Who’s pulling our strings?

Time was when conspiracy theorists were made fun of by the bulk of the population, and to a certain extent that is still the case. However the joke is starting to backfire upon the mockers as it becomes increasingly obvious there very definitely are conspiracies and the theorists are quite often bang on the money.

I’m not talking here about moon landings, 911, Kennedy assassinations or reptilian shapeshifters, interesting though they might be; I am talking about ‘everyday conspiracies’ if you like. These are the ones organised by Governments, powerful cartels in strategic industries and businesses where competition is less robust or the major players fancy themselves as being more entitled than others.  

A great example of this is the sort of nonsense that goes on around sponsorship deals; especially those associated with a major international event.

Last year we saw an example of this with Addled Ass and the ridiculously overpriced souvenir All Black jerseys. This was a conspiracy in that Addled Ass was able to do this with the compliance of:

·         The IRB, who could have made some rules around the sales of merchandise

·         The NZRU, who could have made some rules around what their branded product would sell for

·         The New Zealand apparel retailers who went along with it and sold the items at the overinflated retail price instead of telling Addled Ass to shove them.

This year I learn Workers at the Olympic Games Village in London have been told they must not eat any chips other than McDonalds’ in their onsite canteen. That directive would be enough to make a bloke give up chips for life. Anyone who has tasted those limp, skinny, greasy bits of goop that McDeaths call chips knows they might be a lot of things, but like most of the toxic waste served under the golden arches their only claim to being food is that some silly buggers actually put them in their mouth.

The games bosses have relaxed the rules for the workers after a shit-storm of protest, but for those who can be bothered attending the games it will be nothing but McDeaths. To my way of thinking that is just making what would already be a dire experience a deadly one.

This might not seem like a conspiracy, but actually it is. After all to be a conspiracy, it only needs to be a plan agreed to by two or more parties and designed to commit a crime or a harmful act. The parties here are of course the International Olympic Committee and the Purveyors of Poison. And while it is not a crime to leave people with only a choice of McDeaths or McDeaths, (more’s the pity), it is definitely an act that is designed intentionally or otherwise to bring harm to a group of people. And you have to wonder why an event that purports to showcase fit and healthy people would want after finally encouraging people to leave their couches and attend the games to have them trough out on a load of unhealthy rubbish.

A couple of years ago we had a similarly stupid situation where Bug Wiser was the official beer sponsor for the Soccer World Cup and a bunch of people in orange T-shirts were evicted from the games and accused of ambush marketing. Of course that is exactly what they were trying to do, but the action by Cup officials to eject them was excessive. While it is true the orange was the colour of the Dutch brewery they were representing; it was also the colour of the Dutch soccer team. I’m only surprised the officials didn’t make them change their shirts before taking the field. Once again a conspiracy had been hatched between FIFA and Bud to deny the attendees any choice.

These are just three examples of corporate conspiracies, and while they are annoying, we can refuse to go along with them by boycotting events that allow the sponsors to hold such sway. It is much harder, though to counter the activities of companies with whom we have no option but to deal.

Telecommunication companies are a good example of this and they seem to be getting even more powerful.

As we all know the Telcos act pretty much as a cartel and they are forever lavishing money on lush adverts and PR to tell us how they are going to cover the whole country in Megultraincrediblyfast broadband which is crucial to all of us (so they say). In reality most of this warp speed stuff is of no particular advantage to us regular punters unlike reliable cellphone coverage or in many rural cases even a moderately fast broadband connection.

But no, we can’t have that because this fasterthanthespeedoflight shit is the bomb. Of course the reason is that this stuff is what is wanted/needed by large institutions that pay large sums of money for their set-up and Hooray Henrys who have more money than sense and like to show off they have the biggest and fastest broadband connection in their social circle. The rest of us would be thrilled to be able to use our cellphone from home or watch movies without experiencing a frozen screen at any stage.

 You know it’s a conspiracy when Vodafone made $151.2M net profit for the year ended March 2011 and recently spent $840M buying TelstraDim, while Telecom had net earnings of $878M for the 6 months ended December 2011 yet rural customers are still having to wait years for broadband and many city customers can’t get cellphone coverage. These guys certainly don’t lack the money to sort this inequity out; but they do lack the collective will.

The law and order situation in New Zealand is another example of a conspiracy. In this case the co-conspirators are the Government, the judges and to a lesser extent the police. The way it works is that the Government has been encouraging the police to work as a business according to departing Northland area commander Paul Dimery (an unfortunate name for a police officer).

Paul’s claims start to make sense when one looks at the sorts of targeted campaigns police have run lately. Most have focussed on matters that result in fines and many have already accused them of revenue gathering over their obsession with anyone who exceeds the speed limit by more than 4km/h. It has also been noticed that judges are for the most part handing out fines (along with disqualifications) for drunk driving. Surely if we want to stop drunk driving we should be handing out quite uncomfortable penalties rather than fines which are seldom paid and disqualifications which are often completely ignored by the offender? And surely if we want safer roads we might be more concerned about people who can’t keep on their own side of the road, failing to give way at roundabouts and intersections or who are driving erratically?

On the other hand if your plan is to ignore the safety aspects and simply collect revenue then I guess you would do exactly what they are doing now.

Makes you think, though, doesn’t it?

Who’s afraid of the big bad truth?

I sometimes wonder who that stranger is in front of me at the checkout counter. Is he/she a child abuser? A rapist? A thief? A drunk driver? A conman, a vicious thug or a bungling idiot?

The trouble is that we don’t know and the authorities, in an effort to allegedly ‘protect the innocent’ are hanging out the rest of us like fresh meat in the jungle.

The judges who think they know what is best for us and the politicians who ‘know’ they know best are determined that we should not know who to be wary of or who to run a mile from. Never mind that many more of us will fall prey to the criminal tendencies and the reckless actions of people who are being protected by what is essentially a crock of shit.

We can’t know the names of the two pieces of flotsam that locked their 9 year old daughter in a cupboard, and tortured her and beat her in what amounts to one of the most heinous and sickly perverted examples of child abuse you could think of. The excuse we are given by the judge is that if we were to know it would then lead us to identification of the victims.

There are several things wrong with this approach. While it is true the naming of the parents would ipso facto lead to the identification of the kids, it is first important to remember these kids will already be known to close relatives and anyone else who rocked up to the court. So in a way the cat is already out of the bag, but what worries me more is how these orders bind everyone concerned. In real terms one presumes the victims are also bound by such an order. If they weren’t there wouldn’t be much point in granting it would there? Because this effectively means these kids have to walk around with this terrible secret locked inside them and are only ever able to discuss it with counsellors. I can’t help but feel having to keep shtumm about such things is probably far more harmful in the long run. Covering the thing up sends a message to the kid that this is somehow shameful (for them) when in reality they have nothing to be ashamed of. They need to know that victims should never take on the shame that belongs fairly and squarely upon the shoulders of the offenders.

It is also unfair that the community is not going to know when these people are released back into their midst. This is possibly not so important in this case but it certainly is important in cases involving paedophiles, thugs, or others who perpetrate crimes upon the general population.

And regarding the bungling idiots I referred to at the beginning of this blog, there are few more adept at this type of behaviour than our District and High Court judges. I think they should be made to wear some kind of identification when out in public (do they ever go out in public?). Something understated like a dunce’s hat would suffice.

You might think that a tad harsh, but it is an almost daily event to be gobsmacked by the latest judicial fuck-up hitting the headlines. I’m not just talking about minor errors either. One that has recently slipped by with hardly a murmur from anyone is the case of Olinale Ah You who was convicted of killing 80-year-old Manurewa woman Yan Ping Yang who he beat to a bloody pulp in her own home. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 18 years. But this guy is really nasty; two weeks after attacking Mrs Yang he, went out and attacked another woman. This scumbag has convictions for violent behaviour going back to 1998 and was jailed for 12 years with a minimum parole period of eight in May 2009 on another matter. As the Yang killing took place in 2008, I can only conclude the 2009 sentence was for the later offence. However I was more alarmed to read why Ay You is only just getting sentenced for the killing.

It would seem that when he was first convicted he was given life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 20 years, but the jury was told of his previous convictions before finding him guilty. Who told them is unknown but the judge in the case was Edwin Wylie and as this is basically judicial systems 101 you would have to wonder why he was not sacked on the spot. If someone let that particular cat out of the bag in court his duty was to dismiss the jury and order a retrial BEFORE sentencing. Instead of which this clown went ahead and sentenced Ah You whereupon his lawyer (quite naturally) went to the Court of Appeal to have the conviction quashed which they did.

No doubt all of this cost a great deal of money and no doubt we the taxpayer paid for both sides of the fight and now Ah You’s sentence has been cut by two years into the bargain.

I have since learned the reasons for the retrial were suppressed. I honestly don’t know if they still are, but since the information was still available in one report on the NZ Herald site recently I am assuming the suppression has lapsed. In any event it is not the sort of thing we should be prevented from knowing. This bloody judge is getting paid by us and he ought to be accountable for his performance and we have a right to know when he costs us tens of thousands of dollars through his poor case management.  

Foolscap, (fṓṓlskap) n 1. a hat worn by a judge

Back in the old days (when I were a lad), every village had one; and seldom too many more than one. But now we have lots of them and furthermore instead of them being the harmless object of a little teasing and amusement for the wider population they get paid a six figure salary to make important decisions concerning our safety.

What AM I talking about?

Those of you familiar with riddles might have already guessed I am referring to that legendary figure the Village Idiot.

Due to some gross error of population control we appear to have allowed these people to breed and hence the proliferation of cretins we see today. That in itself is worrying enough, but sadly it hasn’t ended there. Instead our administrative masters (for that’s what they believe themselves to be) have gone out into the wider community and tracked down as many of these fools as they can possibly find and made them into District Court Judges.

After that, I’d probably better not end up before one of them. However even if I do, I doubt I would have much to fear, because for them to know what I have said about them would mean they could actually read and have had some sort of contact with the outside world since they were liberated from their playpens.

So what has got this particular grumpy old man so worked up about District Court Judges this time?

Well, the case of Paulus Niewenhuiysen is as good a place as any to begin. This is the lowlife who has been charged with drugging and raping a woman while out on electronic bail after being charged with supplying ecstasy, methamphetamine and cocaine.

He was apparently given bail after being charged in 2009 and had to stay at the Waiwera Holiday Park, which seems a rather bizarre place of detention. Anyway it is alleged he drugged and raped a woman whom he had lured there in February 2010 and he was taken back into custody at that time. But by May the judge decided he obviously didn’t pose any risk to the community and he was once more released on electronic bail to some address in Auckland city.

Now all of that was bad enough and sadly I don’t have the name of the former village idiot who decided that one, but now we hear that another judge, Ailsa Duffy has allowed his bail conditions to be further relaxed so the poor lamb can get some exercise! He will be free to roam about, and I say free because clearly the electronic bail was insufficient to keep him under control last time, until September when he will finally face the charges.

Judge Duffy has dug herself into an even bigger hole of incomprehensibility by citing the mental health of the accused as the reason for her decision and suppressing the legal arguments including those of the Crown prosecutor who naturally opposed the idea.

With logic like that you have to wonder whose mental health we care about as a society. Is it that of the accused or the alleged victim?

I find it even more baffling that this decision should have come from a female member of the judiciary whom I would have expected to have more compassion for the victims of crime. Or was it that the victim’s line of work counted against her? (She was a prostitute).

It doesn’t sound like justice to me and I would be surprised if terribly many other New Zealanders would think so either.

What’s even more worrying is that Judge Duffy is only one of many District Court Judges in New Zealand who appear to have no contact at all with the outside world. You only have to spend a day in your local court watching proceedings to see what I mean. Drunk drivers with up to a dozen DIC convictions are regularly given non-custodial sentences allowing them to remain with arm’s reach of their constant temptations despite a sentencing directive many years ago to judges that such people should go to jail on their third such conviction.

We need a new method for appointing judges and they need to have some kind of accountability. As it stands they are virtually untouchable. When was the last time a judge was actually fired? There have been a few quite serious dishonesty offences committed by judges over the years, yet I cannot recall a single one who has actually been fired. The only one who came close was Robert Hesketh who actually resigned over allegations he claimed expenses to which he was not entitled. But poor Hesketh was a victim in a way because he was being tutored by Judge Martin Beattie who was charged with the same things, but for some extraordinary reason his plea that he didn’t realise he wasn’t entitled did not fall upon deaf ears as Hesketh’s had and he was acquitted. The Justice Minister at that time was Doug Graham and he asked Beattie to resign, but he refused. In one of those amazing coincidences that sometimes happen in life (but which have no possible bearing on the case); Doug was at law school with Beattie.

Despite that case and several others since it would appear we still do not have the power to remove judges. Sometimes I think they could get away with murder if they wanted.

It’s time our legislators grew some ‘nads and changed the law so we do have the power to remove judges who commit offences AND judges who don’t enforce the law in the way it was intended.