War, Peace And The Freedom Frog

act-new-zealand

Sun Oct 11 2009 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

War, Peace And The Freedom Frog

Sunday, 11 October 2009, 11:02 am
Press Release: ACT New Zealand

Hon Heather Roy, ACT Deputy Leader
Saturday, October 10 2009

Hon Heather Roy speech to the ACT New Zealand Auckland South Regional Conference; Mt Eden, Auckland; Saturday, October 10 2009.

The ACT Party's foundations are firmly rooted in the tenets of freedom, choice and personal responsibility. It is now nearly a year since we joined with the National Party to form a Government. It has been a helter skelter period of learning the machinery of Government in an environment of troublesome world economics coupled with the inheritance of a disastrous political legacy passed from the previous Labour-led regime. I acknowledge that some of you may feel frustrated that you have not seen as much of your Parliamentary team as you have in the past, but I also know that you are starting to see some of the ideals that you, along with approximately 86,000 other Kiwis sought, when you gave your Party vote to ACT last year.

ACT has some distinct advantages in Parliament. We have our principles on which to base decisions. We are also small enough to be able to sit around the table and use these principles as the basis for how we vote and make other choices in the political maelstrom that is the process of governing. We do not need to indulge in populist themes and I am the first to point that out when the idea occasionally arises. In essence, we are free of many of the constraints that other political parties bear and it is essential that we remind ourselves and the public, often, of that freedom.

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But what does it mean to be free? The hearts and minds of all New Zealanders are free so why is it that so few have the courage to follow them? Why do the majority, when spoken to directly, clearly demonstrate their understanding of the importance of protecting liberty but, at the ballot box, make choices that effectively support the erosion of that same liberty? These and other questions have led me to address you today on the subject of freedom.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher delivered the Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture in Luxembourg entitled "Europe – The Obligations of Liberty”. In it, she noted that liberty and tyranny; democracy and absolutism; the tension between rights and obligations, between discipline and licence have been constant themes of political debate in Britain since Parliament first challenged the absolute powers of the King.

Post-colonial era New Zealand, like the Britain described by Shakespeare as "A fortress built by nature for herself", has developed undisturbed by invasion. This 'splendid isolation' can and has contributed to the illusion of unassailability. In essence, our national ego, for far too long, has been writing cheques that our body corporate will never be able to cash.

Despite this, we have long been active in our support to others in difficult times - a condition well-described by Edmund Burke - "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an un-pitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

The melting pot of the British imperial model of 'gunship diplomacy' and the warrior ethos of the Maori would, at first glance lead one to the conclusion that New Zealanders should have a vivid understanding of the need for eternal vigilance in both domestic and external security. Sadly, that is not the case and we have now seen many decades of apologists and deniers argue for alternate strategies ranging from appeasement to isolationism.

Why? Many of you will be familiar with the parable of the boiling frog. This is a widely used anecdote that describes a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. Whether the scientific fact is true or not, it is frequently used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to important changes that occur gradually and is why I have referred to 'Freedom's Frog' in the title of this speech.

If peace is the absence of war, then the world has not been at peace for a very long time and the 'peace dividend' that many seek to claim does not exist. Since 1945, for example, there have been over 100 significant military engagements that have seen more than one million combatants and over seven million civilians die. While none of these have directly threatened New Zealand, we have felt the ramifications of most of them and have sent military or other aid to the vast majority. Why did we do this? We did it because liberty relies on the three pillars of democracy, economic freedom and the rule of law.

The foundation for all three is acceptance by all of society of a sense of common obligation. There is no point in New Zealand being free in an unstable, oppressed world. Domestic security – law and order – has also paid the price of our laissez-faire national attitude. Crime statistics are appalling, whichever way you try to spin them. The pleas of citizens and especially victims, for the Government to take seriously its primary duty of protection of society are drowned out by the mantra chanted by the apologists and appeasers. I draw a clear link between the two situations.

The choices that governments make and the manner in which they are reported by the media each serve to adjust the temperature of the water surrounding freedom's frog. The proponents of global warming claim that frogs are rapidly disappearing. Perhaps, we should acknowledge this as evidence of the erosion of liberty.

Yesterday, my weekly diary was written on the topic of unintended consequences. The last decades have seen far too many of these. Media focus on sensational topics has lured a series of governments toward populist legislation. This 'reality TV show' approach to legislation must end.

Requiring dogs to be micro-chipped has neither ended the debate nor stopped random attacks. The tightening up of gun laws has not decreased the incidence of firearms-related crime. The removal of the defence of parental correction in Section 59 of the Crimes Act has not reduced infanticide or serious assaults on children.

I have analysed New Zealand's traffic accident data for the past 45 years and deduced that all the 'shock' advertising and related media campaigns, the speed cameras, the merger of the Police and MoT and everything else that has, at great expense, been touted as bringing the road toll down cannot be correlated with the number of accidents, injuries and deaths over that period. However, two apparently unrelated occurrences do appear to have significance.

One is the introduction of cell phone technology into New Zealand – enabling people to call for help immediately. The second is the appearance of rescue helicopters, which meant that the 'golden hour' of life saving was now achievable. Hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising expenditure and significant inroads into civil liberties such as the requirement to carry and renew your driver's licence at all times might well have been money and effort better spent on cell site repeaters on remote highways and funding emergency services rather than them relying on donations and lottery grants.

Like Michael Laws' gang-patch legislation, I have no doubt that the imminent roadside drug test, anti boy-racer and cold medicine sales regulations will be of limited effect but will create a raft of unintended consequences that will see public opinion polls turn sharply against the National Party. No doubt, the Police will be quick to ask for yet more powers, more staff and increased funding. What they should first be doing is addressing the internal disaggregation of the force which sees, at a time of record numbers of sworn Police Officers, little increase in the number of general duties officers out amongst society – community policing - but rather, many more moving within the internal Police career referred to as 'worlds within worlds'.

Our 2008 National Security policy describes ACT's approach to these matters and I am now in the process of updating it. It is vital that ACT holds true to its principle of defending individual freedom and focusing crime-fighting effort on where it really counts.

I intend to focus, now, on an issue which fills our news media – the global war on terror. For a start, this is an oxymoron. War is a geo-political event and has strategic goals. Military theoretician Carl Von Clausewitz called war the "continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means."

Terrorism is a tactic. It is no more possible to conduct a war on terror than it is to carry out one on ambushing or tax evasion. Violent, coercive and asymmetric acts, usually by non-nation state entities, have always been a feature of the political landscape. There is no purely military solution to terrorism. No person, agency or State can hope to see, filter, screen or stop the human desire to communicate – and therefore act – in pursuit of a common goal. We can only seek to understand that goal and contain the effect on us.

I am not suggesting that New Zealand should disengage from action against terrorists. My concern is the willingness of and rate at which society has allowed politicians to erode their civil liberties under the banner of fighting terrorists. These freedoms, such as the right of the 'King's men' to enter your house, to intercept your personal communications and to monitor your activities were hard fought and one won over at least two thousand years.

I imagine that one of Al Qaeda's aims in attacking the United States on 11 September 2001 was to apply the handbrake on global travel and trade. In this, they have succeeded. Like you, I am increasingly frustrated by delays at airports applied under the guise of security. I travel by air almost every day and, as a matter of course, find two or three aviation security service officers chatting about shows or restaurants rather than actually paying attention to the job in hand. Meanwhile, significant cost has been lumped on the taxpayer to fund this while other equally relevant terrorist targets, such as trains, ferries, communications and power stations go unguarded. The manner in which we are conducting aviation security in this country is effectively gifting the original perpetrators with the outcome they sought.

Most, if not all the laws required to deal with acts of terror, already existed prior to 11 September 2001. As in so many other areas, It is the lack of enforcement, often due to the absence of a true whole-of-Government approach, which has left us wanting for closure. The law of unintended consequences and of earlier inaction has created many of the situations of insecurity we now face. Somali piracy, for example, grew from the lack of international concern for the plight of coastal villagers whose livelihood was at risk from large foreign fleets pillaging fish stocks during the time when that country was without any effective Government.

However, each new Bill before Parliament that includes terrorism in its description passes with scarcely a whimper. And this is how liberty dies – with thunderous applause!

ACT has achieved much in its first year in Government. But what will educational scholarships, school choice and local government reform mean if it is set against a backdrop where our society and our world is not free to go about its business in safety? The answer is – very little. Ironically, the people who understand this best are recent immigrants who often ask "Why do you allow this to happen? This is what we came here to escape."

This is why I intend to work even harder on our core message of freedom – not just because it is a relevant point of political difference with our supply and confidence partners but because it is the right thing to do. Like every Kiwi, you go to the ballot box as free men and women. But what will you do with that freedom? It is hard won and easily surrendered. I would rather lose defending freedom than hold power with candy floss policy. Anyone that believes otherwise has forgotten what ACT stands for.

No doubt, some cynics beyond the party will be thinking "Yeah Right! When it matters, she'll change her tune and play to the electorate." To them, I wish to close with a quote from a politician I admire greatly."To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. This lady's not for turning!"

ENDS

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