Kiwiblog

Michael Laws writes in the SST:

In the wake of the Government’s commonsense decision to allow opencast coal mining on the Denniston Plateau, it was no surprise that the greenie lobby would scream betrayal.

The mining will occur on conservation land – a title that means not much except that no-one lives there, and no-one wants to.

The mine will occupy less than 5 per cent of the total Denniston conservation area, which doesn’t have national park status.

More importantly, the approval granted to Australian miners Bathurst Resources will create more than 400 jobs, rejuvenate an emaciated economy and add some extraneous conservation measures like a 35-kilometre predator fence. In short, it’s a win-win.

Not so, shouts the green faction – supported by the Labour Party nay-sayers. The latter are simply in anti mode – the psychological pit that you can get into when in opposition for too long. In government, they would have done this deal in a heartbeat.

They call out for jobs, yet have opposed pretty much every job creation project in the last four and a half years.

No, the real saboteurs here – the real betrayers – are the environmentalists. For too long their selfish sentiments have robbed New Zealanders of projects and jobs.

Their only answer is that huge sectors of New Zealand should stay as they are because they have always been like that. They oppose any and all extractive industries – from coal to oil to mining – anything that has the potential to endanger their utopian nothingness.

Indeed, the pervasive theme that emanated from the Denniston greenies this past week – including the increasingly hysterical Forest and Bird Society – is that coal is bad. Evil, even.

This mine could have been located in an industrial wasteland – they still would have objected.

That is a key point. They are not opposed to mining in certain areas. They oppose mining everywhere and anywhere. They have a quasi-religious belief that it is wrong to extract minerals from the Earth.

In fact, the quality of the Denniston product is amazing. Even at the current depressed prices, the project makes financial sense to Bathurst Resources because of that quality. Most of it will go straight to China – to fuel its staggering growth and provide energy for its latest power station and steel developments.

For the greenies to try to halt China’s almost linear expansion, by trying to derail this West Coast project, makes King Canute look like a veritable sage by comparison.

The coast has been mining high quality coal for well over a century – if it doesn’t provide such fuel, then another country and economy will.

Meanwhile, there will be a shiver of upset in some urban liberal quarters that such mining occurs. Their best collective idea is not to export coal – but to export Kiwis. To any economy that offers jobs, because neither the West Coast – nor New Zealand for that matter – offers sufficient skilled manual work.

So the greenies will do what their Pavlovian urges demand. They will clog the courts with their useless petitions to try to delay, obfuscate and upset. Knowing that they don’t have any legal chance of upsetting Conservation Minister Nick Smith’s decision.

They will even parade New Zealand overseas as some sort of environmental pariah.

And that is sabotage of the worst sort – if they can’t get their way then they will attempt to bring the whole house down. They must be condemned as the irrational zealots that they are.

The challenge for those opposed to mining at Denniston, is can they point to a single mine in NZ that they do support?

Michael Laws writes in the SST:

Because most New Zealanders are not convinced that New Zealand has a child poverty problem. We have a piss-poor-parenting problem, yes. We don’t have an inadequacy of resources.

Which is where the Children’s Commissioner and the liberal lobbyists have it all wrong. They quote statistics about kids going to school hungry, about inadequate rentals, about hospitalisations and woeful child dental care, as if no argument is required.

Look at those poor kids, they declare. There’s the proof of child poverty.

No, it isn’t. It’s proof that thousands of Kiwi parents are making bad choices about their priorities. And that the welfare and community organisations that are supposed to be supporting them . . . aren’t.

Indeed, it’s a dual failure. The parents aren’t up to their role and the agencies are ineffective with their assistance. And that includes churches and other social agencies that prefer to lobby for more money, rather than use their funding appropriately.

While it is not as black and white as Michael paints it, he is largely right.

However hard any family life might be – however tough the financial circumstances – there is no parental excuse that allows a child to go to school hungry. Look into any one of those homes and you will find two conspicuous absences.

First, an inability to put the kids first. A belief that alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, partying, the church tithe are all – somehow – more important than the kids.

The inability of a generation of social workers and social agencies to make any impact upon those priorities is their greatest failure. There is enough government assistance, there is enough private philanthropy, there is enough knowledge.

But what’s the argument of so-called “child poverty advocates”? Give the parents more money. Which they’ll misuse, in exactly the same way that they’re doing now. Their internal priorities still won’t change.

We in fact have a very generous welfare system. The combination of direct benefits, working for families payments, accommodation subsidies, and early childhood education subsidies is considerable.

Dom Post reports:

Broadcaster Sean Plunket will be taking over Michael Laws’ Radio Live show next year.

Laws made the announcement on his talk back show this morning.

The former Whanganui mayor said his replacement was to be Sean Plunket, who would take over the show after March 31.

‘‘I have decided to pursue something new, something, exciting and something that I’ve always wanted to do.’’

Become Deputy Leader of NZ First?

Radio Live will be interesting with both Plunket and Garner taking up shows there.

I saw the headline:

Shock jock on threat to kill charge

and thought the Police have arrested Michael Laws for his public musings that he thought certain journalists should be shot as they were rabid and might infect others.

But no it is not Michael, rather:

Controversial former radio host Iain Stables was late for an important date yesterday afternoon. …

Appearing for him, lawyer Mike Antunovic said it was a first call-over and he had been told Stables would be there to face charges of threatening to kill, assault on a female, intentional damage and two counts of common assault.

I liked Stables when he was on air, but he really does seem to have gone off the deep end recently.

Anna Leask at NZ Herald reports:

Broadcaster Michael Laws is sporting a black eye after he was assaulted in a Wanganui bar by a man he said “hit like a girl”.

Maybe it was a girl?

More seriously, I do hope the Police find out who did it. Assaulting people just (presumably) because you don’t like their views is not on.

Just seen this old story:

It could be the scrap of the century. Former Wanganui mayor Michael Laws will face Whanganui Maori activist Ken Mair in the boxing ring later this year.  …

Mr Laws, now a councillor, and Mr Mair, Maori Party co-vice president, will box to raise money for earthquake-stricken Christchurch on December 3, the Wanganui Chronicle reported.

Good on them for boxing for charity, but what a terrible dilemma. Who the hell do you support to win?

I guess in the end, I should look on it like I did the Iran-Iraq war – you just want it to go on for ever, with maximum causalities.

So here’s hoping it goes the full 15 rounds!

Like many, I was disgusted with what Michael Laws said about paralympians last week. Belittling the efforts of those who spend eight hours a day training to be the best they can be was very stupid, and Paul Holmes let loose in response:

Some of the finest, most inspirational men and women I have ever known have been Paralympians.

But Michael Laws thinks Paralympic sport is ludicrous.

No, Michael, it’s not ludicrous. It’s actually brilliant.

It’s brilliant that it exists and it is genuinely brilliant to see.

In Christchurch this summer, at the Paralympic World Championships (as opposed to the Paralympic Games themselves), those of us there watched the brilliant South African Oscar Pistorius run on his carbon-fibre plates.

Pistorius is one second slower over 100m than Usain Bolt. Bolt, of course, does not have to endure the pain of the impact on the point where the prostheses meet the flesh. But Paralympians will never tell you about that because Paralympians, in my experience, rarely complain.

This is something many people don’t realise – many paralympians battle significant pain when they compete – not just your normal pain of exertion.

No, Michael. Paralympics is not ludicrous. Going out to Howick and shagging a P addict on bail who’s called you up on the radio programme is ludicrous. Having the cops come round to your home because you’re being beaten up by your wife is ludicrous.

Fighting desperately over an “H” in the name of a town is ludicrous.

Ouch.

I wanted to cry when I read Michael Laws’ comments. After the decades of struggle by Paralympics to be recognised not as some kind of therapy for cripples, but as genuine sport performed with dedication by physically impaired people, we get an ignorant comment from an intelligent broadcaster who should know better. …

Believe me, no one makes it to the Paralympics unless they are the best of the best. And every day there is the hassle of getting up, perhaps getting through the spasms, getting into the chair, getting to the toilet, getting clean and getting into the day. Paralympians are people who never gave up.

Paralympians are different from able-bodied sports people, that is true. But the runner is different from the shot-putter and the shot-putter is different from the soccer player. What about it? The runner does not say the shot-putter is not a sportsman.

I have a picture in my mind from the Olympic Pool at Barcelona during the 1992 Paralympics. It has stayed with me forever. A young woman lifts herself out of the pool. She levers herself out, really.

She has little stumps for legs with little feet and little toes. She has only one arm and it is a stump too, with a little hand and little fingers. I suppose thalidomide might have been involved. She is truly, stunningly beautiful. She has won her event. Her radiant smile I will never forget.

Words matter, Michael. Words are the most powerful weapon a human being has. Words can build up, they can save a soul, they can make someone feel love, they can cheer the down-trodden and the sad and those who lack purpose.

They can lift the heart and restore the spirit. But they can destroy too, and hurt, and demean those who do their very best to achieve against the odds to become talented, winning sportsmen and women.

One of Paul’s best ever columns.

The HoS reports:

Radio host Michael Laws has come under fire for calling Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand a “large, fat man” who has “never left” the buffet table.

His bosses at RadioLive have also been slammed – for saying they are comfortable with the remarks.

At least one complaint from a high-profile sporting personality has been laid with the Race Relations Commissioner, Joris de Bres.

De Bres and media commentator Brian Edwards said they were appalled by the crass comments, which lacked good taste and decency.

They may not be racist,but they are lacking in decency. Sir Anand has performed his duties very well, and without controversy. He has done nothing to deserve such nastiness. And especially nasty is the fact that unlike most NZers, Sir Anand can not respond.

There have been some former GGs I have had misgivings about – the ones who take stances on political issues. But Sir Anand has behaved as impartially and neutrally as you would expect from a former Judge and Ombudsman.

By coincidence I got to meet Sir Anand a couple of days after his appointment was announced, as I was the guest speaker at the Wellington Central Rotary Club, of which he is (and remains) a member. It was very obvious he was held in high esteem by the club members, who were of course delighted with his appointment.

With the combination of Henry and Laws, I’m tempted to say that perhaps the PM should just re-appoint Sir Anand to a second five-year term.

Stuff reports:

The woman at the centre of the Michael Laws affair is a former P-addict and prostitute.

Jacqueline Sperling, 39, said she had explicit text messages from the Whanganui mayor.

Mr Laws announced yesterday that text messages between him and a woman were about to become public. He apologised to his family.

However, the woman said she had shown emails to only one friend and had not shared the text messages with anyone. …

Michael Laws has brought shame on himself needlessly by panicking, according to his managers at Radio Live.

“He thought he was being blackmailed and some private messages were going to be made public and he decided to jump in. He thought that he should front-foot it,” Radio Live general manager Mitch Harris said.

But Jacqueline Sperling, the woman at the centre of the controversy, said she had not gone to the media or tried to make the texts public. On a posting on Radio Live’s Facebook page, she said he “fell for a bluff”.

I actually tend to think Laws did the right thing. Sperling was obviously trying to get Laws to think she might release the texts, and I don’t think you ignore stuff like that – it then gives that person power over you. While a bit embarrassing, he has removed the shock value from them, if she does now release them.

Having said all that, I am mystified about what the fuss is all about. People sexually attracted to each other send dirty messages – this is not new.

The Dom Post reports:

Whanganui Mayor Michael Laws says a political agenda is behind the imminent release of his “intimate” text messages.

The claim follows a bizarre statement being released by Laws today, where he admitted a secret relationship with a woman whose life experiences were “completely different” to his.

Just wondering if anyone has seen Cactus lately?

Vernon Small writes:

Speculation is rife that NZ First leader Winston Peters and his former adviser Michael Laws are to team up again as part of a “relaunch” of the party this year.

Neither Mr Laws, who is to stand down as Whanganui mayor this year, nor Mr Peters would confirm the rumours. But MPs from both sides of the House and sources close to NZ First said they were aware of plans.

One source said Mr Peters had indicated he wanted to relaunch the party this year.

The annual conference will be in Christchurch in late October.

Speculation about Mr Laws has focused on the Whanganui seat, held by National’s Chester Borrows with a majority of 6333.

But he has also been linked with Dunedin North, held by Labour’s Pete Hodgson, who is retiring.

If NZ First won an electorate seat, it would then qualify for list seats even if it fell short of the 5 per cent threshold.

Mr Laws said he had nothing to say about the issue. “I am not interested in talking to you at all.”

He is a former National and NZ First MP who quit Parliament in 1996 over a Napier City Council poll he had organised. The poll was signed off by a fictitious Antoinette Beck, who was later revealed to be Mr Laws’ parliamentary secretary, Louise Sampson.

If Michael thinks he can trust Winston, well good luck to him with that.

Ironically a Laws led NZ First would be far more palatable than a Winston led one, but I can’t see Winston handing over power.

UPDATE: The NZ First President says he knows nothing:

NZ First’s party president knows nothing of any plans for Michael Laws to stand for the party, and says he would know if such plans were afoot. …

NZ First president George Groombridge said he was confident he would be kept in the loop.

“I am in charge of the governance of the party… things are going along very, very smoothly and I would have heard if anything like that had happened because I am in constant touch with our leader.

“That’s a definite no.”

I would say the President is as much in the loop on Winston’s plans as he was about the Spencer Trust and those undeclared donations. You think he would have learnt a lesson by now.

UPDATE II: The MP.Peters stock on iPredict has gone from 15c to 35c today, so some people think it is happening.

Michael Laws writes:

SO NOW we know. The price of a life in a court of law – two years and 10 months. And now we know something else: why parliament passed the three strikes legislation over the objections of jurists, lawyers and justice officials.

It is a deliberate decision to remove judicial discretion when it comes to repeat serious violent and sexual offenders.

Schoolteacher Hawea Vercoe met his killer just seconds before his death. Isaiah Johnson Richard Tai. A 21-year-old orchard worker from Opotiki who had never achieved anything in his brief life and who was the contrast of his victim – also Maori, a school principal, a father and a local body politician.

They had both been out clubbing, they met, argued and then Tai king-hit Vercoe. As the teacher lay on the ground, a witness reported seeing him line up Vercoe’s head like a goalkicker and deliver the fatal blow.

Tai denied the kick until CCTV evidence was produced. Only then did he change his story and change his plea. He gambled on confessing to manslaughter, and his gamble paid off handsomely.

He is likely to be walking the streets of Whakatane, on parole, by next Christmas.

What I ma interested in, is how many other convictions Tai had. The judge referred to a history of violence, which suggests there have been some.

The facts suggest that murder was the appropriate verdict. And that life was the appropriate sentence. Tai’s decision to kick the helpless Vercoe in the head took this case way beyond the accidental killing category. It was an act of wanton thuggery.

I think a case could have been made for murder. Not for the punch. But a massive kick to the head is very able to kill – and did.

Michael Laws has announced he will stand down as Mayor of Whanganui, but is standing for both the Council and DHB.

I may be wrong, but I would not surprised to see Michael No 2 on the NZ First list next election, and helping run Winston’s campaign to get back in.

If they succeed, that will help Labour’s chance of getting back into Government, and Laws would be a Minister in a Labour-led Government.

I blogged yesterday on how the Herald on Sunday front page headline gave a false impression about Michael Laws.

Leonie Brookhammer (Laws’ wife) has put out a press release (Whale has it here) as the HoS story was so misleading.

An extract:

I have no wish to expose my private life to more media scrutiny, and I did not wish to answer personal and offensive questions from Auckland journalist David Fisher over the past couple of days. But today’s ‘Herald on Story’ story misrepresents my personal situation and is full of inaccuracies.

Over the past five years, and since Michael has been mayor of Wanganui, our family and our personal life have been the subject of ongoing malicious rumour and hurtful gossip. These rumours appear to come from the same sources and are always at their worst in election years.

Michael has a very high profile and has taken the lead, on behalf of Wanganui, on a number of controversial issues. As a result, our house and our family have been personally targeted by anonymous cowards who regard any association with Michael to be fair game.

Our daughter Lucy’s diagnosis of leukemia, and the associated complications and treatment, has placed enormous stress on us and particularly myself. I have not slept properly in the last three years.

The rock throwing incident – which showered glass all over my childrens’ bedroom in the early hours of the morning , and came when Michael was representing majority opinion on the spelling our city – continues to have ongoing effects. I lie awake listening for the next incident. …

It is also not fair for the media to imply there was a domestic violence incident that required a Police call to our house earlier this year. It was not. Michael is not that kind of person, abhors violence and has never lifted a hand to myself.

But that kind of malicious story is being regularly fed to media to discredit him. And both my family and myself are considered fair game in making that happen.

The press release really speaks for itself.

The front page of the Herald on Sunday proclaimed that the partner of Michael Laws had moved out after Police were called to his place in an incident classified as domestic attendance.

Only when you turned to the inner pages, and read the full story do you get the all rather important detail:

The partner of controversial Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws has moved out after he called police to their home.

I suspect 95% of people who read the front page headline about the Police being called and her moving out, would have assumed she called the Police and that Laws had behaved in some sort of threatening way.

Such a misconception could have been easily solved by making it clear on the front page that Laws called the Police. I wonder if it was a deliberate decision not to do so.

Michael Laws writes:

And so into this surreal realm has been injected the future discipline of national standards. An idea so sensible and overdue that one wonders what took so long. The logic is self evident. Except, it appears, to the teaching profession.

In steeling themselves against such external discipline, teacher unions – and their membership – have made themselves utterly risible. They are opposed to defining standards of age-group achievement, opposed to parents knowing their children’s level of competence against those standards, and opposed to schools providing such information to the Ministry of Education.

Basically sums it up. Worth reminding people that Labour is also opposed to parents knowing how their kids are doing against standards.

Why? Because they are scared witless by the concept of accountability. That a national tool might soon exist that identifies under-performing schools, under-performing teachers and under-performing kids.

The Government does want to know which kids are not meeting the standards. Not to punish the kids, or the schools, but quite the opposite. They want to then deliver extra funding to those kids and schools to maximise the chances of bringing the kids up to the desired standard before it is too late, and they become one of the many who leave school unable to read, write or count.

There is another subterranean theme running through the union dissent. That not all their membership is opposed. Many teachers see national standards as their chance to shine. They perceive them as an opportunity to test their imprint upon their charges. To establish a baseline for the norm of achievement for their age and socio-economic charges, and then beat it.

Better still, to be able to communicate the truth to the individual parent without having to find distracting commentary. And confirm bad teachers in their midst.

Little wonder that the School Trustees Association has thrown its public support behind Education Minister Anne Tolley, and dismissed the objections of teacher unions as illogical. The opportunity to be open, honest and transparent around what a child knows and what they do not, has the capacity to revolutionise teaching standards.

It is only the Luddites who are opposed. They, rightly, fear change. Because it will require them to justify their existence and their methods. And that is no bad thing.

Some people welcome accountability, and some fear it.

The Dom Post reports:

Anonymous internet comments praising Whanganui’s “celebrity” mayor Michael Laws have been traced back to his own publishing company.

A person using the pseudonym “Wangas” has praised Mr Laws on a variety of issues, including the “H” debate and television presenter Paul Henry’s use of the word “retarded” on air.

At least two of the comments were sent using an email address that can be linked to Mr Laws’ publishing company, Darius Press. …

When approached by The Dominion Post, Mr Laws said he did not write the internet comments himself – but they could have been made by people close to him.

“I don’t make anonymous comments, it’s not in my nature,” he said.

“All I can say is I don’t make anonymous comments and I’m not prepared to speculate who it could be.”

The mayor, newspaper columnist and radio host said he often commented online, but used his own name and made it clear that the comments were from him.

“I heartily enter in online debates.”

He said the email address linked to Darius Press was used by employees of his company, including people who did research, communications and website work.

He would not say how many people worked for Darius Press.

I don’t think it would be Laws. If he was astro-turfing, he is smart enough that he would set up a fake or generic e-mail address to use.

Michael Laws writes:

In short, the policy properly aligns sentencing for serious criminal acts with parliament’s intent. The great frustration for generations of politicians has been that they create the law, only for the courts to screw it up.

Sentencing is a classic example. The law isn’t even much use as a reference given that the courts can, and do, set their own generous compensation to mitigate any maxima. To make matters worse, parole provisions frustrate even that intent. Now violent and/or sexual offenders get a strike for their first offence, no parole for their second, and the maximum prescribed sentence for their third. …

We want the deranged, the psychotic and criminal classes as far away from us as possible, for as long as possible. Releasing the addled and anti-social back into our community can only create new victims. Indeed, you might argue that the cost of recidivist reoffenders – their arrest, charging, legal aid, trial, sentencing and the like – is actually more expensive than throwing away the key. Certainly for their victims.

And, although criminals are not the brightest species on the planet, neither are they wholly moronic. The three strikes policy has the capacity to reduce offending by scoping a harsher environment. The Californian experience shows that the stick can work: the policy sends an understood message.

Not much to disagree with there.

The Herald reports:

The decision to allow the spelling of Wanganui with or without the “h” has been welcomed by both sides in what has, at times, been an acrimonious debate.

Mayor Michael Laws hailed the move by Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson to overturn the Geographic Board’s decision to go with the “h” as an “early Christmas present for the city and district”.

Ken Mair, a Maori activist and one of the driving forces in seeking a change in the spelling of the city’s name, said after conveying the decision to local Maori at a city marae: “We recognise it was a difficult and courageous decision to make, but the correct one.

Maurice will be pretty happy with those headlines, even if Colin Espiner calls him a whimp.

The Dom Post reports:

Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws says giving the “underclass” money to be sterilised will address our child abuse problem.

Critics last night labelled the suggestion “totalitarian”, “draconian” and “reprehensible”, and questioned his appropriateness as a city leader.

Mr Laws said the children of beneficiaries, drug addicts and criminals had little chance in life. He offered his observations after he was approached for comment on the death of two-year-old Wanganui boy Karl Perigo-Check, the son of a convicted murderer and gang member.

“If we gave $10,000 to certain people and said ‘we’ll voluntarily sterilise you’ then all of society would be better off. There’d be less dead children and less social problems.

It is a fact there are some people who are not fit to be parents. And when they do have more children, the kids get removed from them at birth. I’m not sure how many are in this category, but there are a few.

I doubt anyone sensible advocates compulsory sterilisation. No state should ever have that power. Even the thought makes me shudder.

But if a parent has a history of child abuse (for example), should there be an incentive for him or her to get sterilised – such as a cash payment as Laws suggests?

Personally I don’t think it is a good idea. For one thing people can end up as parents, even if sterilised. They partner up with someone who had kids for example.

But also it is still pretty creepy to have our own version of China’s toasters for sterilisation policy. Now sure China was aimed at everyone – to keep overall population down. But I don’t think bribing our own citizens to get sterilised if a great innovation.

Also many sterilisations can be reversed anyway.

But Laws is right that something needs to be done. He hasn’t got the solution, but the status quo is not acceptable.

The Dom Post reports:

A group of Otaki primary school pupils have been honoured by Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres for acting with dignity in dealing with criticism from Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws.

The pupils, aged 11 to 13, at Otaki School’s kura kaupapa unit, were upset with an angry reply from Mr Laws, whom they wrote to in August urging him to insert the letter “h” in Wanganui.

Mr de Bres presented the girls with certificates yesterday to honour their stance.

“Your message to stand up for yourself is clear. You acted with real dignity and calm and quietly stood up for what you thought when dealing with such rubbish from Wanganui’s mayor.

I didn’t know you can now get certificates for standing up to Michael Laws. In 1994 I announced his mock assassination, and I never got a certificate. All I got was to appear in court. So where the hell is my certificate???

Michael has avoided the “h” issue in his SST column and insteads talks welfare:

LAST week 70 NGOs – mostly voluntary and welfare agencies – met in Auckland to declare war on child poverty. But not in the Cameroon nor Colombia, Niue nor Nicaragua.

In good old New Zealand.

According to their later communique, chaired by Barnardo’s chief executive Murray Edridge, more than 220,000 Kiwi kids live in direct poverty as a result of their parents being dependent upon a welfare benefit. And because the value of a benefit “is way below the poverty level”, the NGO summit demanded an immediate increase, plus tertiary training incentives, and the provision of breakfast in all decile 1 and 2 schools.

The best thing is for a parent to move off the welfare benefit and into the workforce. New Zealand has a huge fiscal deficit and the notion that we can afford to pay people more money to not work is madness. We need more people in work.

“We want our kids to be barristers, not baristas!” declared chairwoman Ani Pitman. They didn’t want them doing “menial jobs”.

All that is wrong with New Zealand, the welfare system and NGOs was probably summarised in that last point. Better to be on the dole than in a menial job. Better being a criminal defender than a skilled worker. And if none of these options are immediately at hand then just give us more money.

Almost any job will make you better off than being on welfare. And not just about the money. I’ve worked as a cleaner to earn $1.99 an hour.

This calculated and continuing attack on the taxpaying workers of this country demands reply, not simply to respond to the silly sophistry of this latest gimme summit, but because it refuses to address the real cause of all child deprivation in this country: their parents.

There is not one child in this country who should be going to school without breakfast. If there is, then that is a mandatory call to CYF. Clearly, the parent or parents are unworthy of the name.

Similarly, if the welfare benefit is not enough to house, feed and clothe your kiddies then there are two possibilities. First, the parents in the equation are smoking, drinking, gambling or huffing the taxpayer money intended for their children. Or, second, that their boyfriends are. Either way, it is testimony of child abuse and neglect, not child poverty.

Laws over-generalises here, but his point is basically sound. There are times when a family does get hit with an exceptionally large one expense such as a medical or dental bill. However there are grants and loans from WINZ to cover such situations. The welfare system does not give a life of luxury, but it is certainly enough for the vast majority of families on it to give their kids breakfast. Breakfast does not cost a lot. it is about priorities.

Except for those permanently incapacitated by injury or mental illness, the welfare benefit is a bridge. From independence to independence, not from sob story to lifestyle. That the summit NGOs don’t get this is the reason why NGOs exist: to create a need and then to amplify it.

And for those permanently incapacitated, I don’t think we do enough.

Yes, it’s true that New Zealand has more unskilled labour than we have jobs. But even those unskilled and I use my council’s litter and graffiti teams as an example perform valuable community service. They are probably of greater value to my city than the entire legal fraternity. But, according to the summit, these are unworthy and menial occupations.

Heh. Poor lawyers. Always picked on.

This country’s welfare system does not deliver poverty. Rather it rescues people from it. It is generous on any international scale and probably to a fault. And it is neither the cause nor the solution of our country’s underprivileged, undernourished and underloved children.

That exclusive responsibility rests with the people who brought them into the world, and the people responsible for their ongoing “care”. This country has too many crap parents. End of story. Until we start facing that reality, we will continue to blight the lives of those we most profess to care for.

Hard to disagree with that conclusion, even though I am sure many will try.

The Dom Post reports:

A group of primary school children who wrote to Wanganui Mayor Michael Laws about the “h” debate are upset that they received a letter back suggesting their teacher be sacked and that they control their anger.

Mr Laws replied to letters from Otaki school children by telling them “there are so many deficiencies of both fact and logic in your letters that I barely know where to start”.

Ngarui Waahitia-Manukau, 12, and her year 7 and 8 classmates at Otaki School’s kura kaupapa unit wrote letters in Maori to Mr Laws at the beginning of August, saying they thought the spelling of Wanganui should have an “h”.

The seven children wrote in separate letters how they were annoyed that Mr Laws would not change the city’s name.

A fierce opponent of any name change, Mr Laws replied to the children that he would take their views seriously “when your class starts addressing the real issues affecting Maoridom particularly the appalling rate of child abuse and child murder within Maori society, then I will take the rest of your views seriously”.

He added: “Perhaps sacking your teacher for allowing such misapprehension to flourish?”

In handwriting at the bottom of his letter, Mr Laws wrote: “PS Controlling your anger might be a start!”

This is a silly response by Michael Laws, regardless of the merits of the issue the kids wrote on. A politician beating up on primary school kids is never a good look, and personally I regard it as a good thing if kids show an interest in civic issues.

Mr Laws was unrepentant last night. He said the pupils were “put up to it” by their teacher.

“Do you honestly think that children give a continental about how Wanganui is spelt? Children this age care about Harry Potter.”

Class teacher Selwyn Katene said last night that the children decided to write and he did not tell them what to say.

A much smarter response would have been to invite the kids to come up to Wanganui for a visit, and meet some of the locals who will explain why they don’t want the spelling of the name to be changed. That way they would start to learn about how there are two sides to every issue.

UPDATE: I’m tardy in pointing out Roar Prawn broke this story yesterday.

Michael Laws writes:

IF THERE is one thing that Friday’s anti-smacking referendum will never influence it is those morons who believe that a corrective smack on a child’s bottom constitutes child abuse.

Indeed equating that to child abuse, is like equating an unwanted kiss on the cheek to sexual assault.

The country has rejected this absurd correlation.

Yet a few people remain in denial. In their fantwasy world a differently worded referendum would have got a different result from the 88% who said no. They are wrong. You could have removed the word “good” and at best 1% to 2% difference I would say. What makes me say that? There have been over a dozen polls done by multiple companies on the smacking issue over the years. Almost all of them have 80%+ disagreeing with the law. The referendum result is entirely consistent with what NZers have been saying for the last two years,

Those who deny the legitimacy of the result, are quite simply bad losers.

As all the child beatings and deaths of 2009 prove, the anti-smacking legislation has failed. It hasn’t stopped one beating, one abuse, one death. And it never will. You can’t reason with drugged, drunk, violent parents, acting out their inadequacy, with an act of parliament. If you could, we would all be living in Utopia. …

This simple fact has escaped the intellectual grasp of the “Yes” campaigners. It seems self-evident to me indeed to the entire nation but not to the zealots whose faith blinds them to reason. As an air-blown kiss is not a prelude to rape, neither is a corrective smack a prelude to Nia Glassie.

Exactly. And all but a few zealots get this.

Without question the best solution has always been and remains so that of the amendment that Whanganui MP Chester Borrows advanced within his caucus in late-2006.

It excused “transitory and trifling” disciplining and it is the genuine compromise that John Key should choose in response to Friday’s overwhelming result.

What many do not get is the Borrows amendment will actually provide greater protection to children. The current law doesn’t even define reasonable force for purposes of good parenting, preventing disruption etc. One might be able to use a horse whip legally under the Bradford law – so long as not for correction.

The Borrows amendment is absolutely the best way forward.

The HoS looks at all the complaints against Paul Henry and Michael Laws:

They’re among our most controversial presenters, but Paul Henry and Michael Laws remain unrepentant about their on-air behaviour.

I suspect they actually get paid bonuses for every complaint they attract

Laws said the decision was an example of the authority stifling freedom of speech. He said defamation laws offered safeguard enough and the authority was wrong to apply news reporting standards to talkback.

“The BSA should be disbanded. There is no need for it.

“My job’s not to offer balance, it’s to offer strong opinion. I never, ever go too far. I’m not a namby-pamby left-wing liberal commie journalist.”

As a commenter said, there are some days you can really like Michael

Henry has triggered a catalogue of complaints since the start of 2008.

They include accusations of bias in an interview with John Key, describing people with obsessive compulsive disorder as “crazy freaks” and a suggestion that obese children be taken away from their parents and put in car compactors.

None were upheld.

The suggestion that obese children be put in car compactors is so Henry.

Pippa Wetzell was responsible for the only complaint against Breakfast upheld by the authority for an interview this year with Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust found to have breached the standard of balance.

Now that is funny. Henry gets a dozen complaints – none of which is upheld, while poor Pippa actually gets her complaint upheld.

Henry didn’t know why complaints against him were on the up but said it didn’t bother him. “I think it’s an indication that I say what I think and in television that is not overly common.” He thought there were “a lot of people that don’t have much of a sense of humour” and “a large number of people who have nothing better to do than complain”.

A lot of complaints come from the same people. I reckon they should look at limiting the number of complaints one individual can make!