Not Cricket, RMA Reform, and Property Rights Death

This week:
1. A black day for property rights everywhere
2. RMA reforms a lane-change, not a U-turn
3. Morally-blind cricketers head to Zimbabwe

1. A Black Day for Property Rights Everywhere

Property rights are under attack everywhere. New Zealand home-owners and farmers are given the finger by planners, mayors and Jim Sutton; Zimbabwe shop- and shanty-owners are given their marching orders by the urban planning bulldozers of Robert Mugabe; and now American home-owners have just been told to bugger off by no less an authority than the US Supreme Court. STORY HERE. Background here.

That' s right, the Supreme Court has declared that the US Constitution gives state and local authorities the power to throw people off their land and out of their houses in order to build shopping malls, car parks, auto plants, 'new urbanism' housing projects--anything they like in fact. Homeowners should just shut up and take their medicine, says the Supreme Court in the former Land of the Free.

The 'eminent domain' clause in the constitution is the problem--the nonsense notion that 'compensation for takings' is all that property rights is; that is, if the local authority or Transpower decide to take your house or put their power lines over your property then you have no right to object. Just shut up and take your medicine. As I explain here, the NZ political party noisily espousing this overbearing authoritarian nostrum is the ACT Party.

Time to ask Rodney and Stephen Franks for a 'please explain' letter.

2. RMA Reforms a Lane-Change, Not a U-Turn

The Government's proposed changes to the Resource Management Act are not so much a U-turn as a 'lane-change,' as even with the changes the RMA still proceeds in a direction that destroys property rights. This is minor tinkering, not major reform.

The proposed change allows the government to 'call in' projects of national significance and send them directly to the Environment Court, bypassing lower level hearings. This may help speed up a few large 'headline' infrastructure projects -- but God help Waikato farmers fighting Transpower's pylons' project, and as Federated Farmers has said before, "it's little, not large" [that] suffers most RMA pain." 'Little' projects, which constitute the bulk of outstanding RMA consent applications, will continue to suffer pain as the property rights of applicants are ignored.

A 'test' of these proposed reforms is perhaps to note that they do nothing to help the Western Springs speedway, organisers of which are in the High Court today arguing that they have existing use rights under the RMA. I wish them well but I'm not optimistic, since we've seen before that the RMA does nothing to protect the property rights of those facing complaints by those who 'came to the nuisance.'

The test for real RMA reform will be whether property rights can be introduced to the heart of the Act. I still say they can't -- the RMA still needs a stake through its heart.

3. Morally-blind cricketers head to Zimbabwe

If it's true as Martin Snedden says that New Zealand cricketers "unanimously agreed" to tour Zimbabwe then, sadly, that says little for New Zealand's leading cricketers.

It's true as Snedden says that many of the countries on the cricket circuit are "volatile," but that doesn't even begin to describe the Zimbabwean situation. It was clear enough when this tour was only a twinkle in the ICC's eye that Robert Mugabe's insane politically-driven thuggery was a totalitarian step ahead of anything going on elsewhere at the time.

Destroying the country's free press; arresting opposition leaders; eviscerating property rights; murdering white farmers ... even the otherwise morally-blind cricketers must have wondered what was going on when Zimbabwe fast bowler Henry Olonga fled to England in fear for his life after speaking out about "the death of democracy in his beloved Zimbabwe," or when he subsequently called for test cricket with Zimbabwe to be discontinued.

As I said myself back in 2001 when on behalf of the Libertarianz I called for "Zimbabwe's expulsion from the Commonwealth and other world bodies... 'No regime...that engages in such abhorrent acts should be welcomed in respectable world circles. Mugabe is probably clinically insane. But he certainly is a monster who should be shunned.'" The insanity was even clearer by 2002 when I called for New Zealand to "fast-track visa applications for refugees from Mugabe's atrocities."

So even though the NZ Government was itself morally-blind for a time, if NZ Cricket had kept their own eyes open they could have refused the tour in the planning stages. To complain now that their hands are tied and they have no choice is a disgrace.

But there is no case for the New Zealand government to stop the tour. For once I agree with Helen Clark: how would the government physically stop the tour? By stopping New Zealand cricketers at the airport and putting them under house arrest? You don't help freedom elsewhere by infringing it at home.

And neither do you disabuse yourself of reponsibility for your actions by laying the blame for your actions at the door of others, or blinding yourself to their immorality as Snedden and the NZ cricketers are doing. Shame on them.

Morality is not something just for sermons on Sunday, it's part of day-to-life. Time some sportsmen and their administrators took some responsibility for their actions.

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