Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

Drinking at 18? No, For a Couple Good Reasons.

Some states are starting to consider lowering the minimum legal drinking age back to 18. (See here.) The two reasons that are most often mentioned in favor of doing are (i) if you are old enough to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, you ought to be able to drink and (ii) lowering the drinking age will help reduce binge drinking among college students.

I am not exactly sure how making alcohol more available to college students will reduce drinking, but let me continue. Apparently, the theory is, while college students under 21 are getting alcohol, because they getting it illegally, they tend to drink it irresponsibly.

The only problem with that argument (actually, there are lots of problems with that argument, but let me just mention one) is that it doesn’t consider all of the things that will happen if the drinking age is lowered: First, college kids will be able to get as much alcohol as they want legally. That certainly will not reduce drinking. Second, those who are a couple of years under the drinking age limit will still drink irresponsibly; it’s just that, instead of being 18, 19 and 20, they will be 16 and 17. Instead of solving the binge drinking problem in colleges, we increase it in high schools.

Also, by making alcohol more available, lowering the drinking age will increase alcohol-related driving deaths, both among those who would then be able to legally buy alcohol and among those who would then be closer to the legal drinking age, even if still below it. This is what happened in New Zealand when they dropped the legal drinking age from 20 to 18 in 1999. Alcohol-related crashes rose 12 percent among 18- to 19-year-olds, and they rose 14 percent among 15- to 17-year-olds. (Also, see here and here.)

But what about those who are serving in the military, it is argued. If they can defend our country, they ought to be able to drink. Serving in the Army and drinking alcohol are different things. Just because some 18- and 19- and 20-year olds are mature enough to be doing a magnificent job in Iraq and Afghanistan does not mean all those between 18 and 21 should be able to drink alcohol legally.

The fact is that lowering the minimum drinking age to 18 will result in more drinking by those under 21, and it will increase traffic fatalities, both for those who are under 21 and for those whose cars are hit by those who are under 21. If we need to reward those who are under 21 and serving in the armed forces, we can lower the drinking age for them – but just them. Let’s not increase drinking and increase alcohol-related traffic deaths just because of a silly argument based on a foolish consistency.

Letting the Foxes Guard the Hen House

Following politics in another country can be interesting because you can see how similar issues are handled in other countries. Also, reading about another country can help you better understand how things could be handled differently in your own country.

For example, people on both sides of the health care debate often talk about what is happening in other countries to support their position in the United States. But those kind of one-off references are not really helpful and may not even be accurate. To make meaningful comparisons you have to really read about another country, so you can understand them and understand how their experiences may be of use to the United States.

For reasons not relevant here, I read a fair amount about New Zealand. An issue has popped up in New Zealand recently that is of interest in the United States. Let me explain.

First, it is important to understand that New Zealand, like England, does not have a written constitution. Instead, the New Zealand Parliament reigns supreme. In fact, New Zealand does not even have a second house (like England’s House of Lords) to provide a little bit of second thought.

In New Zealand’s 2005 election (they have elections every three years), seven members of a relatively secretive religious group called the Exclusive Brethren spent $1,000,000 to try to help the National Party (the more conservative party) beat the Labour Party, which was in power. Labour won re-election, barely, but they were, to say the least, mad and they promised (threatened – ?) reforms to the election laws.*

With only one year to go before the next election, the Labour Party finally presented its proposals. First, the period during which spending is regulated was changed from the three-month period before an election to the entire period from January 1 of the year in which an election is held to the date of the election. While the period was extended (potentially a lot since elections are often held in October or November), the limits on spending by a political party were kept the same. Since the government will know when it is going to call an election and the opposition does not, this gives an advantage to the party in power. Also, one can see how the spending limits will restrict the challenger more than the incumbent since the party in power will almost certainly be able to figure out some way to claim they are merely using public monies to "explain" and "inform" people about government programs and policies.

The new rules on spending by non-political party groups (called "third parties") are even worse. Third parties are to be allowed to spend only $60,000 on in an election year on "election advertising," which itself is given a definition so broad that it basically covers almost all public policy advocacy efforts. The amount is so low, the equivalent of two or three full-page newspaper ads, that it will greatly reduce the amount of policy-related advocacy by third parties in an election year.** The proposals also require third parties to forfeit any anonymous donation over $500 while allowing political parties to accept anonymous donations in any amount.

Because New Zealand has no written constitution, if Labour’s original proposals were passed, there would be no recourse, other than to try to change the law. (Of course, with our Supreme Court approving McCain-Feingold, a written constitution is not as much protection as one might have expected.)

When objections were raised, Labour responded that it was no big deal. They were always expecting the proposals to go to a Parliamentary select committee and the problems could be addressed there. Of course, Labour did not explain why they did not try to fix the problems before introducing the bill.

Which raises the question: Was the Labour Party just sloppy, failing to think through what they were proposing? Or did they deliberately propose the bill as it was figuring that (i) even with changes, they might still get more (in terms on restrictions on what independent groups and opposition parties could do and spend in an election) than they might otherwise get and (ii) it might just slip through, and if it didn’t, choice (i) would still be there.

All of which raises the point: How can we trust foxes (i.e., politicians) to protect the hen house (i.e., our democracy and our right to free speech) from the foxes (i.e., the politicians themselves)?

Fine, you say, but what does this have to do with the United States. The point is the same things happen here. As I mentioned previously, in 2004 when the Democrats thought Section 527 organizations would help the Republicans, they tried to restrict them, and the Republicans protested, claiming were trying to protect free speech. In 2005, after 527s spent more money supporting John Kerry than they did supporting President Bush, the Republicans tried to restrict 527s and it was the Democrats who posed as defenders of free speech. This was like New Zealand, with each party proposing changes to the election laws that would help it and hurt its opponents.

In the case of the attempts to put limits on 527s, the competition between the Republicans and Democrats worked to defeat the proposed restrictions. The differing interests of the parties in New Zealand may be working to stop the more egregious provisions of the new proposals. However, we cannot always rely on competition between the parties to protect us. In New Zealand, one theory about the design of Labour’s proposals is that Labour hoped National might go along with the restrictions on third party spending because Labour’s proposal allowed anonymous contributions to political parties (which is how National gets much of its money) to continue*** and because National might figure it would appreciate the law’s tilt toward the incumbent when it gets back in office.

The same thing happens in the United States. While the parties compete in some areas, in others they conspire with each other against the public. When it came time to redraw the boundaries for Illinois’ congressional districts after the 2000 census, the parties did not try to figure out a way to gain an advantage. Rather, the incumbent congressmen got together and drew up a map with boundaries that protected each of them – from the voters. And, except for one district, where the incumbent Republican failed to retire when he should have, it has worked for the congressmen and against a choice for the voters.

Similarly, does anybody think the earmark "reforms" that Congress recently passed by margins rivaling elections in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, are anything more than an attempt by both parties to make the voters think they are reforming things when really they are not?

For that matter, aren’t the McCain-Feingold "reforms" more about making it harder for challengers and third parties to criticize incumbents in the period before an election than protecting the election process from corruption?

The fact is, just as you cannot expect the foxes to protect the hen house, we should not expect politicians to protect our rights, at least when those rights include criticizing politicians. There are too many politicians who have convinced themselves that protecting the system from corruption means passing laws that effectively protect them from being criticized.

Those in favor of limiting campaign spending and limiting or even prohibiting certain kinds of speech before an election claim they are trying to protect democracy and our freedoms from the corruption and unfairness of too much money. But that is backwards. Free speech, including the right to criticize politicians, especially before elections, is the best thing that we the people have to protect our democracy and our freedoms from the politicians.

-------------------
* Labour’s anger was somewhat hypocritical since they themselves were found to have violated the spending laws during the 2005 election. Each party in Parliament gets an amount of money to use for member and party support purposes. The money is not, however, to be used for campaigning. Labour used $446,000 of its money to print and distribute a pledge card showing a picture of Prime Minister Helen Clark, the words "My commitments to you," a list of seven policies Labour said it would introduce if it was reelected, and the Labour Party logo. Somehow Labour claimed this was not electioneering, even though the Auditor-General said before the election that it would be improper to spend the money for these cards. Labour’s defense was that they had done it before, so the Auditor-General was changing the rules – apparently by enforcing the law.

** If you are interested in more detail on these proposals, see, inter alia, Kiwiblog here.

*** As I said, for some reason New Zealand allows anonymous contributions to political parties.

Health Care – What Works or Just the Same Old Ideas

The Law of Unintended Consequences is probably the only law you can be certain will work in Washington. Sometimes, though not too often, the unintended consequences even turn out for the better.

An example may be the new drug plan for seniors, Medicare Part D. When it was passed, it seemed like a huge boondoggle, more expensive than the country could afford, likely to cost more than was projected, and not providing the coverage seniors really wanted. But it has not turned out that way. Seniors like the program, and it is costing less than was estimated.

With the rising cost of health care and the large number of people without insurance being such big issues this year, maybe it was a good thing the Republicans passed Part D in 2003. What we have had, though we did not intend it, is a test drive of a way to provide health care to everyone.

We can see what single-payer systems can result in by looking at places like England and Canada (or at least we can if we are willing to look). What the new Medicare Part D has given us is a test of a program that provides health care in a different way. Instead of government providing it directly, seniors have been given the chance to pick their own drug plan from a large number of choices provided by private companies. While it was a little rough at first, it has worked.

The success of Part D shows us the kind of program that might be able to work for all health care. It would not be exactly the same, of course, but the Part D provides us an outline of what can work and the experience to make it work even better.

Now the question is whether the people in Washington will look at the experience we had with Part D and learn from it. Will they take a program that has actually worked and use it as a model to go forward or are they just going to go with the same old solutions they always suggest?

In New Zealand in the early 1980s, the National Party government (National was, in theory, the more conservative party) imposed so many controls on the economy that New Zealand had the most controlled economy outside of the East Bloc. As things got worse, the Prime Minister just kept adding more and more controls – and it did not work.

In 1984 the Labour Party won a snap election. The new Labour ministers coming into office did not have much experience. (Labour had been out of office for nine years and had been in power for only six of the previous 35 years.) Most of them were from the post-World War II generation, and they were willing to try new ideas and new ways of doing things. As Roger Douglas, the Finance Minister, said, they had the traditional Labour goals of helping the working people, but they were willing to try new things to do that. They were more concerned about what would work than just doing things the old-fashioned way. Within six years, New Zealand went from one of the most controlled economies in the world to one of the most free because that was what they thought would work. The transition was rough, but it did work, and it worked because the people in government focused on actually getting results, not following out-dated policies.

Will this happen in Washington? Will the Democrats learn from the success of Part D when they make their proposals for health care? So far, the signs are not good. Instead of being happy with how much better Part D has been than expected, the Democratic leaders are talking about how they need to get the federal government more involved to "improve" it.

I do not have a snappy conclusion to this post. I wish the Democratic leaders would learn, but it is probably too late to teach them anything new. All we can do is to continue to fight for works in the hope that newer people will care more about getting results than just following old ideas.

Feeling Good or Really Helping People

How do you help low-income people with housing? A recent comment by the new leader of the National Party in New Zealand (the more conservative of the major parties in New Zealand) focused attention on this question once again.

Until the 1990s New Zealand provided low-income people with low-rent state housing. In the 1990s the National government changed that policy. National charged market rents for state-owned housing but provided rent subsidies to people with low incomes. This policy was among the first to be reversed by Labour when it came into power in 1999. Now John Key, National’s new leader, has said: "I don't favour a move back to market-related rents and I don't think the party will support a move back."

The question is whether this is the right way to help low-income people. The problem with providing help by charging low rents for state housing is that only those in state housing get the help. If there is a waiting list for state housing (and there always is), those on the waiting list do not get helped. This results in the unfairness of some getting help and others not – unless there is enough state housing for all (which there never is) or a rent subsidy is given to those who do not get into state housing. But if you provide a rent subsidy to those people, why not just give a rent subsidy to everybody and get the state out of the housing business? That would make sense unless one thinks direct government action is the best way to help people. Or unless the point of charging low rents for state housing is more about making those who provide it feel good about what they are doing, instead of really helping low-income people.

Choice in Education

Too many of our schools are not doing a good job. The number of children who have not gotten a fair chance in life because of the schools they have had to attend and the education they did not get is a disgrace.

The teachers unions and many well-meaning people say the answer is more money. Others are not so sure.

A growing number of people think that one part of the answer is "choice". I am not talking about limited programs which allow parents to try to choose which public school their child can attend. I am talking about giving parents money or credits that they can use to send their child to whatever school they choose, public or private.

Milton Friedman is one of the most famous and long-standing proponents of this kind of choice in education. (I am not sure how far back his support for choice goes, but he wrote about it in Capitalism and Freedom, which was published in 1962 {see chapter VI}.)

What I would like to do, from time to time, is to present comments from other people about choice in education. These people may not be as famous as Milton Friedman, but perhaps what they say or how they say it will be of interest.

The following is by Jim Hopkins, a columnist in The New Zealand Herald. It is from February 9, 2007:

"Six or seven weeks off at the height of summer (ha! ha!) may have been appropriate 100 years ago when 80 per cent of us worked on the land and the kids had to help with the harvest, but it's nonsense now.

It doesn't fit how we live. Blimey, if schools were restaurants, they'd be closed all weekend and only open Monday to Thursday from 11pm.

And woe betide any customer foolish enough to ask for something that wasn't on the menu. They'd very quickly be told to learn what was put in front of them and be grateful.

See, it's not just when schools operate that's beyond our control, it's everything about them.

We're told when we must send our children to school, we're told how long they must stay there, we're told where they'll be taught and what they'll be taught and how they'll be assessed.

And should any plaintive parent dare to ask if their child is on the Pill or having an abortion, they'll promptly be told, "That's none of your business! But don't forget, you're breaking the law if your child isn't schooled!"

So that's the deal. CMT (Compulsory Military Training) may be gone but CET (Compulsory Educational Training) certainly isn't.

We have no choice about sending the kids into barracks or which barracks they attend and if, after 11 years of CET, 25 per cent of them can't read or write then that's the luck of the educational draw, sunshine.

Factories with an equally dismal record might have to close – or change – but the good folk in the learning workshops simply get more money.

And those obliged to supply their conscripts get no say in the matter at all. We can choose our doctor, our lawyer, our supermarket, our partner and our job.

In fact, just about the only things we can't choose are which side of the road to drive on, whether we pay taxes and the school we send our kids to – unless we want to make some real estate agent very, very wealthy.

Anyone seeking a system perfectly designed to perpetuate incompetence, a system where the customer is always wrong and the retailer can supply what they wish, need look no further than the nearest school."

(The entire column can be found here.)

Tyrannies, Bad and Worse

In today’s New Zealand Herald, there is the following description of the Labour government "Vulnerable Families" program:

"Some 41 ‘at risk’ families have … been getting extensive ‘wrap around’ services after being identified as needing intensive support.

The move reflects the increasing trend in Labour's welfare policy - more intensive, no-nonsense intervention in beneficiary households to ensure they get what they need …."

Now that is a scary thought: a government bureaucracy "ensuring" that a family "gets what [the bureaucrats think] they need."

This program reminds me of two other quotes. The first is from C. S. Lewis:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

The second is from a different philosopher, Linus Van Pelt, who says this when Charlie Brown, whose team has finally won a baseball game, is called to league headquarters and told that a group of parents has gotten together:

"In all this world, Charlie Brown, there is nothing more frightening than the getting together of a group of parents."

----------------------
* Schulz, Charles M., Sandlot Peanuts (1977).

Health Care: Single-Payer

I do not understand why, when it has become so obvious in so many places that government is not good at running things, so many people in the United States want the government to run our health care system.

I understand our health care system has many failings, but why do people think that a government-run system would be better? Look at FEMA, at Amtrak, or at the public school systems in many of our big cities. What is it in the operation of these entities that gives one any confidence the government can run a decent health care system?

What seems to be happening is that the people who favor a government-run health system, are comparing the promise of a government-run single-payer system with the reality of our current system. Obviously, any time a real system is compared to a proposed system, the proposed system will look better. The proponents of a government-provided system are saying, "Look at all of the problems and inequities in our current system. A single-payer system will solve these problems, and get rid of the inefficiencies, so it will be better and cheaper." Of course what these people ignore are all of the new problems a single-payer system would cause and all of the new inefficiencies it would have.

Proponents of a single-payer system point to Canada as having a fair and equitable medical system. But in 2005 the Canadian Supreme Court held that Quebec’s law prohibiting people from buying private insurance for health care procedures covered by the public system was unconstitutional under the Quebec Charter of Rights because the public system was not providing adequate health care itself.

In New Zealand, when the Labour government was running for re-election, one of its campaign promises was to increase the number of cataract operations and knee and hip replacements that the health care system would provide. It was not a matter of how many people needed such operations; it was a matter of how many operations the government would pay for – and since an election was coming up, the government was willing to pay for more.

In Illinois the state government is chronically slow in paying its Medicaid bills. The situation has gotten so bad at times that hospitals and doctors have threatened to, and in some cases actually did, stop serving Medicaid patients because they were not getting paid for the services they performed. Do we really want our medical care contingent on politicians like those in the State ofIllinois deciding whether to pay our medical bills or to pass more pork?

The common response to concerns about a single-paper system is that while our health system might work for rich people, or at least middle class people with jobs and health insurance, it does not work for poor people and people without health insurance. When I needed a cataract operation, I did not have to wait in some government queue. I just talked with my doctor and scheduled it. Liberals would say that the only reason I could do this was because I had health insurance and that poor people would not be able to do that. Even if this is true, the solution is not to follow the Canadian or New Zealand model and make me wait for my operation. The solution is to figure out a way to make medical care more available for poor people, not import the problems of systems in other countries.

Look at Medicare Part D. When it was originally passed, people said it would be a failure: it was too complicated; it would be too expensive; it would reduce coverage. But the actual results have been quite different. It was complicated at the beginning, but people are happy with it now. And it is costing less than was predicted.

What we need is some real down-to-earth analysis and research into how other systems operate, what their good points are and what their problems are. We need to look at how other health care systems operate in practice, not what they promise in theory. Then we might be able to figure out some ways to make our system better, without making it worse, something a single-payer system will not do.

Political Correctness – Down Under and a Little to the Left

Political correctness caused problems for Larry Summers at Harvard. A particularly virulent form of political correctness resulted in riots around the world in the case of those Danish cartoons which, depending on your point of view, either satirized certain believers of Islam or blasphemed the Prophet Mohammed. More recently, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin canceled its performances of Mozart’s "Idomeneo" because of a combination of political correctness and giving in to fear. An interesting example of political correctness popped up in New Zealand recently.

First, some background. In 1840 the British entered into a treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi, with several hundred native (or Maori) chiefs in New Zealand. The Treaty had three main articles. While there have been, and still are, disputes concerning the meaning of the clauses (the English words and native words have somewhat different meanings), in general the Treaty’s three articles did this: The first article granted the Queen "sovereignty" over New Zealand. The second article guaranteed the continued "chieftainship" of the native chiefs and their ownership of their lands and treasure. The third article gave the Maori the same rights as all other British subjects.

In the last thirty years the Treaty has become central to New Zealand political life. To some, the Treaty established a partnership between the Europeans ("pakeha") and the Maori, a so-called partnership of two peoples in one land. To many who view the Treaty this way, this interpretation has become almost a secular gospel that cannot, and must not, be challenged. In other words, it has become a pillar of political correctness in New Zealand.

Not everyone agrees with this interpretation of the Treaty – or with this approach to governing New Zealand. The head of the National Party (the more conservative major party), Don Brash, a former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and a latecomer to electoral politics, has strongly disagreed with this interpretation.

Brash’s most recent statement on this point came in an article published in The New Zealand Herald (Auckland) on October 2, 2006, in which he said the following: "[A]ll New Zealanders, whatever the ethnicity of their ancestors and whenever they or their ancestors arrived in New Zealand, must be equal under the law. And all must receive help from the Government based on their need, and not on their race."* Before that, he said, in part:

"[I]t may well have made sense in 1840 to think of the Treaty of Waitangi as being between two very distinct groups of people – the indigenous Maori people on one side of the Treaty-signing table and European settlers on the other.

But that view of the world simply no longer makes sense. Through six or seven generations of inter-marriage there are few if any people in New Zealand who have only Maori ancestors.

That is not to deny that many New Zealanders choose to identify strongly with the Maori part of their ancestry, and with Maori culture. That is absolutely their right.

Neither is it to deny that the Government of New Zealand, on behalf of all New Zealanders, Maori and non-Maori, has an obligation to specific groups of Maori to compensate them for the injustices done in the past. …

But it is quite wrong to argue that because Maori are over-represented in negative social statistics, the Crown, or the Government on behalf of all New Zealanders, has somehow failed to discharge its obligations under the Treaty."

What has been most amazing about Brash’s article, however, is not what he said, but what others said about it and him in response.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples said, "We never talk about the man, but what he’s doing is evil – directly negating our existence." Of course, Brash specifically said that many New Zealanders identify with the Maori part of their ancestry and it is their right to do so. How that means Brash is "negating" the existence of the Maori is unclear.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said that she found Brash’s brand of politics "odious" and that "[m]any of us who have contact with the Maori world know there’s a distinctive culture, and it’s something we treasure in this country." But Brash did not object to those who identify with their Maori ancestors or say people should not identify with the Maori culture.

Other comments went beyond amazing into amazingly confusing. In addition to calling what Brash said "evil," Winston Peters, leader of the New Zealand First Party, a party that itself has called for ending different treatment of Maori, said: "When New Zealand First says that Maori don’t want special treatment, we do not mean that Maori should stop being Maori. When the current leader of the National says he does not want special treatment for Maori, he means that Maori have no reason to want to be what they are – Maori." In others words, we’re good guys and he’s not, but we can’t really explain why.

Finally, Rosemary McLeod in The Dominion Post (Wellington) tied Brash to eugenics and from there to racial purity and, of course, the Nazis. She said Brash "must be convinced that racial purity means something pretty significant," though Brash did not say that and she did not explain why she thinks he is so convinced. She asked whether "the fact that Maori have intermarried with other races for a century or so mean they can no longer claim an identity of their own?" Of course, it doesn’t. In fact, Brash specifically said that he understood "many New Zealanders choose to identify strongly with the Maori part of their ancestry, and with Maori culture. That is absolutely their right." Given this, what concern does Ms. McLeod really have?

But this is the point of political correctness. Political correctness takes the view that it is so obviously right that anyone who opposes its policies or preferences can only be doing so for improper purposes or motives. The politically correct cannot believe that anybody who disagrees with them could have good intentions or could do so in good faith. The politically correct view is so obviously right and moral that any disagreement can only be for selfish or some other "bad" reasons. (It is this feature of the politically correct mindset that lends itself so well to those on the political left. In the United States it is not uncommon for liberals/Democrats to reject the idea that conservatives/Republicans could possibly disagree with them for any reason other than selfishness and meanness of spirit. See, for example, Howard Dean’s statement that Republicans are evil.)

In addition, because it is so obvious to the politically correct that they are right, sometimes they find it hard to state reasoned arguments for their positions. They are not used to having to defend their views, so when they are challenged, instead of arguing on the facts, they just state their conclusions louder or call their opponents (and their opponents’ positions) names like "evil" and "odious."

All Don Brash did was to state a fact: Because of "generations of intermarriage there are few … people in New Zealand who have only Maori ancestors." And a position: "[A]ll New Zealanders, whatever the ethnicity of their ancestors and whenever they or their ancestors arrived in New Zealand, must be equal under the law. And all must receive help from the Government based on their need, and not on their race."

But in doing so, Brash attacked one of the main pillars of political correctness in New Zealand. In response, his opponents lashed back, not with reason and argument, but with mischaracterization and insult. Unfortunately, this is too often the way it is with the politically correct, wherever they are.

---------------------

* Since The New Zealand Herald requires a paid subscription to read the complete article, I quote it here:

In the past few days a storm has broken out about the National Party's policy on things Maori, with Tariana Turia making it clear she intends to withdraw her acceptance of my invitation to dinner next month.

What is still unclear is whether this strong reaction is based on National's policies or on a misunderstanding of the selective comments reported by the Herald on Sunday after the paper asked for my opinion on a speech by Supreme Court judge Justice Baragwanath.

In terms of National's policy in this area, nothing has changed since the last election.

The important thing for the National Party, and for me personally, is that all New Zealanders, whatever the ethnicity of their ancestors and whenever they or their ancestors arrived in New Zealand, must be equal under the law. And all must receive help from the Government based on their need, and not on their race.

It was in this context that I reacted strongly to the address given by Justice Baragwanath to the Law Commission's 20th anniversary seminar in August.

Justice Baragwanath seemed to argue that, because Maori health and social statistics showed Maori to be in a worse position on most indicators than non-Maori, New Zealand law and institutions have failed to deliver on the promise of the Treaty.

He added that so long as Maori are under-represented in the Auckland Law School there is more work to be done.

I reacted strongly to this view when asked about it. I said that it may well have made sense in 1840 to think of the Treaty of Waitangi as being between two very distinct groups of people - the indigenous Maori people on one side of the Treaty-signing table and European settlers on the other.

But that view of the world simply no longer makes sense. Through six or seven generations of inter-marriage there are few if any people in New Zealand who have only Maori ancestors.

That is not to deny that many New Zealanders choose to identify strongly with the Maori part of their ancestry, and with Maori culture. That is absolutely their right.

Neither is it to deny that the Government of New Zealand, on behalf of all New Zealanders, Maori and non-Maori, has an obligation to specific groups of Maori to compensate them for the injustices done in the past.

It was a National Government which first settled many of these grievances, particularly those of Tainui and Ngai Tahu.

Any National Government led by me will accelerate that process, so that historical grievances can be dealt with fairly, fully and finally.

But it is quite wrong to argue that because Maori are over-represented in negative social statistics, the Crown, or the Government on behalf of all New Zealanders, has somehow failed to discharge its obligations under the Treaty.

If Maori New Zealanders die more frequently from lung cancer than non-Maori do, for example, it is almost certainly because Maori New Zealanders choose to smoke more heavily than other New Zealanders do, not a result of some failing by the Crown.

Similarly, if there are relatively few Maori at the Auckland Law School - and that despite preferential access arrangements for Maori - that is not a failing of the Government, but a result of decisions made by individual Maori.

I repeat what I noted at the outset: the important thing for the National Party, and for me personally, is that all New Zealanders, whatever the ethnicity of their ancestors and whenever they or their ancestors arrived in New Zealand, must be equal under the law. And all must receive help from the Government based on their need, and not on their race.

That is the only way forward for New Zealand in the 21st century.

I certainly hope that Tariana Turia will reconsider her decision to withdraw her acceptance of my dinner invitation, so that any remaining misunderstanding can be sorted out.

The Role of Government in the Economy and Society: A View from New Zealand

Two of the things I enjoy about the Internet are finding older things and finding things from other countries. A paper I recently found fits both categories. It was presented by Dr. Michael Bassett at a regional conference for New Zealand’s ACT Party in November 2001.

A little background: By the early 1980s New Zealand had probably the most state-controlled economy in the western world. In 1984, a newly-elected Labour government introduced a series of radical free-market reforms, freeing the economy from its controls, and turning New Zealand into one of the freest economies.

Dr. Bassett was a minister in that Labour government from 1984 to 1990. The ACT Party is liberal party (in the traditional European sense of the word liberal) that grew out of the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, a group founded by Sir Roger Douglas, Finance Minister during much of the Labour Government.

Basset's paper, "The Conflict of Visions about New Zealand," is quite interesting for what it says about the role of government in the economy and in society. A knowledge of New Zealand history is not necessary.

To encourage you to read the whole paper, here are a few excerpts from it:

By 1984 many realised that governments had been better at bestowing privileges such as import licensing on a few, than at creating opportunities for the many. ... [N]othing was more certain than that civil servants lacked the skills and incentives to run state trading enterprises profitably.

In the 1980s and 1990s others were prepared to re-assess their thinking. The reality is that while many state interventions such as funding children to stay at school longer have been hugely beneficial, others developed nasty side effects.

Perhaps the greatest lesson that we have been forced to learn from decades of collectivism is that our self-anointed do-gooders, as Hayek warned, and Isaiah Berlin always suspected, will usually be defeated by the baser sides to human nature.

Well, what to do about all this? Are we condemned to suffer still more generations of politicians whose principal goal seems to be a triumph of faith over experience? Some thoughts: No answer to this can be adequate if it doesn’t first acknowledge the depth of faith in collectivism. ... The battle for reality won’t be easily won.

For too long the politically correct have preached the value of their nostrums while flatly refusing cost-benefit analyses.

The challenge to all people of goodwill is to educate. It is to describe reality as it is, and not to be scared of being tagged a racist or any of the other terms that the anointed sanctimoniously dish out against their critics. NOT to deal in facts produces worse, rather than better social outcomes.

As has so often been said, a rising tide lifts all boats; without it the poor have no chance. Freedom, healthy debate and the buzz of individual success are so much more liberating than political correctness ... .