Minister of Social Development has attacked freedom of speech

UPDATED: see TV inter­view here

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and says that actions of Social Devel­op­ment Min­is­ter Paula Ben­nett and her office in releas­ing private inform­a­tion of New Zea­l­and cit­izens is an attack of free­dom of speech.

Mari­time Uni­on spokes­per­son Vic­tor Bil­lot says the delib­er­ate release of the incomes of two solo moth­ers to the media was a sin­is­ter attempt to bully people into sub­mis­sion.

The two women had cri­ti­cized cuts to train­ing allow­ances that would make it more dif­fi­cult for them to study and improve their qual­i­fic­a­tions.

“The actions of the Min­is­ter and her office are not about provid­ing inform­a­tion for reasoned debate, it is clearly a tac­tic to fright­en and bully any­one who stands up and has an opin­ion.”

Mr Bil­lot says the Mari­time Uni­on was com­prised of the former Water­front Work­ers Uni­on and Sea­farers Uni­on, both of which had stood along­side unem­ployed work­ers and bene­fi­ciar­ies when they were attacked in the 1990s by the Nation­al Gov­ern­ment.

He says that it is unac­cept­able for politi­cians to use State agen­cies to gath­er spe­cif­ic per­son­al inform­a­tion such as income of any cit­izens, wheth­er they were privately employed, pub­licly employed, busi­ness own­ers or bene­fi­ciar­ies, for use in cal­cu­lated media attacks.

“This action shows the con­tempt in which the Nation­al Party holds the work­ing people of New Zea­l­and and the unfit­ness of the Min­is­ter to hold this job.”

Mr Bil­lot says the women involved were right to raise the issue of how cuts to train­ing allow­ances was a bad idea.

He says the Gov­ern­ment is mak­ing it harder for work­ing class New Zeal­anders to get an edu­ca­tion or improve their lot.

“The Gov­ern­ment can­’t defend its policies by ration­al debate, so it uses the age old tac­tic of attack­ing indi­vidu­als.”