The Flintstones of the Cyber Age..

The government's reputation took a turn for the worst last night and for several reasons. Trying to slide the controversial file-sharing legislation through under urgency - supposedly that was for earthquake related legislation - has left them with egg on their faces for a number of reasons.
The first is indeed that the bill had no business being passed under urgency, it needed to be looked at again and some of the relevance of it discussed after the various political parties and MP's had a chance to get a much firmer grasp of their understanding of the internet than they obviously currently have.
Let's look at how this bill works. The idea in a nutshell is that if you are caught sharing 'copyrighted' files, then after three warnings, the Copyright Tribunal has the right to fine you up to $15,000 and to send you (in two years time, after the review) to the District Court who can order your ISP to shut you down for up to six months.That's of course as long as it's you that holds the account.
Riiiight.
So for Mrs Bloggs 16 year old son who likes to download movies he doesn't pay for using Mum's account which she knows not a lot about - what is the legislation going to achieve? 
If I decide to buy prepaid broadband via a stick,  and use it to download  whatever - how exactly is that going to work from an ISP perspective?

Oh but wait.. there is someone who made this comment, and I'll quote it from the Stuff source here:
"Everybody just keep doing what you're doing. They can't stop us. This is just a scare tactic. The internet was built on open sharing of information and forever will be the case.
No one actually steals an entire movie or CD, when sharing you are just transferring tid bits (sic) of the whole from all over the place. Then whatever program you are using puts all of these parts together.
If they really cared about it, why not ban the programs that put all of the little bits together?
Why this bill was passed so urgently is the real question that needs to be answered. The NZ government is corrupt"
This person raises some salient points.
The legislation itself reminds me of a farmer who has a fox killing his chickens. To fix the problem, he shoots the rooster.
It does not address the problem in any way that is likely to be workable. At the first sign of a court battle, they are going to lose, because the issue is exactly that the downloader has not brought down one single byte of information that makes up a file from a specific place or source - but a huge array of bits from a wide variety of sources. That the software then puts it all together to produce a finished file that someone can lay copyright to in terms of what it looks or sounds like is an incidental factor from a legal perspective. It can't be any other way, in reality.
Next you have to look at how on earth they think this is police-able in the first place. For gamers who play a lot, their downloading potential is very similar in terms of  the amount as say, someone who likes to download 10 to 20 songs a month. You cannot tell what is being downloaded, only the amount of the bandwidth used. So does this mean the government is going to be able to severely cut down on the unemployed numbers by employing everyone without a job to actually physically look into every account holder's pc? Because that is what would have to happen for this Bill to have any teeth. Withdrawing servioce on suspicion is absolutely not democratic - and I cannot see how it could be upheld in a court.
Sure, if four or five movies are being downloaded, that is going to take a lot of grunt. But all that will happen then is someone out there will invent a way to highly compress the file size.
I don't condone people downloading copyrighted files that the owners could make money from if they were legitimately paid for; it would be like someone using my blog content without my permission on their own site. My work for free? Course not.
But as far as the government is concerned, they've put through a Bill that hasn't been thought through properly and for what? To make themselves and by proxy, the rest of us kiwis appear to be the Flintstones of the Cyber Age.

What happens when you don't report child abuse

If you are connected to a child and see that it is in the process of being abused whether physically, sexually or psychologically, or even simply neglected, then the new legislation being introduced in Parliament tomorrow tells you in no uncertain terms that if you do not protect the child by reporting what is happening to it to the relevant authorities, you will be prosecuted and the maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment.

To me, that is fantastic news.

We’ve gone from a society of sweeping things under the carpet for far too long when it comes to protecting our wee ones. Too much “don’t want to get involved, not our business” bullpuckie has seen far too many of our infants abused, beaten, raped, or outright killed. Almost 125,000 reports of abuse, of which 56,000 needed further investigation, came in last year through CYFs. On average 16 children are killed every year.

According to the Child Matters reports:

·         New Zealand has the fifth-worst child abuse record out of 31 OECD countries.

·         On average, one child is killed every five weeks.

·         Most of these children are under five and the largest group is less than a year old.

·         Ninety per cent of all child deaths are caused by someone the child knows.

·         Nearly 9000 children a year are born "at risk" (1 in every 30).

·         124,921 notifications were made to Child, Youth and Family in the year to June 2010.

·         Child abuse costs New Zealand about $2 billion each year.

Studies have found abused and neglected children to be at least 25 per cent more likely to experience difficulties such as delinquency, teenage pregnancy, low academic achievement, drug use and mental health problems. It has to stop and it is time that the government put some action legislation into place that actually means something considerably more than the much hated- Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill, which did precisely nothing whatsoever to curb the problem of child abuse and went  a lot further than any sane person should have wished in persecuting perfectly responsible and good parents. The confusion over the Section 59 amendments still reverberates today and to be honest, it needs to be completely scrapped.

But this piece of legislation is different.

I’ll not forget the horrifying story of wee Nia Glassie, where neighbours had seen some truly horrific occurrences – yet did and said nothing to protect this tiny little scrap of humanity. The anger many of us felt that because they did not, resulting in this poor little kid being systematically beaten to death over a matter of months in her all-too-short life, meant that there was national disgust over such apathy and a strong call for accountability.

This Bill does that well by the looks of it. Justice Minister Simon Power told a press conference that he didn’t want to wait for the wider changes coming to the Crimes Amendment Act – this one had to happen now.

“A person can be found liable if they live in the same household as the victim, are closely connected to the household or is a staff member at a hospital, institution of residence where the victim lives.,” he says.

It means that each and every one of us carry a responsibility to ensure that the smallest members of our families and our communities are as safe as we can make them – and if we see they are not, then by law, we are now required to ensure we let the relevant authorities know. Me, I’m absolutely behind the bill 110 percent.

The accountability of hospital staff

How much real accountability does the public health system actually have, one wonders? When a formal complaint over a relatively severe injury incurred during surgery while the patient’s proverbial lights were out can result in one single letter from the head of surgical services at Rotorua hospital – who never spoke to the injured person concerned at all – saying, pretty much,  sorry but while we acknowledge you’ve had this injury, no-one here is admitting to it, so to us it doesn’t exist except for the fact we are picking up the physio bill.

Is it just me or is there something terribly wrong with this picture? Yes, we’ve all heard about the terrible things that can happen in a hospital – my own mother, after a triple bypass surgery at Waikato Hospital was given 300mgs morphine rather than the 30mg she had been prescribed. To this day, they don’t know how she survived that – needless to say at 65, she was one very ill woman for a few days.

Did the hospital do anything other than let her know this had happened? Well, no – but the bottom line was at least they did that. If she hadn’t been the tough old bird she is, it is very likely it would have killed her – would we have heard about this slip up then?

In the instance above, the patient, who had had a six hour operation on a tumour in her upper neck, woke up later that night to a mother of a headache and to find an egg the size of a softball on her upper left skull area, blood and gunge all around it and through her hair – all of this witnessed by both family members and hospital staff. And this was after being three hours instead of the usual 45 minutes in recovery because every time she was moved a fraction, she would  scream in agony over her shoulder. This injury was not in relation to the surgery, according to the woman who did the scans on the shoulder; if it had been it would have been the shoulder opposite to the surgery. Her surgeon was absolutely puzzled the following morning when he investigated the lump and the mess that injury has created on the head and hair. He wasn’t there when the patient was moved, having finished his job after suturing the wound so could have no answer for how and when it could have happened. That something had happened, he didn’t doubt – but he had no idea what or when, other than the time frame when the patient was still unconscious.

The scans and xrays organized by the patient’s family doctor showed muscles on front and back of the shoulder had been pulled – much the same as you would get when someone is falling and you have grabbed an arm to try and unsuccessfully stop the fall. Two weeks after the operation, the patient still has only 30 percent use of the shoulder.

Yet no-one in the surgical team is saying anything. As far as the hospital is concerned, nothing happened despite the very obvious fact that something did. A formal complaint only got the one page letter and after seeing, I have to say that it was pretty disgustingly callous way to treat anyone.

So… what happens to the old folk who ‘don’t like to make a fuss”? How many people ARE being hurt when at their most vulnerable?

What about the kids, the babies? If a surgical team or the orderlies that handle these patients day in and day out cannot do so without a good understanding of the innate faith these patients and their families put in them to handle with care and dignity their loved ones when they are unable to do so for themselves – then what they hell are they doing in that job?

I’ve been looking on the net for any reports or reviews into just what does happen when it comes to ‘medical misadventure’ and so far, I’ve only been able to find one released in 2005 – and that more concerned with surgical mistakes – operating on the wrong person or the wrong limb.

I’m going to be digging a bit further – there has to be better answers than I’ve found somewhere. But thing I do suggest. If you or yours falls into the same category as the women above, then make a fuss. Jump and  down about it. Because it is unprofessional NOT to admit to causing injury, especially when the injury could create bigger problems for the patient than what they originally went in with. These medical professionals have a legal and moral set of choices when it comes to this kind of thing and letting the patient  and their family know exactly what happened so that appropriate health measures can be taken to ensure full return to health should be an absolute priority.

The stupidity of our justice system defies belief...

When two men are charged in two different courts for the same crimes; that is, they allegedly committed them together, you would expect that a) the lawyers might act in concert when it comes to suppression orders  or b) the judges at the least may do what the lawyers have not. In the Scott Guy case, a glaring example of the utter lack of understanding of the internet by the upholders of our laws is making a mockery of not only themselves but the whole justice system.
In the first instance, the lawyer for the 21 year old builder who is up on six charges, but not including the murder of Scott Guy, asked for name suppression at his client's Queenstown court appearance. This was granted, but every detail of the six charges was plastered in the Southland Times, The Otago Times, the Herald etc etc - and the internet.
In the second instance, the lawyer for Ewen McDonald, who is up on charges relating to the murder of Scott Guy, did not ask the Palmerston North court for name suppression, but did ask for suppression of the details surrounding the six other charges he is facing. In both instances, both judges granted the suppression orders.
Now, it does not take a rocket scientist to work out that if you really want to know what those six charges were, simply look up the news on the 21 year old's court appearance.
If, as one lawyer uses as the excuse for suppression, it is to ensure their client has a "fair trial", then surely they could have done their homework a whole better than it is obvious they have - isn't that what we pay lawyers such exorbitant fees for?

What is it going to take for the legal profession to begin to understand the power of the internet? The most determined rubber neckers in the world know perfectly well that any information is available anywhere - if a suppression order stands here in this country, it is of no use whatsoever if someone based in America puts it on a blog that has as its server something based in a country that has never even heard of New Zealand.
Is it perhaps time we really looked hard at revisiting the suppression orders altogether? It's bullpuckie and insulting to potential jurors intelligence to think that browsing the net is going to replace the cold, hard facts that are presented to them in a court case. The only way that could be said to prejudice that is if the offender has quite a record for similar offences - and as the jurors currently are not allowed to know that (which is the height of blinding justice) that could be a fair call. But the Weatherstons and McDonalds of this world often don't have previous criminal convictions, so even that is a moot argument.
 So to use the 'fair trial" excuse is to my way of thinking lame-brained in the extreme; a lawyer seeding himself a betting hedge. Nothing can take the place of the information that is put before jurors in a court of law; they get to see, hear and experience far more than any journalist or armchair critic ever will.
To use suppression to protect identity should only ever be in the case where a parent or other close relative has sexually abused a child - the child could be identified. Outside of that, these particular kinds of maggots should never have the luxury of such protection. The boot on the other foot was graphically depicted just recently when the 'comedian' was charged with raping his daughter - name suppression meant everyone was throwing names into the ring, which made it highly offensive to the innocent comedians who also have daughters.
Our laws are draconian in some instances and the lawmakers mills of change grind so exceedingly slowly that what changes are made quite often are still half a century too far behind the current eightball.
We need to ensure our judges particularly, who make these judgments understand how the internet works a heck of a lot better than they seem to. If the Palmerston North judge did - he'd have shaken his head at Ewen McDonald's lawyer and asked him why he hadn't done his job properly vis a vis working with the 21 year old builder's lawyer, so that both sets of suppression orders could be the same - and look to be professionally concerned enough to have done the job properly.
Perhaps it is time we looked at changing the system markedly so that we have professionally trained pools of jurors who do this on a full time basis.
I don't know - but what I do know is the case that is before us now hasn't even got off the ground and at least one of the lawyers and a judge have made a bit of an ass of themselves. Whatever next?

Police head still hanging onto a long gone innocence?

So our new Police Commissioner Peter Marshall 'hasn't seen any evidence' that our police force front liners need to be armed. The on-average, 2500 assaults on police every year obviously don't matter that much. What are you trying to say Mr Commissioner - that your boys and girls in blue all have thick heads?
I find this really quite strange - every year the stats for police assaulted in keeping Joe and Joanne Public safe are increasing - and not only increasing, they are becoming more violent in terms of weapons used.
The MOTH, when watching the news tonight about the jailing of the toerag that attacked Bruce Mellor came out with the startling pronouncement that Senior Constable Mellor should not have been out there on his own and more fool him. I looked at the MOTH in genuine amazement. Did the MOTH  not know that  the said constable was in a rural town which the decision makers often didn't believe required or could afford a second officer? Not SC Mellor's fault he has penny pinching bosses. The minute he started his patrol that night, all he had was a shoulder radio to make the "10-10, 10-10" call signalling that an officer was down. If the machete had smashed that - what then?
The MOTH decided it was perhaps prudent to find out a bit more about that before passing judgement - and it's something I wish the rest of the do-gooders who are bleating about arming our police would do as well.
Throwing the odd punch isn't as de rigeur now as pulling out a machete, a hammer, a knife or a gun. The shock the nation used to go into when a police officer got shot would reverberate for months around the hills, but these days it's become just another shake-the-head occurrence. And I'm sorry, but I just don't believe it should be that way. Australian police are fully armed and have been since 1995 after the murder of two constables in Crescent Heads. Their Police Federation CEO says their police officers would not go to work if they weren't. Furthermore, he also noted in a TV3 interview a year or so ago that New Zealand's stats for shot police officers far outstrip the Australian stats.

It appeared that while former Police Commissioner Howard Broad was looking positively at the potential of arming police by the end of this year - and that Police Minister Judith Collins was also sympathetic to it. Indeed, even the slowly grinding mills of government have before them this week a bill designed to enforce judges to utilise the fact that in sentencing, if the offender has assaulted a police officer, then it becomes an aggravating feature in the sentence handed out - in other words, they get a much harsher sentence. Although why judges have to be forced into doing this, as this bill will make them do, I don't know - they already have the ability to use the law, up until now it has been preference whether they do or not.
But with Commissioner Marshall,  new brooms being what they are, the latest reports are coming through that in less than a week since he took over the role, Commissioner Marshall is not in agreeance with this.
One has to ask why not? What "evidence" does he need? Putting a gun or taser, the latter method which he seems to prefer, in a locked space in a locked car was never going to help those shot by Jan Molenaar in Hastings.
Today's criminals seem to be different from those of yesteryear. Last century, last millenium for that matter, there appeared to be some kind of code of honour that no longer exists today. Every man, woman and dog is out for themselves and if you get in the way, you either better have the wherewithal to stop what's bearing down on you, or you will end up flattened. Whatever innocence as a nation that New Zealand had, whatever it was that made a caught criminal sigh and put their hands up when cornered by police, has gone. Between 1890 and 2000, just 19 police officers were shot while on duty - four of them in one event. Since 2000, there have been three - one sixth the total amount of the previous 110 years in just a decade.
The amount of young kids who are creating pursuits in cars and who then, when cornered, take to police with hammers or machetes or whatever is hugely increasing. These young mongrels know that these officers are NOT armed - so there is no respect and they will turn like the little ferals they are.
Most of us need to remember that our police do the job they do because they believe they can make a difference in the community they live, work and play in. We need to be a bit more thankful there are enough out there who choose to put their lives on the line every day - who have families who take deep breaths and try to keep silent the wee voice that hopes the start of the shift will not be the last time they see their loved ones.
It's time our police were armed - there is no reason for them not to be.
My message to the Commissioner is to ask whether or not, at 57 years of age, your best years are in last century. Because if they are and if you cannot keep abreast of the changing times and the very real need to protect those you represent at the head of the pack, then stand aside and let someone who can, do the job.

The leaky boat of insurance

News yesterday that the government could be bailing out the financially strapped insurer AMI anywhere between $500 million to $1 billion is enough to make even the totally uninsured wince.
Where exactly is our nation of 1.8 million workers meant to find all the funds to pay for, in the short term, the Christchurch earthquake - from munted infrastructural requirements ranging from temporary portaloos to roads (never mind accommodation) - the Pike River Mine disaster royal inquiry, the drought-struck farmers bailout, the finance companies guaranteed by the government against fallout for the Mum and dad investors - and SCF alone is taking one billion dollars of that.
That's just for this year.
Big insurers like Vero are taking the opportunity to really push the boot in by leading the accusations that if people want cheap insurance, they get what they pay for - insurance companies who do not have the money to pay out when a disaster such as this strikes. Yet - isn't this what we are insuring ourselves for? And considering the last major disaster outside of both Christchurch quakes was the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake (the 2007 Gisborne one was only $16 million of damage and largely covered by the EQC) one also has to ask, where did nearly 100 years of funds supplied by the one in four households and businesses of NZ who do insure themselves, actually go to? Considering that AMI spent annually just 3.7 percent on reinsuring for big disasters as opposed to the average 10 percent spent by the global insurers, who like bookmakers, layoff against such events in this way - that still means that 90 percent of money gained seems to have vanished down a black hole somewhere. Personally, I don't believe there is much of a difference between 3 percent and 10 percent in this context, although I might, from a business perspective if undercutting competitors premiums costs by as much is as suggested, be more inclined to want to do as Lumley's do and reinsure at say, 16 percent.
The government is in one heck of an invidious position - in fact, in probably no other lead up to an election has either major party probably wondered quietly to themselves whether it might not be a blessing to be the Opposition for the next three years. Any party that gets into power this year will be absolutely wincing at the books - because what's happening isn't affordable, both from an internal and external perspective.
Absolutely everything that could go up, has gone up and most by much more than 10 percent in the past two years. With of course, the sole exception of wages. Most median wage earners won't have got a pay rise this year and of those I know that have - precious few - the average is between one and two percent. Food, power, petrol, GST, I give up - has anything reduced in price? Even councils are getting together across the country and putting up the charges of dying in their boroughs by more than 10 percent in most cases for cemetery plots or other associated costs. Despite the recession and the job redundancies, most of the beggars are also raising their rates - a thing I believe is almost unforgiveable.
But back to the insurance. How can we afford to be shelling out this kind of money to insure that the insured of AMI still have insurance? It's ludicrous, because at what point do you stop and say, hang about - aren't we opening the doors for any corporate company to come in and say, carry on chaps, the old boys network will bail us out if need be.
The bottom line is, we can't afford another $1 billion. AMI has gone down the gurgler. There needs to be a way to look at rebuilding the losses of those who were insured yes - but not by giving the money to AMI.
I dread to think how Bill English is structuring our budget, due next month. Instead, the only news I've heard so far is that NZ is considering ensuring all tobacco products are sold in uniform drab olive green. Inspiring, much.

Waka heading into stormy waters

Oh dear.... the plastic waka furore is really stirring up the muddy bottom of the pond. On one hand you have Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples defensively stating that Maori should be one of the first in line for the Rugby World Cup tourism spin-off instead of utterly left out as he believed they were during the Americas Cup and on the other, you have people like MP Shane Jones saying hang about, a) we can't afford this with the huge financial dent the Christchurch earthquake has left us all in and b)if it's a business proposition, then the iwi concerned, Ngati Whatua (o Orakei) should be shelling out the $2million for it and its furnishings itself.
It's a hard call and trying to sit on the fence is definitely an uncomfortable experience. Some have pointed out that we spent $33 million on the America's Cup, which is true - but not before we had won the thing first. That money was spent on the boat needed to defend it here in New Zealand, which we did successfully before losing it the second time around. The spin-off to that was huge, there is amazing money out there and our designers, sailors - our country, was given huge kudos for a very long time to come because of the win.
What would the spinoff be for the taxpayer who is expected to pay for a plastic waka-shaped restaurant and event hall?
And let's not forget that the democratic way of tendering this job out didn't happen; it was presented by both Ngati Whatua and Pita Sharples as a fait accompli, so as far as value for money is concerned, we've gotta lump that.
I'm of the belief that if tourists want to really feel the way Maori tradition is, they are best to toddle off down State Highway 2 to Rotorua - a two hour road trip that means nothing to most of our tourists and be educated by those who have been doing this for as long as there have been tourists. Rotorua will also host three games - so the opportunity is ample.
If Ngati Whatua want to do this, then fine - by all means go ahead. But I have a problem with both why I should be paying for it when they have funds of their own and let's face it, this IS a business proposition that the iwi alone will benefit financially from and also from a tourism viewpoint, a tag the iwi is using to hold up on the possibility of dragging it around the world - that is the job of Tourism New Zealand, not a local iwi who it seems to me, is simply using that as a justification.
If I as a taxpayer was going to benefit from this, I might look at it. But I already have the venues for the intangibles of tourism at hand and because the hard cash that walks through its doors will be for the iwi to count and bank - there is no benefit to me at all here, that I can see.

How to get to the end of the world?

I’d like to think I’m not a doomsayer. But I wonder how many of us can look at Japan’s woes at the moment and not see the beginning of a domino effect that will have reverberations we haven’t even begun to think about in the coming months and years. And even if we had, it’s altogether possible we actually can’t begin to imagine the far-reaching results of this tragic trio of disasters.

Japan is the world’s third largest economy. That in itself is a major concern. A third of Japan has been shaken and blasted by water to a crumbling soggy pile of splinters.

This island nation that sits as a sentinel to Asia permeates our life in a way we’ve never stopped to think about overly much. After the second world war, when Japan had its military teeth pulled, the powers that were at the time made the utterly effective decision that if Japan couldn’t rule the world by force, it could do a damned good job of doing so in the commerce sector. Which, in the ensuing 60 years, is exactly what they have done to a degree no other nation can even begin to compare. There is not one area of our lives where we do not use something that has not been designed and built in Japan. From the myriad of cars to the tiny computer chips that run everything except our bodies these days, Japan has a role in it somewhere.

It has its fingers in many international pies and there’d be few countries out there that have not seen some kind of investment from Japan in one way or another.

So if we look at the three pronged attack it suffered earlier this month; the earthquake, the tidal wave and then the subsequent nuclear crisis – where to from here?

The doomsayers who talk about the end of the world in 2012 do make me laugh – there is as many tales of what that might mean in how that would be achieved, from natural disasters to Raelians, that it’s a bit like shopping at a gypsy fair – there’s a bottle of snake oil for everyone.

Yet… the thought occurs to me that we have become so utterly dependent on technology that in an instance like this, where a great big hole has been blasted in the middle of one the world’s leading nations in this vital industry, we could become highly unstable in terms of our current civilization – and the ‘end of the world’ as we know it, just may well be around the corner. Hard call, you think? Maybe not.

Where is the money coming from to rebuild Japan – and rebuild the niche it fills so completely? Insurers world-wide are already paying out very large sums of money from such disasters in the past decade as Hurricane Katrina, Aceh, Haiti, the Queensland floods and yes, even the 30 billion dollars worth round about here in Christchurch. Our finance minister said, before the Japan event, that we were needing financial help from the rest of the world. Fair call, we don’t, being the small nation we are, have the kind of money needed to rebuild the city to the degree the city fathers would like to see it happen.

Insurance isn’t a bottomless pit. There has to come a time whereby there is not enough money in the pot to continually pay for all the disasters and people cannot afford the premiums hurting insurance companies are imposing on them to cover those shortfalls. What happens then? How do the Japans and Christchurches of this world get rebuilt? We have a great credit crunch on – one can print money as often as one likes, but the more one does this, the less it means until you get to a point where the great unwashed realizes that it has no value whatsoever. That means banks go under, foreclosures can’t happen, trade and commerce suffer, unemployment is everywhere, government tax-based coffers can’t meet the national budgets in any way, shape or form, – and what do you have? You have a civilization balancing on the brink of destruction.

Is that where we are? Or the point we are coming to?

It seems to me the recipe for global derailment is already sitting on the workbench. What happens in the next few months is, in a large degree, likely to have a major impact of a type so devastating that I don’t believe we fully understand the potential ramifications. It is only going to take one more major disaster – and think about this: Australia provides much of the world’s sugar, wheat and grain requirements – all washed away this summer. Japan provides, as mentioned, far too many things to count them all – and we still won’t know whether or not there can be a recovery here after the atrocious triad of a week ago.

In the Middle East, the uprising and unrest is at unprecedented levels, largely thanks to the US’s perhaps unnecessary involvement which has created a wolf of war called democracy.

This is a sobering period of time we are entering into and I firmly believe that our politicians have to think very long and hard about how they are going to steer our isolated little rowboat through these troubled times.

There has to be a swing towards focusing on the internal economy, rather than the export one; has to be a plan for ensuring that no matter what, our small Pacific fruit bowl can survive and look after its 4.5 million inhabitants without the need for international consumer products that just may stop arriving.

It’s time, I believe, to start think about self preservation a little bit more than we have been.

Weathering the storm - Ken Ring

Poor Ken Ring. If ever there was a leaf at the mercy of a sea of public opinion, then this weather man who predicts earthquakes has to feel like he’s been sailing on it with land nowhere in sight. He’s been doing this a long time – farmers everywhere have used him, there’s a number of fishing men and women who swear by his forecasts.

This weatherman and astrologer predicted the first Christchurch earthquake, using his long term experience. In fact, in 2006, TV3’s Nightline got him on board to predict a series of earthquakes – and he provided.

Last year, he said September 4. He got it right. Next, he said, there would be a three day window in February between the 19-21. He was a day out. The big quake struck on February 22.

The interesting thing about this was that just the day before, seismologists had, using their models, said that there was a less than four percent chance that Christchurch would be struck by another big quake. Just the day before. And how very wrong they were.

It’s probably no wonder then, that the vitriol coming from our resident university-credentialed experts has seen Ken Ring learn to swim in it very quickly.

I was astounded at this – if one reads about what Ring thinks and the way he presents it, you can see there is food for thought. He seems to think there is a great correlation between tides, solar activity, the moon – and earthquakes. This, according to our seismologists, is tosh. One went so far as to say it was investigated 100 years ago and found to be nonsense. Hmmm. I’m sure there is an equal difference too in the years between Icarus trying to fly and Richard Pearce. Or the Wright brothers.

Yet, looking outside of New Zealand, there are a number of other experts who are looking seriously into the possibility that what Ring is saying could possibly have a basis in probability.

I have no issues whatsoever with that – science should never be so closed minded that the potential of something cannot be explored and researched until a definitive answer one way or the other for the time being can be found. The minute this happens is the moment when those who try to shut the doors on such ideas and research become fully paid up members of the Flat Earth Society. I’m absolutely not interested in scientists who say “It can’t be done.” Or “It’s absolute rubbish” without ever having even once tried seriously putting the effort into researching what another scientist or skilled layperson is saying. To me, they are not scientists. They are either people with no imagination who are comfortable being brain-washed by a funded emeritus who is comfortable hanging onto his or her chair without anyone rocking the boat thanks, or he or she simply has no busy claiming that they are an expert on anything.

There are those who have vilified Ring for ‘scaring’ the population of Christchurch, especially given that he has made another prediction of a big earthquake for March 20. He goes as far as to say that after April 19, that should be it for a very long period of time.

The thing is, you hear of cynics who say when such events happen, “So where were the psychics then?” Not that Ken Ring is one of these – he is not. Although as an interesting aside, Deb Webber from Sensing Murder apparently predicted the February quake and has also said it is not finished yet.

But let’s look at this – if I was a Cantabrian and I could see via a scientific method (even if unaccepted by the mainstream) that such a prediction could happen; that it had been predicted successfully twice before, would I want to know that another was coming? You bet your bippy I would. I could even cope with, as Ring says, the fact that it could be a few days either side. I would much rather be forewarned and ensure my family’s safety by taking them on an impromptu holiday to say, Invercargill for a week than find I’d lost one of them under the rubble of yet another collapsed building. In fact, I couldn’t give a damn if it didn’t actually happen. The fact that twice before the predictions have occurred is enough for me. I’d just enjoy the holiday.

There is no doubt that Ring and seismologists sit on opposing sides of the fence on the how and why’s of earthquakes. But I found his comments to Marcus Lush on Radio Live last September quite telling when he said, there is no university in the world which has astrology as part of the funded research going on. There is only so much money for funding via universities and those already there ensure through their politicking that such things as this would never get a look in. This, he says, is a bit of an indictment because it means shared ideas and diametrical ways of looking at things that actually would make a difference, never get to be heard.

I can only hope that someone somewhere with real funding to give away actually does take the time to listen to what Ken Ring has to say. Because I do think, like many others, that the proof is in the pudding and in this, Ring has literally run rings around our resident experts, something they do not like one iota. I’m not saying he is right, or that his methods are perfect. Just that what he has said and done does show there is a reason to investigate this completely.

Scientists need to get off their high horses and actually use the two ears they were born with more than the one mouth. It may well be that those such as Ken Ring can offer inroads into exciting and new methodology that can actually be used to prevent loss of life. So far, all I’m seeing is bruised egos and ladies and gentlemen of the campus, that doesn’t look good against what’s happened in Christchurch in the past six months. The idiotic stance taken by John Campbell against Ring on TV3 recently was a prime example of how little a university education can actually mean at the end of the day. It wasn't an interview, it was an out and out bully session.

Thinking about the quake

In two hours time, as a nation we New Zealanders will stand still for two minutes and reflect on the shattered lives, property and dreams of those affected by last Tuesday’s earthquake. Two minutes to acknowledge in unity that this is the worst natural disaster in our living memories; that tens of thousands of Cantabrians are facing an uncertain future without their homes and their livelihood in the coming months.

Yet in this time of trauma and troubles, that great indomitable kiwi pioneering spirit has once again raised its head, rolled up its sleeves, tucked the sense of humour in the backpocket and got stuck in.

Says overseas experienced Urban Search and Rescue team leaders: “We’ve never seen anything so well disciplined and run when it comes to a disaster of this magnitude…”

Says the multitude of heroes who have dragged, pulled or picked people up out of the rubble before order could be organised, “Not a hero, anyone would have done it…”

Says clinical psychologist Nigel Latta, the maestro of un-pc sayings, “When it comes to aftershocks, just tell the kids the earth has farted…”

The Student Army, 14,000 strong, out there helping the sick, the frail, the elderly and getting on intimate terms with the business end of a shovel as the city tries to move 150,000 tonnes of silt in two weeks, much of it by hand.

The tens of thousands of kiwis who have opened their hearts, their homes and their wallets to displaced people or those whose trauma is such they simply need a break away. Some six websites and social networking media sites saw thousands of offers of temporary accommodation offered and Air NZ coming to the party by offering $50 flights anywhere from Christchurch.

The New Zealand Navy, thankfully berthed in Lyttleton harbor and able to cook and feed the walled in residents of the port which had been the epicenter of the quake. The Army and Airforce who got down there on the same day to help overstretched police batten down the hatches so the USAR workers could get in and rescue unhampered by frantic family members and sightseers.

That Rangiora lot, well, words fail me and many others. In less than a week, this driven pack of people have commandeered an army of helicopters, thousands of tonnes of supplies, have cooked, prepped, boxed, stored, packaged and distributed enough food and water to feel the many thousands who are unable to do it for themselves.

And the Canterbury Plains farmers. Never mind that their own jobs are full time. They’ve got in there with their shovels, cleared roads, come in a bit later with their tractors and diggers and cleared driveways, roadways and rubble as directed.

The Christchurch City council staff and contractors have worked beyond the call of duty to try and get as many of the city’s homes and businesses back in business as far as water and sewerage goes, knowing as they do that in Mayor Bob Parker’s words much of the infrastructure is “munted”.

Orion Energy’s tireless workers trying to get the power grid back up and running without causing more problems. Those who both lived in Christchurch and those who poured in from all around the district with their medical training, who were run off their feet trying to cope with bruised, battered, broken and simply traumatised Cantabrians from a medical perspective.

The huge heartfelt thanks to the 700 plus Urban Search and Rescue workers from more than 10 different nations who dropped what they were doing and got here within the first 48 hours – some, like the Australians, arrived the day it happened. These experienced people not only brought themselves, but they brought their dogs, their hundreds of tonnes of specialised equipment and the practical help and best wishes of each of their respective governments.

So many to thank. So many who have made a difference.

As time rolls on inexorably by, the real cost of this earthquake will become more apparent. We already know that the CBD will be closed for months, more than one third of the business buildings are so seriously damaged they must come down. Nearly one half of the rest are damaged enough to require remedial attention before they can be used again.

Some 10,000 people are without their home and the government is looking at ways to get this problem sorted forthwith, already stating that almost all big ticket projects in New Zealand this year will be cancelled or postponed in order for the money to go towards rebuilding Christchurch. Prime Minister John Key is calling on international governments for financial help – something we have never had to do before. Even with this, it is expected that those of us who own homes and pay insurance will find the EQC levy tripled.

This is hard going on our already straining economy, make no bones about it. In a time when the building industry in a critical position and many are heading to Queensland Australia where the work is swinging into place after the floods, it still will be months away before the real building gets going. The loss of big business in Christchurch can't be underestimated from a tax take perspective either.

There is a lot to think about and Christchurch will be on its knees for many months yet. It will be a big ask of New Zealanders, for like most people, once the first couple of weeks have gone by, we tend to get innured to something we do not have to live with. With this quake, no matter how far away we are, we do have to live with it; it will impact on us all for a long time to come. The beauty of it all is, Christchurch will rise from the ashes of this disaster, will become the beautiful city she is renowned for again and while some of our beautiful buildings can no longer be - well, if Gisborne could do it it 80 years ago as successfully as it did, so too can Christchurch. And the rest of this tiny nation will be right behind it.

The monopoly on money

The MOTH (Man of the House) has a peculiar habit of picking up the odd-bod things that slide by the rest of us. By that I mean he actually decides to grab the bod out of the air and do something about it. His latest escapade was in the dairy this afternoon when he had to buy a tub of margarine. He took it up to the counter, paid over $4 in coins and then told the poor dairy worker that he expected his one cent change.

“We can’t do that sir,” said the hapless worker.

“Why not?” said the MOTH. “If you are advertising something at $3.99, then I expect to get the change.” He said this knowing full well that our currency no longer supports the one, two and five cents it used to.

His reasoning was it is false advertising – and he is quite correct. No matter that even the supermarket giants do it, the bottom line is technically, it is not legal to use one, two and five cents as legal tender.

They may not, as of 1 November 2005, accept it from you. But you have to accept them charging you for it and if you cannot come up with the correct change – which of course you can’t; it’s not legal tender - then that is fine, they will charge you one cent more to round it up. How does this happen? It’s not legal tender, therefore they can’t charge you – and by rounding it up, they are falsely advertising the price of the goods you are buying.

This peculiar little loophole led me to wonder just how strong, then, are laws regarding legal tender if this one can be so blatantly broken even six years after it became fact.

If, for example, a group of us Home Executives of The Round Dining Table got together and decided to raid the kids collective Monopoly banks and start charging each other for half a dozen eggs from Susie’s backyard, or three kilos of plums from Helen’s front garden, or for a baby’s matinee jacket Melanie knitted, what’s the problem with this? And if enough of us did this, then how exactly, could say, the Inland Revenue have a problem with the accounting side of things? We could, using this loophole, pay GST if demanded – but in Monopoly money, because that’s the tender we are using.

I mean, in the past, paper money was representative of how much gold bullion one had in one’s respective Fort Knox. These days, with the removal a century ago of the Gold Standard, we’ve pretty much had carte blanche to print money. Yes, there are times when the overprinting of it didn’t work – which was why towards the end of World War 2, the cost of a pencil in Germany could be six million marks. But what’s a few million here and there between friends?

The thing that makes this whole thing mindboggling in its being as loose as Aunty Daisy’s drawers is that most people don’t even realise that electronic money, (EM) or digital cash (DC) which is what you use to pay things online for example is NOT legal tender either according to the NZ Law Commission’s 2001 report on electronic billing and E-payments.

So we are being billed – and paying for – something that does not even actually exist as legal tender. That’s actually quite scary, because what that means is that you could pay online for a bill, the payee actually can turn around and tell you they don’t want to accept that as it’s not real tender and theoretically, you could be charged again. You’d still be out of pocket for the ‘imaginery’ amount you paid however.

It’s past time that the whole system was looked at properly; I mean, it has been a whole decade since the above report was published – yet there have been no changes, other than those people alert enough to safeguard themselves by ensuring a clause that all payments made or accepted electronically shall be deemed to be legal tender.

Otherwise, there really is nothing whatsoever wrong with us HETRDTers becoming bankers – and having the Monopoly on it.

Divide and lose - the dilemma of Hone Harawira

At some point today, irresistible force is about to meet immovable object. Paradoxes aside, the disciplinary hearing between Hone Harawira and the Maori Party is one upon which much rests – but there aren’t going to be any winners.

I watched a conciliatory Harawira on Closeup last night and wondered just how the Maori Party can deal with this Ngapuhi man who is being labeled a redneck Maori because of his strongly racist bent. How are they going to find the balance between muzzling a renegade who has no interest in anything outside of his own people and who makes sure everyone knows this in the most offensive manner at times and enabling, through the party’s kaupapa, or constitution, the right for a section of the people who have voted them in, a voice.

There is no getting away from the fact that he’s one-eyed. He’s only interested in the fact that there are 15 percent more Maori unemployed since the year before. Never mind about the increased percentage of the unemployed right across the board. He also doesn’t believe that tangata whenua, people of the land, are that unless they can whakapapa back to their iwi. He firmly does not believe that the Maori Party and National can continue to work together and particularly over the Foreshore and Seabed Act, feels the Maori Party might well have been sold out over it.

I’ve got a lot of problems with this.

Hone Harawira, or as some offer, aka John Hatfield, is no different to a vast proportion of New Zealanders who have both Maori and pakeha bloodlines. Let’s repeat that – the vast proportion of our population. The argument as to whether we in fact have any full blooded Maori left is a moot one. It reminds me of a conversation with a young Ngati Porou radical a few years back who was spitting tacks at the thought of any of his children growing up and marrying someone who wasn’t Maori and his grandmother dryly reminding him that as much as he might like to forget it, his Scottish grandfather was very much a part of his ancestry. The reply was that he'd disowned his grandfather, therefore he didn't exist and he saw himself as a full blood.

This section of the population, the majority of New Zealanders, have no choice; they must either identify as one or the other, they cannot be both. Every single official form underlines this paradox. For all of us who fall in this section and who live comfortably in both cultures, it has become an increasingly difficult time to stand back and watch the repeated efforts of some Maori to divide the nation.

It is right and proper that Maori grievances be heard and sorted and to a large degree, that has happened. Maori now hold more than $16 billion in assets in New Zealand, some of which has been created through earlier efforts of colonization and some which individual iwis themselves have created.

But one has to wonder how much damage the by-product of all this has been in the ‘victim mentality” of “You OWE us” and particularly where young Maori in the low socio-economic groups are concerned.

Not only that, the considerably fostered belief that Maori do ‘own’ things they currently do not. As a fisherwoman, I’ve enjoyed throwing a rod out on many coastlines along New Zealand. But it’s only been in recent times that I’ve come across some fairly alarming happenings.

For example, my Tuwharetoa husband and I were out fishing at Maketu a year or two back, as was an Indian shop owner from down our way. A big local Maori lad came up and remonstrated with him that he wasn’t allowed to fish there, it belonged to the local Maori. The Kaituna Cut most definitely is public land and as my husband knew the Indian, he told the local quite forcefully where to get off. In another instance, my husband and a mate were heading down the coast towards Matata in a four wheel drive to a fishing spot they’d used many times before. A marae sits a little way back from the beach. They were met by a woman with a large rock, telling them the area belonged to the marae and they could not go any further. A look up at the marae and a few men standing there and the pair prudently decided it wasn’t worth the effort of arguing.

This must not happen and it is the reason why the Foreshore and Seabed Act must reflect that the coastline, all of it, belongs to all the people of New Zealand, represented by the Crown. Even those with riparian rights need to lose those – the beach and the sea must belong to us all. New Zealanders have had free and uninterrupted use of this for centuries now; who was here first has to be immaterial in the greater scheme of things.

Which brings me back to Hone Harawira and the large hole he’s dug for both himself and the Maori Party.

The Maori party has achieved a lot since its inception; the advent of Pita Sharples gave it a credibility it didn’t have before and they can ill-afford to lose members of his ilk. But even with the cultural need for a lot of talk before action, the art of politics is such that diplomatic strategy will get you a lot further than screeching like a fish-wife and throwing your toys out the cot verbally when things don’t go your way. It’s about respect, mana. Yet this Te Tai Tokerau MP appears, to me and a lot of others, to have none of that ability. Some strong politicians have come from up there, as too have the radicals. And it is this latter group to which I believe Hone Harawira very firmly belongs.

If the Maori Party are to survive this intact, I believe he needs to be sent on his way as an independent – and it needs to happen now while there are still 10 months left before the next election. They cannot afford a split and they cannot afford to keep him; he will not toe the line.

Whatever and however our nation’s governing structure is run, there can only be room for one, not two and should that event ever occur, it will lead straight to civil war. Racism can have no place in today’s society and Hone Harawira needs to forcibly learn that there are so many of us, both of Maori and pakeha blood, that we far outstrip the numbers in any other population demographic – and that we do not share his dream of Maori both owning and running New Zealand as of First Nations right.

It is time to put the grievances behind us and move on as a united nation with a bicultural balance.

The UN's condemnation of New Zealand

So the United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child has condemned New Zealand for its ‘staggering rates’ of child abuse and poverty in its first report since 2003.

I’m somewhat ambivalent about that aspect – while I absolutely agree the two are an issue that should not be possible in the fruit bowl of the South Pacific, one has to wonder what the heck the UNCRC has been doing for the past eight years if New Zealand is the first it’s chosen to train its gunsights on since that time. There are many other countries where children are at far greater risk; England comes instantly to mind with its rampant poverty, the increasing trade in stolen children for pedophile rings etc ad nauseum.

So, one does have to ask as an aside, what was so ‘special’ about New Zealand that in its first report in almost a decade, we’ve got stung. Where we’ve been lambasted for ‘limited access’ to quality pre-school care, the widening disparity between Maori and non-Maori children when it comes to living conditions, health and education and our high teenage birth rates and conversely, suicides.

That aside, it is very true that we have a major problem when it comes to kids who fall into the lower decile socio-economic areas. Each year as our population increases – and much of that increase from these same demographics – we find there are children born into families who not only cannot afford to feed, clothe and educate them, many of those same families have major problems with drugs and alcohol and most disturbingly of all, a repeated intergenerational cycle of extreme violence.

As the last three decades have passed, what I’ve seen is puzzling. We’ve put into place over that time the very processes that have created the problems we have today. We’ve allowed young teenage mothers to get pregnant willy-nilly and to actually pay them to do that, instead of offering the options of family taking care of the child – morals might be better instilled into youngsters if the families knew they had to pay long-term for the lack of them – or adopting out to families who are financially able to take care of a child in all ways that matter for the long term. One cannot use ignorance as an excuse here, the free Family Planning Clinic and high school sex education that have been in existence since the late 1970’s ensure that every physically mature young girl and boy know what it’s all about.

So the baby factory mentality has been well and truly installed.

Then we have the problem of the Children and Young Person’s Act of 1989. What a complete and utter disaster that one single piece of legislation has been, the one that gave kids all rights and no responsibilities – and parents all responsibilities and no rights; this later enlarged to include all teachers, caregivers and any other single thing that would have helped instill respect into these little monsters.

Our youngest generation has grown up with no boundaries and the fallout from that has been of such disastrous proportions that New Zealand is literally caught standing in the middle of the road like a possum in full headlights. Nowhere to go and no way to see ahead. Crime has escalated so far out of proportion it has become the norm, rather than the exception. And the UN thinks to condemn us because we want to lower the age where youngsters can be culpable for our most serious crimes; the ones these kids DO commit? What are we supposed to do with them? Hit them with a wet bus ticket? We do enough of that already.

When we couple all this with the ‘victim’ mentality that has become apparent as a by-product of our policies towards rectifying the problem of Maori grievances are concerned, it’s no wonder that the policy makers have become very quiet as to finding a long term solution to the problems all these things have created, both directly and indirectly.

Even worse, when we look at the way-too-large impact of our continued immigration policies, what hope have our young of finding their way in a society that has no jobs, thanks to the advent of multi-national corporates who take the job opportunities offshore and a lack of tax money to pay for the infrastructure that’s needed. And we wonder why our teenage suicide rates are so high? This, in an active nation that enjoys all manner of outdoor activities that many other countries don’t have access to?

I can’t give answers to the whole problem. But I do have some suggestions.

The first is to restructure the welfare system completely. Ensure that no young unmarried pregnant woman under the age of 21 receives any financial help outside of her medical care. The child born to her must be supported by her and/or its father, or by either’s set of parents or extended family.

Any woman on the DPB who becomes pregnant will not be paid any additional money for the sheer fact of having another child. It’s an unpalatable fact that in doing this for as long as we have, we’ve dumbed down the nation’s IQ. All mothers who fall into this category who are under the age of 25 must attend courses in parenting, family safety and basic housekeeping and cooking skills. Even with the influx in recent years of micro-housing, almost every New Zealander with a family has enough room on their sections to grow their own vegetables. Use a ‘ticket’ method; for those on the DPB or unemployment, the government gives them their benefit by having first taken out the money to pay the rent, utilities and food, with a set allowance available, but not accessible as money, for medical care. That way, the most important aspects are taken care of.

Next, scrap Working for Families and in its place, allow married – either legally or defacto - mothers (or fathers who wish to take on this role) who have had a career up until the time of becoming pregnant the ability to stay at home as a mother and be paid to raise the child until it is ready to go to pre-school at four years of age. The loss of the hearthstone of a mother figure being at home during a child’s formulative years is one of the primary reasons we have so many problems today.

Long term unemployment benenfits have to stop. Once someone has been unemployed for five years, they become virtually unemployable. So anyone who is in that position after two years must be made to work voluntarily – and there are many ways this can be done. Intergenerational unemployment has become a problem that is almost insurmountable. Whether they weed council gardens, work with Aged Concern or their local church is immaterial – work they must.

Absolutely batten down on immigration. Infrastructurally, we cannot afford to continually allow on average, the 100,000 a year we do let in here. I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what protocol we have signed with other nations as to how many we ‘must’ allow in. Charity starts at home and we need to fix up the mess we’ve got ourselves into before we worry about adding to it.

Change the curriculum at secondary education – use the spatial intelligence method and work towards getting young ones into the areas that suit them best, some towards academia, some towards trades, some towards services – this has to start at the time where it is most important. Why we keep trying to fit the square, hexagonal, octagonal pegs that our students are into the one round hole I will never know. And while on the subject of schools – and councils for that matter, I know of only one school in our area that has lots of fruit trees that are designed for the students. We have hungry kids – instead of planting oaks and liquid ambers that are major headaches for the ground staff, why not provide food from Mother Nature? If councils did the same in their many pretty parks and reserves, this would have to help. I cannot understand, why, in these times of increasing poverty, we are asked instead to simply enjoy ornamental fripperies that provide nothing but cost ratepayers an arm and a leg. The same goes for milk – if we have to, bring school milk back in. And that reminds me – someone I know works at a local college. He sees the canteen staff putting food, still in its plastic wraps into the bins at the end of the day. He also sees kids scavenging through those bins, which are supposed to be for the local piggery to pick up. He asked canteen staff why hungry kids couldn’t have the food without having to scrounge for it. The response? They wouldn’t make a profit if they gave it away. When a dollar via a pig farm is more important than a child’s hungry belly, you know there is a problem.

Absolutely create incentives for companies to retain their manufacturing here; it’s not that difficult to do. Company tax of 28 percent if all is processed in New Zealand – 45 percent if any of it is sent off shore for production or services.

When it comes to family violence or sexual abuse, these need to be made major crimes. Lock the perpetrators away, even the first offenders – for long enough so that the children grow without having to witness it, without having to think it’s ‘normal’. So that the many, many millions of dollars spent of medical care, counseling etc etc are lessened because the deterrent is such that any person thinking of raising their fist, or thinking that a physically immature child is prime prey for sex will think again.

To fix all this, there has to be a hardening up of how we do and see things. And until whoever is in government realises this, the problems will only get worse. One wonders at the naivety of the UN at times. Do any of these committee members have kids themselves? Are any truly aware of the ‘warrior’ society our very young country is still in? Most obviously not.