Family break-up – a King Hit for Opposition?
A New Zealand Herald columnist Sandra Paterson may last week have been the messenger with bad news the Labour-led Government does not want at the forefront of news coverage in coming weeks.
It was nothing as riveting as a Ministerial resignation in the face of verbal fire from the opposition; nor an administrative scandal of bigger than NCEA proportions. But it went to the heart of middle New Zealand unease about the reformist social programme the Helen Clark’s administration has run since first assuming office.
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The documents were, the column said, written by Kay Goodger, now a senior adviser in the Ministry of Social Development.
In them Goodger wrote, the column said: “Coercive family laws should be abolished….the rearing, social welfare and education of children should become the responsibility of society rather than individual parents.
“The famiily distorts all human relationships by imposing on them the framework of economic compulsion, social dependence and sexual repression. Our goal must be to create economic and social institutions that are superior to the present family.”
More than that, it gave substance to John Tamihere’s ramblings in Investigate magazine on the demerits of Clark’s administration.
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is it the social strategy that mainstream middle New Zealand would want followed? Is it what Maori want? Is it what Pacific Islanders want? Is it what Asian New Zealanders want? Each of these societies within the New Zealand population mix has the family at the centre of daily life. Overthrow of family life by actions of the state is hardly a concept of government likely to fit well with these sections of the community.
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Scoop understands that Kay Goodger – the subject of this article and the article by Ms Paterson – considers the content of the original New Zealand Herald column to be defamatory and to contain significant factual errors.
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Sandra Paterson is blatantly distorting Kay Goodger’s words.
Goodger’s saying ‘We must try to create something better than the family,’ ie, leave the family intact but create something more attractive. Paterson is making up an attack on the family.
Comment by damian — Tue 17th May 2005 @ 10:39 pm
How do you improve upon the family?
It’s fundamental.
Any ‘improvement’ is simply mental.
Comment by Stephen — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 12:36 am
Stephen, I must concur – the family unit is the basis of New Zealand society. “Improvement” is simply a change of perception. When the Anti-Clark actually has a family perhaps she will gain a glimmer of understanding of this truism.
Goodger’s comments when quantified against the actions of the Anti-Clark and her worshippers points to re-engineering New Zealand as a socialist/communist state.
As they proved in Russia, the family unit is the single biggest impediment to “the teachings of the state”. Putting Mums into the workforce and placing children in the [full time] care of state run institutions brought about the single biggest advance for communism in Russia.
I, for one, do not wish to see the New Zealand I love turned into the Anti-Clark’s anti-children, anti-parent, anti-family socio-communist state.
As to Damian, wake up and smell the coffee!
I strongly suggest Damian check out Investigate magazine November 2003 “The Siege of Helengrad” where Ian Wishart exposes not only the Anti-Clark’s sexual preferences (she is one of the 2% minority), but the unresolved childhood issues with her father, her childhood, the family and the church she is still suffering today.
Taken in this context [where the Anti-Clark is taking out her childhood on New Zealand families] “social institutions” must mean [in Anti-Clark speak] “state run institutions” and a disenfranchised family unit.
Bring back a “family friendly New Zealand” and throw out the Anti-Clark and all of her worshippers!
Comment by Sparx — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 9:38 am
so what’s the problem? if that’s true then goodger’s doomed to failure anyway so why act all defensive about it?
as a young man who exists basically outside of any family unit i don’t at all feel that the family is ‘fundamental’ to my happiness, to my existence as a human being, or to the furtherance of my species.
at this stage i am undecided about whether i even want to have children. the world has more than enough people as it is.
Comment by damian — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 2:14 pm
note that i do have a fantastic relationship with my parents and my brother – i see them regularly and they have moved into ‘best friend’ kind of roles as far as i see them.
Comment by damian — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 2:15 pm
i grew up in a loving but highly volatile family situation. it wasn’t without its problems. if i am to form a family of my own, my goals with my family will be to fix some of the problems that i saw in my childhood.
if i came from a broken family, and i was able to come to terms with some explanations as to why my family was broken, i would be using those understandings to work as hard as i possibly could to prevent other children having to go through what i went through.
in a nutshell, if i was Helen Clark i’d be doing the best that i could based on the theories i understood to prevent what happened to me in my childhood ever happening to anyone else. ie, i’d be trying to create loving, stable relationships.
but all this is conjecture, with no proof other than subjective experience. i don’t have access to Investigate magazine, could you summarise the arguments made that helen clark is ‘taking out her childhood on New Zealand families’?
Comment by damian — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 3:50 pm
Damian,
Obviously you have access to Investigate Magazine at http://www.investigatemagazine.com.
But, as a service, here is the link to November2003.
Be enlightened.
Comment by Sparx — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 6:20 pm
hey, cool. yay for online web services. shall read and respond in due course. right now i’m supposed to be working on a comp sci assignment (oops, engaging in constructive debate is far too much fun 🙂
Comment by damian — Wed 18th May 2005 @ 11:39 pm
Damian,
My son and other good men’s kids got taken away by feminazzis who misinformed themselves with the same kind of scuzzy anti-male femstats I see you shooting off.
No wonder I get defensive. So there’s no way I want to see Googoo’s abherant philosophy on family given any more credence.
There’s an old Yorkshire saying – you can loose your friends but never loose your family.
You say you exist outside of any family unit. Bullshit.
Comment by Stephen — Thu 19th May 2005 @ 1:42 am
yeah, that’s probably a fair point about existing outside of any family unit. the first people i tend to want to talk to when something really upsets me are my parents.
i haven’t actually shot off any statistics (at least, i don’t think so). i’m generally very wary of statistics, they are both very easy to misuse and to misinterpret.
here’s what googoo has to say:
so, she’s arguing that the family unit as it currently exists distorts all human relationships (male-female, male-male, female-female, brother-sister, mother-son, father-daughter, etc etc) by imposing upon them a sense of a) economic compulsion, b) social dependence and c) sexual repression.
let’s try to understand what she’s talking about, so we can make some rational assertions than pinpoint exactly why it’s wrong (if it is wrong).
a) economic compulsion – i think she’s saying here that people are led to believe that they either have to be economically dependent on someone, or have someone who is economically dependent on them; or perhaps, that relationships become valued for their economic value. so a young woman is encouraged to marry a man who can provide for her economically, and a young man is encouraged to earn lots of money so he can provide for a woman economically.
b) social dependence – hmm. maybe this means we are tought to rely on other people, when really, we should be being taught to rely on ourselves?
c) sexual repression – keeping the ideas and expression of sexuality sharply within the bounds of the family certainly opens the way for sexual repression. if parents believe that their children should know nothing of sexual health (ie, nothing about contraception, about STD’s, about abstention, about cleanliness and sexual health in general, about how to deal with being young and horny), is it right or good for them to prevent their children learning about these sorts of things until they’re 18? this puts people coming from sexually liberal families at a great advantage to people coming from sexually conservative families, in terms of understanding the world, understanding and coming to terms with themselves and human beings, and growing as people.
Comment by damian — Thu 19th May 2005 @ 2:49 am