Those RMA Replacements: "not a sort of RMA 3.0, but a TCPA 4.0 plus a separate environment thing."

Yesterday I was looking at the announcements. Today I'm looking more at the two replacement Bills themselves, mostly the Planning Bill. [ONLINE HERE.] (Although I can't help noting, of those announcements, that anybody who can seriously assess these sort of changes to produce 46% fewer consent applications, not 45% or 47% but 46%, has a problem only assuaged by a large consultancy cheque).

Still, if the needle were shifted to that extent it would be a start. Would the replacements do that? We have a nation who hopes so, and a Minister who seems to intend so.  But then they all told us back then that the RMA was permissive ....

So, thoughts upon reflection:

** Iignore the major hype. Property rights are still not explicitly mentioned, except as a reference to matrimonial disputes.

** Where they are mentioned implicitly, it's in terms of compensation (see below), and of effects. (Again, this follows the RMA in being allegedly "effects-based." So prepare to be underwhelmed.) Yet whereas the RMA looked at ill-defined and undefinable "effects" like "amenity values," "natural character" and "the architectural style or colour of a neighbour’s house," this seems to be somewhat more objective. A big emphasis is on which effects should be ignored, about which it is quite explicit, and which areas it insists councils meddle (equally explicit, see subsection (2)).

** Contrast all this with a common-law system – something commentators still don't understand. (Here's one ignoramus who thinks the RMA's subjectivism is an example of common law, FFS!). Common Law protections have the unique beauty that they protect both property rights AND the environment—the stronger the property-rights protection, the more the law sets up "mirrors" reflecting back to us our own actions, especially long-term ones. (As Aristotle already knew, when people need to heed their own stuff, they are more careful than when they deal with commonly-owned resources.) Here’s how it could be done. 

FIRST, ENACT A CODIFICATION of basic common law principles such as the Coming to the Nuisance Doctrine (the ideal antidote to zoning) and rights to light and air and the like. 
“Second, register on all land titles (as voluntary restrictive covenants) the basic 'no bullshit' provisions of existing District Plans (stuff like height-to-boundary rules, density requirements and the like).
“Next, and this will take a little more time, insist that councils set up ‘Small Consents Tribunals'…” 

** Anyway, I put that paragraph there to show the distance from that idea. So what do we have here? Much of the format, plans, rules, standards and zones of the RMA are still with us. Councils will still write Plans. The Plans will still have Zones. Zones will have Rules and Standards. A council planner will assess your Consent application. And then you, your planner, their planner, your lawyer and theirs will work hard at it until your bank says "That's enough." Much of that will still be with us, even if terms are changed. 

There will be fewer zones, and fewer plans, but so what? It doesn't matter whether you have 17 rules saying "no" or one-hundred and 17 ... if the rules are still telling you "no." (So ignore the headlines about that announcement as well.) It does mean that much of the law built up in courtrooms over the last thirty years is still applicable. But when much of that law should be shovelled out, that's not altogether a bonus.

** If there is a "balance" required from the law here, it's simply between the rights of land-owners to build and the effect of that choice to build on others' land, and on themselves. Note that each owner has equal rights: the right to peaceful enjoyment of their property—the boundary between land and actions being defined by that right (my rights to do whatever the hell I like, including enjoying my spread peacefully, ending where your equal right begins). That's what good law should (and common law did) recognise. it should recognise it, not restrict it. 

** The RMA had a Purposes heading, Part 2 (sections 5 to 8), around which all parts revolved. What it contained was mostly mush, the residue of the nineties non-sequitur of so-called "sustainable management." It was this wherein judges had to adjudicate on what "sustainable management" might mean for your carport extension, or whether that boundary retaining wall might avoid, remedy, or mitigate any adverse effects of activities on the environment. Or not. (This, for Henry Cooke's benefit, is the source of much of that 'judge-made law' he talks about, not the common law with which he has it confused.)

Instead, the replacement Planning Bill replaces Purposes with Goals. You can see that terms like "well-functioning" and "incompatible" will get lawyers' invoices juiced, but for the most part an effort has been made to keep things moderately objective. Except for section (i), which allows for virtually everything here to be outsourced....

** Compensation: Early opponents and the Property Council have both signalled that compensation from taxpayers for regulatory takings is a big part of both replacement Bills—which is not by any means the same thing as protecting property rights, despite what some people still think.

In the replacement Planning Bill at least, they take this form...

** Standing: I'd understood that to object to an Application one needed to have standing, e.g.., to be a neighbour on whom the effects of an application might have objective and measurable harm. Naturally, section 11(1)(i) above vitiates that, but we'd been told that, for instance, someone from Bluff couldn't object to a project in Kaikohe.

That doesn't appear to be the case (but happy to be corrected).

Sections 123 to 125 lay out the decision-making process around public notification of an Application. But I don't see that "Standing" (i.e., having a sufficient connection to and harm from the action or decision) is explicitly laid out.

** As a halfway house between a council decision and the Environment Court—a sort of limbo-land it might take months/years and several hundred thousand dollars to cross—the Planning Tribunal looks to be useful. Not game-changing, but useful.

** Remember, this replacement is resolutely top-down. Instruction comes from above. Zone are determined. Zones will be prepared with their various Rules and Standards. So a lot still rests for each property owner on what will be included as Rules or Standards with which to comply. For all the talk of "effects," when it comes to the home-owner the rubber hits the road in terms of a Rule or a Standard in a Plan. The more restrictive those Rules, the less one can do without a formal Planning Application. 

The argument of the RMA's authors' was that the RMA was more permissive than the more prescriptive Town & Country Planning Act it replaced because Application would be straightforward, with only 'effects' being assessed by council. But in reality, most home-owners did all they could to avoid an Application's perils. So the Zone's particular Rules and Standards became a sort of lockdown.

The irony is that while the  Town and Country Planning Act gave less scope to go outside those Rules and Standards, it's more prescriptive Rules and Standards themselves were often more permissive than those applied under the RMA. It was more prescriptive, but within that prescription at least one could act. 

There's a sneaking suspicion that with the replacement Environment Bill being separated, and this replacement Planning Bill being based on top-down prescription, that any sense of permissiveness will be similar. That (as one wag put it) what we have in these two Bills is not a sort of RMA 3.0, but "a TCPA 4.0 plus a separate environment thing."

"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense"

"The New Zealander prides himself on his common sense—that 'settled truth can be attained by observation'[10] and is 'knowable and graspable by our own experience.'[11]

"For the most part this is held so assuredly that 'to reason against the [evidence of sense and memory] is absurd'; these are held as 'first principles, and as such fall not within the province of reason, but of common sense.' [12]

"This was the argument of the enlightened Scotsman Thomas Reid, whose 'last phrase stuck' and came to New Zealand with Scottish settlers. 'It helped to produce a cultural type that some consider typically American, but which is just as much Scottish' and equally applies here: 'an independent intellect combined with an assertive self-respect, and grounded by a strong sense of moral purpose.'[13]

“'The teachings of these Scots became known as the philosophy of Common Sense: it was the real basis of the Scottish Enlightenment,'[14] and probably our own."

~ yours truly from my post on that other blog 'New Zealand: A Nation of the Enlightenment'

[10] McCosh, J. (1875). The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutchinson to Hamilton. London: MacMillan & Co, 194

[11] Herman, A. (2001). How the Scots Invented the Modern World. New York: Three Rivers Press, 262

[12] Reid, T. (1823). An Inquiry into the Human Mind: On the Principles of Common Sense. London: Thomas Tegg, Cheapside, 28; Herman, 2001, ibid, 262

[13] Herman, 2001, ibid, 263-4
[14] Fry, M. (2025). How the Scots Made America. New York: Macmillan

RMA Announcement: Live blogging

1:23pm

It starts badly.

“A core failure of the RMA was the absence of clear direction from central government,” Mr Bishop says.

No. The core failure of the RMA is the complete absence of private property rights. It's starting position instead being: "You need our permission!"

This "reform" promises property rights, but it looks like it simply delivers more planning documents. And little more, if any, permission.

We're promised "fewer, faster plans"; "30-year regional spatial plans"; "nationally set policy direction"; and "planned national standards." So anyone who's ever said "the problem with this country is not enough planners" will be happy.

And what about property rights? “When you put property rights at the core and remove excessive government rules from people’s lives," says Mr Court, "the benefits will quickly follow." 

I'm still looking for how exactly property rights have been put at the core. I'll let you know when I find where he's put them ...

1:25pm

“The new planning system strengthens property rights and restores the freedom for New Zealanders to use their land in ways that affect nobody else." You keep saying that. Show me the evidence.

"Councils will be required to provide relief to property owners when imposing significant restrictions like heritage protections or significant natural areas." So apparently planners imposing restrictions still have more freedom to "use" your land than you do. Righto.

Not going well so far...

1:32pm

"More than 100 existing plans will be reduced to 17 regional combined plans that bring together spatial, land use and natural environment planning in one place, making it easier for New Zealanders to know what they can do with their property." That's not freedom for New Zealanders to use their land in ways that affect nobody else, is it Mr Bishop. That's the "freedom" to act under permission. 

So let me look at the specifics. I don't see "property rights" as a heading in the major release. So let me begin studying topic 'The New Planning System: Simplifying residential development ...

1:37pm

Blah, blah, "clear national priorities" woof, woof "land will be zoned" whitter, whitter "councils will have to ensure there’s enough land and infrastructure" wank, wank "regional spatial plans will guide future development "... It makes you wonder how anything ever got built here at all before town planning arrived here in 1928. 

<searching for "property rights" gives no hits in the document> <searching for "planning" gives me 18 hits>

1:46pm

"Certainty" is promised through "clear long-term spatial plans" telling investors what council planners will allow, and "front-loading decisions," whatever the hell that means. "This means clear rules and fewer surprises," says the boiler plate. Oh, and there'll be "A digital platform [that] will make it easier for you to access information, apply for consents, and track progress." That's nice, isn't it.

A key feature? "Standardised zones and overlays will make planning rules simpler and more consistent across the country." As if it makes a real difference whether there's 17 or 117 different zones and overlays telling you what you can't do. It hardly gives freedom for New Zealanders to use their land in ways that affect nobody else, does it.

"A new Planning Tribunal will offer you a low-cost way to resolve disputes, with limited council appeal rights." Possibly good, but there are still no details on this.

"Councils will also need to respond more quickly to private plan change requests, making it easier to unlock new areas for growth." Given the many problems with making councils respond quickly, how will this work? Given the cost of applying for a private plan change, how will this work?

1:59pm

The document says there will be "less need for consents." Why? is that because there's freedom for New Zealanders to use their land in ways that affect nobody else? 

No, it's because "councils will only be able to consider effects that have a minor, or more than minor impact on others or the environment." This, by the way, is precisely what the present "permissive" RMA allows. In other words, it's just the same.

It's also because, says the document, "design details that only affect the site itself, such as building layout, balconies or private views, won’t be regulated..." Except of course for the "guidance" supplied by several councils that tell you what they expect to see in your application. Oh, and "except in areas [which planners have decided enjoy] outstanding natural landscapes and heritage features." So much rurally where you want to build will still be policed to stop you fully enjoying your land; and many of the areas of our cities that were built before town planning came here will still be policed to keep them as museums. Nice.

So far I've yet to see much difference between the replacement and the original.

Let me look at the heading 'Making it easier to build and renovate your home' ...

2:13pm

Here's the promise: "The new planning system will support the Kiwi dream of improving your home or building a new one without unnecessary cost or delay." What's the reality?

"Standardised zones" blah, blah, as above.

"The public will only be notified about your project if the effects of it (the impacts like noise and shading) are more than minor." So, no different to current law then.

"Only people who are directly affected by a project can have a say." It's a lot of work to make this one small improvement.

"A new Planning Tribunal will be set up to help sort out disputes quickly and cheaply." Nice idea. But still no detail.

"You may be able to get ‘relief’, which means a form of support or compensation, if some planning controls or rules have a big impact on how you can use your land." I have a better idea, which would actually be core to protecting property rights. And it's this: outlaw every single planning control or rule that would have a big impact on how you can use your land. What about that?

This is all worse than a disappointment. Rather than a plethora of sackings of the unproductive, Bishop & Court instead propose to keep town planners hard at work. (Well, as hard as they ever get.) ...

2:32pm

Maybe I should have started with their "Overview" document instead of plunging into the details....

"Property rights" are mentioned seven times here, but only in the promises. "The new system is designed to unlock growth, reduce the costs of much-needed infrastructure, protect the environment and improve resilience – all while freeing up property rights so landowners have certainty and control over their land." That's a promise. Not a delivery.

The "expected outcomes" include "enhanced property rights through regulations that focus on only controlling impacts on the environment and other people." I'm surprised this is an "outcome" and not a guarantee. (And see above.)

"There will also be greater availability of relief," we are told, "if property rights are infringed." But here's the thing: the core is to make law that ensures property rights are not infringed.

"The proposed new system will make the enjoyment of property rights a guiding principle of reform," says the document, "so people can do more with their property." How? There are seven points under this heading including narrowing effects, simpler national rules, new national standards, binding environmental limits, better digital systems, and one Plan per region.

Not one of these seven, not one, gives any guarantee at all of protecting the enjoyment of property rights. I don't want one District Plan per region, I want none. I don't want simpler national rules, standards or limits set by planners, I want none at all, and I want the planners who write them unemployed. This idea of making the enjoyment of property rights a guiding principle of reform is less a guiding principle here than an incantation that, repeated often enough, will allow those sufficiently deluded to be convinced.

But it's not real.

The Bills promise "a fairer system for allocating resources," without defining whose those resources are, why a planner is entitled to allocate them, then admits that it will simply retain the RMA's approach to "allocation" anyway.

This is almost farcical.

The two new replacement Bills do promise "greater clarity and certainty," "clearer direction to decision-makers," and "mak[ing] the system more consistent and predictable." That's two of the four good things that objective law should do. (Protecting rights being the major one, of course, without which....) Big question still is: How?

"The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill will each have a clear purpose statement that describes what the Bill does." Without seeing the Bill yet, that's just another promise not a delivery.

3:03pm

Am I being too pessimistic? Well, politicians have promised to "fix" this fucking thing for thirty years, and haven't. More than a generation.  They've pledged to "fix," "fudge," "reform," repair," "enhance," and at most they've made changes to make it easier for governments to build. So every promise to date has been bullshit, and this change will likely be the last chance in my lifetime for any genuine change.  To actually have property rights protected in law. And it doesn't look promising.

Tell me I'm wrong. Please.

xxx:00pm

Not much comment in the Twittersphere, which is perhaps a measure of how little interest there is? A few quips that might have legs. Worth pondering ...

It's possible that this last is the only real nod towards property rights—unfortunate really, since 'compensation for takings' is not by any means the same thing as protecting property rights, despite what some people still think.

9:31am:

Twenty hours after the announcement, ACT's Simon Court (said to be ACT's Under-Secretary for Resource Management Reform and praised by his leader as having "driven the change at a detailed level and his contribution is enormous") is barely anywhere to be seen. No press releases on the ACT website cheering about it. No tweets posting about it.  Just two patsy questions to the Minister, two five-minute speeches to the House about infrastructure and transitions, and a three-minute stand-up with his leader.

Is he embarrassed?

One step forwards, three steps back.

"Oops." Luxon-led policy-making takes a tumble

It's a rule in politics. The devils is not always in the details. It's often that the details reveal the real devilry.

If the large print ever giveth, then the small print will surely taketh away.

Let's look at a few examples in an area I know something about: Building.

*** Building Minister Chris Penk seems a jovial character but unfortunately he knows little about his subject area. His first move was to promise faster building consents. Exciting. Encouraging. Mighty work.

Here's hist first step: "requiring councils to submit data for building consent and code compliance certificates every quarter." There are no other steps.

He adds "hope" to the idea of anything being faster. Council inspectors "must" issue building consents in a timely fashion, he insisted.  And yet every council inspector ever employed knows how to legally delay a consent application. In fact, if you fine a council for being legally overtime, they'll just legally delay applications for even longer to give themselves some head room. Which is what they've done.

Score One for the Grey Ones.

*** Another move by Building Minister Penk was "remove barriers to overseas building products." At least, that's what it said in the headline. His idea, sensible enogh on its face, is that if enough similar jurisdictions to ours have passed a product (places like Canada, US, UK, Europe, Australia etc.) then that product would be deemed to pass here too.

Yay? No, not so fast.

First move by the Ministry who oversees these things was to rent several new floors in Wellington.  Because their idea of this (and it is they who are running it) is to set up a committee who will consider, one at a time, every morsel of regulation passed anywhere at any time to decide of we might be so lucky to have it here. 

So far, in the three months since introduction, they'e okayed some taps from Sydney. Next year, they might look at concrete codes in the US. Done properly, with due consideration, this will take most committee members through to retirement.

Score One More for the Grey Ones. 

** And then the Minister for Regulatory Reform (sic) stepped up to announce a new measure to "liberate" builders and designers. For years, some of us have suggested that instead of applying to councils for permission to build (which asks for more knowledge than council employees really have, and puts ratepayers on the hook for the risk should they fail) we instead use insurance companies to take the risk.

You know, like if you build a hot rod or street racer instead of a bog standard car, then you ask the insurance company to take the risk, and they use their acumen to discern the risk, and charge you accordingly.  

This allows for good design, with risk properly underwritten. 

But you see that word above: instead.

Rather than placing the risk and the onus on designers and builders and insurers instead of on councils and ratepayers, the Minister for Regulatory Reform is doing this as well as. So it's no more "liberation day" than were Trump's tariffs: we end up getting the worst of both worlds: councils assessing risk, and insurers granted a monopoly charging like wounded bulls. And the ratepayers? Still on the hook.

So it's Several More there for the Grey Ones.

** It's like education, where a "regulatory review" by the same Minister for Regulatory Reform intends to "clarify" and "simplify" Childhood Education's overwhelmed sector. One imagines a quick fix might be going back to say, 1996, when things were working tolerably well, and just before regulations began piling on and classrooms and centres became over-regulated, under-performing, and wholly unaffordable for parents.

Instead, the "reform" begins by (and I quote) "establishing a new statutory role, the Director of Regulation, with responsibilities for performing key regulatory functions in the Early Childhood Education system." Which means another red carpet rolled out in yet another floor of a new office building in Wellington.

Back of the Net with another great effort by the Grey Ones.

*** It's a bit like the "cap" on rate rises. 

Let's stop rate rises!! Yay!! Well, not so fast. 

We know that the "cap" will be supplemented for weepy boomers with top-ups for water use, for mayors who plead public transport debts, and councillors who claim infrastructure shortfalls. We also know that the minister "responsible" ( I use the world loosely) is happy with "soaring" council debt, just as long as the effects and the headlines are only felt after he's gone.

Not to mention that the "cap" includes a minimum rate rise as well!

Yes, a minimum. By law, councils must increase rates by at least 2% every year.

It a sop, not a cap.

Grey Ones score again.

** And not to mention that the new-fangled means by which councils can "fix" their bloody awful traffic problems—traffic jams being a clash of capitalism (in the form of car production) confronting socialism (in the form of too few roads). The "new" solution is a tax. A new tax to be called "congestion charging," which will of course not replace any other tax but just be added to all those under which we are already burdened.

And if history is any guide, may help finish off Auckland's CBD altogether.

I'm pretty sure that's a total victory for Grey.

 With this government, as with every other in recent times, it's always one step forwards, and three steps back. Too many ministers with too little nous giving too much help to the unproductive to whom too many of us must seek permission before we can do anything.

I look forward to this afternoon with trepidation.

Ardern: "The myth-making begins immediately."

"'Prime Minister,' the new documentary charting Jacinda Ardern’s ascent, apotheosis and eventual retreat from public life, bills itself as an 'intimate portrait' of political power. ... Most of the footage is seemingly shot by her partner, Clarke Gayford, and the result feels less like a political documentary and more like stumbling across somebody’s unguarded home videos and realising, with horror, that they want you to watch all of them. ...

"The myth-making begins immediately. We’re whisked back to 2017, those breathless days when Ardern – 37, photogenic, permanently on the brink of tears – was hoisted into the Labour leadership and proclaimed the Kiwi messiah by people who really ought to get out more. The film dwells on this moment with something approaching religious fervour. ...

"Admirers will be transported; critics will develop a nervous tic. And the rest of us will ponder whether the world truly needed two hours of Jacinda’s domestic cinema. Spoiler: probably not."

~ UK's Daily Telegraph on a new home movie

Spotify Wrapped? No. "A massive thumbs up to anyone that bought a physical copy of anyone’s record this year."

"Lots of people currently posting their 2025 Spotify Wrapped statistics and artists thanking their listeners for streaming their music, so I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone that actually bought a PHYSICAL COPY of any of my records this year. 

"In fact a massive thumbs up to anyone that bought a physical copy of anyone’s record this year for helping to keep the art of the album alive. I’m not naive enough to think that streaming isn't the dominant platform for music listening in the 21st century by a huge margin, but I also believe the relationship between a listener and a physical piece of art is still a magical and special thing that will never be replaced by ones and zeros streaming off a server. 

"So here is Steven Wrapped, 20 physical releases I listened to a lot this year ... "

~ post from Steven Wilson

"Liberal democracy is a superpower that can make a country, or a continent, great. The world needs to have at least one such liberal democratic power, to a serve as a refuge, a protector, and an example for the rest of the world."

 

"To my friends in Europe, I want to extend an apology—and an urgent warning.

"I am profoundly sorry that Americans are failing you in this dangerous and difficult time, after you have stood with us over so many years. I didn’t vote for this, I didn’t want it, I fought against it. But I am an American, and this is my country’s choice and its policy—and I am heartily ashamed of it.

"Now the warning: Europe needs to become one of the great powers of the world, and do it fast—or you will get carved up by them….

"Yet it is absurd to think of Europe as a nonentity with no standing in the world. The countries of Europe, excluding Russia, represent 700 million people. Europe is composed of advanced and developed societies, great centres of science and culture—and taken all together, it is the world’s third-largest economy, on a par with the US and China. Europe also makes up a large part of NATO, the world’s most powerful military force. Even without the US, you are more than a match for poor, backward, depleted Russia—and the UK and France have their own nuclear forces, which provide a deterrent against other nuclear powers….

"Liberal democracy is a superpower that can make a country, or a continent, great. The world needs to have at least one such liberal democratic power, to a serve as a refuge, a protector, and an example for the rest of the world. If it is not going to be America—for who knows how long—then it had better be Europe."

~ Robert Tracinski from his post 'Dear Europe: Become a Great Power—or Get Carved Up by Them'—which he reckons is "one of the most important things I wrote this year."

Yes, let's keep piling on Anne Salmond.

"Salmond claims to have been guided by a list that reads like a Who's Who in 

Postmodernity... What she does not discuss is whether these thinkers are sound guides."

Anne Salmond, who recently called for thinkers to engage with open rather than closed minds—arguing that "other cultures may have insights that elude us" —was recently called out by Dane Giraud for the very same reason: specifically, for ignoring the insights of Enlightenment culture. The only position that actively suppresses inquiry, pointed out Giraud, is her own. "What is more antithetical to free thought'" he asked rhetorically, "than declaring whole categories of knowledge off-limits to criticism because they belong to the wrong culture."

Salmond, of course, has form. Her own favourite cultural whipping person is Western. Her writing, said Michael King of her 2003 book Two Worlds, gives "a strong impression that, rather than attempting to represent both cultures dispassionately, Salmond [is] straining to case every feature of Māori behaviour in a favourable light and many features of European in an unfavourable one.” 

But in doing so, she fails to learn there either. Reviewing Salmond's work, historian and former Waitangi Tribunal director Buddy Mikaere reckons Salmond's work "turns  our tipuna into cardboard caricatures." Rather than learning deeply from other cultures, he says, she offers only a "one-dimensional characterisation." For her and several other Pākeha historians, he says, "Māori [are] invariably depicted as deeply spiritual beings who only ever acted on the basis of high-minded principles. Pākehā, on the other hand, [are] mostly unprincipled rogues or fools whose behaviour was always motivated by racial arrogance, greed and self-interest."

Such is the accusation, it will be remembered, Salmond throws at the Pākehas of the Free Speech Union. It apparently never gets old.

It begins to look as if Salmond is unable to learn much from either of the Two Worlds of which she writes.

What also never gets old is re-reading the demolition of Salmond's work by the grand old man of New Zealand history Peter Munz, who destroyed her whole platform of post-modern posturing and epistemic duplicity in his 1994 review of her first major book. In her work she is guilty, he says, of not just "disinformation, but of actual misrepresentation."

Salmond claims to have been "guided by 'Heidegger, Foucault, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Habermas, [Mary] Hesse, Derrida, Eco and others.' ... [a] list [that] reads like a Who's Who in Postmodernity ...  all of whom would have helped to confirm her in her prejudices and methods."

What she does not discuss ... [is] whether [these thinkers] are sound guides. It appears that she is under the impression that these postmodern thinkers have solved the problem as to how different systems of knowledge or belief are related or, rather, not related to one another. Could it be that she is simply ignorant of the fact that there is much modern thought which rejects these facile, politically motivated doctrines of Foucault and Derrida, of Eco and Ricoeur? If she takes her stand with these people, she ought, to say the least, have produced some evidence that she has also examined the counter-arguments and, perhaps, found them wanting. But as things stand, she appears simply as an  uncritical camp-follower — which is a poor show for a professional anthropologist.

Furthermore, 

the explanations of the differences in systems of knowledge that these thinkers provide should not, I trust, be considered final. In the pre-postmodern world of good sense, belief or knowledge systems are distinguished according to whether they are true or false. ... What is really at issue and what she is trying hard to disguise by her way of constructing the past, is the brute reality of cultural evolution. ... 

[I]nstead of jumping on the postmodern bandwagon which is nothing more than a belated overreaction to the Victorian age, it is time scholars like Salmond caught up with modern thought and revised their view of evolution.

The limitations of the early mind are the result of isolation and of absence of the kind of contact which would expose beliefs and taboos to criticism. Societies and cultures, which for demographic and political reasons are exposed to contact with others, are more likely to question their own traditions, change their taboos and develop eventually a more universal system of knowledge — that is, beliefs which are more than validations or legitimizations of their own parochial cultures. In a nutshell, this is the heart of cultural evolution.

An evolution — a progress — only made possible by being open to new ideas. Says Munz:

Darwin or no Darwin, we are all descended from black Eve, and every single culture which has ever existed is a departure from the culture of black Eve, whoever she was. [I am using the notion 'black Eve' metaphorically to indicate that all existing cultures are descended or transmuted from a common stock.] ...

I would suggest ...  that one can rank the distance of societies from black Eve according to their exclusiveness. The earliest societies were totally exclusive and would not admit people other than those who belonged to their descent group. Next came societies which would admit people through marriage; and at the other end of the scale, farthest removed from black Eve, there are societies which potentially include anybody who wants to be included. Ranking in these terms is completely neutral and value-free. All it says is that while one cannot 'become' a Maori, one can 'become' a New Zealander, and that, for that reason, there is a structural difference between these two kinds of societies, and that that difference defines the distance of these societies from black Eve and that the actually exclusive structures are earlier than the potentially inclusive structures. Since this criterion is neutral, there can be no question of 'progress', only of progression. ...

[W]hatever criteria one likes to choose, the distances from black Eve can be ascertained because evolution, including cultural evolution, is a reality of life. 

If one wants to understand the coming together of two different cultures, as Salmond does, one must take into account, as Salmond does not, the different distances they have moved away from the earlier forms. Salmond has explicitly rejected evolution. 'Contemporary literature on traditional thought is still bedevilled", she writes, 'with implicit sometimes explicit evolutionism.' If she had her way, it would soon cease to be so bedevilled! I suppose she rejects cultural evolution in the face of overwhelming evidence because by making all cultures more or less equal she thinks she can heal wounds and pour oil on troubled waters and be 'politically correct'. But in the long run, there is no point in burying one's head in the sand: a distortion of reality brings about its own nemesis even if one does not quite yet know what shape that nemesis will take.

Can one say 'Ouch!'? 

The open society is the successful society

"The most secure and prosperous societies did not hide from the world. They were confident enough to remain open to trade and ideas, allowing the new to challenge the known. Progress emerges when people experiment, borrow, and combine ideas in ways no planner could ever foresee; decline happens when fear overcomes curiosity."

~ Johan Norberg from his article 'From Athens to the Abbasids to today’s Anglosphere, creativity and commerce drive greatness.' in which he explores the central lessons of history’s real golden ages in his new book, Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.

"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems."

"How did we get to the point where having an old-fashioned see-saw on the playground is something almost no park ... would consider? ...

"[I]t all began in the ‘60s. Not with the hippies – with the experts.

“'The idea we had back then was that we could prescribe the correctness of public choices with detailed rules,' say [Philip] Howard, author ... of Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. 'But actually, that’s not correct. Practically every situation involves human judgment in the circumstances.'

"The post-war optimism about technocrats led America to start substituting regulations for what some of us call common sense. ... This combination, which was supposed to make our world safer and more fair, had the unintended consequence of making it stagnant and scary. Lots of rules meant lots of opportunities for punishment. ...

"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems. “You no longer have the brain learning these social skills, because you have an adult overseeing them,” says Howard.

"Perhaps Howard’s biggest bugaboo is the burgeoning books of standards that schools and other institutions, like day care centres and nursing homes, are required to follow. ...

"And when we are busy trying to make sure that we have done things exactly as outlined on page 78, sub-paragraph 5-H, we’re not getting smarter. 'The regulatory state is literally mind-numbing,” Howard says. Load it up with rules and it can’t see the slide as anything other than a piece of equipment that is noncompliant, should it angle more than 43 degrees in a vertical direction'."

~ Lenore Skenazy from her post 'One Reason Childhood Is So Boring Now'

"Every so often, a critic of 'universal reason' appears who, in the course of denouncing it, inadvertently demonstrates why we need it."

Anne Salmond, the patron saint of the straw man 

"Every so often, a critic of 'universal reason' appears who, in the course of denouncing it, inadvertently demonstrates why we need it. ... 

"Anne Salmond ... goes after a recent article in the Herald by former Free Speech Union Chief Executive Jonathan Ayling, in which he called for 'an Enlightenment approach [to the school curriculum] grounded in universal reason' This is taken as proof that he wants all children to think in the same way, as though 'universal reason' means a kind of intellectual North Korea, complete with a Ministry of Correct Thoughts. The author writes that universal reason 'suggests there is only one right way to think.' The incessant quarrelling of Kant, Hume, and Voltaire surely makes a lie of that. 

"Universal reason, properly understood, means something so elementary it ought to be uncontroversial: that humans, regardless of tribe, tongue, or whakapapa, share the basic capacity to make and understand arguments. It is what allows a Māori scholar to critique a German philosopher, or vice versa. It is what allows any of us to read a book from another century, or to engage with the sciences, or to disagree at all. Without a universal reason, debate becomes a kind of cultural tourism in which we admire each other’s 'ways of knowing' from a polite distance, like exhibits in an epistemic zoo. 

"[Salmond's] column insists that because language and culture shape thought, there can be no universal reason. This is like saying that because people wear different clothes, there can be no human body underneath. Yes, thought varies, but its very variability depends on a shared structure that allows us to recognise a difference as a difference. If there were no universals of cognition, no common tools of inference or logic, the entire academic industry of “cross-cultural workshops” - which the author curiously cites as evidence - would be impossible. One does not attend a conference on how minds differ unless one assumes the participants have minds capable of discussing it. 

"Then comes the moralising: that the Free Speech Union lacks 'humility before truth,' that Māori voices are being 'silenced,' that universal reason somehow implies a political programme in favour of ignorance. But the only position in the piece that actively suppresses inquiry is the author’s own. What is more antithetical to free thought than declaring whole categories of knowledge off-limits to criticism because they belong to the wrong culture (or, as Salmond frequently argues, are immeasurable by a universal standard)? What is more hostile to academic freedom than demanding that educational policy be bound not by rational argument but by obligations to particular groups, with 'truth' distributed like government grants? 

"A liberal society cannot function on those terms."

~ Dane Giraud from his post 'Why Dame Anne Salmond Misunderstands the Enlightenment'

'Power-sharing' in the classroom

"Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will 'give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.'

"Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.

"To 'give effect' to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty principles into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves redefining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around Treaty-based frameworks.

"This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift. The idea of 'partnership' is modern — not original. New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history. The modern concepts of 'partnership,' 'principles of the Treaty,' and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.

"What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate."

~ Judy Gill from her post 'What “Giving effect to Te Tiriti” means in schools – and how zoning denies parents real choice'

Austerity, what austerity?

 

"You may have heard a lot of stories about austerity. Consider that both the government and the opposition may want to convey the impression that it has happened, despite it very much not having happened.

"Throughout the 2010s (barring #eqnz), per capita real operating expenditure net of interest expenses ranged from $17,143 to $18,653 - with 2019's jump to $18,653 being well out of line with the prior track. Labour substantially increased spending under its wellbeing focus ...

"Per capita real operating expenditure net of finance cost has been above $21,000 since then; the provisional figure for 2025 is $21,648. ...

"The largest-spend category here by far is social protection [sic]: benefits and superannuation. ...

"Any giant shedding of government staff will show up in General Public Services. The austerity really stands out in this picture. Can't you see it too? ..."

 

~ Eric Crampton from his post 'The state of the books'

"High house prices are nature’s most reliable contraceptive"

"[A]dvanced economies are halving their populations every generation ... Naturally, everyone blames 'fertility.' As though biology suddenly went on strike sometime around 1992.

"But neither ovaries nor sperm unionised. The culprit is more prosaic—house prices. ... A new study confirmed what few were willing to admit. Housing costs explain more than half the baby drought. If housing had been more affordable in recent decades, decline in fertility would have been smaller by 51%. ...

"High house prices, it seems, are nature’s most reliable contraceptive."

~ Benno Blaschke from his post 'House prices are the new birth control'

Regional shambles

"Let’s be clear: regional councils deserve to be sent off with a pat on the back and a firm shove. They’ve become expensive holding pens for consultants, issuing bylaws no one asked for, and running consultations no one understands. Water quality down, rates up, and when something goes wrong, they blame climate change and hand out a glossy brochure.

"But what we’re being sold as the solution (this idea of a 'mayoral body' running the show) is not a solution. It’s a camel designed by a committee of camels. It takes the worst aspects of regional councils and fuses them with a structural contradiction that will blow up the first time anything controversial hits the table. ...

"In the name of reform, we’re being handed a muddle. No ultimate authority. No single accountable figure. Just a table full of mayors all claiming to be regional leaders while keeping one eye on the local Facebook page and the other on next year’s campaign posters.

"It’s not just bad governance. It’s impossible governance."

~ Zoran Rakovic from his post 'From Council to Circus: Mayors in a Regional Tent'

The Seen & the Unseen — Dicey edition

 

"The beneficial effect of State intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and, so to speak, visible, whilst its evil effects are gradual and indirect, and lie out of sight. ... Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favour upon governmental intervention. 

"This natural bias can be counteracted only by the existence, in a given society, ... of a presumption or prejudice in favour of individual liberty, that is, of laissez-faire. The mere decline, therefore, of faith in self-help — and that such a decline has taken place is certain —is of itself sufficient to account for the growth of legislation tending towards socialism."

~ AV Dicey from his lecture 'The Growth of Collectivism,' collected in his 1905 book 'Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century'

15 YEARS AGO (LIBERTARIAN SUS ): Let's make Christmas more commercial!

Here's another topical post from the archives, this time from old friend Libertarian Sus who was once a regular poster here at NOT PC back in the good old days. I haven't seen her for many years (let me know if you have her current details, I'd love to catch up). In any case, I trust she's beaten us all, once again, to the first-to-get-up-the-Christmas-tree prize this December ...

I love Christmas. I love everything about it, from shopping to decorating to singing carols. It’s my favourite time of the year, as it is for millions around the world.

There’s something about putting your tree up. I put mine up earlier than anybody I know, with the exception of my sister who occasionally pips me to the post. I usually aim for the last Sunday in November, complete with my favourite festive music. My youngest sister, a mother of three, somewhat violently swears the two of us to secrecy, lest my nephews and niece pester her to get their tree up ridiculously early, too.

The music is important, because it simply wouldn’t be Christmas for us without it. The first is from Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters, originally recorded in the 1940s. My late grandfather was a huge Crosby fan and he and Nana had the record. We played it every Christmas until it quite literally warped – and even then we still played it. Several years ago we discovered it on CD, thereby preserving the tradition for the next generation, who I’m delighted to report know all the words of 'Mele Kalikimaka.'

The second is a relative newcomer, Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas, introduced by one of my brothers-in-law, a musician. Aaron might look like a criminal – and he does - but he has the voice of an angel. I defy the hardest heart to not be moved by his rendition of “O Holy Night” in particular. Occasionally we will permit an interloper on Christmas Day itself, but generally it’s just Aaron and Bing.

Perfect.

Anyway, back to the tree where my decorations are like old friends who visit once a year. Some were picked up in my travels in the days when the offerings in New Zealand were severely limited, but now, thanks to globalisation, we are spoilt for choice. No matter the size of the tree, though, or the quality and quantity of the decorations, they come alive with Christmas lights. The lights provide the magic.

Retailers love the Christmas season and for good reason. For many, it’s the busiest time of the year with December sales representing a healthy portion of their turnover. The big annual spend-up on Christmas gifts is an example of the market at work. Stores are stocked to the brim with goods to sell, employing thousands of staff in the process. Students are gainfully employed as much-needed additional staff to help offset the costs of their next educational year, or to just get through the summer.

Manufacturers work hard to complete orders on time and freight companies are flat out with seasonal deliveries. The livelihoods of many depend upon the Christmas season, and yet every year we hear the same cries that Christmas has become commercialised, as if it is a bad thing.

But why is that so?

To answer that question, it is worthwhile to explore its origins. Here’s a quick look. Christmas is a Christian holiday and like other Christian holidays, it has its origin in paganism.

Saturnalia was a Roman festival in honour of Saturn, the god of agriculture. It began on 15 December and lasted for seven days of feasting and revelry, just prior to the winter solstice that fell around 25 December on the Julian calendar. The solstice included glorification of Mithra, the god of light who several centuries later became known as the god of the sun. The Roman Catholic Church had the habit of absorbing pagan traditions into Christendom, converting the holiday commemorating the birth of the sun god into a “Christ Mass.”

However, Christmas-time celebrations prior to the 1800s still featured much pagan revelry among the British commoners, at times little more than wild carousals. It is believed that this drunken revelry had much to do with Oliver Cromwell – never much of a partygoer – going so far as to outlaw Christmas in the 17th century, forcing it underground for a time. This ban was extended to many of the early North American colonies where “violators” were fined five shillings. After its reinstatement, Christmas still bore much of its earlier debauchery, but some of our current traditions started to appear. For example, caroling began with groups of individuals visiting houses in the community singing songs in exchange for eggnog. Gift-giving, however, was still extremely limited, and virtually unknown within families.

The traditions of several countries are involved. The Yule log came from Scandinavian mythology, “Yule” being the Anglo- Saxon term for the months of December and January. After most Scandinavians had converted to Christianity, “Yule” became synonymous with Christmas.

By the 17th century, the Germans had converted the Christmas tree, originally a sign of fertility, into a Christian symbol of rebirth. The Dutch called Saint Nicholas, an altruistic bishop from the 4th century, ‘Sinterklaas’, who was to become ‘Santa Claus’ in the USA. In 1823 the American professor Clement Clarke Moore wrote the delightful poem entitled 'A Visit from Saint Nicholas,' better known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.'

But perhaps the greatest change occurred after the publication in 1843 of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, providing lessons on charity and the importance of caring for family and friends. As a result, Christmas became a joyful, domestic holiday focusing on children in particular. It was an illustrator with Harper’smagazine, who first depicted Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole in the latter half of the 19th century, while Coca-Cola ran commercials in 1931 showing Santa as the children’s gift-giver, as we know him today. Rudolf, the much-loved ninth reindeer appeared in 1939 via an advertising agent on behalf of his retailing client, all of which paved the way for the commercialism seen annually for decades.

The festive colour and sparkle brightened the dark days of the long northern winters, with the seasonal sales providing welcome respite during the slower trading months.

But what of Christmas down under, occurring as it does in early summer. Is it not odd to see traditional winter celebrations imposed by early settlers upon warm, sunny days? Christmas cards depicting robins on snow-covered mailboxes? Rugged-up Carolers sipping hot toddies?

Not at all … if that’s what you like. Whether you prefer a traditional roast meal or a barbecue outside, a formal dinner or informal brunch, a church service to celebrate the birth of Christ or a walk along the beach, a large, rowdy family affair or a quiet day indulging your favourite pastimes, is entirely up to you.

And rather than decrying its commercialism, I prefer to embrace it for the wealth it provides and the jobs it creates. It would be a mean-spirited Scrooge who begrudged another his income during the Season of Goodwill. Do some people overstretch themselves financially? Sadly, yes. But the truth is that nobody forces them to do so. Beautiful doesn’t have to be big and bold. It never did. Yes, the Santa sleepwear is tacky. Yes, the reindeer antlers are tragic on anyone old enough to pay full price at the pictures, and ‘Snoopy’s Christmas’ drives me nuts, too—whoever’s singing the damn thing. But it all vanishes in comparison with the beauty of a Christmas tree lit up in the darkness, and the enrapturing melodies of some of the most beautiful music ever written.

May Father Christmas be good to you all.