Parliament

20 July 2008
Moral Neutrality

Earlier this month Britain’s culture of “moral neutrality” came under attack. In a speech in Glasgow, Conservative Party Leader Rt Hon David Cameron said that the obese, drug addicts and the poor have no-one to blame but themselves.

He defined moral neutrality as the refusal to make judgements about what is good or bad, right or wrong: “We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people’s feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more. Refusing to use these words - right and wrong - means a denial of personal responsibility and the concept of a moral choice”.

He went on to say, “We talk about people being “at risk of obesity” instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it’s as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather. Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make”.

David Cameron believes that there is now a very real danger of Britain becoming “a de-moralised society, where nobody will tell the truth anymore about what is good and bad, right and wrong. That is why children are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please, and why no adult will intervene to stop them - including, often, their parents. If we are going to get any where near solving some of these problems, that has to stop”. To read the speech click the sidebar link>>>

The parallels with New Zealand are surely plain for all to see. We have now become so non-judgemental that speaking the truth and calling a spade a spade, all too often leads to complaints to the Human Rights Commission - not to mention the Press Council, the Advertising Standards Authority, and all of the other organisations that sit in judgement on such matters.

The danger is that human rights laws, which were originally introduced under the guise of protecting individuals from discrimination, impinge on the most basic human right of all - individual freedom. Under the Labour government, human rights arguments have been used to impose the political agendas of favoured minority groups onto the public at large to the extent that, for example, Maori cultural beliefs now dominate the New Zealand education curriculum1 and sexual orientation has ceased to be a private matter but - with a question on sexual orientation being planned for the census - one in which the state has a particular interest.2

According to the prevailing culture of political correctness that has developed during Labour’s regime, nothing is anyone’s fault anymore. If you are too lazy to work, the government will pay you to stay at home; if you are one of the 5,279 drunks and druggies drawing a benefit, the government will contribute $1 million a week to keep your habit going 3; if you are a teenage girl with little education and no career prospects, the government will pay you to bear and raise the next generation of children; if you are grossly obese, the government will pay $25,000 to have your stomach-stapled.4

Yet individuals make myriads of choices almost every moment of every day, and learning to live with the consequences of those choices is an important part of life. That’s how society operates. It is surely not the role of the state to interfere in the free choices that people make (so long as they do not harm others), nor to shield people from the consequences. To do so creates a ‘victim’ culture whereby the state rewards those who make poor choices with ever-more generous taxpayer-funded compassion.

As John Stuart Mill said so eloquently - in defence of the freedom of individuals from the power of the state - in On Liberty in 1859, “… the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise… In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute.”

Society’s primary role of moral teacher – instilling in children what is good or bad, right or wrong - has traditionally been the family. Children who are given strong boundaries of what is and is not appropriate behaviour, and are imbued with a clear understanding of the consequences of the moral choices they make, generally become responsible members of society. But when parents fail to properly bring up their children, the results can be disastrous.

Just last month the Christchurch Press told the story of a recovering drug addict: John’s drug use started at home with parents who smoked cannabis and took pills. By age nine he was drinking alcohol, and by age 11 smoking cannabis. At age 14 he started using intravenous opiate. It was all downhill after that.

John admitted that he had committed over 500 burglaries, robberies and dishonesty offences to fund his drug habit: “I committed a lot of crime. I committed crime I’ve never been caught for over the years. I’d go out and commit burglaries four, five or six burglaries a night. Every night. Every day. Even while I was at work I’d go away at lunch time and commit a crime to support my habit that night. I was using anywhere up to $2000 daily…”

John has five children, all girls; two of the older ones, aged 17 and 18, use drugs: “I definitely don’t want them to have the same life as I’ve had. I had a choice to say no. It’s not a sickness it’s a personal choice. For these younger generations I pray for them not to get into it.” 5

When the Labour Government introduced the anti-smacking law last year, the vast majority of New Zealanders opposed it. Not because they condoned violence against children – no-one condones that. They opposed the smacking ban because they understand that the dynamics of family life are delicately balanced. Anyone who has raised children knows that there is a fine line between good outcomes and the abyss. And the last thing that a family needs is the heavy hand of the state interfering in private matters.

By banning smacking, the state has now intruded deep into the heart of family life. A predictable wedge has been driven between parents and children. It has created a situation where many parents, now fearful of prosecution, are afraid to set proper boundaries for their children in case the children object and complain to the authorities. This is now inhibiting the way that parents raise their children to the point where, when the going gets tough, many parents are now throwing in the towel and passing the problem of their unruly children onto the wider community.

In his speech, David Cameron acknowledges that the social breakdown seen in Britain is caused by family breakdown, welfare dependency, debt, drugs, poverty, poor policing, inadequate housing, and failing schools, and he warns that society, “is in danger of losing its sense of personal responsibility, social responsibility, common decency and even public morality”.

The fractures that we now see in New Zealand families and communities have deepened over the last nine years. The bonds that link our society have become weaker. The people most at risk are the vulnerable – those without an education, without a good job, without strong family supports. These are the very people that a Labour Government should have been protecting through sweeping social reforms to ensure that every child succeeds at school, that no-one is left to languish on welfare, and that family life is encouraged and supported. By failing to make the necessary reforms, Labour has entrenched disadvantage for far too many New Zealanders.

David Cameron claims that in Britain there has been a relentless erosion of responsibility, social virtue, self-discipline, and a respect for others. He believes that the only way to turn it around is to encourage personal responsibility as a cornerstone social value.

Encouraging personal responsibility as a cornerstone social value – as well as throwing off the stultifying political correctness that has weighed this country down for far too long – would undoubtedly be a step in the right direction for New Zealand too.

This week’s poll asks: Do you think that a culture of “moral neutrality” has developed in New Zealand. ? Go to Poll >>>

FOOTNOTES

1 Muriel Newman, Selling Our kids Short
2 Dominion, As you like it: A sexy census
3 Waikato Times, The benefit and the doubt
4 Dominion Post, Hundreds to get taxpayer-funded stomach stapling
5 Christchurch Press, P makes addicts human crime waves

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Reader’s comments will be posted on the NZCPR Forum page click to view >>>.

1 April 06
Rich Country - Poor Families

In a sense, New Zealand is one of the richest countries on earth. We have a great climate, beautiful countryside, and a more leisurely pace of life. Our people are friendly, hard working and caring. We are close to each other in a way that comes from being a small country remote from the rest of the world.

On top of that, we have a wealth of natural resources, we are great innovators and entrepreneurs, and we have established international recognition for our creativity and achievement in a multitude of fields of endeavour.

So why is it that so many New Zealanders have a deep-seated sense of foreboding about the future? Sure, it could be the negative growth (no economic growth recorded in the second half of last year) or the rapidly falling dollar (the Minister of Finance sent officials to Japan last year to talk the dollar down). Maybe it’s the burgeoning balance of payments deficit (foreign debt grows as the dollar falls), or the rising price of petrol (adding in today’s 1c petrol tax increase, 91 octane is expected to rise to $1.62 a litre). But I suspect that the issues that are driving that sense of gloom are much more personal.

At the heart of the problem appears to be a growing sense of despair about the state of the New Zealand family. As a country with a strong tradition of two-parent married families, many New Zealanders feel that Labour’s interference in family matters has been detrimental. In particular, law changes introduced as part of their social engineering agenda are manifesting themselves in negative ways.

There is a new reticence for young people to commit themselves to marriage - why bother, when de-facto relationships have the same legal privilege as marriage? Yet common sense tells us that marriage signals a commitment for life, giving young women, in particular, the promise of stability and security they need in order to begin thinking about starting a family.

There is also a new tendency for relationships to break up just before the three-year joint property claim thresh-hold is reached. Couples who are not quite sure whether things will work out between them, are not prepared to take the risk of staying together if it means signing over half of their assets.

With the Domestic Purposes Benefit already incentivising the massive breakdown of the family, these more recent changes are making the situation worse by giving rise to more unstable, transient relationships. It is therefore little wonder we are seeing an escalation in child abuse and domestic violence as well as the fall-out from the breakdown of stable families - marginalized fathers, alienated children, and excluded grandparents.

Just this week, New Zealand’s top Family Court judge said that violence in the home is blighting the country’s image as a good place to raise children. Yet I do not hear the Judge – or any of the other professionals who work in this field - calling for a change to the policies that are driving this social collapse.

And, with Labour’s new family welfare package coming into effect today, resulting in 350,000 families receiving income support, we urgently need to review the wisdom of massive government interference in the family, before more lives are damaged or lost.

A new publication released by the British think tank Civitas this week, examines the wisdom of state interference in the family from an international perspective. In her book Family Policy, Family Changes, Patricia Morgan compares the state of the family in Sweden, Italy and Britain, and concludes that families thrive in countries where there is less government interference.

In Britain, where an anti-marriage agenda is being strongly promoted by the public service, universities and government funded social agencies, family problems are rife, with Britain topping the league tables in several of the most worrying indicators of breakdown, including divorce and teenage pregnancy. In Sweden, where a comprehensive social engineering programme has transferred many family responsibilities to the state - to a degree unseen outside of the Soviet bloc - thereare even higher rates of out-of-wedlock births and cohabitation than Britain.

Italy, however, has effectively had no government intervention into the family, and is still the home of the traditional family unit. Divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births, including teenage pregnancies, are extremely low. Cohabitation is so rare as to be difficult to measure. Young people live with their parents until they get married, and, for most women, marriage will represent their first living-together relationship.

While government interference in the family is a cause of major concern, there are many other matters that are driving that feeling of despondency felt by many New Zealanders. In particular, there is an overbearing sense that things could be so much better, especially in those important areas that the government is responsible for.

With 12,000 hospital beds and 12,000 hospital managers and administrators is the growth in New Zealand’s hospital waiting lists being caused by too much bureaucracy? Are we confident that our welfare system is working properly when we all know fit and healthy young men and women who are languishing on benefits? Would primary and secondary school education improve if vouchers were introduced in order to give parents the same choice that they currently have at pre-school and tertiary level?

And why don’t we take a common sense approach to the small business sector – the engine room of our economy – by freeing them up from the mountains of unnecessary cost and red tape that inhibits their growth and productivity? Why not lower taxes across the board not only to boost the economy and create a competitive advantage for Kiwi businesses, but also to establish New Zealand as an attractive destination for international business?

There is so much that can be done to solve those problems that are holding us back - as a nation that responds quickly to positive incentives, with good leadership and sensible ideas, we could really fly!

The NZCPD guest comment this week comes from Sir Roger Douglas who outlined to the ACT Party conference last week, the importance of creating a vision for a better New Zealand (View >>>).

Printer friendly version (PDF) View >>>

This weeks poll. The poll this week asks do you think that the family related policies that Labour has introduced are good for the country? To take part in our online poll >>>

Hi All,

A quick update, did you notice how quick off the mark our Prime Minister was to deny a referendum on election day? Clearly this was a tactic to defuse any hype/expectations held from the voting public in regards to the final signature count which will confirm a referendum.

We need to keep turning up the heat.

I encourage you to consider supporting the following request below, the truth needs to be heard. (Could you also forward this request on to others, thanks)

Also, if you are not already on Family First’s mailing list, then one can only say “you’re missing out”. I have personally been very encouraged by  the work of Family First and we do recommend you receive their email updates.

Thanks again,
Craig Hill
PS, There is also list of cases below.
021746113
www.unityforliberty.net.nz

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke  1729-1797)

20 Jul 2008

HELP US EXPOSE THE MYTHS

Myth #1 : There have been no prosecutions under the new anti-smacking law

FALSE

Myth #2 : The anti-smacking law has not resulted in good parents being investigated and interrogated by the police or CYF
FALSE

NZ’ers deserve to be

told the truth.

$3,500 raised! - total needed $10,000

by the end of Tuesday in order to get nationwide coverage at the weekend.

If you would like to invest in helping us ‘SLEDGEHAMMER THE MYTHS’

CLICK HERE
(All donations qualify for the 33% tax donation rebate.)

Thanks for your support and consideration. We must do all we can to defend the role of parents and the well-being of our children and families in NZ.

Bob McCoskrie
National Director

www.familyfirst.org.nz

We have evidence of a number of examples that expose these myths, including:

* a father separated from his 2 kids for 6 months by CYF because of malicious claims by mother that he had smacked them - CYF eventually reallowed access but only due to a strong supporter who knew the system
* a father prosecuted and convicted because of pushing the upper arm of his daughter 2-3 times and demanding she listen to her mother
* a grandfather prosecuted and convicted because of tipping his defiant grandson out of a bean bag-type chair to get him moving
* a father dragged through the court process only to turn up to the court case and the police to admit they had no evidence
* a stepfather who physically restrained the arms of his stepdaughter being interrogated for 2 hours almost 7 months after the incident, and 6 months later still not knowing the outcome
* a CYFS Community Panel Board member telling Family First “I can say without a doubt, that in my time I have seen a small but a definite increase in ‘good’ parents being investigated by our CYFS case workers – up to 5% of our cases. Any child who mentions to a school teacher that they have been smacked or touched in any physical way is brought under investigation and their names are indelibly logged onto our data base as a potential ‘abuser’ . I really feel sorry for these ‘good parents’ because of the fear that we as an organisation now engendering upon their parenting practise. Sadly good parents are being lumped in together with the really bad ones.”