'Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.' --George Orwell.
Monday, 28 November 2011
MORE THAN HALF EMPTY IS NOT HALF FULL
John Key said in his victory speech that 'nearly half New Zealanders voted for National.' That is a falsehood. First, the voter-turnout was an abysmal low--only 68.8%, reported to be the lowest turnout since the 1880s. National won only 47.99% of that on the day, and if the specials continue the downward drift we saw as counting went on during the night it will end up with even less. Mr Key needs to get his thinking aligned to the truth.
If he thinks on those numbers that he has a mandate to do even more damage to New Zealand's energy assets than National did before Helen Clark's long reign he is deluding himself even more.
47.99 of 68.8% is only 33% of the voting population. Against him, in the vote, is 52.01% of 68.8%, which is 38.8%. He has no mandate. A mandate is a majority. He does not have one. To say he does is a blatant lie.
Or to look at the election result a different way, National got 60 seats out of 121. When you add its crutches, ACT and United Future, it has 62 seats. Therefore 59 seats are against it. Not a thumping vote of confidence.
On top of that is the fact that 31.2% of the population did not vote at all--not far off the 33% won over by his party. The Did Not Vote Party has almost as much support as National. National's 33% may drift down; the 31.2% is set in concrete. The Did Not Vote may end up winning the election. December the 10th will tell us that.
Anais Nin put it perfectly: 'We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.' Key is seeing what he is, and in saying what he sees he is telling us what he is.
As the generation of energy becomes ever more important we must not have any impediment between us and 100% democratic control. Deluded, dishonest reasoning should not be allowed to create the huge impediment of selling 49% of our generation. The people must own their power. National has already messed up the energy sector quite enough with all the hocking off led by Max Bradford years ago. Now it thinks it has a mandate to trash it even more. It does not. It is lying to itself and us.
NO MMP COAT-TAILS
We need to make two changes to MMP to get the corruption out of it.
First, as this blog has already said, if you got the threshold in the previous election you must stand a candidate in every seat. You may not drop an electorate to do a deal with some splinter Party to get advantage for your party and it.
Second, any party that does not get to the MMP threshold but also wins one of more electorate seats should get no more than that/those seats, not the percentage of seats represented by its under-threshold party-vote.You do not get the under-threshold percentage of seats.
That will eliminate the corrupt trick so beloved by the National Party of letting an under-threshold party ride in on the coat-tails of a lone ranger, then the lone rangers' party exaggerates the big party's coalition.
ADVANCE VOTING CORRUPTS THE POLL
National wanted as much of the vote as possible, and knew that from the polls that it had nowhere to go but down, so it corrupted the game and allowed people to vote in advance of polling day for any reason that suited their convenience. A quarter of a million played the game outside the field before the fixture-date. They voted before the campaign was over, before all the policy announcements had been made, and thus before everyone had all the information needed to make an informed decision. That is grossly unfair. And stupid.
Voting in advance should be allowed only for an extremely good reason, as used to be the case, not just to fit people's lifestyles, their notions of convenience, or whatever pops into their heads. Anything to the contrary is not a free and fair election. It is corruption.
If you cannot find a bit of time to vote during the ten hours of polling day you miss out. Period.
The advance voting in this election was not the same as the result on the night. National dropped about 2%, from 49.81% to 47.99% and Labour came up a bit from 26.30% to 27.13, so there was a 2.65% movement between the two main parties between the advance vote and the election-day vote. That is no trifle. In a 120-seat Parliament it is 3 seats. National might have only 57 seats, not 60, and even with ACT and United Future would have only 59--not a majority.
National's advance-voting trick worked. It got a significant advantage from it.
.........
The point is underlined by the numbers of seats in the advance and voting-night votes:
The seat-count in the advance votes was: 62(N), 32(L), 12(G), 9(NZF), 3(Ma), 1(UF), 1(Ma), 1(A)
In the voting-day votes the seat-count was: 60(N), 34(L), 13(G), 8(NZF), 3(M), 1(UF), 1(Ma), 1(A)
..........
The final count, released on the 10th of December, shows even more graphically how well the trick worked:
59(N), 34(L), 14(G), 8(NZF), 3(M), 1(UF), 1(Ma), 1(A)
Obviously, if the playing-field had been level, and everyone had been voting at the same time, the result would have been different. National dropped from 49.81% to 47.31%. Labour went up from 26.30% to 27.48%. So there was in the end a 3.68% change in the difference between the two main parties from the advance votes to election-day votes (the difference between them went down from 23.51% to 19.83%).
Cheating paid off. A lot more subtle than stuffing the ballot-boxes like they did in Russia, and made to look very legal. But cheating. Corruption. Manipulation for your own advantage.
Friday, 25 November 2011
GUTLESS MEDIA
So the Prime Minister, John Key, sets up a conversation over a cup of tea with his ACT Party stooge, John Banks, in Epsom. The media are invited, and turn up in droves.
But when a part of the conversation is inadvertently recorded that John Key decides he does not want the public of New Zealand to know he called the police and claims that the two Johns were bugged--recorded without their knowledge.
The gutless media did not publish the conversation recorded on the so-called Teacup Tape 'for ethical reasons', despite the fact that the people of New Zealand have an absolute right to know as much as possible about those who govern them. Key has no right to prevent that. The media have even less right.
Then the High Court ruled that it could not decide if the conversation was private or not! Please!
But even given that open door the gutless media did not publish.
It is an unwritten rule in the media, a time-honoured and very correct tradition that if you invite the media everything is on the record unless you specifically say of some part of the proceedings, 'That's off the record.' That was never said, so that whole setup was on the record.
Please, gutless media, publish the lot before we vote tomorrow. We want to know who is going to be running the country, warts and all. Otherwise all we have is the spin.
But when a part of the conversation is inadvertently recorded that John Key decides he does not want the public of New Zealand to know he called the police and claims that the two Johns were bugged--recorded without their knowledge.
The gutless media did not publish the conversation recorded on the so-called Teacup Tape 'for ethical reasons', despite the fact that the people of New Zealand have an absolute right to know as much as possible about those who govern them. Key has no right to prevent that. The media have even less right.
Then the High Court ruled that it could not decide if the conversation was private or not! Please!
But even given that open door the gutless media did not publish.
It is an unwritten rule in the media, a time-honoured and very correct tradition that if you invite the media everything is on the record unless you specifically say of some part of the proceedings, 'That's off the record.' That was never said, so that whole setup was on the record.
Please, gutless media, publish the lot before we vote tomorrow. We want to know who is going to be running the country, warts and all. Otherwise all we have is the spin.
Monday, 21 November 2011
DEAF MPs AND GERRYMANDERING
It afflicts all those who should have chosen a different career. <a href="http://andrew.avowkind.net/nikki-kaye-and-the-no-reply-zone">This blog article records one example</a> and points to others of the same ilk--as it happens from the same party.
The disease may be worse in particular parties, but it is at heart an individual's affliction.
Parties who are so high in the polls that they think election victory is a sure thing obviously do not need to listen to anyone or bother to reply to anyone.
Advice given me decades ago by a Wellington painter should always be heeded: 'It's not the first job you want from a customer, or the second. It's the third, because then you've got him for life.'
Those who fail to listen and, even worse, fail to respond, will not get the second job (or vote if they are MPs).
The gerrymandering the blogger refers to was, and remains, a nasty example of the lies people will tell themselves in their lust for territory. Auckland has long lusted after the islands of the Hauraki Gulf. It first tried to take over Waiheke Island in 1947. Finally, in the local government 'reforms' of 1986 it got it--it got all the islands. Including Great Barrier. The national electorate boundaries did the same. So now we on the islands are compelled to live in the rort in which islands 20-90 kilometres away from Auckland's Central Business District are classified as part of it. What sane or honest person would claim islands far out to sea, even up to 90km away, are part of a central city? As the old Roman saying neatly puts it: 'When men cannot change things they change words.' Bluntly, they lie to get what they want.
The lies of that gerrymandering are made even more blatant by the fact that the political parties that did it and supported it also passed and supported the formation of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, which contains the Gulf and the Coromandel Peninsular. The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act established it. But political lusts kneecapped it.
The Local Government Commission, which is meant to be independent of the government, went along and assisted with that chronic rort by refusing with a stream of weasel-words and defiance of the Local Government Act to put the islands with the peninsular. Two members of the three-person Commission that made the decision were Aucklanders. Should we be surprised?
The corrupt do not see things as they are. They see things as THEY are. They act on their corruption not on reality.
The disease may be worse in particular parties, but it is at heart an individual's affliction.
Parties who are so high in the polls that they think election victory is a sure thing obviously do not need to listen to anyone or bother to reply to anyone.
Advice given me decades ago by a Wellington painter should always be heeded: 'It's not the first job you want from a customer, or the second. It's the third, because then you've got him for life.'
Those who fail to listen and, even worse, fail to respond, will not get the second job (or vote if they are MPs).
The gerrymandering the blogger refers to was, and remains, a nasty example of the lies people will tell themselves in their lust for territory. Auckland has long lusted after the islands of the Hauraki Gulf. It first tried to take over Waiheke Island in 1947. Finally, in the local government 'reforms' of 1986 it got it--it got all the islands. Including Great Barrier. The national electorate boundaries did the same. So now we on the islands are compelled to live in the rort in which islands 20-90 kilometres away from Auckland's Central Business District are classified as part of it. What sane or honest person would claim islands far out to sea, even up to 90km away, are part of a central city? As the old Roman saying neatly puts it: 'When men cannot change things they change words.' Bluntly, they lie to get what they want.
The lies of that gerrymandering are made even more blatant by the fact that the political parties that did it and supported it also passed and supported the formation of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, which contains the Gulf and the Coromandel Peninsular. The Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act established it. But political lusts kneecapped it.
The Local Government Commission, which is meant to be independent of the government, went along and assisted with that chronic rort by refusing with a stream of weasel-words and defiance of the Local Government Act to put the islands with the peninsular. Two members of the three-person Commission that made the decision were Aucklanders. Should we be surprised?
The corrupt do not see things as they are. They see things as THEY are. They act on their corruption not on reality.
Monday, 26 September 2011
ACT ON A HIGH
Don Brash, the coup-leader of the ACT Party, has created a punster's paradise by coming out and brashly saying that he supports the decriminalisation of marijuana. John Banks, who was standing for the Epsom seat, later came out strongly against what the Beloved Leader had opined. By nice coincidence that happened at the same time as banks round the globe were struggling to prevent a global debt crisis. That had double application, because Don Brash was in charge of New Zealand's Reserve Bank before he switched to politics.
Brash ACT = bad act.
Brash leader of the ACT Potty.
Potty head.
Pot head of Potty Party.
Brash ACT = comedy skit.
Brash = comedy skite.
Brash gives comedy skit by putting pot on head.
Brash gives comedy skit by putting pot on head.
Don Pot tilts at windmills.
Donning a pot.
Brash reveals bad potty training.
Brash fires loose pot.
'Weed dump anti-pot law,' says potty head.
Nothing but a big ACT.
Don puffs ACT into dreamland.
Marijuana oblivion for Don.
All smoke and no fire.
Brash cannabilises ACT.
Brash cannabilises ACT.
A bud too far.
ACT's little buddy.
ACT--from a Hide to a high.
Banks struggle to stave off D fault.
Glib foulup crisis envelops Banks.
Don's pot protrudes in comedy ACT.
Epsom salts drain the Brash pot.
Dopey Don hashes his ACT.
Let's be the Land of the Long White Smoke, says Don.
Dopey Don hashes his ACT.
Let's be the Land of the Long White Smoke, says Don.
('Buds' according to a news report is a slang term for cannabis.)
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10754787">Brian Rudman's take on it in the New Zealand Herald</a> makes rich reading. The <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10754589">Herald's editorial</a> also questioned Dr Brash's strange behaviour. So did another Herald columnist, <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10755088">Garth George.</a>
<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10754787">Brian Rudman's take on it in the New Zealand Herald</a> makes rich reading. The <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10754589">Herald's editorial</a> also questioned Dr Brash's strange behaviour. So did another Herald columnist, <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10755088">Garth George.</a>
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
RULERS TRASHING THE RULE OF LAW
How to break the law and get away with it. For some time the police have been illegally carrying out covert video-surveillance, by dint of getting a compliant judge or judges to hand out illegal court warrants. They were even blithely trespassing on private property to set up their hidden cameras.
When the Supreme Court stopped all that by telling them that they had no legal right to do it, and is even reported to have questioned the 'implications' for the judge/s involved in issuing the warrants, what happened? A compliant government rolled over and said it would pass, under urgency, <i/>retrospective<i> legislation to make all that law-breaking 'legal.'
That is arrant corruption. The lesson for the police is that they can do what they please, and if
they break the law the lawmakers will make it all right--with backdated law.
When the lawmakers are corrupt the nation is fouled beyond remedy.
This is one of the <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5651975/Surveillance-law-scrutiny-needed-Labour"> news stories on that abysmal breach of the rule of law,</a> which says that not even Fiji under military dictatorship would stoop so low. Another recorded some of the <a href=http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5658023/Legal-wrath-at-fixit-lawchange>rage of the legal profession</a> at the assault and battery that the government wants to inflict on the rule of law. Three discussions, <a href="http://www.laws179.co.nz/2011/09/covert-video-surveillance-and-covert.html">here,</a> <a href="http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/09/20/gordon-campbell-on-the-police-surveillance-bailout/">here,</a> and <a href="http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/once-upon-a-time-in-te-urewera">here,</a> heavily underscore the point that this is arrant corruption on the part of the police and the government.
Fouled beyond remedy? Not quite... For when King Charles went down that track in the early seventeenth century we fixed the problem by taking him on, arresting him, trying him for treason, and lopping off his head. <i>The people</i> de-fouled the corrupt ruler--permanently.
When the Supreme Court stopped all that by telling them that they had no legal right to do it, and is even reported to have questioned the 'implications' for the judge/s involved in issuing the warrants, what happened? A compliant government rolled over and said it would pass, under urgency, <i/>retrospective<i> legislation to make all that law-breaking 'legal.'
That is arrant corruption. The lesson for the police is that they can do what they please, and if
they break the law the lawmakers will make it all right--with backdated law.
When the lawmakers are corrupt the nation is fouled beyond remedy.
This is one of the <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5651975/Surveillance-law-scrutiny-needed-Labour"> news stories on that abysmal breach of the rule of law,</a> which says that not even Fiji under military dictatorship would stoop so low. Another recorded some of the <a href=http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5658023/Legal-wrath-at-fixit-lawchange>rage of the legal profession</a> at the assault and battery that the government wants to inflict on the rule of law. Three discussions, <a href="http://www.laws179.co.nz/2011/09/covert-video-surveillance-and-covert.html">here,</a> <a href="http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2011/09/20/gordon-campbell-on-the-police-surveillance-bailout/">here,</a> and <a href="http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/once-upon-a-time-in-te-urewera">here,</a> heavily underscore the point that this is arrant corruption on the part of the police and the government.
Fouled beyond remedy? Not quite... For when King Charles went down that track in the early seventeenth century we fixed the problem by taking him on, arresting him, trying him for treason, and lopping off his head. <i>The people</i> de-fouled the corrupt ruler--permanently.
Friday, 26 August 2011
ROTTEN MODERN ECONOMICS
This article in the<a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10746808"> New Zealand Herald by Gareth Morgan</a> says it all.
So do the comments after it, because they are liberally splattered with howls of protest from the hate-your-neighbour politically-correct greedies who now infest this planet.
He rails against corruption and the corrupt rail against him.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
THE RULE OF COMPETITION AND THE MARKET
When Auckland International Airport announced a big profit there were immediately calls for a second airport in Auckland so that competition would drive the prices down.
But when we owned public assets what dictated prices was the democratically elected Parliament, democratically elected councils, democratically elected local-bodies, etc. In short the rule of democratic law.
But that has been replaced all over the place by the rule of the market and the rule of competition. The rule of the people via the rule of democratic law has been replaced by the rule of money. The people have been replaced by persons. The many have been replaced by the few. For the benefit of the few.
When the publicly-owned electricity industry was hocked off we were promised benefits. Remember Max Bradford, the smooth-talking frontman for all that? The handsome MP from Rotorua and his blandishments.
He lied, of course, because look at what we got. Electricity prices have doubled in the last ten years. And we have seen the spot market soar so high that 'over the top' gasped and died of shock.
Progress!
Monday, 8 August 2011
THE CORRUPTION OF SOCIETY
Before the shallow-minded, shallow-thinking, short-sighted PCs and Greedies got control of New Zealand (and much of the Western world), every decision, public and private, was predicated on the family. Now decisions are predicated on money and jobs. When they were predicated on the family we had money and jobs. Now that they are predicated on money and jobs we do not have the family. Or money and jobs.
We moved the foundations of our society from the rock to the sand. The sand liquefied in the inevitable earthquake of reality, the earthquake of inescapable truth; the foundations have collapsed and what was built on them is falling apart.
Matter is only right only if the atoms are right. Society is only right if society in microcosm is right, and the family is to society what the atom is to matter.
Those who mocked the 'nuclear family' and set about destroying it ignored the absolute truth: without a nucleus the atom cannot exist, without a nucleus the cell cannot exist; therefore without a nucleus life cannot exist. In destroying the nucleus they destroyed the social fabric.
What we sow we reap. Now we have increasing social chaos and decay.
Saturday, 16 July 2011
CARELESS COST-SAVING KILLS
Shall we act surprised? Quite enough evidence has been already been given in the Royal Enquiry in the Pike River Coalmine disaster to show that what killed those 29 miners was careless cost-saving. The attitude that money is worth more than people. 'The love of money is the root of all evil.' The corrupt people responsible should be charge with manslaughter.
Saturday, 2 July 2011
DISCRIMINATING MANSLAUGHTER
The law says that everyone is equal before it, that everyone is to be treated the same, that no one is to be discriminated against.
When a man failed to set the handbrake on his van earlier this year, so it rolled down into a lake and a beloved son was drowned, the New Zealand police quickly had him in court on a charge of manslaughter.
But when the police failed to check the condition of a drunk Spaniard in one of their cells, or get medical help for him when he needed it, and he died, no one was charged with anything.
When a man failed to set the handbrake on his van earlier this year, so it rolled down into a lake and a beloved son was drowned, the New Zealand police quickly had him in court on a charge of manslaughter.
But when the police failed to check the condition of a drunk Spaniard in one of their cells, or get medical help for him when he needed it, and he died, no one was charged with anything.
Thursday, 28 April 2011
NATIONAL CORRUPTION CORRUPTS THE NATION
ACT I:
The cynical manipulation of MMP by the National Party should be outlawed, but I am sure they will never do it, because they are only interested in power and their manipulation enables them to keep it.
That is blatant corruption. Democracy goes out the window; lust for power marches in the door. The result is that the minor-party tail wags the National Party dog, which is how Rodney Hide was able to get away with trashing local government democracy in his self-hyped Auckland Super Silly.
His minor party, whose trivial party vote, and vanishing poll ratings, prove it to be highly unpopular, nevertheless gets enormous power in the country. We voted against it overwhelmingly, but National's corruption has trashed our wishes.
ACT 2:
Then the cynical National-ACT combine realised as the 2011 election loomed that Hide was so loathed that he might not make in it Epsom and with him as ACT Leader his party might not get enough votes to get National more than one seat for the price of not standing its own candidate in Epson.
So what happened? The former leader of the National Party, Don Brash, who at that stage was not a member of the National Party, not of ACT, gets himself confirmed as the new ACT leader, does the necessaries of membership and all that, all in a bid to pump up ACT's party vote.
Cynical manipulation of MMP on steroids.
Damn their impudence!
The irony is that with Labour shooting itself in every part of its anatomy, none of National's dishonest game-playing is needed. They could win honestly hands down.
ACT 3:
The cynical manipulation of MMP by the National Party should be outlawed, but I am sure they will never do it, because they are only interested in power and their manipulation enables them to keep it.
It should be compulsory for major parties--meaning any party that got more than, say, 25% in the previous election--to stand a candidate in every seat. That means a serious candidate, one chosen to win and really does try to win, and it should also be illegal for a party to do a deal with another one, so that one concentrates on the party vote to let the other get the candidate vote. That would stop dead National's corrupt habit in Epsom and Ohariu.
It makes a deal with a minor right-wing party, ACT in Epsom and United Future in Ohariu, not to stand a National candidate in those electorates, or not to stand a serious one, one who will win the seat, and it tells its supporters to give it the party vote and the minor party the candidate vote. The minor-party candidate is then sure of getting the right-wing vote and winning the seat, and if the percentage of its party vote is enough--as little as 2%--that party will get at least two seats in Parliament, thus getting round the 5% threshold. Then National forms an alliance with it, and thus the right-wing bloc gains at least two seats when it would have gained only one if National had stood its own candidate.
That is blatant corruption. Democracy goes out the window; lust for power marches in the door. The result is that the minor-party tail wags the National Party dog, which is how Rodney Hide was able to get away with trashing local government democracy in his self-hyped Auckland Super Silly.
His minor party, whose trivial party vote, and vanishing poll ratings, prove it to be highly unpopular, nevertheless gets enormous power in the country. We voted against it overwhelmingly, but National's corruption has trashed our wishes.
ACT 2:
Then the cynical National-ACT combine realised as the 2011 election loomed that Hide was so loathed that he might not make in it Epsom and with him as ACT Leader his party might not get enough votes to get National more than one seat for the price of not standing its own candidate in Epson.
So what happened? The former leader of the National Party, Don Brash, who at that stage was not a member of the National Party, not of ACT, gets himself confirmed as the new ACT leader, does the necessaries of membership and all that, all in a bid to pump up ACT's party vote.
Cynical manipulation of MMP on steroids.
Damn their impudence!
The irony is that with Labour shooting itself in every part of its anatomy, none of National's dishonest game-playing is needed. They could win honestly hands down.
ACT 3:
Even if Brash is just a blue-neck raver with a giant anti-Key chip on his shoulder, unless National gets honest and stands honestly in every seat it will still be cynically abusing MMP for its own ends--and abusing the government of the country with it. Corruption is corruption, whatever spin is put on it. Judge the tree by its fruit.
If two businesses got together to cook things for their mutual advantage they would be breaking the law. The same sort of laws should apply to the far more serious business of democracy.
--
A party that does not reach the 5% threshold despite getting an electorate seat or two should not get its quota bumped up. That would stop the big parties using small ones to plump up their own numbers.
--
The <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10740449">New Zealand Herald's editor</a> was scathing about the stitchups between National and ACT.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
A BIT OF WEASEL IN THE KIWI
A kiwi is not meant to be mistaken for a weasel. And the kiwi guilty of this bit of corruption usually isn't. In most things it is a very good kiwi. But in one thing someone has genetically modified some weasel into it.
The culprit is Kiwibank. It goes against the grain to criticise it, because it is a good bank, but the problem with weasels is that they grow into voracious monsters unless you shoot them early.
There are three or four ways of doing transactions with a bank. Bricks, clicks, calls and walls. You can go to the bricks-and-mortar branch, you can use the Internet, you can use phonebanking, and for some things you can use an ATM.
Why penalise people for using the quickest, most convenient way of doing simple things like checking on their balance or paying a bill or moving their money about? Doesn't Kiwibank like customers?
But if you have the temerity to complain to Kiwibank about its phonebanking charges you get an eyeful or an earful of weasel water. When it's all boiled down to the concentrated yellow stuff what you are getting is this:
1) 'We are upfront about our charges.' So--unfairness is unfairness, wrongdoing is wrongdoing, even if you tell people in advance that you are going to do it. If you don't believe that, Kiwibank Complaints Manager (Bruce Thompson), write a letter to the police telling them that you are now going to do 120kph on the motorway all the time, or that you intend driving with too much alcohol in you ditto. Do you think that that will stop them from arresting you?
2) 'We want to work something out.' What Mr Thompson offered was to refund the last five months' of phonebanking charges ($27) and hand out twenty post-paid envelopes--but without any admission of wrondoing or liability--as 'full and final settlement. In short, take a bribe to shut up and go away and stay shut up for ever and ever.
3) 'You can use the Internet or the mail to pay your bills.' Ah, now we have the guts of it. They are control-freaks. They want to tell us how to live our lives. That is the hallmark of bureaucrats; they always want to push people round. The fact that phonebanking is the fastest, the most convenient and the easiest way of doing almost everything is irrelevant to that mindset. It just wants you push you round. Live the way we want, not the way you want, is their mentality.
4) 'We don't charge for the first five calls each month.' More control-freakery. Live how we want you to, not how you want. So if, for example, you have to check five times in a single day to see when a cash-deposit has come in--well, tough. Five times in month. How many bills come in in a month? How many times do you have to check your balance in a month? How many times do you want to move money about in a month. Five! How generous
can a control-frealk be!? Think of all the money Kiwibank is making out of a system run entirely by computers. It's money for old rope.
5) 'We are not going to change.' So at last we got to the bottom line, which translates: 'We intend being stupid and bureaucratically pigheaded, no matter what. So there! We'll keep making lotsa money for old rope.'
The problem, for Kiwibank, is that it is owned by the government, and therefore must toe the line drawn by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which every one, including its customers, 'the right to the observance of the principles of natural justice.' As a judge has observed that means 'fairness writ large.'
Which means that Kiwibank's attempts to be small, small-minded, weasel-brained and weasel-mouthed are against that pesky thing called the law. Even worse, against the paramount piece of legislation, the Bill of Rights. Which is the law put there to protect Kiwis. From weasels. From unfairness.
It also means that Kiwibank, via its Complaints Manager, was attempting to bribe me into a breach of the Bill of Rights Act with his weasel-piddling $27 and his twenty freeby envelopes.
Please, Kiwibank, stop being Weaselbank in your phonebanking charges. Be 24-carat Kiwibank.
The culprit is Kiwibank. It goes against the grain to criticise it, because it is a good bank, but the problem with weasels is that they grow into voracious monsters unless you shoot them early.There are three or four ways of doing transactions with a bank. Bricks, clicks, calls and walls. You can go to the bricks-and-mortar branch, you can use the Internet, you can use phonebanking, and for some things you can use an ATM.
With Kiwibank you pay nothing for using bricks, clicks and walls, but if you do the exactly the same thing using calls you are charged for the call. That is inconsistent, and unfair. It is also not the habit of other banks--those Aussie ones that Kiwibank likes to sling off at.
Why penalise people for using the quickest, most convenient way of doing simple things like checking on their balance or paying a bill or moving their money about? Doesn't Kiwibank like customers?
But if you have the temerity to complain to Kiwibank about its phonebanking charges you get an eyeful or an earful of weasel water. When it's all boiled down to the concentrated yellow stuff what you are getting is this:
1) 'We are upfront about our charges.' So--unfairness is unfairness, wrongdoing is wrongdoing, even if you tell people in advance that you are going to do it. If you don't believe that, Kiwibank Complaints Manager (Bruce Thompson), write a letter to the police telling them that you are now going to do 120kph on the motorway all the time, or that you intend driving with too much alcohol in you ditto. Do you think that that will stop them from arresting you?
2) 'We want to work something out.' What Mr Thompson offered was to refund the last five months' of phonebanking charges ($27) and hand out twenty post-paid envelopes--but without any admission of wrondoing or liability--as 'full and final settlement. In short, take a bribe to shut up and go away and stay shut up for ever and ever.
3) 'You can use the Internet or the mail to pay your bills.' Ah, now we have the guts of it. They are control-freaks. They want to tell us how to live our lives. That is the hallmark of bureaucrats; they always want to push people round. The fact that phonebanking is the fastest, the most convenient and the easiest way of doing almost everything is irrelevant to that mindset. It just wants you push you round. Live the way we want, not the way you want, is their mentality.
4) 'We don't charge for the first five calls each month.' More control-freakery. Live how we want you to, not how you want. So if, for example, you have to check five times in a single day to see when a cash-deposit has come in--well, tough. Five times in month. How many bills come in in a month? How many times do you have to check your balance in a month? How many times do you want to move money about in a month. Five! How generous
can a control-frealk be!? Think of all the money Kiwibank is making out of a system run entirely by computers. It's money for old rope.
5) 'We are not going to change.' So at last we got to the bottom line, which translates: 'We intend being stupid and bureaucratically pigheaded, no matter what. So there! We'll keep making lotsa money for old rope.'
The problem, for Kiwibank, is that it is owned by the government, and therefore must toe the line drawn by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which every one, including its customers, 'the right to the observance of the principles of natural justice.' As a judge has observed that means 'fairness writ large.'
Which means that Kiwibank's attempts to be small, small-minded, weasel-brained and weasel-mouthed are against that pesky thing called the law. Even worse, against the paramount piece of legislation, the Bill of Rights. Which is the law put there to protect Kiwis. From weasels. From unfairness.
It also means that Kiwibank, via its Complaints Manager, was attempting to bribe me into a breach of the Bill of Rights Act with his weasel-piddling $27 and his twenty freeby envelopes.
Please, Kiwibank, stop being Weaselbank in your phonebanking charges. Be 24-carat Kiwibank.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
RENEWAL
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.
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.
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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