News Worthy - Dr Richard Worth

new-zealand-national-party

Thu Apr 05 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

News Worthy - Dr Richard Worth

Thursday, 5 April 2007, 5:06 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

5 April 2007 - No. 104

To smack or not to smack
The saga relating to the passage of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill continues.
Two issues have recently emerged of relevance. The conviction of a woman who beat her son with a wooden spoon, leaving circular welts on his arms and hands, shows Section 59 does not prevent convictions for domestic assault.
The Prime Minister and others have consistently demanded that the law needs changing so that people who 'bash and thrash' their children can be successfully prosecuted. She has been proved wrong.

There is no case for the law change.
A very significant amount of time has been spent in consideration and debate on the proposed legislation.
Figures which I have extracted on the cost of running Parliament indicate that the cost per sitting hour is $616,644.
COST OF RUNNING PARLIAMENT
Actual Expenditure $thousand 2004/05 Estimated Actual Expenditure $thousand 2005/06
Vote Parliamentary Service 95,825 123,146
Vote Parliamentary Counsel 14,586 15,882
Vote Ministerial Services 45,518 51,201
Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet 18,218 16,000
Vote Office of the Clerk 12,127 13,913
Total Cost of Parliament (Year) 186,274 220,142
Cost per hour
(24 hours a day, 365 days per year)) 21,264 25,130
Number of sitting hours 608.4 357
Cost per sitting hour $306,170 $616,644
So far the “anti-smacking” debate has taken 9 hours and 5 minutes in addition to countless hours spent by the Justice & Electoral Select Committee on hundreds of submissions when the Bill was before that Committee for consideration.
All of this on a law change which the public has clearly indicated it does not want.
Lunatics taking over the asylum
Theodore Dalrymple is a pseudonym adopted by a retired UK prison psychiatrist. In a recent article he wrote in his typically attractive style:
Last week, the British government announced—because the opposition in Parliament forced it to announce—that 70 prisoners, including three murderers and an unspecified number of burglars, drug dealers, and holders of false passports, had escaped from a single minimum-security prison this year alone. Twenty-eight of them were still at large.
That so many of them absconded suggested that they were not quite the reformed characters that justified lower levels of security in the first place; but as usual in Britain, temporary embarrassment soon subsides into deep amnesia. The fact is that the whole episode is precisely what we have come to expect of our public administration and was nothing out of the ordinary.
In the same week, my former colleagues, senior doctors in the hospital that I worked in until my recent retirement, received a leaflet with their monthly pay stubs. It offered them, along with all other employees, literacy training: a little late in their careers as doctors, one might have thought.
The senior doctors could take up to 30 hours of free courses to improve their literacy and numeracy skills, all in working time, of course. In these courses, they could learn to spell at least some words, to punctuate, to add and do fractions, and to read a graph.
'

Political Quote of the Week
"Those who do not know the plans of competitors cannot prepare alliances. Those who do not know the lay of the land cannot manoeuvre their forces. Those who do not use local guides cannot take advantage of the ground." Sun Tzu, The Art of War - circa 500BC

Dr Richard Worth
National Party MP

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