On the weekend, Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop admitted that not everyone will “like” his fast track wish-list, before adding: “We are a government that does not shy away from those tough decisions." Hmm. IMO, there’s nothing “tough” about a government using its numbers in Parliament to bulldoze aside the public’s social and environmental concerns. That’s being “tough” only in the sense of saying “tough shit” to what the public thinks about it.

The fast track wish-list is comprised of 149 housing, infrastructure, aquaculture, irrigation, transport and mining/quarrying projects. On the evidence, the tough guys in Cabinet still seem to be helplessly, hopelessly infatuated with property developers. As Thomas Coughlan pointed out in the NZ Herald:

The Government is riding to the rescue of stressed property developers who are struggling in an era of low confidence in the market and high interest rates. Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk announced they would offer government underwrites to some property developments, removing the risk from those developments and allowing them to go ahead. As part of the underwrite, the Government agrees to buy houses if they fail to sell after a certain period.

Reportedly, when something similar was part of Labour’s Kiwibuild programme in 2019, National’s Judith Collins denounced the idea as being a “financial black hole.” Now, National regards giving financial guarantees to property developers as both desirable and necessary to kickstart the building process “while the economy recovers.”

But here’s the thing. National abruptly ceased funding the housing construction that Kainga Ora was managing via Kiwibuild, and also the MoH “Build Ready” programme. National has now re-allocated those resources directly to large private sector companies, in the shape of an open-ended handout – despite the avoidable harm it did in the interim to the construction industry, in the shape of lost jobs and wasted resources.

Risky, but only for some

As an aside...would the coalition government be quite as willing to step in and help purchase houses in Dunedin that have been proven susceptible to natural disaster? Probably not. Its generosity seems to extend only to stressed property developers. Or, as Bishop put it:

In times of expensive borrowing, underwrites are an effective tool for supporting housing supply. This is because underwrites increase developers’ access to finance where they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get it, and therefore wouldn’t have been able to deliver the houses.”

As others have already noted, this is quite a change of tune from what Bishop was saying back in March about the risks involved in the Crown undertaking to underwrite the business decisions made by private sector property developers:

What I mean by that is if you wanted to do it seriously to support construction activity, you’d be taking on lots of risk for the Crown. If you can’t get bank finance for a development, and the Crown underwrites, they're riskier.”

Regardless...some 44 housing projects comprising a total of 55,000 builds are included on the fast-track list. Yet as Bernard Hickey has pointed out, the government’s “financial hand-brake” still remains on, when it comes to related spending on the water and transport infrastructure required to support that build. Chris Bishop, Shane Jones and Simeon Brown are giving every sign of making this fast track stuff up as they speed along.

For its part, Irrigation NZ seems pleased at the government’s readiness to fast track more irrigation projects to support more intensive dairy farming and horticulture- including a revamped version of the Ruataniwha dam project previously rejected by the courts on environmental grounds. If you’re worried about what further irrigation may do to the water table or what more intensive dairying might do to water quality in our lakes and rivers, rest assured that Environment Minister Shane Jones doesn’t give a toss what you think.

Footnote: There are eleven mining projects (!) on the fast track list, and eight quarrying projects. The proposal by Trans Tasman Resources to mine the seabed in the South Taranaki Bight is back on the agenda, even after being rejected by the Supreme Court. As one protest group has pointed out:

TTR’s bid to dig up 50 million tonnes of the South Taranaki Bight every year for 35 years - in a 66 square kilometre area - would be the first off the ranks, but it could set the precedent to grow into a massive 877 square kilometre seabed mining zone. (The company already has a mining licence for a 242 sqkm area and is already touting this area plus another 635 square kms to its investors).

The resulting sediment plume from seabed mining will spread right across the Bight, interfering with feeding grounds for seabirds and marine mammals.

Not that Shane Jones is showing any interest in letting anything stand in the way of strip-mining the seabed, or in mitigating the harms to the area’s wildlife and environmental quality. As Jones told RNZ, local Taranaki iwi opposing the inevitable harm to their home and livelihoods from seabed mining have been “colonised” by Te Pati Māori. In Jonesland, there is room only for votes of approval.

While on RNZ this week, Jones also showed no interest in being transparent about whether any of the companies now benefitting from the fast track process have been political donors to New Zealand First. The once proudly independent party of Winston Peters now seems to function (see: Casey Costello) as a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate New Zealand.

One year on

The focus on the anniversary of the Hamas attack serves a narrative whereby the October 7 bloodshed came out of nowhere. In fact, Hamas were not space aliens who dropped in from the sky. While not exonerating the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, the violence that day had a context – and that context includes the decades of repeated violent and inhuman treatment meted out to Palestinian civilians by Israel, before and since October 7,2023.

For that reason, when we remember the 1,200 Israelis who lost their lives at the hands of Hamas a year ago, it is just as important to remember the 41,000 Palestinians who have died subsequently at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces. The same vastly unequal toll of death and suffering is now being inflicted by the IDF operations inside Lebanon. Reportedly, nine invading IDF troops have been killed in southern Lebanon during the last fortnight, while over 2000 Lebanese have died.

Moreover, one fifth of Lebanon’s entire population has been displaced by what – according to Israeli propaganda, faithfully repeated by our media – was said to be a “limited” operation “targeted” at Hezbollah. Now it transpires that everyone living in an entire swathe of the country from 60 kilometres south of Beirut right down to Israel’s northern border is being ordered to leave, as this de-populated region gets turned into a free-fire zone. From the sidelines, the world is passively watching the wholesale “Gaza-fication” of Lebanon. Evacuate from here, and congregate in a refuge there, where the IDF can more easily blow you and your family to pieces.

Given the level of indiscriminate bloodshed being inflicted by Israel on the former French enclave, French president Emnanuel Macron’s belated call for a ban on arms sales to Israel is appropriate. It is hard to look credible – hello, Joe Biden – about decrying violence if simultaneously, you’re handing out weapons to the prime assailant.

One year on, Israel’s current actions have little to do with its “right to defend itself.” Israel is waging a war of expansion from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea, while enforcing de-population of hundreds of thousands of people, and committing acts of aggression right across Lebanon. Ultimately, Israel aims to provoke a war with Iran, and bring about regime change in Teheran. If it is allowed to succeed, the West will be dragged in to police the ruins of Iran, for decades to come.

Footnote: It is a cliché, but if Israel ever wonders where Hamas and Hezbollah came from, it could start by looking in the mirror. Hamas came into being as a Palestinian offshoot of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. It was formed in 1987 in response to the first intifada (“uprising”) against the Israeli occupation. In the mid 2000s, Hamas became the governing power in Gaza after public support collapsed for the corrupt and ineffectual Palestinian Authority. (Currently, the West is planning to re-impose the Palestinian Authority on Gaza.)

Hezbollah is a Shia militia that began as a resistance movement against the Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. It was formed in 1982 – with funding and support from Iran – partly in response to the humanitarian crises that the Israeli invasions had left in their wake.

Although this fact has been pushed completely down the memory hole in the West, Hezbollah and Iran both played important roles in defeating the terrorist caliphate of Islamic State. Lest we remember...

Macklemore: Hind’s Hall 2

It seems extraordinary that Macklemore – the formerly lightweight pop rapper from Seattle who made his name with “Thrift Shop” – should have become the leading (only?) American musician to use their work to denounce the genocide in Gaza. Earlier this year in “Hind’s Hall” Macklemore delivered an eloquent, angry eulogy in memory of six year old Hind Rajab, one of the tens of thousands of Palestinian children slaughtered by the IDF.

Now, here is the sequel, “Hind’s Hall 2”:

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