Soapbox Series

The Soapbox Series is an opportunity for those of you with a penchant for writing, to put down your thoughts – on any issue you feel passionate about.

Opinion pieces should be around 500 words. Contributions can be made using the Soapbox contribution form >>>. Contributions will be published in the order they are received. Readers are encouraged to comment on Soapbox contributions via our Member's Online Forum >>>.  

Further, if you have suggestions for articles or issues that you believe I should be looking into please don’t hesitate to send those ideas through as well. Email me on muriel@nzcpr.com.

List of contributions (#41 - 80)  

25 March 07
One Law For All
By Dr Lech Beltowski

The Police Complaints Authority have recently ruled that the shooting of a machete armed man three times was the "only option" when officers were threatened while attempting to seize a radio following complaints of loud music at a North Shore address in 2004

If that's the case, then surely the shooting in self-defence of a machete armed robber at an Auckland gun shop (who was shot and disabled with just one shot rather than the three police needed to achieve the same result) was even more justified.

Even if we ignore the vexing question of how it was that an "untrained civilian" was able to do with just one shot what a "trained police officer" needed three shots to achieve, there is no doubt this Police Complaints Authority finding makes the decision of police hierarchy to subsequently press firearms charges against the Auckland gun shop owner even more illogical, small-minded and elitist. It will certainly help swell the numbers of those who believe  police policy increasingly favours criminals and that these charges are an abuse of the legal process.

 Police hierarchy understand well the very serious emotional and financial costs a court appearance to justify the use of deadly or potentially deadly force in self defence brings to the defendant and their family. That is why the police complaints authority has for decades routinely investigated all such incidents first. Interestingly, to date, the Police Complaints Authority has also never ever found any police officer to have used force (including deadly force) improperly-even when the evidence presented appears inconclusive or even possibly contradictory.

How is it then, that when a member of the public responds to a potentially life threatening situation in exactly the same way as a police officer is expected to do, they are treated in such a  different manner both by police and by the legal system? Both surely are performing an equal socially beneficial act and both should be lauded and protected equally?

Indeed, there is a serious conflict of interest when police have the power to  prosecute previously law-abiding  citizens for using force to defend themselves from violent criminals as this is a direct and inevitable consequence of the police's own failure to adequately protect the public in the first place. The regularity with which police do prosecute those who defend themselves makes it clear that they appear to believe police have more right to self-defence than the  ordinary citizen and that they simply do not care how much emotional trauma, family stress and unnecessary legal costs they impose on innocent victims of violent crime.

Since the law on self-defence makes it clear self-defence is a universal right available to everyone if necessary, it is high time attempts by police hierarchy to monopolise effective self-defence through the imposition of vindictive and extra-judicial penalties on ordinary citizens be addressed.

Given the steady rise in violent crime in New Zealand (a rise that police currently appear powerless to reduce or even hold steady) it can be predicted that self-defence incidents will become more frequent over time, it is surely not unreasonable to suggest the setting up of a less formal and therefore less costly and less stressful independent self-defence tribunal, somewhat along the lines of a coroners court. Such a tribunal would also take the place of  the present Police Complaints Authority investigations into any police shootings thus ensuring the whole process of police accountability becomes more legally robust, less elitist, more transparent and more independent

Since these are among the lowest-cost units of the legal system one would think the idea would find widespread support  in both legal circles and in the wider community - except possibly amongst those whose poor past judgement and vested interest has created the need for them in the first place.

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18 March 07
Burton Parole
By Nick Lindo

From the strange to the incredible

That convicted murderer - and already the server of a 14 year “life” sentence - Graeme Burton, should so soon have had the chance to kill again is a tragedy for the Kuchenbecker family and an indelible blot on the many government agencies that combined to make such an outrage possible.

Exoneration for all

That various inquiries into the events leading up to it have now exonerated all and sundry shows just how seriously rotten is the state of judicial Aotearoa , New Zealand , 2007. Mr Barry Matthews, the CEO of the benighted and ludicrously named, Corrections Department, has, quite preposterously, asserted Burton ’s release was “well managed.” Worse - and cravenly - he adds, “There’s no blood on my hands.” (“So I can definitely keep my job as the “incident” is someone else’s fault for which I am not remotely responsible. My conscience is perfectly clear.”)

No heads to roll

Inconceivably - but sadly only too true to form - once again, no-one is prepared - or obliged - to take responsibility for the grievous failings leading to this catastrophe. Not a head will roll; not a “correction” in any meaningful sense will be administered.

Running for cover

What’s more, the obvious and cowardly running for cover of anyone with involvement in the case must be a sickening sight for Burton’s several totally innocent -  “in the wrong place at the wrong time” - victims. They will be truly “gutted” and wondering how such genuine “travesties of justice” can be. And so should we.

How grotesquely bizarre................

that the killer himself should apparently have been encouraged to commit to paper his articulate thoughts on the matter. Have we really reached the point where a ruthless offender - who really does have blood on his hands - is actively urged to put in his two bits worth and, along the way, cite all kinds of perceived failings on the part of the authorities which, in his weighty opinion, led directly to his cold-blooded murder of the blameless Karl Kuchenbecker on his quad bike in the hills above Wellington as wsell as his vicious attack on Mr Rea and his daughter in the same area?   Only in New Zealand?

Sinking incredulity

It is worth considering, if with a growing feeling of sinking incredulity, some of the points arising from the three “reviews” of this unmitigated disaster. Try this: The Parole Board released Burton, “before checking the veracity of allegations about his conduct in prison.” Nevertheless, the verdict was Burton’s parole application was “reasonable.”

A comment was added to the effect that “it would have been prudent for the board to delay its decision until it had clarification about the allegations.”

Well, there’s a good idea. Next time, perhaps.

Surveillance teams on holiday

Then....it “has also been revealed” the police requested their specialist surveillance squad be activated to track down Burton last year not long after his release but were refused by the upper hierarchy. Despite there being two such specially trained teams in active existence both were on leave at the same time.

Crass incompetence

An Inspector Quinn confirmed they were indeed on holiday and the decision to recall neither of them was to ensure: “officers had breaks and were not working 24 hours a day seven days a week.” You’re right; it’s hard to believe such crass incompetence.

Prize-winning explanation

But the prize for the most bizarre explanation for Burton being out and about must go to the Parole Board for “its sense that Burton should be freed.”

“The possible reasons for such expectations may be linked to a sense that, with the passage of time (14 years) and rehabilitative efforts Mr Burton was undertaking he deserved   (my italics) to be released.”

In other words it was a sort of collective hunch on the part of the distinguished members of the Parole Board that led to Burton’s freedom to kill again and bring anguish and permanent misery to the Kuchenbecker family.

Belief and intelligence

Can that really be true? I don’t see why not After all, everything about this case both defies belief and insults the intelligence.

Candidates for the chop

The Chairman

Undoubtedly heads should roll. Of all the abysmal examples of murderers-on-parole of whom this nation boasts a depressingly long list, this has to be the worst. In a pompous, if not downright fatuous comment, Judge David Carruthers, chairman of the demonstrably flawed Parole Board, when assuring us of his Board’s desire to introduce changes to its procedures, declared, “We don’t have the luxury of sitting around on this.”

Thanks to the bureaucratic foul up in which his Board as well as numerous other arms of government were involved, neither Karl Kuchenbecker’s two children nor his parents, will have the luxury of seeing him again.

Mr Carruthers should never again be in a position to make such a grave misjudgement.

The CEO

Mr Matthews, CEO - as stated - of “Corrections” should also go. Anyone of rank who could blandly announce, “Some things could have been done faster. However, I don’t believe this had any impact on the final outcome. Overall his parole was well managed,” has clearly failed completely to grasp the enormity of the errors of omission for which he and his department were transparently guilty.

The Minister

But at the top of the list of potential “resignees” has to be the Minister himself, Mr Damien O’Connor. It is really quite a surprise to see his name still there. In many Westminster-style, parliamentary democracies the Liam Ashley tragedy / debacle, when the 17 year-old was murdered in a police van by a hardened killer who should never have been in the same vehicle with him, would have been enough to have had Mr O’Connor’s letter of resignation on the desk of the Prime Minister the next morning. But not in New Zealand . 

I am therefore not expecting a resignation this time either, justified and appropriate as it certainly would be.

Once upon a time we knew where the buck stopped; not any more.

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17 March 07
Preserving Parental Authority
By Sue Reid 

One vital element that underpins our western law is the ability to have a fair trial in court, without corruption and each citizen is deemed innocent until proven guilty. Most of us would go to great lengths to preserve this right. That is until (it seems) it is parents who will be in the dock. Much has been said in the debate about ‘Section 59’ of the Crimes Act. Many would be familiar with much that has been written of late about Green MP Sue Bradford’s proposal to repeal the section of law that gives parents the legal authority to use reasonable force when disciplining their children. At the heart of this debate lies the thinking that somehow (generally) parents cannot be trusted to utilise their authority properly if they are allowed to use force. That all physical discipline is by definition violent and that physical discipline is an archaic way to raise children, especially in the face of all our modern child raising theory and practice.

A handful of cases have proceeded to court with parents facing assault charges against their child. Often these charges are brought by social workers – interestingly not the children themselves. The present law allows parents to be equipped in court with a defence that they used ‘reasonable force to maintain domestic discipline’. The most important thing to keep in focus through this hot debate is that parents need something in place to go hand in hand with the responsibilities they carry – after all, parents are legally responsible for their children until aged 18. Any sane person would surmise that anyone with an assault charge thrown at them is entitled to a fair hearing, with judge and jury to hear the whole case and then a fair and just decision to be concluded based on all the evidence (and in the right context too). NOT based on emotive feeling or whatever flavour philosophy one might subscribe to. Most would agree that this is sensible and reasonable. However, parents are set to lose their defence if section 59 is removed – leaving a scary big hole in law. Sure the court case with a jury will still proceed but it will be to decide if a parent has used assault or not. The wider context of what was going on in the family, history etc will not be considered and certainly not whether a parent was using force for correction.

Those in favour of repeal often quote court cases that ‘got it wrong’. I find this outrageous and arrogant, given that a judge and jury have heard all evidence and have often come to quite quick decisions that yes a parent was right to use physical discipline and could clearly see a positive behavioural change in his or her child. What concerns me in using these court cases is that we fail to hear the stories behind the cases. The use of a horse crop becomes a horse whip, a plank of wood is actually a 30cmx2cm piece of kindling, the size of a child’s ruler or wooden spoon. Emotive language gets thrown in along with hysterical claims that this '‘violence’ should be eliminated.

Slowly the stories are starting to emerge – the ‘horse crop case’ in Timaru only reached court because a parent was meeting with school staff and a social worker to commend the mother on the wonderful change in behaviour that was evident in her son. They asked how she achieved this and she told them that she gave him ‘six of the best’, to the horror of the social worker who then led the flurry of outrage into court. Police were reluctant to lay charges but the child was removed from the family. Since then, CYF has felt it was better to drug the child to modify behaviour rather than using tried and true methods of short, sharp punishments. The drugs used (apparently) hold warnings that advise they should not be administered to young people. It is important to have these stories within the public arena – this case has been heart breaking for the family concerned and it continues to this day. So one worker with an ideology that physical discipline is wrong was able to inflict much damage on the family. That one worker ignored the fact that there was greatly improved behaviour in the boy, that he had a family deeply committed to his care and well being, and loved him dearly.

The cruel twist to this story is that the court case found in the favour of the mother (and was judged as reasonable force), however the child has not been returned to the family home despite his requests to return to his family. This sort of case would alarm most parents and there would be no crueler way to punish children than remove them from their families. Some serious questions have gone unanswered here – who gave the welfare agency the power over a court to with-hold the child from his rightful family? Clearly a court case found no fault with his mother but he was not returned to her care. Yet, this case is held up in parliament as an example of how courts got it wrong!

As the Select Committee hears submissions either for or against such a law change, I hope these sorts of stories are heard clearly and considered with great thought. Parents are given responsibilities and as I have written many times before, they need the legal recognition of their responsibilities and authority to go with the task of raising children to become positive contributors to society.

If you take pieces of law out without some logical, commonsense alternative then we are asking for trouble in future cases. It amounts to bad law. I see a repeal as giving too much power to a government agency – already overworked and under staffed. It relies on subjective judgements of what constitutes reasonable force or discipline. To repeal sets up an adversarial environment in law with parents pitted against their own children. This is all very divisive.

A friend told me a story about what she witnessed in a department store. A mother was struggling with her young child who was in full flight of tantrum mode – we all know it, most have experienced it. In a matter of moments the police were at the poor mother’s side asking about all the fuss and were attending because someone had rushed to the police reporting a mother assaulting her child. The cruel twist in this sort of story is that someone felt it was better to run and get the police rather that give aid, support or an offer of help to a mother struggling. Someone decided that a mother pulling her child to their feet in the midst of a flurry of emotions constituted ‘abuse’ or ‘assault’ and felt an urgency to bring in the aid of the police.

Sadly this sort of scenario will happen more often if the repeal goes through. Rather than being pitted against one another, there is a need to see we are all working to get the same result at the end of the day. We all want our children to grow up to be law-abiding, disciplined, positive contributors to society. One final point – those advocating for change fail to realise that to maintain their law against parents they have to use force and it will be less than reasonable.

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24 February 07
An Inside View - the UN Climate Change process
By Dr Vincent Gray 

To start with, the IPCC was founded (1988) just before the Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), which defined "Climate Change" as follows:

"Climate change” is a change of climate, which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

The Nations who signed this Convention  (which included New Zealand ) accepted this as a legally binding definition. The use of the term "climate change" means legally, that you accept that human changes in greenhouse gases are causing it. Although they seem to admit the existence of "change of climate" which happens "naturally", they insist that this is merely "variability" not actual "change"

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The words "Climate Change" in the title imply that its task is to obtain evidence to support the FCCC definition.

They claim in a footnote to their first page - "Climate Change in IPCC usage refers to any change in the climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as the result of human activity"

If they were serious they would change their title, which lay persons tend to associate with the FCCC definition, without reading the footnote.

They continue to regard "natural" effects on the climate as merely "variability". They are, indeed, reluctant to study any kind of "veracity", but are always seeking "trends" which can be attributed exclusively to the greenhouse effect, since they are not regarded as "variable".

The whole process is closely controlled by Government representatives who are biased in favour of those supporting their theory. They appoint Lead Authors who are mostly Government employees or financed by Government funds. Those who do not support the greenhouse theory are mostly marginalised. The First Report plainly stated: "there is a minority of opinions which we have not been able to accommodate". Or, I might add, give voice to.

Just in case somebody finds dissident opinions somewhere in the Report, they provide a "Summary for Policymakers" which has to be agreed line-by line by Government representatives. There was a scandal with the 1995 Report when the "Final Draft" of the Report, presumably agreed in some fashion by all the scientists, was altered so as to accommodate the views expressed in the "Summary for Policymakers". This time they have published the Summary well before the Report, which is supposed to have reached a "Final Draft", but is now threatened with last minute amendments.

They claim to operate a "Peer Review" process, but this is a sham. Admittedly it would be difficult to take into account, or answer, the very large number of comments. With Journal publications only a few peer reviewers are involved. But their process permits them to completely ignore important criticisms of their assessment, without any reply.

The Reports are all heavily biased in favour of the greenhouse theory. "Natural" explanations are marginalised, put at the back of the Chapter or rejected with exclusively unfavourable references. This is assisted by the Editors of the main Journals who discourage greenhouse criticism to the extent that we are forced to publish in supposedly "non-peer-reviewed" Journals, or even, beshrew the thought, the World Wide Web, or in Email newsletters.

The enthusiastic support of prominent Journal Editors means that papers supporting the theory not only get a fast track, they get away with failing to give details of their data or procedures. A recent example of this was the downfall of the "Hockey Stick" graph promoted in "Climate Change 2001", which was shown to be based on faulty mathematics by McIntyre and McKitrick, but were forced to publish in the sympathetic Journal Energy and Environment which the IPCC had to swallow hard to accept.

The greatest betrayal of integrity is their recruitment of the scientists responsible for models as salespersons for them. The models have never been properly tested, and they accept this, by talking about their "projections" instead of "predictions". The scientists are then asked to give their opinions on whether their models are OK, and their opinions are graded into levels of "Likelihood" and given spurious probability figures. They use the "range" of opinions as a substitute for scientifically determined accuracy limits.

I have devoted fifteen years of my life trying to get this system honest, and it seems to get ever more impossible. There is very little scientific or human integrity in this organisation, and my only hope is that it will wither and die.

Wellington based Dr Vincent Gray is a New Zealand expert reviewer for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – I asked him to comment on the integrity of the IPCC process…Muriel.

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24 February 07
Global Warming
By Roger Dewhurst 

I will start with an analogy. When your car will not start in the morning the first assumption that you make is that the battery is flat rather than that the bendix (pinion) gear has jammed.

It is a bit like that with GW. The first assumption should be that whatever has caused climatic change in the past is the most likely cause now. Climate has of course changed in the past and will change in the future. Ice covered Scotland to a depth of a kilometre or so and extended as far south as London a mere 16,000 years ago. It warmed until the Younger Dryas cold period about 10,000 years ago and then warmed again. There have been both warmer and cooler periods since then. It was warm in Roman times, in mediaeval times and cold in the Little Ice Age a couple of hundred years ago. In mediaeval times the Norsemen settled in Greenland , calling it that as the name befitted it at the time. They abandoned it to the Eskimos when it cooled again. The Polynesians paddled their canoes all over the Pacific, collected the sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, from South America and settled in New Zealand . The Maoris call it Kumara and a South American tribe call it Kumar! Common sense alone is sufficient to suggest that the climate at the time was warm, wet and stable. If it was not warm they would not have settled in New Zealand . If it was not wet they would have died of thirst on their voyages. If it was not stable their canoes would have swamped in the storms.

Ice core analyses show that the tenor of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere changed in the glacial and interglacial periods. When it warmed the carbon dioxide tenor rose but carbon dioxide followed temperature not the other way about. I am not yet prepared to accept that Neanderthal man or his ancestors chipping stones or cooking had any influence on atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Furthermore there were hundreds of atmospheric CO2 measurements taken in the late 1800s and in the first half of the 20th century which tend not to support the official position that CO2 has increased dramatically since WW2. These inconvenient analyses have been conveniently omitted.

The whole case for AGW is founded on Mann's hockey stick which was comprehensively rubbished by top statisticians in the USA . Water vapour is a far more significant greenhouse gas than CO2 as anyone who has spent nights in Alice Springs, for example, and Darwin or Singapore would conclude should they address their minds to the matter.

Atmospheric CO2 is of course the sole source of carbon in every tree, bush or plant around us. All animals of course are dependent on plants at the bottom of the food chain.

There is much talk of numerical models of the climate. Numerical models require precise algorithms that account for all the inputs and outputs. Many of these are unknown and the most important one, water vapour, is too complex to include! Furthermore if someone, sometime, does construct a proper numerical model it will still have to be calibrated over a full glacial cycle to see it works! I am reminded that one can fit a curve through every currant in a pudding bar one, at least if reduced to two dimensions, but it will be pure chance of the last currant lies on the curve.

Sun spot activity provides a much more plausible explanation for climate as current research clearly shows. A fellow in Denmark has demonstrated the mechanism whereby cosmic rays (charged particles) form nuclei for water droplet and thus cloud formation.

Two factors that should, but never, get mentioned are collapses and reversals of the earth's magnetic field and the effects of loess.

When the earth's magnetic field collapses, as it does quite frequently, the Van Allen belt collapses and charged particles freely enter the atmosphere. Normally charged particles largely enter the atmosphere parallel to the magnetic lines of force at the magnetic poles thus giving rise to aurorae. The skies around the world will indeed be a spectacular sight when the geomagnetic field collapses again.

Diatoms thrive in the oceans only where sufficient nutrients are available. Availability often depends on upflows of cold water from a great depth as is the case of the Humboldt Current which feeds the micro flora on which the huge shoals of anchovies depend. It has been shown that it is iron deficiency which generally limits the growth of the micro flora. There are already proposals to fertilize the sea with iron in order to grow the micro flora which will feed the fish on which we ourselves can feed.

When glaciers recede they leave behind them vast masses of rock flour which may be incorporated into till or tillites or blown by the wind to settle and form the vast loess soils of central Asia and elsewhere. Of course much of this rock flour or loess was blown out over the oceans to settle and fertilize them. Intuitively I feel that the early postglacial seas must have teemed with fish feeding on the micro flora. The micro flora of course obtains their carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The reader will have heard or read of Stern's report to the UK government. I am no believer in Stern's alarmism. My own view is that the discount rate that Stern uses is effectively zero. This is nonsense as it puts a ridiculously high value on events far out in the future and thus attempts to justify an absurd level of remedial expenditure now. The reader may be familiar with the standard equations for determining the time value of money. At the discount rate one might consider appropriate in real life Stern's alarmist proposals are absurd.

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18 February 07
Home affordability and council fees
By Frank Newman (Councillor, Whangarei District Council, www.newman.co.nz)

In the last few weeks the home affordability debate has become more intense. Everyone is pointing the finger of blame at others, and looking for remedies to what many are now calling a home ownership "crisis". Some are saying central government regulation is having a significant impact on building costs, others say local authorities are pushing up land prices by imposing restrictive landscape protection regulations and limiting the amount of land available for residential development. Surprisingly little has been said about the effect of council's development impact fees. 

Section 199 of the Local Government Act 2002 gives local councils, "the power to levy a development contribution if the effect of a development is to require new or additional assets or assets of increased capacity and, as a consequence, the territorial authority incurs capital expenditure to provide appropriately for reserves, network infrastructure, or community infrastructure."

In other words, councils experiencing population growth have been given an additional revenue mechanism to recover the cost of putting in infrastructure to service that growth.

By way of example, the Whangarei District Council charge development impact fees where a new "household" unit is created. That could range from a person building a granny flat on the back of their section right thru a 1000 lot subdivision.

The charge per household unit is very significant as the following table shows.

For example, a person living in the coastal settlement connected to a council water supply and waste water services would pay $39,852 in development impact fees for each new household unit (or new lot in the case of a subdivision) they create.

Those costs are less in the city area, $21,312, but still significant. Assuming average land value of $150,000 and a building cost of say $250,000 making a total of $400,000 for a new home, the development impact fees would add anywhere between 5% to 10% to housing costs.

The cost could be mitigated over time if council’s reduced their general rate take to reflect the development impact fee income. The Whangarei District Council however treats the fees as additional income, which is about $6 million a year.

There are of course other factors that have caused the cost of building to rise. Businesses have had to pass on increased costs (wages and fuel increases being obvious examples), and developers are facing higher resource consent costs as greater levels of protection and layers of expert reports are required.

When home owners are coping increases from all directions, it is not difficult to understand why the cost of building a new home is continuing to rise. Ironically those increases are most affecting those who can least afford it – first home buyers and low income earners.

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18 February 07
One Possible Solution to Reduce Welfare Benefit Dependency
By Jesmond Micallef

I would like to outline a vision that could possibly have a positive affect on the economy in general, the taxpayer and those depending on social welfare. My intention is to simply share a concept, which in the mind of an average person like myself – could potentially work. I also understand that social welfare is a delicate subject and removing/making change to it requires caution, since it could be a political issue for most democratic governments. 

An example of this vision is as follows: 

·          John B (name exemplary) could be a local property developer/s selected to build a housing estate for government, mainly consisting of suitable but basic, inexpensive one, two or three bedroom apartments or houses.  

·          A scheme could be designed, administered and marketed by the government, (possibly in association with a financial institution) as an alternative for people presently benefiting from the ‘social welfare’ system. 

·          The government could provide these people with the opportunity/choice to purchase these apartments/houses on the following conditions: 

A.      With no deposit but with and/or part of their present ‘benefit’, being instead deposited as a monthly repayment on such property. This for a period of time only – e.g. the first three years.

B.      That all/any applicants opting for such option is made to freely and willingly understand that no further benefit would be granted to them and that no further mortgage repayments on such property would be carried out on their behalf – after the stipulated period.

C.      That such scheme is simply designed to give them a kick start/ a chance/second chance in life and not to accommodate them eternally. It should be made clear that they are expected to take care of themselves and/or their families and manage their own responsibilities once and after the granted grace period expires.  

The government could also provide free assistance to such people through Employment Training Centres, thus providing them with the opportunity to find employment. One could almost state that the government’s responsibility is to motivate and create employment opportunity but the responsibility for finding and accepting employment remains that of the people.

 The benefits of such a scheme if marketed and coordinated properly could be but not limited too - as follows: 

A.      The Government would benefit politically from such welfare dependant’s since they could view this scheme as almost philanthropic – hence winning their confidence.  

B.      The Government would benefit politically from other taxpayers since they could view such scheme as fair and that something is finally being done about the problem – hence winning their confidence. 

C.      The Economy would benefit from such a scheme since property creates wealth and generates business within various industries  - hence winning public confidence.

D.      Tax Payers, Small Businesses, Sole Operators and Companies could benefit through alternative incentives/ tax benefits, which could potentially be introduced to them. People and the people in business create the nation’s wealth.

E.       The welfare dependant who at a time may have felt disadvantaged in the community now owns an appreciating asset of his/her own. They should now become more responsible and improve their attitude towards the community - since responsibility carries weight – in this case financially.

F.       One might also experience improvements in other areas such as behaviour in Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling, which are all very expensive hobbies. Paying a mortgage along with one’s day to day living is not cheap and also a responsibility in itself, thus people might have less funds and time for such luxuries.

The above is off course an outline of a vision, which would need to be explored in detail to ensure its feasibility. Being a strategist, I could definitely see the big picture in my own mind, which could be developed further to create widespread advantage when and if the need arises.

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4 February 07
Time to Toughen Up
By Jim Cable

Once we accorded far more thought to the substance of those we elected - and governments then were very much more aware that their most important duty of office was to ensure that no policy would be harmful to the nation.  Policy underpinned the social fabric - and governments worked at it.

But since the ‘70’s, policies have impacted to erode the social fabric, undermining the principles and values by which we lived.  Most damaging have been those that emasculated standards of discipline under which children were raised, and to which they were expected to conform. Today, elemental societal values like respect for parents and elders are very much less. 

We’ve seen nearly three generations of young adults develop without benefit of adequate guidance or role model at the most critical stage of their lives.  Dr Spock’s dreamy concepts, more “laid back” attitudes to alcohol availability, deemed it OK for children to act up at home because discipline was the “job of the schools.”   But schools became unable to maintain effective discipline due to heightened disruption by children from such homes and now the manifest consequences are everywhere. Oh, Dr Spock did finally admit that his ideas had been wrong.

In many homes and schools, little is now done to instil the recognition and fear of “consequence.”  Across all socio-economic groups, young adults grow without essential guidelines as to their “place,” without even elemental grasp of direction or uprightness.  We’ve attained Orwellian absurdity where “good is bad” and the destructive nonsense is seriously imparted.  Naturally, the flaccid breed that are today’s politicians uphold and play-to the status-quo - more concerned with electorate image than discerning the substance of what might be right and responsible.

Absurdities abound in justice and the courts.  In too many cases penalties are both travesty and nonsense.  If a person fined doesn’t pay, his/her “circumstances” are “taken into consideration” at the time of the hearing of their next offence, when their prior fines will be wiped and the offender given leave to apply for something as equally non-contributing as home detention.  With instances of accumulated fines totalling $20,000-30,000 and even more being written-off, just what does such “justice” convey to young offenders. Is there any consideration due to their victims?

The destructive consequences for society and state are in evidence everywhere.  Private and fiscal costs have skyrocketed without even the remotest trace of commensurate results.  In every New Zealand community, previously unknown levels of fear are widespread.  For years we’ve been running flat-out to stand still – but the funds aren’t there to sustain it for much longer.

Yes, we’re in most dire need of meaningful corrective action – we know that. So do our pathetic politicians?

Beyond the immediate reintroduction of corporal punishment in homes and schools and providing again for capital punishment as our ultimate sanction for extreme offenders - I'm hanged if I can see how otherwise we can redress the societal degeneration we’ve permitted solely from our own past passivity.  It's way past time to toughen up.  

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30 January 07
Crime & Welfare
By Michael

Garth McVicar of Sensible Sentencing believes that the root cause of crime is the lack of leadership from this government. Certainly this accusation applies to previous governments but with the current one there is something more sinister involved.

The first question that needs to be asked is why is the media so silent on the link between welfare and crime? If a major newspaper ran articles on the causes of crime on the front page and crusaded with appropriate follow-ups, popular support would force the necessary reforms - or in Labour’s case, cause major media damage control. How is it that international news conglomerates with all their resources, expertise and networks fail to make the connections between welfare and crime despite overwhelming evidence of the relationship?

The answer seems to lie in a fuzzy world of paranoid speculation and conjecture where conspiracy theories and hidden agendas proliferate. These cannot be discounted but I believe that there is a flaw in western thinking, which is also relevant. The scientific method of empirical thinking results in teaching and analyzing things in small compartments. This means that media tends to present news items in isolation of a larger context. There is no synthesis, holistic or lateral thinking until such time as absurdities become so obvious that they are classified as violations of common sense.      

Here are some relevant outside the box observations and ideas for consideration:

1. The media benefits from reporting criminal atrocities therefore the last thing it wants is a crime free society.

2. The police, the whole legal establishment, the various welfare agencies all benefit from crime because it results in the continual expansion of their bureaucratic empires and the public resources (taxes) they can command. To what degree is the media dependent on these agencies and the government for their news and how does this dependence translate to a lack of willingness to criticize let alone crusade for reforms?

3. Revolutionary socialists benefit from crime because it heralds the breakdown of a free    society, a necessary step in the establishment of their utopia.

4. Foreign aggressor states benefit from crime because it weakens the ability to resist. Indeed if things get really bad the populace would even welcome an invasion.

5. Fundamentalist religious cults benefit from crime because it justifies their worldview that the apocalypse is at hand. Indeed all religions benefit because human misery generates a psychological need to believe in an after-life.

6. Feminists benefit from crime because it justifies their worldview that men are intrinsically criminal and therefore females deserve favored treatment in gender conflict situations such as custody not to mention their ability to make false abuse allegations with little risk of prosecution. 

7. Even career women and women in the workforce benefit from crime because there is less competition from their potential criminal focused competition.

8. The criminal benefits from crime because he believes it pays. He analyses the risk- reward equation and makes his life choices accordingly and from his perspective he is not necessarily wrong. From personal anecdotal experience I can state that every long-term criminal I have known is estranged from providing directly for a family. He is without exception liable for child support if he worked in a conventional job. Given high taxes on top of his child support and alienation from his children such a life is tantamount to slavery. Of course many would use this as a justification but it still might be illuminating to research the child support obligations of long-term criminals.

9. By the same token the DPB recipients also benefit from crime in that they have access to criminal proceeds (especially drugs) that enhance their marginal life styles. It should be recognized that they too make conscious life choices about their maternity and are not the helpless victims as generally portrayed.

10. Crime benefits this government because criminals, beneficiaries and the workers in government agencies coping with the social fallout are Labour voters. In other words the government is increasing its voter base by consciously legislating to increase crime. Imagine hitting the media with evidence of this gem just prior to the election!    

The current government has strong roots in revolutionary socialism, feminism, good relationships with potential foreign aggressor states and an ideological commitment to expanding the state sector. It is not too fanciful to suggest that from the government’s perspective a high crime rate actually suits its purposes.     

As proof consider the criminalizing of speeding with its massive advertising campaign equating speeding to murder. This actually lessons the guilt or moral opprobrium associated with true murder. It also justifies the allocation of police resources to relatively minor traffic offences while real murders go unsolved and petty criminals go unchecked till they too evolve into murderers.

As an aside Garth McVicar’s idea for conscripting young petty criminals deserves exploring. At least they would develop good work habits and their wages could be used for restitution.

Some may consider my extrapolations are a bit far fetched yet when advocating the necessary reforms criticism is likely to come from a variety of sources. Media, feminists, religious institutions, academics, Maori, political parties, and government agency spokespeople are likely to defend the status quo. It is better to attack, then defend. To have on hand the intellectual ammunition of the self-interest of these groups is a tactical necessity and the ability to strategically attack Labour indirectly through them also raises interesting possibilities. After all they have remained silent on an issue that is fundamental to the welfare of their own constituencies and are therefore fair game.  

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30 January 07
Comment on the Family Court decision regarding Jayden
By Joseph Driessen

The decision by the Family Court to enable Jayden to have a meaningful relationship with his father Chris will not only benefit Jayden, but numerous other boys who are in desperate need of their fathers’ love, role-modelling and guidance.

The belief system that boys can grow up to become mature young men without the input of their fathers and other male rolemodels, has become increasingly discredited. 

Although many individual boys manage to reach adulthood successfully without their fathers, statistically it is clear that boys without fathers are more likely to underachieve at school, have discipline problems with their teachers, suffer mental health problems, get entangled with the juvenile court systems, become involved with drugs, take more life threatening risks and have a poorer overall life trajectory with regards careers, the formation of permanent relationships and the successful raising of children.

It is true that many, though by no means all, adolescent boys like to rebel against their fathers, dismiss their authority and test their value systems. However, for young boys their fathers are their first and most important heroes, heroes who they know will protect them and love them, who will teach them the innumerable skills which they intuitively know men need, and above all, who will show them day by day the path of manhood. 

For many boys the loss of their father through divorce is the end of their childhood, and the beginning of a journey of inexplicable grief, uncertainty and bewilderment.

These boys cannot fathom why their fathers not only failed to protect and love them, but were actively excluded from their daily lives. As they try to process their grief without recourse to words, these boys not only lose faith in their own families but also  their belief in their own future place in society.

As they witness their fathers’ loss, they know that this must be their fate also.

Worst of all, these boys cannot and do not understand when they find their father inexplicably abandons them. These boys are unaware that their fathers have been defeated in their desperate attempts to remain part of their families. They do not know that custody is awarded against their dads, that access rules are tenuous and not enforced, that his work prevents him from shifting to the town where his son has been taken, that the financial burden of IRD enforced child support payments takes away the opportunity to travel to see his son, that his new girlfriend or partner insists that the price of her love is the diversion of his emotional and financial support to her and her children.

All that these boys know is that one day their father has gone, and that he doesn’t ring nor visits nor sends postcards. Being a child, his logic often informs him that he must be a particularly bad person to deserve this fate, and that the real reason for this abandonment is his own unworthiness.

And so his childhood ends, and a journey of risk begins.

For many of these boys this is a journey full of difficulty, since they not only are burdened by unfathomable and overwhelming feelings of fear, grief, betrayal and anger, but also bereft of the natural parenting style of his father. Many fathers give their sons a unique mix of understated affection, strong boundaries, unspoken encouragement, practical wisdom and high expectations. Most fathers intuitively understand the inner life of their sons, and prove structure, strength and guidance to allow this inner life to flourish.  All fathers, unknowingly and unconsciously hand on to their sons the essential confidence and happiness of simply being a male human being.

For many boys, the loss of this role-model and guidance has devastating consequences. It is true that many boys of divorced families survive this journey, although not without showing the damage. For some it might be a lack of confidence and engagement. For others it might be brushes with the law, or oppositional behaviour at school, and consequent lower achievement and fewer job options.

For some boys, however, the traumatic loss of their father is translated as a virtual life-sentence of unresolved and repressed feelings, self-medication through drugs and risk taking, and a life long journey of trying to heal themselves and find their own place in the world.

For a few boys, tragically, the loss of their father is a death sentence, and their bodies are found in car wrecks on cold mornings, or hanging in the stillness of a suburban garage.

For all of us, the loss of fathers in the lives of their sons is an unfolding societal catastrophe. As more and more boys are damaged by the ever-increasing rate of divorce and separation, more and more damaged boys are disengaging from families, schools, careers, and society. As more and more of these boys reach maturity, fewer and fewer functional young men are able to take part in stable careers and being fathers for their own sons. And so more and more of their sons will embark on their lonely journeys.

Perhaps future generations will see the decision of the Family Court as a profound moment of courage, in which the plight of fatherless boys was uncovered for all to see.

Who knows, perhaps the Family Court Decision to honour the struggle of Jayden’s father, Chris, to be able to parent his own son, will mark the beginning of wisdom, the healing of all our sons as well as their fathers, and a regeneration of our society where men care for their families and the blight of poverty, crime and child abuse is no more.

Joseph Driessen is an Education Consultant specialising in Boys’ Education.

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20 January 07
Fortress America
By Marshal

How can a nation the  size and complexity of the USA be led by an individual as loose as George W Bush?

Over the years I have had comprehensive exposure to Americans visiting New Zealand . I have found them, individually, to be intelligent, pleasant people with enquiring minds and a responsible attitude to the considerations of the rest of the world. How can these sensitive, knowledgeable and discerning people allow themselves to be represented by Bush?

Why is it that the people of the United States of America tolerate being disgraced on the world stage, over and over again, by the abominable pantomime played out daily in the Executive Wing?

How has the USA allowed itself to be immersed, yet again, in the Vietnam like quagmire which is Iraq ? And before that Afghanistan ? And just lately, Mogadishu ?

What insanity prevails in the minds of the shakers and movers of American society who instigate these policies.. The invisible big guys who are always nameless and faceless. The mojos who pull the strings and cause the politicians to dance.

Are the imperatives, the motivating factors, big money, big oil, big egos, morality gone mad, Evangelism extremis, power mania, world domination or perhaps, a combination of all of the above? Do the people of America think for one minute, that the citizens of these militarily occupied, war torn nations are going to be grateful for US military intervention and US political involvement? Hell no!!

Throughout the centuries liberators and occupiers have been loathed by the population under occupation. The occupied people of  the now era are no exception, they resent the occupation and the occupiers with hatred. A passion not understood or, in many cases, even suspected by their liberators. And, with the emergence of terrorism as an international  stealth weapon, the occupying nations will feel the barbs of payback  and revenge ...Retribution for years to come. And who, the bloody hell, loves a cop? Particularly a GLOBALCOP !!

Even the allies look askance @ America these days.. What gives with these guys? Why are they buying in to yet another war, another skirmish? What are they getting out of it?

Wouldn't it be better to let the rest of the world fight it's own battles?  Why not withdraw all the US forces from everywhere right NOW.

Stuff the world!! From here on in the policy is FORTRESS AMERICA . Think about that one people!! Who controls the future expansionist policies of the  Chinese, Japanese, Indians and Indonesians? Who keeps the Russians within their borders? Who stops the French from resuming their Pacific nuclear testing programme? Who stops every body dumping their nuclear waste in Antarctica ? Who prevents the dumping of agricultural excess stockpiles on the world market? Who will contain the rise of the Man with the Blue Turban, the charismatic, future leader of New Islam?

Who indeed does it now?

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20 January 07
Human Evolution - and Misguided Governments
By Max Aston  

I despair of the chances of common-sense ever penetrating  the minds of our Social Welfare  officials.

Years ago a senior official  who was assisting my wife to break up the family said that  although she was very fair-minded, she had never known a man to be in the right.  She also insisted that human beings were never influenced by innate behaviour because they were  not animals.  This woman trained other Social Welfare workers.

Intelligent design  “theory“ has come to be ridiculed in the scientific press, and even by most serious thinkers in the West,, but  the evidence for  genetically programmed behaviour is still rejected, even by contributors to  New Scientist  magazine.

Prominent scientists have for many years  tried to show the  importance of  distinguishing  genetically programmed  behaviour  from social modifications, that it  is basic to any understanding  of ourselves;  nevertheless, Western philosophers  still ignore them. Our  university Arts  lecturers refuse to  even consider  that point of view.

Darwin and Malthus were only stating the obvious, but the consequences  and ramifications of their insight  are still beyond   the understanding of all but a few million  independent scientists, engineers, and the like.

We evolved from other animals, the mechanisms  which guide their behaviour  must be very similar to  ours.  The stronger our emotions the longer  and the more important they have been  in our evolution.  Mating, for example, is mediated by love – notoriously blind, but so real.  Warring, built into our psyches, especially male ones, is also apparently stupid, but when expressed on the sports field, holds immense satisfaction and enjoyment for the crowds.

For millions of years humans and their even more ape-like predecessors  have been  shaped , physically and emotionally , by an obsession for inter-tribal warfare.

It is the reason we place so much stress on the need , especially by warriors, for  feelings of “ identity “

Backed up by needs of social animals  to belong to the herd, we developed rituals and religions.  We are easily led by priests, rabble-rousers, politicians, and anyone else  seeking power, like the lesbian feminists, jealous of  the power over men enjoyed by their more nubile sisters.

 As I see it, the idiots who govern us are as sincere as any religious fundamentalists because  they are controlled by their programming, the word of “ God “!

Otherwise they would  carefully monitor the effects  of their practices and legislation, they would be willing to work out how families really work to socialize their children and , just as importantly, each other.

The most blinding concepts we have invented  are  “soul“, “sacred”, “racial identity“, “Almighty God“, “Infidel” and so on – concepts which have reality only in our minds, and which we use to suppress common sense, scientific thought and rational behaviour.

It is taking a long time for the disastrous effects of misguided social policies to come to light.  Let there be more of that light.

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20 January 07
Our Tragic Welfare System
By Aristot

I know a person who has been on welfare nearly all her married life.  She has brought up three children with the assistance of the DPB for at least 20 years.  All three children are a disaster as a result of poor parenting. She is frequently on a sickness benefit as she suffers from “arthritis”, yet can work  quite hard as a domestic for cash.

The first child has eating disorders which are serious. She seems incapable.  of holding down a job for very long, yet she is able to work  well as a domestic worker working with her mother for cash.  She has been on a sickness benefit since leaving school and she is now 23 years old.  She is medicated for depression and her eating disorder. It seems she can afford to cover her body in Tattoos and rings through her nose, lips, tongue and belly. Social welfare supply her with the where with all for her accommodation.

The second child is a male and is 22 years old.  He is gay. He suffered ridicule at school, is a habitual depressant and is on a sickness benefit. He has a very strained relationship with his mother and the father of all these children is out of their lives and lives in another centre.  The  son does not have a stable relationship with anyone so is depressed and lonely.

The 3^rd child is 19 and was very dysfunctional at secondary school so was sent as a special needs pupil to an appropriate special needs establishment where she seemed to achieve quite well.  Whilst there she sampled the joys of  life, and became a schizophrenic or Bi-polar case, leaving school a mess and on a sickness benefit and on a strict drug rehabilitation scheme.  She became pregnant to a fellow who had a job at the time, who was also sampling drugs for recreation and has had several jobs since,but is now out of work on a sickness benefit to help look after the child. He was arrested for beating up the mother of his baby and is doing community work while the mother is in a Women’s refuge unable to look after the child. He is unemployed and unable to look after the baby. The gay son is called upon to look after the baby when needed to allow the grandmother and her daughter to go out and work for cash.

Meanwhile the mother of the baby is undergoing therapy to adjust her medication to prevent her from committing suicide, which she had attempted several times over the preceding 18 months.

The grandmother of the child who begat this dysfunctional family has claimed this grandchildchild saying that she has bonded with it and will if necessary bring it up.  I spoke with her about it and asked her if she would like to be that child to be brought up in such circumstances when an opportunity to adopt it into a family that would love it and nurture it and give it an appropriate opportunity in life to be a good New Zealand citizen instead of being in this invironment. Open adoption today allows blood relatives access to adopted children.  However the grandmother wants the child so she can start claiming the benefit for it. She said she  would give it a good home.

She sold her home last year so she could buy a bus and travel to different parts of New Zealand .  She hasn’t enough money to buy another house because she bought a new car.  She has been living with her daughter who rents a flat. Her daughter charges her mother rent which is more than she pays so she can claim the full amount from Social Welfare!  She told us how they can milk the system as if they were proud of it!

It outrages me that our taxes are creating an underclass of people so intelligent they can milk the system. They have all recently flown to Sydney to attend a distant relative’s funeral and flown to Auckland twice for family affairs being paid for by the Social Welfare Department who require them to pay back the fares at the rate of a $2.80 dollars a week.

The crux of this diatribe is to show that an innocent baby can be brought into this world here in New Zealand to such grim circumstances it is likely to become our next generation of criminals.

All that I have regaled above I believe to be true.

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7 January 07
The Road User’s Guide to Lowering the Road Toll
By Tony Bunyan


Why do the police, from the top to the bottom, continue to make inane comments regarding the appalling carnage on our roads? All the while crediting themselves with any reduction in deaths.

Thankfully less people have died this year, but it’s definitely not the police who should take credit for the reduction. Nor should they blame everyone from granddad to learner drivers for the police’s own failure. While the toll has gone down, the figure of 30,000 New Zealanders charged every year with driving drunk is on the rise and the total number of road accidents has actually INCREASED. A very good case can be made that all of the police’s efforts have had NO positive lasting effect.

Why has the road toll been holding relatively steady for the last 2 or 3 years? Firstly the technology in cars makes them much safer, with anti-skid brakes, traction control, crumple zones, seatbelts and airbags all reducing the likelihood of death. Secondly emergency services have done an incredible job saving lives. Thirdly, there has been some improvement, though not nearly enough, to road design. If the reduction in deaths is looked at geographically, the reduction is greatest where there have been dramatic improvements in the state of the roads. The Waikato is a good example. What would happen to the road toll if we removed safety belts and the median barrier from our highways?

The LTSA’s own research reports that redesigning roads at trouble spots reduces accidents and death by 30 to 50 percent. The AA also supports the view that it is essentially good road engineering management that makes real SUSTAINABLE differences and uses Ireland’s road toll reduction of 40percent compared with New Zealand’s pitiful result as an example of this approach. Once a corner has been straightened it stays that way. What happens when a cop goes home for tea?

It’s not surprising that the police and LTSA should focus on speed and alcohol. It justifies their approach to traffic safety and provides a steady stream of funding. (10 percent of Canterbury’s policing budget was spent on boy racers alone). Any failure is the fault of the speeding drinking road user. But this should be a tough argument to win when nearly half those killed are passengers or pedestrians.

The question is not “what causes accidents”, it should be “what prevents or minimizes the affect of them?” The track record for reducing accidents is abysmal. The police’s strategy appears to be if its not working, let’s have more of it to make it work!

Mark Lammas Central District Police Commander was trying to be sarcastic but actually made a lot of sense, despite himself, when he said: “If we accept that [driving at 120km/hr in appropriate conditions is safe] why don’t we just have a rule that as long as you’re driving safely, police won’t take any enforcement action?” Good idea DPC Lammas! It’s called using your discretion. Now all you need do is promote the idea that it is engineering and not draconian law enforcement that will save lives.

Better roads mean more intelligent use of police resources and less carnage on our roads.

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24 December 06
Is global warming a lot of hot air?
By Bevan Berg

The world is a rapidly changing place, in many respects, and just as we can see the inadvertent consequences of political decisions, and often too late, we can also see environmental consequences, the origins of which continue to be debated amongst our scientists.

To me climate change is a bit like family law: you need to understand each individual piece before you can put the whole thing together.  Regardless of whose law our children are raised under they still exist and still need an environment in which to live. The worst we could do for our following generations is fail on both counts.  (Already having failed with family law in New Zealand).  What does concern me is that we roll the environment, climate change, global warming and the Kyoto Protocol into one big political ball.

Taking for example a simply analogy of weather. High pressure zones, meet low pressure zones, and we get air
movement - wind.  Whether or not Global Warming is to blame we have had at this point an extra ordinary three degree increase in barometric pressure.  Best guesses from the science world said at this point in time it would be one degree.  The difficulty is not that the estimate was two hundred percent short, but that barometric increase has a variable impact, i.e. it increases the highs and decreases the lows.  Higher highs over land, lower lows at sea.

Looking close to home the big highs hitting Australia have a dramatic effect, as have the lows raking across New Zealand.  Small fluctuations in barometric pressure have huge international consequences regardless of whether the cause is sun spots, carbonised atmosphere, or another source.

If we were serious about air pollution then someone would either find or own up to this little critter: (SF5CF3).  It was discovered around 1969 and now enters the atmosphere at around 330 tonnes per year increasing at a rate of 6 %. (Not to be confused with CF6's which eat away the ozone). Each carbon unit has a global warming potential of (1), by comparison (SF5CF3) has a global warming potential of (20,000).  Carbon has an atmospheric life of 100 years, and (SF5CF3), 1000 - 3500 years.  This is an artificial substance, potentially a much more dangerous substance, but we don't know where it is coming from, or perhaps it might it upset someone's calculations.

What I see happening is that climate change per se is being attributed entirely to Global Warming.  Easy to argue over, politicise and then ignore, some of the real individual issues are now not being dealt with.  With all the variables, we could wait through a century of disaster, and are more likely to run out of fresh water before we develop a reliable computer model to accurately predict global climate change.

In the meantime Kyoto which is an economic policy, albeit based on the environment, has more potential to heat tempers, than lower temperatures, especially as more people become familiar with some of its economic implications, which have nothing at all to do with the environment.

It is easy not to be too fussed about all this when you have plenty to eat and drink, and can afford to indulge the supposition that this will not change, or that change will not be a problem for our country.

Thank God we are the lucky ones, but luck won't stay on our side if we don't get smart about it.  Damn Global
warming if you must, just don't turn a blind eye to what is happening around the world, and what affect there could be on our population.

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10 December 06
Watch Out: Grey crime is on its way
By Don Donovan

A phenomenon of unusual character is assailing Japan, a grey crime wave. It has been reported that over ten percent of the country’s prison population is aged over 65, a proportion that has risen three-fold in just ten years.

They’re banged up mainly for theft but not an inconsiderable number is also violent; killers who’ve murdered their spouses; one who strangled his missus because of her lousy cooking, another who beat up his care worker, a couple of geriatrics who held up a convenience store and a certain Mr Matsuzaki who threatened a magazine seller with a chain saw – yes, a chain saw! (It takes me all my time just to get mine started).

So threatening is this cadre of aged dysfunctionals that one prison is now furnished with handrails, pushcarts and walking aids. Clearly Japan’s equivalent of OSH makes regular inspections to make sure the incarcerated dried arrangements are in no danger of slipping in the shower or repeatedly tottering off the first floor landing into the safety nets or worse, through the cracks.

The recidivism rate among these genuine old lags is eighty percent. That leads me to speculate as to why that might be. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of effort goes into wielding a 24” forest razor and there’s a high likelihood that the wielder will get caught as septuagenarians aren’t noted for having it away on their toes. Clearly, going to prison isn’t just a punishment. No, I would suggest that it is more like having some sort of holiday or an alternative to homes for the aged.

While, in that great free world outside, many elderly are marginalized, treated with contempt, badly fed, robbed blind by unscrupulous family solicitors or merely ignored, in prison they must be supervised, fed regularly, kept in heat-controlled cells with dry mattresses and bug-free blankets and have available to them medical and hospital care at the drop of a hat. That’s why recidivism is so high.

Looking around this great little country of ours one doesn’t have to have too much imagination to realize that it might not be too long before we, too, have prisons for old folk. We know we have a rapidly ageing population; that means that our already formidable young criminal element will mature into old crooks. And no doubt, as our beneficial resources wane and our senior citizens grow the poorer for it hitherto law-abiding citizens will be tempted to turn to crime.

Indeed they might already have done so; I have noticed around the streets of the genteel settlements of Auckland’s northern bays quite an increase in the number of disability carts being driven with bulging plastic panniers hanging from them. Are they crammed with tins of Watties, Kiwi streaky bacon, exotic cheeses and Marlborough’s finest reds subtly lifted from the shelves of New World? Do late-flowering shoplifters know where every surveillance camera is sited? And, more importantly, do they share their information and trickery with other superannuitants? Is there, in fact, a grey conspiracy dedicated to minor crime whose insouciant constituents know that if they get caught then they will exchange what might be costly but indifferent rest home care for the free, carefree haven of prison?

The Japanese are known for a certain ‘Banzai’ approach to life (many of their TV shows are devoted to cruelty) but I doubt that old New Zealanders would extend their nefariousness to the more violent types of crime – chain saws are so hard to carry when you’re on a Zimmer frame – but it’s quite possible that there are bands of ancient cat burglars dressed in World War Two balaclavas breaking and entering ground floor premises right now; amateur crackspersons already in touch with ex Social Welfare staff who’ve re-trained as fences and will readily handle family silver and credit cards. But with the current craze for fitness and good diet who knows what might happen? Perhaps there’s a generation waiting in the wings who will, from 60-up, be faster than speeding bullets, leap tall buildings and feel ready to mug young financial advisers or beat up primary school kids for their cell phones.

We must be wary. And we must plan for the future by building geriatric prisons, preferably overlooking the sea, equipped with escalators, elevators, handrails, hearing aid loops, Viagra dispensaries adjacent to connubial suites, a TV and CD player in every cell, and dedicated nurse/warders to plump up pillows on the hour every hour.

It’s only a matter of time.

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20 November 06
The Coming Ice Age
By Ronald Kitching

In his great book, titled "A Short History of Planet Earth" by Dr. Ian Plimer shows us that the immediate danger to the earth and its population is not the warming of the greenhouse effect, but the coming of the next ice age.

This is not to say that industrial pollution is not a serious matter. It is -  particularly in China. Right now, coal makes up about 65% of China's primary energy consumption, for both electricity production and as boiler fuel in factories and space heating in housing stock, and China is both the largest consumer and producer of coal in the world. China's coal consumption in 2003 was more than 1.53 billion short tons, or 28% of the world total.

According to The New York Times, China today burns more coal than the combined consumption of the United States, the European Union, and Japan. China has increased its coal consumption by about 14% in each of the past two years, and will continue to do so. Every seven to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant begins to operate somewhere in China, with generating capacity sufficient to serve all of the households in a city the size of Tampa or Seattle.

Satellite photos show enormous clouds of pollution even reaching North American shore. No wonder they plan to build forty nuclear energy plants.

Apart from regular cycles which have brought the ice age to the planet periodically, an ice age can be triggered by natural causes like meteor or asteroid strikes which have also plagued the planet. And large exploding volcanoes which can convert more than 2,000 cu Km to as much as 45,000 cu Km of rock or more into dust, which can blot out the sun for extended periods, giving rise to famine and pestilence.

Also, in a book titled, Not by Fire But By Ice, Robert W. Felix shows us that the fifth recurring ice age of the last 500,000 years is now overdue.

And he says: (See page 218).

* The next beat of the 179 year solar retrograde cycle is due.
*The next beat of the 360 Little Ice Age cycle is due.
*The next beat of the 1,440 year ice age cycle is due.
*The next beat of the 11,500 year ice age cycle is due.
*The next beat of the 100,000 year ice age cycle is due .... and we are conditioned into worrying about global warming???

When an ice age occurs much of  the water on the planet turns to ice. For instance, the Tasmanian Hydro schemes will be useless, as the water that normally drives them, will all be solid ice. So will the Snowy Mountains stored water supplies.

The sensible thing to be doing is not just planning, but building large nuclear power stations now, to produce potable water from sea water. And apart from that, to provide us with adequate power to keep us warm.

Those unprepared for  the planet's coming ice age, which, once started, descends very quickly, and will freeze humans by the hundreds of millions, perhaps billions. And consider this, where there is little or no sunlight:

* Plants do not grow
* Grass does not grow
* Trees do not grow
* Nothing grows.
* In the seas, plankton does not propagate and hence many fish and other ocean going inhabitants do not survive.

But adequate planning and preparation can soften the blows of an ice age, which can arrive at any time from now until the next 130 years or so. But the long term issue is the expanding planet.

If you want to know more ask Google for The New Ice Age and, in 0.21 of a second you will receive 93,300,000 essays on the subject. You can take refuge in the thought that some authors do not expect the next ice age for 15,000 years. 

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22 November 06
The Politics of Domestic Violence
By Reuben Chapple

The feminist-driven “domestic violence industry” is part of an ever-expanding, taxpayer-funded “bureaucracy of compassion” with its attendant caregivers, social workers, regulators, intellectuals and social scientists. Its use of the term “domestic violence” rather than the more gender-neutral “relationship violence” comes straight from the Marxist analysis of gender relations penned by Marx’s  close friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels. This presupposes a male 'oppressor' ("Within the family, man is the bourgeoisie, woman and children the proletariat") and a female ‘victim.’ 

Feminists with a strong emotional investment in the presumption of an oppressive patriarchy  (" Domestic violence is just part of how 'they' treat 'us' as women") commonly cite police blotter statistics and other official data to falsely conclude that relationship violence is  a male problem.   There are a number of compelling reasons why a man might be reluctant to complain to authorities that his wife assaulted him.

These include fear of ridicule or being disbelieved; threats that if police are called his wife will level a counter-accusation and he'll be the one arrested by an establishment predisposed to take her part; a reluctance to walk out of the home that he probably paid for; the likelihood that access to his children will be denied by a gender-biased Family Court should he leave to escape the violence; and fears for the children's physical safety if he's no longer around to  protect  them from a violent mother.

Men are typically silent victims with no avenues through which to seek help. One of the saddest recorded accounts of male victimisation by a violent spouse or partner was that of an army drill sergeant in the United States, who placed his gun in his mouth at the dinner table and blew his brains out in front of his family, once the contrast between his macho parade ground persona and the reality of his miserable existence became too much to bear.

New Zealand has a network of Women’s Refuges but not a single Man’s Refuge. And if a man did show up at a Women’s Refuge seeking relief from a violent female partner, would he be admitted? Like police blotter statistics, “refuge data” clearly has significant limitations in terms of providing an accurate picture of relationship violence in our community.

US researcher, Dr Martin Fiebert examined 155 scholarly investigations, 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses in concluding that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000 and can  safely be regarded as statistically significant. Fiebert’s annotated bibliography, first published in Sexuality and Culture Volume 8, Number 3-4, Summer-Fall 2004, can be viewed online at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.

Contrary to the demonstrably false  feminist picture, men and women are implicated in relationship violence in approximately equal numbers at all levels of severity as assessed by a standardised "Conflict Tactics Scale.” Both sexes are more or less equally represented in every category from throwing a teaspoon all the way up to murder. In some categories (e.g. punched, kicked, hit or slapped one's partner), female involvement outstripped that of males.

Approximately one third of violent incidents were found to be "he assaults her," one third "she assaults him," and one third "they assault each other. It is also apparent that most of what is categorised as "relationship violence" is occasional, low level, and doesn't result in serious injury, i.e. shoving, pulling, slapping, throwing small objects etc.

The most violent individuals, whether male or female, represent a tiny minority of those studied. Severely violent men typically used their fists and feet on spouses or partners. Severely violent women often used weapons or attacked spouses or partners when they were off-guard or sleeping .

Erin Pizzey, who set up the first Women's Refuge in England in the early 1970s, had a well-publicised falling out with the Sisterhood after she wrote a book claiming that many women presenting at her Chiswick Women's Refuge were "at least as violent as the men they had left behind" and also chemically addicted to provoking violent reactions in their male partners. These women were repeatedly and often seriously verbally and physically violent both to their own children and to other women in the shelter.

Shorn of its radical feminist "spin," it is evident that  relationship violence is in fact a human problem, not a gender issue as the feminist movement would have us believe. It is long overdue for women as a group to acknowledge the female contribution to such violence rather than simply blaming males for something women are, on all the evidence, equally involved in. 

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20 November 06
New Zealand Defence in a New Era
By John S. Pallot

The lessons of history are there to guide us towards the future but they are all too easily forgotten or misunderstood. Geography and history demand that New Zealand take on the role of a leading leading maritime nation in the Pacific.

History has always been a cycle of war and peace and, painful as it may be, this is one of the reasons for evolution of the human species from earliest times up to the present when almost anything seems possible - if we learn from history. At the end of a war, peace treaties attempt to avert future wars but have never so far succeeded - and are unlikely to do so - because of conflicting interests and inevitable changes to the rules. At the same time, strategy, tactics, economic changes and new technology develop so as to give one party an advantage; as and when differences can no longer be easily resolved and if early action is not taken, war again becomes inevitable - albeit a new style of war and not necessarily one as destructive as in the past.  Some principles, nevertheless, remain constant but there is always debate as to what has changed and what remains the same. A simplistic commitment to ‘peace’ all too often does nothing more than hasten war because it sends the wrong signals to those with different ideas.

This was particularly true for those of us who went through World War II. As sadly exemplified by a well known debate at the Oxford University Union in England, a resolve never to go to war again simply encouraged Hitler to go against the advice of his military advisers. It then constrained Prime Minister Chamberlain in his attempt to negotiate peace at Munich in 1938.  Only a year later, he was left with no option but to enter a war that involved the deaths of over fifty million people and the development and use of nuclear weapons. This is firmly ingrained in the memories of those who took part and are still amongst the living but often misunderstood by those who were then unborn.

The period from 1914 to 1990, has been described as the ‘Long War’ (1). To understand it, however, it is necessary to go back to the Napoleonic Wars.  New Zealand was settled by Europeans during the nineteenth century largely as an outcome of the Battle of Trafalgar which left the Royal Navy in command of the world’s oceans. This was clearly understood in this country by the early European settlers and Maori iwi who grew prosperous through overseas trade.  During the period between the World Wars it was implanted in the minds of our youth and especially those living at or near one of our ports. New Zealand’s governments committed lives and treasure in the wars of the last century because as Michael King put it :

“In addition to imperial sentiment, they were influenced by the fact that New Zealand’s prosperity rested on its market in Britain and the need to keep the sea trade routes open.” (2)

Since the 1940s the role of the Royal Navy has been taken over by the United States Navy.  As the Cold War drew to a close, enough New Zealanders to matter somehow lost sight of these realities. They failed to appreciate how our country had been defended by the Armed Forces of the United States whilst so many of us were away fighting in Europe or the Middle East during World War 2.  Throughout the Cold War our dependence on the United States Navy continued and command of the seas and the nuclear deterrent were ultimately the telling factors in preventing World War III. A New Zealand Prime Minister nevertheless took part in an Oxford University Union debate leading some older minds back fifty years to the thirties and the outcome from another debate in the same place.  Whilst he and his sentiments gained a popular response, they did nothing to help end the Cold War. The resultant legislation still contributes nothing to peace in a new era but it does, however, lock New Zealand into an isolationism that is totally contrary to the nation’s present and future interests. For thinking veterans of the wars of the last century there is no way in which these views help to prevent a future war - whatever form it may take. Each year it makes a mockery of eulogies so easily given on Anzac Day.

The prime interest of New Zealand is still, first and foremost, our overseas trade from which practically all our disposable income derives. Education, health, welfare, conservation and state security all depend on it for the greater part of our national income that is so easily taken for granted.  Our markets in regional importance are now, however, (i) Australia, (ii) Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, (iii) the European Union and (iv) North America, the trade routes or Sea Lines of Communication of which all pass through the Pacific Ocean.  These waters are dotted by small island states each of which to some extent should be able to control its own waters but cannot without assistance and New Zealand seems to be the only country that can provide it - with financial and other forms of support from neighbours once we are fully pulling our weight.

In to-day’s world, however, in addition to trade, responsible management of the environment for the benefit of future generations is an increasingly vital part of overall security. This begins as far south as Antarctica reaching down to beyond Scott Base and, if international law were to catch up with current reality, we should be concerned about a much greater portion of the Southern Ocean. To the north of New Zealand, we already have direct responsibility for the Cook Islands, Niue, and the Tokelaus whilst earlier last year the Prime Minister of Samoa gave an important speech about regional cooperation - “………a Pacific Union of as yet unknown dimensions” (3) - to which New Zealand has yet to respond in a meaningful way. The possibilities, nevertheless, lie ahead for a united 'Oceania' to lead the world into a prosperous and sustainable future. This is a major challenge and calls for closer ties with, initially, all  maritime nations.

The first responsibility of any government is the internal and external security of its people and this must be true of a future ‘Pacific Union‘. Internal security rests on rules that must be enforced; this means a Police Force with an Armed Offenders Squad to deal with the worst cases. Taking a step on from there, we ahould then look to a Pacific Union Defence Force and it seems no more than commonsense that it should build on the New Zealand Defence Force since the Australian Defence Force has its hands kept more than full dealing with its north and western frontiers; the Armed Forces of the United States, powerful as they may be, lack the numbers required to-day, focused as they are on both worldwide and homeland security. They can only act as a global ‘Armed Offenders Squad‘ to be called on in an emergency.

However, before going any further, a fresh look is needed at where we are now and in what direction we should be heading in a new era.  One thing for certain is that we live in a world as unstable as it has ever been - growing populations can only worsen this.  The threat of war by nation states as it was in the last century may not seem likely - although it is still not impossible - but we are currently involved in a ’War against Terrorism’ and we may already be threatened by other forms of ’asymmetric warfare’ equally insidious. In the maritime domain we daily encounter piracy, illegal drugs, human smuggling and environmental exploitation. At the same time, the tyranny of Communism is not yet dead although it may claim to have changed.  And, if there is a threat from nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, the most likely means of employment in this part of the world would be for them to be smuggled in and used by illegal immigrants.  This suggests that defence of the states of a Pacific Union starts with a thorough knowledge of the region itself and with the best possible intelligence about all ships and aircraft entering or traversing it. This latter can only come from a global network of like-minded maritime nations that starts with our neighbours.

In the nineteenth century, following on expeditions led by naval officers such as Captain James Cook, marine sciences as known to-day, were founded by the voyages of HMS Challenger.  It would be appropriate for the RNZN to take an active role once again since this may economically be combined with many patrol tasks as demonstrated quite recently by the Royal Australian Navy. Patrol is essential so that, if necessary, each and every vessel or craft can be boarded and inspected before approaching land. To cover such a huge area, new offshore patrol vessels must have long range and be readily convertible to many different roles, including an upgrade to combat capabilities. One important feature is the ability to carry as many manned and unmanned helicopters as possible for reconnaissance and other purposes.

To deal promptly with any outbreak of violence will require amphibious forces tailored to the geography of our region. “Amphibious operations are recognized as the most complicated operation of war; the practitioner must be thoroughly professional. Professional knowledge is gained through regular Amphibious Warfare exercises and training, education and experience.  Gallipoli failed because all three of these vital ingredients were missing. Amphibious Warfare expertise and support for amphibious operations cannot be taken for granted.  The art needs constant nurturing, practice and study and it only survives if it forms part of the nation’s policy for defence“.(4)  Even in the experience of the United Kingdom over nearly two centuries, this has not always been the case and to date it remains virtually alien to this island maritime nation of Aotearoa.

Needless to say, the Air Force is no less important than the other two services and it is fundamental that all three work as one at all levels.  However, in spite of the major role that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles must play in future if we are to have any hope of policing our region, it is urgent that some experience be gained as soon as possible before rushing into the orders for new capital equipment that will be required.

It is fortunate, perhaps, that the NZDF has been lagging behind the sum that many believe should have been voted long ago. A return to a reasonable figure of somewhat over 2% of GDP means that we can afford what is really required without being saddled unduly by outdated strategic thinking. However, a ‘catch-up’ vote may be very well warranted.

‘Peace from the Seas’ (5) resulting from the closest co-operation amongst all like-minded maritime nations is a much more realistic aspiration than ‘peace from the United Nations’ almost inevitably blocked by a member state of the Security Council.  New Zealand can play a role well above our station as a nation of just four million people but we cannot make that contribution if we insist on exact retention of an Act of Parliament that is nothing but a serious impediment.

Given support from a better educated and informed voting public, it must be understood that the prime purpose of the Defence Force is to prevent war beyond our shores just as the prime purpose of the Police Force is to prevent violence within them.  All in turn must be free to co-operate closely with neighbours whether within our cities or across a region that is joined by the great Pacific Ocean.

Whilst there is still time to forgive the errors of the past, the opportunity lies open for our nation’s leaders to display leadership. It is not for political parties to score points nor for well meaning people to indulge in self-righteous theorising. We cannot ignore the wisdom of centuries going as far back as far as the Bible and the classic texts of all other civilizations. It is a time for action now before all of us who have risked our lives in the last century to secure peace pass away and are forgotten.  

* * *

(1)'The Shield of Achilles’ by Philip Bobbitt.  Penguin Books 2002 - all. 
(2)‘The Penguin History of New Zealand’ by Michael King.  Penguin Books 2003, p.295 
(3)Address by the Hon. Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi at the Pacific Cooperation Foundation Prestigious Annual Pacific Lecture at Wellington 22 March 2005.  
(4)Colonel M.J.D. Noble RM in a private paper. 
(5)Admiral Michael G. Mullen USN, Chief of Naval Operations - speech to the RUSI, 13 December 2005

John Pallot is a fifth generation New Zealander, a longtime member of the NZIIA and a  veteran of World War II combat, Korea and ‘incidents’ in the Middle East and elsewhere.

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20 November 06
An Inconveneient Truth
By Ron Goodwin

All people interested in global warming should see Al Gore’s film, if only to appreciate how the whole world is being hoodwinked by pseudoscience.

There is no question that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing for many decades, albeit from a very small percentage to a larger but still very small percentage, currently about 0.035%.  However, there is no sound scientific evidence that I am aware of, that this or any other factor is actually causing any global warming.

Nature is such, that there always has been and always will be enormous extremes in climatic conditions from time to time.  That is why urban development plans consider what will happen in a 1 in 100 year storm and hydro dams work on 1000 or 2000 year events.

Glaciers will continue to grow and recede.  The Arctic Ocean will continue to freeze up and thaw.  Large areas were unfrozen in the 1930s as they are today.  Such is the ebb and flow of nature.  The Vikings used to grow corn in Greenland .  The River Thames froze so solid around 300 years ago that thousands of people and even an elephant walked on the ice.

Mountains like Mt Kilimanjaro will continue to lose snow, not due to any evidence of global warming, but due to a reduction in precipitation caused by the post-colonial deforestation of surrounding areas.

Massive hurricanes will continue to come and go.  The movement of tectonic plates will continue to make coastal areas rise and fall.  And what’s more, the ozone hole will continue more or less centred over Mt Erebus so long as this massive active volcano continues to spew over 1,000 tonnes of super-heated chlorine gas straight up into the stratosphere every day, as it has done since 1982.  If the ozone hole was caused by man-made emissions, it would be in the northern hemisphere, where 90% of the world’s atmospheric pollution comes from.

Yes, there are records and graphs of temperature increases.  As any meteorologist knows, most long-standing weather stations were originally established in major towns and cities, most of which have now become large metropolitan centres.  These are now subject to what is known as “the urban heat island effect”, a warmer micro-climate caused by all the energy consumption and other factors peculiar to major cities.  The increase can at times be as much as 2^oC to 6^oC for very large urban centres.   

The graphs of mean annual temperature for small cities and remote places are what should be studied.

Invercargill has accurate records from 1946.  Whilst each year varies from the trend line by differing amounts up to 1^oC, the trend line over 60 years is actually a reduction in temperature of 0.3^oC.

Christchurch , still a very small city by world standards, has accurate records from 1864.  Each year varies from the trend line by up to 1.1^oC.  But the trend line over that whole 140 year period is dead level.

Better still, how about a remote Pacific island where there is absolutely no heat island effect  -  only the effect of global warming, if there is any. 

Norfolk Island has kept proper met records from 1915.  The trend line has a slight downward gradient, a temperature drop-off of 0.2^oC in 90 years with peak years typically up to 0.8^oC above and below the trend line.

Temperature records from numerous other remote weather stations display a similar trend; absolutely no increase in temperature, and many with a slight decrease as for Norfolk Island .

So I am sorry Mr Gore, the fact that there is absolutely no solid scientific evidence of global warming, man-made or otherwise, is your “Inconvenient Truth”.

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3 November 06
Experiences of Communism
By Sam Esler

I shall refrain from illustrating my experiences in the oil fields of Russia , that's another story by itself, but shall elaborate on my experience in Cuba as a tourist.

One has to admit that Cuban people under Castro are a little better off than they were under Batista, who was a Mafia flunky to say the least, and it appears that the people most concerned about Castro were the Mafia.

What I saw in Cuba was a ordered society, where kids went to school everyday, where everyone had a job, or at least appeared to, prisons were guarded by the military carrying semi automatic machine guns with fixed bayonets, and I don't think they were there to stop people getting in either.

Every thing seemed to come from Russia , and every piece of machinery had a strange resemblance to the equivalent in the west. The field tractors all looked very similar to the British made Nuffield, even down to the little hole drilled into the top of the gear stick, trucks bore remarkable similarity to the US army type, and the triple drilling rig operating just a few hundred metres from our villa was something to behold! I would estimate that it weighed at least twice as much as those in the west.

This was a huge problem when we tried to move them in the Arctic , every truck had 3 people working on it: one guy gave the driver directions, one guy tripped the end gate when dumping the load, trucks that had no hoist had 2 men to operate it. The drilling rig had 93 guys working 3 shifts a day - in the west we would have about 16 for 2 shifts a day!

When things got boring those not working played a game where one person was selected somehow to stand in the middle of the circle surrounded by bodies who threw small rocks at his ankles, he had to jump up, or do the splits to avoid the missiles coming at him from all directions, the outcome seemed rather obscure to me.

The tourists were given preferential treatment - we were all "encouraged" to visit the Bay of Pigs , - where there is ample proof of the fiasco when Kennedy welched on the deal to support the Cuban mercenaries - where we were introduced to a vast pond on "Crocoriles" as our guide called them.

So to end I never had much time for Communism before going to Cuba , and visiting there just reinforced our opinions, but when one considers the life the Cubans had under Batista, there is one conclusion to draw, that Castro's communism was the better of the two evils.

One thing I could never understand is the unshakable notion that the US administration has to never trade with Cuba . The Cubans would give their eye teeth for Levi jeans, especially Wranglers. US made sunglasses and such were coveted by the Cubans, if they could get them.

If the US were serious about removing Castro they only need to trade with Cuba , and before long the Cubans would force Castro to change his hard line views. As it is now Castro has support from many anti US countries as they have a common enemy.

I will never forget the look of shear delight when my wife gave our waitress most of her clothes and some damned expensive jewellery as well on leaving - she would be the best dressed waitress in the whole of Cuba with out a doubt.

Would I like to live under communism? No not if I could avoid it.

Whilst in Russia the lines from a poem written by Banjo Patterson, saying "their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all”, was most fitting to the general populous, and it certainly appeared that the regime had attained an element of equality - every one was equally poor, except those in positions of power of course!

What did stick out in Cuba like a sore thumb was the small plots of privately owned ground - a result of Castro's promise to the peasants after the war. These plots were immaculate in presentation, they grew produce all year round, and were in stark contrast to the Govt owned blocks about 3 km away, where fences were half down, cows were in the newly planted crops, workers sitting under farm equipment smoking, and a general sense of "who cares" seemed to prevail. That example speaks volumes. 

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  21 October 06
PARENTS' MANUAL , CHAPTER 387: So your son is on "P"
By Christine

You can now look forward to being blamed for everything that goes wrong in his life. He can find plenty to hate you for.

His new friends will advise him that the cautionary whack he received around the legs when he was 14, was probably just the tip of the iceberg. The rest of the abuse was probably so horrific that he's blocked it out. Methamphetamine helps him forget all that. Meth is his friend.

Don't bother trying to save him from a nasty end on drugs. When your son sends you a text saying “I'm going to go back on the Class A drugs”, the Police will fully support his Right to take them.    

If he threatens you with violence, don't bother the Police. They're not interested until he's actually done the deed.                                                                                                                                      

When he decides to get even with you by complaining to CYFs that you are abusing HIS child, managing to coach the toddler into saying that “Nana hits me and is nasty to me”, expect to be investigated. You and other family members will be interviewed to determine if this could be possible. When it is deemed to be a malicious complaint, do not expect to receive any report of their findings, and how they have dealt with the complainant.

When your son sends emails about you all around the countryside, which the Victim Support person deems slanderous, don't bother asking your Solicitor to send him a letter. The local Community Constable may advise you that this “wouldn't be a good look”. Just turn a blind eye and let him get away with it. Again. It's easier that way.                                                                                                                                               

The only ray of hope you can expect is if your son has any Maori blood. Then you will discover the Iwi Liaison Officer. “Discover” is the operative word here, because (a) you don't know he exists, and (b) no-one will tell you unless you make a nuisance of yourself by going on a Police Station crawl and not stopping until you get the answers you want.                                           

Most Police Officers apparently aren't aware of the existence of an Iwi Liaison Officer because “taking drugs” isn't a Police matter. It's a Social Services matter. But Social Services can't help until your son volunteers for help. 

If by some miracle he does eventually hit the bottom and survive the fall without damaging himself or others, he may well seek that help. Alternatively the Judge may include Rehabilitation as part of the sentence when he's convicted of his crime.                                                                       

He may then come to realise he does have a problem, and it's all your fault.

His Counsellor will indirectly confirm that by advising him that “he can't change you, he can only change himself”. Unfrying his brain could take years.  

If you're still interested in claiming this son, you're about to embark on a whole new journey.

This will be covered in Chapter 388, to be written at my journey's end.

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  20 October 06
The Crumbling Edifice
By Marshal Gebbie

It is bizarre that the  New Zealand  population sits on it's collective backside and is a mute spectator while the political leadership lies, steals, intimidates, employs stand over tactics and then, when found out, barks defiance to all and arrogantly dismisses the issue as a fault of others.

Politicians from right across the political spectrum, have knowingly, jumped on the gravy train and absconded with tax payers money to feather their electioneering nests.

The leaders have abrogated their right to leadership because they have betrayed the population who put them there.

There comes a time in the term of every reign when the trappings of power overpower rationale and warp the judgement. The ministerial muscle is flexed a little too much, the overbearing glare a little too hard. Truth is adjusted to suit convenience and principles, once held firm, are discarded as historic irrelevancies and inexpedient.

Rome knew all about this as did the leaders of the Third Reich, Tsarist Russia most certainly, and just lately, Robert Mugabe is noticing the potholes littering the main roads and his treasury is long ago emptied.

The edifice of civilization will not stand the dismantling of principles by the leadership; history has demonstrated this fact over and over again. When the rot begins at the top the disintegration of the whole accelerates exponentially as you move down through the ranks.

The edifice, which is our New Zealand society, is beginning to crumble from the top down. The signs are apparent everywhere and the population is resonantly mute!

Our Prime Minister has lied and continues to lie to us about her Party’s theft of public monies. Her accusatory thin finger as been pointed at the Auditor General  portraying him as being guilty of bias, untruths and incompetence.

The Auditor General has proven himself, in fact, a champion of the people in courageously sticking to his guns and, in the face of huge pressure and intimidation by senior Government and Labour Party officers, has published a report allowing all to see the corruption which has taken place. Really, this man, above all others deserves accolades for his stand and his fortitude.

Our Prime minister's behaviour has been uniformly disgraceful in this matter, It has been there for you all to see in living colour on the TV right across the nation, night after night. Did this register with you? Have you seen the same things I saw? Did you feel the same dismay and outrage that I felt?

The edifice crumbles.

How come ex-sports stars who have been sprung doing drugs are lauded as heroes in our media? How come this amplifies their exposure and boosts their ratings? What message is this for the young and impressionable?

The edifice crumbles.

One of our largest and most respected building materials producers, Carter Holt, has been fined a miserable $900,000 for knowingly selling structurally inferior timber to new homeowners for the past six years. Imagine the impact on literally hundreds of young households who are commencing a life of mortgage payments with the knowledge that their property values may face serious devaluation because they were built within the timeframe and "could" have been constructed with the questionable stuff! Carter Holt's not telling who got what!

The edifice crumbles.

The kids in South Auckland are busy aping their American cousins on TV with the result that murders, bashings, rape, civil disorder and gang terror are escalating through the roof. The cops have poured resource into the area but still they are swamped and cannot cope.

The edifice crumbles

Responsible smart Kiwis have got to get together to get our house in order. RIGHT NOW!

The alternative is unthinkable.

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  30 September 06
Time Will Come For Parent Licensing
By Stephen Russell
 
Last week a high-powered expert group proposed a kind of "parents' licence test" which all parents would have to sit to keep care of their children and to receive child-related welfare benefits.

What puzzles me about this idea is why it proposes the license test be administered after the child is born.  If the idea is to be taken seriously, why not take it to its logical conclusion: Make the license a pre-natal requirement.

Perhaps that is impractical, but the time will come when it will possible to compel all young people to be fitted with contraceptive implant. Their removal would then be illegal without a parenthood license.

Many people will be horrified by the idea of the state having such a power over reproduction, and not without good reason. It takes the concept of a nanny state to a whole new, and more literal, level.

First of all there is the question of the competence of state agencies to judge people’s fitness for parenthood. It would require a level of invasiveness into people’s lives that seems abhorrent, and an understanding of personal psychology that even the best psychologists would be wary of claiming.

Secondly, there is the potential for political agendas to intrude. It would be hard to keep governments from imposing criteria that owe too much to ideological views of how the world should be. Political indoctrination before conception.

Others will have moral objections. The Pope would have conniptions at the prospect of compulsory contraception and the additional freedom to engage in sexual activity that would be a result. Though perhaps the virtual abolition of abortion would compensate.

Yet in an increasingly complex world raising children well is becoming harder and harder. We live in a world of amazing opportunities and potential but modern families are also now surrounded by appalling corrosive influences – a phenomenon education writer Sue Palmer describes as “toxic childhood”.

The dysfunctional families that sometimes result have become self-perpetuating. Those who have been the victims of poor parenting all too often become poor parents themselves. The cycle of child abuse, violence, crime, and anti-social behaviour becomes a vicious circle. Coping with the consequences carries a huge cost, not just financially but in human misery.

The primary government response is money. It flows from an ideological conviction that poverty and inequality are the root of all evil. People are bad parents because they are poor. By giving them more money you will make them into better parents.

This, of course, is bunkum. Giving someone money does not make them a better person. Throwing more cash at dysfunctional families does not help. There’s just more money to be ill-spent. Which sometimes makes things worse.

It is a classic case of yesterday’s solutions being applied to today’s problems. In the first half of the 20^th century poverty was a real problem. Extra money was usually well-spent and made a difference in things like nutrition.

Now, nutrition is still a problem, but for different reasons. Kids get a poor diet not because parents cannot afford it, but because they have bad food pushed down their throat by advertisers and parents do not know or care enough to ensure a healthy diet.

The dollar-driven approach is followed partly because giving money is easy (especially when it is someone else’s money, ie taxpayers’). It salves the conscience and enables one to say that big things are being done. It lets you feel virtuous with the minimum of effort.

We now face a 21^st century problem. Domestic violence, drug and alcohol problems, mental illness, gambling, criminal and anti-social behavior and child abuse are not caused by lack of money.

The permanent physical and psychological damage that is being done to children has to stop. But taking away bad parents’ rights to keep children is just placing more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff.

Taking away the right to produce children if there is doubt they can be looked after well enough might be a better solution all round.

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  24 September 06
What is Happening to the Family?
By Debbie Andrews
 
Families are the bastions of society. The strongholds. The places where children first learn societal norms and values; they learn right from wrong. The places where children should be nurtured to become worthwhile, successful adults. But this isn’t always working out today.

Many families are simply destructive units in our society.  Mothers are being hit and violated. Children are being abused, physically, emotionally and sexually.  Little children are being killed by family members.

Abortions are commonplace. Even a child can have an abortion without her parents knowing today.

And today, marriages are breaking up, because one or both members are ”bored”. There is no doubt that some marriages cannot be saved, but not one in three! Recent studies show that commitment to the relationship will help in the long term.

Some husbands and wives say there is no excitement in their marriage, and no future to look forward to.  Marriage has lost status, and is no longer worth the real effort to see if there is a way it can be kept intact. We live in a society when some folk expect things to happen fast – or not at all

Our society teaches us to say “what’s in it for me”. Far too often at the expense of others.

Marriage is no longer a commitment for many people.  So what happens when the marriage does break up?

Mum often gets a boyfriend. Statistics show these men are more likely than others to sexually molest the children of the house. This can have a devastating effect on a child, creating confusion, conflict, lack of confidence and self esteem, isolation and trauma. A child can suffer a sense of loss of his/own identity.

This may not come out for some time, for example, it is been said that 94% of young men in jail have been sexually abused as children.  As teenagers, they become aware of their growing sexuality, and confusion and hostility arises from their earlier abuse, - often turning them into angry young men. Combined with the effects of drugs, that are so freely available, they can become highly sensitive and potentially dangerous to themselves and others.

Drugs are a problem. Dealers are everywhere, in schools, in your neighbourhood, often waiting for the school bus or train.

Thus our children are being targeted. They can accumulate large debts, until they no longer cope. Often they are pushed into drugs or crime. Some dealers pressure children to get 6 friends onto “harmless drugs” - then all  will be forgiven.

The drug web grows. And parents are unaware.

Our youth suicide rate, while it is slowly decreasing, is still far too high.

Ann Tolley MP says that since last year there has been a 19% increase in new cases before the Youth Court (Herald 14.8.06).

What can we do about it?

We must speak up! Societies where sexual abuse is not tolerated, and where people speak up loudly, have a much lower incidence of this.  Children can survive sexual abuse, but only if it is handled properly. Agencies like the ”Help Foundation” can genuinely help.

Do you know that sexual abuse of children can become highly addictive, and indeed this is so with many men. Jail doesn’t prevent it happening again, but proper sexual abuse treatment centres could have a far more positive effect. 95% of abusers re re-offend. Although churches provide stability in our society, there are sexual abusers amongst a minority of church families.  And they must be dealt with also.  Too many abusers in a Christian environment use repentance as a cop out. Abusers appear to “truly” repent and are forgiven, only to re-offend some time later in the future.   Don’t forget, sexual abuse is too often an addiction.

Our old values of caring for each other, respecting and being thoughtful to each other are often forgotten today. New values are being increasingly accepted of “doing what is right for me”, and “I must follow my own conscience”, - even if it does harm others.

I have visited hundreds of families in my role as a teacher, and we still have got a lot of warm, supportive caring families.  But there are other families with individuals who look after themselves at the expense of others. And these are growing far too rapidly. 

Too many mothers are working, as well as dads, who proudly buy cars, houses, toys, labelled clothes for their children, but don’t give children what they need - love, caring and attention.  And they wonder why their children get into trouble as teenagers!  Young children AND teenagers need a parent home to meet them when they return from school.

Parents who are deeply involved with their children - you see them on Saturday mornings barracking for their children’s sports teams is one example, - will have fewer problems with their children as teenagers. Statistics show this.  No matter what the mutual involvement is- cycling together on a Sunday, sticking stamps in an album together, the main thing is to get an activity established early where the parents and children can listen together, learn, and grow in trust of each other.

“How to Drug Proof Your Kids” is a program that can start when children are very young. And it works.  Children need boundaries.   If you want your teenagers to keep their room tidy, you pick up blocks with your three year old.  You start young, not telling them off, but praising them when they do the job as well as they can.

Negative criticism is destructive. It saps children’s will to succeed, and drains their confidence. Children need boundaries.  They need to know what they are, and praised and rewarded when they keep within them.   We all need affirmation!

If parents go out, selfishly fulfilling their own needs when the children are young and need them, there could be real problems later on.

Today, the family is under siege.  It has got to stand up tall, and take responsibility.  All the money, all the grants in the world, cannot heal the family, unless the healing starts working spontaneously from the grass roots.  We have to start being “busy bodies”, and take authority if we know a child is being harmed. We must ALL take responsibility.  We have to act, and even “interfere” to save a life, if necessary.

We need more accountability from government departments, and prevention programmes for families, especially for little children. Here is a list of organizations and people we can all go to for help:

Help Foundation (sexual abuse) tel 6231700 (24 hours)
Parent Help Line 09004727368
Tough Love 6244363
Preventing Violence in the Home 3033939
Life Line -24 hours counselling 5222999
Gambler’s Anonymous 3666040
Alcohol and drug helpline 0800787797
How to Drugproof your Kids..0800200362

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13 September 06
Crime Prevention Versus Crime Deterrence
By Egon Kramer
 
At the outset I mention that fighting crime takes place on two planes, namely by prevention and deterrence.

Prevention is elementary; if the situation requires resolute crime fighting then deterrence in the only option left, failing which, capitulation to the forces of evil follows.

Deterrence is best described by what happened recently when Israel resorted to gross deterrence against its adversary. There too, prevention measures failed hopelessly from Israel's point of view.  Superior military strategy in essence deters the adversary from applying aggression. In former times, the school headmaster applied deterrence to exercise authority. This principle is found in the animal kingdom too. I have watched hens apply severe deterrence measures to their tiny brood if one falls out of line. It's only in the human realm that such Deterrence Instruction measures are frowned upon.

Examples:

1. There are several facets which cause Crime Prevention to fail, I will list those that come to mind, bearing in mind that Crime Prevention infers that there are many more cops on active duty than the number of criminals every minute, every hour for 24 hrs for 365 days in the year. This premise is in itself defective, as we all know that the state cannot police it's society everywhere, protecting everyone and every type of property all the time, hence there are never more cops on duty across the land and in cities etc., than criminals in action, to prevent them from committing their deeds.

The notion of crime prevention infers that civilians be wide-awake at all times. In a sense prevention requires having one's eyes rotating at 360 degrees on the horizontal axis all the time. It's absurd. It requires every citizen to lock and unlock security gates, doors and windows during the course of the day and night to prevent lawbreakers from committing crimes.

This suffices to indicate the futility of Police Community Forums (PCF) propagating the view that the community takes part in Crime Prevention.

In former times the Police force did their job well, while civilians attended to their daily chores, at work, in the home, in school etc and were not expected to simultaneously police their surroundings.

When the public in time loses interest in attending PCF meetings etc, because they see the poor results, it leaves a sour taste in the mouths of the Police Force, which further enhances crime. I have been through these cycles: I once served time as a local PCF
executive committee member and resigned from frustration caused by me becoming
aware that the monthly crop of criminals were the same ones over and over, who were not being discouraged at all from the effects of Crime Prevention.

2. Crime Deterrence in applied form results in most individuals respecting the law of the land, which is the ultimate custodian of respect for life and property in societies.  Crime Deterrence infers that there are far less cops on active duty at any given moment for 365 days per annum than the number of criminals, committing their evil deeds. The individual policeman / policewoman hence enjoys the public's respect and trust, being the product of law enforcement, enabling citizens to enjoy quiet, crime free lives.

Communities are therefore free to get on with their lives unhindered and not be stifled by fear of being hit at any moment for 24 hours a days for 365 days a year. This unrelenting fear pressure results in economic decline. It is this fear pressure, which led us to sell our bond free, wonderful farm when we, under normal conditions, would have expanded our farming operation thereby producing work opportunities in a land where unemployment exceeds 50%.

A misnomer, which gets swallowed, hook, line and sinker, is that unemployment poverty etc. induces crime. I disagree with that if the particular criminal group
of society has a natural propensity for crime.  (In the USA, the prisons are filled by
members of a particular group of society, which has a natural propensity for crime. In South Africa it's no different. In NZ too?) I have met poor decent clean living, civilized people with sound morals and ethics who live their lives within their means, without committing crime.

Society does not function well when Crime Prevention fails. The fear of falling foul of the law maintains law and order.  This mechanism regulates civilized societies without which they would have chaos on their hands.

Example: If there was no road motor ordinance to regulate how motorists are to maintain their vehicles, how to behave in traffic etc., then multiple pile ups would result.

To ensure that the above succeeds requires a government, which is not hamstrung financially, which equips its police department appropriately to enable them to do an efficient job. Not like in South Africa where the police department suffers manpower and equipment shortages resulting in the Police force being short of vehicles, outgunned in terms of firepower etc, (Police 9mm pistols against the criminal's AK 47 firepower) resulting in far too many dead members of the force and consequently
despondent police force officers.

To add gravity to the situation another element surfaces. The Police force must be supported by a well functioning Justice system and a well functioning Correctional Services division. Not like in South Africa where these three departments do not necessarily work in unison, at times opposing each other as a result of fiscal and other restraints in each of the departments.

Example: Granting bail to an accused, immediately after being arrested by a police officer, (who worked hard on the case to bring about the arrest) to take pressure off the "System" and opening the Prison doors annually on selected days to relieve the pressure in overcrowded prisons.

Such events thoroughly demotivate Police officers. The politicians make capital out of the days on which prisoners are freed from overcrowded prisons, whereby they select dates, which coincide with big gun ANC politician's birthdays, which in turn pay excellent dividends at the next election.

Much of the above may not apply to NZ at the present time but given the circumstances it could develop, if liberals in government office go soft on crime.

I will close with:  All that good men and women need do for evil to triumph is nothing. Here we are back again at the integrity of the mass of voters.

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  13 September 06
Serious Crime and Appropriate Penalties
By Ron Kitching
 

In about 1986 or so there was a man named Penhallurick running a hardware store in a Melbourne suburb. He was making a great success of it too, as he kept the shop opened all the weekend. The weekend is the time he correctly reasoned, that Dads need timber, nails, glue, screws and literally thousands of other items, not to mention specialist tools for the job. The Victorian Socialist government decreed that opening a shop on a Sunday was illegal.

Naturally he quite sensibly took no notice of these thought police oriented idiot laws. So, then the government sent around the real police who promptly arrested him. He was hauled before the court for his victimless crime and received a hefty fine.

Again he took no notice, so again he was arrested and charged. Again he took no notice until I finally saw an essay in a paper where he had by then, been fined a total of $500,000 and sentenced to 120 years in jail.

Some publicly minded figure was calling for donations to fight a court case against the state and save Penhallurick from durance vile. I remember that I, among many others sent $100. Some sent much more. The defending lawyer was preparing a great case to defend Mr. Penhallurick.

Around about this time I was visiting North Queensland to have a look at a mineral prospect that a friend of mine, Chip Nichols wanted to show me. He picked me up in Cairns and just before we departed for Mount Garnett, I bought the Australian newspaper. As we drove along I was reading an essay where a Federal Minister for the Crown, Mick Young was charged by the Customs Authority with illegally importing a toy bear in his luggage.

Mick an old sheep shearer, and a strong Labour Party man, was vocally denying that it was a deliberate act to escape the customs duty on the toy bear; it was simply an accident and had been overlooked by his staff. I smiled at how everybody was supposed to take this crime seriously whether it was intended or not. The way the Customs and press were carrying on, one would imagine that he was trying to import a significant quantity of cocaine or some other lethal drug.

I turned the pages and finally got to the Editorial. I was amazed that the Editor of our National paper was calling for Mick's resignation. I have noticed over the years how the media love to see blood flow. It does not matter to them whose it is, or for what reason. They stab and stab until the victim falls as lifeless as Caesar at the Forum. There are plenty of instances without mentioning a particular one, although several come to mind.

When this happens I have thoughts about how could we institute rules, which would govern a responsible media, but at the same time keep it free. Nikita Khrushchev said he had no trouble with the Russian media. When asked why not, he replied that, “If the papers become troublesome, we just shoot a few journalists.” I must admit that there are times when I would like to do likewise here.

In any case, as we motored along a thought popped into my head for a letter to the Editor. I recited my thought to Chip. It went like this:

”I am absolutely appalled and disgusted with the Editor of the Australian calling for the resignation of poor old Mick Young over such a piddling affair. Why can’t he be allowed to get away with, what seems to be the going rate for minor misdemeanours for businessmen, say, a $500,000 fine and 120 years in the slammer, that should be plenty.”

The letter was published and in time, both the Penhallurick affair and Mick¹s misdemeanour were sensibly swept under the carpet much to the chagrin of the bureaucrats and to the public¹s complete satisfaction.

The lesson to be learned is that we individuals, who comprise the public, need to protest against idiotic laws and against state interference with the voluntary exchange of legal goods between law-abiding citizens.  If we wish to live in a free and prosperous commonwealth, it is our duty to do so

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  13 September 06
The Decline of Western Consciousness (NZ) Part 3
By Colin Rawle
 
Many modern Euro-New Zealanders, having rejected their ageless spiritual /cultural roots, no longer have any anchor or firm centre upon which to orient themselves at this tumultuous time in history - when all hope of a civilised future turns upon a clear sense of who and what they are, emotional maturity, and certainty of direction.

Obviously this is just one source of our social ills. The human psyche is endlessly
complex and a multiplicity of other influences also bears upon it. Nevertheless a careful appraisal of many social trends which have been active in this country during the last 4-5 decades, and which are quite alien to both the true spirit of former "Western Christendom" and its colonial outposts, is likely to bear out what has been said.  

From the above it will be obvious, that as European civilisation is currently the
most socially advanced, (a fact which presents both unprecedented opportunities and dangers), and has thus inevitably spread its peoples, culture and technology to the ends of the earth, the main weight of responsibility for this country's present social problems, must rest upon the last 2-3 generations of Euro New Zealanders.

But not for the reasons that blind followers of fashionable anti-western ideology have been led to believe.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this country has been used as a social experiment for both Left and Right wing extremism. (It will be noted that the present Clark government embodies both of these disastrous ideologies - i.e. extreme Right policies in the economic sphere, and extreme Left everywhere else - the worst of both worlds.)

Particularly damaging, in my view, has been the activities of the ultra Left-wing fifth columnists who, together with their international comrades-in-arms, have long made it their business, (particularly since 1884 - the founding of the international Fabian society) to undermine the foundations of all that is true and good in western culture; and who right now, are administering what they hope will be the final kiss of death.
Propaganda and indoctrination, employed in an endless variety of ways, is of course, the principal strategy, and in all colonised countries the "indigenous peoples" weapon has been used to great effect.

It says a lot that those seduced by socialist / collectivist type ideologies are incapable of grasping the simple fact that humans are autonomous, spiritual /psycho /intellectual beings, and do not think, feel, or will, collectively - (except in the case of brainwashing). Any advance in socio / political thinking must take this fact into account.

Equally as blind to the dark aspects of non-progressive and naturally dying cultures as they are to the (once) enormous potential of their own, these same ideologues have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. The shocking social consequences of this collective failure are only now beginning to force its way into public awareness.
Nowadays, increasing numbers of people are finally beginning to realise that the
legendary 1960's were the time in history, when after more than a century of -
"respectable intrigue" - (to borrow the phrase of the Fabian Socialist George
Bernard Shaw), Left wing secular humanism finally gained the ideological ascendancy throughout the international western world - first in its education
systems - and therefore in a couple of decades - i.e. one generation - caused its
societies to drop off the edge of the moral precipice and into freefall towards
chaos and barbarism.

Regarding the above left wing / right wing ideological stand off, I again quote
C.S.Lewis:  " He (the Devil) always sends errors into the world in pairs - pairs
of opposites.... you see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one
error to draw you gradually into the opposite one. But don't let us be fooled. We've got to keep our eyes on the goal and go bang through between both errors".
(“Beyond Personality". C.S.Lewis.)

Only the saints among us can claim to be entirely blameless for this sad state of
affairs however, because it is now only too obvious that an insufficient percentage
of the European peoples have been morally strong enough to withstand this psychological assault upon their civilisation - or even recognise its reality. A social calamity approximately 150 years in the making will not be turned around at the eleventh hour, but with courage and determination its worst effects can still be alleviated. 

"The tragedy of the common man is that he never awakes until it is too
late". Anon ..........To be continued …....

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  31 August 06
Teaching my kids to read and write
By Ron Kitching
 

I'd like to relate what happened to my three sons when they first went to school. We were at that time living in Mount Isa. We soon discovered that the eldest boy¹s reading and writing was not up to standard. Then the second boy¹s efforts were likewise, worse if anything, and the third had also started school, and was not doing well at all.

It was at that time that the new "look and see" method of teaching kids to read was introduced. Obviously it was not working well, as other people were also complaining. Another problem that exacerbated the matter was that teachers were constantly being changed. My second son, Robert, had seven different teachers in three months. We decided to engage a private teacher to rectify the matter.

I was informed by the state that it was illegal to employ private teachers and that my boys had to attend the state school, or a school approved of by the state. I was informed that the boys all had dyslexia and that was an impediment to learning. The (then), three girls apparently did not. In any case, the state insisted on "testing" the boys intellectual capacity.

The eldest boy Peter and I flew to Brisbane and there we spent two days while they tested him. The chief tester informed me very officially "there is nothing wrong with his eyes, his ears or his intelligence, but he has certainly missed out." "Yes", I replied, "and he has missed out in your state schools. These days you are not teaching them to read and write properly."

We had a bit of a "go in" as you may call it and my petty Fuhrer informed me that they were starting a new school in Brisbane for children who had Œmissed out". "It should be an easy matter for a man like you to board him out close to the school", she suggested to me.

Naturally I was appalled, as the boy was at that time only approaching 9 years of age.

The lady Edufuhrer then informed me that they wished to test my second boy. So again, Robert and I flew from Mount Isa to Brisbane. I remember that Robert enjoyed this entire episode immensely - like going on a business trip with the old man. Oysters and grilled fish and a tot of vino for dinner at a posh restaurant was right up his alley.

After the two day test the Edufuhrer asked me, "Have you noticed that this boy is particularly intelligent?".  "Yes", I replied, "we have noticed that he has an extraordinarily good visual memory". So we chatted about that for a while and then the Edufuhrer noted that again, this boy needed to ³come to Brisbane" to attend their new remedial school.

"And when will you be bringing your third son to see us" she demanded. I replied, "I shall not be doing that, as he is like the other two boys, bright and intelligent and it is a huge expense for us to endure these unnecessary trips to Brisbane."

I went on to explain that we would be shortly shifting to Atherton and that there I would find a teacher and engage in a private remedial course at home. Well again the Edufuhrer informed me that that sort of action invited state penalties including jail. I replied that I would have to handle that when the time came, but my wife and I absolutely refused to board out our young children. So the Edufuhrer informed me that it was in my best interests to keep her informed about developments. Of course I ignored that advice.

After buying a home in Atherton we began to look around to purchase a suitable farm where we wished to raise our family. In the meantime the boys attended school at Tolga, virtually a suburb of Atherton. There I got to know a very good teacher who knew how to teach properly. I made her an offer to teach my three boys and she was delighted. We sealed the deal and she advised the Education Department of her resignation at the end of the year, as she proposed to work for me. As a courtesy, I also advised the Edufuhrer that we were starting private tuition at the beginning of the year.

The next episode was when the lady teacher visited me in a very tearful state. She said that the Education Department advised her that if she took this job, privately tutoring the Kitching children, she would never ever be employed by the state again. In short, she was blackmailed. I immediately told her that she was, under the circumstances, under no obligation to me.

At that time, my partner Jack Glindemann and I were operating a gold mine at Wau in New Guinea. I made a visit with a couple of my senior staff and we also flew around and looked at several other possible projects in New Guinea.  Curiously, everywhere we went we ran into a few fellows from CRA. Finally we ended up back in Port Moresby and, as I walked out of my room after booking in, again  ran slap bang into the Chief of the CRA group. We both laughed uproariously as I accused him of spying on us and he accused me likewise.

So we all adjourned to the bar. After a while he told us that he had organised a dinner party that evening with some friends and asked us if we would like to attend. And so we did.

Quite by chance I found myself sitting next to an adult but small girl from Scotland. As the dinner got going I asked her, "And what do you do Fiona?" 

"I teach" she replied. "And what do you teach" I asked, "I teach infants,² she answered with a flourish. Then I asked, ³Do you like teaching Fiona?"

"I love it, I am a born teacher, I specialise in teaching English" was her reply. So I tucked that bit of information away and got to know her a bit better as the night wore on. I was careful enough to exchange business cards with her.

Next morning I rang her from the Port Moresby hotel. I suggested, "Fiona, I'd like you to come to the hotel for morning tea, as I wish to discuss a proposition with you". She answered in a very sharp tone, "What sort of proposition?" I replied, "It's a business proposition involving teaching. I do not wish to discuss it over the phone as it is a bit involved. If it would make you feel any better bring one of your mates with you."

And so at about 10 am she turned up with a mate. I told her the story, showed her a picture of the family and she agreed that so long as I paid the airfares and expenses, she would fly from her family home in Hobart to Cairns after Christmas, and stay with the family for a week while she decided whether to take the position or not.

She was only at our home for a day and a half and she told me that she decided that she would certainly take the job provided we reached a suitable financial arrangement. I told her I was astonished that she had decided so quickly, she replied that she was afraid that she may be getting into a situation where she had to deal with the spoiled children of over-indulgent parents, ³But I can see that that is not the case², she observed.

So I bought a used Holden for her to use, fitted it out with seat belts all around, arranged a flat for her in town and at the beginning of the school year the teaching began.

The Edufuhrer was furious, as first of all, she could not blackmail Fiona, as Fiona had never ever had anything whatsoever to do with Queensland Education, she was trained in Scotland. However, the Edufuhrer insisted on Œtesting¹ the boys in June and December at an institution she had established in Townsville. I was warned that should the experiment be failing, the boys would be required to immediately return to the tender loving care of the state. Furthermore I could be subject to serious penalties including a jail term as the operation remained illegal.

After the June test she rang me and advised me that I was a very lucky man indeed, as I had acquired an excellent teacher. And after the December test she rang to say that the eldest boy had done 3 years work in a single year. ³What do you think of his dyslexia now?" I inquired. She ignored my rude remark and replied that the other two boys were also up to date. "They can now all return to school² she firmly dictated. "No they won¹t, I have given up on the state" I replied, "and as Fiona has taken another job on a cruise liner, I have organised another teacher."

The new teacher was recently married and had already resigned from the Indoctrination department, so she too, was for the time being, immune from blackmail. She too was a good teacher and maintained standards. Meantime the Edufuhrer fumed and plotted.

Then my teacher¹s husband received a transfer to the State Agricultural Research Station at Walkamin about halfway between Atherton and Mareeba. At that time the Education department was advertising a teaching position for Walkamin for the beginning of the following year. After discussing it with me she applied, intending to stay the full year with me.

The next episode was when she came to me in tears. She tearfully sobbed, "The education department had contacted me and told me that unless I immediately ceased teaching the Kitching boys, I will never ever be employed by the state again." On the other hand, if she resigned immediately, she would be placed at Walkamin at the beginning of the next term, six months before the advertised position was to be filled.

Of course I agreed that she should resign and I started my boys at the Kairi State School not far from our farm. If anything, they went down hill again until I started them at All Souls in Charters Towers as boarders after grade seven.

All of the boys were apprenticed at Mount Isa Mines and, after becoming tradesmen, Peter and Robert became Power House Operators there, before moving on to better things. Graham, also became a tradesman, and now, although well versed in practically every form of Engineering there is, is a fully qualified Gas Engineer and holds a responsible senior position with Origin Energy in Sydney.

I am proud to add that all of the boys excelled at their respective trades, winning awards etc.

So endeth the sermon - but hereunder the lesson.

The only reason a  system of state education was started in the first place was to ensure that our children learn to read and write to a reasonable standard. But as it is a bureaucracy, it has all got out of hand.

Albert Einstein remained a lifelong critic of state education. It pays to remember one of his many quotations about his personal experience with the state - he explained:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned at school. The important thing is not to stop questioning. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

If he was around today he would find that his quote is more valid than ever. And that is so, not only in Queensland, and all over Australia, but in most English speaking countries. It is a well known fact too, that all have had, and still are experiencing reading and arithmetical problems with students. The fact of the matter is that in 99.999% of cases, it is not the students who are the problem, nor is it the teachers, but the state. The state resists serious competition. In fact it has abolished it.

State education from primary school to secondary and on to University level has become today, a socialist indoctrination programme.

The essential weak feature of state education is the absence of competition. Every teacher must conform; every student must conform; if they learn anything at all, it is only what the state wishes them to know. And the higher the level the more rigid becomes the framework within which the teachers must conform. Universities have, since Federation become hot-houses of anti-British sentiment and hot-houses of socialism.

About twelve years ago I was living in Chile. There, every Sunday morning I wrote the Editorial for El Mercurio  de Antofagasta. In two years except for two essays, every essay was an essay teaching various aspects of the Classical Liberal philosophy. I am pleased to say that these essays were very popular in Chile.

However, on a trip back to Australia I wanted to procure a copy of F. A. Hayek's "The Constitution Of Liberty", as I needed it, as well as other books, for reference purposes for my essays. I visited two of Sydney's leading book stores. There I found the economics and social science departments. There, the only books I could find cramming the shelves were Karl Marx's "Das Capital" and his and Engels "The Communist Manifesto", and the standard Keynesian text book by Paul A. Samuelson. And, as a fob to the "outmoded" ideas of the past, were a few copies of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations".

I inquired if there were any books by F. A. Hayek - there were none. Then Ludwig von Mises, again - none. So I tried for Carl Menger, and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, again, they had never ever heard of these authors and teachers. So when I returned to Chile I ordered the books I needed from the U. S. A.

Even if I was not already aware, it was obvious that economics and social science students here, were and are being trained to be arch interventionists. The real arts of reading writing calculating, let alone economics and the social sciences has long since been abandoned by the state run education apparatus.

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  21 August 06
If it doesn't communicate, what practical use has a language
By Don Donovan.
 

During my short stay at grammar school I learned some Latin and French (as well as English!). French was never much use to me but Latin, in later years, became more and more valuable because it is not only at the heart of much English but has also helped with what little Italian I’ve needed for several trips to that country.

I think French was taught in mid-last century because it still held some residual power as a language of diplomacy, but these days it seems to me that the French only insist on the importance of their language as an international form of communication for petulant and xenophobic reasons. Today it might be of more utility, I suspect, for Japanese and Mandarin to be taught as second languages despite the fact that in the political, legal and financial forums (fora?) of the world the Japanese and Chinese are smart enough to know that English will get them anywhere.

The endearing thing about English is that it requires no accents to be placed over or under its characters. Apart from separate phonetic pronunciation aids that draw the dictionary reader to some basic common ground - received pronunciation or standard English I believe it’s termed - nobody has the arrogance or pedantry to tell the user how to pronounce the language. Thus the spoken English of the Englishman ranks equally with that of the Scot, Welsh, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, American, Patagonian, Aborigine or Maori.

Despite it being a whore of a language incorporating anything useful from any other language, English, once its little irregularities are mastered is simple yet comprehensive. It is no longer partisan; it’s a language that belongs to nobody and everybody and if you want to strut on any part of the world’s stage it is absolutely vital to all and any international transactions.

Maori, on the other hand, has no other value than as a cultural and intellectual exercise. Like Gaelic it is a poetic language of interest but to be able to speak it fluently and mellifluously will take the speaker not one metre along the road to international discourse. If you were to grow up speaking only Maori you would be vastly disadvantaged in the rest of the world; and even in New Zealand, where we have a modern history of leaning over backwards to accommodate minorities, it surely cannot be easy to use Maori to make a case or present an argument even when its status as an ‘official’ language demands that it be interpreted into English if a Maori speaker decides to stand upon his rights or decides to be bloody-minded!

I’ve been a New Zealander for over 46 years (much longer than most of the present Maori population!) and can honestly say that I have never needed to speak Maori. Certainly I know many Maori words because New Zealand English has taken them on board in the time-honoured meretricious fashion of picking up anything useful. It would not be of much use to me to learn Maori; much as I might enjoy the exercise there are many other things I need to learn that take priority. And I must say that I am put off the language greatly by the mystifying addition of macrons to some of its vowels, a practice born of political correctness that simply complicates a language that might be pronounced differently from one iwi to another (aren’t Aoraki and Aorangi the same word?). That macrons are a confounded nuisance is evidenced in tables published by the Department of Statistics some of which cannot render the accent as a single straight line but instead use the umlaut - dots like twin pinheads.

Thus while I can see where, for example, the recent decision to paint ‘KURA’ on the back of the Rotoiti school bus was coming from it makes no sense to render into a language that’s only wholly or passably familiar to less than five percent of New Zealand’s population a message that could, in fact, be a matter of life and death. Admittedly Maori is an ‘official’ language (so is signing by the way) but whatever the reason that might have been given for its use on a school bus the only conclusion I can draw is bloody-mindedness; I’m not sure how you say that in Maori.

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  21 August 06
Educational DeclineBy Peter Ashworth
 

Since 1967, I’ve worked in the Commercial Aviation and Travel Industries, and am now heavily involved in training disciplines in those industries. In order to facilitate the training, I’m employed by a PTE in Auckland, and come into contact with many school leavers on a daily basis.

As my company’s Employment/human resource coordinator, it’s one of my tasks to assist students with creating a C.V. and assisting them with finding employment. The majority of those jobs are in passenger agencies, airlines, tourism operators, hospitality, etc. and of course, other industries.

What concerns me is that, when they come to me to show me what they’ve created, as a C.V., the standard of English grammar, punctuation, etc is not of a high standard, and quite often needs reworking completely.

Also, all the students seem quite unable to add two simple figures together without a calculator, and seem to have a lot of trouble reading a very simple piece of text [no not a text message!!] so as to comprehend it.

If some schools in NZ paid more attention to these disciplines, I’m sure many of these students would stand a better chance of gaining employment when the time comes to search for a job.

As we approach 2011, and the Rugby World Cup, New Zealand is going to be facing unprecedented numbers of tourist visitors. It is also quite conceivable that the Team NZ boats could win the America ’s Cup in Spain, meaning the defence of that Cup would be in Auckland in 2011, or thereabouts.

Inbound tourism is a vital cog in New Zealand’s economy, and will continue to grow as Tourism NZ continues to promote this country to selected target audiences around the World. With tourism being New Zealand’s fastest growing export industry, projections of a worker shortfall of approx 120,000 by 2009 are emanating out of Government agencies.

This country is going to need many school-leavers gaining employment in the tourism industry, but they won’t find employment without some basic skills in English, and communication skills.

On another topic, there are growing concerns about the effect of Government handouts. Recently, my company held an “open day” for the public to visit the campus, and ask questions about the training on offer. I showed one group around, explained as much as I could about all the logistics; it was quite obvious that they were making a visit for one purpose only, i.e. how much money can they get as a student loan. Forget about training and eventual employment: “how much money can we screw out of the taxpayer”?

This mentality now seems entrenched in New Zealand society, which doesn’t augur well for our future well-being as a country.

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  19 August 06
Taxation: Time for a Change? 
By Willam McKay
 

New Zealand provides Government revenue principally via INCOME tax. The foundation of such a tax system was based initially on the need to use a money system when voluntary labour on community projects started to fail. 
            
When the government of that day ... whether tribal or otherwise  ... decided to tax all adult citizens a certain number of hours of labour to be freely given for the common good, and MONEY to be paid in lieu of labour, the problem that then arose was "how much money?" (tax), bearing in mind that one hour of labour returns different values for different people.

From this position INCOME tax arose. Pity!

The fact that money is only useful when it is SPENT, and that a person with 100 units of currency will spend them one way or another, as will a person with 1000 units of currency, was not given too much thought in that era. Had they done so, it could be seen that both persons would pay the same percentage of their INCOME (whatever the source), if ALL purchases of goods and services were taxed (consumption/expenditure) at the same rate.

Benefits of such an expenditure tax are:

a) Local government revenue can easily be included in a SINGLE national tax system, and central government can transfer the values directly to local authority accounts - daily or weekly - electronically.

b) Buyers pay sellers their price plus the tax rate and receive a receipt franked (over certain values) in an IRD sealed franking machine held by all legal entities registered for the collection of the tax. (DESKTOP FRANKING MACHINE)

c) The tax is very broadly based and absolutely fair.

d) There is no invasion of privacy.

e) The tax sums are already in the hands of sellers unlike the present GST invoice basis, and income tax timing. (TAX LIABILITY ARISES WHEN PAID)

f) Taxation settlement is very fast, unlike the present INCOME tax system. (WEEKLY SETTLEMENTS)

g) Government will have very accurate figures showing the state of the economy on an almost daily basis, as ALL incoming revenue is via electronic transfer.

h) Local authorities can see their bank accounts added to almost daily, the ancient and monstrous RATES system can be abandoned, and the high costs of that system can be saved.

i) BOTH buyer and seller can be accountable for the tax payment.  (IRD RECEIPT)

j) Legal ownership of goods - whether new or used - can be linked to the "TAX PAID" IRD franked receipt.

k) Sellers have no monetary incentive to evade the collection of tax monies. (NO "BLACK" ECONOMY)

This taxation method requires the abandonment of INPUT and OUTPUT accounting as used with the current GST system, and might therefore usefully be termed
NEW GST (NGST), or MAXTAX!

Rob McLeod in the TAXATION REVUE of 2002 was of the opinion it would be necessary to allow deduction of INPUT GST as some 'large' companies could benefit more than 'small' companies if the NGST (no deduction) were used.

Not really a problem of sufficient weight to nullify the benefits of MAXTAX.

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19 August 06
The Decline of Western Consciousness (NZ) - how the west was lost 
Part 2 of 5
By Colin Rawle
 

Everywhere we hear the same wail regarding moral decline - "It's society's fault". Society however, (in the buck-passing sense meant here), is a myth. For society is comprised of individuals who collectively determine its quality - the same individuals who given the requisite moral fibre and, regardless of all outer influences and pressures, can be free in their thinking and feeling (i.e. in their inner life).

Thus a moment’s honest thought immediately dismisses the - "it's society's fault" excuse, and redirects us back to the unpalatable matter of our own individual responsibility.  Just as surely as "nature abhors a vacuum", the same is true of the human soul (if I may employ this quaint old word). 

The experience of life exposes us all to the full range of societal influences from the highest and most progressive, to the lowest and most destructive. The higher, humanising influences, in keeping with their nature will only approach us at our invitation, so to speak (i.e. like attracts like). By contrast, the anti-social, de-humanising influences, again in accordance with their essential nature, have no respect for human freedom and will unfailingly rush into the "vacuum" created by any "soul space" we leave unguarded as a result of our all too human shortcomings - and wreak their havoc there. (If the ideological propagandists spring to mind here, then the point has been understood). 

"The question whether Satan, or one whom Satan has digested, is acting on any given occasion, has in the long run no clear significance" - C.S. Lewis, "Perelandra". 

NOW - THE CRUX OF THE MATTER FOR NEW ZEALAND: While European culture in New Zealand has, (as an inescapable evolutionary necessity) supplanted the old Maori culture outwardly, the general fall of Euro New Zealander's* consciousness into a narrow, soul shrivelling materialism (instance neo-Marxist Socialism), has left it highly vulnerable to inner invasion by anachronistic Maori tribal consciousness (even without intermarriage). Hence, the entire inner soul life of many present day Euro New Zealanders - already seriously lamed by its own failings, has allowed itself to be further degraded by a totally incompatible, and long decadent tribal mentality.

The increasingly immoral and bizarre behaviour of many Europeans these days, destructive and humiliating as this is, both to themselves and their civilisation, is a true product of this psycho / intellectual failure. Notwithstanding the many admirable qualities of the New Zealand character, its widely lamented negative aspects can largely be attributed to the above phenomenon. 

In Britain and America the eccentric individual, the exception to the norm, is, (or was), more accepted than in New Zealand where we have the widely criticised "tall poppy syndrome" and the "clobbering machine". This latter attitude is typical of the rigid pecking order of tribalism wherein to challenge the status quo, or to raise ones head is to risk losing it. (It is no coincidence that this is also a characteristic of Marxism - and all other collectivist / totalitarian type ideologies; but that's another story). 

The above may appear to be a contradiction to the massive sea-change social reforms and racial activism of recent decades, but this was the work of clever, all pervasive psychological social engineering and draconian political action, not public will, and those behind it, (the extreme Left), are as intolerant of dissent and surpassing individual excellence as tribalism ever was - despite their endless prating about the virtue of "tolerance".    Ideally, the better part of European consciousness would have combined with the better part of Maori consciousness to produce a true, modern New Zealander.

For the reasons outlined above this has not generally happened - yet. Rather the opposite is closer to the truth - i.e. one sided European materialistic intellectualism, (which includes anti-Western politically correct grovelling) has combined with backward, emotive, and divisive Maori tribal attitudes - with consequences that are only too obvious. Here, in this grave failure is the explanation for the otherwise inexplicable antipathy many Euro New Zealanders subconsciously feel towards their own endlessly rich cultural heritage and colonial / settler history - which in many cases means their personal forebears.

Another mental aberration, which can be traced to the same source, is the irrational insistence of many mixed race New Zealanders who, despite being overwhelmingly European in ancestry, culture, and lifestyle, insist that they are Maori.

Parts 3, 4 and 5 to follow.

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5 August 06
New Zealand from 30,000 ft
By James Blewman. James is an expat now working in the Netherlands. Before that he lived in Singapore, Dubai, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania. He shares his insights about New Zealand from abroad.
 

In 1991, the Employment Contracts Act was passed into law, arguably the last piece of significant piece of legislation that contributed to increasing New Zealand’s competitiveness. Soon after that, I graduated and left New Zealand’s shores for an OE that has now been 15 years in duration. That is a very long time…

For most of the last 9 years the Labour Party has been in power, the economy has been performing reasonably well. The reforms of the 80’s are paying dividends, and the government has been able to ride on the coat tails of favorable terms of trade, high commodity prices, a low NZ dollar and coffers overflowing with cash. Would appear to be the perfect opportunity to build upon this, implement further reforms and dynamic policies that will put NZ on a sustainable high growth path.

Instead, they decided to revert to socialist type - tax and spend. Expand the size of government, implement stealth tax after stealth tax (thank goodness the ‘fart tax’ didn’t materialize), discourage investment and choke growth through silly legislation like the RMA; increase the size of the welfare state; throw vast amounts of money at health and education with little accountability or increased output (hospital waiting lists have increased!); introduce more rules & regulations; embark on a program of social engineering, which among other things has led NZ to becoming a PC society. Other more devious methods include shifting more people from employment benefits to disability and other benefits to make it appear unemployment is lower than it really is. I could go on and on… however you cannot hide behind the facts – a recent govt report highlighted 24pct of people live in hardship and in 2000, 7 per cent of Maori and 15 per cent of Pacific people were in the severe hardship category and by 2004 that had increased to 17 per cent and 27 per cent! Didn’t Helen Clarke say her government was going to ‘close the gaps’? Things get even better with the Greens proposing benefits are increased further! It is this mentality of spending our way out of problems and government dependency that must change.

Politically though, what a smart move shifting as many people onto welfare as possible and dishing money out to all those “special” interest groups and pork barrel projects. Under proportional representation that almost guarantees Labour power at every election. Interesting then a recent poll showed 37pct of New Zealanders thought the final gesture in Kapa o Pango haka should be removed, about the same percentage as voted Labour at the last election. Makes you wonder!

A good ‘acid’ test I often use to evaluate the quality of any organization (including government) is to take a close look at the type and quality of people within. The Labour Party – comprises mainly of school teachers and unionists, and whilst I have nothing against any profession, almost none of these people have any experience at managing and understanding the challenges of running a business and/or held senior positions in the private sector. The National Party on the other hand is primarily made up of lawyers, economists, doctors, former CEO’s, entrepreneurs, and a former Reserve Bank governor. In addition, most of our MP’s have not had the benefit of living and working overseas where you can study first hand how other countries manage their economies.

Lets look at our neighbour Australia where the income gap with NZ keeps on widening. Why? Primarily because they have implemented policies that are growth-orientated, that focuses on increasing productivity and ultimately improving the quality of living. They have lowered and simplified taxes, reformed the labour market to allow more flexibility and increase productivity, provided incentives for individuals to save, committed themselves to provided assistance for small businesses by reducing compliancy costs, red tape, and reducing taxes. In other words, the opposite to New Zealand.

Take Singapore. It is managed like a business and the results are impressive… in 1975 NZ was a donor country, but now their GDP per capita is considerably higher than ours. It begins with governance – they hand pick people whom have been identified as leaders and “achievers”, predominantly from the private sector, and encourage them to stand for parliament. To attract and retain the best, they pay their MP’s salaries that compare favourably to the private sector. MP’s in NZ are poorly paid and the overall quality reflects this. Singapore’s philosophy is simple - we must have the best people running the country, for some obvious reasons! 

Singapore is focused on keeping the country on a high growth trajectory, increasing the quality of living and prosperity of their citizens (the “shareholders”), and making personal responsibility (not increased welfare dependency) the cornerstone of a successful nation. Like any good “business”, they constantly measure their performance against their “competitors” (i.e. other countries competing for foreign direct investment). For example, they constantly remind its citizens of the importance to retrain and upgrade their skills set to remain employable in the long term. They recognize the importance of labour (remember they have no natural resources), so have formulated a labour market plan and nurture the development of their people.

Dr Cullen says 0.5pct growth is just part of the natural business cycle. Yeah right! In Singapore, anything below 2pct would trigger alarm bells! Dubai also adopts a very similar philosophy, constantly talking about the need for excellence and sustainable growth if they are to bring prosperity to its people. Both countries have a clear vision and strategy to achieve sustainable long-term economic growth, and adjust this when/if required. Our PM talked about being in the top 10 by 2010, and then abandoned the idea. An apt comparison might be excellence versus mediocrity!

NZ has one of the worst savings rates in the developed world. Haven’t commentators been saying this for the past 25 years, yet what has been done about it? Actually very little! Like most western countries, this situation will worsen in the next 25 years when the baby boomer pension crunch kicks in. Instead, our debt levels are currently the highest on record, with spiraling student debt, credit card debt, and household debt. Voluntary super or savings schemes do not work… it is an inherent human characteristic to only think of today, and not tomorrow. Kiwis are great spenders! Any national superanuation scheme must be compulsory for it to be sustainable in the long term and requires multi-party support and agreement. Whilst Australia has a very developed and impressive superannuation framework in place, Singapore also has a very simple and effective scheme that is worth considering. They require employees to contribute 20pct of their monthly salary and the employer to match it with 20pct. The percentage contribution by both parties is also adjusted downwards during periods of economic slowdown. All the money is channeled into a central fund managed by the govt, who also uses this to invest overseas, thereby increasing the overall value of the total fund. Each person must maintain a minimum amount / percentage in the fund, but are permitted to ‘dip’ into the fund to purchase shares or property, so it is also flexible. The result – Singapore has one of the highest savings rates and house ownership rates in the world.

What about the merits of lower and a flatter tax system as adopted by Singapore and many other countries. Did you know two-thirds of Singaporeans do not actually pay income tax. A flat tax has been adopted by many eastern Europeans countries whose growth rates are double-digit. No wonder Britain, and even socialist Germany and France are exploring a flatter tax system. It is predicted that a flat-tax will be common place in 20 years… remember a man named Roger Douglas proposed that way back in 1984 (and his boss fired him). How about that for vision!

Lets look at something a little less important to the average Kiwi, but nevertheless thought provoking. Why is it I can hire a foreign maid to work for me in Singapore (a country with higher GDP per capita than us), and not in New Zealand? The difference is New Zealand has a minimum wage and Singapore does not. Why not let the market decide wage levels just like most other goods and services. The argument often used against scrapping the minimum wage rate is that employers will exploit workers. Hold on – don’t people have a choice whom they work for? And if they don’t like it, they resign. None of the foreign workers in countries such as Singapore are forced to work there… they work there so they can earn a higher salary than in their home country, and send the money back to feed, clothe and educate their family. So in fact we are providing opportunities to those less fortunate than we are, by assisting people who are prepared to undertake jobs that New Zealanders will not. Moreover, if the labour market is as tight as the government says it is, the competition and demand for staff will increase wage rates. Setting a minimum wage is a false distortion of the real level of wages and costs the economy thousands of jobs. Abolishing the minimum wage will allow businesses to achieve greater efficiency and lower prices. A minimum wage just makes things tougher for companies to do business in New Zealand, and will lead to more outsourcing of jobs overseas.

The feedback I receive from many other expatriates is that there needs to be a paradigm shift in the attitude of most New Zealanders. We need to shift from being a society dependent upon welfare and government handouts, accepts mediocrity (except in sports), to one that encourages excellence, independency and personal responsibility. NZ cannot afford to be just ‘one of the pack’, we must develop a point of difference which will increase opportunities for international trade and economic growth, secure foreign investment and enhance New Zealand’s attractiveness for skilled or business migrants.   

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28 July 06
The Decline of Western Consciousness (NZ) - how the west was lost 
Part 1 of 5
By Colin Rawle

"You are free and that is why you are lost". -  Franz Kafka.

Whatever lives in the hearts and minds of human beings sooner or later  comes to expression in outer reality. Or, as an old aphorism has it - " The thought precedes the deed". History demonstrates that in the case of New Zealand 's relatively short Civilised history, the aggregate content of what lived in the hearts and minds of the early explorers, missionaries, and settlers, was of sufficient worth to eventually pacify the Maoris (somewhat ) and to establish the beginnings of a civilised society of great promise. None of the ills of the old countries were to be transplanted into these brave new Elysian fields - Oh no! Just like the Pilgrim fathers of America the New Zealand settlers would not make those mistakes again, and indeed, right into the 1960's this country was, with some justification, widely referred to as "Gods own". Not any more. Nor are once familiar New Zealand sayings such as "Give a man a fair go" Heard anymore - among with many others of similar sentiment .

It is not, I think, rose tinted nostalgia to suggest that by and large everyone, including Maoris, were a lot more content prior to the 1960's than they are now. Only look at pre 1960's photographs and news footage. The story can be read in the faces of the people. The list of indicators pointing unmistakably to ever increasing social malaise dating from this period is long indeed. Even a deceptively minor thing as the awful decline in the standard of speech and written language - ( always sign of a similar inner decline ) is symptomatic. The simple fact is, that while there still remained in the souls of the people a sufficient measure of the "old" values, ( which, one day in bitter hindsight will be seen as right and true ), this country made slow but steady social progress. This being true, it must equally be true that the state of New Zealand today is a veritable reflection of the content of our collective hearts and minds since the sad demise of the "God's own" years. In other words - it's all our own work.

Call the above mentioned values, "Christian", "traditional", or "old" - as you will, but by any name they are the values which have always been attacked by those whom, due to their lack of ethical individualism, fall prey to their exact opposite. The much vaunted age of "freedom" which was the professed fruit of the Western worlds 1960's psycho / social revolution, ( described as "The Great Disruption" by The Japanese- American social analyst Francis Fukyama ), rapidly and Predictably degenerated into outright licence with regard to those aspects of human nature which, if given completely free reign will unfailingly degrade us. "Freedom", and "individualism" were the catch words of the 1960's permissive rebellion. How ironic that, generally speaking - and as a result of a saturation propaganda campaign - it is precisely the children and grandchildren of the 1960's rebels who are more enslaved to fashions in thought and behaviour than previous generations ever were. If absolute power can corrupt absolutely, it is clear that absolute freedom can do the same.

"However, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because Man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred, or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims". - Alexander Solzenitsyn

Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 to follow.

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21 July 06
Building a Successful Future
By Ron Youngman  

The quality of education is largely determined by Teacher Training Colleges and curriculum writers. From what I have been given to understand, for decades this vital part of education has been controlled by liberal thinkers who are more concerned about the Treaty of Waitangi and Political Correctness than giving children absolute values, moral principles and life skills that will prepare them for quality living and constructive citizenship.  

The fact that so many New Zealanders now rely on the State to provide their daily needs, indicates that educators have been extremely successful in training many citizens without the ability to care for themselves and contribute positively towards developing a successful society. Another disturbing fact is that New Zealand has gone from being near the top in world rankings to somewhere near the bottom in a relatively short space of time.  A failed and failing education system would have to be one of the causes

The most nation destroying part of education would have to be the Family Planning Association and its sex education programmes. Teaching children and young teenagers how to be sexually active without any moral codes to guide them, is a guaranteed way to destroy a nation and we read and hear about that happening in New Zealand every day. In theory it is supposed to stop abortions and sexual  diseases, but in practice that does not happen. Instead we increase the number of brothels. It is no surprise that we cannot build enough prisons, hospitals, psychiatric units, refuge centers, train and retain enough Police to cope with the results. We have one of the best countries in the world but we are self destructing at an alarming rate.

The only chance of having any real success in New Zealand is to encourage our youth to refrain from being involved in sexual activity before marriage for life, set up stable homes where children can be bred and nurtured in a safe environment and partner with schools to teach and train them how to be responsible, creative, productive citizens. If we could achieve that dream we would save billions of dollars that would be more than enough to provide all of the infrastructure that is currently so desperately needed throughout our country.

Recently I went to a function discussing the decline in Law and Order and the growth in prisons and prison populations. It was not an encouraging story. If what we heard is the result of decades of State education, we have a lot to be extremely concerned about and we should be looking for some positive answers.

I was sitting next to two people who are marriage celebrants and they were saying that they are still taking weddings but many of them only last for about two and a half years. I guess that must be one of the results of couples having to share their assets if they are together more than three years. It would be interesting to do a study of the anti family laws that have been passed by Parliament in recent years.

When I was younger I spent several years in Papua New Guinea helping to build a Training College . When I first went some of the men helping us were dressed in bark belts and leaves. I found out that some of the primitive, stone-age tribes people had very strict codes regarding sexual activity and some women received very harsh treatment for disregarding those codes.

As a result of Western influence many of those codes no longer exist and the result is that many areas are now being decimated with Aids, so much so that in some places they are struggling to find enough people to harvest the crops. Many other countries, particularly on Africa , are suffering from similar experiences.

If New Zealand does not actively and courageously address these kinds of issues and start giving the children of our nation some solid, positive foundations for their lives during their formative years at school and university, our country will continue to be near the bottom in world ratings and the incidents of child abuse, rape, murder and all areas of crime, will continue to increase as sure as night follows day. In the building industry we have to begin with a strong foundation to erect a long-lasting useful structure. If we are to ever have a strong, successful nation we will have to give the children of our nation strong foundations on which to build their lives.

There is no other way.

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18 July 06
Effective Self-defence - A Right We Must Regain!
By Dr Lech Beltowski  

Over the last twenty or thirty years the socialist mind set has undermined and corrupted almost all of the tried and tested social concepts that previously delivered personal safety, political freedom, social stability and individual choices to generations of law-abiding New Zealanders.  Our individual right to personal self-defence is possibly the greatest victim of this social engineering and its gradual erosion and de-facto loss by ordinary citizens has had predictable negative consequences for our society.

A clearly defined and effective right of self-defence offers EVERYONE the possibility of prompt and effective direct protection from criminal violence at the time it is needed the most. Consequently, it offers ALL ordinary citizens a level of individual protection far in excess of anything officialdom can ever provide.

Secondly, by protecting individuals, self-defence also offers indirect protection to their families and to their neighbours. 

Thirdly, since a robust right of self-defence has been shown to sharply reduce violent crime in a society, it further indirectly improves the personal safety of everyone- including front-line police. An added bonus is that this is achieved at the same time as the power of police hierarchy and other bureaucrats over the law-abiding is sharply realigned in favour of the citizen.

Self-defence therefore delivers an important political and social dimension in that it is able to enhance social stability and thus deliver greater political stability to a society. Conversely, weakening or ignoring such an important mechanism for personal and social safety inevitably delivers higher crime, social unrest and political instability. That is precisely where we are heading at present

A robust right of self-defence available to every law-abiding citizen is a clear signal that those responsible for maintaining law and order accept the reality there will always be a minority of violent or criminally-minded persons whose behaviour poses a grave risk to others. It is also an acceptance by authorities that all too often they can do nothing about such individuals until after the event.

Recent murders in Tokoroa and Wellington clearly demonstrate this. A robust right of self defence is therefore nothing more than a pragmatic and realistic measure that takes into account the nature of violent crime and the fact that the victim always arrives at the crime scene well before the police.

However, self-defence is more than honest pragmatism. It is among the most important - possibly THE most important - mechanism a society has to modify the behaviour of the violent and socially disruptive. In stark contrast to our present legal and corrections systems, (which are increasingly protective of the violent and anti-social minority and consider any injury or fatality to them a worse outcome than the tragedies they regularly inflict on innocent victims), a right of self-defence sends an all-together more effective and uncompromising message to criminals.

Effective, legally sanctioned self-defence spells out clearly that society and the law consider the perpetrator of a crime responsible for any consequences resulting from their criminal choices and actions. It says very clearly that if you choose to behave in a violent and anti-social manner then, as you put others in fear of their lives, so too will you put your own life at risk.

In short, self-defence sets precise limits to the behaviour of violent criminals by making them and nobody else responsible for the outcomes of their actions. For this reason, it is among the few measures proven to alter criminal behaviour, deter violent crime, lower violent crime statistics and enhance public safety. No wonder that to our present government self-defence is ideologically unacceptable.

Yet with over 800 separate violent incidents every week in New Zealand it is clear that authorities simply cannot protect ordinary citizens and that self-defence is a right anyone might suddenly need.

In spite of this, the hard questions about why serious violence is becoming more common and what needs to be done to make violent crime as dangerous for perpetrators as it presently is for victims are simply not being asked.

From reading the newspapers, one could be forgiven for believing that the reason we have so much violent crime is because authorities are handicapped by a serious lack of laws compounded in turn by a major lack of money to spend as they see fit. Any discussion about changes to our law and order system now routinely starts off with the premise that the only things needed are more intrusive laws, more power for courts and police and of course lots more of our money. 

Yet the evidence that allowing law-abiding citizens effective legal self-defence with pepper sprays and firearms confers significant benefits to society is now overwhelming. While one of the main justifications for tougher gun control laws over the last few decades was that such laws would reduce violent crime, the result has been the very opposite. But then, seen from the broader context of self-defence, this is a totally predictable outcome of a law that makes ordinary citizens more vulnerable to violent crime.

Even a superficial look at the murder of Tony Stanlake and the as yet unnamed Tokoroa schoolteacher shows that the two "official" solutions (more laws and more police) would have both been ineffective. In reality, the ONLY thing that could have saved these two lives would have been the ability to defend themselves effectively when attacked. Absolutely nothing else is relevant. Yet, given current police policy, had either victim been caught with “Mace”, a knife or a firearm for personal protection, they would without doubt have been the ones charged with a criminal offence.

The brutal reality of violent crime has always been that the victim arrives at the crime scene well before the police. Response times of over half an hour are common even in Auckland . The current police policy that denies ordinary New Zealanders a right to effective self-defence seems to be based on the modern policing theory that a police officer who has not yet arrived can deter a criminal and protect the victim. If it were not so serious it would be laughable.

Neither is the police claim that self-defence puts people at greater risk during a violent crime correct. If this were indeed true, one could guarantee the Police Association would be campaigning to ensure its members did not have the ability to routinely use force instead of the other way round. In fact, data from the FBI Crime Victimisation Study showed (many years ago now) that while attempting self-defence with fists, sticks or knives did indeed increase risk of injury to the victim (50% of victims were injured or killed) when compared with doing nothing and "giving them what they want" (33% of victims injured or killed), the victim injury rate when a firearm was used for self defence was very significantly lower with only 12% suffering injury or death. In short, the position police want us to continue to accept is over two and a half times more dangerous than it needs to be, and over two and a half times more dangerous than the position police are willing to accept for themselves. Thanks but no thanks!

There is less and less doubt that a major reason for our high crime rates is because our current laws continue to protect criminals by keeping their intended victims disarmed and vulnerable. That such a situation is aided and abetted by police policy is nothing short of criminal in itself.

The issue of police safety is of course important. However, front-line police officers will be safer when - and only when - the ordinary citizen is made safer. Thus, anything that makes the law-abiding individual more vulnerable to violent criminals will, by increasing violent crime rates also make front line policing more dangerous. Conversely, anything that offers protection to the ordinary citizen will deter and control crime and thus also protect the police. It’s as simple and straightforward as that.

In a democracy, the purpose of law and order is to maximise the protection of the law-abiding citizen against criminal violence and exploitation. Therefore, while front line police have an undeniable right to the most effective means of protection and self-defence possible, given the inability of police to guarantee our individual safety, the same rights must also be legally and readily available to the law-abiding citizen.

Policies that deny such a reality can only be considered self-seeking power-grabs and verge on taking taxpayers money under false pretences. It’s time to get back to what worked perfectly well for hundreds of years and regain our historical common-law right of personal self-defence.

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17 July 06
Welfare Dependency - Independence Day 2006
By Andrew Stone

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to … bear witness to an atrocity, one’s disbelief moves one to questioning why. Barbaric cruelty is born, and arises within, a social framework that provides its breeding ground. Why would any society knowingly allow such a thing to happen?

The social breeding ground I refer to has a dramatic parallel: As junkies need their fix, their dependency drives their lives. They cede control of their lives to their supplier. If they jeopardize their supply their lives cannot function. So they surrender normal standards of care, self-belief and hope for the future, in return for that next fix. Control of their decision-making is effectively transferred to their supplier.

Suppliers foist dependence in their customers. The greater the dependence, the greater the control, the greater the consumption. The supplier’s power, however, is derived from the control granted by the dependent customer. They become a co-dependent couple, dancing to double-beat of redistribution and control. One to gain a fix - the other dominating the lives of their chorus of customers, exercising their power at will.

Dependence is the master-key of control. Co-dependence is deadly drumbeat that creates the lock for the key.

The breeding ground which created the monstrous circumstances of the Kahui family was begun more than 50 years ago. Government decided that the provision of indefinite support in the form of welfare was a basic role it should play. In doing so it began moulding lives of dependence on the State.

Such was their unanticipated success that now we have generations of families that have only known welfare as their income. Today these families would no more jeopardize the supply of this welfare income than a junkie would spurn his supplier. Likewise, the present Government would no more turn off the welfare tap than slit its own fattened belly.

The catastrophe of the Kahui family is a tragic personal matter. And equally so, it is undeniably a social aberration. This dark moment in our history is the inevitable end point of the welfare state. It dramatically defines the failure of the social benefit concept. Usurping people's potential for autonomy and independence must stop. Let there be no more tinkering, no more blame. The social degeneration that multiplies itself and stomps through our streets must be sustained no longer.

Who, though, will face up and make the change - a Government addicted to the power and control granted by their dependent beneficiaries, a State so committed to inter-generational dependency that it cannot even recognize the language of independence, much less bring forth such a concept? It is sobering to realize that this Government no longer exists by virtue of a responsible democratic mandate. The consent it derives from our nation is in large proportion obtained from the dependent cravings of welfare junkies.

The Government, having replaced the democratic process by a truly free independent citizenry with the control vested by their dependent constituency, is absolute in its arrogance. It sees itself free from blame and limitation. Not dependent on, conditioned by, or responsive to, anything other than its own agenda and a self-congratulatory image in the social mirror. Many would contend that this Government undoubtedly deserves the definition of tyrant - governing unjustly, oppressively and arbitrarily.

It is our right, it is our duty, to throw out such a Government, and to provide new guardians of our future and our security, our children, our families and our nation’s talent and potential.

Independence is the language of self-belief, hope and the future. We must claim it again as the founding fathers did, demand it for ourselves. We must instill it as an enduring value in the very fabric of New Zealand Governance.

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12 July 06
The Socialist Lesbian Conspiracy
By Michael

There is an assumption by many that we have a progressive and enlightened society because of our liberal attitudes towards female behavior. The assumption is that women are inherently good and men are inherently bad, that women are helpless victims and men abusive rapists.

These attitudes are entrenched in our institutions with disastrous results that are not generally appreciated. When discussing the culpability of this lesbian socialist government in furthering gender favoritism (now so obvious it cannot be denied) most will regard other issues as being more germane to our social and economic malaise such as taxation, welfare, racial discrimination, party politics, bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, crime, drugs, materialism and even godlessness.

It is my proposition that the fundamental cause of our social and economic decline is this gender discrimination while everything else is an effect, a symptom, a distraction or an irrelevance. It is also my suggestion that the continued failure by the political opposition, to address this core issue enables the more focused lesbians to continually implement their vile social engineering.

To prove this controversial proposition would require considerable more thought and work then provided here but it’s quite doable. However as a declaration of interest and relevant case history consider the following.         

My daughter is sixteen and has run away to live with her 30-year-old boyfriend.

She has just obtained and been back paid several months of youth benefit despite the strenuous objections of both parents.

In order to qualify for this she has lied to represent herself as a victim of abuse. In actual fact her reason for leaving her mother’s care was her desire to live with her boyfriend with all the benefits of premature freedom that this entails. She also had the option of living with me but I would have been stricter in terms of the boyfriend. 

It should be said that I don’t blame her or the boyfriend (although he’s not suitable). They are merely opportunistically following their own economic and social imperatives.

The tragedy is she now lives a life of lies and benefit dependency and this is a hard habit to break. My daughter is socially adept and academically gifted and I grieve not only because I miss her but also because she showed real promise of becoming a capable, responsible, self-reliant adult.

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11 July 06
Maoritanga, Promise and Practice
By Chris Newman

Maori cultural history is well documented in its essential characteristics.

From the first contact, Europeans wrote in scientific detail of their observations and experiences with the Polynesian tribes they found in New Zealand . There is also a wealth of oral Maori tradition preserved for closer examination. The roots of Maori culture contain the same elements as many other Neolithic tribes; ritual reciprocity, pay-back, exaggerated sense of honour, revenge, slavery, brutality, servility of women, ambivalence to children, cannibalism and a robust sense of dark humour all wrapped in a tribal group think which suppresses individual development.

Based on the above sketch of historical Maori cultural values, let us examine the spiritual/mental ecology of those contemporary Maori whose actions so alarm the rest of New Zealand civil society. We are discussing that segment which is most at risk of acting out various social pathologies some of which spectacularly capture media headlines.

Alan Duff the chronicler of today's Maori "warriors" has clarified through his novels, the Stone Age relationship dynamics, which rule their behaviour. Neolithic culture used to rule European peoples too, but the past 2,000 years of Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian based cultural evolution have dramatically transformed our world to this modern age. Duff's masterpiece "Once Were Warriors" and his other novels expose in gritty detail the everyday life created by many contemporary Maoris. The truth in his observations is borne out by the popular recognition of his work, their veracity is further supported when the reality behind tragic headlines of Maori murders, criminality, rapes, infanticides and gang violence is exposed in Court reportage.

Just to be different from other nations, New Zealand society has been subjected to a social experiment, the Maori cultural "renaissance". This curriculum is supposed to restore to NZ Maoris a sense of "identity", "raise self esteem" and reinvigorate "maoritanga" as declared by its academic and political advocates. The fruit of this highly funded exercise is now evident in the dismal social pathology statistics of those who most closely identify with the neo-Maori identity.

The systemic resentments, cruelties, inadequacies and violence arising from Maori Stone Age culture also abide in its history, legends, language and customs. This spiritual repository functions as a sort of toxic "software" from whence it invades the minds, spirits and hearts of each successive generation. Instead of letting such abominations rest in the dustbin of history, they have been collected by academics, stirred up by activists, replicated and broadcast to the nation. The impact of this remarkable exercise is more damaging than ever imagined by those self-appointed social engineers. The forces of Neolithic darkness have been re-activated and unleashed on the streets of our kindly tolerant society. The appalling lack of education and vulnerability to tribal peer pressure makes these people particularly susceptible to manipulation by neo-Maori leader types.

This simple summary of the Maori reality is an elementary truth known to historians of cultures thus, "the sins of the fathers (and mothers)...are visited on the subsequent generations".

Stone Age Maori tribal societies were unable to compete with the forces of modernity that arrived here in great sailing ships. They had not advanced past their Polynesian roots after several centuries in this generous land. Rather they were given to internecine warfare, slavery and self-destructive practices of infanticide, superstition, necromancy and deceit. Jealousy, resentment and brute force characterise the behaviour of uncivilised Maoris. Only the superior European force was able to subdue the fires of inter tribal rivalry and their endless quest for "utu".

Those pushing the revival of the Maori "traditions" have little understanding of the functioning of the powerful psychological and social forces underpinning human reality. They risk reproducing the very spiritual, mental and social conditions, which enchained the Maori peoples throughout their pre-modern history. The impact of Stone Age chants, dances, songs, group structures (whanau, iwi, hapu etc.) dull conformity and acceptance of ignorance upon impressionable children and uneducated minds is profoundly and dynamically destructive. Combine this with a reluctance to responsibly adopt the values of the advanced society and we have a recipe for failure. Stir in dysfunctional sexual intemperance, prison criminality, gang culture, mind-damaging drugs, irresponsible social welfare programmes, and the Maoris' house becomes an inferno of problems.  Every rugby haka, kapa haka and "in you face" maoritanga event, no matter how innocuous it seems, reinforces this backward looking culture and strengthens its pathological claim on people's minds.

From a hopeful beginning of Christianising, civilising and colonising forces, intermarriage and other challenges to the old Maori ways, arose fresh opportunities for many to enter a new world. Their success stories are those of a new Maori dispensation, the chance to join forces with the rest of humanity. Sir Apirana Ngata, Peter Buck, Prophet Ratana and others who raised the human spirit beyond Neolithic Maoridom into the modern world pointed the way. Their Christian-based attempts to separate their people from the old Stone Age Maori gods and spirits provide a template for entry into the modern world. What has since happened to the pioneering spirit, scholastic example and progressive integrating momentum of these great Maori leaders is a tragedy. They have been replaced in the main by false prophets, pagan priests and self-serving revolutionaries. The net effect is a people who have lost their way but also have been deluded into a false sense of success by believing their own propaganda.

The evolutionary process of stepping outside the smothering bonds of Maori tribalism once seemed possible. The chance to become integrated with more advanced peoples was becoming real. Then in the 1970's came the activist socially engineered de-evolution of their "young radical leaders". The resultant loss of progressive momentum, erosion of personal freedom and resurgence of tribalism has created a "Lost Generation". These maladjusted Maoris have lost their opportunities to enjoy the benefits of advanced education, employment, spiritual freedom, cultural understanding, community health, decent nutrition, adequate housing, social equality and all the other indicators of the good life. Instead they have deliberately chosen to create and breed a social underclass. The spectacular nature of their criminality and displays of vicious family violence are but the tip of a neo-Maori cultural iceberg of misery.

Starting in the early 1970's and enabled by well-meaning and also devious leaders, armed with leftist-socialist agendas, the Maori historical road to modern life was deflected onto a pseudo- Neolithic dirt track. These so called "young radical" leaders supplied arguments and policies which have led to the welfare dependent, victimhood alibi and blame-merchant mentality which is now volubly cloaked by most Maori apologists as erudite social analysis.

Unfortunately for their hapless Maori (and New Zealander) audience, these radical leaders derive their ideology from the discredited socialist ideals of the French Revolution.  Rousseau's humanistic notions cobbled together with neo-Marxist sociology and stirred in with a pastiched "Maoritanga" has created a media-romanticised tribalism for the masses. The spiritual and social consequences of this world view are devastating on the younger generation. These kids have a major challenge in dealing with modern Western culture, and now they have been sideswiped by ersatz "maoritanga" cleverly marketed by those masquerading as their leaders. Individual rights and growth are always trumped by the collective imperative of the whanau and iwi clobbering machine. 

Sadly the secularisation of the rest of our society has isolated other more advanced sectors of the Maori population. The strength of their connections to the socialising values of Christianity and Western Civil Society, have been weakened. Now they have neo-Maoritanga foisted on them by politicians, the media, even the churches. Their mediating voices are not welcome in the discourse of "born-again" Maoridom. Surely this is a racist and intolerant situation supported by state sponsored propaganda and fuelled by government handouts and Treaty settlement money.

The old pagan gods have been revived and they are making their presence felt. Every act of violence, abuse and anti-social demonstration, the graffiti, drug abuse, promiscuity, moko tattooing and hostility towards middle class New Zealanders are manifestations of these resentful Stone Age warriors. Their selfishness has stolen the future from their Maori descendants, all in the cause of a false pride, cheap identity and instant gratification.

Much more could be said about the details of the degradation process well underway in neo-Maori society all under the banner of Maoritanga. The sexual abuse of children, venereal diseases, cross-generation dysfunctional families, sub-cultures of criminality, deceit and drugs, wasted lives and empty heads. Indeed some people have learned to tattoo a neat moko, dance a fearsome haka, weave a basket or tell us all about Matariki and "maori science and spirituality" but where is their contribution to and participation in today's modern world?

There is a Hans Christian Andersen story about the "Emperor's New Clothes" which resonates with the posturing of today's Maori apologists, their political, academic, legalist and artist enablers. Their pretence is that mostly everything is going fine with Maoridom. In practice, on the streets of NZ much of Maoridom is in serious strife with itself and the rest of the world. In light of the social statistics and unavoidable unpleasant facts, they offer nothing of real value to New Zealand society. In fact they have generated a cultural cancer to suck the joy and happiness out of our public life. There is a social welfare industry dedicated to managing their messes. Their failure is plain for all to see, but no-one wants to admit to the grotesque shadow underpinning Maoritanga today.

Thomas Sowell, the famous American scholar who happens to be black, proved how the Democrats and Liberals with their policies parallel to the NZ Labour government had devastated the chances of many black people. Under the influence of mostly Democrat policies and propaganda, black American social statistics have reversed on their early successes.  New Zealand society has gone further than the Americans could in its support of Maori failure. We allowed our national politics, culture and history to be hi-jacked by a small group of Politically Correct manipulators. Handouts of money, resources, sympathy and bleeding-heart socialism have successfully completed their job.  The irrational Maori grievance culture - with its enablers, the politicians, amoral lawyers and their parasitic cottage industry of Treatyism and welfare professionals have undone the advances of the first century of Maori progress. Of course there have been some success stories but these are statistically insignificant in today's context.
 
Sooner or later there will be heavy bills to pay for the deception and dishonesty which dominates the discourse on these matters and which has so seriously affected our unique New Zealand nation.

I can only admire Alan Duff, Sir Peter Tapsell, Dr Elizabeth Rata and other brave souls who speak the Maori predicament like it is. The first step out of this Maoritanga mess is to abandon the fig leaf of biculturalism and multiculturalism with their false promises of racial harmony. It is a big stretch for a people to progress from the Stone Age to participate in a modern democracy. The effort and time required will take the Maoris several more generations. All New Zealanders must understand that fact.

Our nation needs the invitation from community leaders to engage in a conversation about establishing the higher standards required to make a better world for our children. In that forum each person will have the opportunity to participate, learn and become a mature, responsible and educated citizen, capable of building healthy families, communities and our nation. In this way, all can participate in the evolution of human society, to explore the promise of the 21st century.

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