The Mapp Report
www.wayne-mapp.co.nz

Political Correctness

My appointment in respect to Political Correctness will be a fascinating challenge. Everyone rails against it, but no one has a coherent plan to first stop it, and then roll it back. I have been concerned for some time at the creeping political correctness agenda and a few months ago I wrote a paper on political correctness - what it is, why it is wrong and how to address it. www.wayne-mapp.co.nz

It is not just the silly examples we all hear about, for example the banning of lolly scrambles at community events. Usually ridicule is enough to bat those away. The real problem is the way the politically correct have seized parts of the state and used it to push their own minority agenda - not just a viewpoint. What's more, they back this up with coercive power. Not all institutions of government are susceptible to this, but some are especially vulnerable. Of course this could not happen unless there were sponsors in high places.

We all know that Helen Clark's government is particularly favourable towards the agendas of the politically correct - the reason being that Helen Clark is the chief supporter. That is why there has been so much social engineering over the last five years - aimed at changing the way we should think. People are required to continually censor themselves in case something they say will upset someone else's sensibilities.

Some of the emails I have received since my appointment suggest I am anti-minorities and have no respect for them. This is simply not true. Racial and other serious discrimination should not be tolerated. Rather, I feel that under the guise of protecting minorities, we have lost one of the most important values of a free society; the right to freely express one's opinion. The whole point of freedom of speech is that it protects opinions that one sector of society might be deeply opposed to.

Over the next few months I will be setting out a strategy to address the agenda of the politically correct. This will begin with a review of the current law with the objective of removing advocacy roles from public institutions that ought to focus on the adjudication of rights.

Air New Zealand

The announcement that 600 people will lose their jobs in Air New Zealand's engineering division in Auckland will be keenly felt on the North Shore. In times like these we are reminded of the smallness of our country. It will be very difficult for these highly skilled staff to find other employment in the aviation industry.

Of course, Air New Zealand has to make commercial decisions in order to be competitive. One of the questions to be asked is whether the division could be sold off in its entirety, or in parts? The RNZAF Hercules are currently being refurbished with new aircraft instruments in a Canadian aviation services company in Edmonton, Alberta.

Perhaps there is an opportunity to develop a spin-off company to do this kind of work here. The Air New Zealand workshops already undertake a lot of third party work. So it has to be asked, could the division be sold off in its entirety, or in parts?

Once a skill base the size of Air New Zealand engineering is lost, it will be very difficult to rebuild in the future.

28 October 2005

Dr Wayne Mapp

ENDS

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