babies

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So, You Want To Buy Your First Home?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 7th, 2021 - 75 comments

Money does not grow on trees, it grows on houses. It is pure magic!

Bene bashing

Written By: - Date published: 11:27 am, June 1st, 2019 - 101 comments

National has engaged in the most crass form of beneficiary bashing in opposing Government changes to the benefit system announced in the budget and passed under urgency.

The right wing media’s infatuation with breeding

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, July 3rd, 2018 - 99 comments

Elements in the media clearly think that the payment of a modest amount to families with young babies will cause them to breed babies for a business.

Coming up, Babies!

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, June 15th, 2018 - 68 comments

Jacinda’s baby is going to be big news soon.

What’s going on at the BBC?

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 18th, 2017 - 7 comments

And now for something completely different.

Maori health and children not a priority

Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, July 11th, 2016 - 77 comments

Essential reading, two pieces highlighting institutional racism today. Someone needs to ask the Maori Party how proud they are to be propping up this government.

Parental leave – did English know or care what he was vetoing?

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, June 30th, 2016 - 84 comments

Bill English didn’t know the cost of the parental leave bill that he vetoed on the grounds of cost, and he didn’t care enough about it to speak to the matter in Parliament last night.

Petition against the veto of the paid parental leave bill

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, June 18th, 2016 - 19 comments

“We request that you withdraw the financial veto certificate against the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave and Work Contact Hours) Amendment Bill.” You can sign the petition here.

Nats overrule Parliament to veto parental leave extension

Written By: - Date published: 3:54 pm, June 16th, 2016 - 102 comments

So – like Canterbury, like Auckland, the democratic process can get stuffed as far as National are concerned.

Paid parental leave bill progress towards anti-democratic veto

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 am, May 26th, 2016 - 49 comments

Sue Moroney’s bill to extend paid parental leave passed its second reading last night – bravo to all those who supported it! The Nats’ threat to veto is profoundly anti-democratic, overriding the will of Parliament.

Nats and reproductive rights

Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, September 28th, 2015 - 210 comments

The Nats are obsessed with the reproductive rights of those they deem “unfit”. Once again they are floating the idea of compulsory controls.

Paid parental leave bill progresses – towards veto

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 17th, 2015 - 30 comments

Last night in Parliament Labour MP Sue Moroney’s bill extending paid parental leave to 26 weeks passed its first reading by one vote, with only National and ACT opposed.

Look at the future of families

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, August 14th, 2015 - 51 comments

In South Korea the colliding intersection between economics, tradition and demographics is probably at its most extreme. However the same kinds of effects are being seen all over the developed world, and increasingly in parts of the underdeveloped world – and here.

250 to 300 Job Losses at Unitec in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, August 8th, 2015 - 84 comments

Under Unitec’s new vision students will be known as Customers. Student services will be outsourced (overseas)

Aspiration statement
To be a world leader in contemporary applied learning and an agent of positive economic and social change
.

Dirty Politics: The Brestapo

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, August 14th, 2014 - 88 comments

I have foolishly never taken Cameron Slater very seriously except when his attacks have been obviously for the benefit of the National Party. I actually believed that the misinformed and bigoted viewpoints that prevail in his posts were his genuine opinions. It fits his character to drone on about “The Breastapo” “Sucking on the Taxpayers’ Tit”. To discover that such posts were actually written and paid for on behalf of Fonterra actually shocked me.

Considering newborns

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, May 29th, 2014 - 43 comments

It’s a classic National manoeuvre. Ask them a straightforward question like “is there support for all newborn babies in New Zealand?” and get a straightforward “Yes” – with several significant caveats that altogether add up to No.

Media Watch: infotainment & “balance” – inequality

Written By: - Date published: 10:01 am, January 30th, 2014 - 56 comments

The ratings/sales driven ethos of the corporate MSM skews the coverage of the election campaigns of parties of the “left” and the “right”. Focus on individuals, implying they represent large sections of the population. The left are leading the agenda on inequality.

Labour supports Plunket

Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, August 8th, 2013 - 61 comments

Another good policy announcement from David Shearer.

Don’t veto me!

Written By: - Date published: 6:52 pm, June 17th, 2013 - 4 comments

Have you done this yet?

Surplus 2014/15: an excuse for not doing what needs doing

Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, May 6th, 2013 - 30 comments

John Key’s excuse for the planned veto of the extension of paid parental leave is that it would put the 2014/15 surplus at risk. There’s several reasons that’s bullshit, the main one being: why is going just under or just over some arbitrary line in the Crown’s books the Nats’ one aim for the economy? The truth is, Key’s using the surplus as an excuse for not doing the right thing.

International Women’s Day

Written By: - Date published: 1:07 pm, March 8th, 2013 - 8 comments

Happy International Women’s Day; the fight for equality still has some way to be won…

The rhythms of life

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, October 28th, 2012 - 18 comments

On Planet Key natural body processes are ignored, and nature has been tamed into a golf course. It’s a place where mothers don’t lactate or have a heightened sensitivity to their babies’ cries; a place disconnected from the chaotic consequences of climate change.

Shifting ground: PPL

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, October 24th, 2012 - 27 comments

The government is vulnerable around Sue Moroney’s Paid Parental Leave Bill.  The Nats don’t want it to pass, but they risk losing support from women.  A government veto of an entire Bill is on experimental ground, and Bill English has shifted his reasons for not supporting the Bill. Updates: BusinessNZ submission

Children of Men: money or our lives

Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, October 18th, 2012 - 28 comments

Paid Parental Leave, Charter schools, compulsory early childhood education for beneficiaries: for NAct it’s all about money, and they use ‘shonky’ figures to justify their ‘shonkey’ policies and vetos.  This is ostrich and patriarchal behaviour, ignoring the evidence of the wider benefits to communities and society of good quality child care, education and Paid Parental Leave.

I wonder who earned their Christmas bonus for coining the term “Breastapo”?

Written By: - Date published: 6:59 am, September 4th, 2012 - 25 comments

There’s been a lot of coverage of breastfeeding “controversies” in the last couple of months.

We’ve reposted Queen of Thorns’ take on it…

Invest in parents to invest in kids

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, August 2nd, 2012 - 7 comments

Labour’s people-centred economic policy got a huge boost last week, courtesy of the Members’ Bill lottery. Paid parental leave extended, holidays Mondayised, minimum wage raised, and assets fenced off from sale. The first two have gone to Select Committee. They are worth supporting.

Don’t feed the troll

Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, June 7th, 2012 - 33 comments

Bennett is running misdirection for the Parata. Not letting bad parents have more kids is nothing new. It’s just the existing powers courts have to order CYFS to take newborns into custody and to ban people from contact with kids. With the meaningless addition of making these orders before a woman is pregnant. Good talkback bait though. Bennett’s just trolling again. Which is all she seems good for.

Green and you have kids? Really?

Written By: - Date published: 2:08 pm, May 10th, 2012 - 73 comments

Here’s a quick way to reduce your carbon footprint: don’t have kids and save 80 years worth of human greenhouse gas output per child… This is my Voluntary Human Extinction Movement post.

Teenage dreams

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, May 10th, 2012 - 56 comments

With the debate raging about free contraception for women and their teenage daughters, inevitably the conclusion is that irresponsible teenager girls are making poor decisions. Why do they get pregnant? That’s the easy part – teens not using contraception, of course. Why teenage pregnancy is an intractable problem is a much more complex question.

Birth Control

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 pm, May 8th, 2012 - 83 comments

At first glance it seems strange to have Sue Bradford, a former Green MP, against what is a very ‘green’ policy – free contraception. But she has a point when she talks about beneficiaries feeling forced into sterility they don’t want. Meanwhile, what’s with the right’s obsession with targeting women having babies while on a benefit?

Contraception debate

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, May 8th, 2012 - 96 comments

The Government is planning to offer free long-term contraception for beneficiaries and their daughters.  At one level its a sensible idea.  But it comes with too much baggage attached.  The Nats have already made such a mess of it that they can’t make this proposal with any credibility.