There is a bleak irony that it is Annette King, a female Labour MP, who wants to implement ASBOs in an effort to bring us back to a kind of pre-Magna Carta legal state.
Had ASBOs existed in New Zealand in the 1880s and 1890s it seems unlikely women would have gained the vote; Suffragettes were remarkably unpopular with many segments of society, and Kate Sheppard most likely would have found herself drowned in ASBOs for her then-anti-social behaviour. No women voters, no women MPs.
And Labour, of course, is a product of the politicisation of workers who fought hard - sometimes to the death - for the idea that the ordinary person has the right to associate with other workers to better their positions in life; again, it would not be difficult to imagine that employers who were happy to use cudgel wielding thugs to break up union meetings would be only too pleased to ASBO union and Labour party activists out of existence.
If it were not for the principles embodied in the very Bill of Rights and principles of common law Ms King holds in contempt - the right to free association, the right to a trial before one’s peers, the right to confront one’s accusers - it is likely she would be stuck in the same kitchen as her ancestors.
Although it might perhaps be better for the country if she were.
That’s depressing enough, of course. But what’s even more annoying is that it gets nothing but a few press-release derived articles in the press by way of coverage. TV3 can devote airtime to Brian Tamaki and his OHNOESWARONCHRISTIANS fuckwittery, but something that might actually affect the whole basis of our legal system? Whatever.
Likewise there may be an opposition, but it’s not like you’d know it. National can devote hours to worrying about Ian Wishart’s fantasies about David Benson-Pope, but poking the government about this nonsense? Nope, that’ll be left to the Greens and, if we’re lucky, ACT.