The Government is rushing legislation through Parliament to repeal the Maori Health Authority is just the latest act in what appears to be an all in assault on democratic practice in this country.
And at least one Government Party is forgetting the very principles on which it was founded and on which it gained the respect of the voting public. New Zealand First was founded in 1993 on 15 Fundamental Principles, which all look – and when being upheld actually are – quite noble. The first one is generally agreed to be the most important: To put New Zealand and all New Zealanders first.
Sounds great. It would look great in practice too if the party was not supporting a coalition Government that today seems to be taking great delight in abolishing the Maori Health authority. There are people openly celebrating it on Twitter. The problem is, nowhere has New Zealand First or any other governing party, said what they will do to mitigate the fact that Maori are now being expected to work within a system proven to have systemic biases when it comes to Pasifika and Maori health.
Not so great. And made even worse by the brazen contempt shown for democratic practice by ram rodding it through Parliament today to avoid the Waitangi Tribunal being able to condemn it when it members assemble on Thursday. It is just the latest in a line of Bills of Parliament from this Government that have completely negated the democratic process by bypassing the Select Committee stage between the First and Second Readings.
But the real danger is the outright contempt shown towards tangata whenua. This Government is trying to divide Maori and non-Maori with the view to erasing the latter by making them assimilate into an institutional system whose systemic bias in education, health, employment, academia, house ownership among other aspects is all too well known.
The Government also risks causing its own implosion. Minister of Finance Nicola Willis is still 3 months away from producing her first Fiscal Budget, but the headlong rush to cut services to fund the tax cuts, runs the risk of crashing the very economy that National said Labour and the Greens are bad managers of. This is despite the last Government leaving the country with an AAA rating rating. This is despite some well known conservative economists including Cameron Bagrie saying that the tax cuts should be the last thing on the Government’s mind. In 2020 former Prime Minister Jim Bolger said that the stark reality is that New Zealand will need another source of tax soon.
The worst Government in my lifetime also seems interested in being the shortest lived Government in my lifetime if it keeps this attack on the country up. In its headlong rush to complete everything it set out to in its first 100 days, the Government might have inadvertently made this period the 100 days that costs them the next election.
Time will tell. But before then, how much worse are they prepared to make this country? If we go by what has happened since November last year, a lot.
Leftist Kiwi Writes 