Category: imported_weekly
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.- Martin Luther King
Maori protest action has created a pall over the Far North community of Taipa. It’s the one that is in the news at the moment, but everywhere Maori activists have been allowed by the authorities to take the law into their own hands, the community has been forced to suffer the consequences. Invariably, the protesters bully and intimidate local residents, making their lives a misery. Fuelled by the government’s proposed foreshore and seabed law, which would see Maori gain ownership of vast tracts of New Zealand’s coastline, such radical protest action may well become commonplace. If it is not nipped in the bud, locals will be denied the right to the peaceful enjoyment of their community through constant harassment and threats from Maori sovereignty activists, and local businesses will bear the financial cost.
In his iconic book “Free to Choose”, Milton Friedman explained the strategy used by many governments when they want to pass legislation that will benefit a minority of citizens at the expense of the majority: “When a special interest seeks benefits through highly visible legislation, it must not only clothe its appeal in the rhetoric of the general interest, it must persuade a significant segment of disinterested persons that its appeal has merit. Legislation recognised as naked self-interest will seldom be adopted”.
“Conventional politicians ignore structural reform because they think they are in power to please people, and pleasing people does not involve making them face the hard questions. They use the latest polls to fine-tune their image and their policies, in order to achieve better results in the next poll. In other words, their aim is really to be in perpetual power. Their adherence to policies which focus on their immediate problems rather than the country’s future opportunities, brings accumulating difficulties. It becomes increasingly clear to people that the problems have not been solved and that opportunities have been thrown away. And so, such governments are voted out.”
“A discussion document released today said the Government preferred to declare the foreshore to be public domain, but reassert the right of Maori to seek modified customary title through the courts. Mr Key said the public domain concept was a pragmatic way to heal a ‘weeping sore’, but if there was not wide support then the current law could remain in place. The intent here is to put this issue to bed in a satisfactory way to the bulk of New Zealanders...” - NZ Press Association, March 31 2010
In the late 19th century, New Zealand gained a reputation as the ‘social laboratory of the world’. This was largely as a result of our adoption in 1898 of a pay-as-you-go pension scheme, which was in sharp contrast to the insurance-based contributory scheme introduced almost a decade earlier by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners, trapped half a mile underground for almost ten weeks, has been a remarkable story of human innovation and progress. In another age, they would have all died. But technology and international cooperation banded together to create an inspirational feat of recovery, which some have called a ‘smashing victory for free-market capitalism’.[1]
Last month an estimated 280,000 students and their parents were badly disrupted by the strike action of members of the Post Primary Teachers' Union. Some 16,000 teachers went on strike, affecting 450 intermediate and secondary schools. The protest was part of a planned programme of industrial action being taken by the PPTA over stalled pay negotiations with the Ministry of Education. Eight rolling strikes are scheduled between now and Christmas as well as further action next year. In addition, teachers have been told to refuse to attend all meeting after 5pm, including staff meetings, parent interviews, and student tutorials.
Democracy is said to be government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. It is meant to protect individual freedom and liberty, since the government’s powers derive from citizens themselves - either through their elected representatives or directly through public referenda. But the system breaks down when those elected representatives in government develop ‘tin ears’, putting the demands of their party – and the bureaucracy – ahead of the public interest.
If you want New Zealand to remain a democracy rather than slowly reverting to a tribal aristocracy, please read on. And as you do, think about your children and grandchildren, and whether you want them to inherit one country or two. Then decide for yourself, who’s telling the truth and what you want to do.
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