Conduct Unbecoming

Engaging in Political Discussion

The Regulatory Standards Bill has generated significant discussion and significant criticism. This has not been a recent development. When a discussion paper on the proposals was released late in 2024 there was considerable discussion, much of it opposed to the proposals.

Now that the Bill is before the House and has been referred to a Select Committee that level of criticism and opposition has increased.

A large number of submissions have been filed with the Select Committee and the majority oppose the Bill. Yet one of those criticisms levelled is that there has been insufficient time to marshall arguments against the proposal. There has been a failure of the democratic process although given the large number of opposing submissions, one wonders how this criticism can be maintained.

Many of the critics – mainly from the Left or “Progressive” end of the political spectrum oppose the Bill first because it emerged from the mind of David Seymour who, to those critics, has materialised from one of Dante’s infernal levels to inflict himself upon the body politick.

Secondly the criticism is ideological in that it suggested that the Bill is an example of enforced libertarianism – a contradictory term because if those critics understood the nature of liberty it exists until it is taken away as our fair country came to understand during the course of the Ardern\Hipkins (mis)management of the Covid crisis.

The problem with many of the critics is that they seem to feel that they are immune from comment, answer or a contrary view to their own self-righteous, self-important perspective. Examples may be found in Dame Anne Salmond, Professor Emeritus Jane Kelsey, Professor Emeritus Jonathan Boston, climate change doomsayer Jum Salinger, Geoff Bertram, Bill Rosenberg, Max Harris, Tina Ngata and film-maker Bryan Bruce along with Sir Geoffrey Palmer (more on him later)

That bubble of self-importance and never-to-be argued righteousness is maintained by nothing more nor less than hubris, and the bubble may be burst, to the confusion of the self-righteous, by expressions of a contrary view.

When that happens an indignant exchange follows. The contrary answer that has come from Mr. Seymour is to cast the critics as suffering from a derangement syndrome. Nothing like satire to really get under the paper-thin skin of the self-righteous.

Anne Salmond (an Emeritus professor and note that Emeritus is a merit title. Emeritii are no longer on the University payroll. They sometimes have facilities but in reality they have been put out to pasture, the title being a sop to their egos and a suggestion that they may still have their uses) has launched into print on a number of platforms – particularly Newsroom and LinkedIn to voice her concerns.

How dare Seymour – a Deputy PM – hold her and others up to ridicule! She suggested possibly invoking the Harmful Digital Communcations Act but it is doubtful that would be available. So Seymour may be in breach of the Cabinet Manual. Complain to the PM. This type of response to critics of the Bill just shouldn’t be allowed. It is conduct unbecoming of a Deputy PM.

What we must not forget is that these critics entered the dust of the arena and now they complain that they are getting a bit of grit thrown at them.

Geoffrey Palmer – he of the Olympian pronouncement – has written a lengthy piece on Newsroom critiquing the Bill. It would have to be lengthy. Geoffrey is not known for brevity. Indeed he is a living, breathing example of self-importance whose every sentence is delivered like a lecture.

He and his academic and other prominent confreres believe that Seymour should be silenced. But having entered the arena they don’t like to engage on the terms of the arena. And the arena of politics is not only dusty. It is rough and tumble. In this arena views are expressing strongly, robustly, pungently. Surely Geoffrey Palmer cannot have forgotten what it was like.

These self-important pronouncements from leading persons seem to think that their status is an armour against a contrary view and that status grants them immunity criticism.

But these critics themselves often commit the offenses with which they accuse others. Anne Salmond provides an example.

She wrote a piece called “Double Speak”. Interestingly enough she engages in double-speak herself, but expects to get away with it. Let me go through Salmond’s piece and subject it to critical analysis. My comments and observations are in italics.

DOUBLE SPEAK

For those who might have missed this earlier post:

When discussing the Regulatory Standards bill and the Treaty Principles bill, both promoted by the Act party, it’s important to analyse the rhetoric that's used to argue in their favour, while disguising their practical intent.

This paragraph sets the tone for the article. The suggestion is that ACT uses doublespeak – that it uses language for one purpose although its use disguises ACT’s real intent. Much of this analysis that follows is based upon the author’s understanding of the way that the world wags which is at odds with the worldview that is promulgated by ACT

One way of doing this is to deploy words like ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘equality,’ thus appealing to beliefs that good-hearted people might hold about fair and balanced relationships, while masking a ruthless pursuit of self-interest – ie. using their own values against them.

The suggestion in this paragraph is that the words mentioned are misused -indeed that while their use may appeal to many, in fact those words are used against them.

The suggestion is that when words like democracy and freedom are used, what is intended by the use of those words is autocracy and a loss of liberty. This is how Salmond imagines it to be.

In the context of the Regulatory Standards Bill, because it supports individual freedoms and property rights rather than the collective world view favoured by the Left, the author clearly is of the view that the use of these words is misused. Nothing could be further from reality.

The proposed Regulatory Standards bill, for instance, attempts to impose Act's libertarian ideas on all New Zealanders by elevating individual rights and private property above all other considerations in law-making.

In this paragraph the emphasis is on libertarian ideas. Again, nothing could be further from reality. Salmond clearly occupies the position that if a policy does not fit with her world view (collective) and is advanced by ACT it must be libertarian.

I have argued elsewhere that this in itself is a misuse of language by Salmond – I hesitate to suggest it is misinformation. In fact many of ACT’s policies are anything but libertarian and the Regulatory Standards Bill reflects classical liberal thinking rather than a libertarian approach. Salmond probably takes objection to the focus on the individual rather than the collective groupthink or “one-size-fits-all” approach of the Left to policy

Under this bill, these ideas would be imposed on all officials and ministers and all regulation and legislation, past and present, with the Minister for Regulatory Responsibility (who just happens to be Act’s leader) empowered to review them, backed by a Board appointed by the same Minister.

The Bill does not impose ideas. Rather it sets out a process that is to be followed. By setting out certain principles it uses these as a benchmark against which a regulatory proposal should be measured. The Bill is procedural rather than substantive – a matter which seems to have been overlooked by Salmond and others of the “Great and Good”

So a party supposedly committed to freedom of thought seeks to impose its radical ideologies on Parliament and all other political parties, and to set themselves up as the ‘mind police’ to enforce this imposition.

There is no ideological imposition in this Bill. Because Salmond finds the focus upon individual rights and freedoms and the protection of property from government interference uncomfortable, it is not a form of mind police nor is there any inconsistency with freedom of thought.

In fact in this paragraph it seems that Salmond has entered the realm of fiction. There is no suggestion of mind police or some 1984 type of groupthink. That is more a characteristic of the Left. As I have suggested, the Bill is procedural, requiring MPs ideally to measure regulatory proposals against the principles set out in the Bill

At the same time, it would strip away the rights of all those New Zealanders who wish to live in a country where collective and environmental rights are also respected - although Act won only 8.6% of the vote at the last election.

Sadly Salmond, like so many of the disappointed Left, is not prepared to accept the outcome of the election or the way that the MMP system works. She should not need to be reminded that MMP and the formation of coalitions with the give and take that requires were voted in by the people (remember democracy – vox populi - Emeritus Professor Salmond) and the system has been subsequently confirmed. Perhaps Professor Salmond might be more gainfully employed in campaigning for a different electoral system.

Top marks for effrontery, at least.

A throwaway line that adds little to the debate.

Likewise the Treaty Principles bill would strip away the collective rights of rangatira and hapu to enjoy those ancestral legacies promised to them in Te Tiriti.

Although this has nothing to do with the Regulatory Standards Bill, Salmond clearly cannot resist a dig. In fact, as I have demonstrated elsewhere, the Treaty Principles Bill did nothing suggested by Salmond and indeed in Clause 9 made it clear that the Treaty remained in force

Again, the rhetoric used to support this bill talks about ‘equality,’ ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom,’ while trying to force indigenous and other New Zealanders to abide by libertarian understandings of these words – thus stripping them of their rights and freedoms.

Worse, it claims to do this in the name of the Treaty, in which the Queen promises to respect the tino rangatiratanga of the rangatira, hapu and their ancestral tikanga, the opposite of what this legislation seeks to accomplish.

Salmond has gone off on a tangent here, clearly demonstrating her loathing of ACT, referring once again to “libertarian” as though it were a dirty word (I wonder what Professor Salmond’s view of liberty actually is and how she would define freedom)

I trained as a socio-linguist, and these are classic cases of ‘double speak’ – “language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words,” often deployed in political propaganda.

Wow – the appeal to authority. I know whereof I speak and therefore when I say this is double speak then it must be. Total nonsense.

Indeed to trumpet these qualifications demonstrates the fragility of Salmond’s argument. She should be able to rely on sweet reason to get the point across. She cannot and so, like so many others of the Great and Good, prefers to preach from the mountaintop.

‘Doublespeak’ works by using a word with one set of meanings to mask what is actually being described – eg ‘democratic’ to describe a situation in which democratic principles are being flouted; ‘equality’ to describe a situation in which inequality is being perpetrated; or ‘freedom’ to describe a situation where freedom is being deprived.

This is complete nonsense. Democratic principles are not being flouted – only that Salmond disagrees with the proposals in the Bill. When she speaks of the perpetration of inequality she seems to be speaking rather from the pulpit of equity – a favourite subject for the Left.

No freedom is being deprived by the Bill. Rather it is being protected. What Salmond fails to understand is that every piece of legislation interferes to some degree with individual freedom and the ability to choose.

The rhetoric deployed in support of both of these bills is riddled with doublespeak. Unfortunately, this technique is often highly effective.

I think I have said enough on this matter. The final paragraph is an assertion unsupported by evidence.

What we have in this article is a text-book piece of academic assertions bolstered by status rather than by evidence. It purports to be an analysis of ACT’s policy but in fact is a political polemic that is informed by the writer’s particular position on the political spectrum.

As such it is an entry into the political arena, or, if you like the political kitchen. There can be no complaint that a contending view may be expressed despite the fact that it may be in a style or form of satire or ridicule. A similar tone, if not directly apparent, is present in Salmond’s piece above.

To conclude, my advice to Anne Salmond and her thin-skinned cohorts is this. By all means state your view. You have the freedom to do that. But if you cannot stand the heat of politics don’t come into the kitchen. If you don’t want to get dust in your eyes, stay out of the arena. And above all, don’t indignantly complain when you get push-back.