An obituary I missed - Helen Suzman

If most are asked who was South Africa's greatest politican, you'll hear Nelson Mandela. After all he spent much of his life in prison and then enabled the peaceful transition of power from the racial autocracy to the one party dominated democracy. However, if not the the greatest, Helen Suzman deserves the most honourable mention. She was head and shoulders above the intellectually and morally handicapped Thabo Mbeki, and the thieving corrupt scum that make up too many ANC MPs. She was for too long, the sole voice of reason in South Africa's whites only Parliament.

New Years Day saw Helen Suzman pass away. The Economist's obituary tells so much about this remarkable woman.

It talks of her legendary bravery:

"Verwoerd, an earlier prime minister, a man she admitted she was “scared stiff” of, fared no better. “I have written you off,” he told her. “The whole world has written you off,” she retorted.

But also her principled opposition to race based laws regardless of source:

"when the African National Congress, once in power, began to impose quotas for blacks in jobs, she naturally and ferociously opposed it. In many ways black rule proved “a huge disappointment” to her: corrupt, spendthrift, anti-white, and doing little to help the millions of poor blacks whose lot she had tried to improve. Thabo Mbeki’s wilful ignorance over AIDS appalled her.

The world has lost a true principled fighter for freedom, a liberal woman in a country once dominated by bigoted conservative men, now dominated by misogynistic socialist corrupt ones.

It is telling that New Zealand's most well known activist against apartheid, John Minto, is so divorced from South Africa that he couldn't himself pen a column about the passing of this hero. South Africa owes far more to Suzman, than this petty socialist activist from NZ.

Scrap the regional fuel tax!

While Canterbury argues about whether to introduce a regional fuel tax to pay for transport projects that users aren't willing to pay for (and understandably so, as motorists of Timaru, where there is hardly any need for new roads wont want to pay for new roads in Christchurch), isn't it time for National to repeal this stupid tax that it voted against?

New Zealanders don't need a 5c/l additional tax on petrol and diesel at the moment, and certainly don't need local authorities planning how to spend money without having accountability to the users (especially with the tax levied at the regional level, when regions like Canterbury extend from Timaru to Kaikoura).

National and ACT opposed the tax when it was before Parliament. So when you voted to change the government, didn't you want change?

Three strikes?

ACT's policy of "three strikes and you're out" has instant appeal to many, as it sounds like it can keep criminals away for good. The Greens call it lynching, but then the response is mainly in reaction to the manslaughter of Pihema Cameron.

So let's stand back a bit.

What is the criminal justice system meant to do? Essentially three things:
- Change the status of an offender to someone who "wont do it again";
- Punish the offender (to be a deterrent);
- Protect society from future offending.

In that sense, the first conviction should be focused on rehabilitation. It would be refreshing to see a focus on that, a focus on the core chance to turn someone around. In that sense, the biggest disaster of the criminal justice system is to put first time offenders in prisons with recividists - where rehabilitation is tempered with learning how to be a real crim. Putting all first time criminals of a certain degree into a similar facility may address this. A second chance at rehabilitation may also be warranted, but the more frequent a re-offender the more the emphasis has to go from rehab to punishment to protection.

The degree of punishment is always with any custodial offence, but the more severe the crime the greater the punishment. Murder must always have the longest sentence for punishment, as it is the crime that deserves the greatest deterrence. However, grievous violent and sexual offences come next. Repeat offenders should get ever more stringent sentences.

Finally, it is clear that the recividist offender who has shown no interest in rehab should be locked away for extensive periods to protect society. There should be no question that someone who murders twice should never be set free. A repeat sex offender should almost certainly be kept from freedom for a substantial part of his life.

So, in the sense that "three strikes and your out" can allow the shift from rehabilitation for the first strike to preventive detention in the last, I support it. However it should not be a blunt tool. Three vandalism offences is not the same as three murders.

So I propose a "points" system. Such a system would see a convict "earning points" for offences. These would be base points for the crime itself, with additional points for the seriousness of the event. Bear in mind that being "out" should means being in prison for at least half of the remaining years of your life, with an option for renewal if it is assessed that the person concerned remains a threat.

You see, for murder it should be two strikes. For vandalism it may be fifty. For serious violent or sexual offences it could be three strikes, for lesser offences against the person four strikes. For theft it could be ten. Whatever it could be, you get the point. Graduated offences depending entirely on the basic victim impact, increased if the commission was particularly sadistic, calculated and repulsive. What? Ten strikes for burglaries? Well yes. It is better than today, when you may get a couple of years, and then another couple of years, so prison becomes a risk of the offending. You see many criminals do a number of tricks. Theft, assault, fraud or others.

So a points system might just address this. The points may add increasing sentences when you get to say 50 points and 75 points as the criminal builds up to being locked away for good. After all, they then can't say they weren't warned.

Oh and yes I assume victimless crimes are not included, such as blasphemy, drugs laws and not conducting postal services without being registered. For locking someone away for good for being a drug addict is hardly the sign of a civilised society.

Wellington's transport priorities for the year ahead

Given that some blogs show a particular interest in this at times, I thought I should give a bit of parochial opinion.

I'll give the Wellington councils their due, the priorities are sensible and well thought out.

The Kapiti Western Link Road (pdf) quite correctly the top priority, as congestion, access and safety issues between Raumati, Paraparaumu and Waikanae are the most serious in the region. What's sad is that the Kapiti Coast District Council remains incompetently divided on this issue - which demonstrates how roads should be run commercially.

There is some agitation that a flyover at the Basin Reserve is number two. The Greens, and anti- road transport lobby have made it their campaign to oppose it, on the spurious grounds that it will damage the Basin, when for over 30 years a similar project has been long planned. The Standard has shown its sense of balance by only quoting information from an anti-flyover site, without giving any proposals to ease congestion at this bottleneck, or reduce traffic on what is the main highway between Wellington airport and the Wellington region (maybe Auckland should have a two lane highway from it's airport?).

The flyover would remove a third of the traffic from the Basin Reserve, making it far easier for pedestrians, cyclists and buses to get round. It would remove that traffic from crossings that service three schools. It would enable traffic lights to be removed from the Basin reducing queues that hold up traffic, including buses, from the south. Ignore the ugly artist impressions given by the anti-campaign, let's wait till the NZ Transport Agency gives something credible.

Advancing the rail network upgrade requires more thinking, it is a little odd that a system that claims such strains on capacity needs so much subsidy, when increasing fares at peak times would address this and pay for equipment replacement. Nevertheless, maintaining rail in Wellington is far more useful than any rail in Auckland.

SH2 Melling Interchange and bridge is an excellent project. The number of traffic lights on the Western Hutt Road is ridiculous on a four-lane highway. Once the Dowse Drive upgrade is complete, it will be clear what priority this project should have against other improvements on SH2.

Paraparaumu and Waikanae station upgrades, given the electrification to Waikanae is difficult to argue against, but again the network should be financially self sustaining.

All in all, fairly modest aspirations. Transmission Gully isn't there because it is still at design stage and there is insufficient money to build it. Hopefully Wellington local authorities retain pragmatic modest ambitions in building roads and improving public transport.

Too fat for New Zealand?

Now on first looks I am sure many would say it right to exclude an American woman weighing 135kg from having residency in New Zealand, because of the risk she would pose to claiming under the public health system. The NZ Herald reports that:

"A medical assessor said there was a relatively high probability that the wife would cost the health service more than the threshold $25,000 over the next four years.

He noted that the guidelines said that people with BMI over more than 35 should not be considered."

Keep that fat woman out! I hear it now, hoards saying she'll cost you all.

Well hold on a minute. Let's look at the rest of the details. She applied with her husband and son. On other aspects of the application for residency they scored well:

"The husband was a butcher with an Arts degree and culinary qualification, and the wife who had business qualifications also had 17 year's experience in design.

In fact, if you set aside concern about her cost to the socialist health system:

"INZ concluded that although the couple "had the potential to have a relatively significant contribution to New Zealand through their skills and experience, it was not compelling enough to outweigh the potential cost (the wife) was likely to impose on the NZ health service".

So how about some lateral thinking? How about granting residency to them all, making it clear the wife has no cover for illnesses related to her obesity? She can get health insurance or pay her own way, but other that she isn't covered. The quid pro quo is that she pays proportionately less income tax - equivalent to not contributing to the state health system.

Then New Zealand gets a family with skills, willing to work and look after themselves (more than thousands of locally born people), and taxpayers don't bear the risk.

Indeed, why not offer all migrants the chance to enter and pay no tax for health, education, welfare or retirement?

Why should anyone care if a very obese person migrates, as long as they aren't a charge on you?