Ruling on student with Asperger’s syndrome suggests teachers must brace for being roughed up

Alf is bound to say he is bothered by a court decision that might result in a teenage boy with Asperger’s syndrome returning to a school from which he was expelled.

The lad – whose condition no doubt explains his behaviour and therefore exempts him from being described as a tosser in this post – had been involved in a tussle with a teacher over a skateboard.

The unfortunate teacher has every good reason to be upset that the student might soon be back because the High Court at Auckland has overturned Green Bay High School’s decision to exclude the boy last year.

The expulsion followed a series of incidents and the boy, who has name suppression, has been out of mainstream education for 10 months.

Here’s a nurses’ outfit with hopes of carrying on – but money for Maori is being dished out elsewhere

Not so long ago your hard-working member was musing on Radio NZ’s Te Manu Korihi team finding a great gusher of indigenous grievances (he should have said another great gusher).

The radio journos had been talking with the head of an outfit called Te Kaunihera o Nga Neehi Maori – the National Council of Maori Nurses.

This race-based nurses’ outfit was bleating at that time about our district health boards failing to pay it enough heed when deciding how public money should be spent on health services within their respective domains.

Another bleat was about newly trained Maori nurses taking work in rest homes because they can’t get jobs in hospitals.

Guess what? The council is back with more grievances.

The Government isn’t giving it enough money.

Money is being dished out to other Maori outfits and schemes instead.

A bolt from the blue did Moomoo a mischief but the culprit has been allowed to remain unnamed

Enough to give a moggy a piercing headache…

Alf is disappointed by a judge’s ruling that an 18-year-old who shot a crossbow bolt through a cat’s head should not be named.

The tosser would suffer “extreme hardship” if his name was ever to be published, the judge decreed.

And what – pray -did the poor bloody cat suffer?

The Herald reports that The Wainuiomata teenager was charged with ill-treating an animal under the Animal Welfare Act after the incident last October.

But the justice system has gone all soft and pappy and the charge was withdrawn this month after he completed court-ordered tasks and police granted diversion.

Why is a young forestry worker dead? His boss blames a dearth of safety inspectors

This is a good trick.

When something goes wrong, you say it was the Government’s fault.

In this case, the something that went wrong was a company’s failure to keep one of its workers safe and in good health.

As a consequence of its laxity a young man is dead.

Alf refers to the Taranaki contracting firm whose newly employed tree feller was killed by falling branches.

According to Stuff, the firm has attacked the lack of Government inspectors in their industry.

A history lesson is called for after Tuhoe are given money from fund for war commemoration projects

Our bloody Government does throw money around unnecessarily, Alf will concede in the privacy of his own home, although in public he staunchly defends everything his colleagues do and every buck they spend.

Thus publicly he will say Chris Tremain did a splendid job as Minister of Internal Affairs, before being replaced by that Dunne tosser.

On Chris’s watch, a series of projects to commemorate the centenary of the First World War was granted $2.7 million in funding by the New Zealand Lottery Grants Board.

The news of this new trough – sorry, fund – being set up for handouts was reported here.

Backing sterilisation will bring more blue votes (probably) than urging help for mum with a record

So how long will this go on for, and how many state-run children’s homes will be needed to cope with the consequences of Oriwa Kemp’s fecundity?

Oh – and by the way – will the aforementioned Oriwa Kemp ever get a chance to demonstrate that maybe she can bring up her children without the need for state intervention?

Those are among the lofty questions tackled over the Grumbles’ breakfast table this morning, while we ploughed our way through the Sunday newspapers.

Oriwa Kemp, if you don’t happen to know it, was banged up for a while for cruelty to Rotorua toddler Nia Glassie.

A bad message has been sent to impoverished protesters by giving up on the Waihopai wallies

Chris Finlayson seemed to be on top of things, last time Alf was chatting with him.

But obviously he was well and truly off his oats, or had a serious rush of blood to the head, or something.

And next thing we know, the Crown had dropped its civil lawsuit against the three wallies who caused more than $1 million in damage to a spy base in Marlborough.

Reports here and here tell us what has happened and give us some background.

Trained nurses are settling for jobs in rest homes – but that’s better, surely, than the dole

Radio NZ’s Te Manu Korihi team seems to have tapped into a great gusher of indigenous grievances by talking with the head of an outfit called Te Kaunihera o Nga Neehi Maori – the National Council of Maori Nurses.

Alf was startled yesterday on learning that this group believes

… the colonial process is coming down like a big hammer on Maori health providers.

Roughly translated into common-sense English, this means the race-based nurses’ outfit is complaining that our district health boards don’t pay it enough heed when deciding how public money should be spent on health services within their respective domains.

Here’s another urgent issue to address to shake off the shackles of colonialism (or so say Maori nurses)

We have to listen very carefully, when our Treaty partners complain about a raw deal.

If we don’t they are apt to mount a case to the Waitangi Tribunal, and the next thing you know a judgement has been made in their favour and the Government is being told how badly it is behaving.

This being so, Alf jumped to attention when he heard a nurses’ group complain that…

…it believes the colonial process is coming down like a big hammer on Maori health providers.

Racism, bullying and Turei’s togs – and now we know who is Queen of her Castle

Alf is a great admirer of the National Party’s female cabinet ministers (although with enough whisky on board he might concede he harbours just a wee tinge of envy that they have been promoted ahead of him).

He has especially admired the feistiness of Anne Tolley and Judith Collins in recent days in putting them Green tossers in their place.

Anne kicked things off in Parliament by saying something Alf has always wanted to say but wouldn’t, lest the Opposition harpies accuse him of sexism, which is bound to put him in bad odour with local members of the Women’s Institute or Rural Women.