I am somewhat wrong footed by yesterday's turn of events in the Phillip Field business. Not what I expected at all. But every cloud has a silver lining and this appears to me to have two. The first is that it prolongs things and gives the opposition many more opportunities to throw rotten fruit at the current administration. Any set of circumstances that do this is all good. The second silver lining is that Helen has not got her way - in the short term at least. The damned woman is not omnipotent after all, there is the smallest chink in her aura of invincibility. We haven't seen anything along these lines for many a moon. Isn't it ironic that the one thing she cannot control absolutely is so close to her machinery of power? Life really is a funny business.
Auckland Grammar. Two pieces on this this morning over and above the bland reporting of the proceedings of yesterday. Both an Editorial and an opinion piece allude to the real problem here. It is not the ' Zone Cheat parents' that are at fault but the fact that we have zoning at all. The education ministry's marxist ideas that everything must be fair and all children no matter how educationally challenged must have the opportunity to go to the school nearest their home is a crock. Who would argue against an institute of sport where excellent athletes push each other to new heights of excellence (there I said it - excellence) by competing (two swear words in one sentence) against each other? Does the Aussie Institute of Sport set up to rectify the disaster of the Los Angeles Olympics admit a few blind, one legged, childhood abused, ADHD Mongolian cricketers just to keep things fair? I don't think so. I have said before that I am all for discrimination and schools should have the right to choose the best pupils if they wish. Parents should have the right to chose the school they want to have their kids educated in and not be told by the government where they should send their offspring according to racial, cultural and social mixes worked out in some thought police headquarters. Zoning has bought about inequality in a way the central planners never wanted, of course, by pushing up property prices in desirable schools' zones so that only the well heeled are now given a choice - the choice to buy a house in the zone of a school they wish their child to attend. Central planning and social engineering don't work, history tells us this time and time again. LIfe ain't fair. Get used to it and if you don't like it - tough.
Labour will move away from race based policies we are told. Half price gym membership in the western Bay of Plenty for Maori men is needs based and not race based we are told because Maori men have the highest rates of heart disease. Bollocks. The highest rate of degenerative atherosclerotic heart disease per capita in this country is found in the Indian population. I'll leave the rest of the argument for you to complete at home.
Zimbabweans with AIDS. This is beyond belief. Hodgson sits there and tries to convince us that this policy is protecting New Zealanders. Even for a politician this is off the planet. AIDS is a bad thing (I read it in a book) and living in Zimbabwe would appear to be not quite as flash as living in this gwate place. But thems the breaks. We have an immgration policy that includes health checks. You can be declined if you are morbidly obese on the grounds that you will put unreasonable burdens on the health service (read health budget) of your new country of residence (i.e. this gwate place), so why the hell should Zimbabweans with AIDS be treated any differently?
Bob the Builder. Disappointing that only 30 people turned up to his 'Good Kiwi Jokers' meeting last night. Watch this bloke. His style is apalling but the fundamental ideas behid what he is saying will ring a cord with a lot more people than the current government incumbents will find comfrotable. They dismiss him as a harmless buffoon at their peril.
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