Secret deal confirms new government's illegitimacy

New Zealand has suffered a non-violent coup d'état. What else would you call the seizure of political power by a bunch of parties, none of whom got anything like a plurality of votes let alone a majority, through a secret agreement that they are not prepared to disclose to the voters? It is certainly not democracy. National Party leader Bill English has called for the release of the secret agreement but new prime minister Jacinda Ardern has refused, despite claiming her government would be more open and transparent.

These people work for us, or at least that is meant to be the case in a liberal democracy. How dare they negotiate a secret agreement to hold power without disclosing to us what is in it? It is bad enough that our MMP electoral system allows power-hungry minority party politicians to hold us all to ransom without them doing secret deals over our how our country is governed. 

I have written before about how this mongrel coalition has no legitimacy and this secret agreement only adds to its bastardy. Readers will know that I am no fan of the National Party, but it is the party with the most right to govern in this country because it got a plurality of support in the election. Bill English should go further than his call for the release of the secret agreement and commit his party to do its utmost to bring this government down as soon as possible.

Good luck with that, Jacinda

The people have spoken - well, a minority of them anyway. We have a coalition government that doesn't even have a plurality of the votes. After a month of dithering, the leader of the New Zealand First Party, Winston Peters, who lost his own electoral seat in last month's election and whose party was reduced to 7% of the vote, decided to form a coalition with the New Zealand Labour Party. Combined, the two parties won 44.1% of the party votes - less than the National Party's 44.4% - and yet they have been able to form a government because the Green Party, with 6.3% of the vote, is prepared to support them on 'confidence and supply' (i.e. on budget votes). 

It is not as if the partners to the polyamorous affair have much in common. New Zealand First is a nationalist, protectionist, anti-immigration party and its leader moulds himself on Robert Muldoon, the authoritarian New Zealand prime minister from 1975 to 1984 who took the country to the verge of bankruptcy. Labour is a classic, left-of-centre social democratic party, and the Greens are a typical 'watermelon' alliance of environmentalists and Marxists.

The new prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is not only New Zealand's youngest premier in over a hundred years, she is the least experienced, having never held a full-time job outside of politics and never having held even an executive position in government. She will need to rule over a rag-tag coalition with less mandate than National to govern and to keep the oldest political fox of them all, Winston Peters, from eating all her chickens. I give it less than twelve months until her government disintegrates and we have another election.

In the meantime, I wish Jacinda Ardern and her coalition good luck and implore them not to stuff up our great little country too much before the big kids take over again.

Greens enable Winston Peters to hold NZ to ransom

I wrote recently about why I thought New Zealand's electoral system was the dumbest in the world, and so it has proved to be. Nearly a month after the election we still don't have a government and while I don't think this is in itself a bad thing, watching our politicians jockeying for power has been unedifying. All the blind ambition, self-aggrandisement and incompetence we have come to expect of our politicians has been on display.

The uniquely unqualified, inexperienced and unproven Labour Party leader, Jacinda Ardern, who will become our prime minister in a Labour-led government, has been displaying a quiet confidence in her public comments. Bill English, the current prime minister and leader of the National Party, which won the largest share of the vote, is more inscrutable. Meanwhile, Winston Peters, whom the media have dubbed the 'kingmaker', cannot contain his delight at being the centre of attention again and continues to make the country wait for his decision. As the Guardian newspaper put it, Winston Peters and the anonymous board of his nationalist New Zealand First Party are holding the country to ransom.

This is all pathetic but the prize for the most damaging self-indulgence must go to the Green Party, the leftist environmentalists who have refused to consider negotiating with the centrist National Party, preferring to give Labour their proxy in coalition negotiations. This has, of course, strengthened Winston Peters' hand, an outcome for which their supporters surely could not have voted. A National-Green coalition could govern without New Zealand First's support and thus even the pretence of negotiations between these two parties would have taken the wind out of Winston Peters' sails. Many commentators have expressed disappointment with the Green's holier-than-thou attitude with even former Party MP Nandor Tanczos calling for his party to enter into negotiations with National.

Winston Peters may be holding the country to ransom but it is the Greens who have given him the means to do so. I hope the voters remember that when it comes to the next election, which, I am picking, may be not that far away.

The World's Dumbest Electoral System

New Zealand has the world's dumbest electoral system. Saying such a thing in this country provokes the same reaction as when you say, "the world is not suffering catastrophic global warming", but sometimes one must speak truth to power. There is a reason why only one country in the world had the system before New Zealand adopted it and that country (Germany) has special historical reasons for having a system that ensures no single political party can ever govern alone.

Under our Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, you get two votes - the first determines who becomes your local electorate member of parliament, the second is for the party you prefer. The complication comes from the fact that it is the party vote alone that determines the make-up of parliament, which means the electorate vote counts for nothing in terms of legislative power. In effect, winning electorate seats costs a party list seats. A party can get into parliament if they get at least 5% of the party vote even if they have no electorate seats, or if a party gets at least one electorate seats, it's party vote counts as well even if it gets less than 5% support. Confused? Well, you are not alone - by some estimates, 80% of New Zealand voters do not understand how the system works.

The complexity of the system produces some weird effects. Consider the following two scenarios. 

In the first scenario, a centre-left government comprising Labour, New Zealand First and Greens is the most likely outcome because even though National has far more seats than Labour, the latter will be able to form a coalition with fellow opposition parties the Greens and New Zealand First (note that for the sake of simplicity I have ignored smaller parties and the impact of the race-based Maori electorates, which further complicate the picture).

The second scenario is almost exactly the same as the first except that the Greens get 0.1% fewer votes. This means they would be wiped out because they did not reach the magic 5% threshold to get party list seats in parliament (assuming, as is likely the case, they do not win any electorate seats). National would have an overall majority of seats and be able to form a government. So, 0.1% of the votes can completely change the outcome and make the difference between significant representation in parliament for a minor party or none at all. 

The libertarian ACT Party, which is polling at 0.3% in the latest poll, will likely have at least one seat in the next parliament because they will win the Epsom electorate, whereas the Green Party, which is hovering around 5%, may get none. As a libertarian, that is an outcome I would like to see but it is hardly fair.

The system could be easily fixed by separating the effects of the two types of vote. The party vote should determine only the proportion of the party list seats rather than the overall make-up of parliament. In other words, winning an electorate seat wouldn't cost you a party list seat. I believe this is exactly how most New Zealanders imagine MMP works, so it would be aligning the system with expectations. Under this proposal, the 5% threshold could be abolished - or at least lowered to level needed to get one party list seat - and this would eliminate the bizarre effects outlined in the second scenario above.

It is time for a change in our electoral system.

Campaign finance laws are a subversion of democracy

I watched with interest last week as Gareth Morgan's The Opportunities Party took Television New Zealand to court seeking to overturn the network's decision not to invite Morgan to the televised election debate between the leaders of New Zealand's minor parties. I have nothing but contempt for Morgan because of his naive support for the evil North Korean regime (as Liberty Scott blogged about here) and his ill-informed comments on a range of other subjects such as Israel and terrorism. He has what is perhaps the stupidest policy ever to come out of a New Zealand political party, that of taxing non-income earning assets based on a nominal rate of return, which would mean income-poor people such as the elderly would have to sell their homes.

The fact that Morgan is a fool does not mean he shouldn't have the same opportunities to promote his stupid policies as the other political parties, and this raises the issue of the legal constraints on political funding in this country and in much of the Western world. You can be as dumb as Gareth Morgan and still appreciate that the existing major political parties have a vested interest in keeping small parties from promoting their policies. Incumbent governments, particularly those of a left-wing bent (who believe, perhaps falsely, that they are less likely to attract wealthy benefactors), restrict challengers' access to state and private media and impose campaign funding restrictions that benefit themselves.

In New Zealand we have laws limiting and requiring disclosure of campaign contributions, although the authorities here have been reluctant to prosecute breaches, as for example when the incumbent government broke the law in the 2005 Labour Party 'pledge card' case. We also have state funding for campaign advertising on television and other media and this is allocated on the basis of support for the parties at previous elections, which significantly handicaps any new or emergent party. These laws are made worse by the discriminatory treatment of smaller political parties by media organisations such as Television New Zealand (which, incidentally, is state-owned).

The campaign finance laws in America are particularly onerous, as exemplified by the jailing in 2014 of conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza for making an undeclared political donation, and the US Government's attempts to stop organisations contributing to political debate, which was thwarted by Supreme Court in the Citizens United case. The court decided in that case that campaign contributions are a form of political speech and organisations have the same right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment as individuals. The American television networks also treat smaller parties with disdain, which was particularly evident in the US Presidential campaigns with the discriminatory treatment of the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson and Green Party's Jill Stein.

The argument in favour of political funding laws is that they even out the playing field because otherwise a few rich people could heavily influence an election by buying up huge amounts of advertising in the mainstream media. I think this overvalues the role of the mainstream media in elections, particularly in this day when one Youtube commentator can have more viewers than a television network, and it is patronising of voters, who are far less influenced by media campaigns than people think (witness the fact that Donald Trump won the presidency with a fraction of the television advertising spend of Hillary Clinton).

I think the United States Supreme Court got it right for once - political donations are a form of speech and any impingement of them is a restriction on free speech and on freedom of association. I don't think the state should be limiting or contributing to political promotion and that current campaign finance laws are a subversion of democracy and individual rights. Furthermore, I don't believe anyone should have to publicly disclose political donations because this is a breach of the right to privacy. We have the right to vote in secret and this should extend to the contributions to those for whom we may vote.

New Zealanders' election dilemma

New Zealanders, at least those with a libertarian leaning, are faced with a familiar dilemma in next month's election - do we vote for socialists with odious principles or conservatives with none?

The current National-led government has been hopeless for those of us who value freedom. It has enacted a plethora of legislation and regulations that reduce our rights to privacy, free speech, equality under the law and even universal suffrage. The GCSB Amendment Act and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act significantly increased the government's rights to intercept our private communications. The Harmful Digital Communications Act made it an offence to say or publish anything that is 'abusive' or 'insulting'. And the long-promised Resource Legislation Amendment Bill did nothing to lessen the bureaucratic barriers to development but gave unelected Maori tribal elites joint control over local government planning and consent processes. All of this from a party that is supposed to stand for equal citizenship, individual freedom and choice, personal responsibility and limited government. I have nothing but contempt for such hypocrites.

The Labour Party is at least a little more honest about its intentions, announcing increases in state spending across the board. It says it does not plan to increase income tax other than cancelling the derisory tax cuts National has promised for next year, but has said it will introduce new taxes on water (as if water is not already taxed through water rates), visitors to New Zealand, and to set up a tax working group (presumably to figure out how they can get more money out of us).

The Taxpayers Union rates New Zealand First the worst party for election bribes at a cost of more than $13,000 per household, ahead of Labour on more than $11,000, but National is making a late run by more than doubling its bribes in the last week alone. The National Party's lolly scramble is particularly hypocritical after they recast the Labour Party's new election slogan "Let's Do This" as "Let's Tax This."

The only vaguely libertarian party in this election is ACT, but with only one MP and polling under 1%, it is not going to have much influence even in a centre-right government. The best we can hope for is for its sole MP, David Seymour, to continue the sterling work he has been doing pushing for his End of Life Choice Bill allowing voluntary euthanasia.

The least bad option, much as it galls me to say it, is another National-led government tempered by a coalition partner that will constrain its big state ambitions. New Zealand First may be the best choice because it is opposed to the further expansion of Maori tribal privilege, which I think presents a greater long term threat to freedom in this country than that party's profligacy.

It's Hobson's choice.

The limits of democracy

New Zealand faces a general election next month and it has got me thinking about the nature of democracy and the collective wisdom (or lack of it) in the electorate. New Zealand has had nine years of a conservative National Party-led government, which has largely continued the policies of the previous nine-year Labour Party-led government, leaving libertarians like myself with Hobson's choice. This election campaign mirrors the recent UK election in many ways with the National Party sitting on a 20-point lead over Labour but with some signs of that lead being eroded and smaller parties like the left-wing Greens and the nationalist New Zealand First likely to determine who governs.

One of the more hypocritical arguments of the political right-of-centre in recent times has been their impassioned defence of democracy. We saw this with Brexit and Trump - their supporters crowed about the people having spoken, as if a plurality of support (and in Trump's case it wasn't even a plurality) justifies any decision in and of itself. Of course, we have seen a corresponding volte-face on the part of the left-wing, which for years has justified increasing intrusion of the state into every area of our lives on the basis of their democratic mandate, and they are suddenly not so enamoured with a system that produced Brexit and a Trump presidency.

If you want an example of voters making consistently bad decisions you only need look at Venezuela. A relatively free and prosperous country two decades ago, Venezuela is now an economic basket case and its voters have just provided a mandate for President Maduro's decisions to strip the country's parliament of its powers and replace it with a new assembly that is stacked with his supporters. Maduro has said that he has a "prison cell waiting" for his political opponents. Admittedly, you could hardly call recent Venezuelan elections free and fair, with estimates of 70% of the populace opposed to Maduro and his Chavismo Socialists, but Maduro maintains that everything he and predecessor Hugo Chavez have done has been with a democratic mandate.

Democracy can be, to paraphase Winston Churchill, the worst of all systems. It shouldn't be an end in itself but rather it should deliver good government that limits its powers to the functions of defending individual rights. Unfettered democracy is often in conflict with these aims because it enables the majority to sacrifice individual rights in the name of collective good. The only way of preventing this is to limit what governments can do even with a popular mandate, through an entrenched constitution. 

The problem is how do you get an entrenched constitution that protects individual rights in a democratic system? We have seen the risks in New Zealand with the former prime minister, Geoffrey Palmer, proposing a constitution that proposes new rights such as to 'an adequate standard of living' that are the antithesis of real rights. A better example is the Constitution for New Freeland proposed by Lindsay Perigo but even its authors would concede that it has no chance of being adopted by democratic mandate. 

Perhaps the only way to get a genuinely rights-respecting constitution is following a revolution when the vacuum of power allows a fresh approach, such as was the case with the American Revolution. On the other hand, the French demonstrated that even the most noble revolutions do not guarantee good outcomes and the American Constitution has proved to be less of a bulwark against government abuses of power than the founders envisaged.

Maybe Churchill was right with the rest of his saying, that democracy is the worst of all possible systems except all the others and that the best we can expect is that the voters will be sensible with the responsibility they have. I hope that is the case in New Zealand next month.

UPDATE: A few hours is a long time in politics - the Labour Party leader, Andrew Little, has resigned following recent poor poll results. Jacinda Ardern is the new leader.

Common Sense of the New Zealand Voter Prevails

The general election in New Zealand produced a result that is both extraordinary and comforting. It is extraordinary because the National Party won a third term in government with an overall majority of seats and an increase in votes - the first time a third term government has increased its vote since Richard 'King Dick' Seddon's government in 1899. The left-wing Labour and Green parties both saw their vote decrease over the 2011 election. The race-based Maori Party also saw its vote decrease and the Internet-Mana Party, Kim Dotcom's personal political vehicle for ensuring he maintains his legal sanctuary in New Zealand, was wiped out.

It was comforting because New Zealand voters ignored all of the distractions from left-wing commentators and the mainstream media to ensure the current government's middle-of-the-road economic policies would continue. Voters saw the distractions, including allegations that the National Government has abused the powers of the security services to target New Zealanders and its political enemies, as disingenuous, rightly questioning the motives of those who were making the allegations.

I was hoping for the libertarian ACT Party to do better and particularly that its leader, Jamie Whyte, would make it into Parliament, but nevertheless I am well satisfied with the result. Had the outcome of the election been radically different, with a Labour-Greens coalition introducing new punitive taxes and other economically damaging policies, I would be seriously reconsidering whether I would continue to call New Zealand home. But that is not necessary, at least for another three years, and for that I am grateful for the common sense of the New Zealand voter.

Kiwiwit's Easy Guide to Voting

I imagine the whole world knows there is a general election in New Zealand this Saturday, given I have seen articles about our ridiculous election campaign in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and many other international publications over the last month.  Many other bloggers are publishing their voting guides, giving their careful assessment of candidates in each electorate. My voting guide is much simpler. It has three easy principles that the discerning libertarian voter can apply to ensure New Zealand ends up with the best of the bad bunch:

1) Don't vote for the looneys. That includes all Conservative, Green and New Zealand First party candidates.

2) Vote for the ACT candidate if you have one in your electorate. If you don't, vote for the National candidate. Yes, I know, voting for that bunch of unprincipled wimps in the National Party sticks in my craw as well, but as bad as they are, the others are worse.

3) Give your party vote to ACT.

Simple really.  And remember the old Democratic Party slogan, vote early and often!

Moment of Truth for Dotcom Will Come Saturday

When the Dotcom case first hit the news in New Zealand, I had some sympathy for the corpulent German. New Zealand law enforcement agencies, acting upon the instructions of US authorities, had grossly abused their legal powers and Dotcom's rights as a New Zealand resident by subjecting him to a humiliating arrest and confiscation of assets - all in pursuit of criminal copyright charges that even the US courts have been extremely reluctant to enforce in any case where a service provider like Dotcom's Mega-upload business has been the defendant. But any sympathy I might have had for Dotcom has evaporated as he has attempted to use his considerable wealth to pervert the New Zealand electoral process in his own interests.

I didn't watch the coverage of Dotcom's so-called 'Moment of Truth' rally last night in Auckland but I've read accounts of those who were there. The Mega-man was expected to reveal damning evidence showing that Prime Minister John Key knew about him before the New Zealand authorities acted on the US arrest warrant. Furthermore, he claimed that he was lured to New Zealand with the express purpose of the New Zealand Government extraditing him to the United States. Unfortunately for Mr Dotcom's credibility he revealed no evidence to support these claims. The only credible allegations were those by Edward Snowden (who joined by video from Russia) and journalist Glenn Greenwald that the New Zealand Government has been engaging in mass surveillance of its citizens. John Key has categorically denied these allegations and has released declassified documents that he claims support his denial.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am more than a little suspicious of our modern security state. The security capabilities that are meant to be directed at external threats are often used for internal surveillance and any legal constraints on their misuse are inadequate or ignored. The use of New Zealand's security agencies to enforce the copyright infringement case against Kim Dotcom is proof of this. However, the New Zealand courts have already shown a willingness to uphold Dotcom's legal rights and there is every likelihood that they will eventually dismiss the extradition case against him. But that is not enough for the the former Herr Schmitz.

I believe anyone should be able to exercise their rights to free speech by putting their money where their political mouthpiece is, but I think no one should have any illusions about what Dotcom is trying to do here. This has been a torrid election campaign with the left-wing opposition engaging in what has looked like increasingly desperate tactics to topple the Key Government. The latest polls show the National Party's support as holding at around 50% and it seems likely that, come the election next Saturday, New Zealanders will respond to Dotcom's cynical misuse of our electoral process by denying him and his political allies any representation in Parliament. 

The True Cost of Election Bribes

We have an election campaign underway in New Zealand. You would need to be a blind and deaf hermit to miss all the bullshit the media have been spouting about it. But in between the wall-to-wall coverage of the petty name-calling and downright lies, we are beginning to see some policy announcements from the parties and almost every one of them is trying to bribe voters with promises of more government spending. Even the so-called centre-right National Party thinks it can bribe first home buyers into voting for it (and Not PC gives a very good account of why that is a silly idea in this blog post). 

Unfortunately, many voters are too gullible to question where the money for these bribes comes from. Every dollar has to come from some hardworking taxpayer's pocket. In fact, every dollar of government spending means that around $1.25 has to come from a taxpayer because there is a transaction cost in collecting and spending the money. It costs to run the tax department and it costs to run all the government agencies that spend the loot the government extorts from taxpayers - and despite the ease of the task, they're none too efficient at spending the money because they have no incentive to be efficient (unlike businesses who have to compete with other businesses to be ever more efficient at producing the products and services they produce). 

But, in reality, it's even worse than that. The true cost of the government spending one dollar is much higher because the taxpayer's $1.25 probably would have been invested in a business (either directly by buying shares or indirectly via a bank) and that $1.25 of capital might have enabled the business to produce an additional $20 worth of products or services. That $20 worth of revenue to the company would have been spent on, say, $10 in wages, $5 of supplies and $3 in rent. And the workers that earned the wages would have spent their additional $10 on food at the supermarket or put it towards an Air New Zealand flight to see grandma, and the supplier would have spent some of his $5 on wages, and the landlord would have spent some of his $3 on paying a contractor to get the roof fixed, and so on and so forth.

Now you start to see the true cost of that one dollar the government is promising to spend on you. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Labour's cynical election bribe just more legalised theft

The New Zealand Labour Party has announced that if it becomes the government later this year it will introduce a new welfare payment of $60 for babies born to families earning under $150,000 per year for the first year and continuing payments for families with lower incomes. This is on top of the Working for Families scheme that Labour introduced when last in power, which extended welfare to families on incomes of well over $100,000 per year, and other existing welfare benefits. 

As welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell points out on her blog here, this means that a first time mother in Auckland on welfare will receive $672 per week and a further $124 for every child after that. The median New Zealand full-time wage (June 2013) is $844 per week. An individual taxpayer will pay about 15% tax on their income so will receive about $720 in the hand. Beneficiaries get additional entitlements such as lower cost government services and discounts from many private sector organisations, so you would have to conclude that most young, single women would be better off having babies than working for a living.

The inequity of this situation, and even the fact that all the evidence says that encouraging welfare dependency produces poor social outcomes, are not my primary objections to this policy. It is the cynical opportunism of it that gets to me. No one can seriously argue that New Zealanders incomes of up to $150,000 need welfare, so this policy is not about need. As with Working for Families, it is about making more and more New Zealand families dependent on, and grateful for, the largesse of a Labour Government. Elections are won and lost on the votes of the middle class and these policies bring almost all of the middle class into the welfare system. 

All taxation is, by definition, legalised theft (OED defines theft as to 'take another person’s property without permission'). Most people justify the taxation and welfare system because it enables government to provide for the needy in society. Labour's new policy doesn't even have that merit. As Lindsay Mitchell points out again here, the most commonly used measurement which counts children in households below 60 percent of the median household after-housing-costs income, has fallen from 37 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2012. No one needs this policy, least of all higher income earners. Where is the morality in taxing a young school leaver earning the minimum wage ($13.75 per hour) so the government can give money to someone earning say $145,000 per year?

Fortunately I think most New Zealanders will see this policy for what it is - a cynical election year bribe. However, between Labour and its fellow-traveller Green Party, they may muster enough votes to out poll the governing National Party and implement their dishonest policies.

Wellington voters choose economic decline

The New Zealand local body election results are in, and here in Wellington we now have a slew of Green Party councillors on the city and regional councils as well as our Green mayor re-elected.  This is not entirely surprising. Wellington is the capital and many of its workforce are public servants.  They tend to hold left-wing political views and unsurprising support more government in the lives of citizens, not less.  The Green Party is, like most similar political groups worldwide, hard-left on economic matters.

Wellington as an economic centre is dying.  Even our Prime Minister, John Key, a man you would think would be sensitive to making such criticism of his seat of government, recently said so.  Wellington's problems started in the 1980s with the decline of its manufacturing base due to the (much-needed) reforms of the Lange-Douglas Government including the removal of protectionist trade policies.  The trend was exacerbated with a significant migration of corporate head offices and supporting service businesses to Auckland.   

The economic decline of the capital was disguised throughout the term of the Clark Labour Government in the 2000s because of the vast expansion of the public service with core employees increasing by about 40%. The majority of the increase was in Wellington and the spending of these public sector employees in the region drove up economic activity (and most notably property prices) during the nine years Labour was in power.  The Key National Government has stopped the expansion by limiting departmental budget increases and has even required some retrenchment of numbers.  This has meant Wellington's non-public-sector decline cannot be disguised any longer.

The Greens' policies, which are about socialistic redistribution of wealth and increasing compliance costs for development in pursuit of their environment agenda, are not likely to help matters.  Wellington can't afford the profligate, anti-growth economic policies of the Greens.  The city needs new businesses to generate employment and wealth to stem the decline of the past three decades.  The Greens offer only offer more economic blood-letting at a time when the patient needs vitamins.

If you want an example of what can happen at a local level after years of ill-advised policies you only need look at Detroit - a city that, like Wellington, once had the highest per capita income of any in the country, which has now filed for bankruptcy.  If Wellington is to avoid becoming another Detroit, its voters are going to have to choose politicians who value economic growth over fanciful socialist and environmental aims. Unfortunately I hold out little prospect of the capital's large public employee electorate making such a choice.

Launch of Mars Rover Trumps Political Mediocrity

I could get quite depressed at the outcome of New Zealand's general election - a triumph of mediocrity if I've ever seen it. But it is a lovely Sunday morning in Wellington and news has come through of the successful launch of NASA's Curiosity mission to Mars. This incredibly advanced robotic rover, if it lands successfully on Mars, will significantly push forward our understanding of the Red Planet and whether any form of life is, or has been, sustainable there.

Amongst the self-indulgent political squabbles, the economic problems that beset the Western world, and the trivialisation of serious issues by the media, such news sticks out like a beacon of hope. Mankind continues to push forward with the use of its intelligence to make better tools that will one day take that intelligence into deep space. This news should cheer the most cynical of us.

I Won't Pay!

Labour is proposing to fund its election bribes with increases in income taxes and the introduction of a capital gains tax.

I calculate that with the top income tax rate at 39%, GST at 15%, capital gains tax at 15%, ACC at around 4%, plus FBT, rates and exorbitant user pays charges for every government service, I will be paying well in excess of 50 cents in every dollar I earn to the government.

As a self-employed businessman and a member of the 17% of households who pay 97% of the income taxes in this country, I think I pay far too much tax already.

I refuse to pay any more. I will leave New Zealand or stop working altogether rather than hand over more than half of my income to the government. And I think I speak for many of the 17% of New Zealanders who already pay for everything.

So who is going to pay for these Labour Party bribes once those of us in the 17% shrug off the burden of supporting the other 83%? No one.

Think about it, Labour Party voters.