A thought bubble has persisted over the last couple of weeks that just won't budge. The guts seem to be disagreeing with the brains over the Balls to 2013 post, nagging like a double-breasted lobbyist: Rebirth of Punk. Rebirth of Punk.
Of course, no sane paid stooge would ever call for that. And there's no voice in my puku, that's just the brain's best translation of gut dialect.
The rebirth of punk is not about the gobbing, or even the Pistols. It's about DIYing, pitching in, and not having to get permission from government every bloody time you want to do something reasonable and straight forward.
That attitude has been helping kill the hospitality sector, leaving the supermarket barons with clean hands and fat wallets. It has killed the live entertainment circuit, from One Love to Big Day Out to... well, we'll see. Only the high NZ dollar is keeping an Indian summer for some. Once that wave collapses, let's see what's left.
Where protections were most needed (in the mines, in the housing sector), these government approvals have shown to be benign and toothless at best, recklessly fatal at worst. The foundations of the CTV building were built with authorised ambitions and ignorant schemers, and was an unqualified failure in every respect.
Maybe, just maybe, people with knowledge gained from passion not privilege can do a better job.
