It’s time to renew the questions about links between the leading advocates of harsher prison sentences in New Zealand, the Sensible Sentencing Trust and GEO Group, a US private prison operation whose former name, Wackenhut Corrections, became a byword for corruption and abuse. Who is really behind this privatisation and longer sentences agenda?
Kelvin Davis: It goes to show how high the aspirations of some of our Maori leaders are. We now aspire to bung the bros in the hinaki and watch the dollars roll in. The longer and more often we can put them away, the sooner we will be able to afford to expand the prison and lock even more away. With the soaring crime rate and high Maori unemployment everything is coming together nicely.
Today is the last day to send in your submission on NAWAC’s draft Code of Welfare for Pigs. New Zealand Open Rescue have put out a new video containing footage from many different farms around the country, to remind you why it is important to have your say. You can send a submission using SAFE’s template at www.lovepigs.org.nz.
National’s apologists say we should let private corporations run our prisons because it will save money. But do Public Private Partnerships (privatisation in drag) really save money? The experience here and abroad says no. To put it bluntly, when you rely on someone else to deliver something you need they’ve got you by the balls and the profit motive gives them plenty of incentive to squeeze.
John Key and Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully have been at their do nothing best ever since Key dazzled the media with his party central ‘vision’. As the days tick down, they still haven’t made any decisions, and the plans for Queens Wharf have become less and less grand. Now, they’re looking at just chucking up a big tent.
Have you heard of Cyanide and Happiness? A web-comic that walks the line of funny and too far. They have an annual ‘depressing comics’ week. No punch lines. Given our Prime Minister’s aim to restore commercial whaling and the anti-whalers’ success in blocking the Japs from half their target of kills, thought this one would be appropriate [full comic]
Smacking and the reform of Section 59 was one of the big political issues of the last few years. Key’s position on facing down the appallingly worded “smacking referendum” remains one of the very few things that I can respect and applaud him on. Key will not want to revisit this issue, but the evidence from a new study suggests that he should…
How dumb was John Carter to use his speech at the Grey Power National Conference to have a cry because Grey Power’s participating in an inquiry into aged care by Labour, the Greens, and the Progressives? You don’t try to bully Grey Power with its 100,000 members. The grey voters will be leaving National in droves.
Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar made a rare appearance on Russell Brown’s Media 7 the other night, demonstrating yet again what a charlatan he is. Brown had a chance to ask some good questions but let the opportunity slip away.
Before the election National promised that they would “Ensure that institutions have greater autonomy”. What does greater autonomy look like, National style? It looks like yet another National attack on democratic governance.
A senior judge is under investigation for sitting on a case in which his business partner, whom he owed $240,000, was a lawyer. The investigation could result in a recommendation to the Attorney-General that the judge be sacked. But Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has trampled over the process and has said he will not act against Justice Wilson, who is a mate of his from their days at Bell Gully.
Rachel Maddow has a look at exactly how much Fox News just makes stuff up and calls it news. It uses selectively edited stories like the ACORN ‘pimp’ story, the ‘climategate’ e-mails, and many other highly inaccurate ‘stories’, and promotes them for ratings.
In effect Fox News is the (un)official spin channel for conservative activists to peddle garbage entertainment on. Have a watch of Rachael as she tears the facade of conservative story telling apart.
The day after Zet’s post here on homophobic, imbalanced reporting by TV3’s Duncan Garner, Brian Edward’s wrote a scathing detailed deconstruction of Garner‘s […]
In politics nothing lasts forever. That is it seems, except the Rt Hon Winston Peters. The latest Roy Morgan poll has NZ First at 3%, just below the 5% threshold (Nats 49%, Lab 33%). With Peters once again creeping back into the media spotlight, you’ve got to wonder: Will Rodney Hide’s nightmare come true with the return of Winston Peters to Parliament in 2011?
I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.
Wikileaks has revealed footage shot from a US Apache helicopter in Iraq in 2007 as they callously murder a dozen Iraqi civilians. Every time you read of some wedding convey being shot up or a houseful of ‘insurgents’ being bombed remember this video and remember that our soldiers are now part of the combat force that is committing these same barbaric acts in Afghanistan.
I think they know full well what causes violent crime.
They just don’t care.
John Key makes big promises and he doesn’t deliver. Tax cuts North of $50? Jobs summit? Close the gap with Australia? His rhetoric on crime is another example. Key promised to tackle violent crime. Key promised a war on P. Well, the first report card is in, and it isn’t good.
Regular readers of The Standard will know that a primary driver of crime is joblessness. It’s no surprise, therefore, to see that crime […]
You can say this much for the Key Government – they’re idiots but half the time they’re also cowards. If an issue generates too much public disquiet they’ll flip-flop. It’s easy when they don’t have a real plan or real principles.
The Key Government is constantly promising us great results and actually do nothing that improves things for New Zealanders. English, Bennett, Brownlee, and Tolley are prime examples of this MO. While they promise great things and fail to deliver unemployment is rising, wages are falling, crime is up, and the government has no plan to move us forward.
Why do we force someone to live who wants to die? Why is Margaret Page being forced to starve herself to death? It is time to change the law so that people are permitted the right to choose to end their lives when they choose by a humane method and with dignity.
Among the reports released by the Attorney General, three in particular make for interesting reading. They relate to three of National’s core policies — three strikes, automatic DNA testing, and “getting tough” on beneficiaries. The Attorney General finds that each of these policies is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act.
Andrew Campbell reports that Roger Douglas and the ACT party want to change the law so that student associations will be unable to provide the important services and representation that they currently offer by making their membership voluntary. This will put the clubs and services that many universities offer at risk.
Remember John Key’s talk about “surgical mining?” It’s like “surgical bombing” – there is a lot of collateral damage. A lot of people […]
It has taken nearly a year and cost President Obama a lot of his popularity, thanks to the spineless behaviour of many House […]
Key is talking ‘toughening’ the law in the wake of the Waihopai 3 acquittals. He clearly doesn’t understand that a jury decision, let alone one in a district court, has no precedent effect. Others Nats are muttering about canning jury trials. It’s scary the way the Nats resort to heavyhanded tactics so quickly. They never work either, just ask the boyracers in their uncrushed cars.
How much is the Huljich Kiwisaver figure-fudging scandal hurting John “the dodgy-director†Banks’ mayoral chances? Answer: a lot.O’Sullivan then explicitly writes off Banks – saying he’ll lose to Len Brown – and joins the long list of commentators criticizing the Huljich rip-off and noting it has damaged Banks’ chances. Think this story is only getting play in the business pages? It’s not.
Anne Tolley has promised that national standards have been introduced so that “every single child could read, write, and do maths when they left school”.
The depths of arrogance and ignorance in that claim leave me at a loss for words…
Two list MPs and a popular local favourit son. It was always going to be a hard one to pick and it took […]
