I'm embarrassed. I came to Parliament, but I couldn't even save my own bloody child."
What the hell was I doing? I came here for this reason. I couldn't stop it. The rot comes into my own home. - Mark Cameron
If I can't save my own bloody son, I can save someone else's and I genuinely mean it.
I say this candidly, the world can be buggered that I'll quit because there are good people out there way beyond my boy and he deserved – and they deserve – some help, and I'm here to do it. - Mark Cameron
That something is rotten not in the state of Denmark, but in that of the whole of the western world, has become almost a truism. Even countries that were previously contented to the point of complacency, such as Sweden, now suffer from severe angst. Under no external compulsion or moral obligation to do so, the latter created an insoluble problem for itself by allowing, or even encouraging, an alien population to settle in it - Theodore Dalrymple
Perhaps part of the problem was moral grandiosity: Sweden thought that it was such a beacon to the world that it could demonstrate that it was able to do what other countries had found it difficult to do, namely assimilate successfully such an alien population. The beauty of its society would mean that anyone arriving in it would wish to assimilate as soon as possible, and would be able to do so.
But I think that there was more to it than mere grandiosity, something deeper and more general in Europe as a whole, at least among what might be called the intellectual classes: namely a loss of the right of Europe to exist as a civilisation except as an object of criticism, reprehension and even hatred, the reasons for which loss are no doubt multiple and impossible to designate with absolute certainty. I shall make only a few tentative suggestions. - Theodore Dalrymple
There is no historical event from which the wrong conclusion may not be drawn, but it is surely understandable that the mass slaughter of the First World War led many reflective people to the conclusion that there was something profoundly wrong with a civilisation that brought such a cataclysm about. The fact that other civilisations usually bring about such cataclysms as they are technically able to bring about was largely ignored, so great was the immediate impact of the First World War on the historical memory.
Even worse, it turned out that the war to end all war did no such thing, rather the reverse: it made the next cataclysm inevitable. - Theodore Dalrymple
Then, of course, there was European colonialism, attitudes towards which underwent a sea-change with decolonisation. The supposed mission civilisatrice, bringing enlightenment to the supposedly lower races or cultures, turned into its mirror image, a phenomenon wholly negative, destructive, cruel, rapacious, exploitative and murderous. The wealth of Europe was now thought to be based solely on the enslavement or expropriation, de jure or de facto, of non-European peoples. - Theodore Dalrymple
Curiously, this self-denigration is not incompatible with the moral grandiosity to which I have alluded, for where crime is great, the duty of restitution, repentance and reform is great also. There is no one more grandiose, or likely to consider himself a beacon to the world than a reformed sinner who promises from now on to conduct himself impeccably. The greater the sinner, the greater the saint, may as doctrine be sentimental claptrap—does not the possibility of becoming a saint later in life not encourage earlier sinning? —but yet we cannot quite rid ourselves of the notion. And European countries, or their directing elites, having sinned mightily by inheritance, have now entered the autosanctification stage. From now on, they must be better than good, even if such goodness were to destroy them. - Theodore Dalrymple
No civilisation can long withstand the kind of relentless self-criticism to which Europeans now, albeit with much bad faith and insincerity, subject their civilisation, and which they have successfully communicated to the rest of the world. The self-hatred insinuates itself everywhere: cowardly museum curators often now feel it necessary in annotations to eighteenth century paintings or objets d'art to draw attention to the fact that such-and-such a commodity or object was produced by or made possible (perhaps) by slave labour. They are terrified of the monstrous regiment of the self-righteous self-haters. - Theodore Dalrymple
I would not like to be taken as a xenophobe, all the more so since I am myself the product of immigration and I live half the time in a country that is not my own, so far without difficulties. A leavening of foreigners is obviously good; they, the foreigners, often contribute disproportionately to the culture to which they emigrate. But this is not what we have now, when balkanisation of sensibility, not only of nationality but of sexual orientation and proclivity, disability, religion, and political views is in the process not only of dissolving things held in common, but of the very possibility of holding anything in common. And I do not think that this a recipe long-term for a viable society. - Theodore Dalrymple
Sometimes, politicians get it right. Some facts hit home more than others, and some policies just nail the evidence/narrative/solution trifecta.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop's Going for Housing Growth ticks all the boxes.
The rationale for fixing our broken housing system will differ for everyone, but for me, Bishop said two things last week that resonated – he spoke of the moral case for fixing housing and recited the bleak fact that 2000 families wake up living in emergency-housing motel rooms.
To me, that's simply deplorable. And pouring more and more taxpayers' cash into emergency housing is not an acceptable solution. - Georgina Stylianou
There will be people who sense there's money to be made, those who feel concerned we could end up building ghettos en masse and those who may be aghast at the blunt policy tools this Government has shown it's not afraid to wield.
And to them I say that successive governments, and local councils, have had long enough and ample attempts at tackling our housing crisis and it's high time we saw big, bold, do-something-about-it policy. - Georgina Stylianou
Throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at Kāinga Ora was admirable (although it didn't come cheap), but it failed to shift the dial at a macro level or deal with the underlying lack of land conundrum.
Without fundamentally reforming our planning system, we will get nowhere. Anything that is not a significant shift is just death by incrementalism. - Georgina Stylianou
We need to build up and out. Glaringly obvious.
Bishop is a clear Yimby and hasn't tried to obscure his progressive values when it comes to housing, but his plan may also be able to be stomached by Nimbys. - Georgina Stylianou
I don't have much sympathy for the reaction of Local Government New Zealand, stating that the sector was disappointed with both the lack of consultation and financial support. Councils will not fix the housing crisis without robust national direction.
I agree with Bishop on this one – growth supports growth, and if property developers aren't willing to have some skin in the infrastructure game, then the economics of any hypothetical housing development probably don't stack up, Crown or no Crown.
We can't be a thriving little country at the bottom of the world when 2000 Kiwi families are living in emergency motel rooms. It's time to fix what has long been broken. - Georgina Stylianou
Say what you like about the coalition Government - and there are plenty of opinions - but it is clearly a Government determined to change New Zealand in the direction that it campaigned on, and quickly. - Luke Malpass
Choice is key, and casting away the impediments and bottlenecks to development is the name of the game. Consumers will ultimately decide the rest and developers will reflect those choices.
That's the theory, anyway. These are big changes that are being proposed. The thrust is in the same direction as the controversial fast-track legislation. The speed with with they are being done reflects the fact that the coalition thinks that Labour mucked around and didn't get on with things.
But it is also a political imperative. While Labour is firmly on the nose with voters -especially in Auckland - Christopher Luxon is not popular and probably never will be. But he will want to be respected over time for getting stuff done.
And the way he will have to do that is by getting runs on the board - and infrastructure and house building is one area the Government thinks progress can be made by the next election.
That means a lot of changes, and quickly. - Luke Malpass
To repeat one of my consistent lines, human beings are fallible, they make mistakes. Central banks – here and abroad – are made up of humans, so they make mistakes. Really serious ones, of the sort seen in the last few years, shouldn't happen but they do. One might even offer perspectives in mitigation: the pandemic was something quite extraordinary, and many people (here and abroad) misread the macroeconomics of it for too long. But those responsible need to take responsibility for the mistakes that were made. Those who now hold office who weren't even there at the time have even less justification for not detachedly owning that those who were there made (really serious and costly) mistakes. Plus, in most human affairs, contrition goes quite a long way…..including (but not limited to) as a sign that one is even interested in learning from the mistakes and doing less badly next time. - Michael Reddell
A move now to a 5.25 per cent OCR would not, of course, be game-changing in macroeconomic terms. It would, however, be a step in the right direction. One can understand the personal incentives on the Governor – who cares about the excess capacity so long as I finally am 100% sure inflation is back down again – but perhaps it would be easier for him and the MPC to take some of the risk, that is an integral part of the business they are in, if they hadn't spent so much time and effort blustering and minimising the extent of their own mistakes from several years back. - Michael Reddell
The Greens hate the Electoral Integrity Act, which is what the waka-jumping law is formally known as, despite being forced to swallow that dead rat back in 2018, the coalition agreement. There seems virtually no chance that they will use the party axing option to force Tana from Parliament, unless they have a massive change of heart.
They held back from doing so when Elizabeth Kerekere quit, but there's a big difference because this is very, very early on in the electoral cycle, we're only six months in. Elizabeth Kerekere only warmed her seat for five months. So, the taxpayer only had to pay for a useless MP for five months, which is still five months too many. Darleen Tana would be there impotent and hopeless for two years. Two years! And more, if she chooses to stage a sit-in in defiance of her former party this is the perfect time for the Green Party to dismount from their increasingly lame high horses. Idealism and zealotry are all very well and good, but you might in principle disagree with the law, but you must invoke it if you can if you don't want to rip off the taxpayer.
Making tough decisions is a part of politics and it's time the Green Party grew up and showed that pragmatism trumps idealism when it comes to protecting the voters. - Kerre Woodham
There is a very fine line between being highly principled and high-and-mighty. And I think the Green Party has crossed that line.
Even though the Greens think their now-ex list MP Darleen Tana is so bad that they want her out of Parliament altogether, and even though there is legislation that would enable them to make that happen, we've got this circus and the public pleading for her to resign. Simply because it would mean using a law that they never wanted in the first place.
A law that former co-leader James Shaw famously described as a "dead rat" the party had to swallow and support' as part of its confidence and supply agreement with the former Labour/NZ First coalition government.
But so what? I'd forgive you Chlöe. Yes, it could look a little bit hypocritical. It could look a bit two-faced. But so what? - John MacDonald
Darleen Tana is not the first politician to be called a liar. She is not the first politician to quit their party.
But if the Greens genuinely believe she is not fit to be an MP, then they need to stop all the shenanigans, stop all the high-and-mighty nonsense and get on with it.
They might not like the waka-jumping law. But I suspect they like Darleen Tana even less. - John MacDonald
If you had told me a few years ago that one day Britain would have a secretary of state who thinks violent male paedos should be housed in women's prisons, I'd have thought you mad. And yet here we are. Meet Lisa Nandy, Britain's new secretary of state for culture, media and sport. She was asked at a Labour leadership hustings in 2020 if male criminals who identify as female, like Christopher Worton, should be banged up with men or women. 'I believe fundamentally in people's right to self-ID', she said. 'Trans women are women and trans men are men and should be accommodated in the prison of their choosing.' Shorter version: put Worton in with the ladies. - Brendan O'Neill
I don't mean to pick on Nandy. Because the truth is they're all mad. Our new government is stuffed with people who believe the craziest shit. Sticking with the bizarrely thorny issue of what is a woman, Anneliese Dodds, the new women and equalities minister, fumbles on that, too. Asked on International Women's Day in 2022 how she would define a woman, Ms Dodds said, 'Well, I have to say that there are different definitions'. There are? Pushed, she said it 'depend[s] what the context is'. JK Rowling quipped that maybe under a Labour government International Women's Day will become 'We Who Must Not Be Named Day'. Let's see. - Brendan O'Neill
I'm old enough to remember when the tabloid press was full of shock-horror coverage of the 'loony left'. People like Linda Bellos, the eccentric Labour leader of Lambeth Council in London in the late 1980s. Yet these days, Bellos is a paragon of common sense, frequently questioning the idea that blokes can become lesbians, while the 'sensibles' of the Labour Party leadership are out there giving respect to rapists who 'become women', suggesting putting male paedos in women's prisons and positing that there are tens of thousands of women around with a penis in their skirts. The moderates are the loonies now. - Brendan O'Neill
Future historians will surely marvel that ours was an era in which women who believed in biological sex were denounced as bigots and people who believed in upholding a democratic vote were called Nazis, while politicians who said you can have a cock and be a lesbian and who itched to rip up the plebs' dumb ballots were lauded as moderate. They're anything but. They're crazy. And now they're in charge. Heaven help us. - Brendan O'Neill
I don't love the idea, but I'm willing to accept it.
That's how I'd describe my stance on paying a toll charge to use a piece of road.
Just like when pay TV became a thing in New Zealand. I didn't like it, but I accepted it. - John MacDonald
The Human Rights Commission is obsessed with race and identity. It is dismissive of basic individual rights like free speech and the right to be safe from criminals, and it actively campaigns for policies that divide Māori from non-Māori. It is disgraceful that we give it $15 million a year to do this in the name of human rights and with the false credibility of quasi-government status. - David Seymour
If the COmmission leadership want to campaign against the government they should join a voluntary activist group or run for Parliament. New Zealanders shouldn't be forced to fund their political activism. - David Seymour
In animals, which of course include humans, sex is as close to binary as you can come, with only 0.018% of individuals being neither male nor female, but intersex. Yes, some species can change sex, as in clownfish, and some can be hermaphroditic, an individual that is both male and femal at the same time. But even functional animal (or plant) hermaphrodites still produce only the two types of gametes. And intersex individuals in humans are not a "third sex", because they don't produce a third type of gamete. (In our species, there has never been a case of a hermaphrodite producing both sperm and eggs.) - Jerry Coyne
As for pipefish and seahorses gestating eggs (true), that is a difference in sex ROLES, not sex itself. The same goes for female hyenas that have penis-like structures: they still produce eggs and produce offspring (through that penis-like structure!), but they remain female. The sex/gamete binary is real, and it's important because gamete size differences, universal among animals and nearly all plants, produce a whole world of evolutionary differences, the most important being sexual selection based on differences in reproductive investment. And that helps us understand the evolution of genetically-based differences in morphology and behavior between males and females. (Sexual selection also operates in plants.) The biological definition of sex is important because it's both universal and evolutionarily enlightening, similar to the biological definition of "species" (see Chapter 1 of Speciation by Coyne and Orr).
Remember, there's a difference between the DEFINITION of sex (given above) and the ASCERTAINMENT of sex, with the latter made using secondary sexual traits like genitalia. Importantly, the traits used for ascertainment, which include chromosome complement, aren't always a perfect correlate with biological sex. Still, those traits are used to ASCERTAIN sex, not to "assign" it, as in the ludicrous phrase "sex assigned at birth" or worse, "gender assigned at birth". Those phrases should be completely eliminated because they're a sop to the ignorant. Gender, which involves how a person identifies vis-à-vis sex, and can involve a mixture of male and female traits, non-natal traits, or even nonhuman traits, is completely different from biological sex, and cannot be assigned at birth. - Jerry Coyne
There is no correct number of prisoners per capita that is independent of the number of crimes committed. If there had never been any crimes committed but there were a low number of prisoners, this would be an outrage against justice. I need hardly point out that this is not the situation in which we are living. - Theodore Dalrymple
No one wants a society in which people behave reasonably because there is a policeman round every corner and prison beckons if we step out of line. We do not live in such a society. Millions of people refrain from burgling their neighbours' houses every day, and not because they would be punished if they did so. They refrain from stealing even if they could get away with it. But human beings vary, and populations can shift either in the direction of criminality or law-abidingness.
Punishment is not therapy for the soul, though it would be good if it acted in this way. The criminal justice system should always remember that it is not the medical profession for those who break the law. - Theodore Dalrymple
New Zealand's insufficient supply of gas to meet demand is stifling economic growth and reducing our energy security. Natural gas plays a critical role in firming our electricity generation, particularly when intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are not generating. - Simeon Brown
Reduced gas availability means that firms will look to other sources of energy, such as coal, to meet demand. Coal has around twice the carbon intensity of natural gas for the same amount of energy. We are already seeing more coal being used to firm New Zealand's largely renewable electricity sector simply because the required natural gas has not been made available.
The previous government's legacy is one of reduced economic output and an increased reliance upon high emissions coal to meet our energy needs. - Simeon Brown
Yet this is a scandal of the Green Party's own making. From the recruitment of Darleen Tana to the dilemma of invoking the waka jumping rules, the Greens have made their bed and now need to sleep in it. Throughout the whole saga, the Greens have caused a number of integrity problems and now must be held accountable for fixing them.
The Greens' process for dealing with integrity issues
The Greens' management of the Darleen Tana allegations has been woeful right from the very beginning. It was actually back on 1 February that the party first became aware of the allegations against their MP. The failure to properly deal with this from the start set in train a farcical process that now seems hard to bring to a conclusion. - Bryce Edwards
This is the most dangerous environment since the 1930s. There's no avoiding that. The risks are not isolated to any one region. It's in Europe with the war in Ukraine and the aggression of Russia under Putin. It's in the Middle East, what we're seeing in one lens in Gaza but really driven by Iran. Obviously it's in Asia with the growing confidence and aggressiveness of China.
America's recent aid package to Ukraine was important, that was close. It almost didn't get through the Congress. Any failure on Ukraine would have emboldened China on Taiwan. We need to make it as hard for China as possible – not just from a kinetic point of view in terms of what could happen with Taiwan, but it's how China is acting, in diplomacy, in economics, through its information-gathering and cyber warfare. We are in a multi-polar risk environment, which will take a level of wisdom by political leaders and policy makers on a global basis to get us through. It's not going to be easy. I wish I could say something more positive. - Lachlan Murdoch
Facebook, effectively, can decide in the pandemic, what is truthful information around shutdowns and vaccines. Now we can debate what's right or wrong. But why does a social media company in California have the right to decide what is appropriate about Covid-19 laws and our reactions in Australia?
The power they now have in our politics far outweighs their roots in this society. There's no balance. If The Australian or a media company newspaper makes editorial decisions that people don't like, they can stop reading it. But that doesn't happen to Facebook. - Lachlan Murdoch
There's an ideological element in all this. The urge to control human behaviour is central to the mentality of the bureaucracy, even in a supposedly liberal democratic state.
Traffic cones are just another means by which people can be made to submit to authoritarian edicts for which there's no rational basis. The Covid-19 lockdown, which by common consent is now regarded as having been needlessly oppressive and damaging, can be seen in the same light. - Karl du Fresne
The bottom line is that New Zealand built a network of state highways without a single traffic cone and no one, to my knowledge, has ever advanced a cogent reason why that needed to change.
The 18th century French philosopher Denis Diderot famously said that men could never be free until the last king was strangled with the entrails of the last priest. He might have added: "… and the last traffic cone is buried in a landfill". - Karl du Fresne
The intensifying military relationship we're seeing between Russia and the DPK and China's role supporting Russia's industrial base demonstrates the indivisibility of security issues between Europe and our part of the world in the Indo-Pacific. - Christopher Luxon
In response we must work ever more closely together to preserve peace and protect the rules-based international order. - Christopher Luxon
While there remains murkiness about many aspects of the Tana case, one certainty that has been established in its wake has been the utter ineffectiveness and pointlessness of the Electoral Integrity Act, the so-called Waka Jumping law. - Peter Dunne
The only time it has been applied in either of its incarnations led to complex and drawn-out legal proceedings. It is simply a nonsense and a waste of time that a principled government would repeal forthwith. Excepting Turia who fought a by-election and went on to serve until 2014, none of the other MPs who left their parties while Waka Jumping legislation was in place were re-elected. Properly, the public, not Electoral Integrity legislation, decided their fate. - Peter Dunne
If what has happened previously is any guide, another area where the Tana case is unlikely to lead to change is the level of public support for the Green Party. . . . Nevertheless, as all the incidents from Kerekere's departure onwards suggest, something is seriously awry with the way the Greens manage differences and problems that emerge within their Parliamentary team. There seems to be a disconnect between the overt empathy and support the Greens show for every passing social bandwagon, and the way they treat dysfunction within their own team. In that regard, the Greens would be making a serious mistake if they assume, as they appear to have done so far, that rising levels of public support mean keeping their own house in order is a secondary consideration.
The Greens have always sanctimoniously described themselves as a "party of principle", thereby inherently different from every other party. But those "principles" are now coming home to roost. - Peter Dunne
The Greens moral high horse has become a much more uncomfortable ride. - Peter Dunne
I don't see these as cadavers… They are my patients, and I am a doctor, and I am looking after them, and I'm finding what happened, and I'm telling their story.
I'm their last advocate, and I will tell the truth about them and what happened, and do it respectfully, and then they can be laid to rest with their story known and everything tidied away.
Understanding is important. Part of loss and grief is, of course, understanding. - Cynric Temple-Camp
There is a discernible wider trend of the rise of populist right-wing parties, be it Reform in the UK, Le Pen in France, the AFD in Germany, or Trump's version of the US Republicans. But that, too, doesn't necessarily indicate that the electorate has become more radically right-wing. It may just indicate an abdication of mainstream voters by the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties.
The centre-left the world over has become consumed by university-trained social scientists with notions of identity politics which appeal to the denizens of social media but are far outside the experience of many of their traditional supporters. It is not surprising that the people who call themselves working class do not see much to identify with in today's labour parties, be they in the UK or New Zealand. Why else, when they got sick of the Conservatives, did middle-income Brits choose Farage's party over Keir Starmer's Labour.
Similarly, the centre-right has often got confused over what it means to be conservative, economic and social realists who focus more on being respected than telling people what they think they want to hear. Centre-right parties are at their best and most electable when they take pragmatic and sensible economic decisions which enhance the lot of ordinary citizens. - Steven Joyce
No wonder voters throw their lot in with populist and nationalist alternatives, like Farage or Trump. You might not be any wealthier, and, in fact, you are likely to be poorer, but, given a lack of sensible alternatives, it feels good scratching your immediate itches and giving the outside world the fingers. - Steven Joyce
There is a legitimate debate to be had about levels of immigration and what the social contract should be for immigrants in terms of adopting the social mores of their new home. Conservatives should be well placed to lead that discussion, but too often they have defaulted to cheap nationalism which winds people up without offering a solution. - Steven Joyce
People on both sides of the political aisle want the US election to be about all sorts of important policy matters, like how to handle immigration, the rule of law, abortion rights, income distribution or tax. But as things stand it will simply be about which candidate is most likely to still have a pulse at the end of their presidency. And Democrats may be finally starting to realise that if that's the choice the public is offered, there will only be one winner, and it ain't their guy. - Steven Joyce
I know the road cones might seem trivial, but to me, I've always thought they were a metaphor for excessive spending and over-rigorous regulation.
When you looked at road cones, it wasn't a little cherry orange witches hat you saw, it was costs being inflated and people being overly cautious, the wasting of time and money, which was happening across so many government departments. - Kerre Woodham
Of course, safety for road workers must be paramount. I heard Andrew mention 40 deaths a year... well, no, there are 10 deaths per year among road workers and 30 serious injury accidents. Way too many. That's 10 deaths too many, 30 serious injury accidents too many, even taking into account that you're working with unforgiving machinery and that there are far more risk factors involved than there are in working in an office, that's way too many accidents.
But clearly an overabundance of road cones doesn't equate to an overabundance of caution. There are millions of road cones on our roads, and they are not keeping the road workers safe. It's unlikely more road cones is going to be the answer when it comes to workplace safety. - Kerre Woodham
This seems to send a message that costs will be questioned and audited and double checked, and this is a very, very good thing. People have to be accountable when it's taxpayer dollars that are funding the projects, and I suspect that while many, many companies and businesses and who can blame them, have had a glorious few years feathering their nests, the good times are fast coming to an end. - Kerre Woodham
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