New Zealand Conservative

In the same-sex marriage debate, one of the things conservatives get shouted down for is when anyone talks about the "slippery slope" of same-sex marriage leading to polyandrous or multiple-partner marriages. Liberals will roll their eyes and say that it can't happen: that it's too way out. In Australia last year, a senator from the Liberal party, Cory Bernardi, stood down because of the controversy over some remarks he made saying that SSM could lead to Polyamory or even bestiality. This is what he said last year - Speaking on a gay marriage Bill in Federal Parliament last night, Mr Bernardi said: “Time and time again the same characters seek to tear down our institutions that have been built and have sustained our civilisation for thousands of years. The time has come to ask: when will it end? “What is the next step? “The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed...

Pope Benedict XVI is currently visiting Germany. Here is his speech to the German Parliament, where he talks about the necessity for justice in politics, else the State is nothing more than a band of robbers.

Kiwi children are running the gauntlet of fast-food restaurants every day – with outlets five times more likely to be clustered around schools, research shows. And by running the gauntlet, are becoming extremely fit. Just imagine the gains if they put giant mouse wheels in front of fast food restaurants? But unfortunately, they didn't think of that. However, newer research [not yet released] shows that fast-food restaurants aren't being built around schools, but instead schools are being built around fast-food restaurants. Those lazy teachers. The high number of burger joints and chip shops close to schools is thought to be a factor in the childhood-obesity epidemic sweeping the Western world. Because walking past food is highly contagious. Can't people just get a vaccination for this and be protected? I heard a dose of the word "NO" can do wonders. The problem has prompted the Secondary Principals Association to call for restrictions on what dairi...

So the argument goes "dope should be legal because tobacco is". I don't know if you've been paying attention over the last few years, and in particular under National recently, but I think that argument might have a time limit on it. If we put GST up to 17.5% they could ban smoking overnight. Oops, there I go giving the government ideas again. Sorry, my bad. I was just joking.

New Zealand children are being woefully let down by their caregivers, the Government and society, according to a new report commissioned by the Ministry of Health. Children need parents - not "caregivers". Optimally, biological parents of the opposite sex who are committed through marriage to each other and their families for life. Anything less (and we are talking a sliding scale here), and children do not do so well. But anyone recognise this? The Public Health Advisory report makes 21 recommendations to the Ministry of Health, and the ministry says work on them is well under way. “The ministry's addressing probably two thirds of the recommendations that they make and some of those are well underway and some of them are in an early stage,” says Pat Tuohy. I would love to know what those recommendations are. Somehow I doubt that encouraging young people to postpone sex until marriage is mentioned. Yet, early sexual experiences lead to many babies being born to immat...

Yes, according to today's news, cabinet is looking at holding another referendum on MMP. Cabinet has started discussing the referendum on the electoral system that National promised it would hold, Prime Minister John Key said today.Under the campaign pledge a referendum would be held before or at the same time as the 2011 general election, asking voters whether they want to change from MMP to another system.If a majority want a change, a second referendum would be held offering options to replace MMP. OK, I have to ask, will they take any notice of the results though? John Key really came through on the last one, didn't he?

'Price of Democracy'; sounds like this is going to be a hugely wrought-out, deep-thinking post doesn't it? Er, not really, because I haven't the time. I was spurred to think about it though by Paul Thomas's opinion piece in today's NZ Herald in which he compares America's journey (somewhat strangely I thought) with that of Bruce Springsteen. You can tell he is another journalist who is not a fan of the war in Iraq and/or George Bush by the following - [...] when America, as it surely will, walks away leaving its foes more or less intact and with precious little to show for the new white headstones in Arlington National Cemetery. "Precious little"? Really? Is he describing Democracy and the right to vote as precious little? Not to me it isn't. And did he think that this democracy would come about about with no bloodshed? Democracy always costs, and most of the time the cost is in human lives. Winston Churchill once famously said, "Democrac...

Yes, it seems there have been enough signatures collected to force a referendum on the smacking law. This is a good thing and yet I'm not completely happy. In the first place, it seems they're not going to hold the referendum in tandem with this year's General Election and instead hold a postal ballot next year; the reason? That recommendation [by Justice Minister Annette King] refers to the experience of 1999, when two referendums were held with the general election, causing long delays in vote-counting, confusion among voters, and congestion at polling booths. Ms King last night dismissed calls to hold the referendum earlier. I voted in 1999 and answered the referendum questions and I can't remember any confusion or backlog of people. This is simply another two-pronged tactic by the Government to delay or water down the referendum. One: they don't want the question put to voters this year as it will lose Labour votes - a good 70% of the country di...

The Labour Party are presiding over an apparently dysfunctional immigration service. Except that their recent actions, where bureaucratic stupidity seems to be the new "law of common sense" also mirrors Labour rhetoric. "We don't want rich pricks here. Specifically, we don't want rich, white, hard working pricks here." Quite keen to pack them off home, but probably not so keen on refunding the money invested to date. From Canada, to the UK. The message is clear. Investing in New Zealand with your hard earned cash is a high risk venture. The government will block you one way or other. So much for the rule of "common sense". Related Link at No Minister: Couple buys the farm - colloquial expression in NZ for "Thanks for investing in NZ, the tax rate is 100%" British couple who came to New Zealand to live their dream of running a farm are being booted out of the country after a nightmare experience with an "incompetent" Immigrati...

Here's an email doing the rounds at the moment. The obvious reaction would be "Privacy issues" prevail. But then again, maybe the bureaucracy is exactly how many imagine it? I've got to renew my family's passports soon. I'll let you know. Subject: Passport application letter Dear Minister, I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am at a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through. How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date? How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time. Do you peopl...

In today's world, you either own property or you are property. It's an interesting situation that helps the very rich get richer, and the poor stay poor and the middle class pay the taxes. Communists think that this means capitalism is wrong. Socialists do too, but try to act a little more moderate about it. However, their preferred solution is effectively to destroy it by using the government as some form of benign wealth distribution, and where possible, buying back infrastructure assets. It doesn't work. Indeed, by giving too much power to the State, we effectively become property of the State. It's scary socialists cannot see this, or weight the implications of this appropriately. But that is a different post. At the other end of the scale are those like the Libertarians, whose core philosophy revolves solely around property and the much vaunted Free Market. The obvious danger in Libertarian philosophy is that it ultimately reduces a person's worth to ...

In today's news , The Government is considering making the Morning After Pill free for teenage girls. What are they thinking??!! It seems like they're trying to do as much damage to the country as they possibly can before they get thrown out. If they think that this is going to decrease the number of abortions then they are seriously wrong. It will increase them and give these girls a feeling that should they choose to have sex at an early age then they have this FREE option to fall back on. And I'm betting the parents don't need to be told, either. This seems to be furthering along their 'alleged' agenda to break up families. To add to this, Helen announced the other day that funding of $146 million would be given for a drug to be administered to teenage girls to combat HPV (human papilloma virus) which is named as the root cause of 90% of cervical cancer cases. One of ways to catch HPV is to have 'unprotected' sex with many partners. I say 'unpr...

I am up to chapter 18 of Ian Wishart's book Absolute Power - almost finished it - and it's been very eye-opening. One of the points he makes is that "New Zealand's current political system is [...] technically illegal". This is because when we (the Government, actually) declared ourselves independent from Britain in 1986 the Government lost the right to Govern because they lost the right conferred by British Parliament and there should have been an election at that stage straight away to let voters choose the party they now wanted and to "ratify the new constitutional position", as Ian puts it. Nothing has been done about it since then. Does this mean that every decision that has been made by Parliament since then has been illegal? I would love to see this given to some high-power lawyer and have every decision ever made by the Govt since 1986 made null and void (especially the decisions made since Labour took over in 1999). Then maybe we can all...