On the other hand it is neither funny nor clever to ‘‘punch down’’ by making the vulnerable and undeserved the brunt of your humour.
The government’s first term has presented an exemplary case study of this dynamic of punching down. Economic pressures are regularly shifted on to vulnerable communities while access by and protections for powerful economic interests are strengthened and resourced.
There are a few good examples just in the last couple of weeks. Corporate lobbying on climate law, social housing rent increases, the end of fees free tertiary study, and government pressure that leads to an increase in rates are some examples.
The government is moving to change the law to explicitly block climate change lawsuits against large greenhouse gas emitters, overriding a Supreme Court decision that would have allowed a tort case for ‘‘climate system damage’’ to proceed.
This has raised allegations of corporate political corruption after it was revealed in court documents that lobbying papers about this legislative reform were shared between major emitters Fonterra and Z Energy and the Prime Minister’s office. This is about elites having preferential access to politicians to lobby to strip away the legal rights of communities and Māori in order to protect their interests in profits.
It is not about certainty, it is about profit protection.
Meanwhile it is communities and Māori that suffer the real world effects of climate change, like flooding and land loss, and who bear the responsibility for the damage in clean up and high insurance costs.
Low income tenants are soon to fund the Accommodation Supplement for other low income tenants. This is a new low even for this government with their proposal to increase the Accommodation Supplement through increases in income-related rents.
In a striking example of punching down, low income renters like superannuants, disabled people and families will be forced to subsidise low income superannuants, disabled people and families.
The burden of the housing crisis will sit firmly on the shoulders of those living in state housing. Rather than using general taxation or removing landlord tax perks, the government will pit two highly vulnerable groups against each other, neither of which can afford any increase in costs in this pernicious cost of living crisis.
And we can add the scrapping of the fees free tertiary scheme, which covered the final year of study (up to $12,000) for tertiary students to this list as well.
The government is justifying this shift of costs down to ordinary people because they do not want to increase taxes, but that is yet another sleight of hand. By putting councils under pressure, sometimes even threatening them with coercive legislation, councils are having to find more money by increasing rates.
Government is too cowardly to raise taxes themselves so they leave that to councils to do it in their stead.
This pattern of punching down is evident in each of the years of this government’s term.
Undermining the Equal Pay Act and stopping 33 active pay equity claims for women in female-dominated professions is punching down.
Removing appeal rights for overstayers and asylum seekers and giving police new ‘‘ICE-light’’ powers to interrogate a person’s immigration status is punching down.
Threatening nearly 9000 people with unemployment at some unspecified time in the future in a tight, inaccessible job-market is punching down.
The common thread here is that the government prioritises lowering corporate risk (so-called ‘‘certainty for business’’) and cutting jobs (so-called ‘‘fiscal discipline") over the legal protections and financial stability of workers, tenants, students, families and communities.
Punching down is a legislative strategy balanced on the backs of those who don’t have the ear of the Prime Minister.
Punching up, on the other hand, means making the powerful pay their share. It means taking on the energy lobby to make them cease their climate pollution.
Punching up is being just.
• Associate Prof Metiria Stanton Turei is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party co-leader.
