Shutting down the little people (again)

No Right Turn, continuing daily to make NZ's collective media look like lightweights where looking into the detail is concerned, writes today on the government's recommendations for amending the Resource Management Act.

NRT's summary is to the point:

"Combined, these changes will mean less democratic control and less accountability. Decisions will be made by faceless bureaucrats in Wellington rather than by people working for local communities according to local concerns. It will mean that you will have less say in what happens in your local community - less say over whether a large developer gets to destroy a local river, pollute the air, erect a building which ruins the landscape, or bury toxic waste in the ground. And when any of those things happen, we will know who to blame for it: the National-led government and Nick Smith."

The National Party has spent most of the last 27 years convincing me they don't really like democracy very much and find it all a bit of a bore. They want to dump MMP and will be making moves soon to take away your and my vote. The party vote: the only one that actually counts. Whenever they get the chance, they remove our rights and place the power to make decisions in the hands of the people they like and trust. Bill Birch ditched the elected hospital boards and replaced them with appointed bodies. That was to be a prelude to more privatisation of that public service.

National always claim they are doing this for our own good while at the same time making it very clear they aren't prepared to listen to anything to the contrary. That, for me, is the very essence of the National party approach to politics and democracy: Gut the power of the weak (for their own good, of course) and never, ever listen to anyone who objects. Looking at the evidence and admitting you've got it wrong is a sign of weakness in their book. One might think that to them, believing you are correct is much better than actually being correct. The evidence of my own experience certainly supports such a view.

It's the same ethos that gave us the failed power reforms - despite many warnings they would not work - and a badly run down education system and a health system that was at the point of collapse in 1999...and much more. They were deaf to it all and went down in a hail of bullets.

The new National government is giving every sign of being no different to any other. The sole exception in my lifetime was the government lead by Jim Bolger between 1990 and when they dumped him for Jenny Shipley. We got a treaty settlements process and MMP out of that government. Rare exceptions in a long history of undermining the democratic power of the individual while reserving real power for their cronies and sponsors. National can't see it (they never do) but the seeds of their own electoral destruction are already being sewn.