Stupid greedy voters – Brash

Written By: - Date published: 8:07 am, March 1st, 2010 - 50 comments
Categories: class war - Tags: ,

With true tory arrogance at the ACT conference this weekend, Don Brash has described New Zealand voters as venal and stupid.

Apparently New Zealand’s reluctance to destroy what is left of their society by implementing Brash’s discredited crazy old man economic voodoo is a sign of their stupidity.

Apparently nobody in ACT disagreed with him. Go figure.

And while we’re talking about right-wing loons, there’s a nice piece about Ayn Rand over at the eXiled. Turns out she was a huge admirer of sociopaths because they weren’t able to realize or feel other people. I wonder if Don reads Rand.

50 comments on “Stupid greedy voters – Brash ”

  1. I thought that the capitalist system relied on everyone being venal?

  2. PeteG 2

    And the socialist system relied on no one being lazy or greedy.

    Are blogs capitalist? Or just a different type of venal?

    (I don’t support Brash or his flavour of policies).

  3. Pascal's bookie 3

    My question is for the Prime Minister and reads,

    What sort of idiot would say that NZers are ignorant and venal if they don’t give full support to ACT policy, and should NZers trust a party that would elect such an idiot as leader?

  4. Sam 4

    zombiebrash needs brains

    braaaaaainssss

  5. vto 5

    Brash always was too open and honest to make a successful politician.

    He should be far more guarded and closed and significantly less than completely honest. He should have followed Helen Clark’s example.

    • Marty G 5.1

      Or he could just not be a fuckwit,

      See, vto, the reason that Clark didn’t call voters idiots isn’t because she’s more tricksie than Brash, it’s because she doesn’t believe it.

      To think that this guy was the Nats’ choice for PM.

      And remember that Key said he differs from Brash in style, not substance.

      • Pascal's bookie 5.1.1

        “Or he could just not be a fuckwit,”

        Might be difficult, all things considered.

  6. tc 6

    Brash addressing ACT is not unlike Jack Nicolson’s character in One Flew over the Cockoos nest getting all the other mental patients onside….mmmm Jucy Fruit.

    It’s a free country, well till they pass some more laws under urgency that bypasses select comittees/questions as they love to do.

  7. RedLogix 7

    The link to the Martin Ames article is well worth the read. He re-works some little known information about the ugly Ms Rand,and clearly makes a case for liberatarianism as a bastard political outgrowth of sociopathy. It’s disturbing stuff.

    Given that psychopaths/sociopaths form about 2% of the population… how much of a coincidence is it that ACT’s core support is a number not too dissimilar?

    Ames concludes:

    Too many critics of Ayn Rand would rather dismiss her books and ideas as laughable, childish, hackneyed, lame, embarrassing’Nietzsche for sorority girls’ was how I used to dismiss her. I did that with the Christian Right, like a lot of people who didn’t want to take on something as big, bland and impervious as them. Too many of us focused elsewhereuntil it was too late and the Christian fundamentalist crazies took over America

    Hide/Brash/Douglas are evil clowns all-right, but have mitts wrapped around levers of power, and get air-time in our media. They’re dangerous.

    • Lew 7.1

      Spot on, RL. They shouldn’t be misunderestimated, and not enough people are saying so.

      L

    • PeteG 7.2

      “Given that psychopaths/sociopaths form about 2% of the population how much of a coincidence is it that ACT’s core support is a number not too dissimilar?”

      …or not logixal.

      2% of the population in NZ are Hindu, that number isn’t dissimilar either.
      Bugger, 2% are also Buddhist, Act supporters can’t be both.

      • RedLogix 7.2.1

        There is no identifiable reason why all Hindu’s would be ACT supporters (and evidentially they are not)… but the nature of the arguments put forward by ACT supporters reveals an underlying anti-social psychopathy that logically justifies an inferential connection.

      • Draco T Bastard 7.2.2

        What’s their religion got to do with it? And yes, they can be both.

    • Quoth the Raven 7.3

      RedLogix – On occasion it would be nice to have a little bit of intellectual honesty from you. Do I have to remind you that libertarian is simply a word that basically means anti-authoritarian, but originally was just a synonym for anarchism. There are libertarian-marxists, libertarian-socialists, left-libertarians, right-libertarians, geo-libertarians, and much much more. And do I have to remind you of Ayn Rand’s own opinion of libertarians – Ayn Rand’s Q & A on Libertarianism or maybe the thoughts of prominent libertarians on Rand The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult or what some Objectivists think of libertarianism: Libertarianism the perversion of liberty. Yes, many libertarians have drawn on Rand’s work many are Randian, yes some Objectivists call themsevles libertarian, but you’re just intentionally conflating concepts and not engaging libertarianism honestly. And if you want a more generous interpretation of Rand’s work maybe you should read some of Roderick Long’s articles like Ayn Rand’s Left-Libertarian Legacy
      Ayn Rand and the Capitalist Class
      And I like this quote to show that Rand’s thoughts changed as she aged:

      That idea of hardships being good for character and of talent always being able to break through is an old fallacy. Talent alone is helpless today. Any success requires both talent and luck. And the “luck’ has to be helped along and provided by someone. Talent does not survive all obstacles. In fact, in the face of hardships, talent is the first one to perish; the rarest plants are usually the most fragile. Our present-day struggle for existence is the coarsest and ugliest phenomenon that has ever appeared on earth. It takes a tough skin to face it, a very tough one. Are talented people born with tough skins? Hardly. In fact, the more talent one possesses the more sensitive one is, as a rule. And if there is a more tragic figure than a sensitive, worthwhile person facing life without money I don’t know where it can be found.

  8. Bill 8

    How heartbreaking it must be for Brash that the public fails to understand that unemployment rises when equality measures are brought to bear on the labour market. How terrible for him that we (the public) are being wilfully misinformed by (his words) ‘ the so-called news on state television.’ I’m guessing he’s just fine with TV3? This guy is fucking insane.

    The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the man….hmm, he became so well rewarded under capitalism, why?…does lead one to suspect that he should be subjected to the last suggestion in Ames piece….

    “The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out, make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere”

    Oh, and in the comments below the Ames piece is a link to a ‘well worth the read’ article titled ‘The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.’
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html

  9. The Chairman 9

    A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey 5/5

    http://tinyurl.com/yjadz2e

    (Note: parts 1 to 4 can be found in the sidebar)

  10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSY_KbtNSv4

    Them crazy, them crazy –
    We gonna chase those crazy
    Baldheads out of town;
    Chase those crazy baldheads
    Out of our town.

    I’n’I build a cabin;
    I’n’I plant the corn;
    Didn’t my people before me
    Slave for this country?
    Now you look me with that scorn,
    Then you eat up all my corn.

    We gonna chase those crazy –
    Chase them crazy –
    Chase those crazy baldheads out of town!

    Build your penitentiary, we build your schools,
    Brainwash education to make us the fools.
    Hate is your reward for our love,
    Telling us of your God above.

    We gonna chase those crazy –
    Chase those crazy bunkheads –
    Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown!

    We gonna chase those crazy –
    Chase those crazy bunkheads –
    Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown!

    Here comes the conman
    Coming with his con plan.
    We won’t take no bribe;
    We’ve got [to] stay alive.

    We gonna chase those crazy –
    Chase those crazy baldheads –
    Chase those crazy baldheads out of the yown.

    …uncle bob FTW !!!

  11. reddy 11

    Please note this is the man that National had chosen to lead them into government.

  12. James 12

    Brash was bang on….Kiwis are,by and large,ignorant of politics and easy to dupe with tax and spend nonsense.See you lot here.

    They can’t work out that getting their own stolen money back via the welfare state after the Government has clipped the ticket doesn’t make them better off….quite the reverse.

    • Captain Rehab 12.1

      Haha you’re a neo-liberal retard. How’s that economic crisis working out for you super-man?

      • Pascal's bookie 12.1.1

        I think James is assuming that everyone is venal and ignorant,
        in which case Brash would be correct,
        but ‘twould beg the question.

  13. Well, Irish Bill, perhaps you should reconsider your condemnation of Rand.

    No, it was not her finest hour. But she was “not an admirer of sociopaths” as you say, and Hickman was not in any way “her first love and mentor” as that article you link to says so disgracefully.

    Why do you need to make things up to discredit those you oppose? Is it that you can’t do it by telling the truth?

    For the record, Rand’s comments on Hickman appear in her published journals. They’re not hidden. What she was fascinated by was not Hickman’s disgusting crime, but society’s reaction to Hickman, and she thought (as any writer might) that she could make a story out of it.

    Bad as Hickman’s crime was (which at the time of course was only an alleged crime, since Hickman had yet to be found guilty), there had been worse crimes committed with less public outrage. That was what fascinated Rand, and what she tried to answer in her notes.

    She concluded that the intensity of the public’s hatred of Hickman was primarily “because of the man who committed the crime and not because of the crime he committed.” The mob hated Hickman for his independence, she surmised in her notes; she chose him as a model for the same reason — in the same way the likes of Hubert Selby or Truman Capote or Bret Easton Ellis or sundry others made stories out of similar characters.

    Journal editor David Harriman says, “Hickman served as a model for Danny only in strictly limited respects, which AR names in her notes. Danny does commit a crime in the story [she planned], but it is nothing like Hickman’s. To guard against any misinterpretation [which Irish Bill and your linked website ignore], I quote her own statement regarding the relationship between her hero [in the planned story] and Hickman”:

    [My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me.

    So much for worshipping a psychopath.

    Interestingly, the young Rand was inclined to excuse Hickman as “a product of society” — something opponents of the likes of the Sensible Sentencing Trust are inclined to do these days. In her notes, for example, she says of Hickman,

    He was given [nothing with which] to fill his life. What was he offered to fill his soul? The petty, narrow, inconsistent, hypocritical ideology of present-day humanity. All the criminal, ludicrous, tragic nonsense of Christianity and its morals, virtues, and consequences. Is it any wonder that he didn’t accept it? That it left his soul emptier than it had been before? That boy does not believe in anything. But, oh! men, have you anything to believe in? Can you offer anything to be believed? He is a monster in his cruelty and disrespect of all things. But is there anything to be respected? He does not know what love means. But what is it that is worthy of being loved?
    “Yes, he is a monster—now. But the worse he is, the worst must be the cause that drove him to this. Isn’t it significant that society was not able to fill the life of an exceptional, intelligent boy, to give him anything to outbalance crime in his eyes? If society is horrified at his crime, it should be horrified at the crime’s ultimate cause: itself. The worse the crime—the greater its guilt. What could society answer, if that boy were to say: ‘Yes, I’m a monstrous criminal, but what are you?’

    And, by the way, she never completed the story.

    • IrishBill 13.1

      I’ve spent too long arguing with Randian loons to bother much more. But if I must then I’d point out that Rand’s celebration of the sociopath was obvious in Atlas Shrugged including the way Eddie Willers was left to die because he was weak, the celebration of Rearden abandoning his family because they were parasites and that sick passage glorying in the deaths of railway passengers who had supported government intervention.

      As far as I’m concerned Objectivists are like the worst kinds of fascists but without any money or power.

    • Lew 13.2

      Faint praise, Peter. Your argument appears to be that Rand didn’t lionise sociopathic criminals, so much as those who were sociopathic but who stopped short of actually enacting their sociopathology in criminal ways. That is; people with their independence of thought and action, absence of empathy, single-minded determination and utter self-obsession. This is borne out in pretty explicit terms plenty of places in Rand’s writing and in that of many of her objectivist followers.

      The point is that she/they don’t disapprove of sociopathology per se — so much as they disapprove of some of its cruder manifestations. Some, but not all — Roark’s blowing up the housing project — not owned or paid for by him, nor requiring anything further from him for its existence — is an example of “acceptable” manifestation of sociopathology in the Randian canon.

      L

      • My \’argument,\’ Lew, is simply to post what the young Rand actually said about Hickman, and to point out that she was hardly the only novelist to contemplate basing a story on a disgusting character — or, in this case, on the public reaction to a disgusting character.

        In other words, that IB and his linked author are making too much stew from one very small onion

        • Lew 13.2.1.1

          Peter, I accept that would be true if the comments had been made at the time of the young Rand’s apparent interest in Hickman — but there’s plenty more onion provided by her later writing, and a few carrots, a bit of celery, some garlic and some juicy red meat as well. You could say that the extras — things like wine and turnips and tomatoes — are provided by her followers.

          This context of her later work is all relevant in the here and now, since it’s in the here and now that we’re making the stew. Or at least talking about it.

          L

          • Peter Cresswell 13.2.1.1.1

            No, I don’t agree. Sure, every student of Rand knows that she went through a ‘Neitzschean’ phase in her youth, one that she thoroughly rejected once she understood (to use your word) his sociopathy.

            Her 1968 introduction to her novel ‘The Fountainhead’ make this plain enough, and also the reasons for her initial admiration.

            Perhaps the best way to communicate The Fountainhead’s sense of life is by means of the quotation which had stood at the head of my manuscript, but which I removed from the final, published book. With this opportunity to explain it, I am glad to bring it back.
            “I removed it, because of my profound disagreement with the philosophy of its author, Friedrich Nietzsche. Philosophically, Nietzsche is a mystic and an irrationalist. His metaphysics consists of a somewhat ‘Byronic’ and mystically ‘malevolent’ universe; his epistemology subordinates reason to ‘will,’ or feeling or instinct or blood or innate virtues of character. But, as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man’s greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual terms.
            “This is especially true of the quotation I had chosen. I could not endorse its literal meaning: it proclaims an indefensible tenet—psychological determinism. But if one takes it as a poetic projection of an emotional experience …, then that quotation communicates the inner state of an exalted self-esteem—and sums up the emotional consequences for which ‘The Fountainhead’ provides the rational, philosophical base:
            “‘
            It is not the works, but the belief which is here decisive and determines the order of rank—to employ once more an old religious formula with a new and deeper meaning,—it is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost.—The noble soul has reverence for itself.—‘ (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.)
            “This view of man has rarely been expressed in human history. Today, it is virtually non-existent. Yet this is the view with which—in various degrees of longing, wistfulness, passion and agonized confusion—the best of mankind’s youth start out in life…

            I submit that it was this, however imperfectly expressed, she was responding to in her interest with the criminal, and in the public reaction to him.

            • IrishBill 13.2.1.1.1.1

              All that shows is her (and your) fundamental misunderstanding of Nietzsche. He didn’t endorse sociopaths. She clearly did.

              • Nietzsche . . . didn’t endorse sociopaths

                Well that really does take the biscuit. While not endorsing the use of the term (which you chose initially), one could select any number of readings from Nietzsche to make the point that Nietzsche’s uberman is precisely what you’re arguing against, and in which box you’re trying to force Rand. This odious sentiment for example:

                Mankind in the mass sacrificed to the prosperity of a single stronger species of man—that would be an advance.
                – Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy of Morals’

                What is that if not what you’re objecting to in those made-up stories about Rand?

                IrishBill: Beyond good and evil is a treatise on the nature of meaning that takes as its main example one of the fundamental notions of truth at the time in order to gain maximum effect. It’s no more a call to arms for nihilists than On the Origin of the Species is (although Nietzsche had a better sense of humour than Darwin did). Your problem is you have this rather earnest inability to see the nuance in anything. That’s probably why you’re an Objectivist.

            • Lew 13.2.1.1.1.2

              Peter, a characteristically sympathetic reading which does nothing to account for her later idolisation of heroes with sociopathic qualities, and her modelling of (certain of) those traits as ideal and perfect. Not to mention those of her followers and ideological allies, which was the initial topic of the discussion.

              L

              • …her later idolisation of heroes with sociopathic qualities…Not to mention those of her followers and ideological allies

                Well now you’ve lost me totally. What on earth are you talking about? Which “heroes with sociopathic qualities” are you talking about? What “followers and ideological allies” share these same “sociopathic qualities”?

                Or is this just a further smear?

              • Lew

                Peter, qualities she claims to have admired in Hickman, which I referred to above (though I almost didn’t, since the suite is so well-known). The “outside” of him, without the degeneracy. The idea that the degeneracy was somehow separable from his actions and outlook.

                As to the heroes: these qualities are shared to a large extent by the protagonists in her fiction, and her judgements of people and actions in non-fiction are frequently against this benchmark.

                As to the followers: I don’t claim they necessarily share these traits I claim they idolise them. That’s an important distinction.

                L

    • Bright Red 13.3

      “The mob hated Hickman for his independence, she surmised in her notes; she chose him as a model for the same reason”

      well that just marks her out as a sociopath.

      The ‘mob’ as you call them hated a man who had brutally murdered a young girl for no reason and abused her remains while horrifically tormenting her father.

      Fact is there were plenty of criminals in the era who were actually widely admired who you would characterise as ‘independent’ but the difference was they didn’t go around torturing little girls.

      The fact that Rand admired Hickman and blamed the world for his actions, not his sociopathic nature, says all we need to know about her.

      The fact you are making excuses fro both Rand and Hickman says a lot about you.

      • @Bright Red: “…well that just marks her out as a sociopath.

        Well, no it doesn’t. It marks her down as someone struck by the fact that even more barbaric crimes attracted so little public opprobrium. I’m not at all downplaying the barbarity of Hickman, and neither was Rand. What interested her primarily however (to say it again) was that even more barbaric crimes attracted far less opprobrium than this one.

        That’s what she wanted to answer and portray, through a more sympathetic character than this animal.

        The fact you are making excuses for both Rand and Hickman says a lot about you.

        Oh, grow up and learn to read.

    • Daveo 13.4

      Bad as Hickman’s crime was (which at the time of course was only an alleged crime, since Hickman had yet to be found guilty), there had been worse crimes committed with less public outrage. That was what fascinated Rand, and what she tried to answer in her notes.

      She concluded that the intensity of the public’s hatred of Hickman was primarily “because of the man who committed the crime and not because of the crime he committed.’

      What Rand admired about Hickman was that he “had no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own… he can never realize and feel other people'” – ie, the fact he was a sociopath.

      Considering that what Rand brushes aside as “whatsoever society holds sacred” was in this case the murder and dismembership of a small girl and then the psychological torture of her father, it kind of makes sense that the public were horrified and this case gained particular notoriety.

      People don’t like sociopaths. We are social animals, we hold things sacred, and sociopaths like Hickman do us and our society harm. That this element of the crime – the fact Hickman acted like a sociopath – was precisely what Rand admired about him says a lot about her and about the values underlying her philosophy.

      • @Daveo: She did not “brush aside” the sacred, nor was she “a huge admirer of sociopaths.” Your and IB’s rewriting of the truth is almost Stalinist.

        Novelists write stories about despicable characters. I’m sure you’ve read some; I’m sure you’ve enjoyed them. That doesn’t make you a “sociopath” any more than it makes Rand one for planning a story as a twenty-three year old that she never completed, about the public reaction to (at the time) an alleged murderer whose barbaric crimes received more condemnation than much greater barbarities — and whose crimes (in her planned story) she intended to change for something far less savage.

        Which is to say that the story is far less than it’s painted — although, as I say above, it’s hardly Rand’s finest hour– but the truth is far more interesting than the juvenile finger-pointing.

        For example, writing years later about another criminal whom she actually did include in a completed work, she talked about the use of a “heroic criminal” as the protagonist: “I do not think, nor did I think when I wrote this play, that a swindler is a heroic character or that a respectable banker is a villain. But for the purpose of dramatizing the conflict of independence versus conformity, a criminal—a social outcast—can be an eloquent symbol. This, incidentally, is the reason of the profound appeal of the ‘noble crook in fiction. He is the symbol of the rebel as such, regardless of the kind of society he rebels against, the symbol—for most people—of their vague, undefined, unrealized groping toward a concept, or a shadowy image, of man’s self-esteem.”

        Discussing that and related pointd would be far more interesting than this finger-pointing.

  14. Well, IB, I didn’t expect you to agree with me about AR–and I’ve spent far too long arguing with people whe don’t. Merely that you would tell the truth about her.

    • Bright Red 15.1

      Ah, strong argumentation Peter.

      Quick, dig out your copies of the Objectivist Newsletter and find out what Ayn says you have to say in this situation.

  15. My “argument,” Lew, is simply to post what the young Rand actually said about Hickman, and to point out that she was hardly the only novelist to contemplate basing a story on a disgusting character — or, in this case, on the public reaction to a disgusting character.

    In other words, that IB and his linked author are making too much stew from one very small onion.

  16. Hilary 17

    Apparently millions of copies of Ayn Rand books are given free to US schools.

    There is a good critique of AR (and also a not so damning one of Adam Smith) by economist and social justice advocate Raj Patel in his recent book ‘The value of nothing’.

    • Bright Red 17.1

      Isn’t that ironic. If they were true to their creed the Objectivists would never give away their books in a desperate attempt to win over mallable minds.

      The more I learn the more it sounds like a quasi-religious cult dressed as something else.

  17. prism 18

    Ayn Rand was a name that I heard from time to time, from the past. But well-known powerful people were said to be interested in her ideas and I began to search for more information. I read through the Virtue of Selfishness and Her Objectivist Ethics and noted that she seemed very unobjective about altruism – she called it evil. She seemed to dislike even hate kindness, she was married but didn’t have any children I understand. Thank goodness.

    IB supplied an interesting link on her. The detail it gives and the fears it expresses are not exaggerated I think. Rand came from Russia and was filled with excitement at the opportunities that the USA offered and seems to have struck a rich vein of self-interest that hankers after the absolute powers and riches of crazy emperors. Her ideas would match with Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus an awful story about Romans and Goths, killing, torturing, mutilating and savage revenge. What a world we would have if her ideas were followed and when you see some of her devotees in power it explains a lot about how society diminishes in standards despite our advances in prosperity and knowledge.

    From Tzvee’s Talmudic Blog –
    According to Wikipedia, “Rand was born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum (Russian: Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум) in 1905, into a middle-class family living in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the eldest of three daughters (Alisa, Natasha, and Nora).”
    Her parents were, “Zinovy Zacharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna Rosenbaum, agnostic and largely non-observant Jews. Her father was a chemist and a successful pharmaceutical entrepreneur who earned the privilege of living outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement.”
    And why do I bring up this question now?

    Because the Wall Street Journal published a strange essay yesterday by Stephen Moore, “‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.”
    In the essay Moore argues inexplicably that recent economic upheavals prove the underlying theories of Rand’s objectivism are correct, starting off by saying,
    Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read “Atlas Shrugged” a “virgin.” Being conversant in Ayn Rand’s classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only “Atlas” were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I’m confident that we’d get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

    From The eXileD thru IB’s link
    That’s what makes it so creepy how Rand and her followers clearly get off on hating and bashing those they perceived as weakRand and her followers have a kind of fetish for classifying weaker, poorer people as “parasites’ and “lice’ who need to swept away.
    Interesting that that is just the type of approach that the Nazis portrayed about the Jews in their infamous propaganda.

  18. SPC 19

    Brash has a problem with democracy. So does Ayn Rand. They each want society organised around their ideology, something that democracy might not allow in the first place or would reject once it was tried.

  19. Thomas 20

    Unfortunately a problem with democracy is shared by extremist idealogs of any stripe. Sue Bradford in her blogs after the S59 referendum was just as contemptuous of the intelligence of the masses as Brash. In other words if the public does not agree with extremist nutters such as Brash, Hide or Bradford it must be “because they are thick or do not understand what they are voting for”. I put it to you that the public understands exactly what their votes meant.
    Opposition to binding referendums is always couched in the terms that idealog politicians have special insight, information or knowledge denied to the “stupid” masses.
    Much of the public disappointment with politics is that those in power (Whatever party) continually take us in directions we do not want according to some dogma. Helen Clarks pragmatism was a welcome bit of fresh air for a while.

    • Pat 20.1

      “I put it to you that the public understands exactly what their votes meant.”

      This comment puts you in a tie with Berend on Dimpost for The Most Sensible Comment Of The Day Award.

  20. James 21

    “Isn’t that ironic. If they were true to their creed the Objectivists would never give away their books in a desperate attempt to win over mallable minds.”

    Why? Objectivists expouse benevolance towards their fellow men….as opposed to the slavery of altruism.Holding seminars,running essay contests and donating books is vintage Objectivist outreach to spread the word to those who are interested…..indeed it was intrested people approaching Rand about her work that evolved into the various objectivist outlets we have today…ARI,The Objectivist Centre etc.They came to Rand….she didn’t go out looking for them aside from selling her writing.

    “The more I learn the more it sounds like a quasi-religious cult dressed as something else.”

    There was nothing cultic about Objectivism.Indeed its central tenents make it morphing into a cult impossible.The so called “cult” was just a small circle of friends who Rand enjoyed talking and socialising with.They even jokingly called themselves the Collective….hardly cultic behaviour.

    “Brash has a problem with democracy. So does Ayn Rand. They each want society organised around their ideology, something that democracy might not allow in the first place or would reject once it was tried.

    Rand…and Brash to a lesser consistent degree, are belivers in a free society…which Democracy is not.Democracy is mob rule…force denys rights.Rand supported the individual rights of EVERYONE….and new that a Democray desn’t deliver on that…only a free society can.

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    Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    7 hours ago
  • Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    Bryce Edwards writes –  It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    8 hours ago
  • Promiscuous Empathy: Chris Trotter Replies To His Critics.
    Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played. “Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
    8 hours ago
  • Don’t run your business like a criminal enterprise
    The Detail this morning highlights the police's asset forfeiture case against convicted business criminal Ron Salter, who stands to have his business confiscated for systemic violations of health and safety law. Business are crying foul - but not for the reason you'd think. Instead of opposing the post-conviction punishment and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    8 hours ago
  • Misremembering Justinian’s Taxes.
    Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I - Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
    9 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    10 hours ago
  • Bishop scores headlines with crackdown on unwelcome tenants – but Peters scores, too, as tub-thump...
    Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    11 hours ago
  • Will it make the boat go faster?
    Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    13 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi The fact that a ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    14 hours ago
  • Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    14 hours ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' at 10:10am on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st Century The SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims Stuff Steve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    14 hours ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things on Tuesday, March 19
    It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    15 hours ago
  • New Life for Light Rail
    This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail  Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    16 hours ago
  • Why Are Bosses Nearly All Buffoons?
    Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    18 hours ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on March 18
    TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension l...
    Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 day ago
  • Labour’s final report card
    David Farrar writes –  We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how  went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago
  • “Drunk Uncle at a Wedding”
    I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    2 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on Dune 2, and images of Islam
    Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
    2 days ago
  • New Rail Operations Centre Promises Better Train Services
    Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
    2 days ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things at 6.36am on Monday, March 18
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    2 days ago
  • The Kaka’s diary for the week to March 25 and beyond
    TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bitter and angry; Winston First
    New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • Out of Touch.
    “I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The bewildering world of Chris Luxon – Guns for all, not no lunch for kids
    .“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
    Frankly SpeakingBy Frank Macskasy
    3 days ago
  • Expert Opinion: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
    3 days ago
  • Manufacturing The Truth.
    Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet –  is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
    3 days ago
  • A Powerful Sensation of Déjà Vu.
    Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
    3 days ago
  • Can you guess where world attention is focussed (according to Greenpeace)? It’s focussed on an EPA...
    Bob Edlin writes –  And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
    Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Greens’ transparency missing in action
    For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s Dawn Chorus with six newsey things at 6:46am for Saturday, March 16
    TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ Herald Thomas Coughlan Simeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • How Did FTX Crash?
    What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    4 days ago
  • Elections in Russia and Ukraine
    Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s six stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15
    TL;DR: Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it:  We want our country to be a ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • National’s clean car tax advances
    The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Government funding bailouts
    Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Two offenders, different treatments.
    See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    4 days ago
  • Treaty references omitted
    Ele Ludemann writes  – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • The Ghahraman Conflict
    What was that judge thinking? Peter Williams writes –  That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 15
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop: Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • The day Wellington up-zoned its future
    Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 15-March-2024
    It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    5 days ago
  • That Word.
    Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to March 15
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Labour’s policy gap
    It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024
    Open access notables A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: In the year 2023, we have seen extraordinary extrema in high sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and in ...
    5 days ago
  • Melissa remains mute on media matters but has something to say (at a sporting event) about economic ...
     Buzz from the Beehive   The text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary.  It can be quickly analysed ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • The return of Muldoon
    For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Will the rental tax cut improve life for renters or landlords?
    Bryce Edwards writes –  Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: What Saudi Arabia’s rapid changes mean for New Zealand
    Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    5 days ago
  • Racism’s double standards
    Questions need to be asked on both sides of the world Peter Williams writes –   The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • It’s not a tax break
    Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • The Plastic Pig Collective and Chris' Imaginary Friends.
    I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Who is responsible for young offenders?
    Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on National’s fantasy trip to La La Landlord Land
    How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
    6 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 14
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop: The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • No, Prime Minister, rents don’t rise or fall with landlords’ costs
    TL;DR: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    6 days ago
  • Cartoons: ‘At least I didn’t make things awkward’
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
    6 days ago
  • Solving traffic congestion with Richard Prebble
    The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    6 days ago
  • I Think I'm Done Flying Boeing
    Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • Invoking Aristotle: Of Rings of Power, Stones, and Ships
    The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
    6 days ago
  • Van Velden brings free-market approach to changing labour laws – but her colleagues stick to distr...
    Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • Why Newshub failed
    Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Māori Party on the warpath against landlords and seabed miners – let’s see if mystical creature...
    Bob Edlin writes  –  The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they  follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago

  • Government moves to quickly ratify the NZ-EU FTA
    "The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    7 hours ago
  • Positive progress for social worker workforce
    New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    12 hours ago
  • Minister confirms reduced RUC rate for PHEVs
    Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    14 hours ago
  • Trade access to overseas markets creates jobs
    Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand.  Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    15 hours ago
  • NZ and Chinese Foreign Ministers hold official talks
    Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Kāinga Ora instructed to end Sustaining Tenancies
    Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Speech to Auckland Business Chamber: Growth is the answer
    Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 days ago
  • Singapore rounds out regional trip
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