Category: new zealand
Should We Lower Women’s Pensions to Bridge The “Gender Death Gap”?
The national consciousness is currently in a state of hysteria over an Auckland electrician’s decision to offer a 12% discount to female customers on account of New Zealand’s “gender wage gap”. For those of you not in the matrix, the gender wage gap refers to the fact that the average weekly income of a woman is lower than the average weekly income of a man.
Although Dan McGlashan proved in Understanding New Zealand that the wage gap is entirely due to the fact that men work full-time jobs more often and the women work part-time jobs more often, and that there is no difference in wages for those men and women who are part of the professional class, the perception persists that women are deliberately ripped off in remuneration for their labour by some nefarious conspiracy of people with Y chromosomes.
Some, like the Auckland electrician mentioned above, seem to believe that this perception of a malevolent bias against women justifies giving women discounts when it comes to trade, in an effort to redress the imbalance in wages.
The real injustice when it comes to differential treatment of the genders is that women live much longer than men do. Females born today are expected to live 3.7 years longer than men do, an injustice many times more cruel than a piddling difference in wages.
The average female can expect to live 83.2 years from birth, whereas the average male can not even count on getting to 80. His average life expectancy is only 79.5.
Another way of looking at it is that the average female gets another 18.2 years of life after hitting retirement age at 65, compared to the paltry 14.5 years of the average male.
Measured in percentages, this means that the average female gets to enjoy 26% more life in their golden years than the average male. This is a disparity that weighs much heavier than that of mere money. Here we are talking about life itself.
We can call this disparity the “gender death gap”. Knowing about this gap in life expectancy, and knowing that there are tireless calls for restitution from working age men on account of the gender wage gap, one question immediately arises: should we call for restitution from pension age women?
It could be argued that, if tradesmen like the electrician mentioned earlier give discounts to working age women on account of the gender wage gap, they also should give discounts to pension age men. After all, the clock is ticking for those men in a way that does not compare to the experience of the female.
Perhaps the fairest solution would be to immediately cut female pensions by 26%, which would equalise the amount of post-retirement money that the different genders got out of the Government.
What Does Julie Anne Genter’s Medicinal Cannabis Bill Actually Say?
With Julie Anne Genter’s Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis and Other Matters) Amendment Bill in the Parliamentary Ballot, our ruling class is being forced to consider the question of cannabis law reform. The short of it is that the bill, if enacted, would finally legalise medicinal cannabis in New Zealand, some two decades behind California, Alaska, Oregon and Washington. This article looks at the precise details of the bill.
The striking thing about the bill, on first glance, is its brevity. There are only six sections.
Clause 5 of Genter’s bill means that cannabis will still be illegal – this bill provides for neither the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis (with the exception of CBD – see below). However, this clause inserts another clause, 9A, into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which provides for cannabis to be legally grown for medicinal purposes, subject to a “qualifying health condition”.
Clause 4 tells us what a qualifying health condition is. There are four different groups of conditions. The first three are straightforward: any terminal illness, any severe chronic disorder of the immune or nervous system and chronic back or other pain.
The fourth group of conditions is vague, probably deliberately left so. It is “any other medical condition that a medical practitioner certifies may benefit from supplementary plant cannabinoids”. This has the potential to vastly open up the range of conditions that can be treated by medicinal cannabis – but the decision will be made by medical practitioners, not by politicians.
Clause 9A.2 of the amended Misuse of Drugs Act would allow for any patient with a qualifying health condition, or a nominated support person, to “cultivate, administer, supply, or possess medicinal cannabis” for the purpose of the patient’s lawful use. This is the crucial clause, because it essentially makes it fully legal for a sick person to grow their own cannabis at home – which is just about all the medicinal cannabis community ever wanted.
Of interest to many medicinal cannabis users is that Clause 4.1(c) of Genter’s bill will remove the controlled drug status from CBD preparations. This means that the penalties listed in the Misuse of Drugs Act for various schedules of drugs will no longer apply to CBD. Essentially, this ought to make CBD preparations little different to any over-the-counter pharmaceutical that one might buy from a chemist.
This is an entirely reasonable move because CBD has no psychoactive properties – it does not produce the “high” that wowsers and do-gooders are so terrified of. It also will bring New Zealand into line with similar cultures – CBD is a recognised medicine in Britain, for example.
All in all, this bill, if enacted, would represent a stunning victory for the forces of cannabis law reform in New Zealand. It would make it legal for sick people to grow their own medicine at home as long as they can find a doctor to agree that their use of the plant would be medicinal. This will not only greatly liberalise the cannabis laws but does not go so far that it ought to provoke a counter-reaction.
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Vince McLeod is a former Membership Secretary of the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and author of the Cannabis Activist’s Handbook.
Te Reo With Mnemonics: Competition Words
Match – whakataetae
A boxer is about to engage in a boxing match. One of his eyes is wide open and the other squinting tight. He gets a punch in the squinting eye – his opponent whacked a tight eye.
win – toa
A reporter is interviewing a runner who has just won a race, with a gold medal around his neck. The runner says “I tore out of the starting blocks and then tore past my opponents and I won.”
lose – ngaro
Two men are rowing a boat in a race. One of them gives up and says “There’s no point – we’re going lose.” The other man yells “Nah! Row!”
draw – ōrite
The Black Knight from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, missing his arms and legs, says “Alrighty, we’ll call it a draw.”
Result – tukunga iho
A man is watching some Test Match Cricket. A friend comes in and says “Have we got a result yet?” The first man replies “The result is taking an eon.”
Strategy – rautaki
Two boys a playing a strategy game, like Risk or Chess. One of them thinks for a long time, then lays out on the game board a row of tacks.
Tactic – rauhanga
Two girls are playing tic-tac-toe on a sheet of paper. After the game is over, one of them takes the paper and hangs it up in a row of similar papers. She is the row hanger.
Violence – whakarekereke
There are two wrecked cars, and a man comes and whacks them with a stick. He is trying to whack a wreck wreck.
attack – huaki(-na)
A woman is carrying a container of hokey-pokey icecream. Suddenly the hokey-pokey grows arms and attacks her.
defend – wawao
A boxer is throwing punches at a sparring partner, who is defending them. Then the boxer pulls out a dagger, and the sparring partner says “Whoa, whoa!”
Competition – tauwhāinga
There is a throwing competition where competitors have to pick up a dwarf by the toe and fling him through the air. The competition is for toe flingers.
cooperate – mahi tahi
A swarm of servants is cooperating to dress a man in a business suit. They finish cooperating, but he does not have a necktie, so he asks “Where is my tie?”
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The above is an excerpt from the upcoming Learn Maori Vocabulary With Mnemonics, by Jeff Ngatai, due to be published by VJM Publishing in the summer of 2017/18.