Public Address - Hard News (Home)

The Race | Aug 31, 2004 10:28

And so, unsurprisingly, Dick Hubbard vaults to a lead over John Banks in the Auckland mayoral race by doing little more than putting his hand up. Labour - which, just quietly, was never very passionate about Bruce Hucker in the first place - gives the cereal king the tacit nod. And I claim my prize.

Hucker's comments in the Herald's poll story this morning strongly suggest that he will bow out of the contest, and deliver most of his votes to Hubbard.

The Green Party, a constituent of the centre-left City Vision ticket, has shown no sign as yet of backing Hubbard, which is ironic, given that Green candidate Jeremy Hall was last week dumped from the City Vision ticket on account of his freelance funding of a poll that showed Hucker running third.

The infighting is much worse on the other side of the spectrum. Rejected Citizens & Ratepayers candidate Troy Churton has formed a Centre Right Independent ticket in the Hobson ward, and another former CitRat is behind the City Residents & Ratepayers ticket in Eden Albert, which is associated with Christine Fletcher's campaign. Now, CitRat candidate Jane Arnott (standing in western bays and therefore in little danger of being elected) has slammed Banks and praised Hubbard. Banks' divisiveness is beginning to haunt him. Rodney Hide must be disappointed.

Fletcher has slumped back to 9.6% support in the new Herald poll - less than the 14.6% Hucker got in Hall's poll, a level she said should prompt Hucker to withdraw and give her a clear run. But she insists she's staying in the race. Unlike Hucker, she has no council candidacy to fall back on, so a withdrawal would doubtless be traumatic. But, frankly, the city could do with an emphatic result.

One would hope that Hubbard, on the other hand, has been spending some time developing a more detailed policy platform and perhaps recruiting some campaign talent. It's all very well to declare that you're not going to put up a forest of billboards, but a famous name will only take you so far.

Meanwhile, the new Metro magazine is flat-out advising its readers not to vote Banks, making its case with a list of 11 reasons written up by Gilbert Wong (from the current council's orgy of spending on consultants to the rates rise, the feckless dumping of Auckland Airport shares and the Eastern Corridor fiasco) and prefaced with more preposterous mayoral blather:

Amid the hubbub of conversations at Mecca [Banks] tells me, "This Auckland City Council has achieved more than any council in living memory."

Gobsmacked, I produce a mental list of what other councils in other eras have achieved: the Domain, the Aotea Centre, the restoration of The Civic, the Central Library, the Viaduct, and, for that matter, potable water and a sewerage system that doesn't dispose of raw effluent by dumping it in the Waitemata.

But when I look up again, the mayor has already moved on.

The magazine also puts up a 'Metro For Mayor' campaign, which includes an apparently realistic plan for "a better V8 street race" (on vacant land near Auckland Airport). Hubbard will presumably be studying it closely. With Leo Koziol's recent list of policy proposals here, there is no shortage of new ideas for Auckland.

Oh, and with respect to number 20 of this month's Metro 20 Questions ("How long until Russell Brown becomes editor of the Listener?"): not for quite a while please, I've got enough on already …

Meanwhile, the hints Josh Marshall has been dropping about a Pentagon scandal have taken shape with the news that Larry Franklin, an analyst in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and a confidant of Paul Wolfowitz, is being investigated over leaks of classified intelligence on Iran to Israel. The Italian military intelligence agency also appears to have been a player. Marshall is positing it as Iran-Contra II.

Juan Cole is on the story too, noting the belief of former CIA officer and NBC analyst Larry Johnson that the notorious Niger uranium forgery that was used to press the case for war in Iraq was forged by Israeli intelligence as part of a strategy, undertaken with the support of key Pentagon personnel, to eventually move on to Iran. It's really quite alarming, and ought to hurt Bush like hell, but, then, a lot of things ought to hurt Bush like hell and don't seem to.

And finally, Ben Barnes, a former leader of the Texas House has 'fessed up to arranging a soft National Guard posting for George W. Bush to keep him away from being drafted to Vietnam (Bush's account of events has been rather different). Greg Palast posits that it was a $23 million bung that kept Barnes silent for so long.

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Counting | Aug 30, 2004 11:55

So the games are over for another four years, and just one question remains: who was that bloke who apparently represents us on the IOC, and thus hung the medals on our champions? Has anyone ever seen him before? Was I the only one worried every time that he'd expire on the spot?

Now, of course, we can settle back and bask in the familiar conceit that we Kiwis punch above our weight. There have been various efforts at putting medal counts in context, the most visible being the Australian Bureau of Statistics count of Olympic Medals per capita, which after Friday's events had us third, behind the Bahamas and Australia.

Another tally, by Simon Forsyth, is more comprehensive. His final wash-up places us seventh for gold medals per capita, fifteenth for total medals per capita and seventh again on weighted medal score per capita. Interestingly, an almost identical medal haul at the 1996 Atlanta games was good enough to place us first in the world.

We didn't fare so well - but beat Australia - in rankings of medals per dollar of GDP.

Is Bill English the best-performing National MP in terms of conducting himself as what the British call a "shadow minister"? Quite clearly, it would seem. Without a lot of chest-beating and ballyhoo, he has mastered the education job quite well. His five ways to fix NCEA for The Listener seem sensible and constructive, he has played a useful role in chasing down ropey tertiary education courses (dutifully ignoring, of course, National's key role in creating the situation in the first place). I even partially agree with him in respect of the bizarre situation where the rape of a special-needs schoolgirl was not reported to her parents - to the extent that school counsellors must keep the discretion to maintain such a confidence, but that discretion was very poorly used in this case.

On the other hand, the PPTA was right to give English a bollocking on his claims about teacher salaries. But you don't have to agree with the man to regard him as competent and serious.

The Destiny Church stories are starting to emerge. The Star Times yesterday had the adulterous church officer and the mishandling of a loan, which remains outstanding, and the Sunday News had the born-out-of-wedlock daughter and grand-daughter. Presumably the excommunicated gay sibling story will be in the pipeline. Speaking of which, the Star Times has a potentially explosive "outing" story in its sights.

US VP Dick Cheney comes out swinging for his gay daughter - and for gay marriage!

Returning to Stephen Franks' odd behaviour last week, I was curious about exactly what Franks might have heard in the course of the Civil Union Bill select committee hearings to set him off ranting about homosexuals "choosing" to be second-class citizens, "left fascists" objecting to things said by opponents of the bill, etc.

Perhaps part of it was the response to the submission by Dr Neil Whitehead. Dr Whitehead claims to be an "authority" on the origins of sexual orientation, and has written a book called My Genes Made Me Do It! : A Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation, which is very popular with hardline fundamentalist groups.

His contention is that there is no biological or genetic origin for homosexuality and in his "independently motivated submission" to the select committee, he claimed that the Civil Union Bill would increase the number of homosexuals in partnerships (well, yes, quite possibly - this is a bad thing?), that same-sex relationships are inherently unstable, that many male same-sex relationship are doomed to be short-lived due to deaths through AIDS, that homosexual individuals experience higher rates of mental instability and drug abuse that are a result of their own choices rather than social discrimination, that sexual orientation is a choice, and that because of all these issues, children will suffer if the Civil Union Bill becomes law. (Because the submissions were given orally, I understand I'm allowed to report all this to you.)

Uh-huh. But what happened next was that the Aids Foundation called his bluff and sought a response from the authors of some of the studies he quoted. Among them was Associate Professor Michael Dunne of the School of Public Health at the Queensland University of Technology. Dunne's response began thus:

Dr Whitehead's claims about the potential impact of the Civil Unions Bill can, quite fairly and with due respect for the passion of his convictions, be rejected. His argument is flawed. His "research method" seems little more sophisticated than joining dots on a two-dimensional plane. He superficially connects observations from some published studies of genetic and environmental factors in human sexuality and mental health. The pattern that emerges is a distorted caricature of existing knowledge that lacks depth and complexity. It adds nothing to serious, informed debate about the nature of homosexuality or the ways in which a civil society should formulate law.

The essential problem is that Dr Whitehead's research is quasi-science. He has strayed far beyond his field of expertise. His training and professional experience, and his publications in academic journals, are almost entirely in geological and nuclear science. I conducted an exhaustive search of his research papers listed by Thompson ISI Web of Science (the international standard search tool for scientific information). Although Dr Whitehead claims he has researched the field of sexuality for 13 years, this effort has been entirely unproductive. My search revealed no empirical study of human sexuality and indeed no systematic review on the topic that has been accepted by internationally recognised, peer-reviewed journals. His three books are populist and are not published by mainstream academic publishers that require scientific review. Thus, they are not regarded as serious works in the field of human sexuality.

And furthermore:

What does it mean to say that "chance is responsible"? We could only draw the conclusion that genetic influences may not be important for the expression of homosexuality in adults. This does not necessarily implicate "chance" (or the social environment, as implied by Whitehead). Innate tendencies can arise through a complex range of biological processes, including hormonal, immunological and neuro-developmental factors. However, a chief limitation of Whitehead's argument in his submission on the Civil Unions Bill is that he ignored a strong conclusion in our paper: That is, a personality trait (childhood gender atypicality) that has repeatedly been found to predict homosexual orientation is quite strongly heritable... (I note that Whitehead has argued elsewhere that the link between this childhood trait and adult homosexuality is weak. That is demonstrably not true, as has been revealed by systematic analysis of data from more than 40 studies of the topic ...)

Dr Whitehead has argued that it is the responsibility of society to limit the environment that may be conducive to people who have this predisposition to ultimately "become gay or lesbian". Thus, he postulates that homosexual civil unions would be conducive to such an environment. It is precisely here that his argument becomes devoid of any scientific basis, because of one key point. To date, there has never been a study that has convincingly demonstrated that any particular social or environmental influence (including social policy) "promotes" or is conducive to the development of homosexual orientation. Not one.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that Dr Whitehead should not have been given the chance to express his views to the select committee, or even to declare his tenuous "authority" on the topic. But it is simply fatuous to suggest that the provision of a robust scientific rebuttal is somehow evidence that his free speech has been hampered by the "homosexual lobby".

The only time I have spoken personally to Franks was when we both attended a Skeptics conference in Wellington. He would be well advised to consider the principles upon which that conference was staged.

Anyway, to end on a jolly note. When I Googled Whitehead's name to check his form, this was the sole Google sponsored link that came up on the right-hand side of the page:

The Vac-U-Grip System
"Exclusive Penis stretching system"
used by top Phalloplasty Surgeons
www.thegrip.com

Lawdy!

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Hell-bent for leather | Aug 27, 2004 11:56

So, to a crescendo of mixed metaphors and malapropisms from the commentators, the New Zealanders ran in to gold and silver on the Olympic Triathlon. It was prime-time TV, and it was great.

Hamish Carter's victory was, of course, all the sweeter in light of his bad day at the office in Sydney four years ago. By his own testament, this time he put aside thoughts of gold and just went, as Brendan Telfer put it (twice!), "hell-bent for leather", burning off his countryman, Bevan Docherty in the final few hundred metres. It was almost too perfect.

Sarah Ulmer's win was quite different, even if the result was the same. For the past year she has laboured under expectations of victory. She did the only thing you can do in that situation: absolutely maxmised her chances of that coming to pass. She seemed to reach the optimum in every conceivable way: preparation, technology and psychology. I got up in the middle of the night to watch her race, and it was wonderful.

Carter, Ulmer and the twins seem to be peculiarly New Zealand champions: not just excellent, but unaffected, sweet and humble. I don't care if we don't have as many medals as Australia, but I do think there's something great about the way that our handful of champs have pulled innovative New Zealand businesses - Orca, Avanti and Dynamic Composites - through with them.

Now, let's see: Since the original Eastern Transport Corridor was announced, John Banks has backed down on an associated harbour crossing (a sort of freelance blurt in the first place), the Parnell tunnel option, and, now, transport corridor itself. The proposal now looks, well, pointless. Brian Rudman has a laugh about it all.

As usual, Banks cracked on like he always thought it was a dumb idea. His problem - and more particularly, that of Citizens and Ratepayers - is that he's frightened the horses in the reliably Tory Hobson ward, and has the Auckland establishment in his face.

At least the Herald's editorial writer was putting on a brave face:

His eastern corridor scheme has been scaled back to a simple road, a single lane in each direction across Hobson Bay, dovetailing with Tamaki Drive to feed traffic into the city centre. It no longer includes a busway and other accoutrements of the Government's land transport policy and it no longer aims to be a major east-west thoroughfare connecting to State Highway 16. The steering committee now accepts that its proposal is not a national priority and has no prospect of attracting Government funds. Either the councils borrow the money or they invite private investment, which usually means the road will be privately built and operated for as long as it takes to pay back its financiers with a reasonable profit.

By reducing the original multi-laned highway to a single lane in each direction, the champions of the eastern corridor appear to have erred in the opposite direction. The road as now designed looks too small for the traffic it would be likely to attract as a freeway, which points to the fact that it is not to be a freeway, not for a while at least.

A single lane is probably sufficient for the paying traffic it could attract from the free alternative routes - Remuera Rd and Tamaki Drive. But it will need to be constructed in such a way that it can readily be widened if demand increases. And demand might well increase even as it remains tolled.

So the thing doesn't really make sense - but let's build it anyway and stick a toll on it?

This is presumably the same editorial author who in March this year declared that "John Banks is absolutely right about one thing: the vast majority of Aucklanders back the building of an eastern expressway." But presumably not the same one who, three days later, wrote that the plan would be a hard sell to most Auckland ratepayers, but "might be reasonable if the highway was generally recognised as the region's top roading priority. In fact, that is far from the case."

Whatever. Meanwhile, the Labour candidates in the Tamaki Ward have released the results of a local survey which found that 71% of residents opposed the Eastern Corridor plan and 81% wanted local roading improvements instead.

Terrible news for National: crime fell 4.7% in the past year and is at its lowest since 1983 (a similar trend in the unemployment rate is probably not unrelated). But hang on? Wasn't Don Brash telling us we were in the grip of a "crime wave"? And what about that Press editorial last month that informed us that "crime continues inexorably to rise"? Honestly, it's getting so you can't believe anything in the papers these days …

One word in the reduction in marijuana offences: it doesn't mean any less pot is being smoked, just that it's not being prosecuted. Attention has switched to the P plague. This is quite rational. I wonder if this is the start of marijuana's slide off the policing agenda.

Simon Pound has a very funny and engaging rant about ACC (he has, believe it or not, a serious injury sustained in the course of making a cocktail), the cops, pot and the Herald Fuse student supplement.

Meanwhile, Craig Young is doubtful about Destiny New Zealand's potential impact on Maori politics.

It's been a year, and it still isn't registering on Maori-related opinion polls like the Marae TVNZ one.

Added to which, it's noteworthy that no mainstream Maori organisation supported DNZ. Interesting too that initial media releases related to the seabed and foreshore debate got edited out of the final mix. To make it more palatable to Tamaki's right-wing pakeha Pentecostal mates, perhaps?

What sort of 'Maori' political movement regards 'puha and pork' issues as expendable in the interests of fundamentalist solidarity?

I wonder how much iwi divisions, geographic and generational factors will affect support for both the Maori Party and DNZ? Or how much the adverse experience of NZF's Maori contingent and Mauri Pacific is going to inhibit breakaway from Labour, even given the foreshore and seabed
provocation?

And are we on the verge of a renegotiation of the Maori/Pakeha settlement of the thirties?

Otago University's admirably lively Critic has a report on Destiny in Dunedin.

The Reality magazine forum on Brian Tamaki is back. Perhaps it was never away, but I'm damned if I could reach on Wednesday.

In a comment in the Herald this morning, Peter Dunne pursues the currently chic tolerance=intolerance argument, with particular reference to this week's Destiny march:

Prescribing the publication of opinions by the subjective criterion of acceptability is not only extremely dangerous but betrays an appalling lack of confidence in the critical judgment of the mainstream …

What is more dangerous than a brief visit by David Irving or a Destiny march is the sense being fostered that we are no longer able to be trusted to think for ourselves and, based on the value systems of an open, diverse society, reach our own decisions.

It sounds much like the McCarthy era in the United States, and the attendant concept of un-American activities that destroyed the lives of so many in the 1950s. Yet, the lesson of that time remains apparently unlearned.

What precisely is his point here? I can't think of any way in which Brian Tamaki's right of expression has been curbed. The Speaker of Parliament granted him the use of Parliament's grounds to protest. The police closed of half of central Wellington so he could stage his march. He had any amount of time to state his case in the media - indeed, the state broadcaster sells him time to sell his message, unimpeded on television. Even Irving was able to clearly and extensively state his views in the local media, albeit from a distance. Is Dunne suggesting that no one should be able to criticise them, lest they be "caricatured"?

But the best bit of Dunne's column is this:

Likewise, I think the Destiny Church takes a fundamentalist view on many things, which frightens many mainstream people.

But while I am not making any links between Mr Irving and the Destiny Church, and wish no involvement with either …

What!? Dunne appears to have forgotten that a member of Destiny Church, Kelly Chal, was placed fifth on his party list at the last election. Had it not been for that unfortunate citizenship whoopsie, she'd have been in his caucus now - and, presumably, marching with her brothers and sisters in the church.

Staying with the smurf patrol (no, I'm not quite sure what I mean there, but it sounds funny so I'm going with it), this week's grumping about Stephen Franks has struck a chord with the readers. Liz Gordon said:

Thanks for your comments on Stephen Franks. Over the years he has got away with a lot because of the view, repeated in your blog, that he is very intelligent and thus, no matter how stupid he sounds on a given occasion, he is still worth listening to.

I have no idea what the bloke's IQ is and neither do I care. What I do know is that he is highly political. I have never, ever heard him say a good thing about any Maori person or organisation, about any progressive movement or about anything or person to the left of Mr. G. Khan.

Stephen Franks is just an extreme right wing politician, who constantly uses the sort of tactics you describe to push his political agenda. Does this constitute intelligence? Of a kind perhaps, but one without much humanity. Even the ACT party realised that, and went for Rodney as their leader. Franks is too scary even for them.

And Bryce Wakefield said:

You really shouldn't take anything Franks says to heart. The guy contradicts himself constantly. I was watching him on 'eye-to-eye' a few weeks ago when he was contending that Maori language should not be a compulsory subject at school because:

1) Students react negatively to compulsory subjects and thus learn less; and

2) Why teach Maori when you can use the time for extra (presumably compulsory)lessons on really important subjects, like science.

It doesn't take a member of Act to spot the flaw in the logic there. And yet when Stephen speaks, people presume everything said is solid. I think some people in this country are conditioned to believe that anyone with a law degree and a decent haircut is an authority on everything.

Er, well, I don't know about the haircut there …

But anyway, to conclude, an eyewitness report from Mr A. Reliablesource at this week's Civil Unions Bill select committee hearings in Auckland, which Franks has been ranting about ever since:

At one point Franks went over to consult with Jacqueline Wyles [the star of the Star Times' infamous "sexual reorientation therapy" story], who was submitting against the bill, and claiming, among other things, that the CUB would increase levels of homosexuality and that Gayline was "actively recruiting" homosexuals - so they do outbound calling now?

Anyway, she told Franks that she didn't want to paint homosexuals as second-class citizens. To which Franks said:

"Who cares, if that's what they choose to be?"

Good grief.

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Mo' Destinies | Aug 25, 2004 09:31

I was keen for Tariana Turia to come on my 95bFM Wire show today to talk about the potential impact of the Destiny New Zealand party on on Maori politics, which, as I noted yesterday, is likely to be more pronounced than it is in the broader political domain.

But she refused, because, according to her press secretary, she has "a policy of not commenting on religious movements", and her refusal was in keeping with this policy. I found that a little bit odd, given that she's been commenting like billy-o on the Ratana Church lately. Oh well …

UPDATE: Matt McCarten, who's assisting with the Maori Party campaign, has just kindly agreed to come on and discuss the same topic with us. You can listen to it around 12.25pm via the bFM Internet stream.

Act MP Stephen Franks is pissing me off at the moment, mostly because I heard him interviewed twice on the radio yesterday and I can't understand how someone so obviously intelligent permits himself to be so obviously silly when he opens his mouth.

I understand Franks' objection to the civil unions omnibus bill, and in some respects he has a point. I'm also very wary myself of expanding the boundaries of "hate speech", the Parliamentary select committee inquiry into which is underway, in response to an unusual case that was the subject of a Karl du Fresne commentary on Mediawatch. But it was supported by both National and Labour MPs and is just that: an inquiry. It's quite possible there will be no change.

I do wonder at Franks' pristine moral clarity in upholding the right of people to make generalised slurs against homosexuals, or to declare them to be evil or against God. How would he respond to a movement that held, say, white people to be innately wicked? After all, Franks frequently accuses other people of racism - most recently in this statement on Maori Language Commission CEO Haami Piripi's submission on the seabed and foreshore bill. Even if you believe that Piripi's public opinion was wrong and/or inappropriate for someone in his position (and I do), isn't it OTT and intimidating to accuse the man of "political corruption" and "peddling racism on State salaries", and demand his dismissal? Well, isn't it?

But mostly I wish he'd keep to his points instead of tossing around cheap slogans (generally in the course of railing against, er, cheap slogans). I heard him refer yesterday to the "malignant left" and "left fascism" (this after getting all huffy about comparisons of the Destiny march with Nazi rallies).

Perhaps the virtues of free speech actually do trump all else, but would it kill Franks to momentarily refrain from abusing the "homosexual lobby" (yes, he said that too) to acknowledge that the people actually in the gunsights find the abuse of people like Brian Tamaki not just hurtful, but materially threatening?

Franks might also wish to note that generalisations about the (ahem) "homosexual lobby" are, like generalisations about homosexuals themselves, perilous. The flagrantly homosexual Indie Gay Forum noted the "scary" suggestion of banning anti-gay hate speech in New Zealand and quoted … some chap called Stephen Franks, actually …

The strange thing is that while Franks is busily thinking up new epithets for the allegedly intolerant left, he doesn't seem to be able to come up with a single zinger for Pastor Brian, who, as GayNZ.com points out, says things like this:

"The homosexual spirit is right out there in front leading the charge to reform society backwards - right? And to do that it's got to take out the word of God... And the first way to do that was to create a SPIRIT OF TOLERANCE working in society. PUBLIC TOLERANCE! So that it can begin to turn people away from believing that husband and wife, that man and woman, what we call the natural family, the marriage, was the relationship that was esteemed by God."

So the people who preach tolerance are intolerant, and the people who regard tolerance as but a tool of the devil are, er, tolerant. Have I got that right, Stephen? I think your rhetorical engine is misfiring and needs a service.

One more thing: Franks slated the Press Council complaint about the Star Times' factually-deficient story on so-called sexual reorientation therapy (not upheld by the way, because its shortcomings "[did] not reach the threshold for the complaint to be upheld") but recently threatened make a complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Commission about TV One's televised race relations debate, on the basis that it was, er, factually deficient.

I tend to think that a written response would have been more productive than a complaint (if only because Press Council complaints are so infrequently upheld), but elements of the SST story were more out of line than anything in the One News special, and I'm a bit tired of the idea that journalists can't possibly be expected to pronounce on the merits of anything an expert says. There's a handy little tool for that - it's called Google. I had a look at the issue a while ago and decided that "reputable" wasn't really the best word for the study at the heart of the story, and that the story itself was woefully short on context.

The retarded interface on the Press Council website won't let me link directly to a ruling (or to anything other than the top page), but you can click through and look for the decisions attached to the names Dean Spooner and Christopher Dempsey under the Rulings tag.

After pointing the readers to the web forums of the local Christian magazine Reality, which are hosted by the Bible College of New Zealand, I had a bit of a poke around yesterday and found another thread on Brian Tamaki and his church, which indicated that he is the subject of suspicion and hostility from many other evangelical Christians. Of most interest was a post from "Seymour", who said he had been a leader within Destiny Church "until I left as I was finally disgusted by what I saw."

I emailed Seymour to ask if he'd like to come on the radio and talk about Tamaki and Destiny. He didn't reply - but by the end of the day the forums page had disappeared and the link led only to the Bible College's home page. Fortunately, I had already saved it. Here are some excerpts from a very lengthy post by Seymour (I've left out the detailed examination of what the scriptures say about tithing):

Brian Tamaki would have said "church" instead of "poor" because he that is what he means - he wants your money to build "his" church and empire, and does not want to give to the poor as Jesus says in scripture - believe me! I am an ex-destiny leader and he twists and uses scripture out of context often, esp. omissions from surrounding texts, to promote his agenda and get what he wants …

What I will say is that that these" tithing" preachers take a few verses out of a chapter and disregard the main contextual message usually from the old testament and use them to justify their position, then they hammer them home repeatedly and systematically until they get into your psyche. Sometimes it is because it is what they have always been taught, and they know no better, but other times they actually know there is very little biblical justification but teach it anyway, because it insures they will be able to fund their ministries and endeavours and succeed. Brian is just more extreme than most and pushes it to the limit with "cult-like persuasion". Most Christians are generous people and want to give to a worthy cause and help others in need, and that is a good thing. I still give towards certain causes and try to help others, but these American style evangelist types are just charlatans who are fleecing innocent church goers by manipulating them and twisting the scriptures to their own ends. Jesus warned of these "ravenous wolves" dressed in sheep's clothing who would seek to "devour" the flock and they are doing a good job of it I must add, to my disgust!

These tithe teaching churches declare to the IRD that the income is all from "free will giving" to prevent paying taxes on any "mandatory type" club fees or levies so they can come under the donee organisation banner or charitable trust banner? Of course not all tithe-teaching pastors cream it off the top for personal gain – many provide many good things for their people and live on the same level regarding salaries etc. Most churches today have some sort of board that the pastor is accountable to, but if they don't, and the preacher sets himself up as a super-apostle type guy who is above correction then who are they accountable to? Some of these preachers make huge salaries from their churches, and all the excess funds are nicely protected in private trusts for sure! This is really manipulation and almost extortion I am afraid, under the guise of Christianity …

No, all this stuff it is a far cry from biblical Christianity I must say, and Brian Tamaki is either a deceived preacher who should know his bible better (especially when he is being paid so much - he said 6 digit figures! - and it's his job to!) or [potentially defamatory allegations excised here - RB]. I'll leave that to you to decide! I believe he is extracting far more than a man of the cloth (or any person) needs to survive on and it is disgusting when most of his congregation are living from paycheque to paycheque - week to week! He is making a rather handsome profit at the expense of the masses he purports to lead or more correctly "controls". I have seen it all from the inside out! Believe me! Jesus said "One knows the type of a tree by it's type of fruit"… I believe Brian's heart doesn't want to know the truth, he is self-deceived and has a problem with money and fame etc. Money is his god I am afraid looking at all his recent acquisitions over a few short years since coming to Auckland …

Also take a look at Cultwatch@cultwatch.com if you want to know what a cult acts like… I feel sorry for those caught in his web who worship him and the church (idolatry)rather than Christ himself! and they will be offended by what I have said here, but one day they will realise, even if it's only once they get to heaven.

I hope it is this side of eternity! I'll see you all there!!! God Bless.

And you too, sir. But shouldn't the Act Party be investigating?

NB: The post above briefly had Steven Price as author of the Mediawatch comment on hate speech. It was actually Karl du Fresne (Steven heartily disagrees with the view expressed in it). Ironically, I meant to check it before posting but ran out of time because I had to drop everything and be interviewed by Linda Clark about blogging ...

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