Paying for views you oppose

One of the chief evils of offices of political advocacy is that taxpayers opposed to views which they hold to be wrong-headed, destructive or plain vicious are required, nonetheless, to dip into their pockets and pay for bureaucrats to promote those views.  Paid political activists whose time is paid for by their opponents – what could be more outrageous!

Latest example of this outrage is a magazine issued by the Families Commission which fiercely upholds the power of  government employees to enter your home and tell you how to discipline your children.  While Families Commissioner Christine Rankin has been told by her bosses to keep her mouth shut on matters pertaining to the anti-smacking referendum, you and I and and the opponents of the anti-smacking legislation are having our pockets picked to pay for advocacy which we oppose.  Advocates like Bob McCoskrie of Families First and his supporters are required to find the money to promote the “No” vote campaign, while all the while being required to up the tab for their opponents as well.

Such is the evil of offices of political advocacy like the Families Commission, which opposes the sanctity of the family, or the Children’s Commissioner, which under Cindy Kiro favours the nationalisation of children.

Into this debate steps Stephen Franks, arguing that things have gone so far that it is time to consider the heresy of “a new publicly funded agency to remedy failure in the marketplace of ideas”: an Office of Devil’s Advocacy – and office paid to provide opposition to the paid political advocates of the “dreary anointed.”

Sounds like a job I might enjoy – if, that is, I could stomach the heresy of picking my opponents’ pockets to pay for the unpalatable advocacy I’d be required to promote.  :-)

Uptown Top Rankin [updated]

There must surely be many more useless government departments than the Fatuous Family’s Commission, and there is surely fierce competition for the spot, but the government department created by the Clark Government as a bribe to keep Peter Dunne on side (and to foster the illusion that his years in parliament had actually achieved something) must be the most well known as a prime candidate for the chop.

What has it actually achieved? Nothing. What was it supposed to achieve? To fool Done-Nothing's supporters into thinking he'd achieved something in his career.

So when former bureaucrat Christine Rankin was appointed to the position of head of the Fatuous Commission yesterday it hardly made my heart sing. Yes, she took the right stand on the anti-smacking bill promoted by Sue Bradford (who yesterday was disgracefully characterising Rankin as being a promoter of violence towards children) but she’s still just a wasteful bloody bureaucrat in charge of a department that should not exist.

So that’s what I was thinking as I listened to her interviewed on Newstalk ZB last night. That anyone who could make both Sue Bradford and Peter Done-Nothing expose their true character can't be all bad (and aren't they nasty when they're crossed) , but this is still just another high-spending bureaucrat in charge of just another useless quango.

But then she said something that made my jaw drop. Larry Williams put to her that very point – that the Families Commission was nothing more than a political creation, by expediency out of MMP, and a complete waste of time, space and money – and she agreed. And she said that if after examination she still held that view, then she would be working to close it down.

I’ve never heard a bureaucrat say that before – even with those few weasel words. So just this once, I’m going to support the appointment of a new bureaucrat, no matter how wasteful she's been in the past. Well done Ms Rankin. You now have a year’s grace before I see you as just another jobsworth.

Here’s a song which may or may not be related to this discussion:

 UPDATE:  Oops.  A commenter points out that Rankin isn’t boss, “she's only one of seven. Also look up the FamCom website to check out the drivel they produce. The thing should have been abolished....full stop.”

First pics from the Wellington anti-anti-smacking rally

First pictures just in from the Wellington anti-anti-smacking rally, courtesy of Dominion (above) and Robin Thomsen (below):

Listen up!

Entry into Parliament grounds.

March organiser Mitch Lees.

Four Libz at the rally point, setting the tone. Spot the pun.

UPDATE 1: Newswire has a report, as does Newstalk ZB:

Around 500 placard-waving protestors vented their spleen outside Parliament after a march from Civic Square. They say the proposed law robs parents of their rights to discipline their children. One placard sent a clear message to the MP's "represent your voters or lose them", which is reflective of opinion polls which have consistently pointed to around 80 percent of voters being opposed to the law change.

Libertarian Lindsay Perigo raised spectres of a police state, saying police will become the Gestapo and New Zealand will become a nation of snitches if the bill goes through.

Following Helen Clark's shot at what she described as "fundamentalists" yesterday, the debate has become increasingly personal. Former WINZ boss and current child campaigner Christine Rankin took a swipe at Helen Clark for ignoring public opinion, saying "the childless Prime Minister thinks she knows better than the public".

Ms Rankin also lambasted the bill's sponsor Sue Bradford, saying comments the Green MP made last October that men opposed to the bill are sexual perverts who get a kick out of hitting children "says it all".

In Christchurch an estimated 2,000 protestors braved a wet, wintry lunchtime in Christchurch today to march from Victoria Square to the Cathedral Square.

Lindsay Mitchell has more of Perigo's attention-grabbing speech.

UPDATE 2: Scoop has more pictures, and a frankly sneering,report by Kevin List, topped off with an inaccurate headline: Libz, Bible scholars and Nats fight S59 repeal - Scoop

Why inaccurate? Because as David Farrar explains, Bradford's Bill doesn't repeal the section, it simply fills it with mush. See Lies, damn lies and more lies - Kiwiblog.

UPDATE 3: Robin Thomsen provides this report:

Today's Anti-anti-smacking March in Wellington was a great success, around 500+ protesters turned up carrying placards, including many children [wouldn't you expect these kids to be counter-protesting? :-)]. There was a crew of Libertarianz there, as well as members and supporters of Act, Family First, Destiny Church etc, all united (this time) against Nanny State.

There was a small and weird looking group of noisy Anti-anti-anti-smackers, but this gathering possessed little imagination and the limit of their counter-protest was blowing a whistle loudly and trying to chant, unsuccessfully, over the main protest.

Once the march had arrived at Parliament, Lindsay Perigo gave a rousing speech, followed by ACT's Heather Roy, United Future's Larry Baldock, National's Chester Borrows, Christine Rankin and Family First's Bob McCoskrie. None of the Anti-smacking Bill's supporters spoke or dared to get close, possibly fearing a public spanking.

We understand several other marches around the country had also been highly successful, with several thousand marchers protesting in Christchurch. [Newstalk ZB reports 2,000 (see above)]

Good on Mitch Lees for kicking off this successful protest.

RELATED: Smacking, NZ Politics, Libz

"I challenge anyone to find a case where section 59 has excused a real bashing that left a child injured."

As anyone with a brain knows, parents who do beat their children aren't going to listen to Bradford's anti-smacking law change any more than they listen to the laws that already make beating illegal. As lawyer Michelle Wilkinson-Smith says in today's Herald,

I say the repeal of section 59 is unnecessary because in my experience it is just that - unnecessary. I never lost a case which I prosecuted on the basis of section 59... Of course there will be the occasional case where section 59 has excused parents who overstepped the mark, but these are not cases where a child has been thrashed or beaten or injured. I challenge anyone to find a case where section 59 has excused a real bashing that left a child injured.

Wilkinson-Smith points out that Bradford's Bill will affect those in custody disputes and divorce battles and those against whom someone else bears a grudge -- those who are the least powerful, and those whom Bradford claims to represent -- and it ironically grants power to those she trusts the least:

Sue Bradford doesn't trust the New Zealand public so I find it amazing that she has so much faith in both the police and the justice system. She is proposing to give a huge amount of discretion to individual police officers... Most police are honest and upstanding and we are lucky to have them. Some are not. Some get caught up in a "means to an end" approach to criminal law. Some will use this legislation - and the discretion it gives them - for the wrong purpose. It won't be me or people like me who suffer this. It will be the very people Sue Bradford has fought for in so many other ways.

There is already sufficient law on the books to prosecute your child beaters, and you all know that.

This is not about smacking. It is not about stopping child beaters, since parents who do beat their children aren't going to listen to Bradford's law change any more than they listen to the laws that already make beating illegal. My opposition, and that of principled opponents to this Bill, is to the Nannying intrusion into New Zealand families; to the increased role of the state as parent, and a decreasing role for parents as parents.

Tomorrow, marchers on Parliament will have a chance to make their opposition known to those within -- to those wavering Labour MPs in marginal seats, to the Maori Party MPs who are hearing from their constituents opposed to the Bill, to the NZ First MPs threatened with demotion, to the whole damned Parliament who need to realise that nearly three-quarters of New Zealanders want Nanny to butt out.

Tomorrow's march starts at noon from the Civic Square -- and note that there will be a counter-protest at the same place and same time -- and at least five speakers when the march reaches Parliament's steps: Bob McCoskrie, Heather Roy, Larry Baldock, Christine Rankin and Lindsay Perigo (though not the first Perigo to have their say on this issue -- see Update 3 here). A few other MP's have also been invited. Please feel free to emphasise this request by e-mailing/calling them yourself.

UPDATE: I'll remind you of Luke's recent post where he covers one of the "prime examples" often raised in response to this challenge:

One of the prime examples is a Christian woman who punished her son with a ‘horse whip’. That’s the version we hear on the radio. But if we look a little closer, the ‘whip’ was actually a short riding crop, and the boy had attempted to smash his stepfather in the head with a baseball bat. This was not child abuse, it was sorely needed corrective discipline. In fact, the incident with the ‘whip’ was discovered after the school asked about the improvement in the boy’s behaviour!

So this wasn’t a failure of Section 59. It was a triumph of, firstly, parental discipline, and secondly, the New Zealand justice system, which managed, as usual, to find the correct verdict based on the evidence. The reality is the complete opposite of the political spin...

As I've said before, if you need to spin to make your point, it suggests you don't have a real, credible argument to make.

RELATED: Smacking, NZ Politics