This article was written on the request of Jenese in Nelson, who is putting together an environmental pamphlet, and who wanted some information and thoughts on how New Zealand is going to be affected by peak oil. Basically it is a summary of information in other parts of my web site, but it does contain some new information in regard to the likely costs of energy imports to New Zealand, and I think is worth posting here.


I write this article as an amateur, an interested party in energy matters. I write it because I have been concerned for some years about New Zealand's long-standing lack of any kind of energy policy.  I write because the lessons that should have been learned from the oil shocks of the '70s and early '80s were not learned or were quickly forgotten. I write because the government has signed the Kyoto agreement and yet it has failed to take sufficient measures to enable us to meet our Kyoto obligations. I write because we are now at or perilously near the 'peak oil', and the government have  not put in place any of the urgently needed measures  to ameliorate the profoundly adverse effects this will have on our economy. 

The only thing that any one can definitely predict in our present situation is that we cannot predict what is going to happen. All we can say is that peak oil, combined with the related problems of global warming, global ecological damage and overpopulation, is  going to bring a revolutionary change to all societies. The pain that these changes will cause us will be directly proportional to the delay in dealing with them. 

In writing this I am assuming that the reader now understands what peak oil is.  If not, in one sentence, peak oil is the time when the amount of oil pumped out of the ground, around the world, reaches its maximum rate, after which the rate of extraction of oil will decline over about thirty to forty years to a very low level. It is likely, with the high prices of oil we are now seeing, that we are indeed at that 5 year peak plateau in production before the actual decline starts to accelerate. 

For New Zealand, the issue is fundamentally simple, but politically and economically explosive. Each day, our New Zealand economy uses about 160,000 barrels of oil, 40,000 is our own, which comes from Taranaki, and the rest, 120,000 barrels, is imported (In fact, most of own oil production is itself exported, but the net effect is the same) .  Over the last three years our use of oil has increased 20%, equivalent to a 28% rise in imports. This increase in oil use alone has cost us $500 million p.a., but factoring in the rise in price of all oil imports, our oil import bill has increased  by about $1.6 billion p.a. over the last five years (a sum greater than our total horticultural exports).  At present our dollar is still at high levels as against the American dollar, but were it to fall to anything like it was in 2001, just over 40c US to our dollar, this bill would then be $4.5 billion.  We know that our balance of payments is disturbingly high, over $10 billion, or over 7% of our GDP, and our oil import costs are a good part of this. (But mostly our deficit is due to profits removed from our country by overseas investments in New Zealand - that is another story).

The figures above in regard to New Zealand's oil use were taken from the International Energy Authority site (Link), the costing worked out by me, and I posted these on the Running on Empty web discussion group. So it didn't come as a surprise when I read an article in the Dominion Post a week later (9/7/05),  quoting an energy analyst, Chris Stone, who predicts energy imports (oil and LPG) of around $8 billion within 3-4 years, if no further local gas or oil is found.  This dramatic figure is more than the combined value of our dairy, horticultural and wool exports.   Such a figure for energy imports would beggar our economy and cause a major and prolonged depression.  

So the basic problem is this. New Zealand is relying ever more on oil for its energy needs, yet our ability to obtain this oil is ever more being restricted - by price now, and shortly by availability.  One doesn't need to be an economist to understand that these two statements are mutually irreconcilable. Yet one looks in vain to our government to see any definitive action - our politicians and business leaders are taking us to the edge of an economic and social precipice.

We are particularly profligate in our use of oil in transport. Our high reliance on the motor vehicle, and our fondness for big cars and 4WDs is on a par with the USA, as too is our total car ownership. Over 80% of our oil use, and over 40% of our total energy use goes to transport, the world's highest figure. This makes this country particularly vulnerable to high oil prices. What New Zealanders should  note is how cheap petrol is in New Zealand, relative to many wealthier OECD countries. The countries of Europe in particular have more realistically priced petrol. (Some figures - petrol prices in NZ$ - Australia $1.10, NZ $1.20, France $2.0, UK $2.25, Holland $2.40). European petrol taxes are much higher, with much of this being spent supporting public transport.  High taxation regimes over the years have helped (somewhat) to ensure that Europeans purchase smaller and more efficient cars and, as much as feasible, use public transport.  And our profligate use of oil in transport is actually worsening, last year we imported over 36,000 second-hand gas-guzzling 4WDs, a 300% increase in only three years. Apart from bringing us ever closer to peak oil, these inefficient vehicles are a major cause of global warming. 

Also of major concern to New Zealand is our geographic isolation. Costs for tourists coming to visit New Zealand are bound to rise with the increasing cost of aviation fuel. Equally,  the cost of transporting all our agricultural goods will very significantly increase, and the cost of imports too. This will turn out to be very expensive, will put a major dampener on our overseas trade, and will likely be inflationary.  It is likely too that peak oil will be a major impediment to globalisation, and that most countries, to a varying extent, will have to adjust to a situation where the local economy becomes more important again.  We will have to get used to more seasonal fruit supplies, and no more beer imports from Japan or the UK.  For New Zealand it might mean a revival of more local manufacturing of consumer items. 

Our reliance on oil (and gas) for agriculture is considerable. In fact, many of the observers who have been warning about peak oil for so long say that agriculture is their greatest worry. The energy used  in producing food is enormous, it is said that for every calorie  of food on one's table, ten calories of oil have been used to get it there.  In a fundamental sense not only are we using oil, we are eating oil. We use oil in farm machinery and technology, fertilisers, insecticides, processing  and transport, both of goods to the farm gate, and of the produce through its processing stages to your supermarket. Much of the agricultural revolution of the second part of last century is predicated on cheap and plentiful oil and gas, and our world population has grown to 6 billion on the back of this revolution.  

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of considering peak oil in New Zealand is the inability of our present administration (and of the opposition parties, except for the Greens and the Maori party) to understand the imminent nature of peak oil, and the severity of the problems consequent on this.  For many years this government, like others around the world, have used figures as supplied by the International Energy Authority (IEA) and the US Geological Survey. These international energy agencies have, until this year, consistently stated that peak oil would not occur until 2030 or later.  Many individuals and organisations have repeatedly pointed out to ministers and politicians why these forecasts are hopelessly optimistic.  For instance until late last year the government was basing its Energy Outlook for 2025  on  an oil price of $25/bbl., at the same time we were already filling our tanks  with oil at $45/bbl. Even though ministers refused to see the absurdity of this at the time, they have  now belatedly slightly changed their tune, and they are  working on figures of $35/bbl until 2013,  whilst we are filling our tanks at nearly $60/bbl!! One of the best references to consult in this regard is the www.peakoil.com site,  run by Dr Colin Campbell, a petroleum geologist and long-time campaigning warrior in  trying to bring attention to a likely  peak oil  in the earliest part of the 21st century.  

The consequence of lack of government attention and action, and a uncomprehending public is that New Zealand is very unprepared for peak oil.  For instance, recently it was revealed that New Zealand has only sixty days oil stocks, under IEA regulations it should be 90 days. The government blames the oil companies, but it is the government's responsibility to ensure the rules are observed.  It is concerning that new storage facilities have yet to be built.  Any sudden interruption in oil supply, not unlikely with terrorist action, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, or a sudden market panic would make our position most precarious. 

There also has to be a fundamental re-evaluation of our relationship with the motor car. Just tonight on television I watched a commercial for a VW Touareg. Two of these huge cars, obscenely expensive and  gas guzzling, are  pictured chewing up our beautiful South Island remoteness, spitting out rocks, rutting the landscape and polluting the  air. The two cars roar along what would otherwise have been a clear trout stream, and two  yuppie drivers, man and woman, meet in the middle of this pristine wilderness, to discuss dinner for that evening. "Fall in love again with your car" we are urged.  Until the majority of the population can see the absurdity and childishness of this advertisement, and how it represents so perfectly our perverted relationship with our Earth, then we are not going to make the changes we need to. 

If I and many others are right, oil is going to continue to rise in price. My prediction, for what it is worth, is that it will rise to somewhere around US$75-80/bbl, a figure which, when adjusted for inflation, will be similar to the maximum price of oil in the '70s. With this price of oil, the price of petrol at the pump will be about $1.70 per litre at present exchange rates. (Some experts are predicting the oil might go over $100/bbl, and eventually it certainly will, when the New Zealand petrol price will be about $2.00 per litre, but I think more likely by this time there will be strict petrol rationing. And don't forget that if our dollar were to fall significantly, the price would be much higher again.) At the figure of US$80/bbl, demand will start to tail off  and this high price will precipitate a major global  economic slowdown.  This slowdown may be later this year, or sometime through 2006-2007. How severe or long lasting this will be is very difficult to say, but I am quite certain that it is entirely unavoidable. If it is not too severe, it will in fact be the best thing that could happen,  it will cause a compulsory reduction in an otherwise unrealisable demand for oil,  and one might see a significant, but very temporary, reduction in oil prices. If, and this is a very big if, governments around the world use this hiatus to put in place massive infrastructural investment in rail, public transport, wind power, solar power, other renewable energy resources,  energy efficiency and better urban planning, then it may be possible to avoid a catastrophic economic collapse consequent on the demise of this cheap, concentrated and, until now, abundant energy source.  We had our warning in the seventies and eighties, and we chose to ignore it, if we ignore this second chance, there is going to be no third chance.  And when I say massive investment, I mean it, for this country alone it will be tens of billions of dollars. The scale of the investment and the urgent need for action will be on a scale similar to that needed to fight the Second World War, in others words, a total mobilisation of all the world's economies and peoples, to a sustainable and non-oil dependent future. To me this is not something to fear, but will in fact be a profoundly liberating experience for the whole of humanity. 

Our Western civilisation has taken something of the moral and economic high ground in recent ages. Our advances in science and technology and the power of  Western society to change history all over the world, and bring the hope of improvement in people's lives is unarguable. But this power has now become overweening and threatens to destroy everything we have so lovingly built up.  In particular we are exhausting the earth of its treasures and we are living off its capital, not its interest.  Everyone should know that that this is unsustainable, but if you didn't,  peak oil will very shortly bring the reality of this home.  Peak oil is just one of the four profound and unavoidable issues facing us all, the others are global warming, the ecological damage to our planet, and overpopulation.  These imminent and and potentially overwhelming issues will prove a supreme challenge to our civilisation that perhaps we didn't quite expect, but we should have, and we undoubtedly deserve to face them. Our response to this challenge will confirm whether the status of our Western civilisation truly has been earned, or whether this moral and economic high ground is merely the hubris of a smug and self-satisfied society that has yet to learn a more important lesson,  that there is place for humility. 





PS. I found this NZ Listener article today, on Peak Oil, Robert Atack, Colin Campbell, etc. It's worth reading, but the comment at the end, by the same Chris Stone mentioned above (who seems quite blasé about a NZ$8 billion energy import bill) "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone. And the oil age won't end because we ran out of oil." This seems to be a favourite and well worn cliché of peak oil deniers, but read it again, it's completely meaningless. The Stone Age ended because technology developed, certainly, but how can the oil age not end when we do run out of oil? Technology may mitigate oil depletion, but where is it, what is it, and isn't it getting a bit late in the day to start? The Listener article contrasts those who would like to see urgent action in regard to peak oil, like me, and those who's belief is in technology and the market to see us through. But I would point out here that "The Market" is oblivious to human fate; the market solution to this problem could be a profound economic depression, famine and war. I thought human beings were given brains to to forestall such things.

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Climate change

A great deal of publicity attended the G8 summit in Gleneagles in Scotland, including of course the interruption by the dreadful bombings in London, but, as feared, the summit produced rather more rhetoric than substance. This is a full text of the communiqué. (It is pdf file of 1.3 mb, so will take some time to download on a dial-up connection - alternatively try here). Certainly the help for Africa is welcome, but the determination of the rich countries to insist on continued WTO market reforms in these countries bodes less well for the future. In addition, the other prime reason for this summit, action on global warming, was undermined by the Bush administration's continued obstructionism on this issue. This is what I wrote in a letter to a columnist in the US about this (I had read this article):

The failure of the G8 meeting to agree to any meaningful action in regard to global warming was a cowardly abrogation of the responsibilities of leadership , due entirely to a intransigent US President and a failure of resolve to disagree on the part of the other leaders. Perhaps a busy and destructive hurricane season in the southern States and a continued hike in petrol prices might serve to stir some action in your scientifically illiterate and childishly stubborn president. 

One positive of this meeting was the presence of delegates from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. In a joint declaration, they called for stronger efforts by developed countries to reduce emissions and to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries.

You have to judge countries, much like people, on action rather than words, and in this regard the G8 is as short of action as the batsman who doesn't offer a shot and is clean bowled. Only it is the rest of us that will be bowled as the environment continues to deteriorate. This article (National Geographic - "G8 flunks climate change") illustrates the problems quite concisely. This further article ("The US trips up Climate Agreement" from the Common Dreams web site, a progressive political web site in America) commenting on the summit also takes the leaders to task for fine words but no action. The final communiqué is a considerably watered-down version of what the British government had proposed earlier. The draft proposal had provided for committing specified amounts of money for agreed targets. The final communiqué makes no mention of precisely what level of funding the G8 can produce to back its declared aims .

It has been said by commentators that at least there was an acknowledgement that anthropogenic climate change was an issue, and that President Bush agreed to this. He seems to be taking credit for having recognised this back in 2001, but I think the riposte to this is then why the hell hasn't he done anything about it in the last four years, and why is he refusing to do anything for the next seven years (Kyoto finishes in 2012)? Additionally previous G8 meetings have also considered global warming, for instance the meeting in Birmingham in 1998, which is now eight years ago. The lack of progress is appalling. Chirac had been urging Blair that the other leaders issue their own communiqué on action to prevent global warming, but that was a forlorn hope, Blair just can't assert himself with Bush, and by his action in Iraq he has already proved that he has failed a previous test of statesmanship.


Africa

In regard to Africa, the positives were these:

But the problem is that much of this aid comes with strings attached, as mentioned above. The main one is the insistence on WTO market-style reforms, and the opening of economies to the rich countries. This means such things as privatising water supplies, electricity, education etc. Without jumping through these hoops, these Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) status countries might not get the aid that the G8 have promised. This has already happened in Mozambique, where water was privatised, and health charges increased. See this article on the BBC site. Africa would also like a liveable climate. Africa will likely be one part of the world that will suffer badly from climate change, see above.

Living here in New Zealand, the coverage of the G8 meeting was very disappointing. Whilst it was certainly "newsworthy" and we all saw the leaders and the protesters, both in the newspapers and the television the treatment of these two major issues was superficial. There was no documentary, or in-depth coverage, no major interviews, or explanation of the problems in regard to the watering-down of the global warming agreement, or the fish-hooks in the African aid. Lots of pictures of ageing pop stars, crowds of enthusiastic people, but little or no enlightenment. National Radio here does do a bit better, but I am not sure how many people listen to this programme. I will return to the role of the media and the poor quality of television in particular in a future blog.


Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

While nuclear proliferation was not on the agenda in this G8 meeting, having read the G8 communiqué of the Birmingham meeting, I thought it might be worth mentioning this here, as there have been major worrying developments in this important issue this year. This is what was said in 1998. Our countries have been in the forefront of efforts to prevent proliferation, and we have worked closely together to support international nonproliferation regimes. The problem with this declaration is that only two months ago, at a five yearly review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York in May 2005, the US, and in particular its delegate, John Bolton, was accused by the others attending the conference that the US position was shockingly underprepared. (Link). The US position had been that there were major loopholes in the NPT, especially in regard to enriching uranium, which is allowed under the treaty and which Iran has been doing, but which is a prelude to nuclear arms development, according to the US. But the US delegation just hadn't done the necessary diplomacy (work) in pushing this agenda. It was said that "Bolton was absent without leave" when it came to implementing the agenda that the president laid out in his February 2004 speech - "There is a consensus among nations that proliferation cannot be tolerated," Bush said. "Yet this consensus means little unless it is translated into action.".

This meeting was doomed to failure by the Bush administration's high regard for nuclear weapons, and it is likely that John Bolton's poor performance was a deliberate manouevre to achieve the desired outcome of this administration. These articles (Link 1, Link 2) by Lawrence S Wittner, Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany, contains a damning indictment of the Bush administrations actions in regard to nuclear weapons, and which proves the hypocrisy of the high-sounding paragraph in the G8 communiqué. Here are some of the things the Bush administration have done.

The Bush administration recently returned to Congress with a proposal for funding a new generation of "usable" nuclear weapons - so called "bunker busters" of several hundred kilotons.

The Bush administration has requested funding for the "Reliable Replacement Warhead".

Repeated attempts to get Congress to fund a U.S. nuclear buildup

Bush has pulled the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (thereby effectively scrapping the START II Treaty, negotiated and signed by his father)

Opposed U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (negotiated and signed by President Clinton)

Pressed Congress to smooth the path toward the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing,

Dropped further negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

The United States possesses more than 10,000 nuclear weapons, Bush wants more.

A BBC report confirms the criticisms of the US postition at the New York meeting, the article ends: There is growing concern among delegates that more conservative elements in the Bush administration.... will use the conference outcome to argue even more forcefully that the US cannot base its security on legal agreements than cannot even produce basic documents.
Many delegates to the conference suspect this was the secret US agenda - suspicions that shake their confidence that the NPT will provide for their security either. Thus, many leave New York wondering if the NPT and the concept of non-proliferation has much of a future. These doubts might lead some states to actively reconsider their own decisions to stay non-nuclear. This is the very thing the Bush administration says it is trying to prevent. It is likely that the continuing problems in Iran in regard to nuclear proliferation are directly related to this failure of leadership at this meeting, and the dangerously hypocritical attitude of the United States leadership in particular to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, though the other nuclear powers must also take some blame.

Interestingly I write this sixty years to the exact day after the first atomic blast "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert. Here's a jolly picture of it.





Peak Oil

If you have read elsewhere on this site, and searched the internet, then you would realise that peak oil is even more an imminent and potentially devestating problem than global warming. At least the G8 summit's position on peak oil is unassailable, it wasn't even on the agenda! This also was a massive failure of leadership, one that we'll all have cause to regret before too long.

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Two weeks ago a trial of four men ended - they had been charged with the "pack-rape" of a woman some sixteen years previously, in Mt Maunganui. They were found guilty.

This is a copy of a letter I sent to Brian Robinson in Hamilton (he runs the Peter Ellis web site), very shortly after the guilty verdict was returned, . For information on Peter Ellis see elsewhere on my web site.

I have not been following the case of the so-called "pack-rape" in Wellington. But I should have been, just as I should have been with the Ellis trial,  because with this guilty verdict, which became ever more likely with each passing hour of waiting for the verdict, I feel that yet again we are seeing another major miscarriage of "justice", New Zealand style. Throughout this trial I have been concerned about two matters, the totally uncorroborated evidence from a single complainant, and the sixteen year interval between the event and the trial. I have mentioned to my own family several times, before the verdict, this is an unsafe trial. With the guilty verdict, I know it is an unsafe conviction.

Without having been at the trial of course my information has come primarily from the newspapers, but I was extremely unhappy that a trial was taking place at all. To have four men deprived of their liberty, their happiness, their career and their families on the unsupported testimony of a single woman about an event that happened sixteen years ago is appalling. As far as I can know, and I stand to be corrected, there was no independant witness to the event, no confession, no forensic evidence, absolutely nothing to support her claim that she was raped, other than her own testimony.

Now when I say this, I don't know if she was lying, "misremembering" or telling the truth, only God knows this, but what I do know is that justice for an accused means "proof beyond reasonable doubt" -  the Golden Thread, as Rumpole keeps stating - and in that regard, the single most important issue in any trial, this evidence fell woefully short. Not only that, the sheer length of time since the claimed assault should alerted the prosecutors to the fact that this trial could never be fair. In fact, the trial should never have proceeded, the lack of any sort of corroborative evidence and the time interval it should have been quite obvious to any one with any sort of legal common sense that only mischief could come of any trial.

(This trial is not the same as trials such as war crimes etc. where many independent witnesses and other evidence can each build up a reasonable case of guilt, even after a long time).

I have previously written to you in my support for Peter, and in fact I have a section in my web site about noteable miscarriages of justice, including Peter's, and I have read Lynley Hood's book. 

Again, we have a prosecution that is not self-critical, a defense that on the face of it was less than competent (where were the psychology experts on memory? Why didn't the defense make much more of the 16 years time gap?),  and what we now face is an appeals process which has manifestly failed many victims of unfair prosecutions and trials. While the government have been fiddling around with a Supreme Court, the Appeals Court and its lack of ability to properly re-examine any lower court findings (unless there is blatent misdirection or mistrial, or unassailable new evidence), have not been subject to desperately needed examination or reform. I think the chances of these men getting justice from the appeals system is very low. I hope I am wrong. But nothing has changed, and the same mistakes are being repeated again and again. In addition what on earth were the jury thinking? There were quite a few women in the jury, how would they react if some completely unkown woman was to make a sixteen year old and unsubstantiated allegation of rape against their husband or son and how would their domestic tranquillity survive this?

With this verdict I thought, here we go again. I had been thinking of reading the trial transcripts, perhaps writing to Lynley Hood, to see what I could do. I was "googling" the subject, to try and update my information on the trial, when I found that you have been doing this job for me. You have done really well. Thank you. Obviously you have the same concerns as me.

Where does one go from here?

Today in the Sunday Star times are two articles about this trial. First is headlined Wife of rape accused stands by her man. This wife, a successful business women, professes her husband's innocence. All the women are standing by their husbands. She also states that there is another side to this case which she can't reveal due to suppression issues (shades of Peter Ellis). When will the New Zealand judiciary come to recognise that secrecy is inimical to justice? Whatever that suppression is, I have no doubt at all that it should come out. Now that we are told this, we need to know this.

The second article is entitled The Jury's out. In this article it states Media reports suggested that it was her word against his - but the four men were convicted. But observers of the trial cite two important moments. One man told the court "he had a number of ladies coming in and out of his life" ... "I have never raped anybody in my life, I have never had to rape any women" Apparently this came across cockily. The other important moment was when the woman broke down when she saw the object allegedly used during the rape. Auckland University associate professor Bill Hodge is reported as saying that the man's statement may have offended the woman jurors. I think some of them were thinking "listen, fat man, you don't impress me" Just such a moment was supposed to have some relevance to the outcome of the Michael Jackson case, when the mother of the boy allegedly abused, clicked her fingers at the jury. The difference is of course, that when this sort of thing happens in America, it gets you off, but in New Zealand, a bit of cockiness gets you a long term of imprisonment. Is this how justice is seen to be done, because one of four defendents showed a bit of spirit in his own defence? In New Zealand, too, we will never know what the jury were thinking because such reporting is illegal (and I am not necessarily arguing we should follow American practice).

In most of the world's jurisdictions, there is a law limiting the time that can elapse between a crime and the prosecution of the case. In the USA this is a Statute of Limitations, and in rape, most states have a statute of limitations, and all of continental Europe. I don't know about Asia. In judiciaries deriving from English common law, such as New Zealand, Australia and England, there is no such provision. Indeed a case was brought in the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that not having such a law was against human rights. The European Court did not agree that jurisdictions had to have a statute of limitations, nor did they comment on the desirability or not of such legislation. However the fact that so many countries do indeed have such a limitation should be considered when dealing with an alleged offence from so many years ago.

The simple fact is that sixteen years is a very long time. Memories fade or alter, witnesses become untraceable or die, there is no possiblity of physical evidence or forensic evidence (except perhaps DNA, and this was not the case in this trial), locations change, possible corroborative details are not available etc. Whilst this passage of time can be both limiting for the prosecution and the defence, it is the defence that almost certainly is most disadvantaged, and the possibility of any sort of fair trial diminishes with each passing year.

What I am not saying is that the complaint should not have been taken seriously. The police certainly had a duty to thoroughly investigate it. But when it became plain that there was a serious lack of corroborative evidence (none at all) and no confession, not even any corroboration that this complainant had ever talked to anyone, mother, relative, friend, minister, doctor, anyone , then the complainant should have been told that with the passage of time and the lack of any corroboration of her story, that the case should not proceed. I am very disappointed that this case did proceed.

Then there is the hut. This hut, where the rapes are supposed to have taken place, was still in Mt Maunganui. The jury had seen photographs of it. There had been an application to the judge to have the hut brought to Wellington for the trial, but he had not made a decision on this. But the police kindly made the decision for him. Without the judges permission the police had the hut loaded on a trailer and brought to Wellington, where it was left near the court so that at least some of the jurors couldn't fail to see it. With that fait accompli, the judge had no option but to agree to the other jurors being allowed to see it as well. Whether this exhibit had any particular effect on the jury or not, we'll never know, but more importantly it shows the contempt of the police in the judicial process in this trial. I don't know what "punishment" will be forthcoming, but obviously the police didn't think it would be anything significant. This willingness of the police to strech the law to the limit and beyond in gaining a prosecution is a feature of previous miscarriages of justice as dealt with elsewhere on this web site.

I can't help thinking these men, and many men in such cases are badly served by suppression orders or agreeing to anonymity , including suppression of their names. Being named and known, means these men become real people, with real families and real children and real friends, and they have real, rather than blurred out, faces. As John Proctor in The Crucible says " Leave me my name". Sympathy can then work both ways, and it is the woman who becomes more anonymous, and thereby a less sympathetic complainant. Justice does not work well in secrecy. We have found that out in long standing concerns about family court procedures, and the move to open these proceedings to more scrutiny.  I think Peter Ellis might also know something about this matter. (Though I admit that the reason for the continued name suppression of two of the accused is supposed to be unkown)

This is an important case. The subsequent appeal will reveal whether or not the New Zealand justice system has learned anything from previous miscarriages. I doubt it, though I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but not more so than four unjustly prosecuted men who will be languishing behind bars, deprived of the families, their work and their freedom, victims of a system that is very happy to pronounce judgement on everyone else's behaviour, but isn't quite so happy to have others pronounce judgement on its own.


(Added 11/8/05) Since writing the above I have now heard something about this case which makes me uncomfortable. It doesn't though cause me to change my mind about the "justice" in this case. Indeed now knowing what I think I know, I wonder just how many other people in New Zealand know what I think I know. In fact, I now wonder most of all if any of the jury knew something of what I now think I know. I say this because the suppression order, whilst having the full weight of the justice system behind it, has been shown recently to be completely ineffective, see next paragraph. It is more than likely that every journalist in the country, every broadcaster, every policeman, every lawyer and legal executive have knowledge about this case. The remark over the radio for instance that the reporter admits that even explaining the reason for the suppression would itself be a contempt of court shows that this knowledge is widespread. New Zealand is a very small country where everyone knows everyone else - I have always said it is a country where it would be very hard to keep a mistress secret. In addition, e-mails and the internet have made the dissemination of such knowledge much easier and much quicker.

Just recently there has been a high profile drug case in Auckland, involving some well known sporting and entertainment personalities, supposedly. These names were suppressed. But just two days later a TV3 reporter asked people in the street what they knew about this case. I don't know how selective the reporter was, but everyone interviewed rattled off a number of names. Despite the fact I wasn't even that interested, I too heard who was supposedly involved. Of course we may all be wrong, but if we are not, then this shows how quickly such information can be disseminated, and how widely. John Campbell wondered if there was any point in such suppression orders in the modern world. And that returns me to my worries about this case.

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