Law and order: Act Party wants checks on gang members’ benefits
The Act party wants electronic income checks for gang members to prevent them from spending any welfare money on alcohol, gambling or tobacco.
Reviews of similar schemes in Australia and New Zealand – where it applies only to young people – are split on how effective they are.
The policy is part of a raft of proposals Act is releasing today in its law and order policy document.
It was just a matter of time. To date, ACT have been sticking to a philosophical purity pledge of free speech, protection of the individual from the power of the state and guarding against big brother over reach.
As Leader, David Seymour has fastidiously avoided the racism, white supremacist bigotry and sheer cruelty of the far right by charting debate that used civil rights as it’s starting point.
That purity has been despoiled.
With National bereft of culture war tactics and basic political values, what’s left of the much vaunted National Party research unit steals every ACT Party press release that comes out and pretends that’s a strategy.
This frustration for ACT of National constantly stealing their ideas within hours of a press release has reached fever pitch with ACT dumping all the intellectual respect they had gained and just jumping into the sewer with Judith to wrestle shit encrusted pigs in mud.
ACT was the Party of civil liberty, individuals protected from big brother, the champions of free speech and yet here they are showing their true fascist colors by demanding a Goose stepping Nanny State self flagellating Mother Superior using mass surveillance powers to electronically audit beneficiaries for any personal choice vices for a sin tax!
How the Christ can you support that level of power over the individual?
Isn’t it ugly that the second ACT can show us what they really are, their immediate desire is to use mass surveillance punishment of the poorest and weakest amongst us, beneficiaries.
Sure, ACT dress this up as targeting gang members, but they are gang members on benefits, this is a weapon you use on beneficiaries. ACT want to use the full force of the State to punish beneficiaries it dislikes for personal choices???
ACT are supposed to philosophically be all about personal choice, that they would invoke Big Brother to electronically spy on beneficiaries to audit bad choices is as fucking Orwellian as it gets!
What’s more outrageous is that ACT are simply stealing this policy from Australia and there are real question marks over its actual success!
So ACT are not only accidentally revealing to us their dead eyed sociopathy they are using Ill tested virtue signaling policy to do it!
For shame!
For shame!
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
Another, more positive and hopeful perspective, on meth, gangs and rehab – well worth a read:
stuff.co.nz/opinion/125805986/dont-write-off-gang-drug-rehab-programme
To me a benefit, while not directly earned, is a token payment and therefore I do not feel that it is worth the time nor expense in monitoring what the funds are being spent on, right down to single item purchases.
I don’t think this should be done for gang members, suspected gang members, individuals with gang affiliations, or young people.
Personally what I envisage is the establishment of a phone line between the proprietors of pubs, casinos, and liquor stores and the Ministry of Social Development. If the Owner or Duty Manager witnesses a person whom they know frequenting their establishment regularly, they can then call this phone line and converse with a representative of the Ministry of Social Development. That individual would then, if it is deemed appropriate, be questioned two to three weeks later about these occurrences at a branch of the Ministry of Social Development. If this was to be repeated, an official would then look at putting the individual on a course, on a new course if they have already completed an approved course, or other such activities geared at making them more work ready.
Comments are closed.