discrimination

Now you might think I am being cheeky with the headline, but check what Andrew Sullivan has to say about equality…from a gay perspective on the difference between the private sector and the government in enhancing equality.

One of the oldest arguments we had in the old gay rights movement – back when it was a monolithic captive of the New Left – was whether discrimination could be countered more effectively by private choice or public mandate. My view was that the government should not discriminate against gay citizens in any way, but that the private sector and anti-gay religious communities should retain more freedom. The market would eventually win over bigotry, I argued. That’s me and my libertarianism.

The consensus view was that federal anti-discrimination laws were much more vital, and the top priority of the Human Rights Campaign. That was in 1988. Such a federal law remains out of reach more than two decades later, despite massive support from the general public. But without such a law, we’ve been able to test whether the free market logic of non-discrimination can work. Today, we hear this news:

For the first time ever, all 100 firms on Fortune’s Best Companies To Work For list this year have non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation.

This is not because they are somehow being noble. It is because they are serving their shareholders by employing the absolutely best people for the jobs they have and do not want to miss someone’s talents because of something irrelevant like sexual orientation.

Hence capitalism enables equality. And the last entity to get with the program is the government.

First Hone, now this.

In an email to Mr Rankin, Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said although he deplored Professor Mutu’s suggestion that New Zealand should discriminate against white-skinned people from certain countries, the Bill of Rights Act allowed people to speak their mind.

Mr de Bres also quoted the Education Act, which, he said, respected the freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test perceived wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions.

Professor Mutu, who is also head of the Department of Maori Studies at the University of Auckland, claimed Maori were generally supportive of

Or is the rule if you are Maori you can say what you like and get away with it?

Imagine if an academic had used academic freedom to say we should not allow jews, arabs, afghans or eskimo in because they didn’t play rugby. Joris would have had kittens.

Continuing the series from previous posts.

National is experiencing some of the same problems that David Cameron is having to deal with after re-branding the Tory party:

Third, the Tories tried to prove that they were “nice” by siding with politically organised groups whose strategy was to portray themselves as victims: ethnic minorities were victims of oppression by whites, and gays were victims of “straight” oppressors. The main ploy of such groups – there are now seven with legal recognition – was to claim that each group should be represented in every sub-division of society in the same proportion as it is found in the general population. If ethnic minorities make up 9 per cent of the population then if 9 per cent of judges, teachers or doctors are not from ethnic minorities there must have been discrimination by whites. The political solution has been to enact laws defining discrimination as disproportionate representation, even though such disparities are inevitable. As a result, complying with anti-discrimination law has become a major business cost. The Equality Act is the latest in a long line of anti-discrimination measures and its main clauses did not come into effect until October 1. The Coalition could have delayed the new law but instead it chose to push it through, despite promising that it would adopt a one-in one-out approach to regulation. Their policy announcement that no new regulations would be imposed unless an old one was abandoned didn’t last five minutes.

We are going to see something similar as National embraces the Greens. Watch also for a push from the gay community for gay marriage. Momentum is building in the US and in Britain for this. David Cameron has already neutralised the issue by supporting gay marriage. John Key can do likewise. By doing so he will take the card away from Labour who think they have a mortgage on rainbow votes.

Pita Sharples thinks the justice system discriminates against Maori:

For most Maori New Zealand justice is unfair, biased and prejudiced, says Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples who has announced a plan to push for a review of the entire system.

In a statement he said the system including, police, courts and corrections “systematically discriminates against Maori”.

Maori offenders were arrested at three times the rate of non Maori for the same crimes, he said.

They were also more likely to have police contact, to be charged, to lack legal representation, not to be granted bail, to plead guilty and to be convicted, said Sharples.

A transformed justice system should include Maori practices, principles and programmes “by Maori, for Maori, with Maori”.

Interesting outlook. Has he stopped for just a moment and thought that perhaps Maori are discriminating against society by their constant criminal predations against it? It is little wonder then that the law rubs up against Maori in a “disproportionate” manner when all the evidence before us suggests that Maori “disproportionately” commit crimes against society as a whole.

I’ll start listening to Pita Sharples when he starts talking and doing something meaningful about Maori child abuse and Maori child neglect.

• 51% of male prisoners are maori, It should be 15%.
• 70% have come through Child Youth and Family before hitting Corrections.
• 50-60% of children in CYF care are Maori.

I have watched with interest the unfolding reaction to Paul Henry’s alleged racist comments. What I found most interesting was the co-ordinated attack across the left wing blogs and websites on Paul Henry for his racism. The Standard, the same site that accused me of colluding with the National Party research unit for daring to using Google and Youtube to find video of Kris Fa’afoi, have themselves, using their own yardstick, seemingly colluding with Labour’s Research Unit to produce video after video of Paul Henry as they try to nail a state employee to the wall.

Most bizarre has been the Unite Union mounting a protest outside of TVNZ demanding the sacking of  a worker. No due process for that woirker from the union, or indeed from the left wing blogs and commentators all calling for his sacking.

The total irony is that the very same people calling for Paul Henry’s sacking for racist remarks are also similarly outraged about foreign investment in New Zealand, particularly in the farming sector. Bizarrely they also accused Maurice Williamson of all sorts of crimes against humanity when he dared to speak the truth and call Kiwis inherently racist when it comes to investment in our land and farms.

Well it turns out Maurice was right.

In a commissioned poll by Curia Market Research, Natural Dairy (NZ) Holdings Ltd has found that Maurice Williamson was right. New Zealanders are deeply racist when it comes to foreign land investment.

For the Question: For each nationality please let me know on a scale of 1-5 how comfortable you would be with their nationals being able to buy farmland in New Zealand farms? A massive 74% were uncomfortable with Chinese investors buying New Zealand farms, but only 52% uncomfortable with Australians doing the same.

Table 1: Foreign Ownership

When looking at the extreme position the difference is even more marked.

The results clearly show very different levels of discomfort based on nationality. Only 18% of respondents said they would be extremely uncomfortable with Australian ownership, while 41% said they would be opposed to Chinese ownership.

Labour fits squarely into this knee jerk demographic and are now insisting that NO New Zealand land be sold to foreigners. Labour of course have conveniently forgotten their own legacy when it comes to foreign land sales. Their hypocrisy is rank. Their inherent racism is astounding also. This is the same party, that purports to represent Kiwi workers, insisting now that a state employee be sacked for allegedly racist comments, yet running their own racist policy when it comes to land investment. Worse they are using the comments by Paul Henry to run and attack on the Prime Minister, calling him a gutless poll driven worm.

It seems that Kiwis are outraged by racism when it is on TV but when quietly surveyed they willingly impart their racism against foreign land investors, especially Chinese foreign land investors.

Their stupidty on this issue is further compounded by additional questions that show that  65% of respondents think farms should only be sold to NZ residents. This sentiment is strongest with women and the elderly. Yet these are exactly the type of person who will be holding onto their farm to sell to the highest bidder in a heart beat. This si what I call the “other people syndrome”. They think that land shouldn’t be sold to foreigners but that the rule should apply to other people, for themselves they want to retain the right to sell to the highest bidder.

Frankly, New Zealanders are in no position to buy their own land with inter-generational failure to address our parlous savings record. It is precisely these people who now oppose selling to the highest bidder even if that highest bidder is a foreigner, and preferring to doom themselves to lower prices for their land by insisting that broken-arsed Kiwis only be allowed to buy farms.

New Zealanders are their own worst enemy when it comes to investment. Rural New Zealanders are worse, wanting their cake and eating it too.

I don’t like Peter Dunne. I haven’t liked him since he was still in Labour. I think he is a self-absorbed pompous twat with a silly hair cut. That however is personal and somewhat silly on my part. What I really don’t like about Peter Dunne is that he has squatted in the Revenue Minister’s job for quite some time leveraging power that far exceeds his station in life.

Now he has come over all po-faced and serious and pushed his income splitting bill into the house. Quite simply the bill will provide a hideous distortion in taxation, far worse than Working For Families has already provided, and no good can come of it.

I was contacted via Facebook by a concerned parent who thought that though Peter Dunne won’t listen to her, he might listen to a pushy blogger ( I understand she has got the fob-off from the bouffant tosser in the past). This is her message, and it is one I 100% agree with.

I’m a single working mother; I work extremely hard to support my daughter on my own. I don’t receive any government assistance (no Working for Families, miss out on that too), and I’m quite happy about that. I’d rather pay my own way, than rely on a handout.

However, if this bill is passed, I will be paying an additional $4,000 tax per year than a family with exactly the same total income as myself (Around $70k). However, I’ll still have to pay $85 per week for after-school care. That figure triples in school holidays. A family with two parents might not have that expense (particularly if one parent is at home with the kids). In addition, my daughter doesn’t get the benefits that other children with stay-home mums do – such as the opportunity to attend after-school activities like ballet, netball, and so on. So my daughter is doubly disadvantaged.

I find the income-splitting bill incredibly unfair; basically, it suggest that single parents should be subject to a higher tax rate than married or defacto parents, simply due to their relationship status. In effect, it says that the children of two-parent families are more deserving of additional support than the children of single parents. And, quite frankly, I feel that my daughter should be just as valuable as any other child in NZ – and I strongly oppose ANY legislation which would suggest otherwise.

Peter Dunne’s income splitting bill should be dumped and so should he. It is unfair, discriminatory and creates distortions in our already bloated and distorted tax system.

Peter Dunne purports to represent some of the christian vote, perhaps he should consult Jeremiah 49:11 when pushing this bill thorough.

Jeremiah 49:11 (King James Version)

¹¹Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.

In my book sole parents are the modern day equivalent of the “widows and orphans”.

Remember who Owen Glenn is?

He is the patriot that told the truth over donations to Labour and NZ First when Helen Clark and Winston Peters refused to.

Now he has a suggestion to resolve the Fiji issue and it is a suggestion I believe has merit. As is usual with Owen Glenn he also has a sting.

Billionaire Owen Glenn says he would be happy to assist in mediating between New Zealand and Fiji, but New Zealand first needs to change its “holier than thou” attitude.

Mr Glenn – who owns a villa on the island of Malolo Lailai – told the Herald it would be up to the Government if he took any part, and would depend on the mandate he had.

“It’s pointless wasting the commodore’s time. My opinion, if I have one, is to talk to him, find out what he’s trying to achieve and why, and put aside the fact it is not a democratically elected Government.

“Neither is China, but you don’t see New Zealand breaking off its relationships with China. Holier than thou on Fiji, but it’s quite happy to trade when it makes sense.”

Right now our approach to Fiji has been to follow the path that Helen Clark decided upon and that has been spectacularly unsuccessful so far. We actually nothing to lose right now in trying different approaches.

John Key: Politician of the year – To borrow the immortal words of Australian politician Bill Hayden, some might argue National could have put up the proverbial drover’s dog as leader and still won last month’s election such was its huge lead in the polls over preceding… [NZ Herald Politics]

John Armstrong makes the case for John Key to be politician of the year. It is hard to argue otherwise, though I am sure the paupers at the lap-blog will give it a go.

I think the most telling part of John Armstrongs column is one that few bloggers and commentators have yet picked up and that is the huge sea change in New Zealand politics. Certainly the Labour Party is yet to pick up that sea change after picking yet another old timer to be their temporary leader.

What also matters is that Key speaks for a new generation which entered Parliament in force at last month’s election – a generation which is less hidebound by ideology or consumed with refighting the battles of the 1980s or the 1990s.

This is a generational shift in politics. The baby-boomers are on their way out. Winston Peters has gone. Clark and Michael Cullen are poised to check out.

The new generation has never experienced a wage-price freeze, fixed exchange rates, Think Big or farmers being subsidised according to the number of sheep they had on their farms.

The new generation has only a hazy memory of the Labour Government which swept all that away in a revolution of reform before imploding. Seeing him in Parliament, those younger MPs must view Sir Roger Douglas as a relic from another age.

Key’s advantage is that his age and political freshness places him at the vanguard of the new generation – something that cannot be said for the new Labour leadership.

Labour painted JohnKey a a bumblng fool and fell into the trap of believing thei own spin. It was ultimately fatal and the bumbling fool was Helen Clark who bmbled once too many and fell on her sword. One area where John Key absolutely ran rings around Clark was Winston Raymond Peters, 63, unemployed of no fixed abode, here John Key absolutely painted Clark into a corner and even better used her own paint and her own brush, he then threw down the brush and as the ad says “He walked away”.

And what about Winston Raymond Peters, 63, unemployed of no fixed abode?

What we can be sure about is that Peters, having used the media to boost his career early on, grew to despise it. His version always had to be the correct one. That he could never concede to being wrong was what destroyed him – not the bunkum that he was the target of some kind of big business-establishment-media collusion.

NZ First, a party built solely around a personality cult, will not be back.

Peters will be missed. The charming, generous, understanding Peters, that is. Not the cantankerous, argumentative, frustrating and difficult creature with whom other parties were forced to do business, smiling benignly as they did so but at the same time looking about as comfortable as someone lying on a bed of sharpened nails.

WRP, 63, UONFA is one of the few people I genuinely loathe. The man is liar fair and square, a disingenuous prick and a sot who should not be remembered fondly, rather he should be kicked into the gutter and forgotten. He never did get round to suing me for calling him a liar. Fucking loser.

NZ First plan to sell Kiwibank under fire – New Zealand First leader Winston Peters’ plan to sell Kiwibank is “erratic and confusing” and would risk destroying the bank, Progressives leader Jim Anderton says. Mr Peters yesterday put forward a radical proposal to float shares… [NZ Herald Politics]

The Labour First Axis has come under attack from within its own ranks today after the Greens and Jim Anderton attacked Winston’s flip flop over kiwibank.

Just a few short weeks ago Winston Raymond peters, 63, List MP of no fixed abode and proven liar was seen front and centre signing a pledge not to sell Kiwibank and today he has resiled from that by suggesting that Kiwibank be listed and shares sold to the public.

The internecine warfare of the Axis has now broken into public view and these people want us to trust them?

Peters calls for immediate interest rate cut – NZ first leader Winston Peters has joined John Key in calling for an immediate interest rate cut. Peters said today the Reserve Bank should cut rates now and not wait until its next scheduled announcement on October 23. He… [NZ Herald Politics]

Lalalalalalalalala, not listening, lalalalalala, go away.

I will not mention his name.