Government’s lack of leadership on alcohol a huge disappointment

August 29, 2010

This post will not provide any new insights into the issue of law reform relating to the use and sale of alcohol in New Zealand, but I do want to at least register my disgust and utter disappointment with this government’s lack of courage and leadership, now that the opportunity has arisen (and passed?) to make changes that will impact on the Kiwi booze culture.

Particularly in relation to (a) dropping the legal blood alcohol level, and (b) making it harder for all people to obtain and pay for as much booze as they want, I keep asking myself why the government would wimp out and retain much of the status quo when their advisory group recommended otherwise. What is stopping them taking leadership on an issue which has such obvious, huge negative social impact?

The only two reasons that make any sense at all to me are, first, that they don’t want to be seen acting as a “nanny state” by telling us what is bad for us, and secondly, that they are too heavily influenced by the alcohol and hospitality industry lobby.

The first makes no sense to me when I think a little deeper. Nanny state-ism is a valid criticism of any governing agency when the activities and substances they want to ban are considered “bad for us” as individuals. Examples are banning smoking on individual health basis (putting to one side the issue of second hand smoke) and fencing off every conceivable safety risk to children in homes and play areas.

But alcohol and its impact really is a different matter. Excessive intake does have individual health outcomes (think liver and brain), but no-one with any more than half a brain also knows the wash-on effects of the levels of consumption in much of New Zealand on society as a whole (which do not apply significantly for, say, smoking). Start with violence, property damage, road accidents and poor parenting. It is not nanny state-ism to take steps to reduce these impacts. The drinking behaviour of the person driving that car coming towards me is important to me. And I pay extra taxes for the hospital beds and family social workers that mop up for the over-imbibing parents.

I’ll go a step further. I would be quite happy to pay a bit more for the occasional can of beer I relax with before my evening meal, if I knew that the higher price for grog would reduce the amount of alcohol that some local 16 year old would be drinking on Friday night because he cannot afford any more.

As a side issue, talking of the way alcohol is promoted in supermarkets, my local New World supermarket has alcohol for sale on both sides of the only entrance passage to the shop. There is no other way to get to the rest of the shopping aisles other than to pass down one of two entrance aisles between wines and beers. And often there is someone parked in front providing taste samples as promotions! How responsible is that!?

So if fear of being seen as a nanny state is not the reason for the national government’s weakness, then there is only one logical explanation. I don’t know how they do it, but the alcohol industry lobbyists hold sway. Gutless government, I say.

And finally, to me the issue of dropping the legal blood alcohol level for driving from 80 to 50 is a no brainer. Again, gutless government. When I see just how many beers or wines you can down and how tottery your reactions and judgments are while still being below the legal limit, it sends a chill down my spine. How many drinks has that person legally driving towards me had? Seeing those people tested on John Campbell’s TV show after drinking even 8 or more beers and still being legal, the simple question Campbell put was – would any government minister allow themselves to be driven home by one of these drinkers? No takers. Not surprising!

3 Comments | Politics, Social issues | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

Cheap airfare craze produces inevitable results

August 22, 2010

The surprise is that anyone would be surprised. After three years since entering the NZ domestic air travel market with the primary strategy of cheap fares, Pacific Blue calls it quits because they cannot make enough money to remain in that business.

And so all those bargain-motivated people, and principally the popular media who ran breathless headlines about how air fares were now wonderfully cheap and good for consumers, now bemoan that competition will diminish and low fares will be harder to come by. It’s not fair!

Well, what did we expect? That private businesses will be happy to run at a loss just so we can grab the cheapest possible deals forever? While grabbing cheap seats is a rational behaviour in the short term, it’s irrational in the long term because in the end it makes businesses less viable and more prone to cut back on the parts of their business that cannot help recoup their losses.

Over time, we bargain-hungry consumers get what we pay for – cheap deals in the short term but insecurity about the long-term survival of the services and products we value so little that we won’t pay a reasonable price for.

I’m happy to pay a fair and respectful price for all the services I regularly use, from electricity and phone to the local petrol station and favourite cafe, because I’m then confident that they’re making enough profit to remain in business and give me ongoing service. Try screwing them down too hard and next month they may not be there.

So with air fares, I’d rather pay a fair price than grab a cheapie if it means that the airline will still be around when it comes to actually flying me.

2 Comments | Business, Economics, Media reporting | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

Ah, the irony of it all!

August 6, 2010

Two small observations that brought a wry smile to my face when I read about them in the paper this week:

1. Bill English announces that the ballooning number of government “policy advisors” will be slashed to save money. He says he is receiving advice from advisors on how the policy would be implemented. Will he receive advice from other policy advisors on who should be chosen to provide that advice?

2. The Press in Christchurch publishes an editorial on Thursday about Winston Peters and his plans to return to political life. Earlier in the week Peters addressed Rangiora Grey Power about fears that foreigners are buying up all the rest homes and retirement villages in NZ.

A quote from the editorial: “The topic Peters chose to speak on probably was not particularly significant. The purpose of his manoeuvrings at the moment is to try to regenerate interest in himself and the possibility of his return to Parliament. To that extent it no doubt served its purpose.”

It certainly did! The Press themselves fell into the trap with a huge front page article, including Peters’ face, reporting his speech in its full populist glory. As usual, Peters gets far more coverage than he’s worth, and our dutiful media fall for it yet again for the sake of more newspaper sales. So much for treating Peters’ topic as “not particularly significant”. So what significance should we give to a front-page lead story?

3 Comments | Media reporting, Politics | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

How New Zealand could be bought out … again

July 28, 2010



Listening to the news on Radio NZ this morning, there was a report of some government politicians, particularly John Key and Bill English, expressing concerns about foreigners (Chinese in this instance) buying large amounts of NZ farm real estate and other assets. His catchphrase on this is along the lines of “if we don’t watch out we’ll become tenants in our own country” – meaning foreigners will own major land and we’ll just be paying rent and working for them.

My mind wandered back to an article I posted in April that compared the sale of land and assets – in the name of inviting overseas investment to create jobs – to the early colonisation of New Zealand and the transfer and alienation of Maori land. As the news item proceeded I began changing a few words in the comments being quoted from Key and others to take it back to sometime around 1840 (give or take a decade or so), when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

This imaginary excerpt from the imaginary Maori Communications Service:

‘Fears that pakeha settlers could muscle in on Maori land and farming have sparked a last-minute rethink on land sales taking place around Aotearoa. Super-iwi leader Hone said he is deeply concerned about how much land is being sold which, despite beliefs to the contrary, may be lost to Maori forever.

‘Hone warned that, despite their small numbers right now, the huge resources and financial backing of the settlers could see them one day become dominant players in Aotearoa’s economy. “The concern, I guess, is that there is so much wealth out there that they could literally buy Aotearoa’s productive base. It’s not impossible. That’s the question – what do we want to be? Do we want to be tenants in our own country or do we want to own our own destiny?”

‘The problem for Maori is twofold. First, the leadership cannot force individual Maori farmers to refuse to sell land. And second, the pakeha have so much more money that they can effectively control land prices to the point where Maori cannot afford to buy land that other Maori want to sell to cash up their assets.

‘Super-iwi spokesman in charge of finance, Wiremu, said that a review being considered at Waitangi was trying to strike a balance between protecting important assets and allowing sufficient foreign investment to create jobs and increase individual Maori wealth.’

‘Coming up next, the weather forecast ……’

(Back to 2010) And if you’re wondering if I made this up, well most of the words are exactly as spoken or reported in this morning’s paper – just change the leaders’ names to Johnny and Bill.

At least modern New Zealanders know how the country was taken over first time. Now we need to remember that it can happen again if we let greed and the almighty dollar rule.

12 Comments | Economics, Maori issues, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

Government turning back toward socially negative attitudes

July 21, 2010

I’m becoming increasingly disappointed and sometimes a bit angry that the National Government is steadily reverting to the type of attitude that was more common in less enlightened times – of going out of its way to encourage division within New Zealand society in the name of economic growth and productivity.

Political commentators see it as the National party feeling confident enough of its electoral strength that it can start to please its harder constituency – the ones who see any humanity in the economy as being soft, anti-growth and anti-business. They’re probably right.

Instance 1: I wrote a few months ago about what I still believe is the fundamental ethos on which National’s national standards education policy is based – that the best way to get results out of teachers (and their pupils) is to point the finger, make them feel bad or inadequate, and trust that this will make them ‘pull up their socks’. It’s an approach to community activity that is basically mean-spirited, critical, law of the jungle, and ‘us/me versus them’.

The results, sadly, are what you would expect – it merely divides people, dampens cooperative growth, and delivers worse outcomes on average.

Instance 2: Blame and belittle welfare beneficiaries. Here we go again with National getting tougher on one of their two traditional targets, those on welfare and particularly sole parents. ‘Rebalancing welfare’, my local MP said in his press release last week. Making work more available by forcing mums (and disability beneficiaries) to get part-time work after their children have reached school age. Yeah, right!

Beneficiary bashing is an easy activity for those with a negative personality streak, and sadly National are showing their true colours again. Treat people as if they are lazy and out to cheat you, and eventually most of them will fulfill your expectations. But give them the benefit of the doubt and most of them will feel valued and try to become contributing citizens.

Instance 3: (National’s other traditional target.) Legislate against workers and unions so that employers can treat them more like second-class participants in workplaces. The extension of the 90-day trial period, the added restrictions on employees’ access to unions, and stupid, unworkable rules about sick leave are simply unnecessary and will create an unhappier workforce. Assume they’re all out to cheat and bring down employers, and fewer workers will feel any desire to work with their bosses and take a part in thriving together.

For those who can remember back over 20 – 40 years ago, the improvements (on average) to workplace satisfaction and harmony over the past decade have been pretty remarkable. The balance between the needs and aspirations of workers and employers seemed about right. Strikes and other industrial unrest are now quite infrequent, and many workplaces operate on mutual respect and appreciation of each others’ roles.

But now, in the name of ‘making it easier to employ people and create jobs’, but actually about getting tough and letting employers take less care of their workers, the scene is set for unnecessary strife and unhappier employees, and ultimately less productivity.

It’s a real shame. The sort of society we need to make a better and more resilient country values highly the cooperative spirit of citizens as they grow together in a vibrant economy, not the dog eat dog competition that seeks winners and losers for the personal satisfaction of those with power.

19 Comments | Business, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by David Armstrong

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