On the Road Living Dangerously

 

 

 

It's a lot of fun and a great way to get around the country and take the nation's pulse.

I also get on the local media with local journalists invariably having read the book and appreciated the chapter on why I am not a socialist.

It's been good to be able to explain why I favour free enterprise over state coercion because the default position of many journalists is to assume that someone who favours liberty is pro-business and anti-people, or is one who doesn't understand environmental issues or social concerns. Of course, it's because we care we favour freedom over coercion -- it's care combined with knowledge and experience  that leads people to the freedom philosophy.

Here's a pic of me at Borders on Lambton Quay.

Book Signing

 

 

I'm on the road living dangerously. With Parliament in recess I am on the road promoting my book "My Year of Living Dangerously" and the free market.

The Boys Have Delivered

Finally. My new blog is up and running along with ACT's new web page. What do you think?

Lindsay Mitchell's review

Lindsay has kindly written a very nice review of My Year Of Living Dangerously.

I loved Rodney's book. Have you ever read a book where you don't want the writer to move on? I didn't get enough about the long days spent working with his father on the trucks in and around the Canterbury Plains or backwards and forwards to the West Coast. It was another time. For anyone of my generation or older a deep sense of nostalgia develops for a New Zealand we won't see again. (Of course there are plenty of aspects we should be glad to see the back of but not in this book). Remember how you felt after watching the Fastest Indian and that's what the early stories evoke. I didn't want Rodney to leave New Zealand to go travelling because I couldn't possibly be as interested in life on an oil rig or in India or in Parliament in the same way. I needn't have worried. I kept turning the pages fascinated, repelled, frustrated, entertained, enlightened. It's a read that just keeps a hold of you.

An admission. When I'd initially read the extract in the Sunday Star Times I said to myself, "Oh my good Lord. What has he written". It almost felt Mills and Boonish. The struggles in the arms of the beautiful Krystal culminating in a bittersweet ending, turned triumphal. Yikes!

The problem is simply the chapter needs to be read as part of the entirety.

One day I will learn to trust Rodney. He knows what he is doing and where he is going. There's a fine line underfoot when someone decides to expose their life to the public. Auto-biographies risk a level of self-indulgence that can turn the reader off. Whether by intention or accident Rodney stayed firmly on that fine line. As I said, this is a book you get to the end of wanting more.

A film maybe?

I'm looking forward to Kiwiblog's review -- but perhaps David will stick to judging a book by its cover!!

RRB builds support

From the House today:

1. Regulatory Responsibility Bill -- Submissions and Timetable

[Uncorrected transcript -- subject to correction and further editing.]

1. RODNEY HIDE (Leader -- ACT) to the Chairperson of the Commerce Committee: How many submissions have been received to date on the Regulatory Responsibility Bill, and what is the timetable for the hearing of submissions?

GERRY BROWNLEE (Chairperson of the Commerce Committee): I am informed that the Commerce Committee has received some 180 submissions, and that the overwhelming majority of those submissions are in favour of the bill, as was the case at the House vote when the bill was read for the first time. The select committee will set down a hearing programme that allows all those who want to be heard to be heard, and expects to report the bill sometime in mid-November.

Rodney Hide: Is it too late for members of the public to make a submission to the Commerce Committee -- would it be possible for the committee to receive those submissions?

GERRY BROWNLEE: The select committee’s deadline for submissions was 10 August, so the official period has closed. However, I am certain that should people wish to make a submission on this particular bill, the committee would be prepared to at least receive those in the interim. One of the things that is striking about this bill is the overwhelming number of submissions in favour of it.

THe Free Market Party

I am at the Auckland North Regional Conference on a glorious Auckland day.

It's an opportunity for me to spell out some of the roadmap for ACT through to the next election.

M book appears to be going well but I haven't any had data on sales yet.