Samizdata

An Australian swam 300 yards with a live shark clamped to his leg before driving a mile for assistance to have it removed (the shark, not the leg)!

They make ’em tough down-under!

G’day, Sport!

Denis Dutton is a new name to me, but I have the strong feeling that this says a whole lot more about me than it does about Denis Dutton. Unless I’m grievously mistaken, Dutton is a New Zealander. He is certainly based there, at the University of Canterbury, and writes a lot about New Zealand.

Arts & Letters Daily today linked to Dutton’s excellent review article about piano playing, classical music etc., which I enthusiastically recommend to anyone who is even slightly interested in such matters. I’ve just been saying all that on my Culture Blog, and then had another of those this-guy-should-also-be-on-Samizdata reactions. So I followed the links I’d just been setting up, and got to this 1998 review article, which starts thus:

That the old politics of right and left are obsolete is demonstrated in the very person of the Rt. Hon. Mike Moore. A Labour man with a unionist, shop-floor background, he was once a hero of the working man. He still ought to be. But when he became New Zealand’s Trade Minister, he saw it as his “patriotic duty” to pull down this country’s Berlin Wall of import controls both for the benefit of New Zealanders and incidentally to help our small Pacific neighbours to make a living for themselves.

This was viewed as a betrayal of working-class interests. “From hero to traitor in a decade!”, he writes. But this stubborn bloke knows vastly more than his embittered critics about trade and the creation of wealth in the brave new borderless world of international commerce and he’s not about to be shouted down. In A Brief of the Future he mounts a persuasive case for the increased internationalization of New Zealand and for greater individual liberty and responsibility: “democracy and the ingenuity of our species know no bounds when freedom unleashes the genius of the people.”

The word “reactionary” once applied exclusively to the political right. The reactionary conservatives who count most today include not only jingoistic provincials like the Australian Pauline Hanson, but leftists who, disappointed by the failures of socialism and embarrassed by the stupendous successes of capitalism, are keen for any excuse to reintroduce their programmes of government economic control. (I’ve been told by at least a half-dozen friends and correspondents from the left that the recent share-market setbacks are clear evidence that capitalism is on the ropes. Or so they seem to hope.)

Hardly, says Moore, pointing out that the living standards of at least half a billion people have doubled since the early 1980s, and it wasn’t state socialism that achieved it. The setbacks Southeast Asia don’t negate that. Even countries such as India that once seemed backward basket cases now have prosperous, growing middle classes of hard-working people. Singaporeans, to whom New Zealanders used to send food parcels, now earn more per capita than we do, have a lower infant mortality and higher life expectancy.

For Mike Moore, the key to New Zealand’s future is to take an open and competitive attitude toward world markets. We must eschew protectionism and commit ourselves, both intellectually and technologically, to the information revolution.

See what I mean about a guy who should be plugged by Samizdata? All that, and he knows his piano playing.

It’s also good to know that being called Mike (née Michael?) Moore doesn’t automatically make you an idiot.

Tim Sturm sees some interesting parallels between the British Tory Party and the New Zealand National Party.

UK Conservatives concerned with the current leadership battle might take note of similar events in New Zealand, where the NZ equivalent, the National Party, has just voted in Don Brash¹, former Governor of the Reserve Bank, and a classical liberal, as its new leader.

The similarities between National and the Conservatives are many:

• National has been the dominant party since at least WWII and considers itself the natural party of government
• It is currently floundering in the polls in its second consecutive term in opposition
• It is unable to counter the lefty backlash against the ‘Thatcherite’ reforms of the 80’s and 90’s and is apparently unwilling or unable to articulate any clear policies or principles.
• It appears to be self-destructing through infighting and ineffectual leadership.

Hopefully much of this is about to change.

The elevation of Brash to the leadership role can be seen as a firm pronouncement of principle, even if a reluctant one for some. Brash is not necessarily the best politician in the tactical sense, but he is certainly the highest profile man of principle the party has.

For instance, he is unashamedly supportive of the earlier reform programme. His central bank reforms were a key part of that programme and became a model (albeit flawed) for central banks around the world.

What’s more, his principles are generally quite good. In his maiden parliamentary speech, he said:

People are generally in the best position to make decisions for themselves and their families. This argues for the maximum amount of freedom for the individual.

(Brash also, incidentally, subscribes to and has occasionally written for The Free Radical, New Zealand’s premier libertarian magazine).

National has finally therefore drawn a clear dividing line with the ruling Labour government, which is staunchly antagonistic to the earlier reforms and to free markets in general.

It remains to be seen whether this attack of principle will be successful in lifting National out of the poll doldrums. Frankly I do not care about that. The long term future of conservative politics lies in principles, not in random shifts of sentiment that National and the UK’s Conservatives have been hoping for.

I only hope the Conservatives are watching.

Tim Sturm

¹ = The linked article overstates Brash’s ‘social conscience’. Brash has written extensively for a reduction in the size of the welfare state. See for example here.

A newspaper advertisement headlined “Prostitutes Required” for a club “downstairs at The White House” has riled US officials in New Zealand. The crossed Stars and Stripes and bald eagle logo may appear to suggest the Bush administration has branched out, but the advert is in fact for a brothel in Auckland looking for new ladies for its nightclub, Monica’s.

The US Embassy has sent a letter to the business complaining that the advert, especially the logo, is in poor taste.

We believe that any likeness of a national government symbol in a commercial advertisement is in extremely poor taste. We are sending a letter to the advertiser that expresses our disappointment and displeasure about their choice of symbolism.

The brothel’s theme is unashamedly American and the building even has white columns outside similar to the US President’s residence. During the previous US administration the women working at the complex wore blue dresses like that of former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The bordello’s owner Brian Legros was unrepentant.

They don’t own the White House. They should get on with the affairs of their country and not worry about little old New Zealand…”It’s my crest. “It might look like theirs, but it’s not.”

I note with disappointment (but not surprise) that the ‘global warming’ hoax is still proving useful to cash-strapped governments everywhere:

New Zealand’s farmers have criticised a proposed tax on the flatulence emitted by their sheep and cattle.

The move is part of the Wellington government’s action to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Scientists estimate that methane emitted by farm animals is responsible for more than half of the country’s greenhouse gases.

To be known as the Federal Advanced Rural Tariff, it surely has to rank as among the most secure of long-term revenue raisers. Contrast this to the UK where draconian petroleum taxes are justified by HMG’s creepy ‘behaviour modification’ rubric. The argument goes that taxing people out of their cars and onto public transport is a good thing because it ‘saves the planet’ (stop laughing). Of course, if we ever did stop using our cars so much, the paladins in Whitehall would have a collective coniption fit.

However, short of turning them all into cheeseburgers, there is no way to persuade cattle to stop passing wind, so a different bonus has to be invented:

The money is be used to fund research on agricultural emissions.

Read: “Job creation scheme for the political classes”. Further proof that the Kyoto Protocol really was a lot of hot air.

Still, there is a political upside to this. Next time some veggie enviro-mentalist hisses at you for tucking into a steak, you can always respond by telling them that you’re helping to reduce global warming.