Thursday 14 October 2010

DOWN TO THE DOCTOR’S: Helen’s Puppet, and Winston’s Antidote

Libz leader Dr Richard McGrath ransacks the newspapers for stories and headlines on issues affecting our freedom.

This week: Helen’s Puppet, and the Antidote to Winston Peters

** (NZ HERALD) “Carter Tells Council: I’ll Dish Dirt On Senior MPs: Expelled ex-Labour MP Chris Carter threatens to not only throw the toys from the cot, but burn the whole house down…”

Professional victim/invalid Chris Carter declares war on the Labour Party establishment after he is chucked out for dissing Phil Goff. Now we wait to see whether Carter’s threats are hot air, or whether he can actually do further damage to the red socialists. If Carter’s  bluff is called and he is found to be the Hollow Man most of us think he is, I’m sure he’ll need another two months of sick leave.
    Chris, I’m sure you were thrown out of Labour because you’re gay. Go on, there’s still some mileage in that. Never mind about all the other gay people in the Labour Party. You’re special. You were always Helen Clark’s favourite lapdog. One has to wonder if the Great Painter herself, now busy running the lives of people in other countries with the UN, might have a hand in the shit-fighting going on in the red camp.
    Meanwhile, I can only cheer on Chris Carter from the sidelines and encourage him to rip the Nanny State Party to shreds.
    The blue socialists will also be watching with a broad smile on their fat little Tory faces.

** (CHRISTCHURCH PRESS) “Is Foreign Ownership Of Land So Bad?University lecturer Stephen Hickson challenges the xenophobic racists who only want people who look and sound like New Zealanders to own land here. Or rest homes…”

I agree with the arguments Stephen Hickson makes in favour of free trade and foreign investment, questioning petty demagogues like Winston Peters who shun foreign investment in New Zealand and who would prefer if we pulled down the shutters and became the North Korea of the South Pacific.
    (Poor old Winston Peters. On the comeback trail, he plays shamelessly to his constituency of those older folk taxed into poverty by the red and blue socialists (with the help of enablers like NZ First, the Maori Party, the Alliance and ACT) yet these poor impoverished folk keep voting their own thieves back into government.  Winston doesn’t want ownership of rest homes falling into the hands of foreigners (read: Asians). Does he know that ‘foreigners’ have bought up large swathes of the funeral directing industry?)
    Much of what Hickson says is good common sense. For instance:

        “The pool of savings in New Zealand is too small to fund this expansion and so we
      use the savings of people overseas who are willing to invest in a great place with
      great prospects.”

And:

        “To increase our savings is very simple - as a nation we just need to consume less.
      Of course the reality is never as simple as all that.”

Hickson gets a bit wobbly here though:

        “Are we prepared to reduce expenditure on health and education in order to save
      more? Remember the Government is a consumer and a saver as well. Are we prepared
      to reduce our standard of living in some other way?”

He seems to assume that the state is the best (?only) provider of “quality” health care and education. In fact, the record shows again and again that state provision of services is inefficient, coercive,and leaves people harmed.
    But he gets back on track later in the article:

        “New Zealand is a small trading nation in a much bigger world. That bigger world has
      a lot to offer us and every time we restrict foreign ownership we also reduce our access
      to the best know-how that the world has to offer.
        “For every foreign buyer looking to buy there is a New Zealander looking to sell.
      By restricting or preventing foreign ownership we are preventing a fellow New
      Zealander from selling what they themselves own for the best that they can get.”

And later:

        “When it comes to private businesses, assets and land it is odd to think that "we" own
      them. On the day before a New Zealand farm is sold to a foreign owner, I didn't own it
      and I had no right to say how that farm should be used.
        “The day after it is sold I still don't own it and I still don't have any rights to say how
      it is used.
        “The new foreign owner is also subject to the laws of the land just as much as the
      previous owner. If a piece of land is important for, say, access to a river or beach then
      that should be written explicitly into the title of the land. Who owns it is then irrelevant.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself. Bravo, Stephen!  For the record, my Party welcomes foreign investment in New Zealand,  and the jobs and prosperity such investment would without a doubt create.                

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny—when
the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson

2 comments:

Miguel said...

I think I agreed with what Mr Dirty said earlier. Mr Carter's so called dishing out the dirt on senior Labour MPs, be nothing more than just his sexual activities with some of those senior Labour MPs. We all know that it is something truly dirty.

Owen McShane said...

We have to be very careful about restricting the sale of farm land to overseas investors.
What if a famous University wants to set up a special college in NZ - STanford Business and IT school.
If they want to set it up on a decent campus at reasonable cost they will buy a large greenfields site on the urban periphery – just as Massey did at Albany.
The land will be rural and zoned for farming and will in all probability be operating as some kind of farm.
If foreigners are to be prevented from buying NZ farms where can such investors buy the land they need for their venture?
And the latest round of Beca/EDS district plans are going bonkers over protecting rural character and we know he Environment Court is prepared to stop any change in use that changes rural character.