Sanity has prevailed. But only because George Hawkins managed to get Parliament’s consent last evening for his Private Member’s Bill to proceed by presenting it when both ACT MPs were not in the House. The Bill aims to restrict the number of liquor outlets.
The Nats tried to make political capital from the minor spate of violent, bungled crimes over the past week — each one a tragedy. In contrast to ACT’s view that Hawkins’ Bill is just a “cynical and transparent attempt” to make it look as though Labour cares about public safety,” National criticised the amount of time it had taken the Government to tackle the proliferation of liquor outlets.
Despite his professed concerns over delays, Key still proposed “a comprehensive select committee inquiry” to look at law and order taking in the liquor use and licensing issues.
Perhaps ACT’s MPs decided it would be better to, er, hide, while their colleagues unanimously let Hawkins’ Bill proceed. Apparently he was applauded for his efforts.
Around the blogosphere… Idiot Savant examines the basis for this “knee jerk reaction” with his/her/their customary perspicacity, while skinny on-sells TV3’s comparison of liquor outlets per capita, and gets confused about the issues. Maybe he should stick to identifying stock images.
Postscript: Got to last night’s (Tuesday) taping of media7, on the media treatment of the Police. Some very interesting stuff emerged, so catch it tonight if you have a freeview box, or download it tomorrow. Details on Russell Brown’s publicaddress blog.
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