David Seymour, the leader of ACT has channeled Donald Trump by responding to the massacre in Orlando by suggesting that all refugees coming into NZ be required to sign a “New Zealand Values Statement”.
Apart from the blatant dog whistling, which follows Winston Peter’s own tune he kicked off last week, Seymour’s idiotic ‘NZ Values Statement’ is pure double;e standard hypocrisy.
With sky rocketing suicide stats and incarceration rates, appalling domestic violence, 40 000 homeless, 80 000 hungry kids each day, soaring poverty and inequality – what ‘values’ is David Seymour actually talking about?
ACT should stick to what they are good at – lying about Charter Schools…
The hypocrisy aside – the ultimate danger of making this a culture war is that it convinces us that Muslims are somehow incompatible with our modern society and thus the only response is eradication. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset. Radical Islam is a response to the Wests 20th Century invasion and occupation of much of the Middle East. Our need to prop up violent authoritarian regimes to gain access to oil means we are loathed by many forced to live under that yoke and Radical Islam provides resistance.
If we want to stop monsters attacking us, perhaps we should stop funding, training and enabling those monsters in the first place.
We refuse to concede that the terrorism that occasionally erupts within our culture is any blowback from our foreign policies, it’s far easier to claim those hurting us are incompatible with our culture.
Radical Islam is to Muslims what the KKK are to Christians. To judge an entire religion on it’s most extreme fringes is adolescent and beneath the level such debate requires to seek solutions.
In short, ACT, a political party of corrupt, racist ex-politicians who have played to the worst most selfish angels of our nature should just shut the fuck up, their petty bigotry is not needed in this debate.
That goes double to NZ First’s suggestion new migrants should salute the flag.
Two things. First, how does wee davy even get air time on these issues? Is he relevant in any way?
Second, what values does he have in mind? The set of values that say, greed is good, its your own fault if you are poor/unemployed/homeless, beneficiaries are losers, the rich deserve more, the market is sacred? Who decides what are nz values? ACT? The mind boggles.
Seymour did get a say on the recent flag issue, but coqued it up.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/video-david-seymours-french-cock-up-2015091517#axzz4Bcmh4UD3
Well said bigots and hypocrites and everything for Act has a price on it. Seymour needs to think about how he actually got into parliament how many votes did he actually get, bugger all actually. He has far too much to say.
David Seymour is a paper tiger that is all, Dad would (if alive) said these clowns are “stool Pigeons” a term he used while fighting in the 1951 Auckland Wharf Strike!
This Government must go!!!!!
I couldn’t believe how naïve and generally daft this guy is about so many things – immigration the most recent of them.
One moment he is commiserating about the horrible conditions refugees previously lived through and the next moment he wants them to sign a paper saying they will be model citizens and do everything that they are told to (by whom he doesn’t say but my bet is that he means everyone in general).
You know Mr Seymour, these people have lived through more war in their lives than you would ever realize in your worst dreams.
The last thing on their minds when they get to New Zealand is to cause any trouble or commit any offence. They are just so grateful to be in a peaceful society that they are hardly going to start trying to plant bombs or do mass shootings in their country of deliverance. In my experience they also try hard to integrate into New Zealand society in many ways, and it isn’t easy for them but they try hard. The welcome they get from Kiwis is a great incentive for them
Criminal behaviour by refugee immigrants is not a problem, Mr Seymour. The problem is your Victorian politics and basic ignorance.
Chances we all have responses, whether it is to race, culture, crime, sexual orientation, political alignment or musical preference of which we are not proud. It is the responsibility of our higher selves to bring a civilized appraisal to those responses and to control and, hopefully, ultimately transform them.
To find such knee-jerk reactions in yourself is disappointing but forgivable – we are human, after all. However to give in to those impulses is to let yourself down, while to appeal to such impulses in others and, as is often the case in politics, to do so knowingly for political advantage, is not only shameful but unforgivable.
David Seymour should be ashamed of himself, while dog-whistler-in-chief, John Key, with his minimalist refugee proposal, playing straight to his Nimby supporters, is no better.
Seymour’s requirement for immigrants to sign a “New Zealand Values Statement” is about as pointless as Seymour’s party, Act.
The man is an idiot.
Completely agree up until ‘The man” part.
As the saying goes,
“he is just a boy in a man’s pair of underpants.”
I agree signing a piece of paper is pretty useless, but the intent of getting immigrants to adopt more liberal values is a decent one. The Orlando shooter though born in the U.S seems to have got his ‘values’ of extreme homophobia from his Muslim father and that font of liberal western values, ISIS.
No I can’t agree with that. You have no idea what motivated him. You are now making stuff up.
Armchairwarrior, and you know that, how?? Do you have access to sources we are not privy to? Maybe you should share your info with the FBI.
As for ” getting immigrants to adopt more liberal values is a decent one”, what liberal values?? Act “liberal” values? Green/Mana socially liberal policies?
Maybe you’d like a Purity Test thrown in as well, a-la Nazi-style?
I don’t know which is worse, ISIS trying to damage our way of life, or you neo-conservatives.
“agree signing a piece of paper is pretty useless, but the intent of getting immigrants to adopt more liberal values is a decent one.”
Whose “values” are tou referring to, Armchair? Neo-liberal? Socialist? Christian? Judaic? Muslim?
I doubt my values are the same as yours so would you care to sign a piece of paper agreeing to my values? Yes? No?
Well part of New Zealand values are that Woman should be allowed to wear what they want, be allowed to get jobs, be allowed to drive, be allowed to be independent and not be a vassal of their husbands.
Some of these values are completely contrary to those practised by strict Muslims immigrants who subjugate their woman and demean and control them.
And in my opinion any male immigrant who holds those values and attitudes towards Women should not be allowed in the country period.
So there should be some form of vetting to ensure that we aren’t letting in men with those values, which we know are wide spread in Muslim countries.
When did you become so staunchly feminist, Jollo? Well, good for you.
You could start by resiling from the comments you made in February where you justified brutalising a female protester at an anti-TPPA march: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/02/04/breaking-after-massive-show-of-force-john-key-too-frightened-to-go-to-waitangi-day/#comment-323958
You didn’t address his actual point whatsoever with that reply because… you realise he’s right? If Islam culture is so “tolerant” then I don’t quite understand how Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc are a thing with their treatment of women, gays, rape, other religions etc. Try living in one of those countries for just one year, and then come back to me about how “tolerant” many (not all) of these are to Western norms. Vetting attitudes of would-be immigrants is precisely the right way to approach this issue.
Actually, Nitrium, I think the pointy Frank was making is Jollo’s double standards. Seems fairly obvious to me.
I remember Tania Billingsley (sp?) being EXCORIATED by right wingers like Jollo, especially after Key refused to apologise for MFAT’s stuff-up.
The forums at Kiwiblog, Whaleoil, were none too supportive of women’s rights at the time.
So you are pretty much conceding that our laws are unenforceable and that we can only let in those whose characters we approve of because we are so powerless to police our communities? Or are you saying that no one is capable of learning new ways of doing things and that everyone is stuck steadfast to their way of life? If that is so, then please inform us all when exactly those traits appear and become cemented into their being. And what say you about those born in NZ who practice the exact ideals that you would reject others for having? Are they entitled to live in NZ under your character-based citizenship requirements? If they are entitled to stay, please give a better reason than the absolutely non-character trait of having been born here.
Refugees and immigrants are two very different things. I agree whole-heartedly about what you have said if we were speaking about immigration, but refugees are a whole other story, and we will join the list of heartless cuntries[sic] if we refuse to take in more. Isnt one of our national stories that we take pride in about how willing New Zealanders are always willing to do more than their fair share when it comes to global affairs?
Oh the irony of Frank attacking the messenger as opposed to the message.
Instead of doing that Frank, just answer this simple question Frank, do you approve of the way Muslim women are treated in Muslim countries?
And yes I do personally know a number of Muslim women here who aren’t permitted to work by their husbands and have to wear full hijab when out in public. They are also treated as objects and subject to domestic violence that they conditioned by their culture to treat as normal behavior.
” do you approve of the way Muslim women are treated in Muslim countries?”
Hey Jollo, did you ever come out in support of Tania Billingsley, when the Nats and right-wing blogs dumped on her? What about Amanda Bailey after Key assaulted her over a period of months by pulling her hair repeatedly?
Sorry, I just can’t recall what your position was on those assaults?
By subjugation of women would you also include the shocking rate of domestic violence that happens in New Zealand? Nothing to do with immigrants, it happens amongst New Zealand citizens.
It belies our smug beliefs that we are a liberal and enlightened country.
Hmm New Zealand values – which ones – letting large amounts of vulnerable people live in cars as a punishment for being poor, teaching young men that getting girls under the age of consent drunk and raping them is just “boys will be boys” and our police force will not prosecute, that if your work place is unsafe you need to suck it up, if your workplace is really unsafe your boss is likely to get a knighthood, that domestic abuse is ok as long as it is done in the privacy of your home, that if you are not white you will have a much worse result with the police and the justice system.
1000% Couldn’t have said it better LUCY. Brilliant>
Plus 2000% to that.
John Key pulled women’s ponytails after being asked not to, then threw the fondled female under the Glucima bus?
‘Dirty Politics’ raising its ugly head again with John Key’s right-hand woman Paula Bennett, doing a kneecap job on the Te Puia Marae’s chair, Hurimoana Dennis, telling her staffer to leak to reporters and media.
Paula Bennett, just as Despicable as Despicable Key. Dirty Politics Part 2. Fix poverty, don’t smear those trying to do something about it National, ACT, United Future and Maori Party.
So how does does Paula Bennett apologize to the Maori Party now? Or does the Maori Party agree with what Despicable Bennet did?
Well said Winnie. Fondling woman by the head of our state, and bashing female beneficiaries by giving out personal information to the media.
Are these the “values” that Seymour wants refugees to sign up too?
This NZ values crap brings to mind a series of videos I watched on http://www.curiositystream.com about the nazi’s annihilation of the jews in europe during the second world war . Hitler profess german values and all that crap and look where that landed up with 6 million exterminated and over 60 million dead most of them civilans of the conquered countries.
I always wondered where the left wing nutters hung out. Now I know on Macskasy’s blog
“Truth”, you’re on the wrong blog. Whaleoil is that-a-way —->
By the way, judging by your insults, I gather that Frank has you beaten when it comes to debating ideas?
Mind you, that’s not difficult for you, is it?
[…] One can’t throw up in contempt upon David Seymour’s absurd NZ values statement as a resp… without casting a weary eye over Winston’s recent antics. […]
I believe ACT is on the right-track. The 20-20-20% BGSTP tax system needs to be promoted more. But the left-wing media will not run with it.
20% Business tax will inject billions into the economy.
20% GST will make sure the rich and investors pay their way.
20% Personal tax will put more money in taxpayers’ pockets.
Party vote ACT will make sure that everyone pays the right tax.
Be wary of coalition partners and political lackeys (pundits) who will rubbish our policies. New Zealand has moved too far to the left, more towards the nanny state. Time for a move to the right. ACT now, vote ACT for your party vote.
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