Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Bill Faulkner Really gets it right

I have just read the single most moral, principled, and SENSIBLE thing I have yet to read from a local body bureaucrat!

This is it. It was in a regular column by Tauranga City Councillor, and mayoral candidate Bill Faulkner:

“I will move at the first council meeting to stop all work and expenditure on the waterfront museum (and here is the important bit!) and more urgently to investigate facilitating private enterprise in pursuing two boutique museum sites they are presently discussing.” (does this last bit mean private enterprise are ALREADY showing interest in starting a museum - if so, then why the hell are council hell bent on forcing ratepayers to pay for one?)


Bill is saying he recognises the value of a museum, but does not see the need to rob ratepayers to get it.

To me this is really exciting news, because if Tauranga ended up with a PRIVATELY owned museum, it could be the beginning of people starting to realise that bully tactics by council - force and threats- are not the only way to get things done. - they can be done BETTER and SMARTER by private enterprise and without the council resorting to further armed robbery - (by this I mean forcing people to pay ever increasing rates, and if they don’t pay can be fined, have their property confiscated, and or jail, which all add up to the equivalent of armed robbery, which most of us know is wrong and immoral)

It means Tauranga could get a museum, and it will not cost ratepayers a CENT!
I do however have a few questions, and I would like Bill to answer!

WHAT gave Bill this CRAZY IDEA?

Would Bill apply this same idea to other projects such as Art galleries, aquatic centres etc.
If NOT, WHY does he apply this approach just to a museum?

I offer, with this letter, my thanks, and a virtual shake-of-the hand to Bill for offering to people of this area for the VERY FIRST TIME a REAL, MORAL, and PRINCIPLED opportunity to provide us and future generations with facilities many of us would love to benefit from WITHOUT beating us with a stick (the use of force) and lumbering our children and grandchildren with a mortgage to pay for them.

BRAVO

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Beware the term "private". Some people use it to mean "anything that is not rates funded".
For example a government agency might be "private" from the a Council point of view. Or a grant from TECT which is money taken from Trustpower customers.

11:35 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sounds good Graham.
I have been promoting the same thing here in Hamilton, quoting from Nobel Prize winner for economics Milton Friedman's "Free to choose" which explodes the myth that before socialism there were no schools, hospitals, galleries, etc.
These flourished before socialist taxation and central planning.
I hope your man gets in!
Tim Wikiriwhi

9:21 am  

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