TV's Breakfast News reported that there were "few major incidents" on Guy Fawkes weekend.The campaign for a ban on the sale of fireworks may have scared people into good behaviour, with no major fires directly linked to Guy Fawkes celebrations on Saturday night.A dismissive Helen Clark however countered that there were far more incidents that had been reported to her, and that she personally is in favour of seeing fireworks only at professional shows. "I personally don't get any joy out of people chucking bunches of sparklers round the footpath," said the joyless lemon-sucker.
The fire service reported a reasonably quiet night on the fireworks front, with thousands turning out to public displays and others following safety messages. However some fire crews had to deal with scrub fires started by fireworks.
There seems little doubt what outcome can be expected from the Clark Government to the question of banning fireworks sales. Clark was derisive about the idea of people enjoying playing with fireworks, doesn't like playing with fireworks herself, and it seems clear she won't be allowing the peasants to enjoy them either.
Watch out for another victory for the wowsers.
For my own part, we burnt the Minister for Killing Guy Fawkes David Benson-Pope in effigy on a Saturday night bonfire. I can report no major incidents myself -- that is, I can remember no major incidents -- but the home-made black powder fireworks did set off some very profound explosions.
UPDATE: Oswald Bastable notes correctly that new laws aren't needed. The Arms Act already exists to be used against cretins who deliberately and blatantly cause danger with their fireworks. Why penalise the rest of us?
LINKS: Public heed firework safety warnings - TVNZ
RELATED: Politics-NZ
9 comments:
For my own part, we burnt the Minister for Killing Guy Fawkes David Benson-Pope in effigy on a Saturday night bonfire.
Good form! Yeah, it was a goody - from where we are we have a good view over Auckland city, and you'll never convince me a majority of people want to ban them from what I saw.
Do small rural towns have public fireworks? or does this mean that only city people can see fireworks?
does more property and personal damage get caused by smoking, drinking or fireworks?
yet i can;t see us banning drinking (ssh don;t tell aunty helen).
AL
In terms of safety, of course, the thing is that if the shop-sold fireworks are banned, people are still going to find and make things that go bang, and not all of them are going to be as safe as the shop-bought stuff.
Quoting the header from Stuff.
"Guy Fawkes festivities combined with "mass disorder" to stretch emergency services to breaking point throughout New Zealand."
If fire and other emergency services are stretched to the limit and can not cope with potential chaos on an evening, they have known will occur, one year in advance, then, how on earth are these/our emergency services able to cope with a national crisis? I shudder to think. If Guy Fawkes challenges them to breaking point, then I suggest that they are ill-prepared, ill-equipped and are maintaining a level of utter incompetency.
If the emergency services are so stretched, wouldn't spending 700 million on them better help ALL New Zealanders rather than the few interested in a rugby stadium?
Having read news articles from around the country, I have not seen any evidence of any injury to any person as a direct result of fireworks, except this sentence in the Herald "St John Ambulance northern communications reported just one fireworks-related injury overnight on Saturday." What sort of press report did the ambulance service for the rest of NZ, present?
Or was there not anything to actually report. No injuries? Did the northern St John's Ambulance have the only reported injury? One has to wonder how many really expensive band aids, came out of the box for that one.
The Herald quotes “No reports of major injuries, fires or property damage in Auckland”, the most densely populated place in NZ! What more can be said about that?
Back to Stuff, who report “Fireworks Create Chaos Across NZ”, and lead the article with two very graphic pictures. One of 2 people collecting rubbish from a public firework display and the other of a pretty firework in the sky.
I love Guy Fawkes night, I always have and that is not going to change. I have no children by choice, yet I look forward to getting my crackers along with the rest of the masses.
Guy Fawkes is a celebration that I choose to participate in, Klark has no right to remove it from my social calender. She dare try !
I listened to the guy doing Paul Holmes show on Newstalk ZB this morning, and my impression was that it was a big carnage. Paul's stand-in sounded like a real leftie though. But anyway, the perspective was very, very different.
Well done PC! Why not make one of Helen and burn her too? I don't get why Benson-Pope is the one reponsable for it. He is the Enviroment Misnister. What does that have to do with fireowrks? Seems out of his jurisdiction to me.
Of course banning fireworks is out of the rightful jurisdition of all politicians as it strips away our right from us. No politician, or anyone, has the right to do that.
Also, not only does the Arms Act cover that, but other laws cover it under not harming another person except in self-defence and not harming the property of other people. So there is already ample protection under the law.
Ulmimately, as Paul Henry said on the Breakfast Show, "If people were taught personal reponsibility we wouldn't have any problems such as the drinking and fireworks ones." That is the best fix, not a law that forbids even the reponsable people, i.e. 95+% of NZers, from using them.
Al, Helensville where I used to live till I moved to Albany, have public displays and it's a rural town.
But yes, don't tell Queen Helen (she's more than an "auntie". As PC said a while ago, she's the Red Queen. Also, as my cousin says, she's a Stalinist.
Good point, PC. Fireworks will become a thing sold by the black market and as such runs a risk of being highly dangerous. So the Stalinists in Labour are really making things more dangerous not less so.
Rebel Radius, good point. They should of been better prepared for this. As you say they had plenty of time to do so and had plenty of warning (i.e, several years worth of it happening).
However, Rebel Radius, the stadium will benefit more than just those interested in rugby. For starters it will be a multi-purpose stadium. If it goes ahead that is. But also, the extra tourism dollars will boost the Auckland economy, and since the NZ economy relies on the Auckland one, the whole countriy's economy benefits. So the whole country benefits, not just rugby fans.
Also the Breakfast show has reported that the Fire Service reported a few fires. But that doesn't justify it of course.
But you are right that she has no right. Personally, I don't see what's so great about fireworks, but you have the right to feel the opposite about them and to act upon that right and noone has the right to tell you otherwise.
Sshh, Brian! You might give Gueen Helen some ideas! ;-P
As for the ministry, the name would be The Ministry of Boredom, not Un-Fun.
Maybe we need the coup not Fiji! ;-P
Oh, crap I might get in trouble for that! After all Labour will no doubt soon pass retrospective legislation alongs the lines of the US law that The Simpsons dubbed "The Government Knows Best Act". I don't know the real name of it, but it is a real US law. It bans speaking out against the government.
Oh no! No doubt I've just given Queen Helen another idea to help her goal of killing free speech!
Clearly freedom means nothing to Labour so don't be surprised if the above jokes come true.
PC said...
[For my own part, we burnt the Minister for Killing Guy Fawkes David Benson-Pope in effigy on a Saturday night bonfire.]
I missed that part, however the firewood you collected for the bonfire weren't good. They were really dry ones. They burnt slowly, in which roasting a lamb on a spit (as intended by your people at the castle), was impossible if it was to be well done cooked. Your guests would have eaten rare meat, something that I assumed nobody would have liked. Perhaps you guys will be much prepared for next year.
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