This Week, Newman On-line looks at the campaign against political correctness.

Last month in Britain, a poll was conducted by polling company ICM on whether the Blair-led Labour Government is introducing too much legislation that infringes personal liberty.

The poll of 1,000 people aged 18 years and over asked whether the Government is proposing too many infringements on matters that should be for individuals to decide for themselves. The poll stated:

“Recently the Government has introduced legislation on things like hunting, smoking and parent’s ability to smack their children. Thinking about such issues generally, which of the following comes close to your own view:

The Government should legislate on such things even if they mean restrictions on personal liberty, or

Too many infringements on personal liberty are being proposed on matters that should be for individuals to decide for themselves.”

The results showed that the overwhelming majority of voters believe that the Government is introducing too much legislation, which infringes personal liberty. Some 71 percent of voters agreed that “Too many infringements on personal liberty are being proposed on matters that should be for individuals to decide for themselves”, while only 27 percent agreed that “The Government should legislate on such things even if they mean restrictions on personal liberty.”

The feeling was particularly high amongst Conservative voters at 82 percent, but it also remained high amongst Labour voters at 62 percent.

I believe these concerns are not only alive and well in New Zealand but are palpable. In this country, feelings are high not only because our Labour Government has passed laws curtailing our basic freedom and choice, but also because they are also rolling out a social engineering agenda for which they have no public mandate.

Many New Zealanders worry that these changes will cause damage to the very heart of our social fabric, and that the fundamental values that have made New Zealand such a great place, will be undermined.

Just this week, Labour has led Parliament a step closer to passing into law a civil contract that has been called a ‘politically correct’ alternative to marriage. By introducing the Civil Union Bill - on top of the other changes that have already been made in the area of family law - critics believe that the Government’s objective is to undermine marriage.

Marriage of course has withstood the test of time as society’s most successful child-rearing institution. Children brought up in a traditional family with two parents to love, guide and protect them, have a better chance of becoming successful, self-sufficient, contributing citizens - who are far more likely to vote for a centre-right government - than families who have gone off the rails and need to rely on the government for support.

Whether you support the Civil Union Bill or not, most people would agree that they have become totally fed up with the political correctness that pervades Labour’s administration. It is for that reason that today I am launching a campaign to end political correctness as we know it!

The objective of the PC Free New Zealand campaign is to declare war on political correctness. In particular, PCFreeNZ has five goals:

Eradicating PC jargon

Ending race-based entitlements and cultural correctness

Cutting red tape and bureaucracy

Eliminating social engineering

The rebirth of common sense

PC jargon used to be a joke. Remember the laughs we all had over having to say ‘person-hole’ instead of ‘manhole’, ‘folically challenged’ instead of ‘bald’, and ‘fishers’ instead of fishermen’? Well, by toeing the line, we are pandering to a dangerous ‘lefty’ agenda. It’s time to take back our vocabulary and call a chairperson a chairman, a spokesperson a spokesman and someone who has gone off the deep end, crazy!

Most New Zealanders have become sick and tired of this Government’s obsession with race-based entitlements and cultural correctness. Special entitlements should be based on need not race, and Labour’s special funding for Maori should go. Further, while it is appropriate that we take cultural matters into consideration, consultation with Maori at local level has now got completely out of hand to the point where the majority are being held hostage by the cultural demands of a minority.

It is also wrong that small businesses of every shape, colour and size are being strangled with red tape and bureaucracy. Just this week we heard that the Salvation Army is exiting the aged care sector, not because they want to, but with all of the extra costs imposed by the Government’s laws and regulations, they could no longer make ends meet. People are being regulated to death and it’s time a chainsaw was taken to unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy.

Labour’s social engineering agenda - interfering in matters of family and morality - has also un-nerved many New Zealanders who feel that a government should be there to be a guardian for a civil society, not undermine and attack it.

Of course if commonsense prevailed in the way that it used to, the rampant creep of political correctness would be impossible. Bring back commonsense, I say!

This PC Free NZ campaign has a website at http://www.PCFree.co.nz and PC FreeNZ bumper stickers - modeled on the GEFreeNZ variety - are available. The website will become an ideas bank for stories of ‘political correctness gone mad’ as well as for accounts of anti-PC victories.

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