Phil Goff on Abortion

Phil Goff, Forum on the Family 2009

In September I attended the Forum on the Family. Here two questions were asked of Phil Goff relating to abortion in New Zealand (video here). I asked, "Currently young girls can have their pre-born baby aborted without their parents' knowledge or consent - what will your party do about this?", however Phil ignored the specificity of the question and spoke about abortion in general. A couple of interesting statements from his response,

"I have a deep unease about the taking of life - even at a foetal stage"

And yet throughout 9 years of a Labour Government, nothing was done to reduce the increasing number of abortions in New Zealand. If you're "uneasy" about the taking of foetal life, why don't you reconsider your position on abortion. Most of us are uneasy about the taking of infant life, and we take action on this and (supposedly) punish perpetrators of infanticide.

"It's better to prevent the conception of an unwanted child than to abort that child afterwards"

Well there you have it, Phil states that a foetus is a child - he's dead right and good on him. The second question to the leader of the opposition on abortion was from president of Voice for Life, Catherine Gillies who asked "what would your government do to ensure that women were able to make a truly informed decision?". Phil said that he would support a greater level of objective, neutral information being made available to women. He also said that he wanted to see a hell of a lot more done to,

"prevent unwanted pregnancies that may result in abortion or result in the bringing into this World of kiddies who were never wanted and are destined to have miserable lives right from the start".

Firstly, it is not true that all unwanted children that are born are destined to life of misery. Secondly, following this logic, it would be acceptable to kill an infant if it was decided that that infant was destined to a life of misery.

Forum on the Family

Flew up to Auckland early Friday morning for the Forum on the Family. If I had paid more attention to Whale's damning criticism of Jet Star airline, I wouldn't have bothered with them, but as it was they got us to Auckland two hours late, so got to the forum at 10am, without any coffee... Met up with irrepressible fellow blogger Dave Crampton who has done a few blog posts on the forum, Matt and Madeline who are thinking about doing a blog post (now published), and David Farrar who I think would probably print his blog out and eat it before he admitted he was present at the forum ;) Anyway, here's a few comments from speakers and thoughts from the forum...

Political Panel
Ross Robertson (Labour), Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga (National), Judy Turner (United Future - list MP, not in Parliament), Gordon Copeland (Kiwi Party - list MP, not in Parliament)

All the politicians wanted to keep prayer in Parliament saying it was a time of reflection, silence - it's part of history of NZ and so important to keep it... It doesn't bother me either way.

On abstaining from voting, none of them were very keen on it - Gordon in particular, however he was the only MP to miss the third readings of the Anti-Smacking Bill and the Electoral Finance Bill. Kind of ironic however by no means the unforgivable sin.

On the best way to get in touch with an MP, they all agreed that bulk/form emails are only useful for gauging numbers in terms of support or opposition to a proposition, however made it clear that it was often very annoying. One of them stated "the Government does listen to numbers" which elicited a wave of laughter from the crowd. Gordon had a spiel about the number of supportive postcards he had received on the subject of the Therapeutic Bill (2006), and beaming told us that he had held the balance of power at one of its readings, choosing to support the bill (61-60 votes for). For crying out loud, if you're a list MP you shouldn't get up there and skite that you held the balance of power - it's a part of the reason why people are so cynical and scared of our electoral system of MMP.

John Angus, Children's Commissioner
John stated accurately that child abuse isn't a child problem, they don't cause it and aren't responsible for it - it's an adult problem. Apparently there's 100,000 incidents refered to CYFS each year (over 300 per day), but of these a relatively small (but horrific) 13,000 are found to be actual cases of abuse. Child abuse costs the country an estimated $2b yearly. John erroneously stated that 8 children die as a result of child abuse each year, however the figure is more like 18,000 when the children dying from abortion are accounted for.

Bruce Pilbrow, Families Commissioner and Director of Parents Inc
"you can complain and moan... no, you should either do nothing or get stuck in and do something"

On the Families Commission he said, six months ago I would have said can it, kick it - but it's not going to go, so let's get involved - we've got a chance and this is it - if we can't do it then no-once can, and then we should kick it. Bruce reckons more money should be funneled into third-party organisations as "they know how to turn $1 into $2, and they have something called accountability" hah, good call.

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Opposition leader Phil Goff and Prime Minister John Key both addressed the forum, speaking for 40 minutes each but saying very little... Got to give Key some credit for tackling the Smacking issue first off, but of course his comments on the subject were as usual, unprincipled and embarrassing for any National supporters listening. He said that he wanted to make sure that Nigel Latta is comfortable that parents won't be prosecuted for smacking their child. Nigel has been appointed onto the review board for the smacking law. "Nigel voted no!"... wow John, what a concession... who cares how comfortable Nigel is, what bearing does that have on the law? Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 currently classes a corrective smack using reasonable force as a criminal offence, and whether Nigel is comfortable or not, and whether the police prosecute or not it is still bad law, and 87.4% of Kiwis hate it. Anyway, I put the following question on one small aspect of the abortion issue to Phil Goff,

"Currently young girls can have their pre-born baby aborted without their parents' knowledge or consent - what will your party do about this?"

Phil simply dodged the question and discussed the need to prevent conception so that there is no need to abort - said he doesn't want to see a law which would criminalise abortion - because he says that would mean botched up abortions would be done in back alleys. Of course this is incorrect. Prior to the passing of the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act in 1977, an average of only one woman died from complications in an illegal abortion each year.

Newly-elected president Voice for Life asked Phil if he agreed that more should be done to enable women to make a truly informed decision regarding their pregnancy. Phil concurred, but made the false and emotive claim that if an unwanted baby is allowed to be born, it will necessarily be destined to a life of misery.

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Overall the forum was worthwhile, preeminently on account of the wonderful networking opportunities which I took advantage of. Heh, the food was a bit ponsy but Dave and I knocked back quite a few cups of good strong coffee.

What Did You Say Phil?

The entire collection of Vote NO videos is here.

Herald Article Not Worth the Effort of Reading

The Herald joins the apparently nationwide attack on democracy by New Zealand mainstream media today, with their editorial entitled "Question not worth the effort of answering". Rather than excercising some journalistic credibility, these media are sucking up to the actions of the larger part of our Parliament. The Prime Minister John Key lambasted the question as "weird", and stated that he will not be partaking in the democratic process by voting in the referendum, while Opposition leader Phil Goff also states that he will refrain from voting.

"People who support the status quo might vote no, thinking that was what the question was reflecting, he indicated," seethed Mr. Key. But why does he think this the case? Who was it that initiated the compromise on Bradford's anti-smacking law which made it so darn hard to understand? The so-called "John Key" ammendment to the bill stated that the police would not prosecute parents for smacking if they believed it to be so inconsequential as to not be in the public interest to proceed.

Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

The question is quite clear. It directly addresses the law, rather than the way that the law is currently being applied.  It would be impossible to come up with a question that would satisfy everyone, and while this question is not perfect, it's not nearly so bad as to warrant utter dismissal. For one moment, consider the intent of the 390,000 signatories on the petition. 99% of those signing did so in the belief that there was a difference between a smack and child abuse, and with the desire that families not be intruded upon by government agencies. But the mainstream media is conveniently ignoring this aspect of the petition question. Since the time the petition was launched over two years ago, we have heard only a few complaints about the question, and these mainly from Sue Bradford's direction. However now, just over a month out from the election there is a host of media decrying the petition question at every chance possible.

The Herald editorial concludes, "[It is] a question that is an insult to intelligence. It is not worth the expense or the effort of answering it. A low turnout would be most telling." Engaging in a simplistic form of social engineering, the Herald is sacrificing truth and democracy for the sake of their agenda which is leading to the realisation of one of Helen Clark's goals: family deconstruction in New Zealand.

Chauvel and Goff

In our New Zealand Politics paper today, we were privileged to be delivered a lecture by the (token) leader of the Opposition, The honourable Phil Goff. Also in attendance were Phil's office-lady, an ecstatic looking Brendan Burns (Tim Barnett's replacement as MP for Waimakarari), and the ever-uninspiring back-bencher list MP, Charles Chauvel.

Chauvel, Burns, office-lady

Phil's lecture was informative as he explained to us his experience of being in Parliament as well as answering a few questions regarding Labour, the 2008 election, and the general workings of Parliament. His three colleagues sat and listened to their leader, with Chauvel popping up at one stage to pass Phil a note telling him that "he had 10 minutes left". Phil read the note out loud and we all laughed; Chauvel and Brendan exchanged a few whispered, seemingly humourous comments - as MPs do when they're nervous or confused.

David Garret (ACT's Law and Order man) told me that Burns is a remarkably nice man to work with in Parliament - so despite his FAIL billboard and my run-in with him on abortion at a public forum, I haven't got too much against him; he sat bolt upright, switched on throughout the entire ordeal.

Chauvel on the other hand was his usual, arrogant self. While the other guests left their cellphones in their pockets, and their briefcases stacked near the wall, backbencher Chauvel obviously felt compelled to make the most of the indespensible 50 minute slot to get some work out of the way. He looked at - or used his cellphone several times throughout the lecture, as well as shuffling through various files from his bag, making notes here and there; catching up on office work while supposedly engaging in a teaching/campaigning opportunity with a room full of bright young, future politicians. The paper shuffling and sorting went on for well over half the lecture. Brendan, the office-lady and our lecturer shot the occasional concerned glance in Chauvel's direction but he didn't appear to catch on. Simply reinforce for me the fact that he's a drain on the tax-payer and we'd be better off not having people like him in Parliament. (Click here to see some of his speeches)

Some students asked ridiculous questions such as "I really want to enter Parliament, but I'm concerned about corruption...", or "What is the favourite part of your job as leader of the Opposition"... However, one or two asked a decent question, for instance, why had Labour passed the Electoral Finance Bill, and then been happy to vote for it's repeal once National was in power. "Oh... we knew it wasn't perfect when we passed it... we want to discuss a new approach with National..." (not verbatim) was the weak response.

Phil's done twenty-five years in Parliament now - 15 years in government, and he's currently in his 10th year of opposition. I wonder if he's got it in him to lead the Labour party to the '11 election.