of the population have no private health insurance;
when 95% of the population either directly or have someone in their family who receives government "benefits;
turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
NZ is currently the country with the largest percentage of it's economy in the state sector - after North Korea. More than Burma; more than anywhere in socialist Europe; more than Red China! Far far more than the UK, Greece, Portugal, or Ireland (and the net debt is far worse than those "PIGS").
Key & English could have announced they had to fix things on day 1 right after the election - but they didn't have the guts. It'll be difficult to announce "sorry, we fucked things up so much last term we have to actually start governing" at the start of the next term.
I believe Don Brash would've been far superior to smile-and-wave, the vacuous non-entity we have today in John Key.
Unfortunately, there is no way to rewrite history and NZ is saddled with the latter, an appeaser and dilettante.
Wishing indeed, but it ain't gone happen. The small fraction with some sense is so hopelessly divided over core issues and particularly strategy, that it'll never make a mark on the election process, if it was even able to participate in unison. I'm afraid that with the election stolen off Brash and his subsequent removal, we've seen the last chance to seriously resist the gradual creep of socialism. Australia looks more promising by the day..
Bez
The issue anyone who wants to make change in NZ faces is...educating the people.It needs a mental shift away from socialsim and towards individualism.
The only way it will happen is by an "underground" campaign to turn on the light bulb in peoples heads...and sadly thats a one at a time process.
I believe that NZ could be under punishment. Key is indeed vacuuous and hollow, pliable, weak, glamour-hungry and dishonest. And he is a terrible garbler of words. Brash would have been far superior; intelligent, strong, courageous and honestly right-wing. Key must have been backed by a secret person, he raced into the leadership and the prime ministership, (his fortune, perhaps) with unprecented speed (except for Lange), and now we are paying the flippant price. NZ will never catch Australia, and never be the grand country she could under the gutless Wek. Key. Crime and Punishment, for corrupted NZ.
Key - Yek, and weak. That plastic smile creeps me out! OH well, in the end, only God will be the judge, and silver does indeed canker. Also, you can't take it with you. Great and small, all come from the same dust of the ground.
there is no way to rewrite history
A robust inquiry into the electoral fraud that cost Sir Don the 2005 election; and the immediate adoption of the "Fiscal Council" he proposed in his latest taskforce report (with full veto power over all appropriations and tax changes) would be a bloody good start
Kiwis have to realise that the two options are:
a) rapid elimiation of the "welfare state" in NZ,
followed by a growing independent economy
b) riots followed by total collapse.
Every day we waste makes a) less likely and b) more likely. The Key/English/Cuntlen/Klark consesus is moving NZ ever quick to ruin.
educating the people
You really are an illiterate produce of state schooling, aren't you? I can't help it if your parents didn't love you enough to actually pay for your education and healthcare but please don't bring your inanities here.
The problem is not one of education - but one of courage and political will. When NZ has the highest state sector fraction of the economy than basically every other sensible country; when something like 95% of the population either directly or have someone in their family who receives government benefits it's not about education.
It is - it can only be about those of us who actually pay for the whole f**king mess insisting that the mess stops now: and taking whatever steps are necessary to finish it once and for all!
All it takes is one PM with the guts to stop tolerating welfareism, leftism, unionism, communism and terrorism that blights NZ - and to change the laws so communists and their supporters can never again be anywhere near government in NZ. Advocate the policies of Hellen/Cullen in Singapore you end up in jail. Try it in China and you end up dead. Does NZ want to succeed, or not?
You really are an illiterate produce of state schooling, aren't you? I can't help it if your parents didn't love you enough to actually pay for your education and healthcare but please don't bring your inanities here.
Anon....Firstly go fuck yourself...this is Lindsays blog,not yours.
Secondly unless people are enlightened as to WHY things are as they are and what needs to happen to change that then you are just blowing smoke....people vote...and until they vote with an understanding of whats at stake and WHY then nothing will change...your masterbatory fantasies will remain just that...
Well said James.
people vote... unless people are enlightened as to WHY things are as they are
You don't get it. You still don't get it. I'm sorry for your background but there's nothing I can do about that. More to the point: there's nothing I can do about that fact that about 90% of New Zealanders bludge off the backs of the 10% who actually pay taxes, and those 90% will never ever vote for the necessary reforms.
Suppose you "educate" them about that. Will it make any difference - of course not. You think Labour and the Greens and the Unions are uneducated - let me tell you: a lot of 'em have real "educations" - private schools, US or UK universities (real ones) - makes no difference. Cullen went to Christs and Edinburgh. Key went to Harvard.
Because educated or uneducated: bludgers are never going to vote to end their benefits, to be kicked out of their houses, to watch their kids die before their eyes, to starve in the gutter. That's what needs to happen to fix NZ - and that's why it will never happen via the ballot box.
We can't say "but 50% of you will be better off" or "you'll be better off in the long run" because it is simply not true. The 90% of bludgers will live in penury, will die younger, their standing of living will collapse. We can't say: they'll be new jobs because there won't be. You and your children will be much worse off, your kids if they have any sense will emigrate (Ireland is planning on 100,000 emigrants in the next 12 months - NZ should be planning on rather more!).
All we can promise is: if we act now, there might still be a "New Zealand" for your grandkids to come back to on holiday.
More realistically, there might be a "New Zealand" that is not so much a total basket case that Australia will accept us as a territory (not a state) - probably with immigration restrictions though.
A finance minister, with a little bit of guts to do what is required - hell what John Whitehead, Secretary of the Treasury, said in a speech today was absolutely urgently necessary - cut benefits, cut KiwiStealer, cut funding tertiary ed - would be a damn good start. Get the accounts back into surplus in 2011 - not 2015 or 2025! Removing all spending decisions from MPs (as Brash recommended, again) would be another excellent move.
This isn't a political game. These aren't "options" we can pick between, The continued existence of New Zealand as a viable economy - that is, as a viable, second-world country - is at stake.
NZ needs cuts with the urgency and size of Greece or Turkey or Ireland - chopping all state sector salaries by 50%; immediate full privatisation of all health and education services, along with massive salary reductions and cuts in services; drastic reductions to all welfare benefits - just for a start!
Education or no - this will never be supported by the ballot box in New Zealand. Comparatively insignificant cuts weren't supported when Roger, timidly, began; Ruth actually cut benefits but was only allowed one Budget; (Maggie Thatcher never managed to cut benefits); the scope is much much larger than Coalition UK cuts (which again were not and would not have been supported in a general election). Everything Ruth and Roger achieved was undone by Hellen and Cullen; now we need Rogernomics and Ruthanasia all over again and vastly more and quicker cuts than anything they imagined, or than any party (including the Libz) have ever envisioned.
The point is: these necessary reforms can never be achieved through the ballot box.
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