Libertarianz education spokesman Phil Howison today slammed Helen Clark and John Key’s mirror-image plans to nationalise New Zealand teenagers.
“Forcing students to stay at school until they are 18 will cause unruly classrooms, bored students, stressed teachers and an increased burden for taxpayers” says Libertarianz education spokesman Phil Howison. “It is essentially an admission of defeat for state education. If eleven years in state schools leaves most students unemployable, what difference can adding two years make?” Howison asks. “Clark and Key have come up with plans combining the worst excesses of Nanny State. Add to it the plans to screen toddlers for ‘anti-social behaviour’, schools such as Westlake Boys High School which hold back even academically gifted students for a year if they have a ‘bad attitude’, and the threat of boot camp for students who refuse to comply, and you have the blueprints for unprecedented state control of New Zealand youth.”In her attempt to cram reluctant learners back in the classroom, Clark also condemns those who actually want to be there to disruptive and unruly classrooms. “Students who are hostile towards their compulsory schooling usually end up being disruptive and lowering the quality of the learning environment,” Howison says, pointing to Hutt Valley High School as a particularly grim example. He also laments the unnecessary stress that will burden teachers as they struggle with
classroom discipline, becoming babysitters rather than educators. “Forget about Key’s boot camps - schools these days seem to be just as rife with violence, bullying and substance abuse as the prisons. But all teenagers, not just youth offenders, are forced to attend!”
The extra $150 million of taxpayer loot that Clark is prepared to spend on turning schools into prisons will hit the taxpayer where it hurts again. “Clark’s scheme will take many young people out of the workforce where they are learning to be self-sufficient and productive, leaving them with no choice but to accept government handouts” says Howison. “And Key’s plan is no better. By supplying government funding to even more tertiary courses, he would extend government control of higher education, leaving a mere facade of private ownership while leaving the door open for waste and abuse.”
“The first step of the Libertarianz transitional education policy will be to lower the compulsory school leaving age to zero. In a free society, all interactions including the decision to stay at school must be voluntary. To help young people gain meaningful employment and encourage private apprenticeships, Libertarianz will remove minimum wage laws and make the first $10,000 of income tax free,” Howison says. “Libertarianz believe in the separation of school and state, allowing new methods, subjects and ideas to evolve in a free market system.”
“It’s enough to make you vote Libertarianz!”
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
Phil Howison
Libertarianz Spokesman for the Deregulation of Education
Phone: 027 437 0308
Email: phil.howison@libertarianz.org.nz
Along with many other New Zealanders worried about the effect of the Electoral Finance Bill on our freedom of speech, we will be marching on Parliament tomorrow. 12:30 pm at Civic Square for anyone who wants to join us. The protest will be apolitical, organised by Act party member John Boscawen, and with broad support.
The previous protest in Auckland attracted over 2000 freedom fighters, and we expect a high turnout. PC has photos of the Auckland protest here, here and here.
The EFB is one of the most breathtakingly audacious things the Labour Government of New Zealand has attempted so far, exceeding even the 2006 retrospective legislation which legalised the theft of almost a million dollars of taxpayer money (and which the LIbertarianz celebrated by declaring Banana Republic Day). The Electoral Finance Bill will have a chilling effect on free speech, severely limiting an amazing array of activities which discuss or criticise almost any political issue. And the bill’s effect will occur exactly when we need to discuss politics the most: election year.
I’m looking forward to getting the “Down with Nanny State” placard out again. Last time Luke and I marched, we were pictured on the front page of Scoop, I was interviewed for the Hutt News and my placard was quoted in the Guardian, Fox News and the International Herald Tribune
More seriously though, this bill represents one of the worst threats to free speech in New Zealand for many years. Freedom-loving Kiwis must fight it without compromise. It cannot be watered down - it must be drowned!
We are so self-congratulatory about our officially disarmed society,
and so dismissive of colonial rednecks, that we have forgotten that
within living memory British citizens could buy any gun – rifle,
pistol, or machinegun – without any licence. When Dr Watson walked the
streets of London with a revolver in his pocket, he was a perfectly
ordinary Victorian or Edwardian… in 1909, policemen in Tottenham borrowed at least four
pistols from passers-by (and were joined by other armed citizens) when
they set off in pursuit of two anarchists unwise enough to attempt an
armed robbery. We now are shocked that so many ordinary people should
have been carrying guns in the street; the Edwardians were shocked
rather by the idea of an armed robbery.
If armed crime in London in the years before the First World War amounted to
less than 2 per cent of that we suffer today, it was not simply because
society then was more stable. Edwardian Britain was rocked by a series of
massive strikes in which lives were lost and troops deployed, and
suffragette incendiaries, anarchist bombers, Fenians, and the spectre of a
revolutionary general strike made Britain then arguably a much more
turbulent place than it is today. In that unstable society the impact of the
widespread carrying of arms was not inflammatory, it was deterrent of
violence.
As late as 1951, self-defence was the justification of three quarters of all
applications for pistol licences. And in the years 1946-51 armed robbery,
the most significant measure of gun crime, ran at less than two dozen
incidents a year in London; today, in our disarmed society, we suffer as
many every week.
All emphasis mine. Of course, the situation was very similar in New Zealand. The state put far more trust in ordinary citizens than is the case today.
In fact, it was the same for drugs. Munday mentions Dr. Watson’s habit of carrying a revolver in his pocket; Sherlock Holmes’ “only vice” was his cocaine habit. Both activities are highly illegal in today’s London. And in New Zealand, opium, hemp and cocaine were available at any good chemist. Overuse was frowned on, but almost no-one advocated banning these widely-used substances. Citizens were trusted to take care of themselves.
As with all legislation, the party pill ban has to be reviewed for consistency with the Bill of Rights before it can be passed. Unfortunately, the BORA has no teeth, and the “rights” it describes can be violated by Parliament with impunity, as long as it is for the benefit of the “community.”
But it is interesting anyway that Michael Cullen, in his role as Attorney-General, has pinpointed the “supply” clause of the BZP ban as a breach of the Bill of Rights. It would violate the presumption of innocence by forcing anyone caught with more than 5 grams of BZP (or 100 tablets) to prove that they don’t have it for the purpose of supply. It is yet to be seen whether this review will actually make any difference.
In an ideal system, all drug prohibition would fail the Bill of Rights test due to the violation of individual sovereignty inherent in such laws. New Zealand survived for many years with all drugs legal, and society didn’t collapse. Drug prohibition only started due to a moral panic about opium-smoking Chinese immigrants. So this BZP ban is nothing more than a throwback to the “Yellow Peril”.
Banning a safe, legal alternative to illegal drugs is a horribly retarded example of government incompetence, as they demonstrate not only their utter inability to grasp reality, but their complete lack of concern for the health and safety of the drug users who they claim to be trying to protect. Shame on Jim Anderton and Jacqui Dean!
Here’s a slideshow I gave at the Libertarianz Conference 2007 to show off Libertarianz activism over the last few years.
You can play the slideshow while listening to my own dulcet tones telling you what’s going on, by downloading this mp3 (17 MB); my bit starts around 37:15.
You can also download the full-quality slideshow from this page on SlideShare.
In late July, Phil and I had a great time attending the 2007 Libertarianz conference held at Mac’s Brewery right here in Wellington. One of the highlights of the conference was the rollout of Transitional Policies, which we hope will be inspiring for certain political parties who haven’t come up with new ideas recently. The first transitional policy presented was the education policy, which Phil and I wrote along with Craig Milmine and Colin Cross (current and former teachers, respectively).
I’d like to invite you to listen to the first audio we’ve made available here at Pacific Empire: Phil’s speech, Free the Schools (mp3, 12 MB)
The text of Phil’s speech follows after the break.
