My Right

"An inquiry into the future of race relations in New Zealand cannot become a wider debate on the constitution or whether or not we should become a republic," Mr Hodgson, whose portfolios include Energy and Transport, told Labour's southern regional conference at the weekend.

"We need to have an agreed pathway on the future of race relations before we can consider the future of our constitution."

The government uses taxes to provide goods and services but the imposition of taxes is not altogether in proportion to the benefits to the one who paid the taxes. Bluntly, the more you work to create wealth the more you are expected to pay for the privilege. Seen in this light it can reasonably be argued that 'tax' is really the cost, or price, that society charges the individual for being productive.

Worse...the more an individual works to produce that wealth, the more society insists that that individual pay even more taxes! Unlike a loaf of bread, a car or a holiday, the price of working has no fixed value but rises as a cost depending on how much you earn. It's like seeing the price tag of a good or a service - not in dollar terms - but as a proportion of what you contribute to our total pool of wealth!

Now...no one would suggest that there are no costs attributable to our social obligations. We do need to pay for the social goods that we all benefit from and these include looking after the effects of disadvantage.

But surely there must be a limit. We cannot go on expecting people to continue paying long after their reasonable social obligations are met. That simply kills incentive. After all, we don't apply the same logic on the rugby field. We don't engage with fewer players or handicap them just to make it a 'fair' contest; we don't stop artists from being 'too good'; yet when it comes to our 'work' we make a point of restricting our success by imposing the debilitating constraints of a progressive and uncapped tax.

Justices Wild and MacKenzie say they consider Smith tried to make the child's caregiver forgo her rights through his conversation with her and through media pressure.

They also say Smith tried to influence the decision of the Family Court and lessen the validity of its decision in the eyes of the public.

Penalties have yet to be decided.

Coming from a rabid punk rock background, I have no choice but to loathe, deride and spit upon the flagrantly MOR spectacle that is NZ Idol. It is the very epitome of everything I fought against with such high-minded ferocity in the Punk Wars of the late 70s and which I have continued to rail against ever since. Everything I do as a musician is predicated upon hastening the demise of all that is bland and by-the-numbers in this so-called business of music. Vast multinational conglomerate record labels make me puke; slick ProTools production makes me wanna wrench out the hearts of those who perpetrate it; Whitney Houston, Justin Timberlake, Celine Dion and all the Britney clones must die. This is the credo by which I am genetically and irreversibly bound to live.

Gerrard Eckhoff: What work did Mr Tom Moana do for the department
to justify his payment of $131,753.14 in just 1 year, and how
many Maori consultants were employed?

Hon PAUL SWAIN: That is a good question. As I have advised the
member, I am seeking more information on that and on other matters
relating to the consultation around this particular project.

"The man was nabbed after library staff became suspicious as he sat at a ground-floor table piled with up to 70 CDs and began downloading them."

Anxious principals are banning school camps in the fallout from new laws which make them liable for student and staff injuries or deaths on trips.


Principals and trustees face fines of up to $500,000 or two years' jail under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

We must begin by reminding people of the difference Labour has made to their lives compared with what would have been the case had National been re-elected in 1999 and 2002.

Let us begin with superannuitants. On 1 April the rate of New Zealand Superannuation for a married couple will rise to $383.22 . Had National stayed in office that figure would be only $361.40. The minimum wage has been increased to $9.00 an hour. Under National it would probably be about $7.50. The average fee for arts or commerce students at the University of Otago is $3,245. Under National fees rose on average 15.2 per cent a year, which means that the average fee would be $5,200. And the cost of repayment of any loan has been reduced on average by about 25 per cent.

For a state house tenant in Auckland the difference is nearly as dramatic. For a sole parent with two children their rent is now $74 a week. Under National’s policies that person would now be paying an average rent of $132 a week, after allowing for accommodation supplement.

A byelection would achieve little, bar the embarrassment of Labour having to fight a campaign against one of its former MPs.

National could not stand a candidate - unless it wanted to look hypocritical after Dr Brash's promise to abolish the Maori seats.

Likewise NZ First, which also has a policy of not standing in Maori seats, although Winston Peters might view a byelection as an opportunity that could not be refused.

Of Labour's Maori MPs, only John Tamihere and Tariana Turia would have any chance of retaining their seats as independents.

What would they do after that?

Vote against the Government and bring it down, thus fast-tracking Dr Brash into the Prime Minister's job?

"It is ironic that the major opposition parties are attacking the government for leaning too much towards Maori while some Maori and the Tribunal are saying the exact opposite. Perhaps that might suggest to a fair and independent observer that the government has it about right," Dr Cullen said.

Work and Income staff are being paid bonuses based on the race of the jobseekers they place into work.

The scheme varies around the country, but in Counties-Manukau, staff are awarded three bonus points for placing a Maori in a job, two points for a Pacific Islander and one for a Pakeha. The points help determine the size of their annual bonus.

The revelation comes amid growing controversy over the use of race-based policies to address social disadvantage.

Employment Minister Steve Maharey defended the points-for-race scheme citing the huge drop in Maori unemployment.

"We know if we don't do more we are going to have a register filled with Maori people."

Maharey said the scheme allowed frontline staff to understand the areas government wanted to target. He did not want it applied to specific cases - for example, if a Pakeha and Maori jobseeker with the same skills and abilities were after the same job.

"The behaviour of the other parties in the House has been an amusing study in political repositioning: United Future seems to have been attempting to climb out of the Foreshore and Seabed waka they had only recently boarded; NZ First has been trying to paddle on both sides of the waka, but in the House it seems to have a liaison of convenience with Labour; the Green Party, at least, has stuck to its guns, and seems prepared to go down fighting on the whole bi-cultural, partnership package, and we can respect them for having the courage of their convictions; while the ACT Party has been consistent in its support of the views I expressed at Orewa.

A number of newspapers spectacularly misjudged their audience. A major Sunday newspaper, in comparing me to Australia’s Pauline Hanson, launched one of the most extraordinary exercises in second-rate muckraking journalism that I have ever witnessed. Presumably this idea was not conceived in the circulation department, because the polls showing wide public support for the Orewa speech implied that the headline was also an attack on most of the readership of the paper. The subsequent editorial attempts to defend this new low in the standards of New Zealand journalism were so lame as to be laughable. One can have only contempt for the mind that conceived that front page spread, and sympathy for those journalists that were unwittingly associated with it.
The critics who have focused obsessively on these ‘race-based funding’ details give the overwhelming impression of a group of people who cannot see the wood for the trees. Fortunately that does not apply to the general public, because the plain fact of the matter is that the public is more concerned with the parade of race-based political correctness we have endured over the past decade or more:
· cultural safety in nursing
· bilingual rebranding of the public sector
· Treaty issues getting tangled up in health and safety audits
· claims of taniwhas being used to block developments
· consultations with iwi being required in relation to resource management consents, and even to scientific research in universities
· the anomaly of Maori Parliamentary seats being expanded into local body politics and now to the representation on PHOs
· and so on in a relentless torrent.

Can we really believe that this simple 19th century treaty, which focused on sovereignty, property rights and citizenship, also has something to say about today’s SOEs and national parks, today’s schools and universities, how we go about approving or declining building permits, what science we should study, or how we should regard the new frontier of genetic science?

This is simply madness, and it must be stopped. "

Steve Forbes in the Herald, "There is another positive impact of Kennedy-Reagan type of tax cuts - the rich pay more. When Ronald Reagan became president, the top 1 per cent of income-earners in America paid 19 per cent of the federal income tax. Now, the top 1 per cent pay more than 35 per cent of the income taxes.

Last [northern] spring, President George W. Bush cut capital gains taxes (from 20 per cent to 15 per cent) and the dividend tax (from 38 per cent to 15 per cent). Personal income tax rates also declined.

Since those reductions, the American economy has picked up steam with real annual growth rates exceeding 4 per cent."

"Edwards, as a private citizen, is suing Elmar Toime (former chief registrar of electors), Murray Wicks (national manager, electoral enrolment centre) and the Wellington Central registrar of electors, Raewynne Uren who, in early 2001 was charged with deciding whether Bunkle had breached the Electoral Act prior to the 1999 election."

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Is the Minister prepared to investigate
the fact that the well-known philanthropist and MP David Carter
sold a property to the council for $1.025 million, and that the
council then obtained its full and true value, achieving a price
almost $600,000 less; and what would be the circumstances behind
that in respect of the historic places legislation?