NZ; Home Truths; It is time for Politicians to sit up and listen.
Home Truths
By Greg Knight
The Weekend Sun, Tauranga, Bay Of Plenty, New Zealand
6 February 2004 Issue: 174
It is time for Politicians to sit up and listen.
I love summer, Christmas, and the Christmas holidays, as it gives me a chance to spend much appreciated time with my family, friends and my children. However it also gives me time to sit back and reflect on the past year and what has changed for me personally, and for the country. These two things are so intertwined that sometimes I find it difficult to understand why people in New Zealand are so apathetic about our esteemed leaders and how those decisions affect us everyday.
I was out fishing the other day, and my father in-law said to me, ???Greg, why do you worry about politics so much, I mean can you tell me how it affects you in your daily life.??? (You shouldn???t really ask me that question unless you have a little spare time. Just my father-in-laws luck we were out fishing). I can???t help thinking that there are so many people out there who have switched off to politics because they think it doesn???t really affect them too much, or that they feel they can???t do anything about it. Or is it that people feel and think that if they did stand up, that politicians won???t listen to them anyway. I mean look at the GM debate. Huge public disapproval for the lifting of the GM moratorium, but the government went and did it anyway. Or the Scrapping of the Privy Council, even with over 85% of the country against it, Labour still felt they had a public mandate, because as Margaret Wilson said, the other 14 percent of New Zealanders who agreed with it were thinking New Zealanders. Don???t you just love politicians who convince themselves that they are right, even against the odds?
There is no doubt that politicians in the past have not listened enough to the people, and I believe it is time for the New Zealand public to stand up and make politicians more accountable. However, in all the time that I have been a polite bystander to all of the political goings on, I have never seen a government so arrogant or so hell bent on pursuing their own social engineering agenda, as this Labour Party.
The New Zealand public needs to understand that decisions that these politicians make do change our everyday lives. You might not see it straight away, but it will affect us down the track somehow. I mean look at the Guardianship Act that was put in place over 30 years ago to help parents who were separating. This bill, with the help of the Family Court has kept divorced fathers separated from their children for years. You could say that this is not in itself a national catastrophe, but I read in the papers everyday the concerns about our young people, and the national debate about how can we resolve the problems we have with abuse, under achieving children, lawlessness, disrespect, prostitution, teenage pregnancies and suicides of our young people.
There is no doubt that if this piece of legislation was more father friendly and also concerned with the outcomes of the children, that we would be living in a different society today.
As one of our previous Governor Generals, Sir Michael Hardie-Boyes said, ???If present trends continue, by 2010, half of European and nearly three-quarters of Maori infants under 12 months will be in families where there is no father. Unless we turn things around, the nation is going to be in serious trouble.???
What about the referendum on tougher sentencing and 92% of the people asking for the Government to get tough on crime. Has this Labour Government really listened or have they once again ignored us.
I could go on, but I am clear of one thing, our politicians aren???t listening. I have observed over the last couple of years Helen Clark and many of the others in the Labour Party displaying such arrogance and a total disregard for the public by bringing in legislation that a majority of people disapprove of, and I can see the many problems all of us will now have to face. Fine if as a country we have a majority that agree, (not a majority of politicians) then we reap what we sow, but why should we have a few people dictating to the masses. This is getting a bit too close to communism or dictatorship for my liking, and as one commentator has recently remarked, are we under the siege of Helengrad and the Fourth Reich.
Perhaps we have too many politicians and we pay them too much, so they think they have to be doing something to justify their existence. Just on that note, why is it that Helen Clark gets paid more than the Australian Prime Minister, and yet she seems to listen less.
I believe that most people are quite capable of managing their own affairs and politicians should stop interfering in our lives so much unless it is essential that they become involved, or we ask them to.
It is time for New Zealanders to stand up and say to the politicians, enough is enough. They all must learn to listen.
I personally have made a New Year resolution that I will speak out about my concerns until politicians learn to listen, not to just me, but the concerns and wishes of the people at large.
END
|
