Canary in the Mine

The following from United Future MP is so important, I had to post it in full:

A cautionary tale of misplaced justice…

There is an old joke that goes like this: A man who had just been burgled and beaten was found by a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist leaned down to the man and asked “Do you know who did this to you? I think he needs my help”.

Sadly we recently had a real life example of just such a misplaced concern. Michael Vaimauga is a twenty-four year old who observed three burglars smashing their way into a Guthrie Bowron store in Pleasant View Road Auckland, in February. He watched for two or three minutes then phoned the police as the would-be burglars smashed the glass door. Next he got out his baseball bat and shouted at them to stop. They responded by running off in different directions.

Michael chased the one who had caused the damage. The door smasher ran onto private property, picked up a child’s scooter and using it as a weapon hit Michael on the forearm. In self-defence, Michael hit his attacker on the shin with the bat, felling him to the ground. Michael dragged his assailant and the unsuccessful thief to a nearby Mobil station, and again called the police.

Aashis Sadhu, part owner of the Guthrie Bowron store applauded Michael’s actions. The police did not.

Michael Vaimauga was taken to the police station for questioning and charged with assault with a weapon, while the teenage wannabe burglar was cared for at Auckland City Hospital. Hard to believe but it gets worse!

Michael was arrested, taken to Court (29 June this year), told by Judge Nicola Mathers that he should not take the law into his own hands – and was discharged (quite rightly too!), but only after agreeing to pay a fine of $150 to the Salvation Army. In my opinion this case highlights the absurdity of our justice system: it is back to front.

How is it possible that the administration of our legal system is so lacking in intelligence and discernment that we now actively punish those who try to uphold it? Surely we can agree that Michael Vaimauga is a hero deserving of a public commendation rather than a legal condemnation? Why was he forced to jump through courtroom hoops to avoid an unblemished record? In a time when convicted criminals get compensation payouts, tattoo removals and even sex-change operations paid for by the law-abiding, the idea that someone who does his bit out of a civic sense of duty to ensure the safety and security of property, is then arrested and dragged before the Courts like a common criminal, beggars belief!
If the criminal justice system was really about justice rather than ‘a process’ to deal with infractions of law, then it must uphold principles that compensate the law-abiding to the same measure as it penalises the guilty: In other words a carrot and stick approach.

The real problem, I suspect, is that unless we experience crime or empathise from a victim’s point of view it is unreal. We have become desensitized to the various palettes of crime and violence through neat pre packaged media renditions portrayed in both news, and its fictional counterparts. We have tidy endings where though terrible things happen to people, there is a certainty that the bad guys will end up with their richly deserved punishment; there will be a revenge fuelled vigilante resolution; and the hapless victims have to get on with their lives, quietly dismissed from the main drama, so that we can conveniently forget.

But crime isn’t like that.

The effects of crime doesn’t stop being real just because the reporters have gone away. For many victims the crime inflicted upon them remains a defining part of their lives. Whether it’s waking up to find your murdered partner missing from beside you; the inability to ever trust again; dealing with the aftermath of violent injuries; or hours spent with a counsellor – the consequences of crime cast a shadow over a lifetime.

What upsets me are the never-ending apathetic (even hostile) attitudes to victims. Oh sure…we shake our heads at the TV when someone has been particularly victimised, but the truth is we don’t let our thoughts linger too long because we fear that our hearts may break and we will be shaken from our self-imposed complacency.

But not all crimes grab the headlines. A good number are not so interesting to us because our diet of sensationalism has blunted our ability to exercise compassion. In fact, so far that when a law-abiding member of our society tries to care…tries to do his bit, like Michael, he is punished for it.

Shame on us.

Now here's a scary thought! Education Minster Trevor Mallard has revealed his political ambitions - he wants to be finance minister. Mr Mallard also summed up much of Labour's policy, telling the children the two most important aspects of the job were helping parents understand what was happening in the classroom and "helping teachers get better so you can learn more". [If that's his level of understanding of education, heaven help us should he ever get his mits on finance.]

A survey by the NZ Principals Federation of principals' weekly loads showed 39 per cent rated their stress levels as extremely high, 42 per cent worked more than 65 hours a week, 48 per cent had major sleeping problems and 44 per cent were constantly tired. "These figures are alarming. The toll is too high. It needs to be urgently addressed." The survey also showed 56 per cent of principals spent more than 70 per cent of their time on management, rather than leadership.

Also at the principals' conference, Auckland principal Nola Hambleton said the education system is consumed with political correctness. "Common sense, personal responsibility and traditional values are a thing of the past," she told the Dunedin conference. Political correctness had sanitised the curriculum, with restrictive health and safety regulations and prohibitive play, the Manurewa South principal said.

Seatoun School has backed down on the banning of a lunchtime Bible studies "KidsKlub" for pupils. The move by the board of trustees ends a standoff with some parents who had refused to accept a decision last February to ban the group. Both sides in the dispute hired high-profile lawyers to support their stand for and against the ban, imposed on the basis of KidsKlub being in conflict with the state school's secular nature.

A Chinese government spy with the code name "180" has infiltrated a Christian church in New Zealand, a Hong Kong newspaper claims. The Epoch Times newspaper said on its website yesterday that its reporter in New Zealand, who it did not name, interviewed a Chinese defector in Australia, Hao Feng Jun, 32, who has told Australian officials he worked as a security officer in Tianjin in China's north. In the telephone interview, Hao Feng Jun claimed that Chinese Government spies "pry into the affairs of New Zealand churches and Falun Gong". [How long, I wonder, before we also have "anti-hate speech" spies and "anti-homophobia" spies in the pews each Sunday?]

The Kyoto Protocol has been rubbished by a heavyweight committee of UK peers, on the day that Tony Blair opened the G8 summit with a focus on global warming. A cross-party House of Lords report found that the Kyoto targets will make "little difference" to the pace of global warming and has called for Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to calculate how much it is costing Britain.

Meanwhile, Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good.

French and South African AIDS researchers have found that adult males who have been circumcised have dramatically lowered risk of contracting the virus. The study's preliminary results, disclosed Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, showed that circumcision reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 70 percent -- a level of protection far better than the 30 percent risk reduction set as a target for an AIDS vaccine.

You didn't see it in the headlines this week, but it's likely to be more important in the long run than many things that received much more notice. The "it" in question is the New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship signed Monday by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Here's another scary face of the Internet: Digital vigilantism. A Korean woman who recently refused to pick up her dog's mess was hounded into the ground and out of her job by witnesses and a subsequent Internet campaign against her which revealed just about every detail of the woman's life. Trial by the Internet joins trial by the media as very disturbing facets of modern communications.

An education trouble-shooter says schools have become complex businesses and are too complicated for parents to run. Crown-appointed schools manager Peter Macdonald, the statutory manager of Aranui High, is calling for a review of Tomorrow's Schools, the policy implemented in 1989 which handed governance of schools to elected boards of trustees. [Yet another thing that parents can't be trusted with when it comes to their children's education.]

The National Party has stolen a march on its rivals and shown itself to be the most IT-savvy party in New Zealand. It's established a streaming web channel called National TV, which can be used by voters to view National Party programmes, commercials and video speeches.

The Government clearly disagrees with the United States about the size of the problem confronting the two countries voiced by outgoing ambassador Charles Swindells. In response, Prime Minister Helen Clark barely disguised her annoyance that New Zealand's contribution to the war on terror had not been recognised in his farewell speech. Neither she nor Foreign Minister Phil Goff accepted critical comments made by Mr Swindells on Monday. He suggested that since New Zealand's anti-nuclear legislation in the 1980s the relationship had deteriorated to a point where trust had been eroded and called for "comprehensive dialogue" to address the problems. But Helen Clark told reporters in Wellington: "I don't think the relationship is in bad shape at all." [There is a term for when one partner in a relationship refuses to recognise that the relationship has problems. Counsellors normally consider that "denial" is a serious problem for the person exhibiting it.]

Immigration authorities have moved to cancel the visa of American expatriate book seller Jim Peron. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters in March used parliamentary privilege to accuse Mr Peron, an American who came to New Zealand via South Africa, of being a paedophile. It is understood Mr Peron, who runs an Auckland bookstore, holds a three-year temporary business visa which expires in December.

Is this Logos II (see Bible, John ch1)? The scientist whose company first mapped the human genome has formed a company to create life. "We are in an era of rapid advances in science and are beginning the transition from being able to not only read genetic code, but are now moving to the early stages of being able to write the code," said J. Craig Venter. The initial goal of Synthetic Genomics will be to manufacture organisms which perform specific functions. Man-made genes will be the "design components of the future", Venter says. A number of ethical and safety issues hang over the notion of synthetic life, but Venter appears to believe that if the work benefits mankind and is performed in a responsible manner, it would be acceptable.

In an historic decision, the British Medical Association has voted not to oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia. Delegates at the BMA's annual conference agreed that legal sanctions were "primarily a matter for society and for Parliament". The move is sure to boost the chances of a private bill introduced by Lord Joffe last year to legalise assisted suicide for terminally ill patients. However the BMA still supports the right of conscientious objectors so that doctors who oppose euthanasia would be able to abide by their principles. [This is a worry. When you can't trust your doctor to uphold the sanctity of your life, who can you trust?]

Tail-out: When is a twin not a twin? Answer: when she is born 13 years after her two sisters. Two sisters? This tail of a frozen embryo and delayed implantation gets more and more complicated.

On a gloomy midweek day, here's something to lighten the mood: some classic political ripostes from various eras (courtesy of the Not PC Blog, http://pc.blogspot.com/)

Winston Peters would have been here, but he’s been delayed by a full-length mirror.

- David Lange, in his valedictory speech to parliament.

He is undoubtedly living proof that a pig’s bladder on a stick can be elected as a member of parliament.

- Tony Banks on fellow MP Terry Dicks

LORD SANDWICH: You will die either on the gallows, or of the pox.

JOHN WILKES: That must depend on whether I embrace your lordship’s principles or your mistress.

Robert Mugabe is famous for nothing more than running around the jungle shooting people.

- Robert Muldoon at a CHOGM conference held in Zimbabwe.

Bill Rowling is little more than a shiver looking for a spine to run up and down.

- Robert Muldoon

He opens his mouth and lets the wind blow his tongue around.

- Bill Rowling on ?

Like being savaged by a dead sheep.

- Denis Healey of a verbal attack on him by Sir Geoffrey Howe.

Like being flogged with a warm lettuce.

- Then-Australian PM Paul Keating on being verbally attacked by Opposition leader John Hewson.

Is there no beginning to your talents?

- Clive Anderson to Jeffrey Archer

When he leaves a room the lights go on.

- Anon. on Gordon Brown

When they circumcised Herbert Samuels they threw away the wrong bit.

- David Lloyd George (attrib.)

SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME: Tell me, Mr Chairman, what do you think would have happened if Mr Kruschev had been assassinated and not Mr Kennedy?

CHAIRMAN MAO: I do not believe Mr Onassis would have married Mrs Kruschev.

- Exchange at an official dinner

He is going around the country stirring up apathy.

- William Whitelaw on Harold Wilson

If a traveller were informed that such a man was the Leader of the House of Commons, he might begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshipped an insect.

- Benjamin Disraeli on Lord John Russell

Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he pleases.

- Richard Brinsley Sheridan, MP.

It is fitting that we should have buried the unknown Prime Minister by the side of the Unknown Soldier.

- Herbert Asquith at Andrew Bonar Law’s funeral. (Attrib.)

I must follow them; I am their leader.

- Andrew Bonar Law.

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now…

- John Betjeman

A triumph of modern science – to find the only part of Randolph that wasn’t malignant and remove it.

- Evelyn Waugh on Randolph Churchill

Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing impromptu speeches.

- F.E. Smith

How can they tell?

- Dorothy Parker, on being told that Calvin Coolidge was dead.

The trouble with Senator Long is that he is suffering from halitosis of the intellect.

- Harold Ickes on Huey Long

I know what a statesman is. He’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

- Robert C. Edwards. (Attrib.)

If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.

- Johannes Brahms on leaving a gathering of friends.

Today delivered two very different views on the economy. On the one hand, the economy has won a strong report card from the OECD, which says New Zealand is on track to meet the Government's goal of a return to the top half of the rich nations club. The OECD says the economy has "continued to expand at a vigorous clip". After an expected slowdown this year, medium-term prospects were "bright".

On the other hand, Westpac chief economist Brendan O'Donovan said the economy is slipping toward recession, shored up only by a strong housing market and high employment. In some of the toughest talking for months, O'Donovan described New Zealand's present business cycle as "well past its best-by date". "Thank goodness the housing market hasn't yet hit the wall, or else the dreaded R word, recession, would be the topic of the day," he said. "Westpac has long been of the view that a record level of the exchange rate, rapidly dropping net migration, higher interest rates and an eventual tipping over of the housing market would knock the economy for six."

Meanwhile, long-term economic prospects were dealt a blow with news that traders on the New York Mercantile Exchange are betting on oil hitting US$80 a barrel.

Something remarkable is happening to China's financial system. Long the "soft underbelly" of China's roaring economy, recent measures suggest the Government has braced itself for some tough decisions. Reforms of the sharemarket and banking system have begun. This is a gigantic step away from micro-managing the economy and away from using national savings at its own discretion. [Which raises the question: when does a communist country cease to be a communist country (and just continue as totalitarian)]?

Don Brash says a National government may change New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy without a referendum. I wonder if this was a response to departing US ambassador Charles Swindell's hard-hitting call for "comprehensive dialogue" with New Zealand to repair a relationship the US implies has lacked trust and respect since the rift over anti-nuclear legislation in the mid-80s.

Prime Minister Helen Clark does not believe there is enough support now to force a referendum on changing New Zealand's flag, but thinks it will be possible in future.

I've changed my mind. If those pusching for a new New Zealand are trying to achieve this scenario, then I'm all for it.

Children who spend hours in front of the television are less likely to have a university degree in their mid-20s, a New Zealand study has found.

I think the newspapers should run a new "Spot the Ball" competition -- specially for the British Lions!

More than 70 per cent of voters want parents to keep the right to use "reasonable force" to punish their children - despite growing support in Parliament for a controversial bill that many see as anti-smacking. The latest Herald-DigiPoll survey shows that 71.2 per cent of voters believe section 59 of the Crimes Act - which gives parents the legal defence of reasonable force - is needed, while 21 per cent disagree.

Even so, the Bill removing the legal defence of "reasonable force" for parents punishing their children should be examined by a parliamentary committee rather than dismissed out of hand, Prime Minister Helen Clark says.

A worried mother has attacked the Christchurch City Council for not enforcing its prostitution bylaw after she complained about her own daughter's sex work. Robyn Ettles says her daughter has been operating a small suburban owner-operated brothel (soob), which are illegal under the council bylaws. Ettles said two of her grandchildren, aged six and seven, lived in the house with their mother, who took clients regularly. Council spokesman Bryn Somerville said it had to be careful about enforcing the bylaw until a ruling was made on legal action currently in the High Court. In another twist, Ettles said she had also approached Child Youth and Family (CYF) about her grandchildren, but was told prostitution was not illegal and that until the children were in danger the agency could not do anything.

Coincidentally, the new Care of Children Act came into force at the end of last week. Chief Family Court Judge Peter Boshier says judges will interpret the new Care of Children Act to give both parents "optimum good quality time" with their children when the parents separate. He said a wording change from "custody" to "day-to-day care" of children meant both parents were now expected to exercise more parental responsibility. "We have had too many parenting arrangements where one parent has not been parenting as much as they should," he said. [This is ironic, considering men's groups consistently claim it has been judges' rulings that have often made it hard for dads to get access to their children.]

Don't you just love how Telecom and NZ Post are spending the money they are milking from you! The pair have thrown their support behind the campaign for a new flag. The campaign by lobby group nzflag.com needs 270,000 signatures by October to force a referendum on the question "Should the design of the New Zealand flag be changed?" Despite the endorsements of a long list of well-known New Zealanders, only 100,000 people have signed the petition so far. Telecom confirmed last week that petition forms would be included with monthly accounts sent to customers in August, while NZ Post will provide freepost return envelopes. Telecom also helped produce a 30-second campaign ad starring rugby great Colin Meads, which debuted before the All Blacks-Lions test in Christchurch last weekend, and will be played again at Eden Park next weekend. The companies have defended themselves against suggestions they are seeking to influence a political debate, saying they merely want to assist New Zealanders in discussing the issue.

Tail-out: School officials in Victoria, Australia, say it's too hard for students to calculate equations using the constant 9.8 meters/second/second -- the acceleration of gravity at Earth's surface - so it's changing the Year 12 physics exam for the Victorian Certificate of Education to use a rounded-off figure of 10 m/s/s. Close enough? No: "The difference could cause a parachutist or bungie jumper to plummet into the ground, or the launching of a rocket to fail," say people who actually understand physics. After hearing the criticism the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority announced that it would not penalize students who used the correct figure.