Category: Crime & Justice

Islamic State and al Qa’ida have been competing violently on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria over the last couple of years. However a much more insidious aspect of their enmity involves the competing outreach programmes they have both carefully constructed.

Good policies do not have international borders. What works in one country, can often be successfully adapted and used in another. For policy analysts, general elections provide a rich hunting ground for cutting edge policy options - and the United Kingdom’s 2015 general election on May 7 is no exception.

The ownership of water is coming to the top of the political agenda with sinister connotations that it can be bought and sold and allocated on the basis of race. Before public opinion is led down this road to hell it is timely to revert to first principles and to consider just what it is the politicians and their in house advisors are dealing with.

If New Zealanders continue to believe that alcohol causes people to behave badly, we should expect undesirable conduct in and around drinking venues. The script needs to be changed from excusing such conduct to, “You are in control of your behaviour at all times. Drunkenness is no excuse.”

One of the strongest and most universal beliefs we encountered in our research among adult New Zealanders is in alcohol’s transformational powers. A belief in the ‘disinhibiting’ power of alcohol runs through New Zealand society from the youngest to the oldest.

Major external risks faced by nations include warfare, global pandemics and international economic collapse - all events we have witnessed over the last few years. But sometimes, serious threats come from within.

Wellington’s low road toll can be largely attributed to their focus on improving the region’s problem roads. $15 million was invested in the construction of a 3.5-kilometre median barrier on the dangerous Centennial Highway south of Paekakariki.

Human nature is a perverse thing. It consistently thwarts all attempts to coerce us into behaving the way bureaucrats, politicians and assorted control freaks think we should.

After each general election, briefing papers are prepared by public agencies for the incoming government. They provide a snapshot of New Zealand. According to the State Services Commission, New Zealand’s government is bigger than ever before.

The latest decision of the Supreme Court in is a fine contribution to the ongoing saga. It is between Paki and four others against the Attorney General and two interveners (parties who want to be heard) Mighty River Power and the Te Kahui Trustees. Judgment was given on the 29th August 2014.