Prevention rather than cure

I drafted this a while ago, but then life got in the way and I didn't get round to publishing it. I came back to it and thought the comments are still as relevant today as when they were first written. 

This crash provoked a lot of angst around the country. It was certainly a tragedy and the families concerned are going to relive that horrid event every Christmas for years to come. But the response of the Police and others such as the AA are totally wrong headed. 

The instant there is a road crash, the first question the Police answer is "was speed involved?" and the second is "was alcohol involved?". It seems the NZ Police have identified only two factors that cause crashes - speed and alcohol. They have also identified a number of "holiday blackspots" where crashes frequently occur at holiday weekends. 

Well, I think they are looking in totally the wrong place and at the wrong time to prevent accidents such as reported above. The genesis of that crash on a straight stretch of road in Uretiti was at another place and at another time. It seems so obvious that people who are more accustomed to driving within city precincts and on roads with median barriers for 90% of the year are the ones who get in strife on the rare occasions they venture out into the country and onto dual carriage way roads. Quite frankly, when it comes to driving, they are at best, lacking in driving experience and quite likely, just plain incompetent.

In keeping with my "personal responsibility" philosophy, it behooves urban motorists to realise there are two roading systems in New Zealand - the unreal conditions they encounter while driving to work and the real conditions they find outside city limits. Learning to cope with the latter should not be tackled on a long weekend when everyone else is trying to escape the city. It is something that should be a part of a learner driver's curriculum, before they get their restricted license. And it is something that should be practised throughout one's driving career. 

People who drive in rural settings are often experienced in a wider array of road conditions than their city dwelling counterparts. They are often more used to undulating road surfaces, diverse traffic types, being able to drive for extended distances at open road speed limits and encounter numerous hazards. 

The blackspots the Police should be policing are the driveways in every urban environment in New Zealand. And the time for this policing is not at long weekends, it is every other week of the year. We should be ridding our roads of the patently incompetent - the driver hunched over the wheel with their face 150mm from the windscreen who is travelling at 80 km/hr when conditions are perfectly okay for 100 km/hr. And at the long weekends, Police should concentrate on the first 10 km of dual carriageway immediately outside our main cities. If a driver is demonstrating incompetence, being inconsiderate or indecisiveness that close to the city, it is going to get worse from there on. Pull them over, clamp their car, put the occupants on a bus back to the city and have their car delivered a day or so later. When other travellers see this happening, it will be a salient warning. Some may even voluntarily return home out of consideration for other motorists.

Take this to Paris...

I am stating right up front that I am an anthropogenic climate change skeptic. I firmly believe that the climate is changing as it always does, but I do not for a second believe that mankind has been the author of any of the change that has occurred over the last 150 years. I also believe that we need to be good stewards of our environment. We should not waste resources or pollute and litter our environment. I believe the answer is for everyone to do whatever they can.

However, I have to say that I have figured out the easiest and most effective way of reducing CO₂ emissions. Eliminate all activity that is not necessary for life. That's it! Simple!

Greenpeace in New Zealand has been advocating that New Zealand reduces its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020. I can do that for New Zealand TODAY. Stop producing things that are not essential for life.

Here's how it works. If there were no movies produced, no television shows produced, no music produced and no sport and recreation then there would be no consumption and none of the associated greenhouse gas emissions. AND we are all winners.

If governments decided immediately to cease all television broadcasts then in houses across the world there would be less electricity consumed in operating the tv set. There would not be any HF₃ emissions associated with the manufacture of LCD screens. The CO₂ emissions associated with the production of movies and television programs would cease also. Okay. There would be unemployed actors and film crew and the like, but they are taken care of in this plan. Read on.

Stopping all sporting events would mean that all those rabid sporting fans would not emit CO₂ driving their gas-guzzlers to the stadium to watch the events. Since a lot of sports are now played under lights, there's a huge amount of electricity saved. Events like the Rugby World Cup and Olympics attract competitors and spectators jetting from all around the world, emitting vast quantities of carbon dioxide in their travels. As much as it pains me and as much as I will miss rugby, I think that for the good of the planet it has to go. (I'm a real martyr there in case you did not guess).

Bands touring the globe and huge concerts are another example of the sort of thing that will have to go. I won't get to enjoy Nickelback live or see Neil Young again but is it not a sacrifice worth making?

I see some performers adopt the carbon neutral approach to touring. They minimise their emissions and those they cannot eliminate they buy credits for or plant some trees to compensate. Wouldn't it be more ethical to not do the tour in the first place?

Cut off the supply of non-essentials and then there will be no usage that will emit CO₂.

Now here's the rub. The people I see on television advertising this "sign on" campaign are people who are in a good place to start eliminating supply. Actors, actresses and performers are all featured prominently. Surely Greenpeace would have pointed out this obvious solution and the part that these celebrities could play in saving the planet. Surely? It is just too obvious.

By eliminating supply each household will have more disposable income. They won't be spending money on powering their television and gaming console. They won't be spending money on music CDs, movies on DVD, tickets to the rugby or travel to other sporting events. Everyone is going to be better off.

One of the negatives we hear about the Emission Trading Schemes and proposed Carbon Taxes is that they will reduce household's disposable incomes. My scheme will increase it.

So with the additional disposable income my household will have, I will be able to hire an out of work actress to tidy the house, and an ex-professional Rugby player will be hired to help out on the farm.

We will improve society in so many ways.
With no professional sportsmen we won't have the spectre of Rugby League celebrities disgracing themselves and being reported in the newspaper (there's a saving of 3 pages of paper and ink a day).

Since non-essential activities will be banned we won't have mountain biking enthusiasts hurtling into trees breaking collar bones and claiming ACC (just saved that fund for the government). I know the mountain bikers will get on my case about their sport not emitting CO₂ but you have to think about this holistically. What emissions arose in the manufacture of your bike? Think about that for a bit, and when you are ready to ride around the forest on something made out of a piece of rough sawn 4x2 get back to me.

There are no moral or ethical downsides.
I cannot think of any moral or ethical reason that we should not eliminate all non-essential to life activities in order to reduce CO₂ emissions.

If anyone who signed on to the 40% reduction really meant what they were doing then now is the time to act. You can do your part. The power is in your hands.

When I hear this proposal discussed in Paris then I will know that people seriously do believe in man-made climate change. It would seem to me that the solution is so obvious that if it is not implemented then there is another agenda at work. I will leave you to figure that out.

Addendum
10/9/2009
As if to make my point, this morning on television I saw an interview with a person who is a "Professional Gamer". This person's breathing offends me. When there are people in primary industries, producing food and resources that sustain life, who are just eeking out a living being threatened with increased costs because of the AGW hoax, while people who do nothing productive "swan" around the world like this person, I just despair. What a waste of carbon.

Basic Education

Over the past few months I have become alarmed at what a waste of time Primary and Secondary Education is in New Zealand.  Don't get me wrong.  I value education.  I value the skills of reading, writing and numeracy.  But I think we send children to school for far too much time.  The net result is that we have a group of adults who are entertaining, rather than educating, the youth of this country.  And the minors have taken a greater importance than the majors.

For example, how often have you heard a teacher justify the use of computers in classrooms with the argument "We are preparing children for jobs that don't exist today."?  And have you analysed the fees (donations??) that you aren't obliged to pay, but are expected to pay anyway?  How much of the cost of schooling your children is on core subjects and how much goes to "co-curricula" activities?

As someone who works in IT my view of "computers in classrooms" is that they don't belong there.  The way they are used in school and even in University does not prepare young people for the workforce.  In my experience, those people who are the poorest at applying IT in their workplace are those who have been born since the advent of the PC.  These are the generation who have likely had a computer in their home and have had exposure to, if not immersion in, IT at school and University.  On the other hand there is a cadre of computer users who have gravitated from the "manual way of doing things" to computers who seem to have the right balance in applying technology to their and their employer's advantage.

My own education did not involve any use of computers until University level.  Back then it was mainframes and PDP-11s.  Now I manage IT and am involved in IT "right up to the gills".  None of my school teachers or University lecturers would ever have imagined the path my career has taken.

But they prepared me extremely well for the eventual path that I took.  And thanks must go to Mrs Crabb and Miss Knauf who laid the ground work.  These two teachers were the ones who gave me the ultimate skill that prepared me for all of life - Reading.  (I must give credit also to my parents who took an active part in my education and even prior to my enrolment at Primary School had done what all parents should).  [When I reflect, I think I have acquitted myself not too badly, considering I was completely deprived of a formal Early Childhood Education.  How did I ever cope?]

Quite simply, the only scholastic ability anyone needs is Reading.  With Reading and reading comprehension, you can self-educate in any discipline. With reading you can learn to write and you can learn mathematics.

So here's what I would like to see.  I would like to see a return to basic education.  The teaching of the 3Rs - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  Anecdotally I have heard that Primary School teachers admit that they could deliver the basic syllabus in 3 days a week.  All the rest of the time is taken up in co-curricula activity - art, music, drama, sport etc etc.  And a lot of potentially useful classroom time is consumed with behaviour management of kids whose parents are failing them.  All teachers are frustrated by the amount of administration and professional developmnent they have to undertake.

Why could we not have an option for parents to send their kids to school just for the basics - 3 days per week of intensive education on Reading, Writing and Arithmetic?

The Land of Diminished Responsibility

I have recently been involved in a motor vehicle accident. As a result I have formulated the view that New Zealand has developed a culture of Diminished Responsibility. I was not at fault in the accident. Another driver drove out of a supermarket carpark into the path of my motorcycle. I saw the driver overshoot where vehicles normally stop when exiting the carpark, and so was wary. As I watched, I waited for him to look in my direction (it was broad daylight and my headlight was on and I had a full view of his car and could see his face), but instead he drove out across two lanes and into my path. When I realised that he was not going to look I started braking. Unfortunately I braked too heavily with the rear brake and I lost control of the bike and was thrown off it. I had worked out my stopping distance perfectly - the bike stopped one bike length from his car, but I was on the ground. Sure - I could have done better on my part in controlling the stop or in looking for other escape routes, but that is all with hindsight. Costs and Inconvenience The nett result of this episode was a dislocated shoulder that had to be reduced under general anaesthetic and a broken foot. My motorbike is being repaired, at the other driver's insurer's expense. My treatment, for the most part, has been covered by ACC. But what steams me is that there are innumerable costs for which I am not compensated, nor can I recover them from anyone. It also annoys me that the other party has never contacted me and has got away very lightly in contrast to me. As I write my motorcycle has been off the road for over six weeks. My rehabilitation from the dislocated shoulder has been quite speedy, and I could have been riding it from about 2 weeks ago if it had been ready. Registration of a motorcycle costs over $500 per year, as good as $10/week. That means that every week it is off the road is costing me $10. I checked with NZ Transport Agency, and there is no way to have my registration period extended to compensate for this. My long-suffering wife and daughter have acted as taxi drivers (getting me to work and to medical appointments) in the first couple of weeks after the accident until I had enough movement to be able to operate a vehicle. My injuries have required extra journeys to hospital and to physiotherapy. These are costly in both the travel and in the time involved and I am not being compensated for either. And there are surcharges for physiotherapy, even though other costs are covered by ACC. Then there is the fact that I am having to travel by car. One of the main reasons for having a motorcycle is that they are less expensive to run than a car. Mine is not a weekend hobby bike but a daily commuter. I was riding it to work in winter at -3°C. So when I have to "fork out" for filling the car it hurts. I only took two days off from my day job and put it down as sick leave. So my employer and ACC have not had to pick up any costs there. But, due to my incapacity, I have not been able to carry out jobs around my lifestyle block/hobby farm. As a consequence, we have had to call out a vet to an animal which, had I been fully fit, would not have been necessary. But What About the Other Party? Meanwhile, old what's-his-name, has paid his insurance excess and paid his fine and is getting on with playing dodgems around town. I doubt he has learned a thing. The Police Officer caught me at a weak moment and put up a case about how the other driver had a very sick wife and was very worried that he would lose his license. Apparently, because there were no broken bones "Careless driving causing injury" was not an appropriate charge - Oh yeah! - it was a week after the accident I requested x-rays on my swollen and bruised foot which had 3 fractures. So I got convinced that "Failure to give way" was an appropriate charge. This Is Not Justice In a jurisdiction where there was justice the other driver should have been made to realise and pay the cost of his inattention and negligence. Our wonderful ACC system, which we are told is the "envy of the world" has caused "Diminished Responsibility". Instead of crowing about it, we should be dismantling it. While the victim does not have to pay the full cost of their treatment, the unintended consequence is that the negligent can get on with life without having to face their responsibilities. It's a bit like crashing a car in "Need for Speed" and pressing the reset - except this was an elderly person who has lived all their life without the need to face up to responsibilities. This is not about being vindictive or unscrupulous ambulance chasing lawyers fabricating cases against hapless individuals to enrich "victims". It is about making people responsible for their actions. ACC Should Recover Costs from the Negligent One immediate change I think should be made to ACC is the recovery of costs from those responsible for harm to others. Without the expectation of having to face the costs of one's actions we are breeding a "careless" society. How many fools would stop driving like idiots with their mates in their car if there was the possibility that if they injured them or a bystander they could face the costs of treatment? Oh, I hear people saying, they wouldn't be in a fit state to make such a decision or "young people think they are 10 feet tall and bullet proof". No excuse. A couple of "test cases" and word would get out. I strongly believe in personal responsibility. I am a bit old fashioned like that. But I reason that many incidents that occur, many of the tragedies we read about in the news, do so because New Zealanders have bred into them Diminished Responsibility. Other Examples One incident that brought this home to me was a recent visit to a park. Since I wasn't as mobile as I should have been I wasn't trailing our 3 year old closely enough. He disappeared from sight for a minute or so and by the time I went to investigate he was heading towards me, soaked from head to toe. He had fallen into a pond. Fortunately he was able to gain his footing and extract himself. How many people would have been on the phone the next day to the Council making a "song and dance" about the need to fence off the pond? Too many. It is my responsibility to ensure my child can handle such situations. The best thing I can do for him is:

• let him experience these situations so he can learn to assess danger for himself, and
• help him acquire skills to cope (swimming lessons are on the agenda especially as we go into summer).

Those who suffer from Diminished Responsibility see anything adverse as an opportunity to hand over control to the Government or some other authority. Instead of learning a lesson and taking personal responsibility they cede more and more of themselves to the bureaucracy. Conclusion There needs to be fresh thinking about the social state. As I have said, it has been a relief to me that so much of my treatment and rehabilitation has been paid for. But we have to be very perceptive to the unintended consequences of these policies that have lead to this state of Diminished Responsibility.

Road Safety

I am tired of hearing people blame the state of New Zealand roads for the rate of accidents in this country. I have driven extensively in the 30+ years I have held a Driver's Licence. My view is that New Zealand roads are adequate for use by a competent driver. New Zealand has too few tax payers to be able to afford to have roads built to the kind of standard some people seem to be expecting if we want to sustain all the other services people want.

My advice to anyone who finds New Zealand roads inadequate is to stay off them and make them even safer for those of us who don't have a problem with them.

In any road accident investigation three factors are considered: the driver, the environment, and the vehicle.

Every vehicle on the road is supposed to be checked regularly. It is quite rare for a properly maintained vehicle that has a current Warrant of Fitness to be at fault in an accident.

The environment is continually being monitored and 'improved'. (sometimes I think some of the road maintenance is of dubious merit). While environment can be a factor in an accident, the prudent and capable driver is able to compensate for this.

What we don't have is a regular reassessment of driver competence. Apart from testing for additional classes of vehicles, I have not had my driving ability reassessed since getting my Passenger Car license at age 15.

I would be quite happy to have less vehicle testing in exchange for increased driver re-testing. Every driver should have to undergo reassessment at regular intervals to prove their competence and courtesy on the road. I don't think just having the ability to shove a vehicle in "D" and point it around a few suburban streets really cuts it. Driver testing should be undertaken in a manual transmission vehicle to ensure the driver is actively involved in the process. I get the impression that there are a lot of people who sit in the driver's seat but they are little more than the passenger with the steering wheel in front of them.

I think this testing would probably weed out about one third of the incompetent, inconsiderate drivers who shouldn't be there in the first place. Once they are gone the road would be a safer place. We could raise the speed limit and let those who possess the skill enjoy the experience.

Stewardship of Public Assets

Wow! I must have been busy on other things. Clearly it has been a long time since my last post. Have you ever noticed that no one looks after your stuff the way that you do? Have you ever lent something to a friend and it has not come back in the state it left you? Or maybe you have the experience of being a landlord and you have found your property has deteriorated more than it would have had you been the occupier? I have experienced both of these. It leads me to the conclusion that if everyone owns it no one cares for it (a nail in the coffin of socialism). It is also my conviction that private ownership leads to good stewardship, lower costs and more efficiency. Owners of assets steward them. In the instance of my experience as a landlord certain legal restraints did not allow me to exercise the stewardship I would have preferred of those assets, and the rental income I charged did not have the desired effect of engendering in the tenants some sense of responsibility for someone else's possession. I support the Government's proposed asset sales. But I think there are some smart ways they can unload some of our social burdens and make people more responsible for themselves. The Government is a landlord. From my observation many of the houses that the taxpayer owns and the Government rents on our behalf are badly stewarded by the tenants. Often the Government is actually paying the tenant to pay the rent, by way of Unemployment Benefit and then Accommodation Supplement. My proposal would be the following: 1. The Government gifts the house to the current tenant (subject to the house being suitable for the current needs of the tenant i.e. not overcrowded and not uninhabitable) 2. In exchange for the taxpayer's generosity the new owner of the house agrees to never rely on the taxpayer for the provision of accommodation again and agrees on behalf of their offspring (current and future) the same. Two generations will be able to use the taxpayer's gift to ensure they are adequately housed. The new owner will have a house which they can care for and dispose of or use as they see fit. If their family expands they can borrow against the house to extend it or they can sell it and buy a more suitable home. They could borrow against the house to get their children a tertiary education or to assist them into their own homes. The Government will no longer have to provide houses. They won't have to maintain their property portfolio and they won't have to collect rent. I would go even further to identify private rentals where the Government is effectively the tenant i.e. by paying the Unemployment Benefit and/or Accommodation Supplement and acquire these properties under the Public Works Act and gift them to the current tenant. This may seem like a costly proposal. I don't have the resources to cost this and determine whether the Government and taxpayer will be better or worse off under this proposal, but I think there are huge merits to it. An initial investment of some capital could remove a lot of on-going costs from the system that seem perpetually guaranteed to grow. There is a huge amount of injustice in this too. What about the "battlers" who are scrimping and saving to buy their own home to get off the rental treadmill? Well, life is not fair! But maybe this proposal will free up more savings by reducing your taxes allowing you to save faster.

Outcomes are the Result we Want

One of my recent experiences caused me to realise that the New Zealand Public Service has everything backwards. It turns out that we serve them, rather than vice versa.

Take the example of an Early Childhood Centre. It is a community based centre, licensed by the Ministry of Education. The Education Review Office is about to do a review of the centre and sends out to the Licensee a schedule of what is to be covered in the review - pages of stuff. And what they are going to review is documentation and procedures that the centre has in place. The ERO does not seem to care about the outcomes. They seem to have a naive assumption that if their prescription is followed then the unstated outcomes will be achieved.

Surely the only way to measure the effectiveness of something like an Early Childhood Centre is to undertake some kind of longitudinal study on the children who pass through the Centre. Look at their skills and knowledge at the time they enrol, and compare that with when they start school. Of course there are lots of other influences on a child, such as family background, but if on average the children attending one Centre are better prepared for school than those going through another then something could be concluded about the effectiveness of a Centre.

While on the subject of children, surely parents have an unstated responsibility to prepare their children for adulthood, to be sociable and productive adult members of society. How parents get an infant from their initial state of helpless dependence to being an independent, responsible young adult is a program that parents have to customise to each child. Having three children, it is obvious that what works with one does not necessarily work with the other two, so parenting must be adaptable. (You can probably guess where I am going with this.)

Governments are again too prescriptive in the area of regulating parenting. Take one example - children are not able to be left at home alone under the age of 14 years. Firstly, for many circumstances this is impractical, especially in rural areas or in solo parent situations. Secondly, it does not take account of individuality. No one from [whatever agency would enforce that law] could have all the information available to them that I have in order to decide if I can leave my child(ren) at home alone. For some it might be that even at 14 it might be inappropriate for the eldest to be left responsible for a younger sibling, due to the younger one's behaviour or needs. In other instances a 12 year old may have the maturity to cope. [In the end a lot comes down to the skill and aptitude of the parents involved.]

Governments should not be running this stuff as tightly as they do. And the regulations that are put in place should hinge around achieving societal outcomes not the means of achieving them.

As similar sort of thing exists in the Health Sector and Local Government. There are so many bureaucrats managing the minutiae of regulations that they have lost sight of the "outcomes" they are supposed to be achieving. Health would be a good candidate to hand over to the private sector, but I fear that the mentality of the bureaucrats would be a hindrance. Those from the public sector whose responsibility it would be for setting standards and monitoring them have no idea how to set standards that are based on outcomes. They would likely want to pass on the box-ticking, paper shuffling, soul-destroying bureaucracy they have created.

We need new thinking. We need to break free from the bureaucratic shackles that dictate the "how" and "how not" and instead focus on outcomes. How we get to the outcome is not important.

I am not advocating that the end always justifies the means. We have laws and other societal regulations that ensure that unsavoury means are not used to achieve the desired ends. What has happened, as I have pointed out above, is that those laws governing the the means, have been exploded into petty regulations that are prescriptive and, in the end, counter productive.

Economic crisis - What crisis?

I can't help thinking that there is much truth in the maxim that Governments rule by fear. In my lifetime we have had:

• the Cold War
• the Hole in the Ozone
• Y2K
• SARs and Bird Flu
• Global Warming/Climate Change

In recent weeks there has been a huge emphasis given to the current "global economic crisis". It was extremely timely for the US Presidential Election and also for the New Zealand General Election. In both cases the candidates were able to transfix the populace with their proposals for how their administration would rescue us from impending and imminent doom. Other matters, such as social issues, morality or law and order, were either not addressed or were relegated to a very low priority. As far as I can determine, there have been collapses of banks and lending institutions around the world due to them lending to people who acquire things that are not particularly good in terms of "security". The borrowers have defaulted on the loans, leaving the lender with a gap between what they themselves owe to their depositors and what they have as security (less their salaries, fringe benefits and bonuses). Easy credit has driven up the price of some more desired items e.g. houses; so that people have borrowed more than can be currently realised for that asset in a mortgagee sale - if a buyer can be found. In short, a culture of spending what we don't have has lead to its natural consequences. In the last few days we have the leaders of the APEC nations meeting in Lima, Peru. They have pledged to beat the economic crisis in 18 months. But their method seems to me a bit crazy. To me it sounds like what was said was: "Trust us. Don't lose your nerve. Keep spending." Talk of committing to Free Trade Agreements so that people can keep spending and help everyone trade their way out of this crisis does not sound like prudent management for a household - much worse for a nation. It sounds like on the one hand we got into the crisis due to careless spending and the way out is to keep spending. As Barack Obama said, "it is not going to be easy for us to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in." (If that had have been Obama's predecessor the media would have leapt on it as a "Bushism"). Mr Obama, when you are in a hole, it only gets bigger if you keep on digging. Because of the mistaken belief that the 1930's depression was ended by Keynesian economic policy of the "New Deal", which involved increases in Government spending, we are hearing a lot of talk about increasing or not curbing Government spending. This is nonsense. Governments either have to tax or borrow in order to spend. If they tax, then they will curb private expenditure. If they borrow then they end up constructing public works that people can ill-afford to use. (Given that most economies are in recession then the tax take is going to decline even if they increase the tax rates and Government expenditure only artificially grows the economy, imposing greater cost on the private sector.) There is this "spend at all cost" (double-entendre intended) mentality. Buy a whole lot of stuff that you really don't need because the world needs to keep on selling stuff. But hey! Isn't it all this unnecessary stuff that got us here in the first place? If some factory making big screen television sets closes because of the current economic crisis and all the workers end up out of a job, and a burden on the tax payer, is that such a tragedy? Yes. It is for the workers. But is the absence of the goods they produced going to make the world a worse place? Are the goods they produce a necessity? If nothing else this economic crisis should help a new generation distinguish between necessities and luxuries. Unfortunately though much of the pain in these times is born by those who produce primary products. In the US in the '20s and '30s those most adversely affected were farmers and timber workers. Why? Those who took their produce, which was still in demand, were not prepared to concede their margin, so that the people who produced the raw materials could make a living. My call is for a more pragmatic approach to this crisis. If luxury goods producers are suffering, that is of little import compared to those who, even before the current recession, were struggling with the basic necessities of life. Governments should "butt out" of economics and intervention, and get back to protecting the defenseless. They should revert to upholding a high moral standard and maintain law and order. In my view Governments are too big a player in the economy. Governments can, and do, distort the economy to a disproportionate extent, either through taxation, spending or through legislation and regulation. The sub-Prime mortgage fiasco in the US is an example. It seems poetic justice that the good citizens of the US have voted in a Democrat President who will be faced with the consequences of the previous Democrat President's meddling in the economy. In New Zealand we have had successive Governments being too involved in economics. Unfortunately the way politicians deal with economics is something like a game of "Whack a Mole". They club something they don't like here and something pops up over there, which they then try to smack. Over regulation has stifled growth, and expenditure by Governments in areas they really shouldn't be in has necessitated increased taxation which has similarly impeded growth. Ideally Governments should be concerned with Defence, Law and Order, Health and Welfare and (possibly) education. All the petty regulations and laws that could easily be replaced by "It's illegal to be stupid" are costly and and frustrating. People need to take responsibility for their own lives, not cry out for the Government to intervene and regulate at every adverse turn. I expect I am too optimistic to think we can completely dismantle the Welfare State and undo all the regulation and intervention, but stopping anymore occurring would be a good start.

Some Cautious Optimism

I must admit that the events of the last two weeks have given me cause to question my view of MMP. I would not go so far as to say it is an ideal form of Government.

In my view the National Party has done a very good job of putting together political alliances in order to form the next Government of New Zealand. What has impressed me has been that they have joined together with more parties than required to achieve a 51% majority in Parliament. Had they been pragmatic, they could have struck a deal with ACT or the Maori Party and set about governing. But instead they have taken an extra 6 seats by including United Future and both ACT and the Maori Party.

This creates a more representative Parliament, with the minor partners acting as tempering influences on each other. It could be seen that National could use the threat of "We've got the numbers with ACT to push through this piece of legislation so your votes don't matter" or it could be seen that they have taken on a more tricky position in having to work things through with more partners.

It is going to be interesting to watch this one play out.

I suppose what is most surprising is that National has gone down this track given the strength of support they received in the ballot box. There has not been such strong support for one party since the inception of MMP.

The Proportional Representation Fallacy

MMP is supposedly a proportional representation system of Government. Supposedly we elect a Government that is proportionally representative of the views in society. So explain to me why the Government is made up of Labour, the Progressives, the Greens, United Future and New Zealand First?

According to official election results the National Party received 39% of the vote. Note: I am not singling out the 2005 election for any partisan reasons, and the National Party did the same thing previously). Instead of a Government being formed in proportion to the wishes of the people, the party with the largest number of votes stitched together agreements with "minority" parties to get over a 50% threshold in order to govern. This effectively relegated the wishes of those who voted for ACT, the Maori Party and National to the opposition benches. Clearly the wishes of the people were not listened to.

This has resulted, as I have pointed out previously, in a situation where we have the minority parties setting an agenda out of proportion to the views they represent in society. We can have a party that represents the views of only 5% of the population, getting support for legislation, when a party that has 39% support does not get to put forward policies it had in its manifesto. This is the phenomenon of "the tail wagging the dog".

Hopefully this immoral and unrepresentative electoral system will be overturned. Given the level of disenchantment I hear from people I associate with I think a referendum would show people support ditching the system.

However, I suspect that if the final decision is left to the politicians then they are not going to back the majority view of the people, but will try to make the system more palatable. The corporations they work for (i.e. the political parties - they are just businesses in my view) are not going to want to lose their grip on power.

Here are some suggestions for how MMP could be made more palatable:

1. Axe it (well as I said that is about as likely as hell freezing over)
2. Abolish the Westminster Parliamentary System (chances about the same as MMP being abolished)
3. Change the percentage requirement for a vote to pass in Parliament from 50% to 75%

If the threshold for a vote to pass in Parliament was increased from 50% to 75% then the major political parties would have to be more accommodating of each other (the idea of the Grand Coalition). Immediately following a general election those parties that represent the majority views of the people would have to work out a way to work together on issues, and establish a much more collaborative approach. The political minorities would be relegated to supporting or opposing legislation in proportion to their representation in society.

The Electoral Commission needs to look into this. If the threshold is raised to 75% then the matter of how an election is run, first past the post or some form of proportional representation, is largely irrelevant. 50% is too low a threshold for making decisions with regard to a country.

Paying and Paying Again

This just typifies the plight of this current generation of workers! When I heard it reported that Winston Peters had told Grey Power
"And you have a right to this because of your contribution to society.
Let’s face it, New Zealand was a better place when you were running it!"
I was horrified.

The current generation of Superannuitants had an extremely 'cushy' time of it when they were in the workforce, while they were raising their families and while they were buying their homes. Let's reflect on what they had:

• 3% interest rate home loans under the State Advances,
• free doctors visits and no prescription surcharges - I never once remember my mother paying for a visit to the Doctor or for the medicines prescribed,
• free education for their children - my parents paid a pittance for my Primary and Secondary education. By the time I reached University user pays was just starting to "kick in" and I had to fund quite a lot of my Tertiary education,
• Family Benefit of $6 per child per week, which could be capitalised to provide a deposit on a home.

I could go on! But my point is that with all those advantages, if the current generation of retirees did not make provision for their own retirement years then that is not my generation's problem.

My generation is now in a situation where we are having to:

• pay higher interest rates on our mortgages, or any borrowings for that matter
  
• pay a significantly higher cost for our offspring's education
• make do without receiving assistance from Government similar to the Family Benefit
• make our own provisions for retirement, and
• pay much higher tax by way of Income Tax, GST and other levies and rates that are hidden in the costs of many goods and services that we consume (most often the essentials we consume).

In addition to paying for the rearing of the offspring that I have fathered responsibly, I am also paying for numerous children who have been irresponsibly conceived or have been born into families who abuse or mistreat them. And Winston Peters wants me to "feather bed" Grey Power as well.

Let's look for a moment at what our society is like. 50 years ago there were two murders a year in New Zealand. This year we would hear of two murders a week. That increase in offending is not due to population increase. Population has doubled in those 50 years but murders have increased by 4000%. We hear daily of family violence and many other crimes. Some would want us to believe that it is a matter of better reporting or a change in society's attitudes to this kind of offending that is bringing it to light.

I say that the reason is that the current generation of Superannuitants did a pretty bad job of raising their children! (This is a blog and that is a gross generalisation). In the 1950's and 1960's New Zealand enjoyed a great deal of prosperity. However, there was a loosening of morals and the adoption of more liberal views. Although they didn't grow their hair, smoke dope and 'drop acid' many Kiwi's attitudes were affected by the hippie culture and the philosophies that spawn such a sub-culture. Most people of that era did not openly or knowingly adopt those views but they were influenced by them.

As a result we have now in New Zealand a generation who were raised in such a liberal environment, who are now the parents of children who are running amok.

New Zealand may have been a better place when the current retirees were running it, but they squandered the opportunities. They started the break down of the family unit. They sowed the seeds of the society we now live in where there is such an upsurge in lawlessness and an attitude that you don't need to raise your own kids, (leave that to the state) and you don't need to work (draw a benefit).

My generation is paying for the short sightedness of my parent's generation. [However, thanks Mum and Dad for instilling in me the values that enable me to raise my family with 2 parents, and to have had education that enables me to earn enough to help support numerous beneficiaries (and a few extra MPs and bureaucrats) in New Zealand.]

During the 1950's and 1960's those people with the attitudes I am decrying here were in the minority. Only a small percentage of the population were responsible for the break down that we are seeing now. It only goes to show though in what a short span of time a few people can take a country in such a disastrous and negative direction.

A Referendum on MMP

National has picked up on the sentiment of the people. I have to agree that a referendum is at the very least the voters deserve. It was, in my view, promised by previous Governments and is now long overdue. However, the cynical side of me wonders whether there will be any point in participating.

Any debate on electoral reform in New Zealand centres around the basic assumption of the continuation of political parties. You have read my views, (if not, then read some of my back issues) on political parties. I cannot state it strongly enough - they are basically undemocratic.

Political reform that delivers platonic representation and accountability can only be achieved through the abolition of political parties.

For this debate to result in something that is going to result in democracy becoming a reality in New Zealand, it must not fall into the hands of the parties. Party people will only want to advocate a system that delivers them power, control and prestige. This debate must be had by those who are truly vested in the interests of New Zealand - individual New Zealanders.

No doubt there will be debate, maybe even Select Committees, on political reform in the years to come. Whatever happens a higher weighting must be given to the views of individual New Zealanders than to the collective views of political interest groups. (In fact the views of interest groups should be totally disregarded.)

Part of this debate should be on the merits of the Westminster Parliamentary system. In my view there are few to be seen. We need to devise and adopt a Parliamentary system that is more collaborative and less combative than this relic from our colonial heritage.

Don't let the Politicians and Political Parties hijack this opportunity to introduce true democracy.

The Burden on the Few

This is something of an addendum to my previous post.

Talk of Warrants of Fitness and Vehicle Registration get me a bit worked up. One episode in the last few years always springs to mind.


I was leaving the Post Shop after having paid my Vehicle Registration. As I walked between my car and the car parked behind it I glanced at the windscreen of the other car. Right there, I saw an expired Warrant of Fitness and Registration. And I am not talking a few days either. This vehicle had been sharing the road with us for months without a right to be there.

How many more are there out there? And if they can't be bothered paying for Registration or a safety check, do you suppose they hold any insurance, even third party insurance?

The burden of cost always falls on the honest I am afraid.

Political Distrust

If anyone out there is reading this, I assume you have been waiting with bated breathe for the next installment. I have been working hard to keep the tax coffers full and the country running. We must soon be approaching "tax free day". Although that day is only calculated on Income Tax. If you include GST, Excise duty, Local Authority Rates, Regional Council Rates, Driver's Licensing, Vehicle Registration, and various other surcharges then we are paying tax until well into August. And if you have a mortgage, look at it like this - you are borrowing money to pay tax. If you do eventually see a real tax cut, in the interests of the country, increase your mortgage payments not your expenditure.

But something has really touched a nerve with me recently. Politicians are very trusting of the electorate. Once every three years when we go to the ballot boxes. In between times we the voters are hapless morons who can't even tie our own shoe laces (hence we go bare footed - although that is possibly evidence of us making sacrifices to pay taxes). This arrogance and air of distrust comes through many of the political voices we hear day by day. And it filters down through the Public Service.

As it came due, I put my diesel powered vehicle into a Warrant of Fitness testing facility. Everything tested out okay, and off I drove, with an appropriately lighter wallet. A few weeks later I received a letter from Land Transport demanding I pay additional Road User Charges. Their computer system had picked up that the end odometer reading from the Warrant of Fitness was greater than the end reading for RUC distance paid (smart computer system). The letter was written in such terms that there was a presumption of guilt on my part. I checked out the paperwork from the WOF inspection and found there had been a transposition of a couple of digits. A quick check of the odometer on the vehicle and the RUC label revealed the mistake, and confirmed that I was legal. I wrote back to the obnoxious department (there was not an individual named on the letter to write back to - in fact there wasn't even an invitation to contest the demand) and explained the error and informed them that I would continue to do my bit in purchasing RUCs as they fall due.

I find this obnoxious in that there was an automatic presumption of guilt. Right from the outset there was a high-handed approach rather than a polite reminder or opportunity to explain what was quite possibly an oversight.

I have not received a reply to my politely worded letter.

More recently we have had similar experience.

We came back home from holiday to find a note from our house sitters for my wife to contact Dun and Bradstreet urgently. On the next available work day she did as requested. D&B were trying to recover money she owed to ACC. This was the first either of us knew there was anything owed. She requested evidence this phantom debt. Instead D&B sent us a letter stating they had enclosed some forms for us to complete and return by a specified date. At this point I got involved. The forms included were not the ones stated, and the date for response was a day before the letter was received. I don't want to prejudice the matter as it is still being finalised, but this is persecution.

ACC had picked up from our PAYE, and our secondary business tax returns some way in which it was deemed that my wife owed extra ACC levies. They then proceeded to send demands for this to an address we have not lived at for nearly 7 years. Why they couldn't get our current address from the IRD returns we have furnished each intervening year is beyond me (they need to talk the LTSA to find out who programmed their smart computer system). It took D&B to track us down.

What is so galling is this presumption of guilt again. A bill we have never seen, and which as it turns out we do not actually have to pay, has been sent to a debt collector. I was not very happy about the time it took to try to sort this out (assuming that it is now sorted out) and suggested that ACC should pay me for my time. It is after all an era of user pays.

When politicians claim a mandate for all manner of policies, because they got the most votes or negotiated the biggest coalition, we start to see this arrogance towards the populace. In my reckoning, this started in the mid-1980s, so it pre-dates MMP. The general populace seems to be here to serve the politicians, not the other way round. We get one chance every three years to be thought of by politicians as serving some purpose.

Doing the decent thing...

This lady deserves a New Year's honour. She has done more for making New Zealand a decent society than all the politicians and all the public servants in this country put together. Persuading her own son to turn himself in to Police is an example that could be emulated by more in society.

It seems that some laws are more rigorously enforced than others. Harbouring a criminal is not an offense that comes up in the court pages very often, but I suspect that there are numerous people living everyday, knowing the offender in a particular crime, and not coming forward.

Another point that readers may have missed is that the son in this case was 18. When I talk with people about parental responsibility I get the impression that the majority of people think their parenting stops as soon as their child turns 16 and is old enough to leave school. (Some people give up even sooner.) My kids know that they live by my rules while they live in my house, so if they are here till they turn 20 then they will not get away with anti-social, larakin behaviour.

I've expressed my view on the debate about raising the driving age. Nothing needs to change in law, but parents need to step up and be responsible. This article just proves that. All the socialist thinking in New Zealand causes people to bleat on about the Government needing to change the laws. Utter rubbish! They should enforce the law. And then, in the case of learner drivers, parents should "man up" and take responsibility for their own children's actions (whether it is driving, firing bb guns out car windows or drinking at parties).

Somehow New Zealand has to reverse the damage done by the last 2 or 3 generations who have been raised in a socialist environment. It is patently obvious that Governments are powerless to make change at an individual level. And the more ink they waste on legislation and then waste money on the bureaucracy to administer the unworkable regulations, only to have to draft some more unnecessary legislation to patch up the first, the worse it gets.

Being a decent society comes down to individuals doing the decent thing. They don't need a pile of laws to tell them what to do. But it is the cumulative actions of every individual and not the collective 'relative inaction' of Governments and their supporting bureaucracy that make New Zealand a decent society.

This anonymous woman deserves recognition for the huge contribution she has made to making New Zealand a more decent society, and the example she is to all parents.

Some lessons are so obvious...

This article made me realise that there are some people who just don't get it. They don't understand cause and effect.

We have people leaving school without any effective education and what do the politicians propose? Raising the leaving age.

How about making it compulsory to pass an exam before leaving school? As a taxpayer I consider that some of my hard earned money has gone towards education therefore I want value for money. I want a "return on my investment".

Abolish school leaving age. It is utterly meaningless, and instead introduce an exam. My guess is that this would motivate teachers to get rid of troublemakers, and the troublemakers would be motivated to try to pass the exam so they can get out of the school system.

A new Reality TV Show - Parliamentary Island

Wow! It has been a month since my last entry. Time flies. But I have been busy working so I can help keep the Government coffers overflowing. In reality, like the majority of New Zealanders, I have a mortgage on the house so I can keep paying tax, so the Government can run a surplus. Seems a bit topsy turvy to me, but that's another blog.

An idea that has been in the back of my mind for some time is to operate Parliament like one of those annoying Reality TV Shows. This occurred to me back when there was debate about televising Parliament, and the politicians wanted all kind of rules that would prevent the viewing public from seeing the 'reality' of a Parliamentary debate.

If we have to have 120+ MPs and the Westminster Parliamentary System, then let that be so. But let's make it do something productive. Let's make television out of it. 'Parliamentary Island' hopefuls should have to audition for their place. Put the MPs in the debating chamber and point television cameras at them. Just like the tv shows, viewers get to vote off one participant a week, based on their performance. (If there is a tie, then all those who are tied in the voting have to go.) Participants can be granted 'immunity' by undertaking tasks set by the smarmy presenter. The first week's task is "Draft a piece of legislation that could not be covered by 'It is illegal to be stupid'". The Parliamentary session is ended when all the participants are voted off.

Simple. Even those of the meanest intelligence can understand that (they are the ones who watch Reality TV Shows) and even the poorest in society can afford to vote by texting from their prepay cellphone.

Okay. This is ludicrous. Maybe not so.

Why do we not have electronic voting in New Zealand? It was suggested as a means to increase the turn out for the recent Local Government elections. Maybe texting would be a bit of a stretch, but Internet voting is a definite possibility. Similarly, setting up a network of voting kiosks, similar to banking ATMs, is technically feasible. Civil libertarians wouldn't want us to go down this track, because we would all need an identity card. However, they would be "cutting off their nose to spite their face", since the reality of electronic voting would bring about the possibility of more frequent referenda.

What was that? Instead of voters just voting once every three years in a "winner takes all" General Election we could have more frequent referenda. In the 1984 Election the eventual "winner" did not actually propose any policies. It was a snap election, and I think it caught even the Politicians off guard. The New Zealand Party campaigned vigorously to oust the incumbent National Party, but I do not remember the Labour Party espousing any concrete policies. Because of the 'wage/price freeze' that Muldoon had imposed, I suspect that winning the election was a bit of a 'hospital pass'. But we had the new Prime Minister going round saying "we have a mandate from the people...." Judging by the subsequent reaction of the electorate and even members of the Labour Party to the reforms under "Rogernomics" and then Lange's eventual "pause for a cup of tea" the "mandate" did not extend to everything in their Manifesto.

Here's my point. Just because the majority of the electorate vote for a political party, does not mean that they agree with everything in the party manifesto. The supposed "mandate" needs to be tested on a more frequent basis than once every 3 years. Because political parties put together policies on a wide range of issues, from economics to law and order, education, etc it is extremely unlikely to find any voter who will agree with every letter of the manifesto of the party for which they eventually vote.

So we should have more frequent referenda on all manner of issues. The recent experience with Prostitution Law Reform, Civil Unions and the Anti-Smacking debates have shown how "out of touch" the politicians are with the voters. Petitions to Parliament are as effective as a "chocolate teapot". Having a cobbled together majority of like minded MPs has enabled a government to push through legislation against the wishes of the people.

I think the only reason that electronic voting is not on the agenda is that the politicians realise that it would undermine their power base and would prevent politicians being able to operate an agenda of social re-engineering. People would get to have an effective voice on all manner of legislation. The number of MPs would decline as well.


Think about it. Banks are the most risk averse and electronic security conscious institutions in the world. They transact millions of dollars electronically on a daily basis and even transact via the Internet. There is no security reason for not having an electronic voting system for General Elections and referenda. The reason we don't have it today is political. And that reason is 'undemocratic'.

I can't hold back on this one...

I see in today's Herald that debate has begun about raising the age for obtaining a driver's license. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10463733

I do no believe the age for obtaining a driver's license should be changed.

Our eldest son is currently on his Restricted License for a car and motorbike. We live rurally, and the benefit of having him driving is immense. He has a couple of part-time jobs, one of which involves him being on the job at 5:30 am. There is no public transport here, and even if there was the odds of it operating at 5:00am to our gate are not good. I hold down a full-time job myself, and I would be strongly averse to getting up at 5:00 am to drive him to work, and then come home for a bit more sleep and then go back to pick him up. That's before I take account of the extra cost of fuel (hopefully those of a Green persuasion will look at this and realise the environmental impact of raising the driving age).

My viewpoint is that the problem with young drivers is not the youngsters themselves, but their parents. If my son proves to be an idiot behind the wheel, there is no way I am going to let him advance to his full license. That's my responsibility as a parent. We have already stipulated that he will not own his own car while he lives at home and is at school. His choice of vehicles, therefore, is restricted to practical family vehicles of modest power. When he comes to make a choice of his own vehicle, then I hope that I will have a hand in this too. When I chose my first car my parents were involved in that decision, and were fully aware of the choice of vehicle I was making, despite me being over 21 at the time.

We have been so indoctrinated with the socialist mentality in this country that every time there is a problem it is supposed that "society will fix it". People are too eager and quick to throw away their volition and expect the Government to step in. I see this, not only in this matter but in other areas of topicality. Take the national response to anthropogenic climate change. Everyday I see examples of people who are convinced that climate change or global warming or whatever has been caused by mankind. Yet, even though they are utterly convinced that man is responsible, they do NOTHING to moderate their own behaviour. The most zealous believers in anthropogenic climate change seem to be the ones who do least to moderate their own behaviour, but instead agitate for "society to address the issue".

My point is not to get into the climate change debate, but to illustrate how Kiwis have become infected with a socialist mentality. Look at the variety of responses to problems of domestic child battery. The Children's Commissioner wants to commission another study into the issue. Politicians are skirting the obvious demographic, socio-economic and ethnic statistics and claiming it is a universal societal problem.

BUNKUM. It is a problem of a lack of personal responsibility and accountability. It is a history of poor parenting generating poor parenting.

Back to the driving age issue.

Leave the driving age at 15. There are many practical reasons for it.

Secondly, parents should start teaching their children to drive from as young an age as possible. Get the "mechanics" of driving taught as soon as the kid can see over the steering wheel. Take them out into a paddock and get them driving around and developing the skills so that when they have their learner's license and are on the road they are able to concentrate their efforts on negotiating traffic and other obstacles.

Thirdly, when your teenager gets their license, teach them in as many situations as possible. Don't just teach them to drive in town. Get them out onto the highway and unmarked country roads. Have them drive at night, in the rain and in heavy traffic. Don't let them take on these unfamiliar circumstances on their own when they get to their restricted license stage. [I am not one for too many regulations, but in taking my son through his Learner's License I thought it would be a good idea if Learners had to keep a diary of their driving experience, including such things as the daylight, weather and traffic conditions under which they had trained. The examiner could look at the diary and determine whether the candidate has had enough varied experience.]

Fourthly, as parents we must take responsibility for our children, and parent them. We must be parents, and should not hand that responsibility over to the State. Set sensible and logical boundaries that are appropriate to the age, experience and temperament of your child. You know them - an anonymous "pencil neck" at the Ministry of Transport or a Minister of Transport cannot make a sensible decision about the age at which your child is qualified to become a driver. Some 15 year olds are very good drivers. There are some 40 year olds who should be disqualified and kept off the road for good. Age is such an arbitrary measure. If your child is too immature to drive, then do not allow them to sit a license. If they are an idiot behind the wheel of a car then don't let them drive a Mitsubishi Evo - and if you do and they kill themselves or someone else, then don't blame the Government or "Society".

Kiwis, I appeal to you, don't concede on this one. Despite their reassurances, the Government does not know best.

Ask a stupid question....

There's been a lot of debate in the media on the current Electoral Finance Bill. I even found someone other than a politician who supports it. http://jtc.blogs.com/just_left/2007/08/why-we-need-the.html I think Mr Carter needs to re-read what he wrote, and think things through. The last election was 'bought' using tax payer's money, and I am not referring to the $700,000 over expenditure by the Labour Party. If I need to spell it out, the purchase price was Student Loan Interest, 20 Hours Free Early Childhood, and increases to the Working for Families entitlement.

Anyhow, as you probably guessed, I think the whole concept of the Electoral Finance Bill is a debate about the wrong issue. First we need to look at our entire Parliamentary system, before we decide how we get people in there.

I refer to the Westminster Parliamentary System as being "auto-combative". We have political parties arrayed as Government and Opposition. Quite frankly, this is wrong. Would any corporation, sports club or Women's Institute arrange their governing body in this manner? They would not, as the logical outcome would be a total utter shambles. Yet we let politicians in New Zealand arrange themselves on this inefficient manner.

Parliament should be New Zealand's top-level boardroom. It should be comprised of a group of people who are working together for the benefit of all the shareholders of New Zealand Limited.

Okay, before all you who can't see the foregoing as metaphorical, I do not mean that the country should run as a "business", but that there are parallels. (Perhaps I should have stuck with something more benevolent like the "Women's Institute").

So we have to do away with the Westminster Parliamentary System. It is a sacred cow that does not seem to be questioned, and yet it is so obviously problematic in delivering good governance.

For all their faults, businesses do a very good job of governing themselves. Many, many sporting bodies and volunteer organisations do well too.

So, stop the debate about how people are funded into Parliament, and debate how we can better organise Parliament.

Just to tantalise readers, here are my suggestions:
1. abolition of political parties
2. a 5 year political term for an MP
3. 20% of electorates are put up for election each year (rather than a General Election once every 5 years)
4. a more cohesive local and national government...

Do MPs have a conscience with which to vote?

In recent years there has been a number of bills passed through Parliament (Prostitution Law Reform, Civil Union, Anti-smacking) on the basis of MPs 'voting with their conscience'. I believe it is adopted when a controversial moral issue is debated in Parliament.

Here's the problem. In the cases cited the conscience of the electorate was not represented among the MPs in Parliament. An overwhelming majority of ordinary Kiwis were opposed to the legislation.

Allowing MPs to exercise a conscience vote is undemocratic. MPs are elected to represent their constituency in Parliament (well, that's my understanding of the process). If they vote against the will of the people then they are being undemocratic.

A further problem is that under MMP there are certain MPs who are not accountable to a constituency. They get into Parliament on the party list. They do the bidding of the party and try to keep their position on the party list for the next election.

Party politics in itself is unrepresentative. The number of New Zealanders who are members of a political party is a small minority of the population. That, in itself, make party politics unrepresentative and undemocratic. There is a certain type of person who prepared to join a political party. The vast majority of the population is not prepared to participate in politics at this level. [I am not and never have been a member of a political party. If I did join a political party I would submit a remit to outlaw Political Parties and to revoke MMP.]

So whether an MP votes along party lines or votes with their conscience they are unrepresentative of those they supposedly represent. There is a serious flaw in politics in New Zealand. We do not have a democracy in the Platonic sense. Plato defined democracy as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". The propensity for politicians to array themselves in parties means we have government of the party, by the party, for the party.

Conscience voting is anathema to democracy. Political parties are anathema to democracy.