Category: Guest Posts
The woes of finance companies have been much in the news recently. A combination of small and/or undiversified loan portfolios, impenetrable business models, ructions emanating from the collapse of the United States sub-prime mortgage market, and a self-fulfilling loss of confidence by New Zealand investors in the safety of their money, have seen nine such companies collapse in the last 18 months.
The recently released draft New Zealand Energy Strategy is dominated by the government’s conviction that climate change (more properly described as man-made global warming) is happening and that renewable energy will save New Zealand from climate driven disaster.
I guess I am in the unique position of having had two terms on council, one before the introduction of the Local Government Act 2002 (between 1995-98) and one after. After a six year break I went back onto the Whangarei District Council with fresh eyes and an expectation that nothing much had changed. Well that was not the case at all. The changes have been dramatic. I was shocked to see how far our local council - and I suspect all local authorities in New Zealand - had moved in only six years. The shift is seismic.
The so-called Electoral Finance Bill is really about participation in election activity by people who are not professional politicians. It says that politics is for politicians and that you and I, who are not self-promoting climbers of the greasy pole, have no business interfering. The policy agenda should be determined by the political parties and not by the public and so should the way those policies are marketed.
A brief introduction of my background may help the reader to better understand my comments concerning the plans of Islam for non-Muslim nations. I was born as a Muslim in Iran. From early childhood, I was encouraged by my parents to get involved in religious practices. At the age of nine, I became a famous Muslim boy in my hometown because of my ability to read and recite the Qur’an in Arabic. From early childhood, we learned that Christians and Jews were unclean, as the Qur’an says, and Islam must take over the world.
One year ago, I travelled 36 hours from Gothenburg, Sweden to Auckland at the invitation of the Section 59 Coalition. I came to testify at the Parliamentary hearing on the private member's Bill that proposed a repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act and to inform - and to warn - the general New Zealand public of the effects of the Swedish smacking ban.
Just as expected, Dr Bollard has announced a rise of 0.25% in the official cash rate (OCR), to bring it to 8.25%. Thursday’s announcement also contained another bit of information, that the Reserve Bank thought it had gone far enough for the time being, and yet another hike down the track is not anticipated. Provided, that is, the economy kept itself in restraint.
Having had the privilege of heading up one of New Zealand’s leading Youth support organisations for over a decade I have been appalled at the progressive destruction of community-owned Non Government Organisations (NGO’s) through the control freak mentality of politicians and the bureaucratic system.
Over the past 30 years New Zealand society has undergone some seismic shifts in philosophical, ethical, political and technological thinking. It is not so much that society has been subjected to a single, life-shaking quake but more a case of many seemingly small and innocuous changes adding up to a landscape shift that appears increasingly unacceptable to many people. And like so many situations we are confronted with today it is difficult to see how such changes can be challenged or modified when responsibility rests somewhere ‘in the system’.
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