Sue Bradford was on Radio NZ's Morning Report today lamenting the fact
that New Zealand had no left-wing think tanks. Has she forgotten the
universities?
Showing posts with label Sue Bradford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sue Bradford. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2016
Friday, April 8, 2016
A textbook example of third-term arrogance
Halley’s Comet visits more often than I agree with Sue
Bradford, but she’s right to object to the indecent haste with which the TPPA is
being pushed through Parliament.
Given the controversy over the trade agreement and the lack
of public disclosure when it was being negotiated, I thought the limited time
allowed for people to make submissions was bad enough.
After all, this is a document that runs to 6000 pages and
was seven years in the making. Even if you accept arguments about the need for secrecy
while it was under negotiation, people deserved time to digest its complex contents
once the wraps were off. That they were expected to prepare their submissions
even while the government’s explanatory road show was still touring the
country just didn’t seem fair.
Now National has abbreviated the process further by giving Parliament’s
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee only five days – reduced from
one month – in which to produce a report from the hundreds of submissions made.
The National-dominated committee will be writing its report even as submissions
are still being heard.
Appearances are important, and this just looks completely wrong.
It makes a mockery of due process and will only confirm, in the minds of
opponents, that the TPPA doesn’t stand up to critical scrutiny.
More to the point, it will have the effect of making people
who are neutral on the issue – and there are plenty of them – begin to suspect
that the government really is being dodgy and evasive.
On Morning Report
this morning, Steve Hoadley of Auckland University, while criticising the
haste, suggested people’s minds were probably pretty well made up already over
the TPPA. I disagree. I think a lot of New Zealanders remain undecided on the benefits
of the agreement and were counting on open and honest parliamentary scrutiny
and debate before coming to any firm conclusion. They are entitled to expect
that much.
If National wanted to give the impression it really wasn’t
interested in giving the public a proper say on the TPPA, it couldn’t have done
a better job. It seems to be saying, “We’ll push this through because we can.
We have the numbers. Nyah nyah nyah.” This is the type of third-term arrogance
that gets governments tipped out of office.Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Free speech means putting up with exhibitionists
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, March 15.)
ONE OF the prices we pay for free speech is that we have to put up with people who use it to draw attention to themselves.
I include in this category the two Wanganui students who painted a sign saying Arbeit Macht Frei, or “Work Makes You Free” – the cruelly cynical slogan displayed above the gateway to Auschwitz – over the front door of their rented central city house.
The Wanganui Chronicle reported that the students professed to have white supremacist beliefs. That’s another penalty we must accept for living in a free society: people are entitled to proclaim beliefs that they know others find repugnant. We put up with this because the alternative is a society in which we’re told what to say and think.
The irony is that the Nazi state, which the Wanganui students appear to have some admiration for, was brutal in its suppression of views it didn’t approve of. If we were to operate by the same rules, the offensive sign would have been torn down quick-smart and the two students carted off in an unmarked vehicle and possibly never heard from again.
A necessary but sometimes irritating aspect of democracy is that it allows people the luxury of adopting positions that would not be permitted in the societies they profess to admire, because they would be seen as a threat to those in power.
I also include in this category the academics who use their sinecured positions in New Zealand universities to propagate Marxism. They are free to do so because a democratic state allows them that right.
What’s more, they can do it in the comfortable assurance that their beliefs will never be put to the test. It’s easy to pose as a champion of the proletariat when you live in a fashionable inner-suburban villa, drive a smart little European car, eat at the best cafes and have a nose for a good pinot noir. Probably not so easy if you lived in a crumbling East Berlin-style apartment block, drove a wheezing Trabant (if you’re one of the lucky few) and had to queue for bread.
Even more to the point, it’s easy to call yourself a Marxist in a free country because you know there will be no state security enforcers hammering your door down in the pre-dawn hours. In that respect, our Marxist academics have much more in common with neo-fascists like the Wanganui students than they might suppose.
* * *
A RADIO New Zealand listener emailed Morning Report last week complaining that all prime minister John Key had talked about since the Christchurch earthquake was the economy. Nothing about social welfare.
In fact the government and the social welfare system moved very swiftly to ensure that support was in place for those affected by the quake. But that’s largely beside the point, because there’s a much bigger issue here.
The Morning Report listener’s complaint reflected a widespread misapprehension that government is all about redistributing wealth – hardly surprising, given that this was Labour’s main preoccupation when it was in power.
But a much more important function of government is to create an economic environment in which wealth can be created in the first place. You can’t have a Rolls-Royce social welfare system without a prosperous economy generating revenue and taxes to pay for it.
This is the key fact that so often escapes the Left. They want to redistribute wealth without giving too much thought to the inconvenient business of creating it first. Even worse, they seek to penalise the wealth creators.
This is precisely the reason the Clark years were a tragic missed opportunity. The government was so focused on punishing “rich pricks” – in Michael Cullen’s famous words – that it sucked money out of the productive sector and frittered it on middle-class welfare, interest-free student loans, no-questions-asked dole schemes for anyone who fancied themselves as “artists” (one pop band boasted that it kept them in dope) and other follies.
The crucial issue in election year is whether New Zealand can be freed from the ideological grip of ageing baby-boomer socialists who think the measure of a country’s success is the number of people dependent on the state. Are Mr Key and the National Party up to the challenge? I can’t say I’m brimming with confidence.
* * *
IN MY LAST column I said no one had ever put a tick beside former Green MP Sue Bradford’s name on a ballot paper.
I was wrong; she stood four times in electorate seats. But though she never attracted more than 10 percent support, a flawed electoral system allowed her to push through law changes that were either not wanted by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders (to wit, the anti-smacking bill) or were damaging to the very people she professed to be concerned about (as in the abolition of the youth wage). It’s not hard to see why the extreme Left loves MMP.
ONE OF the prices we pay for free speech is that we have to put up with people who use it to draw attention to themselves.
I include in this category the two Wanganui students who painted a sign saying Arbeit Macht Frei, or “Work Makes You Free” – the cruelly cynical slogan displayed above the gateway to Auschwitz – over the front door of their rented central city house.
The Wanganui Chronicle reported that the students professed to have white supremacist beliefs. That’s another penalty we must accept for living in a free society: people are entitled to proclaim beliefs that they know others find repugnant. We put up with this because the alternative is a society in which we’re told what to say and think.
The irony is that the Nazi state, which the Wanganui students appear to have some admiration for, was brutal in its suppression of views it didn’t approve of. If we were to operate by the same rules, the offensive sign would have been torn down quick-smart and the two students carted off in an unmarked vehicle and possibly never heard from again.
A necessary but sometimes irritating aspect of democracy is that it allows people the luxury of adopting positions that would not be permitted in the societies they profess to admire, because they would be seen as a threat to those in power.
I also include in this category the academics who use their sinecured positions in New Zealand universities to propagate Marxism. They are free to do so because a democratic state allows them that right.
What’s more, they can do it in the comfortable assurance that their beliefs will never be put to the test. It’s easy to pose as a champion of the proletariat when you live in a fashionable inner-suburban villa, drive a smart little European car, eat at the best cafes and have a nose for a good pinot noir. Probably not so easy if you lived in a crumbling East Berlin-style apartment block, drove a wheezing Trabant (if you’re one of the lucky few) and had to queue for bread.
Even more to the point, it’s easy to call yourself a Marxist in a free country because you know there will be no state security enforcers hammering your door down in the pre-dawn hours. In that respect, our Marxist academics have much more in common with neo-fascists like the Wanganui students than they might suppose.
* * *
A RADIO New Zealand listener emailed Morning Report last week complaining that all prime minister John Key had talked about since the Christchurch earthquake was the economy. Nothing about social welfare.
In fact the government and the social welfare system moved very swiftly to ensure that support was in place for those affected by the quake. But that’s largely beside the point, because there’s a much bigger issue here.
The Morning Report listener’s complaint reflected a widespread misapprehension that government is all about redistributing wealth – hardly surprising, given that this was Labour’s main preoccupation when it was in power.
But a much more important function of government is to create an economic environment in which wealth can be created in the first place. You can’t have a Rolls-Royce social welfare system without a prosperous economy generating revenue and taxes to pay for it.
This is the key fact that so often escapes the Left. They want to redistribute wealth without giving too much thought to the inconvenient business of creating it first. Even worse, they seek to penalise the wealth creators.
This is precisely the reason the Clark years were a tragic missed opportunity. The government was so focused on punishing “rich pricks” – in Michael Cullen’s famous words – that it sucked money out of the productive sector and frittered it on middle-class welfare, interest-free student loans, no-questions-asked dole schemes for anyone who fancied themselves as “artists” (one pop band boasted that it kept them in dope) and other follies.
The crucial issue in election year is whether New Zealand can be freed from the ideological grip of ageing baby-boomer socialists who think the measure of a country’s success is the number of people dependent on the state. Are Mr Key and the National Party up to the challenge? I can’t say I’m brimming with confidence.
* * *
IN MY LAST column I said no one had ever put a tick beside former Green MP Sue Bradford’s name on a ballot paper.
I was wrong; she stood four times in electorate seats. But though she never attracted more than 10 percent support, a flawed electoral system allowed her to push through law changes that were either not wanted by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders (to wit, the anti-smacking bill) or were damaging to the very people she professed to be concerned about (as in the abolition of the youth wage). It’s not hard to see why the extreme Left loves MMP.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A reminder of how much we need the media
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, March 1.)
JOURNALISTS cop a lot of flak, some of it justified, but the events of the past week have demonstrated how heavily society relies on the media in times of crisis.
Radio, in particular, comes into its own. Its immediacy, broad reach and accessibility make it invaluable as a means of quickly getting vital information across to an anxious public.
Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB did a sterling job in Christchurch. The flow of information was nonstop, much of it provided by reporters who, like those in the emergency services, had their own gnawing worries about family, homes and friends. They just had to put these aside.
Police and journalists have a generally uneasy relationship, but even the most media-averse police officer grudgingly acknowledges that the media are indispensable at such times, just as they are when the police need help from the public to solve crimes.
But it wasn’t only hard news and practical advice that radio conveyed. In the middle of the night when people were feeling frightened and alone, the voice in the darkness offered a sense of connectedness and a reassuring feeling that they were not totally isolated. Messages of support and encouragement from around the world, read out regularly by radio hosts, must also have boosted morale.
And what of the other media? Television stepped up to the mark too, though I felt sorry for the journalists from TVNZ’s Christchurch newsroom who, having performed admirably in the vital hours immediately after the quake, seemed to get shunted aside by “star” reporters dispatched from Auckland.
One of the refreshing aspects of the earthquake coverage was that journalists emerged as real human beings, emotionally affected by the tragedy like everyone else, but getting on with the professional job of describing it. The sheer enormity of what they were reporting meant that for a few days, the professional mask slipped – and they looked all the better for it.
As for the print media, it was the turn of those old warhorses, the news photographers. The most powerful and telling images of the Christchurch tragedy weren’t on television or radio; they were in the papers.
In future decades when people want to understand the drama, the terror, the heroism and the anguish of Christchurch, they will turn to the newspaper pictures.
* * *
“I CAN’T think of a more effective backbencher than [Sue] Bradford. She got a record three private members’ bills passed into law. My favourites were abolishing the discriminatory youth wage and, of course, the anti-smacking bill.”
So wrote trade unionist Matt McCarten in a recent Herald On Sunday column in which he commented on speculation about the formation of a new hard-Left party involving him and Bradford.
Yep, you have to hand it to Bradford. By making inexperienced young workers unaffordable to many employers, the abolition of the youth wage consigned thousands of teenagers to the dole queue. What a triumph.
And the anti-smacking bill that McCarten regards as such a milestone? It was passed against the wishes of 80 percent of the public, which says everything about the Left’s respect for the will of the people (though it should never be forgotten that National was complicit in this abuse of democracy).
The ultimate insult is that Bradford was able to accomplish all this even though she represented no electorate and rode into Parliament on the back of a party that never commanded more than 7 percent of the vote.
But she was effective, all right. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any MP who did more damage in a shorter time.
* * *
I WAS SO impressed by the following sign in a car park near the entrance to Raglan Harbour that I wrote it down.
It was headed “Bar Crossing Safety (Wainamu Beach Access)” and read as follows:
“The Transit Zone as per the navigation safety bylaw is reserved for the purpose of ensuring safety in crossing the bar at the entrance to the harbour.
“All power driven vessels transiting the area must maintain their course.
“No kite surfers or board sailors operating in this area shall obstruct or impede the path of any transiting vessel.”
I presume this means that boats coming in and out of the harbour shouldn’t change course and that kite surfers and board sailors shouldn’t get in their way. But I had to read the sign several times before I could decode it.
It’s that unfamiliar word “transiting” that causes the reader to stumble. It’s a classic, cumbersome bureaucrat’s word.
No doubt some council functionary with a clipboard felt well pleased with himself at having conveyed an essentially simple message in the most complicated way possible, but how many foreign kite surfers and board sailors had narrow misses because they couldn’t understand the sign is anyone’s guess.
JOURNALISTS cop a lot of flak, some of it justified, but the events of the past week have demonstrated how heavily society relies on the media in times of crisis.
Radio, in particular, comes into its own. Its immediacy, broad reach and accessibility make it invaluable as a means of quickly getting vital information across to an anxious public.
Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB did a sterling job in Christchurch. The flow of information was nonstop, much of it provided by reporters who, like those in the emergency services, had their own gnawing worries about family, homes and friends. They just had to put these aside.
Police and journalists have a generally uneasy relationship, but even the most media-averse police officer grudgingly acknowledges that the media are indispensable at such times, just as they are when the police need help from the public to solve crimes.
But it wasn’t only hard news and practical advice that radio conveyed. In the middle of the night when people were feeling frightened and alone, the voice in the darkness offered a sense of connectedness and a reassuring feeling that they were not totally isolated. Messages of support and encouragement from around the world, read out regularly by radio hosts, must also have boosted morale.
And what of the other media? Television stepped up to the mark too, though I felt sorry for the journalists from TVNZ’s Christchurch newsroom who, having performed admirably in the vital hours immediately after the quake, seemed to get shunted aside by “star” reporters dispatched from Auckland.
One of the refreshing aspects of the earthquake coverage was that journalists emerged as real human beings, emotionally affected by the tragedy like everyone else, but getting on with the professional job of describing it. The sheer enormity of what they were reporting meant that for a few days, the professional mask slipped – and they looked all the better for it.
As for the print media, it was the turn of those old warhorses, the news photographers. The most powerful and telling images of the Christchurch tragedy weren’t on television or radio; they were in the papers.
In future decades when people want to understand the drama, the terror, the heroism and the anguish of Christchurch, they will turn to the newspaper pictures.
* * *
“I CAN’T think of a more effective backbencher than [Sue] Bradford. She got a record three private members’ bills passed into law. My favourites were abolishing the discriminatory youth wage and, of course, the anti-smacking bill.”
So wrote trade unionist Matt McCarten in a recent Herald On Sunday column in which he commented on speculation about the formation of a new hard-Left party involving him and Bradford.
Yep, you have to hand it to Bradford. By making inexperienced young workers unaffordable to many employers, the abolition of the youth wage consigned thousands of teenagers to the dole queue. What a triumph.
And the anti-smacking bill that McCarten regards as such a milestone? It was passed against the wishes of 80 percent of the public, which says everything about the Left’s respect for the will of the people (though it should never be forgotten that National was complicit in this abuse of democracy).
The ultimate insult is that Bradford was able to accomplish all this even though she represented no electorate and rode into Parliament on the back of a party that never commanded more than 7 percent of the vote.
But she was effective, all right. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any MP who did more damage in a shorter time.
* * *
I WAS SO impressed by the following sign in a car park near the entrance to Raglan Harbour that I wrote it down.
It was headed “Bar Crossing Safety (Wainamu Beach Access)” and read as follows:
“The Transit Zone as per the navigation safety bylaw is reserved for the purpose of ensuring safety in crossing the bar at the entrance to the harbour.
“All power driven vessels transiting the area must maintain their course.
“No kite surfers or board sailors operating in this area shall obstruct or impede the path of any transiting vessel.”
I presume this means that boats coming in and out of the harbour shouldn’t change course and that kite surfers and board sailors shouldn’t get in their way. But I had to read the sign several times before I could decode it.
It’s that unfamiliar word “transiting” that causes the reader to stumble. It’s a classic, cumbersome bureaucrat’s word.
No doubt some council functionary with a clipboard felt well pleased with himself at having conveyed an essentially simple message in the most complicated way possible, but how many foreign kite surfers and board sailors had narrow misses because they couldn’t understand the sign is anyone’s guess.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Losing 40-nil and blaming the ref
A few thoughts about the provisional result of the anti-smacking referendum ...
Sue Bradford says it’s inconclusive.
No it’s not. A “no” vote from 87.6 per cent of respondents, in a poll that 54 percent of enrolled voters participated in, is about as a conclusive as you can get. That level of participation is considerably higher than the number of voters who took part in last year’s local government elections. It’s probably a bigger “no” vote than the backers of the referendum dared hope for.
Bradford is reported as saying: “When you add the yes vote and the spoilt vote to the number of voters who didn’t vote at all the figures are about even.’’ But she can indulge in mathematical contortions until the cows come home. It won’t alter the fact that the result represents an overwhelming rejection of her amendment to Section 59 the Crimes Act.
The sanctimonious coalition of Wellington-based organisations that mounted a concerted propaganda campaign against the referendum is having trouble accepting the result too. They’re still whingeing about the wording and trying to discredit the referendum by suggesting people didn’t understand the question.
This is like a rugby team being thrashed 40-nil and blaming the ref. It won’t wash.
The words “sore losers” keep reverberating. The backers of the “yes” vote – Bradford, Barnardos, the Parents Centre and others – would be well advised to pull their heads in, show some humility and gracefully accept that they lost. They might also show a bit of respect for the democratic process and perhaps ask themselves how they managed to get so far out of step with the communities they ostensibly serve.
Bradford claims people who wanted to vote “yes” voted “no” because they were confused, but she doesn’t produce any evidence. Like many left-wing politicians who know what’s best for everyone else, she inadvertently displays a very low regard for the intelligence of her fellow citizens - to say nothing of her apparent lack of respect for public opinion.
Claiming the referendum question wasn’t understood, after all the debate that has raged for the past few months, is an insult to voters. Few issues have been thrashed out more thoroughly. The news media, while displaying a marked bias in favour of the “yes” vote, did exactly what the media in liberal democracies are supposed to do – namely, provide a forum in which the protagonists could argue their cases. It was a textbook case of the “marketplace of ideas” – a concept that is anathema to the neo-Marxist academics who furtively read this blog – in action.
One last point. I heard a talkback host, clearly disgruntled with the referendum result, suggesting that religiously motivated “no” vote proponents had hyped up the smacking issue to the point where it seemed the very future of Christian civilisation was at stake.
Well, it’s possible that some Bible-inspired advocates of the right to smack defined the issue in those terms, but I don’t think ordinary New Zealanders were remotely influenced by extremist positions. New Zealand, after all, is one of the most secular societies in the world, with a marked aversion to theocratic tendencies.
No, the issue was much simpler than that. Many of those who voted “no” wouldn’t have been seeking the legal entitlement to physically chastise their own children (many, like me, wouldn’t have children of smackable age), and they certainly wouldn’t have seen it in terms of a God-given right. It’s my guess that many of the “no” voters would have felt distinctly uncomfortable about being in the company of religious fundamentalists, and would have winced – as I did – at some of the ill-chosen cases highlighted as examples of supposedly “good” parents being punished under the new law (like the moron who repeatedly pushed his small son to the ground because he refused to play rugby). But they voted “no” nonetheless, because they saw the referendum as a litmus test of the extent to which an increasingly intrusive state should be allowed to trespass in areas historically regarded as the domain of the family and the individual.
Chris Trotter, in a perceptive and eloquent column in the Dominion Post yesterday, saw this perfectly clearly. Sue Bradford should read it.
Sue Bradford says it’s inconclusive.
No it’s not. A “no” vote from 87.6 per cent of respondents, in a poll that 54 percent of enrolled voters participated in, is about as a conclusive as you can get. That level of participation is considerably higher than the number of voters who took part in last year’s local government elections. It’s probably a bigger “no” vote than the backers of the referendum dared hope for.
Bradford is reported as saying: “When you add the yes vote and the spoilt vote to the number of voters who didn’t vote at all the figures are about even.’’ But she can indulge in mathematical contortions until the cows come home. It won’t alter the fact that the result represents an overwhelming rejection of her amendment to Section 59 the Crimes Act.
The sanctimonious coalition of Wellington-based organisations that mounted a concerted propaganda campaign against the referendum is having trouble accepting the result too. They’re still whingeing about the wording and trying to discredit the referendum by suggesting people didn’t understand the question.
This is like a rugby team being thrashed 40-nil and blaming the ref. It won’t wash.
The words “sore losers” keep reverberating. The backers of the “yes” vote – Bradford, Barnardos, the Parents Centre and others – would be well advised to pull their heads in, show some humility and gracefully accept that they lost. They might also show a bit of respect for the democratic process and perhaps ask themselves how they managed to get so far out of step with the communities they ostensibly serve.
Bradford claims people who wanted to vote “yes” voted “no” because they were confused, but she doesn’t produce any evidence. Like many left-wing politicians who know what’s best for everyone else, she inadvertently displays a very low regard for the intelligence of her fellow citizens - to say nothing of her apparent lack of respect for public opinion.
Claiming the referendum question wasn’t understood, after all the debate that has raged for the past few months, is an insult to voters. Few issues have been thrashed out more thoroughly. The news media, while displaying a marked bias in favour of the “yes” vote, did exactly what the media in liberal democracies are supposed to do – namely, provide a forum in which the protagonists could argue their cases. It was a textbook case of the “marketplace of ideas” – a concept that is anathema to the neo-Marxist academics who furtively read this blog – in action.
One last point. I heard a talkback host, clearly disgruntled with the referendum result, suggesting that religiously motivated “no” vote proponents had hyped up the smacking issue to the point where it seemed the very future of Christian civilisation was at stake.
Well, it’s possible that some Bible-inspired advocates of the right to smack defined the issue in those terms, but I don’t think ordinary New Zealanders were remotely influenced by extremist positions. New Zealand, after all, is one of the most secular societies in the world, with a marked aversion to theocratic tendencies.
No, the issue was much simpler than that. Many of those who voted “no” wouldn’t have been seeking the legal entitlement to physically chastise their own children (many, like me, wouldn’t have children of smackable age), and they certainly wouldn’t have seen it in terms of a God-given right. It’s my guess that many of the “no” voters would have felt distinctly uncomfortable about being in the company of religious fundamentalists, and would have winced – as I did – at some of the ill-chosen cases highlighted as examples of supposedly “good” parents being punished under the new law (like the moron who repeatedly pushed his small son to the ground because he refused to play rugby). But they voted “no” nonetheless, because they saw the referendum as a litmus test of the extent to which an increasingly intrusive state should be allowed to trespass in areas historically regarded as the domain of the family and the individual.
Chris Trotter, in a perceptive and eloquent column in the Dominion Post yesterday, saw this perfectly clearly. Sue Bradford should read it.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Democracy would be fine if it wasn't for the voters
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, June 23.)
UNTIL last week, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the child smacking referendum had turned out to be a bit of a non-event. Nanny State issues lost much of their potency with the change of government. The political mood of the country has changed and people have moved on.
All of that remains true. Yet the politicians, in trying to talk down the referendum, may have cack-handedly succeeded in rarking up the public all over again.
They try to muddy the water by suggesting the referendum question is confusing and ambiguous (it’s not, though it could have been more elegantly worded), and they huff and puff about the referendum being a waste of $9 million. This conveniently overlooks the fact that it wouldn’t have been necessary if Parliament had heeded public opinion about the Bradford Bill in the first place.
Then Sue Bradford wades back into the debate and deftly applies a match to the touchpaper by proposing another Bill that would give an unelected parliamentary official the right to determine what, if any, wording would be acceptable in future referendum questions.
This is rich. Referendums give the public their only opportunity to have a say between elections. Of course it’s only a token opportunity, because Parliament can – and routinely does – ignore the results.
But even this minimal right is too much for Ms Bradford – and, it seems, for most of her parliamentary colleagues, including prime minister John Key. An already impotent public is likely to be further emasculated by being denied the right to choose the wording of referendum questions – all on the spurious basis that the smacking referendum is “confusing” and “ambiguous”, when most New Zealanders have no difficulty grasping what the question means.
What makes it richer is that Ms Bradford is a member of a party that likes to take the moral high ground and makes a great show of conducting its affairs more democratically than the major parties.
And what makes it richer still is that Ms Bradford herself was put into Parliament via the party list, with no direct mandate from the voters whose rights she now seeks to curtail. The irony of this seems completely lost on her.
Parliament’s response to the referendum reinforces the impression that politicians pay lip service to democracy at election time but are not terribly interested in hearing from the public in between. Worse still, it suggests they fear and distrust public opinion.
Basil Fawlty reckoned running a hotel would be a breeze if it weren’t for the guests. It seems democracy would be fine too, if only the people could be kept well out of it.
* * *
WELL, fancy that – a film called Antichrist, featuring graphic scenes of genital mutilation, has been chosen as the closing night highlight of the NZ International Film Festival.
Of course it wouldn’t have been chosen for its shock value. No, it will be a film that makes a profound statement about the human condition. They all do.
The Danish director, Lars von Trier, is reported as saying the film provided him with therapy after a two-year bout of depression. It obviously worked, because at the recent Cannes Film Festival he proclaimed himself the greatest director in the world.
Let me stick my neck out and predict that the film will attract the usual superlatives. It will be hailed as enigmatic and a great work of art.
It is almost axiomatic in the arts world that if a painting, film or book is enigmatic it must be good. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that it might simply be the product of a tortured, disturbed mind.
* * *
I WAS INTRIGUED by the media’s use of the euphemistic term “romantic favours” to describe what disgraced politician Richard Worth wanted from the women who were the subjects of his supposedly unsolicited attention.
To me the word “romantic” implies an equal two-way relationship, willingly entered into by both parties. Assuming that what has been reported is correct, “romantic favour” is almost oxymoronic in the context of the Worth affair, because there is very little that is romantic about a situation in which a man puts pressure on a clearly reluctant (or so we assume) woman.
All of which reminds me of another oddly coy euphemism that has taken root. Why the media insist on saying someone slept with someone, when what’s really meant is that they had sex, is a mystery. It’s a phrase that dates back to a prudish time when proper people couldn’t bring themselves to mention sex explicitly.
A couple of years ago I read that former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, famously the most carnally active member of that debauched rock band, claimed to have slept with 265 women in three months.
Good grief. They must have been short naps. He would have had to set the alarm clock to go off in 10 minutes so he could move on to the next one.
UNTIL last week, it wouldn’t have surprised me if the child smacking referendum had turned out to be a bit of a non-event. Nanny State issues lost much of their potency with the change of government. The political mood of the country has changed and people have moved on.
All of that remains true. Yet the politicians, in trying to talk down the referendum, may have cack-handedly succeeded in rarking up the public all over again.
They try to muddy the water by suggesting the referendum question is confusing and ambiguous (it’s not, though it could have been more elegantly worded), and they huff and puff about the referendum being a waste of $9 million. This conveniently overlooks the fact that it wouldn’t have been necessary if Parliament had heeded public opinion about the Bradford Bill in the first place.
Then Sue Bradford wades back into the debate and deftly applies a match to the touchpaper by proposing another Bill that would give an unelected parliamentary official the right to determine what, if any, wording would be acceptable in future referendum questions.
This is rich. Referendums give the public their only opportunity to have a say between elections. Of course it’s only a token opportunity, because Parliament can – and routinely does – ignore the results.
But even this minimal right is too much for Ms Bradford – and, it seems, for most of her parliamentary colleagues, including prime minister John Key. An already impotent public is likely to be further emasculated by being denied the right to choose the wording of referendum questions – all on the spurious basis that the smacking referendum is “confusing” and “ambiguous”, when most New Zealanders have no difficulty grasping what the question means.
What makes it richer is that Ms Bradford is a member of a party that likes to take the moral high ground and makes a great show of conducting its affairs more democratically than the major parties.
And what makes it richer still is that Ms Bradford herself was put into Parliament via the party list, with no direct mandate from the voters whose rights she now seeks to curtail. The irony of this seems completely lost on her.
Parliament’s response to the referendum reinforces the impression that politicians pay lip service to democracy at election time but are not terribly interested in hearing from the public in between. Worse still, it suggests they fear and distrust public opinion.
Basil Fawlty reckoned running a hotel would be a breeze if it weren’t for the guests. It seems democracy would be fine too, if only the people could be kept well out of it.
* * *
WELL, fancy that – a film called Antichrist, featuring graphic scenes of genital mutilation, has been chosen as the closing night highlight of the NZ International Film Festival.
Of course it wouldn’t have been chosen for its shock value. No, it will be a film that makes a profound statement about the human condition. They all do.
The Danish director, Lars von Trier, is reported as saying the film provided him with therapy after a two-year bout of depression. It obviously worked, because at the recent Cannes Film Festival he proclaimed himself the greatest director in the world.
Let me stick my neck out and predict that the film will attract the usual superlatives. It will be hailed as enigmatic and a great work of art.
It is almost axiomatic in the arts world that if a painting, film or book is enigmatic it must be good. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that it might simply be the product of a tortured, disturbed mind.
* * *
I WAS INTRIGUED by the media’s use of the euphemistic term “romantic favours” to describe what disgraced politician Richard Worth wanted from the women who were the subjects of his supposedly unsolicited attention.
To me the word “romantic” implies an equal two-way relationship, willingly entered into by both parties. Assuming that what has been reported is correct, “romantic favour” is almost oxymoronic in the context of the Worth affair, because there is very little that is romantic about a situation in which a man puts pressure on a clearly reluctant (or so we assume) woman.
All of which reminds me of another oddly coy euphemism that has taken root. Why the media insist on saying someone slept with someone, when what’s really meant is that they had sex, is a mystery. It’s a phrase that dates back to a prudish time when proper people couldn’t bring themselves to mention sex explicitly.
A couple of years ago I read that former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, famously the most carnally active member of that debauched rock band, claimed to have slept with 265 women in three months.
Good grief. They must have been short naps. He would have had to set the alarm clock to go off in 10 minutes so he could move on to the next one.
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