Kiwi Libertarianz plan for rebuilding Christchurch

Damn! But these guys are good.

A great thorn in the side of any disaster reconstruction effort is the planning that goes into it. Any large effort needs its logistics such as material requirements, machinery, workforce, and so on figured out in advance, with necessary upgrades as required. This ensures that things run smoothly. The destructive planning force is the regulators, town planners, bureaucrats, and assorted creatures of the state with visions of Utopia in their own image dancing through their heads.

After the Christchurch earthquakes, the New Zealand libertarian party, (Libertarianz) proposed a quick, common sense solution to get reconstruction under way. This was rejected and is now being proposed again. The main points are:

• Christchurch must attract resources. Grant Christchurch a complete 3-year tax-free status, to be extended at discretion. Do this and the problem of attracting resources will disappear. The object is to change our view away from a coercive patch job to a free-wheeling environment of entrepreneurial opportunity.

• Christchurch must have thousands of new and rebuilt homes. Our government should make immediate steps to remove the bureaucratic hurdles that have stifled growth and rebuilding, and made building affordable houses completely unaffordable. This includes the existing regulatory system of permits and inspections. Let those who own their own property determine between them and their insurance company what they wish their building standards to be. Building is productive. Letting things lie idle while waiting for permission from people who have no genuine interest is not.

• Cantabrians don’t need the grey ones breathing down their necks. Make Christchurch an ETS and RMA free zone.

• Cantabrians don’t need to be told where and how they will rebuild their city—they don’t need another centrally- planned “worker’s paradise.” Bus town planners out of Christchurch permanently and allow the city to reinvent itself spontaneously. This would be a wonder to see.

• Cantabrians don’t need barriers to employment. Remove the minimum wage. In a situation like Christchurch’s it is better to be earning something than nothing at all. And it is better to be achieving something. We must trust that consenting adults can come to their own voluntary financial agreements.

Their spokesman, Peter Osborne added:

“Unfortunately for Christchurch and New Zealand taxpayers this will not happen. The desire to maintain control over all of our lives is too strong for our government to allow people the freedom to really get things done. The desire to throw taxpayers money at monuments when real demand lays elsewhere only emphasises the reality that governments could never make good decisions and direct resources properly. Too locked up in the realms of perception and wanting to be seen at the forefront, thuggery and control are their only tools Jackboot Jerry Brownley has already shown this to be so.” …

For many years, libertarians revered Huston as the great unplanned city that worked well. There now seems to be some contention as to whether this is still the case. Our movement worldwide would welcome seeing Christchurch arise as the new Huston of the Southern Hemisphere if only the NZ government would get out of the way and allow it to happen.