ACT ON A HIGH

Don Brash, the coup-leader of the ACT Party (he had replaced Rodney Hide in a party coup earlier in the year), and the former head of New Zealand's Reserve Bank, created a punster's paradise by coming out and brashly saying that he supports the decriminalisation of marijuana. John Banks, who is standing for the Epsom seat for ACT, later came out strongly against what the Beloved Leader had opined. All that at the same time as the international banking system was trying to prevent life as we know it melting down, and the ACT Party was close to zilch in the polls.

Brash ACT = bad act.
Brash leader of the ACT Potty.
Potty head.
Pot head of Potty Party.
Brash ACT = comedy skit.
Brash = comedy skite.
Brash gives comedy skit by putting pot on head.
Don Pot tilts at windmills.
Donning a pot.
Brash reveals bad potty training.
Brash fires loose pot.
'Weed dump anti-pot law,' says potty head.
Nothing but a big ACT.
Don puffs ACT into dreamland.
Marijuana oblivion for Don.
All smoke and no fire.
Brash cannabilises ACT.
A bud too far.
ACT's little buddy.
ACT--from a Hide to a high.
Banks struggle to stave off D fault.
Glib foulup crisis envelops Banks.
Don's pot protrudes in comedy ACT.
Epsom salts drain the Brash pot.

('Buds' according to a news report is a slang term for cannabis.)

Brian Rudman's take on it in the New Zealand Herald makes rich reading. The Herald's editorial also questioned Dr Brash's strange behaviour. So did another Herald columnist, Garth George.

SAY YES TO THE TINSEL GOOSE!

O goody! A marina! At Matiatia! Only a blockhead would oppose such a spiffing advance. It's jus wot we all need.

So stop griping on and on and saying it'll benefit only a few yachties. And mess up Matiatia.

Stop all that. Look at the big picture. Think! Doesn't your tender liddle heart bleed for all them poor Orcland yachties having to sail and sail and sail and sail for hours and hours and hours and hours before they can be where they want to be--out here in the Gulf.

But when all you gripers shut up, and stop stopping progress, they'll be able to have a hideously expensive berth at the glorious, brilliant, over-the-top, ever-so-wunnerful marina at Matiatia-- and then they'll be able to hop on Superflyte and be out here in only 35 minutes. Ever so much better than having to start from Westhaven or Half Moon Bay or some other dumb place made for inferior beings and do that long long slog every single time.

And we Waihekeans will have something to be proud of. Proud! We'll have created a special breed, a breed apart, the Matiatia breed. Super-Yachties!!! Won't that be wunnerful? Won't your liddle hearts swell to bursting every time you think of all the good we'll have done to the world?

And consider those poor bods, down to their last million farthings, who are going to build this wunnerful thing for us. Even their GG's are down to their last electronic platinum horseshoes. So they need lots more of them farthings. So let 'em get 'em. Wots good for them is good for everyone. Right? Of course!

OK, OK, OK, we'll have to poo permanently on our doorstep and mess up our nice little bay for ever. And the traffic and the parking down there will be even more horrendous. And stupid stuff like catching ferries will have to give way a tad. So it'll be a bit of a hobble on the ole transport hub. But you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Or have a windbreak to coddle yer yachts without breaking wind. So stop yer griping, all youse dummies.

It's totally obvious that Waiheke totally lacks taste. And with a marina it'll have it--at last! Because it'll be how it should be: MARINATED in a very rich source. Burp!!!

PITIFUL CENTRAL IN WALLY-VILLE

Brilliant! In a city of a million people, to which they had invited the whole world, they built a 'Party Central' that could hold only 12,000.

Why didn't any of those political geniuses ask themselves how a bath-full was going to cram itself into a thimble?

And why couldn't they see that their bright-'n-shiny Super Silly, newly built out of a Nat-picking mashup of  ideological Lego, would not fail to drop the party ball, collapse the party scrums and miss every goal on the fan-zone paddock?

If they were the All Blacks they wouldn't even be able to beat the team from Libya. Which doesn't have a team...

Party Central in a World-Class City? No: Pits Central in a Wally-Class Silly.

But they got the shape of that building right. A legless white elephant.

KERBING THE ACCIDENTS

O goody! Martin Reynolds, the manager for Downer Roading (of course he has no vested interest worth bothering your head about) has solved for all us dummies the problem of accidents on the island's roads. All we need is kerbing and channelling. For he says that if Te Toki Road had had it that errant bus would have stayed on the straight and narrow instead of trying to make a career change and become a bridge.

Please ignore the fact that Te Toki Road has more outrageous bumps per square millimetre than Gaddafi's face, that it does violent assault and battery to every vehicle that can overtake a snail, and that it has been like that since Cook came here in his Sealegs in 1769. Just pay a fortune (to Downers) to make it a clone of Auckland Silly.

Which of course never has a single accident.

Because it is stuffed full of kerbing and channelling.

If we paid enough rates to Mr Reynold's empire to get all our roads on over-the-top Downers we would all be on our uppers.

And the island instead of being its nice old charming rural self would look like Orc Land.

THE TRUTH ABOUT HAPPY FEET

The Happy Feet saga is really one of two things:

('Happy Feet' can be seen via this Google Search)

1) All the Emperor Penguins got together and had a hui about climate-change. They decided that because we'd messed up their environment they had to make a new penguin world. So their smartest bird volunteered to be the advance guard for a brilliant plan.

Step One was for him to swim a few thousand kilometres 'off course' and turn up on a beach in New Zealand (his grandfather did it in 1967 so he actually knew the way like the back of his flipper).

Step Two was to be make sure he was seen eating a lot of sand. The humans
fell for that one, called him Happy Feet (his real name is Superbrain) and
took him in VIP transport to get lots of TLC. When they'd pumped out the
sand they set him up in his own luxury quarters and chipped in to feed him
lashings of grade-one salmon.

Step Three was for Superbrain to become such a global heart-throb that the
stupid humans would be sucked into giving him a First Class ticket back to
his clan, so that he won't have so far to swim.

Step Four will be a penguin Twittering all over the Southern Ocean, then
every bird will click in to Superbrain's Google+ Circle to find out exactly what to do.

Step Five will be millions of Emperor Penguins on every New Zealand beach
eating sand then getting stuffed with salmon in the lap of luxury.

Step Six will be New Zealand having to sign a Treaty of Emperors in which
the foreshore and seabed are ceded to them birds. Otherwise they'll eat it
all and refuse to barf it back.

2) It's a metaphor for the capital-gains tax. If we eat sand now and put up with a bit of stomach-pumping we'll all live on salmon for ever.

BUSING ON AN EDUCATION PROMISE

The bureaucratic bullies who insist that Waiheke kids must pay for the
school bus and/or trek over hill and dale to catch one, have overlooked a
small matter of international law. New Zealand signed up long ago to the
International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. Its Article
13 begins:

1 The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise the right of everyone to education. They agree that education shall be directed to the full development of human personality and the sense of its dignity, and shall strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. They further agree that education shall enable all persons to participate
effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and
friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups, and further activities of the United Nations for the mainenance of peace.

2 The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise that, with a view to achieving the full realisation of this right:

(a) Primary education shall be compulsory and free to all;
(b) Secondary education in its different forms, including technical and
vocational secondary education, shall be made generally available and
accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular by the
progressive introduction of free education;

Obviously to the bureaucrats 'free to all' and 'accessible to all' mean
something not found in any dictionary. Perhaps they couldn't pay for their
school buses, and never learnt to read.

BUSING BACKWARDS TO THE FUTURE II

Aha! I have worked out the true meaning of those flash new world-class
bus-shelters. They obviously have nothing to do with real human beings, so
it is tempting to think they were beamed down on a shonky circuit from some
intergalactic thunk-tank, thus proving that extra-terrestrials do exist, but have no intelligence.

But, no, their real purpose is to show us that Auckland is designing its
flash new world-class city for extra-terrestrial non-intelligence; a place
no one human would want to be--especially when it rains. Today the non-human bus-shelters, tomorrow the city. Thanks for the warning.

STOP THE BUS--IT'S HOLEY PROGRESS

'Design is thinking made visible.' Whoever designed the new 'bus-shelter' at the stop opposite the Red Cross had thinking that was so brilliant that it had nothing to do with the real world. But if you are brilliant you do not need to let reality get in the way of spending ratepayers' money...

First the seat in it is so brilliant that it does not use the full width. It goes only two-thirds of the way across, so it cannot accommodate more than a couple of people--or three very friendly ones. So all that brilliance does very few people any sheltering good.

But it is far more brilliant than that. Because it is so brilliant that it
faces into the teeth of the prevailing wind, and unlike the old shelter it
is so brilliant that it has no half-wall in front to block out as much wind and rain as possible.

Its brilliance goes even further. Because the three walls that the brilliant minds have put there are metal, brilliantly perforated with zillions of holes. Obviously to allow the wind and rain to come through from all four sides.

After all, where is it written that a bus-shelter should actually shelter
people while they wait for a bus?

Then it has a brilliant, expensive sign 'All buses stop here.' That is what a bus-stop is, surely?

It is also very brilliant at spending the maximum amount of money. OK, they could have used platinum, so they missed out on being super-brilliant, but they did pretty well despite that handicap. First they laid some expensive concrete--pink concrete, as nature intended. Footpaths cost $422 a metre, so there must be well over $1000 in concrete under the brilliant new bus-stop. Then there is all that expensive powder-coated steel--except for all the places where there are expensive holes in it to let the wind and rain in. And steel strong enough to stop the Titanic from sinking.

Why all that brilliance? The only 'reason' that can spring to mind is a
bladder. No, not the one that needs emptying several times a day into a
china receptacle in a small room (or into the back garden down in the Garden City in Rockjelly Island). No, this is the one that thirty blokes hoof round special paddocks. For a thingy called the Holed Cap. That might be a spelling mistake. But it's something like that. Wold Cup? Whirled Cop? Whatever it is it needs brilliant bus-shelters that shelter no one.
Otherwise bods from other places might larf at us.

Which means that that 'bus-shelter' is actually a brilliant monument to my
one-word joke: Progress!

The shiny new Auckland Council thinks it can design a wunnerful world-class city. It cannot even design a bus-shelter.

TRAFFIC LIGHTS! YAY!

So it has been suggested by an Island Leader that we install traffic-lights because of the extra traffic that will be generated by the Wunnerful Merger Of The Library & The Service Centre at the top of Oneroa. The very first traffic lights on village-rural Waiheke Island!

What a brilliant idea! This fuddy-duddy piece of rock has resisted up-to-date change for too long. We should be in the twenty-first century, with all the civic goodies, and all its mod-cons. With the emphasis on cons.

But one set of traffic-lights is not enough. We need them on every corner. It doesn't matter if your street only gets one car a day, or a week, or a year, it needs lights on the corner. Think of all the accidents that would be prevented. If you are so mean-spirited that you think it would be a colossal waste of money, and time, and fuel and patience a gadzillion times a day, think again. Isn't human life worth anything to you? Even if it only saved one life in a thousand years that would be enough. It might be yours.

But people might be killed crossing the street at other places. So we need lights in the middle too. Every corner, and every middle. And twenty middles for long streets. Aaah! Think of what a wunnerful island we would have them!

So, please, Island Leader, give us modernity, warp us willy-nilly into the civic mould, give us all them 21st-century mod-cons. Lotsa cons, that's what we need. Bring on them lights. Please!

And on top of the advantage of being made gloriously full up with civic cons, and thus no longer looking like a Rock of Backward Hicks, a zillion traffic-lights will look so totally pretty! Red, amber, green, and wasp-striped poles. Aaaaah! It makes you go weak at the knees just thinking about it! A visual treat! Better than all those boring trees (ditto those yucky iconic baches that can't stay on their hillsides after some flash new neighbour messes with the drainage).

So get with it, Waihekeans! Start a riot in the streets. March up and down and yell and scream and shout: 'We want traffic-lights everywhere!'

;-)

CAMERA THE BARRICADES

I am told that a newly-elected member of the Waiheke Local Board has come up with an absolutely brilliant idea. Perhaps he got it from his dog. He suggests having security cameras at Matiatia and Kennedy Point watching out for Undesirables.

Of course, like all new ideas, it needs a bit of fine-tuning to work off the rough edges. Or should that be ruff-ruff edges? I dunno. But whatever the edges, there also needs to be a link from them cameras to some of that high-tech face-recognition software, with a bit of artificial intelligence thrown in--i.e., the sort of intelligence made in the Beehive. Usually in Bellamy's on the late-night shift.

Then it would really be able to recognise Undesirables. It would spot them in nanoseconds. They would look like bods who'd been marinating in Bellamy's.

But spotting them would obviously not be enough. Which is where we take a leaf out of Dr Who's book. Sort of. Because we get some of those Dalek bods--those giant pepper-pots that glide about at a malevolent rate of knots, and have inside them beings that look like a cross between the brain of a sheep and a tin of Watties spaghetti, and keep saying 'Exterminate! Exterminate!' in cracked voices and firing off their ray-guns at Undesirables.

We would of course recycle all the zapped Undesirables through the compost. Waste not, want not!

But the idea could be extended. We could do all that extermination stuff over in the city and at Half Moon Bay. Bump them off before they get on the boats. That would save a lot of diesel (we have to think of Fullers now that they're on the Board). And it would keep the island tidy. Undesirable corpses are so messy.

But we could extend the idea even further (and save even more diesel!) by getting Junk to Funk to modify some Daleks to attend to the Desirables--i.e., the bods who come across here and spend lotsa lovely money. Our Waiheke-Modded Daleks would reach into those Very Desirable Pockets and steal all their money *before* they got on the boats.

Then they wouldn't be able to afford to come, and would have go home sadder and wiser bods, but we would still get their money, which is all we want, without having to suffer their litter all over the place, their cars mashing our roads and their wastewater clogging our loos.

It just shows what can be done with a really brilliant idea.

Roll them cameras! Exterminate! Exterminate!

BIG BUSINESS NOT THE COMMUNITY

Jim Hannan said that the majority on the Waiheke Local Board installed Jo Holmes as Deputy Chair because she is a businesswoman.

And when she was sworn in, she swore, as everyone elected to a local-government position must, to act in the best interests of the Waiheke Community. But the heavy-duty item in her business record belies her promise.

Several years ago she founded a newspaper on the island, Waiheke Marketplace, which did well, deservedly, and went from being just a wrapper round a lot of real-estate advertising to being a community newspaper worthy of the name.

But then, for private gain, she sold it to big business, to a multinational, to the Fairfax empire, an outfit alien to a village-rural community and alien to Waiheke. The paper is now just another of Fairfax's vast empire of suburban newspapers.

That was certainly not a deal that was in the best interests of the Waiheke Community.

It is just as well that we also have a real community newspaper: Gulf News. It is owned and run by an islander for islanders, its roots are deep in the island's bedrock, and it is deep in the hearts of all Waihekeans worthy of the name.

'Marketplace' turns out to have been the right name, and harbinger of its ultimate fate; for its fundamental concern was the eye-for-the-main-chance market not the caring community.

SWEARING-IN MOVIE

The movie version of the swearing-in meeting on the 6th of November is now in pre-production.

It is to be called Saturday Afternoon in Dodgy City.

;-)

SUPERSILLY BOARD NUMERO UNO

So now we have our first Supersilly Board.

And what a fun show it was! The in-crowd was sworn in to much swearing from the memorable crowd that crowded in to the Memorial Hall. And crowded round the much-applauded. And crowded out the doors to the much-less-applauded.

So now, as that old cartoon show used to say at the end of each programme: 'Listen next week for the next exciting episode of Felix the Cat.' On the island famous for being full of cats who refuse to be herded. Because they want to be heard.

POWER-HUNGRY SPIN IS NOT DEMOCRACY

In letters to Waiheke Marketplace (whose editor has unfortunately decided to be strongly partisan towards her former boss) Faye Storer, Jo Holmes, Don McKenzie and Jim Hannan attempted to justify appointing Faye as chair of the Waiheke Local Board rather than Denise Roche, whose 2239 votes were far ahead of Faye's 1849. Their spin ignores the facts and the law, and therefore abdicates their duty to the community.

In Faye's letter she claimed that the 4:1 vote to install her as chair was 'democracy.' Bunkum! 'Democracy' comes from 'demos', which means 'people'. A 4:1 vote is not the voice of the people, it is just a majority amongst five individuals.

The democratic point is heavily underlined in law by section 14 of the Local
Government Act 2002 (LGA2002), which lays down the principles by which local government must be conducted. Section 14 opens with: '(1) In performing its
role, a local authority must act in accordance with the following principles: (a) a local authority should--(i) conduct its business in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner;' and '(b) a local authority should make itself aware of, and should have regard to, the views
of all of its communities.'

'Open, transparent and democratically accountable' means accountable to the
community--and nothing else. It does not mean 'accountable' to the mutual back-slapping of a cabal. It means true democracy, the democracy of the electorate--not just getting the numbers amongst those elected then sticking on a 'democracy' label to make it look kosher.

Board members are not there to express their opinions, especially partisan ones. They are there to represent the community, to re-present its will within the context of democratic statute. If they fail to uphold 'democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, the community'--underline 'the community' in red--they can be haled into court under the LGA2002 and fined up to $5000.

Decisions on the Board should be made according to the community and democratic statute, not dogmatic, self-serving opinion driven by a lust for power. 'Robust' party dogma does not establish democratic facts. The will of the people does.

Jim's claim to have the support of the centre-right for the 4:1 vote by The Four, and his obvious notion that the island wants a centre-right board, is so much self-serving assertive garbage. If he researched and analysed the election result instead of thinking that he can create facts with 'robust' assertions he would see that the centre-left vote comfortably exceeds the centre-right total. By about 8%.

On top of that if you add Denise's vote to Faye's, then reckon Denise's margin of that total, it comes out at just under 10%. That is about 25% more than the margin of left over right across the whole community, which shows that the extra strength of Denise's support is personal not political.

The vote at the election was split and dispersed by a large field of candidates, which was overwhelmingly dominated by the centre-left. The centre-right cannily concentrated on a few candidates, mostly under one banner. Clever, but they cannot claim a mandate. Waiheke is a predominantly a people-place not a power-place.

The specious arguments by The Four are also contradictory. They said they voted for Faye because of her experience as a councillor and Board member, although Denise also has both. Then they voted for Jo as Deputy, who has no experience at all. Convenient arguments to try to justify the unjustifiable.

But even if Jim were right about a shift to centre-right on Waiheke it is a great pity that the left-right tribal argument has sullied the island's local government. The only party that counts is the community. Candidates, successful and unsuccessful, should be not be right-wing, left-wing, tail-feathers or beak. Just Waihekeans. Anything else is dishonest and grossly anti-community. If you love wings stay off the Board. Go to MacDonalds.

Being impartial is not only good morally, and best for the community. It is also the law, because it is the oath of office in all local-government elected positions.

The 4:1-elect do not get it. You are not elected to positions of power. You are elected to positions of representation, bounded by statute. You are there to re-present the will of the local community in accordance with the will of the national community expressed in the heart of democratic statute. That is your job. Get it! And do it.

Two candidates put themselves forward for the position of chair. One has the
confidence of 2239 people in the Waiheke community, the other has the confidence of 1845. It is glaringly obvious, under the democratic principle, who should be the chair and the deputy.

To the Gang of Four: ignore the community at your peril!

COMMUNITY DEMOCRACY OR PARTY-POLITICS?

On the 6th of November the newly-elected members of the Waiheke Local Board will be sworn in. Before the whole of the Waiheke Community they will make a promise, a morally- and legally-binding promise. Each will promise 'faithfully and impartially, and according to the best of my skill and judgement, to execute and perform, in the best interests of Waiheke, the powers, authorities, and duties vested in, or imposed upon, me member of the Waiheke Local Board by virtue of the Local Government Act 2002, the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987, or any other Act.'

First up is 'faithfully and impartially'--two words bound together by 'and', which means they operate together, so the faithfulness of Members must be impartial and their impartiality must be faithful. 'Impartial' means, amongst other things, that they must never operate in any way that has any allegiance and owes any obedience' to any party. In that job there is only one party: the Waiheke Community. One party, the community; one friend, the community. And count no one as an enemy. Impartial.

The Local Government Act 2002 (LGA2002) is a huge Act, with hundreds of sections, but it is perfectly summed up in the forty words of section 10: 'The purpose of local government is--(a) to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of, communities; and (b) to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities, in the present and for the future.'

*Community* democracy and the four well-beings. That is every Board Member's
job-description, that is what they must, above all, be faithful and impartial to.

If they are faithful to their oath of office, faithful to section 10 of the LGA2002, and faithful to the truth, they cannot fail to be faithful to the Waiheke Community. If they fail in any of those they will fail it.

They should start being faithful and impartial by voting in Denise Roche as Chair of the Board. The strong whisper is that because most the Board are National supporters they will be voting along party lines, and therefore that she will not get the nod. She should. She has been a hard-working, vigilant Councillor. She has proved herself. She has the experience. And she won far more votes from the community that anyone else--her 2239 is well ahead of the others on their 1845, 1646, 1378 and 1361. For the rest of the Board to vote anyone else into that position will be an abject failure of impartiality and an abject failure of democracy. They will have listened to the will of a political party over the will of the people in the Waiheke
Community.

Thus, only minutes after promising to be faithful and impartial, and to operate according to the LGA2002, which means section 10, they will have failed to keep their promise.

Like everyone in local government they should always remember that failure to comply with the LGA2002 is defined by it as an offence, and that if they commit that offence anyone can hale them into the District Court. If found guilty they will be fined up to $5000.

--

Nobilangelo Ceramalus,
Member of the Waiheke Community Board.

..................................................................

Postscripts (not part of the letter).

I am told, although I have not checked it, that the new super-shiny WLB will not have a budget. Unlike the departing WCB, which had, over the three years, about half the million within its decision-making powers, the new thingy will have nothing, not even a SLIPs budget. Worth doing some meaty investigative journalism on... I'd like to see Len Brown's and Doug McKay's comments on that. If the WLB has no money under its decision-making powers, what power will it have?

They should have had that joint WCB-WLB meeting open to the community. It was a very good meeting, which the community would have benefitted by seeing. Too much of what we do is invisible. Then when it comes to an election people vote without having much idea of what we do, and vote in people who are not suitable. Even handicapped to the point where they cannot do the job.

WAIHEKE'S CRIPPLED LOCAL BOARD

Please! A Board of only three!

One of the two men elected to the Waiheke Community's Local Board, Jim Hannan, Fullers' man, is dogmatically adamant that he can work fulltime for Fullers and also be a Member of the Board. Rubbish! Being a Board Member is a fulltime job. If he actually tries to do both jobs, conscientiously, he will kill himself. Otherwise he will be cheating the community.'No man can serve two masters.' His poor judgement is evidenced by his being so adamant that he can--regardless of fact and reason.

Just wading through the email from council officers can take all day. His poor judgement is also evidenced by his electioneering promise of jobs. He will be a Member of the Local Board, an enitity that in law is not allowed to employ people, and does not have the power to create employment. His promise is all sizzle and no steak.

The other man elected, Don McKenzie, is a very nice man, and very able to the extent that his blindness allows, but it is impossible to do that job without eyes, whatever he and his friends might claim.

Site-visits, for example, are impossible without sight. Just in the recent weeks I have done on three on behalf of the community. One was to see whether the community had got value for money in the restoration of the Pioneer Cemetery. Was it a job well done, or not? That was the last of three visits to it to oversee and discuss the project. A blind man could have done none of them. Nor could he judged and voted from the photos shown to other Board Members.

Another site-visit meant going to evaluate 8 hectares of forest and bush that the Council was considering buying. Getting there meant going along tracks, some too narrow for a man and a guide-dog, and crossing a small swamp on narrow, loose boards. Seeing it and judging it, seeing the magnificent 270-degree view, and arriving at a decision would all be impossible without eyes. The effect on me would have been no different to walking down my front path.

The job needs eyes in many necessary aspects of the job--studying charts, graphs, diagrams, drawings, slides and videos, reading and comparing many thousands of pages of written material on paper and on the Net, including hand-written material, and closely following what is on screen during Board meetings. Anyone who cannot see any of that has to rely on the skill and judgement of others, which means it is impossible for him to be true to the oath of office he must make on the 6th of November--his statutory promise to do the job to the best of his own skill and judgement. For him, in all the places where eyes are needed, he will have rely completely on the skill and judgement of the others, which makes them de facto Board
Members, unelected.

A guide-dog is useless in the labyrinth of local-government decision-making. A dog cannot read.

And software that can turn computer text into speech is useless in the face of handwritten material and any words that are not in text format. If the format is a scan or a photo that software is helpless.

Congratulations to the three. But you will have to work even harder than you should have to, to compensate for two handicapped men, one handicapped by a chronic lack of time and demonstrably poor judgement, the other by a very restrictive disability.

The 1300-odd people who voted for the two men obviously do not know, or do not care, what that job is.

Party-voting for local-government positions is very stupid. It is also way out of kilter with the law, because successful candidates must at their swearing-in promise to be impartial. Party-politics do not belong in local government. 'Vision Waiheke', the ticket the two men stood on, was just a National Party front; their claim to be independent was flim-flam. The Waiheke Community must now live for the three years with the consequences.


----

Footnote: Waiheke Marketplace claimed in a front-page story by the editor, George Gardner, that the new Board is centre-right, a swing from the far left of the existing Board. Where did George get that nonsense? Three members are right-wing: Tony Sears, Herb Romaniuk and Ray Ericson. Denise Roche is on the left. Eileen Evans would be centre-left. I, as I said in my election leaflet in 2007 am not left-wing, right-wing, tail-feathers or beak. I make decisions on the facts, not on some party-ideology. Only fools do that. So on balance, if you want to put a stupid wing-label on the present Board, it would be centre-right. Certainly not far left. Not left at all. And a much better Board than the new one.

HIDE THE EXPERT ORGANISER!

Rodney Hide, the man who cannot organise his own party but thinks he can organise Auckland.

Rodney Hide, the man who cannot organise five people, including himself, but thinks he can organise 1.5 million people.

Rodney Hide, the man who cannot organise a tin-pot party of right-wing extremists but thinks he can get right the biggest local-government re-organisation ever attempted in Australasia, a re-organisation of a type that AUT says has never been
attempted anywhere, ever.

Rodney Hide, the man who admits that he did not think through to the human consequences of soliciting into his party a man who had as a 'prank' stolen the identity of a dead baby, but who thinks he can organise the lives of a third of New
Zealanders.

Rodney Hide, the man who ALWAYS tells the truth to the nation...

Rodney Hide, the Mincer of Local Government.

The word hyprocrite comes from an Ancient Greek word, which means actor. Traditional image to represent theatre is a pair of masks, behind which the actor hides himself as he assumed an acted persona. The ACT Party is led by a man called Hide. I do like God's sense of humour.

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Did Waiheke jump joyously into the Super Silly or were we pushed by the thick Mr Hide?

Rodney Hide, the man whose accolytes seriously think that Waiheke, a small village-rural community, belongs with the huge maelstrom of the CBD of New Zealand's biggest city, and manage by plastering over the rule of law with egregious lies to make that outrageous shotgun marriage look as if it fits the rule of democratic law.

It was nothing but the age-old lust for territory, dressed up. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Section 10 of the Local Government Act 2002 says, 'The purpose of local government is (a) to enable democratic local decision-making and action by, and on behalf of communities; and (b) to promote the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities, in the present and for the future.'

'When men cannot change things, they change words.' -- Roman proverb.

TELECOM REX ON WAIHEKE

So King Telecom is telling Waiheke that it is too much of a skinflint to upgrade our 372 exchange so that the entire community can have from it all the modern telecommunication goodies that other communities have.

It is saying that if you want all the wunnerful stuff you have to be moved to a 371 exchange. Thus with the stroke of an arrogant executive pen Telecom Scrooge has removed two of the things that identify us, things we have in common--the iconic fact that for all our telecommunications we all have the unique prefix that means Waiheke, and our friendly habit of quoting to each other only the four digits personal to us.

There was no need for another prefix. The 372 prefix provides 10,000 numbers, and there are oodles left.

Telecom has thus made 372 Waihekeans second-class telecommunications citizens. For first class service you have to be something else. All because it is too bean-counting mean to make 372 a first-class exchange.

Good ole Telecom Rex!

BEWARE OF TEENAGE RIPPLES

Many years ago in Amsterdam a little boy poked out his tongue one winter's day and touched the iron railing of a bridge. It froze to it and stuck. The fireman had to come and carefully thaw out the joint to get him loose. The newspapers reported the incident, and next day there were dozens of little boys all over Amsterdam with their tongues stuck to bridges.

My case has shown two teenagers on Waiheke Island that they can lie to the police and the court and get away with it, and by that means get an adult into very serious hot water. They can make a false allegation and make it stick, and that the police prosecutor has skilfully shown them how to present themselves in court to achieve that. They have received a malignant education.

Therefore adults on Waiheke are now vulnerable to any teenager with grudge. All he or she needs to do is arrange things so that the target adult is alone with two or more of them, then agree on a story of a criminal act, and the adult is on his or her way to a guilty verdict and possibly a jail sentence.

The teenage grapevine never sleeps, so that How To is bound to get round those who have little interest in telling the truth, care nothing for the harm they do to the lives of others, and have a score to settle.

The recent case where a New Zealand teenager was found guilty of burning the mother of her former boyfriend to death by setting fire to her house because she wanted to get back at him is an extreme example of the same thing.

For adults, particularly on Waiheke, the moral of my story is before you allow yourself to be alone with a couple of teenagers study their shoulders. If there is a chip on them aimed at you, beware! And if you find yourself alone with them, avoid creating even the smallest chip. The court has given them the whip hand.

The Law of Unintended Consequences can be a harsh and terrifying law.

LIES HAVE TRIUMPHED OVER THE TRUTH

My entire life is concerned with only one thing, perfectly expressed in the words used courts of law: the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. That is the mainspring of my life, it is my paramount, fundamental and over-riding passion.

So it is a terrible shock to have had declared in a New Zealand court of law what I know to be false: that I am a criminal. It is almost unendurable to have watched and listened as two teenagers sat in the witness box and lied their faces off, calmly denied the truth, and were believed by the judge. He believed the liars, he rejected the truth and he convicted an innocent man. Now he will punish me for a crime that I did not commit.

I was accused of hitting on the head a teenager, who with his teenage friend had trespassed on my property on the 25th of May 2010, of hitting him on the head with a branch three feet long and two inches in diameter. Before God's throne I did not. There was no branch, there was no blow upon his head; I did not touch a single hair of his head, directly or indirectly, with anything. That is the truth before the Court of Heaven. But the Court of New Zealand says the opposite.

I did not plead not guilty because I wanted to try to get off the charge by some clever means. I pleaded not guilty because I was not guilty. If I had been guilty I would have pleaded guilty.

My trial has exposed three fundamental flaws in the justice system, which not even the cleverest lawyer on the planet can overcome.

1) The justice system assumes that when people place their right hand on the Bible and asked 'Do you swear before Almighty God that the evidence you are about to give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,' that they when they say 'Yes' that they will then utter nothing but truth. There will be not a word that is false.

But the days are long gone when most people believed in God, believed the Bible, and
believed that to make that promise before God and break it would bring down on their heads his terrible wrath. Few people nowadays are God-fearing, so that oath is only meaningless words and the book on which they place their hands is an irrelevant object. Many have concern at all about lying. They lie as easily as they breathe.

2) New Zealand law says that in the witness box no one can say 'I am not going to answer that.' Anyone eligible to give evidence can be compelled to give it. But that rests on the oath to tell the truth. Witnesses can be compelled to answer, but they cannot be compelled to tell the truth. So they can say 'I don't know' or 'I can't remember' even though they do know, and therefore they have fulfilled compellability, and cannot be forced to say anything more. They can also lie more directly and say something false, and not be compelled to correct themselves.

3) The court assumes that people will obey a court order. So when in my trial the judge, very rightly, took precautions to ensure that witnesses' statements would not be 'tainted' by what others said, and ordered that while each gave evidence the others would be excluded from the court, he assumed that he had made that order safe by also ordering them not talk to each other during the tea- and lunch-breaks about what had been said in court. He said 'You can talk about anything else. You can talk about the rugby, but must not talk about what has been said in court.' He assumed that they would obey him. But the two teenagers and the mother of the one who said he was hit and the prosecuting policeman went off together at the lunchbreak, and it was obvious when the second teenager gave his evidence afterwards that they had not restricted their conversation to the rugby.

Thus the openings for lies are wide, easily accessible, and cannot be blocked off by the smartest of lawyers. In a case like mine, when it is the word of two teenagers against one man, if the judge believes the liars there is nothing at all with which to counter it. There are many situations in life, for everyone, in which it would be impossible to prove the truth in a court of law. And no one can live preparing every moment for a possible court case. That would make life unendurable. So we are all vulnerable, especially if we have a public position, to being attacked by liars and having so little defence that we are vulnerable to a false conviction.

It was established in the trial that neither teenager saw the alleged blow, because they said they both had their backs to me. And one said he had his back to me when the alleged branch was allegedly picked up. Neither could describe the branch, except to say that it was two or three feet long and two inches in diameter (in spite of the fact that they are taught only in metrics, because New Zealand changed to metrics nearly twenty years before they were born, they both gave the measurements in imperial units, which showed that they had been coached by adults). They claimed not to know what the alleged branch looked like, whether it was rough or smooth, had cut or jagged ends, bark or no bark, projections or twigs or smaller branches. They claimed to know nothing at all about it, except its length and
thickness--in imperial units. Of that they were quite sure. They claimed that they were on my property because they had been taking a shortcut through an adjoining forest reserve, heading to a track southwest of their property, although my property is northeast from it--in exactly the opposite direction.

They claimed that they went my way because one of their dogs heard a noise and rushed off to investigate, and they had followed it,and did not catch up with until they got to my place--which is at least 100 metres away through what they admitted was thick, difficult forest. One of them described the noise as loud and startling. The other said he heard nothing; that only the dog heard it. The alleged victim also said that he had fallen against a tree, but denied that he had hit his head, only his shoulder. First he said he had fallen straight backwards, then when it was pointed out that he had also said that I was behind him he altered the direction he had fallen. So it went, point after point after point.

The complainants went to the police station two days after the alleged assault and to a chiropractor four days later. The only medical evidence presented was by the chiropractor who said that he could not be sure how the injuries that he was shown had occurred--a sore neck and some bruising on his head. He alleged that I had put it there with the non-existent branch. He lied.

The position of the bruise was pointed out by the alleged victim, the policeman and the chiropractor. The three positions did not coincide. The policeman pointed to the crown of the head, but admitted that he had not actually seen the bruise, the alleged victim pointed to a place forward of that, the chiropractor indicated tenderness from the crown across to where a baby has the fontanelle, and the judge did not think it was significant that it would be impossible to deliver a blow from behind and below that would get to the front of the head, which slopes away from anyone behind, especially below. The chiropractor said he could not sure when the injuries had occurred--that they could have occurred at any time during the previous week--i.e., at any time between the 23rd of May and the 29th inclusive. He was seen on the 29th, the police were seen on the 27th and the alleged assault was said to have occurred on the 25th. The chiropractor also said that the injuries could have sustained in many ways, such as by slipping and falling in the bush and hitting against something, and that he had no way of telling, from his examination, how they had been sustained--except for what the teenager had told him, and the chiropractor said that the mother was doing a lot of prompting. She would say something and the boy would agree.

The police admitted that they had not searched for a branch with my DNA on one end and the teenager's DNA on the other. They admitted that they had not called a doctor to examine the bruise on the 27th to establish whether it had been sustained on the 25th. They presented no physical or medical evidence of any kind to the provenance of what they 'saw' on the 27th, and they admitted that their entire case rested on the word of only one teenage trespasser.

The other one saw nothing even of the alleged assault, and even the alleged victim said he had had his back to me.

But the judge said he thought the teenagers were telling the truth. He ignored all the places where their testimonies differed, saying that those only proved that they had not been coached. He did not see the places where, to quote Hamlet, 'There is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to cover.'

He has convicted an innocent man. He will sentence an innocent man. The lies have prevailed over the truth in what is meant to be a temple of truth before God.

And two teenagers have found that it is possible to lie to the police, and lie under oath in a court of law, and get away with it. That cannot do them any good, and it puts them on a slippery downward slope to ever-worse falsifications.