Liberty Belle April 22 2005

Last month I told you about the lunacy of costs imposed on plumbers and drain layers due to Health Ministry initiated licensing. This prompted a lunacy sighting from a dentist who last year had to register his orthodontic assistants (also known as chair side assistants in dentist-speak) at 00 each.

To register himself costs a mere 0. The government has decided that assistants may make patients bleed but as the good dentist says, "Orthodontics is about straightening teeth which certainly doesn't make people bleed."

But six months after this law came into effect dentists still haven't been told what activities are 'restricted' and need to be registered for. "In other words, if our assistants don't do anything on the 'restricted list' then they don't have to be registered. We paid for them to be registered in September 2004 but the government can't tell us yet what for! And now we have been asked if we are completing 'continuing education' for our assistants, but there have been no 'continuing education' programmes set up by the authorities for our staff to 'complete'."

Like Ronald Reagan who, when wheeled in for surgery after surviving a would-be assassin's bullet joked, "I hope you fellows are all Republicans", Hon Annette King should pray she doesn't get toothache in the near future.

From the 'not true, surely, ed' department: The Hamilton City Council, I'm told, is trying to impose a night-time curfew on the domestic cat population to prevent their killing of birds. Last time I watched a moggy, he was stalking birds during the day. They might well be better placed to catch rats and mice at night, but unless they're adept at sneaking up to the tops of trees in the moonlight, domestic cats rarely kill birds at night. Of course, I reserve my right to be wrong.

You may have heard I'm not standing for Parliament again at the next election and some reporters have asked me what I'll miss. I won't miss the catty girlie remarks from female journalists, like Jane Clifton (who's obsessed lately with personally attacking Katherine Rich's lipstick - could there be a green reason for this?) and Linda Clark who let herself down badly with her 'rich husband' throwaway line last week.

But then we all know National Radio's biased - a good blogsite monitoring this is http://popularandcompetent.blognz.com which posted this last February: "Popular and Competent Prime Minister. Giving you, the Little People, the benefit of Your Leader's vast knowledge and experience in Economics, Foreign Affairs, Business and Family.

I always like National Radio's rabid anti-war stance, it reminds me of my younger days. But they usually left the freaking out to the BBC. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to hear the veil lifted for a few seconds yesterday: 'Simplistically one would look and say that John Howard is kowtowing to George Bush, trying to get an invitation to the ranch to stay in with his mate in the White House.' The kowtowing Howard, brought to you by our taxpayer funded National Radio."

ENDS

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