Category: imported_guest
A soprano thrillingly hits her top-A, sighs with relief at achieving the desired effect, and moves on. But not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose climate alarmism started to crescendo in 2001 in the Third Assessment Report (3AR) with the statement that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely (66% probable) to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.
Thirty years ago, I told the Labour Party conference that New Zealand stood at the economic crossroads. That there were no soft options left. That unless we changed our ways, New Zealand was headed for disaster. That proved to be dead right.
The years of the Clark administration have seen a steady expansion of the influence of politicians in the economy and society. In this election year the voters will choose a government partly on what they think have been the results of this and whether they approve of it in principle. The list of illustrations is a long one.
I would like first of all to thank the organizers of this important conference for making it possible and also for inviting one politically incorrect politician from Central Europe to come and speak here. This meeting will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the moving away from the irrational climate alarmism to the much needed climate realism.
Join the dots here. The New Zealand Olympic Committee, with the backing of the Minister of Sport, tries to muzzle athletes taking part in the Beijing Games. The police are issued with instructions allowing protesters to be blocked or moved from view if they offend a visiting VIP. Parliament passes an extraordinarily elaborate set of laws protecting Rugby World Cup sponsors from competitors’ advertising. The Government and its supporting parties bulldoze through Parliament a Bill placing unprecedented restrictions on what people may legally say about politics during election year. Immigration officials ban an ageing, discredited academic from entering New Zealand to expound his odd theories about the Holocaust. An arrogant Minister of Health publicly attacks elected members of a district health board, then tries to forbid them from speaking out in their own defence. The Race Relations Commissioner calls for tighter controls on TV programmes that cause religious offence. And the Prime Minister rebukes newspaper editors who dared to publish the so-called Muhammad cartoons.
Capitalism lacks romantic appeal. Arguments in favour of private property rights and free market exchange do not set the pulse racing in the way that fiery speeches about socialism, fascism or environmentalism can. Capitalism can justifiably boast that it is very good at delivering the goods, but increasingly in countries like New Zealand , this fails to win hearts and minds, for we have come to take our affluence for-granted. We want something more than just comfort to believe in.
It is now eighteen years since I first visited New Zealand as a guest of the New Zealand Business Roundtable. Yet that period of time is long enough to document the early rise in growth during the period between 1992-2000, followed by the much more anemic growth in the period between 2000 and 2006. The trend rate of labour productivity growth in the measured sector was about 2.7% in the first period and 1.3% in the second. The point of the divide is no accident, for the year 2000 marks the rise of the current Labour government to power, and the gutting of the Employment Contracts Act of 1990, which I am happy to say I helped promote on my first visit to New Zealand.
We may all be Environmentalists now – but we must beware of the Dark Greens.
The 2008 4th Edition Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey released recently, illustrates clearly why so many young and vulnerable New Zealanders, are being denied the right to the opportunity of affordable housing.
For some reason that I simply cannot fathom we fail as a Nation to understand or respond to this hugely embarrassing and destructive issue. If we are not embarrassed by it, we damned well should be. We are rated by the OECD to be at the top of world statistics for child abuse and murder.
Loading ...
