Jonathan Milne: Soft steps for week's big winners

It was a black day for the conservatives, a red-letter day for the liberal left. Or perhaps a pink-letter day.

With the passing of the Civil Union Act, an end to smoking in bars and the release of refugee Ahmed Zaoui, it was little surprise to see a few happy tears welling up in the eyes of old-time leftie and Green MP Keith Locke.

An irritable Pastor Brian Tamaki, still insisting most New Zealanders were bitterly opposed to civil unions despite polls which indicate the contrary, removed his mirror glasses on Parliament's forecourt to reveal red-rimmed eyes that looked as if he'd been up all night in tearful prayer.

Eyes were watering for a different reason in the Beehive's Pickwicks Bar at midnight, as smokers dragged down their last ciggies, the smoke thick and inpenetrable in a wake dubbed by regulars "smoke till you choke".

The confluence of changes made for a thunderous Thursday in New Zealand politics.

So are Joe and Sharon Public ready for such dramatic social change? Their grandparents turfed out the second Labour government after only one term when Walter Nash bumped up taxes on beer and baccy in the notorious Black Budget.

In a profession where 'grace' is usually evident only at the start of state banquets, the victors on Thursday were unusually graceful. Labour civil union advocate Jill Pettis hugged a cousin who was protesting against the bill, as they agreed to disagree. Tim Barnett, the face of both prostitution law reform and civil unions, promised his next "project" would be a visit home to Britain for his mum's 80th birthday, rather than any radical social engineering.

Well might they be cautious and soft-spoken: the government knows it has pushed about as hard and far as it can into the nation's bedrooms and lounge bars.

There is no evidence yet of any significant moral backlash of the sort experienced in the United States - Tamaki seems to have almost as many black-suited bodyguards as he does church members, and the small protest at Parliament last week hardly suggested a tidal wave of resistance - but the potential could be there.

Where the reformers risk getting carried away with their own success is with the government-encouraged select committee inquiry into hate speech.

All social reforms are about rebalancing individual and group rights. To what extent do we restrict Zaoui's liberties to limit a perceived risk to New Zealand as a whole? In what contexts do we require smokers to stub out their cigarettes to protect non-smokers who are inhaling their fumes?

The select committee inquiry will consider how far Parliament should go to silence those whose views are likely to excite hostility against minorities, or bring them into contempt.

Supporters - most vocally those in the gay community - say it would protect them from the aggression and hostility that can be a daily part of their lives; opponents say it is an unjustifiable gag on free speech.

So perhaps the civil union supporters dancing on Parliament's lawn on Thursday were less than diplomatic when they dropped the Black Eyed Peas pop single, Shut Up, on the turntable.