Posts by Idiot Savant
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But the price of this is that people will despise their corner dairies and resent their rich neighbours, who will in turn be suspicious of them.
And in extremis form lynchmobs, the prevention of which is basically the State's reason for existence.
Price gouging takes us back to the State of Nature. And we really, really do not want to go there, ever.
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Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Say wha? An electorate seat is an electorate seat. There are 69 of them, and they're totally FPP. Winning a marginal seat absolutely gets you more people in Parliament.
Nope. What determines the final numbers in Parliament is the party vote. Unless there is an overhang - unlikely with a large party - the electorates just shuffle the list.
It would however be humiliating for Bennett, which is why I'm hoping it happens.
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Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to George Darroch,
Probably. But having something at arm's length also gives you more political space - you can distance yourself from the operations of the entity.
And ideologically, this is a report by people who think that government shouldn't be controlled by democratically elected and accountable politicians...
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Hard News: Welfare: Back to the Future?, in reply to Deborah,
As you can see, I'm reading this quite a different way to some of the people commenting up-thread.
Yes. Free contraception for everyone is good. Free contraception targetted just at the poor, aimed at preventing them from having kids smacks of C19th eugenics.
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As it is anyone who’s halfway competent avoids dealing with WINZ if they can. I was out of work for nearly four months before I applied for the dole, just so that I wouldn’t have to be subjected to the WINZ treatment.
That's a deliberate design feature, a deterrant to keep dole costs low. But the result is extra human desperation and suffering.
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Could my wife and I enter into a civil union with our flatmate?
Nope. As noted previously, its restricted to two people. If you want to change that, then start lobbying politicians.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Yes, but in the same fashion as there is an employment exception that allows the Catholic Church to only ordain males it would be quite simple to add an exception to allow celebrants who hold the office entirely by way of their position within an established religious organisation to refuse to officiate at marriages that are contrary to the doctrinal rules of their church.
Yes, they could. They could also add a provision allowing employers to discriminate against Catholics on the basis of their religion. But neither would be a good idea.
"Except for gays" clauses are morally repugnant. Our state should not perpetrate them. If religious groups have problems behaving in a non-discriminatory fashion when performing state functions, the answer is simple: they should not perform those functions. Problem solved.
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They aren't going to be selling a state marriage. They will be selling a religious practice including religious marriage.
The only marriage there is in NZ is state marriage. "Religious marriage" is a religious fiction. What matters legally is not the religious ceremony, but the civil paperwork. And if religious institutions don't want to offer that civil paperwork, then they don't need to be celebrants.
Though this only gets them off the hook for celebrant services. They will still face issues over provision of venues.
Legally the state can do whatever it pleases, but religions don't always take well being told what to do - like they have some sort of religious objection to it. States when they do try to tell religions how to conduct their affairs can run into severe blowback.
Tough shit to them. We have a law, and that law says "you can't discriminate - on race, gender, religion, __or__sexuality". Being religious does not give people an exception to that law, and nor should it. If churches want to disobey that law, then they will face the consequences, just like any other racist or bigoted business.
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This is a thorny. What I'd like to do is get rid of the situation we have currently where an ordained minister automatically becomes a marriage celebrant, which is a CIVIL function, not a religious one.
Easily done. Repeal s8 - 10; 13(1) (c) and (d) and/or schedule 1 of the Marriage Act. You want the bill drafted?
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Why would you want to? Seriously. - it's a vaguely interesting thought experiment, but do you really want the judiciary getting into the business of dictating doctrine and practice to churches? If I wanted to live a de facto theocracy, I'm hardly spoiled for choice.
Its not about doctrine and practice, its about the provision of goods and services. Saying "bigot celebrants can refuse to marry gay people" is the same as saying "bigot accountants can refuse to do taxes for gay people", or "bigot landlords can refuse to rent houses to gay people".
(But yes, I also recognise that no-one in practice wants to be married by a celebrant who doesn't want to marry them. I expect venues to be a much thornier issue, and it will almost certainly come up)