Thursday, September 01, 2005



The "moral obligation to lie" in action

National's credibility over its policy direction has again been called into question with the leak of an Insurance Council memo showing that National had agreed to keep some of the details of its ACC policy secret from the public:

The details of the policy have been deliberately kept out of the announcement after consultation with the Insurance Council.

What details? According to the memo's author, things like

"how far the privatisation would go, whether you would have an independent disputes tribunal, what role the ACC would take, whether there would be a Crown entity player like last time ... what your timeframe would be"

Those are pretty important details, and ones National should be being upfront with. But there's an obvious reason for their secrecy: the New Zealand public would react badly to their real plans. Privatisation is as popular as leprosy, and faced with that, National has simply chosen to lie (while making sure that the prime beneficiaries of the policy - insurance companies - are kept well informed). It's a fine example of the belief in a moral obligation to lie in action, and shows precisely why we cannot trust National.

6 comments:

good lord that's outrageous!!! i'm quite stunned.

Posted by Span : 9/01/2005 09:34:00 AM

They don't seem to have much of an understanding of the concept of democracy.

Posted by Amanda : 9/01/2005 10:58:00 AM

Ok, I'm the fox in the hen house here... I follow this blog because I want to see what you guys talk about. I KNOW I CAN'T RELY ON "MY SIDE" TO SERVE ME THE DIRT ON MY SIDE. So thanks for that service. I use it to form a balanced view.

Following 'the other side's' views reminds me that 'my side' is also telling ME what I want to hear, and not always what the truth is.

Having said that... oh my goodness what a self righteous bunch of sanctimonious pricks and prickesses you all are.

If you were football supporters you'd think all your players are saints and every other player from all other teams are crap... without exception.

That sort of extreme view hardly serves anyone, and doesn't even preach to the converted - it just keeps the fanatics off the street.

I can see most of you have *excellent skills* and a passion for what you think is the right thing for this country. But please... can you at least consider some self-editing and at least put up something that doesn't eye-twich and foam at the mouth?

Or are you lot really just a loss to reality?

Belt
PV:Act/EV:National

Posted by Anonymous : 9/01/2005 11:19:00 AM

Belt: I think its perfectly understandable that people are outraged about this. Representative democracy (and the government's legitimacy as an agent) is predicated on people having some idea of what they are voting for. National's attempt to hide their policy is a direct effort to subvert this.

It's also an unwelcome reminder of the Revolution, where successive governments effectively lied their way into office, promising one thing in their manifestos and then utterly ignoring those documents when elected. The 1990 National government is probably the most egregious example of this: Bolger ran on the promise of restoring a "decent society", and was elected in a landslide by voters sick of Rogernomics; he then gave us Ruthanasia instead. Which is why we now have MMP...

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/01/2005 01:21:00 PM

Craig: It's not "paranoia" when you have evidence. And in both recent cases - this memo, and the leaked emails, the authors have acknowledged that the documents are authentic, and even expanded on their meaning. There's no question that Brash is being duplicitious to someone about his policy position - so who is he lying to?

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/01/2005 04:40:00 PM

Brash: "I'm going into this election committed to telling the New Zealand people what the next National Government will do and I've made that very clear. I'm not promising anything which I cannot deliver"

Nothing about not delivering anything that hasn't been promised, I see.

Posted by Commie Mutant Traitor : 9/02/2005 01:11:00 PM