Who's holding the gun, Mr Brownlee?

[Guest Post by Julian]

Transpower continues to seek access to farm properties with the debate now moving to the South Island. Says Temuka farmer Jeremy Talbot, "There is to be no more access given to allow [...] work to be finished until we finally do get the settlement we've been seeking." Seems fair enough to me. Let him and Transpower negotiate in a civilised way as many people around this country do every day. I thought we had already dealt with this issue here at Not PC a few week ago.

Yet the South Island farmers’ attitude has annoyed Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee. Speaking on Morning Report this morning, he states his annoyance that some farmers are holding a gun to the head of government.  "Holding a gun to the head of government is simply not going to work," he whines. Excuse me, Mr Brownlee, but that is not what these farmers are doing. They are exercising their property rights. It is their land, their property.

If Mr Brownlee objects to the holding of guns at people's heads, then I suggest that he show equal disdain for his own government, a government that routinely bullies New Zealand taxpayers and property owners, using the threat of a gun to the head as its means of persuasion.

Pylon pressure – more State bullying

Does Transpower have freely negotiated easements over farmers’ land, or does it not?

If not, then it owes an apology to everyone from farmer Steve Meier on down for using the powers of the state to march unwanted onto someone else’s property.  And for relying on such bullying as their primary means of protecting Auckland’s power supply.

Frankly, if any part of that is true then the whole situation is a disgrace from arse to elbow.
Just what the hell does Transpower CEO Patrick Strange think he’s doing bad-mouthing those whose property he is so shamefully abusing.  Just what the hell is he playing at relying on the good will of those he’s abusing to maintain a secure power supply to the country’s biggest city. The arse he’s sitting on needs kicking from here to Matangi.

Janet Wilson reckons Transpower's bullying of farmers over access shows the organisation as “a bureaucratic monster that embodies the worst faults of a giant government-owned corporation.”  And who could disagree.  She says:

    “Dr Strange may think he can ignore public opinion because he has the power of the state behind Transpower in what it does.”

That would appear to be precisely the case.  As I’ve said here many times before.

No RMA reform that's worth a damn, with even worse promised

THE NATIONAL PARTY, SAYS John Key, promises to "reform" the Resource Management Act "within the first 100 days of our first term.

How?

Remember that National introduced the Resource Management Act back in 1991.  Remember that National's Nick Smith administered the Act as environment minister, without change, for three years to 1999 -- and he's on record as describing it as "far-sighted environmental legislation." 

What do they want to do to it now that they haven't wanted to do before? And what will Nick "far-sighted environmental legislation" Smith want to do to it anyway?

Do they want to put protection of New Zealander's property rights at the heart of the Act?  No.

Do they want to take power over your property away from planners and council bureaucrats?  No.

Are they promising anything that it will make projects like the Whangamata marina and Wellington's waterfront hotel any easier?  No, they aren't.

To make it easier for a builder to get a subdivision consent and lower the price of land to buyers?; or for a supermarket owner to build a new supermarket in the face of a competitor?; or a developer to build a new village in the face of council opposition?  No, of course not. 

Will they abolish the likes of development levies, and squash the huge delays and rises in consent costs that add thousands, and sometimes millions, to every private project in the country?  No, of course they won't.  Will they do anything at all to increase the supply of suitable land available on which to build houses, or to remove council planners the power to zone private land, and the power to set urban walls around New Zealand towns and cities?  No, emphatically not.

Not one of these things will happen under National.

OF THE FEW DETAILS released that actually describe what they would do in that first 100 days (and who now expects details from this lot?), all they really establish is they will make it easier for the government to "Think Big" -- requiring projects of so called "national significance" to be consented in nine months, or else.

That won't help you or I get our projects built or our property rights protected, but it would allow the government to steamroll over people's property rights to push through projects like the Waikato pylons.

They don't want to protect your property rights.  They don't want to make it easier for you to build, they only want to make it easier for them to build, using borrowed money.

They say, or at least, Nick Smith promised last year, that they will set up an "Environmental Protection Authority"? 

Does that sound like less bureaucracy and less of the stifling red tape that's strangling us all? 

The say, and Key promised this in his conference speech, to enact an emissions trading scheme. "My goal," says Key, "is to have such a scheme on the statute books within nine months of taking office."

Does that sound like less bureaucracy and less of the stifling red tape that's strangling us all? 

"We are determined to remove the handbrake the RMA places on growth," they say. "We are determined to let good ideas flourish in this country. We are going to get New Zealand moving again."

There is nothing reported from either Smith or Key to indicate any of that is true, nothing at all to indicate either will do anything to help New Zealanders get their property rights back -- and much, including that promised emissions trading scheme, to suggest otherwise.  This is just more new window dressing that looks just like the same old window dressing, with new impositions thrown in.

National are NOT the answer.

Pylon pressure ignorant and unnecessary

TVNZ: Controversial pylons get go-ahead
Transpower has been given permission to build its controversial pylons from the Waikato to Auckland... The decision by [the Electricity Commission] was not unanimous, but all agree that an upgrade of the transmission grid is essential to maintain a reliable power supply to Auckland... Landowners affected by the proposal remain bitterly opposed as they will have to play host to the giant pylons.

Let's have a look at the decision:

• Yes, Auckland does need the power.
  
• Yes, landowners should be pissed off that they have been forced against their will to play host to something they don't want.
  
• No, no government should have the power to bully landowners.
  
• Yes, this is a government action: Transpower is fully government-owned, and last year the Clark Government sacked the then Electricity Commissioner in order to get the result made public today.
  
• And no -- as I've said before here -- bullying isn't necessary to get a power line from one place to another. As I've said before, there is no reason it can't be done voluntarily except ignorance of the alternatives, and that as a government bloody department Transpower can't be bothered respecting property owners -- much easier for these assholes to wield the big, bullying stick of big government.

I've described before one type of voluntary mechanism used historically for ensuring a route through private property while respecting property owners:

When railroading was at its peak in 19th century America, railroads used to purchase 'options' from land-owners along their three or four preferred routes - options that would only be picked up once one of the routes became 'live' by having purchased 100% of the necessary options along that route. The Kapuni gasline that went through some years ago made use of similar undertakings.

Little wonder that bloody-minded ignorance and Big Government bullying is this government's preferred option, even when recognition of property rights and voluntary cooperation was always possible.

As Daryl Kerrigan from the film 'The Castle' used to muse, power lines are a reminder of man's ability to generate electricity. In the Waikato, they are now a reminder that the government's big stick may still be used to force pylons and powerlines across unwilling farmers' property.

The big stick seems to be all the Clark Government understands.

LINKS: Government bullying over pylons - Not PC, Jan, 2006
Pylons v property rights - Not PC, May 5, 2005
Piling on the pylon pressure - Not PC, July 20, 2005

RELATED: Property_Rights, Energy