more on dogs and culture

You have to laugh when Pakehas tells Tongans to respect the culture of New Zealand, especially when it comes to eating dogs. Putting a dog into an earth oven is part of the culture of this land. This is, after all, Polynesia.

Don't get me wrong – I'm personally no more likely to eat a kuri than I am a pig, but when the Minister for Agriculture, and meat farmer, David Carter gets self righteous about Paea Taufa (humanely) knocking off his pitbull terrier and cooking it, I can't help snorting aloud. Maybe the Minister is trying to ingratiate himself with the animal rights people in a bid to pave the way for resuming live sheep exports, but what a bunch of arse. Actually I reckon that Mr Taufa should be commended.

Not so much for preempting the potentially serious problem of a dog that was trying to bite the neighbours, although that alone should give the hysterical cause to pause. No, I think that in this time of recession and ecological crisis, with the NZ economy dependent on an commodity producing agricultural sector that is (with a few notable exceptions) environmentally reckless if not vandalistic, and as we accelerate into the last few years of the Oil Age, any tendencies towards self sufficiency should be encouraged. For incorrigible carnivores, dog eating may be the way of the future.

Actually guinea pigs and rabbits are probably a better source of meat. They can be kept on small areas of lawn and are far more efficient at converting grass to protein than cows or sheep. They are cheap to buy, easy to breed, and (I imagine) simple to dispatch. And as well as the economic and environmental arguments, I reckon there is a moral question too. No one should eat meat who isn't prepared to kill the animal and butcher it themself.

I don't imagine the people down at Turangawaewae preparing the feasts for the coronation week are squeamish about butchering. Mind you, I don't imagine they are eating guinea pig either. Lots of ordinary pigs, cows and sheep, though, will be going through those kitchens as workers toil to feed the thousands of people descending on Ngaruawahia to pay their respects to King Tuheitia. I suspect that David Carter will not be there, honouring the culture of New Zealand. In fact most Pakeha New Zealanders will be only dimly aware, at best, of this major event in the Maori calendar.

So whenever I hear Pakeha complain about dog eating, or burkas or people squatting on the lav, or object to hearing foreign languages spoken around then, I can't help reflecting on the fact that after more than 160 years of us being in this country, most of us have only the most perfunctory idea about Maori culture, Maori language, Maori values or Maori aspirations. We live in a parallel universe, it seems, yet one so close to us that we bump shoulders with it every day.

Part of the reason, I suspect, is because most Pakeha don't really see ourselves as part of an ethnic group with a culture of our own. We see culture and ethnicity as words to describe other people's quirky ways and how they differ from the norm, as defined by us. Think 'ethnic food' and it is more likely to be dog that springs to mind than lamb and mint sauce. Maybe that's why the whole Maori Flag debate is so important. In some ways recognising one is an easy symbolic gesture for the Government, but it's a powerful one all the same. It says we are not one homogeneous people, and we are no longer scared of that basic truth.

from my Waikato Times column 22 August 2009

IPCCC doesn't stand for Ignoring the People at the Climate Change Consultations

Governments are not very good at asking the people what they want. Understandable I guess – they don't do it often (triennially) and they don't really think that they should have to.

By people I don't mean corporate lobbyists, of course. I've never been sold on the idea that a company is a legal person. If they were people, even the Australian banks in this country would be paying tax. Anyway the corporations that fill the political parties' election coffers always get their say, regardless of which way the election swings.

No, by people I mean the ones the whole political and economic system is supposedly for. Politicians have this strange notion that because they can cobble together a majority of MPs in Parliament they have a democratic mandate to enact all their policies, even the obscure ones. Actually most voters probably have only a vague knowledge (at best) of party policy, beyond the headline issues. For people who only see a choice between Coke or Pepsi (as Russel Norman famously called Labour and National), why bother to compare all the food additives?

Now I'm not suggesting that we should all be consulted to death on every policy. In fact the select committee process is pretty good for getting people's views on most issues before Parliament (or would be if our schools taught civics education so that people knew what a select committee actually is). But I do think the public should get a say on the big questions. By which I don't just mean sex, drugs and smacking children.

What I mean is things like New Zealand's 2020 greenhouse gas emissions target. 2020 is only a decade away, but the implications of that target are going to be significant for the next hundred years. Climate change is a watershed issue with a dividing line, in my view, is between those that cannot imagine anything much different from the status quo, and those who recognise that the status quo is a dead end, down which we are rapidly accelerating.

So I congratulate the Government on holding public meetings to talk about climate change. At the Hamilton one I saw a clear majority for a strong, I would say responsible, target. It could also be described as the most scientifically defensible target. Unfortunately the Minister for Climate Change Issues, Nick Smith, has already misread the economics and stated that reducing our emissions by 40% , as is being called for at public meetings, would cost NZ about $15 billion a year, or around $3000 per person. This is simply not true.

The NZIER report he is quoting does not actually say that. In fact it contains so many arbitrary assumptions that it does not say much of anything that is informative. First of all, it assumes that whatever international commitment we adopt, the Government won't change any policies to help us meet them and that our actual greenhouse gas emissions will reduce by the same rate regardless. This means that the estimated cost differences between weak and responsible commitments are based on the price of simply buying emission permits on the world market.

Secondly it assumes that regardless of the cost of buying carbon permits, no new technologies will develop and no more forests will be planted. This is an unbelievable assumption for an economic analysis to make and deeply flawed. Thirdly, it uses a 'worst case scenario' of $200 per tonne of carbon to work out the costs at a 40% commitment, but uses $100 per tonne to work out the costs for smaller commitments. When these three factors are combined, the report looks intellectually dishonest but very useful for propaganda purposes.

It is worth examining what it would cost to reduce our emission by 40% from 1990 levels, and how it could be most cost effectively achieved. But lets not fall for the old lie that There Is No Alternative (to mugging our grandchildren).

(from my Waikato Times column 31 jULY 2009)

Medical marijuana bill defeat an indictment on NZ MP's

I have a friend who wakes up every morning and wants to vomit. Most of the day he wants to vomit. Food often makes him actually vomit, and he sometimes vomits blood. The doctors have given him some pills for the nausea but they are hard to keep down. There is one very effective inhalant that his specialist has recommended, but he is not allowed to use it.

Another friend is tetraplegic. That's like paraplegic but with all four limbs incapacitated. He lives in constant pain. The doctors gave him morphine and other pain killers, but he won't use them because he becomes like a zombie when he does. He doesn't have much quality of life, as you can imagine, so anything that gives him some is very welcome. He found a herbal remedy that takes the edge off his pain, makes it manageable and gives him some get-up-and-go. Apparently a lot of people with spinal injuries use it, but when my friend grew some the police arrested him and a judge locked him in Mount Eden prison.

The medicine in both these cases is called cannabis. Whatever people think about the recreational use of cannabis, I find it difficult to believe that anyone thinks sick people should suffer needlessly. Yet they are. Many sick people around New Zealand have tried everything the doctors can offer to no effect, and they know for a fact that cannabis is the only thing that works. They are not asking for a Pharmac subsidy. They are just asking us to please stop arresting them.

This week the Parliament was given a chance to vote on a proposal to do that. It would have allowed sick people to use cannabis for specified illnesses, if they had the written support of their doctor or a specialist. Metiria Turei's private member's bill provided for verified medical cannabis users to register with the Medical Officer of Health and police and get a Medical Cannabis Identification Card. This would exempt them from criminal prosecution for cannabis use, so long as they abided by the conditions.

The bill could be tidied up I'm sure. Police would have comments about potential snags and loopholes, doctors might disagree about the list of specific illnesses. That is what the select committees process is for. Unfortunately no one will get a say because Parliament voted overwhelmingly to keep prosecuting sick people for therapeutic use of cannabis.

Its hard to say why. The debate was full of the usual drug hysteria but I know for a fact that most MPs don't believe those old tired lies. I have had too many tell me privately that they agree with allowing medical use, even as they indicated that they would have to vote against it. No matter how necessary, humanitarian and cautious the bill, they don't want to be seen to be “pro-drugs”.

I can't resist commenting that this doesn't prevent them attending drug glamourising events such as the Air New Zealand Wine Awards. Drug samples are handed out with abandon at Beehive functions, and Associate Minster of Health Peter Dunne has even received money from multinational drug dealing company British American Tobacco (I'm sure it wasn't a bribe because it was only 100 pounds and surely no politician could be bought that cheaply).

That's a diversion though, because this particular debate is not about the usual drug hypocrisy. It is simply about the State denying very sick people the right to use their medicine. Double standards frustrate me, but the disinterested and vicious cruelty of New Zealand's MPs this week has angered and disgusted me.

(from my Waikato Times column, 3/7/09)

Bain found not guilty - how about something for the rest of the wrongfully imprisoned

David Bain has just been found not guilty for the 1994 murder of his family in Dunedin– a series of killings he was convicted for in 1995. He spent 13 years in prison and it was only after a massive and dedicated effort by supporters, in particular Joe Karam, that his initial conviction was quashed and he was free on bail to be retried.

There is a lot of speculation about whether he will get compensation. I'm not going to add my thoughts. What interests me is the many other people in prison for crimes they did not commit. Former High Court judge Sir Thomas Thorp, in his 2006 report into miscarriages of justice in New Zealand, suggested that as many as twenty people might be wrongfully imprisoned for serious offenses in New Zealand. He cited work in 2002 by Bruce MacFarlane, the then Deputy Attorney General of Manitoba, on what factors make a miscarriage of justice more likely.

MacFarlane listed four predisposing factors: public pressure for a conviction, unpopular defendants, lawyers turning the process of trial into a game, and noble cause corruption - that is, persuading witnesses to alter their testimony, or planting evidence, because police genuinely believe that the person charged is guilty.

He also listed eight direct causes. These were: eyewitness misidentification; police mishandling of the police investigation; inadequate disclosure by the prosecution; unreliable scientific evidence; using criminals as witnesses, such as jailhouse informants; inadequate defence work; false confessions; and misleading circumstantial evidence. He said that these factors are present throughout the Commonwealth jurisdictions. There is no doubt that they are present in a number of cases in New Zealand. Personally I believe that the convictions of Peter Ellis and John Barlow also need to be reviewed, but to go further, I am convinced that Scott Watson is entirely innocent of the killing of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds in 1997.
Whether he will get a chance to show it is another matter. Wrongful convictions are incredibly difficult to overturn, because of the design of our appeal system. Once a jury has convicted, appeals can only be, by and large, on points of law. There are good reasons for this, but it does mean that substantive problems do not get picked up in some cases.

The last resort in such cases is a petition to the Governor-General for a retrial or for a pardon. These are handled internally by the Ministry of Justice and the process is ad hoc and entirely unsatisfactory. That's why justice Thorp's main recommendation was for an independent Criminal Appeals Review Office, as exists in Canada and the United Kingdom. Many prominent lawyers, the Criminal Bar Association and the Law Society have all echoed Sir Thomas's call, especially in the wake of the Rex Haig and David Doherty cases. Parliament's Justice and Electoral Select Committee backed the idea after it looked into the petitions calling for an inquiry into the Peter Ellis case.

Justice shouldn't rely on the unpaid, some times personally costly, efforts of supporters to bring these stories to light. It's time a Criminal Appeal Review Office was introduced in New Zealand.

Tax changes we need

It was the classic politician's trick – John Key promised you a tax cut and delivered a tax review instead. Inquiries, discussions, investigations and reviews: the refuge of scoundrel governments everywhere.

It's not technically a Government tax review of course. Its a Tax Working Group. But since Treasury seems to be the brains behind it, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a political animal. I don't know how important the promise of a tax cut was to National winning the election, but going by the column inches that the media devoted to it, you'd have to conclude very.

I suspect it was actually more a diffused sense of irritation that really put paid to Clark's Labour government, and anyway, National has to be commended for pulling back from any rash pre-election promises in the face of a global recession. Still, a tax review is a useful way of saying that it's the thought that counts, and they are still thinking about it.

Actually, this might turn out to be an astoundingly cunning plan, because there is a way that this review could provide a ticket to tax trimming of titanic proportions. Looking at the mug shots though, I'm not sure that the working group has the imagination.

The last tax review was the McLeod report of 2001. More than anything that report failed to take notice of the most basic 21st century reality: there are environmental limits to the economy, and they are coming up quick. There is an urgent need to transform the economy onto a sustainable footing.

One way to help do this is to make sure that environmental costs fall on those causing them. That rarely happens today. If a business can pass on costs to the environment, and therefore to the community, it usually will. This is what people mean when they talk about environmental externalities – costs fall on people external to the business causing the damage or depletion.

There are a number of ways to stop this corporate freeloading (internalise the externalities). One is to add a tax equal to the unpaid social and environmental cost. That's the kind of thing a carbon tax does – it takes the cost off taxpayers and puts it on those causing the problem. This means that the true cost is being paid, leading to less environmental bads and more environmental goods. It should also go hand in hand with cuts in income tax (that is the bit that Cullen left out of the carbon tax proposals).

The Tax Working Group is made up of corporate notables, including Rob McLeod who chaired the last review. The group has already been criticised for its uniformity, but what worries me is that there don't appear to be any environmental economists (or accountants) among them. Gareth Morgan is on the group and he seems to like nature, and is knowledgeable on things like climate change, but I haven't yet heard him connect tax policy with the environment. It would be a real tragedy if the working group is so full of 'taxation experts' that it cannot see beyond technical refinements.

Finance Minister Bill English certainly understands the benefits of internalising environmental externalities. It is one way that National could demonstrate better environmental credentials than Labour, by showing how a market based approach to solving environmental problems can be more effective than regulation. When the Greens signed their Memorandum of Understanding with the Government a month or so ago, tax policy was unsurprisingly not on it, but I'm hoping that the Greens aren't too sidetracked by the shenanigans in Mt Albert to raise the topic.

Because while I harbour fantasies of a cunning and secret plot hatched between National and the Greens to green the NZ economy, I'm not holding my breath. I am, however, hoping that sooner rather than later we get a government that understands that environmental concerns must be more than a clip-on to pretty things up after the big decisions have been made. We have to make the environment integral to our thinking at all stages, and we have to start now. Let's hope this tax review won't be another missed opportunity to do that.

(from my Waikato Times column today)

I spent most of last week at the tangi of Ngahuia's koro Percy Marunui Murphy. The tangi was in Murupara at Rangitahi, the marae of Ngati Hui hapu of Ngati Manawa.



As well as getting the chance to hear more about the life of this extraordinary man - decorated Maori Battalion veteran, first Maori Mayor and entrepreneur - it was also an opportunity to get to know people from the town. Murupara has a pretty rough reputation, and features among the most deprived areas of the country, but I found a warm and generous people with a lot of get up and go. In particular the students of Te Kura Kaupapa o Tawhiuau were outstanding and huge respect must go to all the administrators and kaiako. I also heard about a number local initiatives, such as the organic community gardens, all examples of people working to build resilience and self reliance in the face of adversity.

Murupara used to be a thriving little town, but the forestry sell off of the 80's left most of the town out of work. Young people either face long term unemployment or they leave their ancestral lands to find work elsewhere. The people I met over the week showed me that there is still plenty of potential though.

I also learned a bit about making a hangi - not exactly a vegetarians dream but good mahi all the same.

what's up with Kiwibank?

At the risk of sounding like 'grumpy of Waingaro' I have to ask what decade Kiwibank thinks it is in?

Actually, its kind of ironic because I was just talking with one of my economics lecturers about some of the obstacles to increased productivity in NZ - which I think in this case was econ speak for bloody annoying stupidity that wastes everyone's time.

Anyway, the story is that I went to deposit a cheque into my 6 yr old daughters savings account. It was a birthday gift from her grandparents, who live in England.

The woman at the desk seemed to think this was a significant challenge and requiring of rigorous scrutiny. So, the cheque needed to be countersigned by the recipient. Well, ok, Pirimaia does know how to write her name, but, y'know, its hardly a consistent mark of authenticity. Anyway, why?

"Oh, well you are not the person it is made out to, so the recipient has to endorse it to show that you're not misusing the cheque".

"But I'm trying to put it into HER account. I'm not trying to put it into mine".

"Well, you are doing the right thing, but its just in case you're not"

So they rang head office for advice, to deal with this unsolvable dilemma presented by a father trying to put a cheque, made out to his daughter, into her account. The resolution was that as a guardian, I could countersign the cheque!!!

So I can't just put it into her account, but if I sign the back, I can?

This operation took about 45 minutes. It was one of the more bizarre and pointless exercises of the day (yeah, I don't have to go to question time anymore). I wonder how often Kiwibank has to deal with situations like this, because I would have thought it's pretty common.

So I'm going to boost my personal productivity by moving her account to TSB.