Thursday, January 5, 2012
A propos of nothing in particular ....
I wish to place it on record that my wife makes the finest sausage rolls in Christendom. If a Boeing 747 were to fall on my house at this moment (admittedly an unlikely prospect, since the only aircraft around here are topdressing planes), I would die the world's most contented man.
Could someone please tell us what's going on here?
I’m intrigued to see that the Labour Party and at least one Green MP (Steffan Browning) are having second thoughts about legislation governing food safety standards.
The New Zealand Herald reports today that the Food Bill is under fire because of its possible impact on community growers, farmers’ markets and small food traders.
As the Herald says, the bill was reported back from a select committee more than a year ago with broad cross-party support, but Browning now says he will push for further amendments to exempt small traders from having to comply with unnecessary red tape. Browning has also labelled proposed new powers for food safety officers as excessive.
Meanwhile, Labour’s primary industries spokesman, Damien O’Connor, is quoted as saying: “We will not be giving our support to this bill unless a number of areas are clarified, including areas affecting small growers.”
But hang on a minute. This bill went through the select committee process. Presumably it’s the same bill now as it was then. So why have Labour and Browning, having earlier indicated assent, now decided they don’t like it?
Presumably the bill’s flaws were pointed out in submissions. Weren’t the Labour and Green members of the committee paying attention, or have circumstances somehow changed since the bill was reported back? I think we’re entitled to an explanation.
The select committee system removes legislation from the gladiatorial arena of the parliamentary debating chamber and is often cited as an example of parliamentary co-operation and scrutiny at its best. But clearly there’s something wonky about the process if a bill that everyone was happy with a year ago is now deemed to be unsatisfactory. What’s happened in the interim?
I know little about this bill and have no opinion on it either way – it’s the position-changing that interests me.
At the back of my mind, there’s a persistent little voice asking whether this might have something to do with the fact that the media generally no longer report select committee proceedings. Until relatively recent times, parliamentary debates and select committee hearings were reported in some detail, most conscientiously by the now-defunct NZPA. Media coverage often alerted the public to contentious legislation before the House, giving people time to mobilise in opposition. But nuts-and-bolts reporting of day-to-day parliamentary business is today deemed unsexy and has largely been abandoned by the Press Gallery in favour of the controversy du jour.
I wonder whether, as a result of this, flawed legislation is sometimes presented to the public as a fait accompli – passed into law before people know it exists.
In the case of the food bill, is it possible the centre-left parties are having second thoughts because word of the bill has only now belatedly seeped out to the people affected, and flaws that should have been picked up at the select committee stage are finally being pointed out? If so, could this be at least partly a consequence of the way the media now reports (or more precisely, doesn't report) parliament?
Just a thought. There may of course be darker political factors at work here of which I’m innocently unaware, in which case I’ll be happy to pull my head in.
Footnote: The other intriguing aspect of this bill is that it clearly introduces a new level of bureaucratic intrusion and red tape into the food sector. Am I alone in thinking it seems bizarre that a supposedly centre-right government is promoting more Big Brother legislation, and that the left are the ones complaining about excessive powers being given to clipboard-wielding busybodies? Cheesh.
The New Zealand Herald reports today that the Food Bill is under fire because of its possible impact on community growers, farmers’ markets and small food traders.
As the Herald says, the bill was reported back from a select committee more than a year ago with broad cross-party support, but Browning now says he will push for further amendments to exempt small traders from having to comply with unnecessary red tape. Browning has also labelled proposed new powers for food safety officers as excessive.
Meanwhile, Labour’s primary industries spokesman, Damien O’Connor, is quoted as saying: “We will not be giving our support to this bill unless a number of areas are clarified, including areas affecting small growers.”
But hang on a minute. This bill went through the select committee process. Presumably it’s the same bill now as it was then. So why have Labour and Browning, having earlier indicated assent, now decided they don’t like it?
Presumably the bill’s flaws were pointed out in submissions. Weren’t the Labour and Green members of the committee paying attention, or have circumstances somehow changed since the bill was reported back? I think we’re entitled to an explanation.
The select committee system removes legislation from the gladiatorial arena of the parliamentary debating chamber and is often cited as an example of parliamentary co-operation and scrutiny at its best. But clearly there’s something wonky about the process if a bill that everyone was happy with a year ago is now deemed to be unsatisfactory. What’s happened in the interim?
I know little about this bill and have no opinion on it either way – it’s the position-changing that interests me.
At the back of my mind, there’s a persistent little voice asking whether this might have something to do with the fact that the media generally no longer report select committee proceedings. Until relatively recent times, parliamentary debates and select committee hearings were reported in some detail, most conscientiously by the now-defunct NZPA. Media coverage often alerted the public to contentious legislation before the House, giving people time to mobilise in opposition. But nuts-and-bolts reporting of day-to-day parliamentary business is today deemed unsexy and has largely been abandoned by the Press Gallery in favour of the controversy du jour.
I wonder whether, as a result of this, flawed legislation is sometimes presented to the public as a fait accompli – passed into law before people know it exists.
In the case of the food bill, is it possible the centre-left parties are having second thoughts because word of the bill has only now belatedly seeped out to the people affected, and flaws that should have been picked up at the select committee stage are finally being pointed out? If so, could this be at least partly a consequence of the way the media now reports (or more precisely, doesn't report) parliament?
Just a thought. There may of course be darker political factors at work here of which I’m innocently unaware, in which case I’ll be happy to pull my head in.
Footnote: The other intriguing aspect of this bill is that it clearly introduces a new level of bureaucratic intrusion and red tape into the food sector. Am I alone in thinking it seems bizarre that a supposedly centre-right government is promoting more Big Brother legislation, and that the left are the ones complaining about excessive powers being given to clipboard-wielding busybodies? Cheesh.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Bitten on the bum by MMP
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, January 3.)
HOLD everything!
Dismiss the government. Call another election.
The John Key-led coalition government has no legitimacy and no mandate to do anything. This is the logical conclusion to be drawn from the non-stop wailing emanating from those still smarting over the election result.
Labour and the Greens insist the government has no mandate for the partial sale of state assets. As Labour stalwart and marijuana law reform activist Phil Saxby explained it in a letter to this paper, parties supporting partial asset sales won only 48.98 percent of the vote. Because parties opposed to asset sales won an infinitesimally greater share (50.29 percent), he seems to suggest, the government is morally obliged to abandon its plan.
But if that’s the case, the Left can surely argue that none of National’s policies were endorsed by a majority of voters. It follows that the party must abandon everything in its manifesto.
There would therefore be two choices: hold another election (and just see how the voters like that), or go into a state of suspended animation for three years during which nothing would happen.
But let’s back up for a moment. In the general election of 2005, Labour and Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party formed a centre-Left coalition with a combined share of only 42.26 percent of the vote. Funny, but I don’t recall the democratic purists of the Left protesting then that the Clark government had no mandate.
The truth is, of course, that it’s mightily difficult for any party to secure an absolute majority under the MMP system. If National can’t even do it with 59 seats to the combined 48 seats won by the two main centre-Left parties, chances are that no party will ever pull it off.
This is the very reason so many anti-MMP campaigners complain that the system can lead to political paralysis.
Of course it suits the Left to argue, now that we have a centre-Right government, that it has no mandate. It must be a bitter disappointment that MMP, which the Left saw as a way of weakening the National Party’s traditional dominance in New Zealand politics, has let them down.
The exquisite irony is that Mr Saxby was one of the original promoters of MMP, but cries “unfair!” when the system delivers a centre-Right coalition. Well, he asked for it.
* * *
ARE GREYING rock fans being played for a bunch of suckers?
In recent years a steady procession of reformed 1960s and 70s bands has passed through New Zealand on the concert circuit, hoping to capitalise on nostalgia for the glory days of rock.
Some are still capable of “doing the business”, as they say. But with others, you get the impression that things are a bit – well, desperate.
Ads for the forthcoming “Creedence Clearwater Revisited” tour trumpeted the fact that the band includes original Creedence Clearwater Revival members Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford. But anyone familiar with CCR knows that the heart, soul and creative brain of the band was John Fogerty, who wrote and sang the band’s songs as well playing lead guitar.
Promoting the tour on the basis that it features Cook and Clifford (the original CCR bass player and drummer) is like announcing a reunion of the Beach Boys featuring David Marks and Ricky Fataar, or the Bee Gees starring Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney.
Of course you’ve never heard of these individuals. They once played in those groups, but no one remembers them.
That the faded remnants of CCR continue to tour, even after Fogerty tried to prevent them from using the name Creedence Clearwater Revisited (which cleverly retains the initials of the original band), is testament to the public’s enduring fascination with the music of rock’s golden era. But a decent pub covers band could probably replicate the CCR sound just as well.
* * *
ALL MY LIFE, the word “fatality” has been pronounced with the stress on the second syllable: fa-TAL-ity. But in some radio news reports on the holiday road toll, the emphasis has mysteriously shifted to the first syllable, so that it comes out as “FAY-tality”.
A similar fate has befallen the word “flotilla”. Traditionally it has been pronounced as flo-TILL-a. But when Israeli commandos boarded a fleet of Turkish relief ships approaching Gaza in 2010, television and radio newsreaders decided this was all wrong. Suddenly it became FLOW-tilla.
Similarly, broadcast reports on the Foreshore and Seabed Act often referred to the public DO-main, rather than do-MAIN. This quaint pronunciation is reminiscent of parts of the American South, where people call the POL-lice when someone’s causing trouble.
Why these peculiar inflexions? It can only be ignorance. A new generation of journalists and newsreaders appears not to have encountered these words before, so makes up whatever pronunciation feels right. Then it starts to spread virally.
Sadly, resistance is probably futile. This is a language in flux – a process as unstoppable as the phases of the moon.
HOLD everything!
Dismiss the government. Call another election.
The John Key-led coalition government has no legitimacy and no mandate to do anything. This is the logical conclusion to be drawn from the non-stop wailing emanating from those still smarting over the election result.
Labour and the Greens insist the government has no mandate for the partial sale of state assets. As Labour stalwart and marijuana law reform activist Phil Saxby explained it in a letter to this paper, parties supporting partial asset sales won only 48.98 percent of the vote. Because parties opposed to asset sales won an infinitesimally greater share (50.29 percent), he seems to suggest, the government is morally obliged to abandon its plan.
But if that’s the case, the Left can surely argue that none of National’s policies were endorsed by a majority of voters. It follows that the party must abandon everything in its manifesto.
There would therefore be two choices: hold another election (and just see how the voters like that), or go into a state of suspended animation for three years during which nothing would happen.
But let’s back up for a moment. In the general election of 2005, Labour and Jim Anderton’s Progressive Party formed a centre-Left coalition with a combined share of only 42.26 percent of the vote. Funny, but I don’t recall the democratic purists of the Left protesting then that the Clark government had no mandate.
The truth is, of course, that it’s mightily difficult for any party to secure an absolute majority under the MMP system. If National can’t even do it with 59 seats to the combined 48 seats won by the two main centre-Left parties, chances are that no party will ever pull it off.
This is the very reason so many anti-MMP campaigners complain that the system can lead to political paralysis.
Of course it suits the Left to argue, now that we have a centre-Right government, that it has no mandate. It must be a bitter disappointment that MMP, which the Left saw as a way of weakening the National Party’s traditional dominance in New Zealand politics, has let them down.
The exquisite irony is that Mr Saxby was one of the original promoters of MMP, but cries “unfair!” when the system delivers a centre-Right coalition. Well, he asked for it.
* * *
ARE GREYING rock fans being played for a bunch of suckers?
In recent years a steady procession of reformed 1960s and 70s bands has passed through New Zealand on the concert circuit, hoping to capitalise on nostalgia for the glory days of rock.
Some are still capable of “doing the business”, as they say. But with others, you get the impression that things are a bit – well, desperate.
Ads for the forthcoming “Creedence Clearwater Revisited” tour trumpeted the fact that the band includes original Creedence Clearwater Revival members Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford. But anyone familiar with CCR knows that the heart, soul and creative brain of the band was John Fogerty, who wrote and sang the band’s songs as well playing lead guitar.
Promoting the tour on the basis that it features Cook and Clifford (the original CCR bass player and drummer) is like announcing a reunion of the Beach Boys featuring David Marks and Ricky Fataar, or the Bee Gees starring Colin Petersen and Vince Melouney.
Of course you’ve never heard of these individuals. They once played in those groups, but no one remembers them.
That the faded remnants of CCR continue to tour, even after Fogerty tried to prevent them from using the name Creedence Clearwater Revisited (which cleverly retains the initials of the original band), is testament to the public’s enduring fascination with the music of rock’s golden era. But a decent pub covers band could probably replicate the CCR sound just as well.
* * *
ALL MY LIFE, the word “fatality” has been pronounced with the stress on the second syllable: fa-TAL-ity. But in some radio news reports on the holiday road toll, the emphasis has mysteriously shifted to the first syllable, so that it comes out as “FAY-tality”.
A similar fate has befallen the word “flotilla”. Traditionally it has been pronounced as flo-TILL-a. But when Israeli commandos boarded a fleet of Turkish relief ships approaching Gaza in 2010, television and radio newsreaders decided this was all wrong. Suddenly it became FLOW-tilla.
Similarly, broadcast reports on the Foreshore and Seabed Act often referred to the public DO-main, rather than do-MAIN. This quaint pronunciation is reminiscent of parts of the American South, where people call the POL-lice when someone’s causing trouble.
Why these peculiar inflexions? It can only be ignorance. A new generation of journalists and newsreaders appears not to have encountered these words before, so makes up whatever pronunciation feels right. Then it starts to spread virally.
Sadly, resistance is probably futile. This is a language in flux – a process as unstoppable as the phases of the moon.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Peter Baird and the nanny school of policing
Is it just me, or do other people also get irritated by the increasing tendency for the police to lecture the public as if we were a class of backward children?
In the Dominion Post this week, Wellington district road policing manager Peter Baird was quoted as saying that police had noticed an increase in the number of drivers with alcohol in their system in the middle of the afternoon – due, presumably, to end-of-year lunchtime celebrations.
While it was clear from the report that no one had actually been charged for exceeding the legal limit, Inspector Baird was still concerned that people were taking a risk by driving after a few drinks. “As soon as you have a drink you are impaired to some level.”
So people are now being warned for staying within the law. This is an intriguing new direction for policing. Can we also now expect to be pulled over and given a warning for driving at 98 kilometres per hour?
Not content that drivers are responsibly staying within the legal alcohol limit determined by the government, Inspector Baird is wagging a finger in their faces and tut-tutting that it’s not good enough.
Does this man not have enough to do? If the people being pulled up and tested by the police are under the limit, there’s an end to it. If anything, he should be congratulating people for drinking responsibly. Lectures on the perils of moderate alcohol consumption should be left to sanctimonious academics and health bureaucrats, of whom there’s no shortage.
In a recent issue of the Wairarapa News, the same Inspector Baird sounded almost disappointed at the low level of drunk drivers (0.44 percent) detected in a weekend blitz - a figure that inconveniently undermined attempts to portray New Zealand as a nation gripped by addiction to liquor. Rather than celebrate this encouraging result, Inspector Baird could only scold his fellow New Zealanders for “making the choice to drink and drive”.
He was at it again in this week’s edition of the same paper. Commenting on the results of the latest police operation (as a result of which only 0.41 percent of the 12,077 drivers tested will face charges), he huffed and puffed that even drivers within the legal limit were more at risk than if they were not drinking. “Every glass affects your impairment in some way.”
Inspector Baird went on to say that New Zealand’s legal blood alcohol limit – 0.8 mg per 100 ml – was much more generous than in most developed countries. “We are not currently in line with the OECD.”
In fact Britain, Canada and the US all have a legal limit of 0.8, and research is inconclusive about the number of lives that would be saved by reducing it to 0.5. (Bear in mind that most serious accidents involving alcohol are caused by drivers who are well over 0.8, and therefore wouldn’t have been avoided even if a lower limit had been in force.)
But that’s hardly the point. New Zealanders elect governments to make laws and the job of police officers is to enforce them, not publicly bemoan their supposed inadequacy. If Inspector Baird wants the law changed, he can stand for Parliament. If he's on a mission to achieve the perfect society, someone should gently explain to him that it's been tried already.
In the meantime, he should spare us the patronising lectures.
In the Dominion Post this week, Wellington district road policing manager Peter Baird was quoted as saying that police had noticed an increase in the number of drivers with alcohol in their system in the middle of the afternoon – due, presumably, to end-of-year lunchtime celebrations.
While it was clear from the report that no one had actually been charged for exceeding the legal limit, Inspector Baird was still concerned that people were taking a risk by driving after a few drinks. “As soon as you have a drink you are impaired to some level.”
So people are now being warned for staying within the law. This is an intriguing new direction for policing. Can we also now expect to be pulled over and given a warning for driving at 98 kilometres per hour?
Not content that drivers are responsibly staying within the legal alcohol limit determined by the government, Inspector Baird is wagging a finger in their faces and tut-tutting that it’s not good enough.
Does this man not have enough to do? If the people being pulled up and tested by the police are under the limit, there’s an end to it. If anything, he should be congratulating people for drinking responsibly. Lectures on the perils of moderate alcohol consumption should be left to sanctimonious academics and health bureaucrats, of whom there’s no shortage.
In a recent issue of the Wairarapa News, the same Inspector Baird sounded almost disappointed at the low level of drunk drivers (0.44 percent) detected in a weekend blitz - a figure that inconveniently undermined attempts to portray New Zealand as a nation gripped by addiction to liquor. Rather than celebrate this encouraging result, Inspector Baird could only scold his fellow New Zealanders for “making the choice to drink and drive”.
He was at it again in this week’s edition of the same paper. Commenting on the results of the latest police operation (as a result of which only 0.41 percent of the 12,077 drivers tested will face charges), he huffed and puffed that even drivers within the legal limit were more at risk than if they were not drinking. “Every glass affects your impairment in some way.”
Inspector Baird went on to say that New Zealand’s legal blood alcohol limit – 0.8 mg per 100 ml – was much more generous than in most developed countries. “We are not currently in line with the OECD.”
In fact Britain, Canada and the US all have a legal limit of 0.8, and research is inconclusive about the number of lives that would be saved by reducing it to 0.5. (Bear in mind that most serious accidents involving alcohol are caused by drivers who are well over 0.8, and therefore wouldn’t have been avoided even if a lower limit had been in force.)
But that’s hardly the point. New Zealanders elect governments to make laws and the job of police officers is to enforce them, not publicly bemoan their supposed inadequacy. If Inspector Baird wants the law changed, he can stand for Parliament. If he's on a mission to achieve the perfect society, someone should gently explain to him that it's been tried already.
In the meantime, he should spare us the patronising lectures.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
What's that yelping noise? Must be the Jackal
I stumbled today across a left-wing blog that I hadn’t encountered before. It’s called the Jackal.
I came across it because it had named me the “Asshole of the Week” for my recent column about Bryan Bruce’s hand-wringing documentary about child poverty in New Zealand.
Infantile abuse is par for the course on the web, so no surprises there. But I noted that the author of this blog, like so many other gutless non-entities in the blogosphere, is anonymous.
I posted the following comment: “A jackal is a cowardly cur that skulks in the shadows. I can’t think of a blog that’s more appropriately named”.
Half an hour later the Jackal had returned to the post, like a dog returning to its vomit, and responded to my comment. I reproduce his response here, complete with its puerile Net-speak and clumsy grammatical errors:
“LOL Thems fighting words.
“As well as being ignorant about inequality, you also appear to have zero education on eukaryotic organisms.
“Do you like how this post rates higher in searches than most of your articles Karl du Fresne?
“Hurray!”
I have no idea whether the Jackal’s blog is better read than mine and don’t give a toss either way. The fact that he thinks I might be jealous gives a clue to how his puerile mind works. (As for his bizarre reference to “eukaryotic organisms”, your guess is as good as mine.)
But here’s the interesting thing. When I tried to post a further comment, a notice came up advising that I was now blocked from the site.
Like the scavenging canine he names himself after, the Jackal attacks only when he can be sure his prey isn’t going to bite back. What a loser.
I came across it because it had named me the “Asshole of the Week” for my recent column about Bryan Bruce’s hand-wringing documentary about child poverty in New Zealand.
Infantile abuse is par for the course on the web, so no surprises there. But I noted that the author of this blog, like so many other gutless non-entities in the blogosphere, is anonymous.
I posted the following comment: “A jackal is a cowardly cur that skulks in the shadows. I can’t think of a blog that’s more appropriately named”.
Half an hour later the Jackal had returned to the post, like a dog returning to its vomit, and responded to my comment. I reproduce his response here, complete with its puerile Net-speak and clumsy grammatical errors:
“LOL Thems fighting words.
“As well as being ignorant about inequality, you also appear to have zero education on eukaryotic organisms.
“Do you like how this post rates higher in searches than most of your articles Karl du Fresne?
“Hurray!”
I have no idea whether the Jackal’s blog is better read than mine and don’t give a toss either way. The fact that he thinks I might be jealous gives a clue to how his puerile mind works. (As for his bizarre reference to “eukaryotic organisms”, your guess is as good as mine.)
But here’s the interesting thing. When I tried to post a further comment, a notice came up advising that I was now blocked from the site.
Like the scavenging canine he names himself after, the Jackal attacks only when he can be sure his prey isn’t going to bite back. What a loser.
The teacher unions are at it again
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, December 20.)
AUCKLAND University academic Peter O’Connor at least got the first line right in his overwrought article in these pages last week attacking the proposed charter schools trial. “There is a fight brewing in schools,” he wrote.
Yes, there is a fight brewing. But we should be clear about who’s forming the battle lines, and why.
It’s the teachers who are gearing up for a stoush, and the reason is that they see a limited trial of charter schools as a threat to their control of the education system.
Teachers believe the only changes governments are entitled to make to education are those that they approve.
No other branch of the public service operates in this fashion. The police, the armed forces, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Treasury – all accept that governments are elected to make policy and the job of public servants is to put that policy into practice. Teachers alone consider themselves exempt from this principle.
The teacher unions haven’t revealed how they intend to oppose charter schools, but you can be sure they will do everything in their power to thwart the experiment.
As in the past (most recently with national standards) they will present themselves as taking a principled stand on the public’s behalf, but their primary motive is good old-fashioned self-interest. They will fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo.
Unfortunately, timid governments have encouraged teacher intransigence in the past by backing down whenever the unions dug their toes in over reform initiatives.
It remains to be seen whether the Key government is made of sterner stuff. That it stuck to its guns over national standards suggests it may be.
Perhaps Hekia Parata, the new minister of education, should talk to Julia Gillard, the head of Australia’s Labor government. As minister of education, Ms Gillard overrode teacher opposition to push through some of the very changes the unions have steadfastly opposed here.
As for associate professor O’Connor, we should remember that what’s proposed is only a small-scale trial. To read his lurid rhetoric, you’d think the government was proposing a wholesale reinvention of the system from the ground up.
His slogan-laden article, in which he described charter schools as a “corporatist attack” serving the interests of a “transnational capitalist elite” was an example of the drearily predictable, left-wing group-think that passes for rigorous analysis in the universities.
The PPTA is even more hysterical, likening charter schools to Dotheboys Hall in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby – a place where boys are whipped, starved and abused by the ghastly headmaster Wackford Squeers.
In a provocatively insulting letter to John Key, PPTA president Robin Duff suggests the prime minister might like to watch the DVD of Nicholas Nickleby rather than read the novel, as it’s a long book with small print.
It would be idle to expect rational debate from these people. They have spent so much of their lives confined in classrooms with adolescents that their emotional maturity is irreparably impaired.
* * *
A CONSTANT refrain from the Left during the election campaign was that the National government had rewarded its wealthy mates with massive tax cuts.
Don’t expect this to let up any time soon. On TV3 last week, Greens co-leader Russel Norman claimed that only the top 10 percent who had got “$2 billion worth of tax cuts” from the Key government could afford to buy shares in Mighty River Power.
But does the tax system really favour the rich at the expense of low-income earners? Figures provided by national accountancy firm Markhams suggest that if anything, the reverse is true.
According to Markhams, households earning over $120,000 pay 97 percent of net individual income tax revenue, while the top 10 percent of households – the people Dr Norman reckons get favourable treatment – generate 71 percent of the individual tax take.
But wait, there’s more. Households earning less than $50,000 (43 percent of households) receive more in income support than they pay in income tax, on a net basis. Income tax paid by households earning between $50,000 and $110,000 effectively pays for this net refund.
Keep these figures in mind next time you hear a politician playing the envy card by claiming that the tax tables are tilted in favour of the wealthy.
* * *
FINALLY, a small but cheering antidote to the annual pre-Christmas deluge of anti-alcohol propaganda.
Of 68,000 motorists recently breath-tested in a nationwide police blitz, 373 returned positive results. That’s about 0.5 percent. In the Wellington region, 11,188 drivers were tested and 50 were over the limit – only 0.44 percent.
These figures are not only remarkably low, given that we’re constantly told we’re a nation of helpless drunks; they are also slightly down on last year’s.
They confirm that hazardous drinking is not a community-wide curse, as the wowser lobby wants us to believe, but is confined to a small segment of abusers. The rest of us should enjoy a guilt-free Christmas.
AUCKLAND University academic Peter O’Connor at least got the first line right in his overwrought article in these pages last week attacking the proposed charter schools trial. “There is a fight brewing in schools,” he wrote.
Yes, there is a fight brewing. But we should be clear about who’s forming the battle lines, and why.
It’s the teachers who are gearing up for a stoush, and the reason is that they see a limited trial of charter schools as a threat to their control of the education system.
Teachers believe the only changes governments are entitled to make to education are those that they approve.
No other branch of the public service operates in this fashion. The police, the armed forces, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Treasury – all accept that governments are elected to make policy and the job of public servants is to put that policy into practice. Teachers alone consider themselves exempt from this principle.
The teacher unions haven’t revealed how they intend to oppose charter schools, but you can be sure they will do everything in their power to thwart the experiment.
As in the past (most recently with national standards) they will present themselves as taking a principled stand on the public’s behalf, but their primary motive is good old-fashioned self-interest. They will fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo.
Unfortunately, timid governments have encouraged teacher intransigence in the past by backing down whenever the unions dug their toes in over reform initiatives.
It remains to be seen whether the Key government is made of sterner stuff. That it stuck to its guns over national standards suggests it may be.
Perhaps Hekia Parata, the new minister of education, should talk to Julia Gillard, the head of Australia’s Labor government. As minister of education, Ms Gillard overrode teacher opposition to push through some of the very changes the unions have steadfastly opposed here.
As for associate professor O’Connor, we should remember that what’s proposed is only a small-scale trial. To read his lurid rhetoric, you’d think the government was proposing a wholesale reinvention of the system from the ground up.
His slogan-laden article, in which he described charter schools as a “corporatist attack” serving the interests of a “transnational capitalist elite” was an example of the drearily predictable, left-wing group-think that passes for rigorous analysis in the universities.
The PPTA is even more hysterical, likening charter schools to Dotheboys Hall in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby – a place where boys are whipped, starved and abused by the ghastly headmaster Wackford Squeers.
In a provocatively insulting letter to John Key, PPTA president Robin Duff suggests the prime minister might like to watch the DVD of Nicholas Nickleby rather than read the novel, as it’s a long book with small print.
It would be idle to expect rational debate from these people. They have spent so much of their lives confined in classrooms with adolescents that their emotional maturity is irreparably impaired.
* * *
A CONSTANT refrain from the Left during the election campaign was that the National government had rewarded its wealthy mates with massive tax cuts.
Don’t expect this to let up any time soon. On TV3 last week, Greens co-leader Russel Norman claimed that only the top 10 percent who had got “$2 billion worth of tax cuts” from the Key government could afford to buy shares in Mighty River Power.
But does the tax system really favour the rich at the expense of low-income earners? Figures provided by national accountancy firm Markhams suggest that if anything, the reverse is true.
According to Markhams, households earning over $120,000 pay 97 percent of net individual income tax revenue, while the top 10 percent of households – the people Dr Norman reckons get favourable treatment – generate 71 percent of the individual tax take.
But wait, there’s more. Households earning less than $50,000 (43 percent of households) receive more in income support than they pay in income tax, on a net basis. Income tax paid by households earning between $50,000 and $110,000 effectively pays for this net refund.
Keep these figures in mind next time you hear a politician playing the envy card by claiming that the tax tables are tilted in favour of the wealthy.
* * *
FINALLY, a small but cheering antidote to the annual pre-Christmas deluge of anti-alcohol propaganda.
Of 68,000 motorists recently breath-tested in a nationwide police blitz, 373 returned positive results. That’s about 0.5 percent. In the Wellington region, 11,188 drivers were tested and 50 were over the limit – only 0.44 percent.
These figures are not only remarkably low, given that we’re constantly told we’re a nation of helpless drunks; they are also slightly down on last year’s.
They confirm that hazardous drinking is not a community-wide curse, as the wowser lobby wants us to believe, but is confined to a small segment of abusers. The rest of us should enjoy a guilt-free Christmas.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Documentary producer responds
The Dominion Post yesterday published a letter from documentary producer Bryan Bruce, responding to my latest Curmudgeon column. In the interests of fairness I reproduce it here:
Karl du Fresne's column on my Inside Child Poverty documentary contains many errors. He states that its message was "the welfare state has failed our poor ". Wrong.
The message was that the free market economic model fails about 20 per cent of our children. We need a "fair market" economy.
Du Fresne says the solution I propose is more welfare spending. Wrong. I suggested we spend smarter, re-distribute the existing money, spend more on prevention, and spend less on crisis management. I also advocated bypassing parents to get the aid more directly to children, as happens in Sweden.
He says, "Socialists never bother to ask where the money comes from". Wrong again. I asked, "So how are we going to pay for free meals and free health care for children" and supplied five possible sources and solutions within the existing welfare budget.
I don't expect balance in an opinion piece, but I do expect accuracy. Children don't get to choose their parents.
Solving the child poverty problem won't happen through poverty of mind and spirit.
BRYAN BRUCE
Producer
Karl du Fresne's column on my Inside Child Poverty documentary contains many errors. He states that its message was "the welfare state has failed our poor ". Wrong.
The message was that the free market economic model fails about 20 per cent of our children. We need a "fair market" economy.
Du Fresne says the solution I propose is more welfare spending. Wrong. I suggested we spend smarter, re-distribute the existing money, spend more on prevention, and spend less on crisis management. I also advocated bypassing parents to get the aid more directly to children, as happens in Sweden.
He says, "Socialists never bother to ask where the money comes from". Wrong again. I asked, "So how are we going to pay for free meals and free health care for children" and supplied five possible sources and solutions within the existing welfare budget.
I don't expect balance in an opinion piece, but I do expect accuracy. Children don't get to choose their parents.
Solving the child poverty problem won't happen through poverty of mind and spirit.
BRYAN BRUCE
Producer
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