Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, February 29th, 2008 - 67 comments
Categories: national, scoundrels -
Tags: national, scoundrels
National MP for Northland, John Carter, is ‘up in arms about a decision allowing inmates from Ngawha Prison to play in the Whangarei and Districts Rugby League competition.’ This kind of activity is an important part of rehabilitation.
In case you are wondering, yes, this is the same John Carter who, in 1995, rang fellow National MP and racist John Banks’ talkback show pretending to be a Maori dole bludger named Hone. That forced Jim Bolger to sack him as Government Whip. 12 years later, he’s reached lofty heights as National’s Spokesperson for Local Government.
Ironically, he’s ranked 19 in the party, so he wouldn’t even make National’s league team.
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MP John Carter says the purpose of prison is to punish inmates
What a filthy old reactionary. It’s ignorance like that that leads to prisoners getting out unreformed and beating up pensioners and the like. But then I guess National would just see that as an opportunity to write another outraged press release…
James you may be surprised but putting your rhetoric asside I agree with you if they play sport at the prison it has got to be a good thing
MP John Carter says the purpose of prison is to punish inmates\
I always thought the purpose of prison was to protect the community from harm and reform the prisoner so that when they are released they are no longer a threat to society.
Guess we now know where National’s priorities lie.
Yeah. That quote’s a keeper.
best captcha ever. $40,000 anon
I have mixed emotions about this idea. When I first arrived in NZ I lived for 5 years in Raglan and played football (that would be football and not rugby), the sunday league I played in contained a few unusual teams. As well as suburban and country town teams there was Telecom, the Police, Tokanui hospital (staff, not the pyjama wearers), Waikeria prison staff and Waikeria prison inmates.
The Waikeria staff were filthy bastards and we rarely played them without at least half the team getting injured, the inmates on the other hand were much more gentle and although excited to be doing something other the usual grind were some of the calmest people I have ever met. This puzzled me and I asked our skipper (who was a GP in raglan at the time) why they seemed to be serene. He explained that they were all completely stoned.
This is the reason carter (who knows more than all of you combined about the population of kaikohe prison) is against them having sports teams visit. The guards seem incapable of keeping drugs out of our jails without allowing bus loads of league players in to mix with the inmates.
Footnote.
The Waikato sunday leagues worst team for gratuitous violence and filthy cheating was the Hamilton Police team.
Somewhat tangential.
Chuck Norris runs a programme called Kick Start. He teaches troubled kids, well basically he teaches them how to kick arse. Doesn’t sound bright right?
Apparently, they all stay out of trouble after that. Confidence, team work and so on can help, if done correctly(unlike boot camps…).
So’s I’m not instinctively against this either – it’s probably a better outlet than sticking a shank in your roommate.
BB – that’s a great story! Your line before the footnote confuses me – you say they can’t keep drugs out without letting league players in?
And Labour has 18 people better than Judith Tizard? I would bloody hope so!
Is Judith still alive I thought she died a couple of years ago
OO. “And Labour has 18 people better than Judith Tizard? I would bloody hope so” So would I, I think they do.
See, you got the joke wrong. You’re meant to be doubtful that there are 18 people better than her, thereby mocking both Tizard and the rest of the party.
Steve
Give OO a break it would likely be an impossibility for any sizeable party not to have 18 people better than Judith Tizzard.
Have a look at where the league teams are from and then you will know where most of the inmates are from. It is a Northland prison full of Northland convicts from the very towns where the visiting league teams will come from. Added to the mix the prison guards are mainly from kaikohe, a town that also provides a good portion of the inmates, highly likely that you have many family connections between guards and inmates which makes for a very difficult dynamic to police and manage.
I would support the teams visiting if the following conditions are met.
They unload the bus at the gate, every single person coming through the gate is strip searched and CAVITY SEARCHED. The drug dogs get to go through every item of clothing and kit as well.
failing that simple procedure the inmates can remain locked up in club med ngawha with there game consoles, heated floors, flat screen televisions and palm trees.
And yes I have been there and seen all those items listed above. They are far more luxurious than most of the inmates are accustomed to.
BB. So, the players who were stoned were the best to play against, the least needlessly violent. Why was them being stoned a bad thing?
I never said it was a bad thing Steve, but then I would happily see most of the country castrated and force fed valium. However while they are in prison they should be denied the simple pleasures of electric puha.
They were the best to play against because our team of out of shape poms and unreliable surfers did not win many games and played even less where one or two of our team wasn’t sent directly to hospital after getting kneecapped by a poorly coordinated neanderthal rugby player.
Being able to run around single toothed tattooed mouth breathers like the very best sardine eating Brazilian felt good.
Matthew Pilott
Chuck is onto it. I’ve seen many angry young men (and the occasional woman) wanting to take on the world turn into respectful controlled reasonable people through participation in martial arts. Basically when you boil it down aggressive behaviour is more often linked to low self esteem than it is to high. Both men and woman benefit from learning to stand their own ground if they are attacked. People can annoy you but they can’t physically intimidate you when you just know that you could kick their ass.
I don’t know how you can say ‘Boot camp’ is a bad thing. If you look at it simply, getting the population fitter and stronger while providing team and individual goals can only be a good thing. Very very few people will get ‘nothing’ out of it, and they will be identified – more than can be said for the status quo or simply employing more truancy officers to deal with angry 16 & 17 year olds.
Hey perhaps Chuck Norris could run some self defense courses for teachers!
Hey have any of you Labour supporting dim fuckwits seen the photo of HC shaking Owen Glen’s hand over on kiwiblog. Taken in 2005, you know around about the same time he gave the party half a mil.
I hope the horrible press don’t see it.
No Rob – do you have nightmares about the “hollow men”
Do you have nightmares about Owen Glenn Murray? Is he the boogie man?
The hollow men tired to steal an election Murray. What exactly did Owen Glenn do again?
Murray I’m confused. I saw this photo too – so what?
The Hollow men tried to steal an election? Perhaps but Owen Glenn and Labour actually did exactly that. Five hundy from Owen, another hundy loan plus the eight hundy illegally absconded with from You and me.
Whale, quite apart from the fact that you’re a bit confused about the timing of events, and you’re trying to spread long disproved lies about “stealing”, you don’t seem to have a point.
The Hollow Men had far more money to spend than Labour – a $1.2 Million handout from the brethren, a couple of million in donations from cronies laundered through “anonymnous” trusts. All that money to spend, and they still messed it up. Bummer.
Captcha: gathers bases (I think I got ayb’s by mistake!)
burt:
I think it is a good thing – BUT it is really effective when people do it voluntarily. There is bugger all evidence that it is effective when people are coerced into it.
Putting resources into programs like outward bound, recruiting drives for the armed forces, community based martial arts programs, etc is generally a good idea. But in the end people have to make the decisions to change themselves. You can provide the means, but not the motivation. For some strange reason people tend to resist having motivations force fed to them.
I am definitely against trying to get the military to run a coercive training programme. They have more than enough on their plate at present, and trying to add that kind of mission is just stupid. Personally I found my military training has been very useful, but I did it voluntarily.
Ancient
Don’t usually agree with you but you are spot on with your insight here.
Coercion is the poor cousin of voluntary participation.
Hardly disproved. The Attorney General, no less, found the money inappropriately taken which is civil servant speak for brazenly nicked.
Hello Cameron. You doing ok?
Hollow men? Hollow men??
Labour better think very carefully before going down that road again, especially with THIS skeleton in their closet:
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2008/02/hollow-woman.html
Yes pity really who would have guessed that the Labour government and their henchman would have the gall to rob the public purse and be more devious than the ultimate evil of the Hollow men.
Rob you and the rest of your left leaning nutjobs main difference from the rump in the middle and those on the right of the spectrum is that you believe the present government is any less frugal with the truth and manipulative than governments of the right of centre.
And the roots of that crisis go all the way back to the truly disastrous economic crisis inherited by the Lange government in 1984, which were kept secret by the outgoing National administration of Rob Muldoon. And so on, and so on.
Bolger’s National government of 1991 had many choices (hint, they could have raised taxes). They chose to lash out at the poorest members of society in the mother of all budgets. That was their choice, one they can’t blame anyone else for (no matter how much Fran would like to). Bolger never planned a “decent society”. That was a meaningless electioneering catch-phrase, much like “ambitious for New Zealand”.
Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, The Hollow Men tried to steal the 2005 election, and the resulting public outcry took down Don Brash.
Yes pity really who would have guessed that the Labour government and their henchman would have the gall to rob the public purse and be more devious than the ultimate evil of the Hollow men.
Ummm – yeah – ok.
Rob you and the rest of your left leaning nutjobs main difference from the rump in the middle and those on the right of the spectrum is that you believe the present government is any less frugal with the truth and manipulative than governments of the right of centre.
I have trouble making sense of that HS, but I think I can work out what you mean. Politics is an ugly, confrontational business that brings out the worst in people (as well as, sometimes, the best). Both sides make mistakes, say silly things, and indulge in tactics that they shouldn’t. Labour is far from perfect (but it isn’t my job to tell you what their shortcomings are!).
But in recent memory the most egregious political sins committed by either party were those of the Hollow Men / National party in the 2005 election campaign. This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of the historical record. The resulting public outcry took down the party’s leader, Don Brash, which had never happened before in NZ (to my knowledge). You and the Kiwiblog Right can try and muddy the waters all you like, but the historical record has already been written.
Your memory seems as crapulent as your comments today Rob.
Both the repeal of Section 59 and the EFA appear to be far more … as you put it… egregious political sins or haven’t you seen the poles recently ?
The public’s boredome with a third term government … Yes that must be it.
And I would most humbly suggest that passing legislation in the face of overwhelming public distaste for said legislation is a sin – at least in the public’s eyes.
Fair point regarding National’s support of Section 59 it will be interesting to see what the say about it pre-election and do about it post election.
Captcha – loon score – are you trying to tell me something ?
I’d like to blame the bad spelling on the current education system – unfortunately I can’t judging by my kids’ school their teachers are far better than when I was in the education system.
I’ll check bfore I captcha next time !
Your memory seems as crapulent as your comments today Rob.
How gracious you are HS. Your nick name clearly does not describe your manners.
Both the repeal of Section 59 and the EFA appear to be far more as you put it egregious political sins
Two points there HS. (1) Passing contentious legislation is not a sin. Trying to buy an election is a sin (for which Don rightly paid with his political life). (2) In any case arguably it was John Key who got Section 59 through.
or haven’t you seen the poles recently ?
The poles are largely a reflection of the publics boredom with a third term government.
huh – polls – public’s – bad spelling is catchy!