Posts by Lindsay Vette
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Russell, I'm clearly an occasional rule reader from way back :) I've had lunch since and can't remember what my fourth suggestion was. Never mind, if it was truly epic, it will come back to me.
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Vaccine Certificate
Freedom
Mandate
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Smocking gun
Grace Millane
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The plight of victims of crime is appalling and made worse by the justice system. It's not the lawyers' fault, nor is it the fault of the judges, it's legislation that must change for things to change. Defence lawyers unfortunately are duty bound to do all that they can to challenge the prosecution case, even to the extent of re-victimising complainants.
The system can fail victims in more ways than June has described. I've served on a jury for a sexual abuse of a minor case that got abandoned (charges withdrawn) because it turned out some of the prosecution evidence had been exaggerated by the complainant. It was really a shame because even the judge remarked that it was obvious something had happened, but it could no longer be substantiated in a reliable enough way to bring an unchallengeable conviction. The end result being that an immature teenager whose evidence should have been more closely examined by the police before presenting it to the courts was let down and made to feel unworthy of justice. The alleged abuser was probably left feeling vindicated and would undoubtedly not seek to make any meaningful change in their own life. And this juror was left feeling dissatisfied with aspects of our legal system.
I don't know what the answer is, but some of it must lie in the more robust examination of evidence in a way that is less traumatic for victims BEFORE it gets to the point where entire cases swing on the smallest margin of error.
Substantial change can only happen through legislation, but not the type of change that politicians want to sell us. Let's not get tougher on crime, but fairer on victims
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I voted during the week in anticipation of being on a bicycle saddle in the hills between Opotiki and Motu for most of tomorrow. Unfortunately, the weather forecast and advice from DOC on the viability of riding on the Pakihi Track means I will actually be in town now.
This has been the 11th general election I have voted in, the first in 1978 as a newly minted 18 year old going up to Glen Eden Primary School with my mum to cast my vote. I skipped the 84 and 87 elections while living overseas, although I got to vote in Australia whilst living there.
This election campaign has been the most entertaining one that I have seen since living in Australia. I was in Australia for all four of those that Bob Hawke won. Snap elections may not happen here much (Bob Muldoon notwithstanding), but they’re par for the course in Oz and it’s all on with no holds barred when one is called there.
I like MMP, it ensures that there is a voice for everyone, and whilst some of the parties’ messages set my teeth on edge, we do end up with a parliament that mostly reflects the social make up of the country.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to tussock,
Oh, someone noted our “left” is left of the US, which is true, because the US left is in the same damn place as their right.
Exactly, although Republicans persist in labelling Democrats as pinko liberalists hell-bent on introducing some radical form of socialism, next stop the gulag for all “right” thinking gun-toting god-fearing citizens.
The NZ right still thinks in FPP terms about minor parties despite National’s reliance on them to form every MMP government. Green voters and their political representatives are “tree huggers” hell-bent on introducing some radical form of socialism, next stop the gulag for all “right” thinking gun-toting god-fearing citizens.
The reality is that the dominant party in a coalition is going to have the biggest say in what policies get implemented, with the minor parties having their input and moderation on the extent of each policy.
While the mechanism of government and the parties understand how MMP works, there’s still a lot of ignorance out there, largely due to most voters’ unwillingness to really understand what’s happening in government, and spend more than a week or so every three years thinking about politics. Apathy has more political supporters than most of the parties.
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Depending on how high up in the stands it impacted the velocity may have been a bit lower than 20m/s, but it would have been carrying some horizontal velocity as well to add into the equation. Depending on the weight of the object there would have been a significant amount of energy for the poor bugger that copped it to absorb.
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Call me a little bit old fashioned, but fireworks, flame thowers and flailing inflatables etc. during the game seem a bit unnecessary and detract from the actual on-field drama, and for me a test match starts with the haka, which is dramatic enough without pyrotechnics.
I was in the Western Stand at Eden Park for the first Manu Samoa v.s. All Blacks test in 1993 when Manu Samoa started their manu while the All Blacks were performing the haka - totally amazing and spellbinding with no gilding of the lily needed.
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It seems my upbringing was pretty similar to yours Emma, except my church dress code involved my best pants and suede shoes. I similarly didn't get pulled into the blind faith wave of worship. Not that much of that was going on at the Methodist church I went to, unlike the loonie Mt Roskill Church of Christ New Zealand cult that a relative of mine ended up in (you can rightly infer that I have issues with that particular crowd).
There were not any religious studies that I can recall in the late 60s and 70s at any of the schools I went to in West Auckland.
Something I find particularly disturbing is the uneducated approach to "religious instruction" in schools where it is generally run by some fundamentalist group with no formal theological training, in much the same way that any church run by a "pastor" is almost always going to have cherry picked from the bible their stance on almost everything. The established branches of Christianity at least put their priests/ministers through tertiary theological training.
Selective curricula that excludes subjects on the basis that they don't meet a school's religious bent should exclude it from public funding in my opinion.
These days my religious views are more along the lines of the opening line to a Nick Cave song "I don't believe in an interventionist god". I also had a LOL at thetweetofgod for his/her recent tweet "I created the entire universe for the sake of one group of one species on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy."
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Michael Meyers,
John Key looked a lot more composed this morning on Firstline with a much more coherent sounding story (although still the same flimsy talking points as ever).
I thought his performance was laughable and typical of his brush it off as if nothing untoward was going on approach, particularly his final answer to Michael Wilson's repeated questioning re the appropriateness of Collins's association with someone who goes to prostitutes to dig for dirt - he just started talking about the policy announcement on cycle paths and trails.