The NZ Herald in it's editorial this morning attempts to put forward the notion that MP's should heed "expert advice" in the matter of the smacking bill and not the opinion of the people, and that because we voted for those MP's that this is democracy in action.
'Nowhere is it written in stone that the majority is right', they claim.
Sorry, but I still don't agree with this.
Yes, we do vote at election time for the MP's and party we want to represent us - we obviously vote for the MP whose beliefs are the closest to our own and who will represent those beliefs for us in Parliament. The undemocratic bit comes in when those MP's are forced by their leader to vote the way the leader wants them to and not the way the member's constituents want. Suddenly the voter is not represented at all by he or she whose job it is to do just that.
And what about this "expert advice"?
That also gets my gander up, as there is no expert advice to say that smacking is harmful or that is creates violent adults or anything like that. No, it is one woman's ideology being forced on a country.
The Anti-smoking Bill was different; there is plenty of expert advice to tell us that smoking is bad and even smokers will agree with this, but trying the same tactics with smacking without any real evidence that it is harmful is just plain wrong.
'Nowhere is it written in stone that the majority is right', they claim.
Sorry, but I still don't agree with this.
Yes, we do vote at election time for the MP's and party we want to represent us - we obviously vote for the MP whose beliefs are the closest to our own and who will represent those beliefs for us in Parliament. The undemocratic bit comes in when those MP's are forced by their leader to vote the way the leader wants them to and not the way the member's constituents want. Suddenly the voter is not represented at all by he or she whose job it is to do just that.
And what about this "expert advice"?
That also gets my gander up, as there is no expert advice to say that smacking is harmful or that is creates violent adults or anything like that. No, it is one woman's ideology being forced on a country.
The Anti-smoking Bill was different; there is plenty of expert advice to tell us that smoking is bad and even smokers will agree with this, but trying the same tactics with smacking without any real evidence that it is harmful is just plain wrong.