JC: We Live In an Unhinged World

Today’s world is not only unhinged but is becoming increasingly dangerous. It is now not uncommon to hear from some in high places that ‘We are closer to World War III than we have ever been before.’ There are many reasons for this: political ideology, political leadership, terrorism, foreign aggression, the media and the breakdown of society, which seems a good place to start.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive 4/2/25

Climate change minister froze out farm leaders – but (is he a closet greenie?) warmed to Greenpeace and WWF lobbyists

Your monitors of the Beehive website can tell you what ministers are up to so long as they post a press statement. They can’t tell you what ministers have been doing which they shouldn’t have been doing, if they keep quiet about it. And they can’t tell you what minister haven’t been doing that they should have been doing.

Kerre Woodham: Why don't we focus the headlines on the good news?

There is a common trope that if prisons worked, we wouldn't need them. And that if prison was a deterrent, people wouldn't commit crime. If prison was about rehabilitation then people would serve their term and then they would not reoffend.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 1/10/24

New name – and a richer swill – for 20-year-old government fund to help clean up contaminated sites

Oinkers will be heartened to learn the Government has established something that looks like a new trough. Or rather, it has put more swill into an old trough and given it a new name.

Mind you, it’s not the most alluring of names. It’s the Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfills Fund, a source of dosh intended to help councils and landowners clean up historic landfills and other contaminated sites that are vulnerable to the effects of severe weather.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 24/9/24

Shooting at targets – and firing rockets into space – have the govt’s blessing but Putin is being further punished with sanctions

It depends on what you do with your armaments that determines the Government’s attitude.

Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine a year or so ago and shows no signs of withdrawing his troops or putting his missiles back in their holsters.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive 17/9/24

RMA to be relaxed for farm recovery after floods – but court sentences are being hardened in a crackdown on criminals

On the one hand, the government can expect to win kudos for suspending the law – or one bit of it. On the other, it can expect to get plenty of support for hardening its law-and-order credentials.

The law is being over-ridden by an Order in Council intended to enable severe weather recovery works to continue in the Hawke’s Bay.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 16/9/24

Just a village of 100 (or so) people – but Parihaka is a potent force when it comes to winning govt funding

The Parihaka settlement – founded about 1866 – by the end of the 1870s had a population of about 1500 and was being described as the most populous and prosperous Māori settlement in the country.

Wikipedia says it had its own police force, bakery and bank, used advanced agricultural machinery, and organised large teams who worked the coast and bush to harvest enough seafood and game to feed the thousands who came to the meetings.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 7/5/24

Correcting the Corrections announcement – a fiscal farce that should bother the OECD

One headline-grabber from the Beehive yesterday was the OECD’s advice that the government must bring the Budget deficit under control or face higher interest rates.

Another was the announcement of a $1.9 billion “investment” in Corrections over the next four years.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 4/3/24

Govt takes steps to keep us safe in hospitals and from bank scams – and it aims to rehabilitate offenders on remand

Crime and punishment is the common thread to be discerned in the ministerial statements posted on the government’s official website since Point of Order last checked on who is doing what in the Beehive.

Three ministers had something to announce, when we checked the website this afternoon.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 8/2/24

Law and order changes are recorded on the govt’s website – the PM’s treaty stance is there, too, but we must hunt for it

The public is being seriously short-changed by ministerial press secretaries and the managers of the government’s official website.

The website carries no record of some big decisions being announced by the Luxon ministerial team.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 4/10/23

The PM and Kiri Allen were taking a harder line on youth crime in July, but today Kelvin Davis extends a soft approach

The hard cops had their go back in July, when the PM and his Justice Minister (before her fall from grace) announced the Government will introduce a new offence specifically targeting ram raids and changes to allow 12- and 13-year-olds to be charged in the Youth Court.

That was the third in a package of law and order policies specifically targeting youth offending unveiled in the same week.

Today, the soft cop is back on the law-and-order beat.

Kate Hawkesby: How over the violence are you?

How over all the violence are we right now?  

I can’t tell you how over it I am. I’m sure you are too. It’s actually getting ridiculous and what I’m worried about now is that not even a change of government is going to stop it.  

A stabbing murder at an Albany bus stop in Auckland Monday, another knife incident 30 minutes later in Auckland’s Waterview, the next day, Tuesday, a person taken into custody after a knife found Kepa Road, in Auckland’s Orakei. That same day a shooting at a Rotorua intersection.  

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Labour's finally admitted reducing prison populations was a bad idea

Chris Hipkins has just confirmed Labour is dropping its plan to get people out of jails. 

When they first took over six years ago, Labour set a target of reducing the prison population by 30 percent in 15 years.

That target is now gone. Hipkins was asked about it today, and says there is no target for the next term.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 9/9/23

Govt invests in making Auckland CBD safer and (with $113.7m) in giving greater strength to disabled people

More evidence of a government belatedly burnishing its law-and-order credentials can be found in an announcement today from the Minister of Police and the Minister for Auckland Central.

Their glad tidings are that “Central and Local Government” are investing in a range of new measures to tackle low-level crime and anti-social behaviour in the Auckland CBD to complement a greater Police presence in the area.

Kate Hawkesby: Brazen theft in supermarkets

 

Having witnessed a supermarket theft the other day, as we all probably have by now, I was not surprised to see that supermarket crime ‘has surged’.  

In just Foodstuffs North Island stores, it's reported there are ‘more than a thousand incidents a month.’ And the thefts are brazen. There was one video of a man ‘armed with a screwdriver stealing nine legs of lamb’. Foodstuffs say that in more than a third of these crimes, it’s repeat offenders.

Ross Meurant: Is Our Country At Risk?

Definitely and we know why: Matthew 10.36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

But just for a moment, step beyond the mess Labour have delivered during their reign of economic ruin, rampant crime and racial division of New Zealand.

International Headlines:

- Second Ecuador politician killed in less than a week. (1)
- Ecuador election: 'I'm wearing a bulletproof vest 24 hours a day. (2)
- Ecuador election: Narco politics rule ahead of polls. (3)

These headlines must send a warning to the rest of the globe. Read the articles and it’s clear that “control” of Ecuador, Columbia, Mexico and other Central American states is increasing placed in the hands of drug cartels.

Kate Hawkesby: Sentences like we saw the other day are why many sexual assault victims don't come forward

Everything that's wrong with our justice system at the moment was summed up this week by the judge who gave those two sex offenders home detention.

They were described as two of this country's most notorious sexual predators, their offending so heinous one of the victim's called it depraved, one's had PTSD and flashbacks since, one had attempted suicide twice.

The judge apparently choked back tears as he said, ‘The harm to the victims can only be described as profound.’

Kate Hawkesby: When did we just accept every social and mental health issue is fine to pour all over our streets?

I see one of the favourite holiday playgrounds for many Kiwi families, has been hit with a travel advisory over violence.

‘Fiji police to increase presence after reports of violent attacks on tourists’ read the headline.

These attacks apparently include assaults, robberies and sexual assaults, mainly in Suva’s downtown nightspots.

NZCPR Podcast: Cultural Injustice

In 2019 the Labour Party introduced a new corrections policy called Hokai Rangi. It takes a tikanga Maori approach to sentencing. 

The Minister behind the scheme was Kelvin Davis. He said it would make the corrections system work better for Maori who make up more than half of the prison population. He said the objective was to reduce the number of Maori in prison to match the Maori share of the general population. 

Heather du Plessis-Allan: ACT plans to put the victim and the community at the centre of sentencing

ACT’s released its tougher on crime sentencing policy today, and I'll be honest with you- even I'm shocked at how little consideration judges have to pay to victims when they sentence offenders. 

ACT has pointed out that at the moment, basically everything is about the offender.

Take a look at the sentencing principles in the Sentencing Act: