Posted on 10-10-2003

Supreme Mistake
by Jon Smyth

I am totally confused. Could someone please explain to me why the GREEN
PARTY is assisting the Labour Government to create a New Zealand based
'supreme' court and remove all outside scrutiny of our parochial little
legal system?

With the barest of parliamentary majorities and clearly no mandate from the
people they profess to represent (and even less, no doubt, amongst Green
Party supporters), the Labour Government, along with the Greens, is
creating a whole new court system for New Zealand to be exclusively run by
a legal fraternity with the gene-pool of a six fingered hillbilly clan.
What deal have the Greens done in return for this support? Is it worth it?

To expect the unquestionably fair and unbiased scrutiny of the behaviour of
our courts by a group of people who went to the same schools, belong to the
same clubs, fly in the same business class, are related to, live in the
same suburbs, shop at the same boutiques, drink in the same bars, drive the
same cars, own the same stocks and have mutual friends with the same people
they are tasked with scrutinizing is naive. Its sort of like trusting
Pitcairn Islanders to run their own effective child protection agency and
then believing them when they say they've already been doing that for the
past 20 years. To knowingly create this situation is corrupt.

Have the Greens forgotten that the population of the entire country is
barely larger than a big city. Do they really believe that Brisbane, for
instance, could be left in total and indisputable control of Queensland's
legal system and be trusted to be unquestionably fair in its assessment of
its own performance?

This ideological assault on our legal system is arrogant nonsense that,
with the loss of a clear and convincing house majority, is simply fascist
behaviour. What's in it for the Greens that they appear to be prepared to
come out of this looking like the same conniving, principle sacrificing
political Gollums that they previously professed to oppose?