National’s bully-boy tactics continue. Young people are trying to voice their concern to the select committee that is looking at the extension of the Fire at Will law to all workers. The Nats on the committee don’t want to listen so they’re bullying submitters and refusing to even accept submissions that don’t toe their line.
First there was Tau Henare having a tirade at 18 year old James Sleep during his oral submission. Sleep had a number of case studies of young workers being ripped off under the existing Fire at Will law to refer to. he told one of them orally, which wasn’t the one that Henare had written in front of him. This, by some bizarre logic, led Henare to conclude that the stories were made up: “you’re lying, you’re bullshitting” (got to love that language befitting the dignity of Parliament).
The fact of the matter is that Henare simply didn’t want to acknowledge the reality in front of him: young workers are being hurt by Fire at Will. Deep down, Henare and everyone on the Right knows that Fire at Will is anti-worker, but they have to construct a narrative where it is for workers’ own good to make their employment insecure.
Now we learn the National select committee refused to accept submissions that they found ‘offensive’. What was student Natalie Williams’ ‘offensive’ submission?
“Can we put John Key on a 90-day trial and sack him on the 89th day?”
Fair point. Key and the elitist National caucus want to put every worker in the country on a 90 day Fire at Will period where they can be sacked without justifiable cause within the first 90 days but they won’t apply those rules to themselves.
Natalie’s just pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation.
But apparently it is offensive to suggest that anyone would want to sack PM-God Key.
So, there’s the lesson for future submitters: petitioning Parliament is your right under the Magna Carta but you better curtail your freedom of speech when you do so or National MPs are liable to have a tantrum.
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