After six months of government under National's genial smiling John, the party's true colours are starting to emerge. They're on display in National MP Melissa Lee's comments about the Waterview motorway diverting "criminals from South Auckland" away from Mt Albert. They're on display in the way it has bulldozed said motorway through the local community, and the way they have bulldozed controversial legislation (fire at will, the Auckland dictatorship) through Parliament under urgency. They're on display in the way every single one of their core "law and order" bills has violated the BORA. They're on display in the appointment of celebrity racist Christine Rankin to the Families Commission. And they're on display in their disestablishment of the Department of Labour's Pay and Employment Equity Unit, which conducts research on pay equity and how to reduce it. The upshot: they don't care about women, they don't care about children and families, they have contempt for democracy, human rights, workers, the environment and local communities, and they think ordinary citizens are something "decent people" should be afraid of.
This is lightyears from the centrist, moderate, inclusive face John Key showed us during the 2008 election. But I guess now they've been elected, there's no reason to keep up the act, is there?
