Before she, thankfully, stood down from re-election in October, Eugenie Sage from the Greens already ranked highly on my shit-list of worst political decision-makers ever.
She was the “brains” behind the outlawing of single use disposable plastic bags.
A Really Bad Decision-maker
She wasn’t alone in her left-wing appetitite for using public process to control private decisions.
But she had this annoying tendency to make good decisions around things that didn’t matter, and make truly bad decisions on things that did: the complete opposite of what you want in a decision-maker.
For example, her good decision to cull tahr numbers in Department of Conservation land, saw her get into a completely unneed stoush with hunters. And then her really bad decision to try to entrench legislation around water asset sales, saw her attempt to undermine something fundamentally important like the sovereignty of parliament..
Screwing a Fledgling Technology Centre
So it came as no surprise when I saw the dead-hand of Eugenie had sucessfully killed Rocket Lab from opening in Christchurch, and sent them to the sticks up in Mahia.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against Mahia, but Christchurch has a world-class university pumping out New Zealand’s best engineering graduates; it has an international airport with easy connection to the world; it has a deep port and is on the main railway trunkline. And finally, it has room to grow and expand.
Its got all the makings on a great place for a technology industry – all it needed was a spark, and a new industry could erupt.
Here’s a Technological Spark
So it was with much interest I read about the new Ta¯whaki National Aerospace Centre opening in Christchurch, supporting a fledgling new tech provider.
Good stuff – I am very pleased to see new technology supported by local investment, and I wish both the joint venture owners, the Crown and Ngai Tahu all the best in their exciting endeavours.
The Deadhand of Eugenie
And then I read an earlier opportunity to kick-start the technology centre got “Eugenied”….
Another Eugenie decision has set New Zealand back more than a decade and has undoubtably resulted in tech investment being undertaken somewhere else.