Ardern not revealing cannabis stance may have been ‘decisive factor’ in referendum result
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s decision not to reveal her position on the cannabis debate during election campaigning could have been a “decisive factor” in last year’s referendum, academics believe.
Ardern and her Labour Party did not take a public stance on the legalisation of cannabis during 2020’s election campaign, despite facing repeated questions over it.
Efforts to legalise cannabis were ultimately defeated, with 48.4 per cent of voters in favour and 50.7 per cent against.
Of course Jacinda not revealing her vote hurt the referendum!
Labour were so popular, they won an outright majority, if Jacinda had publicly told people what she was voting for, it would have swung it.
We know that.
But the truly damning part was the way Labour acted after the vote!
The first test of Jacinda & Labour was whether or not they use their massive majority to revoke a racist drug law, they refused point blank to do that!
Labour could change a racist drug law, but they didn’t because 50.7% support the racist drug law!
That is appalling political cowardice!
Allowing 50.7% of the population to criminalise the other 49.3% is the very worst example of the tyranny of the majority!
To the sanctimonious who scream ‘this is democracy’ – no it’s not, it’s majoritarianism!
THIS WASN’T A BINDING REFERENDUM yet Labour pretended it was despite the barest of No votes.
67% of NZ voted against asset sales, yet John Key not only sold them, he used a taxpayer sweetener for those who bought them!
The Right can ignore referendum when it comes to selling state assets, yet apparently the Left can’t ignore a referendum to overturn a racist drug law!
The fact is that there is a HUGE mandate to revoke this racist drug law and take the power out of organised crime while gaining desperately needed taxation and jobs!
The latest research shows majority support for decriminalisation of cannabis, and surely if that’s the best we can get right now, pass it immediately!
The open question still remains though as to who has been screwed over the most?
Th renters who have had to suffer skyrocketing rentals in a housing market Labour overheated with billions into property speculators pockets?
The beneficiaries who have watched an unfair two tier welfare system and a pittance increase?
Or the stoners Labour re-criminalised?
What is the point of having a vast Labour majority if they refuse to revoke racist drug laws?
What is the point of voting Labour if they will only implement National lite policy?
Fortunately for the Prime Minister, keeping NZ Covid free with high property values guarantees her the 2023 election, especially when you consider what a joke National has become.
Welcome to neokindness.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
The Labour party are not that stupid. If she had endorsed the yes vote then every single negative result of a law change would be her own personal fault.
I blame the useless Greens. They had three years to convince people to vote yes and they fucked it up.
True even Chloe was not in support of her own bill. She said that a family member was “Affected by Cannabis use” she had no help from her party, who use the Cannabis issue to gain votes at every election and have done since the party started after the Values party in the mid 1980s. Vote green for green. But nope they don’t push it incase they lose votes.
Look I know chapter and verse about Russell Brown’s role in the Hobbit Affair, he never retracted either, even after Helen Kelly published her rebuttal and time line showing how Lord Jackson and Weta had participated in a stitch up of the Actors union with the media and the Key Govt.
BUT he has done a handy bit of research here,
https://publicaddress.net/hardnews/cannabis-who-owns-say-nope-to-dope-anyway/
which shows collusion between McVicar’s Family First and the USA SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) prohibitionist organisation, which basically enabled their part of the NO campaign to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more than allowed.
Brown thinks the YES campaign was lost over a three year period for various reasons, not all down to Jacinda clamming up, including over baking the proposed legislation for a controlled Cannabis market. My take is that COVID seriously interrupted the flow of the YES campaign, but they were also underfunded, and unfocused with too many messages and memes floating around. And, if Jacinda had said yes, Legalisation would have zoomed through.
The fortunate thing for the PM is that Judith Collins’s position looks shaky so when Labour finally realizes they have been nurturing a cuckoo she can become the leader of the knats, where she belongs.
Try being a renter, a beneficiary, and a stoner at the same time living in this our AO/NZ in 2021.
Not just screwed, triple screwed!
What happened to the case taken to the high court to get the result overturned due to ‘misinformation’ from the nopers?
Of course Key ignored the asset sale referendum. It was citizens-initiated and aimed at stopping Key from doing what he had campaigned on previously. He doesn’t get bravery points for ignoring what he dismissed as a political stunt. He did take note, though, as National became quieter about future sell-offs, even denying that the sales of state houses could be classed as asset sales.
The referendum on cannabis would have passed if it included medicinal products or focused on decriminalisation. Instead, Labour treated medicinal cannabis as a separate issue and removed it from the legalisation debate, perhaps strategically. And the Greens put the cart before the horse by pushing for full legalisation. Some people comfortable supporting decriminalisation were lost when it became about legalisation, others still when proposals included people being able to grow their own plants.
In the same way that civil unions preceded same-sex marriage, decriminalisation should have been the first step in a longer campaign.
It was Andrew Little who said that Labour would not decriminalise marijuana, despite the referendum on legalisation vote being close.
And worse, many people are still not getting affordable legal access for medicinal use.
And if Labour cannot sort that out, backtrack on decriminalising and let people sort it for themselves.
It wasn’t labours referendum to campaign for it was the greens and it wasn’t even a well written law. Though I was gutted it didn’t pass absolutely predictably
I’ll grant you that labour should have a policy on drug reform but any policy has to be voted on by the membership and a lot of the membership is socially conservative working class people who would have blocked it or caused a huge fuss about it so it was better labour didn’t have a position then potentially one that was against which was quite likely, the reason left wing and reformist policies aren’t in the manifesto is because there’s not enough people to vote for those policies to become official party platform policies. Change that by joining. Seriously join the party highjack it and make it left wing stop pissing on the outside in
The referendum was invisible, you heard nothing about it from stoners who thought it would pass just cos and when you did hear about it people chloe didn’t talk about the one thing nzers like to hear : money.
Instead of having a guy in a suit arguing economic, environmental, farming, employment and financial benefits the left carted out Chloe Swarbrick who might be popular in left and liberal circles she’s divisive to everyone else, she argued it based on civil rights “it’s a racist law” it is she that might win you yass queens on twitter bit not in middle nz , never had a good argument for mental health and stoners are an unified weird group of people many who didn’t even vote I remember running fundraisers at weed museums and noone cared about donating cos “it’s going to be passed” I got called a defeatist and a moron when id constantly make posts about where is the yes campaign? While metria was busy leading a yes campaign that said “unfriend me if you’re not voting yes” I trying so hard convincing my family and friends and audience members to vote yes btw more so than I saw activists who again just thought nz would pass it just cos, well those of us who know this country well were saying as early as 2018 that nz will be the first country to vote no on weed reform. I had three visits from no campaigners and thirty no billboards in my street , tried to get a yes billboard and they didn’t get back to me till after the election.
The govts position was always if it passed they’d legislate. Now if you ask any liberal or progressive labour mp they’ll say we have the worst of both worlds , rock hard place. They will not go against their word to honour the referendum but they know they need reform.
Just civil unions prepped nz for gay marriage this should have been a decriminalization argument. I genuinely believe decriminalization is on the horizon and there’s nothing to stop private members bills.
Lastly, I was shocked at how close it was , public and private polling had yes in the 30s to early 40s it was seen as unpopular and Ardern and labour always thought the other shoe would drop and some right wing fear mongering would cut their support or that the polls were wrong like what happened in 2017 with the taxhole and they’d get about what they got in 2017 and they were concerned that the greens and nzf weren’t going to make 5% so they were hardly going to risk alienating voters by campaigning on another parties referendum that they don’t fully believe in because labour was more comfortable with decriminalization than legalization. Had Arden said she was voting yes she’d get nothing but “what about workers, what about drivers , what about acc, what about mental health what about what about what about” nz is not Canada our natural party of government isn’t a center left it’s the center right, our media isnt like canada’s our media is right wing.
If people want labour to have a policy on drug reform, if they want labour to be more left wing then join the party and vote on the platform. You can have all the left wing minor parties you want but it’s the main parties who control the govts agenda and allow the minor parties a few wins. If you want to turn labour left join it so you’ll have a say on policy the few socialists in labour need friends badly.
And my bus ride is over and this so is my rant
But it was a good rant.
Great rant and good advice! I have joined Labour right now, we need to change the party from within!
In this country we have a secret ballot in elections and referenda. No-one is required to declare their position on any vote. This is just a beat up.
Bullshit.
She declared pre election how she was going to vote on euthanasia. Double standard and cherry picked virtue signal once again from Ardern.
Is she allowed to choose what to go public about when it comes to personal preferences? And for her own reasons? We all do that don’t we?
She didn’t come out with her preference and she is blamed and criticised because the vote went one way. If she had come out and it was for the other way and that side was successful she would’ve been blamed and criticised from here to eternity.
The whole thing about her needing to tell us smacks of “mummy knows best, we’ll do what she wants.”
And we keep hearing about how immature we are. There it is.
Reply to Mark
Chinese Communist Party Shits on the poor, gives benefit to the rich, commits genocide to illegally harvest people’s organs.
Governing alone showing their true colours( no question).
Long live the Dalai Lama!
I am fully in agreement with your condemnation of Labour’s decision to continue this racist, and I would say abusive policy of cannabis criminalisation, as well as Ardern’s choice to remain non-committal before the election.
From my experience of various cultures, though my experience is fairly limited, I heard arguments from diverse perspectives. If I hadn’t been involved in conversation regarding the subject and supporting legalisation I would not have influenced at least one vote that I know of a person who ultimately voted yes though they would have more easily voted yes to decriminalisation. But you need genuine contact and trust in both how you personally perceive the issue, as well as reliance on others to engage their brains and heart in the process of deciding. This was sadly made even more difficult due to covid.
I also feel strongly, that in addition to decriminalising (if not legalising) cannabis, its use medicinally should be addressed and supported sooner than later.
If your vote depends on what Jacinda wants, then you really need to look at yourself. Stop idolizing her and start holding her to account. As in this case, her rhetoric never matches her deliver or accomplishments. Wake up NZ!
Dope is not the problem in our country its the white powder the scourge and its destroying families and communities. I have seen people who did well in life and these people were very anti dope now using P.
People who advocate decriminalisation don’t know shit about the issue. You are feeble minded and only get what you are given. Who would have thought the topic of cannabis is full of such confusion?…
Comments are closed.