Yesterday we gathered together to remember fifty lives snatched away by a coward; we note that the coward ran away from a brave man armed with a credit card machine.

After this horrific event, there were outpourings of high emotion throughout our nation - fear, anger, disgust, sadness. Vigils were held, prayer groups of different faiths sprang up, social media engaged in discussions of grief, unity, pain, forgiveness even. These excellent methods have allowed us to begin processing this great trauma.

At such times , we need an anchor to be attached to, in order to have some sense of stability, to know that our highly emotional state will be tempered with wise tolerance and strong, calm leadership, the 'Anchor in the Storm'. In New Zealand, that role has fallen to the government.

New Conservative congratulates Ms Ardern on showing compassion and authenticity as she met and embraced those affected; it is a testament to her congeniality.

New Conservative is also becoming increasingly concerned that calm leadership is being replaced by speeches from an emotionally compromised stance, to the point of implementing law changes without democratic process as part of that emotional reaction.

“Emotions have a vital place in decision-making” says Elliot Ikilei, deputy leader, “and must be tempered with calm reason and thought.

“Far-reaching decisions without talking with others while highly emotional are rarely of good quality, indeed we have many painful examples of these.

‘The police reacted and eventually shut down the first event; the government then started well with being amongst the people and sharing grief and pain. They need to now be the ‘Anchor in the Storm' by allowing related outpourings while we process the pain. Once the emotions are more stable, we can talk about what is the best way forward for our nation, whether it be about firearms, intelligence services, or loopholes, etc"

New Conservative urges the government not to forget to be part of our democracy during this period of high emotion, and to seek reason and logic when it comes to implementing far reaching laws that may change the very makeup of New Zealand.

As Socrates warns:

“A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.”

ENDS
Elliot Ikeilei
Deputy Leader, New Conservative

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