Slugging it out in the Horowhenua

by Veronica Harrod

What is happening in the small neck of the woods called the Horowhenua is a power struggle between conflicting agendas.

On one side of the boxing ring stands Horowhenua District Council Mayor Michael Feyen, supported by councillor Ross Campbell holding the towel and the water bottle in the background.

On the other side of the boxing ring stands deputy mayor Wayne Bishop with his supporters; the eight remaining councillors (although there are signs the amount of blood being spilled is getting too much for some).

The ref is the CEO!

Unfortunately for Mayor Feyen the referee of the boxing match is council’s chief executive David Clapperton, which is why the result will always seem to be in Cr Bishop’s favour because both Cr Bishop and Mr Clapperton have mutually beneficial interests. Mayor Feyen alluded to the source of the power struggle in comments to the media when he said, “There seems to be much at stake for some in council…and that he had ‘severe concerns’ about conflicts of interest within the council.”

The Expendable Project

In May 2005, an innocent woman was sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison, after 4.2 kg of marijuana had been found in her luggage on arrival in Bali. However, her fate had been determined not in Bali, but in Canberra.
EVIDENTIAL PROOF OF EVERY ABUSE DOCUMENTED IN THIS FILM IS AVAILABLE IN THE REPORT AND EXHIBIT SECTIONS
How a government wilfully withheld vital evidence from a court of law, deceived its public, orchestrated an unprecedented media campaign, and ruthlessly deployed its organs of state against one of its own citizens.

This is a frightening but entirely true narrative; a grotesque political horror story which is still unfolding today. It exposes what happens when an individual’s human rights conflict with strategic political need. It reveals the ruthless use of a government’s organs of state, and a regime of unprecedented opinion management, against a single working class woman and her desperate family.

It presents, and demonstrates, the crushing, pre-meditated, and often brutal acts which a western government is prepared to inflict upon a helpless citizen, in pursuit of political expediency.