PC-buster sets out his agenda

The National Party's new political correctness eradicator is vowing to rid New Zealand of Labour's "insidious social engineering".

MP Wayne Mapp, appointed to the unusual position yesterday by party leader Don Brash, said he aimed to stamp out political correctness in public institutions.

"There needs to be a clear political programme to reverse it, to remove the viewpoints and language of the politically correct from the institutions of government," he said today in his first press statement.

"The minority capture of public institutions by the politically correct is a basic cause of people losing faith in the institutions of government."

Dr Mapp said earlier he might introduce a member's bill to Parliament to "fix" the Human Rights Commission, one of his prime targets.

"Removing the power of the politically correct means removing their institutional and legislative base," he said in his statement.

Dr Mapp has said the commission should not be an advocate and at the same time hold the power of prosecution.

"It sets out a way of thinking we're all expected to follow and then it backs it up with a whole series of coercive powers."

His appointment, designed to highlight the "PC Problem" that gave National some traction in the election campaign, has triggered a debate about minority rights in New Zealand.

Author Alan Duff said earlier today he was sick of hearing about minority rights.

"Is someone going to stand up and say 'who bloody well cares about the rights of minorities'," he said.

"How about the rights of the majority, the rights of children. Who cares about gays?"

Canterbury University associate professor of philosophy Dennis Dutton said political correctness closed down debate.

"I think today in New Zealand it's really a matter of making people, young and old, feel uncomfortable about questioning the claims of anybody who claims they are a victim class," he said.

Labour's transsexual MP Georgina Beyer, who has described herself in the past as someone who represents "just about everything that's PC", disagreed with them.

"Are we going to go back to the horrid days of the past...we do have a right to try to attain equality," she said.

- NZPA