The Facebook page for this event states:

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act states:

13 – Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.

14 – Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.

15 – Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.

• How should we read these sections alongside idea that New Zealand is a secular society?
• How should we read them alongside the viewpoint advanced most notably by philosophers such as John Rawls that religion should be privatised?
• Does Separation of Church and State require Separation of Religion from public life?
• Can we still have Freedom of Religion in New Zealand and hold to these views?
• What approach is just and fair in a pluralistic society like ours?

Analytic Theologian and Ethicist, Dr Matthew Flannagan and Legal Scholar, Madeleine Flannagan (a post-graduate student in Law at Auckland) will give a joint lecture followed by a Q&A session on the topic Freedom of Religion in a Secular Society from 7.00-8.30pm on Monday 12 September 2011 in Clock Tower 032.

A group of Sri Lankan poor (allegedly Tamils previously caught up in the former civil war) have boarded a boat large enough to make it all the way here.  They have been declaring their intent to sail to New Zealand to seek asylum.  The Prime Minister, Mr Key has made dark hints that he has received intelligence briefings that leave him in no doubt that New Zealand was the intended destination.  Others have accused him of overreacting.  We believe Mr Key in this instance.

The Commentariat is having conniptions.  The most consistent amongst us are represented by Green MP, Keith Locke and Amnesty International caudillo, Patrick Holmes.  They have urged the desperate plight of the economic refugees.  Doubtless they have suffered grievously, and New Zealand beckons as a wonderland.  Even the poorest in New Zealand would be comparatively rich to them.  They have urged pity as a motivation to accept and welcome these folk. We reiterate: these are the consistent Commentariat members.

Others in the Commentariat are emphatic in their refusal to have anything to do with the boat people.  Their posturing is empty.  Offensively hypocritical.  The entire ethos of  New Zealand is built upon the principle that  all people,  by right of being human, have a legitimate and just claim to a certain amount of other people’s property.  Call it “a living wage”, a “fair go”, maintaining dignity–whatever.  It’s all the same in the end.  The supreme authority, our semi-divinised state, has both a duty and license to extract property by force from some and deliver it to others who have less.  Everybody believes this.  Except Christians who read their Bibles, but they don’t count.  Sure, the Commentariat maintains an inter-mural argument about how much extraction, and upon which subjects it will be bestowed, and on what terms and conditions, but these are mere details.  Everyone acknowledges the universal principle of the thing.

Why, then, the emphatic rejection of the boat people?  Why are they “beyond the pale”?  Are they not human?  Do they not have economic rights?  Does not their being human entitle them to a just extraction by force from others better off  to make them more economically equal?  Apparently not.  Why? we wonder.  Out of one side of his mouth our Prime Minister argues vehemently for involuntary seizure of the property of some (via taxation) and for its distribution to others, appealing to justice, rectitude, and rights.  Everybody, everybody agrees–apart from those obnoxious Christians who read their Bibles. But out of the other side of his mouth he brusquely rejects these desperate folk.

When it’s boat people, the universal principles of human rights are suddenly found to have geographic limitations.  Our gods turn out to be local deities after all. Our self-righteous, simpering notions of justice transform into harsh xenophobia, just like that.  Who would have thought.

The Commentariat has some explaining to do. If the goose’s sauce is withheld from the gander we smell hypocrisy in the kitchen. Maybe the high faluting principles of Unbelief are worthless and empty, venal and self-serving?  Maybe justice and rights are not universal after all, but have geographical boundaries.  But if so, why not local body limitations?  Why not provincial boundaries?  Why not racial boundaries? In other words, universal rights are either ubiquitously relevant and applicable, or not at all.

Clearly the Commentariat does not believe our religious version of economic human rights is universal.  Therefore, it has no legitimate application in New Zealand either.  Extraction of property from some to bestow it upon others is nothing other than trafficking in stolen goods.  Imagine–our entire society built upon a grand edifice of theft.  Conjuring appeals to universal human rights are merely a Klingon cloaking device disguising that our nation is, underneath it all, one vast criminal enterprise.

Bless those Sri Lankan boat people for de-cloaking our pretentious hypocrisy.  And, yes, may the Living God have mercy upon them.

Middleton Grange is a school based in Christchurch. The school’s aim’s, as stated on its website, show that its first aim as a educational facility is to “Help pupils know and understand God and His ways and respond to Him in obedience, love and service.” The website further states,

The school rests on a Reformed and Evangelical interpretation of Scripture which informs all aspects of governance and management. The Christian Schools’ Trust is responsible for safeguarding the Special Character of the school.

Now it should be no surprise to any educated person that a reformed evangelical interpretation of scripture usually includes, among other things, the contention that sex between people of the same sex violates God’s commands. Nor should it be a surprise that, given the school’s stated purpose is to inculcate these beliefs, it will not hire or retain people whose example or teaching contradicts this purpose.

The only question that really needs to be asked then is whether it should be legal for religious groups like this to set up such schools and teach these things and engage in these sorts of hiring practices. Should reformed evangelical Christianity be a tolerated religion? The alternative is, of course, to ban such schools, force parents to send their children to schools that will teach that their parents religious beliefs are false  - essentially not allow adults to propagate these values to their children. This is known as religious persecution.

In fact by ruling that the school must hire/retain staff whose actions are inconsistent with the schools purpose and then requiring the staff to undergo “human rights education.” the Human Rights Commission (HRC) goes one step further. It states that not only must such schools not exist but it maintains that the adults running them must undergo compulsory re-education into the secular liberal way of thinking. Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing a tad draconian?

Mr Young, however, seems to think otherwise, he states,

Frankly, I’m surprised that this sort of collision between lesbian and gay teachers and backward fundamentalist enclaves has taken so long to materialise. I suspect that it’s because we shun such neurotic and hermetically sealed enclaves unless there is good reason to do otherwise

Apparently the biggest problem in all this is that this sort of religious persecution and re-education has not happened sooner. As to why such schools should be persecuted, Young gives three reasons.

First because it is a “malignant Christchurch fundamentalist” school. In other words, Young considers this school to expound fundamentalism and he considers such a religion to be “malignant.” This really is not the issue, the issue is whether the state should persecute such religious groups and subject the people within them to compulsory re-education. There are many religious perspectives I disagree with, some I find highly offensive yet this does not mean that the state should intervene in this way.

Young’s second reason is,

Founded in 1964, it was host to Graham Capill, Christian Heritage Party leader. His dad Don was Vice Principal until the eighties. I was a one-time inmate there. It served as a nexus for the abortive campaign against homosexual law reform in the mid-eighties.

There are three reasons here (a) Young attended the school and did not like it, (b) a political leader Young is known to immensely dislike and who was convicted for sexual molestation once attended the school and this man’s father was once Principal; and, (c) the school promoted political views at odds with the secular liberal mainstream on issues like abortion and homosexuality.

It is hard to see how any of these reasons justify the HRC’s actions. Is Young saying any school he does not like should be legally punished? Is Craig suggesting that if an old boy of a school is convicted of a crime years after leaving that the whole school should be held responsible? Does Young support a return to collective and vicarious punishments perhaps?

The last reason Young gave is perhaps the most telling; schools should be subject to legal sanction if their politics are disagreeable. Again, am I the only one who finds it odd that this sort of crap is proposed by one of the voices for “tolerance” and “respect for diversity”?

Craig then gives the usual red herrings; he states “Should it end there? Well, no. If Middleton Grange refuses to employ lesbian and gay teachers, then what about issues like LGBT suicide prevention? Or homophobic bullying?” While I agree that bullying of any human being is wrong (it being assault) and suicide of any person is tragic, the reasoning here lacks cogency. Suppose a fundamentalist Christian was severely bullied at school, the kids picked on him because they considered him to be an intolerant bigot or suppose that his refusal to have pre-marital sex or drink alcohol made him a social outcast? I take it that Young would support fundamentalist teachers coming into this school and teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of the bible to their students so as to re-educate those bullying him? Perhaps the HRC should force the management of any secular school that does not do this to attend church…

The only remotely sensible comment Craig makes is a rhetorical question, “Should fundamentalist private schools be penalised by withheld operational funding if they refuse to obey mainstream New Zealand anti-discrimination laws?” Indeed that is the core question. Should private religious schools be allowed to teach and freely exercise their religion? Some segments of the gay rights movement and their supporters need to be honest and just outright admit that they support religious persecution instead of talking about “tolerance” and “the celebration of diversity” – values they clearly do not believe in.

UPDATED BY MADELEINE

In the comments below Joel, a blogger from the US, writes:

There is no liberty in New Zealand, I take it, nor equality.

And what about the human rights violated against the Christian school?

I have chosen to respond this here as originally Matt and I had toyed with looking at this in this post anyway and so I don’t want it getting lost in the comments, which I anticipate will be prolific in number (just a hunch).

New Zealand does not have an entrenched constitution, its Bill of Rights is a simple statute which is ultimately subordinate to any other statute it clashes with, see section 4:

4.  Other enactments not affected
No court shall, in relation to any enactment (whether passed or made before or after the commencement of this Bill of Rights),—

(a) Hold any provision of the enactment to be impliedly repealed or revoked, or to be in any way invalid or ineffective; or

(b) Decline to apply any provision of the enactment—

by reason only that the provision is inconsistent with any provision of this Bill of Rights.

Although, to be fair, for any clash the clashing rule, law or policy must be read in the way most conducive to it being consistent with the Bill of Rights, see section 6:

6. Interpretation consistent with Bill of Rights to be preferred
Wherever an enactment can be given a meaning that is consistent with the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights, that meaning shall be preferred to any other meaning.

If a consistent reading cannot be achieved then the courts will either deem a policy inconsistent with the Bill of Rights or deem it a justified limitation,

5. Justified limitations
Subject to section 4 of this Bill of Rights, the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The reality is that due to the fact the courts cannot strike statutes down or refuse to apply them and that there are no penalties for Bill of Rights breaches either beyond the stigma of being in breach of it, which only works if society values the right in question, if it is an unpopular group or cause being violated who cares right?

So that is the context freedom of religion sits in in New Zealand, which is covered in the section on democratic and civil rights:

13. Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief, including the right to adopt and to hold opinions without interference.

14. Freedom of expression
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.

15. Manifestation of religion and belief
Every person has the right to manifest that person’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, or teaching, either individually or in community with others, and either in public or in private.

Now at a glance at these sections our US friends must be wondering how the tale Matt told above and the story in the newspaper article he linked to could happen; it appears that New Zealand requires the state to allow its citizens and private organisations the right to form any belief they like, impart it and act on it.

The reason you are momentarily lulled into this false sense of reality is because you have not factored in the Human Rights Act. Remember earlier when I said the Bill of Rights is subject to other laws? Let’s take a look at section 22, I have highlighted the key bits to take note of in italics:

22. Employment
(1) Where an applicant for employment or an employee is qualified for work of any description, it shall be unlawful for an employer, or any person acting or purporting to act on behalf of an employer,—

(a) To refuse or omit to employ the applicant on work of that description which is available; or

(b) To offer or afford the applicant or the employee less favourable terms of employment, conditions of work, superannuation or other fringe benefits, and opportunities for training, promotion, and transfer than are made available to applicants or employees of the same or substantially similar capabilities employed in the same or substantially similar circumstances on work of that description; or

(c) To terminate the employment of the employee, or subject the employee to any detriment, in circumstances in which the employment of other employees employed on work of that description would not be terminated, or in which other employees employed on work of that description would not be subjected to such detriment; or

(d) To retire the employee, or to require or cause the employee to retire or resign,—

by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination.

Let’s take a look at the “prohibited grounds of discrimination” shall we? The definitions section states “prohibited ground of discrimination has the meaning given to it by section 21″. Section 21 is long so I have only included the relevant bits for our purposes,

21 Prohibited grounds of discrimination

(1) For the purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are—

(m) Sexual orientation, which means a heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation.

So there you have it, freedom of thought, conscience, religion, expression and the manifestation of those beliefs are trumped by the Human Rights Act (and the Education Act which permits private schools to educate and manage themselves along the lines of the special character of the school).

Joel is right, New Zealand’s commitment to liberty and equality is lacking as is respect for freedom of religion.

In 2004 the New Zealand Labour Government passed the Foreshore and Seabed Act. At the time both Matt and I were absolutely opposed to its passage but we felt like lone voices in the wilderness in our own community and that saddened us. Christians will happily protest laws that affront issues like marriage, sex, drugs, alcohol and parenting but on issues like freedom and civil liberty our voice is all often too quiet.

Part of this is that we are not as educated a culture as we once were, we don’t know our history or properly understand our theology, we don’t value our freedom or understand how it works or why it is important to defend it even when we don’t feel like it is us under attack but we need to.

A lot of people don’t even understand Foreshore and Seabed issue; they think it was about who owns the beaches and that the law was necessary to protect our beaches, our kiwi way of life. In Any Requests? Anonymous asked, “Why should the government potentially allow access to the beach denied to all New Zealanders?” The Ministerial Review Panel found that this concern was not limited to our anonymous commenter:

Three key issues emerge from our review of submissions to the Select Committee which considered the Bill in 2004: public ownership, access and navigation, and protection of Māori customary interests in the foreshore and seabed. In our view, these issues remain at the very heart of ongoing concerns about the legislation. [Emphasis added]

In all the submissions the amount that focused of the real problem were so negligible the panel didn’t list them. The majority missed the fact that this Act was passed to prevent a group of New Zealand citizens from taking a case to court, instead they wrote submissions about how that would affect them. The Act was and remains, a blatant breach of due process.

Nevertheless, the passage of this Act had widespread support. Although the National party (then in opposition) voted against it, they ran a campaign promising to keep the beaches for all New Zealanders. Within the media and amongst society, debate about the Act was focused on the merits of the court case; totally missing the point that legislative denial of due process is wrong regardless of the merits of the case being brought.

At this point a brief history is necessary due to the widespread misunderstanding about the case itself. In June 2003 the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa [2003] 3 NZLR 643. Public interest in this case was triggered by the reaction of the government to its decision and the way the media reported its significance.

Eight Maori tribes claimed that the foreshore (the land between the high and low-water marks) and the seabed (the land below the low-water mark) of the Marlborough Sounds in the South Island of New Zealand, was “Maori customary land” (a Maori jurisprudence concept which is not the same concept as our western notion of fee simple ownership.) The tribes were not sure if the Maori Land Court, which is the court set up to hear historical Maori land claims against the government, had the jurisdiction to hear their case. There was dispute as to the effect of statutes regarding land and Common Law confusion over land ownership where that land is covered by water. The tribes went to the High Court to ask if they could take the case to the Maori Land Court and the case worked its way up to the Court of Appeal.

In summary, the Court ruled that:

• the Crown was wrong to contend that certain statutes affecting the foreshore and seabed had had the effect of extinguishing such Māori customary title as might exist; and
• the Māori Land Court has jurisdiction, under Te Ture Whenua Māori/Māori Land Act 1993, to determine whether any part of the foreshore and seabed is still Māori customary land.

While the decision gave rise to uncertainty regarding the “ownership” status of the foreshore and seabed, it also confirmed that this could be tested in the Māori Land Court. However, rather than let that process run its course, the government decided to legislate. The Act vested in the Crown title to all foreshore and seabed land not already in private ownership. It also made some provision for Māori customary interests to be recognised in limited circumstances.

This case was about whether or not the Maori Land Court had the jurisdiction to hear a case. The case was not a ruling on whether the foreshore and seabed belonged to Maori or the Crown. This was a key issue that the media, the politicians and the public missed at the time.

The ex-dean of the University of Waikato’s Law School, Margaret Wilson, was the Attorney-General at the time the Court of Appeal was deliberating. She had advised the government that there was no way the Court of Appeal would rule in favour of the appellants, she was not alone in that view, the majority in the legal profession thought that. She was wrong.

When the government realised the error they realised there was a risk that ownership and access to the beach in the Marlborough Sounds area might be able to be handed to Ngati Apa, if the Maori Land Court heard the case and ruled that way. The political fallout from this was not something they wanted. New Zealanders love the beach. We are a small island with a lot of beautiful coastline; we all have summer memories that involve our coastline. The backlash against the government could be disastrous, the opposition could have a field-day, they may lose the next election… So they played on that fear and also on the impatience many have towards historical Maori land claims, the ‘gravy-train’ mentality, and they rammed through legislation that prevented the case ever being heard.

The problem is that the right to due process trumps the right of the general public to enjoy the beach and the right for a government to not have negative media. If, in fact, Ngati Apa did have a legitimate claim to ownership then as much as we love the beach, the beach ain’t ours.

Usually at this point in a discussion on the issue I am asked if I am Maori to which I throw my hands up. No, I am not Maori. It is just that I get the fact that just because I like something and enjoy it, it doesn’t make it mine and it doesn’t mean I can keep it when it is brought to my attention that it might belong to someone else. We can apply this to other spheres of life, we need to be willing to apply it even to big issues like this one.

Another point to keep in mind is that Ngati Apa never got their day in court. It is not clear that they would have won. Many legal scholars felt they did not have a case – as we keep trying to point out in the smacking debate the mere fact someone can raise a legal issue does not mean they will always succeed – but they should have been allowed to try.

“Public ownership, access and navigation and protection of Maori customary interests in the foreshore and seabed” are all implications of what might have been at stake had the case proceeded. Due process for Ngati Apa and the other tribes was taken by the passage of this Act.

Fast forward to 2008. A new National government was elected, a confidence and supply agreement was drawn up between National and Maori Party (a party formed in protest to the Foreshore and Seabed Act). Policy concessions included National offering a review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act. At the time we were very pleased by this fact but less so by the detail and blogged to that effect; “It is a shame to see that National has not framed the issue in terms of the affront to due process and instead is talking about all New Zealander’s being able to access the beach, as if that is somehow more important than human rights.”

Our fears were not unfounded, in addition to the claims made by some commentators that the specially created Ministerial Review Panel was stacked and directed as to which outcome to arrive at, the terms of reference were utterly wrong:

a) What were the nature and extent of the mana whenua and public interests in the coastal marine area prior to Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa [2003] 3 NZLR 643

b) What options were available to the government to respond to the Court of Appeal decision in Attorney-General v Ngāti Apa [2003] 3 NZLR 643

c) Whether the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 effectively recognises and provides for customary or aboriginal title and public interests (including Māori, local government and business) in the coastal marine area and maintains and allows for the enhancement of mana whenua

d) If the Panel has reservations that the Foreshore and Seabed Act does not provide for the above, outline options on what could be the most workable and efficient methods by which both customary and public interests in the coastal marine area could be recognised and provided for; and in particular, how processes of recognising and providing for such interests could be streamlined

The Panel will also need to consider how these processes will integrate with legislation that regulates the coastal marine area.

Effectively the panel is acting in the place of the Waitangi Tribunal, the appropriate, already existing, independant investigative tribunal that examines the evidence and makes recommendations. The government is expected by everyone to and has already indicated it probably will follow the recommendations being made by the Ministerial Review Panel as it would be ‘too costly for it to go back to court.’

Basically the government looks set to settle this case, out of court, on our behalf, when it is not clear that the government are guilty and not that long ago they denied a case existed on the part of Ngati Apa and many legal scholars agreed with them. Historical Maori land ownership claims are very difficult to prove. There were no deeds or titles issued in pre-european New Zealand and records consist of tribal stories, songs, carvings and so on. To succeed in an historical claim, even if a tribe could establish which part of land their ancestors had used and no other tribe was prepared to offer a counter claim to the land, the land in question has to have been in continual use by the tribe making the claim from at least 1840 through to the present day (unless it was unjustly dispossessed). Not only is it very possible Ngati Apa may not have succeeded, there would not be a huge risk of floodgates because each tribe would need to be able to establish this long chain of use and ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the area their ancestors historically lived.

Regardless of which party is in power, the New Zealand government seems to be happy to have the land of its citizens taken without due process as long as it furthers their political popularity. The former government was willing to suspend due process of one group of citizens and unilaterally declare that the land in question belonged to a second group of citizens. The current government is willing to unilaterally declare that the land in question belongs to the first group and not the second and again it seems they are not going to allow a court to hear the evidence.

The Ministerial Review Panel said sending the case back to court would be “protracted, laborious, and expensive” and the politicians appear to agree. It’s funny how selectively that card has been played of late, it wasn’t too expensive to create a special Ministerial Review Panel that duplicated the services of the existing Waitangi Tribunal and the Maori Land Court but apparently now everyone is concerned with cost. Due process is too expensive apparently; tell that to the authors of the Magna Carta who wrote:

If you recall its implementation was to be “delayed a month while ISPs and copyright holders continued efforts to work out a voluntary agreement on how it would be enforced … if they could not agree, the clause would be suspended.” I predicted then that “in other words, as written, it’s dead.”

TelstraClear bailed from the talks, making it pretty clear that not only was it not the job of ISP’s to be judge and jury, so also was it not their jobs to fix badly drafted legislation. Given how pear shaped things had become, today’s announcement from Prime Minister John Key that that the government would be redrafting the section was not surprising.

Awesome victory for the blogosphere whose blackout campaign placed considerable pressure on the government to act.

Despite the fact that OUSA membership has probably increased since we were there, that NZUSA’s annual budget is now almost certainly much more than the figure I quoted below and these days the student associations tend to promote Green party policy more than the Alliance’s it is still very applicable so I have reproduced my article here.

They Just Want Your Money

Free education will never exist.

Even if the government funded 100% of tertiary study costs, students would still have to pay to get an education – even if it were a fact that ‘government money’ grew on trees.

Why? Because student association membership fees are compulsory.

Want a tertiary education? Then you have to join the student association. No choice, no argument; if you want to get your grades then cough up the best part of $100 to OUSA.

Apart from being a violation of the Bill of Rights – s17: “everyone has the right to freedom of association” – it smacks of hypocrisy.

The loudest campaigners for free education, the advocates for hard-up students, are funding their campaigns, national and international flights, their catered conferences, the very handcuffs they chain themselves to government architecture with, with a total budget estimated to be around $18 million annually.

This income is sourced entirely from the pockets of the very people they claim should not have to pay a single cent to get an education.

So long as student association membership remains compulsory, free education can never exist.

Effectively, NZUSA’s $400,000 annual budget – also taken entirely from students – is a total waste of money. And for what? To tell us to vote Alliance. Who? Over 90% of us did not vote for free education last election, demonstrating most of us think we should pay something substantial towards our education.

OUSA use our money and voice for things political, controversial, environmental and occasionally student related. Maybe I would mind compulsion less if they steered clear of the political, did not comment on controversial topics, that those they allegedly represent have a diversity of views on, and provided good services. However, even if they did all this, their compulsory subscription would still be immoral.

It’s that pesky Bill of Rights again. OUSA could be the most wonderful, student advocate and service provider in the country but they would still have no right to hold my grades to ransom unless I forked out and joined them. No more right to do so than any workers’ union has a right to garnish pay-packets, a church to forcibly extract an offering, the Salvation Army to make a benefit deduction.

Student associations are kidding themselves if they think they are any better than any of these organisations – which, incidentally, all manage to stay afloat, be effective at what they do and who they serve by being voluntary. The only type of association that has anything to fear by giving its members a choice to join is one that knows it’s so irrelevant, unaccountable, ineffective and useless that no-one will choose to join it unless they are made to. Which begs the question; why should they be able to force you to prop it up if it is so useless? You’d join if it were good.

Voluntary membership fosters accountability, relevance and effectiveness, because if a union is not these things it will go under. Having cash flow contingent on performance is incentive, having thousands of cash cows you can simply burden further if you blow the budget on, say, ummm, a book store, gives you no incentive to perform relevantly at all. It leaves members totally reliant on the ethics of the student politicians (did I just use ethics and politicians in the same sentence?).

But, we’re told, students can conscientiously object (CO) so it’s not really compulsory, it’s not really a violation of your right to freedom of association. Really? Putting aside the fact that you have to first join or risk late fees and grades being withheld before you can even think about CO-ing, you have to apply to the student union for permission to be exempt from membership. If your evidence is not compelling, they don’t have to grant you a CO. Even if successful, they get to choose which charity to donate your $100 to; you don’t get it back.

I see. I don’t have to associate with anyone as long as I first associate with the student union so I can disassociate with them, assuming they let me, and then make a donation to an ‘appropriate’ charity of their choosing?

It’d make a good Tui billboard: “Student unions don’t violate civil rights. Yeah, right.”

They want you to believe a lie that voluntary membership is some kind of right wing conspiracy, championed by white middle class male members of ACT, when in fact outside of tertiary institutions it’s normal.

Student politicians want your money, they want to illegitimately use your voice to push their personal agendas – the ones they think you should hold. They want you to shut up, roll over and take it. The question is, will you?

I am talking about your campus student association and the fact that in New Zealand membership of it at most universities is compulsory.

That “free” alcohol available during Orientation week, those free condoms and dental dams, that gay pride week, the feminist meetings promoting abortion, the of trashing Christianity, the trespassing and occupying of buildings, the protests and demands and all those posters and press releases that sound suspiciously like they were written by Green and Labour party members are all supported, paid for and made on behalf of you.

At Auckland University yesterday, whilst on a campus tour, I was urged to go and join the Auckland University Students Association (AUSA). (AUSA is the only university student association in New Zealand for which membership is voluntary as students there managed to navigate the impossibly difficult method available at law to get rid of forced subscription. However, funding is not voluntary; AUSA’s funding is compulsory.)

The enthusiastic recruiter told me and the group I was with that we should join because “you’ll get a free jelly-shot and it will cost you nothing.” He looked really confused when I was clearly not tempted and seemed very unimpressed when I pointed out to the group that while they wouldn’t have to hand over any cash because they had already paid, their membership enabled AUSA to ‘legitimately’ claim to speak on their behalf on any polarising political and ethical issue they choose to, such as, abortion, euthanasia, terrorism, war, environmentalism, the status of[insert terrorist/communist/liberation organisation], etc giving the false impression to the media and society that all students share their controversial viewpoint; the power they wield and its influence on society is staggering. Your membership also ensures that the University will continue to force all students to fund them if it perceived that AUSA had wide student support. The University is aware of how apathetic students are so it counts support as membership. (The recruiter was even more unimpressed when every member of the group, including those that had begun to eagerly step towards the sign-up table all immediately saw my point and refused to sign up.)

Compulsory membership and compulsory funding of student associations is another issue that this government needs to address. It is not acceptable that these organisations can falsely claim legitimacy on behalf of all students, speak on their behalf on issues that have nothing to do with education that the rest of society is split on and violate the consciences of many they ‘represent.’ When their policies include campaigns to actively educate the student body that viewpoint X is right/wrong they are forcing some students to fund and endorse campaigns against their own beliefs.

Compulsory membership and funding of political organisations, regardless of how wonderful some of their non-political services might be, is a violation of freedom of conscience. Forced membership of a political organisation is a violation of freedom of association; both are rights protected under both New Zealand and international human rights legislation yet violated by the New Zealand government to this day.

Section 92a was to have come into force this weekend, but Mr Key said it would be delayed a month while ISPs and copyright holders continued efforts to work out a voluntary agreement on how it would be enforced.

He said if they could not agree, the clause would be suspended.

If they did reach an agreement, it would be reviewed in six months.

So in other words, as written, it’s dead. Yay.

The anti-smacking bill is an obvious example. The bill removed the defence of reasonable force for assault from the Crimes Act and instead placed discretion as to what is reasonable in the hands of the police as opposed to the court.

The Seabed and Foreshore Act prevented private citizens from taking a property dispute with the Crown to court and instead the legislature, in a massive conflict of interest, simply declared that the property belonged to them.

The weakening of due process is further evidenced by the abolition of an independent appeals court (The Privy Council) and the changes to double jeopardy and the requirement for jury unanimity.

The Copyright Amendment Act, due to come into force on 28 February 2009, is another example. The Labour government wanted to tighten up copyright law, particularly around internet copyright violations so far so good. Except that bits of it were not drafted so well and despite the Select Committee deciding, unanimously, to delete the questionable section from the proposed law the Labour government decided to keep it in.

The sections at the heart of the controversy are:

92A Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers

(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.

(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.

At first glance this might seem a bit innocuous. However, as David Farrar points out:

The bill did not define “reasonably implement”, “appropriate circumstances” or who decides if someone “repeatedly infringes”. It also turned ISPs into an unpaid enforcement arm for copyright holders.

Farrar’s article explains the issue well citing intellectual property experts and is worth a read. Essentially, ISP’s will be subject to the threat of legal action if they allow a person who repeatedly offends to use their internet services. The problem is that without these terms being defined they simply will not know whether acting on or failing to act on a complaint subject them to legal action. Being on the wrong side of the law is costly so these providers will have to set in place fairly draconian policies to ensure they are indemnified. As the NZ Computer Society states, quoted by David Farrar, The law essentially places “ISPs in the position of potentially having to be the policeman, judge, jury and executioner in what are often vague and unclear situations”

For some people a website is a bit of fun, a creative outlet, for others it is their business, their livelihood; for all, regardless of whether it is a source of income or not, a website and its contents is the private property of its owner. When a law is passed that allows a single citizen the power to lawfully deprive or interfere with another citizen’s property on the basis of a single accusation, with no requirement for evidence and no opportunity for a hearing, a first year law student should be able to tell you there is something wrong with the law.

The National government needs to repeal this section. Like all governments they are more likely to do this if they feel there is wide spread community support (as lousy a reality as that is) so the internet community is banding together with an Internet Blackout from February 16-23 that calls the government to fix this legislation.