The “Listening” opposition? [update 3]

Isn’t it funny how political parties begin “listening” – or at least they begin to say that they’re listening – whenever they’re out of power.  Yet as John Boy’s National Party demonstrates, they always stop listening just as soon as their feet get under the cabinet table.

“If new Labour Leader Phil Goff is sincere in his remorse over his party's ‘political correctness’ [and nanny state governance] while in office, Labour could be back in power sooner than polls currently indicate, says Lindsay Perigo.

And if Labour’s mea culpa were truly sincere, however, it would hardly have followed up Phil’s fillip with a reminder of the nine years of political correctness we’ve just endured: with the announcement that “taxpayer-funded condoms at supermarkets, dairies and service stations are on today's Labour Party agenda.” Just unbelievable.

And if Goff were serious, he would have realised that there was more nastiness to nanny state than

just shower heads and light bulbs.  He could have made a full mea culpa by apologising for the full gamut of Nanny’s meddling:

There she is inspecting school lunchboxes.
Telling us not to lie in the sun.
Not to drink more than seven servings.
Not to drive too fast.
Not to drive too often.
Not to smoke at home.
Not to smoke in the car.
Not to smoke in the pub.
Not to smoke at all, really (you getting the message)?

She tells us how discipline our children (or not).
That we may not let them eat tasty food.
That we must pay for hysterical advertising that treats adults like children.
That we must not watch advertising that treats us like adults.
That we may not drive fast cars in industrial areas at night.
That we may not climb tall ladders.
That we may not act in ways that Nanny deems "anti-social."
That we may not buy vitamins and minerals without a prescription from Nanny.
That we may not drink alcohol in public places.
That we may not smoke cigarettes at work or in the pub.
That we may not smoke marijuana anywhere.
That we may not ride a bicycle without a helmet.
That we may not walk a poodle without a muzzle.
That we may not buy fireworks that go ‘Bang!’
That we may not repair our own property if Nanny says we can't.

She’s everywhere!  She tells us:
We may only build the houses Nanny says we can.
We may not build houses at all where Nanny says we can’t.
We may not advertise for young female employees.
We may not open for business on days Nanny specifies.
When we do open for business, we must act as Nanny's unpaid tax collectors.
We may not fire staff who steal from us.
We may not fire staff, whatever their employment contract says.
We must surrender our children to Nanny’s factory schools.
We must pay for teachers that can’t teach and for centres of education that aren’t.
We must believe that Alan Bollard knows what he’s doing.
We must believe that our money is not our own.
We must not call bureaucrats “arseholes.”
We must not offend people paid to boss us around with our money.
We must answer stupid questions when Nanny asks us.
We may not spend our own money in ways of which Nanny disapproves.
We may not defend ourselves against people who try to kill us.
We must pretend that snails are more important than we are.
We must pretend that murderers are people too.
We must apologise to tribalists for things we didn’t do.
We must not offend criminals for things they did do.
We must apologise to conservationists for things we need to do.
We must apologise for success.
We must ignore failure.
We may not end our own lives when we choose.
We must pay for art we don’t like and TV shows we don’t watch.
We must pay middle class families to become welfare beneficiaries.
We must pay no-hopers to breed.

Nanny state was not a myth.  Nanny was and still is rampant – has been for more than nine years, and if the present govt continues the trend as they have she will continue her stultifying dominance for many more.  That has to give Goff a chance, which he’s perhaps only now belatedly realising.

But  Goff must also realise that Labour’s kicking in both the last elections and in recent polling is for nine years of nastiness more than that just encompassed by the ‘soft fascism’ of the nanny state.

• The Electoral Finance Act, which were direct attacks on free speech and democracy, and as far as the electorate was concerned was ‘Labour’s Poll Tax.’
• The blatant theft of an election by using the money taken from taxpayers to run the Prime Minister's Office to run for the Office, demonstrating an utter disregard for constitutional restraints.
• The introduction of retrospective legislation to legitimise the theft, indicating that in the area of constitutional restraints on government, we're down there with Botswana.
• The desperate move thereafter for taxpayer funding of political parties as a means to fill its empty coffers.
• The move to tax working industry into submission with an ideologically driven emissions trading scam.
• Fording unmarried people to get married.
• Passing the Foreshore and Seabed Act, which in one stroke removed the right of litigants in common law to prove before a court that they have property rights in these areas -- demonstrating an utter disregard for judicial independence, common law and property rights.
• The Muldoonist bullying of any media organisations who opposed you.
• The renationalisation of the Accident Compensation Corporation, NZ Rail and Air New Zealand (after refusing permission for Air New Zealand to make its own way in the world), and the ever-expanding, ever-more intrusive meddling in all areas of the economy.
• Piling up the tax take to pay for a new welfare system that was little more than an election bribe: i.e., Welfare for Working Families, which takes with one hand and doles out with the other; which demonstrates that trickle down is not a characteristic of capitalism, but of state worship; which makes beneficiaries out of one third of the country; which raises the marginal tax rate of those beneficiaries to levels of nearly ninety percent; and which will 'normalise' for a whole generation the lifestyle of sucking off the state tit -- damage on a generational scale for an election bribe that worked for just one term.
• Nine years of tax-and-spend, without even a shadow of a chance of a tax cut – nine years of golden weather pissed away.
• No action taken at all to increase property rights protection under the Resource Management Act, to make any positive changes to the state's disastrous factory schools, or to slow down the rampantly soft fascism of political correctness that infests the government half of the economy, and is slowly taking over the other half.
• The evisceration of New Zealand’s ability to defend itself.
• The vicious scapegoating of minorities (yes, I’m talking about the Brethren) and troublesome whistle blowers (Erin Leigh, Madeleine Setchell, Christine Rankin, Owen Glenn), and their final, desperate substitution of dirt-digging and mud-slinging for policy and debate (yes, we’re all still looking at you Mike Williams – and you Trevor Mallard for your bullshit about “American Bagmen” and the “cash for policies” crap). Isn’t it easy to forget how vicious these bastards were to anyone who opposed them.
• The distinct and lingering impression that it was always above the law – Doonegate, Speedgate, Fieldgate, PledgeCardgate, etc. etc.: so much legally incorrect conduct and it was only Mallard and not Heather Simpson who ever got into court.
• The rampant numerical and fiscal inflation of the grey politically correct mass of Wellington’s bureaucracy.
• The grey miasma of bullying and electoral corruption that finally came to linger over the last term, and that finally solidified into the boot up its arse that ejected.

If he apologised for some of that nannying then he might acquire some credibility in opposition as this Government’s nanny Steven Joyce and its senior consultant wowser Geoffrey Palmer keep right on imposing the shackles.

If he acknowledged that his present party was so cynically vicious when it held the reins of power he might attain some credibility to attack this government for its own tentative excursions down that road.

And make no mistake, it’s important that Goff does swiftly acquire credibility because after nine months in power, its apparent this government is at least as determined as the last one to keep New Zealand’s ship of state on the same fundamental course.

It won’t be until Phil grasps the nettle and makes his party electable again that his own party wil attract donors again, and this present ruling party will feel the electoral pressure for real, fundamental change – which is what is so desperately needed if we’re to earn real prosperity and regain our basic freedoms.  Which means that Phil must first realise the full extent the last nine years of Labour’s iniquity.

I look forward to Phil’s full apology so the deck-chair shuffling can end.

UPDATE 1: Some editing done and a new list added.

UPDATE 2: Russell Brown reckons that Phil needed to “draw a line under the former leadership” but feels there was no need to throw what he calls “some sensible ideas” out of the cot. What “sensible ideas” were those?  Turns out Russell still likes the light-bulb ban.  Still likes the forced folation of bread. Still likes the smacking ban. Quite likes the new idea of “taxpaid condoms for all.”

Blimey, with supporters like these . . .

UPDATE 3: TWR suggests in the comments one I’ve forgotten: "Forcing unmarried people to get married" law from early in Labour’s tenure.  I’ve added it now.

Any others I’ve forgotten?  We could work up a full list and send it to Phil to make the full apology we’d all really like to see.  :)