The Key(wi) way to being ordinary – Part III

In this final part of a series of posts on the value of ‘ordinariness’ in New Zealand I want to focus on the question I avoided right at the start: Why would someone from the left write such an apparently laudatory comment about John Key?

In answering this question I’ll go well beyond – and hardly involve – Chris Trotter’s personal motives or convictions. I want to focus instead on the question of why anyone, on the left, should find some comfort in John Key’s popularity as an ‘ordinary New Zealander’.

For Chris Trotter, the appeal of John Key’s supposed ordinariness stems from “New Zealand’s thwarted egalitarianism”.

He’s right. But, it goes much deeper than that, and it applies to most people and places. Continue reading

Posted in National Identity, New Zealand Politics | 3 Comments

It’s ‘Tragic’ but it’s not ‘Right’

This post on the blog “A Life of the Mind” picks up on Steven Pinker’s comparison in his book The Blank Slate, of the Utopian and Tragic Visions, that, some argue, underpin ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ impulses. These ‘visions’ come from Thomas Sowell‘s famous book A Conflict of Visions. The great untested assumption underlying Sowell’s analysis is that changing social structures (from their present incarnation) amounts to changing human nature.

I just don’t think it’s that simple. Continue reading

Posted in Free Market, Freedom, Human Nature | Tagged , | 3 Comments

It’s got to be good for you! – But is it?

Economists have a saying; there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

It’s usually invoked as a cautionary response to a new tax or social programme but it may well apply to the modern world – and modern economy – as a whole. The price we’re paying for that world is in the coin of our social and psychological state. The evidence is stacking up.

Continue reading

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The Key(wi) way to being ordinary – Part II

In Part I of this series, I pointed out that there was something paradoxical about the way in which, in New Zealand, the idea of ordinariness is understood. It is encapsulated in the idea that ‘you can be anything you want, so long as you’re an ordinary [person]’.

I posed two questions at the start of that post.

Let’s now go back to the first question – how ordinary is John Key? In one very visible way (his wealth and his work with international financial organisations that allowed him to accrue it) he’s obviously not ‘ordinary’ in a statistical sense. Continue reading
Posted in National Identity, New Zealand Politics | 8 Comments

The Key(wi) way to being ordinary – Part I

In a recent column, left wing commentator Chris Trotter has written what appears to be a paen to Prime Minister John Key. (I’ll address this issue in a series of posts, this being the first.)

Trotter argues that John Key appeals to many New Zealanders because he represents an ‘ordinary’ Kiwi who has made something of himself (by becoming rich and internationally successful) and, more to the point, symbolises the hope “that politics can be, and should be, the province of ordinary men and women”.

But the answers to some very obvious questions are being begged in this explanation, specifically:

  1. Just how ordinary is John Key?; and,
  2. What counts as ‘ordinary’ in New Zealand?

Continue reading

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Digging Deeper – Why is mining hazardous?

As the personal and community tragedy of the loss of 29 men’s lives at the Pike River mine continues, further details about the nature of mining are worth considering.

An initial point to emphasise is that Pike River is not an isolated incident. West Virginia lawyer Davitt McAteer (who heads an investigation of that state’s Upper Big Branch Mine tragedy, where 29 coalminers died on April 5 following a gas explosion) recently pointed out that:

The Pike River tragedy is the same story that has played out for the past 50 years, where somehow safety checks failed and miners died, he said.

‘‘Let this be the last time we do this. I’m tired of it,’’ he said, choking back tears.

Technology in the mining industry has come a long way and there was no reason people should continue to die. …

…‘You can’t suggest that the mining industry is going forward into the 21st century with the rate that it’s killing people. We know how to mine safely so why is this happening?’’

McAteer said he could not answer his own question …

The Press, 26 November, 2010 (News, A5)

Note that McAteer doesn’t ask ‘Why did this [Pike River tragedy] happen?’ His question is much broader – ‘Why is this [phenomenon of mining disasters still] happening?’ Continue reading

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On (again) – and off (again) – the buses

Prior to the 4th of September Canterbury Earthquake, the bus company Christchurch Bus Services (CBS) was, apparently, ‘all go‘ for the extra bus routes that it won through tender; now CBS is ‘all Go Bus‘.  One minute it was all ‘on’; the next minute it’s all ‘off’.

What’s really going on?

It’s now been reported that Hamilton-based Go Bus has purchased CBS, one of the private bus companies recently awarded additional routes in metropolitan Christchurch.

CBS was highlighted in a police ‘sting’ that resulted in 62 buses being ticketed or taken off Christchurch streets and has also been involved in the chaos that has become Christchurch public transportation.

You don’t have to have a suspicious mind to experience raised eyebrows at this sale and purchase. Continue reading

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‘On the buses’ – and other evolving systems

Waiting at a bus stop for 34 minutes gives you time to get over the irritation and start to think.

It’s largely passed beneath the radar of national news but Christchurch has been experiencing supposed ‘aftershocks‘ from the September 4th earthquake in the unlikely – and largely unfashionable – world of public transport.

For those who aren’t up with the play, Environment Canterbury (prior to the dissolution of the Regional Council and appointment of Commissioners) altered its tender policies and, after the latest round of tenders, awarded routes previously operated by RedBus (the fully council-owned bus company) to three other operators – Leopard Coachlines, Ritchies and Christchurch Bus Services.

The three private companies awarded the routes are running old buses because, variously, they claim that the Canterbury earthquake and floods in China have delayed delivery of new buses ordered to fulfill the requirements of the successful tenders.

Letters to the Editor in The Press newspaper, including a letter from Paul McNoe, CEO of RedBus, claim it’s more complicated than simply the companies being caught out by unexpected natural disasters. Paul McNoe, for example, said work on the buses by DesignLine in Rolleston was already behind schedule prior to 4 September (the date of the earthquake).

A recent development, is that the Police, in response to letters to The Press, carried out a three day ‘sting’, pulling over buses on routes of particular concern and checking their roadworthiness. Continue reading

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Reflections on the Pike River Mine Disaster November, 2010

“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport”

Gloucester in King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1: William Shakespeare

The end of a person’s life is the end of the most diaphanous of this world’s creations. That one person’s death can be felt to end so abruptly, so cruelly, so unjustly and that it can devastate so completely is something that only persons can experience. No other animal, no plant, no other process in nature can respond to the death of a person the way we (other persons) do – with such subtle yet overwhelming, aching pain.

What is it to be – as we all are – these fragile events called persons? Why is the loss of one so deeply experienced by another?

The answers are surprisingly close and readily available to all of us. Continue reading

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The SAS and CEOs – what’s all the fuss about?

There’s certainly a fuss.

The Defence Minister Wayne Mapp ordered an immediate inquiry. The Editor of the Nelson Mail wasn’t impressed. What is the fuss about?

Perhaps it’s over the idea that the military need to run a ‘corporate cake stall’ to look after its members in their retirement? Perhaps its the fact that the commercialisation of taxpayer funded skills and expertise is happening without taxpayers receiving any of the commercialisation profits? Or, is it the idea that, just perhaps, the military might have tasks rather more closely tied to defending our nation’s interests than corporate team-building?

I’m not sure what the fuss is about but I’m pretty clear on what it should be about. Continue reading

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