How bizarre, how bizarre

New Zealanders love a good protest march. Out on the streets, banner in hand, chanting this, that and the other. Alright - so maybe we don't all get out and march, but we all enjoy a wee nostalgia trip down Memory Lane. But now the 87.6% of New Zealanders who voted in the smacking referendum are being called on to show their anger and frustration at the total disregard for democracy in this country. Some businessman is fronting up $450,000 for the march, which is a lot of money to spend on banners and refreshments for the troops. I bet around half of that covers Simon Barnett's appearance fee.

But anyway, it's about democracy! The people want to be heard! They want action! They want to be able to smack their kids if they damn well want to! But will the users of Your Views march? Will you march to support action on the smacking referendum?

Yelspal (Epsom)
Does anybody else see irony in the half-wits announcing a march for the right to beat children on the same day some of Nia Glassie's murderers launch an appeal against their sentences?

Yes, I see the irony. But ouch, comparing child murderers with middle New Zealand? Dodgy territory...

Bonny Le Grice (Papatoetoe)
How bizarre that people want to march for the right to hit other people.

Followed by...

JC (Avonhead)
How bizzare that some people living in a so-called democratic country advocate not listening to the voice of 87% of the population.

(How bizarre, how bizarre! Another nostalgic reminisce!)
Technically JC, it wasn't the 'voice' of 87% of the population. Only 1,682,717 votes were cast, so it's actually only 87.6% of that. Estimates of NZ's current population lie around 4,315,800. You do the math!

Doc (Riccarton)
Wish I was there to march on two counts. To protest against politicians interfering in my family's business and also for ignoring the very substantial vote.
Blathering on about petition wording is a red herring. People knew full well what they were voting on. Don't insult us.
As for the stupid comment about smacking being violence - its crappy thinking like that that creates little monsters who have no respect, no manners, no idea of right and wrong and that do not understand that bad behaviour has consequences for themeslves and others. Smacking leads to better citizens and less violence.

Gosh, how could anyone confuse smacking and violence? They're clearly two different things. Doc has outlined it explicitly for us. Smack your kids and they'll be better for it. Harden up New Zealand!

But in all seriousness, anyone want to organise a counter-march? We don't need $450,000, my Mum's got a couple of tins of red paint and we'll just need to get hold of some old bedsheets.

Swamp fever

John Key hasn't RSVP-ed the Dalai Lama's invitation for the two of them to have some hang time during the Buddhist leader's visit to Auckland in December. One of Key's election promises was that he would meet up with the Dalai Lama, and phwoar, come on John, everyone knows you can't back out on one of those. But the United Chinese Association of New Zealand asked back in April for John to reject the Dalai Lama's visa application. Come on John, you can't please everyone - make a decision.

Your Views has offered the question: Should John Key meet with the Dalai Lama? I'm sure John Key's media adviser is hanging on the every word of the users of Your Views right now. 

Cartman (Auckland)
No he shouldnt China is too important as a trade partner to offend.
Why does he need to see the Dalai Lama anyway? Waste of his time really and its not worth the risk of getting involved in any way.

"Ahh, good point. Trade is pretty important. Must pass these comments on to John."

Graham (Howick)
Cartman (Auckland). It is exactly this repulsive ideology that has seen New Zealands identity/country sold down the river for a few pieces of silver. As long as someone is making money, then everythings alright. Bah Humbug!

"Ooh wait, we don't want to tarnish the image of New Zealand as a peacekeeping and democratic nation. Hmm. In a bit of a bind here."

Melissa (Mt Eden)
Yes he should. Some of these comments are appalling. Always money and economics before ethics with you right wing conservatives. You can't take money past the grave can you? Sort out your priorities! The Dalai Lama is the leader of the Tibetan people, therefore Key has every reason to meet with him plus he said he would.
The Chinese government terrify me. One day we'll all be speaking Chinese and the only 'night life' will be BBQ restaurants and karaoke bars.

"I quite like dining at BBQ restaurants and John is pretty mean on the ol' Singstar. However, as Melissa points out, we did kinda promise we'd meet up with the dude."

Jimmy (New Zealand)
PM John Key, yellow fever (Chinese immegrants) has already swamped NZ. Now please dont let our authority to be swamped by China.
Meet the Dalai Lama if not as a leader, then as a spritual one.

"Too right, can't have reds under the bed when we've already got yellow fever on every bloody corner. Maybe we could swing this to make the hippies happy that John's up for a bit of spirituality while appealing to the hard-line anti-immigration folks through dismissing China's disapproval. Perfect plan. I'll get on the phone to Johnny boy..."

I want to ride my bicycle vs. I love my car

The battle of cyclists versus car drivers is currently raging on Your Views, after an incident involving a car and four bicycles on Auckland's Tamaki Drive prompted them to ask the question: What can be done to make cycling in NZ safer?

Michaelauknz (Mt Eden)
Look New Zealanders are always being hijacked by minority self interest groups and these guys are no exception -
Now they want to have cars even doing 40km 24/7 (some cyclist travel faster than that) and have the road widened so they can continue riding 4 abreast laughing and joking and acting in an often abusive dominating way towards motorists.
I have very good video footage of these guys riding 4 and 2 up in the middle of the actual road in busy times.
Put them back on the footpath, their time is over and from the attacks given here toward motorist by themselves no change will be coming from there attitudes, they got away for far to long being threatening and dysfunctional-
More accidents will happen.No lesson has been learnt here.
Sadly the only thing missing now is the place, date and time.of the next one.
NZ is currently 27th going to 35th in the OECD ranking of the top 25 developed countries and is suffering from the impact of the smart ones who have left.this proves my point.

I can just see Michaelauknz engaging in a vigilante-style surveillance operation, complete with binoculars and camouflage gear.

Halkelorno (Northpark)
What can be done? very little, considering its Auckland. Why ? Just think about a little.
20 or so years ago, Auckland was a relatively safe place to drive,however what successive governments have done is allowed almost unfetted immigration from a huge variety of Pacific Island countries, Asian and African and Indian countries where the majority of the people did not own or drive a car or have any road user experience. The then come to New Zealand and the previous stricter road rules and license tests were conveniently lowered to fit PC rules, no English tests needed and feel free to use an interpreter. What would you expect to happen on the roads. More drivers, totally unskilled, no road sense plus no real knowledge of how to drive a car. Remember when you had to Drive a Manual Car in order to gain your license ? Not any more, this would be too hard and very UN- PC. Now we have the visible evidence and unenviable Road Toll results.
Now we have all the nodding heads, the plaintive outcry's "Something should be done", all in vain because the real answer is too Un PC and we as a people have long lost the guts and fortitude to do anything to rectify the problem.
We will tinker!

There is always someone who names immigration as the key determinant in any problem you throw at them. You might not have seen a link between cyclists, road safety and immigration but ah-ha! Halkelorno has made it as clear as day.

Pepe Perez (Birkenhead)
Nothing will be resolved with the rather emotional motorist vs cyclist debate that is being played out in this forum.
There is a simple answer. Motorists must obey stop signals - which is so rare these days that I wonder why we have the regulation at all. (Which is another debate) Cyclists must stop for red traffic signals - which is so rare . etc etc. Then the existing westbound Special Vehicle Lane (Bus Lane);that is about to turn into a T2 Transit Lane, is extended back into Mission Bay and be made 6am to 10am Monday to Sunday. Should there be a similar Special Vehicle Lane eastbound for the morning and evening peaks for the same reasons. Not my call, but worth thinking about.
In the end, cyclists and motorists need to and can live together without conflict - but each has to show respect to the other; not easy to find in the society we live in today. Finally, we all need to respect and obey the laws governing operation of a vehicle on our nations roads to ensure we keep this sort of accident to a minimum.

Pepe Perez doesn't see the "emotional" discussion in this thread as resulting in any concrete resolution, and instead proposes everyone sticks to the road rules. Commonsense prevails? Cyclists and motorists travelling together in harmony. What a beautiful way to end the post.

Let's settle this over a beer

Assisted by figures from Statistics New Zealand, the Herald asserts that kiwi expats are returning home. The housing market looks set to prosper as expats flock home in droves to buy houses and sit down with a glass of L&P and some Marmite on Vogel's.

Your Views asked: As an expat, what are your thoughts on returning home? When you consider this question in light of others posed by Your Views, it's actually rather good. It defines a target audience within the group of Your Views users and contains an open question. Let's see how the users respond...

2 Shaxs (United States of America)
Reasons to Return -
1: Clean, Green
2: Lack of populace ( 4 mill.c'mon, thats nothing )
3: Surf, Beaches - no pollution.
4: No pollution ( read 3 )
5: No Genetically Modified Crapola in Food.
6: Mum,Daughter.( Normal - I miss family stuff )
7: Uncrowded Surf.

Reasons to say the hell away -
1: Lazy Maoris who want to steal your stuff. Don't call me racist as I am a Maori, but growing up there, I have seen Maoris who think the Dole and the DPB are a birth right, and what is yours is theirs ( after they break a window to get to it )
2: Bemoaning Politicians such as Peter Sharples who think Maor's should have everything handed to them because of injustices.
3: Pakehas who fall under the same heading as 2.
4: Pathetic, trivial sentences for criminals.
Wake up NZ. Rapes should be 25+. Mandatory. Assaults with weapons = Attempted Murder. Murder ( no brainer here ) = LIFE / NO Chance of parole. Thefts,If you didn't learn after the 3rd conviction, 10yrs no parole. Drunk Driving - easy too. 1st - lose car. Gone. Nada.$5000 fine. 2nd - 5yrs Prison.

In Shaxs' view, New Zealand is not just "clean" and "green" but has "no pollution". Does he work for the Tourism Board? No wait, he can't because he highlights his fear of the amount of crime in New Zealand and describes all Maori as lazy, dole-bludging thieves. Guess what Shaxs? That's a racist stereotype, so yes, I'm deeming your comment racist. 

Now for an interesting interaction between a "kiwi" and an expat:

Jeepers (Auckland)
What amazes me is that these people take off overseas to make their money but when times get tough they come running home! Do we really need these people back who can't show determination and stickability in hard times.

Monkeyboy (United Kingdom)
I have to laugh at comments by people like Jeepers who go on the attack to people who have moved overseas. I earn five times what I could in NZ so it makes sense to earn overseas and save to come back home. Unfortunately in NZ opportunities are scarce, wages are low, taxes are high, and can someone please tell me why interest rates are so high for mortgages in NZ, almost double the UK rates. Kiwis pay almost 10% of their property mortgage value in interest each year, that is scandalous and the Australian owned banks are laughing all the way to the.
NZ is and will always be my home, it doesn't make me a traitor to my country because I am making the most of opportunities that will allow me contribute to the NZ economy by returning with hard earned overseas cash (like John Key did).
Jeepers I will be returning home in a couple of years, not because times are tough but because I will have enough money to buy a house freehold and semi retire (all before 40). I will be more than happy to buy you a beer, if you can get the time off work.

Jeepers (Auckland)
Monkeyboy (UK), would love a beer and yes I have the time because I am retired and yes I'm only 45. And I did it here in NZ by hard work and seeing the need for a product that no one else did.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in the pub where Jeepers and Monkeyboy sit down for a bevvie!

Engineered to fail

Peter Hughes, a maths lecturer from the University of Auckland, claims that only a third of New Zealand students entering secondary school are numerate. Hughes makes this claim in light of the fact that a numeracy test he has created was seen as rather difficult by an unnamed secondary school's maths department head. The story even includes the test in question, which is assumed 70% of Year 11 students would fail, for readers to have a go at and click a link for the solutions. Now that's what I call interactivity.

In true form to Your Views, the problems and pitfalls of an entire education system come under scrutiny because of one person's specific claim about a specific topic - rates of numeracy in secondary school students. Your Views asks: Does the NZ education system fail to cover the basics? not "What are your impressions of the NZ education system?" or anything of a similarly open nature. Alongside the article and standing on its own, the question is coded with meaning and works to trigger responses that argue the NZ education does "fail to cover the basics".

The question has obviously encouraged those who seek to list one by one the evil temptations and trappings of modern childhood and how children are helpless victims of "brainwashing".
 
Help Us ASAP! (Auckland Central)
May be or may be not but it has a lot to do with the socialisation of what they learn at school. They may learn maths and writing at school, but in reality they are brainwashed by the media in TV, Video Games, GE foods, chemical drinks, and inappropriate peer pressure

Brainwashing!

Lucy in the Sky (Auckland Central)
Our schools focus on brainwashing the kids about nukes, the environment, global warming, eating right, charity, multiculturalism and political correctness, when all of these are the domain of the parent. They should be teaching school stuff, like reading, writing, maths, history, physics, chemistry, biology & geography. Stuff that matters.

More brainwashing! I'm confused about what "matters" according to Lucy in the Sky - surely things that are in the "domain of the parent" should be the things that "matter" most?

ryan (Bahamas)
Lazyness is also to blame. Too much tv and xbox and sports. I say throw away the TV, get some strict discipline in schools and bugger this pc nonsense that's destroyed NZ. Hell when i was at school there was nothing wrong with a good spanking, and good old fashioned discipline, short hair for boys etc,we are not making good citizens here

I get the feeling Ryan thinks a short haircut and a good spank would sort out a lot of the problems in New Zealand.

After all this talk of brainwashing and spanking, let's leave today's post with a thoughful response from bob of the Bay of Plenty. Three cheers for bob for putting his thinking cap on a little before clicking "send".

bob (Bay Of Plenty)
I'm a little puzzled by this article. Peter Hughes states that just a third of students are entering secondary school numerate and backs this up by using a comment from a secondary school teacher. Where's the research that backs up this highly inflammatory comment?
Further on in the article it states that Ministry of Education figures show our students are above the OECD average. So who is right here, the lecturer whose comments are backed up by a second hand comment from someone else. Or the Government department with research from a world renowned organisation?
Before jumping on this teacher bashing bandwagon I think some more considered research into this issue would be needed.

Grown men can't pick on children without being questioned. It's all PC gone mad.

Michael Laws is providing excellent fodder for the NZ Herald and indeed all New Zealand news outlets at the moment. The banning of gang patches, the battle to save Wanganui from the dreaded 'h' and now this: parents angry about Laws writing a heated letter to school kids in response to their request to put the 'h' back in W(h)anganui, uh-oh. He argued:  
"When your class starts addressing the real issues affecting Maoridom - particularly the appalling rate of child abuse and child murder within Maori society, then I will take the rest of your views seriously."

Ruffled feathers, anyone? I wonder if Michael Laws takes Your Views seriously? If he does, he might feel safe in the comfort of his many fans. Should Michael Laws have to apologise over his letter to Otaki School?

LukaDuka (Newton)

I am all for ML. This country has gone to the "PC correct" dogs. He hit the nail on the head.

Luigi (Auckland)
At least we can count on Laws saying it like it is, rather than spouting some PC based claptrap we have had to endure over the past 9 years. The kids were prompted by their teacher - no doubt. They were arrogant in "their" letters - no doubt again.

andy pandy (Blenheim)

Go Michael! The more you stick it up the PC brigade the better. Of course these kids were put up to it by their teacher (and other adults?) No self respecting kid would voluntarily enter into such a debate of their own accord. The whole things a media beat up and makes me ashamed to call myself a kiwi.

Notice the reoccurrence of anti-PC sentiment. Such language goes down well with a large number of Your Views users, who seem to drop negative references towards political processes and "political correctness" in order to strengthen their argument that New Zealand has "gone soft". It is easy to see how this kind of language prevents users from engaging with oppositional arguments in a constructive way, instead it constructs a separation between two sides who see eachother respectively as "PC cardigan-wearing nanny-state-loving hippies" and "ignorant narrow-minded racist bigots". I quite like James W's contribution to the discussion in this thread, an attempt to deconstruct the constant negative references to "PC":

James W (Auckland Central)
Whenever people say "It's PC gone mad!" what they mean is "I can't say or do offensive things anymore, waaaaah!". How about just being a decent, respectful citizen?

Nicely put James W. To use LukaDuka's phrase, you "hit the nail on the head".

Enriching Discussion

Finally the budding scientists amongst the Your Views community are given a chance to provide their expert knowledge on a very controversial topic: "Does drinking vitamin and mineral-enriched milk improve your health?" Now there's an important question. I'm glad the NZ Herald put the question to the public on that one.

Tanz (Napier)

There is more absorbable calcium in green leafy veges than milk, plus other good minerals and fibre which all work synergistically in the body for good health. But there are also too many parents afraid their kids will starve if they don't eat what's put in front of them. Harden up NZ!

I'm always amazed at how there will always be some users of Your Views who manage to include some kind of critique of the state of the New Zealand nation in relatively banal topics like this one. In this comment Tanz links nutrition to namby pamby parenting habits and then tells us all to "Harden up"!

Nathan (St Lukes)

I am not sure if it improves your heath but definitly I am told protects your health. I know someone who was in NZ few years back. Holds Phd and few international awards in diets and nutrition. She is currently based in USA.Her advice to my young daugters were to drink XTRA milk with added calcium. I trust her judgement that the milk replnishes atleast some of the Ca lost by women which is beneficial. I trust her judgement than any consumer group based in Aussie.

A classic example of the "a friend of a friend is an expert" response to the topic!