Monday, December 8, 2008

The Daddy State Agenda



Daddy State agenda about to be passed through Parliament by misusing the power of urgency.

*tax cuts

*changes to KiwiSaver

*bail and parole laws

* Increasing police powers to investigate gangs, and making gang membership an aggravating factor to be considered at sentencing.

* Allowing police to take DNA samples from everyone arrested for an offence for which they could be sentenced to jail.


Comments from some fans…

Bomber, do you have a list of the things they are going to ram through under urgency? It would be nice to see it so I can also descend into a pant wetting, blubbering heap like you have.

Is that all there is? Say it aint so mister, say it aint so. Surely there must be more to justify the trembling?

I'm expecting some real hard right policies given bomber's fearful ravings. If this is all we get then either he totally wrong as usual or just a fucking leftard girly boy who should just deal.


…some of our friends on the right are at great pains to spin these changes as moderate, yet the very manner in which they are being rammed through Parliament under a misuse of urgency not seen in NZ since 1998 suggests anything but moderate. Take aside the scrapping of the ETS in favour of a select committee that will resemble a global warming witch hunt well out of step with the rest of the modern world, put also to one side Hides horrific TABOR as a ratchet legislation noose strangling public spending regardless of service. Put aside the razor gang that will slice deep into welfare. Let’s just look at what they want to try and ram through over the next two weeks – with no debate, if nACTional have the answers, why not debate issues which have massive implications and which simply were not debated in the election? Why misuse urgency to ram it all through with no dissent heard?

*tax cuts
Surely with the global economic crises and the need to keep social infrastructure in tact to help deal with the stress of the economic crises, is now the right time to be looking at a new tax cut that favours the well off? The grand plan can’t simply be a couple of bucks more to spend on the ever degrading consumer credit card culture can it?

*changes to KiwiSaver
Lowering the level that Employers contribute is not a solution, while there needed to be something to help lower earners into the scheme, lowering employers contributions lower the total amount NZers can save, and ANY tampering with something that helps NZers save less is simply going in the exact opposite of where we know we need to go as a country.

*bail and parole laws
How can a major change in our bail and parole laws go through unchallenged? The ramifications of this policy will be a ballooning of the prison population in an already under-resourced public prison system, which will predictably lead the way for Dick Cheney’s private prison industry to gain it’s grip on this country. Private prisons don’t care about rehabilitation, they care about more prisoners in more prisons for longer. Their vested interest in profit warps the social value of rehabilitation utterly and that we are greenlighting this without thinking about the future ramifications bewilders me. Remember with this new private remand prison, these are people who have not been convicted and yet we are allowing a private company to detain them – the only power in a democratic state that should be able to hold you against your will is the state, not a company.

* Increasing police powers to investigate gangs, and making gang membership an aggravating factor to be considered at sentencing.
I did not agree with this while Labour were boasting it, and I sure as hell don’t like it now National and ACT are championing it. Why should the Police be able to break into your home and place spyware cameras and film you for up to 4 days without a Judicial warrant just on the suspicion that you are a gang? And seeing as the police get to suggest who a gang is or not these powers seem destined to be abused. You beat organized crime by targeting their financial structures, not by giving the Police more intrusive surveillance powers.

* Allowing police to take DNA samples from everyone arrested for an offence for which they could be sentenced to jail.
Note you don’t have to give DNA if you are CONVICTED of a crime, but merely being arrested for anything you can be jailed over. Why should we hand over our DNA on the mere suspicion of guilt and where the hell will our DNA be stored, is it safe, what happens if it’s stolen? If you are convicted of a crime you should hand over your DNA, but for merely being arrested? That is a massive erosion of your rights, you shouldn’t be forced to hand over your DNA simply because you were arrested.

These are not moderate policies and the manner in which this policy will be passed by the misuse of urgency isn’t moderate either. We are about to implement major change without one word of debate, National will ram through what they can and spend the next 3 years spinning the changes.

Does it feel like Obama’s change yet?

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