Let the people decide

Public opinion has turned strongly against Labour's move to abolish the right of appeal to the Privy Council. Labour is dreaming if it thinks that railroading this legislation through Parliament will be the end of the matter. National's push for a rethink on this will continue as we work with New Zealand First and Act to seek public backing for a referendum. We will also be exploring a formula for approving judges which involves greater scrutiny through the Parliamentary process. A possibility would be to require that a judge first secure an approving resolution of Parliament before the appointment, along the lines of the process followed for the appointment of Ombudsmen. It is unacceptable to give Attorney-General Margaret Wilson the power to appoint two courts - the new Supreme Court and the replacement Appeal Court - with her personal choices. The electorate quite rightly fears judicial activists will be appointed to further cement in place Labour's social engineering. That's why an astonishing 79 per cent of respondents in the New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll this week voted in favour of a referendum to decide the issue. People simply don't trust Margaret Wilson to appoint judges that could be in place for the best part of a generation. A minority Government, acting with the support of a small extremist party, the Greens, has forced momentous constitutional change, by a very small margin, on a doubting electorate. By comparison, the Constitution Act 1986, was passed with no votes of dissent recorded, which is as it should be with major constitutional change. Helen Clark argues, incredibly, that this is no big deal. But she and Margaret Wilson are simply not trusted by the electorate on this - and with good reason.

Buying off the Greens with our money

The duplicitous Greens are backing Labour on the Privy Council decision although they promised Maoridom the opposite at the last election. They said then that removing Privy Council appeal rights or any move to a Republic would need to be preceded by a full dialogue between the Treaty partners. The Greens, who maintain to be pure and unsullied, have been bought off by means of the Land Transport Management Bill. Labour can now force motorists to pay through the nose for such Green initiatives as walkways, cycling tracks, railways and coastal shipping. In the same way you need to keep an eye on your rates bill. Rates will be going up because of the vast and unnecessary costs imposed on local bodies by the new Local Government Act.

Flinging more of our money about

Daily, it seems, we are seeing more examples of the money we pay in taxes being flung about by Labour to support their politically correct causes. Millions of dollars are spent funding the anti-smoking groups, but now it turns out we are also paying for these groups to lobby MPs on how to vote! And Labour was so determined to push their pet cause, the legalisation of prostitution, that they allocated your tax dollars for a lobbying campaign on this as well. And that's quite apart from Helen Clark hauling in MPs for a bit of friendly arm-twisting. You are also funding, though your taxes, "education" campaigns to further Labour's social engineering in all sorts of areas, but particularly relating to the Treaty. We have also exposed how you are sometimes funding two different versions of a policy: one in Maori to convince Labour's Maori voters, and another version in English to try to pacify the Pakeha electorate. National would stop this social engineering and put an end to the lobbying and propaganda campaigns. Workers should not have to fund this nonsense through their taxes.

ENDS

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