One academic targeted by the Deputy Prime Minister over his submission on the Regulatory Standards bill says the social media posts accusing him of having “derangement syndrome” suggest he is unable to defend the substance of his bill.
Associate Professor George Laking told The Hui that David Seymour’s “Victim of the Day” posts are playing the man, not the ball, a tactic favoured by some of the biggest political bullies in NZ history.
“Usually, when you start having a go at the person, it means that you’ve actually run out of a serious response to what they have to say.
“So I thought it’s a real shame. In fact, I remember when I was a kid, we had Muldoon come out with that sort of stuff, and I think people got sick of it after a while, but it seems to have come back.
Dr Laking says he’s open to a discussion on the merits or limitations of the legislation.
“Challenge me on the statement in that case. You don’t have to make a joke about my mental state, for heaven’s sake. We can all have a disagreement about things.
“I think one of the curious things about ACT is you will find elements of truth in what they say, but the trick that they do is they leave out so much and really, that’s what I have in my own submission tried to say, is that you need to have a broader set of values for your constitution of your country. You can’t just do it all with dollars and individualism. You have to be thinking about some other parameters, and the health of people, of course, is foremost where I come from.”
He doesn’t accept the argument that the Deputy Prime Minister is tackling the push back to his bill with humour, or as David Symour himself has described it, by getting “playful”.
“This is a man who currently is holding the highest office in the land and treating it like a bit of a joke, and I find that quite disturbing, to be honest.”
The cancer specialist, who is based at the University of Auckland, says this behaviour is part of a larger movement worldwide which marginalises expertise, encroaches on academic freedom, and ramps up the risk to anyone opposing those in power.
“For a long time, I felt very fortunate to live in a country where there is the freedom for someone like me to be part of the political process, and I’m very conscious that other parts of the world, you know, that’s simply not possible.
“Those sorts of freedoms are always in some way at risk and is one of the main responsibilities of the people in leadership and in power in our country is to protect that type of freedom, to be honest, and not belittle it and not turn it into a bit of a joke. That’s happening right around the world with the rise of populism, the resurgence of extreme right-wing movements around the world. That is a thing that is happening. So yeah, there’s a risk.”
While the Labour Party has announced that, if elected next year, they’ll undo the Regulatory Standards bill within one hundred days of taking office, Dr Laking would like to see them do more.
“I’d really like to see Labour work on fixing up the fracture lines in our society, because I do have to say, I’ve seen those fracture lines get wider and wider under governments of all stripes over the past few decades. So they may repeal the regulatory standards bill, but we still have homeless people sleeping in the streets. In our country, and that’s happened on Labour’s watch as well, and so I really would like to see some healing, especially for the least advantaged people in our country.”
By The Hui.
*During the time of the interview, David Seymour was Acting Prime Minister.
