ACT Conference 2010

Will be attending the ACT 2010 conference in Wellington Friday to Saturday. ACT stands for the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers and is the most liberal party in Government, with 5 MPs. I will be livetweeting the conference, #actnz.

NZ Child Killing Lobby Feeling the Heat

The pro-abortion lobby in New Zealand is coming under pressure from a growing number of people and groups speaking out against the injustice of abortion.

The Herald reported on Friday, 19 Feb:

"Anti-abortion doctors have gone to court to challenge new Medical Council guidelines on how physicians with personal objections to abortion must deal with patients. One of the doctors is believed to be Mary English, a Wellington GP and wife of Deputy Prime Minister Bill English..." (continue reading)

The new guidelines state that doctors must tell mothers concerned about their pregnancy, that abortion is one of the options. This is the first time this issue has come up in New Zealand, and comes hot on the heels of the recent assault on freedom of conscience in Victoria, Australia which requires pro-life doctors to refer women to pro-abortion doctors if they themselves are not willing to recommend that the mother has her pre-born baby killed by abortion.

And Stop Family Planning, supported by many pro-family and pro-life organisations is maintaining the pressure on the Family Planning Association who have applied to the Abortion Supervisory Committee for a licence to kill pre-born babies up to 9weeks. Representatives from StopFPA and Prolife NZ have requested a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health, and planning is under way for future marches in the Country's major cities.

Right to Life is heading back to the Court of Appeal on May 4-5 following the Abortion Supervisory Committee contesting several findings of Justice Miller. One of his comments was that,

"there is reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions authorised by certifying consultants.”

Right to Life is a non-profit organization that seeks to be a voice influencing legislation in New Zealand on behalf of those who have absolutely no chance of themselves altering the law which concerns them. The Crown (The Abortion Supervisory Committee) has virtually unlimited funds with which it can fight the findings of Justice Miller in the High Court in July 2008.

Abortion takes the life of a helpless and innocent pre-born human person, without their consent being asked for, or given. Death by abortion is often painful to the child it is killing, and can cause medical complications and lasting psychological trauma to the mothers of the killed children. The abortion industry in new Zealand has been growing more and more arrogant, with calls from retired abortionist Margaret Sparrow and her little organisation, the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand - for abortion to be completely decriminalised as it is in Victoria, Australia. ALRANZ also supports the killing of late-term disabled babies. Now the tide is turning the other way, as New Zealanders acknowledge that our abortion rate (aprox 18,000 every year) is unacceptably high, and that it is outrageous that girls of any age may have their baby killed by abortion without her parents giving consent, or even being given notification.

Family Planning Association Comes Under Fire in Wellington Pro-Life March

On Friday Stop Family Planning held their third march expressing opposition to the Abortion Supervisory Committee granting the Family Planning Association an abortion licence. The march was supported by Family First, Right to Life, Family Life International and Prolife NZ.

click here for more photos of the march

Accompanied by two police cars and two policemen on motorbikes the crowd of around 200 marchers made their way slowly from Civic Square to the steps of Parliament. The march was held at lunchtime, with thousands of workers in the CBD walking past the protest on their lunch-breaks. Several passers-by joined in the march and were given one of the many placards we had available. The rain eventually set in, however we pressed on - Simeon and I took turns on our new megaphone, informing observers of the purpose of our march and general information about abortion in New Zealand. We made such statements as,

"New Zealand already has an unacceptably high abortion rate; 18,000 abortions every year, and the Family Planning Association wants to commit even more... is that ok?"

"Did you know, under New Zealand's abortion law, a child has to have a permission slip from their parents for the school nurse to give them a panadol, however that same child can have an abortion without their parents' notification, or consent... is that ok?"

The marchers left no doubt in anyone's minds, with their vocal response, "NO!"

It was great to see such a big turnout, in particular with young people joining in the protest against the FPA's attempts at expanding abortion coverage and availability to young women throughout New Zealand. We are now gearing up for two more marches, details will be available soon on the Stop Family Planning website.

Meantime, the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand's spokesperson Dame Margaret Sparrow speaks for her dwindling and ageing membership (of under 200), where she incorrectly states that,

"...many of the ideas (and probably a lot of the money) come from the U.S., where Stop Planned Parenthood looks a lot like Stop Family Planning."

Naturally, we are building on the work STOPP has been involved in in the States, however we are an entirely grassroots-based campaign, with no money or advice coming in from the States at this time.

What's wrong with the FPA getting the license? Women and girls of any age, with or without their parent's knowledge or consent would be able to go into an FPA abortion clinic and receive counselling on their crisis pregnancy. Since the FPA is pro-abortion and has a vested interest in women choosing abortion as they will gain financially, there will be a strong emphasis on the benefits of going ahead with an abortion. (read more)

Pro-Abortion Van-dalism Backfires

The highly active Kapiti branch of Voice for Life recently purchased a van and had it painted bright green and sign-written with various pro-life messages. The van is available for use by pro-life groups and youth-groups throughout New Zealand. On Monday, 8 Feb the van was vandalised by someone who wrote with a vivid marker, "This Vam [sic] is abusive" and further writing on the van claiming that the actual size of the pictured ultrasound scan of an aprox 20week foetus was about the size of a 10 cent coin; clearly uninformed.

"Find your own van to scribble on," Simeon Brown said to the Kapiti Observer who ran an article on the incident. The abortion debate is not going to be won by either side in this manner. I am strongly supportive of people on either side of the issue to thoroughly consider the others' points, and to approach the issue without preconceptions or slanted worldviews.

Referendum File 2: Can They Be Trusted?

In Referendum File 1 we looked at the claims and the logic found in a letter which was sent by Larry Baldock to his supporters. In Referendum File 2 we are going to take a look at the petition itself and ask the question, "Can we trust the Campaign for Democracy with the personal information they are collecting from people around New Zealand?"

The petition is a vast improvement on Larry Baldock and the Kiwi Party's last petition sheet which had two petition forms on one A4 sheet, one asking for a referendum on the legality of corporal punishment, the other asking for a referendum calling for a Royal Inquiry into the wider causes of domestic violence. On 17 December, 2009 the phrasing and format of the new petition which asks,

“Should Parliament be required to pass legislation that implements the majority result of a citizens initiated referendum where that result supports a law change?”

was approved by the clerk of Parliament. It is clear to see that the petition layout has borrowed a lot from the UNITE Union's current petition for a Citizens Initiated Referendum which was launched on 11 June 2009, seeking to have the minimum wage raised to $15 per hour. (The $15/hr minimum wage is also a policy of the Kiwi Party). Instead of squashing 20 signatures onto each page as was the case with Baldock's last petitions, the new petition has space for ten signatories. "If they can't read it, they won't count it!" is written in bold capitals at the top of the sheet - something left off the last petitions, and which Baldock subsequently requested petitioners to say to people as they signed. Illegible signatures were a real problem when collecting, causing between 2 - 5% of the collected signatures to be disqualified by the Clerk. A freephone 0800 number, website address, and logo of the organising group have been added at the bottom of the sheet - all similarities with the UNITE petition which preceeded it.

bottom, right-hand-corner of petition form

The most notable difference between the last petition sheet and the new one is the Optional Contact Info section on the right-hand-side of the form. This again, is a direct adaptation from UNITE's petition which has the same thing, with almost identical wording. In the bottom right-hand-corner, the following claim is made,

"This information is to keep you informed about our campaigns. We won't give your details to anyone else."

The UNITE petition makes the same promise to signatories. And while Baldock's last two petitions did not bear this reassuring privacy information, Baldock instructed petitioners (myself included) to inform people signing, that their details would not be passed on to a third party, and that the only people seeing their signatures would be the Clerk and those assistants who would help count the signatures. I draw your attention to this claim made by the Campaign 4 Democracy, because, quite frankly, I struggle to believe it. Because in the lead-up to the 2008 general election, the Kiwi Party cast aside the assurance it had given to signatories, and breached their trust by emailing out photocopied petition forms to Kiwi Party supporters, asking them to post Kiwi Party promotional material to the signatories in an effort to increase their Party Vote. Below is my summary of this incident which I wrote shortly before the 08 election at the ChristianVote website.

Letter to be sent to 300,000+ who signed petition. In a staggering breach of trust, The Kiwi Party have announced that they intend to send an individual letter (click here to read the letter) to every single person who signed the petition calling for the wider causes of child abuse and family violence to be addressed (click here to read the email they sent out). I and many others have personally assured many hundreds of people signing the petition that under no circumstances will they receive any mail, and that the address is purely for the purpose of establishing that they are who they say they are. And now The Kiwi Party is sending out PDF documents (click to view an example) containing between 200 and 1,000 home addresses to its members, so that they can then send out letters calling for donations and a party vote for the Kiwi Party. "You can help guarantee the referendum is binding by giving your Party Vote to the Kiwi Party." the letter erroneously claims. The Privacy Act states that "An agency that holds personal information that was obtained in connection with one purpose shall not use the information for any other purpose".

Pro-family advocacy group Family First which had backed the petitions the whole way promptly responded to the actions of the Kiwi Party with a press release in which they stated,

"Family First NZ is distancing itself from attempts by the Kiwi Party to write to the more than 300,000 people who signed the anti-smacking petition, encouraging them to vote for the Kiwi Party at the upcoming Election... Family First... is concerned that NZ’ers who signed the petition may not want to be personally contacted by a political party and did not provide their information for this purpose. But then again, they’re not the only political party using private addresses to push their case.”

Baldock of the Kiwi Party then responded in an email to supporters, denying any wrongdoing:

“What I [have] in my possession are the petition forms in my name which asked the question, “Should the Government give urgent priority to understand and address the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse in NZ?” Unfortunately although we collected just over 300,000 signatures, the Clerk deemed there were insufficient to trigger a referendum and the forms were returned to me, their legal owner. In keeping with sound legal advice, I will ensure these addresses are not used for any purpose other than the original intent, namely to repeal the ‘Anti-smacking’ law and address the real causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse. Most of the signatures on this second petition were also signatories on the first and are interested in both objectives.
...I believe most will look at our final objectives and accept our sincere motives.

Baldock's line of reasoning is unsound, pragmatic and highly reprehensible. In his original email to supporters in which he asked them to volunteer to receive photocopied petition forms and then send Kiwi Party promotional material out, Balock wrote excitedly, "We have over 300,000 names and addresses of the people who signed the petition and our goal is to write to every one of these concerned Kiwis..." I don't know about you, but I find his attitude towards the full names, signatures, residential addresses and date of births of 300,000 New Zealanders to be unacceptable.

Even Baldock himself stated that he told signatories that the peition would not be used to send them mail. Below is an excerpt from a rebuttal written by Baldock, in response to my report on the Kiwi Party's actions (download here):

Whenever I told people that they did not have to worry about the petition being used to send them mail said it there was usually in the context of someone concerned about the Government getting access to the names of who signed the anti-smacking petition. That is what people were concerned about. A few were concerned about the possibility of receiving junk mail as a result which does happen. The letter we are sending could not be considered marketing junk mail since it is consistent with the purpose of the petition.

Again, here is the pragmatism coming through strongly again. Baldock first acknowledges that he told people that their details would not be used to send them mail, then he attempts to justify the decision to send them mail by saying that it "could not be considered marketing junk mail since it is consistent with the purpose of the petition". The Kiwi Party received 0.54% of the vote at the 2008 general election. I believe that if they had have been considered a more major player, gaining say, 5%+ of the vote, that the media would have held the spotlight to the Kiwi Party, and exposed these dubious activities.

It must be made quite clear that the group that is running the Campaign for Democracy is the same group that organised the last two petitions. When the Campaign was first launched it was named the "Kiwi Campaign for Democracy". The word "Kiwi" was dropped from the campaign name several months into preparations for the campaign launch. In the first few months of the build up to the campaign launch, a large proportion of the material on the Campaing for Democracy website was simply cross-posted from the Kiwi Party website. And incidentally, you'll notice that the colour-schemes for both the Kiwi Party and the Campaign for Democracy are essentially identical.

In summary, we come back to the initial question: "Can the organisers of the petition be trusted with the information they are gathering?" I would love to think that we can trust them. However, I don't know. What I do know is that I will not be signing the petition.

I Lol'd

I haven't laughed for a while, and it's been too long since you read some high quality humour, so here's an email that's been circulating about Security Levels...

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." The English have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was in 1588 when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots raised their threat level from "Pissed Off" to "Let's get the Bastards" They don't have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France 's white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country's military capability. It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile and as usual are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.

And in the southern hemisphere...

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!". Due to continuing defense cutbacks (the airforce being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is "I hope Australia will come and rescue us".

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate". Three more escalation levels remain: "Crikey!', "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled". So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.