Soapbox Series

This Soapbox Series is an opportunity for those of you with a penchant for writing, to put down your thoughts – on any issue you feel passionate about. Opinion pieces should be around 500 words. 

Contributions can be submitted using this Soapbox contribution>>> link.

Please note that opinions expressed in the Soapbox Series are those of the contributors.

Readers interested in opinion and debate are encouraged to visit the NZCPR FORUM where interesting information and fresh viewpoints are posted throughout the day - see FORUM >>>. 

List of contributions (#121 - current)  

20 May 09
Carbon and Earth's Changing Atmosphere 
By Robert Chouinard

Life on earth is limited by the amount of available carbon that plants must have to form their vast array of organic compounds.  Thus, one life form must die for another to live.  Nature demonstrates this fact everywhere you look. Many millions of years ago the higher amount of available carbon constituted a vastly more life-sustaining environment.  Giant plant eating reptiles flourished along with the lush foliage to nourish their enormous bodies.  Today’s atmosphere couldn’t even begin to support that level of life.  Most of the available carbon of that era is now locked away in fossil fuels, limestone deposits, etc.  Only the activities of man in uncovering and burning these fossil fuels can return some of that precious, life-sustaining carbon.

Nature, through this process of sequestering carbon in fossil fuels, limestone deposits, etc., has severely limited its ability to sustain life.  Five hundred and fifty years of cooling (The Little Ice Age- 1300 to 1850 AD) cooled the oceans and thus further deprived the atmosphere of available carbon (CO₂).  This resulted in a very life stressing condition which brought on crop failures, blight, human malnutrition and plague.  There was great suffering and the human population, during this period, was greatly reduced.  The tail end of that Little Ice Age, approximately 1850 AD, is the pre-industrial “Eden” that alarmists would have us return to.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon atoms (C) to combine temporarily with oxygen molecules (O₂) already in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide molecules (CO₂).  These additional carbon atoms add to the available carbon to increase living foliage on land or phytoplankton in the sea which then release the oxygen molecules.  The insanity of sequestering CO₂, as seriously contemplated by our politicians, would deprive our environment of the additional carbon atoms (C) and, furthermore, deplete our environment of the atmospheric oxygen molecules (O₂) that they combine with.

Carbon dioxide is not an element - it is a compound and like most compounds will, eventually, revert back into the elements of which it is composed (through the process of photosynthesis back to carbon atoms and oxygen molecules).  It is also the essential link between, and part of both, the carbon cycle and the oxygen cycle.  Without it there would be no life; in fact, life only exists in proportion to its presence.

The earliest mammals from which we evolved co-existed with dinosaurs 150 million years ago during very different conditions, as mentioned.  Over the last 150 million years our atmosphere has changed in three ways: the density has decreased; the oxygen level has decreased; and the carbon dioxide level, especially, has decreased to a tiny fraction of what it was.  Every one of these changes favors the ventilatory phase of our respiration (release of CO₂) over the oxygenation phase (intake of O₂).

The ventilatory phase is far more efficient than the oxygenation phase to start with.  Making matters worse, the above mentioned atmospheric changes on top of numerous medical conditions further disadvantage the oxygenation phase relative to the ventilatory phase. The result is that many millions of people have poor health due to low blood oxygen levels and are close to respiratory distress without knowing it. 

Normally, carbon dioxide concentration in our blood regulates our breathing but when the oxygen level of our blood falls below a critical level it takes over control telling us to breath faster.  Low blood oxygen levels can be brought on by exercise which also raises the blood carbon dioxide level justifying the increased breathing.  However, if the low blood oxygen level is a result of poor respiratory oxygenation for reasons, other than exercise, hyperventilation results and havoc ensues.  The reason for the havoc is that rapid breathing (hyperventilation), while causing an increase in blood oxygen level, accomplishes nothing because it drops the carbon dioxide level too low for the red blood cells to be able to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide.  Oxygen will not be released by the red blood cells for cellular use without this exchange.  The result is panic and a life-threatening condition requiring immediate medical intervention. 

Deterioration of our lungs with age is merely one of the medical conditions alluded to which, eventually if we live long enough, puts all of us at the risk of this kind of respiratory distress.  It should be obvious that any increase in oxygen or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a benefit to everyone.

It should also be obvious (if it wasn’t for Al Gore’s 300 million dollar disinformation campaign) that reducing or sequestrating available carbon (CO₂) would have negative effects on the environment and humans, especially if together with reduced global temperatures  we return to the pre-industrial “Eden” and another Little Ice Age. 

For references and more details on respiration and health problems see my earlier article.  To hear a medical professional speak on the health benefits of carbon dioxide, click here.

15 May 09
Compulsory Government Education
By Mike Webber

Origins and Solutions Modern compulsory schooling began in Prussia in 1819, the first time in human history that education was foisted upon a nation by force. The goals were simple: obedient soldiers to the army, subservient workers to the mines, submissive civil servants to the government, and citizens who thought alike about major issues. Its purpose was not to develop the intellect, but to socialize the children in obedience and subordination.

In 1852, this system was forced onto Americans and within 50 years it ended school choice and created a vast government monopoly.

In 1889, U.S. Commissioner of Education said that American schools were scientifically designed to prevent over education from occurring.

The same system came to New Zealand in the education act of 1877.

Such was a long leap toward state socialism, a vision that runs counter to the proper purpose of education to prepare the individual to be self reliant. The underlying premise of the state system, is that the State is sovereign over the family.

The adult literacy survey, published in 2000, found that 50% of high school graduates had a substandard level of literacy and 20% were virtually completely illiterate and that 1 million New Zealanders over the age of 16 had a substandard level of literacy.

The only way to ensure quality education is to remove the state completely from curriculum, control, and delivery.

With the State out of the picture, entrepreneurs would be free to develop a myriad of educational solutions that would be tailored to fit many different learning styles. New education ideas, some not even conceived at this time, would emerge in a free market of ideas and school choice.

The so called free, state education is actually at least twice as expensive as private schools if the cost is properly calculated.

The best option at the current time is to home school your children. Home schooling is based on a foundational belief in freedom. Such freedom allows families to teach whatever they want, on their own schedule, in order to suit their lifestyles. Very importantly, home school families don’t take any money from the taxpayers.

Studies show that children who are educated at home are happier, better adjusted and more sociable than those at private or public schools.

The alternative is to turn children over to the government for a considerable part of the year, where they will be subjected to ideological indoctrination, inferior academic instruction, and a one size fits all system that is antithetical to their nature as individuals with very different needs. All children need education, but parents, not government, should provide it.

Children are just programmed to learn; until state schools hit the shut down button and extinguish the spark. As the records show, literacy standards and percentages have steadily fallen since Governments nationalised education.

In controlling the education system the government is teaching our children to accept the fundamental concept of Big Brother government. It is the triumph of this institutionalized government indoctrination system; few can imagine a different way of doing things and so many leave school with nothing more to aspire to than living off the efforts of others.

Life is altered, often irreversibly, from a future of possibilities and aspirations to an easy option of subsidized nothingness that is fostered by welfarism. The logical outcome is gangs, youth crime, drug abuse and high suicide rates when people are paid systematically to do nothing; to aspire to nothing and for the illiterate or near illiterate it is very difficult to avoid this situation.

State schools have increasingly been indoctrinating children in political correctness and teaching that are no absolutes, or reason. This means that there is no such thing as truth, knowledge, standards of right and wrong, and that almost anything goes. Acceptance of this idea will gradually destroy the rational mind.

It has resulted in generations of state dependant people whose minds have been socially engineered to believe that only the state knows what’s best for them.
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In this case, the evidence is clear, and overwhelming. “Group rights”

aka “identity politics” are something invented and promoted by revolutionary Marxist-Leninists seeking the overthrow of our existing society and its replacement with a model of their own choosing.  

Marx claimed that society is evolving toward socialism as the inevitable result of progressive [sic] change through a struggle of opposites. He called this process "dialectical materialism." An existing condition (thesis) comes into conflict with a new condition (antithesis) that is attempting to emerge. Out of the conflict between these two opposing forces a new, higher condition (synthesis) emerges. This is then put through the process again as the new thesis, until full socialism is achieved.  

Lenin expanded Marx’s dialectical analysis from its early focus on economic relationships to take in social and political relationships, thus widening the role of the revolutionary as a change agent. The task of the revolutionary was now to identify and exploit pressure points for dialectical conflict, thus undermining the legitimacy of the existing social and political order, and hastening the eventual triumph of socialism.

In the 1930s, Lenin devised a strategy for weakening and subverting democratic societies that changed the nature of revolutionary politics forever, while profoundly increasing the threat that revolutionaries posed.

Until then, Communist parties in non-Communist countries had openly declared their anti-capitalist, anti-Western and anti-democratic agendas. They called for the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and advocated “civil war” in the western democracies to bring this about.

Because most people in free societies remained unconvinced of the need for a violent socialist revolution, Communists remained a fringe minority with little political clout.

In 1935, the Communists adopted a new tactic, which they dubbed “the Popular Front.” The agendas of the Popular Front were framed in terms of the fundamental values of the societies the Communists meant to destroy.

In place of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “international civil war,” the Communists organised coalitions for “democracy, justice and peace.”

Nothing changed in the philosophy and goals of the Communists, but by seemingly advocating “democracy, justice and peace” they were able to forge broad alliances with individuals and groups who had no inkling of their true agendas, or believed them to be less sinister and dangerous than they were.

Communists initially selected as prime targets various racial, religious and national minorities, and intellectual groups that exerted a direct effect on public opinion. Working through the Popular Fronts they formed with “liberal” factions, the Communists were able to hide their conspiratorial activities, form “peace,” “human rights” and “anti-racism” movements, and greatly increase their effectiveness by mobilising non-Communists to do their work for them. These are the people once referred to by Lenin referred as “useful idiots.”

Groups who can be helped by Communists to see that they are “marginalised” from capitalist society due to their race, gender, class and sexual preference have long proved particularly fertile ground for those looking to promote dialectical conflict. Marxist-Leninists, worldwide, have practised for decades a process of agitating amongst such groups in order to achieve a breakdown of social cohesion leading to eventual socialist control.

The intellectual pedigree of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People traces directly to the early 20th Century writings of Lenin and Stalin on a topic they called “The National Question." And the Declaration carries with it the same subversive Marxist-Leninist intent.

Around 1905, Lenin and Stalin identified the fact that Czarist Russia consisted not only of ethnic Russians, but upwards of 80 formerly tribal subject peoples, who’d been conquered by the Czars over the preceding 500 years and forcibly Russified.

In order to expand the Bolshevik support base, Lenin and Stalin promised these groups “the right to manage their own affairs,” “the right to self-determination,” “the right to speak, read, write, use, and be taught in their own language” etc. This currently fashionable sloganeering is actually more than 100 years old.

After World War I the multi-ethnic empires of Austro-Hungary and Czarist Russia to which the National Question was first applied to stir up revolution were no more. Lenin and Stalin then directed “The National Question” to undermining the hold of European nations over their colonial possessions, so as to deprive them of their sources of cheap labour, raw materials, and markets for finished goods.

Commencing in the 1930s, Communists all over the world were instructed to promote the independence aspirations of minority ethnic groups in order to bring them into violent conflict with the status quo, thus undermining national consensus and creating the conditions for a socialist revolution to occur.

Locally, the Communist Party of New Zealand (“CPNZ”) soon identified a minority strand of Maori opinion favouring race separatism dating back to the late 1840s. These sentiments were initially centred on the Tainui and Tuwharetoa tribes that never signed the Treaty of Waitangi.

As we have seen above, Communist strategy is to find a group with a grievance, then promise to help them to get what they want. The CPNZ ran in the 1935 General Election on a platform that included “self-determination for the Maoris [sic] to the point of complete separation.” Here was the point at which this catch-cry first entered our national discourse.

At first, the CPNZ had little success with such a line. Maori were primarily a rural people and had little contact with Communists, who were mostly found in urban areas with a substantial manufacturing base.

This was soon to change. Over the period 1945 – 1975, Maori underwent what University of Waikato demographers Pool and Pole describe as “the most rapid urbanisation of any group of people, anywhere.”

This brought Maori flooding into the universities and trade unions, the CPNZ’s main recruiting grounds. As well, the Marxist-Leninists who’d begun colonising the nation’s universities in the 1930s had by the early 1970s achieved critical mass in many departments, particularly those specialising in the study of society. Their growing dominance on faculty hiring committees allowed them to exclude anyone not sharing (or at least sympathetic to) their views.

Meet Antonio Gramsci, yet another disreputable Communist held up as an intellectual icon by the academic Left. In the 1920s, Gramsci realised that the western democracies were too attached to the benefits of individual rights, patriotism, and faith in God as a source of transcendent moral authority. These ideas were deeply engrained and would not be easily surrendered. Instead of violent Marxist revolution, Gramsci advocated a "long march through the institutions before socialism and [moral] relativism were victorious."

Gramsci believed that "capitalist bourgeois society" could be seduced into accepting Communism through the gradual seduction of the western mind. Accordingly, his adherents sought control over culture, organised religion, media, education, and other areas where intellectual discourse takes place.

Beginning in the 1960s or even earlier, western university students have been subjected to organised academic brainwashing by disciples of Gramsci who have embedded themselves the academy with the express purpose of using it as a factory of ideological reproduction.

Graduates of this indoctrination programme were absolutely convinced they belonged to an intellectual elite. How did they know this? They were constantly told how smart they were for accepting the programming.

They weren't going to argue. Most kids that age think they know everything anyway.

The students were told they were learning “progressive” new ideas instead of Marxism. They were programmed with all the principles of Marxism without the label. If you told them they were Marxists or Communists, they’d respond with a pitying smile, eye-rolling, and accuse you of “seeing Reds under the bed.” 

Having internalised the system of values upon which their membership of “Club Virtue” depends most tertiary graduates over the last forty years display a strong emotional resistance to having it questioned. If you disagree with them you are racist, sexist, fascist, misogynist or just plain stupid. Rational discourse with such people is impossible.

After graduating, these “useful idiots” slithered forth from the academy into the media, education system, trade unions, Labour Party, entertainment industry, churches and other institutions that shape society’s governing ideas. As a result, the political centre of gravity has moved steadily leftward over several generations. This is clearly no accident.

The origins of both the UN's pronoucements on the "rights" of "indigenous peoples" and “Maori Sovereignty” lie in Marxist National Question theory, which the Marxist-Leninists and their witless enablers have now moved into the centre of respectable public discourse. Thirty years ago anyone pushing this line would have been regarded as dangerously deluded. Now, through the process outlined above, it has been successfully “mainstreamed.” Support for “Maori Sovereignty” is today regarded in many intellectual circles as a badge of “progressivism.”

In “Preferential Policies: An International Perspective” Black American academic, Thomas Sowell records the downstream effect of government policies promoting identity politics. Sold as promoting inter-group harmony, Sowell found that wherever such policies have been tried, they invariably expanded over time in scale and scope, benefited already advantaged members of the preference group (those with the 'smarts' to work the system), and increased rather than decreased inter-group polarisation. In many places they have brought about decades-long civil wars.

Can anyone else see where we might be headed should we not act now to derail the “Maori Sovereignty” gravy train?

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3 May 09
Rights are often the wrong answer
Daniel McCaffrey

The problem with “rights” based solutions is that they don't solve anything.

They create a banquet for lawyers and leave the aggrieved with worthless bits of paper or worse no solution at all.

Sometime ago in Britain a solution for homelessness was to create a “right to housing.“

Sounds good.

People should not freeze on the streets if they have a right to housing. Any person who was homeless had a “right” to housing of some sort or another.

This led to local authorities who were responsible for housing putting the homeless in bed and breakfasts, cheap hotels and any other form of accommodation they could find.

Sounds like a solution.

It wasn't.

It was enormously expensive and a futile solution to what were really other problems.

In no time boarding houses and cheap hotels filled up with people with serious mental problems.

The reason some people could not get housing was that they were mad.

What they needed was treatment for their condition.

Homelessness was merely a symptom of this.

Cure their mental problems and they could keep a job and keep a roof over their heads like any other citizen.

All that was happening was one element of Government was reducing its costs and dumping them on some other section of government.

But it was not only the mad who needed another solution.

Some homeless people could not get housing or maintain it because they had a serious drug addiction problem.

When they joined the mentally unstable in the cheap boarding houses a social cocktail of the most destructive kind followed.

They needed a cure for their drug addiction.

With their incredibly expensive addiction to ciggarettes alcohol and illegal hard drugs removed they would their wages or the dole to spend on rent not drugs.

Another group of people could not get housing because they lacked employment.

Had steps being taken to qualify them for a job or by giving tax relief to stimulate local employers and consumers to employ more people their housing problem would go away.

Another group were homeless because they failed to gather the rental bond to get into decent rental accommodation. All they needed was some financial assistance or guarantee to enable them to get together a bond.

By setting up a rights framework the only ones who prospered were providers of short-term accommodation, and the housing rights lawyers who campaigned for this outcome. The homeless stewed away with no real solutions for their problems.

According people “rights” where the realities cannot be delivered and other problems are the cause of their misery is a fraud.

The extension of the human rights paradigm to cover a spectrum of claims and supposed remedies to social problems is everywhere a failure.

Rights are a legal concept.

Real solutions to real problems are always preferable.

If I am hungry, “food rights” are useless.

I need a job, an income, a piece of land, some capital, a pension, assistance from my relatives.

I need food. Not to sit and watch the enrichment of lawyers and advocates who will spend time and money setting up a rights system and contest it while I starve.

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To answer this question it is necessary to understand something about carbon chemistry.  
Carbon, an exceptional element, has the unique property of forming highly complex compounds, 
many of which are found in living things.  Carbon easily combines with itself to build up molecules 
with an apparently endless variety of chain and ring structures.  Carbon readily combines also 
with hydrogen and oxygen and to a lesser extent with only a few other elements like nitrogen, 
phosphorous and sulfur, yet it forms more than half the compounds known to science.  The 
current literature on the chemistry of carbon contains data on millions of carbon compounds 
with many of them being toxic.  For example, when flaring (burning off the gas that comes 
from oil wells) a great many new carbon compounds are spontaneously created during combustion 
and more than 250 of these compounds are known to be toxic.  The reason for all the toxins 
is that when burning the hydrocarbons, which consist only of hydrogen and carbon atoms, it 
now combines with oxygen and other elements like nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur to form 
countless new compounds.  One of the most toxic is carbon monoxide (CO) which we are all 
familiar with. 

In our legal system we abhor such methods, and yet....are we so blind as to not see that those out to destroy our democratic system by horrible terrorist atrocities (so far well away from “God’s Own) who blatantly bomb schools, public places, buildings and even underground railways in an attempt to achieve their aims?

So how can we deal with the terrorism of the future when, not if, it reaches our “Benign Environment”?  Have we a panacea, a secret agency able to thwart these people before they accomplish their acts?  Yes, we have an SIS, (Now successfully prevented from surveillance on our M.P.’s) with Justice Neazor’s  finding

“That M.P.’s were elected to serve the public interest and swore an Oath of Allegiance”

How then does Judge Neazor react to the N.Z Muslim M.P.’s or indeed any Muslim who swears allegiance to this country upon the “Quran” (Koran) which itself demands a hatred of all non Muslims, with a call to perpetuate violence, murder, terrorism and to fulfill their sacred duty to wage war...a violent jihad?

We are now engaged and have been for a long time in an undeclared war against Islam, appeasement is not an option, for Islam means submission. This is NOT a war in the accepted sense but an asymmetrical war.

One side, due to conforming to Human Rights and Political Pressure is playing by the old set of rules.  A sort of Public School Sports Rules, the Geneva Convention...the rules of War.... the civilised way of conducting a war!

Accepted by the Newspapers and the Media in general and for a population indoctrinated that the majority is always crushing the minority. With such a prison like Guantanomo Bay a blot on the face of Western Civilisation.

While the other side plays with NO RULES at all, no Marquis of Queensbury on this side; just all out war on everyone who is in the way.  Their allies safe behind the comforts of Western Democracy play the game of Multi Culturalism picturing the USA, its Allies and Israel as the demons of Capitalism......How Karl Marx and Lenin must be smiling!

So what about torture, are we in the West so holy as to try to win an unwinnable war by sticking blindly to the “Rules”?

Ask yourself this question.

“You have before you a Terrorist(s), he or she boasts that the bomb they exploded is just the first. There is another terrorist bomb attack coming and more unbelievers will die so that the world will be made free for the eventual Islamization of the World”.

What would you do? The bomb will be exploded and people will die, and you have no idea where this will take place, or when.  The Terrorist(s) before you will never tell,

WHAT THEN IS YOUR ACTION.

The purist, the believer in the Geneva Convention, and our reaction to right and wrong tells us that this man or woman must never be submitted to torture.  

Yet could you walk away hoping against hope that this second bomb does not explode?...and if it does can you face the survivors, the maimed, the wounded and the dead and say :-

“I followed the rules, nothing else could be done” ?

Whether we like it or not there are people and organisations who would not walk away, and guess what, if it was not for them you would not be reading this.

The feminist-driven “domestic violence industry” is part of an ever-expanding, tax-funded “bureaucracy of compassion” with its attendant caregivers, social workers, regulators, intellectuals and social scientists.

Its use of the term “domestic violence” rather than the more gender-neutral “relationship violence” is based on the Marxist analysis of gender relations penned by Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels which presupposes a male 'oppressor' ("Within the family, man is the bourgeoisie, woman and children the proletariat") and a female ‘victim.’ 

Feminists with a strong emotional investment in the presumption of an oppressive patriarchy base their  assessment of men as “the violent sex” on police, court, hospital and refuge data while waving away numerous academic studies implicating both sexes equally in relationship violence. These seriously troubled sisters will cite police blotter statistics and other official data to falsely conclude that relationship violence is a male problem ("That’s just part of how 'they' treat 'us' as women").

There are a number of compelling reasons why a man might be reluctant to complain to authorities that his wife assaulted him. These include fear of ridicule or being disbelieved; threats that if police are called his wife will level a counter-accusation and he'll be the one arrested by an establishment predisposed to take her part; a reluctance to walk out of the home that he probably paid for; the likelihood that access to his children will be denied by a gender-biased Family Court should he leave to escape the violence; and fears for the children's physical safety if he's no longer around to  protect  them from a violent mother.

One of the saddest accounts of male victimisation by a violent female was that of an army drill sergeant in the United States, who placed his gun in his mouth at the dinner table and blew his brains out in front of his family, after the contrast between his macho parade ground persona and the reality of his miserable existence became too much to bear.

New Zealand has a network of Women’s Refuges but not a single Man’s Refuge. And if a man did show up at a Women’s Refuge seeking relief from a violent female partner, do you think he’d be admitted? Like police blotter statistics, “refuge data” clearly have significant limitations in terms of providing an accurate picture of relationship violence in our community.

US researcher, Dr Martin Fiebert has examined 155 scholarly investigations, 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses in concluding that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000 and can safely be regarded as statistically robust. Fiebert’s annotated bibliography, first published in Sexuality and Culture Volume 8, Number 3-4, Summer-Fall 2004, can be viewed online at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.

Contrary to the demonstrably false feminist picture of relationship violence, men and women are implicated in relationship violence in approximately equal numbers at all levels of severity as assessed by a standardised "Conflict Tactics Scale.” Both sexes are more or less equally represented in every category from throwing a teaspoon all the way up to murder. In some categories (e.g. punched, kicked, hit or slapped one's partner), female involvement slightly outstripped that of males.

Approximately one third of violent incidents were found to be "he assaults her," one third "she assaults him," and one third "they assault each other.” Most of what is categorised as "relationship violence" was found to be occasional, low level, and didn't result in serious injury, i.e. shoving, pulling, slapping, throwing small objects etc.

The most violent individuals, whether male or female, represent a tiny minority of those studied. Severely violent men typically used their fists and feet on spouses or partners. Severely violent women characteristically used weapons to even up the size difference or attacked spouses or partners when they were asleep or otherwise off-guard.

British family care activist, Erin Pizzey, who set up the first Women's Refuge in England in 1971, had a well-publicised falling out with the Sisterhood after she wrote a book claiming that many women presenting at her Chiswick Women's Refuge were "at least as violent as the men they had left behind" and self-admittedly addicted to the adrenalin rush they got from provoking violent reactions in their male partners, though few enjoyed the violence itself. These women were repeatedly and often seriously verbally and physically violent both to their own children and to other women in the shelter.

The foregoing analysis demonstrates conclusively that relationship violence is in fact a human problem, not a gender issue as the feminist movement would have us believe. The time is long past for society to acknowledge the female contribution to such violence rather than simply blaming males for something women are, on all the evidence, equally involved in.

3 March 09
Capitalism for all - Ownership Democracy  
By Jens Meder

As a legacy of Marx, the word  “capitalism” is usually associated with  private ownership, a social implication.  

Yet, as an economic factor, the creation and use of capital  -  capitalism  -  began with the first laboriously polished stone axe, and is still subject to the same laws of physics (saving   and investment),  regardless of the social order, or the apparent disconnection from physics through paper  money and  bank overdrafts.

We know now, that so-called communism is  just state monopoly  capitalism.

It is sophisticated capitalism, which differentiates human survival from the largely “earth-to-mouth”  consumption  in the animal kingdom,  although even there  the accumulation of reserves for  survival occurs.

If we accept that on the material level “nothing can be done out of nothing”,  the “hidden hand” which ultimately determines what our efforts and dealings achieve, is adequately revealed by the following  two physical realities:

1. For economic (and biological) survival, the “calories” consumed for the effort must not exceed the “calories” needed for  survival.

In other words – unless backed by subsidies and reserves – profitability is the  primary need  for any productive  effort meant to be self-sustainable.

2. Regardless how  hard or profitably  you work, if the lot is consumed within a certain period of time, you end up just as poor as when you started.

In other words – capital  creation is physically impossible  without someone’s sacrifice of consumption (potential), or saving. So far no one – not even among those publicly  doubtful  about the crucial  interdependence of  saving and economic growth – has come up with a  practical  or hypothetical example to refute that.

We should also be aware about the role of saving  being confused by not differentiating between spending on consumption and on investment, implying that saving means money out of circulation to “under the mattress”, and not available for investment.

Actually, most savings if  not  directly invested, end up as working capital with the banking system.

With these “physics” in mind,  the stage is set  for a healthy “re-juvenation of capitalism” through an  all-inclusive effort for  a higher and widening personal capital savings  and ownership rate through the taxation system,  such as has been initiated through the NZ Super Fund, and easily perfected by amending it into a permanent institution of  personal accounts.

The NZSF is bound to increase in popularity from the moment more of it is invested at home, including needed infrastructure construction. Those of the school “you cannot spend yourself out of debt”  should become aware, that while  that applies to consumption spending, investment spending is actually the only way  of  wealth  generation, if the investments are profitable, and debts are repaid  by savings in at  least  only slightly inflated currency.

THE  INCREASED  COMPULSORY  SAVING  ENFORCED ON US  BY  CURRENT  INVESTMENT  DEBT  REPAYMENTS  GUARANTEES -  THAT WE COME OUT OF THE  RECESSION  STRONGER AND MORE LEAN AND HEALTHY, THAN WHEN WE WENT INTO IT WITH SURPLUSES -   (unless those investments  are serious flops  and turn  practically into consumption).

This might be  the only seriously  contestable statement  in this  article so far?

But there are other advantages  with  the NZSF as a permanent institution of personal accounts,  benefitting the young and raising their  confidence in the future:

1. They would  notice, that  their NZSF contributions are  for their own NZ Super sustainablity, and not just evaporate  with the  baby-boomers.

2. Their accounts, together  with KiwiSavings, would be available  towards 1^st home mortgage repayments.

3. In case  of early  death before the account is consumed, it would be part of its owner’s estate.

4.  With even those without taxable income  as (small) account owners through the GST they pay, the  movement towards  widening socio-economic unity and the abolition  of  have-not  poverty would  have been initiated in a measurable way – which could be accelerated later along the line proposed by Dr Skilling  of the NZ Institute in his  paper “Ownership Society” about 6 years ago.

5. There are immediate benefits after the NZSF  personal accounts allocation, when  from their owner’s  65^th  birthday  they  finance  his/her  NZ Super until the account is consumed, releasing that amount of taxation revenue for expenditure in other areas.

The definition of Ownership Democracy –  as a deliberate effort towards at least a minimally  meaningful level  of personal (retirement)  wealth ownership by all citizens eventually – means  clearly – capitalism for all – and what  more straightforward and middle-of-the-road   alternative could  top that?

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28 February 09
The three big ideas from the job summit 
By Frank Newman  

The government jobs summit has thrown-up three big ideas: A nine-day working fortnight, an investment fund, and a NZ long cycleway.

Is this the best that NZ’s brightest minds can come up with?

No I don’t think it is but it’s the sort of response one would expect, given the nature of the conference. In fact, the very best responses are not likely to be voiced at an invitation only government sponsored talk-fest.

The essential problem with the 3 big ideas is that they place government at the centre of the solution. Governments fail to realise that they are part of the problem, not the solution (and I say this after having experience in both central and local government politics). 

Any solution that is government-centric is going to fail, because governments don’t create wealth (they consume wealth created by others) and they think it is they that must solve other people's problems.  

It’s the “others” we should be focusing on, not government. A government solution will inevitably involve more regulation – it’s in their DNA to do so, and it is the nature of their business. Their desire to do more is despite a history of regulatory failure and reckless financial management.  Until recently our economy has boomed, yet local governments have mounted up massive public debt, and central government has used most of the benefit to increase the size of the state service to introduce its political philosophies into our lives. Governments are shown to be the irresponsible managers of other peoples’ money. But putting aside their massive consumption of wealth, worst of all is their activities result in the destruction of personal initiative and enthusiasm which is so critical to the creation of wealth.

No one should be surprised that the government sponsored yak-fest has come up with three political solutions. The three issues themselves will achieve nothing, and are not even worth commenting on. Let’s look at the big picture.

New Zealand has some fundamental problems, not least, we are importing more than we are exporting, we have a welfare system with the goal of making dependence bearable instead of making people independent, and we have an education system that is failing to adequately educate students – literacy and numeracy skills are, quite frankly, abysmal.

So here are some takeaways for the yak-yak job summit to chew on:

• Let the business sector get on and do what they do best:  make money. To make money they need to employ people. Productive workers employed in high paying jobs is what creates economic and social well-being… that’s the way it works in developed countries. The private sector will create prosperity if the regulators put their clip boards away and get out of the way. 
  

• Government should focus on repairing what they are already not doing well. They should:

o   Focus their attention on growing our export markets – that’s where our economic future is.

o   Reform the welfare system by transforming it into an organisation that has its primary goal of reducing dependency. That would reduce government spending which could be given back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts. 

o   Improve the quality of education by establishing minimum performance measures for teachers based on international standards, and making teachers accountable to parents. That would produce graduates who would actually be productive.

In my view these simply measures would be a heck of a lot better than having people attend government paid “training” one day every two weeks, establishing yet another investment fund to do what banks will do when risk is back in balance, and build a bike track in the vague hope that it will attract overseas tourists.

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24 February 09
MAORI - a people one sees in legislation 
By Ross Baker  

Queen Victoria did not sign the Tiriti o Waitangi with a "mixed race of people"- She signed the Tiriti o Waitangi with "a distinct race of people” called “maori", a race though intermarriage of their own free will, no longer exists.

Over the years, many Acts have been passed as the “maori race” intermarried with other races and their ancestry became further and further diluted from the “maori race” that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. As a past Race Relations Conciliator of Maori descent, John Clark stated, "Maori today are a people with maori ancestry, as one sees in legislation".

Some of the Statutory Interpretations of "Maori", "As One Sees in Legislation"?

1. The Native Land Act of 1865 defined a Maori as, "An aboriginal native and shall include all half-castes and their descendants by natives".
2. The Qualification of Electors Act 1879 defined a Maori as, "An aboriginal inhabitant of New Zealand and includes any half-caste living as a member of a native tribe according to their customs and usages and any descendants of such a half caste by a maori woman".
3. The Electoral Act 1893 defined a Maori as, "An Aboriginal inhabitant of New Zealand and includes half-castes and their descendants by natives".
4. The Native Land Court Act 1894 defines a Maori as, "An Aboriginal native of New Zealand and includes half-castes and their descendants".
5. The Native Land Act 1909 defines a Maori as, "A person belonging to the Aboriginal race of New Zealand and includes a half-caste and a person immediately in blood between half-caste and a person of pure descent from that race".
6. The Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974 defines a Maori as, "A person of the maori race of New Zealand and includes any descendent of such a person".

This final definition (6) is the definition being used today to allow one group of New Zealand citizens to claim through the “apartheid” Waitangi Tribunal. All these Acts came about as the "maori race" intermarried with other races "of their own free will".

A Distinct Race of People
When the Tiriti o Waitangi was signed, "maori" were "a distinct race of people". Since this time, the "maori race" has intermarried with other races until today they are not the people Governor Hobson," was authorised to deal with" for cession of sovereignty of their country. The fact is, "Maori today are a people with maori ancestry as one sees in legislation"; they are not "the distinct race of people" that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi at Waitangi on the 6 February 1840.

The Waitangi Tribunal, which the Government created in 1975, is an "apartheid tribunal", where 15% of the population, who can claim a minute trace of "maori" ancestry, can claim against the others without the right to claim, participate, cross examine or appeal. In 1987, the Government "replaced" the Tiriti o Waitangi with "Five Principles" without debate or the peoples knowledge or consent, giving the Waitangi Tribunal "unbridled power" to rewrite our history. The Government/Crown completely overlooks the fact; “Maori today are not, the distinct race of people, that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840”. 

Most Maori today, who claim through the "apartheid" Waitangi Tribunal or in direct negotiations with the Government/Crown, are closer related to the people they "claim to have ripped them off" that to their "maori" ancestors. The Government/ Crown are allowing this "mixed race of people", through legislation, to claim as if they were, "the distinct race of people", that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. There is no denying, the Treaty made us “all one people under one law, one flag”, but intermarriage made us all one people – New Zealanders!! 

Every year, the Royal New Zealand Navy fires a "twenty one gun salute" at Waitangi verifying British Sovereignty over New Zealand in 1840. HMS Herald logbook entry 8/2/1840, "A salute of 21 guns was fired to commemorate the cession to Her Majesty of the right of sovereignty of New Zealand".

Queen Victoria did not sign the Tiriti o Waitangi with a "mixed race of people"- She signed the Tiriti o Waitangi with "a distinct race of people” called “maori", a race through intermarriage of their own free will, no longer exists.

It’s time the people of New Zealand woke up to this monstrous scam being forced on them by the Government/Crown today. It’s an undeniable fact, Maori today are not “the distinct race of people” that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, they are “a mixed race of people” as one sees in legislation”.   

He iwi tahi tatou – We are now one people – New Zealanders

Research Department, One New Zealand Foundation - see www.onenzfoundation.co.nz. 

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24 February 09
CARBON DIOXIDE: The importance of Carbon Dioxide to your health 
By Robert Chouinard

First, do you know that carbon dioxide (CO₂) in our atmosphere is
Þ      only slightly more than 1/3rd of 1/10th of 1 percent? 
Þ      just recovering from the lowest level in the history of the earth?
Þ      the source of carbon for all life forms, on land or in the sea?
Þ      only slightly above the suffocation level for green plants?
Þ      a fraction of the level for which evolution designed plants?
Þ      so low as to cause some people breathing problems?
Þ      increased by 130 times and more when administered to sick patients?
Þ      considered, thanks to Al Gore, a pollutant by the U.S. Supreme Court?
Þ      now a commodity to be traded on Al Gore’s Carbon Exchange?  (See lawsuit against Al Gore for fraud)

It’s common knowledge that when we breathe we take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide but what is not generally known is that we are greatly affected by the level of carbon dioxide in the air we breathe as well as the way we breathe.  Because many people with a wide range of health problems find relief when given enhanced levels of carbon dioxide, it follows that these people would benefit from any rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  The importance of CO₂ and proper breathing is nicely covered in the following audio lecture and followed with scientific references.

Audio lecture:  http://www3.telus.net/public/rrrobbie/audio/03_carbondioxide.mp3

What are safe levels of Carbon Dioxide? 

Source: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/faq_othr.html 

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂), a colorless, odorless gas, have been known to reach 3,000 parts per million (ppm) in homes, schools, and offices with no ill effects. The maximum recommended by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for an 8-hour occupation is 5,000 ppm (13 times the current level of 380 ppm). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also use 5,000 ppm as their threshold for occupational safety.

But 5,000 ppm appears to be a very conservative estimate of safe levels because other sources claim we can tolerate up to 1.5% of it in air, 15,000 parts per million. 

Consider: people with respiratory problems are given medical gas typically consisting of 95 percent oxygen and 50,000 ppm (5 percent) carbon dioxide.  This gas can also be obtained with CO₂ ranging from 1% to as high as 10% for treating people who have been asphyxiated.

Also consider: we would die if we did not breathe in such a way as to retain very close to 65,000 ppm (6.5%) of CO₂ in the alveoli (tiny air sacs) of our lungs.

And finally, the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) reports that 100,000 ppm (10%) of CO₂ is the atmospheric concentration immediately dangerous to life.

Scientific studies on higher levels of CO2

Altitude sickness is caused by hyperventilation which results in increased oxygen (O₂) in the blood but decreased CO₂. (Note: oxygen (O) occurs as a molecule in nature, hence the symbol O₂) The lowered CO₂ will not allow the increased O₂ to be utilized.  Adjusting to this condition is called “ventilatory acclimatization”.  While it is not completely understood all that happens during this process, it has been observed by experimentation that supplementing CO₂ prevents this acclimatization as well as preventing the sickness.  It appears that respiratory distress due to lower levels of O₂ (requiring ventilatory acclimatization) can be relieved or eliminated by the application of a higher level of CO₂. 

This might be a good time to ask: since we exhale CO₂, why do we need it to be present in the air we inhale?  Good question, but apparently, we do as demonstrated by the above experiment.  Other experiments found that simply circulating CO₂ up one nostril and out the other while the subject held their breath cured migraine headaches as well as allergic symptoms.  Other researchers propose administering CO₂ to people who suffer from epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and autism as well.  Clearly, we are affected by low levels of CO₂ in the air we breathe and need to acclimatize to these low levels, if we can, but not everyone can.  Consider:

· People who experience periodic breathing as well as apnea (cessation of breathing) during sleep benefit from higher levels of CO₂.  These conditions affect a lot of older people.

· Increased levels of CO₂ can improve the sleep of young people as well.  One study found that healthy young men on a submarine slept well when CO₂ levels rose but not as well when the levels dropped.  

· Furthermore it’s administered in the form of medical gas (1% to 10%) for many medical conditions to stimulate respiration. For example, people with asthma require from 3% to 5% for therapeutic effect.  Studies suggest that a lower level than this but somewhat higher than present atmospheric levels would prevent the attacks in the first place and prevent subclinical symptoms associated with asthma such as anxiety, insomnia, immune dysfunction and excessive sensitivity to pain.  CO₂ levels higher than 5 per cent are used for extreme cases such as for treating victims of asphyxiation and to stimulate breathing of newborn infants as well as speeding recovery of patients who have been anesthetized.

· The majority of us have some degree of lung impairment, which affects the more critical function of the lungs in regulating the proper level of CO₂ in the alveoli (tiny air sacs).  Metabolic syndrome alone includes approximately 20 – 30 % of adults in the U.S. and Europe.  Then there are smokers, asthmatics, and people with miner’s lung, emphysema and scarred lungs due to previous bouts of pneumonia, old people, and many more conditions.  Furthermore, a wide range of medical conditions and infectious diseases manifest in pulmonary symptoms.  All these conditions can require medical gas because the present atmospheric level is not optimum and appears to lack a safety margin for people with lung impairment. Breathing is a tricky business.  We have to breathe fast and deep enough to get the O₂ we need but not so fast as to hyperventilate and lose control of our blood’s CO₂ balance (pH).  Over the last 50 million years the O₂ level and CO₂ level have both dropped as well as atmospheric density which puts us into the same predicament as the mountain climber who must acclimatize to a higher altitude.  Even healthy mountain climbers reach a level at which they cannot further adapt.  People with lung impairment are like the climber who has reached that level.  Either an increase in the O₂ level or an increase in the CO₂ level would be a benefit.  It is for good reason that people hospitalized are fitted with air tubes to their nostrils providing them very high levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide.  (Typically, 4.5 times the oxygen but, more importantly, 130 times the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere)

· Experiments have shown that even healthy people have different tolerances (or sensitivity) to CO₂ levels.  However, we can all acclimatize to much higher levels simply by constant exposure to those levels.  Physiological changes occur as well as adaptive breathing changes.  There is a curious variation in these physiological changes noted in studies of people who live at higher altitudes, which seem to be a result of genetics.  The natural experiment of human colonization of high-altitude plateaus on three continents has resulted in two—perhaps three—quantitatively different arterial-oxygen-content phenotypes among Andean, Tibetan and Ethiopian high-altitude populations.  The dominance of Ethiopian (and neighboring Kenyan) athletes in endurance marathon running events would appear to be a result of their unique evolutionary adaptation in this regard.

Making Sense of it all while keeping it simple

The two most immediate concerns when treating patients in intensive care are their blood gasses and their blood electrolytes.  Marathon runners frequently pass out and can even die because they did not replenish their electrolytes which were depleted through excessive sweating. One of these electrolytes (bicarbonate) acts as a buffer in the blood to regulate the blood’s pH but can be depleted in an attempt to compensate for blood gasses. (The reverse can also happen as respiration can change and become distressed in an attempt to compensate for bicarbonate.)  Consider the mountain climber who has to acclimatize to a higher altitude over a one or two day period (ventilatory acclimatization).  It is a slow change in his body chemistry using his available bicarbonate that makes this possible.  To a lesser degree, we all depend on these electrolytes on a daily basis; a proper diet is essential to replenish them.

Our blood gasses (O₂ & CO₂) depend on the efficiency of our respiration, which consist of two phases: oxygenation (intake of O₂) and ventilation (exhalation of CO₂).  The audio clip nicely explains the ventilatory phase and what happens when we breathe too fast and lose control of our CO₂ but what it fails to address are the problems we can encounter when we don’t get enough oxygen.  These problems are the result of the ventilatory phase being much more efficient than the oxygenation phase due to various factors.  Here are three: (1) ease of exchange of CO₂ is normally 20X the ease with which O₂ can be exchanged; (2) swelling and/or scarring of the lung tissue will impede O₂ transfer more than CO₂; (3) the impulse to take another breath is determined by the CO₂ content of our blood, not the O₂ content.  Here is how a higher CO₂ level helps: it decreases the CO₂ rate of exchange during the ventilatory phase causing the need for more vigorous breathing to maintain a CO₂ balance and this helps our uptake of oxygen.  In other words, it stimulates our breathing and better balances the oxygenation phase with the ventilatory phase.    

Conclusion

Over the last 350 million years CO₂ has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm.  This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO₂ is used in greenhouses  Since plants and animals evolved together it’s likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level.  However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10 fold range. Because so many people benefit from enhanced levels of CO₂, it appears that our present atmosphere is already lower than the minimum to which some people can adapt.  Scientific studies and established medical practices leave no doubt that increased levels of CO₂ help people with respiratory problems and, some time in our lives, that will include nearly every one of us.

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24 February 09
A Better Approach to Child Support
By Graeme Phillips 

This Soapbox Contribution is written to criticise  the child support system.  I am arguing against the way it works on the basis that it promotes single motherhood, it is an infringement of the rights-responsibilities, libertarian and you-reap-what-you-sow principles.

In many e-mails sent out by NZCPR, there have been various articles written about how the welfare benefits system, in particular DPB, encourages women to take up single motherhood because it is financially advantageous.  If you are bored of your marriage and a stay-at-home mother and therefore likely to gain custody of the children in the event of a divorce, the fact that the government will lop off a proportion of your husband's income if you divorce him removes one of the obstacles to seeking a divorce.  The purpose of DPB is to give the recipient a "reasonable" standard of living, but not to make single parenthood attractive and it is my view that the child support system should work in the same way.

In many divorces that come to court, men lose their home and unwillingly lose custody of their children too; if he didn't want a divorce in the first place, then that is an even worse situation.  It therefore seems a case of kicking someone when they are down to collect child support from a man in this situation.  Sufficiently regular contact with one's children is a right that a man should have (particularly in light of Dr. Newman's articles about the damage that absentee fatherism does) and I don't think alternate weekends is a sufficient fulfilment of that right.  A responsibility that a man has along with this is the responsibility to provide for his children.  However, if a man has to pay child support for children he is only allowed to see on alternate weekends, he is getting the responsibility without the right.

Collecting child support on a percentage basis is also an infringement of libertarian principles.  If a man lives with his children, then the state allows him the freedom to provide for his children's basic material needs and no more if that is what he decides.  Maybe the father wants them to live simply, so that the children don't develop the materialistic attitudes that blight most of the world?  Why should a man lose this right just because he ceases to live with them?  Similarly, people are at liberty to disinherit children, provided sufficient provisions have been made for underage ones, if they so wish.  If a man wants to shower his children with expensive gifts, then fine, but if not, then the state should keep its nose out, providing the children's basic material needs are being fulfilled.

Finally, collecting child support on a percentage basis is an infringement of the you-reap-what-you-sow principle.  Supposing a woman gets pregnant by a man, doesn't see him again after the night of passion, but nevertheless collects child support and the man works extremely hard in his job 15 years later and gains a promotion that dramatically increases his wages, the woman stands to benefit from his increased wages, despite the fact that she has done nothing to help him get the promotion.  Also, there might be another woman in similar circumstances who gets pregnant by a one-night-stand with an even wealthier man, meaning that she gets more child support.  Why should that woman receive more child support just because she copulated with a higher-earning man?  Neither children nor spouses/ex-spouses should have the right to proportionally benefit from money they didn't earn.

My proposal is that child support be given out at a flat rate that is just enough to give the children a basic standard of living, with additional contributions being solely at the discretion of the non-resident parent.  I also propose that child support should be denied if a woman unilaterally divorces her husband and receives custody of the children against his will.  Child support should only be collected if a man has walked out on his children on his own accord or if the wife has divorced him for an extremely exceptional reason (e.g. regular adultery or violence lasting several years).
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04 February 09
Scepticism or Wisdom? 
By David Bellamy 

As Darwinism is again the flavour of the year I found myself completely absorbed in the latest publication of the Linnean Society of London. It jogged my memory that Charles Darwin was the first natural historian to realised that massive coral reefs are found only in those areas of the tropical world in which the sea floor is going down.

As the sea floor sinks below the tides the reef forming plants and animals remain on station in the lighted zone sequestering carbon dioxide to build these amazing limestone structures.

The Darwin deniers had a ball until 1950, when in preparation for the testing of the H bomb geophysicists drilled down through the coral limestone of Eniwetok Atoll.

There they discovered the balsaltic foundations of the atoll on which the reef had maintained station by growing at a rate of an inch every millennium for more than 30 million years. Biodiverse solar powered, self-repairing sea defences and fish nurseries without equal.

Having had the privilege of diving on many reefs around the world before over-fishing, siltation, eutrophication and shoreline development began to take its toll clouding the clear nutrient poor waters.

Back in those halcyon days of diving it was amazing to see how quickly reefs could recover from the heated attack of that little rascal El Nino, passing tsunamis and marauding packs of Crowns of Thorns.

Sadly since that time the decades of destruction of ecosystems across the world have done their worse, little wonder coral reefs are now in such a sorry state..

When Charles Darwin visited Australia as the little ice age began to come to an end, he wrote “pasture is everywhere so thin that settlers have already pushed too far into the interior; moreover the country further inland becomes extremely poor,----therefore so far as I can see, Australia must ultimately depend on being the centre of commerce for the southern hemisphere.”

Malthusian scepticism or words of wisdom? Well take a look around and judge for yourself.

If you are sweltering beside what’s left of the Murray River as it does its best to flow down to the sea. Please worry about unsustainable  irrigation and the continued destruction of native bush and those  biodiverse soils, not the 0.7 of a degree Celsius rise in temperature the global warmers warn are going to kill us.

The first questions most people ask me these days are how could all those global warmers have got it so wrong and is there any good news?

My answer is to remind them of the millennium bug, the dot com bubble and the credit crunch.  Together these caused tens of thousands of the worlds most highly paid and computer literate people to succumb to a mass hysteria.

The good news is that despite all the carbon dioxide that has poured into the atmosphere over the past decade the temperature has not gone up infact it has and is still going down.

The reason is that the sun which provides all the energy that warms the Earth, has put a new spotless hat on.

The bad news is that we should not shout hooray to loud because we may be jumping out of the frying pan into the freezer.

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  04 February 09
Defending Sir Roger
By Daniel McCaffrey
 

There’s an old joke that if you play a country and western record backwards you get your house back, your wife back, the porch back and the dog back.

If the cracked record of the latte socialists saying Rogernomics destroyed New Zealand was played backwards we could return to the socialist paradise that was New Zealand in July 1984 under that crusty old socialist Sir Robert Muldoon.

It isn’t true.

Play the record backwards and bang; back on the porch would be 71 million worthless sheep.

Muldoon was a real socialist. His thought the path to a prosperous New Zealand was to grow two blades of grass where one grew before.

And he wasn’t afraid to spend unlimited sums of taxpayer’s money tearing the hillsides down, subsidising sheep, fertiliser and fences to make this happen.

The Douglas deniers blame Sir Roger for the closing of the freezing works because the heartless man stopped the subsidies to the farmers. 

The closures happened on his watch so he must be to blame.

They ignore the delusionist who conned the taxpayers and farmers into owning so many worthless sheep in the first place.

Interestingly the same is going to happen in the next few years.

The socialists who just vacated the Beehive threw the public’s hard-earned cash into unproductive civil servants.

And they can’t be parked on the windswept paddocks of the King country.

They have to be paid, get a pension and need millions of square metres of well-carpeted air-conditioned space in Wellington.

(Bet when they get sacked National will get the blame not the silly socialists who hired them.)

But back to the sins of Saint Roger.

Another wicked antisocialist thing the financial reformer did was to sell the state silver, the assets of the people, the ones that taxpayers were taxed at 66% to pay for.

State owned liabilities would be closer to the truth.

For instance with inflation raging at 17% the peoples bank, the post office savings bank, paid 3% interest, ran at a loss and couldn’t pay the few hundred millions needed to move from paper passbooks to a modern computer.

The “assets” were all losing millions.

The railways were a joke. The ferries were even more of a liability.

The Bank of New Zealand was a fiscal time bomb.

The state airlines lost more than Aeroflot and provided marginally better service.

If the Rogerphobes had their way tomorrow all these would land on the porch and be slung around the taxpayers neck again. 

Together with an 8 billion dollars debt for “think big”, a wage price freeze, inflation raging at 16%, a run on the currency, an immediate need for $1200 million and a current account deficit that would take decades to pay down. 

Oh happy days would indeed be here again.

As George Orwell pointed out in 1984 the key to socialist control is to change the past; “he who controls the past controls the present and he who controls the present controls the future.”

If you can change history you can persuade people that Muldoon was a benevolent big brother with the countries best interests at heart and in the problem free days of August 1984 Roger just took a bad fit of pique and wrecked the country for no particular reason.

The trouble with telling lies about the past is that it soon drifts into telling lies about the present and making false promises about the future.

As my political hero Deng Xiaoping said, “you must proceed from reality”.

It’s a hard world out there. The idea that the world would long indulge a New Zealand economy that fancied 40 million extra sheep, 30 thousand non-productive civil servants and a bunch of state liabilities sucking taxes into a vortex is a delusion.

I for one am glad that when the country went bankrupt in 1984 there was a government with the courage to take the hard decisions, to set aside its set piece ideology, face reality, fix the problems and set the path for a productive, prosperous New Zealand.

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  04 February 09
The Decline of Capitalism
By Vincent Gray

Capitalism only works if it manages to resolve the conflict between the selfishness and greed of individuals and classes and the need for them to cooperate for the benefit of all. History is a record of the fluctuations of this compromise. There are always rulers and ruled and the process  called "democracy" does not change this, particularly when the rulers find ways of controlling public information. 

The losers will tolerate the excesses of the winners provided they get minimum satisfaction. At intervals the winners overreach themselves and the losers band together to gain more. If the winners resist too  much we get the British, French, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. A new compromise starts off the next cycle.

Karl Marx analyzed this situation when it occurred in the  middle of the 19th century and it is a little surprising that a recent "Time" article brought him back into consideration when his popularity is  in decline.. The trouble with Marx was that he saw no solution except the abolition of all classes  and the carrying out of this process by the working class.

But the working class have always been prepared to compromise, not rebel, and the communist and socialist movements which tried to carry out Marx's policy found that they had ended up being themselves  separate ruling classes. In Russia and China they became managers and technologists. Our last Labour government consisted of schoolteachers and union officials, not workers. Our new government is led by a banker who will try and keep the same bankers in business.

We have now reached the end, the final decline of the current period. As usual the business and political leaders have steadily taken a larger share of the wealth and have neglected sound business practice,  maintenance  of infrastructure and innovation. They have allowed themselves to be weakened by the anti capitalist philosophy of environmentalism, and its success in selling the global warming delusion, so that the structure of capitalist enterprise is itself no longer viable.

The usual corrective process for business failure is bankruptcy, but the leaders  are unwilling to apply this, so their first response is to throw public (or printed) money at the failed enterprises in the hope that they are capable of changing their extravagant ways. It is already evident that this does not work, but they do not have the courage to apply bankruptcy where it is deserved and start again. Would government-run banks be any better? It looks we will have to find out.

The idea of restoring credit by imposing very low interest rates is  bound to fail as it goes against the basic law of supply and demand. Who would lend if there is no interest? The Japanese billionaire who buried his money in the garden shows what will happen. It did not work in Japan.

So what is happening now cannot work. The Davos leaders in their executive jets will have to be replaced.  Sooner or later we have got to have banks and business enterprises run by responsible managers, different from those who have caused the current crisis. It almost looks as if we are going to have to have  another revolution before this could happen.

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  03 November 08
The High Costs of Central Planning
By Owen McShane 

Many people are now complaining that the last nine years of a Labour-led Government have left us languishing near the bottom of the OECD tables of economic growth and development, and are seeking explanations.

While a number of left-wing policies are held to blame, the most obvious explanation tends to be overlooked.

Socialism, Fascism and Communism – the great failed experiments of the twentieth century – were all committed to central planning. The “Great Leaders” of these regimes declared the modern world to be too complex to depend on spontaneous order. Therefore central planning was needed to direct and control our chaotic lives.

Today’s band of “controllers” claim that our population, wealth, technology, and consumption are combining to destroy the planet, or will do so in the future, unless, of course, ‘environmental planners’ are empowered to ‘sustainably’ order, direct, and control, every aspect of our lives.

In his seminal work, The Road to Serfdom, Hayek pointed out that central planning fails because it attempts to form a universal view on matters on which there can be no universal agreement. The planners must necessarily coerce those people who are unwilling to go along with their visions. When the ARC decides how and where future Aucklanders must live, all those people with plans of their own must be coerced into making second-best choices. They lose their property rights – and their liberty.

The Great Leaders of the planned economies never admitted error. They simply increased the size and power of their police states and imposed more detailed and more widespread controls. Experts who criticised the Soviet Great Plan for Agriculture were dispatched to the Gulag for heresy – even though millions were starving.

The most striking change over the last nine years of Government in New Zealand has been the proliferation of central plans – at all levels of government.

The Resource Management Act was intended to deregulate the use of land, by declaring that people and communities were to be enabled to promote their own wellbeing, provided they managed their environmental effects.

But by introducing the words ‘Sustainable Management’ into the lexicon, the RMA opened the door to takeover by those planners who promoted ‘sustainable development’ as the solution to modern threats.

For example, the Courts were soon persuaded that the ‘Plan’ was part of the environment and must also be protected from ‘adverse effects’. Applications failed if they “undermined the integrity of the plan” – which seriously undermined innovation.

However, the RMA’s enabling provisions continued to frustrate the dedicated Central Planners especially when subjected to higher levels of Judicial Review.

Consequently the Government passed the Local Government Amendment Act of 2002, a Central Planner’s dream, which put the RMA in its place by reversing the enabling provisions of the RMA. As the MfE says:

The reforms encourage local authorities to focus on promoting the social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being of their communities, consistent with the principles of sustainable development.

Councils are now empowered to rule, rather than ‘enable’, and have been given “the powers of general competence” to do so – in spite of the task being beyond anyone’s competence.

The new Central Planners decided that Soviet Central Planning failed because it was “top down” and hence their ‘benign tyranny’ insists on consultation on everything. Neither approach solves the real problem, which is that central planners simply cannot acquire the information necessary to manage resources better than individuals making decisions in a market-led economy.

Putting it brutally, the new central planning of sustainable development replaces the ignorance of the tyrants with the ignorance of special interest groups with time to spare.

These Councils must now embark on lengthy rounds of LGA consultation and hear submissions on their Long Term Council Community Plans and Annual Plans, and then publish a Draft District or Regional Plan or Policy Statement, and then finally publish a Proposed Plan or Policy Statement. Then follows a round of submissions, followed by a round of further submissions, followed by a year or five of Hearings, followed by a year or so of mediation, and finally Hearings before the Environment Court, the High Court, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court. When all this is completed the Plan becomes fully Operative Rodney District's Plan, optimistically named ‘Rodney 2000’, is really nowhere near Operative because it is being overturned by the new Regional Planning Documents prepared under the LGA, and Auckland’s special LGA which require Districts “to give effect” to their regulations.

Naturally, if a Central Plan fails the solution is to increase the size of the territory. Let a Super-City-State bloom!

If that sentence sounds like a mouthful it was meant to. Soon half of the population will be permanently consulting while the other half will be being permanently consulted.

These expensive processes all generate uncertainty as to ongoing property rights. Property owners have learned to expect that every plan variation or review will remove or threaten more of their existing rights, and increase their compliance costs.

And they are right.

Aaron Wildavsky found – in “The Politics of the Budgetary Process” – that all departmental budgets increase over time. Similarly, all Planning Documents get longer and more complex over time. Hence his cautionary “rule of thumb” which said “Any plan which is thicker than my thumb bears no relationship to the real world.” When Councils ask their advisers to review the Plan, they are hardly likely to be told the existing plan is perfect.

A slim and simple plan is a sty in any Central Planner’s eye.

Since 2002, Plans have been expanding their orbit at both ends of the scale. Regional Plans attempt to enforce “sustainable urban form.” Local Plans assert controls down to the colour and profile of the window joinery. Climate Change alarmists regulate our light bulbs and shower-heads.

This is bad enough at the best of times – but we happen to be entering the worst of times.

The National Party has already promised to make significant changes to the RMA, which will make any planning document obsolete – at least in part, and in some cases, a very large part indeed.

It may be that the changes made in the first 100 days will focus on process rather than substance but if so, then the changes will have little effect on the investment climate in New Zealand.

Although many Councils have been warned that their expensive Plan Reviews are potentially wasting millions of dollars of ratepayers’ money, their advisers understandably insist the gravy train must continue to roll. Times are tough enough without losing their biggest source of income. Hence the old adage, "Never ask your Barber if you need a Haircut."

The only way to stop this totally unproductive spend-up is to impose a moratorium on all district and regional plan reviews, national policy statements, structure plans, regional policy statements, visions, and nightmares, until the RMA and LGA have been thoroughly scrutinised.

If any urgent plan changes are required, by either the public or private sector, they can be submitted to a new RMA Regulatory Reform and Review Committee for approval by Order in Council.

The pressure groups and bottom feeders will scream – but the vast majority of productive people will be eternally grateful. 

We might even end the recession.
Originally published in NBR 
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  03 December 08
A New Vision for New Zealand 
By Vincent Andersen


It is unarguable that from the recent election we would be guaranteed that National or Labour would be the major party in a coalition government. Although traditionally these parties represent polar opposites, the far right and the far left, these days they are both center parties, there is little to differentiate between the two. The structure of our entire government is geared up towards an outcome like this. MMP and party politics have passed their used by date and it is time for a change in the way we run our country.

When asked whether she would form a coalition government with National on 3.11.2008 during the TV3 leader’s debate, Helen Clark replied that, “No chance. Labour was not prepared to cut public spending and sell state assets.”  Key immediately replied, “Nor am I.” Clark is trying to reassure those getting a benefit of some sort from the government that under her leadership they would not lose it but under National they would. Key doesn’t want to alienate any potential voters so of course they won’t be cutting any public spending either. During the debate Key indicated that Working for Families would remain and said that he was “not opposed to buying services from the public sector.” The traditional right wing National was about privatization, selling off state assets and slashing benefits, unlike the new Labour clone National. They have well and truly met Labour in the middle. It is well known that their policies are the same. That is why both leaders tried to frame the election as an issue of trust. Who do you trust more to lead the country?

As both parties are the same they need to convince voters to vote for them another way. And that is to bribe the electorate with spending promises. During the final leaders’ debate on TV1, Clark said that Labour could not responsibly put up the zero fees for doctors visits policy because of the current economic situation. After being pressed by Sainsbury she then conceded that they would still be putting up the universal student allowance policy. Clark was hoping that the student bribe will pull her through this election as it had before. Both parties announced they will be giving tax cuts, although National offered more than Labour. Labour said that this is because they cannot afford such cuts and there is no room to reduce spending. National said that it will be able to afford them by cutting spending elsewhere and then borrowing to meet the shortfall. By some twisted rational this is not borrowing for tax cuts; I would beg to differ. The billions that both parties offer up in election spending promises are all tax payers’ dollars. Both parties can’t afford to cut public spending or give substantial tax cuts but they can afford to pledge billions of our dollars away 

As every election time rolls around, all the pledges and promises emerge along with all the bribes designed to secure votes. When the time comes to get into power they will do and say anything to get there. There does not seem to be any public plan for the future, the focus based rather in the present pursuit of power. Once in power the real agenda comes out. With Labour we have seen the nanny state encroach into our houses further than ever before. The state controls how you bring up your children and now wants to control how you shower. With National you would expect them to cozy up to the United States and turn away from workers to business, but will probably not see them dismantle the Labour legacy in its first term.

Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of getting bribed at election time and kept in the dark about policies, instead politicians were straight up and laid their agenda on the table? Wouldn’t it be nice if they set a goal for the future and detailed how they were going to accomplish that goal? Is it too much to ask that we know what direction a party is planning on taking this country? No one foresaw the coming nanny state when Labour first came into power in 1999. No one really knows what National’s true agenda is and what path they will lead us down. We can only go on their track record and that is, to put it lightly, horrific.

What we need in this country is a party that sets a goal for the future and then says how it is going to reach that goal. A good goal could be to make the country completely self sustainable by 2020. You would start by building up industry in low socio-economic areas to generate jobs and alleviate poverty. You would start with the core things required to live, like food, clothing, and energy and after achieving self sufficiency in those areas move into other industries as well. The people would know the plan and know exactly what they were voting for. The benefit system could be gradually reformed to abolish the dole as more jobs are generated by the investment in industry. This system would have only the needy on the benefit, such as single mothers, those with disabilities, and the sick. Once we have a self sustainable country we want to keep it that way. Government would need to be reformed so that we don’t have parties getting into “power”, but instead those who are voted in would be the “custodians” of the country. They would be tasked with making sure that future generations inherit a self sustainable country intact, and not a sinking ship. To have a true democracy we need to have local body elections in which anyone can stand. Regional elections would follow in which those elected in the local elections would attend, culminating with national elections to elect those who will go off to parliament.

The tax system would have to be reformed so that we would be paying only direct apportioned taxes rather than an income tax. The financial system would also have to be reformed so that our dollar would be based on something tangible and not a worthless fiat currency vulnerable to the whims of the global economy. We would allow government to print its own money without charging itself interest. Government would be scaled back to have a much more minimal role with more emphasis being placed on communities making decisions at the local level. This is not to say that we would not have any national cohesion as the regional and national bodies would ensure this.

Surely this is a noble goal and much more preferable to the status quo. At the moment we have two major parties that are both maneuvering to take power and further their own agenda. They do not have public goals for the country and have done no good in all the chances they have been given, hence the current situation. That is why it is necessary for a new party and a new mindset for the governance of the country. Morals need to be brought back into politics, goals need to be set for the country. The nanny state has got to go.

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03 November 08
More "Maori" in Parliament?
By Reuben P. Chapple


The Maori Party looks increasingly likely to hold the balance of power after the upcoming election. 

Its bedrock negotiating position with respect to potential coalition partners is that the Maori Parliamentary seats be entrenched in law.  

The Maori Party also wants every New Zealander classified by ethnicity (presumably on the basis of boxes ticked on the census form) and all 18 year olds of even remotely Maori descent placed automatically onto the Maori electoral roll.  

Every census shows more Maori marrying or cohabiting outside the group with which they culturally identify. There has been a corresponding exponential increase in the number of New Zealanders with Maori ancestry.

Should the Maori Party get its way, the number of Maori seats would need to be expanded every election to keep pace with a growing “Maori” population. Over time, these clever race hustlers will have manipulated the mechanisms of representative democracy to engineer a "reverse takeover" of our Parliament.  

Before this is allowed to happen, the New Zealand public needs to understand why we have separate Maori seats in the first place, and whether there is a valid argument for their retention. If not, they must be abolished.  

When the Maori Representation Act was introduced in 1867, the right to vote rested on a property qualification, and was restricted to property-owning males.  

It is now widely held that the Act was introduced because Maori were disenfranchised by their multiple ownership of land. This is incorrect.  

Maori in possession of a freehold estate to the value of twenty-five pounds – even if “held in severalty” – were entitled to vote.  

The real problem was the disputed ownership of customary Maori land which had not yet become subject to a registrable proprietary title, the proof of the then prevailing electoral requirement.  

When the 1867 Act was still at the Bill stage, the view was expressed in Parliament that the Maori Land Court (established in 1865) would have resolved all these questions within five years.  

The Maori Seats created by the Act were intended as an interim measure for five years only. It was hoped that by this time enough Maori would hold land under freehold title to remove the need for separate representation.

However, in 1872, the temporary provision was extended for a further five years. Before that period expired, the Maori Representation Continuance Act 1876 decreed that separate representation would continue “until expressly repealed by an Act of the General Assembly.”  

In effect, the 1867 Act gave Maori the manhood franchise 12 years before European males were accorded the same right. It was not until 1879 that the Qualification of Electors Act introduced European male suffrage as an alternative to the property qualification.  

Universal suffrage in 1893 extended voting rights to all New Zealanders, subject only to an age qualification. Any practical reason for separate Maori seats had altogether disappeared.  

However, “politics as usual” kept the Maori seats in place for more than a century past their use-by date. The bottom line: politicians liked the fact that a separate Maori constituency could be pork barrelled in return for political support.  

When Parliament finally reviewed the Maori seats in 1953 along with a major re-alignment of Maori electoral boundaries, the vested interests of both Labour and National meant the issue was quietly shelved.  

In the 1946 General Election, the two parties were tied for general seats. It was only Labour’s hold on the four Maori seats which enabled it to remain the government.  National, for its part, feared that cutting the Maori seats would bring thousand of Labour-voting Maori flooding onto the general roll in its marginal rural electorates.  

In the 1980s, the Maori seats were increasingly linked with the independence aspirations of Maori nationalists, and turned into a political hot potato.  Pressure exerted by these groups meant that after the MMP electoral system was introduced in 1993, the number of Maori seats became tied to the number of New Zealanders electing to register on the Maori roll.  After several well-publicised taxpayer-funded enrolment drives, these seats have increased in number from four to seven.  

It is today widely believed that the Maori seats have some kind of quasi-constitutional status and should be retained as long as Maori want them. This is a bogus argument for retention.  

The Treaty of Waitangi does not provide for separate Maori political representation. Nor is there any constitutional basis for its existence.  

What the Treaty does provide for is that all New Zealanders, irrespective of cultural affiliation, ethnicity, religious belief, or indeed any other distinguishing characteristic, will enjoy equality in citizenship. This means the universal suffrage subject only to an age qualification that has been in place since 1893.  

The Maori Party’s non-negotiable demand for the Maori seats to be entrenched in law with all 18 year olds of Maori descent placed automatically onto the Maori roll thus poses a serious threat to our representative democracy. 

The Maori seats have got to go, as do the race-hustlers of the motley Maori Party, none of whom would stand even a remote chance of gaining election in a general seat by playing the race card.  

Most New Zealanders of all races are roundly sick of identity politics. If John Key and the National Party undertook to place all New Zealanders onto a single electoral roll as a first order of business on becoming the Government, they would be able to govern alone on a landslide.

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08 September 08
Teaching My Kids to Read and Write
By Ronald Kitching


Because our three young boys were not learning to read and write at the state school, we decided to engage a private teacher to rectify the matter.

I was informed by the state that it was illegal to employ private teachers and that my boys had to attend the state school, or a school approved of by the state. I was informed that the boys all had dyslexia and that was an impediment to learning. In any case, the state insisted on ‘testing’ the boys intellectual capacity. 

The eldest boy Peter and I flew to Brisbane and there we spent two days while they tested him. The chief tester informed me very officially “there is nothing wrong with his eyes, his ears or his intelligence, but he has certainly missed out.” “Yes”, I replied, “and he has missed out in your state schools. These days you are not teaching them to read and write properly.”

We had a bit of a ‘go in’ as you may call it and the EduFuhrer informed me that they were starting a new school in Brisbane for children who had ‘missed out’. “It should be an easy matter for a man like you to board him out close to the school”, she suggested to me.

Naturally I was appalled, as the boy was at that time only approaching 9 years of age.

The lady Edufuhrer then informed me that they wished to test my second boy. So again, Robert and I flew to Brisbane. After the two day test the Edufuhrer asked me, “Have you noticed that this boy is particularly intelligent?”.  “Yes”, I replied, “we have noticed that he has an extraordinarily good visual memory”. The Edufuhrer noted that again, this boy needed to “come to Brisbane” to attend their new remedial school.

“And when will you be bringing your third son to see us” she demanded. I replied, “I shall not be doing that, as he is like the other two boys, bright and intelligent and it is a huge expense for us to endure these unnecessary trips to Brisbane.

I told her that I would find a teacher and engage in a private remedial course at home. Well again the Edufuhrer informed me that that sort of action invited state penalties including jail. 

Because I was looking,  I got to know a very good teacher who knew how to teach properly. I made her an offer to teach my three boys and she was delighted. We sealed the deal and she advised the Education Department of her resignation at the end of the year, as she proposed to work for me. As a courtesy, I also advised the Edufuhrer that we were starting private tuition at the beginning of the year.

The next episode was when the lady teacher visited me in a very tearful state. She said that the Education Department advised her that if she took this job, privately tutoring the Kitching children, she would never ever be employed by the state again. In short, she was blackmailed. I immediately told her that she was, under the circumstances, under no obligation to me.

I was on a business trip to New Guinea where my business partner and I had interests, when a friend told us that he had organised a dinner party that evening with some friends and asked us if we would like to attend. And so we did.

Quite by chance I found myself sitting next to an adult but small girl from Scotland. As the dinner got going I asked her, “And what do you do Fiona?” “I teach” she replied. “And what do you teach” I asked, “I teach infants,” she answered with a flourish. Then I asked, “Do you like teaching Fiona?” “I love it, I am a born teacher, I specialise in teaching English” was her reply. I got to know her a bit better as the night wore on. I was careful enough to swap business cards with her.

Next morning I rang her from the Port Moresby hotel. I suggested, “Fiona, I’d like you to come to the hotel for morning tea, as I wish to discuss a proposition with you”. She answered in a very sharp tone, “What sort of proposition?” I replied, “It’s a business proposition involving teaching. I do not wish to discuss it over the phone as it is a bit involved. If it would make you feel any better bring one of your mates with you.”

And so at about 10 am she turned up with a mate. I told her the story, showed her a picture of the family and she agreed that so long as I paid the airfares and expenses, she would fly from her family home in Hobart to Cairns after Christmas, and stay with the family for a week while she decided whether to take the position or not.

She was only at our home for a day and a half and she told me that she decided that she would certainly take the job. I told her I was astonished that she had decided so quickly, she replied that she was afraid that she may be getting into a situation where she had to deal with the spoiled children of over-indulgent parents, “But I can see that that is not the case”, she observed.

So I bought a used Holden for her to use, fitted it out with seat belts all around, arranged a flat for her in town and at the beginning of the school year the teaching began.

The state Edufuhrer was furious, as first of all, she could not blackmail Fiona, as Fiona had never ever had anything whatsoever to do with Queensland Education, she was trained in Scotland. However, the Edufuhrer insisted on ‘testing’ the boys in June and December at an institution she had established in Townsville. I was warned that should the experiment be failing, the boys would be required to immediately return to the tender loving care of the state. Furthermore I could be subject to serious penalties including a jail term as the operation remained illegal.

After the June test she rang me and advised me that I was a very lucky man indeed, as I had acquired an excellent teacher. And after the December test she rang to say that the eldest boy had done 3 years work in a single year. “What do you think of his dyslexia now?” I inquired. She ignored my rude remark and replied that the other two boys were also up to date. “They can now all return to school” she firmly dictated. “No they won’t, I have given up on the state.” As Fiona had planned to stay only for the year, I organised another teacher.

The new teacher was recently married and had already resigned from the Indoctrination department, so she too, was for the time being, immune from blackmail. She too was a good teacher and maintained standards. Meantime the Edufuhrer fumed and plotted.

Then my teacher’s husband received a transfer to the State Agricultural Research Station at Walkamin about halfway between Atherton and Mareeba. At that time the Education department was advertising a teaching position for Walkamin for the beginning of the following year. After discussing it with me she applied, intending to stay the full year with me. 

The next episode was when she came to me in tears. She tearfully sobbed, “The education department had contacted me and told me that unless I immediately ceased teaching the Kitching boys, I will never ever be employed by the state again.” On the other hand, if she resigned immediately, she would be placed at Walkamin at the beginning of the next term, six months before the advertised position was to be filled.

Of course I agreed that she should resign and I started my boys at the Kairi State School not far from our farm. If anything, they went down hill again until I started them at All Souls in Charters Towers as boarders after grade seven. 

All of the boys were apprenticed at Mount Isa Mines and, after becoming tradesmen, Peter and Robert became Power House Operators there, before moving on to better things. Graham, also became a tradesman, and now, although well versed in practically every form of Engineering there is, is a fully qualified Gas Engineer and holds a responsible senior position with Origin Energy in Sydney.

I am proud to add that all of the boys excelled at their respective trades, winning awards etc.

The only reason a  system of state education was started in the first place was to ensure that our children learn to read and write to a reasonable standard. But as it is a bureaucracy, and cannot respond to the profit and loss system, it has all got out of hand.

Not only in Queensland, and all over Australia, but in most English speaking countries, education is a big problem. It is a well known fact too, that all have had, and still are experiencing reading and arithmetical problems with students. The fact of the matter is that in 99.9% of cases, it is not the students who are the problem, nor is it the teachers, but the state. The state resists serious competition. In fact it has abolished it.

The essential weak feature of state education is the absence of competition. Every teacher must conform; every student must conform; if they learn anything at all, it is only what the state wishes them to know. And the higher the level the more rigid becomes the framework within which the teachers must conform. Universities have, since Federation become hot-houses of anti-British sentiment and hot-houses of socialism

State education from primary school to secondary and on to University level has become today, a socialist indoctrination programme. 

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28 August 08
Poor Language Skills Disadvantages Student 
By Les Allen

I must say that I am saddened (but not surprised) by the observations about poor written language skills exhibited by many - if not most - of today’s New Zealand school-leavers.

I am a retired university lecturer, with extensive tertiary-level teaching experience, initially in the UK (Central London Polytechnic School of Management), and latterly, as a Senior Lecturer (School of Management, Victoria University, Wellington).

The low written language skills exhibited by disturbing numbers of my students manifested themselves in:

• Lack of basic spelling ability;

• Inability to convey adequately, in writing, what they mean;

• Poor standards of comprehension;

• Inability to parse written work to a readily comprehensible standard (in fact, many clearly don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘parse’).

While these and other related language shortcomings may be acceptable in some walks of life they certainly strike a discordant note at a tertiary level. So far as competence is concerned, many New Zealand educated students have entered a linguistic graveyard spiral long before they enter the doors of tertiary institutes.    This leads me to the conclusion that, at primary and secondary levels of education in New Zealand, teaching of basic written language skills has fallen over. It seems that, in effect, pupils are emerging with the belief that low standards of English language are okay.

When I went to primary and secondary school I was taught that correct spelling and grammar were essential when writing essays. Grammar included sentence construction, punctuation and spelling. Errors were drawn to my attention and I was required to demonstrate, through practical exercises, that I had understood the nature of my error and mastered the correct approach.”Write out the misspelt words 50 times”.You always spelled them correctly after that!

After completing my tertiary education I worked for several years in sales and marketing, written communications with existing and potential customers had to meet competent standards.

During my years as an educator I applied what I had learned, and expected to find evidence that the linguistic principles and rules (especially relating to clarity) I deemed to be essential would be evident in written assignments submitted by students. Alas, I was too often disappointed. Many submissions were near-incomprehensible, containing bad grammar, poor spelling, misuse of words (spellchecker-disease), and lax punctuation. Indeed, poorly or unpunctuated sentences more than half a page in length were not uncommon.

I was often asked to make comments on CVs and accompanying job applications. I can say with certainty that if many of those I was asked to ‘vet’ had been submitted to myself by a job applicant, they would have been immediately consigned to the waste-paper bin.

Alas, it is undeniable that written language basics are no longer being satisfactorily taught to many New Zealand school pupils – a growing future generation of semi-illiterate adults.

Who is to blame?

Am I expecting too much? I think not, and in any case, as a tertiary educator many times I asked myself: “is it my job to be engaged in remedial English teaching, attempting to patch failures in primary and secondary education.”    

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12 August 08
The Climate Change Agenda
By Steven O'Connor


Firstly let me state that I was one of the scientists that signed the Manhattan Declaration, and as such, I am a "denier". Secondly, I am in the oil business, which appears to disqualify me from commenting on global warming, (aka climate change for those that want a bob each way), despite the fact that I have spent the last 40 years of my career studying the stratigraphic response to climate change over the last 2000 million years. An understanding of stratigraphy and its predictability in response to climate change is the fundamental underpinning of oil exploration, and indeed all sedimentary geology.  I won’t elaborate, as most thinking people are fully aware of the way climate has radically changed in response to astronomical events, tectonic activity and the creation of a biosphere.

As a brilliant example, there is a rock deposit in the western USA called the Green River Formation. This deposit records around 2.5 million years of sediments deposited in a large lake. Many people have seen the fossils from this lake without
realising the significance in terms of climate change. These fossils can be found in many rock and crystal shops. They are beautifully preserved fish, reptiles, insects and plants that are around 50 million years old. This is the attraction for most people.

However, the real story is this:

These rocks contain layers of alternate light and dark bands known as “varves”, which represent semi-annual deposits (winter and summer) over that period. On close examination, however, the pollen/spore content shows a cyclical pattern of tropical/temperate/arid conditions with almost monotonous repeatability over
the whole period.

The story gets better.

Because these rocks are exposed at the surface, rock cores have been taken
to cover the 2.5 million year span of the life of the lake. These varves, to the naked eye, just look like a series of repeated layers, albeit some thicker than others. There is a mathematical technique called Fourier Transform Analysis. One use for this is to resolve a jumble of radio signals into the individual frequencies. When photoscans of these rock layers were analysed using this technique via computer analysis a remarkable resolution was uncovered. When the layers were resolved into their individual frequencies, a climate pattern emerged that could be directly correlated with:

1) 8-10 year El Nino cycles
2) ~30-year possible sunspot cycles
3) Earth's ~20,000 year axial wobble (Milankovitch Cycle)
4) 100,000-year precession around the Sun.

A dissertation sent to the Sunday Star Times about 2-3 years ago, in response to their request for submissions, was rejected (or edited out to become pointless) on the grounds that "the science is settled". And this is where the nasty face of politics and quasi-religion comes into the picture.

Did you ever wonder what happened to all the radicals after Communism was discredited? Did they go quietly into the night? Not at all. They found a cause - the climate change movement - that was closely aligned to their previous agenda. The best definition of western Communism I have heard is “Organised Envy”. In New Zealand, for example, they seamlessly moved from the Alliance to the Green Party, where, thanks to MMP, they have become a powerful voice that knows which buttons to press with the credulous masses. What appeals to the radicals is that the agenda is anti-capitalist, and particularly anti-American. In their usual agitprop manner (a 60's term for Marxist agitation propaganda) they have hijacked the climate debate and used their tactics of oppression against those scientists that accept climate change is occurring, but deny it is all caused by greedy right-wingers. One can see in the language of correspondents all the left-wing rhetoric: neo-conservative, deniers, consumerism etc. The call to ban publication of opposing views to anthropogenic climate change is also typical of totalitarian regimes. It has worked, however, as many scientists, particularly geologists, to whom the study of historical climate change is fundamental to their profession, are now afraid of officially raising their head on the issue.

Last year at an Australian conference I met geoscientist Dr S Djin Nio, who has used the concept of orbital forcing to predict rock systems and has subsequently patented the technique. He runs a short course for the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers called “Climate Stratigraphy”: Principles and Applications in Subsurface Correlation. He has also recently worked with his team on ice cores and has demonstrated that the Earth moves from mini - Ice Ages to hot periods over a 500-year cycle. He has had his paper refused for publication. He was bemused and asked me why. I filled him in on the politics.

I have now just seen the most frightening website for anthropogenic climate change campaigners. I thought at first it was a spoof, but not so. This website, called Climate Cops (www.climatecops.com) is provided by npower from the UK. It is geared at young children and teenagers, who are encouraged to snoop around their parents' and relatives houses to look for "climate crimes". They are then supposed to prepare a report and submit it to gain membership to the Climate Cops. Their parents/relatives/friends will then be "encouraged to mend their ways, or else". What the "or else" means is not specified. This is basically the tactic of the Hitler Youth or the Communist Pioneers to dob in their heretical families. An exposé is presented on http://eureferendum.blogspot.com:80/2008/07/climate-nazis.html

I believe that this sort of thing must be fought at all costs, as it will come to New Zealand should the current Labour/Green government get elected. Thinking scientists must stand up and be counted, lest we descend into an eco-fascist State. The debate must be allowed to go on, and a determined push made for a return to reason. The very nature of civilisation is at stake. 

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12 August 08
Oil is NOT a Fossil Fuel 
By Peter J. Morgan B.E. (Mech.), Dip. Teaching


We all grew up believing that oil is a fossil fuel, and just about every day this ‘fact’ is mentioned in newspapers and on TV. However, let us not forget what Lenin said – "A lie told often enough becomes truth."

Soon after the end of World War II, the Soviet dictator, Stalin, realised that the then Soviet Union needed its own substantial oil reserves and production system if it was ever again called upon to defend itself against an attacker such as Hitler's Germany. In 1947, the Soviet Union had, as its petroleum ‘experts’ then estimated, very limited petroleum reserves. Stalin’s response was to set up a task force of top scientists and engineers in a project similar to the Manhattan Project – the top-secret US program to develop the atom bomb during WWII – and initially under the same secrecy, and charged them with the task of finding out what oil was, where it came from and how to find, recover and efficiently refine it.

In 1951, the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins was first enunciated by Nikolai A. Kudryavtsev at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. Kudryavtsev analysed the hypothesis of a biological origin of petroleum, and pointed out the failures of the claims commonly put forward to support that hypothesis.

Stalin’s team of scientists and engineers found that oil is not a ‘fossil fuel’ but is a natural product of planet earth – the high-temperature, high-pressure continuous reaction between calcium carbonate and iron oxide – two of the most abundant compounds making up the earth’s crust. A team consisting of Russian scientists and Dr J. F. Kenney, of Gas Resources Corporation, Houston, USA, have actually built a reactor vessel and proven that oil is produced from calcium carbonate and iron oxide, as detailed on the Gas Resources website www.gasresources.net/AlkaneGenesis.htm

A continuous reaction occurs naturally at a depth of approximately 100 km at a pressure of approximately 50,000 atmospheres (5 GPa) and a temperature of approximately 1500°C, and will continue more or less until the ‘death’ of planet earth in millions of years’ time. The high pressure causes oil to continuously seep up along fissures in the earth’s crust into subterranean caverns, which we call oil fields. Oil is still being produced in great abundance, and is a sustainable resource – by the same definition that makes geothermal energy a sustainable resource. All we have to do is develop better geotechnical science to predict where it is and learn how to drill down deep enough to get to it. So far, the Russians have drilled to more than 13 km and found oil. In contrast, the deepest any Western oil company has drilled is around 4.5 km. This explains why Russia is today one of the world's major oil and gas producers and exporters.

The current US energy strategy, driven by the erroneous beliefs that oil is a fossil fuel and that its supply will soon be exhausted, is illogical. Given the fact that oil is produced naturally at rates far in excess of what mankind could ever conceivably consume, it makes absolutely no sense for any nation to buy it from foreign sources if it is cheaper to drill for and pump its own – and that is precisely what the US should be doing immediately.

If the US switched from being a net consumer in the world oil market to becoming a net supplier, the price of oil would plunge, perhaps to around $US30 per barrel, with the result that the world's economies would boom as never before.

Most importantly, people would have confidence to invest in their futures, safe in the knowledge that oil would never run out. A bonus would be that the US military-industrial-political complex would no longer feel the need to use military force to control the Middle East's oil supplies, and neither would any other world power. A further bonus would be that all subsidies to producers of alternative fuels and energy supplies could be removed, with the result that such production would occur only if it was economically viable, which would mean that most such producers would either cease, or greatly scale down, their businesses. All development of wind farms would cease forthwith as they are so uneconomic and so unreliable, apart from being unsightly blots on so many landscapes.

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12 August 08
A Piece of History: Submission on Private Schools Integration Act 1975
By Colin Rawle

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed review of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act, 1975. I submit my views as a private individual. However it is likely that a large percentage of anyone associated with Rudolf Steiner schools - and 100% of those who have intensively studied their spiritual / philosophical / sociological basis, would concur with what I say.

I have studied the art of Rudolf Steiner education for some twenty years. Both my sons were Steiner educated, in New Zealand and the U.K. One is a Doctor of physics and the other is a biochemist. My wife and I have both worked in Steiner schools in various capacities, and we were part of the initiative group which established the Motueka Rudolf Steiner kindergarten in 1984.

There is essentially just one important point that I wish make- a point however which is pivotal to the whole ongoing dilemma of education and which encompasses most of the issues the government currently wishes to address. These issues will only finally be resolved by squarely facing the central issue, i.e. freedom - individual, intellectual, and spiritual freedom.

In simple terms, the State - i.e. politicians - do not have any legitimate role to play in education beyond the provision of the required funding.

Politicians are not, and should not aspire to be educators. It is simply not their role. Such erroneous thinking carries with it dangers which should be self evident. It is flawed thinking to assume that because the state supplies the finance for education that it therefore has right to direct it, or influence it in any way.

In the first place, if there is any group in society which has expertise in the field of education then that group surely must be teachers, not politicians. Unfortunately, the states long involvement and influence in teacher training itself has made even this general truth somewhat questionable.  

 Secondly, the money that the state supplies to education is, of course, public money - it belongs to the public. "Government money" is a dangerous illusion. There is no such thing. The management of a nations’ money carries with it only responsibilities, not rights. Therefore politicians have no inherent right to impose any conditions upon the supply of public money to responsible social institutions. Of course, the actual amount of money the state supplies to any given institution is a separate matter and will be subject to the usual practical budgetary considerations.  

The 1975 Private Schools Integration Act was an enlightened piece of legislative innovation - seriously compromised by the state's mistaken belief that it must control education, and by clear inference, its social purpose. Knowingly or unknowingly, this type of thinking seeks to shackle the minds of the future to the past.

Every aspect of education and its administration should be the exclusive concern and responsibility of practising teachers who through their interest and dedication have made this field of work their vocation. Here is the reason that it is a mistake to allow proprietors and community appointed school trust boards, (where these are not also teachers), to have any input into purely educational matters - such as teaching appointments. They are simply not qualified in this capacity.

Ideally proprietors and trust boards would be a single body which assists the teachers in all those practical matters in a school which are not directly concerned with education itself. However under existing arrangements the proprietors must remain free and independent in their role of maintaining the special character of an independent school.

If it has been accepted that a private / independently initiated school is well founded and delivering proper education then it should be state funded by right - just like a state school. This would put such schools on the same footing as state schools and eliminate the attendance fees problem. After all, the government, (i.e. the public), would have to meet the cost of educating the pupils of the said school in its absence.

Needless to say, there has never been any question of parents who have chosen an alternative fee paying education for their children of receiving any taxation rebate.

Hence, until the advent of state integration parents of pupils attending non state funded schools were effectively paying twice for their children's education.

Whether any school is religion based or secular is a matter of the individual freedom of those involved. It is no concern of the state.

In this connection I note that a question in the questionnaire speaks of - "an absolute right for all students to attend a secular school", but there is no mention of an absolute right for students to attend a religion-based school.

Instead there is a question which asks for reasons why provision should not be made for religion based schools. This is of concern. It is a mistake to believe that secular education leaves a pupil intellectually and psychologically free, and that a religion based education does not - because in the absence of any concept of a religious world view, a secular world view must automatically fill the void created. A person, especially a child is a much influenced by being deprived of ideas and concepts as they are by being introduced to them.

In any event, there is absolutely no chance of anyone avoiding exposure to the secular world view in today's society. Therefore an obvious imbalance is created if a religious / spiritual world view is withheld from children - and secularism is as much a belief system as is religion.

There is no risk, given competent auditing, in the state relinquishing full responsibility for education to suitably qualified educators drawn from the diverse wider community. The risk rather lies in control of education by the political sphere, wherein some degree of adherence to a particular socio / political philosophy or ideology is the general rule.   

Further to this, the auditing of all schools should be the responsibility of a politically independent organisation of experienced teachers. As far as adherence of any school to its special character is concerned, only those with intimate knowledge of its special character are competent to assess this.

"All who meditate upon the art of education are convinced that the fate of empires depends upon the education of youth". Aristotle.  

I realise that what I have said is unlikely to be influential, but there are times when the truth should be clearly and unequivocally stated.     
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25 July 08
Wealth Creation Not Social Responsibility
By Stewart Haynes

A seventeen year-old Westlake Boys High School pupil, Alex Mackenzie bedazzled a collective of business leaders at a function in Auckland honouring new laureates into the Fairfax Media Hall of Fame.

This young whipper snapper, described in an article in a recent Dminion Post article as a business executive, gave a “blistering attack on modern business ethics” in his presentation to 400 of the nation’s “business elite.”

The Dominion quoted from Alex Mackenzie’s speech:  “…we live in a world where efficiency and profit are elevated above ethics and morals. Often it is both the political and business leaders of the world who are encouraging this. I am a young 17-year old in this ever increasing corrupt world. If the only people I have to look up to are going to encourage me to sacrifice my soul for money, what hope do we have for the future of the world? …the laureates inducted that night into the Hall of Fame achieved success by concentrating on doing what was right for their customers and on philanthropy – not simply chasing profits”.

These words of wisdom were greeted with the loudest applause of the night!

There is an increasing idealism that is creeping into business culture that is championing the concept of corporate social responsibility. This deserves to be challenged. Our schools seem to be aiding this fashionable trend of promoting triple bottom line accounting where social and environmental responsibility is promoted above financial bottom line objectives.

Alarmingly, Alex Mackenzie, is part of the Young Enterprise Scheme, that encourages our youth to learn and experience running a business. I guess Alex’s business principals reflect the culture that is prevalent in our education system.

It seems that political correctness has taken precedence over core business principals. The first duty of a business is to its shareholders and employees is to make a profit. The old-fashioned, one-dimensional financial bottom line must always take precedence. The failure to do so, has its own serious social consequences.

Business is the wealth-creating institution of society. Its prime “social” role is to meet consumers' needs in the most efficient manner, and this is how capitalism has raised living standards to the level we enjoy today.

Business should not be seen as a social welfare adjunct, however it is unsettling to discover that pupils like Alex Mackenzie will soon be joining the profit apologists that are establishing themselves in our business community.

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13 July 08
Roadworks Code of Compliance 
By John Carter

It is of concern that there is not a code of compliance for road works signage.

In some situations there is signage all over the place, no men or machinery on the road (there could be or could have been). We are asked to slow to 30kmph and indeed if we do not then a policeman can cite us for an infringement.

Therefore there is a responsibility toward the motorist to provide a realistic appreciation of the danger to themselves as well as to the safety of the personnel who work on the road.

The real problem seems to be that in approaching road works with no personnel or equipment apparent a driver may be seen  to not comply with the warning signs. That is dangerous because of the cry wolf situation when there is a danger to themselves or the personnel working.

It is proposed that a graduated system be applied which more truthfully reflects the situation and that a trained and qualified person in the gang  puts the signs up according to the code of compliance.

There is the ! sign, a LSZ sign, 80, 50, 30, stop signs.

! and the men at work sign would indicate that there is road works ahead or the road is not secure and you may need to slow.

Next a LSZ would indicate to proceed with caution no personnel are present and nothing is being done but work to the side of the road , no road markings, or the surface has loose stones. It would also serve as  slow down to the following signs. Emphasising the catch phrase “Drive to the conditions when they change reduce your speed.”

80 would indicate that people are present and equipment moving to the side of the road but not impeding the flow of traffic, loose stones had not been swept, 50 would indicate work on the road surface or traffic across it and diversion likely, water damage to the road, potholes 30 would indicate that you should be prepared to stop, major road works are causing you to drive on a broken surface.

And stop for stop.

At night signage and diversions are universally in the dark and that is worse if the driver is not familiar with the route, or it is raining. I propose that any requirement to slow to below 50 is lit with warning lights and route lights.

And when road works are completed the signs are removed.

As part of this process of giving drivers more responsibility, it could mean that where drivers did not comply and obviously went through road works with no concern, the qualified person could forward their registration number to the police who would issue a warning; three such warnings over a year could constitute an infringement. 

The signs would be placed say a stipulated 500m from each relevant zone so that the driver knows he has 500 m to comply with the roadwork signs which are 500m up the road.

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3 July 08
Chinese Free Trade - Path to the New Third World 
By Frederick Van Dorestien

Democracy is a very poor form of government but precious to citizens who value human rights; individual rights, equal opportunity, the right of free speech and the right to chose governments and construct democratic law.  Such vital functions of freedom have not yet been won by the Chinese people.

The Chinese Communist Party rules with oppression and totalitarian power that crushes any form of opposition.  A multitude of detention camps and organ transplant hospitals are strategically placed in China to round up any outbreak of emerging democracy and break its body and spirit. These labour detention camps manufacture product marketed in Australia and New Zealand.

COMMERCIAL PREPARATION...
The Communist’s aim is to gain tacit control of raw materials vital to maintain their hold on absolute Chinese political power and manufactured wealth provided by an exploited and controlled labour market that is not liberated. There is noticeable investment infiltration into New Zealand and Australian strategic public utilities like power generation networks, grids and large electricity generating corporations. The Chinese Government is also currently purchasing substantial slices of Australian mineral resource companies and is in a hostile takeover of a leading ore producing Australian corporation. Parliaments are politically indifferent to these emerging trends on both sides of the Tasman.

THE PATH TO THE NEW THIRD WORLD...
In traditional economic terms, a third world nation was categorised by impoverishment caused by insufficient wealth per capita for citizens to purchase basic household items.  Such circumstances prevented the development of manufacturing industries within the country that could produce essential items for domestic consumption.  These inadequacies prohibited successful economic and employment growth.

Over the last two decades parliaments have stood by and witnessed the ongoing demolition of our manufacturing industries.  Much of this condescension has been justified on the need to display benevolence on the global stage due to the wealth of first world nations compared to emerging or developing countries.  

During this period many third world nations have exploited opportunities and mobilised ultra low cost and slave labour into a potent means in which to develop manufacturing industries.  Thus the third world has been reclassified as the Developing World. These developing nations have been producing enormous balance of trade surpluses through investment connections with global business for the founding expertise and capital required.  Whilst the first or developed world, including the nations of New Zealand and Australia, have continued to produce progressively larger balance of trade deficits.  Huge debt based, unsustainable, economic growth and importation of basic goods manufactured in developing countries has been the outcome.  Political indifference continues.

So what of future consequences…?   

THE EQUALISATION THEORY...
“The Equalisation Theory proposes that economic reversal is in motion between the Third World (Developing World) and the nations of the First World.  Whilst the Developing World is engaged in progressive development that produces constant surpluses in economic and trade terms, the First World maintains a consistent regression that results in the creation of unrelenting trade imbalances causing unsustainable deficits.  The theory is further reinforced by the ongoing transference of manufacturing industries, from the First World to the Developing World, in a reversal sense.”…Author.

It is not feasible to consider that First World nations can maintain sustainable economic health and current status without an extensive manufacturing industrial base.

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL...
The consequences of our First World debt growth based economies are identified with the present global “Credit Crunch” in 2008 that has resulted in a dramatic loss of company value on global share markets and continuing loss of productivity.  Our politicians must face the reality that our economies cannot compete against unfair non-free market countries.  Our modern politics simply accepts perceived inevitability and sidesteps national interest considerations.

The future holds a continuation of the current economic “Reversal Spiral” unless politics moves away from the imbalances of “Free” Trade Agreements toward bilateral agreements and importation border protection fee structures.  There are no choices. 

The “Ripples” or “Oscillations” produced as a by-product of debt based economies are exampled in the collapsing events of 2007 and 2008. The 2007 “oscillation” in the developed world share markets and the “current” 2008 “oscillation” have, globally, obliterated trillions of dollars worth of value from the share and finance markets.  Yet economists and politicians still refuse to accept that the path to economic failure is in motion and these “corrections” will become more frequent, deeper and last longer with each successive downward step of productivity regression. 

CHUNKS OF POVERTY...
In Australia, poverty continues to increase.  Today, some 2.5 million people are considered as existing below the poverty line.  Outward NZ migration by residents conceals New Zealand’s statistics.  The undisputable point is that fundamental flaws remain in our base economies through massive trade imbalances that are not being addressed by political parties or governments on either side of the Tasman.  

Following the Clarke government’s, politically motivated, Free Trade Agreement with communist China more manufacturers are closing down their New Zealand businesses and moving offshore to the developing world. The Free Trade public negotiation policy has clearly failed and must be abolished. 

The New Zealand Parliament had an excellent opportunity to start a process that would have arrested the present downhill path by acting on behalf of the majority of voters.  Thus circumventing the Chinese Free Trade Agreement that will continue to demolish vital manufacturing industries.

Frederick Van Dorestien - Political Economic Research, Wellington - is an assumed name in the interests of Author Privacy.

References:Canadian Independent Investigation Report (Chinese Organ Harvest), Melbourne Institute of Applied Research (Poverty),Wikipedia (Poverty), Trans Tasman Media (Articles)

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3 July 08
Rat bones reduce colonisation time???
By Martin Dout
Dr Janet Wilmshurst from Landcare Research has just published her paper purporting to show that the Pacific rat (Rattus Exulans) has only been in New Zealand since about the year 1280 AD. This finding supposedly proves that the species was introduced by the Polynesian-Maori. The announcement was hailed as something to celebrate by Maori-activist, Ranginui Walker, who stated that we can finally lay to rest the "Moriori Myth".

The use of Rattus Exulans as an indicator of  "first arrivals" was also employed fairly recently by Dr. Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii to prove that Polynesians were the first people to inhabit Easter Island . See: Late Colonization of Easter Island , by Hunt & Lipo, 2006. For insights into some of the problems Hunt & Lipo failed to addressed see: http://www.celticnz.co.nz/Easter%20Island/Easter%20Island%201.htm

In a similar vein, Wilmhurst states: "We are not saying that Maori arrived at any different time than we believed, but we are confirming that Maori were the first people to settle New Zealand . There wasn't this other group that arrived in 200 BC. ( Christchurch Press, June 4th, 2008).

She adds: "The researchers are now turning their attention to other islands in east Polynesia where similar controversies exist over the timing of initial human settlement".

These all-too-contrived statements sound suspiciously like social-engineering and have a resounding propaganda ring to them.

Unfortunately for Wilmhurst, her hypothesis is in direct conflict with the careful research of Richard N. Holdaway, Richard G. Roberts, Nancy R. Beavan-Athfield, Jon M. Olley and Trevor H. Worthy, who proved scientifically that the Pacific rat was in NZ at least a 1000-yrs before Maori arrived. See: Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand , Volume 32, Number 3, September 2002, pp. 463-505. This can be downloaded from the Internet at: http://www.rsnz.org/publish/jrsnz/2002/024.php

The paper concludes with two definitive statements:

"… hence, the presence of Pacific rats in the South Island nearly 1000 years before Polynesian settlement."  "… the hypothesis that Pacific rats did not reach the main islands of New Zealand until the time of Polynesian settlement about 750 years ago must be rejected".

The insurmountable problem for Dr. Janet Wilmhurst is that there were several stringently imposed controls that led to this conclusion by Holdaway and his colleagues. Two major ones were the carbon dating results and the fact that at least one specimen of Rattus Exulans had been found beneath undisturbed tephra ash deposits from a volcanic explosion, the date of which was well known.

Ash band layers play a very important part in dating the eras of New Zealand 's unfolding history. The wonderful thing about this fairly widely distributed tephra ash is that each band or layer carries its own unique signature and the source location of the ash can be identified. Coupled with that is the nature by which volcanic ash settles. The largest and heaviest particles fall first, so that the bottom of the band is the coarsest. The layering gets progressively more refined until the top layer, which can have the consistency of talcum powder. At least one of Holdaway's 1996 Rattus Exulans specimens came from beneath the Taupo explosion of (circa) 186 AD and it was ascertained by very careful observation that the rat had not burrowed down later to make a nest in the subsoil beneath the ash band.

Holdaway comments: "most archaeologists have never actually excavated through two feet of ash. It seals everything underneath it. You can see every last wormhole in it and you can see where there is damage to it. So if something is underneath you know it was there before the ash fell..." (See Rat Revisionist, NZ Listener, 7th of December 1996).

Using ash band layering, archaeologist Russell Price, in collaboration with some of New Zealand ’s leading scientists, uncovered clear signs of human activity at Poukawa, Hawkes Bay before the Waimihia volcanic explosion of 1320 BC.

As for the very deceptive way in which Holdaway's comprehensive research has been obscured or eclipsed by the press statements of Wilmhurst, he responded to one interested party in the following irate manner:

"As usual, Landcare misrepresented my research and results: I have never advocated a 200 BC colonization or even visitation. In fact, I was advocating an AD 1290 settlement before they were. That of course leaves open the question of TRANSIENT visits (think of Lieutenant James Cook). My data indicate some kind of visit by transients about AD 200… during which Pacific rats were introduced. The persistent miscitation of my data and views is rather annoying.

"She cannot have been referring to the SAME rat remains (the term 're-dating' is completely misleading because the rat bones are totally consumed in the dating process: dating another rat bone does NOT re-date the first one. That would seem to be common logic…)."

For a larger article on this topic go to: http://www.onenzfoundation.co.nz/Rats.htm

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3 July 08
Qualmark's Dark Green Agenda 
Stewart Haynes

Qualmark have bowed to political pressure by inserting an onerous environmental criteria into its quality assurance assessment system for accommodation providers, visitor activities, transport and services.

This is a knee-jerk reaction to appease political correctness and nanny state’s broader initiative to introduce an environmental doctrine to businesses and the public.

Qualmark New Zealand Limited is New Zealand tourism's official quality agency. It is a government - private sector partnership between Tourism New Zealand and New Zealand Automobile Association.

Accommodation providers undergo an assessment to become part of the Qualmark licensing system. Properties are required to meet minimum standards and star ratings are appraised on cleanliness, safety, security and comfort and a range of guest services.

Triple bottom-line, Left wing corporate babble-speak has been unilaterally introduced to businesses that are now expected to “tell a story” to the public about their commitment to “Responsible Tourism”

The environmental criteria will focus primarily on environmental concerns but will also measure any community activities the operator chooses to engage in.

For Qualmark licence holders providing motel accommodation, the new environmental criteria will simply be inserted as a separate section in Qualmark’s overall quality assurance assessment criteria. This means that environmental and social initiatives will be assessed alongside other sections of the assessment and will be reflected in the final Qualmark star gradings.  

What sort of weighting will Qualmark give to their new environmental criteria? Well, it will start off at 5% and will eventually blossom to 12% of the of the total quality assurance assessment. The priority of importance given to environmental issues in the assessment will eventually be prioritised first equal with cleanliness. Properties will be effectively forced to comply or put their star grading at risk.

Qualmark will impose their new environmental criteria to licence holders from 1 August 2008. There is an assurance from Qualmark that there will be no extra cost, however it is unclear how long this will be able to be sustained. The environmental criteria was seeded by government funding in 2006 with an injection of $300,000 over 2 years for research & development. The Government have pledged further funding of $840,000 over the next 3-years to help tourism businesses grasp the new Qualmark standards.

What impact will this have?  Arguably accommodation providers that introduce worm farms, compost waste and engage in feel good community activities such as sponsoring the local cat shelter could well boost the chances of a favourable star rating. Arguably the opposite could also occur with accommodation providers that have little opportunity or find it economically unsustainable to fully embrace the new environmental mantra. This will do nothing to advance the accommodation industry and will erode Qualmark’s assessment credibility with operators. Arguably this may also confuse the public whom will face difficultly trying to decipher what the tangible differences are between Qualmark’s star gradings.

There is no denying that Qualmark’s environmental guidelines are all worthy opportunities for some accommodation providers. Most Accommodation providers already have environmental practices based on actual consumer demand and economic sustainability. It should be up to the individual operator as to how their environmental practices can be furthered and promoted.

This initiative by Qualmark is the biggest shake up of its quality assurance assessment criteria since its inception. Ironically this has been announced with no direct consultation with the very operators that this will have the greatest impact on. There seems to be little understanding or empathy with what impact this may have on typical Ma & Pa small tourism businesses and will take the focus away from economic sustainability and tangible guest services.

Stewart Haynes is a second generation motelier that runs Teal motor Lodge in sunny Gisborne with his wife Lynda. They also own the business of White Heron Motor Lodge that is also situated in Gisborne. Stewart is a long time enthusiastic supporter of the motel industry and has previously served on his local tourism association and Motel Association executives. He was on the Qualmark Industry Development Board, is the immediate past national President of the Motel Association of NZ (MANZ) and is currently an accredited mentor for MANZ. More recently, Stewart has been elected to the board of Host Accommodation NZ.

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3 July 08
Climate Change 
By Ken Ring
By Ken Ring

The call to arms at the moment is that " we must stop climate change ". While we are at it we might also want to stop earthquakes, volcanoes and possibly the rotation of Earth, for all those contribute to the change of climate. Then there is the geographical location of countries, because distance from the equator largely determines seasonal temperature trends.