There’s something disturbing about Don Brash’s appointment of a political correctness terminator. In today’s shadow cabinet line-up, the National Party in New Zealand has given Wayne Mapp the portfolio of “Political Correctness Eradication” – the task of agitating for the removal of special consideration for minorities. The Human Rights Commission and the Waitangi Tribunal are first in the sights of Alan Brash and Wayne Mapp. They have a few supporters in New Zealand, people who would like to see a society marked by majority rules without consideration for voiceless. It chills me to think that New Zealand this year came so close to putting this party into government with policies that bear a remarkable resemblance to those of 1930s Germany. I wonder how the rest of the cabinet sees this move.
Sure – there should be limits to the ways in which minority interests impinge on everyday life. We do need honest questions and honest engagement with those questions. But it is irresponsible for a potential government to campaign for the disregard of the welfare and equal participation of indigenous people, disabled and gays.
Who was it that said that the level of a society’s civilization is gauged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members? Or that democracy is measured in the way society treats its minorities?
See the Stuff.co.nz article.