We noticed that Labour MP Kelvin Davis wore a prominent white ribbon in parliament and during subsequent news interviews when he challenged the government about a possible cover-up concerning the death of an inmate who was thrown off a balcony in one of our privately-run prisons. Hey, it’s great to see any politician pay any attention to the welfare of a man no matter what the motive, this happens so rarely. However, Mr Davis’ white ribbon made it clear that his stand was nothing more than political gamesmanship. It can only be disingenuous to pretend that you care about a man while you overtly support a campaign that deliberately and pointedly excludes men as deserving of called-for protection from violence and that promotes false propaganda that only men commit violence worthy of concern. Wearing a white ribbon while pretending to care about a male victim frankly amounts to mocking men and their welfare concerns. Ha ha, we get the joke Kelvin. One may as well wear a Ku Klux Klan outfit while grandstanding about the misfortune of an African-American. For anyone who thinks honestly about it, a white ribbon is like a Ku Klux Klan badge promoting gender discrimination against men.

It’s true that the National government deserves a bit of balcony therapy for ever allowing people to make profit from imprisonment of NZers. It’s no better than a slavery industry in which people, mainly men, are deprived of their liberty by the state then handed over to private owners for profit. Particularly concerning is the degree to which this process relieves government of direct responsibility for the treatment of prisoners. National was very happy to milk this silly little scandal of prison fights and drug use (who would have thought?) to distract the public from other politically sensitive issues such as foreign manipulation of our property market and government’s intention to breach its UN charters by pushing through retrospective legislation (in this case to ensure that illegally obtained fine revenue wasn’t compromised). National knows that most of the public has been captured by ‘sensible sentencing’ lynch mob mentality and cares little about the welfare of criminals, especially males. By ordering an enquiry into the Serco prison events this ensures the matter will dominate news media for some time but in the end can simply be attributed to male badness and passed off on the contracting firm who will agree to be scapegoated and fined if this enables them to keep on profiting financially from this human trade. National may not have counted on the balcony-throwing issue complicating the matter, but in the end that won’t affect their ploy because balcony-throwing (or falling, as now ridiculously claimed by Corrections Dept) too will be kept at arm’s length and blamed on Serco.