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If you would like to read Roger Partridge’s latest excellent column, it is here on Chris Trotter’s blog. Normally Roger’s columns appear in the Herald. This one, a thoughtful critique of the Government’s proposed New Zealand History curriculum, did not. Meanwhile, a powerful video from Mothers Matter, designed to promote maternal mental health, has been ordered off the air by the Advertising Standards Authority.
You can still watch it online on YouTube.
Podiocracy (noun a system of government where all power rests in a podium)
David Seymour opposed the Government’s rushed gun laws alone against 119 MPs. His simple message: It’s not about guns, it’s about the law.
If the Government can take away someone else’s rights in just nine days, without asking, why would you think your rights are safe?
We should have seen the warning when oil and gas exploration was banned by podium announcement. There wasn’t so much as a Cabinet paper to back the announcement. (We can’t prove there weren’t letters from a class of children taught by a NZEI member).
As the story goes, first they came for the licensed firearm owners. Now it is the property investors. Those who tell them to cry me a river of crocodile tears really should pay more attention. They could be next.
The problems with the podiocracy are three. The diktats don’t actually achieve their goals. They divide the community, persecuting sections of it. They require further measures to fix their mistakes.
Licensed firearm owners were hurtfully made the foil of the Government’s political theatre post March 15. As we know, the ban was ineffective. Only a quarter of the firearms estimated to be banned were handed in. Meanwhile gun crime has gotten out of control with enough gang shootings in New Zealand to fill the LA Times, and the Government is undertaking a second buyback already.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has told us that banning oil and gas exploration didn’t help reduce carbon emissions and may even hurt. We have visited Taranaki, as with licensed firearm owners, people feel assaulted by the Government of inclusion and kindness.
Natural gas is a good fuel for reducing carbon emissions, but the Government’s scared the industry off our shores. There is more coal in our future thanks to the podiocracy’s lack of foresight, and crazy adventures such as ‘pumped hydro’ besides.
Now we turn to the Government’s surprise attack on residential property investors. The announcement that the so-called bright line test will now extend to 10 years was not only predictable but predicted.
David Seymour said in 2015:
“… this tax is the acorn of a capital gains tax. It is a measure that will grow from two years to five to 10 to 15 years. You watch, it will eventually apply to a wider range of homes. It is the acorn that the National Party has planted that will grow into a full-blown capital gains tax.”
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