New Zealand Votes for its Own Destruction
by Charles Drace
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Thomas Jefferson
In the year 2011, Saturday, November 26, 2011 to be exact, the citizens of New Zealand voted to destroy New Zealand.
Partly it was because the second largest party ran an anaemic campaign with a leader no one wanted. Partly it was because the major media, being foreign owned, wanted a party that would sell more New Zealand assets to overseas owners. Partly because government departments, including the Ombudsman, decided to withhold government papers vital to informed voters. Partly it was because the right-wing Prime Minister looked good on television.
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But mainly it was because of apathy, widespread throughout the country.
The same apathy that allowed the government to pass Draconian laws which took away civil liberties, much like the Patriot Act did in the United States. Even allowing a law to give government officials the right to enter any home or business and place video cameras inside without informing the owner. Without getting a warrant from a judge. Without, in fact, even having to have a reason. And the law was made retrospective to protect police who had already broken the current law.
The same apathy that allowed the government to pass Draconian laws which took away civil liberties, much like the Patriot Act did in the United States. Even allowing a law to give government officials the right to enter any home or business and place video cameras inside without informing the owner. Without getting a warrant from a judge. Without, in fact, even having to have a reason. And the law was made retrospective to protect police who had already broken the current law.
The same apathy which has allowed the environmental degradation of one of the most pristine countries on the face of this earth - at least, as it used to be. The same apathy that has allowed the current [and new] government to borrow massively to fund subsidies for climate polluting industries and costly failed [as they must] genetic engineering experiments.
The same uniformed apathy that allows the government to use taxpayer money to promote deadly vaccines to young girls claiming to prevent a very rare disease [HPV] that usually only affects women after menopause when the vaccine only lasts for five years. The government also pays to promote dangerous vaccines like the MMR2 vaccine for babies that contains human fetal tissue, deadly amounts of toxic aluminium, and a proven record of causing gut interference that leads to severe lifetime brain trauma.
The same uniformed apathy that allows the government to use taxpayer money to promote deadly vaccines to young girls claiming to prevent a very rare disease [HPV] that usually only affects women after menopause when the vaccine only lasts for five years. The government also pays to promote dangerous vaccines like the MMR2 vaccine for babies that contains human fetal tissue, deadly amounts of toxic aluminium, and a proven record of causing gut interference that leads to severe lifetime brain trauma.
This in spite of the fact that the vaccine is known not to work: over 60% of the children who got measles in the school epidemics in the U.S. and New Zealand were vaccinated. They think it appropriate to use tax payer money to do vaccine maker's advertising for them.
The same apathy which allowed the government to sign a trade agreement [Trans-Pacific Partnership] which was known to give U.S. corporates control over our pharmaceuticals, food safety regulations, and imports [including GE food]. The terms of this secret agreement cannot be released to either the New Zealand public nor even members of Parliament for four years - at the insistence of the U.S. government.
This apathy lead to the re-election of the National Party under the leadership of ex-currency speculator John Key [one of the 1%].
John Key and the National Party campaigned on several issues, many of which were designed to help destroy New Zealand.
They told New Zealanders that they were going to sell New Zealand's prime assets to overseas investors. These assets currently earn nearly $30 billion a year which goes into government coffers. Successive New Zealand governments have always hugely discounted our national assets when sold to overseas buyers. Most previous asset sales have been hugely detrimental to the New Zealand economy as well as it's citizens. Included in the sales will be the illegal sale of the Accident Compensation Commission which runs at a profit and is envied around the world.
The first on the block will likely be the electricity companies. Many of these companies hold legal rights to New Zealand rivers. Thus a sale of these companies will pass control of many of our rivers to overseas corporations. Electricity companies are absolutely vital to our national interest, as are all infrastructure organisations. It is the height of irresponsibility to deliver infrastructure into overseas hands yet the National Party said they would do so and the public still voted for them.
They told New Zealanders that they would allow overseas corporations to prospect for ultra-deepsea off shore oil. This in spite of the fact that the nearest emergency equipment to cope with spills or other accidents are 10,000 kilometres away so any accident would cause huge environmental and economic damage. Even though the lessons from the Gulf of Mexico BP deep sea oil disaster proved that there is no way of coping with deep sea oil disasters. Even though they couldn't cope with the recent oil spill from a freighter [the Rena] without destroying and poisoning pristine coast land.
They told New Zealanders they would expand fracking in the Canterbury plains. The Canterbury plains have had over 9000 earthquakes in just over a year and fracking is known to cause earthquakes. That's why it's banned in New South Wales and parts of England and is causing a series of problems in Oklahoma. Fracking uses over 400 toxic chemicals and releases them directly into underground water - water which is used for drinking and irrigation in Canterbury. Canterbury has arguably the best drinking water in New Zealand, if not the world, although it's becoming polluted by pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, and run off from the government supported dairy industry.
As an example of voter legacy, while campaigning against fracking I was told by several people that it didn't matter if it caused earthquakes and destroyed our water as long as it helped keep petrol prices down.
National told New Zealanders that they would be the best party to reduce government debt. Yet this is the party that increased government debt by 1000% in less than three years. To put this in perspective, that's 10 times the increase of debt that Greece experienced over 10 years. This is gross mismanagement which puts New Zealand and future tax payers at extreme risk yet the public and media ignored it. Current government plans are for the debt to increase 2000% by 2015.
National presents itself as the best party for economic management and the largest opposition party, the Labour Party, as a tax and spend party. Yet New Zealand Reserve Bank statistics show that the economy has always grown more under Labour than under National and that debt levels have always risen under National and have usually gone down under Labour. Yet, again, the public and the media ignored facts and chose instead to concentrate on personality and misrepresentation.
They told voters that they were going to invite overseas companies in to exploit minerals in our protected and environmentally important parks and reserves and seabeds, where all but a small fraction of the profits would go offshore, and the public just yawned and voted for them.
In other words, they told the voters that they were going to sell much that was important to our security, our environment, and our well being, as well as the success of New Zealand businesses and our economy, and the media lapped it up and the voters voted for it.
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