Three men trying to steal fuel from a Waipukurau farm yesterday ended up setting fire to their own car.
Police said the trio siphoned diesel into a petrol-driven vehicle. When their car would not start, they examined the fuel pipe using a cigarette lighter. Boom, and the car burst into flames.
Senior Sergeant Ross Gilbert said: "Fortunately for them, there is no criminal charge for stupidity."
The men, aged 18 to 19, escaped injury but were charged with theft.
Here's what's historically unique about this election. For the first time ever, there's no interest in individual candidates and likely close electorate contests. It's taken four MMP elections to shed the habits of the past. In the pre-MMP era, winning government could sometimes turn on half a dozen closely contested seats - but no longer, which is a pity as it's removed much of the interest from elections.
The only exceptions are in seats where, inexplicably, often high-profile candidates have opted not to go on the list. John Tamihere is a case in point. His Maori Party rival Pita Sharples will almost certainly enter Parliament on the party vote even should he lose to Tamihere.
If Tamihere loses, then not being on the list, he's out. It's quite possibly his best vote-seeking argument.
MMP has removed the former ground-level slog from politics, all of which has led to a plethora of parties.
Produce 500 names, call yourself a party and you're on the ballot-paper and entitled to free television time.
All elections flush up nondescript show-off types. They exchange the humiliation of receiving only a handful of votes for a fleeting place in the public eye, before returning to well deserved obscurity.
The Australians have a term, "the donkey vote" - because even a donkey would receive some votes through voter error or ignorance.
But now, with no media focus on individual electorate contests, that lunatic fringe candidate phenomenon has been replaced by lunatic fringe parties.
I watched in amazement, the one-hour free television time party broadcasts as the last 20 minutes were given over to the nutter parties, all allocated a minute each.
God help me if Social Credit, now calling themselves The Democrats, didn't re-emerge, regurgitating old film of their glory days a quarter of a century ago. Will they ever die off decently?
Still, they provided some comic relief in the 1970s, especially their annual conferences which drew the toupee-topped Waynes and moon-faced Sharlenes from small town New Zealand, turning up in their Crimplene safari suits and Skodas to listen to the demented ravings of wild-eyed monetary reform fanatics.
Then up popped the Alliance malcontents with gloomy film footage of what they represent - namely street protests and striking workers. These Alliance misanthropes don't need votes; they need pre-frontal lobotomies, or at the very least, a damn good flogging for having such a bleak outlook on life.
Next up, a couple of scruffs took turns chanting how they would wipe out the bureaucracy, taxes et al - these being the Libertarians. No lads, you won't do that, or indeed anything with your lives, unless you toss away your Ayn Rand bibles and get on with actually living.
After that, an elderly woman seated beside a piano quaveringly urged support for her 99-seat parliament proposal. Many would agree with her but not with their vote as it would be wasted. This is no way to achieve constitutional change.
Best of all was a Fat Buggers Party, or I assume that was its intended purpose as it consisted of group shots of obese supporters and there was no coherent rationale proffered.
Still, they were happy fatties, which you certainly can't say for the miserable Alliance losers.
They're wasting their time, though, as Parekura Horomia has the fat vote wrapped up for Labour, notwithstanding National's ploy in promoting Gerry Brownlee to deputy leader.
All of this raises a common misjudgment made by single-issue enthusiasts. Whatever their cause - be it hunting, fatness or left-handedness - they pin a naive faith on fellow hunters, fatties and left-handed people to vote for them.
But they don't. If they did, Peter Dunne would long since have started a two-legged people's party and would be Prime Minister by now.
Q: Some say tax is government theft. Why should we pay any at all?Robert, how much of the US GDP comes from core government spending (i.e. welfare, defence, law and order, education and health)? You might like to consider both Federal and State expenditure to get a fair comparison…
Oram: It's not theft. You can't have a civilised country without paying tax to fund services we cannot fund as individuals. It is entirely up to each society to decide what services it is willing to pay for. So the Scandinavians like lots, the Russians very little.
Morgan: It's only theft if you don't value any public goods and services. This is not a credible view to hold in a society that devotes 30% of its GDP to core government spending.
Easton: The statement belongs to the same rhetoric as "property is theft", so why should we recognise private property? We pay taxes in order to attain community goals which cannot be delivered by the untaxed market.
To assess the merits of each, rational voters I presume will compare the offerings from two perspectives. Firstly the personal hip-pocket impact – how much do I get? Secondly which package best promotes the well-being of New Zealanders overall.
On the first count voters need to look beyond the direct impact on their wallets and take account of second round effects from tax cut packages of the magnitude of those offered. These effects include what the package might do to the economy as a whole and them personally as a consequence.
On this score both offerings are expansionary – we’re looking at the budget surplus being reduced over the next 3 years from 7% of GDP to around 2.5% of GDP. Such a reduction is a significant reduction of government savings, in an economy already at the top of the borrowing league of the OECD club. Remember our economy is already at full capacity, we are out of labour and we have inflation at the top of the permitted range. Now if the private sector is set to undergo a significant slowdown or even contraction, then an expansion of government won’t impose a strain on those macroeconomic indicators of health. But if the private sector doesn’t acquiesce then adding government spending fuel to the fire of an economy already running hot, will have exciting results.
So against this benchmark how do the tax offerings compare? Neither look great but National wins – its personal income tax regime isn’t as progressive as Labour’s although it does still impose very steep marginal tax rates (poverty traps) on middle income families exposed to abatement of their benefits. Labour unfortunately has some middle income families losing 60 cents in every additional dollar they earn, to tax. This "tax rate of 60 cents" is calculated by adding together the actual tax paid and the value of state benefits lost. Is that fair? In principle I would say yes. Is it right? No, but the error is in the level and rate of state assistance rather than the rate of abatement.
For the voter seriously considering then the efficacy of the tax packages for New Zealand overall, the question they have to decide on is actually quite simple. People who earn more than you pay more tax. But do you think that they should pay proportionally more tax and if so why? If the answer is simply because you’re jealous and feel they should be punished, vote Labour. Don’t however delude yourself that we need a progressive income tax schedule to finance the welfare of those who earn less than you and qualify for income supplements or benefits. We don’t. National’s package is closer to one which retains progressivity only to the extent it’s needed to fund minimum family incomes.
Good luck.
Manukau East electorate
The Mangere electorate is based on Mangere, Papatoetoe (west of the North Island main trunk railway) and Middlemore. The Boundaries Commission made no changes to the existing boundary in 2002.
Mangere electorate
The Mangere electorate is based on Mangere, Papatoetoe (west of the North Island main trunk railway) and Middlemore. The Boundaries Commission made no changes to the existing boundary in 2002.
Pakuranga electorate
The Pakuranga electorate contains Pakuranga, Howick but excludes Botany Downs. There were no changes to existing boundaries in 2002.
New Zealand's economy is continuing to do better than the Government expected, filling its coffers and creating larger surpluses than predicted.
Treasury opened up the books in the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Update today predicting the Government would get $29.1 billion in total operating surpluses between now and 2008/2009.
Finance Minister Michael Cullen said New Zealand was probably in a better position than any other developed country to cope with the pressures of an ageing population.
The surplus for the current year would be $600 million higher than predicted in the May budget, reaching $7.29 billion. A more robust economy than Treasury predicted is expected to push up the tax take and Dr Cullen said there was some room for increased spending on top of already announced initiatives.
Budget changes to personal income tax thresholds will save the average wage earner about $6 a week - but not for another three years.
The thresholds will on paper be inflation-adjusted by 2 per cent a year from the start of the new financial year, but will only impact on actual tax paid once every three years - effecting a 6.12 per cent change - beginning in 2008.
It is the first time Finance Minister Michael Cullen has adjusted the thresholds and made any concession to calls for "tax cuts".
…
The changes will see the average full-time wage earner - on $42,920 a year - saving just over $6 a week.
Asked why it would take three years to kick in, Dr Cullen said it fitted the Government's "fiscal forecast", meaning it did not believe it could afford the spending now.
He had no plans to change the actual tax rates, saying it was too expensive for too little taxpayer gain.
"It would be very difficult unless you're prepared to bite the bullet of significant reduction of expenditure growth.
If those elected then implement policy and law which was not revealed, or which was misrepresented during the election campaign, then the government is immoral (because it has be born from a lie, it continues in a lie, and being immoral once can be immoral again any number of times and in any number of ways).
That is why I believe Labour will not get a third term in the coming elections. They are moving away from, or have lost contact with, their electorate. They are perceived as having promoted "immoral legislation" with the Civil Unions Act (despite that Act having been a matter of conscience and not promoted as Government legislation) and to have acted against the wishes of the electorate with their unilateral decision on the seabed and foreshore debate. They are seen as no longer following the path, the values, the morals that they set down at the last elections.
That is why I believe that National will win the coming election.
I came across an article the other day which, in the light of the London bombings and other acts of Muslim terrorism in Western Europe, gave me cause to reflect afresh on the growing population of Muslims here in New Zealand.
I offer no opinion on what follows; I record it merely for those who have an interest in such matters, and because there seems to be a dearth of this sort of analytical writing down this end of the world.
...
Dr Sookhdeo says that at a political level, European countries were responding in different ways to the challenge of Islam.
France was determinedly protecting its secularism and had banned the hijab in school.
The Netherlands had lately swung from one extreme to the other, following the ritualised killing of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh by a young Muslim in November last year. The Dutch were turning against multiculturalism and becoming concerned to control immigration.
Britain seemed to be trying to replicate the segregation and communalism of the British Raj in India, whereby the various religious communities were each given their own laws, a policy that would certainly mesh well with some Muslim leaders' plans for Britain.
Muslims, even with an estimated 20 million living in the European Union, were still a minority in numerical terms, writes Dr Sookhdeo. No country apart from Albania had a Muslim community amounting to more than about 10 per cent of the population.
However, demographic studies indicated that Muslim populations were growing far faster than the non-Muslim populations, partly through continued immigration and conversion, but mainly because of the larger number of children that Muslim families typically had.
At a cattle sale in Te Awamutu, Arapuni farmer Owen Emmett and his niece Shirley Emmett are giving the Herald a morality lesson.
"I'm quite disappointed in the lack of support of family issues with things like civil unions," Mr Emmett says.
"It's deteriorating." He means the country's moral climate. "And it's supported from Government."
From Kaitaia to Bluff, many New Zealanders in this election year are worried, as one Christchurch mother puts it, about a climate of "anything goes".
"I believe our society would be much better off if there was a real focus on family, because family is the cornerstone of a healthy society," she says.
"I don't believe this Government has a good sense of family. I don't believe they are very good role models."
The main institution which defines morality in New Zealand - like all societies - is marriage, which ties adults into caring for each other and their children.
But marriage in this country is weakening. In the 25 years to 2001, the proportion of families with children that still have two parents has dropped from 90 per cent to 71 per cent. Among Pacific Islanders it is 64 per cent; among Maori, 50 per cent.
In the main street of Timaru, a white-bearded man in a suit who declines to be named believes we are losing a sense of responsibility to one another.
"It's the 'blow you Jack, I'm all right' syndrome" - exemplified, he says, by Labour's "blatant bribe" to students in offering to wipe the interest on their loans if they stay in the country.
"Every student has a signal to borrow as much as possible. I think that shows moral bankruptcy."
He believes the me-first tone has been set by the domestic purposes benefit for people who leave their partners, often even before their children are born.
"There are plenty around the town pushing prams at 17, and their consorts," he says. "I heard one of them refer to his partner as 'the mother of my baby'. That shows the casual attitude to procreation in this country, and the easy way the state will provide."
In Lower Hutt, a middle-aged civil servant called David laments "a generation with no discipline" in the wake of the exclusion of men from many children's lives.
"I believe the family unit is vital, but we seem to be going against it," he says.
He cites the Civil Union Act.
"I have nothing against homosexuals. But to say that it [a civil union] is a stable relationship for children - I say that's not what was intended."
Many are less generous. At Gisborne's Tairawhiti Polytechnic, where the Herald invited a group of students to discuss the state of the country over a pizza lunch, carpenter-turned-computing-student Joseph Brown, 49, believes simply that homosexuality is against God's law.
He's voting for the Destiny Party because it stands for "the morals of the country".
Fellow student and mother Monique White, 20, is also backing Destiny because it "addresses all the issues of today - prostitution definitely worries me".
Down the road in Napier, bank officer Diana Moyle, 37, is voting National because her biggest concern is "the breakdown of families".
"It starts at the top - what their values are, what they stand for," she says.
"If you decriminalise prostitution, then it becomes normalised."
She has gone back to work after 15 years as a full-time mother and would like to see the Government encouraging mums to stay home.
"Childcare is not the best option for kids," she says.
"If Mum can stay home, that's the best."
Dunedin home-maker Rachel Elder, 48, suggests one way to encourage mums would be to tax couples with children on their combined income.
That would cut the tax on a single income of $50,000 by $2000 a year, or about $40 a week.
Caroline Borger, a worker with special needs adults from Kumeu, suggests providing marriage counselling for all couples having troubles.
"If you provide more help, they would stay together," she says.
But, as Timaru's Aaron More, 30, points out, staying together may require giving up other things. Although he still has a $20,000 student loan for commercial studies, he has opted to set up a simple business as a window cleaner while his wife stays home with the children.
"It's about sacrifice," he says.
"You can't have everything, so you figure out what you do want, and what you can do without."
Overall, moral issues are only a minority concern, mentioned by 7 per cent of the 600 people questioned.
But they matter because they are the major factor driving the votes of 19 per cent of the people shifting to right-wing parties in this election.
Such issues are more likely to be mentioned by Pacific Islanders and Maori, and by southerners.
Only 5 per cent of Aucklanders and 7 per cent of other North Islanders, but 9 per cent of South Islanders, raised concerns about family and moral matters.
"People down here have more time for each other," Mr More says.
"The further north you go, the more people are just into themselves.
"I'm not a rat-race person."
“Overall, moral issues are only a minority concern, mentioned by 7 per cent of the 600 people questioned.
But they matter because they are the major factor driving the votes of 19 per cent of the people shifting to right-wing parties in this election.
Such issues are more likely to be mentioned by Pacific Islanders and Maori, and by southerners.”
Get your Freedom here. Registration Required.
If you want to take a Sunday stroll past Arlington National Cemetery, to the reflecting pool on the National Mall this coming September 11th be warned that you will have to register with the Pentagon.
The Pentagon is holding a "Freedom Walk" on that Sunday and if you want to follow the route you have to register and be screened.
Screened for what, they don't exactly say. But if I were you, I wouldn't turn up with that "Impeach Bush" sticker on your bicycle.
Ask your Mommy or Daddy what happens if you have to travel that route to go to work or to the shops or to church. Will you be required to register.
A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Helen Clark dismissed the response as "out of sync" with other polls and with as much validity as talkback radio.
"People don't think the government should be used to push a moral point of view on them. The media make the mistake of thinking a conservative view is an intolerant view. I'm regarded as conservative and I don't care what people do, but don't make me like it."
Two-thirds of our sample said morality issues would affect the way they voted on September 17 and more than half rated the Labour government's performance on moral leadership poor, very poor, or terrible.
Nearly 60% of respondents believe the government has lost sight of family values.
Attitudes to morality were polarised along party lines. A majority of National Party voters said homosexual sex was wrong and 83% believed infidelity was immoral. And 64% of National supporters believed a politician's adultery would affect the way they voted. National leader Don Brash has admitted to having an affair with his second wife, Je Lan, before the end of his first marriage.
| Advanced Global Personality Test Results
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“It makes me proud to be a New Zealander, but frustrated because every dollar comes out of our pockets [compared with other countries with unlimited Government backing].
“We can’t confirm or deny sales because of who we deal with. But the books look good.
“Development costs are enormous and we are always looking for investors. I’m trying to keep the business in New Zealand because it’s good for growth and development, new skilled jobs and another industry.”
The US Government recently gave $0.5bn to a UAV developer. In comparison, the New Zealand Government recently gave its first grant to the aerospace industry when Pacific Aerospace Corporation received $480,000 from the Growth Services Fund to develop and enhance its manufacturing capability.
Economic development minister Jim Anderton says the grant is for international certification in targeted markets, expanding capacity, and developing human capital.
The Growth Services Fund is accessible only for companies identified as having clear and significant growth potential, for whom a development plan has been compiled.
It says much about the nervousness in Government over Iraq that they have no plans to mark tomorrow's anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. This is very sensible on their part. Any retrospective examination would inevitably draw attention to questions that they find increasingly difficult to answer - such as why they ever believed Saddam was a threat since he turns out to have had no nuclear programme, no chemical or biological agents, and no delivery system with which to fire them.
A fitting way to mark the anniversary would be to drive a stake through the doctrine of pre-emptive strike and bury it where it cannot be disinterred to justify another unilateral military adventure. The new Bush doctrine claimed the right to make war on any country that could be a potential threat some years down the road. Iraq has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that intelligence cannot provide evidence reliable
enough to justify war on such a speculative basis.
…
Tony Blair is right when he insists that there can be no opt out from terrorism for any individual country. The lethal energy of al-Qa'ida makes no nice distinctions between those who opposed the invasion of Iraq and those who supported it. Given popular sentiment in Spain it is almost certain that nine out of ten of those murdered in Madrid had opposed the Iraq war. There is no certificate of immunity which can be obtained from al-Qa'ida. The rational approach is to ask whether our actions are making the world as a whole safer from their malign intentions.
The sober, depressing answer to that question must be that the invasion of Iraq has made the world more vulnerable to a heightened threat from al-Qa'ida, which is precisely what our intelligence agencies warned the Government on the eve of war. The bombs in Madrid resulted in the worst terrorist atrocity in Europe for 15 years and were the latest in a litany of murderous assaults from Turkey to Morocco.
…
Part of the problem of the present Western approach on terrorism is the insistence of our leaders in Washington and London on describing it as a war. As a metaphor the language of war may be a forceful means of expressing the priority our security forces should put into defeating terrorism. Unfortunately too many in the Bush Administration appear to have been misled by their own language into believing that terrorism can be beaten by a real war, as if we can halt the terrorist bombs by
dropping even bigger bombs of our own.
In truth we would have made more progress in rolling back support for terrorism if we had brought peace to Palestine rather than war to Iraq, but President Bush's promise that he would give priority to peace in the Middle East has become another of the commitments given before the invasion and broken in the year after it.
