Source: ACT Party
The Haps
Quiet? MPs are having a break from Parliament and the country is having a break from MPs thanks to a three-week Parliament recess. The Government announced $68.5 million of repayable loans to people building electric vehicle chargers. Free Press readers will be outraged by that, but under ACT’s coalition agreement it has come down from National’s version: $257 million of grants. Such are the victories under MMP. Meanwhile the Ministry for Regulation started a clean out of red tape from the $6 billion Early Childhood sector, following Brooke van Velden’s Health and Safety overhaul. Beside the resource management reforms at the start of the month, it’s been a good April for ACT and freedom.
The Real Culture War
We are taken with David Seymour’s speech over the Parliamentary recess. In it, Seymour says the real culture war is not about identity or bathrooms, but pioneers vs tall poppy choppers.
Of course, you should be free to point out the very basic fact of a person’s biological sex at birth. The law should be able to use sex at birth as an identifier, when it matters, such as which prison someone goes to. All of that is correct, but only a fraction of a per cent of people claim anything different. The overwhelming majority people are never close to being harmed in real life by them doing so.
The real culture war affects all of us, every day. It’s the war between our pioneering spirit and tall poppy syndrome. We, or our ancestors, all made brave voyages to these isolated islands. These were people with real courage who wanted better through their own efforts.
Then, somewhere along the way, we ended up with one out of every six working-aged people on welfare. Some days half the children don’t show up to their school. We have one of the largest diasporas of people who left a country.
No good deed goes unpunished. Landlords, small business owners, licensed firearm owners, farmers. Under Labour/NZ First/Green they were always just a patronising lecture and one more expensive regulation away from salvation. Now there is some relief for those long-suffering groups, but the culture carries on. Look out if you spent your life building up an owner-operated supermarket, or work at a bank.
It’s easy to blame politicians, but in a democracy they ultimately reflect the culture. The treatment of Zuru lately is a classic.
The toy and home supply company founded by three Kiwis just won Walmart supplier of the year. Walmart is the thirteenth largest company in the world, and by far the largest retailer. It’s difficult to overstate how big this business achievement is. The company put out a press release, which got zero coverage from the New Zealand media. One of the founders building a helipad in Herne Bay gets enough clicks to keep the Herald in business month after month.
The end result is written in our founding story. People with get-up-and-go can get up and leave again, which they are doing in huge numbers right now. Easy come here, easy go away.
How do you change a culture? Government should look at its policies by asking a simple question at every decision: Is this a meritocracy policy? It should favour policies that increase the difference people can make in their own lives. It should reject policies that pull down success or reward hectoring, bludging, nuisance behaviour.
What should happen with taxes? They should be low and flat. If a person earning $20,000 pays $2,400 income tax, how much should a person earning $100,000 pay? If five times the income meant five times the taxes, they’d pay $12,000. Try $22,900, nearly ten times the taxes. Progressive tax rates send the wrong message: if you study, work, save, and invest hard, the IRD will whack you extra hard.
What should happen with welfare? It’s a policy designed to help someone down on their luck. How long can bad luck last? Surely not 44 years, the tenure of our longest-serving (not really the right word) career beneficiary. There should be lifetime limits, and if you keep having children on the benefit you should get a plastic card with controlled spending. Otherwise, people have to ask themselves: why am I working to make a difference when I can make the same on a benefit?
What should happen with red tape and regulation? The Government’s starting attitude should be, don’t regulate. Red tape doesn’t just add cost to things that do happen, it stops things that would happen without the extra cost. It doesn’t just stop things that would happen, though, it deprives children of heroes and gives them bad examples. It’s nice if your dad’s an engineer who’s building New Zealand, but he’s probably actually in traffic management.
What should happen with race and identity? Is your life determined by what you do or what happened long before you were born? The argument against the Treaty being a partnership between races is really an argument for individual self determination. The argument against discrimination by sex, race, sexuality, or anything else you cannot change is really an argument for each person to have a fair chance at living their best life.
There is a culture war in New Zealand, it’s the children of pioneers vs the blob of mediocrity. If you’re a Free Press reader, we can guess which one you are. Please support ACT since we all need to stick together.
