What was it they kept saying last election, in between dog whistles about the Mahhrees? It was: people of New Zealand, your voice is being taken off ya, your say is being taken off ya, your democratic rights are being taken off ya. Say yeah nah to Three Waters.
It was bullshit of course, a cynical misrepresentation of a viable solution to a 200 billion dollar problem.
But never mind the sewage right now, let’s talk about the your democratic rights being taken off ya.
Let’s say you take someone to court because they’re doing you a lot of harm. It could be that they’re flooding your property. It could be that they’re putting you in danger of a slip. It could be that they’re slowly poisoning the water table. It could be that their carbon emissions are helping to cook the planet.
It should be your right to challenge them in court shouldn’t it?
And let’s say they claim you don’t have that right, but you take it all the way to highest court in the land and the highest court in the land says yes. Yes, you do have the right to challenge them.
And let’s say that while they’re getting ready to go to fight your challenge in court, they pick up the phone and ring their mates in the Prime Minister’s office, because these are people with mates in high places and they say Listen we’ve written you down a law would like you to pass that says that that dickhead neighbour has no right to challenge us in court.
That’d be a bit off, wouldn’t you say?
And if the government then said: Hey look you guys here’s a law we’ve copied out written down that we’re going to pass that says a dickhead neighbour has no right to challenge you in court, that would be even more a bit off, wouldn’t we say?
And you might take it to the media, mightn’t you, and say Get a load of what these people are thinking they can do. They think they can take our democratic rights off us.
And the media might say: What, the government that spent the whole of the last election campaign saying how dare they take someone’s democratic rights off them? That doesn’t sound like them!
And you might say: I know, right, but those are the very people.
And then the media might say to the Prime Minister: Hey what’s going on here old mate didn’t you say it’s no good taking people’s democratic rights off them? And what’s this about lobbyists coming to visit your office and saying “Here we’ve written you down a law get it passed there’s a good lapdog.”
And the Prime Minister might then say First I’ve heard about any of this mate, and you sense that, pathetically, this might well be the case.
Finally, Swarbrick asked if it was credible for the prime minister to “not know” that one of his most senior staff members was meeting with the “largest company in the country, who was actively lobbying for a law change in their favor, which they ultimately got”.
But more to the point what’s going on here with the lobbying? Isn’t that also dicking with people’s democratic rights by giving your mates a leg up? You might very well say that. Plenty of people are.
At the end of it all, though, we know what we’re left with, don’t we? It confirms what we knew all along. They pretend to care, but most of the talk is froth. All they really care about is helping their mates in business carry on as usual with as little inconvenience as possible.
Externalities are for someone else to pay.
The climate is for other people to worry about.
And Mike Smith is a dickhead neighbour.
Where have I been this last week? Right here the whole time! But absolutely burying myself in the Glossary of Aotearoa which I need to get sufficiently built before I open the doors at my new Ghost home. It’s much faster going if I try not to juggle it with daily work as well, so that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s very close now, looking forward to welcoming you to a better place.