This week: Angels, Guardian Angels & Government
- (Dompost) Key On Cloud Nine With Cup’s Party Central – The Prime Minister is overjoyed that he can now fast-track the $10 million marquee where rugby fans can drink during next year’s Rugby World Cup.
THE DOCTOR SAYS: Thanks to Rodney Hide’s magnificent achievement at concentrating local government power into the hands of a few, John Key only has to ask one mayor - Len Brown – if he is happy for John to spend $10 million dollars of other people’s money building a flash pub on the Auckland waterfront.
Easy for John to realise this pipe-dream with our money; not so easy for a school to build a long-jump pit.
Isn’t it wonderful that the government has taken over organizing this footy tournament? Martin Snedden might as well go home now, like a good boy. John Key and the big boys, with an endless supply of our money, will take over now.
Suffice to say the Libz Party would not allow one cent of your money to be taken from you to subsidise a month-long party. Discretionary spending on sporting events should remain a matter of personal choice; it’s none of the government’s business.
- (NZ Herald) No Hobbit Bidding War – PM – John Key won’t rule out tax breaks and changes to industrial law under urgency but won’t go to ‘extreme lengths,’ such as shooting union leader Helen Kelly, to ensure a film is made locally.
THE DOCTOR SAYS: First sport, now the entertainment industry. Is there any facet of our lives the government doesn’t think it should be overseeing?
The one beacon of hope from this debacle is that the National government is contemplating giving someone a tax break! Now if John can just extend that tax relief to some of the serfs; you know: the ones who will watch this movie once it’s made. The Libz Party, of course, would give lower-paid people the same tax breaks as millionaire movie moguls.
- (Wairarapa Times-Age) Boys blamed for $300k arson …
THE DOCTOR SAYS: Two little angels desecrated dozens of headstones at the Riverside cemetery in Masterton, then lit a fire at the recycling station that caused damage now estimated at closer to $500,000. I could see the plume of black smoke from my home 7 km north of town.
Two 11-year-olds who have been referred to police Youth Aid. And who will probably never have to compensate the insurance companies whose premium holders will end up footing the bill. And who, in all likelihood, would smirk at the victims of this arson if the parties involved were to sit down at a Family Group Conference (or whatever the PC term for such a meeting is now).
A lot of people will empathise with retired detective Harry Quinn, who opined recently in the Wairarapa Times-Age that police should be punching criminals in the face rather than using pepper spray, the Taser or firearms.
But I have a better idea. It’s called restorative justice. Victim compensation. These kids should be named, and their photographs put on the front page of the Times-Age. They should spend every weekend and school holiday working until age eighteen. When they leave school, they are placed under supervision until the debt is paid off. Their parents can pay the insurance company if they want to, as they bear some of the responsibility for the actions of their offspring, but these kids should have no free weekends until they are adults.
Justice being done, and being seen to be done. That’s what it looks like.
When the people fear the government, there is tyranny – when
the government fear the people, there is liberty.
- attributed to Thomas Jefferson
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