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August 2009 Edition ----

Sorry we have been sluggish but we are back on deck to continue criticizing those who have been giving the May 2004 Feltex IPO a clean bill of health.

A few updates: Joan Withers does not appear to yet have made it to the board of Mighty River Power as at 18 August. Her appointment back in May was subject to due diligence. We are not sure who is conducting this procedure. Perhaps the government wished to check out a few things about Ms Withers. One would think it would delay any announcement of her name until it was happy however. But perhaps it wished to make all its SOE appointments in one hit. Or perhaps it was Ms Withers who wished to check out Mighty River Power and thus indirectly say that she had learnt her lesson from jumping onto the Feltex board about 10 days before it launched an IPO to sell itself to completely new owners. Keith Smith, who was Ms Withers chairman during her time on The Warehouse board, and was appointed to the Mighty River board at the same time as Ms Withers, made it onto the board right away. We wonder what his attitude is to having Ms Withers back on the The Warehouse board. Mr Smith was a NZICA president in the 90s. Trevor Janes is on Mighty River too. We think he was chairman of the ACC Investment Committee when it brought dud National Mail shares (but not at a dud price) through the brokers C S First Boston. Or it might have been the brokers Credit Suisse F B. Anyway whichever one it was the other one represented the vendor of these shares, Cliff Cook. Mr Cook said they were brokers with clout. We believe that officially these two broker names related to just one firm of brokers called Credit Suisse First Boston. The ACC said they bought the shares because of the confidence they had in Peter Fitzsimmonds who had been appointed a director of National Mail some time back. They should have known that Mr Fitzsimmonds was a close associate of Mr Cook, both being on the board of Metlifecare. If they did not know the shares were dud at the time of purchase they did about 10 days later when the company wound up its prime business. ACC apparently has a wide range of sharebrokers it is prepared to use. Presumably this is so in every situation it can call on a broker who is independent of other parties to the potential situation who is thus able to provide them with an independent view of the situation. But we think they would have known that the broker for the National Mail deal was not independent.

Well Mr Janes went as chairman of this committee quite soon after that to be replaced by Mr (now Sir) Eion Edgar. You would think that ACC would have learnt their lesson about dealing with Credit Suisse but Oh No along comes an IPO where the vendor has the words Credit Suisse incorporated into its name. Did they check out how this company, Feltex Carpets, went about calculating a claimed 1.7% p.a. compounding increase in its market size over the past 10 years? Quite possibly but it would seem it chose to trust its committee chairman who was also chairman of the joint lead broking firm for the issue, perhaps with a little encouragement from political sources. Well Feltex was a dead duck within a year and off went Mr (as he then was) Edgar from the ACC board and the committee. Mr Janes came back to the committee but not as chairman. Mr John Judge, chief executive of Feltex’s auditors during Feltex’s collapse is now ACC chairman. We would appeal to the new Controller and Auditor General Lyn Provost (the “st” is silent) to immediately change the auditor for the ACC so that it is not an Ernst and Young partner or employee, given Mr Judges appointment as ACC chairman. Warren Allen once held that auditor job. He was the NZICA board member who chucked out all its poorer members as a scapegoat for his mate’s appalling performance in “auditing” the 1990 Bank of New Zealand annual accounts. He told the Professional Conduct committee that the Securities Commission found nothing inappropriate about the 1990 BNZ annual accounts. He should have been banned for life by the Institute for that statement. Those accounts were found to not present a true and far view. Many of us lost money when the National Provident Fund bought BNZ shares off a company part owned by a BNZ director for an unfairly high price after those accounts were released. Now Mr Allen sits on the International Federation of Accountants board apparently. We will have to wait for their annual report to be released to know what the latest situation is with the ACC Investment Committee.

Well that is the first of the updates. When we checked the names on Mighty River Power’s directors list memories came drifting back and the connections needed to be told or retold.

The next update concerns the Feltex liquidators who are partners or associates of the firm McDonald Vague. Mr John Vague is one of the liquidators and we believe that the firm’s name has been derived by incorporating his name but he is a consultant to the firm but not a partner. Anyway a report on their progress was due in July but they have not seen fit to post it on their web site as yet. The liquidators refuse to take any action against anyone over the Feltex IPO to date.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of NZ disciplinary system seems to have closed down. With a recession on one would think that more temptation would be yielded to and more offending would come to light as more businesses become insolvent and subject to greater scrutiny. The last cases reported by the Disciplinary tribunal resulted from a meeting on 23 March. One of those two cases seems to be further offending from someone who had the book thrown at him a few months earlier and the other would indicate that they think that they have finally cracked the Jekel and Hyde case and there was nothing left to do. There were two notices given for hearings against one person on each of two dates by no report has arisen as a result of either of those intended hearings. Even if names are suppressed we say there should be a report. We wonder if perhaps these concerned Mr Gordon Fulton of Ernst and Young who was referred to the Institute by the Securities commission for matters outlined their 11 October 2007 report. There is no notice given of any further cases. As we recall it the Society of Accountant’s disciplinary system virtually broke down following the 1987 economic crash as well. Notices of disciplinary action in the magazine dried up. The new Institute of CA was specifically entitled only to investigate suspected offences occurring after a set date around 1995. The old Society was closed down so that members who had offended before that date could rest easy. That is no way to run a profession. Perhaps a new Association of Accountants is in the pipeline so that the Institute can close down. The Institute of course was going to tolerate no nonsense with refined structures and public hearings. But it got watered down a couple of years back with the chairman of the Professional Conduct committee being able to dismiss complaints of his own bat where he/she considers the complaint to be of an “insufficient nature”. We recently have complained about NZICA members who should have inspected the Feltex IPO prospectus and should have noticed that The 1.7$ growth over the past 10 years Feltex calculated for its Australian market was not calculated by acceptable means. $250 million was lost over that and should be able to be claimed back by those who lost it but the chairman, Mr Graeme Falloon presumably holds that the matter was of an insufficient nature.

But the Institute is going to move its office in Wellington. They are going into a 70 year old building believe it or not.

Well let us now try to tackle the Securities Commission. It currently has 10 members. They are all part timers except perhaps for the chairperson, similar perhaps to directors of a public company. But the members are all appointed by the Minister of Commerce. The current minister happens to also be Minister of State Owned Enterprises. Since coming to power (no pun intended believe it or not) late last year he has made significant changes to the composition of the boards of most if not all SOEs and to the Commerce Commission but there has not any such changes to the Securities Commission or the slightest hint of changes pending as far as we are aware. The reason is possibly because Securities Commission appointments are for a fixed term where as perhaps the other appointments are not. More likely perhaps is the fact that currently there are five members of each gender which the chairperson takes pride in. Moving from this 50-50 situation might be problematical. The corresponding Australian organization has had three members up until last November. Up until two years ago we think all members were male. Then Ms Gibson was appointed as the member who was not the chairperson or deputy chairperson. Last November the new Labour government with the female deputy prime minister decided to increase the number of these commissioners from three to six. All the new appointees were male. We think Australia is intent on becoming rich while all that matters for New Zealanders is gender equality.

There is we think a third and more powerful reason for Mr Power not altering the Securities Commission. It is we think held together by a network of blackmail and the consequences of any change are uncertain. Some indication of this is likely to become evident as we proceed.

A philosophy that seemed to go into the composition of the New Zealand Securities Commission was equal numbers of accountants, solicitors, and company directories. The idea was that there be nine members and that quorums of three be formed to look into a particular issue, the quorum having one member from each category. The 1992/1993 quorum that looked into certain arrangements undertaken by the Bank of New Zealand in 1988 was of this form. Of course nine does not divide by two so there could not be equal gender with nine so now there are ten. Legal backgrounds tend to dominate. Whether the members not in the quorum have any say in a matter is unclear. And the members of any quorum seem not to be disclosed any more. Well these occupational categories tend to refer to the background of the appointee rather than their current situation. Accountants tend to wish to become company directors and a Securities Commission appointment, if they can get one is perhaps a half-way step, to getting a directorship portfolio. Two of the current commission members are ex Ernst and Young partners. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission members appear to hold few if any company directorships. That cuts out much of the vested interest problem. There does not appear to be any Ernst and Young associations there either. And it has one member with a strong economist background which seems sensible.

Interestingly the Australian Government has just announced (25 Aug) that its Securities and Investment Commission is to take over regulatory duties currently the responsibility of the Australian stock exchange ASX. Mr Power has previously said that he is comfortable with the NZ stock exchange NZX have such duties. Mr Bruce Sheppard, the accountant and NZ Shareholders Association chairman has come out strongly inferring that if it is not good enough for the Australians it is not good enough for us. But Mr Sheppard seems to have dropped all criticism of the NZ Securities Commission’s finding of no problems with the Feltex IPO. We think he is trying to bolster the Securities Commission increase the likelihood that the Feltex IPO farce staying buried. We say the personnel of the NZ Securities Commission needs a major makeover before it is allowed to take on those additional duties.

The chairperson of the NZ Securities Commission is Jane Diplock, an Australian of legal background. If there must be a female chairperson we say New Zealander Sue Newberry would have fitted the bill. Ms Newberry got a University job in Sydney about the same time we think as Ms Diplock got the job here. Ms Newberry has expressed a much different attitude to the 2004 Feltex IPO. Ms Diplock has been heading the international organization of Securities Commissions. Voting for her was no doubt a very convenient way for many commissions to show support for female participation without having to get involved in it.

Our gripe (its more than that) with the commissions attitude to the IPO is found at the Commission’s 11 October 2007 report on Feltex carpets. There is a section entitle “The IPO” which negates a one page report dated 25 Aug 2006 which on the IPO which said no further action would be taken on the matter. The one page report seems to have gone off their publications list.

Anyway paragraph 2 of 11 October 2007 starts off “The Commission's inquiry has concluded that: * the prospectus was not misleading in any material particulars; “ We say that is entire wrong and quote this sentence “In the period from 1993 to 2003, the size of the Australian carpet market has averaged approximately 50 million square metres per annum and the compound average growth rate of the carpet market has been 1.7% per annum. “ on page 37 of the prospectus, as a material particular that is so highly misleading as to be fraudulent in that it says the trend in the Australian carpet market size over the past 10 years can be projected forward by increasing the 2003 figure by 1.7% per annum compounding. We say the trend is projected forward by the year 2005 being 5% less than the 2003 figure followed by a 2.3% increase in 2006 and 0.3% compounding increases thereafter. We say the difference between the stated trend and what should have been stated is sufficient to fully account for Feltex’s profit decline in 2005 from what it had projected in the prospectus.

Paragraph 61 of the Securities Commission’s 11 Oct 2007 report says “The Commission found that most of FTX's assumptions presented a largely "no change" scenario”. We say that is possibly a true finding but is not a fair one. There was a very large number of “no change” assumptions made, many of which were on matters which had the potential to effect the company’s sales. But effectively the company set its sales projection by adopting two assumption which the Commission correctly identifies as being critical assumptions, being a 1% p.a. increase in market sales, and a 1% increase in market share. The volume of “no change” assumptions is immaterial.

In paragraph 61a the Commission correctly states of the 1% increase in market size “which is stated to be below the average growth rate over the past 10 years”. This is correct in that that is what was stated but the Commission should have fully aware that what was stated was rubbish which monstrously overstated the growth rate of the past 10 years as calculated by acceptable methods. It is not acceptable just to accept what the person or company being investigated says when one claims to have carried out an investigation.

Feltex does not need to take immediate prior history into account in making its assumptions for incorporation into its projections and we do not say that it should. But past history will frequently be the best indicator available and in this case that is what Feltex say they have used. If one is going to use it we say that it is a necessity that it be used fairly.

The Commission also had a duty to consider and expose the enormity of the turn around assumed by the 1% increase in market share assumption over what the company had been experiencing in that regard but had not declared in its prospectus. We calculate decreases of 9% and 7% in market share from prospectus data of the past 3 years. The assumption was for a colossal change around which we think should have been the main subject of the prospectus. The Commission says it received information and explanations over this but chose not to share any of it with the public. Why was this not in the prospectus so the public could judge its validity and why did it fail?

We are of the opinion that the Commission has decided not to take any action or express any adverse opinion against the Feltex IPO for improper reasons. We have already given two likely motives. The first was that action against the IPO is likely to get director at the time, Joan Withers, into trouble. Ms Withers of course is female. Ms Diplock is on record as encouraging females as company directors. It is possible that she encouraged Feltex to appoint a female director, perhaps by offering the exemptions which the Commission gave the IPO with respect to certain requirements. Perhaps Ms Diplock even suggested Ms Withers and talked her into taking up the directorship. The short time interval between her appointment and the IPO is consistent with this. Then when the company started falling to pieces Ms Diplock might have encouraged Ms Withers to resign so she could take action over crook management which was bound to happen from then on. Shareholders are entitled to think that new directors will stick with a company through thick and thin and attempt to keep it on the straight and narrow however.

The second motive is a proposition that the Commission has been told to leave the IPO alone by the government. We think the IPO might well have been used as a payment method for dubious preparation for certain athletes to get the country a few medals at the 2004 Olympic games. Cycling seems to be the sport that best responds to such methods and our medalists who did some cycling in their event did spectacularly well at it. A surprising number of people bemoaned the country getting just one medal at the previous Olympics. All in all this theory is a very good fit as well.

In the meantime we would like to comment on the way the jury system is being operated in NZ with reference to recent cases. The stated situation is that those charged with all serious crimes such as murder are entitled to trial by jury. This method is chosen no doubt for historic reasons and it does give quite accurate results, and it tells those convicted that it has been done by a cross section of members of their community and not by high ranking bureaucrats or politicians who may be out of touch and are more likely to have other agendas. The conviction or acquittal is thus more likely to be accepted.

If a jury is unable to agree on guilt, ie is "hung" then the prosecution can call for a further trial. It can call for as many further trials as it likes if successive juries are hung. There is no provision for the case to be decided by a panel of judges or lordships when a jury is hung.

Well that is the situation. It can be changed by the passing of parliamentary legislation but unless and until then that should be it.

But in the case of John Barlow we say those requirements have been unfairly "got around" by way of an unfair third trial. The trial was unfair with respect to evidence of the American FBI claiming we think that used bullets can be proven to come out of a certain packet and the killer bullets concerned came from a packet possessed by the accused. Well it has become evident that such matches cannot be made and the matter has gone to the Privy Council. This Council we think agreed that the FBI evidence was not valid but said that this was just one piece of evidence and there is no such thing as the perfect trial.

Well we think the significance of the discredited evidence should be measured against its cost and how deliberately it was presented. It was not a chance remark made by a careless witness. This evidence was only presented at the third trial, the first two having had hung juries. Presumably it was presented because it just might make the difference and get a conviction. It was we think the first time the FBI had given evidence in a New Zealand court and it generated massive headlines which no doubt the jury saw at the time. We say the headlines gave the "they have got him this time" impression.

The Privy Council then centered upon the question of whether Mr Barlow was guilty, and concluded that he was and we are inclined to accept most of their arguments in this regard. But they said effectively that the discredited evidence did not go to the root of proceedings. It cost a lot of money to produce this evidence. Why was this Mr Peters brought out here when his evidence did not go to the root of proceedings? We say that the law does not provide for the case to be decided by a panel such as the Privy Council. Indeed the Privy Council itself said as much when ruling on the Bain appeal. The question they had to decide was "might a fourth jury acquit him if they were told the situation as it is now stands?". If they had considered this they would need to take the previous trials into account. Mr Barlow's case is quite unusual in that before he was arrested he contacted the news media claiming that the police had told him that he was the prime suspect but he was not involved in the murders. He seemed to handle himself quite competently in his dealings with the media. The possibility is that this behaviour has resulted in the hung juries but it was perfectly legal behaviour, or at least it would be if he were innocent of the murders. If he has hit upon a strategy that makes juries reluctant to convict then that his good luck. We suspect that in a similar case an arrest will be made at an earlier date which would solve the problem. But the system should not be allowed to be changed just to catch someone who authorities think should be convicted.

We say that we believe that the goal posts were moved during Mr Barlow's third trial if not also for the previous two. We think that it was well known that the FBI evidence was suspect. We also question how a senior state servant got a place on the third jury. One would not normally expect such an employee to serve on a jury because he or she would be deemed to have more important things to do. We say it is not proper for such a person to decide to do jury service because of knowledge of what the case was likely to be and opinions about what the outcome of the case should be. We believe that it was highly unlikely that this servant was called up by random ballot and that his "availability" and "disposition" had been checked out in advance. We think Mr Barlow would have challenged him but presumably he did not know of the servant’s senior position or was outwitted. A funny thing is Dunedin is not deemed to be competent to stage its controversial trials, these being transferred to Christchurh, but there appeared to be no move to change any of the Barlow ones from Wellington. Wellington tends to be where the senior state servants live. We are we think indebted to Mr Barlow for knowing about the senior state servant being foreman of the third jury. He made, we think, unauthorised comments immediately following the jury announcing its guilty verdict, concerning the foreman and the news media felt authorised or obliged to explain what he was going on about. Perhaps Mr Barlow got extra time onto his non-parole sentence for this outburst. We say that deciding upon the integrity of people providing the evidences and putting up the cases is a most important aspect of deciding upon guilt or innocence. A panel of professional judges or lordships does not have the perspective to do this because they are being paid too much and will not risk rocking the boat. The payment of jurors is meager except when they are a state employee.

Mr Barlow's solicitors (quite properly according to the Privy Council, but it would seem to have turned out to be a huge mistake on the solicitors’ part) provided the Privy Council with a recent New Zealand Supreme Court judgment being Matenga v The Queen [2009] NZSC 18. It would appear that this judgment is not yet available to the public because it ordered a new trial and did not want the reasons released until the trial was completed. The Privy Council seems to have proceeded to whelt Barlow with this Matenga judgment and even refer to it in their final conclusions concerning Mr Barlow. We would think that this judgment was too recent to be relevant. The legal climate at the time of the shootings is what is relevant. The Privy Council acknowledges that two previous juries failed to reach a verdict and the third jury took many hours in reaching their guilty verdict but took none of this into consideration, mainly it appears from applying aspects of the Matenga judgment.

We also believe the police knew full well that the discredited FBI evidence was suspect at the time they introduced it to the third trial. We have heard it referred to as the FBI dirty tricks brigade. We do not say anyone was out to get a verdict which they knew might be wrong. They were most likely out to get what they believed was the only reasonable verdict. But they were not entitled to do it in this manner. We think the defense believe this too but they would not appear to have made it part of their case to the Privy Council. It should have been argued that the prosecution was out to get a conviction with suspect evidence in the expectation that if an appeal court subsequently rules that evidence invalid they will nevertheless say that the remaining evidence is sufficient for the conviction to stand. This is a conspiracy to circumvent the jury trial system and they should not get away with it.

The invalid evidence was very deliberately presented and was very expensive.

If it was felt that Mr Barlow was too manipulative for a fair jury system to handle him correctly and it was important that he got his just desserts then the correct procedure was to pass an act of parliament deeming Mr Barlow to be guilty of the charge and sentencing him to whatever punishment was considered appropriate. That way everybody knows what is going on and it is all perfectly legal. Otherwise we say for all serious crimes convictions should only result from a fair jury trial.

We say that police must be careful not to infer that any acquittal by a jury will be a slight on them. Each party has its own job to do.

The Barlow judgment also refers to the Bain case. We think the outcome of the new Bain trial which was ordered by the Privy Council, was the major influence in the Privy Council reaching to decision they did with respect to Barlow. The decision seemed to be delayed until the Bain trial was over. Journalist at the trial including Martin Van Beynen tended to think David Bain should have been convicted of 5 murders but the jury found, at least, that there was reasonable doubt. The Privy Council might well have been worried about a repeat of this scenario if it ordered a new trial for Barlow.

Mr Van Beynen in his article of 22.6.09 strongly believes that David Bain is guilty and puts most of his emphasis on his contention that Robin Bain did not inflict the deaths. We are not convinced with his argument of "if he did it why would he want to hide his actions?". Well Robin seems to be held in high regard by his siblings so perhaps he was determined to ensure that it remained that way. The other thing to remember is that plans will frequently change if one takes on a terrible task. He might have intended to go off to work and claim that all was normal when he left the home, but somewhere along the line has decided that that was now not on. And Mr Van Beynen asks why Robin would not shoot David as well. Well there then would be no-one else that could be blamed for it but himself and also it might have been hard to include David on his shooting list but framing him as the killer would be the next worst thing. It would be hard to shoot David if Robin had to go into David’s room to get the gun and accessories as Mr Van Beynen thinks the scenario was.

Apparently a couple of the jurors lost interest in the case about three weeks before it ended and we suspect that a decision had been made by then. It was possibly just a case of the decision being seen to be the most satisfactory.

Mr Van Beynen thinks that there will be no lawsuit from David for compensation nor one to regain his inheritance. The estates went to David's Aunts and Uncles. We are not nearly so sure. David, we think, can change tact and argue that those Aunts and Uncles were far more responsible for the state of the family and its demise even if it were the case that David had pulled the trigger as the Aunts and Uncles and the state might allege. The religious beliefs of Margaret Bain were highly peculiar and she was not fit to be supervising the family. As is usual in these cases the somewhat estranged Robin Bain, the father, was powerless to do anything about it, except perhaps to do what David alleges he did, and several other disempowered parents have done, and terminate as many members of the family as possible. The wider family had a responsibility to sort the matter out many years earlier. They should not have been allowed to inherit by virtue of being charged with neglect of their wider social responsibility at that earlier time. You cannot just drive away from a motor vehicle accident knowing that someone is hurt and needs attention, similarly you should not be able to ignore children being brought up by a somewhat insane mother with peculiar beliefs who gives minimal attention to housekeeping. It is not good enough for them to throw scorn on David, who was a product of this environment.

It seems apparent that the wider community had a lot of sympathy for various members of this family and offered support where it could. As the story goes after David’s conviction and his using up of his rights of appeal a few women set up a cake stall to raise funds for further appeals, the objectives of which were eventually met.

We think this is a very good opportunity to examine what is going wrong with family welfare services given that there are few members of this family left to be affected by such a review. We disagree with Rosemary McLeod in her article of 11.6.09 that the Bain family were forgotten in the hue and cry over the retrial. We say that they were brought back to life in many ways that they would not have been had there been no retrial. That is good with respect to people's memory of them because we think they are all very much victims regardless of who physically conducted the executions. We are told that Robin and Margaret were estranged but we do not know how formal this dissolution was and whether the Family Court was involved. We are inclined to suspect that the Family Court was involved and has made some very poor but typical decisions with respect to the Bains.

It seems to be acknowledged that Robin Bain had been a hunter, at least of small animals, and had introduced David to the activity. We wonder why he didn't have a rifle at the time of the killings. We speculate that it is to do with the breakdown of his marriage. Perhaps there had been an incident or threat which suggested that he should not have a gun or perhaps his wife exercised an automatic right to have a gun surrendered. We think any gun ban should apply to all factions of a family.

Ms McLeod appears to quite accurately describe the situation of the deceased members of the Bain family. She recognises the shortcomings of the mother and is generally less critical of the father accepting that his depressed state might be because he has lost his roll as father of the family. She is not prepared to say anything against the mother having been appointed or otherwise having acquired the position of the head of the family however. We condemn this failure and say the mother was unfit for the role except perhaps after appropriate mental health counseling or other treatment. The idea that mothers can do no wrong has got to be extinguished.

Ms McLeod did say however that "nothing is know against" the elder of the slain daughters of the family. Well in a way nothing should be said against any of the slain children because the way they have been brought up makes problems beyond their control inevitable. But if we ignore this she should consider that a friend of Arawa Bain's is recorded as having quoted Arawa as saying "I wish dad would just f... off and leave the rest of us alone". No doubt she was in a distressed state which there were good reasons for. Perhaps she was aware of accusations of sexual activity between her father and sister. But we think she should have been working towards some way to incorporate her father into the family and that expression goes against her. She should have also have been able to use her presumed leadership skills to have household members clean up the house at a set time of the week.

We have tons of sympathy for the plight of Robin Bain whether he did the shootings or not and regardless of whether he had improper physical contact with his younger daughter or not. Far too many fathers are and have been in this position for reasons beyond their control. We say the way things were going he was losing meaningful contact with all his children but he would not give up on trying to reverse the situation even although it was becoming pointless.

We think the establishment did not like the idea of Robin Bain being guilty because it would highlight the plight of estranged fathers, and perhaps cause estranged mothers to have their rights reduced to help amend the situation.

As for David Bain, if he did the shootings we say he was guilty of manslaughter only because of the way society has allowed him to be brought up. But you cannot plead that way if you want to get off entirely, regardless of whether you did it.

As with the Barlow case police and the prosecution have got personally involved with what the verdict should be. The case has thus lost its integrity. We think several witnesses for the prosecution had not seen fit to advise the police of their alleged observations prior to the first trial. We think they are people who have sided with the jury after the first trial and rather embellished their association with the case to friends. There is not too much wrong with that if all is done and dusted. But as it happened this was not the case on this occasion. Mr Bain can afford to be more forthright in challenging such evidence when pursuing his claim for compensation.

We would like also to refer to the Clayton Weatherston case. This seems to be a case of blockage of blood in the brain probably by way of some inherited bottleneck. Some parts get plenty of blood and perform exceptionally while other parts get little blood and perform dismally. We need to make the most of the good part by keeping him comfortable in prison and putting him to work on our economic problems. The Don Brash lead committee on achieving economic parity with Australia would be a good one. Actually we say there is no reason why we should be able to catch up with them but we need our economy to grow if this is reasonably possible. Our economic inheritance was thrown away by virtue of investing in the think big projects of the late 70s. It is not just a matter of holding some sort of funeral for them and then getting on with life. The consequences remain for all time. Jack’s mother was right when she said they would have to go to the poor house because he sold the cow for a handful of beans. The magic of the beans was just a myth.

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