Category: Guest Posts
Am I worried about carbon induced global warming? The answer is no and yes. No because there has been no sign of global warming in New Zealand since 1955, this year snow has fallen in Portugal for the first time in 52 years and 3 US states are united by the fact that they have recorded their lowest temperatures ever. Yes because it has become a political football that has lost its foundations in real science.
I can't be sure, but it may well have been me who introduced the term Nanny State into the New Zealand vernacular, on my Politically Incorrect Show on Radio Pacific. Certainly I used it regularly there, and observed it creep into common usage thereafter, as did the related term, Helengrad. In any event, the expression is well and truly out there now, and that's as good a thing as its referent is bad. Nanny State is vicious, anti-human … and, as we speak, relentlessly advancing.
There’s much talk now of the call, lately by Sir Thomas Thorpe but in fact made by many others many times over many years, for an office of criminal review to sort out courtroom mistakes and free all the wrongly convicted. This may get the thumbs up to acknowledge the spanking the Privy Council has just given our Court of Appeal in Bain, but also because something has to be done to cover for the suicidal detachment of our appeal system from the PC.
If the NCEA was a car would you drive your kids anywhere in it? Based on its performance over the past five years, probably not, since you could not be confident your kids would reach their destination intact—that is, having a qualification that is meaningful and precise.
Economists have long since accepted Milton Friedman’s argument that monetary policy – ‘printing money’ – is the single cause of inflation, whether in boom times or in recession. Inflation is about too much money chasing too few goods. So the first requirement for non-inflationary growth is for the Reserve Bank to run a sound monetary policy.
One of the most heavily-promoted arguments in favour of MMP, at the time of the 1993 referendum, was that its introduction would transform (for the better) the way in which Parliament worked. We were promised much better behaviour in the House, but more importantly, greater sensitivity to the wishes of the Electorate.
During late January the ex-Act MP, Gerry Eckhoff, was leading some Otago farmers’ charge against DoC’s demands to enter their properties to survey some “endangered” trees.
Now after the Auditor –General has concluded that much of Labour’s election spending was an illegal use of taxpayer’s funds, the government’s solution is to decide that the taxpayer must fund political parties.
It's not always a good idea to base an argument on personal experience but I will risk it. In 1989, just before the abolition of corporal punishment in schools, I was a member of the PPTA executive and invited to appear on a TV programme with Russell Marshall, the then Minister of Education. I commented that I was not convinced the majority of teachers were in favour of abolition.
As parents of an intellectually disabled son who is positively and gainfully involved with a sheltered workshop, we are disappointed that the Labour Government, Progressive, New Zealand First, the Maori Party, the Greens and United Future all colluded together to pass the Disabled Persons Employment Promotion Repeal (and related matters) Bill.
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