QUESTION TIME IN PARLIAMENT this afternoon was a useful reminder of what Jacinda and her government are up against. In theory, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition are supposed to impress the Visitor’s Gallery as a government-in-waiting: sagacious, witty and (to use a favourite parliamentary term) honourable. In practice, Simon Bridges’ National Party Opposition comes across as ignorant, boorish and disturbingly truculent.
One of Key’s greatest gifts was knowing what the average Kiwi shopping at a mall believed. Time and time and time again the incredibly clever focus group value mining that David Farrar managed to get him allowed Key to side step criticism by playing to the petty ignorances of muddle Nu Zilind.
Great news today with the Government announcing it is considering bringing forward the binding referendum on legalising cannabis to next year, 2019, rather than during the 2020 general election.
Putting political discussion on the dead wasteland of Sunday morning relegates it to religious programming, something only train spotters in anoraks enjoy. 9.30pm however creates a space that builds the town square into an audience that actually matters and is meaningful.
Housing NZ are part of the housing crisis and the incarceration crisis, at some stage the new Government must purge these welfare agencies of the neoliberal acolytes who see their interests first and the welfare of those they are supposed to be serving second.
…how on earth can Paula Bennett storming out in a manufactured huff from Parliament Question Time get more media attention than the latest revelation that the NZDF have once again be caught out lying about war crime allegations?
If we want real cannabis reform in NZ, it will have to be caused by a huge referendum turn out with numbers so large that not even Labour can ignore it.
For those asking, yes, Todd Scott filed a Statement of Claim against me in the High Court today. He alleges that it was negligent for me to have sent NBR the column I did about Steven Joyce. Consequently, despite the column having been published in the NBR after being read and subedited by several NBR staff including editor Duncan Bridgeman, Todd says I should have to pay some or all NBR’s costs and any losses it suffers from Mr Joyce’s litigation.
The punishment handed out to those who seriously breach our laws is a loss of liberty. For a species as communal as ours, there is no greater punishment. Needing to add suffering to that loss of liberty by portraying prisoners as subhuman isn’t justice, it’s vengeance and until we as a nation are prepared to look in the mirror and ask why we need vengeance over justice, we as a culture can not advance.
We have become a nation of passive malice, the malignancy of which overshadows all our creations.