Examples of the New Zealand government putting the hate on various minorities and breaking fundamental human rights, 1900 - present.
1900's - The 1901 Opium Act was aimed solely at persecuting Chinese immigrants and their families. The Act banned the smoking of opium. Other forms of opium were allowed for consumption, it was just the smoking of it that was outlawed. Police gained the right to search without warrant any Chinese home or business on suspicion of opium smoking, decades before the practise was made more widespread.
1910's - It was a busy decade for state hatred. Unionists and the working class were subject to Massey's Cossacks. Of course, the Germans were fair game during the Great War. Conscientious objectors to the Great War were locked up, deserters from the army were shot. And if they stayed to fight for King and Country, they were dumped on Gallipoli's coastline with others of Winston Churchill's reject colonial army volunteers - Jews and Australians - and led to senseless slaughter.
1920's - This decade was a bit of a toughie. Post-Great War, post-Spanish Flu pandemic, the state seemed to run out of hate temporarily. Massey eventually died, and it is damned hard to fault the work of the Coates' government's 3 years. Maybe the All Blacks' "Invincibles" tour of Britain and France in 1924 kept the young nation at ease. Argument's sake, let's just call the 1920's an exception to the rule.
1930's - The unemployment riots in Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland not long into the Great Depression might have made unions another easy target for the state apparatus. It took the first Labour Government to officially hate merchantalism. Cradle to the grave welfare, the Reserve Bank was nationalised, dairy prices guaranteed a minimum.
1940's - Germans and Japanese were the official villains of this decade. However, unofficially, there was plenty of hate set aside for American soldiers, as seen in the Battle of Manners Street.
1950's - Waterfront unions bore the brunt of establishment displeasure during the Waterfront 'dispute'. Teenagers first appeared on the hate radar thanks to the Maezengarb report. In fact, anything that represented un-Christian values or the other official religion of Rugby, Racing and Beer was off-limits. Barry Crump's Good Keen Man was considered a classic NZ novel. Art was for queers and queers were locked up, which explains some of the modernist monstrosities built in the name of the state during this time.
1960's - The newly established NZBC armed with the Broadcasting Act 1961 took a black pen to music, TV shows and movies. Radio Hauraki was one response to this hatred of good things.
1970's - Patricia Bartlett might have kept bleating on about morals during the 1970's, but the tide was against her as well as the anti-abortionists. The state had moved onto other hatreds. The continued French nuclear testing at Muroroa Atoll drew the ire of the Kirk government. Pacific Islanders felt the force of Muldoon's government power with the infamous dawn raids. Maori got some stick too, culminating in mass arrests at Bastion Point. It was not uncommon practice for landlords of the time to state "No Maoris" in their To Let adverts.
1980's - Who can forget the hatred that divided the nation with the Springbok Tour of 1981? John Key apparently can. Everyone hated the French in the 1980's, and with good reason. Nuclear testing was bad enough, but the frogmen and the Rainbow Warrior bombs made it worse. The very worst came with the release of Mafart and Prieur not long into their sentence, when the French government threatened to stick a butter mountain up the NZ government's bum. The French showed NZ up as the tiny, irrelevant little islands it is.
1990's - Risk is the new enemy. The rise of the safety nazis begins with the purge of smokers as people with the Smokefree Environments Act. This was swiftly followed by hatred of recreational cyclists with compulsory bike helmet regulations. Strong Asian immigration flows bring NZ's history of xenophobia to the fore. Winston Peters and NZ First are at record levels of support.
2000's - Smokers continue to lose rights as humans. It is entirely legal, if not encouraged, to discriminate against smokers as workers, tenants and parents. Winston Peters still hanging in there.
2010's - Adult Fun is facing regulation on all fronts. Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis users are now mortal sinners damned until they repent. Workers are tested in ever more invasive ways as risk attains infamy. A toke on a joint on Saturday can lose someone their job with a drug test on Wednesday, demonstrating the complete separation of impairment and risk. Local government councils and government SOEs are leading the charge into persecution with the unions in full agreement with the overlords. The infantilisation of adult life is almost complete.
