Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, November 16th, 2008 - 68 comments
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No Right Turn blogs on the National/ACT coalition agreement. Of particular interest is the clause he’s pulled out that shows ACT will be funded by the taxpayer for consultants and research:
To enable ACT to make a substantive contribution to the government’s programme, it will have adequate access to funding, in a bulk form or for specific projects, to enable it to commission contract research or other consultancy assistance. The terms of such funding will be a matter for the Leadership Council to decide.
Nanny state anyone?
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Scoopit!
Oh please like the left don’t roll around and have orgies in the trough.
It’s slightly weird that only ACT and National will make up the Leadership Council, where do the MÄori Party and Dunne fit in?
Scalia, I think you’ve missed the point I was making which is by taking state funding ACT is engaging in hypocrisy. It appears Rodney might be the new bauble boy.
Are we to take it that The Standard has a problem with Nanny State?
It might pay though to understand what the term means.
Nanny state is the term used to refer to paternalism, when the government makes decisions and interferes with the life and liberty of law abiding citizens on the grounds that such citizens cannot make the right choices for themselves.
Contracting out research is standard government practice and is not nanny statism.
Anita the announcement of the terms of the deal with the Maori Party and United Future will be made shortly.
[government contracting out research for political parties is not normal practice. I thought the Right wanted less government action in other groups' business. But like Irish says, its snouts at the trough time. SP]
I wouldn’t mind if the money was for genuine research that would be received in good faith by its commissioners to help inform their decisions, but it’ll go instead toward PR-oriented ‘think tanks’ to provide plausible defences of dubious policies.
Owen McShane’s firing up the coal-fired barbie already, Sprout!
I’m smelling high paying consultancy jobs for ACT friends and supporters…
It does seem ironic that Rodney will be slashing this type of work by government departments then turning around and doing it himself.
IrishBill – I’m now going to call Rodney Bauble Boy every time I see him. I’ve already dubbed Key The Prime Tosser. The Prime Tosser and Bauble Boy – the new scourge of the Left!
Madeleine,
The detail of the MÄori Party agreement has been released. As far as I can see there is no mention of the Leadership Council.
ACT did lot’s of research on Winnie the dingbatt, not sure who paid for that.
Their policy all looks like slogans.
ergo it looks like Hide is going to be the minister of mouthing off. Very positive and aspirational.
Both National and ACT have violently opposed any moves towards public funding of political parties. Now ACT is going to get that as part of its coalition agreement. Whichever way you look at it, it’s grossly hypocritical.
Rodney IS the new bauble boy.
I used to admire ACT for their principles. Not necessarily like them, but admire them. They stood for strong fiscal and monetary discipline, although they took good general principles and pushed them to extreme illogical conclusions with almost religious fervour.
The problem that they had was an apparent void of social conscience at the same time. They talked of the benefits of economic policy to all New Zealanders. But with Rogernomics, and with their philosophical approach subsequently, it didn’t matter how much social pain their ‘medicine’ caused. The irony of their current anti-crime stance is that a sure way to create crime in the longer term is create that sort of pain in the short term that we saw with both Rogernomics and Ruthenasia.
When you have strong principles that you follow blindly, combined with an almost sociopathical lack of conscience, the results in the extreme are the likes of what Pol Pot executed in Cambodia.
So you might guess I have never been an ACT fan – but I have at least in the past believed they were highly principled.
Now it appears they have sold out their economic principles. Key has a mindless approach to the finances, as most evidenced in the “Think Big” broadand infrastructure policy. Hide himself has said “Key is often to the left of Clark”. Given I don’t believe he was talking about social policy, it is fiscal and economic differences he is referring to. But it doesn’t appear to worry him that Key is looser with our dollars despite years of attacking Cullen as profligate.
At the same time there’s no compelling evidence they have developed any sort of social conscience. So they have at least abandoned – if not sold out – of economic principle, but still lack any social fibre and policy.
They are the ultimate hollow men – standing for nothing except the world’s two most banal, cliched slogans of “three strikes and you’re out” and “Emissions Trading Scam”.
Well, what a surprise – the five-headed monster is already biting itself:
National in its agreement with ACT has agreed for a cabinet committee to go through budgets to see if money was being well spent.
It was also setting up task forces to look wider government spending to see if it was effective.
Mrs Turia showed this could be one area of tension between the two parties, when she indicated she would not take kindly to her spending responsibilities being examined by a taskforce.
“I can’t imagine anybody from the private sector to come into an office and go through the budget line by line to be able to tell us what we should or should not be doing,” Mrs Turia said.
She said her party was very close to its constituents and had given undertakings about how it would operate.
“That doesn’t include political parties who may think they know better than us.”
So the happy harmony lasted about as long as a Black Caps innings.
Well the MP was basically bribed by the Nats to come into the tent:
“smile agreeably and we won’t take away your seats”
Now that Rheinfeld Rodney has his feet under the table he will very quickly fall victim to the same hubris Winston did – over-bearing pride (pomposity). Mind you he still has to attempt to release his master – Nosferatu Roger to spread economic malaise throughout the State.
We now have FIVE ministers outside cabinet – ACT x 2, Maori x 2, UF x 1 – that seems a rather large proportion of Ministers who won’t come under the collective-Cabinet responsibility.
Edit: sorry, this was really intended for the previous thread.
For Members of Parliament to get state funding certainly does sound rather shifty to me.
Is there any way we could stop it?
Perhaps we could have another election.
Madeleine: I don’t care what it is called. Nanny State? Paternalism, Private Enterprise? The fact that a Political Party can be provided with the tax-payers money to carry out a policy is plain wrong. How about paying the CTU to find ways of promoting higher member-ship numbers?
MikeG: all support party Ministers outside Cabinet are covered by cabinet colective responsibility in relation to their portfolio areas. Which is all they need.
Mike G said: “We now have FIVE ministers outside cabinet – ACT x 2, Maori x 2, UF x 1″
And they’re covering twelve different portfolios.
I love the idea that Heather Roy (Education) and Pita Sharples (Education) will be expressing the same view on the government’s education policy.
Heather gets decile 6-10, Sharples gets 1-5
“So the happy harmony lasted about as long as a Black Caps innings”
True. At least the Clark-led coalitions made a decent show of getting along with each other, right up to election time.
The public will weary very quickly of internal squabbling. Let’s see what sort of a statesman Mr Key really is.
applause for Bill Brown!
“True. At least the Clark-led coalitions made a decent show of getting along with each other, right up to election time.”
Oh yes Alliance were easy-going leading up to the 2002 election.
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Hmm how strange but I actually agree with Irishbill and the left on this one. Though I’m not sure Nanny state was the best use of term.
As to the internal squabbling. We’ll see. Seems to be a matter of a difference of opinion. And just curious but where did you get that from Gobsmacked?
Bill Brown – lol, lol, lol !!
Is Bill Brown being racist per chance?
Gingercrush – from Stuff.co.nz or NBR online. Links often get caught in moderation, so I generally avoid them.
Anyway, back to the burgeoning bureaucracy: the agreement with Peter Dunne is now out, and the Families Commission stays.
Plus, we get a Big Game Hunting Council (Gerry Brownlee?). No, I am not making this up.
(details on Stuff website)
[lprent: Have a read of How do I put links in the comments cleanly. That will usually avoid the spam trap]
Sorry to be off topic here but I can’t link to the “first cut” post I get a lot of garbage.
[lprent: Interesting. It looks like I've found the source of the KB garbage problem. No - not the posted content, the occasional flurry of binary it sends. Looks like it is the accelerator cache...]
“Plus, we get a Big Game Hunting Council (Gerry Brownlee?).”
Oh great, looks like we get our own Dick Cheney…
Except Dick Cheney was in better health.
Plus, we get a Big Game Hunting Council
The first objective of these guys will be to stop the use of 1080, so that deer numbers return to easy hunting levels.
Of course all the desirable alternatives to 1080 are more expensive, and with the razor gang no doubt having a good old slash at DOC, and Hide hacking at the Regional Councils, there will be no money for them either.
So a decade of hard won progress getting possum numbers down and native bird numbers up, could well be put at risk.
Another area that will likely see a dramatic reversal of policy will be the High Country Accord and High Country Tenure Review. The Labour govt made valuable progress in this area; in all likelihood much of it will be lost in a burnoff lit by Fed Farmers.
I support the Big Game Hunting Council. My own father is a hunter. But at the same time I too hope its not just an excuse to do away with 1080. I’m surprised at the reaction in regards to the hunting council.
Is it anti-hunting sentiments, fear over exactly what the council will look at or a bit of both?
gcrush, you support anything that Nactional do. You don’t even have to bother telling us, we’ll just take it as read.
welll whipty doo for dad
gingacrunch
go and hunt me up a feed woman
can yad o that or you just fulla shit
?
, (specially for hs)
Oops, I meant the first test.
Sheesh and you accuse the right of trolling. And actually I don’t agree with everything National does. And unlike you lot, when Labour was in power I did agree with some things.