John McLean: A different kind of rights

No pot of human rights gold at the end of this Rainbow

About three weeks ago, New Zealand’s Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Stephen Rainbow, talked to Michael Laws on webcasting media channel, The Platform. You can listen to most of the interview here (in order to listen to the full interview, become a Platform Plus subscriber):

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Stephen Rainbow On Polarisation

Cam Slater: Oh, So Now Human Rights Are Important?

You’d never have known that we had a Human Rights Commissioner during the excesses of the Ardern regime. She illegally locked us up and down, illegally banned Kiwi citizens from entering their own country and illegally sacked them from jobs because of her vaccine mandates which were demonstrably against the Bill of Rights. Paul Hunt, the keffiyeh-wearing apologist for violent regimes, was utterly silent even as Police assaulted and stomped on peaceful protestors in Wellington.

Now because a few people living in a boarding house had the misfortune of having had it burn down on them, he is all of a sudden incredibly concerned about the human rights of those few people.

Cam Slater: Democracy Is No Longer a Human Right?

The Human Rights Commission, the same organisation that remained silent when Jacinda Ardern’s Government trampled all over the Bill of Rights during the Covid emergency, has now come out and essentially said that they endorse the Government’s further abrogation of the Bill of Rights and wholeheartedly back moving towards co-governance, destroying true democracy in the process.

Bob Jones: More bogus human rights nonsense

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt stated last week, “many renters are having to make trade-offs between their fundamental human rights, such as the right to adequate food and the right to a decent home. A home is first and foremost a fundamental human right and not an investment,” he repeated. This garbage is fairy tale nonsense.

He continued on…referring to a non-existent country he called Aotearoa NZ, Hunt claimed it’s in breach of a “legally binding international human rights obligation.” What this agreement was he didn’t advise, but probably he was referring to the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was simply a wish list of perceived desirable aspirations and as such worthy.

My complaint is the word “Rights.” Saying someone has a human right to something implies that someone or something else has an obligation to provide it and therein lies the problem.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Koha scandal shows how ineffectual the Chief Human Rights Commissioner is

 

On the revelation the chief Human Rights Commissioner gave a $200 koha to the Mighty Mongrel Mob Kingdom when he went to their hui  - as I’ve said before, I don’t have a problem with him going to the hui.  I think conversation’s good. And $200 is not a lot of money in the scheme of things.

But it’s the principle.  What is he doing giving any taxpayer money to the Mongrel Mob?  Did that not set off any alarm bells for him, giving money to an organisation, with some members of which profit off infringing on other people’s human rights?  

He’s refusing to give interviews but in statement appears completely unapologetic, essentially saying he did nothing wrong.  

“I was doing my job” he said. “The provision of koha is entirely culturally appropriate. To not offer koha at that pōwhiri would have been extremely disrespectful. “