Disaster
Shocks us
Into renewed knowledge
Of what is real.
Falsehoods fracture and tear apart,
The follies built upon them
Fall into unrecoverable ruin,
And the simple truths of life
Emerge again.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
WISE WORDS ON THE EARTHQUAKE
The Bay of Plenty Times quoted Greg O’Connor, the president of the Police Association, after he had visited the site of the CTV building in Christchurch yesterday, where up to 120 people are feared killed by the magnitude 6.3 earthquake. He admitted that the police and other government agencies would need to ‘write a new script’ in response to the disaster.
‘I think it would be a good idea if every MP and senior bureaucrat and every senior decision-maker in New Zealand gets down here over the next two weeks because you just can't get a sense of it unless you’re here.’
Well said. If they did it might shove them into the real world of real people living real lives. They might rediscover their hearts, and raise the temperature of their heads from the absolute zero of corrupt thinking to normal body-temperature.
‘I think it would be a good idea if every MP and senior bureaucrat and every senior decision-maker in New Zealand gets down here over the next two weeks because you just can't get a sense of it unless you’re here.’
Well said. If they did it might shove them into the real world of real people living real lives. They might rediscover their hearts, and raise the temperature of their heads from the absolute zero of corrupt thinking to normal body-temperature.
Friday, 25 February 2011
THE CORRUPTION OF LANGUAGE
'When men cannot change things they change words', is an old, very wise Roman proverb. A glaring sign of corruption is when people change the language. It is the worst form of corruption, because it is far more than just a superficial lie. It changes communication, which is the social glue, and therefore it damages society. It also changes the way we think in a very fundamental way. Changing words is not therefore not cosmetic; it is an evil that goes deep.
Winston Churchill said, 'We build our houses then our houses build us.' The same is true of language. The words we use, the words we choose, alter our thinking. We should therefore take great care with our choice of words. And we should change them only for very good reason. Not for malice, not for vanity, not just for the sake of it.
PC-speak is corruption. It is an evil cancer metastasising through our nation, through our communities, through our families, through our minds. It is a social crime.
....
A recent example of an attempt to change words was in the report of the 'Welfare' Working Group, which wants to us to replace all the welfare benefits with one, to be called the Work-Seeker Benefit. Obviously, those who then fail to find work can be cut off. That ignores the truth that there is 5-10% unemployment, and that therefore there will be a large number of people who will never find work. It also ignores what has pointed out by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the world's foremost economists, who said that in modern economies unemployment is deliberately factored in as part of the effort to keep inflation under control.
To penalise the people who are the consequence of that policy is wickedness; to change the language to vindicate it is wickedness piled on wickedness.
The victims of the Christchurch earthquake who are being handed wads of money by the government are not being asked if they are looking for work, because a vast amount of employment in Christchurch has been eliminated. The same applies to the whole country, except that the earthquake that has caused the unemployment is man-made, which is even more reason why those who are the victims of it should not be penalised.
We are making two classes of beneficiaries: Christchurch ones and others&emdash;and a policy to tick the first and kick the second.
Winston Churchill said, 'We build our houses then our houses build us.' The same is true of language. The words we use, the words we choose, alter our thinking. We should therefore take great care with our choice of words. And we should change them only for very good reason. Not for malice, not for vanity, not just for the sake of it.
PC-speak is corruption. It is an evil cancer metastasising through our nation, through our communities, through our families, through our minds. It is a social crime.
....
A recent example of an attempt to change words was in the report of the 'Welfare' Working Group, which wants to us to replace all the welfare benefits with one, to be called the Work-Seeker Benefit. Obviously, those who then fail to find work can be cut off. That ignores the truth that there is 5-10% unemployment, and that therefore there will be a large number of people who will never find work. It also ignores what has pointed out by John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the world's foremost economists, who said that in modern economies unemployment is deliberately factored in as part of the effort to keep inflation under control.
To penalise the people who are the consequence of that policy is wickedness; to change the language to vindicate it is wickedness piled on wickedness.
The victims of the Christchurch earthquake who are being handed wads of money by the government are not being asked if they are looking for work, because a vast amount of employment in Christchurch has been eliminated. The same applies to the whole country, except that the earthquake that has caused the unemployment is man-made, which is even more reason why those who are the victims of it should not be penalised.
We are making two classes of beneficiaries: Christchurch ones and others&emdash;and a policy to tick the first and kick the second.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
THE MAORI PARTY NIXES HUMAN RIGHTS
The government of New Zealand relies on the support of the Maori Party to remain in power, and New Zealand, in theory, operates under the rule of law. Our pre-eminent law is the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which says this, very plainly, in sections 13 and 14:
....
13. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion--Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.
14. Freedom of expression--Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
....
Whatever anyone's opinion of what Hone Harawira said, those in the Maori Party who dreamed up and decided to enforce their party rules to crush him obviously do not understand 'everyone', 'without interference' or 'freedom'. Or perhaps they have never read the Bill of Rights Act.
It is comforting to know that the government of New Zealand is in such law-abiding hands...
....
13. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion--Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.
14. Freedom of expression--Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
....
Whatever anyone's opinion of what Hone Harawira said, those in the Maori Party who dreamed up and decided to enforce their party rules to crush him obviously do not understand 'everyone', 'without interference' or 'freedom'. Or perhaps they have never read the Bill of Rights Act.
It is comforting to know that the government of New Zealand is in such law-abiding hands...
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
SHAKEN BACK TO REALITY
A silver lining to the black cloud of a terrible disaster is that everyone is very forcibly shaken back to reality, to the fundamentals of life, to what truly matters. Habits of falsehood, evasion, ideology, party-political nonsense and fallacious thinking vanish, suddenly replaced by the simple truth.
Long may it last!
The jarring reality in Christchurch on Tuesday the 22nd contrasts with the heartless follies of the 'Welfare' Working Group, which had only the day before released its disgusting report, which did not have the slightest connection with reality. The very next day thousands were flung out of work, out of normal existence, into circumstances that could not be covered by the trivial handouts proposed by the malicious WWG.
If we were to apply the same corrupt thinking to those caught by the combination of circumstance and the physical earthquake in Christchurch that the WWG is telling us to apply to those caught by the combination of circumstance and the global financial earthquakes, we would be handing the people of Christchurch a dollar or two for a short time then telling them to get lost, get off their chuffs and help themselves.
Long may it last!
The jarring reality in Christchurch on Tuesday the 22nd contrasts with the heartless follies of the 'Welfare' Working Group, which had only the day before released its disgusting report, which did not have the slightest connection with reality. The very next day thousands were flung out of work, out of normal existence, into circumstances that could not be covered by the trivial handouts proposed by the malicious WWG.
If we were to apply the same corrupt thinking to those caught by the combination of circumstance and the physical earthquake in Christchurch that the WWG is telling us to apply to those caught by the combination of circumstance and the global financial earthquakes, we would be handing the people of Christchurch a dollar or two for a short time then telling them to get lost, get off their chuffs and help themselves.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF LAW AND CORRUPTION
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, passed by our Parliament in 1990, begins with very strong language, setting out the Act's reason for existence with these words, in boldface:
....
NEW ZEALAND BILL OF RIGHTS
An Act--
(a) To affirm, protect, and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms in New Zealand; and
(b) To affirm New Zealand's commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
....
To affirm means to make strong. To commit means to entrust, consign for treatment or safe keeping. Thus to proclaim before the world, on top of signing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICOCAPR), that you are affirming your commitment to it, could not state things more powerfully.
ICOCAPR, like all United Nations instruments, begins with a very powerful statement of the fundamentals of a free society, of law, of human rights:
'Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world'.
Then it underlines the fundamental of fundamentals: 'Recognising that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person'.
Different United Nations instruments use slightly different wording to state that absolute fundamental. Some say 'inherent dignity'; the United Nations Charter says, 'inherent dignity and worth', which nicely underlines the central point by doubling it. But that is the explicitly stated bedrock of law. Every good law, every good official act in society has as its aim the fulfilment of that principle.
'Recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person' is the sharp, clear dividing-line between the light of human rights and the darkness of human wrongs. Judgements are therefore very simple. If an action or expression recognises the inherent dignity and worth of the human person it is a right; if not it is a criminal wrong.
Corruption in all its forms is a denial of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person. It is therefore a denial of the fundamental principle of human rights, a denial of the fundamental principle of law, a denial of the fundamental truth of what it is to be human. It is a monstrous lie, which is why it must be implacably resisted wherever it shows itself. Lies damage or destroy human life.
That is the point starkly made by another United Nations instrument, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says: 'disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which outraged the conscience of all mankind'.
That puts in a nutshell the fundamental cause of all barbarous acts: disregard and contempt for human rights--in particular the bedrock of human rights, 'recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person.'
Therefore to rid ourselves of a particular barbarous act that outrages the human conscience we need only to identify and eliminate the particular human right that is being disregarded and contemned. We need to identify where and how the inherent dignity and worth of the human person is being denied, then take whatever action is necessary to change denial to recognition.
....
NEW ZEALAND BILL OF RIGHTS
An Act--
(a) To affirm, protect, and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms in New Zealand; and
(b) To affirm New Zealand's commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
....
To affirm means to make strong. To commit means to entrust, consign for treatment or safe keeping. Thus to proclaim before the world, on top of signing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICOCAPR), that you are affirming your commitment to it, could not state things more powerfully.
ICOCAPR, like all United Nations instruments, begins with a very powerful statement of the fundamentals of a free society, of law, of human rights:
'Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world'.
Then it underlines the fundamental of fundamentals: 'Recognising that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person'.
Different United Nations instruments use slightly different wording to state that absolute fundamental. Some say 'inherent dignity'; the United Nations Charter says, 'inherent dignity and worth', which nicely underlines the central point by doubling it. But that is the explicitly stated bedrock of law. Every good law, every good official act in society has as its aim the fulfilment of that principle.
'Recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person' is the sharp, clear dividing-line between the light of human rights and the darkness of human wrongs. Judgements are therefore very simple. If an action or expression recognises the inherent dignity and worth of the human person it is a right; if not it is a criminal wrong.
Corruption in all its forms is a denial of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person. It is therefore a denial of the fundamental principle of human rights, a denial of the fundamental principle of law, a denial of the fundamental truth of what it is to be human. It is a monstrous lie, which is why it must be implacably resisted wherever it shows itself. Lies damage or destroy human life.
That is the point starkly made by another United Nations instrument, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says: 'disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which outraged the conscience of all mankind'.
That puts in a nutshell the fundamental cause of all barbarous acts: disregard and contempt for human rights--in particular the bedrock of human rights, 'recognition of the inherent dignity and worth of the human person.'
Therefore to rid ourselves of a particular barbarous act that outrages the human conscience we need only to identify and eliminate the particular human right that is being disregarded and contemned. We need to identify where and how the inherent dignity and worth of the human person is being denied, then take whatever action is necessary to change denial to recognition.
Monday, 21 February 2011
IUS
The foundation of the word justice is the Latin word ius, which means right. So justice should be concerned only with achieving the right, in all senses: in truth, in logic, in human rights and in law.
That is underlined by sections 25(a) and 27(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which lay down that everyone has the right to a 'fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial court' and 'to the observance of the principles of natural justice.'
It is also underlined by sections 6(a) and 6(b) of the Evidence Act 2006. Section 6 of that Act lays down its purpose, and begins with:
....
The purpose of this Act is to help secure the just determination of proceedings by--
(a) providing for facts to be established by the application of logical rules; and
(b) providing rules of evidence that recognise the importance of the rights affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990;
....
Logical rules are simple. Establish a true premise, reason logically from it, and the conclusion will be right, must be right, cannot be anything but right.
The fundamental rule of logic is simple and powerful: 'If, if and only if the premise is true and the reasoning is true will the conclusion be true.'
Thus judges are told to establish the truth, to reason truly from it, and thus to come down with the true verdict, the right verdict. Failure to adhere to 6(a) and (b) is the corruption of incompetence or carelessness. Wilful failure to is deliberate corruption.
That is underlined by sections 25(a) and 27(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which lay down that everyone has the right to a 'fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial court' and 'to the observance of the principles of natural justice.'
It is also underlined by sections 6(a) and 6(b) of the Evidence Act 2006. Section 6 of that Act lays down its purpose, and begins with:
....
The purpose of this Act is to help secure the just determination of proceedings by--
(a) providing for facts to be established by the application of logical rules; and
(b) providing rules of evidence that recognise the importance of the rights affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990;
....
Logical rules are simple. Establish a true premise, reason logically from it, and the conclusion will be right, must be right, cannot be anything but right.
The fundamental rule of logic is simple and powerful: 'If, if and only if the premise is true and the reasoning is true will the conclusion be true.'
Thus judges are told to establish the truth, to reason truly from it, and thus to come down with the true verdict, the right verdict. Failure to adhere to 6(a) and (b) is the corruption of incompetence or carelessness. Wilful failure to is deliberate corruption.
ASSET-SALE CORRUPTION
Public assets are assets that belong to the people; they were bought by the people for the benefit of the people. Only the people can decide what to do with them, not those who think they are their masters, those who too often forget that they are public servants, elected or employed.
The word 'assets' comes from two Latin words, ad, which means to, and satis, which means enough. Therefore to sell public assets is to leave the people with less than enough, to deprive them of what is of value to them, both because they bought them and they were bought for their benefit. It is betrayal of the people and every generation of their children. That applies in particular to infrastructure assets.
To suggest selling the people's assets is corrupt thinking. To do it is corrupt. The result cannot be for the public good.
'But,' said the masters, 'look, if we sell public assets to the private sector [but they did not say assets created over many years with your hard-earned taxes], you will get a much better deal. Better service, better prices, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. The private sector will INVEST! You'll see! They'll make things BETTER!!!'
So they sold them. They sold the railways, they sold the electricity sector, they sold telecommunications. They want to sell more.
'Those who cannot learn from mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.'
They must think we are so stupid and forgetful we will not remember that they ended up having to buy back the railways because they were going to rack and ruin. And that the electricity sector became a self-serving mess, the price of electrons went through our roofs, and the modern technology of generating power where it is consumed instead of far away was ignored in favour of defacing the landscape with Big Toys for All Those Private Little Boys.
In effect they also have had to buy back the telecommunications sector because New Zealand got so far behind in modern infrastructure that the government had to pump in a billion or two to drag us very belatedly into the 21st century. But instead of all the value staying in the hands of the people, the profit on that vast sum will go to those wunnerful private companies that were going to deliver us telecommunications miracles.
The cargo-cult mentality never does deliver. There's no such thing as a free cargo.
Before it was corrupted by the linguistically-challenged who wanted to pretend that they were not using bad language, and so deliberately mispronounce the swear-word for anus, everyone with any education knew that 'ass' is a synonym for donkey. And therefore knew what Charles Dickens meant when he said, 'The law is an ass.'
It is a nice coincidence that 'asset-sale' begins with 'ass.' It is donkeys selling hooves to pay for shoes.
The sweetener for all that ass-headed ideology is that they tell us that the assets will only be sold to Ma-and-Pa investors. Doh! They GAVE the electricity sector to the same Ma's and Pa's. Then along came the corporate greedies and offered them all $1000 or so for their shares. So the real purpose was achieved. Ma and Pa were cheated and robbed for ever after.
Public assets are already owned by every Ma and Pa, and child, in the country. To sell to a small number of Ma's and Pa's is to exchange democracy for hierarchy. Which is corruption.
The assets are already owned by
The word 'assets' comes from two Latin words, ad, which means to, and satis, which means enough. Therefore to sell public assets is to leave the people with less than enough, to deprive them of what is of value to them, both because they bought them and they were bought for their benefit. It is betrayal of the people and every generation of their children. That applies in particular to infrastructure assets.
To suggest selling the people's assets is corrupt thinking. To do it is corrupt. The result cannot be for the public good.
'But,' said the masters, 'look, if we sell public assets to the private sector [but they did not say assets created over many years with your hard-earned taxes], you will get a much better deal. Better service, better prices, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. The private sector will INVEST! You'll see! They'll make things BETTER!!!'
So they sold them. They sold the railways, they sold the electricity sector, they sold telecommunications. They want to sell more.
'Those who cannot learn from mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.'
They must think we are so stupid and forgetful we will not remember that they ended up having to buy back the railways because they were going to rack and ruin. And that the electricity sector became a self-serving mess, the price of electrons went through our roofs, and the modern technology of generating power where it is consumed instead of far away was ignored in favour of defacing the landscape with Big Toys for All Those Private Little Boys.
In effect they also have had to buy back the telecommunications sector because New Zealand got so far behind in modern infrastructure that the government had to pump in a billion or two to drag us very belatedly into the 21st century. But instead of all the value staying in the hands of the people, the profit on that vast sum will go to those wunnerful private companies that were going to deliver us telecommunications miracles.
The cargo-cult mentality never does deliver. There's no such thing as a free cargo.
Before it was corrupted by the linguistically-challenged who wanted to pretend that they were not using bad language, and so deliberately mispronounce the swear-word for anus, everyone with any education knew that 'ass' is a synonym for donkey. And therefore knew what Charles Dickens meant when he said, 'The law is an ass.'
It is a nice coincidence that 'asset-sale' begins with 'ass.' It is donkeys selling hooves to pay for shoes.
The sweetener for all that ass-headed ideology is that they tell us that the assets will only be sold to Ma-and-Pa investors. Doh! They GAVE the electricity sector to the same Ma's and Pa's. Then along came the corporate greedies and offered them all $1000 or so for their shares. So the real purpose was achieved. Ma and Pa were cheated and robbed for ever after.
Public assets are already owned by every Ma and Pa, and child, in the country. To sell to a small number of Ma's and Pa's is to exchange democracy for hierarchy. Which is corruption.
The assets are already owned by
SOUTH AFRICA AND NEW ZEALAND
South Africans who emigrated to New Zealand several years ago told me they expected to be leaving corruption
behind. To their dismay they found it just as alive and well--but then it was hidden.
Not any more.
As a steady stream of news reports show, it is now in our faces.
It used to be like the fault-lines under Christchurch: unseen, even unknown. Now it is liquefying ground and wrecking lives all over the place.
behind. To their dismay they found it just as alive and well--but then it was hidden.
Not any more.
As a steady stream of news reports show, it is now in our faces.
It used to be like the fault-lines under Christchurch: unseen, even unknown. Now it is liquefying ground and wrecking lives all over the place.
THE REMUNERATION AUTHORITY IS CORRUPT
If everyone cannot stand for election to local government it cannot be democratic, because true democracy is representative. If local government cannot be representative because elected government positions are open only to a small segment of the population, it is not democratic, it cannot possibly be democratic.
Therefore any system that denies universal access to the ballot-paper is corrupt. The Remuneration Authority has been corrupting local government in New Zealand since at least 2002, when the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA2002) came into force, because it has ignored the mandatory criteria laid down in the Act for setting local-government remuneration. Instead it has been using rules of its own invention, the so-called Pool Formula, invented by one of its former chairmen, a man called Hutton Peacock.
The result is that the remuneration for many local-government positions are only a fraction of the minimum wage, well below what anyone could survive on. Some are paid as little as $206 a year--only slightly more what someone on the dole would get in a week. The average for people elected to Community Boards is only about $5000 a year. Very few are paid more than $10,000. Some councillors are also paid less than that.
That means that the only people who can stand in local-government elections are those who have independent means, or who have another job. The result is a bias towards the rich and to those prevented by other employment from devoting themselves to their public responsibilities.
The Remuneration Authority has thus kneecapped true democracy in local government for years.
If you pay peanuts you either get monkeys or crippled lions--you either get incompetent fools or good people who have to have another job if they are to stay alive. Therefore the people in their communities are cheated, they do not get what the LGA2002 was explicitly set up to give them: good local government, democratic local government, representative local government.
The mandatory criteria for setting the remuneration of those elected to be mayors, councillors, members of community boards, etc.--are laid down very plainly and clearly in Clause 7 of Schedule 7 of the LGA2002:
....
7 Mandatory criteria for Remuneration Authority
(1) In determining remuneration under clause 6 [which lists the positions], the Remuneration Authority must have regard to--
(a) minimise the potential for certain types of remuneration to distort the behaviour of the persons listed in clause 6(1) in relation to their positions as listed in clause 6(1); and
(b) achieve and maintain fair relativity with the levels of remuneration received elsewhere; and
(c) be fair both--
(i) to the persons whose remuneration is being determined; and
(ii) to ratepayers; and
(d) attract and retain competent persons.
(2) The criteria in subclause (1) do not prevent the Remuneration Authority from determining allowances additional to salary for attending meetings.
....
What part of 'mandatory' does the Remuneration Authority not understand?
And why does it not understand that if elected representatives cannot stay alive on the money they are paid their behaviour will be distorted far away from doing the job the electorate wants them to do and elected them to do?
And what is fair about starvation wages, far below the minimum hourly rate? A full-timer only sweeping the floor, on the minimum legal wage, will have an income of about $20,000. Good local government is worth far more than that.
And what is fair to ratepayers in having either people who have independent means, and therefore are not representative of the wider community, or having people who do not have the time to the job that ratepayers voted them to do, because they have to have other employment to stay alive?
And no competent persons will be attracted away from jobs where they are paid well, or even paid the average income, to stand for jobs in which they cannot survive, or cannot live with any degree of dignity.
On top of that there is a heap of international law to which New Zealand has signed up to, and underlined via the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which says that people should be paid fairly, and that there should be nothing in our election system that biases it towards a minority.
How much clearer could all that be? Obviously not clear enough for the Remuneration Authority. Or perhaps it never bothered to read it. Whatever the truth it has replaced the mandatory criteria copied above with that corrupt rule of its own, the 'Pool Formula.'
Here it is (click on it to see a full-size image, then click on the magnifying-glass to enlarge it). It is enough to make Einstein's head spin.
'Relative to what is received elsewhere' does not mean relative to the remuneration paid in other councils, which is of course also set by the Remuneration Authority. It means relative to what is paid elsewhere in New Zealand. That means relative to the average income for full-time jobs. Anyone who thinks that local-government positions are not full-time jobs has not been reading the LGA2002. Elected government jobs, both national and local, are three-year commitments, with arduous, time-consuming responsibilities and duties.
It is not only the Remuneration Authority that is corrupt and responsible for the kneecapping of local government. Those who appoint the three people who sit on it, and who allow it to continue to thumb its nose at Parliament and the law are just as corrupt. The Regulations Review Committee of Parliament was told bluntly and in detail about the problem in 2008, and firstly said there was a case to answer. But the smooth-talking chairman of the Authority lied his way out of it. Nothing was done. Perhaps Parliament was too cowardly to add cost to local government in an election year, although the percentage increase in rates, even in a small community would be trivial. Or perhaps they were too ready to believe the smooth lies.
Whatever the reason, those who decline to do something about corruption, when it is their duty to and they have the power to, are corrupt also.
The irony is that Rodney Hide, the Mincer of Local Government, trumpeted on about wanting local government to be better. But he refused to point-blank, in writing, to do anything about the corrupt Remuneration Authority. So peanuts continued to be paid, and monkeys and kneecapped lions continued to be elected.
The web of corruption widened past the Remuneration Authority and the relevant Parliamentary Select Committee to the judicial system. Because section 138 of the LGA2002 plainly says that failure to comply with the Act is an offence. Therefore in not complying with the mandatory criteria for setting remuneration--mandatory criteria--the Remuneration Authority is committing an offence, and has been since 2002. The LGA2002 says that anyone who commits an offence can be haled into the Distict Court, prosecuted and fined up to $5000.
But cases do not go directly to court, to be tried in public. A decision is first made behind closed doors by a Duty Judge. The Duty Judge in that case, Judge Bouchier, ruled that 'it was not an offence known to law.' Can she not read section 138? She cited as her authority an English case, in 1948, involving the Battersea Borough Council. Firstly this is the 21st century, not the mid 20th; secondly it is New Zealand, not England; thirdly, and worst of all, she lied. She must have thought no one would look up that case. It does not, anywhere, say what she said it says. Even if it had it would not apply.
That judicial corruption was reported to the Judicial Conduct Commission, which ignored the documentary evidence (a copy of the Battersea case and Judge Bouchier's secret 'ruling') and whitewashed over her corruption, thus proving itself to be part of the web of corruption.
The kneecapping of local government in New Zealand, thanks to this wicked web of corruption, continues.
Therefore any system that denies universal access to the ballot-paper is corrupt. The Remuneration Authority has been corrupting local government in New Zealand since at least 2002, when the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA2002) came into force, because it has ignored the mandatory criteria laid down in the Act for setting local-government remuneration. Instead it has been using rules of its own invention, the so-called Pool Formula, invented by one of its former chairmen, a man called Hutton Peacock.
The result is that the remuneration for many local-government positions are only a fraction of the minimum wage, well below what anyone could survive on. Some are paid as little as $206 a year--only slightly more what someone on the dole would get in a week. The average for people elected to Community Boards is only about $5000 a year. Very few are paid more than $10,000. Some councillors are also paid less than that.
That means that the only people who can stand in local-government elections are those who have independent means, or who have another job. The result is a bias towards the rich and to those prevented by other employment from devoting themselves to their public responsibilities.
The Remuneration Authority has thus kneecapped true democracy in local government for years.
If you pay peanuts you either get monkeys or crippled lions--you either get incompetent fools or good people who have to have another job if they are to stay alive. Therefore the people in their communities are cheated, they do not get what the LGA2002 was explicitly set up to give them: good local government, democratic local government, representative local government.
The mandatory criteria for setting the remuneration of those elected to be mayors, councillors, members of community boards, etc.--are laid down very plainly and clearly in Clause 7 of Schedule 7 of the LGA2002:
....
7 Mandatory criteria for Remuneration Authority
(1) In determining remuneration under clause 6 [which lists the positions], the Remuneration Authority must have regard to--
(a) minimise the potential for certain types of remuneration to distort the behaviour of the persons listed in clause 6(1) in relation to their positions as listed in clause 6(1); and
(b) achieve and maintain fair relativity with the levels of remuneration received elsewhere; and
(c) be fair both--
(i) to the persons whose remuneration is being determined; and
(ii) to ratepayers; and
(d) attract and retain competent persons.
(2) The criteria in subclause (1) do not prevent the Remuneration Authority from determining allowances additional to salary for attending meetings.
....
What part of 'mandatory' does the Remuneration Authority not understand?
And why does it not understand that if elected representatives cannot stay alive on the money they are paid their behaviour will be distorted far away from doing the job the electorate wants them to do and elected them to do?
And what is fair about starvation wages, far below the minimum hourly rate? A full-timer only sweeping the floor, on the minimum legal wage, will have an income of about $20,000. Good local government is worth far more than that.
And what is fair to ratepayers in having either people who have independent means, and therefore are not representative of the wider community, or having people who do not have the time to the job that ratepayers voted them to do, because they have to have other employment to stay alive?
And no competent persons will be attracted away from jobs where they are paid well, or even paid the average income, to stand for jobs in which they cannot survive, or cannot live with any degree of dignity.
On top of that there is a heap of international law to which New Zealand has signed up to, and underlined via the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which says that people should be paid fairly, and that there should be nothing in our election system that biases it towards a minority.
How much clearer could all that be? Obviously not clear enough for the Remuneration Authority. Or perhaps it never bothered to read it. Whatever the truth it has replaced the mandatory criteria copied above with that corrupt rule of its own, the 'Pool Formula.'
Here it is (click on it to see a full-size image, then click on the magnifying-glass to enlarge it). It is enough to make Einstein's head spin.
'Relative to what is received elsewhere' does not mean relative to the remuneration paid in other councils, which is of course also set by the Remuneration Authority. It means relative to what is paid elsewhere in New Zealand. That means relative to the average income for full-time jobs. Anyone who thinks that local-government positions are not full-time jobs has not been reading the LGA2002. Elected government jobs, both national and local, are three-year commitments, with arduous, time-consuming responsibilities and duties.
It is not only the Remuneration Authority that is corrupt and responsible for the kneecapping of local government. Those who appoint the three people who sit on it, and who allow it to continue to thumb its nose at Parliament and the law are just as corrupt. The Regulations Review Committee of Parliament was told bluntly and in detail about the problem in 2008, and firstly said there was a case to answer. But the smooth-talking chairman of the Authority lied his way out of it. Nothing was done. Perhaps Parliament was too cowardly to add cost to local government in an election year, although the percentage increase in rates, even in a small community would be trivial. Or perhaps they were too ready to believe the smooth lies.
Whatever the reason, those who decline to do something about corruption, when it is their duty to and they have the power to, are corrupt also.
The irony is that Rodney Hide, the Mincer of Local Government, trumpeted on about wanting local government to be better. But he refused to point-blank, in writing, to do anything about the corrupt Remuneration Authority. So peanuts continued to be paid, and monkeys and kneecapped lions continued to be elected.
The web of corruption widened past the Remuneration Authority and the relevant Parliamentary Select Committee to the judicial system. Because section 138 of the LGA2002 plainly says that failure to comply with the Act is an offence. Therefore in not complying with the mandatory criteria for setting remuneration--mandatory criteria--the Remuneration Authority is committing an offence, and has been since 2002. The LGA2002 says that anyone who commits an offence can be haled into the Distict Court, prosecuted and fined up to $5000.
But cases do not go directly to court, to be tried in public. A decision is first made behind closed doors by a Duty Judge. The Duty Judge in that case, Judge Bouchier, ruled that 'it was not an offence known to law.' Can she not read section 138? She cited as her authority an English case, in 1948, involving the Battersea Borough Council. Firstly this is the 21st century, not the mid 20th; secondly it is New Zealand, not England; thirdly, and worst of all, she lied. She must have thought no one would look up that case. It does not, anywhere, say what she said it says. Even if it had it would not apply.
That judicial corruption was reported to the Judicial Conduct Commission, which ignored the documentary evidence (a copy of the Battersea case and Judge Bouchier's secret 'ruling') and whitewashed over her corruption, thus proving itself to be part of the web of corruption.
The kneecapping of local government in New Zealand, thanks to this wicked web of corruption, continues.
NEW ZEALAND IS NOT EGYPT
Sadly, the ugly word 'corruption' is a word often used in New Zealand nowadays. We hear it from all sorts of people--professional, semi-professional, skilled, unskilled--in the street, in the supermarket, in conversations everywhere. People say, 'We live in a corrupt country', and of many decisions 'It's corruption', and others nod in deep agreement. We see corruption in government, in officialdom and in business. There is a global crisis caused by vast corruption, and we expect it elsewhere, but in New Zealand we have long prided ourselves on being largely free of it. But pride goes before a fall. At first our corruption was more covert than overt. Now it is arrogantly in our faces. And we the people are sick of it. We hate it, we do not want it, we are weary to the heart's core of what it does to our lives and our country.
Corruption is not interested in people or their well-being. It cares nothing for those whom Winston Churchill called 'the people who toil and moil.' It is not interested in acting with integrity in accordance with good, democratic laws. It is a vile cancer. Good government becomes impossible, and the true well-being of communities cannot be promoted.
But the protests against the repression of corrupt administration in Egypt and other Arab countries have a big advantage over any desire or attempt to do the same thing in New Zealand. In those countries there is a figurehead, a single one person who is the creator and symbol of the whole mess, someone who has been there for decades, whose name sums up everything wrong. To quote the sentiments of an Egyptian protester: 'The head of the snake had to be cut off.'
But in New Zealand the corruption is diffuse. It is not focused, it is not concentrated in one person, there is not one big snake with a single obvious head. It is an army of vipers large and small, writhing everywhere. The corruption is spread across many MPS, judges, tribunals, police officers, bureaucrats, mayors, councillors, businessmen, editors, journalists...
The type of corruption is also more diffuse. In Arab regimes it is or can be seen under one heading. But in New Zealand it takes many forms.
Corruption can be extreme wickedness--a Hitler or a Robert Mugabe. But just as bad are multitudes of smaller kinds. It does not matter if your house is wrecked by a charging rhinoceros or a million termites, the result is the same. Your life is wrecked. The blatant rhino is at least easy to see and can be stopped with a single bullet. But a million termites are hard to see, hard to stop, and may not be noticed for a long time. They gnaw away in the foundations of society, then suddenly we all crash through the floor.
There are two kinds of corruption. Deliberate and 'accidental.' But it is all the same. It is a form of vanity. It can be the love of titles, seats of honour, official baubles--the corruption of greedy pomposity. It can be a taste for personal power--the corruption of overweening self-importance. It can be acting for a friend or someone with a title instead of obeying democratic law--the corruption of influence. It can be making a decision for bureaucratic convenience, not true public service--the corruption of process over humanity. It can be not bothering to do your job properly--the corruption of irresponsible carelessness. It can be not bothering to do the job at all--the corruption of laziness and pretence, of sloth and show. It can be the corruption of not being up to the job--the corruption of incompetence, and bad management. It can be not bothering with the law or researching the facts--the corruption of wilful lawlessness and ignorance. It can refusing to admit a mistake in the face of the facts and the law--the corruption of wilful blindness. It can be not understanding simple English--the corruption of ignorant stupidity. It can be forcing people to comply with your dictates to satisfy pride, bureaucratic arrogance, or sloth--the corruption of petty oppression. It can be refusing to give a straight answer to a valid question--the corruption of the silent lie. It can be presenting false or misleading information and pretending it is true, or falsifying the law and the meaning of words--the corruption of outright lies, of deliberate evil. It can be offering a position for a vote or a wad of money or a gift--the corruption of bribery. It can be acting out of hatred, malice or the desire for revenge--the corruption of wanting to do harm. It can be acting on shonky official advice--the corruption of careless and uninformed decisions. It can be political interference in due process, such as misusing a statutory authority--the corruption of abusing political position. It can be conducting a hearing with a closed mind, with the verdict politically dictated in advance--the corruption of prejudice or cowardice. In judges it can be the corruption of not applying reason and the rules of logic to the evidence, in spite of the fact that the law commands it; or ignoring evidence, or the law, or both--the corruption putting themselves above the law, of thinking that they are the law. It can be the corruption wilfully misrepresenting the law because it does not fit the personal opinions or ideology of the judge or the official. It can be the corruption of bad senior officials repressing good juniors and thus preventing them from being conscientious public servants. It can be putting friendship, personal advantage and enrichment, or ideology above the truth and the rule of good law--even the creation of good law. It can be unfairness--the corruption of denying natural justice, to which we all have the right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which came into law in 1990. It can be swearing to carry out your duties according to law, having never read the relevant law and never bothering to read it afterwards--the corruption of official perjury. And so on.
Vanity is of course dishonesty writ large. It is a damned lie. But people, especially New Zealanders, are hardly likely to occupy public squares and march on Parliament under that banner. It is easy to march along shouting'Get rid of Mubarak!' or just 'Resign!' But 'Get rid of dishonest administrators!' does not have the same compulsive power. It rouses no one.
It is easy to shout at one man; it is next to impossible to shout at thousands.
Many years ago Gordon McLaughlan wrote a book about New Zealanders titled 'The Passionless People.' We are not ones to rouse ourselves to get rid of damned liars, however many there are. We are more likely to shrug and say 'That's life', do nothing and hope that the next election will fix things. Thus at every election we vote for the people who we hope will do the least harm. And the harm gets worse.
Perhaps the electronic street will enable us to shout in a way we feel comfortable with...
A democracy is meant to be people-power. But what we have is personage-power, and too many personages are corrupt. The people must wrest power away from them. They have power only because we allow it. As the Egyptians proved, when we say 'NO MORE!' the personages have to quit.
Corruption is not interested in people or their well-being. It cares nothing for those whom Winston Churchill called 'the people who toil and moil.' It is not interested in acting with integrity in accordance with good, democratic laws. It is a vile cancer. Good government becomes impossible, and the true well-being of communities cannot be promoted.
But the protests against the repression of corrupt administration in Egypt and other Arab countries have a big advantage over any desire or attempt to do the same thing in New Zealand. In those countries there is a figurehead, a single one person who is the creator and symbol of the whole mess, someone who has been there for decades, whose name sums up everything wrong. To quote the sentiments of an Egyptian protester: 'The head of the snake had to be cut off.'
But in New Zealand the corruption is diffuse. It is not focused, it is not concentrated in one person, there is not one big snake with a single obvious head. It is an army of vipers large and small, writhing everywhere. The corruption is spread across many MPS, judges, tribunals, police officers, bureaucrats, mayors, councillors, businessmen, editors, journalists...
The type of corruption is also more diffuse. In Arab regimes it is or can be seen under one heading. But in New Zealand it takes many forms.
Corruption can be extreme wickedness--a Hitler or a Robert Mugabe. But just as bad are multitudes of smaller kinds. It does not matter if your house is wrecked by a charging rhinoceros or a million termites, the result is the same. Your life is wrecked. The blatant rhino is at least easy to see and can be stopped with a single bullet. But a million termites are hard to see, hard to stop, and may not be noticed for a long time. They gnaw away in the foundations of society, then suddenly we all crash through the floor.
There are two kinds of corruption. Deliberate and 'accidental.' But it is all the same. It is a form of vanity. It can be the love of titles, seats of honour, official baubles--the corruption of greedy pomposity. It can be a taste for personal power--the corruption of overweening self-importance. It can be acting for a friend or someone with a title instead of obeying democratic law--the corruption of influence. It can be making a decision for bureaucratic convenience, not true public service--the corruption of process over humanity. It can be not bothering to do your job properly--the corruption of irresponsible carelessness. It can be not bothering to do the job at all--the corruption of laziness and pretence, of sloth and show. It can be the corruption of not being up to the job--the corruption of incompetence, and bad management. It can be not bothering with the law or researching the facts--the corruption of wilful lawlessness and ignorance. It can refusing to admit a mistake in the face of the facts and the law--the corruption of wilful blindness. It can be not understanding simple English--the corruption of ignorant stupidity. It can be forcing people to comply with your dictates to satisfy pride, bureaucratic arrogance, or sloth--the corruption of petty oppression. It can be refusing to give a straight answer to a valid question--the corruption of the silent lie. It can be presenting false or misleading information and pretending it is true, or falsifying the law and the meaning of words--the corruption of outright lies, of deliberate evil. It can be offering a position for a vote or a wad of money or a gift--the corruption of bribery. It can be acting out of hatred, malice or the desire for revenge--the corruption of wanting to do harm. It can be acting on shonky official advice--the corruption of careless and uninformed decisions. It can be political interference in due process, such as misusing a statutory authority--the corruption of abusing political position. It can be conducting a hearing with a closed mind, with the verdict politically dictated in advance--the corruption of prejudice or cowardice. In judges it can be the corruption of not applying reason and the rules of logic to the evidence, in spite of the fact that the law commands it; or ignoring evidence, or the law, or both--the corruption putting themselves above the law, of thinking that they are the law. It can be the corruption wilfully misrepresenting the law because it does not fit the personal opinions or ideology of the judge or the official. It can be the corruption of bad senior officials repressing good juniors and thus preventing them from being conscientious public servants. It can be putting friendship, personal advantage and enrichment, or ideology above the truth and the rule of good law--even the creation of good law. It can be unfairness--the corruption of denying natural justice, to which we all have the right under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which came into law in 1990. It can be swearing to carry out your duties according to law, having never read the relevant law and never bothering to read it afterwards--the corruption of official perjury. And so on.
Vanity is of course dishonesty writ large. It is a damned lie. But people, especially New Zealanders, are hardly likely to occupy public squares and march on Parliament under that banner. It is easy to march along shouting'Get rid of Mubarak!' or just 'Resign!' But 'Get rid of dishonest administrators!' does not have the same compulsive power. It rouses no one.
It is easy to shout at one man; it is next to impossible to shout at thousands.
Many years ago Gordon McLaughlan wrote a book about New Zealanders titled 'The Passionless People.' We are not ones to rouse ourselves to get rid of damned liars, however many there are. We are more likely to shrug and say 'That's life', do nothing and hope that the next election will fix things. Thus at every election we vote for the people who we hope will do the least harm. And the harm gets worse.
Perhaps the electronic street will enable us to shout in a way we feel comfortable with...
A democracy is meant to be people-power. But what we have is personage-power, and too many personages are corrupt. The people must wrest power away from them. They have power only because we allow it. As the Egyptians proved, when we say 'NO MORE!' the personages have to quit.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
HOW WE SHOULD SELECT THOSE IN GOVERNMENT
No one should be hired in any government position, or selected to stand for any elected position, who has not been through rigorous psychological testing, so that we do not get misfits, thugs, rapists, murders and other criminals anywhere near them. Or fools who cannot reason their way out of a wet paper bag, even if assisted by a stack of nuclear weapons and a squadron of bulldozers.
The selection process from those who pass those tests should be by random methods--a computer program or just tossing a coin. There should be no human involvement. Then there can be no personal bias or influence. Then no one will owe anyone any favours.
The electors would then know that they were selecting from people fitted for the job, and can exercise their choices on policies or personalities with confidence.
We would then be far less likely to be in the position we are in now, where we must vote blind, hoping that we will get people in power who will do the least harm.
The selection process from those who pass those tests should be by random methods--a computer program or just tossing a coin. There should be no human involvement. Then there can be no personal bias or influence. Then no one will owe anyone any favours.
The electors would then know that they were selecting from people fitted for the job, and can exercise their choices on policies or personalities with confidence.
We would then be far less likely to be in the position we are in now, where we must vote blind, hoping that we will get people in power who will do the least harm.
HOW WE SHOULD SELECT POLICE OFFICERS
No one should even be admitted to training, let alone appointed, to any position in the police force who has not been through rigorous psychological testing, so that we do not get misfits, thugs, rapists, murderers or other criminals anywhere near it. We would get the best: honest good officers who will fulfil their oaths. If any did turn bad we should sack them.
HOW WE SHOULD SELECT JUDGES
As KiwisFirst points out, both directly in its discussion of the Bill Wilson affair and indirectly through the chronic corruption it exposes, we have in New Zealand a most unsatisfactory system for selecting and appointing judges--one that is essentially in the hands of a couple of people thinking mysterious things behind closed doors.
'Begin as you mean to go on' and 'The journey of a thousand kilometres begins with a single step' are wise sayings, and therefore if justice is truly to be seen to be done, and truly is to be administered fairly and impartially, the way in which judges are selected must be open not hidden, and must be absolutely impartial.
And those selected must only be those who are suitable, only people who have by rigorous testing have been proved to have the aptitude for the job and are free of serious psychological flaws that will prevent them from being perceptive and impartial. Honest upright people.
The only way of achieving all that is to change the system--fundamentally.
First, every lawyer on the register should be put through a series of psychometric tests. That will determine who has the aptitude to be a judge, and who should never be one.
Second, those who pass those tests should be put on a register of potential judges. Beside each name would be a number, randomly generated by a computer.
Third, whenever a vacancy arises, a computer program of the sort that produces lottery winners would randomly choose one number off that list. The person who had been assigned that number would be offered the vacancy--by the computer (so that no human could interfere in any way). If the fofer was refused the computer would select another name. And so on, until the vacancy was filled.
That process would be published on the Internet, again by the computer. The register would be there, all the offers would be there, all the refusals and acceptances would be there. Everthing would be open, everything would be absolutely random and impartial.
Then the chances would be extremely remote that we would have people in the judiciary who were twerps, toadies, liars, psychological misfits, pathological basket-cases or criminals under the skin. We would have only those well-suited to the task, chosen by an absolutely fair and impartial system, and therefore we would have a judiciary that would be most likely to be fair and impartial.
That system should be used for all parts of the judicial system: for the courts, for all the tribunals, etc. Every place where people must sit in judgement on people.
A random computer system should also be used to select which judges preside over a case. No human should be allowed to make the decision. Then cases could never be allocated to people with known view in order to skew the result that way.
Once people were appointed they should also be subject to checks and balances, not appointed for life. Any judge who has, say, 30% of his or her rulings overturned on appeal would be automatically demoted. So a Supreme Court judge who was in the minority 30% of the time would be demoted to the Court of Appeal; a Court of Appeal
judge would be demoted to the High Court; a High Court judge would be demoted to the District Court; and a District Court judge would be demoted back to solicitor (not barrister). That would keep them from becoming complacent and careless.
It should also be laid down in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that everyone has the right to prosecute a judge for failing to afford us the rights in that Act. And that any judge found guilty would be immediately dismissed in serious cases or demoted in lesser ones. That judgement would be made by the Supreme Court.
'Begin as you mean to go on' and 'The journey of a thousand kilometres begins with a single step' are wise sayings, and therefore if justice is truly to be seen to be done, and truly is to be administered fairly and impartially, the way in which judges are selected must be open not hidden, and must be absolutely impartial.
And those selected must only be those who are suitable, only people who have by rigorous testing have been proved to have the aptitude for the job and are free of serious psychological flaws that will prevent them from being perceptive and impartial. Honest upright people.
The only way of achieving all that is to change the system--fundamentally.
First, every lawyer on the register should be put through a series of psychometric tests. That will determine who has the aptitude to be a judge, and who should never be one.
Second, those who pass those tests should be put on a register of potential judges. Beside each name would be a number, randomly generated by a computer.
Third, whenever a vacancy arises, a computer program of the sort that produces lottery winners would randomly choose one number off that list. The person who had been assigned that number would be offered the vacancy--by the computer (so that no human could interfere in any way). If the fofer was refused the computer would select another name. And so on, until the vacancy was filled.
That process would be published on the Internet, again by the computer. The register would be there, all the offers would be there, all the refusals and acceptances would be there. Everthing would be open, everything would be absolutely random and impartial.
Then the chances would be extremely remote that we would have people in the judiciary who were twerps, toadies, liars, psychological misfits, pathological basket-cases or criminals under the skin. We would have only those well-suited to the task, chosen by an absolutely fair and impartial system, and therefore we would have a judiciary that would be most likely to be fair and impartial.
That system should be used for all parts of the judicial system: for the courts, for all the tribunals, etc. Every place where people must sit in judgement on people.
A random computer system should also be used to select which judges preside over a case. No human should be allowed to make the decision. Then cases could never be allocated to people with known view in order to skew the result that way.
Once people were appointed they should also be subject to checks and balances, not appointed for life. Any judge who has, say, 30% of his or her rulings overturned on appeal would be automatically demoted. So a Supreme Court judge who was in the minority 30% of the time would be demoted to the Court of Appeal; a Court of Appeal
judge would be demoted to the High Court; a High Court judge would be demoted to the District Court; and a District Court judge would be demoted back to solicitor (not barrister). That would keep them from becoming complacent and careless.
It should also be laid down in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that everyone has the right to prosecute a judge for failing to afford us the rights in that Act. And that any judge found guilty would be immediately dismissed in serious cases or demoted in lesser ones. That judgement would be made by the Supreme Court.
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