TREASON

Since the 1980s in New Zealand it has become compelling to apply the meaning of treason to those persons in positions of power who act in a manner disloyal and injurious to the general population. The two governments of David Lange probably constitute the most significant period of treason in New Zealand history. Conscientious and professional civil servants were labelled irrelevant underpaid monkeys and replaced with a multitude of overpaid monkeys whose brief was to act with force, unpredictability and irrationality. History and context were also irrelevant; everything was done as if newly hatched by flippant adolescents.

The lives of those who did not, could not or would not play the game were turned upside down so that money could move from the public sector into the pockets of select individuals. Muldoon called them the Greedies. The first excuse for the upheaval was the need to get rid of the national debt. It was all a lie. The debt is as bad as ever. Whenever a new government comes in Treasury delivers a paper outlining a severe situation requiring extreme right-wing
measures. Currently the Brash Commission nicely supplements this.

This impulse continued through the 1990s, was somewhat quiescent in the 2000s, resurfacing now and again showing impatience with community and democratic process. A lone outlaw from the rogernomic era comes shooting his way back into town (Auckland) and is allowed to force major changes by a sheriff who watches quietly from behind his curtained office window. That same sheriff, with the laid-back manner and smiling visage, is doing a lot of quiet dismantling in other areas of social service without a peep from the newspaper office next door.

There are now 20,000 young New Zealanders who cannot find work, many with university degrees. Despite this an overpaid peanut called Jonathan Coleman, MP for Northcote and Minister of Immigration, unveils the Silver Fern Visa which actively entices young people from overseas to come to New Zealand looking for work. This is an act of disloyalty and injury to our young people and their families. Otherwise known as treason. There can be no excuse for it other than a variation on the old story of monkeys and peanuts.

New Zealand has been spared the determined attention of the United States. Despite betraying us into accepting an undemocratic americanisation of our economic and social life, Lange did his thing - a very important thing - which resulted in our anti-nuclear stance and this may have helped deter any such attention. But like a death wish, politicians and media hanker after what they fondly term a 'free-trade deal' with the United States. It is always spoken of as a given positive. Nowhere in the mainstream have I heard or read a critical view. Yet it must be known that the United States does not practice free trade. John Key must know this in order to tell us to be ready to make concessions. Ultimately these will be concessions on our sovereignty. An act of treason.

For decades people and nations have wanted to like and get along with the United States, but the US is constitutionally unable to recognise and practice genuine mutual respect. It is like the man who has a willing woman happy to go along with him but he much prefers to drag her into a dark alley and rape her. Not OK behaviour, but let's look the other way.