Did you know that, to a small group of powerful alien beings, you are an insignificant fragment of something called The Human Capital Agenda?

Australian deputy PM Julia Gillard: Some say she came from Wales. Some say she came from Mars. All we know is that she's called something unmentionable
Australian deputy PM Julia Gillard: Some say she came from Wales. Some say she came from Mars. All we know is that she's called something unmentionable
It came as quite a shock to us, too, when the term was mentioned by Australia’s Labour deputy premier, Julia Gillard, during an otherwise coma-inducing interview with Chris Laidlaw on Radio New Zealand National’s Sunday programme, some weeks ago.
Chris Laidlaw... master of the never-ending question
Chris Laidlaw... master of the never-ending question
(Gillard is a feisty Welsh-born redhead who was once accused of being unfit for leadership because she was [allegedly] “deliberately barren”. Laidlaw’s badly-timed programme seems to be designed to keep everyone under the sheets until Monday night, when we might all be alert enough to address the issues he so earnestly confronts with questions that sometimes seem to go on forever.) Having recovered from the stupor induced by Gillard and Laidlaw, we did a little Google research, and discovered that the term is not new. It probably originated in the US, where they like to call a spade a human-powered earth-excavating implement.

But it gained traction in 2006 when an outfit called COAG decided to spend a lot of time and Australian taxpayers’ money on studying “The Human Capital Agenda”.

Now, you might think that COAG was short for “coagulation”, and you wouldn’t be far off. COAG stands for the Council of Australian Governments, and this sclerotic group became quite exercised by the problem of an ageing population. Do not judge them rashly; the only thing they know about regeneration was probably learned by taking cuttings from herbaceous stuff in their gardens.

At their first meeting, the Labour-dominated Commonwealth Committee of Clots published their barely literate mission statement.

The different circumstances in a country as large and varied as Australia require diverse kinds of actions rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach. The best approach is to focus on long-term outcomes, measures and, where appropriate, milestones, coupled with transparent assessment and reporting, to encourage continuous improvement by all jurisdictions.

COAG has therefore agreed that the human capital stream of reform should focus on a robust framework for achieving the outcomes that will boost participation and productivity

The flow chart of human capital - can you relate to it?
The flow chart of human capital - can you relate to it?
Wake up! Are you starting to get the picture? Now we are seeing a new Human Capital Agenda Stream of Reform! This is simply more worthless rubbish that forms a stream of of meaningless compost. But at least you can get vegetables from compost. At COAG, the vegetables produce the compost.

Once upon a time, workers were called “personnel”. Nowadays, they are called “human resources”. The people responsible for this change in terminology have smoothly reduced human beings to mere taxable units of production, and they have constructed impenetrable job descriptions, roles, missions, commitments and so on.

Today, if you aspire to be a part-time public service cleaner of toilets in New Zealand, you must demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Life is too short to investigate the accumulated outcomes, milestones, headstones and costs of two years’ worth of COAGulations. What’s clear is that it resulted in nothing but grossly inflated lunches, a lot of hot air and some criminally wasted financial and human resources. Terms like Human Capital have a virus-like nature, so it shouldn’t be too long before our local socialists get trendy, catch the bug and put it on their Lunch Agenda.

This kind of obfuspeak is typical of what happens when too many lazybones are concentrated in a tax-funded power base that is incapable (or afraid) of addressing real issues, and prefers to invent something easier to talk about, endlessly, instead. Then they invent all manner of rules that needlessly disrupt ordinary peoples’ lives, because the common folk are easy to control.

The world’s shining example of this is the European Union, where more than 400 million people across 25 nations are ruled by a vast army of Brussels Eurocrats whose sole purpose is to issue an endless stream of regulations that, deep down, they know will only result in total meltdown and conflict.

Hitler, who also thought that European union was a good idea
Hitler, who also thought that European union was a good idea
It has dawned on some folk living in peripheral, not-quite-joined-up EU members such as the UK and Ireland that what Hitler failed to achieve by force is now being peacefully sneaked in by 21st Century money and politics. They are beginning to realise that the Euro currency cannot survive unless the EU becomes a super-state that controls all its members’ economies – as well as obliterating their way of life and their culture. The French and Italians are outraged that their own human capital isn’t getting a fair deal (while the Germans, naturally, can’t see a problem).

This is why the Irish voted “No” to the proposed EU Lisbon constitution that would remove most of their indigenous rights, following an honourable tradition established by the Brits and French. And what was the response from the intractable, one-eyed Europhiles? They said: “We’ll just keep calling a referendum until we get a ‘Yes’”. This approach is a slightly more sophisticated version of Robert Mugabe’s doctrine of democracy, where you beat your opponents to death.

Don't mess with us. The Irish say no to EU domination
Don't mess with us. The Irish say no to EU domination
If the EU constitution crashes and burns, so does the EU – along with jobs for life for all those pen-pushers who think humans are just a resource that must only buy accurately curved bananas, listeria-free eggs and perfectly formed tomatoes and light bulbs.

Just in case you’re thinking “this is not my problem”, consider the plight of Tim Down, an English market trader whose kiwifruit have been banned by inspectors from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) because they weigh 58 grams instead of the EU regulation 62g. This is the equivalent of 1 millimetre in diameter. The Food Police told Mr Downs that he cannot sell his kiwifruit, and is prohibited from even giving them away. Now, he must pay to send all 5000 of them to the rubbish dump. Fortunately for our growers, Tim’s kiwifruit came from Chile.

Barry Stedman, head of Defra’s Rural Payments Agency’s inspectorate, said the consignment had failed to meet the minimum standards for saleable produce, in contravention of EU grading rules.

“The inspector’s decision is consistent with RPA’s commitment to protect consumers, who must feel confident that the produce they are buying is of the right quality,” he said. This, from someone who is blindly following rules set down by the EU, which recently announced that it would cut red tape relating to the bendy banana, skinny carrots and curved cucumbers (no doubt seeking to influence Irish voters, who are evidently not as stupid as the old jokes make out).

If you live in a monolithic, undemocratic super-state, this is just one example of what can happen when you attempt to earn an honest living in the real world. In 2004, it was estimated that the population of the EU was subject to more than 200,000 rules and regulations, covering more than 100,000 printed pages.

This is why, no matter what happens, the people of New Zealand must resist closer political or economic union with Australia, and hurl an oversized raspberry at anyone who suggests “a wider Pacific economic community” or thinks that people are nothing more than a commodity.