Newman Online Weekly commentary by Dr Muriel Newman MP
Labour Government’s feminist agenda undermines the family.
This week Newman Online looks at the Labour Government’s feminist agenda and how it is undermining the New Zealand
family.
It is difficult to understand how a government that deliberately undermines the family - disadvantaging children and
marginalising fathers - can retain popular support? That is unless the unsuspecting public is not really aware of their
anti-family agenda.
That extreme agenda is deeply embedded within Labour’s radical feminist and lesbian factions and has been a significant
force driving not only the Party, but also parts of the public service, for more than thirty years. There is no doubt
that while many New Zealanders have suspected that this is the case, it was former Minister John Tamihere who confirmed
it in the recent “Investigate Magazine” interview.
The feminist vision was to end the oppression of women by liberating them from the shackles of a husband and family.
They wanted to see power firmly in the hands of women, with women ultimately taking over the country’s top jobs. With
four of the major players in the feminist movement having now become Prime Minister, Parliament’s Speaker, Chief Justice
and Governor General, their agenda is extremely well progressed.
But while seeing women winning top jobs by competing equally with men is one thing, three out of four of those top
positions are appointments made by the Prime Minister: by appointing her mates, Helen Clark has shown that she puts
cronyism ahead of merit and can’t be trusted.
The march of modern-day feminism was given a significant boost in 1984 when the Labour Government established the
Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Over the years the Ministry has focussed exclusively on women’s rights and if those rights
have been achieved at the expense of family wellbeing and the rights of men, then that is the price we have to pay for
giving the radical activists within Labour who were driving the driving force, a free reign.
Even today, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs states on its website: “While all government agencies have responsibility
for improving outcomes for New Zealand women, the Ministry of Women's Affairs plays a key role in leading gender
analysis across government and in driving government policy towards achieving improvements in outcomes for women. The
Ministry will continue to work towards increasing the numbers of women in leadership and decision-making roles”.
Further, a key objective is to get women out of the home and into the workplace through improving “access to quality
child-care to help women enter or re-enter the paid workforce and retain workplace attachment”, and providing and
extending “paid parental leave to parents seeking to retain workplace attachment while caring for new babies”.
While such state enticement of new mothers to go back to work and place their children in childcare – soon to be
nationalised I suspect – sounds supportive, it is in fact yet another nail in the coffin of the family.
A fundamental belief of radical feminism in the traditional family imposes on women a framework of economic compulsion,
social dependence and sexual repression. They believe that the family as we know it should be destroyed and replaced
with economic and social institutions that are “superior”.
That is why Labour has elevated every other form of relationship to the same status in law as marriage and why last year
they refused to sign up to the United Nations Doha Declaration on the Family, which seeks to support the traditional
family and encourage marriage. It also explains why Labour is so committed to state funded child rearing, whereby single
women are paid to raise children on their own and fathers who own up are punished with a dysfunctional and punitive
child support system that has spiralled out of control.
Under Labour, child support debt has exploded to almost $1 billion, with penalties making up the bulk of that debt. The
system is in such a mess that over 14,000 of the 126,000 liable parents who owe child support receive assistance
themselves through the Working for Families package. That means that if they try to get on top of their debt by earning
more money, they lose it all through tax and the withdrawal of assistance, making them victims of an effective 100
percent marginal tax rate.
Further, while the evidence is clear to the Labour Government that liable fathers who maintain a good relationship with
their children will willingly take responsibility for paying their dues, they have not been prepared to introduce shared
parenting to ensure that more dads remain involved in their children’s lives. Neither is Labour prepared to undertake
the ground up overhaul of child support laws that are so desperately needed.
While men in general and fathers in particular have become the unwitting victims of radical feminism, the full extent to
which the feminist agenda has progressed is difficult to believe.
Back in the seventies, they published a list of ‘demands’ that included integrating sex education into all levels of the
school system including pre-school, abolishing all laws victimising prostitution, making abortion free and on demand,
providing defacto and gay couples with a legal status equal to marriage, introducing 12-weeks paid maternity leave,
providing 24-hour-a-day Government child care centres for children from early infancy and ensuring the rearing, social
welfare and education of children becomes the responsibility of society rather than individual parents by abolishing all
laws enforcing the individual ownership of children.
Thiry years on, with the exception of 24-hour childcare, they have all been achieved. And the unsuspecting public
didn’t even realise the extent to which it was all happening. How Helen Clark and her radical feminist mates must laugh!
The majority of New Zealanders do believe that the traditional nuclear family is the basic economic and social unit of
society and they understand that if families have financial independence and children access to effective education,
they will be successful, contributing members of society. Yet that majority has allowed a minority group to implement an
agenda that threatens to undermine the fundamental stability of our society.
If ever there was a reason for a change in government it is this: We must give those who believe in the family and our
traditional values and aspirations a chance to regroup, rebuild, and make those changes that are necessary to ensure our
laws enhance the future wellbeing of our society, rather than undermining it.
Contact Us