Monday, November 28, 2011

The Voters Have Chosen

Thankfully the New Zealand voters voted wisely with their party vote in last Saturdays general election and basically voted to keep Don Brash out of parliament. The man who said "I'm leader for the next three years not matter what!" was in fact lying again, he resigned immediately. Good thing too. With Don Brash it is a bit like to old country and western song lyric, "Why did you believe me when I told you that I love you when you know I've been a liar all my life". So it is back with a National government for the next 3 years with a slim 2 seat majority. Good old Winston Peters made it back into parliament and got a respectable 6.8 percent of the total vote. At least we should get some colorful debate and no doubt the slow leak of some scandal or other he has managed to uncover. As for the rest it is Act with one seat, that result shows that any vote for Act was a wasted vote. Let us hope he gets kicked out next time around unless Act can do something to justify its continued existence as a political party. Peter Dunne and United Future will surely disappear when he steps down in the not too distant future. I'm sure he will do another 3 years but who knows after that. The Maori vote went down, that's the usual price for supporting another party to form a government. The perception from a lot of your voters tends to reflect the strong feelings people have against your larger coalition partner rather than what you may have achieved by supporting that coalition. Along with that was the split that the stupid Hone Harawira. He managed to get himself voted into parliament but that is all. Now we can look forward to seeing how the mix in parliament manage to conduct the affairs of the country for three years. One thing I think we can safely say is that for the majority of people we will all be poorer with the ever increasing burden that government puts onto the resident population. I'd love to be wrong on that!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Too FAT to Fly

A US Airways passenger claims he was forced to stand for seven hours during a flight because the obese man next to him was overflowing into his seat. Arthur Berkowitz told consumer website elliott.org he had to stand for most of the US Airways seven-hour flight from Alaska to Philadelphia, and could not buckle his seat belt during take-off and landing. The snippet above comes from Yahoo Travel. The airline says that the man did not have to stand, very unreasonable since his own seat was partially taken over by the passenger next to him. With the epidemic of obesity around it is about time that airlines and other passenger services that have limited size seats started charging passengers by size and weight. That would be an incentive for fat folk to slim down, particularly if they travel a lot. Let's face it, if you want to send a parcel it is usually costed on a size / weight formula. Why should smaller people pay as much as large ones? A plane full of small people would use less fuel, could fit more people on, it's a win all round. Airlines could have flight categories, fat flights, normal flights and small flights, each plane fitted out to suit the target group and priced accordingly. Fat people have a larger carbon footprint and should be made to pay for it in these carbon credit times! It would have been nice if the flight staff had given up one of their small seats to the passenger affected by his fat fellow flyer, after all it was their mistake in not assessing that this passenger would need two seat. They could have put the fat man in the cargo hold, after all it was only a seven hour flight and his fat would have kept him warm, plus he would have had a seven hour fasting diet. Perhaps it is about time that airlines had fewer, bigger seats in some areas to accommodate larger people so that we could all fly in comfort. We all pay enough for a comfortable passage!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Tea Cup Cop Out

Justice Helen Winkelmann,the ultimate fence sitter. Today she declined to rule on whether a conversation between John Banks and John Key in a Newmarket cafe was public or private. She claimed that a ruling might prejudice a police investigation and therefore has almost ensured that the contents of the conversation will not be made public. What a lily livered decision! Judges are supposed to set precedents by their rulings and in this case could have saved further tax payer dollars being spent by police on a pathetic case. On top of that we have a weak set of media editors unwilling to 'publish and be damned'. What are we paying these weak kneed judges to do? Here we have a highly payed professional, justice Helen Winkelmann, supposedly one of the best from the legal profession, unable to make a simple ruling that if you are in a public place be very careful if you want to have a private conversation. It's a bit like the fools you see around the place shouting down their cell phones saying 'don't listen, this is a private conversation'. If that was the case then take it somewhere private. The whole decision is really a none decision. You cannot expect privacy in a cafe dining area. If John Key and John Banks think you can then they are much too misguided to run the country and represent thousands of voters in their electorates. Let's be frank, our supposedly best leaders and minds are woefully inadequate.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

John Key, NZ Police and the System

Yes Prime Minister, a comedy series of years ago being replayed today by John Key, John Banks and the NZ Police. Let's set the scene. Stupid Prime Minister decides to have a drink and chat in a cafe, public place, with a member of another political party to help stitch up the Epsom electorate for Act. Conversation gets taped, poor John and John complain. Prime Minister complains to NZ Police, like fools they take him seriously and start an investigation. It makes the NZ Police look stupid and gives John and John more media coverage and lets face it John Key is the media pony, every opportunity over the last 3 years and more he has been there with his face in the camera even if he has nothing of any use to add to whatever situation is being reported. So here is the Prime Minister in essence endorsing another candidate against his own. Paul Goldsmith is in fact doing an excellent job in Epsom and leading the polls. The system needs to be changed so that it would be illegal for political parties to adopt this type of action before and election. It is in essence denying the voters of Epsom with a proper choice. If they are National supporters they now must decide if they should vote for their National Party candidate or go along with the National Party Prime Minister and stitch up Parliament to suit the cosy relationship between National and Act. Every political party should by law be made to stand a candidate in every electorate and failure to do that should mean that they cannot claim to be a political party but just a group of independent candidates. Endorsing a candidate of a political party other than your own should also be illegal. The coalition of like minded parties should only be done after the election. In fact MMP does not reflect the will of the voting public. If it did not only parliament but cabinet also would be made up proportionally to reflect the result of the election. That would force parliamentarians to work together across the political spectrum. In addition candidates should have to decide if they want to run in an electorate or be on the list, not both. The way MP's rig the current system ensures that those at the top of the list end up back in Parliament even if their electorate voted them out. Finally only electorate MP's should be allowed to be in cabinet, no list MP should be allowed to have a cabinet position since they are only in Parliament as a result of the party vote and have not been selected to represent an electorate by the voters. Let's do it right, give both Johns, Key and Banks a Dear John!

Monday, November 7, 2011

New Zealand - The Elephant in the Room

It is general election time. Every political party is saying how they are going to turn the country around, how they will improve the lot of the average New Zealander. They all talk of broken election promises, past performance, what they will do next but all to no avail as we, the voters, can see from the dismal resulting "improvements" to our lot. What improvements? All we have actually experienced is more expense and less income. National promised to "close the gap with Australia", quite frankly it is not possible with current policy. Politicians talk about productivity, gdp per capita etc. We continue to fall behind Australia. Everyone tries to come up with band aid solutions doomed to failure. The answer is rather simple. It will take time but guaranteed it will work. Since the 1960's Australia has gradually pulled ahead of New Zealand in terms of economic growth, average wages and much more. Some short sighted politicians put it down to Australia being prepared to exploit it's natural resources, it's better productivity record and therefore investment in people and assets. It isn't that! What it is is purely population growth. Australia deliberately took the decision to grow the countries population. In 1960 it was about 10.3 million,in 2010 it was estimated to be 20.9 million, a gain of over 100%. In comparison New Zealand in 1960 had a population of 2.4 million and in 2010 was 3.9 million, 65% growth. Looks good but it is really a numbers game. Higher population in itself demands the production of goods and services, it generates its own growth. Just coincidentally we have fallen 35% behind Australia in wage rates, almost drives you to think it is the same lag as population growth, maybe it is. One thing is for sure, with such a tiny population there is not enough internal demand to drive the economy other than providing for the basics. Manufacturers and larger industry that generates job have no incentive to come here or to be developed from scratch here in New Zealand and it is these industries that generate wealth for the majority. It is great to say lets be a niche and knowledge economy and definitely a worthy aim but these industries benefit the few, there is no trickle down effect, never has been. If New Zealand had a population of 20 million, the country would have a large internal demand driving those industries that employ large numbers of people, there would be more money in the economy to improve our infrastructure. With a larger population the regional towns and cities would grow and prosper. Here in New Zealand our food costs according to one internet site, are 25% higher than those in the UK. Why? New Zealand has supposedly some of the most efficient agricultural practices in the world. Look at the UK, higher taxes, VAT at 18% as opposed to GST at 15%, petrol UK is on average 30% higher than in New Zealand, so how come their food prices are lower that ours? Greater demand, with 60 million people plus the producer makes the money in volume and often is closer to market. Even imports are cheaper because the demand allows a better purchasing cost to be negotiated. The people of New Zealand in general are anti population growth and until we change that stance and embrace population growth and immigration we are condemned to a steady decline in living standards compared to those countries that are go ahead and growing in every sense of the word. Some will say look at places like Finland, they are doing well and that is true but the big difference is they are in fact part of a connected land mass with a large population where most of the trade barriers have been removed. Those that are part of the EEC are free to move around and sell their goods and services anywhere inside a huge trade block. Let us in New Zealand aim for 20 million by 2025, watch the growth then in this country of ours, it would be phenominal!