So: I totally agree that the word is important! But at the same time, de facto relationships and civil unions are, legally, very very recognised in NZ law and I feel like that gets missed in the debate sometimes (because lots of jurisdictions don't recognise de facto relationships in statute law at all, and offer civil unions that have substantially fewer rights than marriage)
Yup, these are more or less my thoughts on the matter. Same-sex marriage would be great but at the end of the day I would prefer the Opposition gets to work on the Adoption Act at bare minimum, or preferably, like, welfare reform. That would be good for me.
I think that a lot of the social legislation Labour managed between 1999 and 2008 has been so well accepted by mainstream New Zealand (the gays getting unionised DIDN'T make the sky fall in!) that people forget that this shit was ALL hugely controversial at the time.
I think this is simultaneously true (so that Labour doesn't get much credit fro the Left for the social legislation) and yet Labour gets hammered for having been too concerned with social legislation - so that the previous government seems uniquely ineffective: they made a lot of policy changes that are now invisible so we don't acknowledge them, and we criticise them for spending so much time on that legislation.
Meanwhile, the National Government literally wants to nanny beneficiaries, choosing what they can spend money on and where, when they work and even the medical treatment they get, but good luck getting that narrative media traction.
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Date: 2012-05-13 09:25 pm (UTC)Yup, these are more or less my thoughts on the matter. Same-sex marriage would be great but at the end of the day I would prefer the Opposition gets to work on the Adoption Act at bare minimum, or preferably, like, welfare reform. That would be good for me.
I think that a lot of the social legislation Labour managed between 1999 and 2008 has been so well accepted by mainstream New Zealand (the gays getting unionised DIDN'T make the sky fall in!) that people forget that this shit was ALL hugely controversial at the time.
I think this is simultaneously true (so that Labour doesn't get much credit fro the Left for the social legislation) and yet Labour gets hammered for having been too concerned with social legislation - so that the previous government seems uniquely ineffective: they made a lot of policy changes that are now invisible so we don't acknowledge them, and we criticise them for spending so much time on that legislation.
Meanwhile, the National Government literally wants to nanny beneficiaries, choosing what they can spend money on and where, when they work and even the medical treatment they get, but good luck getting that narrative media traction.