Open mike 02/09/2023

16 comments on “Open mike 02/09/2023 ”

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1. PsyclingLeft.Always 1

   2 September 2023 at 11:27 am

   Lake Alice..and the torture that was allowed. And apparently the scum who used electroshock, and paraldehyde injections, on kids..were deemed too "ill" to face prosecution.

   Dr Selwyn Leeks

   Police had been set to charge the former lead psychiatrist at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital child and adolescent unit with ill-treating former patients by subjecting them to electric shocks as punishment.

   Nurse John Corkran

   Corkran was accused of injecting children with the painful paralysing drug paraldehyde, but the High Court this year ordered a permanent stay on the prosecution because of the 91-year-old's poor health.

   Police sought to interview another former nurse about similar allegations, but they were also too unwell to be spoken to.

   A further nurse was interviewed. It was decided there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute.

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/497097/why-a-key-figure-at-lake-alice-was-not-charged

   So they get off… light. IMO there would be no later..or even deathbed, guilt…or realisation of the harm they had done.
   • Belladonna 1.1

     2 September 2023 at 11:58 am

     Given that everyone accused seems to be over 90 – it's more surprising that this prosecution was ever laid. It seems as though it was almost inevitably going to fall over through the age and medical incapacity of any remaining defendants.
     • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1.1

       2 September 2023 at 12:32 pm

       You might well say that. And…. given, you do. If you had bothered to read the link…

       Previous police inquiries into the Lake Alice unit the 1970s and early 2000s did not result in charges being laid.

       At the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care's look into the Lake Alice unit in 2021, police apologised for shortcomings in the early 2000s probe.

       And pretty much an indictment..

       "Even though almost 50 years have passed, the police were able to identify over 140 separate occasions involving 51 child patients where electroshocks were used as punishment by the psychiatrist, Dr Leeks. The shocks were on their heads, arms, legs and even, on 13 children, their genitals."

       That, along with the use of paraldehye, was "an alarming number of torturous assaults on children, and it only represents a portion of what happened there".

       "The children – now adults – always knew what happened to them was criminal and this vindicates them and their life-long struggle for accountability.

       "There should be a lot of soul searching by the authorities who covered this up, from the Medical Council, who refused to investigate complaints, to the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, and the Nursing Council, who did nothing – not to mention Crown Law, who sat on the evidence for three decades," Ferriss said.

       https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/497097/why-a-key-figure-at-lake-alice-was-not-charged

       There was plenty of time to investigate much earlier.
       • Belladonna 1.1.1.1

         2 September 2023 at 7:51 pm

         There was plenty of time to investigate much earlier.

         There was indeed.

         However, my comment was in relation to the prosecution laid in 2021. By which time everyone who could be eligible to be prosecuted was 90+.

         I agree that prosecutions should have been laid in the 1970s. However, given that they weren't – it really doesn't seem sensible to try to place this matter before the courts at this very late date. And, indeed – the Courts seem to have taken the view that it was not reasonable.
         • Anne 1.1.1.1.1

           2 September 2023 at 8:12 pm

           …. it really doesn't seem sensible to try to place this matter before the courts at this very late date.

           On the face of it I agree with you. But, it matters very much to the victims – at least those who are still alive. They have gone through a life-time of bitterness and grief for what was done to them and never saw recognition or recompense.

           I have much sympathy for them and regret that the 'powers that be' in the past saw fit to ignore their plight and do nothing about it. There, but for the the grace of God etc.
           • Belladonna 1.1.1.1.1.1

             3 September 2023 at 9:50 am

             However, they've ended up without their 'day in court' – because of the age/health of the defendants. This was IMO – entirely predictable. And the prosecution did them no favours by pretending otherwise.

             Sometimes the boat really has just sailed on justice through the court system.
   • Mike the Lefty 1.2

     2 September 2023 at 3:38 pm

     Yeah its the "I'm just a poor sick old man……leave me be…." argument, the same one that has let a host of Nazi concentration camp butchers go unpunished.

     We are a civilised people in the main, but sometimes when you get someone like that now in their 90s, playing this argument, you wish we weren't so compassionate.
2. arkie 2

   2 September 2023 at 12:08 pm

   Further to discussion yesterday about local food security and what that means or could look like; Crooked Vege is demonstrating an alternative model of production than the for-profit model:

   One of the farm's founders, Jonathan Mines, said everyone deserved access to healthy, fresh food which was grown in a way that did not destroy the environment.

   …

   Crooked Vege, a partnership between Mines and his friend Tae Luke-Hurley, aims to feed about 100 families from a half-hectare plot of land on the outskirts of the town.

   They will have a suggested price for the boxes and their dream is to allow all subscribers eventually to pay what they can afford.

   To offset costs during the trial, they will sell some of the crop wholesale and grow niche products for restaurants

   For the past five months, the pair have been preparing the soil using minimal intervention, trialling cover crops and inter-planting different vegetables for maximum return.

   …

   Ultimately, and by being close to the capital, Mines was hoping to influence change in the food systems of Aotearoa.

   "Probably we need a whole social restructure to make proper food affordable for everyone, but I don't know how to do that so this is what we're trying to do."

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018905143/just-pay-what-you-can-says-taki-vege-grower
3. Peter 3

   2 September 2023 at 1:03 pm

   What chance the Freedoms New Zealand Party could attract lots of people to outside Destiny Church doors on the Sundays between now and the election?

   It seems there's a game being played they like.

   https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/labour-party-election-campaign-launch-hijacked-by-freedoms-nz-political-party-supporters/R5TQLEQ765H7PETTAVSBYAZMDY/
   • Patricia Bremner 3.1

     2 September 2023 at 2:24 pm

     Peter Labour just announced free dental up to age 30 nd 50% more training spots for Dentists. Who cares about Destiny and cohorts lol
4. Muttonbird 4

   2 September 2023 at 1:08 pm

   Why does the media never ask National to rule out raising GST the same way they ask Labour to rule out wealth taxes?
   • Barfly 4.1

     2 September 2023 at 1:46 pm

     Pro National Party bias…
5. newsense 5

   2 September 2023 at 1:20 pm

   Unfortunately, my instinctive reactions are on par with Gordon Campbell and as he observes, that places me less and less aligned with Labour.

   I’m kind of horrified that no one outside Emily Writes has really put the boot in. Though maybe they have on Breakfast TV and it hasn’t been rebroadcast or circulated through other media.

   I’m uncomfortable with the way the trans debate has evolved. It certainly isn’t a comfortably settled norm within the community at large. I’m not sure what my position is and harm reduction is a large part. And if I’m fine with various forms of invisible sky buddies, people can define themselves as they wish. But once there are multiple genders, I’m not sure that they can then fit into social systems for 2 only. Not my main point. But it’s something that could give me pause from voting Green is how much they’ve been willing to give silly quotes around gender.

   But some vicious critique from Werewolf I can’t ignore:

   Meanwhile the supermarket duopoly and the banking oligopoly will continue in very profitable ways, almost entirely untouched. Long ago, Labour seems to have abandoned any attempt to set the policy agenda. Most of the time, it allows National to take the lead, then consults its focus groups, and comes up with a lookalike policy that can be made to sound slightly more compassionate, at the delivery end. On the economy in particular, Labour is now almost a form of National-Lite, yet with extra hand-wringing about the outcomes.

   and that these cuts signaled by both the main parties will reduce the public service more than before Labour came to power and the service was at that point underfunded. Prior to growth in population.

   and the obvious point: If nothing else, Labour’s proposed cutbacks will help to legitimise National’s more draconian programme of cutbacks.

   We’re treating our state the way they do in the US- sending public money in bucketloads to private interests to profit providing public goods, while doing the equivalent of a school bully holding the state down and saying’Stop hitting yourself’. Attacked by underfunding and then unable to perform and attacked again with rhetoric to suggest this is some intrinsic part of public systems, rather than poorly maintained ones.

   As I’m tribal Labour it’s hard for me to say, but it might have to be a party vote Green at this election, though I’m yet to be impressed sufficiently to do this on the strength of their caucus. Labour has just gone too far.

   http://werewolf.co.nz/2023/08/gordon-campbell-on-using-contractors-as-an-election-bogey/
6. MickeyBoyle 6

   2 September 2023 at 2:28 pm

   Good dental policy just announced by Labour.

   I'd prefer a needs based system or completely universal policy on this. But we are on our way.
   • Patricia Bremner 6.1

     2 September 2023 at 2:41 pm

     Up to 30, plus training places up 50% with intention for it to be for all in the future is aiming at universal dental.
   • Bearded Git 6.2

     2 September 2023 at 10:22 pm

     Shrewd move by Hipkins….a vote winner. Issues like this cut through all the dross. A huge proportion of Maori are under 30.

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