Our Two Tier Nation

Why do elites have special privilege?

In Britain they call the Prime Minister “Two Tier Keir,” a reference to, perceived or otherwise, a two tier justice system in that country whereby a woman can go to jail for 31 months for posting a message on social media, while rapists and terror offenders receive suspended sentences.

But after recent incidents in our fair land are we too guilty of a two tier society whereby the political and moneyed elite are given special privilege over the rest of us mere mortals?

The first case involves the Phase 2 Royal Commission on Covid. The Commissioners asked, in the nicest possible way, four politicians from the 2020-2023 Labour government to appear at some public hearings and answer questions about the decisions they made which affected our way of life during those years.

The politicians refused, saying that they had answered written questions from the Commissioners and had nothing more to say. Which is all very well, except that we don’t know what the questions were and what their answers are.

We may or may not find out when the Commission’s report is released early next year.

The only possible conclusion to reach from the politicians’ refusals to front up in person is that they have something to hide and no rational explanation for the decisions they made - except to exert a control over the population that was unprecedented in my lifetime, and most likely for many years before that.

That two of those four politicians want to be part of a future government tells us all we need to know about the internal workings of the Labour party. That is we are far too important to answer questions that members of the hoi polloi, the mere public might want to ask. The arrogance is breathtaking. When we cast our votes next year we should never forget how these people treated us. We just want answers to some basic questions, the most important of which is “did you have any empirical scientific evidence that vaccine mandates would have any impact on the spread of the covid virus?”

But the privileged treatment of those Labour Party grandees doesn’t begin to compare with what transpired in the Auckland High Court last Friday (August 15^th).

A person described by the National Business Review as “a member of a wealthy family” was convicted of importation and possession of 11,775 “objectional files, including child sexual abuse material” and sentenced to jail time.

(As I no longer subscribe to NBR I can’t read the full story but have gleaned what little I know about this from a teaser email.)

The top line of Simon Shepherd’s story reads “EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING A Member of a wealthy family convicted of the possession and importation of child sex material has had their name, their family’s name, and the name of the high-profile company associated with them permanently suppressed.”

That’s all we know for sure. Discussion on The Platform suggests the convicted criminal paid $50,000 to charity, while other comments on the case hint at this suppression being made to stop an escalation of the “culture wars.”

Whatever the circumstances, it’s a disgrace.

Particularly the donations made to charity. I wonder how those organisations feel about receiving what is effectively bribe or corruption money.

After all this is not suppression of a person’s name while they are on trial, as is the case for the “prominent sportsman” currently facing charges in Dunedin of injuring a child.

This “member of a wealthy family” has been convicted. He, for it is almost certainly a male of the species, is a criminal.

Criminals should be named.

If this person has had his identity suppressed, permanently remember, because he or she is Māori then that is even more disgraceful. We can’t know that because all details are being kept schtum.

The problem with such a blanket name suppression is that so many other ”wealthy family” members come under suspicion and the reasons for such secrecy will always be open to speculation.

Lady Justice does not wear a blindfold for nothing. Justice in New Zealand, which since the first sitting of the Supreme Court in 1841, we have always supposed to be dispensed in a fair and even manner.

One’s money, reputation and status in society were always presumed to have counted for little, especially in serious matters like sexual offending.

Meat magnate and art patron James Wallace found this out not so long ago.

Frankly the acts described in this case, even in the NBR headline, are those of a person who has no place in civil society. He is incarcerated and that’s the least we as a society should expect.

But we should know who he is. That we can’t is a blight on our justice system.

And apart from the NBR and The Platform mainstream media is silent on this.

But then who’s surprised?