Georgina Beyer Mana Party candidate Georgina Beyer is urging glbti people to "get out and vote" at the general election to help head off what she sees as a threat to human rights gains. "You only have to look closely at the conservative end of politics to see that we could be in real trouble if, for example, Colin Craig gets above the threshold and ends up in Parliament," Beyer says. Political observers have noted that recent lower voter turnouts at general elections have favoured right-wing parties, whose voters tend to be more committed and their parties can gain a boost by their proportion of the vote being greater in a low turn-out. Beyer is particularly concerned about Craig's advocacy for binding referenda which would see governments taking contentious issues to the ballot box and being locked into the result. Referenda tend to favour the status quo and "our glbti equality gains could be stalled, even reversed" based on the whims of public opinion at any given time, she says. The general election will be held on Saturday 20th September and "I encourage everybody to get out to vote on the day," Beyer, a candidate for the Te Tai Tonga Maori seat, urges.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 2nd August 2014 - 10:35am