When ACT’s leader said they wanted legislation to state what the Treaty Principles mean, my first thought was this will controversial and divisive. Clearly it is. The first reference to the Principles of the Treaty were contained in the 1975 Act establishing the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal. But the Principles were not defined by Parliament, then or […]
Treaty principles?
Treaty principles?
30 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: constitutional law
Seymour raises tax and Treaty issues in his “state of the nation” speech (which has not been posted on the Beehive site)
29 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, discrimination, economic history, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice Tags: constitutional law
Buzz from the Beehive Just one statement has been posted on the government’s official website since Attorney-General Judith Collins announced the appointment of a new High Court Judge late last week. It deals with education and the government’s aims to get better results from school students.
Seymour raises tax and Treaty issues in his “state of the nation” speech (which has not been posted on the Beehive site)
On new and old civil disobedience
29 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economic history, law and economics Tags: civil disobedience

According to my go-to source, the Oxford English Dictionary, “civil disobedience is defined this way: Rebellion of the populace against a governing power; (in later use) spec. refusal to obey the laws, commands, etc., of a government or authority as part of an organized, non-violent political protest or campaign. The three key aspects here involve deliberately breaking…
On new and old civil disobedience
Holocaust reviews
27 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, World War II
Memoirs The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman (1946) If This Is a Man by Primo Levi (1948) This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski (1948) Night by Elie Wiesel (1960) The Truce by Primo Levi (1965) The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (1975) Moments of Reprieve by Primo Levi (1981) If Not […]
Holocaust reviews
Trudeau and the Trucker Terrorists: Court Declares Trudeau’s Crackdown on the Truckers to be Unlawful
26 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics Tags: Canada, constitutional law

Two years ago, I wrote a column denouncing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a counter-terrorism law to shut down the Freedom Convoy trucker protests as an authoritarian attack on free speech. Now, a Canadian court has agreed and ruled that the use of the Emergencies Act was unlawful and “unreasonable.” Despite Trudeau’s attacks […]
Trudeau and the Trucker Terrorists: Court Declares Trudeau’s Crackdown on the Truckers to be Unlawful
Legal Blow: Hunter’s Defense Hammered by Discovery of Cocaine on Gun Pouch
26 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election

Below is my column in the New York Post on discovery of cocaine on the pouch holding Hunter Biden’s gun. Biden’s team is likely to move to keep the tests out of the trial due to the breaks in custody (it was first thrown into a dumpster and then discovered by a man rummaging through […]
Legal Blow: Hunter’s Defense Hammered by Discovery of Cocaine on Gun Pouch
Water metering – a small piece of silver buckshot
25 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, survivor principle Tags: economics of networks, privatization
Chris Parker at Treasury sometimes quips that there are no silver bullets for solving housing in NZ, only pieces of silver buckshot. Basically you’ve got to do a lot of things to solve the problem; any one of them on their own won’t do it. I was on RNZ’s The Panel yesterday afternoon (here, from around…
Water metering – a small piece of silver buckshot
My letter to the Chicago Maroon about Students for Justice in Palestine
25 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror

Over the last several months, I’ve seen and read about demonstrations on our campus by the pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which apparently has roughly 200 campus branches in the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. SJP has been particularly active since last year’s October 7 massacre of Israelis and others, which they […]
My letter to the Chicago Maroon about Students for Justice in Palestine
The danger of the Treaty debate wearing us down
25 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, economics of education, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: constitutional law
Screeds have been written about the Treaty of Waitangi. And there’s more to come as division over race and rights ramps up.Its content and meaning are getting lost in the crossfire and the danger of ‘contestants’ talking past each other looms, if not already happening.When matters get murky, and misunderstandings abound, there is also a…
The danger of the Treaty debate wearing us down
GEOFFREY MILLER: New Zealand’s huge shift in the Middle East
24 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, politics - New Zealand, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
Geoffrey Miller writes – New Zealand is reshaping its foreign policy via the Middle East. A decision to provide intelligence support for future US and UK airstrikes on Yemen is highly symbolic. The Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, announced the deployment of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) troops to support the US-led military response to the attacks […]
GEOFFREY MILLER: New Zealand’s huge shift in the Middle East
Canada Supreme Court: Trudeau’s Use of Emergency Act “Unreasonable”, “Unconstitutional”
24 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, health economics, law and economics, liberalism Tags: Canada, economics of pandemics

Global News reports Federal Court finds Emergencies Act for ‘Freedom Convoy’ violated Charter. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. The Federal Court has ruled the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act during the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that descended on Ottawa in 2022 violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In […]
Canada Supreme Court: Trudeau’s Use of Emergency Act “Unreasonable”, “Unconstitutional”
The misguided South African “genocide” accusation
23 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror

If you’ve been following the charade that is South Africa’s (SA’s) claim at the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, you’ll know that SA—that paradigm of good governance and equity—is relying heavily on statements by Israeli officials and military people made right after October 7—statements to the effect that Gazans […]
The misguided South African “genocide” accusation
Doing the jobs the SF cops won’t do
23 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, entrepreneurship, law and economics Tags: crime and punishment, law and order

Back in the lockdown depths of 2020 I posted about series of YouTube videos made by a former NASA engineer called Mark Rober who had built a fantastic set of squirrel mazes and then videoed the little buggers getting around his obstacles to get to the bowls of nuts that were the prize. But I’d […]
Doing the jobs the SF cops won’t do
MICHAEL BASSETT: TV ONE’S BEAT-UP ON THE TREATY AND THE KING’S HUI
21 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economic history, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: constitutional law
Last Friday night, TV One’s lead item on the 6pm news was a story by reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui. She had scored a leaked piece of advice not yet considered by Cabinet that was intended to warn ministers in the new government that they would run into trouble with Maori if they backed David Seymour’s…
MICHAEL BASSETT: TV ONE’S BEAT-UP ON THE TREATY AND THE KING’S HUI
Milei Speaks Truth to WEF Elite Power
19 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, history of economic thought, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, property rights Tags: Argentina

Argentina’s President Javier Milei had a warning for those attending the annual WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland; ‘the Western world is in danger’ from ‘collectivist experiments’ such as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), and has called on the world to reject socialism and instead embrace “free enterprise capitalism” to end global poverty. H/T zerohedge “Today, […]
Milei Speaks Truth to WEF Elite Power
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