Can Luxon? He's a godbotherer and against abortion although he says he won't act against it. The whole thing is a conscience matter for them, so not sure why they can't make their views known when Luxon has.
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Luxon has shown outstanding leadership in handling the issue :
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/cecili...TDC6PMM65VL2Q/
Paywalled
Excerpt :
When push comes to shove, we now know where Luxon stands. He took the decisive action to make his party's position clear and went a step further to confirm that these health services will remain funded under a National Government.
While Simon O'Connor's post may have served to aggravate many, it's a blessing in disguise for Luxon.
It's given him an opportunity to show pragmatic leadership and underline party behaviour he isn't prepared to accept. O'Connor's misstep has given Luxon the opportunity to put to bed the doubts around how his religious convictions could cloud his political judgment.
Outstanding leadership?
That's a bit of an exaggeration isn't it!
When the Supreme Court announcement came, all our political parties came out with swift strong condemnation straight away with the exception of one.
There was nothing from National, just silence.
Commentators all agreed this was poorly handled, allowing speculation & rumour to spread & for Simon O'Connor's post to be interpreted as the National party position. (according to both Luxon & political commentators).
As a result of poor judgement, Luxon's been on the back foot 'explaining' ever since & in politics explaining is losing the battle.
Further to this, although O'Connor had to take down the post, it hasn't stopped him talking about the divide in the National caucus between the religious conservatives & the progressive liberals.
And now this has blown up into a big issue & we have Amy Adams going on RNZ talking about it, its on TV1 News, Newshub, & a group of National women voters in Tamaki saying O'Connor can't represent them.
Look for many esp men it won't make much difference, but for younger voters & many women voters, it's a big deal & Luxon knows this & that's why he's trying to fix a problem he should have avoided & would have if he had more experience that being a 1st term MP.
He's being labeled 'equivocal' too often on too many things, trying to have a bob both ways & this contradiction between personal conviction & party policy will only reinforce that view in the eyes of many.
It doesn't help that women are a minority in the current National party.
What's happened to Mark Mitchell?
Is he scared of Chris Hipkins in parliament question time after attacking Poto Williams constantly?
Nope - he is allowing Hipkins to hang himself as he so ably did with the Charlotte Bellis scandal.
Hipkins is damaged goods - his words and actions will never be trusted again by anyone with any sense or ounce of decency.
A man & minister who :
willing and willfully spread misinformation about a pregnant woman
and
leaked her private information
to incite abuse and odium against a pregnant woman
has no integrity or decency. Let alone be a minister of police!
What is more revealing is how the Ardern devotees like dobby41, westerly etc are avoiding the Labour govt 2020-2023 thread - as the healthcare and hospital crises unfold, revealing just how incompetent and negligent Ardern and her team of divisive nincompoops have been in allowing the healthcare of all NZers to be compromised.
Meanwhile, Ardern & her incompetents are ignoring and avoiding any mention of the average deaths of 10 per day from COVID. Wonder why.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...pg?format=500w
I suspect you are making this sound like a much bigger deal than it is for most New Zealanders. Luxon has made it clear that National's policy to have no revision of these laws. That lays the matter to rest.
Voters have much more and serious issues that affect them in their daily lives to consider for the next election and Labour is on the backfoot on most of them, hence the deflection with this non issue.
Exactly - Robertson tried to make a big song and dance about it yesterday (spin, he called it) and realised too late that he had put Ardern & the Labour Party MPs who voted against abortion reform deep into it!
Meanwhile, the hospital crisis is turning into a disaster with the government failing to address the failures of hospitals to cope. Resources (already scarce) are being diverted to clear the confusion of the centralised health board with nobody having an idea how it works!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pol...the-government
“The health system is in meltdown. Call it a crisis, or don’t. It is collapsing around us.
As the system buckles, there is incredulity that Health Minister Andrew Little is pushing ahead with a bureaucratic overhaul. Doctors are being asked to work – unpaid – on groups advising the ministry on how to bed in the new regime. No-one seems to know how it will work – the changes are yet another burden that the workforce cannot absorb.
Instead of prioritising a flow of overseas healthcare workers, or returning normal care to reasonable timeframes, his Ministry is pre-occupied with an administrative rejig.”
Luxon still won't say if abortion is tantamount to murder:
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/polit...abortions.html
Science is clear that even post-birth babies do not have a consciousness and don't feel pain pre-birth until 27 weeks (even then not really).