Sunday, October 30, 2005



It's official

Georgina Beyer's Human Rights (Gender Identity) Amendment Bill has been given the chop.

While disappointing, this isn't exactly unexpected. And the brute fact is that (while there are possible other prospects for progress this Parliamentary term), the votes to pass it just weren't there. Under those circumstances, it's better for the government to save its efforts for other causes which can be advanced. The Revolution will just have to wait for a little while.

on the plus side, I've heard that Larry Baldock's Marriage (Gender Clarification) Amendment Bill will not be going ahead either.

5 comments:

Well, when you look at what she's saying, it's to do with using private sector accounts to do the financial analysis in fraud cases. This isn't any different from getting private sector labs to do forensic analysis - but in that case, those labs are subject to a rigorous accreditation process and safeguards to ensure that the chain of custody is preserved and that evidence is not tampered with. I wouldn't want to see any contracting out of police sevices without similar safeguards - and I certainly wouldn't want to see any contracting out of actual frontline policework (which is what the chamber of commerce seemed to be after).

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 10/30/2005 01:52:00 PM

Wonderful. Call me a dancing cossack, but I have this quaint belief that the transgender/
whakawahine communities deserve protection from brutal discrimination, like the increased risk of suicide or self-mutilation, alcohol and drug abuse,
sexual violation, homelessness,
and prolonged unemployment that characterise jurisdictions where members of their communities don't have access to those basic human rights under anti-discrimination laws.

Is the National Party saying that it condones the state of affairs depicted above, in the name of its obsession with enforcing social conservative ideological purity?

And as for Labour, while I accept that trans-inclusive antidiscrim-
ination laws will have to wait for a more clement political environment, it has no excuse not to introduce and pass them during any fourth parliamentary term.

Like many members of the LGBT communities, I will never be swayed
from working to insure that our trans/whakawahine sisters and brothers have the same human rights as the rest of us. Woe betide any political party that
deliberately obstructs that.

Craig Young

Posted by Anonymous : 10/30/2005 02:22:00 PM

Is the National Party saying that it condones the state of affairs depicted above, in the name of its obsession with enforcing social conservative ideological purity?

Basically, yes. That's what the eradication of "political correctness" is all about.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 10/30/2005 02:31:00 PM

I had to chuckle at the demise of Larry "I've drive a big f-off truck" Baldock. I guess the other upside (or downside depending on your level of intelligence) is that we won't be getting a four laned free way from Kaitaia to Bluff either - this was another of Baldocks hairbrain schemes.

Posted by Steve : 10/31/2005 10:04:00 AM

I'm also slightly disappointed at the demise of Larry Baldock's
Marriage (Gender Clarification)
Amendment Act, aka the DOMB (Defence of Marriage Bill) as it was nicknamed in the LGBT communities.

I was looking forward to organising
a mass Dick Emery impersonator
"March of A Thousand Hetties,"
all intoning her catchphrase,
"Are You Married...??"

Craig Y.

Posted by Anonymous : 10/31/2005 10:24:00 AM