Matthew Hooten issues an opinion piece in the MSM that is almost as good as anything you could read on a blog. One almost feels optimistic for our print media.
Related Link: Labour's Laws are based on Godwins Laws
This week, Steve Maharey, a man Labourites seriously promote as a potential prime minister, told parliament: "The intention of (the Electoral Finance Bill) is to capture people like the Exclusive Brethren, not the Catholic Church." A potential Labour prime minister actually said that in our parliament, but it gets worse.I don't think I need to explain the outrage I feel reading this anti-democratic rubbish from Labour's 'heavy guns'. They've just shot themselves in the foot yet again, but will only the right notice?
No less than the deputy prime minister, Michael Cullen, asked the justice minister to amend the bill so that the Catholic Church's planned anti-poverty campaign would be allowed to proceed, on the grounds that it would support Labour's Working for Families policy, in contrast to something the Brethren might say.
Related Link: Labour's Laws are based on Godwins Laws
I think it is time you gave up the Left/Right labelling.
ReplyDeleteI am a leftist, in that I believe in social justice, a fair society, communal provision of necessaries such as education and health care and state ownership of essential infrastructure. So, I don't have much in common with the Labour Party.
But it is not just the NZ Labour Party that is mounting an assault on freedoms; it is governments everywhere of all political stripes.
Is it a Labour type government that introduced the draconian Patriot Act in the US?
Is it a Labour type government in Australia that is proposing internet censorship that would make China blush? see http://www.fugley.org/cgi-bin/Fugley/speech.html
It doesn't matter what country or what party, as government became corporatised it also became more proscriptive of human rights.
Zen, the last sentence of your post is the most important; "but will only the right notice".
ReplyDeleteWe are living in a country of frogs who are slowly coming to the boil.
Labour will steal another term next year because the lumpen masses will not lift their snouts high enough for their ears and eyes to notice what the totalitarian entity of middle class fuglies who run this country are doing to them.
All our blogs and comments will ensure we are known to clarke and co after next year and I will be off to sunny Queensland before the knock on the door.
I have spent the last two days at whangerai hospital with my 5 year old and am composing a post for my feeble blog to catalogue the experience which I will post this week once I have calmed down.
But the least I can say is we have experienced the biggest heist of all time because the 5 billion extra spent on health has not reached the coal face.
The little man is fine and is home resting but his parents will probably never recover from spending two days at a hospital that gets more dollars per head than any other DHB in NZ. If your kids get ill my thoughts are with you.
The intention of (the Electoral Finance Bill) is to capture people like the Exclusive Brethren, not the Catholic Church."
ReplyDeleteYes quite correct !! (Like) as in meaning ie : Any groups that might try deceitful election campaigns that might seek to badmouth partys without disclosing who they are themselves . (Like) the Exclusive Brethren nearly got away with last elections .
And (not) the Catholic Church ! why ? because they do not and are not likely to see/have the need to deceitfully use hidden tactics.
Your suggestion of a (personal) persecution of the Exclusive Brethren is pityful and is nothing more than scaremongering .
anonymong, what did the EB say that was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThey did not properly disclose their address - this is already a crime and should be enforced.
ReplyDeleteTheir campaign was not deceitful other than that respect.
Contrast this with the Labour party issuing fake eviction notices to the elderly in state homes, (which some mistook for the real thing) when they were trying to scare people about National policy.
Contrast this with Labour deliberately funding election expenses from Parliamentary Service funds that should not have been used this way.
My suggestion that groups are not allowed to express a political opinion for the flimsiest of reasons is not scaremongering. Given the way Labour deliberately scaremongered to attack the EB, and the way they scaremongered to indicate that National policy was supposedly written in America etc I strongly disagree with your assessment.
Anonymous: try this excercise.
ReplyDeleteNext time you hear Cullen or another Labour MP justify the EFB and use the words "we need this because"... end the sentence in your head with "someone criticised the Labour party last time".
Then listen to what they say. It's disturbing how often what they say can be distilled down to exactly that.
Of course, they never use those words, but if you listen, that's *always* what they mean. Because I can guarantee you that in every single election in recent years, there have been much worse campaigns against National (most without any details, and all containing lies), and no one has lifted so much as an eyebrow - including the National party in most cases.
Fugley said:
ReplyDelete"I am a leftist, in that I believe in social justice, a fair society, communal provision of necessaries such as education and health care and state ownership of essential infrastructure. So, I don't have much in common with the Labour Party."
Fugley, there is no such thing as 'fair'. What is fair to one is unfair to the other. You 'leftists' need to realise that. Further, education and health care are not 'necessaries' as you put it. Water and Food are the true necessaries and you don't see governments owning all the supermarkets do you. Water is going to be one of the biggest commodity issues for the next 20 years and watch how governments stuff it up trying to control it. Leave it to the market I say.
Finally, what is essential infrastructure? This vague terminology is much the same as the dribble dished up on the election pamphlets I am getting in the mail where candidates campaign on "effective transport" and "safe communities".
Bah!