KEY POINTS:
Sydney, last month - torrential rain, second-hand bookshops, fish markets and returning home another year older.
In my absence, one of the cows I likened to the slatternly state of some New Zealand mothers in my column a few weeks ago was sent to the abattoir. The farmer lost patience with her. At nightfall, she'd repeatedly abandon her calf, plough through the electric fence and on to the road, where she would run along the verge bellowing for sex at two nonchalant but scarily huge bulls. They were singularly unimpressed, as was her owner, who declared it was "off to the works for the bitch".
What will become of her calf? Let it be a lesson to the remaining cows that they look after all the young entrusted to their care lest they also end up hanging from a butcher's hook.
Now there's a thought. Instead of the Government pouring more taxpayers' dollars into "social services", it should send to the works all mongrels who mete out the kind of sadistic violence allegedly perpetrated against kids like Nia Glassie.
First into the stock truck would be the scum who tried to rob a blind, wheelchair-bound Wellington woman.
Isn't it time we took a more agricultural attitude to this appalling behaviour? Not according to New Zealand Cricket, which just wants to "wrap more support" around Tosser Ryder. I don't care that Ryder's out of cricket while his hand mends, but I do care that taxpayers forked out thousands of dollars to fix this jerk who abused nurses in the process. He should be booted out of the Black Caps for the crime of asking the rhetorical "Don't you know who I am?"
I know these folk have never been loved or valued, but we've been patient long enough. Thirty-odd years of hand-wringing and believing if we just be nice to losers they'll be nice to their kids hasn't worked, just as employing a bovine whisperer wouldn't have convinced the once-cow, now-rump-steak it was in her best interests to remain in her paddock and feed her offspring.
We're not alone in our cow-like obesity. In Sydney, thousands of fatsos schlep around slurping food. Still, what can you expect from a country with a Prime Minister called Kevin and a Treasurer called Wayne?
Helen and Michael sounds far more civilised, and next year, if it's John with Bill (or Rodney or Winston), the worst the Aussies could call us is unimaginative. Their top duo sounds like boys your mother never wanted you to bring home because they held their knives the wrong way and said toilet instead of lavatory.
Kiwis might be flocking to live in Australia, but middle-income earners still have the same problems as their counterparts in New Zealand. Interest rates are hurting home-owners struggling with debt repayments. So should these people be loaned money from banks when they clearly can't afford to buy their first home?
One Sydney commentator was more sensible than our usual National Radio "the gummint has to do something" interviewee. He pointed out when these people apply for their mortgages they are relatively debt-free, so banks assess their incomes and decide they can meet their repayments.
But after they've bought their dream home they aspire to loftier furnishings than mere second-hand cast-offs, racking up thousands of dollars on their credit cards or store cards to buy impressive (they think) "Vogue Interior" style chattels. I bet the same thing happens here, and that's hardly the fault of the banks.
And at least our education system is not as prehistoric as Australia's. In February, Kevin Rudd announced "sweeping changes" to the way teachers are hired, allowing school principals and boards to employ teachers of their choice.
Until now, the Aussie unions have dictated the rules and schools had to take whomever the education ministry assigned them. Unsurprisingly, the teachers' unions are predicting the end of civilisation, but at least Rudd had the guts to state that "some aspects" of education in Australia are "in crisis".
Compare that to our education ministers, who'd sooner become vice-chancellors or conservation ministers than admit there's anything critical about, say, 14 per cent of kids leaving school by the time they're 15, or that our 10-year-olds rank among the worst readers in the world. As someone famous said, this is child abuse of the mind. Perhaps we should herd the Ministry of Education and NZQA bureaucrats responsible for these results to the knackers.
