General Debate 26 January 2009

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goodgod

John Key says he will sit down with the Greens and listen to their energy saving ideas very shortly. At first look, this sounds reasonable. The Greens want people to be able to use meters to access cheaper electricity at offpeak times and “sell back” energy from solar panels into the national grid.

Sounds harmless. Sounds good. People choosing.

But don’t you just know it, the Greens want to then step in to tell people when to use their dryers and dishwashers:

…The next step would be for the smart meters to connect to household appliances and switch them on automatically when power was cheap and plentiful and to turn them off when there was an increase in demand and price.

“But smart meters need smart Governments,” Dr Norman said.

So soon as this legislation is passed, some time in the future we’ll see the inevitable return of a far left influence to our to government and then they’ll be telling us how smart they are and how dumb we are.
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January 26, 2009 8:29am
Owen McShane

5TH Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey Released today.

265 Markets in 6 Nations

Dr. Shlomo Angel, of Princeton University and New York University, one of the world’s leading experts in urban planning writes in the preface to this 5th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey that …the current efforts to contain the pace of the outward expansion of cities for one reason or another are, at the very least, open to serious question. Referring to land use regulation, he continues: The more stringent the restrictions, the less is the housing market able to respond to increased demand, and the more likely house prices are to increase. And when residential land is very difficult to come by, housing becomes unaffordable., This report describes the economic connection between that “smart growth”/”urban consoldiation” policies (prescriptive land use policies) and the unprecedented house price escalation that has occured in recent years in some markets. Moreover, the consequences have expanded well beyond housing. Without prescriptive land use regulation, the housing bubble in the United States would have been less severe; without a severe housing bubble, the US mortgage meltdown would not have occurred and without the US mortgage meltdown, the international financial crisis might not have occurred. It will be important to reform land use policies to prevent similar damage from occuring in the future

Report:
http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

Go to the web page and read the whole report and see how New Zealand does so badly in unaffordable housing.
Leading the pack is now Tauranga Bay of Plenty which have adopted Smart Growth with a vengeance and is now paying the price because that bubble will burst more than any other in NZ.
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January 26, 2009 8:40am
Tauhei Notts

I’m off to Karaka.
John Carter’s opening speech will be compared with Helen Clark’s opening speech in earlier years.
Apparently Key so hated the horse racing fraternity that he inflicted John Carter upon them.
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January 26, 2009 9:02am
bharmer

Given that Winston was the patron saint of that fraternity, it seems fair.
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January 26, 2009 9:35am
TimG_Oz

Dear David & the KiwiBloggers,

Thanks very much for having me as your guest over the last month. I have been on “virtual” holiday in this blog whilst Andrew Bolt, my usual hangout here in Melbourne, has been on holiday.

David – you are doing an excellent job, and whilst you sometimes make me pine a bit to be back in NZ (like with the photos of Mt Kaukau yesterday). On both my last (physical) visits, separate National candidates tried to convince me to return to NZ to live. I think that outspoken commentators like John Minto and Bomber Bradbury who have the arrogance to present themselves as somehow “New Zealands higher conscience” when they themselves are so out of touch are going to keep me away for some time.

In the meantime, I will endeavour to keep in touch from time to time. And remember – if a journalist is trying to feed you BS about something that you know intimately well, it’s a good chance they are also feeding you BS on the stuff you don’t.

Thanks,
Tim
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January 26, 2009 9:43am
Brian Smaller

Does anyone else want to throw things through the tv set when Mike McRoberts reports from Gaza? His one sided intonations are terrible. THis is th eguy who manages to file reports from a war zone without once mentioning that the Palestinians killed were mostly fighters, that the number of deaths are uncorroborated and that the difference between a Hamas “policeman” and a Hamas fighter is a balaclava and a martyrdom video. The same twonk who reported from Sderot in Israel wearing a flak jacket when apparently there was no real danger because the hamas rockets were inaccurate and not that dangerous.
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January 26, 2009 9:48am
colinm

Have a look at this.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4829150a11.html
Yet another sad stat as we slip down the OECD ladder.
This time we’re on the slippery slope towards killing our kids with preventable diseases.
I’m saddened by this article, especially seeing that the first several commentators were anti vac nutters.
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January 26, 2009 10:18am
PhilBest

That is one important posting by Owen McShane at 8.40am. It is tragic that so few people are listening to this sort of common sense:

“……Without prescriptive land use regulation, the housing bubble in the United States would have been less severe; without a severe housing bubble, the US mortgage meltdown would not have occurred and without the US mortgage meltdown, the international financial crisis might not have occurred. It will be important to reform land use policies to prevent similar damage from occuring in the future….”

Why o why is there such DENIAL abroad about this? Is Greenie land conservation such a sacred cow that these connections are simply going to go unsaid as far as the MSM and the main political parties are concerned? And we thought that the results of irrational superstitions in pre-enlightenment societies were bad?
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January 26, 2009 10:19am
big bruv

Tauhei

“Apparently Key so hated the horse racing fraternity that he inflicted John Carter upon them”

Seems to be another sound decision from Mr Key, the horse racing fraternity would just about be the hardest bunch of people to like.
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January 26, 2009 10:25am
big bruv

goodgod

“John Key says he will sit down with the Greens and listen to their energy saving ideas very shortly.”

Why on earth would he want to do that?
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January 26, 2009 10:26am
Jack5

Goodgod wrote at 8.29am:John Key says he will sit down with the Greens and listen to their energy saving ideas very shortly.”

Warning! Don’t inhale until you leave the room Mr Key.
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January 26, 2009 10:43am
Fisiani

Australia Day Special

Wellington guy goes to loads of doctors in New Zealand looking for a cure for his chronic indigestion. No one can help. No drug works. He is despairing but eventuially hears about an incredible Aboriginal healer near Uluru who gets great results for stomach problems. He heads out to the outback and finds this elderly wizened man wrapped in a multi-coloured blanket, wearing a French beret. He explains his problem and the healer ponders a while. then says “Take off your left shoe and walk around the campsite slowly eating the shoe while thinking long and hard about your journey to get here.” The guy is mystified but looks down at his dusty feet and the jandal on his left foot. Taking it off he slowly limps around the camp chewing the jandal. He eventually consumes it all and heads back to the healer who asks him “So how do you feel now?” He replies “It is still the same. No Change.
The healer shrugs and says sadly, “There is an old aboriginal saying ‘The thong is ended but the malady lingers on’ “
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January 26, 2009 10:53am
greenfly

Jack5 said’
“Warning! Don’t inhale until you leave the room Mr Key”

Note to Russel Norman; keep him in there as long as you can! 🙂
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January 26, 2009 11:09am
Inventory2

Sky Sport has got into the spirit of Australia Day as well

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/01/advance-australia-fair.html
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January 26, 2009 2:17pm
PhilBest

I can’t resist posting these insights from the great “Spengler” at Asia Times Online…..

From “What Obama knows, America Forgot”:

“……Sentimental attachment to Third World cultures, though, is a Western phenomenon; in the Third World as it actually exists, one encounters other cultures, and kills them. It remains to be seen whether the president-elect is a Western sentimentalist, or a Third World anthropologist who has talked his way into the leadership of the United States……”

From “Absolute Power Gets Blamed Absolutely”

“Inauguration day brings to mind the reason I don’t read science fiction. It’s never weird enough. Today, America will place more power than any peacetime president ever has wielded into the hands of a man nobody knows. He has convinced more incompatible constituencies that he takes their side than any politician in American history. And through no fault or merit of his own, he has stumbled into more power than the White House has had since World War II……

“…..With the unprecedented power of his office, Obama inherits a commensurately high level of accountability. Unless he offers something radically different, the boomerang of expectations could flatten him faster and more thoroughly than the swift ascent of his star. People in power get blamed; people with absolute power get blamed absolutely. As the economy continues to deteriorate, there will be no one left standing to blame but Obama.

Before America entered World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt borrowed no more than 6% of gross national product in a given year. During his first year in office, Obama will have borrowed perhaps double that amount……

“…….I have never met the man, but I have interviewed a fair sampling of his supporters, and conclude that Obama learned the power to cloud men’s minds, like the Shadow on the old radio show. Apart from ambition, there is no “there” there. There are as many Obamas as there are interlocutors. He is a hollow man, I concluded, a Third World anthropologist studying us with engaged curiosity but complete emotional detachment. In this respect he is unpredictable.

I predict that he will do nothing much at all. The American economy is in trouble because Americans got too much cheap credit to buy houses, using their price appreciation to buy other consumer goods. Obama proposes to provide more cheap credit to homebuyers and incentives to buy consumer goods, which seems an odd response to the problem. Now that Americans are scared out of their wits and likely to save every available penny, it is hard to flush with enthusiasm over his program’s prospects…….

“……..He will make resonant speeches, hold frequent press conferences, consult friend and foe alike, and tread water while America’s economy and strategic position continue to deteriorate. His entourage of one-trick wizards, as I called them in a recent commentary, will pick over the broken American economy for trophies to put into private equity funds. (See Obama’s one-trick wizards, Asia Times Online, November 25, 2008). Without casting aspersions on anyone involved, the opportunity for self-dealing in a multi-trillion-dollar bailout-cum-recapitalization of the financial system exceeds the grandest dreams of Third World kleptocrats.

At a certain point he will have to take a decisive stand on something. And then we will learn who Obama is, and what he wants……”

From “President Oxybarama”:

“……Obama’s appearance on the Capitol steps was so historic that the address became larger than its own language, more imbued with meaning than anything he could say,” added Sanger, which is to say that Obama said nothing memorable. Just what was historic?…….

“……America’s African Americans, who have failed to produce a credible leader in the two generations since the Civil Rights Act of 1965, broke America’s last color bar, hailed this carpetbagger as a savior. For a generation of white liberals raised on the notion that skin-color aversion is the original sin of American politics, the confusion is understandable. The African Americans in attendance should have known better. In a way, they did. If not for Aretha Franklin, the day would have been a total loss.

Words failed not only Obama, as Sanger noted, but his preacher and poetess as well. The Reverend Joseph Lowery, an old civil rights campaigner of Martin Luther King’s generation, concluded his benediction with a jingle: ” … help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.” There was depth in Lowery’s triviality.

Lowery’s sing-song had aesthetic merit compared to the inaugural poem recited by one Elizabeth Alexander, a teacher of African-American Studies at Yale University. Alexander tried to rise from the ordinary to the elevated, but managed to reach only the oxymoronic: “What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to pre-empt grievance.”

Perhaps she meant, “no need to avenge grievance”. It is not clear how one can pre-empt a grievance……

“…….It just wasn’t their day. I mean that literally: it was a day on which a dark-skinned man became president, who had nothing to do with them. The son of a Kenyan economist and an American anthropologist walked off with the blood-stained mantle of seven decades of civil rights struggle. If the black poets and clergy offered a counterfeit of real emotion, it is hard to blame them. They were just the extras on Obama’s stage set.

Oxybarama’s inauguration has been compared to John F Kennedy’s, when the 87-year-old poet Robert Frost recited The Gift Outright. Frost’s poem says that America “was ours before we were the land’s”, and that we became the land’s after “we found out that it was ourselves/We were withholding from our land of living,” and gave ourselves to the land in “many deeds of war”.

It is not one of the great poems in the language, but it is classical in construction, Biblical in evocation, and beautifully turned out. I will never forget hearing Frost read that poem; he sounded like the hoary high priest of America’s civic religion, and he sent shudders up one’s spine. His was a poem that the whole world might read and learn something of America. Sadly, Yale University’s Alexander measures up to Frost about as well as Obama measures up to John F Kennedy.

When Kennedy warned that Americans would bear any burden and pay any price in the cause of freedom, he faced a ruthless and powerful contender in the Soviet Union, whose power still was ascending. Obama observes that “our power alone cannot protect us” (something else than power is supposed to protect the United States?). He added oxymoronically that “our power grows through its prudent use”, and through “the tempering qualities of humility and restraint”.

I am trying to recall the humility and restraint that Franklin D Roosevelt displayed towards Japan and Germany during World War II, or Ronald Reagan towards the Soviets during the Cold War. Perhaps I misheard what Reagan said in Berlin: “Mr Gorbachev, in all humility, and without trying to be provocative, I would like to suggest that perhaps you should consider the possibility of tearing down this wall, if that wouldn’t be inconvenient, of course.”

Obama’s America is everything to everyone, and nothing to anyone. Where Frost evoked a land that had yet to possess a people yet to be born through sacrifice, Obama’s America is “Here Comes Everybody”: “For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.”

It is one thing to include everyone in America, but quite another to think of the country as a “patchwork” rather than as a land to whom many belonged before they were adopted into it, the sense of its national motto, E Pluribus Unum ( Out of Many, One).

There is no “there” in Obama’s address. Instead, there are nods in so many directions that the compass needle spins. Oxymorons abound because Obama is struggling to hold together so many disparate elements that their incompatibility pops to the surface now and again…….”
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January 26, 2009 2:18pm
PhilBest

Read the whole articles HERE:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/spengler.html
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January 26, 2009 2:19pm
oranjemakker

aaah nostalgia… was part of the startup team of the Asia Times when it was a “real” newspaper in 1995. Paper lasted about a year before it went bust in the last big recession to hit Asia. Was a fun time to be working in Bangkok as a young sub editor though! Working hours were 1pm to 10pm, and this was before Thailands frustrating 2am closing time!!

Its nice to see they have kept the name alive online, thanks for the post

(interesting footnote, the publisher Sondhi Limthongkul became head of the anti-Thaksin movement hitting the news recently and causing the latest thai govt to fall)
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January 26, 2009 3:01pm
kiwi in america

Very interesting article on the outcome of the Israel -Hamas war. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/51181

Undoubtedly reid in his ‘expert’ opinion will disagree.

Gaza Post-Mortem
Noah Pollak
A fragile quiet prevails in Gaza and Israel today, its duration unknown. It would be satisfying to say that Israel won, but clearly it did not. The political leadership did not allow the IDF to continue advancing until Hamas’s leadership, ensconced in bunkers underneath hospitals, could be eliminated. This act would have consummated the operation, demonstrated Israeli seriousness, and extended the current peace interregnum.

But despite what could have been, the reality is sinking in: Hamas lost. According to news reports, Hamas’s Damascus leadership ordered the group to attack withdrawing IDF forces — and Hamas refused. Hamas vowed that there was nothing Israel could do to make it stop firing rockets, and today Sderot is quiet. Hamas vowed that it would fight until the blockade was lifted, and today the blockade remains in place.

Assuming Hamas continues to hold its fire, there are a few conclusions we can draw about the war:

1. It was probably the most lopsided engagement of its size the IDF has ever fought. Only four Israeli soldiers were killed by Hamas, while over 600 Hamas fighters, leaders, and other militants were eliminated. Larger numbers were wounded or captured. That’s an astonishing testament both to the IDF’s proficiency and to Hamas’s ineptitude. Reports indicate that Hamas, despite extensive mentoring from Iran and Hezbollah, proved incompetent and cowardly on the battlefield.

2. No IDF soldiers were abducted, no helicopters were shot down, and no tanks were destroyed. These were central objectives for Hamas that were intended to create “victory images” for the group. Instead, Hamas’s followers were treated to images of Ismail Haniyah declaring victory from a bunker. The contradiction between rhetoric and reality could not be more obvious.

3. Hamas’s regional allies — Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran — sat on the sidelines throughout the war. This is rather embarrassing, given the manner in which these groups celebrate their collective dedication to resistance.

4. Hamas was unable to sustain a consistent level of rocket fire throughout the engagement. Before the IDF attacked, close to 100 rockets per day were launched from Gaza; during Cast Lead, that number dwindled into the teens. Hamas was thus unable to meet the benchmark set by Hezbollah in 2006, when the IDF was unable to reduce the level of rockets raining on Israel.

5. Over two thirds of Hamas’s missile inventory was eliminated, and 80 percent of its smuggling tunnels were either destroyed or damaged. The IDF estimates that Hamas now possesses only a few dozen Grad missiles. The major post-war danger, however, is that there does not seem to be a way to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its smuggling infrastructure. Egypt, as usual, promises to be unhelpful.

6. The political fallout among the Palestinians remains to be measured, but there is some anecdotal evidence that people in Gaza aren’t feeling terribly proud of the resistance as they wade through the rubble. As one Hamas sympathizer writes in The Independent,

The silent majority, I think, have changed their mind about Hamas. They question whether to vote for them again. [Hamas is going to allow elections? — NP] Some say whoever was in power the Israelis would do the same. But that is for afterwards. Right now we all stand by Hamas because we are together in this problem. Right now, the Palestinian people, are suffering and paying the price. Gaza is destroyed. It’s set us back 20 years. When things are more normal, people will see the catastrophe.

A report in the Guardian quotes another Gazan:

I am totally against the so-called resistance, because it proved a total failure. We used to hear these slogans of how strong our resistance is. I believed the slogans. But when the war started, nothing happened. I live in an area close to the border with Israel. I used to see hundreds of Hamas and other factions’ gunmen waiting for Israeli troops who might storm Gaza. But, since the first day of the war, none of them appeared. And Hamas still talks about a resistance that did nothing to protect our people.

The war certainly will not convince many Palestinians that terrorism against Israel is wrong (I don’t think anything could do that); but it might show them that it is unwise and dangerous, and that Hamas is a poor vehicle for their ambitions.

7. Hamas did not expect such a ferocious Israeli response to its abandonment of the lull and escalation of the rocket war. And most of all, it did not expect a ground war. Cast Lead demonstrates once again that jihadists tend to be poor strategic thinkers because they end up being convinced by their own messianic propaganda. Hamas’s leaders thought Israel was afraid to send the IDF into Gaza — a grave failure of analysis.

8. Throughout the war, Hamas demanded that Israel lift its blockade of Gaza. The war is over, and Israel isn’t lifting the blockade. Hamas hoped to use the war to generate international pressure on Israel to alleviate the blockade, but instead such pressure (at least so far) is coalescing around the need to prevent Hamas from benefiting from the reconstruction phase.

9. What was the consensus of peaceniks, doves, and Juiceboxers just three weeks ago? It was, as usual, defeatism: there is no military solution, the IDF will never stop the rockets, we must address Hamas’s grievances, Israel is only hurting itself, and can we please have a Time Magazine cover with a Star of David behind barbed wire? The same people said the same things about suicide bombings as the IDF commenced Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 and started building the security fence. I’d say the defeatists are zero-for-three: Defensive Shield lived up to its name; Cast Lead has stopped (so far) the rockets from Gaza; and look who didn’t show up to the war: Hezbollah, still smarting more than two years after its last encounter with the IDF.

Ehud Ya’ari, writing in the Jerusalem Report, sums up the campaign aptly:

Hamas has the ability to rehabilitate itself and this should not be taken lightly. But this time it will be hard to mollify Palestinian public opinion. There is no enthusiasm for Hamas’s period in power; its fighting prowess has hardly inspired awe, and there is no longer any faith in its leaders.

For Hamas, the war was a major setback, but not a devastating one — only because Israel decided not to make it so. In the long term, Israel’s refusal to press its advantage will likely become the most salient fact of Cast Lead.
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January 26, 2009 5:06pm
PhilBest

Oranjemakker, did you know about THIS little moment of fame for Asia Times Online?

By Pepe Escobar: “Get Osama! Now! Or Else……”

On 30 August, 2001…………!!!!!

http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH30Df01.html

By the way, the identity of “Spengler” has been the subject of a lot of intense guessing…..even Henry Kissinger’s name came up. “Spengler” is obviously very well placed for a lot of high level knowledge.
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January 26, 2009 5:19pm
reid

KIA, what you and some others never can seem to get through your heads is that the people of Gaza don’t see Hamas as a bunch of murderous thugs who stole the election and therefore as being susceptible to the Israeli tactics used.

Viewing it as such is quite a silly view of the Gazan situation and says a lot about the bias of those who hold such views.

I really do feel sorry for people who get all excited about their fantasies that Israel is just defending herself because it obviously clouds their judgement and prevents them from seeing reality even when it’s elementary, staring them in the face, and written in flaming letters a thousand feet high.

Nowhere on all those Gaza threads did I see the usual astute reasoning you and others normally display on most other political issues, which was a real shame because at the end of the day, the nation that suffers from all of this, is Israel, the very nation who apparently in your own delusion, that you’re defending.

I’ve said everything I needed to say about Gaza, and while emotionally I’m very sad it happened at all because of the counter-productive effects it has wrought upon Israel, from an intellectual perspective I’m very content to let history play out over the next few months and see exactly what the aftermath is going to be. This note from Mark Lieberman accurately summarises my position, which I’ve been stating since December.

Hamas looked bad but, in the end, emerged with more credibility. Israel initially looked good but, considering the final result, lost much consideration by a world troubled with its violent operations.

So, what does this portend for a Middle East future?

The attack on Gaza cannot remain an isolated incident that slowly fades into history. This attack has been etched into the psyche of an embittered Arab world. Sympathy for the Palestinians has been extended worldwide. These phenomena have dictated a new look at the Middle East contestants and a new approach to resolving the conflict. It’s possible we will witness more talk of defending the Palestinians and less of securing Israelis, more efforts by Arab nations of uniting the Arab world and its factions and less efforts by the western world to dictate a path to unification, more attempts to resolve Middle East problems and less considerations to Israel’s agendas.

These directions already have a start. Lebanon’s success in forming a more representative government, in which Hezbollah plays an increased role, has led to renewal of relations between Syria and Lebanon. Add Iraq to the arrangement and a gap is bridged between Iran and the Arab world. If they keep that ball rolling, there could be a more unified Arab world.

This direction might have driven Israel’s aggressiveness, a sub-text that provoked Israel to remove an irritant on its southern flank preparatory to engaging its northern neighbors. Considering the productive direction of the northern Arab nations and the counterproductive result of Israel’s attack on Gaza, the future of the Middle East might be highly positive for the Arab nations and severely discouraging, if not fatal, for the land of Israel.
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January 26, 2009 8:19pm

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