We should be celebrating young people having voice in Parliament, not strangling it!
This years Youth Parliament has been censored in what they can say for this years mock debates in the speaking chamber.
Alongside the censorship:
- The Live-streaming of Youth MP speeches has been cancelled.
- Policy advice from minority communities has been cancelled
- and Youth MPs have been told they cannot clap, cannot walk out and sure as Christ aren’t allowed to do a haka!
Look – If you are dull enough at 16, 17 or 18 to want to spend 4 months training once every 3 years for a Youth Parliament, you’ve earnt the right through sheer boredom to speak your truth loud and proud!
This latest attempt by right wing free speech champions to strangle free speech is another hypocrisy beyond hypocrisy.
The Youth Parliament is there to give voice to those who can’t vote, strangling that voice and pretending to care about free speech is bullshit and we should protect and praise our young people for standing and speaking, we shouldn’t censor them.
Why is it that when the Right says something offensive, the defence is free speech, but when we criticise their policy oh suddenly it’s defamation and must be censored?
You hypocritical arseholes!
The Right have weaponised Free Speech, they don’t believe in it and they sure as Christ don’t champion it!
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I cant wait for this generation to get the right to vote .They are the ones that will vote for a more equal and less racist society .Talking to these young people from time to time they all seem to understand where we ar now is not the right place .We will always have the ones whom are schooled by their hater elders but they are in the minority because very few want to live in a world being destroyed by over heating and greed along with racisim .One only has to turn up at a school sports day or prize giving to see the changing look of the people who now identify as being kiwis .
No wonder the government is going hard out to disallow freedom of thought and speech this week .Hence the reason the government wants to cut NZ history teaching from the education system .They dont want the world to know of the shocking past we have had getting to where we are now .
The guidelines (if that’s what they are) do seem to overstep the mark. Sure if they are pretending it’s parliament, they should follow the rules, but the rules don’t stop debate. There again, encouraging them to ignore current awful politicians won’t hurt. New ideas are necessary, not whinging about has beens.
Good points to consider.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/565610/youth-mps-told-to-remove-criticisms-of-government-from-speeches
Maybe for every youth comment that has criticism there should be included an improving idea likely to give positive results, but also the acknowledgment that the speaker being young is still trying out ideas. A bit of humility is needed, such as acknowledging being young doesn’t make one wise, need more experience combined with thought and observation, and not just taking the stance that older people have been obviously wrong.
So you live in the past where young people should be seen and not heard .Might be time for the elders to show a bit of humility and actually listen for a change .
Spot on point Gordon.
Unfortunately the right are not good listeners hence why they hate opposing view points.
A dictatorship doesn’t allow freedom of speech. It is simply another front by the venomous ACT party.
100% agree
Me to agrees.
If the govt. didn’t feel guilty about what they are doing this question would not have arisen.
Me to agrees.
Yes I agree the CoC are just kiddies.
Putting any merits of the proposition aside (few in my opinion), this is an issue that will be portrayed and stoked by right wing provocateurs as being “woke”.
I find it rather ironic that Martyn is feeding the monster he so often riles against.
Sorry, I assumed before reading carefully that Martyn was addressing lowering the voting age again – which was again in the news cycle over past 24 hours – and was writing one of his periodical articles supporting that case.
So that’s the issue I mistakenly added my two cents over. I should do better.
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
― Mark Twain
But time has condensed and we perhaps should be looking at 2001 Space Odyssey to see different ways of thinking. The young ones may be able to watch something about the future on their devices but not know how to treasure what is good about human beings and our society. But the Lord loves a tryer!
https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-talks-and-talks-the-story-since-2001-a-space-odyssey-96252
https://dangerousminds.net/movies/stanley-kubrick-explains-the-plot-of-2001-a-space-odyssey/
Good luck with younger people voting but what will be their vision for the future, and the present? Perhaps they being young will be strong enough to cope knowing that their backs are against the wall, and that everything humans do that turns out well, will be messed up before the 3rd generation. That’s our problem and our desire for things, the exponential ambitions we countenance, cause restlessness and impatience and disdain for ordinary humanity, past achievements for citizens as a whole. (Why, how do we judge some as ordinary and unworthy and some extra-ordinary and superior? Don’t we all have our own way of transcending mediocre if there is such a level?)
A couple of great Brit talking heads on politics –
Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell, hosts of Britain’s biggest podcast (The Rest Is Politics), have joined forces once again for their new interview podcast, ‘ ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyGvNUdE6f0.
The Corruption of Donald J. Trump
This recent vid starts off on Donald Trump and looks at wider issues and UK and is two experienced objective men having great discussion.
Alastair Campbell? You mean the Iraq war plotter, Jeffrey Epstein associate, Alastair Campbell?
There you go nothing constructive to offer so you revert to Seymour type play the man not the ball .