Here are a few thoughts regarding men and father issues this election.

NZ First
NZ First is the first NZ political party to announce any male-considerate policy of any kind in almost two decades. (Please correct us with examples if we are wrong about this.) NZ First has proposed providing for two weeks’ paternal leave following the birth of a child. The last male-considerate policy was from ACT when Muriel Newman introduced the Shared Parenting Bill in the year 2000 and a couple of other efforts over the next few years to reform family law, all of which were defeated. NZ First did vote back then in favour of one of Muriel’s bills to end secrecy in the Family Court.

While the NZ First paternal leave policy might be only a few crumbs to a starving population, any male-respecting policy in the current environment is of massive significance and might be built on.

National
National in government has not pursued a strongly femaleist ideology but even then it has not been able to avoid the misandrist inclinations of some of its female ministers. Family Court changes removed what was a useful service of funded counselling to help partners deal with conflicts. Those changes attempted to increase mediated settlements and reduce the involvement of lawyers in Family Court disputes but this backfired, mainly because the confused ideology resulted in a system that now heavily incentivizes false allegations of ‘violence’ which will provide free and quick access to the Family Court and avoid the substantial mediation fee imposed on those who don’t come up with ‘violence’ allegations.

National has also deliberately increased imprisonment rates, mainly affecting men. National has also done nothing about our Ministry of Health’s determination to deny the gender issues in suicide and to avoid providing any male-tailored strategy to reduce male suicide. National has disempowered unions and kept wages low through immigration, disproportionately affecting men who still carry, on average, the greatest load of providing economically for their families and for the lifestyles of their separated partners.

Since Bill English took over, the femaleist Nats appear to have become emboldened. Louise Upston recently announced a formal policy of favouritism in our justice system towards women by deliberately reducing female imprisonment rates for the same crimes that men would be imprisoned for. Unless English can rein in his femaleists we are likely to see more such atrocities, but it doesn’t seem likely he will either because he won’t wield enough authority or he doesn’t appreciate the dire risks involved in allowing irrational femaleism to run riot. We are likely to see more royalization of women by the Nats.

Labour
Labour has lurched strongly towards further femaleism with the appointment of yet another childless woman to lead them, this time quite a young woman with very limited life experience and little evident wisdom. The voter support she has stimulated is on a shallow basis: her appearance and a sense of chivalrous support for ‘a woman doing well’. There is no logical reason why being female will make a person better as a prime minister than would being male, or vice versa. Her sudden celebrity appeal certainly wasn’t based on her policies because they simply were not known and she continues to be vague about them.

Adern has strongly asserted herself as a femaleist. She has announced a policy to decriminalize abortion, seeing it as a free choice for women and no doubt an entitlement to be paid for by our taxes. Her reasoning for this was vacuous, referring to women’s ‘right’ to abort as if this is something set in stone whereas in fact any ‘right’ is only what the people through government decide on. None of us have the right to have a surgeon cut off our healthy arm and it would be illegal for the surgeon to do so, yet somehow Adern thinks women have some God-given right to cut out a healthy foetus. She made no mention of the father’s right even to be informed of the pregancy that carries his genes, much less have any input whatsoever into the decision to abort or alternatively to enslave him for almost two decades of financial exploitation that is based on preventing him from having a full or equal role in raising the child. If the Labia Party is able to form a government we men are in for a great increase in already appalling sexist disrespect, injustice and exploitation.

Green
They think it’s ok for a female to deliberately defraud our welfare system over a long period of time, not pay back the defrauded money even when she is earning a large salary as an MP, and to self-righteously announce her fraud after the Statute of Limitations prevents her from being prosecuted. Green’s special treatment of females was reflected in their readiness to accept the resignation of two loyal male candidates instead of demoting this fraudster female.

The Green Party has long pursued a confused type of sexist social justice that deprives, ignores and/or denigrates men. Their latest policy announcement is to require employers to inform their employees what they are paying other employees. The Greens believe this will expose widespread underpayment of women purely on the basis of their sex. It won’t, because when female employees are paid less this is usually because of different jobs, different qualifications and/or different experience. The whole exercise will be largely futile and will carry significant undesirable consequences such as extra expense for employers and a loss of privacy for all.

We don’t have much to say about the other parties but others might wish to.