Canary in the Mine

Helen Clark says if we want to talk about a fixed date for every election, then we should also talk about a four-year government. [Would you want a rampant Labour government to have a four-year term in which to do more damage? Kiwis have already said several times in the past a four-year term is not on.]

Meantime, political parties worried about their poll standings have been handed a solution - purchase votes at TradeMe. Here's one up for sale. "Since I am entirely apathetic about the result, and really don't see any great difference between either of the two parties that will inevitably be forming the next government, I have decided to sell MY VOTE. So, you are bidding on ONE GENUINE VOTE in the 2005 New Zealand General Election. I live, and am registered to vote, in the Central Wellington Electorate. I reserve the right to reject any bids from Destiny Church or National Front Fans. All others are OK..."

Are we beginning to see a pattern here? A Christchurch school will review its decision to allow weekly Bible studies classes for children as young as six after complaints from parents. Note: a) there were only 2 complaints. b) the classes have been running for years. c) parents have the right to withdraw children from the classes. d) Few bother to exercise that right. But all of a sudden, across New Zealand, we must excise any taint of religious association with school.

But talk about taking religion into the public square! German immigration officials will apply a searching religious test to tourists entering the country for the Pope’s first pilgrimage abroad. The German authorities are fearful that thousands of illegal immigrants, including drugs and prostitution racketeers, could use the country’s fast-lane visa regulations to enter the country. With more than a million believers expected to hear Pope Benedict XVl address the World Youth Conference in August, German embassies have devised a questionnaire of biblical and Roman Catholic knowledge for apparent pilgrims. Although respondents only need to answer 70 per cent of questions correctly, The Times newspaper (UK) found that many infrequent churchgoers struggled to name the sacraments or to count and name the different kinds of sin, as defined by the Vatican.

The Prime Minister is really working hard to ride two horses at once over smacking. On the one hand, she wants Section 59 of the Crimes Act (which permits a parent to use reasonable force in disciplining a child) to be repealed, on the other hand she wants parents to be allowed to continue smacking children. Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Children wants a debate on smacking.

Which raises a question: what exactly constitutes a public debate on smacking, or any other contentious topic? Do letters to the newspaper suffice? Is it via submissions to a parliamentary select committee? Who controls the debate; who mediates it; who decides which side has won? Pardon me for being cynical, but I don't recall a "public debate" of any sort in recent years which was carried by anything but emotion and ideology.

The Prime Minister has backed away from another confrontation over the seabed and foreshore before the election. She has pulled the plug on Nanaia Mahuta's private members bill that would extend legal aid for foreshore and seabed cases.

Colin James says Don Brash's arguments for a tax cut are very potent. "Debt-fuelled spending powered [Michael] Cullen's boom. House prices bubbled, people borrowed to buy houses at the higher prices - and to buy cars, fridges, clothes, meals out and the fripperies of modern affluence." The Reserve Bank calculates average household debt is around 140 per cent of disposable (after-tax) income, up from 130 per cent a year ago and 60 per cent in 1990. Household debt went up 15 per cent in 2004.

The New Zealand dollar is overpriced by 4%, if you are to believe the Big Mac index. This only slightly tongue-in-cheek international comparison of currencies against the price of a burger, compiled by The Economist, is surprisingly accurate.

Nearly 75 per cent of 18- to 19-year-olds breath-tested as they left licensed premises were too drunk to drive, a survey revealed yesterday. The first New Zealand survey of young drinkers leaving licensed premises examined the drinking habits of 18- to 25-year-olds, with sobering results. Of those aged 20 to 24 years, 42 per cent were also over the legal limit. [But as has been pointed out elsewhere, tightened rules for alcohol levels mean two drinks could put you over the limit. Unfortunately, the story does not give definitions.]

Tail-out: If you're old enough, you will remember the children's book Little Black Sambo. Villified as being beyond-the-pale racist, it has been out of print (and off the library shelves) for decades. Now Little Black Sambo has been resuscitated - in Japan.