Category: imported_weekly

Two years ago the opinion polls were predicting that National would win the 2005 election. But it was always going to be close.

Almost every day there are calls from one group or another for the government to “do something” about some critical problem they have identified. Whether it is immunisation rates that are said to be too low, air quality standards that campaigners claim are killing people, or too much computer spam, lobbyists are convinced that new laws are the panacea to society’s ills. The problem is that not only do new laws almost never solve the problem, but they often do far more harm than good. It seems that the “cure” is often far worse than the sickness.

At the APEC meeting being held in Sydney, member nations reaffirmed their commitment to reducing greenhouse gases with aspirational rather than binding goals. They have also opened the door for a greater use of nuclear energy.

“Widow's fury at $111-a-week rate burden”, was the sort of headline that gave rise to the Local Government Rates Inquiry. That news story from July last year told how the rates demanded from Catherine Curlett, a 79-year-old widow who had lived in the same weatherboard bungalow for over 30 years, had risen by 56 per cent in a year from $2929.47 to $4567.44. (click to view news story )

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear - President Harry S Truman.

Islam Awareness Week, a government sponsored initiative that is designed to “promote greater unity among the diverse peoples who call New Zealand home”, has just passed. Orchestrated through the Office of Ethnic Affairs and the Human Rights Commission, one of the key activities has been school visits by secondary school students to mosques so that they can learn about Islam.

It is the trait of governments that don’t know what to do about a difficult problem to simply pass a law. They do this knowing that the law will not work, but at least they will be seen to be doing something. The difficulty is that not only does such knee-jerk legislation rarely solve the problem it invariably creates serious unintended consequences.

Another Maori baby has died at the hands of family members. Yesterday, three year old Nia Glassie, the little girl who was tortured by family members, lost her battle with life.

In a week when lies in Parliament led to the unceremonious departure of Labour’s 10th Government Minister, another statement made during Question Time deserves closer scrutiny.

Early last year a little boy was brutally beaten to death by his mother and her partner: