SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Don’t curtain precious time

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She had been a nurse when young and knew of sickness, of dying and of death. So when informed of her own terminal disease, she knew what lay ahead.

Far from wilting before the inevitable, she spent her four remaining months living as normally as time allowed, and graciously farewelling friends and family. In many ways, as her children gathered, the days were even happy because love permeated every event.

Was their pain? Nausea? Yes, for a while – but only until the appropriate medication was determined. After that, with pain relieved and with dedicated nursing, she was free to accept her gradual decline.

Inevitably, there came a morning when death could no longer be postponed, and she died as naturally as she was born, 70 years before. She was my wife.

I cannot imagine her ever wanting that precious time curtailed. Or her understanding those who do.

Dominion Post Letter to the Editor. Thursday 13 November 2014

J Barry, Christchurch

Legalising euthanasia would be devastating – Dom. Post Letter to Editor

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OPINION (Letter to Editor)

It is extremely naive to imagine that the legislation of euthanasia would affect only the very few, high-profile cases which so readily gain the public’s attention and sympathy (Ensuring the right to die, November 8).

Any such move would have profound and long-lasting effects.

Firstly, it would turn on its head the role of doctors and nurses. Poisons in deliberately lethal doses would be stored in hospital dispensaries. Practitioners who refuse to take part would be on the outer, accused of flouting the law and the rights of their patients.

Secondly, the true victims of such a change would be the elderly and disabled. Faced with the cost of their treatment, many vulnerable patients would bow to pressure from family members who would welcome the opportunity of being freed from the practical and financial burden of caring for them.

Anyone sceptical of this happening should check out the current rate of elder abuse in the country.

Thirdly, legalising the right to assisted dying would severely impact the already difficult work of suicide prevention.

Among the many downhill benchmarks of the notorious “slippery slope” initiated by such legislation, this is likely to be the first and the most devastating.

Dominion Post Letters to the Editor, Thursday, September 13, 2014.

Letter by D Penk, Auckland

David Ian Henderson’s tangled tax trial

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Undischarged bankrupt property developer David Ian Henderson will be allowed another go to present his case, after his main defence on tax charges was shot down.

The 58-year-old Christchurch man had mounted his defence solely on the basis that the dates in the Crown indictment were all wrong, and when the Crown closed its case yesterday he tried to have the case thrown out.

But Christchurch District Court Judge Gary MacAskill adjourned the case overnight to allow legal submissions to be prepared and heard them at 10am today.

The charges allege that Henderson aided and abetted Dweller Ltd – a company where he was the sole director – knowingly to apply PAYE deductions from the 13 employees “for purposes other than payment to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue by the due date”. The Crown alleged Henderson arranged for the PAYE deductions to be paid to other creditors rather than the commissioner. He denies the charges.

It will be called at a pre-trial call-over on November 28 for a date to be set for its continuation.

Full story: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10731186/David-Hendersons-tangled-tax-trial

Inland Revenue takes David Henderson to court

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The Inland Revenue Department took about four hours to present its case against 58-year-old [Christchurch property developer] David Ian Henderson on seven charges alleging that he misapplied deductions taken from employees for payment of their PAYE income tax, and used it to pay other creditors of his company Dweller Ltd.

The charges allege that Henderson aided and abetted Dweller Ltd knowingly to apply PAYE deductions from the 13 employees “for purposes other than payment to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue by the due date”.

The IRD accuses Henderson of using employees’ PAYE tax deductions to settle accounts with other creditors in 2010. He denies all charges.

A schedule of deductions is filed to Inland Revenue at the end of each month, and payment is then required by the 20th of the following month. The charges relate to each month from May to November, 2010.

The total amount of money referred to in the charges is $162,946.

Henderson was the director in charge of running the Property Ventures Ltd property business which was placed into receivership in March 2010. He then agreed to take the 13 employees into a new entity, Dweller Ltd. He was the managing director of Dweller.

Former ACT MP Rodney Hide, of Auckland, was sitting in the public gallery most of the trial.

For full story dated 10/11/14 by David Clarkson see: 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/63059650/Inland-Revenue-takes-David-Henderson-to-court [Read more…]

Sex partners traceable under proposed law

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People with sexually transmitted infections could be forced to disclose their sexual histories to public health officers under a new law introduced to Parliament this week.

The Health (Protection) Amendment Bill passed its first reading on Thursday. The bill would give greater powers to public health officers and ban the use of tanning beds for under-18s.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said the measures were to better protect the public from the risk of infectious diseases.

The bill would make it an offence to not comply with “contact tracers”, health officials whose role was to determine who a person with a transmissible disease had been in contact with and whether they could have contracted the disease too.

Coleman said voluntary compliance with health officials was the preferred option but provisions in the bill allowed for incremental interventions. “Currently contact tracing is voluntary,” he said. “Some people do not co-operate.”

The bill also provides for the District Court to make public health orders which could see individuals detained in hospitals, prevented from working or barred from using public transport.

As well, it places HIV, gonorrhea and syphilis on the list of notifiable diseases, meaning more information about cases would be collected by health authorities.

See full story:

by Blake Crayton-Brown. 8/11/14

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10718841/Sex-partners-traceable-under-proposed-law