Labour retrospective legislation

David Farrar has another case of Labour retrospective legislation. This is for companies giving stappled securities instead of dividends.
I’ve done a bit of research into Labours history of retrospective legislation, and this is what I’ve come up with.
1) July 2003. The State Sector Amendment Act 2003, dealing with “technical” redundancies in some state departments.
2) August 2003: Harry Duynhoven (it goes without saying it was a Labour MP) gets retrospective legislation after he was suppose to loose his seat in parliament by re-applying for his Duch citzenship. Helen Clark also cancelled an election because the timing was bad. In 2002 she called an early election because the timing was good. In another precedent, Helen’s crony then-attorney-general Margaret Wilson ignores the advice of the Auditor general and Solicitor general (as Helen would later do after the pledge card) and declares the law “ambiguous” to alow Duynhoven to keep his seat.
3) August 2006. I found this Cullen press release on retrospective legislation to undo some tax issue involving the NZ Herald.
4)October 2006. This one MPs didn’t get to find out about until the morning before they had to debate it. According to Labour it shouldn’t be counted, since its validating legislation, not retrospective legislation. We are of course talking about the pledge card.
5) The latest example.

More examples will be added if I find them. The above gives Labour good reason to claim the softest party on crime position this election. They not only don’t prosecute crinimals, or even ignore them, but instead give them retrospective legislation making their illegal acts legal.

Backstreet abortion lies

One of the common lies advanced by “pro-choice” groups to legalise the murder of unborn children, is the argument that abortions happen anyway. they just occur, instead of at safe, legal “clinics”, in dangerous backstreet alleys, posing a threat to the life and health of the woman. Of course in any society crime occurs, and if abortion were illegal some illegal abortion would probably occur. But in order to advance their case they greatly exaggerate the numbers of illegal abortions. In 2001, when Portugal was one of the few European countries with reasonably restrictive abortion law, Planned Parenthood advanced the 20 000 to 40 000 figure on number of illegal abortions, and 10 000 women each year needed hospital treatment for the number of legal abortions.

Sadly, there is now a way we can see how accurate these figures are. In 2007, a referndum was held, with the loaded question Are you in agreement with the decrinimalization of the voluntary interuption of pregnancy, if carried out, by the womens choice, in the first ten weeks in a legally authorized health institution?. A fairer question would be “Should abortion be legal in all circumstances when a women consents to it, during the firsat ten weeks of pregnancy?”. Given the loaded question, the 59% yes vote should come as no surprise.If there really were 20 000 to 40 000 backstreet abortions when abortion was illegal, we would expect 20 000 to 40 000 legal abortions now. However the number is only 25 per day, average 9000 per year. The number is fewer than the number of women Planned parenthood claimed to have been hospitalized due to illegal abortions. This leaves three possibilities:
1) That thousands of Portugese women are choosing to have dangerous backstreet abortions, despite there being a safe legal alternative availiable (unlikely)
2) That there a re fewer pregnancies in Portugal now, or that more Portugese women are choosing to keep their babies than abort them (given such a massive decrease in such a short period of time, unlikely)
3) Palnned Parenthood was wrong (the obvious answer)

Drugs don’t work

Message to all drunks and stoners (and most users of antidepressants): Drugs don’t work.

This to me is no surprise. using drugs to escape problems can work temporarily, while you are still on your “high”, but once the effects of the drug on your mind (but not on your health) wear of, the problems remain. Not to mention you can get into more problems while on alcohol or drugs, such as embarrasment, crinimal charges, damage to property, and if female an unwanted pregnancy. Not nice.

A new study in the UK shows that antidepressants only worked in a small minority of cases, usually in the most depressed people. This comes as no surprise to me. Usually when people get depressed theres a reason (say a marriage breakup, unexpected hardship, loved one or friend dying e.t.c). Drugs may make someone feel better in the short term, but don’t address the original cause of the problem. Thus, like alcohol or other drugs, don’t work.