Last week, No Right Turn picked up on a press release from MYOB calling the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act (CERRA, the Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act) a model for all government:
“The Government’s response to the Canterbury earthquake is not only a welcome relief to local businesses, it also provides a model for the kind of legislative environment businesses want across the country”
If that wasn’t enough confirmation that the capitalist elite is anti-democratic to its core, then check out ex-National chief of staff and principal ‘hollow man’, Richard Long, in the Dom yesterday:
“How about giving King Gerry a crack at the whole caboodle?
Perhaps, with his new powers, he should be let loose to solve all our ills, not just those of the quake variety….
if fast-track powers are good enough for these events, what about using the process for the greater good of New Zealand Inc?”
God I hate it when people refer to my home as if it’s a business concern
“It is going to take courageous (read unpopular) big steps.
Prime Minister John Key, with his finely tuned nose for public reaction, can still do no wrong in terms of public support.
But he is increasingly being referred to in the blogosphere as Mr Smile and Wave.
While Mr Key does the frontman act, perhaps Big Gerry, wielding his grand new dictatorial powers, could be given some rope to extend his fiefdom beyond the confines of Canterbury…
To become a wealthy south seas Norway, New Zealand must attract oil explorers prepared to gamble on tapping the huge resources off our coasts.
Fast-tracking this exploration, with appropriate safety regulations, makes sense.
Mr Brownlee attracted the wrath of environmentalists and a massive protest march in Auckland when he raised the prospect of a stocktake of Crown land to see just what mineral treasures are hidden beneath…
A little fast-tracking there, too, both for the survey and appropriate mining consents, would have economic dividends.
Then he could address the opposition to dairying in the Mackenzie Country.
This would turn the area green, the environmentalists complain, as if dry tussock is somehow more easy on the eye.
If water supply and effluent concerns can be met, he could usefully fast track this project, too…
The more cow cockies the better.After sorting this, King Gerry could use his dictatorial powers to address the widely rorted Working for Families (middle- class welfare) and interest-free student loans (upper-class welfare) that cost the country billions.
Then he could dust off the pigeon-holed Brash task force report on how to catch up with Australia.
While King Dick Seddon became a much-loved leader with his many economic reforms, dying in office in 1906 after 13 years as prime minister, King Gerry would probably not win the same acclaim for these measures.”
It’s fundamentally anti-democratic to believe that if you can’t get popular support for something the solution is to do away with democracy. The problem here isn’t democracy, it’s the Right’s crazy policies.
And, now thanks to CERRA, they can do whatever they like.
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