The NZ Herald’s Audrey Young on why some MPs still opposed the the anti-smacking bill despite a last minute amendment.
Hat Tip Lindsay Mitchell
Voting against the bill will be the two Act MPs, leader Rodney Hide and Heather Roy; two of United future’s MPs, Gordon Copeland and Judy Turner, and the independent MP Taito Phillip Field.
The Act MPs come from a libertarian tradition and believe that the bill not only criminalises parents who smack but that it is an example of state interference in people’s lives.
In the end, only 9 of 120 MPs voted against the Bill.
I’m proud that ACT’s Rodney Hide and Heather Roy opposed the bill every step of the way.
I’m even more proud that they were consistent in their reasoning. ACT’s MPs opposed the bill simply because it is a gross intrusion by the state into family life.
That all of National’s MPs voted for this bill, should cause grave concern to all who value individual liberty and personal responsibility.
The National Party and its present members is/ are to blame for so much of NZ’s present situation. That said, reforming the Nats is more or less the only viable solution to our problems. Radicals have to join the party and work hard to expel the socialist incumbents.
Sorry to have to say this but the reality is that ACT carries far too much historical baggage. The left (with the able assistance of its mainstream media plants) did a smear job on them like no other, and its going to take far too long too readjust mainstream thinking on what the party really stands for.
If reforming National is impossible, the only other solution is a new party.
Even more Labour MPs voted to liberalise the shop opening hours than the Nats did!
I don’t know why we bother.
Thanks Trevor That explians much.
Spent half the night mucking around with this blasted machine for nothing. HA HA. i think.
Dirk.
Look forward to it Dirk. The email on my blog is not showing correctly. I t should be trevor.loudon@paradise.net.nz
The more i see and hear of new Zealand politics the more i think i want to live in a cave with a rockfall for a door.
Dirk
Thanks for that Trevor. I will send you an e mail to enlarge on it for you.
Dirk
The vast majority of Kiwis it seems is in agreement with ACT on so many issues….yet ACT can’t get their votes.Solve this contradiction and we will save NZ.
National is now 70% communist.
Labour is 95%.
The Greens are 100%.
A dark curtain is desending on this country. Democracy s being extinguished. We need a freedom movement. Act needs to mobilise the masses now and launch a campaign of civil disobedience designed to replicate the events of 1989 and defeat communism.
In the 70s he was very close to the Maoists. He was an HART organiser in Palmerston North in 1981.
He also spoke at some Trotskyist (Socialist Action League) gatherings and in the 80s was very close to the SUP, particularly Ken Douglas.
I’ve been told he has attended meetings called by the SUP (Party/Non Party fraction meetings), but that was common for leftist unionists at the time.
Don’t know what kind of music he likes sorry.
Trevor
off the track some what, but what can you tell me about Roger Middlemass from the meat workers union?
Dirk
For all his big talk Copeland didnt even vote.