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Police Special Investigations – A fundamental lack of humanity

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, December 15th, 2008 - 46 comments

Aside from all the democratic, political and moral issues raised by the Police’s behaviour, there is a fundamental lack of humanity in their actions. Yeah, perhaps the Police do have a role in preventing the graffiti of billboards (apparently they used their informant to try to track down a group that graffitied a red meat […]

No Right Turn: Police State

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, December 14th, 2008 - 35 comments

No Right Turn has written in his cogent style on the police spy issue. With the kind permission of No Right Turn, I’ve quoted it in full below. Because the police operate independently of the government at the operational level (as they should), the “mission” creep is always going to be a issue. Unfortunately the […]

Judith Collins – thoughtless idiot

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, December 14th, 2008 - 28 comments

Nothing is quite as important to a democracy as activist groups that engage in peaceful protest for change. In the past these are the groups that have worked for extending the franchise (including to woman), establishing the rights of workers in employer/employee relationships, the abolition of slavery, campaigned for sewerage systems and clean water reticulation, […]

Garth McVicar

Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, December 2nd, 2008 - 68 comments

Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar’s analysis of prisons today: “Under our present prison policy the inmates are basically running the prison” Why does anyone take this man seriously?

Chain gang

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, October 29th, 2008 - 76 comments

The Nats’ private prison scheme just gets worse. As No Right Turn points out prisons would be used to do contract work and prisoners would be forced to be used as cheap labour or lose their parole. Aside from the fact this would constitute slave labour it would also allow prison companies to undercut other […]

Prisons for profit

Written By: - Date published: 5:50 pm, October 28th, 2008 - 49 comments

National’s announcement that it plans to privatise the prison system says a lot about the party’s underlying values. Say what you like about National’s temporary flip-flops, underneath they haven’t changed a bit. Whether it’s ACC, privatising assets, drafting electoral law or reforming the Resource Management Act, the National Party stands for entrenching private power at […]

The Standard line: crime

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, October 20th, 2008 - 39 comments

So, you’re talking with someone about politics and they say something really dumb and wrong and you know it’s wrong but you don’t have the arguments and facts at your fingertips to make a decisive point. That’s where our election series, The Standard line, comes in. The info you need in bite-size form. Today, crime: […]

Not a game

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, October 17th, 2008 - 46 comments

National has a press release out blaming Labour for a supposed increase in assaults on police. Now, there are more people and more police than ever before, so all things being equal there will be more assaults, but it would be a concern if the rate of assaults had increased. In fact, the rate on […]

Even your Granny doesn’t believe you anymore

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, October 10th, 2008 - 32 comments

The Herald editorial this morning lambastes National’s crime policy as “simply a more extreme version of a policy that has failed this country and others” but Granny Herald consoles herself: In all likelihood, this is not something that Mr Key will pursue if National wins the election. It is a policy calculated to strike a […]

Power to attack Nats’ new prison policy?

Written By: - Date published: 2:55 pm, October 7th, 2008 - 30 comments

If he stands true to his principles, National justice spokesman Simon Power will soon be criticising the cost of their proposed new prison. You’ll note in this story that National proposes to build a prison (for their new reactionary justice policy) at a cost of $314 million. That is $548,951 per bed. Or not far […]

Reverting to type

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, October 6th, 2008 - 48 comments

Fearing a PR disaster over their tax-cut package announcement later this week, National has reverted to type, shedding the moderate facade and proposing a good old fashioned ‘get tough’ crime policy. National would abolish parole for people convicted of murder who have previously been convicted of a serious violent crime. In the last six years, […]

Depressing

Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, October 6th, 2008 - 29 comments

I see National has released a knee-jerk reactionary crime policy this morning, and it’s been reported largely uncritically by a news media that’s made a fortune fostering public fear of crime at a time when crime rates are falling and resolution rates are on the rise. It’s frankly depressing that our level of public debate […]

Here’s an idea, ask the expert

Written By: - Date published: 12:29 am, October 2nd, 2008 - 33 comments

Don’t take it from me. Certainly don’t take it from a National hack, who despite being a professional statistician, is too dishonest to even adjust his stats for population growth. No, listen to the Assistant Police Commissioner explain (in a measured and charmingly earnest tone) the details and meaning of the latest crime stats here.

Insulting

Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, October 1st, 2008 - 139 comments

David Farrar really is a disgusting person at times. He writes that we shouldn’t look at overall crime rates (although he made a big fuss when the overall recorded crime rate went up because of changes in recording practice in 2006). Instead we should just look at violent crime, after all “having 1,000 less [sic] […]

Crime falls again

Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, October 1st, 2008 - 26 comments

Crime fell 1% in the last year from 1025 recorded crimes per 10,000 people to 1014. This is part of a pattern that has continued since National was booted from power and living conditions for the poor started to improve. The only big increase after 2000 you see in this graph (05-06) is a result […]

Nats’ ‘NZ sucks’ campaign continues

Written By: - Date published: 10:56 am, September 26th, 2008 - 39 comments

I remember the first time I met Simon Power, when he had just come into Parliament. He struck me as a man who would be a future leader of National and an excellent one at that – articulate, informed, and moderate. Oh, what he has let himself become over 9 years in opposition – just […]

Did you pay the tax, John?

Written By: - Date published: 6:38 am, September 24th, 2008 - 34 comments

Generally, when you buy capital and later sell it, there is no tax payable on any profit. Unless you buy with the propose of selling the capital for a profit. That being the case, your buying and selling of the capital is engaging in an activity to generate income and tax is payable. It is […]

Causes and effects

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, August 30th, 2008 - 47 comments

A series of graphs from the Social Report. First off, the unemployment rate When the unemployment goes up or down, the practical effect is a decrease or increase in household incomes as the country got poorer under National, unemployment rose, incomes fell, and and the poverty rate rose, compounded by National’s cut benefits and its choice […]

Social Report shows Kiwis better off

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, August 28th, 2008 - 31 comments

MSD released its Social Report today, an annual publication that collates a wide variety of standard of living measures, and produces this awesome graph. The circle represents the status quo in 1995-97 each spoke represents a different measure (income, crimes per capita etc). If the spoke is longer than the circle than the measure has improved between 1995-97 […]

Break-in

Written By: - Date published: 1:03 pm, August 7th, 2008 - 18 comments

This just in from Radio NZ: Police are investigating a break-in at the electorate office of a senior Labour MP, David Cunliffe, in Auckland. Nothing was taken in the burglary but Mr Cunliffe’s computer was apparently tampered with. Mr Cunliffe’s office has confirmed a complaint has been made to the police about the incident. Meanwhile, […]

Anti-abuse law in action

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 40 comments

A front page story on Stuff at the moment is about a woman who systematically beat her child and has been successfully prosecuted and placed on home detention. According to the story the Tauranga mother’s initial excuse was that she was disciplining her child: When spoken to by police in February, Nelson admitted she sometimes […]

Roy puts Police informants at risk

Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, June 27th, 2008 - 12 comments

ACT is turning to increasingly desperate attempts to win media attention. Raising Roger Douglas from the dead didn’t work (he only got 6 people to come to his latest speech). Now, Heather Roy has named a police informant in Parliament. This pathetic attempt to raise a petty scandal has put the life of the informant […]

Calls for Police State ultimate admission of failure

Written By: - Date published: 6:32 am, June 26th, 2008 - 46 comments

Michael Laws has called for ‘draconian, central measures’ to fight gangs; he wants the army called out. He wants military force let loose on our streets to engage in combat with an undefined enemy. Where are we? Iraq? That way lies dictatorship, military rule, the end of our freedom. If we don’t want kids going […]

A foolish promise

Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, June 23rd, 2008 - 11 comments

Simon Power promises a new prison in a National government’s first term. What a glib and foolish statement. Had he paused to reflect before his opening his mouth, Power would have realised this cannot be done. Gaining cabinet approval, identifying a site, completing the resource consent process, running a tender process, and building the prison […]

Old man’s law

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 20th, 2008 - 62 comments

Frogblog has footage of Nandor Tanczos blasting the Government’s anti-tagging legislation and noting that “Judith Collins would be screaming about the nanny state if we tried to tell her that she had to keep her Chardonnay under lock and key.” Sounds like Hone Harawira was in fine form too: “Tagging is ugly and offensive and […]

National ‘bereft of compassion’

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, June 16th, 2008 - 36 comments

That is the reported view of the secretary of the Sikh Council of New Zealand in response to some attention grabbing behaviour from National Manakau East candidate in the wake of the tragic shooting of Natjev Singh. Specifically the article says: Mr Verpal Singh said they were “utterly disappointed at a singular lack of understanding […]

Why is reported violent crime up?

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, June 13th, 2008 - 40 comments

As you know, crime is down in New Zealand, which is not surprising – crime is a symptom of social deprivation and we’ve had eight years of high employment and rising incomes easing that deprivation. But reported violent crime is up. Why? One reason is 35% of the increase is in the “threats and intimidation” […]

Two stories on crime in Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 15th, 2008 - 8 comments

Christchurch hosted a public meeting on crime within the city last week. But the thing that caught my eye, despite the very laudable aim, was how National MP, Nicky Wagner, managed to present two contrasting opinions on the state of crime in the Garden City, in close succession: I do think the statistics are sometimes […]

Bring back the bash?

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, May 15th, 2008 - 74 comments

A man has been convicted of assault for hitting his daughter because she was dating a Muslim. You can’t assault someone, the law worked. Good, right? OK. Now, let’s imagine that this had taken a place a year ago and the daughter, who is 20 years old, was 15 instead and, so, a child in […]

Kurariki on home detention

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, May 6th, 2008 - 75 comments

No doubt, there will be hollow cries of outrage from Simon Power and Sensible Sentencing over Bailey Kurariki being transferred from jail to home detention for the last months of his sentence. Kurariki has been in jail for five years, since he was 12. His sentence expires in six months. By moving Kurariki to a […]

Simon’s semantics

Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, May 2nd, 2008 - 16 comments

Never one to miss an opportunity to stir up fear over crime, Simon Power now wants us to believe that we’re less safe because of the rise of “violent offenders” being granted home detention. As is increasingly common inside his caucus, he’s hoping that we’ll overlook the detail. The background is that in the last […]