Written By:
the sprout - Date published:
6:55 pm, April 11th, 2009 - 3 comments
Categories: flip-flop, history, International, john key, national/act government -
Tags: Fiji, free speech coalition, hypocrisy, john key
It wasn’t so long ago that National’s covert attack organ, the Free Speech Coalition, were squealing about how anti-democratic the last Labour government was, with plenty of snappy billboards like this one.
Well now that the tragedy of Fiji’s dictatorship is going from bad to worse, don’t expect to hear any more concern from the FSC/National anytime soon. In John Key’s world what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander.
The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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That’s because the Free Speech Coalition no longer exists. They only existed to get rid of the Electoral Finance Act. Since National with other parties was able to form a majority they ultimately had the numbers to get rid of it. Ironically, the Labour party who together with the Greens implemented such legislation in the first place also voted to get rid of it. Why then if such a coalition has been absolved would you expect them to say something about the Fiji situation?
There is clearly no hypocrisy involved and since you categorised this under fuckwits, one could well say the only fuckwit is you.
Not only does the situation in Fiji have nothing whatsoever to do with the raison d’ etre of the former FSC (you may as well rail about the SPCA doing nothing) but DPF has mentioned the situation several times and always in a critical tone, concluding that the governnmet there needs to “take credible steps towards democracy”.
As for National’s reaction, well I doubt it will amount to much. But then I doubt Labour’s would have either. Simply because there are practical limits to the pressure one nation can bring to bear on another, unless it’s prepared to take up arms.
Off topic. But since this is about Fiji. What is with Chris Trotter’s sudden obsession with critiquing Lew’s posts from Kiwipolitico?