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The National Party is implementing new legislation, led by Media & Comms Minister, Paul Goldsmith, which means giant tech digital platforms like Meta & Google would have to pay NZ news organizations for content they use on their sites. It is the right thing to do. The most fundamental principle of market economics is that the single most important function of government is to create and protect your property rights. Once that's done, you should be paid in terms of monetary rewards for your efforts. It has proved to be the secret to unlocking prosperity throughout the world. JK Rowling is still being paid for writing Harry Potter - having become the richest woman in the UK - and Paul McCartney is still being paid for writing Beatles songs. The Pfizer vaccine that may have saved your life was only made because the invention was Pfizer's property, which got paid for producing it. Similarly, the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, that has been amended by Goldsmith to support local media firms to earn revenue for the news they produce, is a fundamental requirement that helps ensure a well functioning market in that industry.


Amazingly, the ACT Party, whose most fundamental principle is the protection of private property rights, as well as Tax Payers Union & Kiwi Blog, whose guiding principle is also protection of property rights, have come out against the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, preferring instead to side against NZ writers & innovators in favor of Big Business - and not only big, but some of the largest foreign corporations in the world. Kiwi Blog's David Farrar writes: "This is both an unprincipled & a stupid decision. I can handle principled stupid decisions & even unprincipled smart decisions but this is neither. It is unprincipled because it is forcing successful companies in one industry (social networks and search engines) to fund failing companies in another industry (media). The only rationale for this is that Google & Meta have money and Stuff doesn’t. Will we see Netflix levied money to fund home video rental stores? Will we see Foodstuffs levied money to fund Whitcoulls?


What. A. Load. Of. Garbage. Labelling Meta a successful US company that will be forced to subsidize failing companies in another industry in NZ could not be more wrong-headed. (Meta was, of course, (not) founded by Zuckerberg - he nicked the name and idea off fellow Harvard roommates, the Winkelvoss twins, so knows how to strip others of property rights). As for "principles", it is KiwiBlog & Taxpayers Union that have no principles in slamming Goldsmith - they're siding with the rich, the powerful and monopolists - arguing that since these types are "successfully" making money, even though ripping off others' Intellectual Property, they should get away with it. Jordan Williams of Taxpayers Union laments, "It won't even work .. When a similar scheme was tried in Canada, Facebook removed news from its platform entirely. That’s a lose, lose for everyone. Australia is heading in the same direction. If it passes, the Bill would particularly hit small news outlets like The Platform .. that rely on promoting their news content through social media platforms like Facebook". No, I'd be delighted if big digital platforms had to pay for articles from MainStreamMedia, but not from Blogs like DownToEarth.Kiwi. A likely consequence would be they refused to pay for articles from the MSM & instead sourced news & commentary from Blogs like this one, which are free, which would hugely elevate us. Then small private outlets like mine could start making money from advertising on our sites.


The reason why the big digital Platforms pulled running news on their sites in Canada has nothing to do with the reasons that Kiwi Blog and Tax Payers Union pretend. It's because they know they should be paying for the content, but do not want to set up a precedent whereby countries like Australia, Canada and now NZ oblige them to pay, since they're terrified it will set a precedent that could end up being adopted in Europe and even US. In other words, they're only getting away with the scam now because of a coordination failure - governments have not yet coordinated on a response - so the strategy of the big platforms is to try crucifying any small countries that step out of line, to scare others not to join them. Get a grip, KiwiBlog; get a grip, Taxpayers Union. Stop siding with the rich and the powerful against the poor, weak writers and artists, just because they may not (yet) be making money.


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Synlait Ltd, the milk producer, is experiencing a collapsing share-price. Who has been one of its Directors for the past 10 years? Former Finance Minister, Ruth Richardson. As for former PM, Dame Jenny Shipley, the construction company of which she was a Director, Mainzeal, bankrupted. She was found guilty in court, along with her fellow directors, "of allowing Mainzeal to trade in a way which created a serious risk of substantial loss to creditors, which would have been apparent to them if they had acted with reasonable skill & diligence". Meanwhile, former Minister of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations & MP for Epsom Sir Doug Graham, became a "disgraced former finance company boss, being among four Lombard Finance directors convicted of making false statements in a company prospectus".


What do these cases, and similar ones, tell us about why many former Ministers are getting into these kinds of troubles (with apologies to Richard Prebble who seems to be doing a fine job as a Director of Mainfreight)? Probably that they are being given Directorships not because they are amazing experts on the industries in which the companies that have put them on their boards are doing business, but because they are politically well connected, and give the firm the appearance of respectability and of government-approved authority. But why should you need to be politically well-connected to get a top job? Is it for the same reason that former Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, was made Vice Chancellor of Otago University? Because he knew people in Wellington who could help the University? This should be a country where it is not who you know in the zoo that determines whether or not you get the top job. Can't it simply go to the best person - the one who knows the most about the company & its industry - the one who knows the most about how it can create more wealth - not just the one who knows how to shuffle money around different pockets?


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