Monthly Archives: Feb 2017

Muddying the waters not fooling anyone National

Posted on by
Reply

I remember a time when I could swim at will in a river, without having to worry about my health if I swallowed any water. I remember jumping of rocks into deep pools with mates. It was fun, the water refreshing and we had a great time. I would like to do that again in the (hopefully near)future.

Today, for the time being, that is all but a dream. Many rivers in New Zealand that used to low in summer but still flow dry up completely (another story for another time). Others are too polluted to safely swim in, either from run off from farms with cow faeces (poo) and urine or excessive nitrates.

In the language of fresh water discussion, micro biological organisms are minute pieces of poo. According to Minister for Environment Dr Nick Smith, 540 micro biological organism parts per 100mL (millilitres)of water means it is excellent quality water.

Wait! What?! Did I read that correctly? Oh dear. It seems like I have.

A contact in the North Island recently told me she had someone check the water supply on her property. It had 200 parts per 100mL, and she was advised that her water is not drinkable, and that she could be sick if she does.

That therefore makes the idea of 540 particles per 100mL being considered acceptable as frankly absurd.

The nationally acceptable level of micro biological organisms in swimming pool water is less than 1. And the Environment Canterbury Natural Resource Regional Plan provided for an acceptable level of ZERO (0)micro organisms per 100mL of water.

The reasoning is simple. When you swim, your whole body is in the water, and you are going to probably swallow some at some point, so the absolute last thing you want is millions of bits of poo floating around in your vicinity and potentially going into your mouth. The cost to a pool operator if they then have to drain the pool, clean it, refill it and get it back up to temperature could be in the thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

There is nothing accidental about this. National does not believe that humans have the right to swim in rivers and that the dairy industry is more important than the $1.7 billion recreational industry that relies on New Zealand’s other big earner, tourism for its participants. Many of the activities that happen in the recreational industry, happen around our fresh water lakes, rivers, streams because tourists believe them to be pristine and the ecosystems that inhabit them to be of excellent condition. Having to go home and tell family and friends that the magnificent trout spawning rivers you were hoping to fish are no better than big open sewers is not only very off putting, but others upon hearing it will spread the word as well.

Now. Let us be honest here. Who would honestly swim in water with pieces of poo, however minute they might be; however densely concentrated they might be?

And this is not just a cause of Greenie’s wanting clean water, however true it might be (and is). Nor is it exclusively about a bit of poo on New Zealand’s environmental reputation, though that certainly cannot be dismissed. What it is also about is human health, and the social and economic costs that go with being sick. The hours lost that could have been spent contributing to the economy, the loss of productivity all add costs that have not been considered by this move.

As for election year politics, this is certainly not helpful for National. It is an issue that the party has become more and more desperate on and the voters are starting to see the deliberate muddying of the water for what it is. Dr Smith might have been National’s best suited M.P. to be Minister for Environment, but he has clearly lost this battle. Continuing to defend an obviously daft shfting of the goal posts – once again – is about as clever as swimming in poo.

The pros and cons of the N.C.E.A.

Posted on by
Reply

Recently the debate around the National Certificate of Educational Achievement restarted. I saw a suggestion that caught my eye, which suggested completely abolishing N.C.E.A. The system that was implemented in New Zealand high schools by the Government of Prime Minister Helen Clark is said to favour girls over boys, and is allegedly a failure. Given that the author has some concerns of his own, it is worthwhile revisiting an at times quite controversial assessment regime. In doing so, we need to understand the basics of the system.

What is the National Certificate of Educational Achievement?

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement is a three stage (Years 11-13)assessment regime that replaced School Certificate, Sixth Form Certificate and University Bursary from about 2001. It was rolled out over three years. Students have to earn a certain number of credits per course to pass. It uses Unit Standards, which are a credit based concept where a student has set criteria that they have to meet in each to be granted the Unit Standard.

What do proponents of the N.C.E.A. regime say?

N.C.E.A. has its backers and I acknowledge some of the points that they have are valid.

N.C.E.A. replaced a scheme that had a scaling method that was designed to ensure at least some students failed, whether or not they were actually deserving of it. In my political history class we had a mixture of Unit Standards and other assessments. Although I think history is not an appropriate subject to run these in, I actually did quite well in the Unit Standards.

I was also unable to see how my Tourism I and II courses could be assessed through exams and assignments. This was reinforced by conversations I had with younger friends and relatives some time ago where they pointed out how it had benefitted them. Some struggled with the format of exams, but for reasons they did not understand, seemed to do okay with assignment and test work. Whilst the simple pass/fail regime or Not Yet Competent (N.Y.C.) was somewhat off putting, the opportunities to revisit them and improve to a pass, were there. Most I passed on the first try.

What do critics of the N.C.E.A. regime say?

I will be honest from the outset. I am a critic for several reasons. I seriously hope though that it has changed substantially since I played with it in 1996-1999, at Burnside High. If not, the following comments are worth noting. My own personal experience of the old system it replaced was that it had numerous redeeming features that were lost when N.C.E.A. started. One of those features was students having an idea of how they performed – did they get an outstanding pass, a bare minimal pass or were they a catastrophic failure. With the N.C.E.A. concept one simply passed or failed initially. I found that quite off putting. I also found that there were some subjects where it was probably suited to the nature of the subject – mainly the traditional ones such as history, geography, English, science, mathematics. There were others such as Tourism which it could have worked on.

My own grades had little to do with whether the system worked or not and more to do with the fact that I tended to be a minimalist in terms of study. I did all the class work, and nearly all the homework, but when it came to studying for exams and tests, I tended to zone out, and despite what was said above, my marks reflected the zoning out more than they reflected a bung system. I do not think one can blame the system for that.

My own assessment is that no, N.C.E.A. does not work. However, I do not totally support winding back the clock to when Unit Standards first started being rolled out. If the Unit Standards can give some sort of success measure, perhaps by providing ___ credits per course, of which ___ must be attained to pass the course, then perhaps it could continue on courses such as tourism.

If I were revisiting the assessment regime for High School students I would be looking at requiring standardized external exams for all, but each would have an internally assessed component devised by the school and submitted to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority for approval. These would be common courses such as the ones I have already described. Another change that I would make would be to significantly improve scholarship opportunities. A B-Grade Scholarship might for example pay half of the fees for a student, whilst an A-Grade scholarship would pay all the course fees.

New Zealand dishonest with itself (and the world)about its fisheries

Posted on by
Reply

The scale of the scandal is mind boggling: at 25 million tonnes of fish and spanning six decades, fishing in New Zealand waters has lifted 2.7 times what was reported. In other words less than 40% of what has been taken, is showing on the official records.

The Ministry of Primary Industries known ineptitude however is not new. Nor are the allegations that have made this a problem in the first place.

What is perhaps new – if anything – is the sheer scale of our dishonesty with ourselves and the rest of the world about what has really been caught in New Zealand waters. This is a scandal that covers successive Governments dating back to when Sidney Holland was Prime Minister in 1950, despite differences of opinion over how New Zealand’s fisheries should be managed.

It would probably be impossible to fully account for it all as some of the people who knew about the scandal in the 1950’s, 60’s and 1970’s are now probably dead. However the onus now falls on this Government and whatever follows it after the election later this year to do the following:

  • Take measures that stop further misreporting and
  • Make possible the application of criminal penalties should it fail
  • Do an immediate inventory of existing resources, to be reported to the Minister for Fisheries, Minister for Primary Industries
  • Seek legal counsel to cover matters arising out of this

If we add the environmental damage, the human rights abuses committed aboard the trawlers, the non cooperation of the trawler skippers and the violations of New Zealand labour laws it could be argued that this is just the tip of an iceberg reeking of dead fish.

So, in an election where justice of other sorts could be a potential issue given the crime rate and failure to make progress against the scourge of drugs, will the wheels of justice need to spin on this case. And if they do, will this Government and whoever follows it, take notice?

The case in New Zealand for corporate manslaughter (and murder?)

Posted on by
Reply

In November 2010 and February 2011 there were two separate cases of potential corporate manslaughter in New Zealand. One was caused by a mine disaster where a coal mine exploded. The other was caused by an earthquake. In both instances, gross negligence was involved.

The Pike River mine was poorly designed and perhaps even more poorly run. At the time of the 19 November 2010 explosion that trapped 29 miners, all of whom were killed by a second larger explosion on 24 November 2010. Basic gas monitoring, first aid equipment and evacuation procedures were all lacking. The boss, Peter Whittall knew all of this, but did not try to address the issues.

The Canterbury Television Building was built in 1986. When it was designed by David Harding, working for Alan M. Reay Consultants, the building was designed by someone with totally inadequate knowledge of multiple story building design. On 26 December 2010, it suffered critical damage in an aftershock caused by the 04 September 2010 earthquake. On 22 February 2011 a bigger aftershock hit, causing it to collapse because it was structurally unsound killing 115 people.

New Zealand Police charged Peter Whittall regarding the deaths of 29 miners in the mine he was responsible for. However a deal was done for a payout of $3.41 million in return for the charges being dropped.

A Police investigation into the C.T.V. building found a strong case forBut New Zealand police say that there is no choice but to lay charges of manslaughter, as opposed to corporate manslaughter. A significant problem that the Police say they have is the law does not enable a charge of corporate manslaughter.

However just because there is not a specific provision in New Zealand’s Crimes Act 1961, does not mean nothing is being done – a Labour M.P., Damien O’Connor is promoting a change to said law in a Private Members Bill that will amend the legislation to enable such a charge. This is dependent on the Bill being drawn from the ballot, and then surviving the journey through the House.

Corporate manslaughter is an act where a company can be charged with an act of homicide, that was not necessarily intentional (see below)

But – and this is highly hypothetical – could a corporate be potentially charged with murder? This is to say, in legal parlance that a corporate knowingly made a person or people carry out an act where it was known before the act was carried out that death was a high probability (or certainty). Not being a lawyer or have any connection to the legal profession, I cannot answer this other to be sure that the threshhold for this charge to be triggered is very high. And it might be impossible to ever satisfy, but for the purposes of being a robust law with appropriate coverage, I believe it should be considered.

Hopefully there will never be a case of corporate manslaughter having to go before a New Zealand court of law. However the deaths of 115 people in a fatally flawed building was more than a gross act of negligence, and as New Zealand law has no more severe charge that can be laid, the case therefore exists to overhaul the law to provide for corporate manslaughter and – heaven forbid – murder.

Reviewing New Zealand’s abortion laws

Posted on by
Reply

The other day it came to my attention that an Oklahoma politician wants to pass a law, that requires women seeking an abortion to get permission from the man. I was shocked and posted it to my Facebook page. I honestly thought America had taken a big step backwards, until a contact advised that it had not yet become law.

However at a second glance of New Zealand’s 1977 Sterilsation, Contraception and Abortion Act, it would appear that all the fault’s raised about America’s abortion laws, New Zealand would do well to look at its own.

Pro-life organizations such as Right to Life however strongly resist this happening, saying that the sanctity of life from conception to ones natural death is endangered by abortion. On their website R.t.L. have the following stated aim:

To work purposefully towards, the achievement of the realisable ideal of no abortions within our society

There are however two massive and – in my view fundamental – flaws to Right to Life’s argument. First, Right to Life in no way acknowledge that a victim of rape or incest was subject to a grave criminal offence against her will. Second, if the female develops medical complications in any pregnancy brought on by the act of rape, again the choice as to whether she aborts or not should be hers alone. It should also be exempt in all respects from Section 187A of the Crimes Act (see below).

But New Zealand’s laws concerning are not so advanced as to considered perfect or even satisfactory for the purpose of maintaining an appropriate abortion regime. Section 18 of the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act forbids abortions to be conducted after 12 weeks unless the medical practice conducting it has a full license. Those practices holding a full license may conduct abortions as and when the committee sees fit, irrespective of what stage the pregnancy is at.

At 20 weeks, unless the pregnancy falls into one or more of paragraph (1), subsections (a) to (d) of Section 187A of the Crimes Act, performing an abortion becomes an illegal act.

Consideration also needs to be given in the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 to sex workers becoming pregnant to a client, whom they are unlikely to see again and may get no support from should they proceed to have the child.

Consideration also needs to be given in the same act for those children who may be born through no fault of their own to mothers under the influence of narcotics, or who have suffered abuse not necessarily through their own fault from these substances.

I believe that allowance needs to be made for the failure of contraceptive methods due to the whole purpose of those methods being to prevent pregnancy occurring in the first place. Abstinence, whilst practiced by many is a not altogether realistic expectation to be placed uniformly on society.

Therefore the case exists to reform the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act, 1977.