KEY POINTS:
With the supreme arrogance which has become its hallmark, the Government continues to steamroller its sinister Electoral Finance Bill through the legislative process.
Once it is passed, with the help of Labour's tame running dogs, I wouldn't be surprised if the next step isn't the creation of a Ministry of Propaganda. The natural choice of minister would, of course, be David Benson-Pope.
The Dear Leader gallivants round the world once again attending irrelevant functions and hobnobbing with irrelevant people while she seeks to improve her international profile.
And while all this is going on, even a cursory reading of this newspaper over a week would indicate that this nation seems to be going to hell in a handcart.
Day after day, page after page, the reader is assaulted by stories of murder and mayhem, of crime and violence, of poverty and need, of greed, dishonesty and malfeasance.
Let's take a look at just some of the items I clipped from the Herald in the past week or so.
* A man who hijacked a car and drove off with the owner clinging to it until he was dislodged and run over by a taxi has been jailed for five years and three months.
* A man has admitted the shotgun killing of a gangland rival on the streets of South Auckland.
* A young South Auckland man who should be preparing for the arrival of his first child is instead in hospital with serious injuries after a violent attack at the Viaduct. Graphic security camera images show up to eight men stomping on the 23-year-old victim's head long after he had been knocked unconscious.
* An 81-year-old described by neighbours as cheerful and always with a twinkle in his eye died in his pensioner flat during a violent confrontation with two people, believed to be members of his family.
* The jury that found a man guilty of murdering a 2-year-old girl [a video of the injuries to the little tot made one juror sick] did not know he was serving a jail term for killing a woman 12 months earlier, or that he had 22 previous convictions.
* A woman caught driving with five unrestrained children in the car while she was twice over the drink-driving limit appeared in the Whangarei District Court.
* A baby suffering serious internal injuries was flown to Auckland's Starship hospital and police are investigating. The 6-month-old boy was taken from Eltham to Taranaki Base Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
* The distraught family of a profoundly deaf woman missing for five days have not given up hope they will see her alive again even as foul play grows more likely. Emma Agnew, 20, has disappeared and her burned-out car has been found in Christchurch's Bromley Park.
* A delivery man was killed by a car witnesses say was involved in street racing in Glen Eden. He was unloading items from a truck when he was hit, went through the windscreen and his body ended up in the car.
* A man will appear in the Kaikohe District Court after a five-hour armed standoff with up to 50 police that put the township of Matauri Bay in lockdown. Roads were closed, children held in schools and residents and shopowners told to stay indoors.
* The case of a girl who became pregnant at 11 and had her baby when she was 12 was cited by Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro. No one in the girl's family was prepared to shed any light on who was responsible.
* A feud between two men who once were friends ended when one shot the other in front of Rotorua's International Stadium before some 20 passers-by, including a coup de grace shot through the top of the victim's head.
* A 15-year-old student at Waiuku College had his jaw shattered when he was king hit by a fellow student, the second time this year a student at that school has been bashed by another pupil, and the attacker is unlikely to be expelled.
* A gang of Westlake Girls High School students face a bill of several thousand dollars after they went on an eggs-and-flour rampage, damaging nearby residents' cars. They thought the cars belonged to students from Westlake Boys.
Now I don't know about you, but to me all that indicates that there is something seriously rotten in the state of New Zealand.
Even without the benefit of the rose-tinted glasses one tends to assume when looking back over one's life (and I can look back more than 60 years) it seems to me that our once-vaunted New Zealand society has deteriorated almost beyond recognition. And that the rate of deterioration is accelerating. Has our country lost its soul? Watch this space.
