Richard Hume
We all know that the Prime Minister is demurring from even talking to the protesters because of the “illegal” and “unacceptable” way they are behaving.
However, what do the words “illegal” and “unacceptable” mean to the Prime Minister when none of the following things seems to bother her?
- Her Speaker of the House (in charge of trying to drive the protesters away) punched one of his colleagues in the face in the Parliament Building.
- The instrument of legislation creating the mandates has been condemned by the Law Society as “constitutionally unsound”:
“The absence of any measures for public scrutiny and input into a statute of this kind is constitutionally unsound. The rule of law is harmed and public confidence in the law and our democracy is undermined when legislation which substantially impacts on fundamental rights and freedoms is enacted without any public consultation or any form of post-implementation review. It can also result in legislation which is not trusted by the community and, therefore, is unworkable or fails to deliver on its aims.”
- Some of the mandates themselves have now actually been found to be unlawful by the High Court, thus vindicating the position of the protesters.
- The two reasons given to justify turning about 350,000 people into second class citizens (that unvaccinated people spread Covid in a way that the unvaccinated don’t, and unvaccinated people will overwhelm the healthcare system) are now proven to be demonstrably untrue. The former because Covid has spread through the vaccinated community with impunity, so getting people vaccinated did little to nothing to stop the spread. The latter because the unvaccinated population is now statistically so small and the hospitalisation rates so low for Omicron that any claim that hospitals will be flooded as a result of the unvaccinated population is simply absurd. The fact is citizens should not have their core rights stripped away unless there are bulletproof reasons for it. In this instance the reasons given are clearly proven false, so to carry on with mandates under these circumstances is just an abuse of power.
- Her darling media have, along the way, relentlessly published utterly incorrect information that we now all know is false, to keep the population fearful and compliant while at the same time harping on about ‘misinformation’. (My favourite was the publication of the modelling that promised us 50,000 cases a day by Waitangi Day. Remember that?)
So to recap, the politicians and their friends who are not guilty of “illegal” and unacceptable” behaviour include:
- People who are violent
- People who have subverted the constitutional values of New Zealand
- People who have imposed rules that the Courts have found unlawful
- People who do not seem to care that the reasons given for making a vast number of people second class citizens have now been proven to be demonstrably false
- And those who promote reckless alarmism at a time when we need to have a balanced approach to the situation.
