Category: imported_weekly

The rule of law and the right to justice are fundamental to a democratic society. The thought that someone could be imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit is the stuff of nightmares.

Record numbers of New Zealanders tuned in to watch TV One’s Dancing with the Stars last Tuesday as the last two finalists squared off against each other. The widespread interest in that contest, as well as other reality challenge shows and sports in general, demonstrates that the love of competition is indeed alive and well in New Zealand society.

The latest Police prosecution figures show that there has been an alarming rise in the number of people drinking and driving. This is despite many millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on drink-driving campaigns.

People are getting sick and tired of this government telling us how to run our lives - what we can and can’t eat, how to raise our kids, and now, to add insult to injury, the key message in the budget is that they know far better than you or I how to spend our own money.

In politics, words are cheap. The real test of leadership is action. For years politicians have been talking about getting tough on gangs. But the result of their failure to act can be seen all around in the wasted lives of drug addicts, the thugs who get their kicks from terrorising neighbourhoods, the families who live in fear, and now a drive-by shooting that has left an innocent sleeping two-year-old dead.

The ramming through Parliament of the deeply unpopular anti-smacking bill is the clearest sign yet that under MMP the ‘tail is wagging the dog’. As Iain Gillies wrote in an editorial in the Gisborne Herald last month: “Widespread antipathy to Sue Bradford’s bill on parental smacking could unwittingly provoke renewed calls for a review of the MMP voting system. The motion does not figure much - yet - in either public discussion or the parliamentary debate, but may well get traction when voters consider to whom their MPs are beholden; their party hierarchy or the electorate. (To read the article click here).

What do Powelliphanta Augustus and local government have in common? A great deal it seems as both appear to have the full attention of extreme environmentalists.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. These words are as valid today as when they were first uttered over two hundred years ago, as the natural inclination of government is to extend its own power and control at the expense of the freedom and liberty of citizens.

The anti-smacking activists claim that with corporal punishment having been banned in schools, banning it in the home is simply the next step towards eliminating violence against children. But the argument just isn’t credible.

Last week NZ Post announced it will be increasing the price of stamps: on June 1st, the cost of stamps for standard domestic letters will rise from 45 cents to 50 cents and fastpost stamps will increase from 90 cents to $1. Accordingly to the mail chief, Peter Fenton, while the company has absorbed a number of business cost increases over the last three years, wages and other employment expenses - which make up around 40 per cent of the cost of mail delivery - must now be passed onto the customer.