I got an email from my friend the other day saying that he was on a contract in Africa working on HIV and youth education issues across three countries, and had had his bag taken with all his passport, money, credit card etc. He was getting temporary travel papers from the embassy, but it would take about 4 days and he owed about $2500 to the hotel and had no money for food. Could I transfer some money and he would pay me back when he got home?
Well, I've had a few people try to scam me but this was from a friend who might well be in this position. I've been stranded in foreign countries before under similar circumstances and both know how desperate a person feels, and also that the story sounds quite feasible eg the embassy in my experience provides papers but won't help with money.
It read a little stilted, but maybe stress?
Anyway I decided I'd better ring his family and see what they knew and check out Western Union, which is how he asked me to transfer the money. The woman at the Travelex, when I told her the story, said that I should beware - she had had another similar case a month before and it had turned out to be a scam. Someone had used an internet station somewhere and their webmail log-in had been cracked and used to access that persons full contact list.
I rang my friend's mobile, and he answered from his house near Wellington. It wasn't his email, he assured me, although he was aware of the problem and was trying to get hotmail to sort it out.
I almost fell for it, because it appeared to be from someone I knew, so beware. Anyway now I'm seeing how long I can string my new Nigerian friends along for.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
My thoughts on Sue Bradfords resignation
Sue Bradford announced last week that she is leaving Parliament, citing disappointment at losing the co-leadership contest. It's an honest statement and she is to be admired for that. She did not add that she is unhappy at the direction the Green Party is headed, but there is no doubt that she would have steered a very different course from that intended by the current leadership. Perhaps she saw little place for herself in the new, unaligned, Green Party.
Sue was a sometimes controversial figure, but there is no doubt that she has played a key role in the early development of the Parliamentary Greens. She has also played an important role in Parliament, but that is all about to change. Despite her brave face, life after Parliament will be hard to adjust to. Once gone, she is unlikely to get any support from the Greens during this difficult transition, and I hope that her personal support system is strong. She will need it.
Her stated desire to get back to the grassroots is most welcome. The Green Party has often been criticised for sucking the energy out of the grassroots movement and expending it on getting people elected. Green MPs are useful to have in the House, but the Green Party does need to consider how it returns nutrients to the soil from whence it sprung. Shedding leaves from the top is one way of doing that. With her considerable knowledge base and extraordinary capacity for work, Sue will certainly build some humus in the community. I wish her well.
The question of where this leaves the Party is interesting. With both Sue and Jeanette stepping down early the Greens caucus will soon include David Clendon and Gareth Hughes. David is a small business advisor and works with the Sustainable Business Network. He has the potential to build much stronger links with small business and new business and this, as I have said before, is crucial to enlarging a uniquely Green constituency, one that is so poorly served, practically and ideologically, by both Labour and National.
Gareth is a young and creative climate change campaigner. He will strengthen important connections with the growing movement around climate change, especially its energetic and passionate youth activists. He will also bring experience with e-organising and campaigning methods that will help cement the Greens reputation as the most innovative and tech-savvy party political campaigners. The crucial issue will be whether the Green caucus is capable of supporting him well in an environment that is hostile to young people and innovative thinking. It will be a test of the co-leadership's ability to create a strong team that looks after its players, something the party has not really managed to achieve in the past.
Along with new MPs Kennedy Graham and Kevin Hague, David and Gareth signify a change in the Green Party's political orientation and flavour. The Old Left element of the party, once so influential, will be scarcely represented once Sue has left. Keith Locke, considered by many to be the archetypical communist, is actually nothing of the sort. While he is the oldest member of the Green caucus, his mental youthfulness and his sense of empathy have prevented him from becoming sufficiently doctrinaire. With this new influx, the Green Party is likely to become a more emphatically 'green-wing' party than has been possible in the past.
Does this mean that the Green Party will become less radical? I doubt it. The Green Party, for all its hype, has never been particularly radical. Sue has enjoyed a well deserved reputation for militancy, but this is hardly the same thing. Militancy is a strategic position. Radicalism is about the fundamental goals, and whether the solutions being offered address the root causes of the problems at hand. Sue Bradford is known and respected for her work around poverty, but her solutions have largely focussed on such things as benefit rises, workers rights and more state support for the community sector. These are worthy and important goals, but State munificence and higher wages cannot substitute for genuine social and ecological connectedness, nor for reducing resource consumption.
The departure that does threaten to deradicalise the Greens, in my view, is Jeanette Fitzsimons. Although she is not militant, she possesses a dangerous mind (dangerous, that is, to the status quo). She has spent considerable time thinking about what the fundamental causes of our ecological and social disintegration are, and the contradictions and difficulties we face in attempting to address them. Of course articulating this in public is a risky business for politicians and while Jeanette was not always effective at painting a broad green vision in the public mind, it always looked like she saw one. It may not be the role of a political party to advocate truly radical solutions, but unless the Greens continue to think about them they risk being shipwrecked on the shoals of immediacy.
Sue was a sometimes controversial figure, but there is no doubt that she has played a key role in the early development of the Parliamentary Greens. She has also played an important role in Parliament, but that is all about to change. Despite her brave face, life after Parliament will be hard to adjust to. Once gone, she is unlikely to get any support from the Greens during this difficult transition, and I hope that her personal support system is strong. She will need it.
Her stated desire to get back to the grassroots is most welcome. The Green Party has often been criticised for sucking the energy out of the grassroots movement and expending it on getting people elected. Green MPs are useful to have in the House, but the Green Party does need to consider how it returns nutrients to the soil from whence it sprung. Shedding leaves from the top is one way of doing that. With her considerable knowledge base and extraordinary capacity for work, Sue will certainly build some humus in the community. I wish her well.
The question of where this leaves the Party is interesting. With both Sue and Jeanette stepping down early the Greens caucus will soon include David Clendon and Gareth Hughes. David is a small business advisor and works with the Sustainable Business Network. He has the potential to build much stronger links with small business and new business and this, as I have said before, is crucial to enlarging a uniquely Green constituency, one that is so poorly served, practically and ideologically, by both Labour and National.
Gareth is a young and creative climate change campaigner. He will strengthen important connections with the growing movement around climate change, especially its energetic and passionate youth activists. He will also bring experience with e-organising and campaigning methods that will help cement the Greens reputation as the most innovative and tech-savvy party political campaigners. The crucial issue will be whether the Green caucus is capable of supporting him well in an environment that is hostile to young people and innovative thinking. It will be a test of the co-leadership's ability to create a strong team that looks after its players, something the party has not really managed to achieve in the past.
Along with new MPs Kennedy Graham and Kevin Hague, David and Gareth signify a change in the Green Party's political orientation and flavour. The Old Left element of the party, once so influential, will be scarcely represented once Sue has left. Keith Locke, considered by many to be the archetypical communist, is actually nothing of the sort. While he is the oldest member of the Green caucus, his mental youthfulness and his sense of empathy have prevented him from becoming sufficiently doctrinaire. With this new influx, the Green Party is likely to become a more emphatically 'green-wing' party than has been possible in the past.
Does this mean that the Green Party will become less radical? I doubt it. The Green Party, for all its hype, has never been particularly radical. Sue has enjoyed a well deserved reputation for militancy, but this is hardly the same thing. Militancy is a strategic position. Radicalism is about the fundamental goals, and whether the solutions being offered address the root causes of the problems at hand. Sue Bradford is known and respected for her work around poverty, but her solutions have largely focussed on such things as benefit rises, workers rights and more state support for the community sector. These are worthy and important goals, but State munificence and higher wages cannot substitute for genuine social and ecological connectedness, nor for reducing resource consumption.
The departure that does threaten to deradicalise the Greens, in my view, is Jeanette Fitzsimons. Although she is not militant, she possesses a dangerous mind (dangerous, that is, to the status quo). She has spent considerable time thinking about what the fundamental causes of our ecological and social disintegration are, and the contradictions and difficulties we face in attempting to address them. Of course articulating this in public is a risky business for politicians and while Jeanette was not always effective at painting a broad green vision in the public mind, it always looked like she saw one. It may not be the role of a political party to advocate truly radical solutions, but unless the Greens continue to think about them they risk being shipwrecked on the shoals of immediacy.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Fear factor politics and the Maori Party
Parliament must have seemed like a bad episode of Fear Factor this week, at least for Maori Party climate change spokesperson Rahui Katene. Following an excellent performance in the first stunt – the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) review – she found herself having to eat a maggot infested corpse without vomiting for stage two. I don't think that it is to her credit that she succeeded.
I doubt she was alone in wanting to vomit at the Maori Party's support for the new ETS. It must have been an interesting caucus meeting that made the decision to support watering down New Zealand's climate change policies, and I doubt it was made by consensus. When the Maori Party caucus decided to take a position contrary to numerous public statements by Katene, including the insightful comments that she wrote for the ETS review, it looked from outside like a political back-stab. It would seem that the mana of the Maori Party's relationship with National has become more important than the mana of their own MPs.
The scramble to pull her minority report from the ETS review, after the report had already been voted and agreed, just added to the humiliation. It would be pointless to speculate whether she was told to pull it, or whether it was her own decision once she realised that her position was being undermined, but the fact that it was unsuccessful did not help. It would seem that it was during leader to leader discussions that the Party agreed to support an ETS full of everything they had opposed in the past. If that is the case, the more interesting question is whether the co-leaders were unaware of the positions she had staked out in the report and in media interviews, or whether they just didn't care.
The internal dynamics of the Maori Party may be interesting, in a reality TV kind of way, but far more significant is what this will actually do to the environment. The answer is worse than nothing – it will continue to spur the growth in New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. The whole point of an ETS, or carbon tax as the Maori Party has said they prefer, is to get the 'price signals' right. Under our current economic system it is often cheaper and easier to pollute than to be clean. Proper price signals make it cheaper to not pollute, by incorporating the cost of pollution into products and services.
The ETS being put forward by National and the Maori Party will not do this. While it does finally put a price on carbon from next year, it limits it to $25 a tonne, ensuring that it remains ineffectively low. In addition, for the first two years big polluters only need to pay for half of their emissions. Most importantly, the scheme will be based on the intensity of emissions, something previously opposed strongly by the Maori Party, with good reason. An intensity based scheme may drive more carbon efficient production, but will almost certainly increase the overall level of emissions. It's like trying to overcome alcohol addiction by moving to spirits – a more efficient way to cirrhosis of the liver.
The government is counting on increased forestry plantings to counter our high emission levels, but the even further delayed entry of New Zealand's biggest emitter – agriculture – makes it likely that yet more forests will be cleared for dairy farms. The price cap on carbon also makes forestry less attractive. The crazy thing is that any gains the Maori Party won for poor people from their about-face would be better paid for by fully charging polluters and using that money. A potential win – win has been turned into another loss for the earth.
(from my Waikato Times column 18 September 2009)
I doubt she was alone in wanting to vomit at the Maori Party's support for the new ETS. It must have been an interesting caucus meeting that made the decision to support watering down New Zealand's climate change policies, and I doubt it was made by consensus. When the Maori Party caucus decided to take a position contrary to numerous public statements by Katene, including the insightful comments that she wrote for the ETS review, it looked from outside like a political back-stab. It would seem that the mana of the Maori Party's relationship with National has become more important than the mana of their own MPs.
The scramble to pull her minority report from the ETS review, after the report had already been voted and agreed, just added to the humiliation. It would be pointless to speculate whether she was told to pull it, or whether it was her own decision once she realised that her position was being undermined, but the fact that it was unsuccessful did not help. It would seem that it was during leader to leader discussions that the Party agreed to support an ETS full of everything they had opposed in the past. If that is the case, the more interesting question is whether the co-leaders were unaware of the positions she had staked out in the report and in media interviews, or whether they just didn't care.
The internal dynamics of the Maori Party may be interesting, in a reality TV kind of way, but far more significant is what this will actually do to the environment. The answer is worse than nothing – it will continue to spur the growth in New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. The whole point of an ETS, or carbon tax as the Maori Party has said they prefer, is to get the 'price signals' right. Under our current economic system it is often cheaper and easier to pollute than to be clean. Proper price signals make it cheaper to not pollute, by incorporating the cost of pollution into products and services.
The ETS being put forward by National and the Maori Party will not do this. While it does finally put a price on carbon from next year, it limits it to $25 a tonne, ensuring that it remains ineffectively low. In addition, for the first two years big polluters only need to pay for half of their emissions. Most importantly, the scheme will be based on the intensity of emissions, something previously opposed strongly by the Maori Party, with good reason. An intensity based scheme may drive more carbon efficient production, but will almost certainly increase the overall level of emissions. It's like trying to overcome alcohol addiction by moving to spirits – a more efficient way to cirrhosis of the liver.
The government is counting on increased forestry plantings to counter our high emission levels, but the even further delayed entry of New Zealand's biggest emitter – agriculture – makes it likely that yet more forests will be cleared for dairy farms. The price cap on carbon also makes forestry less attractive. The crazy thing is that any gains the Maori Party won for poor people from their about-face would be better paid for by fully charging polluters and using that money. A potential win – win has been turned into another loss for the earth.
(from my Waikato Times column 18 September 2009)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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
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
Friday, July 31, 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)
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)
Friday, July 3, 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)
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)
Saturday, June 6, 2009
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.
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.
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