Via DPF: The Maxim Institute has a handy conscience vote comparison tool, which not only shows MPs positions on the most important votes of last term, but also allows you to compare their position with your own. DPF was surprised to discover that no-one in National (pre-election) shared his views, and that the people who voted his preferences were from Labour, the Greens, and ACT. I don't really think its that surprising. I've been going back through past conscience votes, and its interesting to see how many of National's supposed "liberals" (Ruth Richardson? Simon Upton?) voted against things like Homosexual Law Reform or lowering the drinking age to 18. In my lifetime at least, freedom's truest friends have been on the left, not the right.
Point-scoring aside, despite our differences on economic policy, there are clearly areas both right- and left-wing liberals agree on. It's a shame that we haven't been able to cooperate to advance in those areas more often. It's also a shame that liberals on the right haven't done more to show their interest in freedoms beyond the freedom of the rich not to pay taxes. I would dearly love to see a (fiscally) right-wing MP put their money where their mouth is on hate speech, and introduce a Private Member's Bill to repeal the existing law against blasphemous libel (effectively hate speech protection for the Christian religion). But sadly, I don't expect to see this happening any time soon.
There could well be CR MPs who support such a law change. However whether they think it is that important an issue to do a bill on is quite another matter.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the real problem: convincing people that removing a law which hasn't been used since 1921 (despite the best efforts of John Banks) is a priority compared with, oh, I dunno, grandstanding over "political correctness"...
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the Institute regards
ReplyDeletecopyright as a 'moral issue'
after 'Logangate?'
Incidentally, according to their
anti - 'hate speech' submission,
the Institute has conceded that
blasphemy law repeal would also
be in the interests of free
speech...
Craig Y
Is it just me or is the Maxim institute database wrong?
ReplyDeleteI was quite surprised to see that they had Tariana Turia & Matt Robson as voting for the Care of Children Ammendment Bill. Because I'd cared enough to check how Tariana Turia had voted at the time, and it was yes (and because Matt Robson should know better).
So I went to Hansard. Tariana Turia voted for some ammendments but not for others (and Maxim really should have seperated the notification ammendment and the consent ammendment), but Matt Robson voted 'No' on everything.
Anyone know what's going on?