Keith Melville

I enjoyed the letters last Friday on our council adopting a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policy although I thought the supportive sentiments were somewhat nauseous.

Most of us would agree we must respect the rights of others including the handicapped, marginalised, those with gender differences, and people with alternative views, but do we really need a policy set in a silly woke stone?

I think it is all more about the warm fuzzies and feeling good than creating something of real value for all ratepayers.

In the same Beacon, you will have noticed that the council has committed to a 11.5 percent rates increase in the next financial year. That is on top of the 15 percent increase last year.

Many if not most ratepayers will struggle to pay their rates demands. Some will even struggle to buy food, yet the council has deemed it necessary to go to some expense on this very public handwringing, feel-good exercise.

Where, though, is the empathy for struggling and marginalised ratepayers including those who are different?

Those who think creating a DEI policy is a good idea should have a good look at what has happened at US institutions. There, DEI has been used to close public speaking events and to silence people with views contrary to the institutional narrative.

Historian Sir Niall Ferguson cites Harvard University as one such example where a DEI initiative has turned out to create a situation exactly the opposite of what was intended. Ferguson says that is a world similar to the one described in George Orwell's book, 1984, where the thought police are in control.

He says DEI is "the path to hell" and has come to mean come to mean uniformity, no equity or no due process, and the exclusion of conservatives and classical liberals.

If you read Dave Stewart's letter last Friday on the council's new DEI policy, you should now know how easily such a policy can be corrupted.

Mr Stewart's letter seems to praise diversity equity and inclusion so long as it does not include those with conservative values.

It says conservatives have always been on the wrong side of history and have lost.

He seems to have forgotten about Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Only the left can do good in Mr Stewart's world. I remind him of Joseph Stalin, the Peronists in Argentina, and chairman Mao.

I am not a conservative.