Thursday, February 09, 2006



A fresh label for yesterday's rotting garbage

Australia's Centre for Independent Studies has announced the formation of a new New Zealand Policy Unit to provide "fresh policy ideas" for New Zealand. Fresh? For those who have forgotten, the CIS was a major influence on the rightwing "reforms" of the 80's. According to Jane Kelsey's The New Zealand Experiment, some very familiar names were early trustees and board members: Rod Deane, Ron Trotter, Alan Gibbs. Ruth Richardson currently sits on their board. And when you look at their policy conclusions, its the same old 80's neo-liberal agenda: tax cuts, welfare cuts, deregulation, privatisation, reductions in government services - in short, the same market darwinism which completely fucked our society in the 80's and 90's. This isn't "fresh" - it's yesterday's rotting garbage, come back for another round. The CIS should be done for false advertising....

And while I'm at it, its rather interesting, is it not, that this move is announced a mere month after ACT floated the idea of a right-wing thinktank to front for them and make them "look bigger"? But I'm sure its purely coincidental that a "non-partisan" organisation which shares an ideology, funding and backers with ACT would turn up to provide an "independent" source of propaganda in their hour of need...

2 comments:

Liked Prebbo's comments about the Maxim Institute at the beginning of this month, though...

Craig Y.

Posted by Anonymous : 2/10/2006 10:36:00 AM

How cool, a drive-by identification by the Commie ID League.. ("No fee, it's a community Service..")

Posted by Anonymous : 2/10/2006 11:51:00 AM