Although I wrote a paper with the founder of ACT, Sir Roger Douglas, about how to reform our welfare state & respect the economic aims he originally set for the party, when it comes to many non-economics related policies, ACT often veers off-course. Take the case of Prof. Joanna Kidman at Victoria University who, in a social media post, said the government might be a “death cult” that “hates children” after the new coalition's announcement that the first military boot camp for young offenders would be running by mid-2024.
In a statement from the Act Party last night, public service spokesman Todd Stephenson said: “While Act supports her right to spew deranged garbage as a private citizen, she shouldn’t be doing it on the taxpayer dollar and certainly not with the borrowed credibility of the Prime Minister’s Department. Kidman’s salary is paid by taxpayers via the Prime Minister’s Department, which means Christopher Luxon has just been delivered some potential savings on a silver platter. The board of the centre must move immediately to sack the extremist in their midst.” Meanwhile the Herald is running a headline saying "David Seymour calls for resignation of Anti-Extremism Director"
What a disgraceful statement to call for Kidman's resignation. Obviously she used way too strong language to express her opinion, but for politicians to call for the removal of an academic who has a role as a "critic & conscience" of society is wrong. Who instead should ACT be asking to resign - before he has even started his job? The former Deputy PM Grant Robertson who has become the new Vice Chancellor of Otago University. Instead ACT are going for an easy target, whilst protecting one of their (parliament's) own in the process. Are ACT serious that they're happy for an entire University that employs thousands to be taken down a politicized left-wing track by virtue of a leading Labour Party figure being appointed to run it, but instead get wildly upset & demand the firing of one person working at one of them who does one tweet? The new coalition is, I gather, happy with Robertson's new job since it gets him out of parliament & removes him as a threat. A bunch of our current MP's even want to copy him when they retire, yet care little about opening up our youth's education to political bias. Today is a day of shame for ACT.
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