Muriel Newman: The Tail is Wagging the Dog

By Muriel Newman, from the New Zealand Center for Political Research website

The ramming through Parliament of the deeply unpopular anti-smacking bill is the clearest sign yet that under MMP the 'tail is wagging the dog'. As Iain Gillies wrote in an editorial in the Gisborne Herald last month: "Widespread antipathy to Sue Bradford's bill on parental smacking could unwittingly provoke renewed calls for a review of the MMP voting system. The motion does not figure much - yet - in either public discussion or the parliamentary debate, but may well get traction when voters consider to whom their MPs are beholden; their party hierarchy or the electorate." (To read the article click here>>>).

MMP was sold to New Zealanders as a system that would improve representative democracy in this country so that the views of the voters would hold more weight. Surely, no-one could have envisioned the situation we now find ourselves in whereby, in spite of overwhelming public opposition, a list-only minority party is being allowed to foist onto New Zealanders the sort of anti-family legislation that would make Karl Marx proud.

The anti-smacking bill is the brainchild of Green Party MP Sue Bradford. In a 2005 article entitled Vote Labour Now to Smash Capitalism Later, the Communist Workers' Group states: "A Labour government may need the backing of the Greens. Commentator Chris Trotter said that the New Zealand Greens are probably the most left-wing Green party in the world that has made it into political office. On the face of it there seems to be some truth in this with people like ex-Socialist Action League member Keith Locke and ex-Workers Communist League member Sue Bradford".  (See Aotearoa Independent Media Centre >>>) 

So unbelievably, because of the support of the Prime Minister, a former Workers Communist League member is now set to impose her ideology onto New Zealand. British journalist Lynette Burrows in an article How to control adults by means of 'children's rights' explains what's behind the ideology in this way:

"The question was always, why are the children's rights people so concerned to make the parental right to smack their children illegal? Most of their organisations have been more or less devoted to the subject despite the fact that 90% of good and caring parents say that it is necessary at times. Now the answer is clear.

"It is a device which places most parents in the power of social workers. They are by training and tradition, Marxist, feminist and anti-religious. They don't much care for the family and lend their weight on every possible occasion to arguments and devices that show it in a bad light… The traditional family is still the safest place for any child to be – but you wouldn't know it from official literature on the subject.

"Thus, anybody who wanted to further a Marxist, feminist agenda could not do better than to have most families in thrall to social workers. It is not about the elevation of children's rights at all. It is all about the crushing of adult ones". (To read the article click here >>>) 

Complicit in this attack on parents is Helen Clark who, badly needing Green Party support after the abdication of Philip Field, has done everything in her power to get this anti-smacking law passed. She has prevented her MPs from exercising a conscience vote, she attempted to get the bill passed under urgency, she tried to adopt it as a government bill, and now, in what must be one of the greatest political coups in New Zealand's history, she has duped the National Party, United and New Zealand First into supporting a Claytons amendment.

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