ACT to campaign on One Law for All

Speaking on National Radio during the week Rodney Hide talked up ACT's achievement of ensuring a National-led, stable government for New Zealand and downplayed the internal problems the party has experienced. What interested me was when asked why people wouldn't vote National rather than ACT (it was put to him that National are moving into their territory with things like asset sales) he basically outlined the three election issues for ACT this year. 1/ The Economy 2/ Education and 3/ One Law for All. His emphasis was on the last. No mention of law and order, no mention of welfare, no mention of health, all usually in the running when deciding election year strategy.

No surprises really with the efforts that ACT have been making to block the Seabed and Foreshore legislation. What bothers me is the debate teases out a lot of ignorant, anti-Maori sentiment. The type heard on talkback this week concerning a fee being charged to media attending the lower marae at Waitangi. Many Maori callers saw it as a racket and disagreed with the action. But some Pakeha just start running off at the mouth about Maori get this and Maori get that. I tried to make the point to Sean Plunket that it is those sort of sentiments that are racist. People seem unable to grasp that in their own accusations of race based privilege or discrimination they are being inherently racist themselves by lumping all Maori together. Do reprehensible individual Pakeha actions generally elicit cries that "Pakeha do this" and "Pakeha do that"? No they don't.

I am still betwixt and between regarding the Coastal and Marine Bill and whether it will advance or set back race relations. That will only be known when and if the legislation is passed. But I am very uncomfortable with divisive scaremongering, the blithe imposition of the Pakeha worldview on Maori, and the reversal (since 2005) in both National and ACT positions on establishing customary rights and all that might entail. One law for all surely infers Maori should also have recognised property rights.

Underneath the unemployment rate

Yesterday the unemployment rate for December was released - up from 6.4 percent in September to 6.8%.

But here are some comparisons to December 2009 (first column);

Total unemployment 7 6.8
Male unemployment 7 6.5
Female unemployment 7 7
Maori 15.4 15.5
15-19 year-old 26.5 25.5
one parent with dependent children only 47.7 51.7
Auckland 8 7.8
Wellington 6.3 5.4
Canterbury 5.7 6

So things are slightly improved overall but with a slight worsening for some groups.

But the one parent statistic is interesting. Remember last year part-time work-testing was introduced for single parents whose youngest child was 6 or older. This could have been expected to have had an anticipatory effect pre-change, as well as real effect post change. But the number without work has actually increased quite markedly.

Hot day at Taurenikau

Something different from my usual portraits. Since I have had the shop/studio Richard Ponder, whose own gallery is a few metres away, has been popping in and encouraging me to experiment more. First result - a purposely under-developed scene created from a series of photos I took at Taurenikau last month. It was a very hot day and I wanted to capture that feeling and also the movement of the horses. The canvas was coated in violet, a new colour for me, and I have left quite a lot of it showing. The turquoise is also a new pre-made colour on my palette.

Honest John versus perfidious Peters

Winston Peters would make me laugh if I had even a skerrick of good feeling whenever I hear him speak. But I don't. About the Prime Minister ruling him out of any National-led government he says:

"New Zealanders don't take kindly to being told what they've got to do, particularly when they're the masters come election day."

Labour leader Phil Goff also believed Mr Key was arrogant for ruling out NZ First prior to voters having their say.

"I'm going to let the voters make the decision."

What Key has given voters is clarity about what their decision means. He has afforded them more power - not less.

Key has done three honest, up front things this year; given people the option to vote for or against asset sales; given us the date of the election and ruled Peters out of any coalition arrangement. This is what people want more of from politicians.

Gillard focuses on getting beneficiaries into work

Good to see the Australian PM focusing on getting people off welfare and into work AND stressing the importance of work to people's well-being. Unfortunately for the pro-welfarists governments of every hue are now pushing this message;

AUSTRALIA must get many more people into the labour force or working more, Julia Gillard has said.

In her first economic speech of 2011, the Prime Minister said: ''To the maximum extent possible, I want to ensure that every Australian who can work, does work.

''I want to ensure that the incentives of work always outweigh the attractions of staying on welfare''.


With Australia now technically at full employment and the mining boom creating a skills shortage that will affect the rest of the economy, Ms Gillard said up to 2 million working-age Australians were not in the full-time workforce or registered for work.

The government looked ''with particular care and concern'' at this large number. Of the 2 million, about 800,000 were in part-time jobs but wanted to work more. Another 800,000 were outside the labour market, including discouraged job seekers. Also, many thousands on disability pensions might have some capacity to work.

''We know that not all of them can work right away. Many of them will need re-skilling; the right mix of incentives; help to overcome ill-health or meet family responsibilities,'' she said.

''But we do want them to re-engage with the workforce and gain the benefits that come from having a job - increased income, social engagement and friendship, self-esteem and well-being.''

Between a rock and a hard place

From Reason.com;

You've had the experience of walking along and negotiating around someone who is walking slowly, weaving, or bumping into other pedestrians for an obvious reason: He or she is talking on a cell phone, listening to an iPod, or texting on a Blackberry.

And you've had the natural, inevitable response to this annoyance: demanding a law to prevent it.

Oh, you haven't responded that way?

No I bloody haven't. I do get mad. I wonder why some people are so bloody oblivious; why it is too difficult to tuck themselves away in a non-traffic space for the duration of their call; why they lack the ability to co-exist courteously and intelligently with the surrounding people and environment. The same thoughts flash through my mind when I see people who have stopped their vehicles in the middle of the road to chat to a friend; or stand two shopping trolleys abreast in the supermarket aisle yacking; or travel at 40 km in a 70 km zone.

I do not demand a law to prevent it.(Oh, confession, I have been known to suggest that if people have to keep down to a speed limit they should need to keep up to it also, but if push came to shove I wouldn't actually support such a law. Some people are such awful drivers they probably cannot handle faster speeds. But that's a whole new topic...)

Obliviousness. Or oblivion. Whatever. One of my pet hates. Probably the best way to wake people up is to deal with it on the spot. Give them a rude and abrupt shock of some sort. Preferably with your mouth, not vehicle. That would have more impact and effect than a remote, faceless, unenforced law.

The trouble is those of us who do try not to inconvenience others, who are consciously trying to live co-operatively with others, who are prepared to make compromises like walking a few more metres in the rain because double parking outside a school is dangerous, are also not the type of people who enjoy being unpleasant and confrontational. That's THEM.

So its rock and a hard place time. I don't have the answer. Except that parents should do a better job of teaching and showing their kids that being even semi-conscious of their planet earth co-inhabitants would be a good idea. For everyone.

The brand new Fazioli

Yesterday the Waikanae Music Society unveiled their brand new Fazioli. Sounds something like a Ferrari - in name, not engine sound. And the price ticket wasn't far removed either. It cost them $174,000. What is it? A grand piano. Brand-spanking new and just arrived from Italy.

We were there to hear Michael Houston give it its first workout - J S Bach, Schumann, some jazz sonata which was my second favourite piece and finishing with the most ethereal Liszt. No expert by any stretch of the imagination, his performance seemed flawless to me. But I didn't like his jacket or lack of encore for an audience largely on its feet. Recital etiquette is also beyond my own realm of familiarity. Robert, 16 year-old son and currently grand piano obsessionist was suitably awestruck. Unlike attending a more upmarket venue, he was able to get a close-up inspection of the Fazioli during interval. A truly remarkable piece of craftsmanship.

But where the heck do they store such a valuable and vulnerable object?

The new left party

Did anyone else wonder if Keith Locke, by announcing his resignation from Parliament, was freeing himself up for the rumoured new leftist party? Today Sue Bradford has pushed the murmurings along a further step by saying she is prepared to lead such a party. What has been overlooked, or at the least not commented on by the media, is the organisation and communication efforts surrounding the creation of the Alternative Welfare Working Group provide a strong basis for launching the new party. It is a strange mix of social conservatives and social liberals but they will be able to agree on a strongly state-controlled wealth redistributionist philosophy. ACT hung together for many years with a similar mix when you think about it.

That would leave the Greens free to focus on the environment and hopefully more willing to consider property rights as the best protector of it, although Metiria Turei is busily positioning her party as the natural vehicle for Maori aspirations.

I believe the party will emerge, and in part the emergence will have been driven by National's attempts to reform welfare, which I thoroughly support notwithstanding my expectation their policy will be well short of what is really needed.

What this highlights again, however, is the extreme political difficultly in ever undoing policies that become virtual institutions, one of the best examples being the DPB. If a new left party can effectively mobilise the beneficiary vote, and National will play as big a role in that as their own efforts, they will have every chance of gaining political representation. And with Labour looking impotent under Goff their chances are further improved.

Now is the time and I expect to see developments speed up. It wouldn't be a surprise if they coined their party something along the lines of The Social Justice Party. Their big mistake is believing that only the state can deliver such a thing, and ignoring the existing repercussions of such a fraught idea. And that is the ground on which they should be countered.

This'll make Oswald apoplectic

The American Council of Science and Health notes:

Late last week brought news that the World Health Organization (WHO) has been working to facilitate a worldwide ban on ads for foods high in sugar, fat and salt intended for children. To that end, the WHO has arranged for a meeting of heads of state to discuss restrictions on ads for foods the WHO considers unhealthy. The conference will take place this September at the United Nations offices in New York.

Reuters says that the WHO has already persuaded Coca-Cola, Mexico's Grupo Bimbo, General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft, McDonald's, Mars, Nestle, Pepsico, Unilever and the World Federation of Advertisers to sign a code of conduct in which they promise not to market their “unhealthy” items to children younger than age 12. The WHO notes that of the 42 million obese children around the world, 35 million are in less-developed countries.

ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan wonders how all this happened so under the radar. “Since when’” she asks, “did all these companies agree not to market ‘unhealthy’ products? This type of regulation is troubling in as much as it’s leading to a dichotomy of so-called ‘good food’ and ‘bad food’ in which a handful of experts are deemed qualified to tell us which is which.”

Even 'science' can't be trusted

Reported in Stuff today;

The latest findings echo an extensive review by the American Psychological Association in 2008 that found no evidence that ending an unwanted pregnancy threatens women's mental health.

A separate review by Blum and his colleagues found that the most rigorous research on the topic did not find a relationship between abortion and long-term mental health problems. Previous studies that suggested such a connection were often poorly designed, had dropout rates or did not control for factors that could affect the conclusion.

Reported in the NZ Herald in 2008;

The long-term Christchurch study of more than 500 women found a link between having an abortion and an increase of nearly a third in the risk of disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Reporting their findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the Otago University researchers say that abortions account for 1.5 to 5.5 per cent of the overall rate of mental disorders.

They said their study backed up others overseas which concluded that having an abortion may be linked to an increased risk of mental health problems.

Depending on your own personal viewpoint about abortion, take your pick.

It's their choice

I have blogged previously about the situation with funding for stomach reductions and asked why people are not prepared to borrow what is required? The Whanganui DHB is holding out on making $35,000 available to a patient in that area. One Dr Soloman, who also sits on the board, has been pushing hers and another's case for some time.

I personally know of people who have borrowed/funded their own surgery and been able to live dramatically improved lives. Between $17,000 and $35,000 is equivalent to purchasing a car or taking out a student loan. Other people borrow sums of this size all the time.

However the pair have managed to swing a deal with the Korean Tourism agency (?) to get operations in that country at no charge. The doctor is still wringing his hands, now over the risk involved. The two women obviously think the risk is preferable to borrowing.

Guess who will get the blame if anything goes wrong, dear taxpayer.

Bans do not work

Banning does not stop the banned activity or commodity.

That is a fact illustrated repeatedly over the course of history.

These road crash statistics just provide more evidence.

Some will say, well at least they improved. But the smallish improvement was in the period directly after the legislation was introduced - typically when the effect is strongest.

Some people are stupid. That is also a fact. More people become stupid when a herd mentality is the norm and when the real consequences of stupid behaviour are minimised by collective responsibility.

Power for the sake of it is worthless

According to Home Paddock this is what John Key directed at Hone Harawira at Ratana yesterday. Home Paddock says it could just as well apply to Ratana;

“I say to the critics what can you achieve from opposition, and the answer is nothing. You achieve things when you are part of the solution not when you are solely carping on about the problems,”

That is the short view.

Effective opposition, in all forms, shapes public thinking. Effective opposition keeps a government in check.

And if the "solution" is not the right one, why would you want to be part of it anyway?

(While I have no sympathy for Harawira's world view, when he asks what National has done for Maori, it's hard to think of something. He will find a good deal of company with those Maori who still believe that the government is the be all and end all for their aspirations.)

Labour dives in latest poll

Just a couple of links to things that caught my eye this morning.

Labour takes big dive in the latest Roy Morgan Poll. They must be becoming resigned to sitting out another term.

And expect more of these stories in the near future as the welfare 'industry' gears up to fight the WWG recommendations.

There is no reason why provision can't be made for unusual cases. But they should not be used to prevent changing the welfare system for the majority.

Tedious nagging from the UN and repetitious waffle from Labour

News this morning seems to be dominated by the UN damning NZ again about its shameful record on children's rights. Too many children are living in poverty apparently. There isn't a Ministry for Children. Labour's response is nothing more than repetitious waffle. They would create a Minister for Social Policy; they would take a "whole of government approach"; they would "break the cycle of economic deprivation". It is just so tedious.

So many children live in relative poverty because we have so many families living on welfare. There is no imperative to work when on welfare so dysfunction flourishes. But wait for a raft of responses today calling for MORE welfare.

Update; MacDoctor has an excellent post on the subject

Media educates MP

Isn't this where the blogoshere comes into its element?

Labour MP Ashraf Choudary creates a Red Alert blogpost using a press statement urging the government to make folic acid in bread compulsory based on new research. He criticises the media coverage of his statement as "light on facts".

Here is the response from NewstalkZB's political correspondent, Felix Marwick, in the comments section;

felix marwick says:
January 19, 2011 at 6:44 pm

Ashraf,
the reason the story was short is because it was written for radio. Basically I have 30 seconds, or 120 words, to get a point/angle across.

Additionally I had also covered the story on Tuesday so some of the extra detail you allude to had already been included in that copy.

DPB stats - I was wrong

I predicted that in December 2010 the DPB stats might reach an all-time high in absolute numbers. The December quarter benefit statistics are just out and I was wrong. The DPB only rose to 113,000. (In December 1997 the total reached 114,799.)


Over the year to December 2010, the number of recipients of a main benefit increased by 7,000, or 2 percent.

Over the year to December 2010, the number of Domestic Purposes Benefit recipients increased by 4,000, or 3 percent.

Over the year to December 2010, the number of Sickness Benefit recipients increased by 1,000, or 1 percent.

Over the year to December 2010, the number of recipients of an Unemployment Benefit increased by 1,000, or 1 percent

Unintended consequences of US health reforms

Interesting piece from the NCPA today which reports that McDonalds has warned the US government they may stop providing health insurance for 30,000 employees. The increased cost of health insurance under the Obama reforms means that the cost of labour increases and companies will either shed jobs or wages will stagnate. Just what the US needs.

Labour wants to dig us deeper

I begin this post with an acknowledgement that it is framed around generalisations as policy should be.

Labour says it will extend Paid Parental Leave and make changes to the DPB. Specifically they do not like the work requirement when the youngest child turns six (which is only being applied to a small percentage of that group currently anyway.)

Annette King says;

"Nobody is saying it should be a benefit for life, but it is to assist people at a time when they are caring for children. Surely the aim here is to bring up responsible, well cared for kids. And those of us who have tried it know that that is hard work."

There are screeds of statistics available that show the children who do best are raised in two parent families. Good outcomes increase further when the two parents are their biological parents. And further improve when the two biological parents are married.

Now I am not a conservative. That means I do not think the state has to enforce such arrangements, or even actively incentivise them. But neither should it be constantly making laws that undermine the family as the best social and economic unit there is.

That is what leftist liberal policy - economic and social - has done for many decades. And in this country the supposed conservative party National is in that basket too.

People are born to form relationships; to form mutual dependencies on each other. A constructive mutual dependency is healthy and it is certainly the best environment within which to nurture children. But start ascribing monetary deficit to either existing partnerships or their breakdown, and then demanding the state ameliorate or correct the deficit, and it is easy to predict what the response will be. Single parents go from forming a very small percentage of society to forming a quarter to a third of all families raising children.

Then we have to take more from working families to support non-working, mostly single parent families, which means working parents, if their relationship can stand it, have to work more to keep ahead of the game. Next the same people who demanded that women should be recompensed for not being in a mutual dependency set-up start demanding that two parent families should also get more financial help and work less.

Where will it end?

When will a politician, preferably a leader, stand up and say, "Sorry folks but you are just going to have to start relying on each other again because we are not up to the job and are broke anyway"?

It ain't going be Mr Smiley.

The Prohibition and prohibition

Reason.com reviews a new book about the Prohibition and its implications for ending the war on drugs. It sounds like a fascinating read and reveals to me how little I knew about that period.

The real puzzle, as the journalist Daniel Okrent argues in his masterful new history of the period, is how a nation that never had a teetotaling majority, let alone one committed to forcibly imposing its lifestyle on others, embarked upon such a doomed experiment to begin with. How did a country consisting mostly of drinkers agree to forbid drinking?

The short answer is that it didn’t. As a reveler accurately protests during a Treasury Department raid on a private banquet in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, neither the 18th Amendment nor the Volstead Act, which implemented it, prohibited mere possession or consumption of alcohol. The amendment took effect a full year after ratification, and those who could afford it were free in the meantime to stock up on wine and liquor, which they were permitted to consume until the supplies ran out. The law also included exceptions that were important for those without well-stocked wine cellars or the means to buy the entire inventory of a liquor store (as the actress Mary Pickford did). Home production of cider, beer, and wine was permitted, as was commercial production of alcohol for religious, medicinal, and industrial use (three loopholes that were widely abused). In these respects Prohibition was much less onerous than our current drug laws. Indeed, the legal situation was akin to what today would be called “decriminalization” or even a form of “legalization.”

...As Prohibition wore on, its unintended consequences provided the fire that wets had lacked before it was enacted. They were appalled by rampant corruption, black market violence, newly empowered criminals, invasions of privacy, and deaths linked to alcohol poisoned under government order to discourage diversion (a policy that Sen. Edward Edwards of New Jersey denounced as “legalized murder”). These burdens seemed all the more intolerable because Prohibition was so conspicuously ineffective. As a common saying of the time put it, the drys had their law and the wets had their liquor, thanks to myriad quasi-legal and illicit businesses that Okrent colorfully describes.

Entrepreneurs taking advantage of legal loopholes included operators of “booze cruises” to international waters, travel agents selling trips to Cuba (which became a popular tourist destination on the strength of its proximity and wetness), “medicinal” alcohol distributors whose brochures (“for physician permittees only”) resembled bar menus, priests and rabbis who obtained allegedly sacramental wine for their congregations (which grew dramatically after Prohibition was enacted), breweries that turned to selling “malt syrup” for home beer production, vintners who delivered fermentable juice directly into San Francisco cellars through chutes connected to grape-crushing trucks, and the marketers of the Vino-Sano Grape Brick, which “came in a printed wrapper instructing the purchaser to add water to make grape juice, but to be sure not to add yeast or sugar, or leave it in a dark place, or let it sit too long before drinking it because ‘it might ferment and become wine.’ ” The outright lawbreakers included speakeasy proprietors such as the Stork Club’s Sherman Billings-ley, gangsters such as Al Capone, rum runners such as Bill McCoy, and big-time bootleggers such as Sam Bronfman, the Canadian distiller who made a fortune shipping illicit liquor to thirsty Americans under the cover of false paperwork. Their stories, as related by Okrent, are illuminating as well as engaging, vividly showing how prohibition warps everything it touches, transforming ordinary business transactions into tales of intrigue.

The reviewer then considers whether the actions of the anti-prohibitionists - at practical and political levels - could today be emulated to end today's prohibition of drugs;

Another barrier to emulating the antiprohibitionists of the 1920s is that none of the currently banned drugs is (or ever was) as widely consumed in this country as alcohol. That fact is crucial in understanding the contrast between the outrage that led to the repeal of alcohol prohibition and Americans’ general indifference to the damage done by the war on drugs today. The illegal drug that comes closest to alcohol in popularity is marijuana, which survey data indicate most Americans born after World War II have at least tried. That experience is reflected in rising public support for legalizing marijuana, which hit a record 46 percent in a nationwide Gallup poll conducted the week before Proposition 19 was defeated.

A third problem for today’s antiprohibitionists is the deep roots of the status quo. Alcohol prohibition came and went in 14 years, which made it easy to distinguish between the bad effects of drinking and the bad effects of trying to stop it. By contrast, the government has been waging war on cocaine and opiates since 1914 and on marijuana since 1937 (initially under the guise of enforcing revenue measures). Few people living today have clear memories of a different legal regime. That is one reason why histories like Okrent’s, which bring to life a period when booze was banned but pot was not, are so valuable.

Reflecting on the long-term impact of the vain attempt to get between Americans and their liquor, Okrent writes: “In 1920 could anyone have believed that the Eighteenth Amendment, ostensibly addressing the single subject of intoxicating beverages, would set off an avalanche of change in areas as diverse as international trade, speedboat design, tourism practices, soft-drink marketing, and the English language itself? Or that it would provoke the establishment of the first nationwide criminal syndicate, the idea of home dinner parties, the deep engagement of women in political issues other than suffrage, and the creation of Las Vegas?” Nearly a century after the war on other drugs was launched, Americans are only beginning to recognize its far-reaching consequences, most of which are considerably less fun than a dinner party or a trip to Vegas.