Category Archives: Vote 2014

ALCP, Cannabis, Cannabis Corpse, Kim Dotcom, Mana Party, Vote 2014

Cannibalising the cannabis vote (Part 2)

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The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party‘s electorate candidates did well in last Saturday’s general election. (See Part 1.) But the ALCP’s share of the party vote was down.

The 2014 GENERAL ELECTION – PRELIMINARY RESULT gives us 0.41% of the party vote. That’s roughly 20% down on 2011’s final result of 0.52%, and pretty much back to where we were in 2008. (But we’re projected to be 0.45% after special votes are counted.)

With cannabis law reform happening in many jurisdictions around the world (e.g., Jamaica, Uruguary, Colorado, Washington) and the “synthetic cannabis” industry derailing itself this year here in New Zealand, cannabis law reform was supposed to have been much more of an election issue. But it wasn’t. So what happened?

Before we get to that, let’s take a look at our party vote performance in previous MMP elections. The ALCP first contested the general election in 1996, which was New Zealands first under the Mixed-Member Proportional system. (See NEW ZEALAND ELECTION RESULTS.)

Year 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014
Percent 1.66 1.10 0.64 0.25 0.41 0.52 0.41

The 1996 general election saw the ALCP’s best party vote result. Subsequently, its vote share steadily declined to an all-time low of 0.25% three elections later in 2005. It’s risen since then, to 0.52% of the party vote in 2011. Last Saturday’s result is a slight dip, but as much as 20% down on 2011’s result nonetheless. How to explain all this?

I think a big part of the explanation is obvious. After 1996 and again after 1999, cannabis law reform voters came to the realisation that a vote for the ALCP was a “wasted” vote. Wasted in the sense that it was extremely unlikely that the ALCP would ever reach the 5% threshold and have MPs enter Parliament. Nonetheless, a vote for the ALCP is worthwhile as a protest vote, worthwhile because protesting is worthwhile and it’s absolutely clear what AlCP voters are protesting about: cannabis prohibition.

But cannabis law reformers want more than just to protest, they also want to effect change. And I think another part of the explanation of the decline in the ALCP’s party vote share in 2002 and 2005 is that the cannabis vote was cannibalised by the Green Party. In 1996 Nandor Tanczos and Metiria Turei were candidates on the ALCP’s list. In 1999 Nandor Tanczos was on the Green Party’s list and entered Parliament. By 2002 it was obvious to cannabis law reform voters that in the dreadlocked skateboarding Rastafarian MP the CLR cause had a champion in Parliament, and in 2002 Nandor Tanczos was joined by Metiria Turei (after her 1999 stint with the McGillicuddy Serious Party). (Nandor Tanczos has since left the toxic hellhole that is New Zealand’s Parliament. Metiria Turei remains and is now the Green Party’s co-leader with Russel Norman.)

I confess that I party voted Green once (I’m pretty sure it was in 2002) and for exactly the reason just outlined. I’m sorry. šŸ™

Giving my CLR vote to the Greens turned out to be a mistake. (Even though in my book Nandor Tanczos was, and still is, cool.) It was a mistake for two reasons. Because, beyond legalising a couple of strains of industrial hemp, the Greens have done nothing for cannabis law reform despite having had Parliamentary representation for 18 years now. And my vote for the watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) no doubt helped further their far-left agenda. Fortunately, in 2003 I saw the light of liberty, identified as a libertarian, and joined the Libertarianz Party. šŸ™‚

Fast forward to 2014 and the cannabis vote was again cannibalised. This time by the Internet Party who basically copied the ALCP’s cannabis policy (stopping only just short of full, Colorado-style legalisation) and announced it barely two weeks out from the election. With much song and dance, since Internet Party leader Laila Harre’s partner in crime, the Mana Movement’s leader Hone Harawira, balked and gave the Internet Party’s policy pronouncement a great deal of extra publicity. (See, e.g., Internet Mana leaders fall out over weed and Mana leader angry at cannabis plan.)

It’s hard to tell how many party votes went to the Internet Mana Party that would otherwise have gone to the ALCP, given that the IMPs gained only 1.26% of the party vote (although projected to rise to 1.37% after special votes are counted). I’d like to think it was at least as many party votes as we lost compared to our 2011 election result.

This time I wasn’t anywhere near stupid or unprincipled enough to give my party vote to the IMPs. But those who were and did also made an electoral mistake. We witnessed InternetMana self-destructing over cannabis policy. Hone Harawira lost his (inaptly named) Te Tai Tokerau seat to Labour’s Kelvin Davis, and so all those CLR voters who voted IMPs flushed their party votes straight down the toilet. They should have protested instead! Then at least we’d know that they voted for cannabis law reform.

Regardless, perhaps John Key will hear the CLR message and legalise cannabis in the Fifth National Government’s third Parliamentary term.

What’s The Likelihood of Cannabis Law Reform in John Key’s Third Term?

ALCP, Cannabis, Cannabis Corpse, Kim Dotcom, LCPA, Libertarianz, Mana Party, Vote 2014

Cannibalising the cannabis vote (Part 1)

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The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party took a big hit in Saturday’s general election. I don’t mind saying that I’m somewhat disappointed. (It’s my party – I’m the Vice President – and I’ll cry if I want to.)

The 2014 GENERAL ELECTION – PRELIMINARY RESULT gives us 0.41% of the party vote. That’s roughly 20% down on 2011’s final result of 0.52%, and pretty much back to where we were in 2008.

This time around was supposed to have been our election. With many jurisdictions around the world decriminalising (e.g., Jamaica) and some countries (Uruguay) and US states (Colorado, Washington) outright legalising, globally the tide has turned on cannabis prohibition. Consciousnesses were supposed to have been raised and cannabis law reform was supposed to have been much more of an election issue. But it wasn’t.

I was optimistic that we’d double our vote and achieve 1%. I never doubted that we’d stay safely above 0.5%. But we didn’t. So what went wrong?

Before we get to that, let’s take some big bong hits. All our candidates did well in their electorates, and their individual successes are worth celebrating.

Preliminary vote counts are highlighted in the table below, with some comparable figures from the NEW ZEALAND ELECTION RESULTS from the previous two general elections in 2011 and 2008. (Figures in brackets may not be the same candidate, the same electorate or the same party. Two out of the three.)

Candidate 2014 2011 2008 Electorate
KINGI, Emma-Jane Mihaere 838 703 – Te Tai Tonga
DOMBROSKI, Jamie 608 439 – New Plymouth
GRAY, Abe 466 (398) (483) Dunedin North
CRAWFORD, Julian 395 (398) (483) Dunedin South
WILKINSON, Robert 373 (254) (487) Christchurch Central
GOODE, Richard 332 332 (64) Mana
MANNING, Romana Marnz 307 352 – Tukituki
McDERMOTT, Adrian 267 (319) – Te Atatu
GREGORY, Alistair 258 (404) (407) Wellington Central
LYE, Jeff 221 (331) – Kelston
– (559) (788) Te Tai Tokerau
WILKINSON, Steven (203) 450 623 West Coast-Tasman
MACDONALD, Fred (107) 253 – Otaki

Clear star of the show is Emma-Jane Kingi harvesting 838 votes in the southernmost Maori electorate of Te Tai Tonga. EJ, you rock! Also a very strong showing from Jamie Dombroski harvesting 608 votes in the New Plymouth electorate. Solid numbers too from the ALCP’s Leader Julian Crawford and Deputy Leader Abe Gray in the Dunedin South and Dunedin North electorates respectively. (The numbers in brackets are Julian’s results from 2011 and 2008 when he ran in the Dunedin North electorate.) And well done to budding newcomer Robert Wilkinson representing the party in the Christchurch Central electorate.

I’m happy enough with my own preliminary result of 332 votes in the Mana electorate. I expect a few more votes when the special votes are counted and the Electoral Commission announces the final results early next month. But my tally right now is exactly the same as last time. It’s significant that I got over 5 times as many votes standing under the ALCP banner this time and in 2011 as I did in 2008 when I was a Libertarianz Party candidate. Whose mast you nail your own colours to matters a great deal. I’ve included a couple of candidates in the table above who stood as ALCP candidates in previous elections, but who went their own ways this time. Both Steven Wilkinson and Fred Macdonald stood as Independents, and both more than halved their yields.

Satisfying results from our other candidates too, albeit slightly down on previous figures at this stage. I’d anticipated a few more votes for rising star Alistair Gregory who ran a stellar campaign in Wellington Central. In fact, the not quite comparable numbers in brackets are votes won in previous elections by Michael Appleby, the ALCP’s locally well-known leader and brand-recognised figurehead since the party’s inception in 1996 until he stood aside late last year. Suffice it to say, Ali had big shoes to fill.

But I think there’s another reason that Ali’s (and Jeff’s and Adrian’s) vote counts were down a little on previously (and also why Julian’s and Abe’s vote counts were steady despite Dunsterdam being this election’s ALCP campaign headquarters). They all had competition in their electorates from Internet Party candidates. Which brings me to what I think accounts for the significant drop in the ALCP’s party vote.

The Internet-Mana Party cannibalised the cannabis law reform vote. Read more in Part 2.

2 Corinthians, ACT, ALCP, John, Labour Party, Metallica, National Party, Peter Dunne, Romans, Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings, Vote 2014

Am I evil? Yes I am.

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I’ve been honoured once again to have received Liberty Scott’s endorsement of my candidacy in his 2014 New Zealand voting guide for lovers of liberty.

Statue of Liberty

 
 
Mana – Safe Labour – Richard Goode Kris Faafoi or Hekia Parata? To hell with them both, vote for libertarian Richard Goode standing under the ALCP banner. He believes in more than just legalising weed, he believes in a smaller state and so your vote will be principled.

It’s true. I do believe in a smaller state and I am principled. Well, mostly.

I had intended to post my own series of Eternal Vigilance electorate candidate endorsements. In the end, I posted only two, one for Grant Keinzley and one for Alistair Gregory. Why only two?

I ran out of time, as I so often do. More exactly, I ran out of time to do a proper job. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, you see. And that brings me to the other reason I posted only two endorsements in the end. The paucity of perfect candidates, indeed the paucity of anywhere-near-perfect candidates. As far as candidates worthy of a Christian libertarian’s endorsement go, Alistair Gregory is about as good as it gets. But I have since had serious qualms about my other candidate endorsement and I resile from it.

Here at Eternal Vigilance we champion principle over pragmatism. Two of us (me and Tim) are former Libertarianz activists, candidates and spokesmen. Libertarianz was New Zealand’s only Party of Principle, and Tim and I actively carry on its proud tradition of promoting more freedom and less government. As do some other former Libz members, two of whom are running as candidates for the pseudo-libertarian ACT Party this election. (Although at least one former Libz activist is beyond giving a shit.)

To its great credit, and the credit of all in the party at the time, Libertarianz never compromised. Even to the point of promoting the practically unworkable Tracinski’s ratchet. The Libz recognised that the greater good is never a moral defence of government action, and voting for the lesser evil is always morally indefensible. (Are you ratcheting evil?)

Sensing the Libertarianz Party’s impending demise, I jumped waka and joined the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. Legalising cannabis is a libertarian policy, and it was the policy of the Libertarianz Party for which I was the Spokesman on Drugs, so there was no cognitive dissonance for me and no ill-feeling from any of my fellow libertarians who all wished me well with my open infiltration of the ALCP. (Check out the ALCP’s ten principles and tell me if you see a libertarian influence.)

But the devil is in the details. While I steadfastly stand by my party’s policy of regulating cannabis Colorado-style, I recognise regulation for what it is.

Regulations are actually prohibitive ā€“ if government defines the one way they will allow something they are really prohibiting all other ways.

Thus I fail any libertarian purity test.

1. Is there a positive candidate to endorse?

But so does Liberty Scott. As a libertarian, does he really have any business asking questions 2 and 3?

2. Is there a likely winner worthy of tactically voting to eject because he or she is so odious??
3. Is there a tolerable “least worst” candidate?

It’s no secret that I consider Peter Dunne to be New Zealand’s most evil Member of Parliament. Evil in an utterly banal way, like Adolf Eichmann. Dunne now faces the very real risk that he will lose his Ohariu electorate seat to Labour Party challenger Virginia Andersen. So I hope and pray that Virginia Andersen is Ohariu’s new MP when the votes are counted tomorrow night!

I admit I was even tempted to get out on the streets and help Andersen with her electorate campaign. But I didn’t, and in the end I couldn’t even bring myself to endorse her candidacy explicitly when I spoke at a recent Meet the Candidates evening in the Ohariu electorate. Compared to Dunne, Andersen is the lesser evil. But what about the even lesser evil on the Ohariu voter’s ballot paper, fellow libertarian Sean Fitzpatrick? He’s explicitly stated he’s seeking only the party vote for the pseudo-libertarian ACT Party. Perhaps he, too, secretly hopes that Ohariu voters will give their electorate vote to Andersen? But aside from that, Fitzpatrick’s party has no cannabis policy. That’s why I call it pseudo-libertarian. Drug legalisation is the litmus test for being a libertarian. The ACT Party fails on that count. What’s more, post-election the ACT Party may enter into a coalition agreement (to provide confidence and supply) with the National Party. How evil is that?

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? (ESV)

Jamie Whyte & co. are believers in individual freedom and personal responsibility at least.

They’re lesser evils. But what about my own candidacy? Am I evil? Yes I am!

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (ESV)

but some fall shorter than others. I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that I’m a lesser evil just like all the candidates in the list below. I’m standing to give Mana voters the choice to vote for a lesser evil. Am I evil? I’m your man!

Without further ado, here are my candidate endorsements. I’ll spare you the details.

Christchurch East Robert Wilkinson (ALCP)
Dunedin North Abe Gray (ALCP)
Dunedin South Julian Crawford (ALCP)
Epsom Adam Holland (Independent)
Kelston Jeff Lye (ALCP)
Mana Richard Goode (ALCP)
New Plymouth Jamie Dombroski (ALCP)
Ohariu Virginia Andersen (Labour)
Palmerston North Iain Lees-Galloway (Labour)
Te Atatu Adrian McDermott (ALCP)
Te Tai Tokerau Kelvin Davis (Labour)
Te Tai Tonga Emma-Jane Mihaere Kingi (ALCP)
Tukituki Romana Marnz Manning (ALCP)
Upper Harbour Stephen Berry (ACT)
Wellington Central Alistair Gregory (ALCP)

Politics is a dirty, worldly business and we know who is god of this world. Should Christians, who are in this world but not supposed to be of it, even get involved in politics?

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

ALCP, Peter Dunne, Psychoactive Substances Act, Vote 2014

Richard gets Dunne

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pne8AZvjYqo

Good evening. Thank you all for coming.

My name is Richard Goode, I’m here tonight representing the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. I’m the Legalise Cannabis Party’s candidate for the Mana electorate just north of here.

We have one policy. To legalise cannabis

Before another decade is up, New Zealand will almost certainly follow the lead of Colorado and other U.S. states and legalise cannabis for recreational, spiritual, medicinal and industrial purposes.

But, when the time comes, we need to legalise cannabis sensibly and safely. That’s why we need Legalise Cannabis Party representation in Parliament.

What does sensible, safe cannabis law reform look like? It looks like Colorado, the U.S. state where, since 1 January this year, cannabis is now regulated like alcohol and tobacco.

What’s been the result since Colorado legalised cannabis? Positive outcomes. The crime rate? Down. The homicide rate? Down. The suicide rate? Down. Motor vehicle accidents? The road toll is down.

The immigration rate? Up! Many of you will have seen recent documentaries about a strain of cannabis called Charlotte’s Web and its use in treating epilepsy. Whole families have picked up and moved to Colorado, since Charlotte’s Web cannabis is the only thing that stops life-threatening epileptic seizures in their children.

Now let me tell you what sensible, safe cannabis law reform DOESN’T look like.

It doesn’t look like the recent legal highs debacle which was presided over by the National government’s Associate Minister of Health, Peter Dunne.

Instead of legalising safe, natural cannabis, Peter Dunne gave the Ministry of Health’s seal of approval to dozens of so-called ā€œsynthetic cannabisā€ products that actually contained 11 different untested, unsafe research chemicals with almost no history of human use about whose likely long-term health effects we knew absolutely nothing.

And this was after he’d made the following promise.

We are going to reverse the onus of proof so the manufacturers of these products have to prove they are safe before they can bring them on to the market.

Here’s a harrowing tale of addiction from a friend who switched from smoking natural cannabis to smoking one of Dunne’s chemical concoctions, thinking it must be safe because it had been approved as “low risk”.

im 34 been smoking buds since i was 15 never had an issue had sweet jobs good life got my dream job as a dairy farm manager everything going sweet till i heard my boss was going to do drug testing so i thort id give this synthetic shit ago didnt expect much since i[t] was sold in dairys and yea it was down hill from there. one packet and i was hooked like with weed i could go a couple or more days without it with this shit i had to have it and i couldnt stop myself honest sometimes i would cry asking myself what the fuck i was doing tho the whole time chuffing away on the pipe like a cracker.

There were hundreds of such cases of severe addiction, psychosis, and seizures. Yes, seizures.

Right now, thanks in large part to the Associate Minister of Health, seriously ill New Zealanders, including children with life-threatening seizures, are being denied legal access to the medicine they need.

Peter Dunne’s bright idea was to give the MOH’s seal of approval to chemicals that caused addiction, psychosis, and seizures in our young people instead.

Now, the guidelines I was given for tonight were to introduce myself, my party and my party’s policy’s, but also to discuss local issues.

In fact, I’ve just been talking about the biggest local issue facing the Ohariu electorate.

Peter Dunne entered Parliament as a Labour Party MP when David Lange’s Labour Party won a landslide victory in 1984. We got rid of Muldoon, but we got Dunne! He’s been propping up both Labour and National government’s and impeding safe, sensible drug law reform ever since.

He did a deal with Helen Clark in 2002. One of the terms of the support agreement that Peter Dunne insisted on was

The government will not introduce legislation to change the legal status of cannabis and will implement a comprehensive drug strategy aimed at protecting young people and educating them on the dangers of drug use.

The voters of Ohariu will be the judge of how good a job the man behind the legal highs debacle did at protecting young people and educating them on the dangers of drug use.

Please, this September 20, give your party vote to the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party and your Mana electorate vote to me.

And, Ohariu voters, please consider very carefully to whom you give your electorate vote.

Thank you.

TawaUnionChurchSlider

ALCP, Cannabis, Vote 2014

Ministry of Cannabis

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Regulatory Regime for Cannabis Announced

The Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party announced its regulatory policy today, calling for a new Ministry of Cannabis.

The new regulatory authority would be established at a cost of $10 million according to ALCP’s shadow budget.

ALCP regulatory spokesman Dr Richard Goode said the Cannabis Ministry would issue licences for the commercial cannabis trade and help with training programmes for those interested in the industry.

ā€œLicensing the commercial production and sale of cannabis will allow conditions to be put in place such as an R18 age-limit and a tax regime,ā€ he said.

ā€œHome-grown cannabis and social dealing among friends will not require a licence and will be tax-free. The medical marijuana industry will be offered tax-breaks so they only pay 50% of regular taxes. The hemp industry will pay regular taxes, while the commercial-recreational industry will pay excise duty on top of regular taxes.ā€

The definition of adult will be set at 18-years-old or above, while the limits for personal use will be set as high as possible in negotiation with the Government. Excise duty will be no higher than 15%, similar to the Colorado model.

This allows easy access to personal or medical cannabis while ensuring that commercial players contribute the most to public revenue.

Dr Goode said the new authority would also offer training programmes to help get the industry off the ground.

ā€œDoctors will be offered training about the medical benefits of cannabis and how to prescribe it for patients,ā€ he said.

ā€œThere will also be courses for those who want to get more involved in the hemp industry.ā€

These regulations will encourage cannabis commerce while ensuring an even playing field and and a market driven approach to pricing. All New Zealanders will be better off once legal cannabis sales are contributing to public revenue.

stoner+dog_5b38c5_3077427

The new Ministry of Cannabis will have the following areas of responsibility:

Stop the Arrests:

  • Instruct Police to use their discretion and stop arresting cannabis users.
  • Instruct courts to drop all pending cannabis charges.
  • Ensure cannabis is removed from the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Overturn Convictions:

  • Ensure all cannabis convictions are quashed and a Royal pardon issued.
  • Instruct Corrections to release all prisoners who are serving cannabis only sentences.
  • Instruct Corrections to wipe all outstanding fines and probation sentences for cannabis offences.
  • Establish a judicial panel to issue compensation for historical cannabis convictions.

Personal Use:

  • Allow adults to possess and use cannabis for personal use.
  • Allow adults to grow cannabis at home for personal use.
  • Allow adults to trade cannabis with each other for personal use.
  • Instruct IRD not to tax personal cannabis use.

Medical Cannabis:

  • Allow medical patients to use cannabis and access it from a doctor or pharmacy.
  • Allow caregivers to grow cannabis for individual patients.
  • Issue licences to grow medical cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to process or wholesale medical cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to dispensaries and pharmacies to retail medical cannabis.
  • Train doctors in how to prescribe medical cannabis.
  • Instruct IRD to give a 50% tax-break to the medical cannabis industry.

Industrial Hemp:

  • Allow anyone to register to grow industrial hemp without a licence.
  • Run training programmes in growing industrial hemp.
  • Run training programmes for processing and manufacturing industrial hemp products.
  • Allow any business to retail industrial hemp products.
  • Instruct IRD to tax industrial hemp at the usual tax rate.

Commercial-Recreational Cannabis:

  • Issue licences to grow cannabis on a commercial scale.
  • Issue licences to process or wholesale cannabis for commercial purposes.
  • Issue licences to operate a retail cannabis outlet.
  • Instruct IRD to tax commercial cannabis sales at the usual rate with an added excise duty.
  • Allow adults to buy personal amounts of cannabis from retail outlets.

International Trade:

  • Issue licences to import cannabis products into New Zealand.
  • Issue licences to export cannabis products from New Zealand.

07.30.13news-capitol-city-care-medical-marijuana-fixed-edit

Apartheid, Hell, National Party, Peter Dunne, Racism, Unicorns, Vote 2014

Hikois from hell

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Hikoi-foreshore

It’s National Party policy to abolish the Maori seats but John Key says not on his watch.

Dropping Maori seats would mean ‘hikois from hell’

Abolishing the Maori seats would rip the country apart and attract “hikois from hell”, John Key said.

Speaking to the Herald last week before the release of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics, the Prime Minister said that while it remained National Party policy to abolish the seats, even if he had enough numbers to do so, he would abolish them only with the agreement of Maori.

“It would divide the nation,” he told the Herald’s Hot Seat series . “Despite the fact that a lot of people say they don’t like it and they were there for a particular reason, actually it would be an incredibly divisive thing to do to New Zealand and New Zealanders.”

“Do you really want to rip a country apart? I’ll tell you what would happen – hikois from hell.”

Whether you were on the Maori roll or the general roll everyone got two votes.

While abolishing the seats has been long-standing policy for National, Act and United Future policy, the Maori Party’s confidence and supply agreement with National saw it parked as an active issue. But even if the Maori Party were not in the next Parliament, Mr Key has in effect protected them.

Political party 1law4all isn’t happy. On Facebook they posted

Post by 1law4all.

 
But I agree with John Key.

Having a Maori electoral roll as well as a general electoral roll is not, in itself, racist. It is merely arbitrary. Everyone gets two votes, regardless of which roll they’re on.

What’s racist about the Maori roll is that only Maori get to choose whether to be on it or to be on the general roll. If we opened up the Maori roll to non-Maori, there’d be no racism.

And no problem. Because we have to divide the country up into electorates somehow. (Or do we?!) Dividing the country up geographically is arbitrary. We might just as well divide the country up according to the age of the voters. It would be instructive to do so. Who would win the 20-year-old’s seat? Who would win the 60-year-old’s seat? Now we’re talking ageism, instead of racism!

But isn’t our current system geographicalist? I’d love to be enrolled in the Ohariu electorate so that I could vote for someone other than Peter Dunne. But I can’t. I’m stuck with Mana. (It’s like school zoning, I’m against it.)

Key’s more important point is that abolishing the Maori seats today would lead to “hikois from hell”. That’s a euphemism for blood on the streets. Do we really want to trade a harmless anachronism for violent civil unrest?

Retaining the Maori seats is the small price we pay for keeping a lid on the simmering resentment of some Maori towards the descendants of the colonials whom they believe inflicted a holocaust on their ancestors leaving them disadvantaged to this day.

Retaining the Maori seats is a good social insurance policy. Much like retaining the dole. The dole costs [from memory, I might come back and edit this figure] $18,000 per year per beneficiary. Incarceration costs [again, this figure is from memory] $90,000 per year per inmate. If we abolished the dole, there’d be a crime wave tsunami as an army of unemployed, suddenly bereft of income, found thieving (and worse) ways to make ends meet. Kiwis, beneficiary and non-beneficiary alike, would suffer. So let’s not abolish the dole, mmmkay?

Let’s be clear. The productive and colour blind are being held to ransom. In paying the dole and retaining the Maori seats, we are complicit in perpetuating unjust systems of social welfare and racist democracy. But what choices do we have?

Remember, too, that people’s welfare is a consideration that must temper considerations of justice. Okay, now I look forward to my co-bloggers dumping on me from a great height. See the comments section below.