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Yes Sir, No Sir

Entry 964, on 2009-03-12 at 22:08:01 (Rating 4, Politics)

Yesterday I read an opinion piece on the New Zealand Herald web site by a commentator, Garth George, who obviously has fairly right wing, conservative political views. Normally I would disagree with most of what that sort of person believed, but on this occasion I think he had some good (as well as bad) points.

His major subject was the reinstatement of the traditional British honours system in New Zealand - that is the titles Sir and Dame instead of the specifically New Zealand honours introduced by the previous (center-left) government. He quoted figures showing support for such a move and, although they were totally unscientific, I think there is reasonable support for the old system because no one (including me) really seems to know what the different titles in the new system really mean.

A separate issue is who these honours should be awarded to. There does seem to be a habit of dishing them out to political allies, whether they have really achieved anything beyond what we would normally expect or not. For example when I see Sir Roger Douglas and Dame Jenny Shipley it destroys any credibility the system might have had. How can Ed Hillary and Roger Douglas both deserve the same title? Its absurd!

Another related topic was the idea of New Zealand becoming a republic. Currently our head of state is officially Queen Elizabeth II (through the Governor General), although that is almost entirely a meaningless title. Would we be any better off if we had a president instead? Its really hard to say. Becoming a republic would be no magic answer to all of our problems (whatever they might be) so it would be more a symbolic move than anything else.

Finally the writer launches into a glowing endorsement of the policies being implemented by the new government, saying that "its moves to save jobs and bolster business, to shake up ACC and to privatise prisons, along with the restoration of titles, are all strides in the right direction." That is very debatable, of course. So far the new government has been more involved with ending jobs more than saving them, and the other policies are of extremely doubtful effectiveness.

Of course, a true right-winger would never worry about whether these sorts of policies actually work or not. They are "a step in the right direction". The question is, what is that direction? More private ownership, which has been a major disaster in many cases in the past. Having a private company profit from carrying out a punishment role which clearly belongs to the state. That might be the right direction for him, but I'm a bit more hesitant to head there!

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