Helen Clark’s government is fond of strategies. But is it strategic?
Look at its new-spending in the 2006 Budget: of the $2.2 billion new operating spending, mostly on health, education and “working families”, $25 million goes to research, science and technology (RS&T).
Fixing up old people certainly gives them higher quality of life. But it says nothing about how today’s young are to have the higher incomes to pay for the care of the old of the future.
The government has reformulated the George Washington legend. It goes like this:
There was no cherry tree and no axe and I wasn’t there. Move on. Alright, there was a cherry tree and an axe. Move on. OK, I was there but not strictly as an axe-person. Move on. Anyway killing a cherry tree isn’t a crime. Move on. Well, if someone thinks there is a crime, go to the police. Move on.
It’s a free country, isn’t it? We can believe what we like and, within certain limits, say what we want.
So what’s the problem with women in burquas? Tough-talking National MP Bob Clarkson wants them out of this country. National MP Chris Finlayson, Blue Liberals organiser, said he agreed with every word Clarkson said. Is this the liberal National party of Ralph Hanan and Sir John Marshall?
Gerry Brownlee has had another go at the “bloated” public service. You can bet bureaucrats will be a target in the 2008 election. But has he got his aim right?
The Treasury has documented the expansion he complains of: more bums on seats requiring more offices; doubts about the return on taxpayers’ outlay.
Would we have made such a fuss if it had been Elizabeth R who died last week? Most likely not. That speaks volumes about who we are and who we are not.
It tells us we are no longer British. The Queen of New Zealand is a remote figure, a figment of heritage. She is our formal head of state but Dame Silvia Cartwright has been our real head of state and just as regal.
The west shudders — and learns a little bit how it is to be Israel.
Religious and ethnic hatred drive godless, gutless men to beguile the young into killing themselves and strangers going about their business.
In liberal societies such as ours this hate and killing are hard to understand. But they are human.
Here’s a way to get up an Aussie nose: junk the proposed joint therapeutics agency. Which would probably get up our own nose by setting back progress towards the single economic market (SEM).
Health Ministers — on this side Annette King — agreed in 2003 to set up the therapeutics agency as a supranational regulator of medicines in both countries, modelled in part on the joint Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) which looks after food safety.
In the heady days of the fourth Labour government Richard Prebble’s method of “saving rail” included closing the railway workshops in fellow minister Russell Marshall’s Wanganui constituency which Marshall had promised to keep open.
Marshall could have resigned his seat, asked the electors for forgiveness and re-endorsement in a by-election and thereby cleared the slate and his conscience. He stayed put, though he would surely have won.
Phillip Field might yet get his come-uppance — from Parliament, the institution which stands to lose most by what he did with migrant hopefuls, if National can produce an inventive resolution to skirt Standing Orders.
Should we cheer? Of course, if justice is done — and the Ingram report suggests there is justice to be done. But can we be sure Parliament will do justice?
When you have untangled the tax package, turn your mind to a small bill in Parliament. It points to profitability.
The bill is Sue Kedgley’s version of two-year-old British legislation that establishes an employee’s right to ask for flexible work hours and conditions and requires an employer to give reasons if denying the request.