Abortion rights, Maori Wards and Cannabis – why can’t NZ show any bloody courage?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
20
9

Heartbreaking image of Irish woman flying home to vote in abortion referendum.

In the wake of Ireland’s historic and righteous abortion reform, NZ is once again looking like the book burner in a library – if Ireland can find the courage, why can’t NZ update its ridiculous laws on abortion?

That woman have to leap through bullshit hoops to pretend they are mentally ill to receive a medical procedure is demeaning to our collective intelligence.

Which leads to why on earth we can’t take a similar stance on legalising cannabis as overseas jurisdictions have done? That we are behind the home of the war on drugs,  the United States of Amerika, is absurd.

We like to believe we are progressive but look at the recent Māori Ward vote fiasco. The only people who should have been asked if they wanted a Māori seat on all local councils should have been Māori!

Time and time and time again we see local councils engaging in activity which rides rough shot over local Iwi concerns, reserving a place at the decision making table for the indigenous people of your country to have their say is kinda essential when you look at this image…

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…Māori lost 95% of their land in less than a century, a measly one seat position to voice local Iwi concerns is the least we can fucking do!

Why is it so hard in this country to provide leadership for things that actually matter?

Is it because our Public Broadcasters are focused on crime porn, home renovation porn, food porn and  Married at first fucking sight? Is it the utter lack of adult discourse on issues that truly matter that makes us such a nation of sleepy hobbits?

Is it the negative egalitarianism which creates a, ‘oh you think you’re smarter than me’ culture cringe?

Is it the inane millennial culture of policing micro aggressions that leaves us in a social media void of perpetual outrage over shit that doesn’t actually matter meaning there is zero energy to focus on the things that do?

Voting Jacinda into power wasn’t enough folks, there are serious on going issues regarding the neoliberal hegemony that can’t be and won’t be solved by liking a retweet.

Our intellectually shallow new Government is floundering and the National voting population are still sulking and concocting childish games.

Our institutions are groaning under the weight of failure our 30 year neoliberal experiment is reaping at a time when economic collapse, geopolitical war and catastrophic climate change loom like icebergs to our Titanic.

Will somebody please stand the fuck up and lead!

 

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20 COMMENTS

    • Yes Martyn correctly said,

      We need to support maori rights always, as we are partners for life not for just one day.

  3. It baffles me why you have not had the broadness of mind to blog about what’s recently happened in Italian politics. Italy is the most courageous & radical nation on the planet today, as when it comes too challenging the globalisation establishment, it’s really showing some backbone. No small feat for the third largest economy in Europe. The greedy ECB (European bank) string pullers will be tearing their hair out. I’m sure they’re hard at work nutting out a master plan to bring the new Italian government to it’s knees.

    • THE ITALIAN PRESIDENT THWARTS THE WILL OF PEOPLE. Look’s like the IMF & ECB have scuttled the new anti-establishment Italian government before it’s even got off the ground. The Italian president is obviously in the big bankers pockets. What a bugger, the shyster bankers always win!!

  6. New Zeeland is still subordinate to British conservatism. Until cannabis laws change in the UK, expect no progress here.

  7. Econimic collapse is coming. the next sharemarket crash will bring the whole banking system down and crash the derivatives market which pretty much does the same. the MSM like to pretend nothing is happening. But when you look deeper than there analysis. you can see it like a train in the distance. Be prepared people.

  8. Did anyone hear Simon Bridges on this issue on “Morning report” this morning? What a total mealy-mouthed waste of space, the guy couldn’t answer a simple question put to him. Anyone expecting leadership from that spineless jellyfish will be waiting an awful long time!!!

    No wonder he’s Mr Nine Percent.

  9. Ironic the historical revisionism by some males ( who never in the past supported NZ womens rights to abortion) holding the recent referendum in Catholic Ireland as a lesson for NZ women

    …I dont think so…there is no equivalence

    Thanks to NZ women activists years ago, NZ women have not had to go to Australia for abortions for years ( about 45 years)

    …whereas Irish women were fighting against some of the most restrictive contraceptive and abortion laws in the world until this referendum … and had to make a trip to England for abortion

    NZ women are never denied abortions !… (not a single NZ woman has been denied an abortion in the last year, if I heard the Abortion spokeswoman on RNZ correctly)

    …ok so the NZ law is not perfect…. a NZ woman (who has not availed herself of medication for abortion from the local chemist or online)… may have to ‘lie’ to two doctors that her mental health would be impaired if she would be forced to have a pregnancy and a child she did not want …but is this really a lie?!….

    …and what NZ woman determined on an abortion would not lie to doctors with pleasure?!..also many certifying NZ doctors would encourage a woman who wanted a termination to use mental health as a legitimate ‘lie’…in fact it is not a lie….an unwanted pregnancy IS a mental health issue

    … agreed this NZ abortion law has to change ….(it is a woman’s right to have an abortion and she should not have to go through this charade)

    …but the REAL LIE is trying to create an equivalence with NZ abortion law and the situation which has faced Irish women for years…and to hold up the oppression of Irish women to NZ women as an example

    … this is an insult to the NZ women and girls who fought long and hard for contraception and abortion rights for NZ women more than 40 years ago …it is also revisionism

    (…and one day the revisionism and real crimes against humanity — against the women and children in Catholic Ireland –will be honestly exposed)

  10. sometimes its the right form of leadership to step back and leave the people free to act responsibly. If we do – affirm us, if not then leadership may be needed.
    As for cannabis – I’ve seen what it does to people’s mental health and physical dependency. Doesn’t a mature civilised society need to ask why on earth it is so disillusioned with life that it wants to escape into a hazardous drug-fuelled temporary nirvana that renders them useless in an emergency, dangerous behind a wheel, a right pain to work with and facing all the hazards of smoke on the lungs, deleterious effects on the heart, arteries and the throat?

  11. It seems to me that ‘courage’ and ‘politics’ are two words in NZ that CAN’T get together!

  12. Now remember the US is very different to us politically – cannabis is still federally illegal but States have some abilities for legal independence.
    Re Maori wards – we need a break down but I’d say older conservative people got off their bums and voted – as they always do in council elections – and the majority of the rest couldn’t be arsed – as they do for most council elections. We would see a very different country if people DID vote for their councillors & DHBs.
    If there was forethought used there would have been activist backing for the forwarding of the cannabis referendum & then have the Maori ward vote after a larger amount of non voters had enrolled for the cannabis vote.

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