*SOLO-NZ Press Release: Now's Your Chance, Rodney! * *November 16, 2008 *

SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo is welcoming the appointment of ACT Leader Rodney Hide to the positions of Minister of Local Government, Minister for Regulatory Reform and Associate Minister of Commerce in the new National-led government.

"For years, Rodney has quite rightly berated the excesses and abuses spawned by the Resource Management Act and government and local government bureaucracy generally," Perigo observes. "This is his opportunity to show that he meant it, representing as he does a party that often goes wobbly on matters of freedom in spite of its rhetoric. Let us hope that the days of District Plans that prevent farmers from using vast chunks of their land, of being fined for turning an unsightly bog into a duck-pond without the paid permission of some parasitical goon, of being forbidden to paint your house anything other than an approved colour, and so on *ad infinitum*, are numbered.

"Rodney Hide is now ideally positioned to strike significant blows for individual liberty and private property rights. SOLO congratulates Prime Minister-elect John Key for assigning him to these positions, and would urge Mr. Key to ensure that Rodney is not hamstrung by the unreconstructed socialists in National's caucus.

"The appointment of Hide's deputy, Heather Roy, as Associate Education Minister is also to be welcomed. At a time when the education bureaucracy is shamelessly proposing further dumbing down of the curriculum to exclude Shakespeare, Ms. Roy's ascension offers hope that the decades-long infestation of our schools by Political Correctness might soon be arrested. Ultimately, of course, education should be privatised in its entirety, but a reversal of dumbing down in favour of smarting up the state system would be a radical improvement in the interim.

"SOLO wishes Mr. Hide and Ms. Roy well in their new positions. But be warned: if you wimp out, we'll be on your cases," Perigo concludes.

ENDS

© Scoop Media