DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Rodney, Rick and Moral Cesspits

Libertarianz leader Dr Richard McGrath takes his regularly irreverent look at some of the past week’s headlines.  Here are the headlines that caught his eye:

1. Ministers 'entitled' to dip into tax purse – >From perk-buster to perk-luster, Rodney Hide now slurps at the trough along with the other swine. Splitting hairs, he rationalizes that because the money had come from taxpayers via the Parliamentary Services budget, that was somehow better than if it came from taxpayers via the Ministerial Services budget. Rodney, those of us forced to subsidize you and your girlfriend on your overseas junket don’t make those sorts of distinctions.

What would a Libertarianz MP do in Rodney’s place? Firstly, he or she would pay their own way on overseas trips or not go at all. That would sort out which trips were really necessary and which ones were perks. My personal preference – not official Libz policy I hasten to add – would be to abolish all perks and for MPs to be self-funded or paid out of party funds.

Likewise election campaigns, with total freedom of speech (subject to liability for fraudulent and defamatory actions and utterances) and no limit on advertising or campaign spending. No compulsory funding of political parties you abhor and despise. Members of Parliament should meet only when necessary. Debates and voting could take place electronically. Bill English could stay ‘home’ in Dipton and vote from there on matters before the House.

If MPs needed to meet in person, they could hire a room somewhere for a day like the rest of us have to. The Beehive could be pulled down – it’s an architectural monstrosity anyway – and the prime land on which it sits  auctioned off to fund pensions and benefits for the elderly and permanently disabled or to pay off some of our overseas public debt.

Let’s get rid of a system that allows Rodney and others to milk the rest of us with shameless arrogance. Only the Libertarianz Party has the will to really change things. Give us your vote and put a stop to these and the other parasites that are sending this country broke.       

2. IRD on a roll with cheats – >Yes, the blood suckers are having a field day, thanks to laws that are unclear; that don’t firmly establish just how much the vampires can suck out of productive people. Even the big banks, with their teams of lawyers and accountants, are being clobbered, thanks to ‘greyness’ in our tax laws that leave the amount of tax ‘owing’ a matter of speculation. BNZ and Westpac found that out, to the tune of $1.6 billion.

This money is being lifted from investors and shareholders in these banks, who the Dompost calls ‘cheats.’ What an Orwellian twist on words. How can a person, or a company, acting in fiscal self-defence be labelled a cheat? It’s like calling a woman a ‘cheat’ for stopping a rapist from violating her body.

I didn’t think tax avoidance was illegal. Perhaps I’m wrong. But the pendulum has swung in favour of the Daywalkers – those who feed on human blood during daylight hours – thanks to subjective laws.

How would a Libertarianz government manage this gruesome situation? By doing what Grinning John is too scared to do. Cut government spending to the marrow. Stop paying child-killers to breed. Privatise funding of everything except justice, national defence and upholding the rule of law.

Abolish the IRD, destroy the files they hold on hard-working New Zealanders, and hold another inquiry into their loathsome activities. I am sure this could be funded by New Zealanders who have fallen victim to IRD persecution, and by others simply interested in seeing justice served.

Most importantly, replace the current wishy-washy legislation with objective law based on upholding individual rights so that the law was clear. If banks with unlimited legal resources can’t get their tax vulnerability sorted, what hope do the rest of us have?  

3. Insurer: Health bills out of control – Private insurers, such as Southern Cross, are struggling to cope with claims by members and policy holders for the costs of medical care. ACT MP John Boscawen is quite correct in laying blame at the feet of medical colleges – aided and abetted, I might add, by statutory bodies such as the Medical Council. It is the lack of competition, under the excuse of “maintaining professional standards”, that allows doctors and hospitals in a restricted market to charge high prices.

The cost of obtaining private medical care would plummet if restrictions were lifted and doctors from overseas were allowed to enter the market with no restrictions apart from the existing ones that punish deceit and coercion. That would encourage existing services to lift their game, our two medical schools to radically rethink how they operate (and open them up to competition), and cheaper more affordable alternatives in health care.

How would Libertarianz help free up the health industry? By removing the government as a commercial influence. By disbanding the Medical and Nursing Councils. By allowing different levels of care – such as nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants at lower cost than someone with full medical training. By removing subsidies for practitioners of the favoured Western style of medicine to establish equality without prejudice. By selling off our shamefully decrepit public hospitals. By devolving the health budget back to individuals, private insurers and voluntary groupings such as trade unions and friendly societies. By opening our borders to medical refugees from socialist hellholes such as the United Kingdom.

The high cost of private health care is a natural effect of state interference in the health industry. A free market, allowing health care pitched at varying levels of affordability, is the answer to the current mess.

4. Editorial: Labour loses moral compass – The “Data Research Party,” with few exceptions, are lying scum. This scathing editorial confirms it, exposing the mendacious activities of some of its senior vermin. Take the odious Rick Barker, for instance. Chucked out by the voters of Tukituki, Barker sneaked back in as a list MP - reason in itself to dump MMP as our electoral system.

Barker advocates his pollsters misrepresent themselves under a false banner.

Party whip Darren Hughes – a ginger whinger who’s another electorate reject - backs the duplicity of Barker, as does party leader Phil-in Goff.

I wonder how many other lies Labour told or covered up during their nine years in office. I commend the Sunday Star Times for doing this once something Barker, Hughes and Goff evidently can’t at all - telling the truth.

See y’all next week!
Doc McGrath