Category: Democracy

The Labour Government’s $2 million Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s report was made public last Friday - in the same week that labour market figures showed the number of New Zealanders with jobs had fallen by 4,000 in the past three months. If enacted, their 42 recommendations would dramatically deepen the dependency trap.

The growth in race based representation in local and central government - through appointment rather than election – is increasing public concern. The on-going drive by iwi leaders to institutionalise 50:50 co-governance is a growing threat to our democracy.

Increasingly, local bodies and successive governments have been transferring responsibilities for control of resources that we all use and cherish to unelected, unaccountable representatives of tribal groups.

The words of a former PM must have been ringing in the halls of Parliament last week when the Prime Minister announced that a capital gains tax would not be introduced during her watch. It was David Lange who said, “a capital gains tax policy is one likely to lose you not merely the next election, but the next three”.

UNDRIP is a a powerful weapon for Maori supremacy - a lever to set in motion an agenda which would see the tribal elite assuming higher authority over domestic matters than other New Zealanders.

Make no mistake about it: The Indigenous policy that Canada has followed for the past couple of generations – namely giving ever more money and power to chiefs – has been an absolute and utter failure.

The Government’s response to concerns about the wisdom of rushing through gun law changes is dismissive, demonstrating the dictatorial underbelly of Jacinda Ardern’s Government and the sinister ‘we know best’ attitude that pervades all socialist regimes.

New Zealand has avoided many irreconcilable political fights over competing values. Now an ignorant generation are looking for ways to anger their opponents by deliberately kicking sleeping dogs - focusing on differences instead of shared values.

The leadership of a nation operates on many levels. While the PM has been focussed on the suffering of the victims, in her desire to reassure New Zealanders that they are safe - and to look strong and decisive on the world stage - she has unleashed measures that have the capacity to turn our wonderful country into a totalitarian state.

I find people like Ghahraman and Davidson almost as frightening as terrorists. They don’t kill anyone, but their power to change society is greater. They use the institutions of a liberal democracy to whittle away at the open society. They are, in their way, as totalitarian and intolerant of difference as any gun-toting fascist or jihadist.