It is a common tactic for a political party to use a single emotive issue to get the tide of public opinion behind them in order to get a new law passed. Those carried away with the single emotional issue fail to look under the surface of the law in order to see how it will be applied in ways other than the issue used to sell them on the change.
Our gun laws are a perfect example. People were upset, angry and afraid when Ardern quickly rammed through her ill-thought-out gun ban. No one stopped to ask if they would make NZ any safer or if the law change would have prevented the Christchurch terror attack if it had been in place then. Supporters didn’t expect that the police would use the opportunity to start disarming the population, as the perfect time to start arming the police, or that Stuart Nash would turn it into an ongoing exercise to demonise both guns and law-abiding gun owners, while bringing in even more law changes.
Hate speech laws are the same. People pushing for them like the Race relations Commissioner and the newly formed Muslim lobby Group FAIR, make them sound like a great idea but their purpose is to bring in blasphemy laws via the backdoor. Like the gun laws, they are a Trojan horse for something completely different from what it first appears to be.
Now the National Party are putting the boot into gangs, which all sounds quite delightful and appeals to the right-wing amongst us, but what else are they sneaking in with their anti-gang laws?
I hate to break it to you dear readers, but their changes will EXPAND on the already SHOCKING law being pushed by Stuart Nash that takes away the right to silence from law-abiding gun owners.
Currently everyone has the right to silence, but Stuart Nash wants gun owners to be the exception to the rule. Now the National party wants to tinker with that law as well so that the protection offered by remaining silent will no longer be there.
The document asks for feedback on a member’s bill, from the party’s courts spokesman Chris Penk, that would enable a judge to draw “proper” inferences from a defendant who refused to give evidence.
It would also allow a prosecution to hammer home the accused’s choice to exercise the right to silence.
[…[ National’s proposals raise human rights issues including freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of expression, the presumption of innocence and the right to be free from unreasonable search.
NZ Herald
It may only seem like a small change, but the direction we would be heading in is bad for all our human rights. No doubt National expect that if the public think that only gang members will be affected by their proposed law changes, then they won’t see the wood for the trees and will be too busy shouting, “Hurray, string the beggars up”, rather than saying, “Hey…wait one cotton-picking moment!”
National is showing no respect for the Bill of Rights. Is this the kind of policy you expect from a centre-right political party? They want to tinker with the right to silence, a right enshrined in law all over the Western world. Everyone has that right, but now Labour and National want to start taking it away from specific groups in society.
Labour took away gun owners' right to silence, and I said nothing
because I was not a gun owner.
Then National took away gang members' right to silence, and I said nothing
because I was not a gang member.
Then they took away my right to silence and I had to say something
because I was no longer allowed to remain silent.
It may all sound great how National are talking tough on gangs, but every freedom they take away from gang members is a freedom that will be lost to average Joe Public as well. The gangs can be dealt to without taking away our precious human rights.