Investigate, September 2006 by Investigate Magazine

EXCLUSIVE: inside information on the handless body case

INVESTIGATE

September 2006:

MURDER ON THE BEACH

Tony Stanlake killing

“Daniel dropped off some rubbish to Peter’s work...He told Peter that it had the hands in it...”

Unions

Aviation Safety

A break-in, stolen documents & $240,000 taken from the poor: another MP hits the headlines

NZ’S DEADLIEST JOB

Issue 68

It’s a profession with a high fatality rate, what’s the reason?

MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE EAST Sorting out fact from fiction

PLUS:

METEORITES - the new gold rush for collectors SLEEP - How to get it when baby won’t

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Middle East crisis

LABOUR’S HIDDEN SLUSH FUND

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Volume 6, Issue 68, September 2006

FEATURES MURDER ON THE BEACH

A relative of one of the accused in the handless body murder has come forward with fresh information about the case. IAN WISHART has the exclusive story

LABOUR’S UNION SLUSH FUND

A DANGEROUS JOB

26 32

Labour’s already in the gun for overspending its election allowance by $418,000. So how about the trade union that spent nearly $240,000 to get Labour re-elected? Why were their offices broken into and documents taken? And who’s the new Labour MP at the centre of this new storm? IAN WISHART with the details

It’s the job that’s killing more of its staff than practically any other per capita, but why is aerial topdressing so dangerous? Former Skyhawk pilot ROSS EWING analyses agricultural aviation’s dark track record, and offers some answers

THE DEPRESSION INDUSTRY: Part II

WORLDBRIEF: THE MIDDLE EAST

Twenty years ago, childhood depression was almost unheard of. Now, there are preschoolers on mind-altering drugs. LIDIA WASOWICZ continues her special investigation of the depression industry and how it’s impacting on virtually every family

Truth or dare on the world’s oldest battlefield. LAWRENCE HAAS shatters some common myths about the Israel/Palestine conflict

42 56

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Cover: NZPA

EDITORIAL AND OPINION Volume 6, issue 68, ISSN 1175-1290

Chief Executive Officer Heidi Wishart Group Managing Editor Ian Wishart Customer Services Debbie Marcroft NZ EDITION Advertising

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Contributing Writers: Ross Ewing, Chris Forster, Peter Hensley, Lidia Wasowicz, Chris Carter, Mark Steyn, Chris Philpott, Michael Morrissey, Miranda Devine, Richard Prosser, Claire Morrow, Laura Wilson, and the worldwide resources of MCTribune Group, UPI and Newscom Art Direction Design & Layout

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Editorial The vocal majority Miranda Devine on geek overload Laura Wilson on smacking Mark Steyn on noble savages Richard Prosser visits Camp Faraway Chris Carter scoffs at service stations Why a religious cynic decided to pray

Heidi Wishart Bozidar Jokanovic

Tel: +64 9 373 3676 Fax: +64 9 373 3667 Investigate Magazine PO Box 302188, North Harbour North Shore 0751, NEW ZEALAND AUSTRALIAN EDITION Editor James Morrow Customer Services Debbie Marcroft, Sandra Flannery Tel: +61 2 9389 7608 Tel: +61 2 9369 1091 Tel/Fax: 1-800 123 983 Investigate Magazine PO Box 602, Bondi Junction Sydney, NSW 1355, AUSTRALIA SUBSCRIPTIONS Online: www.investigatemagazine.com By Phone: Australia 1-800 123 983 New Zealand 09 373 3676 By Post: To the respective PO Boxes Current Special Prices: Save 25% NZ Edition: $72 Australian Edition: A$72 EMAIL editorial@investigatemagazine.com ian@investigatemagazine.com jmorrow@investigatemagazine.com jkaye@investigatemagazine.com sales@investigatemagazine.com debbie@investigatemagazine.com All content in this magazine is copyright, and may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. The opinions of advertisers or contributors are not necessarily those of the magazine, and no liability is accepted. We take no responsibility for unsolicited material sent to us. Please enclose a stamped, SAE envelope. Inquiries in the first instance should be made via email or fax.

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FOCAL POINT

EDITORIAL

Groundhog day in Lebanon

“N

uclear arms in the Middle East. Israel’s attacking the Iraqis. The Syrians are mad at the Lebanese, and Baghdad does whatever she please. Looks like another threat to world peace, send the Envoy.” The words of a song by Warren Zevon from the late seventies, and after 30 years little has changed. By the time this edition hits the newsstands there’s a microscopic chance the conflagration in the Middle East will have been dampened down a little. But on the basis of the region’s track record, that’s probably unlikely. They say the first casualty of war is truth, and that’s doubly the case in any conflict that involves “the Jews”. Whether its Mel Gibson blaming the vast Zionist conspiracy for his traffic ticket, or marchers in Auckland preaching hatred and waving signs calling for the smashing of the Jewish state, there’s something about giving ‘the Jews’ a good kicking that brings out the bloodlust in every good social liberal. Probably not surprising when you consider how repressed and politically correct they are in other areas of their lives – everyone’s got to be allowed one vice, right? To listen to talk radio callers, or read the left wing blogs, is to believe that ‘the Jews’ stole Palestine in 1947, that Israel has failed to obey good and decent United Nations resolutions, that Israel is to blame for every mischief that befalls it, heck, that Israel is to blame for every mischief that befalls everyone else – even that parking ticket I got the other week. Israel, I’m told, should reach a peaceful roundtable agreement with Hizbollah and Hamas, Israel should be forced to withdraw from Lebanon unconditionally. You know the story and how it goes. But flip the list of laments around for a moment. How would the liberals react if ‘the Jews’ carried placards about smashing the Palestinian state down Queen St? The difference between Israel and the Palestinians is

, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

quite simple: Israel actually has the power to drive every Palestinian into the sea and completely capture their territory. It chooses not to. The Palestinian terror groups, on the other hand, publicly profess the desire to slaughter every Jew and would, given half a chance. After complaining for years that Israel didn’t listen to the UN (as if the UN was an ‘honest broker’ instead of the snakepit of corruption and dictatorship that make up the majority of its members), Israel finally complied and withdrew from Lebanon completely in the nineties. Part of the UN demand was that Hizbollah would also withdraw and that Lebanon would make certain of it. Hizbollah didn’t comply with the UN, nor did Lebanon. It was Palestinian extremists with the backing of Hizbollah who kidnapped two Israeli soldiers who were minding their own business. It was a deliberate act of war. Not content to stop at that, they commenced new terror attacks and then full scale military attacks on Israel, from the safety and comfort of their hideyholes inside Lebanon. And suddenly Israel is to blame for going after them? Suddenly Israel is to blame for trying to eradicate those responsible for more than 3,000 rocket attacks in the past month? As the Sir Humphrey’s blogsite put it, if a foreign military force had kidnapped NZ soldiers during a raid on Waiouru, slaughtered dozens of NZ civilians and lobbed more than 3,000 rockets at Auckland, would New Zealand sit wimpering and wait for the mighty United Nations to slap the aggressor with a wet liberal bus ticket, or would the public demand the army defend New Zealand? Hizbollah, Hamas and Iran are trying to provoke all out war. They won’t stop until they get one or they get beaten. It was Hamas who caused the Palestinians to break the peace six years ago and rise up in the Intifada. Israel has as much right to exist in peace as New Zealand does. The West should be sending Islamofascism a clear message by offering to stand by Israel, instead of trying to appease the monster. The world has tried appeasing fascists before. It just doesn’t work.

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VOX POPULI

COMMUNIQUES FOR THE GREATER GOOD

INVESTIGATE August 2006: Kahui killings Peter Davis Depression Cyndi Lauper Issue 67

In his article “For the Greater Good,” Evgeny Orlov raises a few issues. While I cannot comment publicly on the specific cases to which he refers, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of his questions. Mr Orlov asks, “Is CYF really necessary for our children to be happy?” Of course not. What our children need to be happy is to live in a safe environment where all their needs are met. Where they are not physically, sexually or emotionally abused, and where their caregivers love and nurture them A MAJOR REPORT: those other party pills we’re popping through to adulthood. When every single child KAHUI TWINS CASE: HOW IT HAPPENED in New Zealand has this, CYF won’t be necessary at all. We would like nothing better than to be able to make ourselves redundant. “If we still had Mystery Deepens old-fashioned maps, He also asks, “If CYF they’d shade out large chunks of South Auckland is doing such a good job with the words: ‘Here be Dragons’...” Lawyer Blasts and is so necessary why Family Court then do we have one of the Inside highest rates of child abuse Guantanamo in the world?” The answer is quite simple. We have an ongoing issue with child abuse in New Zealand because some people continue to perpetrate violence and neglect on the very children and young people they are supposed to protect. Child, Youth and Family is not to blame for child abuse and neglect in New Zealand. We do not take children away from their families for no reason. We do it as a last resort, and only when we believe they are at unacceptable risk of harm and a Family Court judge agrees. Our social workers are there to pick up the pieces. They are often the last link in a chain that may have encompassed many people, each of whom may have had the chance to make a difference to one child. Social workers turn up to work every day of the week knowing that it’s their job to respond to the harm visited on our children. They deserve respect and credit for this almost impossible task. Yes, we make mistakes. And when we do, I expect us to own them, fix them where we can, and learn from them. We will also front up and be accountable for our actions. MURDER IN THE BADLANDS

Fresh information emerges on ‘the Peter Davis incident’

BABIES BEATEN SENSELESS; ROCKS ON THE MOTORWAY: HAS CRADLE TO THE GRAVE WELFARE BECOME A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY?

“If someone attacks us is it not healthier simply to punch them?”

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The exclusive interview that cost a US commander dearly

, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

But I will not apologise for our social workers’ dedication to building a safer environment for our children and young people. Ray Smith,Deputy Chief Executive CYF

KAHUI TWINS

Having read the August edition of your excellent magazine, I have “clipped the coupon” and forwarded a cheque in order to subscribe. I feel however, that despite your ability to get to the nitty gritty truth of issues investigated, and despite the excellent coverage of the Kahui Twins’ murders, you missed the bottom line regarding murdered and tortured NZ children who make up the statistics which put us in the world top 3 for child abuse. Adult human beings who torture and kill tiny human beings are people who choose to take out their bad tempers and their needs for sadistic satisfaction on a living being completely unable to defend itself. They use their children and other people’s children as punching bags. That is all. No excuses, no justification, no blame on any systems. Anybody and everybody anywhere knows the difference between picking a fight you can win and one you can’t. An adult bashing a child is no contest. Thus, the people who victimise little children until they are brutalised or dead, deserve no explanation nor any attempt to justify their actions. Public humiliation and vilification is fitting for the guilty and for their families and mates who stand by allowing this behaviour and would appear to strike a chord with those involved. Should anybody require evidence of this, I refer you to a TV3 Campbell interview with the Kahui twins’ Grandmother. One of the reasons she gave for her appearance on TV and for her grief was that her son could no longer venture outside the house for fear of being recognised. In light of this, congratulations on the cover of your August issue showing a large and clear photograph of the Kahui twins’ parents. It’s a good start, but it’s only a start. Posters, billboards and more are necessary. Gail Oats, Taieri Beach, Otago.

MORE KAHUI

I read Laura’s columm with mixed emotions. I felt deep sadness at the content because I have heard stories such as these all too often in my eight years of addiction coun-

selling. I also felt anger knowing that abuse has wrecked so many lives and how accurate Laura’s writings are. I also felt frustration at the lip service paid to the issues of child abuse and of addiction. In the year 2000 I contacted treasury and ascertained that only 2% ($53m) of alcohol, cigarette and gambling taxes is spent on addiction services. Apparently 20% of drinkers contribute something like 60% of the alcohol excise duties. Are we really serious when only approximately 2.5% of total revenues based on the year 2000 income and 2005 expenditure is used to help addicts! Considering approx 10% (conservatively) of the population will be addicted to alcohol and other drugs and gambling (400,000) that is chicken feed and certainly not user pays! In addition residential services have been closed at: NSAD in Marton, St Margarets in Hamner, Salvation Army at Rotoroa Island, and others, supposedly because there are too many beds. This government has bought into the belief that short term programmes are more effective than long term ones. Experience has proven to me that the victims of sexual abuse, verbal abuse and physical abuse can not be healed by one counselling session per week or a two month residential programme. Attitudes, misbeliefs and fears formed in childhood need time, love, a safe environment and time to change. Those options have been significantly reduced by this so called caring enlightened government. Every addict impacts on the lives of 8 others – that’s 3.2 million people, out of a population of 4 million. Come on the powers that be – increase the investment into peoples’ lives to $280 million. That’s still only 10% of what you collect. I believe what is needed in this nation is a desire by all of us to change our character. This needs to be the culture of this nation not materialism and self centredness. The greatest poverty in this nation is spiritual poverty. Like the addicted person to change our character we need the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. We all fall short of the glory of God whether we are the sexual abuser, the victim, the addict, the politician, the homosexual, the pastor, or the atheist. Lindsay Baker, Paraparaumu

SENSING HYPOCRISY

The excellent ‘Tough Questions’ article in your August edition suggests psychics make money reading body language. It goes on to imply that no genuine agent of God wants glory for themselves. Mmm. Maybe its time for the christian community, of which I would probably be called a member, to admit that both of those descriptions apply to far too many of our more public representatives. Gus Row, Hamilton

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COUNTRY COPS

I’m trying to decide whether the Police Department’s charging of an off-duty officer with excess blood/alcohol while responding to a potentially life threatening situation is a result of paranoia resulting from the heat of past criticism or just plain stupidity! If the Police are unable to exercise discretion in emergency situations then legislation is needed to protect officers from prosecution in such circumstances.

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Imagine the public reaction if an off-duty police officer, a member of any other emergency service or a member of the community for that matter, over the limit but still capable of driving and the only person available to do so, declined to take a person suffering from for instance anaphylactic shock and in immediate danger dying to the nearest medical assistance and the victim subsequently died. An officer carrying out his/her duty in such emergency circumstances does not in my view constitute condoning drink driving. I trust that common sense will ultimately prevail with the judge discharging the officer concerned without conviction and admonishing the police for wasting the court’s time with an unwarranted prosecution. The Police Department will do much to restore public confidence by acting in a mature, responsible and credible manner. Lloyd McIntosh, Waitakere

SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Recent news has stories of Police advocating control of movement of people that have not done any wrong on the grounds that they have done wrong in the past, of targeting children before birth on the grounds that their parents’ circumstances indicate the child might become a criminal, and now the latest, using futuristic technology to read and store the location of vehicles as they travel the highways. This on top of recent calls by Police to be issued powers of arrest and detention without charge, and the ability to detain and interrogate people that they know to be innocent because they ‘might know something’. All of these are justified by pointing to the UK as an example and are denied as being intrusive or dangerous to civil liberty, but are merely good policing. At a time when the public respect and trust in Police is at abysmal lows, the Police are asking for even more power, and we should just trust them? Is this the influence we are receiving from the recent influx of UK recruits, a march towards a Police state? Peter Tashkoff, Auckland

PROVOCATION DEFENCE

I found Nicholas Keesing’s letter (August Investigate) confusing. On one hand, he says provocation (in the case of a gaybashing) justifies murder; then he neatly contradicts himself by stating it does not (in the case of a person being killed for making a racist comment). Is it just me, or is there an absence of logic in this argument? As for saying gaybashing is OK, did Mr Keesing therefore condone the murder of the innocent gay man in London by teenagers just because they found his sexuality ‘distasteful’? Come join us in the twenty-first century, Mr Keesing. Most of us realise it is not acceptable to harm someone just because they are ‘different’. A ‘come-on’ or provocative glance or touch should not mean someone can claim self-defence as grounds for murder. I am horrified people with such bigoted views still exist in New Zealand. Monique Leary, Pukekohe WISHART RESPONDS:

Without getting involved in the ‘bigotry’ debate, I agree that the provocation defence in regards to sexual advances is archaic and untenable. The defence of reasonable force exists if a person attacks you physically or sexually. Making a pass at someone, whether gay or

10, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

straight, is not an offence worthy of the death sentence. By the same token, it is the flipside of the “ hate crime” offence. If there should be no special treatment of an accused because of sexual orientation, should there be special treatment of a victim because of sexual orientation or race? Murder is murder, assault is assault, a victim is a victim. Race, creed and gender should be irrelevant in terms of penalty. If someone is tortured by the KKK because they are black, the penalty should be high because of the torture, not the colour. If our penalties are not tough enough to dissuade idiots, let’s make them tougher.

THE CANCER BATTLE

So science has found some goodies in the kiwifruit that help us fight cancer. (Kiwifruit aren’t the only source of these goodies -they are found in varying amounts in all unrefined plant foods.) Ill-health is a serious problem in the first world countries and our scientists are working hard at finding the causes and cures. As the picture becomes clearer we find that animal foods and refined plant foods are the cause, and that unrefined plant foods are the best prevention and/or cure. They are the only source of fibre and antioxidants. They contain no cholesterol and their fat (in its unrefined form) is good for us. Animal foods are the only source of cholesterol and they are too high in fat and protein. Science is blaming them more and more for our epidemic of poor health and premature death. Milton Wainwright, Woodville

18,000 KAHUIS A YEAR

Right to Life is disappointed that the Government has recently increased the fees paid to certifying consultants for authorising abortions. The fee for authorising an abortion has been increased from $87.50 to $135. This is a scandalous waste of taxpayer’s money. The increase in fees will not reduce the number of abortions in New Zealand. The increase in fees was sought by the Abortion Supervisory Committee because it was concerned with the recruitment and retention of doctors prepared to authorise and perform abortions. The abortion industry in New Zealand is money driven and the increase in fees could lead to an increase in our shameful abortion statistics with more doctors being enticed into co- operating in the killing of innocent and defenseless unborn children. This will increase the spiritual, physical and psychological damage to vulnerable women. In the year ending the 30th June 2005, the Government paid certifying consultants $3,504,263 in fees for authorising abortions. It is now expected that these fees will exceed $7 million per annum. There are approximately 200 certifying consultants appointed by the Abortion Supervisory Committee. It is now expected on information received from the Committee that the five busiest consultants will receive in excess of $200,000 per annum in fees. The Abortion Supervisory Committee in its annual report to Parliament in 1988 alluded to “the present unwieldy system of authorising the termination of potentially normal pregnancies on pseudo-legal grounds.” The previous chairwoman of the Committee, Dr Christine Forster stated in the Sunday Star-Times of 5th November 2000, that 98% of abortions are authorised on the grounds that the life of the unborn child was a serious threat to the mental health of the mother. Dr Forster did not believe that all those women were in serious danger. “I think that people are fitting the grounds to the woman”. Right to Life asks why

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 11

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then is the Government not only continuing to pay doctors to lie but is now increasing their fees to do so? The anticipated $7 million in fees should be used to promote a culture of life, not a culture of death. It should be used to protect the human rights of unborn children and to promote the health and welfare of women who are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. The Government should follow the commendable and compassionate example of the Australian Government. In March this year the Australian Government established the Pregnancy Advisory Committee and announced a $52 million program of financial assistance to pro-life counselling services. In New Zealand Pregnancy Counselling Services provide compassionate care to women before and after the birth of their child. Our Government refuses to provide any financial assistance to Pregnancy Counselling Services or any similar service. Ken Orr, Right to Life New Zealand Inc.

A DOG’S LIFE

The letter regarding 'Two Patients" in the latest issue of Investigate has been doing the email chain letter circuit for some weeks now. The very simple difference seems to elude most minds. The senior citizen does not have health insurance. The Golden Retriever does, in the form of a loving, caring owner who will happily pay a very big bill up front for the dog's treatment. If the dog did not have this form of health insurance it would not go on a waiting list. It would be put down.. Ponder that! Jeannie Gandar, via email WISHART RESPONDS:

Yeah, but the dog hasn’t being paying tax all its life at around 45% of everything it earns by its own blood sweat and tears. The point of taxes is not to pay homage to our rulers, but to collectively purchase certain facilities and services. If our rulers instead use our taxes to create mini-empires of bureaucrats where 90% of money goes on “administration” and 10% on actual services, then the consumer misses out, as we do now. I have some first hand knowledge of the health bureaucracies and their wastage. Is each man jack of us really using $15,000 worth of government services every year, on top of the user pays fees?

DROP US A LINE Letters to the editor can be emailed to us, faxed or posted. They should not exceed 300 words, and we reserve the right to edit for space or clarity. All correspondence will be presumed for publication unless it is clearly marked to the contrary. Address: INVESTIGATE, PO Box 302188, North Harbour, North Shore 0751, or email to: editorial@investigatemagazine.com

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 13

SIMPLY DEVINE

MIRANDA DEVINE The geeks will inherit the Earth

he way technology has stealthily colonised our brains was brought home the other morning when I was reading the newspaper and found my right hand reaching for a mouse to click. Then a friend arriving home one night took out his car keys and started pressing the remote button in a vain attempt to open his front door. He also regularly finds himself trying to change TV channels with his mobile phone, ringing his girlfriend with the remote control, and answering the iPod when the mobile rings. Another friend tried to swipe her work ID card to get into her front door. “The worst one,” says a computer geek of my acquaintance, “is when you’re read“I remember running home from ing a book and you mentally school to see episodes of Batman try to go Ctrl-F to find something you’d read earlier.” or M*A*S*H but I have no Control-F is the “find” patience any more,” says a man command which allows to search for a particwho puts two-minute noodles you ular word or phrase in a in the microwave, because who computer screen of copy. He has been stuck in his wants to wait two minutes?” car at a set of traffic lights, regretting he’s chosen that particular route. “I hate myself for saying this but I try to mentally press the ‘back’ button.” All this may reflect poorly on the mental acuity of the abovementioned people. But it does also seem to be part of a new, fumbling evolution of the mind, as technology becomes indispensable in our daily lives and the boundary between human brain and machine blurs. Slowly, but surely, we are becoming our computers. Technology is altering our ways of thinking, if not the architecture of our brains, so fundamentally that it is changing what it is to be human. At the same time, roboticists are imbuing computers with more humanity, until the two species – man and machine – may finally morph, and cyborg and android are one. People who are connected to technology almost every waking moment talk of the odd feeling that comes from “logging out” or getting back in touch with your analogue brain. One describes it as the “2006 version of getting your sea legs”, the sensation you get when you are back on

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terra firma after a day’s sailing or surfing. Virtual reality has become so realistic it is hard for our prehistoric senses to distinguish it from the real thing, and eventually we may wonder why bother. The new Adam Sandler movie, Click, explores this idea with its story of a harried architect trying to get ahead at work and still fulfil his obligations to his young family. He comes across a “universal remote control” which allows him to pause, fast forward and rewind his life. He can mute the barking dog, fast forward through the boring bits of his day such as traffic jams, pump up the volume to eavesdrop on conversations, and so on. Audiences will feel a thrill of recognition because, of course, a universal remote control is the ultimate expression of our digital culture. We have grown so used to expecting such exponential advances in technology that we unthinkingly leap ahead of the possible to the ought-to-be-possible in the quest to make our lives effortless and delete wasted time. One technologically gifted friend looks with pity on lesser mortals who wait for episodes of their favourite show to appear on television. “If I hear of a new show I just download it,” he says. Season three of Entourage went to air on Sunday night in the United States, and 2034 bootleg copies were on the internet the next day. “I remember running home from school to see episodes of Batman or M*A*S*H but I have no patience any more,” says a man who puts two-minute noodles in the microwave, because who wants to wait two minutes? Foxtel IQ, like its American counterpart, TiVo, which allows you to pause and rewind live TV, is one of those advances which looks like a micro-step but, in practice, is revolutionary. There is something about fast-forwarding through ads, scanning an electronic television guide and storing programs at the press of a button that seems like coming home. These advances seem so natural, so right, that it is as if the remote control, the iPod, the satellite navigation gadget, the wireless laptop, Bluetooth phone and BlackBerry, are extensions of your self. Then there is Google, which has eliminated the mental strain of racking your brain for a dimly remembered fact. Who knows what kind of cerebral flaccidity will ensue in future generations? Will intelligence suffer without

this brain exercise, the sort you might get from doing a crossword, which is said to be a protection against Alzheimer’s? Or will freeing us from brain-racking allow other, more creative parts of the brain to develop, generating a new type of human consciousness? On the other side of the fence, robots are being developed with artificial intelligence that involves “learning” behaviours which some say will lead to sentient machines, with unpredictable emotional needs and desires. News came this month that University College London researchers have developed a method of growing skin over metal, having studied the way deer antlers grow. The technique is used for building artificial limbs, but its obvious corollary is creating robots of

living flesh. Advances in nanotechnology, molecular biology and computer science are bringing the Terminator to life. The Sunday Times of London recently reported that an international team of scientists is writing a “code of ethics” for machines, along the lines of Isaac Asimov’s fictional 65-year-old Three Laws of Robotics. Some scientists believe “conscious” machines will exist before 2020 and that people will be having sex with robots within five years. This could lead to a dire gulf between the sexes, as the point of affinity and reconciliation between men and women has always been sex. On the other hand, sex has also been a source of discord, so perhaps nymphomaniac cyborgs will improve things. Either way, humanity will never be the same again.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 15

LAURA‘S WORLD

LAURA WILSON The smacking debate

s there such a thing as good violence? Added to our appetite for aggressive sports, we accept certain forms of violence as necessary such as in defense of self and others, and to many parents violence is necessary as a form of disciplining errant children. One hundred years ago what fell under the banner of acceptable violence looked decidedly different. Add to the above, a husband’s right to use violence to subjugate his wife, a teacher’s right to control pupils, and master’s/employer’s right to subdue workers, natives or slaves. Most countries on earth still maintain the rights to violence we have criminalized in New Zealand, even if outlawed legalistically, they are societally condoned, even enshrined as moral behav“Scenarios multiplied in my head; iour. Even within many the neighbour who never liked NZ communities status is measured in terms of viome and thinks my husband (who lence. How tough one is, looks Arabic) is a terrorist calling how violently one responds backchat from a wife, or the Police after eavesdropping at to lip from a child denotes a the fence and interpreting adult level of respect. Nonetheless the tide of shouting and child wailing pacifism creeps ever higher, as some kind of Once Were quietly eroding norms of Warriors situation” violence, leaving future generations believing that these newly acquired non-violent habits are innate rather than introduced. No sane person would today declare a wish to return to yesteryear’s accepted tradition of domestic (spousal) violence, and yet the removal of these rights caused a terrible outcry at the time. It was believed these rights underpinned the institution of marriage by enabling husbands to assert their position. In 2006 it is no longer husbands staking claim to right of spousal violence, but mothers and fathers asserting dominion over the physical bodies of their young. Section 59 of the Crimes Act is basically a loophole in our otherwise blanket law that denies any individual the right to use violent means against any other (barring selfdefense, Military and Police purposes). This loophole is tailored to meet the demands of parenting, wherein a level of violence is still largely seen as admissible. It entitles parents accused of violent measures

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to defend their actions under Section 59’s allowance of ‘reasonable force’ when disciplining children. Getting rid of this loophole would entitle children to the same protection afforded the rest of society. Put in this light, repealing Section 59 seems a no-brainer, why then the hue and cry? Who amongst us finds this idea so upsetting, and who is behind it? When first it came to my notice, I was amongst the opponents of the Sue Bradford driven initiative, thanks to some rather clever packaging by groups such as Family Integrity who have collectively labeled it the ‘anti-smacking Bill’. Along with countless other parents I had visions of myself walking down a shopping aisle with a mischievous toddler intent on ripping the store apart, prevented from doing so by a smack from Mum, only to have some nutcase dial 111 and report me. Scenarios multiplied in my head; the neighbour who never liked me and thinks my husband (who looks Arabic) is a terrorist calling the Police after eavesdropping at the fence and interpreting adult shouting and child wailing as some kind of Once Were Warriors situation. Then there are the women in Playgroup who think I’m criminally negligent for not vaccinating my child, who look for signs of other weirdness they can report to authorities as some kind of child abuse. I got so upset I actually thought of voting National because surely they would protect me from the terrifying powers of CYF whom I feared took a shoot first, ask questions later, approach to child removal. I have never hit my (or any) child, and am unlikely to given that my parents never smacked me and I am a softy-pacifist to the core. My family is therefore a very unlikely target for CYF attention, and yet the very notion of increasing their powers of intervention by repealing Section 59 terrified me. Some quiet introspection revealed this fear stems from the overwhelming love and protective instinct I canopy over my child. The mere thought of anyone having the power to spirit him away is chilling, and regardless of whether the spiriter was CYF or a creepy kidnapper, they would have the fight of their lives on their hands. It comes down to a simple fact; we all know we don’t really own anything for keeps in this life, the one thing we truly regard our own is our kids. This is about as primal as emotion gets, and the reason why Sue Bradford (et al)

DRIFT OFF TO SLEEP NATURALLY

face enormous opposition. At a gut level the perception is that she is trying to take something away from us. Bradford was quick to dispel this perception when contacted. She is somewhat bemused that her drive to repeal an archaic amendment in our criminal law, has been contrived as an invasion of family rights and privacy. Nothing about her Bill suggests parents will be prevented from smacking, but it will leave parents who beat their children without a legal leg to stand on. It would take a very brave parent indeed to speak out for their right to beat their child. What constitutes a beating over a mere smack is a matter of distinction that intervening bodies such as Police and CYF will have to determine, but this is nothing new. Perhaps all it amounts to is a new line being drawn in the sand, one that shaves a few centimeters off the rights of the heavyhanded and grants it to our smallest, most vulnerable citizens. One group attempting to dispel grey area over what constitutes ‘reasonable force’ against a child, is Christian organization, Family Integrity who have printed a booklet of appropriate measures that can be downloaded off the Net. In good faith this group is quite candid about its methods and aims, but will ultimately pay the price in a world increasingly ruled by liberal concerns. It is sad that Christianity (and religious mores in general) become collateral damage in this stoush that should be between our citizens responsible for New Zealand’s ugly child maltreatment statistics, and all those inclined towards their welfare. It is a waste of the limelight to highlight differences in parental philosophy between traditionalists and modernists, as both groups have their weaknesses (take your pick; the over-controlled automaton, or the utterly-indulged brat) and yet both fundamentally value children greatly. The limelight needs to shine unflinchingly on incapable parents, and take away their negative props such as administering beatings or locking kids in bedrooms so they don’t interrupt the party. We have plenty such families to focus on, as our goal should not be to punish parents, but to rescue children, and retrain parents. Ruby Harrold-Claesson, Swedish lawyer is lecturing here warning us off increasing State powers in family matters. She has a very level-headed argument punctuated with dramatic examples of apparently wrongful removal of children from good Swedish homes. We need to heed her warnings by not allowing CYF to develop secretive practices such as the ticket-quotas of the Police who have unfortunately been compromised by being made responsible for the profitability of their organization. CYF should be nothing more than the embodiment of all kiwis’ concerns for child and family welfare. Transparency will be their key to maintaining (or earning) our support, a difficult task considering their emphasis on extreme privacy. Somehow they need to find a way to market their organization positively in the community, or fear of them will only increase, whether well founded or not.

- 6 1 äÈ

“It comes down to a simple fact; we all know we don’t really own anything for keeps in this life, the one thing we truly regard our own is our kids”

iÀL> ÊV>«ÃÕ iÃÊ> `Ê } Ì Ì iÊ`À Û> >L iÊvÀ Ê i> Ì ÊÃÌ ÀiÃÊ> `Ê« >À >V iÃ >ÌÕÀ «>Ì VÊ>`Û ViÊ iÊänääÊ{{ÊÈÈÊÎ{ ÜÜÜ°} ` i> Ì °V ° â INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 17

STRAIGHT TALK

MARK STEYN The not so noble savage

icholas Wade’s Before The Dawn is one of those books full of eye-catching details. For example, did you know the Inuit have the largest brains of any modern humans? Something to do with the cold climate. Presumably, if this global warming hooey ever takes off, their brains will be shrinking with the ice caps. But the passage that really stopped me short was this: “Both Keeley and LeBlanc believe that for a variety of reasons anthropologists and their fellow archeologists have seriously underreported the prevalence of warfare among primitive societies… ‘I realized that archaeologists of the postwar period had artificially “pacified the past” and shared a “If a British officer meets a native pervasive bias against the – African, Indian, Maori – in any possibility of prehistoric warfare,’ says Keeley.” movie, play or novel of the last That’s Lawrence Keeley, 30 years, the Englishman will be a professor at the University Illinois. And the phrase a sneering supercilious sadist and of that stuck was that bit the native will be a dignified about artificially pacifying man of peace” the past. We’ve grown used to the biases of popular culture. If a British officer meets a native – African, Indian, Maori – in any movie, play or novel of the last 30 years, the Englishman will be a sneering supercilious sadist and the native will be a dignified man of peace in perfect harmony with his environment in whose tribal language there is not even a word for “war” or “killing” or “weapons of mass destruction”. A few years ago, I asked Tim Rice, who’d just written the lyrics for Disney’s Aladdin and The Lion King, why he wasn’t doing Pocahontas. “Well, the minute they mentioned it,” he said, “I knew the Brits would be the bad guys. I felt it was my patriotic duty to decline.” Sure enough, when the film came out, John Smith and his men were the bringers of environmental devastation to the New World. “They prowl the earth like ravenous wolves,” warns the medicine man. Whereas Chief Powhatan wants everyone to be “guided to a place of peace”. Fortunately, Captain Smith comes to learn from Pocahontas how to “Paint With All The Colors Of The Wind”. In reality Pocahontas’ fellow Algonquin Indians were

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preyed on by the Iroquois, “who took captives home to torture them before death,” observes Nicholas Wade en passant. The Iroquois? Surely not. Only a year or two back, the ethnic grievance lobby managed to persuade Congress to pass a resolution that the United States Constitution was modeled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation – which would have been news to the dead white males who wrote it. With Disney movies, one assumes it’s just the modishness of showbiz ignoramuses and whatever multiculti theorists they’ve put on the payroll as consultants. But Professor Keeley and Steven LeBlanc of Harvard disclose almost as an aside that, in fact, their scientific colleagues were equally invested in the notion of the noble primitive living in peace with nature and his fellow man, even though no such creature appears to have existed. “Most archaeologists, says LeBlanc, ignored the fortifications around Mayan cities and viewed the Mayan elite as peaceful priests. But over the last 20 years Mayan records have been deciphered. Contrary to archaeologists’ wishful thinking, they show the allegedly peaceful elite was heavily into war, conquest and the sanguinary sacrifice of beaten opponents… The large number of copper and bronze axes found in Late Neolithic and Bronze Age burials were held to be not battle axes but a form of money.” And on, and on. Do you remember that fabulously preserved 5,000-year old man they found in a glacier in 1991? He had one of those copper axes the experts assured us were an early unit of currency. Unfortunately for this theory, he had it hafted in a manner which suggested he wasn’t asking, “Can you break a twenty?” “He also had with him,” notes Professor Keeley, “a dagger, a bow, and some arrows; presumably these were his small change.” Nonetheless, anthropologists concluded that he was a shepherd who had fallen asleep and frozen peacefully to death in a snowstorm. Then the X-ray results came back and showed he had an arrowhead in his chest. Lawrence Keeley calculates that 87% of primitive societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65% of them were fighting continuously. “Had the same casualty rate been suffered by the population of the twentieth century,” writes Wade, “its war deaths would have totaled two billion people.” Two billion! In other words, we’re the aberration: after 50,000 years of continuous human slaughter, you, me, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Rumsfeld, we’re

the nancy-boy peacenik crowd. “Civilization” – Graeco-RomanJudeo-Christian – worked very hard to stamp out the primitive within us, and for good reason. I was interested to read Wade’s book after a month in which men raised in suburban Ontario were charged with a terrorist plot that included plans to behead the Prime Minister of Canada, and the actual heads of three decapitated police officers were found in the Tijuana River. The Mexican drug gangs weren’t Muslim last time I checked but evidently decapitation isn’t just for jihadists any more: if you want to get ahead, get a head. A couple of years back, I came across a column in The East African by Charles Onyango-Obbo musing on the return of cannibalism to the Dark Continent. Ugandan-backed rebels in the Congo (four million dead but, as they haven’t found a way to pin it on Bush, nobody cares) had been making victims’ relatives eat the body parts of their loved ones. You’ll recall that, when Samuel Doe was toppled as Liberia’s leader, he was served a last meal of his own ears. His killers kept his genitals for themselves, under the belief that if you eat a man’s penis you acquire his powers. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, of course, but I wonder sometimes if we’re not heading toward a long night of re-primitivization. In his shrewd book Civilization And Its Enemies, Lee Harris writes: “Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious

HUMAN

“The Mexican drug gangs weren’t Muslim last time I checked but evidently decapitation isn’t just for jihadists any more: if you want to get ahead, get a head”

foe… That, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary.” It’s worse than Harris thinks. We’re not merely “forgetful”. We’ve constructed a fantasy past in which primitive societies lived in peace and security with nary a fear that their crops would be stolen or their children enslaved. War has been the natural condition of mankind for thousands of years, and our civilization is a very fragile exception to that. What does it say about us that so many of our elites believe exactly the opposite – that we are a monstrous violent rupture with our primitive pacifist ancestors? It’s never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. You can bet your highest-denomination axe on that. © Mark Steyn, 2006

Get Thinking.GGeett TTaalking lking..Get Involved.

EMBRYOS EMBRY FOR RESEARCH FOR RESEARCH

he thought of using human embryos for research is a source of great concern to some and of great hope to others. It is an important matter for New Zealanders from all walks of life, not just scientists or specialists. Toi Te Taiao: the Bioethics Council has developed a booklet on using human embryos for research. It raises important questions that will really make you think.

Go to our website for: • A copy of the booklet • To join the web-based discussion group • To find guidelines for discussion groups with whanau, friends, or workmates.

It’s time

to talk!

You might also make a written submission to the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) (www.newhealth.govt.nz/acart), the Government advisory committee who will be advising the Minister of Health on embryo research.

www.bioethics.org.nz INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 19

EYES RIGHT

RICHARD PROSSER Camp Faraway

he Police four-wheel-drive crests a rise, and I gain my first glimpse of the place I am coming to see. From the road, a tourist or casual observer might think this was a military base; but it’s a mute point, because you can’t see this place from the road. There’s one way in, and one way out – a 21 kilometre gravel track over private land, with a guardhouse at either end. The first thing to really strike me is the layout. A razorwire encircled tent city, and beyond it, what looks like a chessboard of fenced sections, a tiny box inside each square. In the distance, inside yet another fence, I can make out a number of long rectangular buildings. We are deep in the Mackenzie Country, west of Twizel, and this is a Corrections Department “They get woken at 0500, facility known euphemistiget dressed, and march to the cally as Camp Faraway. Not many journalists parade ground. Morning drill, then have ever been allowed to showers and breakfast, and ready visit here. My host for the is the Warden, Butch for work by seven” day McLovechild. Butch is 48, a former SAS Warrant Officer, the eldest of seven brothers and sisters born to a Glaswegian father and a Ngati Toa mother. His dad was an alcoholic, and his mum…well, today they’d call it bipolar, and maybe even give her some help. Butch was 15 and in his third year of borstal when the last of the wee kids was taken from her. When they let him out, at seventeen, he joined the Army, after the Chaplain at the Boys’ Home, who was ex-Welsh Guards, pulled a few strings to get him an interview with the recruiting officer. “The chopper will be here for you at four,” says my Police escort as I step out of the ute. “I’m not driving up here again today!” “Welcome to Club Med,” says Butch with a grin, as we watch the 4WD depart. He’s a short, nuggety man, chiseled and clean shaven. He ushers me into the waiting vehicle. As we drive towards the facility headquarters, I get the distinct impression that he could have been a tour guide, had that been what he wanted. “This is the restricted section,” he says, pointing out the tent city. “It’s kind of a punishment area.” At each corner of the razor wire encirclement, there are watchtowers, with what looks, I have to say, like gun barrels protruding from them.

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“These are the Basic cells,” my host informs me, as we pass the chessboard. Small areas of grass, maybe 15 metres square, each with a concrete block cube in the centre, heavy wire mesh fences about 5 metres high, topped with razor wire, and separated from the next enclosure by a six-metre gap. We arrive at the headquarters. “This is where we have induction, the medical wing, the advanced facility, and most of the amenities,” Butch tells me. “New prisoners get body-cavity searched, and spend their first week here on detox.” “What about those who don’t have drug problems?” I ask. He smiles. “Everyone does detox,” he says. “There’s no chemicals here. No tobacco, no coffee, no food colouring, no soft drinks, no preservatives, no sugar.” “What do they drink?” I ask. “Water, and black tea,” says Butch. “And no drugs or alcohol. Goes without saying. Their urine is tested daily. Any slip-ups, and their personal officer will be here behind bars with them.” “What about visitors?” I enquire. “Surely there’s a risk they could bring something in?” “No visitors,” Butch answers. “No letters, no phone calls, in or out. Not for the first year. And no illicit cellphones, either. Transmissions are monitored and jammed.” “Isn’t that illegal?” I ask him. “I mean, what about their human rights, and so forth?” “They’re not here for a bloody holiday,” snaps Butch. “Or even punishment, really,” he adds, perhaps a little more gently. “This is a corrections facility. They’re faulty. They’re here to be corrected. They’re entitled to a noncontact visit from a lawyer once a month, and they can pass verbal messages to their families through them. That’s all.” “It must be difficult for the addicts,” I remark. “Yeah, Cold Turkey’s hard, but no-one ever died from it,” says Butch. “The worst ones are the smokers. But here is all about cleaning out and clearing out, making new people out of past mistakes.” “How do you manage that?” “Hard work, clean living, discipline.” Butch is blunt and to the point. “We break down their past conditioning and impose a new regime on them. That’s partly why there’s no contact with people on the outside. When they

arrive they get given a number, added to their surname. They can have their name back when they leave. We cut their hair and put them in overalls. They wash and shave every day. The ones who don’t know how, we teach them. And we take everything off them.” “Everything?” I ask. “No jewellery, no bone carvings, no tiki, not even wedding rings,” Butch replies. “And we remove their tattoos as well. The past that made them bad is outside the gate. In here, we remake them.” We walk back out to the basic area and, inside an enclosure, Butch pushes open a cell door. The cell is an eight-foot concrete cube, with a raised slab along one wall, and a steel toilet in the corner. The slab is three feet wide and supports a thin rubber mattress. On the spare foot of concrete at the end of the mattress is a stack of three blankets. The cistern pipe above the toilet has a drinking fountain protruding from it. In the ceiling is a sprinkler, a security camera, and a 60-watt light inside a cage. I’m surprised to see a TV screen behind a sheet of Perspex, built in to the wall. “They can have National Geographic or the Discovery Channel,” says Butch. “And Concert FM or the National Programme. Or nothing.” “What’s the daily routine?” I ask. “They get woken at 0500, get dressed, and march to the parade ground,” replies Butch. “Morning drill, then showers and breakfast, and ready for work by seven.” “What do they work at?” Butch points to an area beyond the admin block. “The quarry, to begin with,” he says. “They break rock for road building. By hand. Later they move into scrubcutting,” he says, indicating the hill country to the west. “They walk up into the DOC country and slash broom and gorse. Their ankles are short-chained, and the guards are armed with tasers and shotguns.” “And they’re paid the minimum wage, naturally,” I suggest wryly. “Yeah, right,” says Butch. “It helps pay their keep though. Everything they need, we provide, and anything we don’t provide, they’re not allowed.” Outside the cell, I survey the grass square. “They’re allowed an hour in the pen each day, between work and lockup,” Butch says. “When they move into the advanced section, they have neighbours and a bit of association, but for the first year they’re pretty much alone other than for work and mealtimes. It breaks the gang affiliations and stops a hierarchy from developing.” We pass the restricted section on the way back to the admin block. “The cells are a constant fifteen degrees all year round,” says my guide. “If they get busted down to the tents, for misbehavior or insubordination, they get enough ankle chain to reach the longdrop, and whatever the weather throws at them. It can be forty degrees here in the summer, and minus twenty in the winter.” The cells in the advanced section are the same as the basics, except for the addition of a small barred window, and the fact that they are in a large block with adjoining cells. These cell blocks encircle a common ground recreation area. “These guys have better jobs,” says Butch. “They work in the kitchens and the laundry, and the gardens and greenhouse when they’ve earned enough privileges. Most of what’s eaten here is grown here.” He turns on a TV. “They get extra entertainment, too; BBC

“The cells are a constant fifteen degrees all year round. If they get busted down to the tents, for misbehavior or insubordination, they get enough ankle chain to reach the long-drop, and whatever the weather throws at them. It can be forty degrees here in the summer, and minus twenty in the winter”

World, and yesterday’s talkback with the ads edited out,” he adds with a grin. “Sounds like quite the high life,” I muse. “How do you deal with fights and so on, once they can get at each other?” “They’ve mostly settled down once they get this far,” Butch explains, contemplating the recreation ground. “And they know what the restricted section is like. But we fit them with a bracelet and an anklet just in case; we can zap a current between them with a remote trigger, if needs be.” “What about rehabilitation for the outside?” I ask. “Are there courses, or training of any sort?” “The guys on basic work six days a week, and have life skills instruction on Sundays,” replies Butch. “The ones who can’t read or write, which is quite a few, we teach them, and they learn about hygiene, nutrition, social skills, manners, budgeting, stuff like that. These are guys with no self-discipline, who don’t know how to operate in society. They’re everyone from taggers and fines defaulters and boy racers, to drug dealers and drink-drivers and rapists and home invaders. They come in angry, and arrogant, and smart-arsed. They’ve got no respect, for themselves or anyone else, and they think the system can’t touch them. They learn it different in here.” He opens a classroom door. “On advanced, they work five days, have workplace skills-based instruction on Saturday, and get Sunday off. They’re allowed a book from the library on a Sunday.” “How long are prisoners here for?” I ask, reaching for my camera. “No photos, please,” says Butch. “Two years, plus whatever they rack up under canvas, and then they’re either out, or back into the prison system, depending on their original sentence. If they ever come back, they do a full year on restricted, digging out long drop toilets.” In the afternoon, following a tour of the quarry, and after listening to some of the wailing emanating from the detox wing, I hear the sound of my helicopter approaching. It’s a Rescue chopper, returning from a training exercise in the mountains. How appropriate, I think to myself, as I climb gratefully aboard. “What’s your re-offending rate like?” I ask Butch, almost as an afterthought. He smiles, and pauses before closing the chopper door. “You tell me, once you’ve got this place built in real life,” he says. “Personally I don’t think it’d be very high at all.” As we take off, and Camp Faraway recedes into the distance, I can’t help thinking he’d probably be right.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 21

LINE ONE

CHRIS CARTER Putting out the fire with gasoline

ou may recall, a couple of weeks back, that a women’s magazine was pinched with a not inconsiderable fine for running a “comeon” headline on its cover, designed especially to excite its chick readers’ curiosity to the point where they would buy yet another edition of the mind numbing nonsense that by and large appears these days to be the staple reading of the recently emancipated female population. A couple of pop tarts…are allegedly in the pudding club! Yeah right! Pay for the magazine and the reader found that this simply wasn’t true…A complaint was made and the magazine was pinged…All nice and tidy, well, that is until you stop and consider that this scam has been going on for years in women’s mags, and one of them “For as long as most of us can being hauled over the coals scarcely going to stop this remember, the local oil industry isracket that’s for sure. has been crying poor, i.e. a very All of which brings me to low profit margin on a litre of take a wee look at our meek acceptance of all manner petrol apparently leading to oil of untruths, scams and company executives almost being straight out fiddles, that seems to pass as legitat the point of wandering the now imate marketing, or a true streets rattling a tin cup just to and faithful description of keep solvent” a service offered. And where better than to start with the ubiquitous oil company service stations. Well it’s quite plain that these purveyors of petrol and diesel wouldn’t know what service was if it reared up and bit them on their corporate asses. Obsessed with the profit motive, these petroleum outlets will happily sell the motorist (at hugely inflated prices) just about anything that you will find in a well stocked corner dairy. However, should your car have blown a fuse, suffered a puncture, perhaps cast a fan belt, or in an older vehicle needing a can of Radweld to get you home on a stormy night...forget it...No money to be made here, so despite assertions that “We’re drivers too” or perhaps that you can “Go well with Shell” the truth of the matter is that these characters really don’t give a toss about the NZ motorist beyond enjoying the ever present opportunities to rob them blind. The latest outrage that a motorist is now forced to suffer is to simply cruise into a “service” station where,

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increasingly we now find, despite having a half acre of forecourt and anywhere between a half dozen to a couple of dozen fuel pumps, the only signs of life are to be seen in a long queue formed in front of a single till, that being operated by a harried youngster, no doubt on the legal minimum wage that corporate greedmongers figure they can get away with. Why the queue? Well it appears that now staff have been pared down to the point where one less and there would be no one there, certain members of the criminal classes have seen the opportunity to fill their (or stolen) motor cars and then to do a runner. The poor till operator is already struggling with a constantly self-replenishing queue, and plainly can’t chase after the absconding thieves. So what’s the oil companies’ answer? Pre-pay for fuel! No thought of putting a couple of people out there on the forecourt who not only would be able to largely stop this thieving, they would also be able to check older people’s oil and water, blow up tires and stuff like that...Hell no...! Get the mugs to line up to pre-pay like the tossers that they are and our petrol theft problems are over, and best of all we continue to keep our wages bill to the absolute minimum. But let us move away from the well deserved “Robber Baron” reputation of the oil industry at large and return to the various legal penalties that may be applied to those who knowingly choose to mislead the general public. For instance, if it may be commonly agreed that retailers of petrol provide nothing that could in any way be described as being even a minimum service, then pray tell me why they should continue to be allowed to display signs that say that they do. Indeed I suggest that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs should immediately order the painting out, on all oil company signs, of the word “Service”, to perhaps be replaced with a more consumer friendly (and truthful) sign that simply proclaims that fuel is sold here, along with very expensive coffee, and that service is all but non existent! By the way if you think that these fiscal hoodlums are not seeing us off in magnificent style, consider the number of times that we have all seen on the telly the strange little bloke who turns down the grouse looking lady for a visit to the Wild Bean Café, where the truth may well be that his jaded tastes were well satiated with the jolt of caffeine on sale, but with the coffee often being made, of course, by the one or two young

staff members valiantly trying to run the whole station operation as well! This practice in any civilised country is called gross exploitation of labour, (and this opinion coming from an unabashed capitalist.) Then, consider this as well...For as long as most of us can remember, the local oil industry has been crying poor, i.e. a very low profit margin on a litre of petrol apparently leading to oil company executives almost being at the point of wandering the streets rattling a tin cup just to keep solvent. Which, incidentally, many people would just love to see! Sadly, of course if we could simply run our cars on the amount of manure that these oil companies pour all over us, then motoring would be very affordable indeed. Clear evidence of oil company profits, of course, can be seen all over the country. Huge and very expensive oil company-owned sites either springing up like mushrooms or at the very least being enlarged and re-furbished in a plainly multi-million dollar splurge that has never ever been seen before in our country’s history. Not making money indeed! Sure, what appears in the corporate books at the end of the tax year may well appear to show a moderate profit regime, but then stop and consider who it is that they buy their off shore product from...their own Head offices? And if so, what better way has ever been devised to ship Kiwi earned profits offshore without benefit of taxation! Indeed the number of overseas owned businesses in our country that deny our IRD their rightful pound of flesh are now a legion but a list of these folk can wait for another issue. At the risk of continuing to build a fair reputation as a windmill-tilter, may I timorously suggest that all you motorists reading this little diatribe might seriously consider, wherever possible, a complete boycott of any service station that has adopted prepay? Like, I can’t for the life of me think of any retail operation that consistently ups its prices whilst at the same time degrading any form of acceptable service, to the point of becoming, essentially non-existent. Even worse, of course, is that we lot are silly enough to be taking all of this with the expressed outrage usually to be found in a freshly run over possum. Service aside, another point to consider: Safety...and in a country that in recent times has become almost obsessed with safety, what sort of pull do the oil companies have with the Department of Labour, Occupational Safety and Health etc? Petrol is a product designated as being Dangerous Goods right? So how come a young, poorly paid kid can frequently be left in control of an operation where completely unsupervised members of the public can pour a potentially dangerous petroleum product more or less at will. What if there’s a fire? Does the kid abandon a till jammed full of cash, leave the store to twenty or so people in the queue to simply help themselves? Is he trained in fire extinguisher use or first aid? Is he even, on his own, able to supervise the safety regulations applicable to the forecourt from his usual place behind the till bagging up the groceries or making the coffee? No way in the world in most service stations can this be happening and therefore quite plainly just about every OSH safety regulation in the book is regularly being broken. No ifs or buts – read the regulations for yourself re workplace safety and then ask yourself what the hell is going on here. So a bit of a challenge to the Department of Labour and other regulatory bodies to start doing your jobs properly. Like how many more youngsters have to be beaten and robbed, working as so many do in what clearly is an unsafe working environment,

“Clear evidence of oil company profits, of course, can be seen all over the country. Huge and very expensive oil company-owned sites either springing up like mushrooms or at the very least being enlarged and re-furbished in a plainly multi-million dollar splurge that has never ever been seen before in our country’s history. Not making money indeed!

to say nothing of frequently being left in sole charge of an installation, with the potential to flatten a whole neighbourhood if not properly supervised. When will the Departmental bureaucrats take on the big boys of business, or do they only ever pick on the little guys, which many in small business would think a silly question, knowing as they do from practical experience for whom the bell most usually tolls. 89789 Stressless INVESTIGATE Mar06 a1/20/06 Chris Carter appears in association with www.snitch.co.nz, must-see site. 2:13 PM

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 23

TOUGH QUESTIONS

MARGARET CUNNINGHAM On my knees

oday I did something I have not done in a long, long time. I prayed. I knelt down on my knees and prayed. It felt weird and rather daft kneeling on the lounge floor in-between the piano and couch surrounded by a clutter of Scooby-Doo magazines. What if my husband arrived home unannounced? If this should happen, I decided, I would prostrate myself on the floor and pretend I was looking for that missing ‘something’ under the piano. Even stranger than the fact I was actually praying, was hearing my self pray aloud. Silent prayer was not an option. What I had to say needed voice. So with lots of stilted ‘um’s’ and ‘er’s’ and pushing sideways thoughts of unbelief, I began my “I am a human being; linked prayer. “Oh God. Ummm, if through my humanness to all who the real God could just have gone before me and those hear me please Not the God I have errr who are still yet to take a breath created to suit myself, – related through the human spirit. Ummm but please the real The aptitude for good and evil is God. Are you there?” inborn in all of us. The face of I must admit I spent good and evil is human. This is sometime looking for the why I feel such shame, just as I right God. It felt important to do this. Whilst I feel warmth when I hear of good have many friends with being carried out” different belief systems and religions I have a feeling none of us have got God right so this needed to be pointed out in my prayer. What prompted this outburst? What finally brought me to my knees? It was the utterly senseless slaughter of Lois Dear, the Tokoroa school teacher who was brutally killed while she prepared for the new school term. Murder bought me to my knees in shame. Yes! Shame – shame for my country and the sinking realisation that in all of us there lies within this huge capacity for good and evil. What a responsibility and what depths we have sunken to as human beings as we experiment with good and evil. Lois Dear’s death was the end of the road. She represented for me all that has gone on before her; the wars, crusades, hatred, greed, sickness,

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corruption, poverty, the desire for power, the murders of our children…the list goes on and on. I don’t know why but somehow I feel accountable over it all as though I have played a part in this evil, even though I know factually and logistically this not to be true. I feel just as shamed about 6 million Jews killed in the 2nd World War over sixty years ago as I do the deaths of the Kahui twins, murdered only three months ago. But I am linked to this craziness. The mere fact I am human relates me to this evil. My well developed sense of denial responds. “Get real. There is no way on earth I am to blame for the world’s evils. I wasn’t even born when the Second World War was being fought! I’d never hurt; kill, maim etc, etc, etc.” But you see I am a human being; linked through my humanness to all who have gone before me and those who are still yet to take a breath – related through the human spirit. The aptitude for good and evil is inborn in all of us. The face of good and evil is human. This is why I feel such shame, just as I feel warmth when I hear of good being carried out. The trouble about taking it upon yourself to pray for centuries of evils on the spur of the moment, is just exactly what do you say to someone who is simply a mystery to you. My first instinct was the simplistic method of praying; just ask all this mayhem to stop. However, common sense tells me that over the thousands of years people have been praying, this would not be the first time someone had prayed, ‘please stop the wars’, or ‘stop this person from hurting me’, or ‘make my pain go away.’ Sticking plaster prayers. Cover the wound so I don’t have to look at it. Instead, with just me and Scooby-Doo for company, I prayed, “Oh God, I am so sorry. What a mess we have made of things.” Did it work? Did I achieve anything by praying? Well I can answer that in just three words. I don’t know! My faith is too shaky to believe that “God” can hear my isolated voice amongst the world’s millions. After all, one grain of sand does not make a sand dune. But maybe as a nation if we started on our knees ….well I wonder… Perhaps I could pray about that. Margaret Cunningham describes herself as a “religious cynic”, and is an occasional contributor to a number of New Zealand magazines.

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COVER STORY

anatomy of a The inside story on the Tony Stanlake killing

A source close to the Stanlake killing has provided exclusive new information to Investigate magazine. IAN WISHART has the details

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 27

t seemed like a gangland killing, but not a very good one. The discovery of a handless body with its head partially severed floating off Wellington’s Owhiro Bay last month set off a major police investigation that’s left the country speculating as to motive and detail. But for one Wellington man, it’s all too close to home. One of his family members is 21 year old award-winning apprentice butcher Peter Leach – no relation to the Mad Butcher of the same name – who’s been arrested and charged with being an accessory after the fact. The man, whom we’ll refer to as “John Smith”, contacted the magazine angry at what he feels is the way the first lawyer he hired to defend Leach left him hanging – metaphoricallyspeaking. But in the process of explaining the grievance, Smith has been able to fill in a lot of the blanks in the murder mystery: how it happened, why it happened and who allegedly did it. The first person police arrested, 21 year old Daniel Moore, has been charged with Stanlake’s murder and is also in custody. Moore is understood to be the son of a political activist in the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, and Smith claims it was a feud over drugs that led to the killing. “I don’t know if I should say, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter: $10,000, some drugs. That Stanlake – all those rental properties he had – this is what I’ve been told (I won’t say where from) but they were all full [of hydroponically-grown cannabis]. He had guys growing for him. Daniel’s just an idiot, thinks he’s really…don’t know what you’d call him, he’s an idiot.” Smith claims one of Moore’s family had been doing work at the Stanlake property and found out about the drug operation. He believes Moore then found out, and got greedy. “From what I can understand, his relative had the connection with Stanlake, he got them into the growing, and from what Daniel was telling everybody he was basically just greedy, wanted everything for himself. Thought he would try it. Couple of hot rocks short of a hangi. I think you’ve really got to meet the guy to understand it. “There’s a lot of finger pointing, there’s a lot of young people involved and a lot of people that know. Daniel was telling everybody about it, apparently, he was telling people what he was going to do but no one really took it seriously because he talks a lot.

“Daniel was telling them all he was in the Mafia, but a mate of mine told me he’s not in the Mafia, it’s a syndicate or some crap like that, and that he’s got a friend who’s in it. But they’ve like cut him loose. As far as they’re concerned he played with drugs and he lost, but they don’t want a bar of it. But these guys thought they were playing Mafia men, they thought they were in the biggest drug operation in the country. Peter is still a bit delusional about it, he still thinks – on the odd occasion we’ve spoken – he still thinks they were right up there and I said ‘No, you weren’t even close’. They’re just delusional, you know.” Like everybody else, however, Smith had no idea initially who had killed Tony Stanlake, not until young Peter Leach got hold of him a few days after the murder. “To be honest I wasn’t really that surprised! Peter had been ringing, trying to get hold of me the night before saying he was in trouble, and I’d actually joked about it to a friend of mine, and I was actually right on the mark. “Because Daniel – everyone knew, everyone put it together, apparently by Wednesday it was common knowledge anyway. There was that many people that squealed on him, Daniel told everybody so it’s no great surprise.” Peter Leach and Daniel Moore shared a flat – the house where police believe Stanlake met his death. John Smith says Leach wasn’t there when it happened. “He was in Wellington, he told the police what time he got dropped off, at 4.30, 4.45 by his boss. He got the bus home at 8.30 on Saturday night. I can only assume they’ve got all the video surveillance of him walking around town, otherwise they would have charged him with the whole thing. “Peter was living at the house as well, so Peter had arrived home on the night and there was blood everywhere. Daniel’s brother was already there, they just put it all together.” Smith says the body had already been dumped at Owhiro Bay by then, but that Peter was given the grisly task of having to help clean the house. “No, there was no body there, he didn’t cut the hands off or anything like that, it was done with a frigging axe. Peter’s a butcher. I’m sure if he’d have done it there’d be no bits left.” Smith says police were already hot on Moore and Leach’s trail just days after the weekend killing. “[Peter] was first contacted by police on the Wednesday after the murder. He was in touch with me earlier. We went to a

“Daniel was telling them all he was in the Mafia, but a mate of mine told me he’s not in the Mafia, it’s a syndicate or some crap like that”

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Tony Stanlake NZPA/Police

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 29

friend of his’ house and the police were already there – they answered the door.” The police took Leach in for questioning, leaving Smith – no stranger to the law himself – to fish around for a lawyer himself. “I tried to get Grant Nisbett but couldn’t get hold of him. I rang a mate of mine and he got Greg King to ring me. King was coming to meet us, and then Daniel – King rang up and said Daniel had rung him and he was going down to the police station to see him [instead].” When he finally made contact with a different barrister prepared to act for Leach, Smith says a deal was reached to suspend any further questioning until the following week. “The deal was that Peter was going to go back for more questioning on the following Wednesday. [The lawyer] rang me on the Tuesday and said I was to go in with Peter at 4 o’clock, and he was going to arrive about 5pm, and I was to wait with Peter until the lawyer arrived. “So we go in there about quarter past four, and they take us up into a room and start talking to Peter, and I says, ‘na, na na, we’re waiting for the lawyer to arrive’. Another officer comes in and starts talking to me, wants me to go to another room, yada yada yada, and I says ‘no, no, that’s not how it’s meant to go!’. “They play ignorant, as they do, so they realize that they’re not going to get me away from Peter so they evict me from the police station. I refuse to leave so they throw me out. As they pushed me out the door I said, ‘Is Peter under arrest?’ They said, ‘No’. So Peter stood up and said ‘I’m going with John’, and so they arrested him. So they threw me out the door.” All of this happened before the lawyer arrived. According to Smith, he didn’t turn up until 6.30 – and Peter Leach had allegedly been at the mercy of police for two hours by then, with no lawyer present. “[He] showed up about six thirty, I told him he was fired. He told me, ‘you can’t fire me because you’re not my client’. I said, ‘I hired you, so you’re fired’. He said, ‘no, you’re not my client’, and walked off.” The lawyer rang Smith that night and said Leach had given a statement to police. “I asked what was in it and he told me he wouldn’t go through that with me, and we’ve never heard from him since. Since then he’s been fired, because we couldn’t get a lawyer in to see Peter until Peter physically fired the lawyer, and [the lawyer] wouldn’t pass on any messages to him, so we had no contact with him. Basically we just got taken by the lawyer in my view.” Smith is equally miffed that because – on legal advice – they went into the police station at a pre-arranged time, police took the opportunity to execute a search warrant on his own house. But it is a different burden that caused him to come forward to Investigate – the belief that he’s responsible for not helping Leach get the best possible legal advice. “[Leach’s new lawyer] Keith Jeffries thinks me and the lawyer are a bunch of idiots, that I never should have taken Peter to the police in the first place, that we should have met at his office

and gone down with him. Which is pretty much what my mate said, that I led the boy into the lion’s den. I told him I’d look after him and I got him.” Having been arrested however, Leach did provide one snippet of information to police. “Well, what Peter told police is why they searched the tip again. Daniel dropped off some rubbish to Peter’s work. He gave it to Peter, and Peter went and stuck it in the bin. He told Peter that it had the hands in it. “When he made the statement to the lawyer I said to the lawyer ‘take that out because Peter never saw them [the hands], he only got told that and we don’t know if Daniel’s lying. He might have lied to put Peter in the thick of it’. And of course they never found them, and they didn’t find them because they’re not there. They find everything, so if they were out at the tip they would have found them. I don’t believe he gave them to him to be honest, I think he’s trying to stitch him up.” The belief that Moore is working to put Peter Leach in the frame is a continuing refrain in John Smith’s interview. “I’ve only ever met him once, but I’ve met a few people who know him and they say it was inevitable it was going to happen. He told everybody a few years ago he was going to do an armed robbery and he did, he got caught. A dairy or something. Why would you do it for that sort of money? “The cops got informed [about the Stanlake case], I think it was a family member who narked on him and everything just fell down from there. It’s going to be a huge trial. Hopefully the people who were involved will snitch on other people to save their own backsides. From what I know there are potentially about 15 people who could be charged. “The amount of texting they did, and they didn’t realize the cops could track TXTs from a**hole to breakfast. Hopeless. How dumb they were. Daniel even sent Peter a letter - obviously the police have read it because they’ve had it for a few days – he sent it here, not knowing he was in custody, basically implying a hell of a lot. With enough to sink him, and Peter. “ ‘Tell people I didn’t do it…If the police want to talk to you tell them that you can’t because your life and your family life is in danger. The people I work for don’t play games…I can’t protect you’. It was just crap!... ‘I’ll be out in September, the lawyer thinks I have a good case’. “He’s just dreaming, completely. I showed it to the lawyer and he just laughed. Couldn’t believe it! It doesn’t say anything but it implies a hell of a lot. I can’t imagine what else he’s been sending out of the prison. He’s just got no idea. I think the pot is the least of his problems!” In the meantime, Smith is preparing a complaint to the Law Society over the quality of legal advice he initially received. He feels he owes it to Leach. “I have spoken to Peter over the phone. He’s quite calm about the whole thing to be honest, pretty much accepted his part in the whole deal, so he’s not too worried about it. It’s more me, because I led him there into the lions’ den.”

“No, there was no body there, he didn’t cut the hands off or anything like that, it was done with a frigging axe. Peter’s a butcher. I’m sure if he’d have done it there’d be no bits left.”

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NZPA

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UNION CITY BLUES The break-in, the emails, the political slush fund

The story of how a ‘meltdown’ in a major trade union has raised allegations of Labour Government interference, and massive election spending. IAN WISHART has the exclusive report 32, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

t was after dark when the key twisted in the lock at the Auckland headquarters of the Service and Food Workers Union, and three shadows flitted through the doorway. Grant Sutton could feel the tightening in his chest as the adrenalin punch kicked in and, for a moment, allowed himself a wry smile at the irony of it – the national president of a major trade union having to break in to his own headquarters to get information. At issue, although he didn’t realize the enormity of it at the time: nearly $240,000 of members’ funds allegedly siphoned off to help Labour win the last general election; and of course the reason he was actually there himself – a tip-off that a new Labour MP was trying to subvert the democratic processes of the SFWU by allegedly interfering in the election of new union officials. Sutton, a salt of the earth kind of guy whose day job kept him grounded at Auckland International Airport, had been elected national president of the SFWU last November, head of a union covering some of New Zealand’s poorest-paid workers. But his election coincided with a bout of political intrigue inside his union, the like of which is rarely seen in public. At the centre of the spider’s web, newly-elected Labour MP Darien Fenton who – up until October last – had been both the National Secretary and Northern Regional Secretary of the SFWU, working both positions from her desk in the Auckland

office. With a husband and kids, Fenton didn’t exactly fit the mould Labour was looking for in its list candidates. But what she lacked in politically-correct diversity she more than made up for in her solid trade union background, and it was enough to secure a safe place on Labour’s MMP list. Joining Fenton in the web was her personal assistant, Lisa Eldret, a young British woman who’d gained trade union “qualifications” in England before emigrating to New Zealand several years ago. Gay and strident, Eldret also worked in Prime Minister Helen Clark’s Mt Albert electoral organization. Colleagues say she’s being shoulder-tapped herself for bigger things. To understand this story, you first have to understand the workings of the Service and Food Workers Union. Fenton and Eldret were salaried employees of the union whose wages were paid from the fees paid by union members. Members like Grant Sutton. As an elected official by popular vote of the membership however, Sutton enjoyed no salary or perks. His job was purely to see that the salaried team who comprised the national union executive operated by the rules in the best interests of members overall. In a crude analogy, Fenton, Eldret and others were management of the trade union, and national president Sutton was ‘Chairman of the Board’, as it were. With Fenton’s parliamentary bid successful, suddenly the union was left with two vacancies to fill: a new national secretary and a new northern regional secretary. Lisa Eldret was appointed Acting Regional Secretary pending a vote she was widely expected to win. It was this internal election battle within the Service and Food Workers Union that would spill out into the public domain and expose the massive amount of money the union spent to get Labour re-elected. But first, a little more context. According to documents leaked to Investigate by union officials, the backstory goes like this:

n September 21, four days after the general election that returned Labour to power on 17 September last year and elevated SFWU national secretary Darien Fenton into politics as a Labour list MP, Fenton sat down with colleagues John Ryall (then a regional secretary) and Sue Wetere, the acting national president at the time. Together, the trio registered an amendment to the union’s 2004 rules on how its members are allowed to vote at union meetings. Instead of one-person, one-vote, the amendment stated that only union delegates should be allowed to vote for national positions like Fenton’s replacement. In other words, no longer would the membership be permitted to directly elect officials, it would be done on their behalf by delegates attending the AGM. In an amazing display of political chutzpah – given that the rank and file members had not even ratified the changes – the new rules were used in November to elect regional secretary John Ryall as the new national secretary, filling Darien Fenton’s first vacant position. Under the previous rules, all 24,000 members would have been entitled to vote on whether John Ryall or rival candidate Hardie Peni should get the national secretary’s job. Instead, Ryall needed only 66 votes at a meeting of 130 union delegates to take the job. Like George Bush picking US Supreme Court judges,

Labour MP Darien Fenton appeared to be influencing the election of her successors. At least, that’s how unsuccessful candidate Hardie Peni sees it. At a Burger King just outside Hamilton on a cold winter’s night, Peni hands over document after document to Investigate, illustrating what he says is an absolute scandal. It’s not, he points out, that he’s bitter about losing. It’s about the fact that the fight wasn’t fair, the rules weren’t followed, and the election was nothing but a Labour Party hijacking of the union. Peni has a point. Rule 26.10 of the 2004 Rules clearly states “Should the National Secretary’s position become full-time then a national election shall be held to fill the position.” A national election, he says, is not 130 of the union’s 20,000 members. Hardie Peni’s protestations initially fell on deaf ears, but as more of the rank and file found out, the voices of opposition to the Fenton/Ryall amendments grew. “As far as I’m concerned this is not a democracy but a dictatorship,” wrote Barbara Wyeth, an 18-year veteran union delegate and former northern regional president. “After all, the 20,000-plus members are the union, not just a selected few.” It was during this growing chorus of disapproval that national president Grant Sutton found out that Labour MP Fenton might have been interfering in the process to elect the union’s new northern regional secretary. Lisa Eldret was standing for the position, but up against her was long-time trade unionist Jill Ovens. Referring to herself in the third person in a campaign news release, Ovens laid out her pedigree and ethos: “Ovens, a former education union president, CTU women’s convenor and women’s representative on the CTU National Affiliates Council, has been involved in community and union struggles for more than 30 years. “She was one of the leaders who fought corporatisation of State Coal Mines in Huntly during the late 1980s, led the tutors’ strikes at AUT in the mid-1990s, and last year led industrial action with the Middlemore Hospital security guards and with caregivers and cleaners in rest homes. “Ovens says the key issue is the need for genuine rank and file democracy, where the leaders listen and the members are in charge of their own union. ‘The SFWU is an organising union that seeks to empower its members to take control of their workplaces and their own union. Such control can’t be topdown. We have to work to strengthen the democratic structures of the union through the active participation of rank and file members’.” Grant Sutton meanwhile, as national president, and already nursing concerns about dodgy rule changes rammed through by Fenton and Ryall, felt duty bound to ensure the Eldret/ Ovens clash stayed clean. “I was notified there was an email of concern that needed to be looked into around the election issue with the union, and I took the initiative. I contacted [fellow union delegate and northern regional president] Sharryn Hough and said ‘I think we need to go in and actually retrieve a copy of that’, because we didn’t want it to go missing, so we could take it to the national executive for an investigation to take place. “I got hold of an office secretary so we could get in, and I went in and accessed the computers and printed off various things,” recalls Sutton of his February raid. “I was accused of INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 33

breaking into the office but we had a key and I was acting in the from Darien Fenton, on a computer belonging to a union staff best interests of the members, because if there’s alleged tampermember. One of the emails in particular showed the staff meming going on we need to know and need to deal with it.” ber had sent Fenton what appeared to be a list of the delegates There were rumours that Fenton wanted to swing the vote who’d be entitled to vote in the Lisa Eldret/Jill Ovens showin favour of her protégé Lisa Eldret, and that emails on some down for the national secretary’s position. of the union staff computers would confirm skullduggery. For “Under these new rules, which hadn’t been passed at the Grant Sutton, a paper trail would be hard evidence of sometime, it calls for, rather than a member vote, an AGM where thing he’d already experienced verbally. delegates who’ve been selected go along and vote. This email “I had previously nominated Jill Ovens to stand for the looked like it was either lists of all the delegates, so they all [northern regional secretary] position, on the premise that I could be phoned to get them in to ring – but I couldn’t get think she’s a pretty experienced woman who has a lot of talent, down to the nitty gritty – or it appeared to be was a list of all versus Lisa who in my opinion was young and I would say inexof those who had sent in expressions of interest to date, and perienced, but popular in certain circles. they’re the ones who could possibly be attending this confer“When I nominated Jill Ovens, Darien got onto me about ence – maybe 300 people or so. that, big time. She wanted to ‘meet’ with me over the fact that I “It was flagged that this email existed, and that it looked like nominated Jill, and she did meet with me and Sharryn Hough. a list of the delegates had gone out, and that was the premise She was trying to persuade me to withdraw my support for Jill, that we went in there to secure it.” and told me [Jill] had an agenda running. But in the time honoured tradition of Murphy’s Law, any“She talked about Jill’s thing that could go wrong, Alliance background, and that did. the Alliance party was tryThat evening, Lisa Eldret her“There were rumours that ing to move its way into all the self returned to the office and unions. Darien said she was discovered Sutton, Hough and Fenton wanted to swing the supporting Lisa and that she Marshall there. She told Sutton vote in favour of her protégé was Lisa’s campaign manager. to “take a hike, although not in That comment was said in front those words,” he recalls. Sutton Lisa Eldret, and that emails of Sharryn Hough, the northsays he’d been halfway through ern region president, who was printing off the emails and on some of the union staff at that meeting. And Sharryn didn’t get a chance to retrieve computers would confirm at that stage had actually nomiall of them because he didn’t nated Lisa Eldret, so she was a want to alert Eldret to what skullduggery” supporter of Lisa’s at that stage. he’d found. “And we went to this meetInstead, they left the office and ing, this lunch, and this is what waited until the coast was clear. Darien put forward. I looked into it, I actually rang up Jill and “We returned to the building and finished off what we were challenged her, and Jill refuted what was said. I was really disdoing. Problem being was that in going back to it you didn’t appointed, and I let Darien know that too, that I didn’t think know what you’d got the previous time. So we printed off some it was appropriate what she’d said about Jill. I didn’t mind more, but it was going to two printers and we didn’t clear the Darien having her opinions, but you’ve got to give everyone a second printer. And neither did they. And somebody got hold fair go. Elections are elections, and I made it quite clear there of the emails, obviously, because they ‘appeared’ over the next was nothing political on my side of it, Jill was simply the best couple of days.” person for the job.” But that was only part of the problem. Once again that eveSutton claims the Labour MP reacted badly to his continued ning, Sutton, Hough and Marshall were busted – this time by support of Ovens instead of Eldret with her close ties to both Lisa Eldret’s partner Nadine Rae who also worked there. Fenton and Prime Minister Helen Clark. “I was in the office with Sharryn, Sharryn was on the com“There were comments passed that my career in the union puter printing off the emails. Nadine came in and said ‘get out would be affected.” of here’, that she was there because John Ryall had told her to get us out of the building. I said ‘I’m the national president of ll of this, then, was swirling around Sutton’s mind the union’ and she said ‘no you’re not’. I had some papers in my as he entered the national office after-hours on a hand, she grabbed my arm and gave it a twist. Unfortunately February evening this year, in the company of the arm that she grabbed I’d split the socket in it, I had an acciSharryn Hough and SFWU office worker Brenda dent before Christmas and it’s not a hundred percent, so yeah, Marshall, to begin searching for information. it did some damage. Sutton knew that what he was about to do would put him on a “That wasn’t good at all, but I was basically keeping her away collision course with both Fenton and Lisa Eldret. from Sharryn. She then said, ‘ring John Ryall’, and while I was According to Sutton, they broke in to the office twice (he talking to him she went and pulled all the wires out of the comprefers not to call it a break in, saying he was acting under puter behind Sharryn.” his authority as national president, and Brenda Marshall had a Nursing his injured arm, Sutton escaped with the documents key). On the first occasion, they found a series of emails to and he was carrying, and he laid an official complaint of assault

34, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

with police the next day. But at least, he thought to himself, he now had hard evidence of what he believed was a conspiracy by Fenton and others to pervert the course of the union elections. Sutton says one of the Labour MP’s emails even suggested she was plotting Sutton’s own demise within the union. “There was an incoming email that Darien talked about contacting certain people and also made some recommendations of ‘dealing to’ some of the staff and changing their positions in the union, where they were working, including ‘the organizer who works at Auckland Airport’ – that’s me. “I couldn’t quote exactly because I don’t have it in front of me, but something along the lines of ‘give him so and so, that’ll fix Grant’.” When he and Hough flew to Wellington the next morning for the union’s national executive meeting, carrying copies of the emails with them, they were convinced they would be welcomed by John Ryall and praised for rooting out corruption. Instead, Sutton was flayed. “The whole purpose was to get what I considered conclusive proof and not hearsay. Because if somebody says ‘well this is going on’ that’s one thing, but if you print off the emails they certainly warrant an explanation. I wanted to prove it for their consideration, but I was absolutely barraged for what I did. Totally. The focus wasn’t on the content of the emails which I kept showing them saying ‘look, you need to consider these emails, get down to the bottom of what’s going on here,’ it was ‘we call for your resignation, how dare you go and do this!’. “They passed a resolution that I hand everything back. I told them that they could shove their resolution, but nevertheless I did hand them back. I don’t have any copies.”

or a brief moment in time – with the documents back in their control – the national executive, Labour’s Darien Fenton and Lisa Eldret breathed a sigh of relief. But only for a moment. Because noone had cleared the printers properly back in the union office, other staff had found the incriminating emails when they came in for work the next day, and within 24 hours the documents had spread like wildfire through the greater trade union community. Nor did it take long for rank and file union members to hear about the damning emails, as a letter from one to national secretary John Ryall shows: “There are rumours circulating around alleging that election officials of our union, and one of the candidates involved, have received communications from a former paid union official that now inculpate them in a plot that – if rumours are correct – is an attempt to derail the democratic process of delegate selection, and of member/delegates right to a democratic vote. “What is the entirety of this matter? This allegation is a very serious matter. If true it brings into disrepute our union, the union movement as a whole and also, it appears, the Labour Party and thus the current government. “Finally as a related issue rumour has it that Brenda Marshall has been dismissed, as she is rumoured to be the person who felt that it was her moral, ethical and legal obligation to inform the elected, honourary officials of our union…that it allegedly appeared that paid elected and salaried employees of our union… colluded to circumvent the rules and regulations of our union.

Helen Clark with two new unionist MPs, Maryan Street, (L), and Darien Fenton, (R) /

“I strongly believe…Brenda should have been commended, not dismissed. At the most she should have been suspended on full pay pending a full impartial investigation by the CTU. At the moment, if it is true she has been dismissed, and if she took it up with the Labour Department, she would have a good case of unjustified dismissal.” Ah, the irony – a trade union accused of unjustifiably dismissing a staff member without due process. An irony not lost on the letter-writer: “I am at this point rather angry, angry enough to be a very loose cannon, if you understand what I am saying. How dare anybody circumvent the democratic rights of our union members – we pay the bills, when we speak the paid people jump, not the other way around.” It was one of many such letters received by SFWU’s national office. For the record, national secretary John Ryall assures Investigate that Brenda Marshall was only censured, not sacked. Labour MP Darien Fenton, meanwhile, was pressuring the union’s national president Grant Sutton to keep his mouth shut. Investigate has obtained the full text of an email the MP sent to Sutton. “Having taken legal advice I write in regard to the unlawful break-in to the work computers of Anna Jobsis and Lisa Eldret by yourself, Sharryn Hough and Brenda Marshall on Monday 20th February at the SWU offices in Kingsland Auckland, when you copied emails either from or to me from Anna and Lisa. “You had no union management rights and were not acting in accordance with the union’s email policy, so therefore your INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 35

actions were in breach of my and Anna’s privacy rights under involved yet more skullduggery at the rank and file’s expense: the Privacy Act. I require that all copies of the emails obtained “Northern region members managed to vote down the rule in this way are returned to me and or Anna, and that you dischange despite up to a dozen extra site meetings being convened close the full list of people you’ve given copies of these emails – at short notice by the Acting Regional Secretary, Lisa Eldret. including those you have distributed by yourself to any SFWU These were held at times and places in a manner that mostly staff. I’ve been advised that you do not have the right to use excluded oppositional views. At these improperly notified ‘secret’ any of these emails and I’m seeking an assurance that you will extra meetings where only the dubious ‘vote yes’ arguments were not do so. I also require you to inform anyone to whom you put to those attending, the members loyally voted in favour of have given copies that they do not have permission or rights to the resolutions. At other meetings where members opposed to use them in any way, including providing copies to the media, the adoption of the new rules were able to put an alternative members, delegates and staff. view, the vote went overwhelmingly against the rule change. “I’ve been advised that under the union rules I have a legal “A complaint to the returning officer about the holding of right as a SFWU member to the information that was provided meetings that were not notified two weeks in advance to every to me. Anything else you have unlawfully obtained in private member as specified in the union’s rules was brushed off. The and confidential emails were opinions which I’m entitled to reply said that only a “technical breach” of the rules had been express under the freedom of association in the Bill of Rights. committed and because the national result was overwhelm“Please ensure that the emails and assurances sought are ingly in favour of the resolutions, no action needed to be taken. given no later than Friday 3rd March 2006. Should this letter “The rules have been endorsed by the union nationally and be ignored, or if the emails are therefore all the leadership elecused in any way by you or any tions will now be conducted in party that you have provided the way specified; viz confer“A series of workplace meetthem to I will be making a forences of selected delegates will mal complaint to the Privacy do the voting rather than the ings were held nationwide in Commission, as well as taking whole membership.” April and May this year. Those up my right of complaint as a The stakes in the race for the member of the SWFU. northern regional secretary’s in the north voted overwhelm“I regret that relations have position were higher than may so deteriorated under your first be apparent. Generally, that ingly against the new rules presidency,” Fenton concluded person will then be appointed transferring power waspishly. national secretary of the entire Sutton’s reaction to her union. Lisa Eldret – gay and to delegates” threats? “I ignored her.” strongly politically active in “By the way I’ve got a letter Helen Clark’s electorate – would from Darien threatening me if be in the front seat to enter parI release these emails, that I’ll be sued. She made no bones liament further down the track if she gained a profile as head of a about that, and also Sharryn received a letter to the same effect: major trade union. ‘you’ll be sued if you open your trap about anything’.” To outside observers the split illustrated a dysfunctional The threat appears to have worked. Hardie Peni says Hough union, although this probably became obvious when union told him of vast quantities of Labour party promotional matestaff went on strike in protest at the way their executive team rials the union had printed on behalf of Labour “but which was running the place. never got delivered. There were boxes and boxes of leaflets, and “They went on strike alright,” says Hardie Peni. “They’d had they just sat there. What a huge waste of money.” Both Peni enough.” and Sutton suggested we contact Hough, but she did not return Whoever heard of trade union employees going on strike? our calls. Aly McNicoll of Credos Associates for one. McNicoll was called in to mediate what some union officials were describowever, Fenton wasn’t the only one throwing the ing as “a meltdown”, and write a report on the problem after a “legal” word around. In the face of legal threats series of interviews with 35 staff. from union members, the national executive was “There was a high degree of commonality of experience of the forced to delay the election for the new northern current culture,” she wrote in a July draft report to the union, regional secretary while it attempted to get the leaked to Investigate. “Typical words used by interviewees to rank and file membership to approve the controversial new votdescribe the current workplace culture were hostile, dysfunctional, ing rules retrospectively. divisive, chaotic, political, intimidating and unprofessional. A series of workplace meetings were held nationwide in “There was evidence of high stress levels and reports of sympApril and May this year. Those in the north voted overwhelmtoms requiring intervention in 20% of the interviewees. Some ingly against the new rules transferring power to delegates, but spoke of others who had left the organization as a result of despite that the national executive rustled up sufficient support the effects of chronic stress which included panic attacks and elsewhere to get the new rules ratified and backdated. breakdowns. There was a high degree of emotion expressed As union member (and Jill Ovens’ partner) Len Richards noted about the current workplace culture and feelings of isolation, on his blogsite, the passing of the resolution appears to have vulnerability, fear and anger. For many, this was something

36, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

they had endured for up to 10 years.” In other words, for much of the time Fenton reigned supreme at the SFWU. The Credos report continues: “There were numerous examples cited of workplace harassment or bullying over the last seven years where people treated others with a lack of trust and respect, had acted on personal agendas for political gain, where there had been manipulation, dishonesty and ‘people behaving badly’ (shouting, swearing and public outbursts). “If people assert themselves against the bullying, the process can move in to phase two: elimination, which is achieved by dismissal on false charges or pressure to leave the organization due to the effects of prolonged negative stress or fear. There were examples of this in a number of stories from staff. “Many of these examples related to the past and the leadership style of a key individual who is no longer present. Many (70% of staff interviewed) felt that the legacy from the past was still present in the current culture/management practices and had lost trust and confidence in the leadership and management of the organization. “Most identified the impact of the past leadership style as the most important factor contributing to the current workplace culture. Many felt that the past leader still influenced current operational leadership and management practices.” Top of the Credos report list of recommended improvements? “Acknowledgment of past wrongs. As with any process where there has been power harassment, it is important for those with

the power to acknowledge the inequity and degree of damage that the sustained power harassment has caused. This will assist people to bury the past, draw a line in the sand and make a fresh start.” Recommendation two is just as interesting: “Changes in leadership. There was a strong feeling that the only remedy was a change of leadership although staff expressed that – given a fair election [in the Eldret/Ovens race] – they would agree to live with the members’ vote.” And just to reinforce the point for anyone who hadn’t “got it” yet, recommendation three of the Credos report gives a damning appraisal of Labour MP Darien Fenton’s continued haunting of union affairs: “Create a buffer from interference from the past leader on current operations in the office.” Consultant Aly McNicoll adds in a footnote, “If this was a public sector organization e.g. a school or a polytechnic, a commissioner would probably be appointed at this stage to take over the management function for a defined period of time to support the organization from a point of impasse to functional management. With elections at the end of July and the new management regime that this will bring, it is thought that the appointment of a caretaker manager is unnecessary.” The union’s national secretary John Ryall was surprised to find the magazine had obtained a copy of the Credos report, and refused to comment on its criticisms. McNicoll was right, however, in her expectation that a leadership change was imminent. On July 27, northern region delegates elected vet-

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eran unionist Jill Ovens as the new northern regional secretary, FENTON: No. delivering a major slap in the face to Lisa Eldret and her menQ: So you expected her to lose then? tor Darien Fenton. FENTON: No. Once again, union member Len Richards blogged about it Q: Then why wasn’t it a shock? on his website: FENTON: Look, Ian, I really don’t want to comment on this. “Scenes of jubilation and tears of joy greeted the stunning vicI’ve moved on, I’m an MP now. As John said I’m a life member of tory by Jill Ovens in yesterday’s election for the new Northern the union and entitled to have input and involvement, but that’s Region Secretary of the Service and Food Workers’ Union as much as I’m prepared to say. (SFWU). The special delegates conference of 112 voting deleQ: The emails that were exchanged between yourself and gates gave Ms Ovens the clear mandate of a 68 to 44 winning Anna Jobsis, your comment on the content of those emails? result. Ms Ovens upset success over Lisa Eldret, Darien Fenton’s FENTON: That’s ancient news. Wouldn’t have a clue what anointed successor, was achieved in spite of repeated and suswas in them now. tained interference in the election process by the new Labour Q: Were you, as they suggest, interfering in the election camMP. Fenton even turned up at the special delegates’ election conpaign? ference in the guise of Eldret’s scrutineer, the only capacity in FENTON: Absolutely not. John Ryall should confirm that was which she was allowed entry into the closed meeting. This was looked into and absolutely confirmed by the returning officer. so she could talk to delegates and try and convince them to vote Q: The report from Credos is pretty damning of your leaderfor her nominee, Eldret. Fenton did not in fact stay to carry out ship of the union, have you seen that? her scrutineering duties, being FENTON: No. replaced by the real scrutiQ: Are you aware of what it neer soon after the secret balsays? "Accounting papers leaked to lot commenced. The full story FENTON: No. Investigate disclose the union of Fenton’s disgraceful conduct Q: Are you aware that it sugduring this election campaign is gests the leadership style of the spent a massive $237,000 workyet to be told, but undoubtedly past was appalling – none of ing to get Labour re-elected... it will be,” reported Richards. this has been raised with you? Wanting to get to the botFENTON: No. Credos much higher than the union tom of precisely that issue, haven’t talked to me at all, so budget allowed, but it is also far I haven’t had a chance to rebut Investigate interviewed Darien Fenton about the issues raised. these suggestions. I would suggest higher than the $20,000 donaFENTON: I think you to you, Ian, that this report was should talk to the SFWU. I’ve done in the middle of an election tion Labour has declared..." moved on, I’m an MP now, I’m campaign when staff were heavnot in control of the union or ily involved in it, and that was don’t have any position in the union except as a member. one of the things they were trying to do was discredit Lisa and that Q: Well you did turn up to the meeting on the 27th of July? was one way of doing it. FENTON: 27th of July? Q: Just reading from the report here, they’re saying there was Q: The election between Jill Ovens and – bullying, workplace harassment, people railroaded into being FENTON: I turned up as a scrutineer for one of the candidates, yes. dismissed – Q: Did you stay to scrutinize or did you leave that to someFENTON: No, that’s just bulls**t, absolute bulls**t! There has body else? never been a claim of bullying or harassment or any of those things FENTON: I got called back to Wellington, by the whips. during my time as leader. If those things had happened I would Q: But you have been heavily involved in Lisa Eldret’s camhave expected those staff, who are represented by a union, to have paign? taken some action. And they didn’t. FENTON: Not really, no. Q: Just reading still, many examples relate to the past and Q: You didn’t describe yourself as her campaign manager? the leadership style of a key individual who is no longer presFENTON: Um, might, there was a couple of emails late last ent. Many (70% of staff) felt that the legacy from the past was year, you know, this is a very old story now Ian, as I say. When I still present… first went to parliament I was concerned about what was happenFENTON: Well they’re talking about the current leadership, ing in the union, but I’ve really stepped back. they’re not talking about me. Q: OK, because that’s not the suggestion that’s come from Q: “A key individual who’s no longer present”…would that members. They’ve suggested you are heavily involved still. John be you, do you think? Ryall’s made a similar point, that he actually welcomes – FENTON: Well I was part of a management team actually, FENTON: You haven’t spoken to John Ryall! part of a management team. Q: I just spoke to him 10 minutes ago, he says he actually Q: One of the strategies for improvement Credos has listed, welcomes your involvement as a life member. is create a buffer from interference from the past leader on curFENTON: Well that’s right, but the election’s over. It’s an old story, rent operations in the office. yesterday’s news, the election’s over. For goodness sake, move on! FENTON: Well that’s a staff view, come on! Look, this is what Q: The defeat of Lisa Eldret, did that come as a shock to you? their view is. As I understand it, those interviews were done in 38, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

March [actually May] when the heat was really on around the election campaign. I’m quite relaxed about all this, actually Ian. AS I say, I’ve moved on. It’s not the opinion of the people that I’m representing, it’s not the opinion of the members I still come in contact with regularly as part of my job. It’s the opinion of a few disgruntled staff, and union staff are notorious for this. It’s office politics at its worst, actually, the whole thing. Q: Now that Lisa’s lost her election bid, are you maintaining a similar level of activity in the union now or are you going to concentrate on your parliamentary career? FENTON: I have been concentrating on my parliamentary career. When you go to parliament from a background like mine you don’t just leave your union behind. My job is representing workers and that’s what I consider I have been concentrating on. PART TWO While the Service and Food Workers Union may have resolved some of its problems with the shock defeat of chosen one Lisa Eldret in the northern regional secretary race, financially the union is feeling the pain after former national secretary Darien Fenton allegedly helped the SFWU overspend on Labour’s election campaign last year – a campaign that Fenton directly benefited from given that she was also standing for Labour. Accounting papers leaked to Investigate disclose the union spent a massive $237,000 working to get Labour re-elected. What makes that figure intriguing is that not only is it much higher than the union budget allowed, but it is also far higher than the $20,000 donation Labour has declared to the Electoral Commission as the only money it received from the SFWU. A financial report prepared by SFWU official Marina Kokanovic last November puts it in black and white: “Overall, the Union spent $237,364 during the election campaign. Around $100,274 was spent on printing, photocopying, postage, petrol cost, telephone tolls, the delegates’ election conference and delegates’ expenses. The cost for staff involved in the election activities was $137,090. Our Union dedicated almost 7% of [its] total financial resources as well as one-month labour force for the election campaign.” The documents also disclose that by the end of the election campaign the Union had made a $218,000 loss for the year – money its members would have to stump up with.

onsolidated account statements leaked to the magazine reveal the union had budgeted to spend only $70,000 on the election campaign in 2005. For her part, Darien Fenton disputes the $237,000 figure. “That’s not true and you need to put those questions to John Ryall because I haven’t seen that report, but it’s not true. There’s a report there – you need to put this to John – because I don’t have the report, I haven’t seen it, but I know it’s not true. I know what was reported to members because I was at one of the meetings as a member and I know it’s accurate. The accounts were audited and those have been reported back to members. It was about $70,000 to $80,000. The amount that was reported back was accurate and that was budgeted for.”

John Ryall claims the real figure was closer to $105,000, and that the $237,000 “was an internal exercise”. “Well I’ve been through this with the Sunday Times. It was just an estimate that was done for us, if we added up every bit of organizers and delegates time that was spent around election activities. It includes educational work, getting people on the roll, stalls we had in the markets, a whole range of things.” But Investigate’s inquiries are not the first time the SFWU’s election spending has been scrutinized. Earlier this year the results of the police investigation into issues like Labour’s ‘pledge card’ and ‘Brethrengate’ were released. Buried in the hundreds of pages of files was an investigation of the SFWU’s role in the election campaign. Chief Electoral Officer David Henry referred the SFWU to the police after making a preliminary finding that the union’s regular newsletter Our Voice should have carried statements by the secretaries of the Labour and Green Parties authorizing the document as ‘election advertising’ under s221 of the Electoral Act. That section, in broad terms, essentially says that any advertising in newspapers, periodicals, posters and flyers which encourages or persuades or even merely appears to encourage or persuade voters to support a particular party, has to be authorized by the secretary of each party concerned. If the ads, flyers and the like carry no authorization, then the person responsible for putting them out becomes liable for the offence. The reason for authorization is to bring the promotional spending into official expense accounts. Under the Electoral Act, each party is allowed to spend only a certain amount of money on election campaign advertising. As police pointed out on the Helen Clark pledge card investigation: “Labour was allocated $2.3m. If the cost of the pledge card and leaflet…is added to the total expenditure, then the Labour Party has spent $2.7m, which is $418k over their allocation for election expenses.” All of which makes the $237,000 spent by the SFWU suddenly very interesting. The account papers in Investigate’s possession show the union’s $17,000 expenditure on Our Voice was not part of the $237,000 in electioneering for Labour. But intriguingly, the union admitted in a letter to police dated 19 January 2006 that “Darien Fenton was a candidate for Labour when she wrote and authorized the Our Voice publication.” Did that mean that – because of the conflict of interest inherent in Fenton’s dual roles as a union official and Labour candidate – Fenton had effectively turned the August 2005 issue of Our Voice into one giant Labour party ad? The police investigation, however, didn’t go very deep. It restricted itself only to the Our Voice publication and some associated leaflets, and neither police nor the Electoral Office realized the union had spent vastly more on the election campaign than first thought. Here’s what the police decided in regard to the Our Voice complaint: “A SFW Union booklet distributed to members of that union encourages union members to vote for Labour. The booklet is likely to be in breach of s221 of the Electoral Act, as the author did not have written authority from the Labour Party secretary INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 39

[Mike Smith] to publish the material. “There appears to be sufficient grounds upon which to base a charge…however the recommendation in respect of this material is that Police issue a warning to the SFW Union as to the implications of their publication in the lead up to a general election and the risk of becoming criminally liable under the provisions of the Electoral Act. “It is noted,” said one police report, “that Darien Fenton was a list candidate for the Labour Party when she wrote and authorized the production of the [Our Voice] Election Special 05. “As such, she had a direct interest in the outcome of the election and potentially stood to benefit personally from any advantage that the Labour Party might gain from this material.” Over at the Electoral Office, Robert Peden spelt out for Investigate how election advertising needed to be accounted for. “They can lawfully advertise in relation to negative advertising – attacks on other parties and candidates – and to promote issues, and so long as the person authorizing the publication of that advertising is set out on the face of the advertisement, that’s lawful and there’s no limit on how much is spent on that. “However, anyone who wants to promote a candidate or a party needs the authorization of that candidate or party before they can do it, and again that authorization on the face of the ad is required. The cost of any advertisement which is promoting the candidate or the party needs to be attributed and included as an election expense in the return of expenses. So it doesn’t matter who’s paid for such an advertisement, it still needs to be included as an election expense of the candidate or party it is promoting. “Now in some circumstances where the ad has been paid for by a third party, the payment is an election expense but it is also a donation. Now the Electoral Act requires parties to declare donations of money or goods or services of $10,000 or more, so if any donation is less than $10,000 then it’s not required to be declared.” Peden says that if the person responsible for the ads failed to get written authorization from Labour, then they’re personally in the gun. “If it hasn’t been authorized by the party, the person who has published it has arguably committed an offence, but that expenditure can’t be attributed to the party because they haven’t authorized it, otherwise you’d have the situation of people being able to put their opponents over the limit by publishing material ostensibly promoting them. That’s why you have those authorization provisions.” But what about if the person authorizing the trade union material is in fact a Labour Party candidate? “The question then would be whether that person was acting properly on behalf of the party secretary who’s the person responsible for authorizing those ads. Did the party secretary authorize it?”

enton initially said Labour had authorized it, but Mike Smith told police he hadn’t. But there is a bigger question that remains unanswered by the police investigation. Labour has only declared a $20,000 donation from the SFWU to the Electoral Commission, yet the SFWU’s own accounts suggest the union spent nearly $240,000 trying to get Labour re-elected – $100,000 of that in printing or photocopying flyers and other

40, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

promotional material and efforts. Surely a much bigger chunk than $20,000 should have been declared as a donation and/or noted as an election advertising expense? Doesn’t it, we ask, break through the threshold six month statute of limitations on ordinary electoral offences and into the non statute-barred Crimes Act, particularly if it can be established that the non declaration was deliberate rather than procedural? Robert Peden of the Electoral Office is circumspect in his reply: “Well if you had evidence of that kind of behaviour the appropriate course would be to refer it to police.” Sounds like a good idea, we agreed, but given the evidence had already been staring police in the face, and given their track record on Paintergate, Speedogate, Benson-Popegate and Pledgegate, it’s probably pointless.

here is also what the Electoral Commission calls “a sizeable grey area” in how the law treats donationsin-kind. That’s where services or products, rather than money, are involved. On the face of it, a series of trade unions each doing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work for the Labour Party appear to be donating services to Labour. But the law appears to require the services to be formally “received” by Labour before it kicks in. So if the unions do it all, and Labour never “receives” the work-in-kind itself, then the donation rules don’t kick in. Unless, of course, by co-ordinating the SFWU operations while wearing her Labour candidate’s hat, it could be argued that Darien Fenton was “receiving” the donated services on behalf of Labour. Even if she were, then there’s the question of figuring out how much to book. Under the current law, a donor’s labour is not included for the purposes of calculating a donation. That may be OK for an individual, but for a company or incorporated society it might not be so simple. The union staff who did the work were paid to do the work, so they were doing it for commercial reasons rather than “donating” their time. It is, says an Electoral Commission spokeswoman again, “a very grey area”. Should more money have been declared in Labour’s election expenses in the sense of donations? We put the question to Fenton. “Can I tell you, Ian, the Sunday Star-Times tried to investigate this story and found there was nothing in it. You’ve got nothing to go with there. You need to talk to John Ryall about it because he can explain the details of how that works. The SFWU policy was to support a centre-left government, a Labour/Greens government. You’re trying to suggest the money should have been declared in Labour’s election platform.” This is, we pointed out, the debate that came out with the Brethren issue as well. “We didn’t distribute hate leaflets and do push-polling,” argues Fenton. “What the union was doing was legitimate election activities which were around getting people on the roll to vote, talking to them about issues in the election campaign, and encouraging them to get out and vote.” Either way, with the Auditor-General now fingering “grey areas” in election spending, the experience of the SFWU is sure to re-open debate about financial benefits in-kind and how, or even whether, they should be accounted for in election spending returns.

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CIVIL HANDS UNCLEAN A Shakespearian Tragedy In Aviation Safety The current state of fixed-wing aerial topdressing in this country reflects all that is bad in New Zealand general aviation. In this background piece ROSS EWING zeros in on the main problem areas and also makes a case for steering the “blame game” within aviation in a more equitable (and useful) direction 42, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

An aerial topdressing plane wreck is airlifted by helicopter from the Pukenui bush, just west of Whangarei where it crashed in November 2005

t epitomises kiwi ingenuity. Aerial topdressing is a very ingenious use of aircraft to “dung dust” rugged hill country and it adds several billion dollars to New Zealand’s economy. Topdressing by air has a fascinating New Zealand history having first started in the 1940s and in many ways the country led the world; today there are about 35 companies involved in the industry operating around 75 aircraft. Unfortunately, being a topdressing pilot still rates highly in industrial death statistics and topdressing has seen over 65 accidents in the last five years. This rate is not decreasing and topdressing remains without doubt a risky business. A prime reason for this is that it involves flying low to the ground. Unlike other aeroplanes in New Zealand that are generally limited to flight not below 500 feet above ground, topdressers have a carte blanch dispensation to fly much lower – to the nap of the earth. Another reason for the poor statistics is that topdressing aircraft are always loaded to maximum capacity – maximum permissible take off weight – to maximise the load dropped. Additionally, aerial topdressing involves operating off a wide variety of some of the most non-optimal topdressing strips in the land; these are often sloping, rough surfaced and of minimum safe operating length. Not exactly a good fit with maximum weights of the aircraft! Then there’s the issue of flying in the early morning and late afternoon when wind conditions tend to be more suitable, but this often means flying into conditions of glare, shadow and reduced daylight. Of course, the pilot must also wake an hour or so before dawn so as to get to the work site by first light; then after the day’s flying he must carry out administrative activity usually in the form of night-time phone calls to the pilot’s firm and to the next day’s clients. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 43

Add all these factors and it’s not hard to see that in topdressing, compared with most other forms of flying, the tolerance for any pilot human error or misjudgement is significantly reduced. The natural corollary of this is that any factor that might interfere with a topdressing pilot’s ability to judge and/ or make normal aviation decisions needs to be minimised, if not eliminated. Accidents don’t happen for no reason – there are always underlying factors – a chain of events – without one or more of which the accident would not happen. Therefore, if the true cause(s) that underlie any accident can be uncovered and determined, aviators will learn lessons and are therefore unlikely to allow similar accidents to happen again. A problem with this can be that the “true” causes are either not learned or not heeded. And so it was amongst this background and in the fading light of 4 April 2003, a Fletcher topdressing aircraft, registered ZK-LTF, crashed killing the two young people on board – the pilot and his loader/driver, both in their late 20s (See Investigate, March 05, or thebriefingroom.com). The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) investigated the accident in quite some detail, but although the Authority said that fatigue and (from the pilot’s autopsy) carbon monoxide absorption may have been factors, its overall findings were inconclusive. However (and although the CAA didn’t say so in this case), any “inconclusive” finding that includes the absence of any aircraft technical fault effectively, and inevitably, points to “pilot error”. The pilot must have “screwed up” in some way. This assumption also became unofficially “the word” about ZK-LTF amongst the topdressing fraternity. A subsequent Coroner’s Inquest was held and the findings of that were identical to CAA’s – i.e. they, too, were “inconclusive” – which again had people at large thinking in terms of “pilot error”. But how useful is that term? Is pilot error a yes/no argument?

ore informed investigators, unhindered by ulterior motive, are these days asking, “Well, maybe, but why did the pilot err? Was it, as an example, that he was “just a cowboy” or was the crash due to other factors? Was there, for example again, lack of well-thought out and clear official rules and regulations? Was there adequate training for the pilot? Was there good company supervision? Was there sufficient daylight to safely fly the sortie? Was carbon monoxide poisoning a factor? Or what? Surely these are all possible factors? It’s all too easy for so-called experts to directly or indirectly – blame the pilot and then smugly walk away shaking their head and muttering, “silly bugger”. In effect, no one learns anything from that attitude as it does not get to the cause and will thus potentially allow accidents of the same type to happen again. The pilot’s human failings may have been a factor – but the only human factor? Unlikely. What about the human failings judgements and decisions of others involved? Why should the pilot, usually dead, take all the blame while the failings of others – who might be just as culpable, or more so – scuttle away? In effect, the term “pilot error” lets others off the hook. If the blame game is going to be played, that blaming surely needs to be apportioned. And what about the Fletcher aeroplane? Although its name

44, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

has become synonymous with topdressing in New Zealand and it’s been around for over 50 years – how good is it? Especially from a crash-survival viewpoint? The researched facts are not encouraging. In most serious Fletcher accidents, it will be found that the cockpit disintegrates and the pilot is either killed or seriously maimed, usually by the engine moving backwards into the cockpit. Or the aircraft may flip over causing serious head injury or death. The underlying problem is that – unlike modern racing cars that can crash at 350km/h and disintegrate all round the driver who remains protected – the Fletcher has no roll cage. The CAA has identified this as a “known problem” but no technical fix has been forthcoming. In previous accident reports, the CAA has stated, “With regard to the Fletcher, ‘the applicable airworthiness design requirements relating to crew protection provide for minor accidents only, not the catastrophic kind… When these standards were applied to the original type certification of the Fletcher FU 24 more than 50 years ago, the likelihood of a complete turnover on landing was assessed as not reasonably probable... As a result…, Fletcher FU 24 series aircraft [do] not feature the rollover protection-structure typical of most other agricultural aircraft’.” Yet another significant factor in topdressing crashes is the possibility of pilot fatigue. Much aviation research into fatigue began over 20 years ago and related to airline pilot operations; this research found it a potentially very serious problem. Since that time, the aim has been fatigue-avoidance, rather than fatigue-reduction. Regarding the crash of Fletcher ZK-LTF, a new development has recently brought this accident back into the limelight. Fresh information, since the CAA and Coroner’s Inquiry, has been uncovered regarding the work hours of both the pilot and the loader driver in the months leading up to crash. This poses the question: had they both been over-worked? This possibility has in turn led to the unusual step of holding a second Corner’s Inquest into the same accident, and this is being held about now. It is bound to focus on the issue of fatigue, the pilot’s fatigue in particular. Fatigue is generally recognised as being a malignant accumulation of unrelieved work stress. It is a harmful effect on normal human performance that comes about through over work combined with inadequate periods of sleep/rest. It is serious. It is not like tiredness or stress but is more relentless; it will not go away. It will usually accumulate after several days of overwork and not enough sleep. To dissipate, it takes similarly several days of reduced (or no) workload along with an increased rest/sleep pattern. Symptoms of fatigue include irritability, poor judgement, reduced decision-making ability, indifference, short temper, reduced work performance, making mistakes, self neglect, and “acting out” (tough guy, macho displays of) behaviour. These effects can be quite debilitating. Although aerial topdressing is largely seasonal work, a pilot in New Zealand – if the weather is fine – can currently expect to work 18-hour days at peak season, at times for days if not weeks on end. Under these conditions, without adequate and negating legislation, pilot fatigue is very likely to generate. The advent of bad weather may bring some relief to the workload, but it may not. In topdressing, whether fatigue is generated or not is thus, at best, haphazard. Somewhat amazingly, there are currently no fatigue avoidance rules for topdressers in New Zealand, which begs the question – why? Other countries, including Australia,

have flight, duty and rest regulations, descriptions and definitions specifically for topdressers – why not New Zealand? One reason could be that New Zealand does not have an independently strong and wide reaching agricultural pilot representative group. It has the Agricultural Aviation Association, or AAA, but this group is currently a division within the Aviation Industry Association (AIA) that apparently has its own agenda that may well allow public interest in aviation to be subjugated by private interest and can lead to “conflicts of interest”. In a submission to a recent LTSA study into fatigue in road transport, the AAA, in collusion with the CAA (and likely the AIA) admitted it was prepared to let its pilots become fatigued at certain times during the year should economic conditions – as viewed by the AAA – warrant it. An excerpt from the LTSA study said that, “CAA has, after extensive study, determined that pilot fatigue is not an issue sufficient to justify restrictions, so has exempted [agricultural] aviation pilots from pilot flight and duty hours.” What sort of madness is this? It is obvious that the AAA/AIA don’t want specific rules from CAA in agricultural aviation as this might disadvantage certain membership from an economic viewpoint, but meanwhile, the lack of rules puts struggling businesses and fledgling pilots – some not members of the AIA – at definite risk of serious accident. The situation boils down to one

of pilot fatigue versus economic gain: in order to make more money, agricultural operators are prepared to be lax on safety and risk their lives and livelihood by overlooking the possibility of pilot fatigue. Common sense would however say that it is very foolhardy to allow pilots to become significantly fatigued “two or three times a year” for “for economic reasons”.

hree of the most serious effects of fatigue are that it causes poor judgement, poor decision-making and increased risk-taking and we see examples of this in the Fletcher ZK-LTF accident. Namely, it was poor judgement (increased risk taking) by the pilot to persevere with topdressing in fading light while down amongst the long shadows of dusk with the sun already significantly below the mountainous horizon. The fact that he also decided to carry a passenger while conducting topdressing (forbidden by regulation) was an example of a poor decision. Compounding these adverse effects of fatigue and fading daylight would have been the mild (8%) carbon monoxide poisoning of the pilot (presumably from the engine exhaust). Carbon monoxide is known to degrade human performance: it reduces the amount of oxygen reaching the brain, the resulting “hypoxia” causing its own symptoms including adverse effects on vision and judgement, along with headache and nausea. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 45

There was also talk of the absence of an adequate safety culture at the pilot’s place of work as his workplace evidently had no effective internal personal mentoring system or safety net for young pilots who felt under pressure. There was also no effective supervision by the company of the pilot or his operation. Then there’s the matter of the pilot’s work description and workload; he effectively had two jobs – to seek topdressing jobs from farmers, and then carry out the work. Amongst this rather dismal safety background, at least there is the aspect that “ag” pilots are, surely, well trained to fly in the role of aerial topdresser? Aren’t they? Well, no, they aren’t. Currently, there is – remarkably – no industry-wide agreed syllabus of agricultural pilot training. The present system is that after a pilot has gained his or her commercial pilot’s licence, he or she is then subjected solely to “in-house” training by the operator. The inevitable outcome of this is that there is a consequently wide variation in job-description, standards, pilot performance, aircraft handling competency, and therefore in overall safety. It gets worse. A critical issue currently facing topdressing operators is the fact that most fixed-wing training is undertaken in aircraft that are not designed for agricultural operations, i.e. there is a lack of any dual-controlled topdressing training aircraft. So, exactly how an operator is expected to pass on to novice ag pilots the basic fundamentals of flying various manoeuvres in hill country at high all-up weights, at very low level and in a specific aircraft type, utterly beggars belief. There is talk of building a topdressing-pilot simulator-based training facility, although this is obviously some way off and whether or not it is achievable and, if so how it might be utilised, are far from clear. Thus, in the ZK-LTF crash, the definite possibility exists that there were flaws in the training and therefore in the flying technique(s) of the pilot because of a current lack of adequate pilot training across the industry.

o who is it that is meant to be watching over the topdressers – to ensure they don’t come to any harm? The answer is of course – in the final analysis – the CAA, New Zealand’s aviation safety regulator. The CAA’s role includes establishing and monitoring civil aviation safety and security standards, and to conduct regular reviews of the civil aviation system. The Authority’s Vision demands that, “New Zealand aviation [be kept] free from safety and security failure.” Its Mission states that it is, “To take action that ensures people and property are not harmed or threatened by New Zealand civil aviation operations”; and “in particular the CAA seeks to ensure that the number and impact of adverse aviation related events on people and property are minimized.” The Authority has, however, been in the gun for public criticism lately. An Auditor General’s report released this year found that CAA inspectors within general aviation (smaller aircraft, including topdressers) often ignored procedures for monitoring, recording and following up “critical findings” about air operators; one taking more than 400 days to be resolved. The CAA defines “critical findings” as being incidents or deficiencies with the potential to cause loss of “life or limb” and cover everything from maintenance to compliance with aviation laws and regulations, such as monitoring pilot fatigue although this

46, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

is absent within the agricultural industry. The CAA was also heavily criticized in another area – a report recently released by the Christchurch Coroner into another multi-fatality accident of another general aviation aircraft. It is obvious that CAA’s Vision – that “New Zealand aviation [be kept] free from safety and security failure” – did not happen in that case. Nor did it happen in the accident of ZK-LTF. Nor arising from the Fletcher accident has there been any mention by CAA of fatigue elimination in agricultural pilot operations, or of establishing organised pilot training for agricultural pilots. CAA are obviously prepared to stick with the status quo, giving credence to a recently heard point of view that said one could be forgiven for thinking the CAA doesn’t want to reduce air crashes – or else it would be out of a job…! Why is the CAA so bad? Why is it getting so much criticism across the board – in the general aviation sector in particular? The most likely reason why it is in such shambles is to do with yet another iniquitous practice: that of the Authority investigating accidents in which it has an obviously vested interest in the outcome. Very likely to be the heart of the matter, and unlike in Australia or the United States, the New Zealand aviation safety regulatory authority, i.e. the CAA, investigates some (although not all) air accidents in this country. Thus we have the ridiculous situation in New Zealand where the CAA “investigates its own accidents”. There is no one “checking the checker”. The problem with this arrangement is that, in cases where the CAA and its legislation (or more precisely any deficiency of it) may be a contributing factor in an accident (as was the case of ZKLTF, i.e. primarily by the absence of fatigue legislation), the CAA will naturally tend to skirt around these causes rather than “blame itself.” Thus, when it comes to the true causes of any such CAA-investigated accident, these may become distorted and inconclusive, if not avoided altogether. This is not only sure to muck up the country’s air crash causal data but also lets the Authority become a law unto itself. Q.E.D. An obvious fix is that CAA should stop investigating all air accidents. Accident investigation should be taken away from CAA and be given to New Zealand’s US/Australian equivalent – i.e. the NZ Transport Accident Investigation Commission. The CAA should then be left to get on with making rules, and enforcing them. In many ways the topdressing industry is the forgotten industry. It needs to sort itself out. It and CAA need to stop the senseless and repetitive process of young usually relatively inexperienced ag pilots from killing themselves, and others. To top it off, the CAA, AIA, AAA and others – rather than hinting at the shortsighted label of “pilot error” (as in in the ZK-LTF accident as well as in other more recent General Aviation accidents) need to come up with a more equitable system of meaningfully apportioning “blame”. Only in that way will pilots and others learn about the true cause(s) of accidents and achieve a safety culture that is effective and more “just”. In the current Coroner’s re-look at the crash of ZK-LTF therefore, a more realistic apportioning of the various causes would be – pilot 10%, his employer 20%, the AAA 30%, and CAA 40%. * Dr Ross Ewing is an ex-military pilot/instructor, retired war veteran and GP who has a background in flying, aviation medicine, aviation human factors and aviation safety, and who is now an aviation author, publisher, observer and occasional aviation commentator.

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As close as Sydney, Niue's also over four times larger than Rarotonga, and even larger than the entire 15 island Cook's group! So there's more than enough room to trek through virgin rain forest, explore stunning caves or just drift aimlessly over pristine reefs - guided professionally, or on your own. Only Air New Zealand flies to Niue, direct every week from Auckland. To find out more, please visit our website and sign up for our email newsletter, or call the dive experts at Dive Fish Snow Travel, Auckland on freephone (NZ) 0800 200238.

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www.niueisland.com INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 47

GENERATION

ZZZZZzzz Are we drugging kids just to shut them up?

Last month we began a special report into the depression industry. This month in part two, LIDIA WASOWICZ examines depression in children and asks whether too many kids are being forced to pop pills for non-existent problems

ooming from nil to millions in 20 years, the burgeoning number of children diagnosed with depression is on a collision course with a healthcare system unable to keep pace. Any instant, the unsteady overload, buffeted by demands coming at it from all directions, can careen off track, hurtling unprotected children toward an emotional wreckage. Slicked by short supplies of money and manpower, dangerous conditions are reported on both sides of the road. Each day, countless youngsters are passed by as they try to flag down help to escape the mental torment of a potentially fatal psychiatric disorder. At the same time, patrolling critics contend, others may be pulled over for inspection and correction of a non-existent irregularity. Apparently missing the warnings to proceed with extreme caution and approach with care, the inattentive system has managed to hit both pitfalls. 48, INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006

We have a crisis in mental health in children, says Nadine Kaslow, a US-based professor and chief psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, president of the Society for Clinical Psychology and a specialist in childhood depression and suicide. As with most mental illnesses increasingly reported in minors in the West, a gap exists between what is known and what is practiced, with identification and treatment of childhood and adolescent depression based primarily on prevailing, but not proven, ideas. Fueled by scientific uncertainties, the difference between the dominant and discontented perspectives rides on the degree of demanded guarantee, a varying threshold for what constitutes acceptable risk for the anticipated reward. What the establishment sees as progressive practice, its eschewers deem rampant recklessness. Each side is equally fervent in professing to serve in the patientâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best interest. To a varying extent, they both do. Understanding of the mysteries of a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aggrieved mind

has come a long way in a short time. Yet, a considerable stretch of the road to definitive answers remains to be negotiated. For now, scientists can only speculate, and spark debate, about the nature, causes and, most heatedly, treatments of a condition psychiatrists not long ago considered confined to adults but now are convinced affects up to 2.5 percent of children and as many as 8.3 percent of adolescents. Twice as many teenage girls as boys suffer major depression, the reverse of the disorder’s gender distribution during the prepubescent stage. Just about every controversy and uncertainty surrounding attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder also shadows its less common compatriot. However, the stakes are higher with depression, and its preferred treatments. No major study lays deliberate self-inflicted death directly at ADHD’s feet. In contrast, many implicate depression as a lead trigger of suicide. No foreboding warnings of suicidal thoughts and behaviors (though not the actual taking of one’s life) in adolescents glare off any popularly prescribed stimulant’s label.

Yet, just such black-box branding was ordered by US federal regulators in 2004 for at least 32 commonly prescribed anti-depressants. That includes fluoxetine hydrochloride, better known by its trade name Prozac, the only drug in its class approved for depressed minors under 18. The disputes lingering over childhood depression, and its many fellow mental disorders, are partly grounded in the 1990s revival of somatic psychiatry. The move – inspired by the introduction of Prozac in late 1987 – ignited a fervor for the capsule over the couch. The first in a wildly popular major new class of drugs for depression called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs – within two years of its debut, commanding 65,000 prescriptions a month in the United States alone – Prozac opened a double door to discord. It led to the contentious redistribution of biologically based treatments beyond the original market niche and to the controversial reactivation of inquiry into the physical foundations of a human’s psychological makeup. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 49

In a dramatic shift in treatment trends, chemical solutions weren’t just for the severely and perennially ill minds any more. Deemed safe and at times transformingly effective, they also became the fast ticket for many so-called worried well – the mildly depressed, anxious and neurotic but fully functional who used to talk their way out of life’s problems. Along with the new fixes have come new interpretations of what is being fixed. Under the prevailing, but vigorously contested, theories, the key triggers of the psychological disorder have jumped up and over the physical barrier – to a chemical imbalance in the brain. This seemingly anthropomorphic ascribing of mundane corporeal traits to the ethereal complexities of the human psyche represents a leap or lapse, depending on your point of view, from what for decades served as the gold standard of analyzing and healing troubled minds. From Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, depression arises from a conflict between the id, the primal instincts, and the superego, the conscience, mediated by the ego, the pragmatist that fulfills basic needs but within the bounds of moral values. From this position, neither the ego nor the superego is thought to be fully formed until late adolescence, making it seem unlikely depression can hit before then. Until recently, uncertainty prevailed over whether the young are even capable of experiencing the disorder.

hen I went to medical school, a bit over 20 years ago, we were taught children and adolescents didn’t get depressed, recalls Dr. David Fassler, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, spokesman for the American Psychiatric Association, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont and author of Help Me, I’m Sad: Recognizing, Treating, and Preventing Childhood and Adolescent Depression (Penguin, 1998). We’ve come a long way over the past decade. We’ve gotten better and better at recognizing symptoms of depression in younger children and adolescents. He puts the overall rate of the disorder at 3 percent to 5 percent of U.S. children and teens, meaning somewhere between 2.2 million and 3.7 million minors. About one child in each classroom is dealing with depression, Fassler says, conjuring up a distressing image that flies in the face of the long-held belief in children’s immunity to the disorder. Depression through the ages Recent research suggests depression, whose symptoms vary widely across and within the pre-adult age groups, seems to be making its first appearance – at least on physicians’ charts – much earlier in life than in past decades. In findings that took aback even those who made them, investigators from the Duke University Medical Center in North Caroline detected signs of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses in one in 10 of the 307 2-to-5-year-olds they studied – about on par with older children and not much below the rates reported in adults. Thirty years ago, there was a huge debate in the medical psychiatric field whether there was such a thing as childhood or adolescent depression, and no one is arguing that now, says

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child psychiatrist Dr. Helen Egger, assistant professor of psychiatry at Duke and co-author of the study funded in part by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. Now, we need to be doing some rethinking again, pushing the question back to even younger than school-age children, she says. Child psychiatric epidemiology beginning at age 8 or 9 has simply missed the boat. But there are those who think it is such pronouncements that have gone overboard in casting a medical spin over hitherto unremarkable, albeit unpleasant, aspects of growing up. It is the reclassification of pediatric proclivities – from skipping school to picking on peers – as mental maladies that is partly responsible for the startling statistics of childhood psychiatric disorders, they contend. The notion of what is psychologically normal and not normal is not a scientific construct but easily influenced by cultural and social forces, maintains clinical child psychologist James Maddux, professor of psychology at George Mason University in Virginia. “There’s always a suspicion (of) a silent collusion to expand the boundaries of what a mental disorder is because the drug companies can then sell more of their pills and psychiatrists and healthcare professionals can offer quicker fixes with their prescriptions and people can take a quick fix to solve their problems,” he says. The intelligent, informed consumer buys into this, too. A controversial new book by two Irish psychotherapists goes so far as to define depression as an emotion rather than a disorder, committing what in mainstream medical eyes is scientific heresy. “The dominant approach in psychiatry, which sees chemical imbalance as the primary cause of depression and medication as its cure, pathologizes sufferers, turning them into damaged goods or victims of flawed chemistry and defective genes,” psychiatrist Dr. Michael Corry, co-author of Depression – an Emotion Not a Disease (Mercier Press, 2005), writes on his Depression Dialogues Web site. Such a view places the problem within the person’s brain matter, rather than in their thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and the ways in which they respond to the problems of living, he contends. This stringently mechanistic approach marginalizes personal consciousness, viewing the unfathomable depths of human passion, individuality, creativity, curiosity, reason, intuition, will, compassion and spiritual insight as mere secretions of the brain, akin to the way the kidneys secrete urine. Similarly off the established path, a British child psychiatrist warns against labeling, and treating, the increasing unhappiness among children as depression. Recent evidence has suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (anti-depressants used to treat the disorder) are largely ineffective and may be dangerous in this age group, Simi Timimi wrote in a leading medical journal. “Older antidepressants have already been shown to have no beneficial effect in people under 18. So how did we get into this mess?” she wrote. Undoubtedly part of the problem is with pharmaceutical industry tactics, designed to enable greater consumption of their products. In addition, shifts in Western culture have pushed more

“As many as two-thirds of depressed children also suffer from other oftentimes look-alike disorders. Untangling these so-called co-morbidities hits a snag on the chicken-and-egg quandary: Which came first and is one the cause, effect, neither or both of the other?”

childhood behaviors into the realm of medical problems, she claims, calling for a refocusing on the underlying reasons for youths’ slip into sadness. Skeptics like consumer-rights advocate Barbara Loe Fisher are even less circumspect in their criticism. “The medicating of our children for everything from ‘depression’ to hyperactivity without getting at the root cause for the behavior disorder or the autoimmune disorder (asthma) or the neurodevelopmental delay (autism and learning disabilities) is not going to lead to better individual or public health,” Fisher says. She is co-founder and president of America’s largest and oldest vaccine safety and consumer watchdog organization, the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia, and co-author of DPT: A Shot in the Dark (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985). Fisher has served on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Forum and the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. “Pharmaceuticals only act as a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding temporarily,” she maintains. “Becoming dependent upon drugs and vaccines is not the answer to the open wound that has been created by failed health policies which do not approach health holistically.” On the mainstream side of the debate on the other hand, most mental-health providers swear by the medicines, which they see as boosters, not busters, of psychological wellbeing. “I don’t think anyone who’s been able to treat depressed patients will tell you SSRIs and Prozac didn’t result in dramatic improvement,” says investigator Donna Palumbo. She is associate professor of neurology and pediatrics, director of the Strong Neurology ADHD Program and head of pediatric neuropsychology training at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York. “We didn’t have anything effective before SSRIs,” she says. “These are drugs, and drugs will have side effects. Nothing is foolproof. But do you throw the baby out with the bathwater? What of all the people that dramatically were helped by the treatment?”

Palumbo acknowledges the medicines come with side effects but insists the risks are outweighed by the benefits. “I can’t say of those thousands of children we’ve treated, we haven’t had horror stories. I’ve had children develop side effects, and they’ve had to come off the drugs, but we’ve had much more successes,” Palumbo says. “Some of these children are so out of control or struggling (so much), it’s heartbreaking when you know they’re bright and can do better if they’re not in the trenches.” The young and depressed on the rise Recent years have seen a distressing increase in the number of young people committing suicide and visiting doctors for complaints of depression. The suspected reasons for the surge include a varying mix of changing familial structures, shifting societal pressures, biological influences and genetic factors. One also cannot ignore the concurrent rise in childhood chronic illnesses, such as asthma, and their toll on youngster’s mental health. In fact, new research reveals long-standing medical problems take a heavy psychological toll on the family – never mind the child – even years later. So much so, the authors urge routine INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 51

hospital screening of parents of cancer patients for post-traumatic stress and provision of psychosocial support for them during their child’s treatment. The distress can last, though to a lesser degree, according to another study that began an average five years after the youngster’s therapeutic course had been completed. It found in most cases at least one parent continued to suffer moderate to severe stress symptoms reminiscent of the psychological aftershocks of war or natural disasters. Similar conclusions were reached in studies looking at conditions other than cancer, including traumatic injuries, burns, organ transplantation and chronic illnesses.

otentially traumatic medical events are frequent occurrences for children, the authors noted. Each year, one in four children receives medical care for an injury (while) other conditions, such as burns, sickle cell disease, diabetes and severe asthma, affect large groups of children. Far from keeping up with these shifting trends, America’s healthcare lags so far behind, some specialists estimate as few as 20 percent of depressed youth get the attention they require. “The surgeon general says the vast majority are underassessed and undertreated,” says Dr. John Walkup, deputy director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. “Anxiety disorders and depressive disorders (affect) 6 percent to 8 percent of teens; 1 percent to 2 percent of children are on antidepressants, (meaning) treatment is somewhere between 25 percent and 30 percent of the potential at-risk population.” Which is not seen as an entirely bad thing by critics concerned about what they deem an overly cavalier tendency by some doctors to prescribe drugs that do not address the root causes of depression; can trigger side effects which, in some adolescents, include stimulating the very behaviors they are supposed to subvert; may not be all they’re cracked up to be, and have a largely unknown long-term impact on developing brains. To seal their case, the critics argue that because diagnosing depression in children remains an inexact science, the medicines may be doled out to youngsters who don’t need them at all. Doctors point out severe depression can place a huge handicap on health, and even on life itself. A recent review implicated depression, along with other mental illnesses and drug abuse, in some 90 percent of the 264 child suicides and 4,010 self-inflicted deaths of 15-to-24-year-olds in the U.S. in 2002. Untreated, the disorder can creep into the darkest recesses of the human psyche, sapping strength, jilting joy, ambushing ambition, and, in the most severe cases, crushing the very will to go on. The potential consequences read like a Who’s Who of juvenile delinquent behaviours: running away, failing school, setting fires, abusing drugs, resorting to violence, engaging in sexual promiscuity. We also know depression, if not treated, has long-term consequences, including a significant risk of suicide attempts and death from suicide, says child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. David Fassler, a trustee of the American Psychiatric Association. Follow-up studies 10 years to 15 years after diagnosis have

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shown as many as 40 percent of children with depression attempt suicide at least once, and 2 percent to 3 percent will ultimately die as a result, he says. Some studies suggest at any given time up to eight in 100 teens may be depressed, and as many as one-third of those may try suicide. Knowing when to get help, and what kind When it comes to depression in the young, it pays to know when to get help. However, with a disorder whose true colours run the gamut of an average adolescent’s emotional and behavioral palette – from angst to anguish to apathy to anxiety to anger to aggressiveness – parents may find it difficult to draw the line between typical and troublesome teen turmoil. The most consistent rule of thumb for reportable symptoms requires them to represent a change in the child’s characteristic mood or behavior, last at least two weeks, interfere with school or home life and not be attributable to any other condition, doctors say. There is, however, a distressingly large number of caveats, beginning with the warning signs themselves. The formal diagnostic criteria do not specifically differentiate by age for major depressive disorder, yet children’s expressions of the condition may not mirror the classic characteristics seen in adults. For example, distraught adolescents often are irritable, angry and self-critical, in contrast to their grownup counterparts who tend to languish in languor and lethargy. Markers of youthful depression also may include: For children 6 to 11: • Worry, anxiety, sadness, crying; • Deteriorating academic performance; • Sleep or appetite changes, nightmares; • Refusal to participate in school or activities; • Temper tantrums; • Hyperactivity or excessive fidgeting; • Disobedience or aggression; • Poor attention, concentration or organization; • Boredom, fatigue; • Low self-esteem; • Volatile moods; • Talk of dying; For adolescents: • Declining school performance; • Bad mood, hopelessness, helplessness; • Truancy, theft, vandalism, running away, harassment; • Drug or tobacco abuse; • Abnormal eating/dieting habits; • Angry outbursts, rage; • Inability to cope with daily problems; • Nightmares, sleep disturbances; • Aches and pains, such as headaches and stomachaches; • Thoughts of or threats to harm self or others; • Sexual acting out; • Neglected hygiene or appearance. If the above list looks suspiciously familiar to those familiar with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, it should. Many of these behaviors and emotions also are used to distinguish ADHD as well as other mental conditions.

M any symptoms of depression also present with other psychiatric disorders, notes Fassler. For example, irritability can be a sign of depression or anxiety or attention deficit or bipolar disorder or a reaction to a learning disability, so a proper diagnosis is critical, he says. In a further entanglement, numerous conditions with overlapping characteristics often coexist, making the symptom sorting all the more tricky, even for professionals. The symptoms of the four most prevalent mental-health conditions (ADHD, anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression) are not always easy to tease apart, especially in children, who, in addition to other complicating factors, may not be capable of articulating their feelings, notes the Consumer Reports Medical Guide, an assessment by the US non-profit advocacy group Consumers Union. The task presents a particular challenge to primary-care providers, who lack specialized training but whose caseloads increasingly include children in psychological trouble. Studies suggest 12 percent to 25 percent of these young patients have significant psychosocial problems, only a small fraction of which are properly identified and referred for treatment. As many as two-thirds of depressed children also suffer from other oftentimes look-alike disorders. Untangling these socalled co-morbidities hits a snag on the chicken-and-egg quandary: Which came first and is one the cause, effect, neither or both of the other? Take the symbiotic relationship between sleep and mood. Extensive evidence exists of high rates of slumber disruptions in adolescents with mood irregularities, particularly major depressive disorder. The condition can drag a child down with a host of symptoms that can last seven months to nine months per single episode. Conversely, studies show sleep-starved teens have more than their fill of moodiness. In a tit-for-tat, while stress and emotional arousal can disturb the slumber of troubled teens, sleepless nights can make them irritable and cranky. A similar crossover with ADHD has led slumber specialists to urge parents and patients to exhaust non-drug sleep disturbance treatment options before turning to chemical alternatives. In another study reflecting the complex relationship between co-existing conditions that can have an impact on treatment, neurologists found surgical correction of epilepsy that did not respond to medication resulted not only in fewer seizures but also in a more than 50 percent reduction in depression and anxiety disorders. These are common among people with epilepsy, a neurological disease marked by recurrent convulsions. The researchers are now studying why the treatment produced such a double dose of good results. Even when unattached, depression can prove confounding by manifesting itself in strikingly dissimilar fashion in different individuals. Some depressed children may act withdrawn, sad, unable to enjoy activities they once found pleasurable while others become short-tempered, grouchy or disobedient. A youngster in the dumps may pretend to be sick, refuse to attend class, cling to a parent or worry that mum or dad may die, while the older counterpart may sulk, cause trouble, show a short fuse and feel misunderstood, doctors say. But so can children in the bloom of mental health. The natural metamorphosis of behaviors through the progressive stages

“We also know depression, if not treated, has long-term consequences, including a significant risk of suicide attempts and death from suicide”

of maturation can stump an observer trying to determine whether the youngster is suffering from a depressed state or simply going through a temporary phase of childhood. Compounding the confusion, not every troubled child shows all or even most symptoms, which vary across types and over time. “Everyone’s depression is different,” Fassler says. “Some children’s grades drop, others sleep too much or not enough because signs and symptoms can be so varied.” And they can be interpreted in many different ways, contend critics convinced there’s too much misreading of normal reactions as evidence of mental illness. “It’s easy to medicalize the kinds of emotional upheavals young people experience, so a child who is angry or sad can easily be diagnosed as having depression and be put on treatment,” says Peter Goldenthal, a pediatric and family psychologist, lecturer and author of Why Can’t We Get Along?: Healing Adult Sibling Relationships (John Wiley, 2002). He specializes in children’s emotional and behavioral problems. To help teachers, coaches and others in routine contact with children sift through the oftentimes contrarian symptoms, the American Psychiatric Foundation, an arm of the American Psychiatric Association, has established a public education campaign called Typical or Troubled: Knowing More about Teen Mental Health. “The program helps people who deal with kids determine, is this kid a typical moody teenager or a troubled, depressed and suicidal teenager,” says Dr. William Narrow, associate director of diagnosis and classification in APA’s research division. The one flag that waves truly red in a sea of suspected symptoms While signs of depression vary widely in children and adolescents, there is one red flag virtually everyone agrees should always be taken as a signal to stop and pay close attention. Even though the majority of people who talk about suicide don’t go on to die by suicide, it’s still an important warning sign, advises Richard McKeon, special expert on suicide prevention at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Maryland, an arm of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-to-24year-olds and the sixth among children 5 to 14, according to American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and government records. INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 53

“Although young people are not at the highest risk, they are at significantly higher risk than they (had been),” McKeon says. “Over the last half century, there have been dramatic increases in suicide rates. From 1952 to 1992 they nearly tripled for adolescents and young adults, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports. “Since the late 1980s the youth suicide rate has begun to have a modest decline, but it’s still a significant issue,” McKeon says. “Basically, youth at this point, especially older youth, have similar rates as the population as a whole.” Perhaps that’s not surprising for a generation steeped in violence, from terrorism on the world stage to mayhem on the videogame screen, its childhood fast-forwarded by a societal system operating at breakneck speed. Add family and community breakdown to the mix, and you have a recipe for a mental meltdown, specialists say.

he final straw for the ultimate deed may be trouble at school or with the law, breakup of a relationship, fight with a friend or inability to communicate with parents as well as exposure to real or fictional suicide, witnessed in life or through the media, research indicates. While not specifically tied to deliberate self-harm, family feuds, absence of warmth and hostile relations with mum or dad also can tip the scale toward violent behavior, mood disturbances and drug abuse, health officials say. In addition to psychosocial provocateurs, studies have implicated biological triggers, with one team of researchers speculating 10 or 15 genes may act in concert to set off suicidal tendencies. Other investigations have suggested being born severely underweight, to a teenage or poor mother or as the fourth or subsequent sibling each can contribute to as much as a twofold rise in suicide risk. The relative importance of the influence varies according to gender, with major depression boosting the risk 12-fold and previous suicide tries by a factor of three in girls. Among boys, a prior attempt is the most potent predictor, raising the chances of self-harm by 300 percent, followed by depression, which makes it 12 times more likely, and disruptive behavior and substance abuse, each of which approximately doubles the odds of suffering a self-inflicted death. “We speculate (about risk factors for suicide): people talk about children with previous suicide attempts, family history of suicide, impulsivity, family history of bipolar disorder or children showing irritability,” says child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. David Fassler, a trustee of the American Psychiatric Association. We’re still trying to figure it out. Much of the available information comes from so-called psychological autopsy studies, McKeon says. These involve intensive questioning of half a dozen or so friends, relatives and others with intimate knowledge of the person who took his own life. “The importance is if you study people who attempt suicide but don’t die, you don’t know how similar they are to those who died,” McKeon points out. “Psychological autopsy is one of the few ways we have of getting information on people who actually died of suicide.” Using these techniques in a review of 894 youthful suicides

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around the globe, the World Health Organization traced diagnosis of at least one mental disorder to 89 percent of the cases. While depression was the most common of the ailments, it was implicated in fewer than half of the deaths. The scientists found depression and other mood disturbances had affected 42 percent of the deceased, followed by drug abuse, implicated in 40 percent of the cases, and disruptive disorders, including conduct and oppositional disturbances, found to be relevant in fewer than 20 percent of the deaths. It appears then that curtailing illegal substance use may be nearly as effective a preventive measure against suicide as allaying depression. In their conclusion, the WHO authors cautioned those searching for ways to reduce self-destructive behaviors should not stop at depression but also look beyond to the impact of other mental maladies as well as to psychosocial, cultural, environmental and genetic influences. For its part, the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S. advises: “Early diagnosis and treatment, accurate evaluation of suicidal thinking and limiting young people’s access to lethal agents – including firearms and medications – may hold the greatest suicide prevention value.” One method of “early diagnosis” being trialed in the States is “screening” of teenagers in high school for signs of mental illness, by way of a questionnaire. One study showed a specially designed computerized test, taken by nearly 40,000 high school students in 2004 alone in what might be the nation’s largest mental-health screening effort for this age group, was able to tease out 100 percent of the young people who faced a high risk for suicide. This is a big selling point for the TeenScreen questionnaire. On the other hand, critics contend mass screening of young people reeks of Big Brother, and the flipside to success is a huge number of “false positive” diagnoses of mental illness in kids. Patient rights advocates like Vera Hassner Sharav, founder and president of the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection, take issue with the questionnaire. Sharav sees it as overreaching and worries it can result in many children being needlessly referred for mental-health services that often incorporate pharmaceutical treatments. The outspoken rebel with a consumer cause argues one would be hard-pressed to find a teen who could honestly reply in the negative to questions such as: “In the last year ... has there been a time when you felt you couldn’t do anything well or that you weren’t as good-looking or as smart as other people?” or, “In the last year ... has there been a time when you couldn’t think as clearly or as fast as usual?” Some of her concerns are buttressed by results from the same study that showed how well TeenScreen can pick out teens in real trouble. The survey also found 84 percent of the high school students deemed suicidal in fact were not. That means of the 6,000 screened teens referred for further evaluation and assistance in 2004, 5,040 may have been singled out in error. The amount of health dollars being spent processing kids who actually have no problems not only creates a burden for taxpayers in a cash-strapped health system, but it also stigmatizes and adds to the trauma of those children wrongly diagnosed. Clearly, finding a balance in teen mental health is a work in progress.

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WORLDBRIEF

A sense of

PERSPECTIVE

Pervasive myths persuade many to hold Israel to a double-standard, argues Lawrence J. Haas

ASHINGTON – Longstanding conflicts between peoples often create their own myths – over grievances, appropriate uses of force, and likely paths to peace. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East. With Israel and Hezbollah engaged in escalating conflict, leaders, experts and media the world over assume predictable, if not helpful, positions on the causes, consequences and likely solutions. But the path to real peace lies in clear-eyed thinking, not mythology. Only by discarding shibboleths will the world grapple effectively with the bloodshed of that region. Thus, we should discard four myths that cloud thinking about the Middle East and today’s war: Myth #1: The path to peace lies in an Israeli-Palestinian resolution. Many think so, including President Carter. That’s

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why he and others call for restarting the Middle East peace process. A resolution on that conflict, they say, will defuse the fighting in southern Lebanon. But such a resolution presumes that two states, Israel and Palestine, eventually will live side by side in peace. The problem is that key players in today’s war do not share that vision. Hezbollah and Hamas, the terrorist groups that ignited today’s flames, and Iran (their key state sponsor) are committed to Israel’s destruction. As Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said recently, “There is no solution to this conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.” His only vision for a Palestinian state is one that replaces the Jewish state. Myth #2: Peace is always better than war. It’s tempting to think so. But premature peace can prompt a worse war down the road – especially a peace that strengthens its true enemies.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 57

In this case, a cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah to rule over southern Lebanon, outside the control of that nation’s government, will only precipitate more bloodshed. Emboldened that it withstood Israel’s onslaught, Hezbollah will restock its shelves with weapons from Iran and plan its next attack, as will its emboldened partners in terrorism, Hamas and Islamic Palestinian Jihad. More ominously, Iran will feel emboldened. Watching European leaders pressure the United States to contain Israel, Iran’s leaders will believe more strongly that the West has no stomach for confrontation. Iran not only will provide more funds, more training, and more support to its terrorist clients, it

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also will push ahead on its quest to develop nuclear weapons. Myth #3: Talk is always better than silence. Rather than let Israel forcefully confront Hezbollah and Hamas, critics say, the United States should reach out to Iran and Syria, who hold great sway over them. The hope for talk is rooted in “rational actor” theory – that all people are reasonable and open to persuasion. But the leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and their like-minded disciples are fanatical, not rational. They seek confrontation, not compromise – victory, not accommodation. A talk with these fanatics would be worse than useless. It would implicitly put certain issues, such as Israel’s existence,

on the agenda for discussion. Should President Franklin D. Roosevelt have “talked” to a Hitler while he murdered Jews and conquered Europe? It also could ease the growing pressure on Iran to scrap its nuclear program by subsuming that issue in “talk” as well. Myth #4: Israel is using “disproportionate” force to defend itself. That’s true if you see no moral distinction between terrorists who target innocent men, women and children and a state that accidentally kills innocents as it targets terrorists. Or if you see no distinction between terrorists who hide behind civilians and a state that warns civilians to depart before dropping bombs. When attacked by clear-sighted enemies, nations respond with

overwhelming force to eliminate the threat. The United States did that after Pearl Harbor, as did Allied forces against the Nazis. Indeed, some leaders who urge Israeli restraint have made clear they would practice no restraint themselves. French President Jacques Chirac threatened to use nuclear weapons on any state that directed a terrorist attack on France. What’s good for France should be good for Israel. The myths of the Middle East are enticing. But they will only set back efforts to reach a lasting peace in that troubled region. The only way to make progress is to face realities on the ground. Lawrence J. Haas is a visiting senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 59

thinkLIFE money

Hedging your bets

Peter Hensley warns about high yield funds

ichael was anxious to get to bowls as he was keen to share the news of a new style of investment with his mate Jim. He enjoyed discussing these issues due to the fact that Jim kept himself up to date with financial matters. The product Michael was keen to discuss was a new styled managed fund that was called a high yield fund. Now Michael was keen to consider all options when it came to sourcing income from his investments. He and his partner were feeling a little gun shy about using finance companies as the media was revelling in the recent receivership of two high profile finance companies. Jim had previously explained to him that there were two major reasons why finance companies collapse. The first was making inappropriate loans which turned into bad debts. This is what caused the two recent companies to stumble into receivership. The second reason finance companies get into trouble is when they experience a lack of liquidity. This is where the institution matches loans with deposits ensuring that there is enough cash in the bank to manage the day to day cash flow. An important aspect of liquidity (but not the only one) is new cash in the door. Recent media attention has effectively turned this source of money off, creating a situation

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where the media spotlight could turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. Thus a successful finance company could be forced into receivership through no fault of its own but through enthusiastic but financially ignorant and ill-informed journalists. Michael, a keen seminar attendee, had heard of a new style of investing called derivative trading. It sounded exciting and as Michael knew that with any new product, the investors who are in on the ground floor tended to make the majority of the available gains. Jim was more than aware of Mike’s enthusiasm for new things and was careful not to burst his bubble. Jim’s investment adviser had schooled him up and he was able to share some facts with his bowling buddy. Derivatives have been around for close on a century, so they are not a new investment concept at all. They were initially designed to enable investors and entrepreneurs to reduce investment risk. This was music to Michael’s ears as he was all for reducing his investment risk. Jim sat quietly until Michael’s silence allowed him to continue. He went on to explain that when an investor bought a derivative, he was actually transferring the risk to another investor. Michael’s continued silence suggested that he did not fully comprehend what Jim had just said.

Jim used a simple example to get his point across. He knew that Michael and his partner were planning a trip to Australia in three months time. They were going to visit their son’s family in Melbourne and planned to surprise them by giving them $50,000 to go towards a house deposit. Jim asked when did they plan to convert the money to Australian dollars? He could tell by the reaction that Michael had not given the timing of this transaction a lot of thought. Jim went on to explain that he could elect to convert the money now, or in three months’ time. He could use a simple financial derivative and lock in the exchange rate now that he would use in three months time. He gave Michael a minute to absorb the concept. Michael’s eyes lit up as the penny dropped. By using a derivative contract he could lock in the rate now, thus reducing his exposure to exchange rate fluctuations and let the bank worry about what the actual rate would be on the day. He had a confirmed rate and could make his arrangements based on that agreement. Currency agreements & forward rate contracts are examples of simple derivatives. Other examples are interest rate swap agreements, put and call options and futures. He was mindful of Warren Buffet’s thoughts on derivatives. Several years ago Buffet was quoted as calling them financial weapons of mass destruction. Jim’s investment adviser was of a similar mindset because the complexity of derivatives had only increased exponentially over the past decade. Buffet has always said that investments should be simple to understand. Investors should buy into a business that generated positive cash flow. As part owners (via their shareholding) they could then share in the cash flow by either receiving dividends or by the management using the cash to grow the value of the company. Derivatives themselves do not generally produce cash flow, however trading them successfully can provide surplus cash. Anecdotal evidence from industry trading desks suggest that novice traders do not last long. History has shown that the overwhelming majority of novices “blow up” which is a technical term for losing all their money. Very few novices last long enough to gain enough experience to become an established trader. Some people do have an innate ability to trade and these tend to work out early on that it is often more profitable to trade with some-

one else’s money and to charge them a fee for the privilege. They become professional traders, which allows them to promote themselves as a hedge fund manager. The concept of a trading professional investing money on behalf of the investing masses was how the managed fund industry promoted itself throughout the 1990’s. With markets powering north, any money manager was made to look like an investment guru. Towards the end of the biggest bull run in investment history the number of managed funds in the United States exceeded the number of individual shares listed on the share market. The number of managed share funds has declined dramatically along with the investment returns. They have been replaced by specialised funds with new investment geniuses trading derivatives. In late 2005, the number of hedge funds available to the investing public exceeded the number of managed funds that were around in late 2000. The difference is that the hedge funds operate in a zero sum game. In simple terms they are picking each others pockets. Sooner or later a pocket is picked so much there is nothing

left, the manager has nothing left to trade with, he loses his job and the investors lose their money. Serious fund managers have gone way past the idea of trading currencies, orange juice contracts and pork bellies futures. That market is for kindergarten novice traders. The big boys have actually created their own products (known as synthetic collateralised debt obligations – or CDO’s in the trade) which are so complicated it takes lawyers months to write prospectuses and investment statements for them. Jim shakes his head when Michael tells him that is exactly what this new fund is trading in and the performance returns have been awesome. The manager is one of the best in the market and the increases in the unit prices reflect this. Jim goes onto to explain to his bowling buddy that the derivative market is totally unregulated. A very small number of the millions of derivative contracts traded daily are actually traded on a futures exchange. The rest (read large majority) are Over The Counter (OTC) contracts which have no central register anywhere in the world. The uncontrolled nature of

market has not only fostered creativity, it has actively promoted innovation. There are CDO’s, CDO’s squared and CDO’s cubed with hedge fund managers actively trading these synthetic contracts daily. Jim went on to explain to Michael that there is no gate keeper or controlling authority for the OTC derivative market and that this sector has grown exponentially over the past five years. It takes money to fuel such markets, sourced from mums and dads around the world. The offerings have been packaged for the masses under the banner of high yield hedge funds. The fortunate fund traders have been charging annual fees based on a combination of total funds under management plus a performance fee. Reuters reported last year that management fees for a single fund were in excess of $1.5 billion. Michael sat in stunned silence, unable to comprehend how a single manager could earn over $1.5 billion in a single year trading with other peoples money in a market that had virtually no checks or balances. Jim’s reaction was similar to his adviser’s, if you can’t explain the investment with a simple crayon drawing, don’t invest.

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thinkLIFE education

The bigger picture

The lessons of the Kahui tragedy are for all of us to learn, writes Chris Destrieux

adly, and predictably the horror of the tragic death of two South Auckland infants will, as these events do, drift ephemerally to the back of our collective minds. It will tragically be replaced by the next horror du jour, or perhaps be overtaken by the banal distraction of some ego-centric celebrity or politician whose inane actions capture the headlines. No matter how horrific these sores on our social conscience are when they erupt, we allow them wane away and then recur in series. Their constant reoccurrence provides evidence we are prepared to tolerate them. It would serve us better to step back from the lynch mob hysteria, the simplistic and facile tendency to label such family tragedies on the basis of the social status of the parents, their religious beliefs or

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even their race. These labels facilitate the knee jerk and shallow responses that typify what we pass off as public debate. They bring into the fray the “colourful” views of extremists who are always good for a “quote” or a sound bite. This tendency to react to express more anger, intolerance and stupidity perhaps reflects a mindless response from those who fear within them the very real potential for such behaviour. As well, it illustrates a frustration at our seeming inability to remove from our culture these heinous acts. In our desperation at such frightening events our shock and hurt are all too often allowed to degenerate into blame. It makes it so much easier to turn our disgust into punitive responses. It makes our consciences feel better when we blame. It saves us the difficult task of introspection

“

It would serve us better to step back from the lynch mob hysteria, the simplistic and facile tendency to label such family tragedies on the basis of the social status of the parents, their religious beliefs or even their race

”

and the quiet reflection required to find a meaningful solution. When will we learn as a society to look beyond the behaviour? This does not mean for a nanosecond we should accept such behaviour. It should be resoundingly condemned. But when will we begin to look more profoundly at the causes? Focusing on the behaviour will not get to the drivers that need to be altered if our “slice of heaven” is to rid itself of the shocking list of behaviours that see us leading the world in the mistreatment and neglect of our most important resource… our families. Much more needs to be made of the unusual, non-partisan noises that were made by our politicians in the wake of the Kahui tragedy. Who will ensure their combined approach goes beyond a cynical photoopportunity and manages to deliver an outcome that brings to bear the collective good sense of our elected representatives? Could it be we are ready to acknowledge, from the base of a common interest, that our approach to date has failed us miserably? Compassion, understanding, a willingness to put aside a perspective of blinkered blame and preparedness by those in positions of leadership to try a fresh approach are well overdue. Alvin Toffler, in his seminal book, Future Shock was one of the first to offer the idea that the speed of change in Western Civilisation was unfolding at such a pace that increasing numbers of people were simply not ready for it. As a result we would face increasing dislocation and disruption in our social structures, he suggested. When we consider the appalling manner in which New Zealand leads the world in youth suicide, family violence, imprisonment rates, drug and alcohol abuse and depression it is interesting to note how he predicted in the 70s the sort of responses humans would have to the overwhelming rate of change. These included: anxiety, hostility to authority, an increased tendency towards violence, illness, depression and apathy, social, emotional and intellectual withdrawal. In the three decades since Toffler wrote his prescient words, New Zealand along with the rest of the planet, has continued to face ever-increasing change. Our postmodern existence has unquestionably brought extraordinary, positive benefits.

But at the same time it has also brought much tragedy and wrought pain on those unable to adapt. It is difficult to observe the tragic dysfunctionality of so many New Zealand families and not reach the conclusion that we need to take a good, hard look at the values, education and approach needed to achieve the objective we all ultimately share….happiness. In his 1995 book, Coping with Uncertainty and Change, Uri Merry talks about the effects of a growingly uncertain world filled with complexity and chaos. “Many are feeling it more in various aspects of their existence. They may be going through chaotic periods in their personal lives. Family life may seem to be becoming more complex and having more chaotic episodes, and sometimes emerging in new forms, some of which carry the seeds of chaotic relationships with them.” There is a growing view among commentators that our Western civilisation is experiencing an unprecedented period of turbulence typified by a breakdown of many accepted views of how the world should be. In his profound work, Coaching to the Human Soul, Australian teacher and ontological coach, Alan Sieler, posits that this is part of a “growing existential crisis”. “The question of meaning, central to how we define who we are and what our life is, and how we want our life to unfold, becomes prominent,” he writes. He goes on to suggest that it is going to be crucial at such a time, to become learners who are open to developing new ways of perceiving and thinking to find constructive solutions to the myriad of problems and breakdowns we find occurring in a world in major historical transition. We would do well, as we observe New Zealand families’ sad state to consider an approach better suited to dealing with our times which Sieler describes as “characterised by uncertainty, ambiguity, confusion and paradox.” “The influence of religion, the family, the school and government appear no longer to be working as institutions that effectively convey social values and standards of acceptable behaviour. Unacceptable behaviour now seems more commonplace, not only from young people, but also from those in positions of power and influence in both the political and corporate world, “Sieler writes. Sieler and a growing number of thinkers

“

Whatever our past or present cultural context, we all have the ability to recognise and align to values that would make us all happy

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ascribe to the view that the answer to the myriad of problems that beset us in this post-modern age rests in raising our consciousness. This would in, Sieler’s words, create a mindset that is “not only pluralistic, able to embrace divergent viewpoints and values, but also integral in perspective linking the inner world of human subjectivity with the outer world reality of our natural and social systems.” Put another way, the answers to our problems lie within our minds. They lie in the way we can be taught to become attentive and more mindful about how we are. Whatever our past or present cultural context, we all have the ability to recognise and align to values that would make us all happy. It’s not about screaming, anger and indignation at the appalling behaviour that surrounds us. It’s not about moping in the cesspit of sadness and cynicism. It’s certainly not about voicing or even threatening even more violence or harshness to combat violence and harshness. It’s about education that alters the drivers within each one of us and which prevents the behaviours that create hopelessness among so many people in New Zealand and impede our achievement of a higher awareness and a life lived to its full potential. We have the knowledge and ability. Have we had enough of the status quo so we are prepared to acknowledge now that it is time to change? Christian Destrieux is a South Auckland based transition coach. His family coaching practice, FAMILIES IN TRANSITION partners families to transform and improve their lives by confronting behaviour which prevents them from living to their full potential. chris@familiesintransition.co.nz www.familiesintransition.co.nz

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 63

thinkLIFE science

omething lit up the Norwegian sky on June 7. A streaking fireball. Caught on film. Followed by an earth-shaking impact recorded at the Karasjok seismic lab at 2:13:25 a.m. It became international news when University of Oslo astronomer Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard told a local newspaper: “If the meteorite was as large as it seems to have been, we can compare it to the Hiroshima bomb.” Those words assured that Norway’s meteor would light up more than the heavens. It lit up the faces of a rare new breed – meteorite hunters who scour the globe for space treasure worth as much as $25,000 a gram – and the collectors who fund such expeditions. Collectors like Dave Radosevich. In just eight years, this 42 year old California man has amassed more than 300 meteorites – including pieces of the moon and Mars and a rock older than our very solar system – making his one of the best private collections anywhere. He hates reading. Took shop in high school. Dropped out of college. Yet the Northrop Grumman project manager quotes Kepler and Einstein. He builds massive telescopes for universities in his spare time. And just ask him about his Allende. His Murchison. Or his Cape York. How to speak meteorite: Say, “I’ve got a 40-pound Campoover there.” Or, “You know that Marjalahti I showed you?” or “The smoke trail from that Sikhote lasted six hours in the sky.” You refer to your rock as the place it was found, usually the name of the closest post office. Truly. “Allende is older than any Earth rock,” Radosevich says, picking up a 500gm meteorite found in Allende, Mexico. “It’s older than the sun. The planets. Older than any of the solar system. You’re holding a piece of a star.”

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The sky is falling… And collectors are making a buck from it, writes Tom Berg That would make it more than 4.5 billion years old, the estimated age of our solar system. Most meteorites hail from the Asteroid Belt beyond Mars. But Allende is believed to come from deeper space. “I’ve had people 70 years old hold a meteorite for the first time and say, `I’ve never in my entire life held something so interesting,’” he says. “And you can just see the lights come on.” Each rock carries a story. Radosevich pulls a Diablo Canyon from his display case. A small chunk of iron now. But 50,000 years ago, it was part of a meteor

that slammed Arizona like 150 Hiroshima bombs, blasting a 213m crater nearly 1600m across. His Cape York, from Greenland, holds delicate iron crystals that can only be formed after two planets collide, leaving the molten core of one planet to cool at the almost incomprehensible rate of one degree per million years. Then he pulls out his Murchison, from Australia – another meteorite from outside our solar system. It was found to have 56 amino acids – 33 of which had not been seen before on Earth – when found in 1969.

“

One the size of a pencil eraser can be seen to have flames. Basketballsize? A good light show. House-size? Several city blocks gone. Half-Domesize? A city of 5 million vaporized. Although meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere every day, most entirely burn up. Maybe 500 land each year and only one or two of those are found

”

“It’s the most significant meteorite to fall and be analyzed on Earth because it contains the building blocks of life,” he says. “It’s there. It’s all there. And it’s about as extraterrestrial as you can get.” Feeling lucky? Forget the lottery. Go buy yourself a magnet and tape it to the bottom of a cane. Or a tractor. Or a camel. And, by the way, welcome to the new Gold Rush. Bob Verish became rich while cleaning his backyard of rats’ nests and found two Mars meteorites in a pile of rocks he’d collected 19 years earlier. Businessman Steve Arnold became famous last year after paying Kansas farmers to comb the fields of a famous meteorite fall and unearthing a 635kg meteorite filled with iron, nickel and green olivine crystals. You can buy it for U$1 million. Fifteen years ago – before eBay, before

Google, before the rise of the Internet – few cared about meteorites. Few knew about them. You could buy just about anything for a buck a pound from all of three or four dealers worldwide. There was no convenient way to advertise meteorites, to research or buy them. You couldn’t exactly look up “meteorites” in the Yellow Pages. “If I’d started back then, I’d be rich,” Radosevich says. “Nobody was collecting. Even the rare ones, nobody cared.” The Internet changed everything. Suddenly a handful of entrepreneurial treasure hunters began studying the best places to search. They fanned out across the globe, paying camel drivers in the Sahara Desert, crop pickers in South Africa, and children in Mexico to search for heavy, fusion-crusted rocks near known meteorite falls.

Others began inspecting suburban rain gutters, four-wheeling through California dry lakebeds, and walking along New England rock walls with magnet-mounted canes – most meteorites have enough iron to attract a magnet. The prices now? Try US$1,000 a gram for moon rock. And $2,000 a gram for Mars rock – 100 times the price of gold. Some rare moon meteorites command US$25,000 a gram. Which is why new rocks arrive every day in the mailbox of UCLA research geochemist Alan Rubin, who inspects and authenticates meteorites for the public. Maybe one a year is a meteorite. The rest? Says Rubin, “We call them `meteorwrongs.’” Norway’s streaking fireball, it turns out, was greatly exaggerated. The Norwegian astronomer apologized, and word is, a meteorite hunter may have found a 27kg rock – certainly no Hiroshima. What would that take? First know this: In meteor circles, “fireball” doesn’t always equal “gigantic.” A meteor the size of a grain of sand can be seen as a shooting star because of the energy released as it splits the earth’s atmosphere, Radosevich says. One the size of a pencil eraser can be seen to have flames. Basketball-size? A good light show. House-size? Several city blocks gone. Half-Dome-size? A city of 5 million vaporized. Although meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere every day, most entirely burn up. Maybe 500 land each year and only one or two of those are found. That worries Marvin Killgore of Tucson, Arizona, who’s hunted meteorites in 45 countries. “We’re picking them up a lot faster than they’re falling,” he says. “In a few decades, they’re going to be all picked up and collected.” Of course, that’s what makes them rare. And desirable. Like the meteorite found on Thiel Mountain, Antarctica, before the United States banned collecting there. For Radosevich, it’s the Holy Grail: Limited supply. Only two known private collectors. $1,000 a gram. “I call it `unobtainium,’” he says. In the meantime, he’ll wait for more news from Norway. “There are probably eight to 10 people over there right now looking for it,” Radosevich says. “When they find it, I’ll be right here, eagerly awaiting to buy it.” INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 65

thinkLIFE technology

+ + You know you want them… Michele Chandler previews some Fathers Day gift ideas

niversity graduates are known to be high consumers of tech toys, but who says others can’t join in. About 7 percent of Americans surveyed said they had showered their mums with electronics or computer-related accessories for Mother’s Day this year. Current estimates aren’t yet out for dad, but last year 12 percent of people surveyed reported they would likely give electronic presents for Father’s Day. This year’s technology playthings are power-charged, amped-up, multi-feature and just way cool. Prices for single-lens reflex digital cameras have dropped, putting them in reach of more buyers wanting high-quality photographs. Cell phones come with so many features there’s even one with a reflective screen enabling people to check out their hair and makeup before getting their picture taken with their camera-equipped mobile phone. Even if you don’t preen, it just looks hip. Everyone knows iPods rule, and thanks to a new crop of external speakers, others can sample your playlist, too. Also hot are headsets for cell phones equipped with Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology that replaces cables

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used to connect cell phones to hands-free headsets. Most items are carried at several retailers and online; check around for the best prices. Factor in shipping and other costs, of course. Phones No need to get all squirrelly just because someone wants to snap your photo on their cell phone. Owners of the stylish and pricey Nokia 7380 (www.nokia.com.au) can simply gaze in their mirrored phone to check their makeup and hair. Shaped like a lipstick and lacking a keypad – the phone’s circular spinner is used to dial phone numbers and send text messages – it seems to be a perfect flashy accessory for a night on the town. At a 57g, it also features a 2-megapixel camera with digital zoom, as well as a video recorder, a voice recorder, a music player and a radio. Better count up that college graduation money, though – the phone costs about US$399 (it’s not yet offered on sale in NZ but is in Australia). Dads and grads who want the latest in smart-phones – which can handle e-mail, voice, calendaring and several other functions – may be interested in the Palm Treo

700p, which is expected in New Zealand before Christmas. The 700p uses a Palm operating system, as opposed to Palm’s other new Treo, the 700w, which ran on a Windows system. The new Treo is essentially a new and improved version of the popular Treo 650, and may appeal to people comfortable with the Palm OS, which has been in almost every other Palm device to date. The 700p runs on high-speed EV-DO wireless networks like Telecom’s. No pricing information is available as yet. The 700p can play MP3 music files and can be used as a modem when connected to a laptop computer but does not pick up WiFi, the kind of wireless Internet signal that can be found in many hotspots. The new Treo also features a camera that can take still photos as well as video. Music Sonos makes a music system that takes songs stored in your computer, stereo, home theater system or radio and lets you play them all over the house. You control the action with a universal remote. In addition to digital music, the system plays Internet radio and even music from your favorite CD or MP3 player. Starts at

about $1,500 for a basic system with two speakers. Laptop The Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 Notebook is designed for top-of-the-line digital entertainment, whether it’s TV, audio, PC or DVD. There’s a built-in TV Tuner, a 17inch diagonal widescreen to better view text, graphics, videos and games. Drawbacks for gamers, according to CNet.com: so-so display resolution and a small touch pad and mouse buttons. The cost has fallen in recent months to about $4,000. Cameras As their prices also fall, “the hottest cameras are digital SLRs,” says tech industry analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. Single-lens reflex cameras use the same lens for viewing and taking pictures, so what you see is really what you get. Canon’s EOS Digital Rebel 350D was

rated tops by PC World and other reviewers. It is equipped to create 8-megapixel images, boosting photo quality, and sells for less than NZ$1600. Megapixels are the number of pixels or dots – multiplied by a million – that the camera sees. The bigger the number, the higher the resolution and the sharper the image will look when enlarged. a Why are more and more people seen with behind-the-earpieces enabling them to listen and talk on their wireless phone hands-free? They look geeky, but “they’re hot” with the college set, says Eugene Muscat, senior associate dean at the University of San Francisco’s business school. “It’s androgynous, guys are into it just as much as the girls.” Among the headsets employing Bluetooth-a short-range wireless technology that replaces cables used to connect wireless telephones to hands-free headsets-are the vibrating Jabra JX10 and Motorola H700.

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Cell phones come with so many features there’s even one with a reflective screen enabling people to check out their hair and makeup before getting their picture taken with their camera-equipped mobile phone. Even if you don’t preen, it just looks hip

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INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 67

feelLIFE

sport

All Blacks Inc

The road to World Cup redemption is the scene of King Henry’s new Crusade, writes sports editor Chris Forster

hey’re New Zealand’s most famous, and most loved exports. The All Blacks generate multi-million dollar revenue and attract massive television audiences whenever they travel. They fill stadiums from Sydney’s magnificent Olympic Stadium to the hallowed turf of Twickenham. Their boss is head coach Graham Henry, who wields his power with uncanny ease and tinder dry wit. His commitment to squad rotation has drawn howls of protest about demeaning the black jersey from the flat earth society, otherwise known as sports talkback callers. But Henry is committed to the only goal that matters – World Cup redemption in France next year.

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The business report card’s pretty rosy as Investigate goes to print. That 35-17 victory over South Africa in July may have been ugly but it took New Zealand’s winning run on home soil to a record 21 tests. In fact you have to go back to June 14, 2003, for their last home stumble. It was in the midst of the ill-fated John Mitchell era when they lost a cliff-hanger to a ten-man England side at the Wellington Stadium, by 15 points to 13. The Poms went on to lift the William Webb Ellis trophy in Sydney later that year, while the All Blacks infamously fell over against the Wallabies in the semi-final. Henry’s men are sweeping all in front

of them. The All Blacks are defending Tri Nations champions and hot favourites to retain the title. They brushed aside Sir Clive Woodward’s pussycat Lions last year, then survived a close shave at Twickenham to cap the year with an unbeaten Grand Slam of the UK. Henry’s also masterminded victories over Ireland and Argentina, using two completely different squads. Impressive stuff. He and wily assistants Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith, along with team mentor Sir Brian Lochore, are members of a formidable brains trust. They’ve also got the best player base in world rugby, tapping into the best of Pacific Island, Maori

NZPA/Wayne Drought

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Henry’s also masterminded victories over Ireland and Argentina, using two completely different squads. Impressive stuff

”

and Pakeha talent. Anything less than a triumph in the World Cup Final in Paris on the 21st of November, 2007 will be a tragedy it seems. Not all of Henry’s innovations and long term tactical moves have gone down well. Take the Kapa O Pango haka, the new R18 version of Ka Mate which starts with a sinister sea of hissing black jerseys and ends with the infamous throat-slitting gesture. Tremendous pre-match entertainment and passionately performed but it’s got plenty of critics. Wallabies coach John Connolly’s labelled it as murderous. Some Maori believe it’s disrespectful and school teachers and parents around the country must shudder when their kids ask them why their All Blacks heroes want to slit the throats of their opposition. In fact if you tried the same stint in American basketball’s NBA you’d be fined 25 thousand dollars. Then there’s the paranoia about spying at training sessions. New Zealand team management’s hiring burly security guards to make sure there’s no peeking from beyond the perimeter fence. It’s a game of analysis and centimetres these days – Henry and co will argue – and you need every element of surprise you can muster on test day. Assistant coach Steve Hansen’s described the extra security beef as a necessary evil. Only last year in England two men dressed in camouflage gear and wielding high tech cameras were sprung in the bushes. Another more direct threat to the All Blacks cloak of invincibility is the ‘stall at all costs’ tactics employed by the Springboks. During the stuttering affair in the capital in mid-July, the South Africans used any means possible to slow the All Blacks’ ball down in the murky depths of rucks and mauls. It ultimately cost them the test as Daniel Carter slotted 9 kicks with consummate ease. Although another one of their delays drew a more direct criticism from Graham Henry. He accused the Boks of faking injuries to deliberately slow the down game. “It happens in the Super 14, now it’s happening in test rugby”, fumed Henry after the match. Even his South African counterpart Jake White conceded it’s a new unsavoury tactic in rugby, while standing up for his guys’ injury stoppages as “genuine”. Then there’s the resting of World Cup

front liners from next year’s Super 14. Henry wants up to 30 players to be wrapped in cotton wool for the majority of the Southern Hemisphere’s most professionally-run franchise competition. In only the second year of the expanded 14 team format – TV moguls and franchise bosses will be horrified. You can’t imagine 35 thousand fans will fill Jade Stadium to watch a Crusaders team stripped of Dan Carter, Aaron Mauger and Richie McCaw, face another depleted side from South Africa. These days Christchurch struggles to fill the grandstands for a major Tri Nations test against the Wallabies, let alone a devalued Super 14 match. Graham Henry’s so far sidestepped the issue at the endless array of test season media sessions he fronts in the middle of winter. His over-riding goal of World Cup success is his major and only defence when the SANZAR partners and their News Limited backers tackle the issue head-on after the end of another extended competition, the Tri Nations. Maybe there’s an unhealthy obsession with the World Cup, and ending a drought of 20 years since New Zealand’s solitary success in the inaugural tournament. The memories of David Kirk lifting the golden trophy into the Eden Park twilight sun after beating France is probably an historical oddity for thousands of teenagers around the rugby world. The Rugby World Cup can’t possibly compete with the sheer size and audacity of Football’s global showpiece. We all watched the round ball code events unfold in Germany recently. A wonderful start with plenty of goals soon deteriorated into goal-less draws, penalty shoot-outs and players falling to the ground and writhing in agony at the hint of a gentle zephyr. It culminated in the extraordinary head butt from French captain Zinedine Zidane’s into the chest of Italian thug Marco Materazzi. The rugby world is a lot smaller for Graham Henry, and they can be thankful for that. All of the planning, sacrifices, promises and self-belief will count for nothing if the All Blacks fall over again at a World Cup they are raging hot favourites to lift. They’ve got a winning formula just over a year out and the rugby public will have to go with the big picture for the greater goal of World Cup redemption.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 69

feelLIFE

health

Baby steps for parents

Claire Morrow goes maternal at the drop of a cluck, but only if she’s had a good night’s sleep

ell I don’t mean to go all clucky on you, but I do seem to be surrounded by new parents. They’ve obviously been inspired by how well mine have turned out. My children are usually badly dressed but well behaved, and I am often stopped for advice. This has led me to compile a list of vitally important information you should know about young children – in the hope that you have some in your life somewhere. There is a book by Tresillian called “How to Stay Sane in Your Baby’s First Year”, and I have always wondered what that could possibly mean. New parents are not the slightest bit sane, they are besotted fools with sleep debts, and a little insanity is needed to persist in such ludicrous tasks as weaning to solids. And a dog. If you will have babies, a dog would be ideal. How to stay happy whilst going slightly mental in your baby’s first year might be a better title, I think. It is true that an alarming number of primary care givers to children under five

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have some degree of depression, and most of those who don’t are somewhere on the spectrum. This seems to have little to do with “hormones”, as if dad or grandma is the full time carer they are almost as likely to be afflicted. Unsurprisingly, support helps. Practical support like a maid helps (I wish!), “mothers” groups and play groups help, having a supportive partner helps. Being poor and isolated does not help. If at the end of all this help, it hasn’t helped, counselling and/or medication is normally recommended – with the increasing recognition that post natal depression is common and treatable. Myself, I am inclined to believe that post natal depression is largely rooted in the tremendous psychological burdens of becoming a parent, and sleep deprivation. Which is why we need to talk about babies sleep. Well, we don’t have to – you can do whatever damn fool thing you like, all I’m saying is that life is easier if you aren’t grossly sleep deprived. I – ahem – learnt this the hard way. In fact – let us be

completely frank – our firstborn son slept through the night for the first time when he was (cough) 20 months old. Which was when he learnt (the hard way) to sleep in his cot. And the decision that change had to be inflicted came after I had pushed him around in his stroller for three hours, as he cried and continued to be awake, and I waited for him to fall asleep, and by the end of it I was crying too. If this ever happens to you, by the way (my husband was home), take the baby in the pram to a kind adult you know and get them to take the baby for a spell whilst you calm yourself down. Three hours of crying turns any brain to mush. So in general, life is easier if the child sleeps well, and it is horrid to persuade a baby who has never learnt to do this that they should. It can be done, and it is probably worth it, but it does involve 2 or 3 or more days of crying – sometimes for up to an hour each go – to teach the baby something you could have commenced from the word dot. The golden rule of sleeping

babies is that you can’t force a baby to sleep, but you can drastically increase the chances that they will by putting them in their beds. I am not sure who invented walking up and down the hall patting and jostling babies but it doesn’t help, so don’t bother. A baby who is just starting to get tired will go to sleep more easily than an overtired baby, and a very young baby might be easily overstimulated and require silence, darkness and total still. Place the tired baby in their bed, tell them you love them, give a pat and disappear. You can always return after a few minutes if they are not asleep, but angry. Continue this until one of you falls asleep. It is true that a baby who sleeps in bed with his parents is easier to breastfeed in the night, and very secure and attached. However, they are unlikely to start sleeping in their own beds until they are in primary school and although this is a great system for preventing siblings, it can be too much for mum and dad. New parents do not need to complicate their love life any further and for that reason alone, I would suggest a cot from day one. A truly miserable unhappy child is usually tired or unwell. Children who are very sick, though, are usually tired, quiet and floppy. A case of the miseries can be treated in most age groups by a long bath or shower. For older children food colouring in the water, bubble bath and toys might help. You should go in with young babies, who often cry through the whole thing if they are very tired. When they get out, promptly dress them, and either put them to bed, or take them out at once. If you have any doubt about whether your baby is well, you should get to a doctor or a hospital. Very small babies can get very sick very quickly – so that a six week old baby with vomiting is often admitted to hospital just to keep a close eye on them. As a good general rule, if you think something is wrong – it probably is. Most of all though – you may as well relax and enjoy the ride. You will make a million errors, and almost none of them matter. A child who is safe and loved is not going to be damaged by a bad week, and plenty of responsible citizens were bottle fed or breast fed until they were 4, and they turned out just fine. No one is the perfect parent, Good Enough is fine. And if that isn’t enough help – my last piece of advice concerns advice itself. If you are fixed in the steely gaze of judgement receiving unwanted advice from strangers (don’t laugh – this will happen) can I suggest the following?: “It’s OK, I know what I’m doing”. This usually has the right effect, and it’s always nice to hear (even from yourself). Any further persistence from the well intended nuisance (the advice giver, not the baby), should be fixed in an arrogant gaze as you say “I’m a paediatrician”. One day a child will have a seizure as I say that and I will have to admit that I’m not – but until then I have found it invaluable. Oh, and get a dog. I don’t have one, I just imagine it makes cleaning up easier.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 71

feelLIFE

alt.health

Eat to live

Half the battle to reducing future healthcare bills is getting kids to eat right, reports Dan Barker

ith the glee typical of a teenager, a student neighbor confided how she and her cohorts subverted her high school’s efforts to introduce healthy food into their cafeteria. “We call in a Domino’s order on a cell. It gets delivered to the school gates and we sell it behind the science block for $2 a slice. And make a killing we spend on CDs and stuff!” Sixteen percent of children between 6 and 11 were overweight in 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, against 7 percent in 1980. On July 1 this year the US introduced wellness policies addressing federal student nutri-

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tion and physical activity requirements. But schools have to tackle traditional food practices hard-wired into parents as well as students before these can have any effect. As debate rages in New Zealand about school tuck shops full of pies, chips and hot dogs, washed down with fizz and a donut, the real issue is figuring out how to change kids palates and break the acquired taste for junk. Primary schools in the US are making efforts to change habits such as these, introducing fruit and vegetable platters with healthy dips at celebrations and encouraging water drinking in place of sodas. Some introduce a new and perhaps

unfamiliar vegetable or fruit each month on the school meal menu. At the college level, eating patterns may be changing for the better. According to trade press reports in the US, some universities are making impressive moves to encourage a healthy eating style to their students. The Piazano café at the University of Colorado at Boulder was launched in January, offering organic and natural versions of student favorites pizza, pasta and sandwiches. The administrators expected a take-up by the campus’s 5,500 students of around 500 meals daily. Instead they have been serving 1,600 a day. While organic food does cost slightly more, supporters say the health benefits are far greater. “I gave my kids sandwiches on organic bread the other day,” remarks Maree Rae, a mother with three at primary school. “They kept coming back for more of the bread. Even the crusts. I was stunned. But it’s better for them than the processed stuff so I’ll keep buying it.” Vanderbilt University in Nashville is working to open a 50-square-metre campus store selling organic, natural and healthy products this month. “If (students) can maintain this lifestyle away from their parents for four years,” assistant director of operations for Vanderbilt Dining, Spiros Vergatos, told CSP Daily News, “it definitely has application away from campus.” While New Zealand supermarkets are already offering a range of organic produce, that’s likely to grow as international demand for organics brings down prices. The US Organic Trade Association, whose figures only come up to 2003, nevertheless reports that organic food sales, at US$10.4 billion, accounted for 1.9 percent of the U.S. grocery market, an increase per year since 1990 of around 20 percent. Wal-Mart’s interest in promoting organics confirms the growth in consumer interest. But given Wal-Mart’s well-documented practices of pressuring suppliers to cut back on their costs, it’s not clear what effect keeping the price of organic foods low would have long term upon organic producers selling to Wal-Mart. One California paper reported Jeff Erikson, U.S. director of London-based SustainAbility, a consultancy and research group, saying, “They have huge potential because it’s not just Wal-Mart we’re talking about, it’s their entire supply chain.” * Additional NZ reporting, Ian Wishart

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^gchr Z leb\^ h_ ma^ `hh] eb_^ pbma _k^^ mhZlm _hk mph <Zee )2 1*, .-1* hk ^fZbe bg_h9o^g^k]b'\h'gs _hk Z _k^^ bg_h iZ\d% \hfie^m^ pbma mph leb\^l h_ mZlmr O^g^k]b [k^Z] _hk rhn mh mhZlm _hk [k^Zd_Zlm' Rhn \Zg \ahhl^ _khf hnk Âlhnk l^^]rÃ li^em ehZ_% cZf&iZ\d^] pbma Zg hk`Zgb\ [e^g] h_ / l^^]l% hk mkr hnk Â\hngmkrÃ pahe^f^Ze `enm^g _k^^ ehZ_% Zelh \k^Zm^] _khf Z [e^g] h_ . l^^]l Zg] hk`Zgb\ Ìhnk `bobg` rhn ma^ [^lm h_ [hma phke]l & `hh] a^Zema Zg] `hh] mZlm^' INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 73

tasteLIFE

TRAVEL

Photography:Heritage Travel Group

To the ends of the Earth

Jay Clarke finds an Antarctic cruise compelling

ANTIAGO, Chile – We sailed in two oceans and cruised through deep, narrow fiords flanked by snowshrouded mountains. We saw penguins and petrels, whales and sea lions, condors and orcas. We came upon icebergs as big as small cities. And, as a bonus, we got to look upon the forbidding landscape of the last continent, Antarctica. While not as well known as voyages in Caribbean and Alaskan waters, cruises around the tip of South America and to sub-Antarctic islands offer dramatic scenery and unusual locales as well as the opportunity to visit sophisticated cities. Most of these cruises visit primitive

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Tierra del Fuego at the bottom of South America, round notorious Cape Horn and travel through the historic Beagle Channel and the Straits of Magellan before continuing into the glacier-lined fiords of southern Chile. Some also stop at the Falkland Islands, scene of a 1982 war between Britain and Argentina, and a growing number make a side trip to Antarctica at the height of the southern summer. The Falklands are bleak, remote islands, but most passengers were eager to go ashore to see why Britain had engaged in an expensive long-distance war with Argentina to successfully defend its sovereignty there. Argentina, which calls the

islands Las Malvinas, has long claimed the territory, and its invasion of the isles set off the 78-day war. Aside from a much-photographed arch made of blue-whale jawbones, a busy pub and war memorials from World War I and the British-Argentine war, there’s not much to Port Stanley, the Falklands’ capital. The Falklands Museum gave us more insight into the 1982 war and the islands’ role as a jumping-off port for trips to Antarctica, and from behind well-marked barbed-wire fences, we got to look upon some of the 117 still-active minefields on which penguins – but not humans – can walk with impunity.

“

When icebergs came into sight, passengers crowded the railings, bemused by their siz and color (sometimes greenish blue Not all our curiosity was satisfied by day. At sea, the night sky was a wonder. Sailing so far south, and with no city lights to drown out their faint light, each star’s twinkle was as sharp as laser light and the Milky Way spread over us like a warm, billowing blanket. When icebergs came into sight, passengers crowded the railings, bemused by their size (one was a mile long) and color (sometimes greenish blue). I’m not sure what other passengers expected when we reached the Antarctic peninsula, but what struck me the most was the utter starkness of the place. Antarctica is a portrait in black and white: black cliffs and white

”

snow, black nights and white days, penguins in tuxedo dress. From the Falklands, our ship headed south across the stormy Drake Passage to spend three days sailing along the coast of Antarctica. Most large cruise ships, however, cruise past legendary Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America and home to some of the world’s fiercest weather, before calling at Ushuaia, a port city of 40,000 on the Argentine portion of Tierra del Fuego. As in most cities situated at the cusps of civilization, Ushuaia wears a frontier face. You can’t tell the established landowners from the young settlers who have

come down from northern Argentina to make their fortune; both wear jeans and parkas and run around in pickup trucks. To house the newcomers, though, modern homes are rising on the outskirts, quite a contrast to the rustic look of the old town. New or old, though, residents pay through the nose for the privilege of living in Ushuaia: It has the highest cost of living in Argentina. That weighs on tourists as well. While they may browse among the dozens of duty-free stores on Avenida San Martin, the main drag, they come away with little: The goods are bargains only to locals anesthetized by their high living costs. Ushuaia claims to be the southernmost city in the world, though Chile’s Puerto Williams, a bit further south, disputes that title. The issue is whether Puerto Williams is truly a city. Neither place, though, is a winner as concerns the climate, which is a weather forecaster’s nightmare. Cold and windy is the usual outlook, but that can change quickly. To cope, most people dress in layers. Ushuaia is also the jumping-off point for tours into the magnificent landscape at the tip of South America. We chose a tour to nearby Tierra del Fuego National Park, where we were taken through forests and hills to a lodge on the shores of mountain-shadowed Lake Roca, a serene setting where Argentines often indulge their “second national sport” – barbecuing. (The first is soccer.) An overnight sailing took us from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, Chile, on the banks of the Straits of Magellan. With a population of about 120,000, Punta Arenas is the biggest city in the south of South America. It got its start during the California Gold Rush, when it become an important stop for steamers bound around the Horn to San Francisco. It is still a major port today, catering to 55 cruise calls last year, and has become a prime gateway into Chile’s Patagonia as well. For cruise passengers, Punta Arenas’ main attraction is a large penguin colony on the Sea of Otway. It’s a long bus ride to the site, but the monotony was broken by the sight of wild ostriches and llama-like guanacos here and there on the flat grasslands. A chilling wind often blows at the penguin site, so vendors there do a brisk business selling wool caps. It’s a long walk, too, to the colony site, but once there you can

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 75

Heritage Travel Group (incorporating Heritage Expeditions and Wild Earth Travel) is New Zealand’s only specialist Antarctic Cruise Operator and Natural History Travel provider. It has a large selection of different Antarctic cruises available. come quite close to penguins as they waddle between their burrows and the sea. As many as 2,500 penguins come to nest here in September and leave in March with their young. Shore excursions by chartered bus make it easy for passengers to reach the colony, but for two people or more, a negotiated taxi (about US$80 for the round trip) is considerably less expensive. Like Portuguese explorer Ferdinand de Magellan, we sailed westward on the broad strait named for him until we exited into the Pacific Ocean. Then for two days we cruised in and out of the fiords that notch the lower coast of Chile, limpid passages that sometimes led to tidewater glaciers and sometimes brought us close to pods of orcas. Eventually, though, we had to leave these tranquil inlets and sail to our nextto-last port call at Puerto Montt, the gateway to Chile’s scenic Lake District. This is a region of extraordinary beauty. Twelve large lakes and many smaller ones nestle in the shadow of six Andes volcanoes here. The most renowned of the latter, Osorno, offers a great photo op with its Fuji-like snow-covered cone hovering over Lake Llanquihue and Puerto Varas, a popular tourist town on the lake bank. Later, we traveled past orchards of apples and nectarines to Petrohue and its renowned falls, a scenic series of cascades running swiftly through channels of dark volcanic rock. Another ship excursion offers hardier passengers the option to take a Class III-IV rafting adventure here on the Petrohue River, a beautiful glacial waterway. Beyond Petrohue, we boarded a catamaran cruiser to tour forest-lined

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Lake Todos los Santos, which Theodore Roosevelt once called the “most beautiful lake in the world.” The lake also is the starting point of a well-traveled busand-boat route to the Argentine resort of Bariloche, on the other side of the Andes. Heavily influenced by the German colonists who settled here in 1852, the region around Puerto Montt has a Bavarian look. Sailing from Puerto Montt to our disembarkation port of Valparaiso gave us a welcome full day and evening at sea. At the same time, we learned why explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa gave this ocean the name he did when he first sighted it in 1513. The world’s biggest ocean can be a mean place, but it gave us a wonderful ride on this cruise: I’ve never seen the Pacific so pacific. Chartered buses took us on the twohour ride from the port of Valparaiso to Santiago, Chile’s capital. Before returning home, we spent two days there, exploring this bright metropolis of six million, as did quite a few other passengers. Some boarded buses and vans for a tour of Chilean wineries. Some visited trendy Vina del Mar, Chile’s foremost coastal resort. We toured the city, admiring the silver artifacts in the side altars of the great cathedral and the splendid French architecture of the racetrack. Guards told us we could look at but not enter the impressive presidential palace, La Moneda – no surprise. We sipped pisco sours at a sidewalk cafe in Suecia, a trendy sector busy with restaurants and night spots, and from atop Cristobal Hill, like thousands of tourists before us, we enjoyed a superb view of the city framed by the distant Andes mountain range. It was a fitting end to a cruise quite different from others I have taken.

Heritage Expeditions operates its own Polar Vessel “Spirit of Enderby” on expeditions to the Ross Sea, East Antarctica and the Sub Antarctic Islands. The Ross Sea region of Antarctica is considered “the historic gateway”. An expedition to this region includes the historic huts of Scott, Shackleton and Borchgrevink as well as New Zealand’s Scott Base and the American McMurdo Station. A lot of time is also spent with the penguins and other wildlife. Shorter Sub Antarctic voyages spend time ashore on Campbell, Auckland’s and Macquarie Islands looking at the wildlife and history. Unique code share agreements with South American based operators gives Wild Earth Travel a huge selection and choice of cruises from South America which include Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. This is by far the most popular gateway, a longer season, shorter distances and more operators means there is greater choice. Heritage Travel Group also has a large selection of other Natural History tours and cruises available, including the Kermadec Islands, SW Pacific. In June/ July 2007 it will offer a number of exclusive cruises through The Russian Far East including the Kuril Islands, Kamchatka Peninsula and Chukotka on its own vessel. The Travel Group also have expeditions to Galapagos Islands, Madagascar, Spisbergen (Svalbard) and Greenland. These cruises will visit places not previously visited by any cruise vessel. All tours and cruises focus the unique natural history of the region they are visiting. Small groups with expert guides ensure a relaxed and informal learning and traveling environment.

In association with

An invitation to join a ‘special’

Cruise for Conservation to the Sub Antarctic Islands. Help raise funds for the conservation of the rare Yellow eyed Penguin and at the same time discover these amazing islands. Join staff from the Yellow eyed Penguin Trust and biologists from Heritage Expeditions on the Polar Research vessel, ‘Spirit of Enderby’, on an expedition to Campbell, Auckland and Snares Islands. Your participation will not only raise funds (5% of each fare is donated to YEPT) you will gather important data on the distribution and numbers of birds seen while ashore. 5th - 11th January, 2007 Priced from NZD $ 3375.00 pp (plus government landing fees)

53b Montreal Street, PO Box 7218, Christchurch, New Zealand Phone: ++64 3 365 3500, Fax: ++64 3 365 1300 Toll Free within New Zealand 0800 262 8873, within Australia 1800 143 585 www.heritage-expeditions.com - info@heritage-expeditions.co.nz

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 77

tasteLIFE

TRAVEL

Cooks tour

In travel it helps to get religion, suggests Tom Swick

ITUTAKI – Fans fastened to pillars made excruciatingly slow halforbits, and poor parishioners out of range flapped the hand-held variety. The woman across the aisle from me, in white dress and white-flowered hat, vigorously wiped her face with a towel. A rare breeze wafted like a benediction through the open, louvered windows topped by the more traditional Gothic kind, each radiant with sun-lit panes of primary colors. They gave the interior

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something of the feel of a Candyland. The large preacher, in white suit and black tie, sweated in the pulpit erupting from the middle of the high west wall, and hefty women’s voices, unadorned by instruments, belted out hymns in Maori with unfettered zeal. It was the first Sunday in March in the Cook Islands Christian Church in the village of Arutanga on the island of Aitutaki, a remote atoll renowned for its pristine tropical beauty. In the 19th century, the London

Missionary Society enjoyed great success in the Cook Islands, the South Pacific nation that, today, is a self-governing democracy in free association with New Zealand. “It was a God-fearing archipelago,” Paul Theroux wrote in The Happy Isles of Oceania. “Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics, and the local outfit, Cook Island Christian Church, the CICC.” But he didn’t attend any of their services. It was not expected. Travel writers, coming as they do from predominantly secular societies, tend to ignore the religious practices of the people they visit, especially the Christian ones. They will travel to Chichen Itza fascinated by the sacred sacrifices of the ancient Mayans, but they will not join their descendants at Sunday Mass in Merida. It has – or should have – nothing to do with one’s personal beliefs (or lack thereof). In most of the world, with the exception of much of Europe, the Antipodes, and some parts of North America, religion is still an integral part of people’s lives, an invalu-

“

Communion in Aitutaki had its own charms. White-suited ushers came down the aisle bearing shallow wicker baskets neat with rows of what looked like cubes of Wonder Bread but were in fact coconut meat

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able key to understanding not only their culture and history but who they are: their behaviors, motives, prejudices, desires. (As we have searingly seen in the Middle East.) Going to church (or temple or mosque or synagogue) should be as high on a serious traveler’s itinerary as visiting a market or attending a game. I first discovered this when I lived in Poland in the early `80s. It was the period of Solidarity, the beginning of the end of communism in that part of the world, and the Church was playing an active role. That first Christmas, a creche in one of Warsaw’s Old Town churches featured the infant Jesus lying peacefully in the Gdansk shipyard of Lech Walesa. A joke at the time featured a man in a pew admitting to his neighbor that he was an atheist. “Then why are you here?” the neighbor asks. “Because I’m against the government.” A similarly predisposed travel writer could easily respond, “I’m writing a story.” An Anglican, I sometimes search out an Anglican service when abroad. Admittedly, attending Holy Communion at Christ Church in Bangkok didn’t give me great insight into the local culture, but it provided me with something I cherish almost as much: a glimpse of life most tourists miss. After the service, the coffee hour was enlivened by curries and conversations with an engaging collection of expats and Thais. Communion in Aitutaki had its own charms. White-suited ushers came down the aisle bearing shallow wicker baskets neat with rows of what looked like cubes of Wonder Bread but were in fact coconut meat. Shortly after, the men returned with rectangular wooden trays holding dozens of tiny glasses filled with a perfectly clear liquid. Coconut water. It seemed, in both appearance and taste, the essence of purity. After the service, we all repaired to the parish hall. Tables groaning with dishes stretched the length of the room. (In honour of a group of students from Tahiti.) A cheerful crew sang pop songs in the corner. No locals approached the food until all the visitors had enjoyed seconds and thirds. When the preacher took the microphone he thanked us, the guests, for accepting the invitation to the feast. Where to stay: Pacific Resort, Aitutaki. Visit www.pacificresort.com; www.slh.com INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 79

tasteLIFE

FOOD

The shell game Cockles and mussels alive, alive-O, sings Eli Jameson

ity the poor mollusc. Defamed in the Old Testament as something unclean and to be avoided (though really, even with modern refrigeration, I’m not sure I would trust a raw bar in the middle of the desert), in many places today they are the victims of viruses and blights where they are grown and the food police where they are sold. While oysters are not about to become the new peanut – for one thing, bluffs on the half-shell are only handed out in the pointy end of the plane – subject to seemingly global bans lest the allergic inhale a stray bit of shell, I have seen some fairly extreme micro-examples of the trend lately. On a tour of a local school (that still amazingly won the Jameson family’s business despite this bit of boneheaded administrativa) I noticed a sign in the canteen saying “NO SEAFOOD ALLOWED”. Queried about it, the headmistress told us it was to protect kids with shellfish allergies. Considering the otherwise utter loveliness of the school, I remained silent (“But

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tuna salad isn’t a shellfish!” I was screaming inside) and carted myself to the emergency room after the tour to have the bite marks in my tongue stitched up. Happily, no one in our household is allergic to shellfish – though a 4-year-old confronted with an open steamed mussel pulls a face that looks as deadly – and among the grownups bivalves are a regular on the menu. Just as clams, oysters and mussels are seemingly simple creatures with surprisingly complicated biology (if anything in this world was going to be reducibly complex, one would think it would be something that spent its whole life buried in the sand or clinging to a rock) they must be cooked simply but in ways that bring out complexities and layers of flavour. Anyone who looks at an oyster and thinks they are about to snorfle down a simple mucousy piece of sea-flesh should contemplate this: Oysters have brains, hearts, stomachs, livers, intestines, and nervous systems. The muscles that keep their shells closed exert around

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Here as in so many other cases, the Italians have the right idea. A simple linguini with white clam sauce is a simple treat that is easy to throw together

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22 pounds of pressure. And they can live for several days out of water – especially if sprinkled with oatmeal – and be trained to keep their shells closed during transport. Anyone desiring more oyster trivia, and really, who doesn’t?, should pick up a

copy of Mark Kurlansky’s oyster-themed history of New York, The Big Oyster. To my way of thinking, the best ways to cook shellfish are the simplest ways. Yes, there are some wonderful recipes that come out of southeast Asia for curries of clams and mussels, but at the end of the day these dishes are more about showing off the chef’s ability to create curry paste with more layers of spice and intrigue than the first season of Desparate Housewives. Similarly, many Western recipes lard up molluscs with ridiculous sauces and coatings, perhaps in an effort to disguise their humble origins. Happily such abominations as Clams Casino and Oysters Rockefeller have gone the way of the MaiTai as signifiers of money and sophistication. Myself, I prefer to let the mollusc do the talking. After a few glasses of sauvignon blanc, they sometimes even have something interesting to say. Here as in so many other cases, the Italians have the right idea. A simple linguini with white clam sauce is a simple treat that is easy to throw together. If done right, you can even close your eyes and imagine yourself stepping over the body of a freshlywhacked Mafioso outside Umberto’s Clam House on Mulberry Street in New York’s Little Italy. (Keep your eyes closed a few more minutes and you can make it up the road to Veniero’s Bakery for a dessert of cannoli and espresso). Moving beyond the Italian Alps into France and Belgium, a bowl of steamed mussels in a heady, garlicky white wine broth with plenty of crusty bread to soak up the sauce is an incomparable bit of comfort food. The Belgians are perhaps best known for their version, moules frites, in which the mussels are served with piles of home-made chips. Nor does one have to limit one’s self to a white wine broth. The Belgian Beer Hall in Sydney does nearly a dozen variations on the theme, including an improbable-butgood mussels in blue cheese sauce. However one chooses to eat shellfish, a few basic rules apply. When steaming mussels and clams always discard any that do not open after a few minutes in the pan. Soak clams in room-temperature water to remove sand, and de-beard mussels to avoid mouthfuls of stringy unpleasantness. And oysters are always to be eaten with nothing more than a squirt of lemon and sucked directly out of the shell. Leave the little forks to the arrivistes and their Clams Casino.

Eli Jameson’s Linguini with White Clam Sauce You’ll need: About 1 kg clams or vongole, the smaller the better, having soaked for at least an hour and drained Several cloves thinly-sliced garlic About 1/2 bottle cheap white wine Olive oil Salt and fresh pepper Butter Large handful finely-chopped parsley 500g dried linguine or bavette pasta 1. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Throw in the dried pasta, stir and cover. Bring a large pan up to heat and pour in the wine. Add the clams and cover. After a few minutes the clams should start to pop open. Remove the clams as the open and set aside, then drain and reserve the liquid. 2. Wipe out the pan and pour in some olive oil. Quickly toast the garlic and then add the reserved liquid from the clams. Add a knob of butter and a good portion of the parsley. Remove the meat from all but 24 of the clams, chop finely and add to the sauce. Add salt and a LOT of pepper. By now your pasta should be ready. 3. Drain pasta and toss in the sauce. Serve in four warmed pasta bowls and arrange 6 of the reserved clams on top for decoration. Add more salt and pepper to taste. Heaps of garlic bread are an almost mandatory accompaniment, along with plenty of soave bolla or pinot grigio. Serves 4. * Note: many people like to add some dried red pepper flakes to this dish. I find them superfluous, but it’s all a matter of personal taste.

Steamed mussels in white wine Traditionally these are eaten with one’s hands; after getting a starter mussel out with a fork, the empty shell is then used to pluck the meat from subsequent shells. You’ll need: 2kgs or more fresh mussels Butter White wine 3-4 eshallots, finely sliced Handful finely-chopped parsley Loaf of good crusty bread, sliced thickly Debeard the mussels by yanking the furry bit between the shells off. Heat a large pan that you have a cover for and add a knob of butter. Fry the eshallots and add a large measure of wine, followed by the mussels. Cover, and shake the pan as if making popcorn. After about five minutes they should start to open. Remove mussels as they open to prevent overcooking and toughening. After a few more minutes discard any that did not open and pour the sauce over the mussels in a large bowl and add parsley. Serve with crusty bread.

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seeLIFE PAGES

Number 8 wire travel Michael Morrissey discovers rugged NZ explorers still exist FIRST PASS UNDER HEAVEN By Nathan Hoturoa Gray, Penguin, $29.95

n the basis of two authors and three books, I’m tempted to declare there’s a new type of male kiwi roaming the world. One to whom the concept “package tour” is anathema, a dude who tries to find the coldest, most inhospitable places on earth and says to himself – that’s where I’m headed. Tempted as I am to declare a new tough breed is afoot, it’s really a continuation of an old breed like Sir Edmund Hillary or David Lewis, skipper of the Ice Bird. Another reaction I tend to indulge is to ask myself – is there some arduous journey that hasn’t been done and just maybe I could...? Of course my age, arthritis and lack of physical and mental toughness keeps any such notion strictly at a fantasy level. Which means I am doomed to read about the resolute exploits of those younger and tougher than myself from the com-

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fort of my armchair. Actually, armchair travel has a lot going for it – it’s cheap, safe and comfortable. Air crashes and hijackings are unlikely. None of which quite compensates for not doing what new author Nathan Hoturoa Gray has done – walked the Great Wall of China. What a grand feat [presumably no pun intended, Ed.]! Gray was not alone – he was a part of a group, the others consisting of a Buddhist monk, an Argentinean photojournalist, an Italian recording artist and a Mormon golfer. If you’re thinking how did such a League of Nations group get along in the vastness of China, the answer is ‘with difficulty’. At times, I wondered if Gray might have been secretly thinking if he made this journey alone might it have made for a smoother ride? When there is an argument about the cost of a shared cellphone, Paolo simply says, “Nathan, look at the Wall under the stars: it’s amazing!” Quite so. Interpersonal arguments are, however, small beer compared to being either arrested or interrogated by the police –

and Gray and several of his companions “enjoyed” that experience as well. Being a young traveller imbued with contemporary candour, Gray mentions some of the factors which traditional travel writers omit, e.g., what do you do for toilet paper in the middle of the Gobi desert? Marco Polo was silent on the subject but not Gray. First, you need to be carrying the said toilet paper plus a torch. Next you clench your bum muscles, check your boots for scorpions, then “hobble bung-legged to a hole reeking of maggot-infested excrement and covered by two thin icy planks ...”. Politically speaking, Gray reminds us that a million died constructing the Wall, that some 200 crimes could bring a wallbuilding sentence and, if it was perpetual, then the offender’s son too must build the Wall. Unsurprisingly, Gray tells us that the Wall remains a symbol of oppression to the majority of Chinese. At times, the towering Wall disappears into a trail of rubble – the local peasants having used its remains to build clay cottages.

Nonetheless, the Wall calls forth poetic imagery from Gray. It is variously described as like a “petrified serpent”; a dragon with “clay scales” but “very much alive”; “a giant worm from Arrakis in the Dune novels.”; “a graveyard of giant brown tortoise shells”. Then there is the actual poetry – plenty of it – by Gray, which, whether intentionally or not, reads a bit like a series of Chinese/ Buddhist proverbs: Attitude forges the path you take Past experience influences the stakes. Breathe in deep to prevent the cyclic mirror Each step is new to the man who awakes. None of your Bill Manhire postmodern irony here. Perhaps the most reassuring thing about Gray’s gripping account – and others like it – is that when a traveller is miles from civilisation, there is always help from the locals. A bowl of hot noodles in the freezing cold must taste more delicious than the finest urban cuisine. To travel to unknown places, to be fed by strangers in times of need – surely this is the warm heart of such voyages and Gray’s story captures these experiences admirably.

A WORD IN YOUR SHELLLIKE: 600 Curious & Everyday Phrases Explained Edited by Nigel Rees, Collins, $ 24.99

uring this merciless freeze up we’ve had lately, it was no surprise to hear someone at the bus stop say, “Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!” which set me wondering what the origin of this curious phrase might be. This compendium (like Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable) is just the sort of book to look for an explanation. Already in use by 1835, Rees tells us, the explanation proceeds as follows: “A brass monkey was the name given to a plate on a warship’s deck on which cannon balls were stacked. In cold weather the brass would contract, tending to cause the stack to fall down.” Fair enough. However, Philip Holberton (whoever he may be) challenged this account in 1998: “Why would anyone use an expensive metal like brass on which to stack cannon balls?” and adds that they were stacked on wooden racks. I much prefer the more colourful explanation. The point made here is that the origins of colourful

phrases are often ambiguous, uncertain or shrouded in mystery. Sometimes there is no mystery – “baptism of fire” comes from the Gospel of St Matthew. “Winter of discontent” comes from Shakespeare’s Richard 111. In some cases, a phrase I thought relatively recent turns out to have more venerable genealogy. “From the cradle to the grave” which I associated with modern welfare state systems, dates back to Sir Richard Steele writing in the Tatler in 1709. I was under the impression Dame Edna Everage had coined “Don’t come the raw prawn with me!” but it dates back to the 1940’s when the entertainer was merely a pup. Edna still claims to have coined, “Point Percy at the Porcelain” and so far no one has disputed it. From the frequency with which New Zealanders faced with a TV camera come out with “At the end of the day ...” one would think it new coinage. Apparently, it was first used in a song back in 1951 and according to Rees, “used in epidemic quantities during the 1970s and 1980s, and was particularly beloved of British ... politicians and indeed anyone wishing to tread verbal water”. I have heard NZ politicians use it up to three times in as many minutes which make me want to say, “Give me a break” (alas not listed). While smaller than Brewer’s, Rees tends to use more up to date examples of usage. But, on occasion, the former offers a richer brew – under “blue”, Rees gives a scant 8 listings whereas Brewer’s lists 43. Both give inadequate histories of Politically Correct – my most despised phrase in the universe. I am pleased to note Rees agrees: “As it is, ‘political’ hints at the coercion that is all too much part of the PC movement”. Right on, Nigel. Despite surprise omissions (inevitable given the vastitude of phrases that the English language acquires almost daily), this is a fascinating book to dip into on a rainy Sunday afternoon. PS: No mention of poozling, that wonderful Grafton word known by 1967 – to remove pieces of furniture from abandoned houses.

NIGHT By Elie Wiesel, Penguin, $25

he brutal Nazi extermination of six million Jews must be the most documented atrocity in history. And yet when we read an account so direct and

moving as this, it almost seems as though we are reading about it for the first time. Inhuman brutality begins in the book’s opening pages: “Babies were thrown into the air and the machine gunners used them as targets.” Horrible as this is, the way starvation reduced people to the most bestial level is somehow worse. For 14-old Elie, the ordeal began when he and his family were ordered to leave their home with scant belongings and herded onto trains, 80 a wagon. The Nazi directive was again murderously clear: if any of the 80 people in the wagon managed to escape, “You’ll all be shot like dogs.” Despite the circumstance, the people tried to cheer themselves up with the idea that they might be being deported for their own good or the Boches just wanted to steal their jewellery. Wiesel notes : “These optimistic speeches, which no one believed, helped to pass the time”. No sooner had they arrived at Auschwitz, they saw a towering chimney belching fire and knew their eventual fate. Young Elie saw his father weep for the first time and beaten when he asked to go to the toilet. When he was beaten further for “provoking” a guard by not working hard enough, Elie confesses that he wanted to get farther away so as not to be beaten himself and felt angry at his father for not knowing how to avoid the outburst. Thus could prison life turn son against father. The conditions were so dehumanised that some lost their faith in God. And yet some humanity remained – on Christmas day there was no work and the soup was slightly thicker. In the midst of this horror and harshness, it must have been moving beyond words to hear a fellow prisoner play a fragment from a Beethoven concerto – somehow the player had kept his violin through the privations of the camp. By the next day, he was dead. The last march – the flight from Auschwitz – results in the slow agonising death of Wiesel’s father. The book concludes with Wiesel staring at himself in the mirror as though at a corpse. In the Holocaust, Wiesel lost both parents and his younger sister though he and his two older sisters survived. This short moving memoir was his first book – he had since written nearly thirty more, become a Professor of Judaic studies and spoken out on behalf of the plight of other Jewish minority groups. Today, appropriately, he teaches the “Literature

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of Memory” at Boston University and recently appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show tracing his footsteps at the site of Auschwitz.

GRANTA 93 : God’s Own Countries Edited by Ian Jack, Granta Publications, $29.99

od’s Own Countries, indeed – but where is New Zealand? Not included! I was under the impression the phrase was coined by Prime Minister King Dick Seddon (or poet Thomas Bracken) circa 1890. So affirms the New Zealand Encyclopedia. However, on consulting Rees (see review above), I discovered it dates back to 1865 when it was used by the Northern States of the United States of America during the Civil War. It also notes that around 1911 the phrase was commonly used in Australia. In other words, the Aussies, who not only snaffled Phar Lap, pavlova and Russell Crowe, were also robbing us of self-appointed divine protection. Rees adds sardonically: “There can be few countries that have not elected to call themselves this.” To return to the book under review, it contains as always, some superb contemporary writing. The lead longest example is an account of an Iraqi army officer’s imprisonment in Iran. Captured during the 198088 war, Thayr was held captive for 20 years, beaten and tortured many times yet his will remained unbroken. A Sunni officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, his story of courageous endurance is lucidly written up by Wendell Steavenson. On a similar theme of the free individual defying authority, is an interview with Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most celebrated novelist. In another mode entirely – and this kind of variation makes each issue of Granta an absorbing read – there is “In the Clearing” by Andrew Brown, a description of pastoral tranquillity in a remote area of Sweden. In an increasingly overcrowded world planet, it is reassuring to note that you don’t have to go to Siberia to find forest silence and isolation. In still another key, is a hilarious short story entitled “St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell which outlines the fearful but comic antics of a pack of semi-wild pooches adopted by a convent of nuns. Another multi-variegated and capti-

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vating aspect of this issue is a collection of twelve short essays – some by wellknown authors like John McGahern and A.L Kennedy (and others more obscure) – recounting the authors’ personal encounters, or lack of, with God. McGahern observes of Ireland that the “most dramatic change in my lifetime has been the collapse of the Church’s absolute power”. He adds, “The religious impulse is so ingrained in human nature that it is never likely to disappear even when it is derided or suppressed.” A.L. Kennedy climbed Mt Sinai in quest of her faith and had an unexpected “swoop of feeling” that brought her to her knees. Geoff Dyer tells us that all his religious experiences have been drug-related. Hindu Pankaj Mishra is baffled by the Christian creed, perplexed by the crucifixion. Diana Athill says that while she doesn’t believe in organised religion she has experienced “a flicker of what seems to be the numen”. The twelve writers give us a mixture of belief, partial belief and non-belief, of agnosticism and atheism – a fascinating assemblage of the varieties of religious experience or, in some cases, the lack of it.

THEFT By Peter Carey, Knopf, $49.99.

ike The Collector, The End of the Affair and One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, Theft is a novel told by two voices. The first and major voice is Michael Boone, painter, drunkard and rascal, more commonly known as Butcher, and the second is his “damaged” brother Hugh, a six foot four 220-pound giant liable to eccentric behaviour such as arriving home with a stray puppy under his coat or biting the little finger of someone who has rubbed him the wrong way. Hugh’s voice has the added eccentricity of having certain phrases emphasised by CAPITALS. While Carey is a magnificent stylist – one of the very best writing in English today – his dichotomy of two voices is less successful than in the novels referred to above, because the contrast between them is not sufficiently dramatic. Indeed, at times, Hugh sounds almost like a small echo of Michael. Arguably, brothers may sound alike but a stronger contrast of verbal palette would have given the text a stronger punch overall.

Enter, dramatically, on a cold and stormy night, Marlene Leibowitz, an art authenticator, though as it turns out eventually, art crook. Marlene is on the trail of neighbour Dozy Boylan who has a Jacques Leibowitz, a high status painter, which awaits her certification as the real thing. Millions are at stake. Once she has entered centre stage, she seldom leaves it. Vibrant, petite, sensual, art-knowledgeable but ultimately corrupt and corrupting, she is a fascinating character. She leaves the reader with an intriguing thought – how many art experts are behind the large number of forgeries that undoubtedly exist in the great galleries of the world? Theft is generously and confidently sprinkled with references to the great artists of the 20th century and the various ways in which they climbed to fame including of course the methods by which they have been marketed, sold, imitated – and forged. The plot of artistic intrigue in this novel is multi-layered, ambiguous and frankly not that clear – all this, I suspect, in the hands of a consummate professional like Carey may well be intended. Intriguingly, an early aspect of Butcher’s work sounds like a cousin of the late McCahon (a comparison not noted by any overseas critics) – a work made from light and mathematics with a painted text reads I, THE SPEAKER RULED AS KING OVER ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM ... etc etc. To this reviewer, this sounds like an echo of McCahon’s equally large lettered painting I AM. Significantly, McCahon’s work One was purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the city closest to Theft’s setting at Bacchus Marsh. And like McCahon, Butcher paints with Dulux! Therefore, we have a large-lettered religious Old Testament-sounding text as primary object in the painting. But let me make it clear this comparison, if it has foundation, does not extend to fakery – McCahon was one hundred per cent honest. Carey’s fluent, supple, musical and never contrived style brings to mind Bellow at his best. Also Carey’s rampaging brothers with their rambunctious full-blooded presences are reminiscent of some of Bellow’s great characters such as Henderson the Rain King or Humboldt. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t quite place Theft in the Booker Prize-winning category – which would be Carey’s third such – but then I could well be wrong.

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seeLIFE MUSIC

Ironing out a kink

Chris Philpott suspects Ray Davies is getting past his use-by date Ray Davies Other People’s Lives

The Elms The Chess Hotel

Greg Graffin Cold As The Clay

ny time that a music legend’s latest album crosses your desk you take notice. Ray Davies – the legendary lead singer and songwriter of The Kinks – certainly qualifies as a “music legend”, so when his latest album came to me, I was intrigued. From the opening track, it’s obvious that Ray Davies is a great songwriter, and with songs like “Things Are Gonna Change”, “After The Fall” and the light-hearted “Is There Life After Breakfast”, Other Peoples Lives isn’t a complete waste of time, even if they sound more ‘Tom Petty’ than ‘The Kinks’. But to be honest, outside of the 4 or 5 best tracks, the pickings here are pretty slim – the best tracks are really great, but the drop in quality from there is staggering. Given who Davies is, and the achievements he is credited with, I found it oddly ironic and saddening that the man cited as the “Godfather of Britpop” wasn’t able to meet the standards set by the contemporaries of the genre, like Richard Ashcroft, Coldplay, or even the Arctic Monkeys, who have all released brilliant albums in the last 12 months or so. Other Peoples Lives certainly aspires to those standards, but ultimately falls short.

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listen to a lot of new music each month and I love the excited feeling when I come across a new band or album which has surprised me or which I’ve enjoyed more than I thought I would. The Elms’ latest album, The Chess Hotel, is one of those albums. Recreating the signature American rock sound that was perfected by the likes of Cream and Led Zeppelin is a delicate art, and The Elms have done a pretty good job of distinguishing themselves as more than just an imitator. From the thundering opening of “I Am The World” to the subdued, and somewhat minimal, sound of closer “I’ve Been Wrong”, The Chess Hotel is a memorable album in its own right, that should have you tapping fingers or pens on your desk with glee. That’s not to say that this is a perfect album, and the main problem here is repetition. If you like one track, you’ll like them all; but if you dislike the opening tracks, it’s unlikely that anything further in will change your mind. Despite this, The Chess Hotel is an above-average release, an enjoyable listen, and one of the better surprises of the year to date.

love punk music as much as the next guy, and Bad Religion are as good as it gets when it comes to punk … but their lead singer switching to folk music for his solo album? Actually, Greg Graffin is a pretty wellrounded musician who wanted to make an album that reflected who he was and where he came from – by his own admission, the “old-time music” was one of the earliest musical influences in his life – and has, in a word, succeeded. Cold As The Clay is certainly a better album than I was expecting and Graffin shows a side of himself that is not usually accessible. The soft, heartfelt sound of “Omie Wise” or “Rebel’s Goodbye” proves that folk music is certainly in Graffin’s heart, but it is the rare ‘folk-meets-punk’ moments, like on opening track “Don’t Be Afraid To Run”, that really have the best effect. Unfortunately those moments are few and far between, and the album as a whole suffers as a result. Cold As The Clay is a solid offering, as well as a wholly unexpected one, and is sure to please fans of acoustic or folk artists like Neil Young or Bob Dylan.

seeLIFE MOVIES

The end of innocence

The final moments of New Zealander Alan Beaven’s life are told in the bigger story of Flight 93 United 93 Rated: M Starring: David Alan Basche, Richard Bekins, Susan Blommaert, Ray Charleson, Christian Clemenson Directed by: Paul Greengrass

110 minutes

ow audacious, really, to start with a prayer. To begin a movie about a spectacular public tragedy with that most private and intimate of acts: a murmured entreaty to God. In the first scene in United 93, a terrorist prays. He knows that this is the last day of his life. His victims do not, cannot, know that this is the last day of theirs. The simple disparity – his dark certainty, their obliviousness – gives the film a ferocious emotional kick. United 93 was the flight that took the life of the only New Zealand victim of 9/11, Alan Beaven, portrayed in the film by actor Simon Poland. Beaven, after realizing thanks to cellphone calls that the World Trade Centre had been hit, opted with co-passenger Todd Beamer and others to try and storm the cockpit and prevent Flight 93 hitting another building. More than any artistic creation in

recent memory, United 93 – which traces the fate of the last plane snatched by homicidal hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001 – transcends genre. It’s not simply a movie. It’s a decision. A choice not only about how you want to spend your time, but also about where you want to put your mind: into the furnace of the worst memory in America’s recent history, or not. Or maybe, just not yet. Certain creative works become overnight touchstones, become part of the cultural air we all breathe. They are instant referendums on where we are, on how we are, and most important, perhaps, on who we are. Thus even if you haven’t seen United 93, it has affected you. You’ve had to think about it. To decide how you feel about the film and how you feel, period – lo these five years later – about Sept. 11 and the concentric rings of meaning that continue to ripple from its still-vibrating core. Thus it follows that the real measure of the force of United 93 may not be box office receipts or tallies of Oscar nominations – much as the film’s makers would doubtless appreciate such compliments – but rather how long it retains this status as an event, not a movie. As a dampened finger in the cultural wind.

More, of course, are on the way. But United 93 is something else. It’s the first work inspired by Sept. 11 to ascend to that special stratosphere of art reserved for the absolutely extraordinary. No publicist can put it there. No amount of clever marketing or online teasers or hokey tie-ins with kids’ meals at burger joints can do the trick, either. It has to get there on its own. Because so much of the movie occurs within the cabin of the doomed flight, some critics have taken to calling it “claustrophobic.” Hardly. In fact, United 93 helped me understand at last Thomas Merton’s seemingly oxymoronic description of joining a monastery, recounted in his classic spiritual autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain (1948); it marked, he wrote, “the four walls of my new freedom.” The plane plummets, but not before the passengers act with strength and faith. United 93 starts with prayers and ends with silence – which, under the circumstances, is just a space waiting to be filled with prayers, prayers that cancel out the perverse parody of a prayer that comes from a terrorist. The cabin of Flight 93 didn’t enclose. It liberated. Reviewed by Julia Keller

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Thank You for Smoking Rating: M, Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Katie Holmes, Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe Directed by: Jason Reitman

92 mins

hank You For Smoking, the low-tar adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s satirical novel, never feels as if it’s been fully absorbed by the screen. The movie just sort of hangs there, filled with all sorts of ingredients that should make it funny, but it never lights up like the real thing. It’s the nicotine patch of comedy movies. But even if the humor feels slightly denatured at times – as if you’re inhaling second-hand laughs – before it’s over, Thank You For Smoking can give you a nice little buzz. A lot of that comes from the sharply observed performances, led by Aaron Eckhart as Big Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor. As proxy for Buckley, and for first-time writer-director Jason Reitman, Nick shamelessly asks how far the government should be allowed to go to protect us from ourselves. Invited to his young son’s school to talk about his career, Nick challenges the kids to think for themselves when their parents

tell them cigarettes are dangerous. He’s Mr. Rogers with a pack of Luckies rolled up in the sleeve of his sweater. Nick’s boy Joey (Cameron Bright) is wary of the effect his weekend dad has on people, and with his head in his hands begs his father, “Please don’t ruin my childhood.” William H. Macy plays a senator from Vermont who would like to put poison labels on cigarette packs. Sen. Finistirre wears Birkenstock sandals and socks, and engages in a kind of mentholated McCarthyism. When one of his aides goes on a talk show to debate Naylor, he brings along as a shaming prop a boy with cancer, whose chemo treatments have caused his hair to fall out. Improbably, Nick turns the moment to his advantage, winning the boy over on live TV. “When you’re looking for a cancer kid,” Finistirre fulminates at his factotum, “he should be hopeless!” If you think of Thank You For Smoking as an investigative comedy – peering behind the smoke screen of lobbyists and political spin doctors in Washington, D.C., in the same way that Network was an investigative comedy about television news – Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) is both its Woodward and Bernstein, and its Deep Throat. As a reporter writing a profile about Nick, she wants to know

what motivated him to become a merchant of death, so she sleeps with him. When he smugly reminds her that everyone has a mortgage to pay, she dismisses this as “the yuppie Nuremberg defense.” That’s a line good enough to make you wish the movie lived up to it more often. Nick meets with his lobbying counterparts for the gun and liquor industries over steak and martini lunches. These M.O.D. squad (Merchants of Death) gatherings retain the gleeful political incorrectness – and much of the original dialogue – of Buckley’s book. At one of these lunches, Naylor and Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) of the alcohol industry get into an argument over whose group should get credit for causing more fatalities. “I’m sure both of you warrant vigilante justice,” says firearms spokesman Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner). The big finish is a Senate hearing at which Finistirre introduces legislation to force Hollywood to digitally remove cigarettes from all its old movies. When Naylor charges that the cheese made in Finistirre’s state causes more health problems than cigarettes, the senator is outraged. “The great state of Vermont will not apologize for its cheese!” he cries. But you can tell he’s just blowing smoke. Reviewed by Bruce Newman

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 89

seeLIFE DVDs

A passionate collection This month’s releases are aimed at emotions SOMETIMES IN APRIL M, 140 minutes

he heartache underlying Sometimes in April seeps into your soul as you watch it. A harrowing portrait of an almost unimaginable human tragedy – the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which nearly one million lives were erased in a frenzy of Rwandans killing Rwandans – powerfully illuminates the poisoning of the human spirit when the fury of blind hatred is unleashed. It is told in understated docudrama style and artfully written and directed by Raoul Peck (Lumumba) with an unflinching emotional honesty. Peck explores the horror of the genocide – when hard-line extremists from the country’s Hutu majority sought to protect their power by massacring hundreds of thousands of the country’s Tutsi minority – with perhaps even more haunting force than Hotel Rwanda. By contrast, Sometimes in April, which was filmed on location in Rwanda, is a fictionalized account. But it is one built on the seething, factual rage of real history. And it is anchored in the memorable anguished grace of British actor Idris Elba’s portrayal of a Hutu family man who loses his wife and children in the slaughter. Sometimes in April spreads a forever worthwhile message about humanity under siege. And about the killing damnation of hatred’s mad, disorienting embrace. It is an eloquent, extraordinary film. Reviewed by Mike Duffy

WARM SPRINGS PG, 120 minutes

ot counting his “other women,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt kept two remarkable secrets through much of his long public life.

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As we know now, one-remarkable because he was able to keep it-was that he was terribly stricken with polio at age 39, 12 years before he became president. Though with the aid of leg braces he was able to pose as a man who could walk, he could not. The other secret leads from the first: the very private, rewarding and transforming life he made for himself at a mineral springs health resort at Warm Springs, Ga., where he later established a “Little White House” and where he died more than 60 years ago. Cynthia Nixon, the Sex and the City star and serious New York stage actress who plays Eleanor Roosevelt, perceives Warm Springs as a private world FDR created in search of recovery and escape. Though they refrained from docudrama mimicry in their beguiling performances, Branagh and Nixon researched their subjects prodigiously. Branagh achieves verisimilitude in part through such props as cigarette holder and pince-nez, but mostly by rekindling FDR’s unique charm and style. Reviewed by Michael Kilian

SYRIANA R, 122 minutes

y favorite thing about the intelligent, muddled Syriana is its matter-of-fact use of the phrase, “the petroleum security of the United States.” Syriana accepts as a given that lives are being lost in the Middle East because of oil, that countries are being manipulated because of oil and that civil rights are being violated because of oil. “Petroleum security” is not the only provocative idea floating around the three separate-butrelated storylines in Syriana, which was written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, who won an Oscar for writing another

separate-but-related storylines film, Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic. But Traffic is a better film, and the chief difference between the two is that, in Syriana, Gaghan doesn’t have the input of a director who can tell him his script doesn’t add up the way he thinks it does. Among the many characters in Syriana are a CIA lifer played by George Clooney, whose acting technique appears to have involved a lot of doughnuts; a businessman, played by Matt Damon, with links to Arab oil; a lawyer, played by Jeffrey Wright, who’s investigating a big oil company merger; and Chris Cooper as an unscrupulous oilman. Actually, none of those people has many scruples, a flaw in a movie that would benefit from giving us one character to grab onto. As it is, there are fine, low-key performances, but the only memorable one is Christopher Plummer’s portrait of elegant boorishness. Traffic was filled with fascinating people whose stories echoed each other. But the storylines feel random here, and there aren’t many intriguing people – good luck trying to distinguish between pinstriped wonks played by David Clennon, Jamey Sheridan and Tom McCarthy – because Gaghan doesn’t dramatize the story. Syriana is like a position paper, and scenes that should pull us in – a moment when Clooney realizes Big Brother is always watching him, an ought-to-be-suspenseful chase at the climax – fall flat. The result is an honorable failure. There’s nothing wrong with trying to ask provocative questions even though you don’t have the answers, which is what Syriana wants to do. The problem is that it doesn’t even find a way to ask the questions clearly. Review By Chris Hewitt

A partnership in audio excellence

Introducing the magnificent 15-series stereo components For brochures as well as your nearest Marantz Demonstration Centre, please contact the New Zealand Distributor: Wildash Audio Systems NZ Ltd, Phone Auckland 845 1958, Fax Auckland 846 3554 Mobile 021 729 137, email mike@wildash.co.nz INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 91

touchLIFE

TOYBOX

Portable playthings Products to keep you moving

Epson P-4500

The P-4500 makes sure professional photographers taking images in large, high quality file formats have all the room they need to back up to or from their memory cards or computer with an 80GB hard drive. To make the P-4500 even more compatible for professional users working with large file formats, advanced RAW file support allows the P-4500 to display a wide range of RAW file formats from leading DSLR camera manufacturers so the user is able to check focus, exposure, colour and image composition in high resolution detail immediately. For JPEG files the P-4500 is capable of displaying up to 30 million pixels on screen. The P-4500 can display all metadata information stored with compatible image files - the file name, EXIF information and a light histogram. The improved highresolution display is now brighter and measures 3.8 inches (640 x 480 pixels VGA), giving the P-4500 one of the largest viewing screens in its class. Along with a new improved user interface the P-4500 has improved video and audio playback options supporting MPEG type 1, 2 and 4, DivX, WMV and Motion JPEG movie files and MP3, WMA, ACC and MPEG4-ACC audio files. The Epson P-4500 is priced at $1299 RRP. Visit www.epson.co.nz or call 0800 377 664.

THE BEOSOUND 3 AND 4

The BeoSound 3 has an FM radio, SD (Secure Digital) card reader and clock-timer elegantly packaged together with a rechargeable battery in the robust, anodised aluminium cabinet. The full-range mono loudspeakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance belies the small size of BeoSound 3 and provides clear rendition of music and vocal broadcasts. The BeoSound 4 is a compact audio system with built-in CD player, FM radio, and SD (Secure Digital) card slot. DAB radio is also available as a factory-fitted option. In addition, end users can record from the radio or CD to the SD card and play back the recording on BeoSound 4 or on another portable or stationary system. Both systems offer the distinctive elegance of Bang & Olufsen products combined with unsurpassed design and ease of use functionality. Further information is available from www.bang-olufsen.com

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Superior sound quality with Bang & Olufsen

Based on Bang & Olufsen’s proprietary digital ICEpower amplifier technology, the small, yet powerful speakers provide distinguishable sound for desktop and laptop computers and connect to a PC or MAC using a normal mini-jack plug and are immediately ready to use. Despite the 20 cm height and 22 cm width, the little pyramid-shaped loudspeaker delivers impeccable sound that is true to the entire audio spectrum, from deep bass to high treble. The BeoLab 4 is an ‘intelligent’ loudspeaker that automatically adjusts the bass according to the playing volume. BeoLab 4 offers numerous options when it comes to positioning. It can be placed directly on the desk or on an attractive floor stand, or hung on the wall fitting. A special ceiling fitting has also been developed and the loudspeakers are available in different colours. There is a choice of black, red, blue or grey. Naturally, BeoLab 4 can also be connected to other Bang & Olufsen audio and video products or integrated into Bang & Olufsen’s link system, which makes it possible to distribute pictures and sounds all around the home. Further information is available from www.bang-olufsen.com

The ARC Wireless Freedom Antenna

Back by popular demand! Ever since we reviewed this product at the start of the year the magazine’s had numerous enquiries about it. If you’re in a location with dodgy cellphone coverage, this portable desktop antenna is just the trick. It works with both Vodafone and Telecom networks, and significantly also with Telecom’s mobile broadband data card. “You’re not supposed to be getting our signal”, Telecom told us based on their coverage maps. The unit works well and is extremely effective. Available only online from www.wpsantennas.com

Hotkiss

An unusual entry in Toybox, perhaps, but intriguing. For everyone who suffers from cold sores, there’s a new zapper on the market that reportedly deals to the infection in seconds. The device is called the Hotkiss, is shaped like a lipstick, and applies a fleeting zap to the developing cold sore. According to the Wellness Shop, a kiwi business with international distribution rights to the German invention, the Hotkiss kills the virus so effectively that the tingle stops and the blisters never appear. Details at hotkiss.co.nz

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 93

realLIFE

15 MINUTES

‘Fab 5’ revival Heidi Stevens charts the Duran Duran comeback

omewhere in my parents’ basement sits a cardboard box filled with cassette tapes of my interviews with Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes. Nick talking about his favorite movies. Nick discussing his boyhood. Nick laying out his plans for the future, which I was pretty sure included me. OK, I wasn’t really interviewing Nick, per se. But in 1984, my friend Tina played a very convincing stand-in, and I was a fierce interrogator, asking all the tough questions, such as “I love you and I love all your music and I love all the lyrics and I love all your videos and I love every magazine that has ever printed any picture of you and I just love, love, love you and I think you should do more shows in Chicago.” Nick was by far my favourite (Tina’s too), but heck, we were crazy about the whole band. Duran Duran – purveyors of steamy, stylish music videos, archetypes of ‘80s fashion and frivolity and the objects of many a teenage girl’s affection – was dubbed “The Fab Five” by Rolling Stone magazine in 1984 (decades before those “Queer Eye” fellas hijacked the term). That year, the band had its first No. 1 hit in the U.S. with “The Reflex” and released its single “Union of the Snake” to much acclaim. Simon LeBon, Rhodes, John Taylor, Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor (none related) split up in 1985 after recording four albums together. A couple of failed spinoff groups later, an abbreviated Duran Duran, made up of LeBon, Rhodes and John Taylor, continued to tour and record together through 2000, producing some respectable albums, but never quite capturing the magic of their ‘80s heyday. Until now. For the past couple of years they’ve been retreading the nostalgia circuits to huge acclaim. Shows have been selling out in minutes. Celebrities – including Nicolas Cage, Beck and Gwen Stefani in Los Angeles,

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2006

and Moby, The Donnas and Debbie Harry in New York – have been spotted rocking out to the band’s dance-pop tunes. Rhodes (the real one this time – dreams do come true), the band’s keyboardist, chatted with us recently about the tour, the ‘80s and his own brand of philosophy. Q. Whose idea was it to reunite? A. It’s sort of always been something that was on the menu. We all said, never say never. But it actually reached a point where we finished an album that cycle and we decided to part company with Hollywood Records, which I think I can say was not our greatest experience. Simon and I were in L.A. and we went over to see John. (John) said “If we’re going to do it, it’s now or never.” Q. Where were Roger and Andy? A. Roger was in London. He said: “If everyone is up for it, we should meet.” Andy got in a little later. Some months later we all met up in London, looked at each other around the table, argued, wrote some songs to see if we still had the right kind of chemistry. Andy had done a bunch of production work, a couple of albums of his own. Roger had been doing

some dance music. We went into the studio and starting writing and that turned out extremely well. And so from that point we realized it was viable. Q. When you performed at the Roxy, the place was crawling with stars, you got great reviews from critics. Same with New York a month later. You had to add a third show here in Chicago. Were you surprised by such positive responses? A. You never expect that, but we were thrilled. There’s a nice pattern developing and we’re very pleased that audiences want to come see us. The shows have been so exciting. This is the first time a lot of people have seen this lineup, or at least since 1984. That in itself has been a real buzz. Q. What’s different now? A. It’s a very different energy. We’re very much a band that’s fully functional because all five of us write together. Andy is definitely edgier than Warren (Cuccurullo), in more of a rock sense. That’s juxtaposed against my keyboards and Roger and John’s grooves, and that’s still very much what we sound like. When

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AVAILABLE 16TH AUGUST 007 Gun Symbol Logo © 1962 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. JAMES BOND, 007, 007 Gun Symbol Logo and all other James Bond related trademarks TM Danjaq, LLC. All Rights Reserved. © 2006 Layout and Design Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM, September 2006, 95

we said, “Let’s play an old song” for the first time, we played “Hungry Like The Wolf,” and it sounded just like the record. That’s just the noise we make, and it’s nice to know it’s still intact. Q. Who are you into now, musically? A. All kinds of things. I like a lot of hiphop stuff. I got the Outkast album, which I like very much. Goldfrapp – I really, really love Goldfrapp. They’re one of the most creative, interesting bands to come out in long, long time. I like The Rapture. A lot of stuff. Q. Do any of those groups influence your music? A. I don’t think directly, but we soak things up, and we all listen to a lot of music, so the record sounds like a contemporary version of the old Duran Duran. We sound like we should sound now. Rock and groove crossover, stuff with electronica, it all fits in with what’s going in. Q. Do you ever watch “I Love the 80s” on VH1? A. No. Q. Duran Duran is featured pretty prominently. A. I think of the ‘80s with a great fondness. We had some impact in that decade, so I think it’s natural we would be mentioned. A lot of great stuff came out of the ‘80s: Us, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Madonna. Q. Do you look back on anything from that era and go “Oh, God. That’s so embarrassing”? A. Oh, there’s always an odd haircut knocking around, isn’t there? But creatively, as far as recording, absolutely not. We had great quality control because there were so many of us. There’s always been someone to tap on your shoulder and say, “That’s really not working.” Q. Do you ever get tired of John always being referred to as the best looking one? A. Well, we just have to tolerate that he’s better looking than the rest of us. I think John’s always going to have a certain amount of female admirers. Q. Speaking of which, is your audience a lot older now? A. They’re younger than ever before. Bizarrely, what’s happened is a lot of kids who weren’t even born (in Duran Duran’s heyday) are curious as to what it is. I guess a lot of other bands have cited us as influences and we’re getting a lot of really young kids coming to check us out, obviously mixed with older people, too.

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1983

DID YOU LOVE THE ‘80S? 1. Which two members founded Duran Duran in 1978 in Birmingham, England? 2. Duran Duran’s “Greatest” DVD, featuring music videos and interviews with the band was released Nov. 4. What was the name of the 1984 music video documentary about the band’s 1984 world tour? 3. Simon LeBon quotes Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in what video? 4. What were the names of the splinter groups the band members formed in 1985? 5. The line “I sold the Renoir and the TV set” appears in which song? 6. How did Simon LeBon almost get killed in 1986? 7. Which band member had a solo hit with the theme from the 1986 movie “9{ Weeks”? 8. What did the band change its name to in 1988 when the members consisted of Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and John Taylor? 9. Warren Cuccurullo, 1993 addition to the band, was the guitarist for which other ‘80s band? 10. Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly made a brief appearance in which Duran Duran video?

Answers 1. Nick Rhodes and John Taylor 2. “Sing Blue Silver” 3. “Nightboat” 4. Power Station and Arcadia 5. “The Reflex” 6. A yachting accident 7. John Taylor 8. DuranDuran 9. Missing Persons 10. “Union of the Snake” 1985 was the last time all five members of Duran Duran performed together. What else made entertainment news that year? Tonys: Best play “Biloxi Blues” Oscars: Best picture “Amadeus” Golden Drama: “Amadeus”; Globes: Comedy: “Romancing the Stone” MTV “The Boys of Summer,” Video of Don Henley the Year: Grammy: “No Jacket Required,” Phil Collins Emmys: Drama: “Cagney & Lacey”; Comedy: “The Cosby Show”