\"Special legislation to speed up the recovery in earthquake-hit Canterbury could be quickly pushed through, allowing building to get underway without normal consents.
\nKey said large building companies had indicated they could do a lot of building quite quickly.
\n\"What we don't want is the bureaucratic process holding back the restoration process,\" he said.\"
\nSooo.... if getting rid of building consents is such a great idea after an earthquake (and presumably you are not worried about shoddy, earthquake-vulnerable construction occuring).... why can't everybody in New Zealand avoid them?
\nImagine, people being able to build exactly what they like on their own property! It almost sounds like common sense, doesn't it?
\nIt's a pity that politicians only see freedom as a good idea after a natural disaster.
Words... words fail me...
\n\n
!!!!!!!
\n
Oh, That Maurice Williamson...
\n...he's such a card. Loves to joke around, he does. I mean, imagine believing in silly notions like freedom, free trade, and National's 1936 principles. What kind of outdated National MP believes that nonsense any more?
\nWe are a strange lot, us freedom lovers. We joke all the time about property rights, free trade, freedom of speech, the Magna Carta, the right to self defence and bear arms, choice in health and education, less government, lower taxes, the rule of law... but it's all just silly really isn't it?
\nAt least, John Key seems to think so. Either that or he is behaving like some bad sitcom Dad trying to cover up something embarassing he did. I suspect the latter. He is smart enough to know what he is doing may help his polling, but does nothing for the country.
So What Now Kiwi Lovers of Less Government?
\nStole the title from Liberty Scott. It's a very good question, to which I have a fairly reasonable, but different, answer:
\n\nWe should abandon third parties. It is a lot of effort for very little return. That means no ACT, no Libertarianz, and no other new party which scrapes into Parliament and gets ignored by National and Labour.
\n\nWhat we should instead do is what is happening in America. The Tea Party is making a huge impact on US politics. All over the continent they are running in primaries and defeating party-backed incumbents and \"official\" candidates to take GOP nominations.
\n\nWhile the culture is vastly different in NZ, this is still the best strategy. We should form a New Zealand Tea Party. We should not put up a party list but join National (or even Labour) instead. Then we challenge wet incumbents in winnable seats, and get our people in. Then we start changing things.
\n\nLet's cut out this ACT/Libertarianz nonsense and go for the jugular. Let's return National to its traditional 1936 values, or even bring Labour back to its commonsense approach to economics. Those are the main parties, those are the parties which win elections, and those are the parties that get to change things. We should be in them making a difference.
John Ansell has decided to campaign for New Zealand First. Scumbag.
\n\nThis is the worst development in NZ Politics since Key ousted Brash. Who does he think this campaign will benefit? It's nothing more than free advertising for one Oswald Mosley Winston Raymond Peters.
\n\nImagine waking up on a Sunday morning two Novembers from now to find Key and Winston in bed with each other? Imagine how FUCKED our country would be if that happened, more FUCKED than even now.
\n\nNew Zealand has a massive coastline, 99% of which would not be affected by the simple repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act. We are not going to run out of free beach. This is kneejerk, racist politics.
\n\nRun this campaign and Winston and Laws get 5%. Simple as that. Is that what you want? Really?!!
\n\nThen please cease and desist, and find some real issues. Let's reform the RMA. Let's bring in School Choice. Let's support Welfare Reform. But not this. It's free advertising for the Little Old New Zealand Party.
I suppose I should comment on all the ACT shenanigans.
\n\nIt's really hard to care all that much, except to say that having ACT fighting for your freedom in parliament is a bit like having the Italians on your side during a world war: They're there for vastly different motives than you would want, make a complete ballsup of every campaign they mount, and have no effect on the eventual result.
\n\nSo Hide and Roy had a falling out. Gee, do I have to pick sides? Hide is an appalling leader with the attention span of a goldfish and the focus of the Hubble telescope before they repaired it. He's Obama, but shorter and whiter. Roy is a housewife from Timaru who is a nice lady and believes all the right things, but if she was a flanker, you wouldn't pick her for the All Blacks. God love her for trying, but somebody else, a real activist who knows how to campaign, should be there instead. She should go find something she is good at. She'd probably make quite a good ACT President, funnily enough, but she's not an MP.
\n\nI can't think of any current or former MP who actually likes Hide or enjoys having to deal with him. He is neither trusted nor respected by his colleagues, which makes ACT effectively leaderless. I can understand the urge to get rid of him. But Roy was not the woman to do it, and late last year was not the time. You get rid of Hide when you are back up at five percent in the polls and can afford to do it. Or if you are desperate and have nothing to lose. In either case, it wasn't going to be Roy. Besides which, you don't kill the goose which lays the golden egg, and Hide, whatever his faults, still remains that for ACT at this time.
\n\nAs for Boscawen, the ACT Party Owner, I can think of worse people to be in charge. I would not be surprised, if the Board panic, to see him lead the party into the next election and contest Epsom himself. It's his Party now, that is a reality, and what the Owner wants the Owner gets. He saved ACT once before, can he pull another rabbit out of the hat?
\n\nI think the laissez faire cause would ultimately be better served by the disintegration of ACT. Structurally it is a poor conduit for our ideas, and they eventually get marginalised by the big parties. Nothing has gotten better since 1994, the year of ACT's inception. It is time for something new, and if the infighting speeds up the process, so much the better.
Fewer Liquor Shops=Less Alcohol? Umm... No
\nI can't get the mass hysteria over the number of liquor licenses issued and people somehow naively thinking that, if only they can have fewer liquor stores, there will be less liquor sold.
\n\nLet me tell you something: Most people have cars and can drive a bit further if they need to. It won't make one bloody bit of difference.
\n\nI don't understand why the media are not pointing out this basic fact of life - less stores does not mean less liquor! I can tell you what it does mean though - cartels, corruption, a select bunch of people getting very rich from a restricted trade. And no reduction in alcohol harm. Just some oligarchs getting rich. The chain stores like Liquorland and Liquor King are rubbing their hands with glee at the thought. Meanwhile, a bunch of poor Indian families just trying to get by are being fucked by bureaucrats and kneejerk public sentiment. It's wrong and it's bullshit, and no South Auckland parades of misguided idiots with no brains is going to change that.
\n\nYou stop liquor abuse by proper policing of licences, and making sure drunk people and minors aren't sold liquor. If you want to stop adults from abusing liquor, you don't need a law, you need a bunch of friends and an intervention meeting. Don't talk to your MP, talk to your goddamn neighbour. They're the problem. Not the law. Not the government.
Occasionally, like a stopped clock, National MPs say something astoundingly wonderful that makes me proud of them. This time it's John Hayes, who says what Rodney \"Duck and Run\" Hide can't bring himself to say:
\n\n\"You can run away and bleat and ask for another nanny state rule, but\nfundamentally it's for our community to hang strong and make it clear\nto our young people we don't want gangs in our community,\" Hayes said.
\n\n
I just wish all of them were like that all the time.
Peter Dunne Becomes Useful For Once
\nLooks like Peter Dunne is going to introduce income splitting. Excellent. It's ridiculous for single income families with children to be paying 33c or more in the dollar.
\n\nHowever, my support for income splitting is, in the main, as a strategy for phasing out Working for Families. I would like to see some amendments to this legislation, hopefully from ACT, which would ensure that WFF was reduced accordingly. In practical terms this would defeat the money windfall that the bill would otherwise provide for most people, but the crucial difference is in the incentives that income splitting offers. With WFF, there is no economic incentive for a person to be better paid or more productive, as their benefit reduces accordingly. However, income splitting provides a similar financial benefit to the couple without pegging back income from any salary rise or job change.
\n\nNational have pledged not to touch WFF, but it's about time they started breaking some of those promises. The country's situation is too dire not to.