A lot of angry and frightened civil libertarians (many of whom I admire ) were rattled last week by the use of urgency to pass the traffic light vaccination passport scheme.
On any other day of the week, I would be alongside them demanding to know what the bloody hell was going on too, but this ain’t one of them.
Firstly the entire breathless denunciation of what Labour did had a whiff of the hysterical about it from people who were making arguments of due process which seemed to miss the urgency of the reality.
There is a pandemic going on! Urgency to ram through urgent law in a truncated democratic process is what is required!
We have urgency powers for issues of immense urgency! We are looking at limiting people’s liberty and that demands oversight and obligations WHICH HAVE BEEN BUILT INTO THE LEGISLATION!
This is not the same as when Key misused urgency to ram through the mass surveillance powers! This legislation must be voted back in using the basic majority of Parliament every few months while there is a sunset clause built into the law that removes all these powers altogether once the pandemic is over!
This is hardly the civil liberties crushing Nazi Germany framework it’s being sold as.
Of course Government should be challenged every day over its use of power over us but this traffic light system is a hurried response to an ongoing public health emergency – of course there will be stupid anomalies and counter productive outcomes because of the haste and those will be cleaned up in whatever omnibus package is passed to do that, but all in all this is a Government moving as fast as it can to treat a novel virus in the middle of a pandemic.
There are legitimate reasons to use urgency – a fucking plague is one of them!
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If urgency is not justified now when could it ever be justified?
From day 1 of the pandemic civil libertarians and many others have not grasped that the virus has absolutely no concern about, or respect for, ‘due process’.
We should all be thanking the Government, especially Jacinda Ardern, for just getting on with the job inspite of all the vitriol being directed at them.
Here,here.
They had time to put this legislation through a select committee process, they chose not too. And even if they didn’t have the time they could’ve reviewed the legislation via a post enactment review, which the government voted against… When the human rights commission, amnesty international, council for civil liberties and your own speaker criticize the move, are you really on the right path?
Statement from The American Civil Liberties Union
Far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further them. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of colour hit hard by the disease.
Since its creation in 1920, the ACLU has been the United States leading watchdog in protecting the civil liberties, freedoms, and rights of all people. It preserves the Constitution by defending liberty against government abuse and illegal policies.
MB, my view is none of those ‘authorities’ you mention have the responsibility for manoeuvring us through the pandemic. Their judgement is (rightly) based on their responsibilties, just as the MoH, business organistions, etc, advice is based on their areas of responsibility and representation – but in the end someone has to get on with the job…. that we are in a position to discuss the finer points of ‘due process’ and not all off attending funerals is a measure of our success so far, and for that we can only thank the Government – none of the other parties have had demonstrated any understanding of the quickly changing conditions involved in the pandemic.
Yes, you’re right. Delta only turned up on Tuesday and we have had no time whatsoever to do this properly. We’ll done them.
Oh dear diddums Gumminy aint perfect… have a little cry and a tantrum Mickey
Say RickyBoyle…..read..
Statement from The American Civil Liberties Union
Far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further them. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated, and communities of colour hit hard by the disease.
Since its creation in 1920, the ACLU has been the United States leading watchdog in protecting the civil liberties, freedoms, and rights of all people. It preserves the Constitution by defending liberty against government abuse and illegal policies.
LOVE the Beehive as Dalek. Ka pai!!
The plague excuses some urgencies but not others. This legislation could have been begun back before our winter when the UK looked at vaccine passports and mandates. Eventually the UK rejected them hoping that the prospect would have encouraged the unvaccinated to get vaccinated in sufficient numbers for the UK to dismantle the various controls that were in place.
If you think that was too early, then the next moment was when we pulled finger and started vaccinating everyone – last August. The vaccination programme should have been rolled out as part and parcel of a prospective passport system. Again the moment was lost and consideration of not only the passport system but mandating vaccination for 40% of the workforce need not have been left till last week.
But having left it till last week they could have opened the house next week and considered it in a slightly more relaxed manner then but didn’t.
When even Labour’s own speaker of the house reprimands it for the loss of due process, we can all see how flimsy the cloak of the plague really was
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