Straight Thinking by Owen McShane

PDF of this NBR column 

New Zealanders have responded to the collapse of the Great Socialist Experiment with some ambivalence – to say the least.

The vast majority of those millions of people who suffered from the socialist experiment – in China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Cambodia – cannot put the dreadful memory behind them fast enough. After the Berlin Wall came down, new governments rushed to privatise their failed state assets, and their people rushed to enjoy the fruits of market-led democracy.

But here in New Zealand we have an ongoing love affair with the socialist dream. Terms like “market” and “privatisation” are guaranteed to scare the horses – or at least the donkeys.

John Key has floated the innocuous idea that private companies could build buildings for education and lease them to state schools. The Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, tells us “it would send a chill down the spines” of those in the education sector. This tells me more about the ignorance of our state teachers than about the merits of the proposal. Is the Minister unaware that the Government leased Bowen House off a private developer? Did a chill run down his spine whenever he entered those “private” corridors of power?

Government departments lease many things – cars, computers, buildings, and car parks – and contract with private consulting firms every day. Even the French, many of whom have hated capitalism so much they preferred fascist or communist rule, have discovered the virtues of public/private partnerships as a means of funding essential infrastructure. Is our own education so steeped in socialist belief that occupying a privately owned building would jeopardize the proper indoctrination of our students?

It’s just as well Mr Maharey and his collective were not around when an earlier pragmatic and innovative Labour Government decided to let private companies use the capitalized “Family Benefit” as equity, and draw “State Advances” loans as mortgage finance, to build the hundreds of thousands of houses demanded by the post-war baby-boomer families. That would surely have sent shivers down Mr Maharey’s tender spine. Companies like Fletcher Construction and Neil Housing actually made a profit using the state’s money.

It could never happen now. The capitalised Family Benefit was the world’s first voucher system, and for today’s Labour Government “voucher” is an even dirtier word than “bulk-funding”.

However, Maharey’s shivers should be the least of our worries.

The Resource Management Act and Local Government Act, as exploited by state-funded organizations such as the “Forest and Bird Society” and the “Environmental Defence Society” (EDS), coupled with DoC’s absolute conviction that the best managed land is DoC controlled land, are combining to drive a massive nationalization of private land by stealth.

The DoC estate is now about 40% of New Zealand’s land area and this percentage is being steadily increased by the transfer to DoC of huge areas of land currently under high-country pastoral leases. DoC also has powers of veto over developments of huge areas of coastal land from one end of the country to the other. DoC and their hand-maidens are persuading many District and Regional Councils to designate huge areas of farmland as outstanding natural landscapes, or as significant natural areas.

These takings of people’s “rights in property” are all justified on the grounds of “the public interest” – but compensation is never mentioned. If the land is so valuable to the public shouldn’t this concerned “public” be prepared to compensate the owners for their loss? Part VIII of the RMA clearly provides for compensation for takings in the public good – but Part VIII is never mentioned.

The EDS has provided the MfE with a useful list of decisions where the Environment Court has endorsed major takings of rights in property without a whiff of compensation.[1] Some of these cases go in favour of the applicants – a huge wind farm in Otago got the nod. A few dwellings are insufferable but battalions of wind turbines are OK.

Encouraged by such success some Regional and District Councils are now designating huge areas of private farmland as “outstanding natural landscapes” on the basis of pictures of arcadian landscapes shown to people in supermarkets. Such “consultation” does not extend to the landowners. Farmers are learning they should not undertake major planting, restoration and enhancement projects because they risk having the state, or its handmaidens, take control of their land.

These ongoing takings are about to be hastened and extended by the pernicious “Waitakere Ranges Heritage Bill” which has (by one vote)[2] passed its first and second reading.

If this Bill becomes law landowners will suffer yet another layer of planning bureaucracy, decision-making, and costs, to the already numbing complexity of the RMA and LGA. The promoters openly advocate its application to the rest of the country and will probably target Maori land first – as at Te Arai. Why does the Maori Party vote for it? Have they learned nothing about holding fast to their rights in property?

The Bill has further demonstrated our Parliament’s strange notion of what constitutes our common law rights in property. For example, Lynne Pillay (Labour – Waitakere) led off the first reading debate with the following:

“…the bill does not erode private property rights and it does not take any private land; rather, it enhances the rights of the vast majority of residents who do not want to see ad hoc development.”

Can she explain how one group of citizens can have their rights over other people’s property enhanced without diminishing those other people’s rights at the same time?

Eric Roy (National–Invercargill) properly asked:

Let us look at paragraph (b): “… take a holistic approach to managing the Waitakere Ranges, …”. What on earth does that mean if someone wants to undertake an activity in that particular area? Who defines “holistic” and what does that actually mean?

He might usefully seek assistance from the late Karl Popper, the great philosopher who pointed out in “The Open Society and its Enemies” (Suitably written in Christchurch) that “holistic thinking” is the handmaiden of fascism.

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, is quoted in last week’s NBR, reassuring Waitakere landowners (about 22,000 of them, occupying 10,000 ha of land) that they should not be concerned by the Bill. “It does not take away or change the status of any private or public land” he said –which makes one wonder why the Bill is needed. However, he kindly explains:

“It does not change any property rights. If a property is being farmed today, it can continue to be farmed. If a business is being run from the property today, it can continue to be run in the future.”

The Mayor seems to think that the only “right in property” is the right of existing use. Most of us think we also have rights to develop, change and enhance our property, and to enjoy the fruits of our innovation and labour. The Mayor makes it plain that if their circumstances change landowners cannot change their activities to respond to such a change – without the approval of something called “the community”. Sadly such “communities” are normally people protecting their self-interest by demanding their ownership of rights over other people’s private land. They use the RMA and any other legislation at hand to protect their own property values at the expense of others.

Of course they are wonderfully skilled in dressing up their venal self-interest in high-minded ideals. These “environmentalists” and politicians already have their beach house or haven in the bush.

If “the community” really wants rights over other people’s land then it should be prepared to cough up and pay for them.

ENDS

1275 words

2^nd October, 2007.