Canary in the Mine

Couples have been slow to take advantage of the introduction of civil unions as a legal alternative to marriage. Five weeks after the relationship-defining status was introduced, only 56 couples - the bulk of them homosexual - have sought civil unions. Only 10 heterosexual couples have been joined in civil unions. "All along we said this was same-sex marriage in all but name," said Amanda McGrail of the Maxim Institute. "The government should have been upfront about that from the beginning."

De facto couples in the UK will receive greater rights, including laws to end the injustices suffered when relationships break up, in a shake-up of the law to be announced within two weeks, The Times has learnt. The Law Commission will announce a study of how to improve the rights of the growing number of people living together without marrying, which has now reached two million couples and is expected to increase to 3.8 million by 2031. Previous attempts to review the law have been opposed by Tory backbenchers and church groups, limiting reforms solely to property rights.

But Mary Ann Sieghart asks why should the law bend to help unmarried couples? "One of the basic tenets of British law is that ignorance is no defence. It’s no use saying to a policeman: “I’m sorry, officer. I had no idea I wasn’t allowed to drive at 50mph down that residential street.” He will book you regardless. So why is the Lord Chancellor now proposing that the law should be changed because of people’s ignorance?

Europe is having great difficulty coming to grips with what constitutes genuine hate speech, while struggling to contain anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim feeling.

The iconic spiritual leader of the Philippines, Cardinal Jaime Sin, has died. Cardinal Sin, who died of diabetes and a heart attack, oversaw the Manila Archdiocese for nearly 30 years and always stressed the need for religion and politics to be closely aligned. He helped end the corrupt presidencies of Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada and was influential in the period of transition to democracy. On his retirement the Cardinal said, "My duty is to put Christ in politics. Politics without Christ is the greatest scourge of our nation."

Parents and churches could do more to help young Pacific people realise their potential, says Pacific community leader and former All Black Michael Jones. He said a new Pacific youth development strategy, launched on Friday by Prime Minister Helen Clark, identified key areas that could best be employed to improve wellbeing. They were parents, education and the church - given the significant role spirituality often played in Pacific people's lives. Jones, who chaired a group to co-ordinate consultation on the strategy, said 85 per cent of Pacific people were connected with a church and there was a challenge for churches to realise their potential to help with social issues. "A holistic approach is how we do things. We don't separate out the spiritual," he said. [Which raises an interesting side question: If European Christians demonstrated more convincingly that they did not separate out the spiritual, perhaps the government would find it harder to sideline them.]

The big movie studios are getting worried. Box office receipts have been down 17 weeks in a row, the worst run since 1895, and heading for the first three-years-in-a-row slump since 1962. A major factor could be a broad trend towards the atomisation of entertainment and information consumption - in other words, the mass media are devolving towards micro-media, in which people listen/view in their own highly personalised environments and selections.

The following appears to be a hoax, according to postings on at least one website - ie, it was not written by an Australian economics professor, as claimed. It's also been around a while, but it's fun and has just gained some new life in light of the debate over tax cuts in New Zealand.

You've heard the cry in the last couple of weeks from across Australia: 'It's just a tax cut for the rich!', and it is accepted as fact. But what does that really mean? The following explanation may help.

Suppose that every night, 10 men go out for dinner at La Porchetta's.The bill for all 10 comes to $100. They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:

* The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.

* The fifth paid $1.

* The sixth $3.

* The seventh $7.

* The eighth $12.

* The ninth $18.

* The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.

All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said: "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?

They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat. The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:

* The fifth man paid nothing (like the first four) instead of $1 (100%saving).

* The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

* The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

* The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

* The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

* The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, as now did the fifth - but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!" "That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them to meet even half of the bill!

That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.