Victoria University has a group looking into criminal justice failures, but there appears to be no organised group putting together a case to justify a Commission of Enquiry into the familycaught.

Some people have suggested that we wait for Government funding! Read Sandra Coney’s book…..

We can learn from women’s groups.

Sandra Coney’s book “An Unfortunate Experiment” shows the amounts of effort and skilled professional effort at that, that was required to gain Government approval for a Commission of Enquiry. This effort was all given privately, by people who cared enough about the issues, to put in their own time and money.

Approval was only given, when the Government could see that it was impossible to withhold approval, that they would go down with National Women’s Hospital and Drs Green etc, if they didn’t give approval.

An investigation into legal worker’s behaviour, when Parliament is over endowed with legal worker-MPs will be even harder to obtain.

We can all make mistakes. Some people are in positions that allow them to create mistakes with bigger positive and negative impacts. If we refuse to acknowledge even the possibility of us making mistakes, then we risk going on to create even bigger fuckups. Answering questions about our competence, values or ethics by arrogance, is only showing that we are unsuitable for any job of responsibility.

At this point in time, lets make sure that we are carrying our personal responsibilities well. The critical element at present, is bringing together sufficient evidence to show negligent performance and malpractice in familycaught, that is strong enough that the Government has no choice but to authorise a Commission of Enquiry. To get an enquiry, we also have to show what the solution is, so that it can be seen that we are proceeding forward to a cost effective and competent familycaught system.

Hans asks about immigration statistics. I heard Dr Paul Callister give a speech at the Waitakere Men’s Conference, organised by Warick Pudney. He covered these issues. My memory, after this time may be a bit defective.

Google search at top right corner of this page: pudney conference

http://menz.org.nz/2005/first-nz-mens-issues-summit-2005/

Cheers, MurrayBacon.

No matter how we buckle up, we are unlikely to return to the bad old days as long as our civilization continues (which admittedly may not be long, but that will be no comfort for non-Muslim men or women). Personally I wouldn’t recommend a return to “man is the head of the family” ideas. However, I would like our society to claw back to a position where men’s input and wisdom is valued and has at least as much influence on decisions for the family as do women’s preferences. To a position where men’s equal rights are protected again in law. And where children’s right is protected to be raised by both parents whether together or apart. I agree though that men need to stand up for themselves both individually and collectively.

It seems to take a long time, but the final shift can happen astonishingly suddenly.

So the Immigration Department is now to be subject to an internal enquiry. It does sound as though continuing public complaints are likely to blow it open, into public commission of enquiry.

The public don’t see how much work has gone into TVOne’s investigation, before they opened their mouth in public.

It seems to me that the situation is parallel to the jUSTICE dEPARTMENT. They and the dEPARTMENT of cAUGHTS/”judiciary” have ignored and trashed and deprecated those who have complained about them. Their “friends” in Parliament have refused to sanction any investigation of the performance of the beneficiaries working in these dEPARTMENTS, despite the ongoing trickle of complaints.

When dissastisfied customers have done enough investigation work to tighten the noose on these beneficiaries, then these people will discover the discomfort of accountability being dropped suddenly onto their shoulders.

These dissatisfied customers seem to be very patient, if we judge by the small amount of work they are doing to investigate and show the need for an enquiry into these dEPARTMENTS. If an enquiry is expensive, then it is necessary and proper to justify the expenditure that we are seeking.

Professionals listen and actively investigate complaints with their own initiative. Through this they improve their performance. Has anyone seen this ethic among legal workers, top bench or bottom bench?

It worries me that people attack each other, rather than work together to investigate these Government dEPARTMENTs to prepare a case for a Commission of Enquiry.
Cheers, MurrayBacon.

Floyd Landis’ recent win in the Tour de France has been overturned by a drug test. Justin Gatlin, reigning Olympic champion in the 100 meters, faces a possible lifetime ban from the sport after testing positive for testosterone. The spectacle of bulked-up major league ballplayers denying steroid use has become familiar.

The world of literature has given us (among others) the fictional memoirs of James Frey, T. “Nasdijj” Barrus, and Savannah “JT Leroy” Knoop. Journalists Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass and Jack Kelley have done their share to create skepticism about the accuracy of our newspapers and magazines.

A lot of space on the Internet is now devoted to manufacturing identities. Whether in chat rooms, on social Web sites or in areas devoted to the search for love, the “profiles” that people create are the subjects of widespread and justifiable disbelief. How many friends can you accumulate on MySpace.com? Are they really your friends?

Is it essential in evaluating the work of a filmmaker who makes religious movies to know that he is anti-Semitic? One would think so, but can we find out the truth by asking him? Apparently not.

Then there is the government. No administration since Richard Nixon’s has done as much to undermine confidence in its public pronouncements (”You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie”).

Is any of this important? We have always been subject to deceit for profit or power. Who among us has not lied when it suited our purposes? Why should we care when public figures play us for fools?

One answer is that, confronted with threats to our way of life, even our very existence, we can only respond correctly by apprehending the truth. Put another way, we are continually using our experience to create in our heads a map of the world and how it works. If our maps are inaccurate, it will be impossible for us to navigate correctly, to make sound decisions about our lives and our society.

We would do well to stop believing in astrology, miracle cures, and versions of religion that foster an illusion of exclusivity, because adherents of such theologies tend to occupy themselves with coercive fantasies unsuited to a free society. The worst of them would kill us if they can’t convert us.

There is a school of thought that truth is a flexible construct, elusive and subject to interpretation. In at least one area, this is demonstrably not the case. Nature and its laws are intolerant of fools. I thought of this last year while watching the documentary Grizzly Man. When Timothy Treadwell chose to live among the Alaskan grizzlies for extended periods, he imagined that they reciprocated the affection and respect that he felt for them. He gave them names. It turned out, of course, that while he was indulging his naive delusions about these wild creatures, they had also given him a name. That name was “food,” and his life was ended by a hungry bear.

A second disadvantage of public lies is that they erode the trust that enables us to live peacefully with each other. We need to have some reasonable expectation that our news is accurate and our leaders are being honest with us in order to have a functioning society. Imagine what driving would be like if we could not trust our fellow motorists to stop at red lights and to drive on the left. There can be no governing consensus and no enforceable law without a shared sense of trust. Every time one of our major institutions, especially our government, lies to us, there is a slight but progressive erosion in our ability to rely on each other. As with the “inconvenient truth” of global warming, we may end up drowning in a flood of cynicism and distrust.

If we believe that in most areas the truth exists in some discernible form, then we must demand it, first from ourselves and then from those we depend on to help us construct a map that will lead us out of the thicket of lies in which we find ourselves.

I believe that it is the man’s fine duty to control the decision-making process of all family related decisions — or at least pretend he does. Why? Because like it or not, it is probably the only thing left in life that we men can still lay claim to. Once you lose it, you no longer have anything to look forward to, but the Family Court…