No one wants to see meth in our community, no one wants to see organised crime flourish – but Paula Bennett’s absurd suggestions that we allow Police to conduct unreasonable searches on ‘gang members’ has so many loopholes and counter productive outcomes it smacks of desperation rather than intelligent and well thought out social policy to solve complex issues.
The Police Minister knows that the most effective means of breaking the gangs’ power would be to remove the criminal stigma from unwise drug use. But, like all Police Ministers, Paula Bennett knows that the drug laws are not there to end the misuse of drugs. They are there to create a nether world of criminality and addiction against which the situation of “normal” people may be favourably compared.
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
Two days after two hikoi of 579 pairs of shoes (each) set off simultaneously from Cape Reinga and Bluff, bound for Parliament’s hallowed steps, the Chief Coroner announced the latest suicide figures for the 2017 financial year: 606.
Bill English and Paula Bennett admitted the new powers would stretch human rights laws, but would only apply to serious criminals who had ‘fewer human rights than others’ anyway, clearly misunderstanding human rights. We should be wary when the Prime Minister and his Deputy are prepared to trade off these rights as a pawn in desperate election politics.
The leaking of Winston Peter’s superannuation over-payment is well known. Also known is that Ministers Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley were briefed by Ministry of Social Development and State Services Commission, respectively, on Peters’ private details regarding the over-payment before it was leaked to the media and made public knowledge.
Seven years on, Environment Canterbury (Ecan) is yet to return to full democracy but surely its chief executive Bill Bayfield can at least pretend democracy matters by not rejecting an artistic expression of a legitimate protest.
Let them eat Paninis
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
Over the past two months, Auckland Action Against Poverty have been talking with beneficiaries about their visions for a welfare…