I've been through a few political cycles and it's clear asset sales are a disaster for Aotearoa. Take Labour's round when Michael Fay bought NZ Rail. He split it up, gutted it, then sold the parts, the dysfunctional mess eventually being bought back by the government, all at great personal financial gain to him. Then he spent his millions on lawyers to win the Americas Cup and got a knighthood to boot. The same would happen again. Wins for the Old Boys network, the taxpayer loses.
I find it quite astonishing that after FORTY YEARS of catastrophic asset sales and all round privatisation, that anyone could possibly make a case for still doing it. I speak as someone who strongly supported such economic strategy as a younger chap, but all it ever did was destroy services while making a few overseas rich people even richer. Our risible 'Prime Minister' would do well to distance himself from Seymour's sociopathic ravings, and, if he possessed an ounce of political instinct, would already have done so.
Why do libertarian politicians continue to spout such nonsense as "private companies manage their assets much better than governments". It comes from the same playlist as "trickle-down economics". Simplistic nonsense. Things are much more nuanced than a simple for or against privatisation.Any SOE that offers an essential infrastructural service should not be privatised IMO - particularly if it is a monopoly. Kiwi Rail is a classic example of how disastrous this can be. Local government sadly also provides multiple examples of the stupidity of selling essential services that are monopolistic. Here in Wellington you don't have to look too far to see the dreadful consequence of councils selling off our electricity lines companies. Here it has been nothing short of disastrous. And the current owners of Wellington Electricity (a Chinese company?) are about the worst possible managers of our electricity lines, charging exhorbitant rates, subcontracting out services to other companies, who then sub contract out to others (you get the point) with the result that everyone takes their cut and no one takes responsibility. It's also incredibly inefficient, time wasting, and confusing to the customer. An utter disaster if I ever saw one.
I trust that anybody considering buying Kiwibank would do their due diligence and assess how many existing customers would abandon Kiwibank in the event that it became privately owned.
Been there, done that, individuals made millions, service breakdown followed. David Seymour could look to the five Central Asian stans to see who makes the money and how quickly it disappears off shore into private accounts with no reinvestment back into the original country of ownership. Not difficult David, we don't want more Kiwi Rail disasters.
That Paula Penfold article about DeepSeek is lacking important background. I think it's irresponsible to link to the article without that background, and it's disappointing journalists think it's okay to report on this stuff without proper research.
So DeepSeek in this context is two different things. There is DeepSeek the LLM model, that China have released for free use, that people can run on their own computers. And there's a DeepSeek chat bot that you can access via the web and apps, that runs DeepSeek the LLM model and is based in China.
Paula is testing the DeepSeek chat bot. It's well documented that the chat bot runs in China, and is therefore subject to Chinese law, which includes the requirement to censor sensitive topics such as Tiananmen Square; it must "embody core socialist values," according to Chinese Internet regulations. DeepSeek themselves do not try to hide this.
However DeepSeek the LLM model does not include that censorship. It's an important distinction, because DeepSeek the LLM model would not be such a game changer if it was subject to Chinese censorship.
That Guardian article is also terrible. Talking about how data provided to DeepSeek the chatbot is subject to Chinese law without talking about how you can run DeepSeek the LLM model locally and never have your data leave your own computer - something that is not a possibility with commercial models like ChatGPT and Claude.
Taxpayers built public assets, they belong to us. A party that only got 8% of the vote has NO mandate to push sales of what is not theirs to sell.
I've been through a few political cycles and it's clear asset sales are a disaster for Aotearoa. Take Labour's round when Michael Fay bought NZ Rail. He split it up, gutted it, then sold the parts, the dysfunctional mess eventually being bought back by the government, all at great personal financial gain to him. Then he spent his millions on lawyers to win the Americas Cup and got a knighthood to boot. The same would happen again. Wins for the Old Boys network, the taxpayer loses.
I find it quite astonishing that after FORTY YEARS of catastrophic asset sales and all round privatisation, that anyone could possibly make a case for still doing it. I speak as someone who strongly supported such economic strategy as a younger chap, but all it ever did was destroy services while making a few overseas rich people even richer. Our risible 'Prime Minister' would do well to distance himself from Seymour's sociopathic ravings, and, if he possessed an ounce of political instinct, would already have done so.
I strongly oppose all asset sales.
Why do libertarian politicians continue to spout such nonsense as "private companies manage their assets much better than governments". It comes from the same playlist as "trickle-down economics". Simplistic nonsense. Things are much more nuanced than a simple for or against privatisation.Any SOE that offers an essential infrastructural service should not be privatised IMO - particularly if it is a monopoly. Kiwi Rail is a classic example of how disastrous this can be. Local government sadly also provides multiple examples of the stupidity of selling essential services that are monopolistic. Here in Wellington you don't have to look too far to see the dreadful consequence of councils selling off our electricity lines companies. Here it has been nothing short of disastrous. And the current owners of Wellington Electricity (a Chinese company?) are about the worst possible managers of our electricity lines, charging exhorbitant rates, subcontracting out services to other companies, who then sub contract out to others (you get the point) with the result that everyone takes their cut and no one takes responsibility. It's also incredibly inefficient, time wasting, and confusing to the customer. An utter disaster if I ever saw one.
Governments create organisations/agencies for the use and benefit of its constituents. Businesses buy organisations/agencies for their own enrichment.
"I don't how I can be any clearer about this".
I trust that anybody considering buying Kiwibank would do their due diligence and assess how many existing customers would abandon Kiwibank in the event that it became privately owned.
Been there, done that, individuals made millions, service breakdown followed. David Seymour could look to the five Central Asian stans to see who makes the money and how quickly it disappears off shore into private accounts with no reinvestment back into the original country of ownership. Not difficult David, we don't want more Kiwi Rail disasters.
That Paula Penfold article about DeepSeek is lacking important background. I think it's irresponsible to link to the article without that background, and it's disappointing journalists think it's okay to report on this stuff without proper research.
So DeepSeek in this context is two different things. There is DeepSeek the LLM model, that China have released for free use, that people can run on their own computers. And there's a DeepSeek chat bot that you can access via the web and apps, that runs DeepSeek the LLM model and is based in China.
Paula is testing the DeepSeek chat bot. It's well documented that the chat bot runs in China, and is therefore subject to Chinese law, which includes the requirement to censor sensitive topics such as Tiananmen Square; it must "embody core socialist values," according to Chinese Internet regulations. DeepSeek themselves do not try to hide this.
However DeepSeek the LLM model does not include that censorship. It's an important distinction, because DeepSeek the LLM model would not be such a game changer if it was subject to Chinese censorship.
That Guardian article is also terrible. Talking about how data provided to DeepSeek the chatbot is subject to Chinese law without talking about how you can run DeepSeek the LLM model locally and never have your data leave your own computer - something that is not a possibility with commercial models like ChatGPT and Claude.