"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore."

 

"Today [now yesterday] is the last Tuesday of January. It is a date that should matter more in New Zealand’s political memory than it does.

"On the last Tuesday of January in 2004, Dr. Don Brash stood at the Orewa Rotary Club and delivered what remains one of the most important political speeches given in this country in modern times. It was calm, forensic, unapologetic and, most importantly, correct.

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore.

"Brash opened by setting out five priorities that would be familiar to anyone paying attention today. Declining relative incomes compared with Australia. An education system failing the least privileged. Welfare dependency eroding personal responsibility. A justice system more concerned with offenders than victims. And finally, the issue he focused on that night, the dangerous drift toward racial separatism and the entrenchment of what he rightly called the treaty grievance industry.

"That phrase alone was enough to end his political career.* Not because it was wrong, but because it was accurate."

~ Matua Kahurangi from his post 'The last Tuesday of January and the speech New Zealand still refuses to confront'

* To be fair,  his political career didn't end immediately; but it had been put on notice. Even a near-reversal in National's worst-ever election loss under Bill English wasn't enough to save it.

"There may be damage – serious damage – to public trust and confidence in the Police when the rot and corruption are present at such a high level."

"The Rule of Law is one of the foundational principles of constitutional democracy. ... Its essence is that law—not individuals—governs the polity, and that all exercises of public power must be rooted in, constrained by, and accountable to the law. ... Public officials—from Ministers to constables—must act within and according to the legal powers Parliament or the Constitution grants.

"All individuals—from Prime Ministers to ordinary citizens—are equally subject to the law. ...

"The Rule of Law constrains Government power and ensures that majorities cannot act outside legal limits.

"It protects individual rights and freedoms. ...

"But the Rule of Law goes beyond the institutional realm. It operates through a culture of legality. It requires respect for legal norms by citizens and officials, habitual compliance by state actors, a commitment to constitutionalism, openness to scrutiny, and entrenched expectations of fair process. ... At the front line of the Rule of Law in our society are the Police and the Courts. Both rely on public trust and confidence for their continued legitimacy. ...

"Society expects the highest standards of its police officers from the constable on the beat to the Commissioner’s office in Wellington. And when those standards are not present there must be an almost automatic erosion of public confidence in the Police.

"Indeed the Police force has had its problems recently. A failure by Police to alert the Beehive when a press secretary’s phone was found at a brothel; more than 100 police recruits who had been allowed to start training despite failing fitness and language tests; that over the last 5 years a total of 159 serving police officers have been charged with crimes including serious family violence and sexual offending – none have been dismissed. In October 2025 it was revealed that more than 100 officers are under investigation for falsifying breath tests.

"And it is clear, from the McSkimming scandal, that the rot was at the highest level. ...

"[Quite] apart from the various other elements of cover-up and evasiveness on the part of the Police top brass there was their use of the Courts to prosecute a complainant and use Court processes to further the cover-up.

"There may be damage – serious damage – to public trust and confidence in the Police when the rot and corruption are present at such a high level. But in addition the activities of these officers challenges some fundamentals that underpin their independence and the Rule of Law.

"Like it or not another institution central to the Rule of Law that depends on public trust and confidence – the Courts – has become involved. ...

"Ultimately, public confidence depends on citizens seeing the courts and the Police as fair, impartial, and accessible - institutions that reflect their values while standing above politics and corruption.

"Without that faith the Police are no more than a paper tiger, distrusted and to be avoided in times of trouble.

"Without that faith, the judiciary’s moral authority—the only sword it wields—grows dangerously blunt.

"And in either case, the Rule of Law suffers."

~ Cranmer from his post 'Public Confidence and the Rule of Law'

"The excessive and inappropriate use of name suppression"

"I make no secret of my hatred of the excessive and inappropriate use of name suppression in New Zealand. In particular, I am infuriated by the number of sex offenders who are given name suppression because people knowing about their offending would cause some kind of unjust hardship. ... The system should not be mitigating against natural justice. ...

"How dare the system, and those in it, prevent the victims of sexual violence from speaking about what happened to them. How dare anyone tell them they cannot point at their convicted assaulter and say 'that man did it to me!'” 

~ Ani O’Brien from her post 'Win for victims: New law puts survivors at the centre of justice'

Time to learn what causes peace

Pic: German city in ruins after World War II

"I see many people blaming the U.S. and Israel for the perils faced by uncivilised countries in the Middle East and for never-ending wars. People say that instability of Middle East was caused by US interference in the region in its pursuit of economic and geopolitical interests. I do agree that US foreign policy is often worthy of contempt, but I think this vision is short-sighted and ignores essential factors in the region: harmful ideology and resulting barbarism.

"Consider Japan and Germany: they are now regarded as peaceful and civilised despite having been bombed and nuked by the U.S.

"Could this transformation be due to the fact that the U.S. and its Western allies won the WAR against evil regimes?

"After this victory, did the Japanese and Germans learn from their experiences, make better choices, and abandon harmful ideologies?

"I believe that blaming the U.S. and its Western allies for the issues in the Middle East demonstrates a misunderstanding of what defines a civilised country and what truly fosters peace.

"To blame the West for Middle East perils is as absurd as blaming the U.S. for the ruins of Germany and Japan after World War II, rather than holding the brutal Nazi and Japanese imperial ideologies and regimes accountable for unleashing hell on earth in the first place.

"It is about time for enough people to learn what truly causes peace between people and nations.

"I don’t believe it comes from compromising with evil or through unconditional love. I believe people make choices, we judge them, act accordingly, and give them what they deserve. Justice exists.

"I believe people can find out what makes a cause just, and what brings about peace among men. But it requires the willingness to think and seek it out."

~ Felipe Lapyda

Q: Why do we need the concept of 'citizenship'?

"It's time for Ayn Rand's Power Question: What facts of reality give rise to the need for such a concept as X?

"Here, X is 'citizenship.' Why do we need this concept? Mainly, to determine who can vote. You can probably think of a few perquisites that attend to attaining the status of 'citizen.' But that status has nothing to do with the rights of man.

"The territory within the boundaries of a given country is the area in which its law has jurisdiction, the area in which a specific government, by its apparatus of compulsion, maintains a de jure and de facto monopoly on the use of physical force.

"We used to discuss whether the police, in a voluntarily financed laissez-faire nation, would protect the rights of non-contributors against criminals. The answer was: yes, mainly because the thug who would assault anyone is a threat to everyone, including the contributors. The 'yes' answer follows from practical, moral, and symbolic considerations. Defending the rights and freedom of everyone currently in the country is symbolic of a government devoted to justice.

"The same considerations that require the government protect the rights of non-contributors apply to protecting the rights of non-citizens. ...

"But due process and all the safeguards are there to rein in and make safer everybody who faces the possibility of government interference. The safeguards are there to eliminate arbitrary power.

"Government is potentially a far bigger threat than criminals.

"To introduce a preserve within which government agents can exercise unsupervised power is a threat that dwarfs that of any gang of hoodlums (citizens or non-citizens).

"And this is what we are seeing with Trump's every action—the quest for arbitrary power, unconstrained by checks and balances or anything other than the will of Donald Trump.

"If Trump doesn't have to follow due process in regard to non-citizens, does he have to follow it in regard to determining whether or not the person is a citizen? That's not theoretical. That's today's headlines.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to crime is not "screening" or "roundups" of anyone; it's repeal of the drug laws.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to lawless behavior by immigrants is not lawless behavior by the police.

"You can avoid a criminal gang; you can even move to a different locale. You can't avoid a SWAT team, the FBI, or any part of the state's apparatus of compulsion and incarceration."

~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'A sense of proportion'

The 'night-watchman state' defined

“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.”

~ Adam Smith, from his 1755 lecture notes in economics, jurisprudence + moral philosophy [hat tip 'A Daily Dose of History']

"Justice consists first not in condemning, but in admiring..."

"Justice consists first not in condemning, but in admiring -- and then in expressing one's admiration explicitly and in fighting for those one admires....
    “It is, if anything, more important to praise and reward the good than to condemn the evil. To speak up and to fight for the men who are right and who represent rational values.
    “Granted, the evil must be fought and condemned … but then, brushed aside.
    “What counts in life … and this is the issue, of course, of the potency of virtue … what counts in life is the good.
    “They are the men who create the values life requires. They are the men mankind relies on. They are the men whose virtues and achievements must be acknowledged above all, if justice is a virtue, and if life is the standard.
    “So it is important to tell Plato, for instance, that he's wrong. But it is more important that Aristotle hear somebody who recognizes that he is right.
    “It's important that James Taggart not get away with the fraud that he runs Taggart Transcontinental, but it is more important that Rearden find someone who can understand what he is achieving.
    “The first duty of justice is to acknowledge and defend the good.
    “And in this respect, I might point out the whole of 'Atlas Shrugged' is a passionate act of justice.”

~ Leonard Peikoff, composite quote from his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand and lecture 'Objectivism and the Moral Foundations of Government' [hat tips Felipe Lapyda and Robert Nasir]

'Housing justice'?

"It has become increasingly popular to add adjectives to 'justice'. This has led to 'social justice,' 'racial justice,' 'environmental justice,' and now, 'housing justice'....
    "Adding adjectives to justice does not provide greater clarity or understanding. What it does do is confuse the issue and allow the concept of justice to be perverted.
    "Properly understood, justice does pertain to 'what we owe to each other.' Properly understood, justice demands that we owe to others that which they have earned, that which they deserve. This is true no matter which particular issue we are considering.... Not only do the advocates of 'housing justice' want to grant unearned rewards, they seek to impose undeserved penalties on housing producers."
          ~ from the post 'We Don't Need Adjectives for Justice'

'The rich should pay their fair share' ?

"'The rich should pay their fair share.'
    "This term, 'fair share,' is an anti-concept. It's rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept.
    "One legitimate concept is: the purpose of government.
    "Another is actual fairness. Fairness is when you get what you deserve. But in this catch-phrase, fairness is when you're harmed by the right amount....

    "What does fair mean [in this statement]? It means more. More than they currently pay. Then more than that. Then more again. A blank check until the rich are drained of all blood."
          ~ Keith Weiner