Well, John Key has replied to the Great Smacking Referendum. He's been on every TV news programme this week, promising to "review the working of the law" (not the law itself, you'll note) and make sure that parents aren't being prosecuted for minor slaps delivered to their children. We should all be reassured, he reassures us, that the law will not be allowed to run amok.
Clearly, he's hoping to ride the whole thing out until we all get bored. I do hope he doesn't get away with it.
The referendum question, for all its many faults, was very clear on one thing: this action, whatever it is, "should [not] be a criminal offence". It's not just about being prosecuted: it's about being a criminal.
On my first visit here, in 2001, I drove most of the length of the North Island, from Auckland to Wellington. It's a long drive, involving great stretches of open road with few other cars in sight, where the speed limit is 100 km/h (a shade over 60mph). The road is single-carriageway, but it's reasonably straight and well maintained, and I fully expected to see people barrelling along it at 120 km/h or more; but I didn't.
Not once.
Kiwis, I concluded, tend to respect the speed limit even when there's no obvious reason for it.
That's not a universal trait by any means - we've got our share of lunatic petrol-heads here in Auckland, and every other major town as far as I can tell - but it's a lot more common here than it is in some places I've driven.
And so it is with smacking. What the prime minister wants parents to swallow is: "You will be criminals, but we promise not to prosecute you.".
The pro-smackers, however, are having none of this. And they're right.
For a government to criminalise a large segment of its population is bad enough. To declare that it will neither enforce nor repeal a law that it helped to put in place is truly disgusting.
As usual, I voted with the minority in the referendum. But I agree with the majority on this. It's not about keeping parents out of jail, and it's not about protecting kids - no law can do that, what we need is properly resourced education and social services. No, it's about honesty. Writing a law with no intention to enforce it - is dishonest.
And it's not OK.
Showing posts with label john key. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john key. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Smack my botch-up
Good news on the referendum front: apparently, the 'No' campaign - that is to say, the people who organised and pressed for the damn' thing in the first place - were sponsored by "Focus on the Family", the notorious American pressure group founded by certifiable idiot James Dobson. Maybe that explains why the question was so... professional.
That's good news because it means Dobson's money, to the tune of an alleged $1 million, was paid to people in New Zealand, to finance their efforts to gather signatures for the referendum. I'm not clear what they did with it - there was no advertising that I noticed - but whatever, the point remains that it's American money flowing into the country. Which I guess means that "politics" is now an actual export, in the economic sense of the term.
Granted, the referendum itself cost us taxpayers $9 million. But that's money that was spent within the country - mostly for printing forms, advertising, and postage. So that's a total of $10 million injected into the economy, for a cost of only $9 million added to the public debt.
Yay.
And it's even better news for Americans, because Dobson now has NZ$1 million less to spend on corrupting their politicians. Which can only make for a better country.
The result was much as predicted. 47% of New Zealanders voted "No", 6% voted "Yes", and 46% didn't even bother. That's significant, because the last of these referendum thingies attracted a turnout well above 80%. Also, an impressive 10,000 people took the time to spoil their ballot before sending it back. Since the ballot itself was pretty hard to mistake - two boxes, "Yes" or "No" - it's reasonable to assume that they did this on purpose.
Now: although there's a lot to resent here - $3 of my taxes to pay for this fiasco, the blatant dishonesty of the question and the slick "No" campaign, foreigners actively meddling in my country's politics - I'd have to concede that some good has come from it. Most notably, it's highlighted the earlier dishonesty of John Key's compromise on the smacking bill first time around: "It will be illegal, but you won't be prosecuted for it". Such a cowardly, treacherous "compromise" deserved to be met with opposition. And now it has been.
I only wish one side was willing to stand on some kind of "principle". In this instance, two wrongs might end up making a right, but at what cost? The political system has been debased, and now everyone has seen that the way to get things done is to lie, manipulate, cheat and spend other people's money.
That's not really a lesson I wanted people in this country to learn.
That's good news because it means Dobson's money, to the tune of an alleged $1 million, was paid to people in New Zealand, to finance their efforts to gather signatures for the referendum. I'm not clear what they did with it - there was no advertising that I noticed - but whatever, the point remains that it's American money flowing into the country. Which I guess means that "politics" is now an actual export, in the economic sense of the term.
Granted, the referendum itself cost us taxpayers $9 million. But that's money that was spent within the country - mostly for printing forms, advertising, and postage. So that's a total of $10 million injected into the economy, for a cost of only $9 million added to the public debt.
Yay.
And it's even better news for Americans, because Dobson now has NZ$1 million less to spend on corrupting their politicians. Which can only make for a better country.
The result was much as predicted. 47% of New Zealanders voted "No", 6% voted "Yes", and 46% didn't even bother. That's significant, because the last of these referendum thingies attracted a turnout well above 80%. Also, an impressive 10,000 people took the time to spoil their ballot before sending it back. Since the ballot itself was pretty hard to mistake - two boxes, "Yes" or "No" - it's reasonable to assume that they did this on purpose.
Now: although there's a lot to resent here - $3 of my taxes to pay for this fiasco, the blatant dishonesty of the question and the slick "No" campaign, foreigners actively meddling in my country's politics - I'd have to concede that some good has come from it. Most notably, it's highlighted the earlier dishonesty of John Key's compromise on the smacking bill first time around: "It will be illegal, but you won't be prosecuted for it". Such a cowardly, treacherous "compromise" deserved to be met with opposition. And now it has been.
I only wish one side was willing to stand on some kind of "principle". In this instance, two wrongs might end up making a right, but at what cost? The political system has been debased, and now everyone has seen that the way to get things done is to lie, manipulate, cheat and spend other people's money.
That's not really a lesson I wanted people in this country to learn.
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