SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Computer South Ltd – Removal Notice Marks $16.9 Million dollar Fraud Fiasco

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Convicted fraudster Michael Andrew Swann, who together with his convicted accomplice Kerry Gray Harford, defrauded the Otago District Health Board of $16.9 Million over six years (2000-2006), ran Computer South Ltd as his personal de facto bank account for the laundering of money obtained by fraud from the DHB, despite the fact he held no office in the company and held no shares. (As a convicted bankrupt he was unable to hold shares in or direct any company).

Mr Swann’s close friend Peter Bruce Bruce Ibbotson, a plumber of Warrington, was put in place as director when the company was incorporated in 1997. In the Dunedin High Court where Swann faced charges for fraud, Ibbotson admitted that he had had almost no involvement (2000-2006) in any management of governance aspect of Computer South Ltd, a company which the Serious Fraud Office reported owned no assets, employed no staff, filed no tax returns, and was controlled by Swann rather than listed “director” Peter Ibbotson.

 A Notice of intention to remove Computer South Ltd from the Register of Companies under section 318(1)(b) of the Companies Act 1993, was issued by Mr Neville Harris, the Registrar, on 25 November 2010. [Read more…]

Search and Surveillance Bill – Is our privacy under threat?

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The Green Party have produced a brochure they are distributing to the public that presents what they believe is wrong with the Search and Surveillance Bill. Details can be found on their website www.greens.org.nz/searchandsurveillance

The Greens are concerned that the bill gives, for the first time so they claim, the power to use force, including the power to detain people, to a number of enforcement agencies that have never had such power(s) in the past.  Such agencies they claim, include the Department of Internal Affairs – whose Censorship Compliance Unit is responsible for tracking down, gathering evidence, and assisting in the prosecution of paedophiles who trade objectionable publications over the internet.

In addition the Unit carries out the same functions with respect to hardcore pornographers, who hoard and distribute unclassified imported DVDs filled with objectionable content that degrades, demeans and dehumanises women. One such prominent New Zealand pornographer has been prosecuted by the DIA for 33 offences involving the distribution of such unclassified sexually explicit material.

It should be obvious that DIA enforcement agents must be granted the increased powers contained in this bill to be able to inspect, carry out surveillance on, apprehend and bring to justice, paedophiles and hardcore pornographers who break the law and do untold injury to the public good.  [Read more…]

Why politicians need legal scrutiny – Opinion

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OPINION – Talking Politics by Gordon Campbell – Quoted from The Wellingtonian 18 November 2010, p. 11 (see below)

[Corruption involving fraud, bribery etc  can only be rooted out among politicians when those with their fingers in the till are appropriately prosecuted and sentenced to ensure that full reparation is made. To be effective, this presupposes that enforcement agencies apply regular quality legal scrutiny involving the highest level of accounting standards to the use of tax-payers’ money. Thereby community standards can be upheld and the public good protected against injury].

“Politicians cannot be exempt from the laws they make, a point driven home more than once last week.

“Women’s Affairs Minister Pansy Wong, for example, had to resign from Cabinet after she confessed to violating the parliamentary rules intended to ensure that MPs don’t blur the lines between their public duties and their private interests.

“Yet on a regular basis, it transpired Wong had used her parliamentary travel perk to help pay for her husband’s travel costs on overseas trips, during which he conducted private business deals.

“This contradicted the crystal clear Speaker’s ruling that “no rebate is payable in respect of any travel undertaken by the member for private business purposes”.

“Wong will be allowed to repay the money involved, which could run to thousands of dollars.

“As some commentators pointed out, a beneficiary who misused the terms of their benefit eligibility for personal gain would almost certainly be prosecuted, as well as having to pay back the money – but as yet, there is no sign of the Wong affair being referred to the police.”

For full article see: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/4354878/Why-politicians-need-legal-scrutiny

Michael and John Chow: “Gutted” – Sex Palace demolition – “God’s Wrath at Prostitution”?

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Two Wellington sex entrepreneurs, whose 125-year old Palace Hotel (also known as Aurora Tavern) in central Auckland was in the process of being transformed into a brothel, are “gutted” that the Auckland City Council has demolished it.

Michael and John Chow’s property company, which purchased the Victorian- style building in 2008 for $3.3 million, had hoped to have it operating as a brothel by January next year, just ahead of the 2011 Rugby World Cup. But when dangerous cracks appeared in the facade of the category B – Historic Place Trust protected  building on Thursday afternoon and an urgent investigation by Council officers and independent consultant engineers had concluded that the three-storey building could collapse, it was demolished that night.

Michael Chow is reported as saying:

“We have invested millions and millions on the property. I feel gutted, I feel they came to my home and they pulled it down. It was just a little bit of a crack“. [Emphasis added]

The decriminalising of prostitution under the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, opened up more than a little bit of a crack in the legal framework that had previously protected women to some degree from the exploitation and moral debasement – associated with prostitution. [Read more…]

Censors protecting the “public good” from morally toxic computer games

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The just released 2009/10 Annual Report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has highlighted a computer game that the Office has recently banned. In its summary of reasons for the decision it states:

 “The game presents still images and text that legitimises sexual violation and rape in a manner that is intended to sexually arouse the player who takes on the role of a rapist who preys primarily on school girls… Sexual violation and rape are essential to complete the game in its entirety”.

The Society considers it important that the public be made aware of the nature of the objectionable corrupting publications that are being produced for the commercial market by hard core pornographers and others bent on profiteering by the exploitation of people with addictions to moral vices etc.

 The public needs to learn about the vital role played by our Classification Office  to  ensure that such morally corrupting material that injures the “public good” is banned. For this reason it has sought over the last ten years to recommend quality, well-qualified people for nomination to the Film and Literature Board of Review that deals with appeals against classification decisions issued by the OFLC.