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| Cartoon by Nick Kim, from The Free Radical |
The so-called Taxpayers Union/Free Speech Union folk should be doing good work. They oppose the theft of taxpayers (they say) and support free speech (they claim). But they repeatedly demonstrate that they ain't got an f'ing clue about the very thing(s) which they are allegedly set up to oppose or support.
Take for example their latest campaign: "[to] highlight the concerns of ratepayers and councils threatened by the Government’s proposed replacement to the Resource Management Act."
New Zealanders are rightly frustrated with the cumbersome Resource Management Act [they say], which restricts how we use our land and has fuelled a serious infrastructure and housing shortage [and so it has], but this proposed replacement will make the situation much worse [and so it will].Sounds good, right? Because -- hard as it it to believe it -- the government's proposed replacement to the RMA really is even worse than the original! And that ain't easy to do.
So, good on them for their organised opposition.
But -- and here's the problem -- they have absolutely no idea what's wrong with the proposed replacement.
Are they against the replacement because it makes property law even more amorphous and misunderstandable than it is now? Not a bit of it.
Are they opposed because it puts racism right at the centre of environmental and property law? No, no mention of that.
Are they raising their banners against it because if further immiserates property rights -- stripping away from you even more control over your own land, and giving that power to clipboard-wielding planners? No, not at all.
Instead, it appears they're just outraged that those planners will no longer be employed by your local council, but instead by regional councils. And that's the extent of their stated opposition. See what I mean:
Not content with seizing water assets from local communities [they say], the Government is now proposing to grab planning powers from local councils and transfer them to fifteen unaccountable, undemocratic, so-called Regional Planning Committees. At this rate there won’t be much left for your council to do.
As if that would be a bad thing.
The Taxpayers Union/Free Speech Union folk need a lesson in the things they claim to be about. Because at the moment, their opposition is about as confused and as fatuous as a fart.
5 comments:
To the extent government is involved in delivering basic services, and processing consents; the evidence is clear that the less local, more centralised and distant they are from the ballot box, the worst their performance and decisions tend to be. So they do have a point, albeit not the most fundamental of points.
The Taxpayers Union opposition to this new law is wide-ranging and much more useful than your vulgar simile.
Too many lawyers in these organisations and not enough philosophy , but it’s a start.
@MarkT:
... and it's the fundamental point (property rights) that they always seem to miss. In this, and in their flaccid free speech arguments.
@Max Ritchie:
...I'd be very happy to be proven wrong. Can you?
@Rex:
... "too many lawyers" is where many problems seems to start. But if this is a start, its a very limp-wrested one.
@ Peter - I suppose they're different approaches. One is to go back to fundamentals (that most people have a tenuous grasp of) and argue from there. The other is to take what's already here as a given, and examine whether a proposal is better or worse in terms of likely practical results. The best opposition comes when you combine both (the principled and the concrete), ideally from the same person. But even if that doesn't happen, it's still beneficial if one person takes one approach, and another person the other.
Persuasion and change rarely follow from someone accepting someone else's complete and integrated system in one fell swoop. It comes from gradual acceptance of different parts and arguments from a range of different sources and perspectives.
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