Herein lies the irony of the ongoing “free speech” controversy. As vociferous opponents of what they characterise as existential threats to traditional Anglo-Saxon culture, Lauren Southern’s and Stefan Molyneux’s looming visit to New Zealand is intended to persuade ordinary Kiwis to look to their own defence against the twin scourges of multiculturalism and identity politics.
Just one week after the imposition of the council’s regressive fuel tax and a bunch of new targeted rates, came the disclosure in the NZ Herald that mayor Phil Goff has been planning ways to impose a so-called ‘Toilet Tax’ on the ratepayers of Auckland.
Cannabis Activist Jeanette Saxby is facing the exact persecution the gutless and spineless new Government promised wouldn’t happen.
A 21st century prison would recognise that the prevalence of offending is not truly reflected in the prison population. People only go to prison who are convicted, and the guilty get off sometimes and occasionally the innocent slip through filters in the justice system. It would recognise that offending doesn’t occur in a vacuum and that triggers for offending, and studies show that serious offenders have many common factors. These factors can be articulated and understood, and so prison conditions and policies should not be predicated on rhetoric and political idealism.
With three bills before Parliament this year, and patients continuing to suffer, it’s clear we need cross-party support for enduring sensible solutions.
We got trolled by two right wing Trolls and the very foundations of our liberal progressive democracy shuddered.
Trust the National Party to take all the fun out of cannabis – what’s their encore? Orgasm free masturbation?
MPs need to work together now to fix the proposed legislation and give patients urgent protection. While they squabble patients are still getting busted, or dying without medicine.
The latest shenanigans over medicinal cannabis follow a Curia poll, released this week by the New Zealand Drug Foundation, which found increased support for all options, including 87 per cent support for allowing medicinal cannabis for chronic pain relief.
The message MPs should take from this poll is: Don’t panic, and do what is best for patients.
As someone who has produced independent TV in this country, I look at the $700 000 that was pissed against the wall here and shake my head in disgust. I consider how we at Waatea Māori Radio managed to make a 5 night a week, 7pm Current Affairs show that led the agenda for 7 months for a mere $20k per month and then stare at this SpinOff TV abortion in horror.
Cannabis reform, welfare culture reform and climate change – if this is the best Labour and the Greens can muster to central issues of the Left, they need to be replaced because this crap is window dressing, it isn’t leadership.