What You Tax You Get More Of

Idiotic Taxation Policy

Man arrested for trying to smuggle 2.2m cigarettes in Customs' largest-ever tobacco seizure

According to NZ Herald reporter, Kim Moodie

A Malaysian national has been busted trying to smuggle more than two million cigarettes into New Zealand in Customs' largest-ever tobacco seizure.  He was arrested on Wednesday for attempting to evade $2.72m in duty and GST and trying to smuggle 2.2m cigarettes through the border.

Customs' group manager of intelligence, investigations and enforcement, Dana McDonald, said the tobacco seizure - Customs' largest ever at the border in a single shipment - was "yet another example of organised crime involvement in tobacco fraud".  Criminals will do whatever they can to make money, regardless of the commodity – it's just business for them," she said.

"With cigarette prices in New Zealand amongst the highest globally, tobacco fraud is seen as a lucrative business venture for criminals, and sadly we expect this trend to continue." [Emphasis, ours.]

The final paragraph is the "tell all".  New Zealand has amongst the highest tobacco prices in the world.  But most of the price is tax.  The idea is that higher taxes will (of course) result in higher "on the shelf prices".   Is the government short of money, we hear you ask?  Not at all.  The higher taxes-higher prices model is designed to discourage people from buying smokes, thereby driving tobacco out of NZ society.

The actual effect is quite different from that envisaged by dumb politicians.  Higher prices merely encourage people to take the risks and sneak tobacco into the New Zealand marketplace and sell it on the black market at the present tax-inflated price.  This results in huge profits to the smugglers--and plenty of ciggies to be had by anyone willing to pay the current market contraband price.

Which groups of politicians are responsible for this idiots' mess?  The Greens.  And the Maori Party.

Cover Up?

A Horror Chamber

This country is slowly being choked to death by the ‘rights’ of wrongdoers and the refusal of authority to protect the innocent

By PETER HITCHENS

MAIL ON SUNDAY

+6

Dr Barry Hounsome, 54, was violently killed in his own home on October 29 last year 

Don’t the authorities want to prevent crime? See what you think about this case. Once, the terrible, lonely death of college lecturer Barry Hounsome, like something out of an obscene horror film, would have been so shocking and unusual that it would have occupied national newspaper front pages for days.

But you probably have not heard of it, since such things are far too common in civilised modern Britain.

Dr Hounsome, then 54, was at his modest home in the Hampshire town of Gosport (where I once lived, in another, gentler age) on October 29 last year. He had worked for Southampton and Bangor universities and carried out research into dementia and Parkinson’s disease. He was the sort of person who might have expected to be safe, in the sort of place where he might have expected to be secure.

As far as can be told from the published evidence, he was disturbed by an intruder breaking in through his patio door. But this was no ordinary burglar. The 16-year-old who entered his home was wearing a stab vest and goggles.

His assailant had also equipped himself with electric drills, hammers and knives. An account of the trial describes what happened:

A Nation Going Gently Into the Night

The Star Chamber Makes a Comeback in the UK

A fundamental ethical principle that underscores freedom is:  not all sins are crimes.  Imagine if this were not observed and protected in a country.  Since sin is pervasive in all human communities the criminal code would expand to cover all areas of human life--leading to an extreme totalitarian state. 

To lie is to commit sin.  Imagine, however,  if all lies were criminalised.   Imagine a child lied to his parents about where he got the fifty cent coin that has been discovered in his pockets.  Off to court, guilty conviction, and a criminal sentence for the child.  Or, imagine an adult embellishing his employment record.  His "exaggeration" is discovered and he is arrested on the spot for the "crime" of lying.

But in the UK, things are even more extreme.  The definition of what constitutes a "sin" is entirely in the "eyes and ears" of the observer.  One female may regard a male's wolf whistle as harmless, and a bit of fun.  The next may regard it as and offensive hate crime because it demeans and degrades her.  That legitimately qualifies as both a sin and a crime in the United Kingdom--even if the "crime" is not written up in the statute book.

The only upshot possible from such legal abuse is an eventual tyranny over its citizens.   But the form in which this tyranny is unfolding is unique to our generation.  In the United Kingdom sins--and what constitutes a sin--are in the eye and ear of the observer.  Not only are sins crimes, but the definition of a sin lies entirely with the complainant. 

This, from The Federalist:

Avoiding the Obvious

Elephants in the Room

Marty Sharpe
Stuff

There are a few things you get used to when you spend a lot of time in court. First, Māori make up the vast majority of defendants; second, it's dominated by the same surnames and families coming up year after year; third, alcohol and/or drugs are almost always involved; and four; gang influence, specifically from the Mongrel Mob is insidious.

There is a problem, but if you ask me it's not the justice system, it's the system that allows these kids to become victims and consequently offenders.

This isn't news. We've been talking about this for decades. Which is why the justice summit seemed a strange thing to hold.  It's strange because it's tackling a symptom, not the cause.

If there was one thing I'd want to impress on anyone who was interested, it's that prison sentences are not given out lightly. Listening to some commentators and critics, you would think the judiciary was stacked with men and women itching to send defendants to prison.

In fact, judges and others in the justice system are at pains not to send people to jail.

The Fruits of Liberal Social Ideology

We Reap What We Sow

Yesterday we blogged on a piece by Garth McVicar on crime and punishment.  McVicar went on to discuss what he believes is the most significant driver of criminality in New Zealand.  

We strongly endorse his argument.

I was born in 1951, a time when New Zealand's crime and prison numbers were incredibly low — in fact, the country was averaging one or two homicides a year until the early 1960s.  So what went wrong? How did one of the safest countries in the western world end up spiralling to a totally unacceptable level of crime? Why is it that even locking people up doesn't stop new criminals emerging? What is different about our country now that is creating this new breed of criminal?

The one common denominator that [Minister of Justice] Little and his colleagues won't dare talk about is the traditional family. I'm talking about a stable family unit — two parents and the children they bring into a loving, cherished relationship ... where the child grows up being taught right from wrong to become a law-abiding, contributing citizen.

The figures speak for themselves. In 1961, 95 per cent of children were born into a traditional family with married parents. By 2015 only 53 per cent of children were brought into the world by parents who were married.  A child that grows up without a father is five times more likely to commit crime.  The evidence shows more children are abused in de-facto-type households and a child who has been abused is 20 times more likely to end up in prison when an adult.

For Māori the figures are worse. In 1968, 72 per cent of Māori children were born to married parents. They had both a mother and a father as role models, just as the vast majority of Pacific Island children do today.  By 2015 only 21 per cent of Māori children were born into a traditional mother and father married-to-each-other family. The stark, staring fact is that the mantra "all forms of family or whānau are equal" is clearly absolute nonsense, and the statistics clearly prove that to be so.

The evidence is clear that a child needs a father who wants and loves them. This is the best way to raise a child to become a law-abiding, contributing member of society.  Little's justice summit won't dare say anything like that. They fear they might offend the left-wing liberals who have been at the forefront of breaking down the family unit.

These liberals would rather focus on the problem of prison numbers than face the reality of what their social ideology has created.  [NZ Herald]

• Garth McVicar is founder of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

The causes of crime are a multi-headed hydra.  But we believe McVicar had identified the Big One.

Here We Go Again

Crime and Punishment

Garth McVicar has written an opinion piece in the NZ Herald on crime and prisons in New Zealand. 

The saying, "We reap what we sow", highlights the farming experience that if you don't work in partnership with nature, you get a dud crop. It comes to mind when I think about the latest twist in the crime and punishment debate; the number of people in prisons.  The focus on the product of crime, prisoners and victims, gives little attention to the root causes of the problem. That is to say, we are worried by what we're reaping and not enough by what we're sowing.

Minister of Justice Andrew Little wants to find ways to reduce the prison population. Essentially, this will be achieved by softening bail legislation and making parole easier to get.  The result will be more offenders on the streets. The streets will become more dangerous and public safety will suffer as a consequence.

The inconvenient truth about high prison rates is that crime has fallen. New Zealand's homicides peaked at 176 a year but have now declined to around 80 per year and are still falling.  As New Zealand locked up its criminals for longer, the terrible crimes that resulted in the formation of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, such as those against Teresa Cormack, Kylie Smith and Karla Cardno, have declined. But locking people up is a response to criminals, not the complete answer to preventing the creation of criminals.

Violent crime rates are dropping substantially in New Zealand.  Prison numbers are rising.  McVicar argues that there is a causal connection between these two hard statistical measures.  In other words, the reason violent crime statistics are reducing is due to violent offenders being kept longer in prison. 

The extremely liberal Labour Government finds this offensive.  Labour denies McVicar's causal link. Its position appears to be this: when it reduces prison numbers as it plans to do, it will have no effect on the incidence of violent crime in New Zealand.  Rather, Labour's position appears to be that reducing prison numbers will create a virtuous circle whereby reducing the number of people in prisons will actually reduce criminal offending in New Zealand. 

That is an extremely bold position to hold.  But there it is.  Labour in all its glory. 

Actually, in order to get to Labour's naive position, they have to add in a couple of suppressed, or hidden, premises.  Their whole case turns upon these not-so-often-talked-about beliefs.

Oh How Clever We Are . . .

Crime and Punishment

The present NZ Government appears all at sea over crime and criminality.  In a nutshell, its naive and simplistic view is that crime is caused by social problems.  Fix society's problems within the sectors of Health, Education, and Welfare, and crime would drop away to nothing.  As is always the case, the Left runs this reductionist absurdity with a high octane dose of self-righteousness.

The Left sees itself as compassionate and nuanced on the matter.  It is deeply aware of the social causes of crime and criminality which have captured people, turning them into criminals.  It's love for such disadvantaged folk who have ended up in the prison system quickly morphs into self-righteousness.  It characterizes its ideological opponents as cruel, simplistic, narrow, and bigoted.  This implies that the Left is compassionate, nuanced, sophisticated, and broad-minded.

• The Left presents itself as intelligent, advanced, and sophisticated.  It refuses to address criminality in a superficial manner.  It relishes the complexity of the social causes of crime because to pontificate and meditate upon such things creates a self-image of Leftist sophistication and intelligence.  Those who oppose Leftist sophistication are easily and readily characterised as red-necks.
  
• The Left relishes the prospect of the State being cast as the Saviour and Redeemer of society.  Prisons are essentially negative in the "solutions" they offer to crime.  They punish by their very nature.  But the Left sees  that as both negative and cruel.  On the other hand, to use the power, resources, and functions of the State to redeem people from criminal lifestyles, is a high and holy calling.

At this point, the Left is feeling really good about itself.  Oozing moral superiority it stands forth as the Great Solution to NZ crime and criminality. Cue Andrew Little, the present Minister of Justice.

The Man Who Would Put Things Right

Cuddling Up To Recidivist Criminals

Andrew Little, Minister of Justice in New Zealand, is committed to removing New Zealand's Three Strikes Law.  He calls it a total failure.  In so doing he is being disingenuous--and he knows it.  The NZ Three Strikes law was carefully crafted to ensure that it gradually came in effect over time, allowing offenders plenty of warning of the increasing penalties they faced if they continued to commit serious crimes.  

Moreover, the law as passed was scrupulous to ensure that judges had the right to override the law in the event of unintended outcomes.  But Little argues that the ineffectiveness of the law is proven by the fact that over eight years, it has not reduced crime one little bit, and no-one has received a third strike sentence.  He well knows that it the law was intended to come into force gradually and it is only now that our worst recidivist offenders are facing their final Third Strike, meaning a mandatory,  fully served sentence would be handed down.  But, says Little in a master stroke of duplicity, the fact that it has made no difference over eight years "proves" the law has failed.

London Risks Summer of Carnage

Leading Surgeon Says Violence in London ‘Like South Africa’

Virginia Hale
Breitbart London




London’s crime wave will develop into “carnage” come summer, a leading trauma surgeon has predicted.  He warns that  ultra-violence in the capital is “the new normal”.  Dr Martin Griffiths, a consultant surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust, said soaring knife and gun crime has resulted in London “looking more like South Africa, or inner-city U.S.” with regards to the rate of attacks.

Naive Leftist Politicians

Crime and Punishment

The new leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is Simon Bridges.  He has been moving around New Zealand introducing himself to the country.  As part of "the tour" he visited his old secondary school, Rutherford College.

Here are some excerpts from his speech.

Because I will be asking for your vote in 2020, I believe you have the right to know who I am. You should know what drives me and what I stand for.  I grew up a Westie – one with a blended background.  My mum is Pakeha and Dad is Māori.  We lived near enough to here that I walked to school. As a family, we weren’t well off, but we never went without.  I am the youngest of six children. . . .  

Growing up, my parents instilled in me a strong sense of right and wrong.  Dad was a Baptist minister at the church around the corner from here, so as well as being a supportive family we were taught the value of serving the community.  . . .

But even those who have tough childhoods do not need to be defined or limited by that. All of us have the ability to better ourselves, and improve our lot in life.  That belief is part of what drew me to the National Party.  I am ambitious for New Zealanders.  I back New Zealanders to succeed on their own two feet.  I back enterprise, and I think that people who take a risk and do well, and those who work hard, and who contribute to their communities, should be celebrated.  I also have a fundamental belief in personal responsibility. You can take pride in doing well, but you should take responsibility if you do harm.

As I said, I studied law. First, in Auckland, then at Oxford University, in England. . . .  My career in the law led me to become a Crown prosecutor.  I was responsible for making the case to a judge or jury in court that someone was guilty and should go to jail.  Over time, I was in charge of hundreds of trials, sometimes dealing with the worst things one person can do to another.

Assaults, rapes and murders.  It was a role of huge contrasts. Many days I was depressed by the dark side of human behaviour.  But other times I was inspired by the resilience of victims, and sometimes by previous offenders who were gradually putting their lives back together.  One particular case will be with me forever.

"Crazy, Violent City"

London Burning

Liam Deacon
Breitbart London

A young father and a woman were stabbed in London within 30 minutes last night, as the number murdered in the capital this year hits 59. The killings come as News Yorkers living in London said they fear the “crazy” violent crime wave overtaking the city. “It’s like home but without the breakdancing,” one said.

The Metropolitan force launched the first murder probe after Raul Nicolaie, 26, was stabbed at his flat in Colindale, north London. He was rushed to hospital but died from the injuries.  A woman, 34, was arrested at the scene and was taken to a north London police station. She and the dead man were known to each other.

Just half an hour after later, a woman in her 30s was found with fatal knife wounds at a house in Brixton at around 6.30pm on Sunday. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.  A man in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of the killing and he remains in custody at a south London police station. It is thought the victim and the man arrested were known to each other.

Inglorious London

First, There Was Sodom and Gomorrah--And Now, London.

Churchgoer Is 19th Homicide Victim in Sadiq Khan’s London This Month

Jack Montgomery
Breitbart News

A 50-year-old Christian has become the 19th homicide victim in Sadiq Khan’s London this month.
David Potter was found stabbed to death in his flat above an Asian off-licence in Tooting by police on Monday afternoon, the Evening Standard reports.

Thought to be the eleventh homicide victim in the British capital in a fortnight, Mr. Potter is said to have been a regular churchgoer, and often took in homeless people to stay with him after having spent some time as a rough sleeper himself in 2003.  “He was a good man. There was never a problem,” commented a worker at the off-licence he lived above.

Justice Minister Little Vs Reality

Up Close and Personal With Thuggery

A harrowing story has been published in the NZ media.  The case involved a private individual going about his lawful business only to be struck down by a "coward's punch".  Here we have a completely innocent victim being singled out for a sneaky sucker punch, just for the "pleasure" of the perp being able to show how powerful and significant he is.  

Tanner - a professional chef who has still (been) unable to return to work - said the assault came on an evening of celebration with his partner Charleen Trass with the couple having just realised years of hard work to buy their first home.  "We had been working so hard to achieve our goals. It was a rare night out," said Tanner.

The Kerikeri couple had bought tickets to go to the Marley NZ All Stars Show, a reggae collective playing at Waipapa's Kainui Road Vineyard. They had arranged care for their four children and were going with family and friends to the midday soundcheck - care of tickets won by Trass' sister - before the evening's entertainment.  [NZ Herald]

A local Northland MP, Matt King happened to be at the same event when he saw the perpetrator, Jaydin Locke commit a heinous crime.  He described what he saw:

More on NZ Labour's Kamikaze Penal Policy

Labour’s Goal of a Safer Society Doomed to Fail

David Garrett

Hat Tip: Kiwiblog

[Justice Minister] Andrew Little has said  he is utterly committed to creating a safer New Zealand – a laudable  goal, but one which he simply cannot achieve given Labour’s present assumptions about offending and penal policy. His colleague Kelvin Davis wants to  reduce the prison population by 30% – impossible unless we release those convicted of violent offences. Some leftie claimed  on National Radio the other day that the jails are “full of people convicted of cannabis offences”. This is a myth.  In fact, only 12% of the prison population are there for drug offences, the vast majority of them for manufacturing, distributing  or importing P. None are in jail for possession of cannabis.

The first thing Labour needs to change is the common leftie perception that most prisoners are hapless boys who have had  one lamentable lapse – a sudden mad or drugged urge to commit an aggravated robbery perhaps. The reality is very different. The average prisoner has 46 convictions – yes you read that right – forty six , and has served the gamut of non-custodial sentences before finally being incarcerated. Of the 5% who have less than five convictions, they will invariably be in prison for murder or a very serious assault.

Do-gooders like Workman like to mock people like me by suggesting that we have an unreasoning and irrational  fear of a mythical  “Other”; that those in jail are really pretty much ordinary people, just like the rest of us. While this picture may have been at least partly true 50 years ago, it is emphatically not so today.

Expected Demise of the Government

"If You Treat Us Nicely We Will Stop"

That did not take long.  The brand new Labour led New Zealand government has unsheathed a kukri knife and commenced the slow death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts.  Sometimes governments and elites risk become so enmeshed in their self-spun ideology that they depart from reality to another world.  And so, within a matter of months, it has come to pass in New Zealand.

The Minister of Justice is a fine fellow.  He has declared that the prison roll in New Zealand must be reduced.  This is to come about by a profoundly clever strategy.  He will shorten prison sentences, let more criminals out on bail, treat criminals nicely, and voila, crime will drop.  To naive, stupid Andrew Little, Minister of Justice the solution to overcrowded prisons is simple: treat people "kindly" and overnight they will become model citizens, who offend no more.  He has been encouraged to think along these lines by an (ostensible) chorus of elite academics who have assured him that his strategy will be a winner.

Hard Baked Human Depravity

No Hope In This World

There is a growing "class" of people in New Zealand who give every indication they are beyond redemption.  The clay has been in the oven far too long.  It has baked into hard, intractable lines.  

The people found in the "baked clay" class have sometimes been referred to as the Underclass.  These are people who are locked into an endless cycle of destructive behaviour, including self-destruction.  In recent days a case was profiled in the media which illustrates what goes on in the thoroughly baked underclass.

He was the best boyfriend she ever had.  Kind-hearted, helpful and selfless, she said.  But seven weeks on, she was thinking differently – and irrationally. He was a snake, a snitch and spreading rumours.  Over four hours in a friend's kitchen, she tied his hands behind his back, stripped him and assaulted him with punches and kicks.   She then marched him out of the flat and took him to the desolate state house where she lived with her pregnant sister. There she wrapped a computer cord around his neck and strangled him. Police found his body the next day wrapped in a red faux mink blanket under a double bed.  [Stuff]

Zariah Jae Samson, 25, at her sentencing for manslaughter last year.

The events are horrific.  The crime deserved a severe sanction.  Yet there is a back story to Samson that goes a long way to explain (not justify) who she is and what she has become.

One of Theirs

The Progressives Own Joseph Roman

The West is awash with identity politics and "trans" politics.  The sexuality of no-one can be limited to genes or sexual body parts--we are told.  One's sexuality is all a matter of how one self-identifies.  Facebook has kindly identified over fifty different, distinct gender identities.  The chattering classes, the elite, the media, and the Left in general insist that the rest of society treat these gender identities with deep respect.

Recently a thirty-eight year old man, accused of a large number of molestation charges against pre-teen girls, offered a rationale for his actions: he said he was a boy trapped in a man's body.  He is playing the (now) stock, standard identity gambit.

A 38-year-old Chicago man accused of molesting three pre-teen girls told police he is a boy trapped in a man’s body, according to court documents.  Joseph Roman was charged with a long list of sexual molestation charges after three girls between the ages of six and eight came forward alleging they were assaulted during a three-year period.  During a January 24 hearing, Roman reportedly admitted to some of the charges and told the court he felt he was “a nine-year-old trapped in an adult’s body,” according to the Chicago Tribune.  [Breitbart News]

The point is this: no-one in the progressive identity crowd can gainsay the claim.  If a male can be a female inside a man's body--and that identity can be recognised in law, social institutions, employment, schools, the work-place, etc.--so must Roman's claim be recognized.

Home Truths

Denzel Washington to Black America

Stop Blaming the Prison System, ‘It Starts at Home’

Jerome Hudson
Breitbart News

Veteran actor Denzel Washington says his latest role as a dogged defense attorney in Roman J. Israel, Esq. reinforced his belief that black men “can’t blame the system” because we make it “easy work” when it comes to filling America’s prisons.

“It starts at the home. It starts at home. It starts with how you raise your children. If a young man doesn’t have a father figure, he’ll go find a father figure,” the Academy Award-winner told reporters at the Dan Gilroy-directed film’s New York premiere, the New York Daily News reports.

“So you know I can’t blame the system. It’s unfortunate that we make such easy work for them,” Washington said.

Letter From the UK (On Crime in England)

England Policing Crisis

Crime Up 13 Per Cent, Rape up 22 Per Cent, Just One in Nine Burglaries Solved

Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London

Police recorded crimes for England and Wales surged to over five million over the last year, according to a new Office for National Statistics (ONS) bulletin.  Britain’s official statistical institute reports a 13 per cent increase in crime in the year ending June 2017, with the total number of offences surpassing five million for the first time a decade.

Violent crime appears to have increased even more sharply, with some of the headline figures including:

• 1,229,260 offences of violence against the person, an increase of 19 per cent on the previous year
• 129,700 sexual offences, an increase of 19 per cent on the previous year
• 45,100 rapes, an increase of 22 per cent on the previous year
• 36,998 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, an increase of 26 per cent on the previous year
•  6,696 offences involving firearms, an increase of 27 per cent on the previous year — despite draconian controls on legal gun-ownership
• Non-violent crime also appears to be on the increase, with burglary up 6 per cent, theft from the person up 11 per cent,  shoplifting up 11 per cent, and vehicle-related crime up 17 per cent.

Clear-up rates are also extremely poor for some offences, with just one burglary in ten resulting in “a suspect being identified”.

Cheap Propaganda and Throw-Away Lines

Avoiding the Hard Questions

An interesting piece has been published as a "guest post" at Kiwiblog.  Written by Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, it responds directly to the plan by Labour's Kelvin Davis to reduce the prison population by 30 percent.  

The Sensible Sentencing Trust which as stood up as a public voice to speak out for the victims of crime and the necessity of just judgement being rendered upon the perpetrators has taken the time and trouble to access and assess Corrections data on sentencing in New Zealand.

The revelations are staggering.  They beggar belief.