NZ Herald News reports: "Taggers have trashed initiatives aimed at preventing graffiti, saying it just encourages them to keep vandalising private and public spaces.
New research aimed at understanding offender motivation may have implications for policy-makers and other agencies."
Monday, November 9, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Driving with cellphones
I'm writing this in the closing few minutes of October 2009 and by the time I finish it will be November. On November 1st it becomes illegal to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving. The penalty will be a modest $80 fine and 20 demerit points.
Whatever the truth of the matter, we have an appalling road toll in New Zealand and it's about time that the authorities started taking enforcing the road laws seriously.
We've been getting the usual propaganda for the last few months on how it is unsafe to phone and drive. The message has been paid adverts and an endless succession of reportage from tame journalists echoing the official line. The figures that keep being repeated are 4 times more likely to have an accident while talking on the phone and that it is as dangerous to use a mobile phone while driving as it is to drink and drive.
If this is true, why on earth is the penalty so low? Or to put that another way why are our politicians so gutless about this?
There's only a very few options here:
- It isn't as dangerous as is claimed (Please note I'm not disputing that it's dangerous)
- Driving under the influence of alcohol isn't as dangerous as claimed. (Again, I don't believe this)
- As alcohol is a drug, our politicians are wanting to punish it more for moral reasons
- Our politicians are too gutless to take road safety seriously.
Whatever the truth of the matter, we have an appalling road toll in New Zealand and it's about time that the authorities started taking enforcing the road laws seriously.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
2009 Mount Albert By-election
Former prime minister Helen Clark resigned her seat in parliament to take a top job with the United Nations forcing a by-election in the Mount Albert electorate. The election is scheduled for June 13th.
Labour initially considered themselves the front runner to win and selected someone who isn't already in parliament while the other parliamentary parties with list MPs have selected an existing list MP.
Realistically the contest is between Labour and National's Melissa Lee. Melissa is well known as a previous presenter on TV One's Saturday morning show Asia Down Under and then the government announced that a motorway would be built through the electorate and Melissa opened her mouth with a silly comment about criminals from South Auckland. Now things are looking grim for her.
The more important minor parties except New Zealand First and The Maori Party are represented, but on current polling it would take a miracle for any of them to take the seat.
Other than bragging rights the election will have little real effect. The National led coalition government will still have the numbers to form a government and win or lose Labour will still have enough members to form a realistic opposition party. If a miracle did happen and United Future's Judy Turner won, they could still hold their caucus meetings in a phone box.
I suspect that even bragging rights are going to be minimal. If Labour's majority is reduced, they'll just claim it's the loss of Clark's personal support, and if National's support is reduced they'll say it was because of the unfortunate timing of the motorway announcement and the super city proposal. Without the list vote, the minor parties are irrelevant and it's to be expected that their support will collapse towards the end.
We can expect ongoing talk on the news channels about it whenever there is a slow news day, but even a keen follower of politics like myself finds it difficult to get enthusiastic about this election.
Originally published on Qondio
Labour initially considered themselves the front runner to win and selected someone who isn't already in parliament while the other parliamentary parties with list MPs have selected an existing list MP.
Realistically the contest is between Labour and National's Melissa Lee. Melissa is well known as a previous presenter on TV One's Saturday morning show Asia Down Under and then the government announced that a motorway would be built through the electorate and Melissa opened her mouth with a silly comment about criminals from South Auckland. Now things are looking grim for her.
The more important minor parties except New Zealand First and The Maori Party are represented, but on current polling it would take a miracle for any of them to take the seat.
Other than bragging rights the election will have little real effect. The National led coalition government will still have the numbers to form a government and win or lose Labour will still have enough members to form a realistic opposition party. If a miracle did happen and United Future's Judy Turner won, they could still hold their caucus meetings in a phone box.
I suspect that even bragging rights are going to be minimal. If Labour's majority is reduced, they'll just claim it's the loss of Clark's personal support, and if National's support is reduced they'll say it was because of the unfortunate timing of the motorway announcement and the super city proposal. Without the list vote, the minor parties are irrelevant and it's to be expected that their support will collapse towards the end.
We can expect ongoing talk on the news channels about it whenever there is a slow news day, but even a keen follower of politics like myself finds it difficult to get enthusiastic about this election.
Originally published on Qondio
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