Listening to National radio this morning & hearing the medium house price in Auckland is $535.000 shows we are in crisis with affordable housing. To hear Housing New Zealand ( a Government entity) is referring renters paying up to 80% of their income to charitable agencies such as the Sallies for financial assistance is a bloody disgrace!
Meanwhile house prices are rising at increasingly alarming rates while the job market continues to stagnate.
Government intervention to cool this unacceptable situation and to ‘create employment in the house building sector’ should be a priority one would think.
It’s a contradiction that National would have people believe that property investors will invest in power shares when the returns on property investment are booming again. This was highlighted to me recently whilst in Whangarei on holiday. I got speaking to an old guy in Whangarei who buys in what you could categorize as the first home buyers market. He buys & sells making on average 20% to 30% profit. Happy to gloat it’s setup so he avoids tax?
With a recent survey showing 70% support for Labour’s 100.000 new affordable homes policy, the question remains what is National going to do if anything?
Shearer did a good job this morning on National Radio stating Labour’s proposed solutions. Quick question: when Annette King goes to run at the Mayoralty, who will be Housing Spokesperson? It’s Labour’s best policy so far leading up to 2014. It’s going to need a solid political unit to break the mean cycle of property capitalism (particularly in Auckland).
At the moment Housing and Building are in MBIE. Shearer acknowledged this morning that working clsoely with Councils particularly Auckland is going to be critical to achieving the housing policy goal. Maybe it’s time to wrap DIA’s Local Government functions into MBIE and start to remake cities holistically, including with housing.
coronial typer: So what the hell did Shearer propose then?
You say he was on National Radio, but who did he propose to take over housing, what else did he offer but repeating, they would talk with councils???
I am sorry, you delivered no real information, which leaves us again with: An empty handed, vaguely talking, nothing offering David Shearer, on housing and much else.
Major Roberts’ crocodile tears disguises the fact that he was on the working group that recommended the changes to the state housing that we are seeing the concequences of.
I accept that they often make good submissions on proposed laws and so, they are outspoken on social failures, on shortcomings of the government, but then again, they are also “players” in the game, when it comes to getting some government hand-outs to run welfare and in future housing.
I am afraid, you cannot expect all that much of real change and ideas from an organisation with religious values, which is caring of course, but also depends on the purse strings of donors, sponsors, and also the government.
The same applies to numerous “advocacy groups”, who, as I found out, actually get money from MSD to “deliver” their “services”.
So no bloody wonder the advocates are not all that strongly outspoken against welfare and other reforms. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, right?
What is this country all about, either you have private operators and business run the show, or you have the government have its tentacles all over the place, thus keeping control of things.
NZ is screwed like this, and no matter how sincere and outspoken critics here are, all this is huff and puff into the air, right?!
Gosh it would have been great if Mallard and Robertson, the guys who ran Labour’s campaign last time, actually apologised for performing worse than the New Zealand cricket team. The’ve performed badly for about as long as each other.
Not sure when or if Shearer will do a reshuffle of responsibility, but I would have thought a basic Key Peformance indicator for the lot of whoever backs him would be: win the election.
B*ll*x to an Apology, AD!
We just want to see a sign from Shearer that he realised he had been conned by Trevir n Robertson and used by Phil and Annette.
When we see that sign then we will believe that there is a real change afoot.
Otherswise it is worse than it was under Phil.
Change David, please change your team.
You highlight 3 major issues there, if as a country we made the avoidance of tax just as criminal as the evasion of it and had the staff in the States revenue collection agency to actually force the collection of the estimated 7 billion dollars annually either avoided or evaded there would be more than enough revenue for the Government to fix what is becoming an increasingly ugly societal problem,
When tenants are forced to pay 50%+ of their income to put a roof over their heads an economic drag is created in the local economy, such money simply being a tax upon that persons production passing through the hands of the landlord class to the banks which hold the mortgage over the property and so denying the local economy the use of such money in what would be best described as the normal course of economic activity,
While i understand Labour’s proposed ‘fix’ to such a crisis of affordability where ‘most’ of what is presently being constructed, (especially in Auckland), are far larger than ‘needed’ icons of over-consumption which pushes the price of buying a home into the realm of fantasy for the lower bands of income earners, Labour propose to build far more modest housing (2 bedrooms plus garage can be built for $120,000 +land), i still feel Labour fail to grasp the fundamental problem in the rental market,
Landlords locked into a mortgage are not going to suddenly drop the price of their rental stock because a Government builds houses for sale at a lesser cost to the purchaser, those unable to access such Government largesse will still be trapped in the market for private rentals paying 50%+ of their income in rent,
Having said that, i will not be overly critical of Labour’s plan to build 100,000 of these low cost houses for sale while Labour still wrestles with it’s policy on the numbers of State owned rental houses it intends to build,
Needless to say,even the present Labour Party policy is a damn sight more than what National have signaled as it’s intention which is to as usual do nothing except provide empty rhetoric…
Two years ago, I looked into building a 70sq metre, two bedroom house minus the section, (without a garage). The lowest quote was about $150,000.
That was with the cheapest cladding, and without floorings, curtains, wall coverings etc.
I would hope Labour’s policy would involve the use of reasonably lasting materials, rather than making the cheapest buildings it is possible to create under the current regs.
They have built a number of re-locatable houses in Christchurch without garages for $100,000,(from memory they are sitting in a corner of Hagley Park),
The savings are to be found in the number of houses any organization is contracted to construct, for example, contract X company to build 2000 houses across Auckland using 4 or 5 different plans and the cost per house drops considerably,
Come to an agreement with the likes of the Auckland City Council,(as the Government), over such issues as having a single resource consent to build the 2000 houses and another considerable saving is made,
Standardize such things as the bathroom units in all the houses built and contract 1 plumbing agency to supply and install all the bathroom units in all the houses built and more savings on cost occur….
Yes, those sorts of savings (maybe $80k per house all up?) are not to be sniffed-at. I hope the many people who will take advantage of them, who would have been able to afford a house at the going rates, are suitably appreciative. (Equivalent to a gift of about five years of beneficiary income without having to go near a WINZ office!) However, I suspect they will still be advocating cutting back the meagre benefits and services to those who are genuinely in need, and feeling self righteous and superior.
But if Labour is prepared to build or buy the same numbers of state houses, I will bite my tongue about the whole middle-class welfare thing.
Yeah same, after the little discussion had here on the Standard with Labour’s Annette King last week i am holding off on my major criticism of Labour’s housing policy,(of by and for the middle class), until such time as Labour’s policy on the number of HousingNZ properties it intends to build is released,
It’s a work in progress according to Annette, but come election year if satisfactory numbers are not forthcoming i for one will be hollering as loudly as i can,
What worries me vis a vis the Labour housing policy and where the ‘land’ to build all these ‘for sale’ properties is to come from is that it will simply be a continuation of Nationals policy of bowling over State Houses and building upon the land for the children of the middle class who created the problem in the first place by piling into ‘rental investments’ …
and the National led government appear to have committed themselves to bring in “work capacity testing”, which according to the new major welfare reforms presently before Parliament are increasingly going to be outsourced, that have been designed by highly questionable “experts” previously on the payroll of controversial giant private insurer Unum Insurance .
A professor and “Sir” Mansel Aylward, as former ‘Chief Medical Officer’ for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in the UK, played a key role in the development of the UK’s medical assessment for incapacity (the All Work Test), the Personal Capability Assessment and the Pathways to Work initiative for vocational rehabilitation.
Application of these “tests” by equally controversial private assessors ‘ATOS Healthcare’ led to many seriously disabled, injured and sick being declared “fit for work”, and over much of 2011 alone, up to about 1100 deaths (incl. suicides) by affected people not able to cope with unreasonable, unacceptable expectations and pressures, have been the shocking result.
Persons are thrown off benefits in the UK, or shifted onto lower paid benefits, as a consequence of the “reforms” there, being considered “fit for work”, while many are not and thus appeal decisions.
See the following links for details, what is involved:
Ko Awatea has been set up as the ‘Health System Innovation Centre’ for the Counties Manukau DHB, which is again proving to be instrumental in the increasing outsourcing and “privatisation” of healthcare in NZ. Professor Aylward was involved in appointing key personnel working for a panel they set up to work out health reforms here. He also appears to be advising Counties Manukau DHB in other areas.
ACC has already used a version of the above mentioned “All Work Test”, which assisted the “exit strategy” used by them to get rid of high-cost, complex claimants, who have in their thousands been shifted onto WINZ benefits, accounting for some increase in numbers on invalid’s and sickness beneficiary numbers.
Now WINZ clients with incapacities are facing an on-slaught of a similar kind as in the UK, so that under the new system, most sickness beneficiaries will end up as “job seekers” and previous invalid’s beneficiaries (long term and permanent sick and disabled) will be moved onto the “living support payment” benefit (facing harsher criterias overall).
So, many readers may not feel affected, think they may “never” fall seriously ill and lose ability to work, and may thus pay little attention. But hey, accidents happen, sickness and injury can hit us all any time, and many disabled have no choice due to their conditions.
Be alert, aware and take action, to stop this bloody madness.
I have grave concerns about the changes pushing many disabled people beyond their ability to cope, to suicide, as has happened in Britain. For those whose lives are already so difficult, and financial circumstances so precarious, this kind of assault is particularly damaging.
The policy’s accompanying rhetoric villifying the disabled, has seen numbers of hate crimes against them in Britain skyrocket also.
Who-ever wrote Shearers bene-bashing roof-painter speech must just luuuurve the proposed changes,
The fact is that such changes not only ‘screw’ the individuals targeted but also tighten the screws on the local economy as the real intention is to shift beneficiaries from higher rates of benefit payments to lower ones,
Incidently, the model was mooted by the last Labour Government, although the punitive nature of what National now intend to accomplish may not have been…
I am going to re-post the Monbiot article that I posted yesterday, because I think it offers a very good conceptualisation of what is actually going on, behind the endless squeezing of beneficiaries, the inflated house prices and the increasing precariousness of paid work. His thesis, in a nut shell, is that neoliberalism is not a failed economic policy (in which case it would be abandoned) but a successful mode of conquest.
The unfortunate thing is that under the conditions of conquest, the elites tend to side with the conquerors, while the middle class side with the elites, and the powerless get mercilessly screwed. For local elites it means a career trajectory in the upper echelons, and for the middle class a chance to clip the ticket as the wealth travels upward and outward. For the poor it means disaster, especially since the poor of the Western world lost their historical province during their post-war period when they were elevated to faux middle class.
There is always some leeway, however, between total acquiescence and punishable disobedience, and I would like to see Labour making much more daring use of that leeway, toward the protection of local citizens. Australia has done a better job of it than us because Bob Hawke was more cautious in its implementation, and did not naively cry, “Yippee! Now we are going to be the Switzerland of the South Pacific.”
Yeah of course which is why they have the likes of Shearer slagging off a sickness beneficiary, (whom i presume was actually fictional),
For those on the lower end of the economy the prospects are to be used as a tool to enrich the 1% via low wages and employment insecurity,
Meanwhile the middle class becomes as you say a ‘ticket clipper’ taxing the wages of the poor via the demand for rental accommodation which a compliant series of Governments has refused to address thus securing their retirement savings while also being directly subsidized by such things as the ‘accommodation supplement’ which they gladly pass on to the 1% via the mortgage…
The Principal Health Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income, who has an incredible bias and compares benefit dependence to drug dependence, he has already been preparing AND implementing the new, more rigorous, relentless “hatchet” approach in medical assessments for sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries since he took up his role in 2007.
He (with others) was TRAINING the WINZ designated doctors in sessions all over NZ since 2008, to ensure they make the decisions in the way MSD and WINZ “expect”!
He appears to have felt intensely encouraged to get bolder with his personally biased views being integrated into “presentations” and speeches he presented at major GP conferences, meetings of health professionals in general, health profession trainers and the likes, especially since National has been leading the government, and since ‘Future Focus’ was brought in under Paula Bennett and her adored “master” PM, John Key.
Just have a look at some of these “presentations” full of pseudo medical scientific claims and findings, and his personal bias:
In another PowerPoint one called “Pressure, No Pressure”, which he prepared for GPs, so they can “deal with” “pushy patients” is also still available via online search, and can be downloaded easily.
He has been reported on in NZ Doctor magazine, once on 01 August 2012, comparing benefit dependence with drug dependence, and searching his name and the name of that publication in association via Google, Yahoo or any other engine will bring about that article to read.
Strangely that man “gets away” with this blatant, blunt approach, which tells us a lot about the philosophy, “mission” and “spirit” that his employer, the MSD leadership, follow and adhere to.
So we are already there, using practically “NAZI” style labeling, stigmatizing, blaming and so forth, what will the next round of reforms and new “work capacity assessments” under the ‘Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill’ bring for sick and disabled on benefits?
I predict it will be a life of constant fear, worry, despair and hopelessness, for those powerless and not able to defend themselves. Action is therefore needed to stop all this attack on sick and disabled in NZ right now.
Dr David Bratt was appointed under Labour. Winz Regional Health Advisors are another Labour initiative. Their main function appears to be removing as many ‘clients’ as possible from Invalid to Sickness benefit. They may, or may not be health professionals. I have rheumatoid arthritis, am on IB and work part-time, however a Bratt trained GP told me ‘if I can drive, I can work’ and ‘I should be repaying the cost (to society) of a recent joint replacement.’ My condition is incurable and getting worse, I dread the coming ‘reforms’, particularly as they are likely to be accompanied by demonising the disabled as has happened in Britain.
Hi Beattie.
What you describe is a disgrace. I’m aware that it was Labour that began this nasty mode of taking resources from those those who need them most, to give them to the wealthy “reforms”. I will talk to my local MP about this and will take along information about their lethal effects in Britain. I wish I could do more. Any ideas anyone?
Kia kaha. You are not alone.
My question to the GP would be “when is Pharmac going to start adding including improved work opportunity in the benefit side of the cost-benefit analysis of the heavily restricted RA drugs that every other developed country has been handing out for over decade to patients who are not improving on standard meds?” AFAIK Pharmac only includes direct health system related costs and benefits, which means NZers have really poor access to the new standard treatments that will probably improve quality of life and work ability.
Also, you, or someone close to you, paid tax in advance for that joint replacement. Tell the of GP to F* right off. S/he has no understanding at all of of the impact of RA that is not effectively controlled (which yours isn’t, if it’s getting worse).
I am sorry to hear about your struggles. Yes, you are right, the system with Principal Health Advisor Dr Bratt, more quiet and less “prominent” Principal Disability Advisor Anne Hawker, was designed and introduced under the last Labour led government.
Bear in mind though, with most policy and measures that governments introduce, it is usually upon the “suggestion” of policy developers in such government departments and ministries, like MSD and Work and Income. Hence governments ask for ideas and get presented what “internal” “specialists” have usually already worked on and thought out.
Then governments pick what fits into their agenda.
Indeed, most RHAs and RDAs are not necessarily appropriately qualified. Some are nurses (not necessarily registered), some rehab and other professionals. Few, if any, are proper, all-round, high calibre “experts”.
They are there to look at what they usually get presented in the way of reports and certificates from client’s own doctors, specialists or else, or from the “designated doctors” (who now are largely quite biased, as the conditions WINZ expects them to work under, necessitate this).
One good example of a RDA that is qualified and experienced in some “health” and “rehab” field is the one for the Southern Region, a Tanya Rissman. She is accidentally also “acting” RHA, as they appear to have had difficulty hiring one.
Her experience and qualifications are in teaching and counselling, and she worked “with” psychologists, social workers and other “health experts”, for instance when running “Antics Ltd”, a kind of consultation and social service delivery agency, that appears to have run out of business long ago (probably due to funding issues).
She is considered to have skills in teaching kids with learning difficulties, in social work and working with others, but is hardly a GP, a surgeon, a psychologist let alone psychiatrist. Yet WINZ and MSD have kept her for years, to make recommendations (usually signed at the dotted line by case managers) about sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries, or applicants.
To get an impression of where she comes from, look at page 39 of this interesting publication:
You can also google her name, and a bit more will show, but with most RHAs and RDAs, they are very “secretive” characters, of whom not much can be found at all, last of all the register of the Medical Council or Nurses Council!
I know its the time of year when political debate dies down, but surely we can have a bit more in-depth reporting than the current yawn inducing articles that are passing for journalism in the MSM these days. I mean endless stories about Paul Holmes are one thing, but the totally uncritical analysis in our main newspaper about what National has been up to is another thing entirely. A quad bike accident is simply not front-page news people, and unless the media start to hold John Key’s government to account for their woeful performance, New Zealand will continue to go backwards under the neoliberal agenda.
‘unless the media start to hold John Key’s government to account for their woeful performance, New Zealand will continue to go backwards under the neoliberal agenda..’
don’t hold your breath, the MSM are part of the game positioned cleverly to look like ‘independants’ when they are actually assisting in in the swindle of public assets, the illusion of choice as Goerge Carlin would have said (RIP George), youtube george it’s worth it.
Holmes, Woodham, Hyde, pretty much all TVNZ and the similarly vacuous TV3, campbell has his moments but he’s easily isolated. Then there’s that whole land of red neck radio rantville.
Given recent media comments by the one for NZ First, I am wondering, whether she really can be counted to belong to “the opposition”!?
The others I have mixed feelings about, but Jan Logie I have had some positive experiences with, she is just busy with many other spokesperson responsibilities also, so that limits her focus on welfare a bit.
I did it TWICE by the way, as the system is so set up, that they seem to allow numerous participants make repeated contributions from the same computer!?
So much for “representativeness” of any survey. I did not do this out of malice, but rather just to try it, and the messages sent were more or less the same.
Yes, I most strongly recommend everybody does participate, and give MSD the answers they would least expect, that is, to tell them, hey, this will not work without involving and fairly asking the affected about how to “assist” sick and disabled into some possibly suitable work (where it may be possible).
Also, express staunchly your reservations, reject the outsourcing of work capacity assessments, the privatisation of welfare, the involvement of hatchet doctors, i.e. criticise the the assessments as they are done already by internal WiNZ advisors. Insist that the client’s own doctor, support persons, advocates and the clients themselves must be included and listened to before “helping” people (those who may be able) back into work.
Also challenge the role of employers, who are generally very biased and discriminatory, not seriously giving disabled and incapacitated sick any fair chance for dignified, paid employment. Incentives should be given to willing clients and employers to trial work, without sanctions if it does not work out for acceptable health or other reasons.
Expectation should be brought across, that whatever they do will totally comply with natural justice, the Human Rights Act, the Bill of Rights Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Disabled, and so forth. I also stated they should primarily involve the affected clients AND their support organisations, leave assessments on work capacity to primarily the client’s own doctors, and to otherwise only seek further recommendations on truly independent medical experts or rehab professionals.
They should get rid of the totally biased and unreasonable Dr DAvid Bratt, they should refrain from training “designated doctors” and actually pro-creatively assist those back into work, who are genuinely able to do some work.
I strongly suggest that ALL that are concerned do the same. State the objections, justified concerns, that sickness beneficiaries should not be automatically grouped together with “job seekers” and the likes.
Rather than leave the survey over to ones that will have a bias against beneficiaries, that support the draconian measures planned, and that may thus “serve” the interests of MSD (who will largely have advised the government on what changes can and should be made!) and naturally this present government, it is a MUST to offer more truthful, objective, experience based and legally backed up information, views and suggestions.
That way more of us will be heard. Whether they will listen to us is another story of course. At least, you will have done your best and raised your voices.
Talk about loaded questions! “There is considerable evidence that work is good for wellbeing and unemployment is not. What do you think is the best way to assist disabled people or people with a health condition or mental health condition get into and stay in work?” Every question is pretty much the same.
I wonder what the big disability groups like CCS and IHC have to say about it? They should be all over this.
Helen is doing a fantastic job. She has been praised for the efforts she has made and the initives she has implemented by every international leader she has come into contact with.
She turned this county into the greatest place on earth. It is a wee bit more difficult to do that to the billions of starving people in this world. But she is getting there.
No I’m saying the report which has come from the board of UNDP says the department she runs is not doing anything for poverty (I’m just going to repeat myself since you can’t read apparently) I have no idea whether she has been doing a good job or not.
I agree with Olwyn below it is likely that she has been following what the board has instructed but they have now decided that it has not been effective.
What is far more ridiculous is to determine that the board of the UNDP is MSM and decide she is making a huge difference to poverty when the department she works for has just announced that they are not making any real difference.
There is a lack of context to the report, which seems to come from the UNDP board itself. Helen Clark is not someone who is known for doing things by halves, so I am guessing that they may be in the process of changing their priorities, and that whoever wrote the article has drawn a long bow to suggest that this amounts to criticism of Helen Clark. After all, many of her decisions would surely accord with the board’s priorities.
Also on TV3 site another headline “Civil servants beware of NZ’ – British paper.
after two brits head home after short stints in top jobs for the nact key led govt
Sorry can’t link.
Well, I cannot blame them to caution Brits coming here to take jobs, as I have been experiencing a fair bit of “bizarre” conduct in NZ government departments and private companies, when it comes to working with migrants.
The “tall poppy syndrome” is still extremely strong, it is often a network environment, where “old mates” stick together, and new ones have to cross the walk of fire, before they may be accepted.
If accepting a senior position, I am sure, there will be an immense challenge for any migrant CEO, manager or whatever, to convince and be accepted. In some cases it happens, in others it goes very wrong.
But I do not miss Grossman, for sure. Yet I am totally convinced, there is more to her swift resignation, than what Bennett tells the public. Cultural differences exist, but are just part of the whole mixture of challenges to deal with.
The article “Exposure of sex-for-fees web site underscores UK student poverty” discusses the growth of prositution among UK students struggling to meet rising fees and living costs:
‘The Independent reported recently on a web site offering students up to £15,000 a year to have sex with its clients. A reporter used a concealed camera to record a meeting with an “assessor” from SponsorAScholar.co.uk, Mark Lancaster. He explained that the level of remuneration students received depended on the sexual acts they agreed to engage in with their “sponsor.” The student was told they would have to undergo a “practical assessment” in order to qualify…. New research shows that the number of students engaged in sex work, including lap dancing, pole dancing, escorting and prostitution, has doubled over the last year, reaching 6 percent of the total.’
I wonder if any similar sites operate in NZ – where tertiary students are also loaded with huge debts – and if any similar research into student prositution has been undertaken.
New Zealand is a wealthy country by any measure. It can certainly grow enough food for everyone and enough resources to build a good roof over each head, before even starting on other matters such as a doctor for every so many souls.
So why can’t we do that?
Why can’t we New Zealanders adequately provide for all of us? What is stopping it? What has caused this bizarre and obscenely rude situation?
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When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – It’s becoming increasingly apparent that many perceive free speech to have become the preserve of the politically right wing, the religiously conservative, the libertarian fringe, the anti-trans, the anti-Māori and…. well, just fill in with whatever groups or individuals you don’t like and don’t ...
Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
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Listening to National radio this morning & hearing the medium house price in Auckland is $535.000 shows we are in crisis with affordable housing. To hear Housing New Zealand ( a Government entity) is referring renters paying up to 80% of their income to charitable agencies such as the Sallies for financial assistance is a bloody disgrace!
Meanwhile house prices are rising at increasingly alarming rates while the job market continues to stagnate.
Government intervention to cool this unacceptable situation and to ‘create employment in the house building sector’ should be a priority one would think.
It’s a contradiction that National would have people believe that property investors will invest in power shares when the returns on property investment are booming again. This was highlighted to me recently whilst in Whangarei on holiday. I got speaking to an old guy in Whangarei who buys in what you could categorize as the first home buyers market. He buys & sells making on average 20% to 30% profit. Happy to gloat it’s setup so he avoids tax?
With a recent survey showing 70% support for Labour’s 100.000 new affordable homes policy, the question remains what is National going to do if anything?
Shearer did a good job this morning on National Radio stating Labour’s proposed solutions. Quick question: when Annette King goes to run at the Mayoralty, who will be Housing Spokesperson? It’s Labour’s best policy so far leading up to 2014. It’s going to need a solid political unit to break the mean cycle of property capitalism (particularly in Auckland).
At the moment Housing and Building are in MBIE. Shearer acknowledged this morning that working clsoely with Councils particularly Auckland is going to be critical to achieving the housing policy goal. Maybe it’s time to wrap DIA’s Local Government functions into MBIE and start to remake cities holistically, including with housing.
coronial typer: So what the hell did Shearer propose then?
You say he was on National Radio, but who did he propose to take over housing, what else did he offer but repeating, they would talk with councils???
I am sorry, you delivered no real information, which leaves us again with: An empty handed, vaguely talking, nothing offering David Shearer, on housing and much else.
Major Roberts’ crocodile tears disguises the fact that he was on the working group that recommended the changes to the state housing that we are seeing the concequences of.
You assume he had any actual power on the working group.
The Sallies are a weird bunch.
I accept that they often make good submissions on proposed laws and so, they are outspoken on social failures, on shortcomings of the government, but then again, they are also “players” in the game, when it comes to getting some government hand-outs to run welfare and in future housing.
I am afraid, you cannot expect all that much of real change and ideas from an organisation with religious values, which is caring of course, but also depends on the purse strings of donors, sponsors, and also the government.
The same applies to numerous “advocacy groups”, who, as I found out, actually get money from MSD to “deliver” their “services”.
So no bloody wonder the advocates are not all that strongly outspoken against welfare and other reforms. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, right?
What is this country all about, either you have private operators and business run the show, or you have the government have its tentacles all over the place, thus keeping control of things.
NZ is screwed like this, and no matter how sincere and outspoken critics here are, all this is huff and puff into the air, right?!
Albert Einstein said that “Doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result” is a definition of Insanity.
What is different between the election winning plan employed by the Labour strategy team under Phil from the one under Shearer?
KV: Correct diagnosis! No difference!
Gosh it would have been great if Mallard and Robertson, the guys who ran Labour’s campaign last time, actually apologised for performing worse than the New Zealand cricket team. The’ve performed badly for about as long as each other.
Not sure when or if Shearer will do a reshuffle of responsibility, but I would have thought a basic Key Peformance indicator for the lot of whoever backs him would be: win the election.
B*ll*x to an Apology, AD!
We just want to see a sign from Shearer that he realised he had been conned by Trevir n Robertson and used by Phil and Annette.
When we see that sign then we will believe that there is a real change afoot.
Otherswise it is worse than it was under Phil.
Change David, please change your team.
You highlight 3 major issues there, if as a country we made the avoidance of tax just as criminal as the evasion of it and had the staff in the States revenue collection agency to actually force the collection of the estimated 7 billion dollars annually either avoided or evaded there would be more than enough revenue for the Government to fix what is becoming an increasingly ugly societal problem,
When tenants are forced to pay 50%+ of their income to put a roof over their heads an economic drag is created in the local economy, such money simply being a tax upon that persons production passing through the hands of the landlord class to the banks which hold the mortgage over the property and so denying the local economy the use of such money in what would be best described as the normal course of economic activity,
While i understand Labour’s proposed ‘fix’ to such a crisis of affordability where ‘most’ of what is presently being constructed, (especially in Auckland), are far larger than ‘needed’ icons of over-consumption which pushes the price of buying a home into the realm of fantasy for the lower bands of income earners, Labour propose to build far more modest housing (2 bedrooms plus garage can be built for $120,000 +land), i still feel Labour fail to grasp the fundamental problem in the rental market,
Landlords locked into a mortgage are not going to suddenly drop the price of their rental stock because a Government builds houses for sale at a lesser cost to the purchaser, those unable to access such Government largesse will still be trapped in the market for private rentals paying 50%+ of their income in rent,
Having said that, i will not be overly critical of Labour’s plan to build 100,000 of these low cost houses for sale while Labour still wrestles with it’s policy on the numbers of State owned rental houses it intends to build,
Needless to say,even the present Labour Party policy is a damn sight more than what National have signaled as it’s intention which is to as usual do nothing except provide empty rhetoric…
Ooops, forgot to hit the reply tab, the above relates to comment (1) above…
Two years ago, I looked into building a 70sq metre, two bedroom house minus the section, (without a garage). The lowest quote was about $150,000.
That was with the cheapest cladding, and without floorings, curtains, wall coverings etc.
I would hope Labour’s policy would involve the use of reasonably lasting materials, rather than making the cheapest buildings it is possible to create under the current regs.
They have built a number of re-locatable houses in Christchurch without garages for $100,000,(from memory they are sitting in a corner of Hagley Park),
The savings are to be found in the number of houses any organization is contracted to construct, for example, contract X company to build 2000 houses across Auckland using 4 or 5 different plans and the cost per house drops considerably,
Come to an agreement with the likes of the Auckland City Council,(as the Government), over such issues as having a single resource consent to build the 2000 houses and another considerable saving is made,
Standardize such things as the bathroom units in all the houses built and contract 1 plumbing agency to supply and install all the bathroom units in all the houses built and more savings on cost occur….
Yes, those sorts of savings (maybe $80k per house all up?) are not to be sniffed-at. I hope the many people who will take advantage of them, who would have been able to afford a house at the going rates, are suitably appreciative. (Equivalent to a gift of about five years of beneficiary income without having to go near a WINZ office!) However, I suspect they will still be advocating cutting back the meagre benefits and services to those who are genuinely in need, and feeling self righteous and superior.
But if Labour is prepared to build or buy the same numbers of state houses, I will bite my tongue about the whole middle-class welfare thing.
Yeah same, after the little discussion had here on the Standard with Labour’s Annette King last week i am holding off on my major criticism of Labour’s housing policy,(of by and for the middle class), until such time as Labour’s policy on the number of HousingNZ properties it intends to build is released,
It’s a work in progress according to Annette, but come election year if satisfactory numbers are not forthcoming i for one will be hollering as loudly as i can,
What worries me vis a vis the Labour housing policy and where the ‘land’ to build all these ‘for sale’ properties is to come from is that it will simply be a continuation of Nationals policy of bowling over State Houses and building upon the land for the children of the middle class who created the problem in the first place by piling into ‘rental investments’ …
Paula Bennett –
and the National led government appear to have committed themselves to bring in “work capacity testing”, which according to the new major welfare reforms presently before Parliament are increasingly going to be outsourced, that have been designed by highly questionable “experts” previously on the payroll of controversial giant private insurer Unum Insurance .
A professor and “Sir” Mansel Aylward, as former ‘Chief Medical Officer’ for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in the UK, played a key role in the development of the UK’s medical assessment for incapacity (the All Work Test), the Personal Capability Assessment and the Pathways to Work initiative for vocational rehabilitation.
Application of these “tests” by equally controversial private assessors ‘ATOS Healthcare’ led to many seriously disabled, injured and sick being declared “fit for work”, and over much of 2011 alone, up to about 1100 deaths (incl. suicides) by affected people not able to cope with unreasonable, unacceptable expectations and pressures, have been the shocking result.
Persons are thrown off benefits in the UK, or shifted onto lower paid benefits, as a consequence of the “reforms” there, being considered “fit for work”, while many are not and thus appeal decisions.
See the following links for details, what is involved:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8165236/Work-tests-concern-disability-organisation
http://www.ccsdisabilityaction.org.nz/news/687-proposed-work-tests-are-concerning
http://includingallpeople.org.nz/?p=385
http://blacktrianglecampaign.org/2012/10/31/government-use-might-of-american-insurance-giant-to-destroy-uk-safety-net-by-mo-stewart-update/
(TRULY A MUST READ ARTICLE!!!)
http://atosvictimsgroup.co.uk/tag/mansel-aylward/
http://koawatea.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Ko-Awatea-white-paper-02-Independent-Commentator-Panel.pdf
http://koawatea.co.nz/ko-awatea-visitors-sir-mansel-aylward/
Ko Awatea has been set up as the ‘Health System Innovation Centre’ for the Counties Manukau DHB, which is again proving to be instrumental in the increasing outsourcing and “privatisation” of healthcare in NZ. Professor Aylward was involved in appointing key personnel working for a panel they set up to work out health reforms here. He also appears to be advising Counties Manukau DHB in other areas.
ACC has already used a version of the above mentioned “All Work Test”, which assisted the “exit strategy” used by them to get rid of high-cost, complex claimants, who have in their thousands been shifted onto WINZ benefits, accounting for some increase in numbers on invalid’s and sickness beneficiary numbers.
Now WINZ clients with incapacities are facing an on-slaught of a similar kind as in the UK, so that under the new system, most sickness beneficiaries will end up as “job seekers” and previous invalid’s beneficiaries (long term and permanent sick and disabled) will be moved onto the “living support payment” benefit (facing harsher criterias overall).
So, many readers may not feel affected, think they may “never” fall seriously ill and lose ability to work, and may thus pay little attention. But hey, accidents happen, sickness and injury can hit us all any time, and many disabled have no choice due to their conditions.
Be alert, aware and take action, to stop this bloody madness.
Xtasy
I have grave concerns about the changes pushing many disabled people beyond their ability to cope, to suicide, as has happened in Britain. For those whose lives are already so difficult, and financial circumstances so precarious, this kind of assault is particularly damaging.
The policy’s accompanying rhetoric villifying the disabled, has seen numbers of hate crimes against them in Britain skyrocket also.
Who-ever wrote Shearers bene-bashing roof-painter speech must just luuuurve the proposed changes,
The fact is that such changes not only ‘screw’ the individuals targeted but also tighten the screws on the local economy as the real intention is to shift beneficiaries from higher rates of benefit payments to lower ones,
Incidently, the model was mooted by the last Labour Government, although the punitive nature of what National now intend to accomplish may not have been…
I am going to re-post the Monbiot article that I posted yesterday, because I think it offers a very good conceptualisation of what is actually going on, behind the endless squeezing of beneficiaries, the inflated house prices and the increasing precariousness of paid work. His thesis, in a nut shell, is that neoliberalism is not a failed economic policy (in which case it would be abandoned) but a successful mode of conquest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/neoliberal-theory-economic-failure
The unfortunate thing is that under the conditions of conquest, the elites tend to side with the conquerors, while the middle class side with the elites, and the powerless get mercilessly screwed. For local elites it means a career trajectory in the upper echelons, and for the middle class a chance to clip the ticket as the wealth travels upward and outward. For the poor it means disaster, especially since the poor of the Western world lost their historical province during their post-war period when they were elevated to faux middle class.
There is always some leeway, however, between total acquiescence and punishable disobedience, and I would like to see Labour making much more daring use of that leeway, toward the protection of local citizens. Australia has done a better job of it than us because Bob Hawke was more cautious in its implementation, and did not naively cry, “Yippee! Now we are going to be the Switzerland of the South Pacific.”
Yeah of course which is why they have the likes of Shearer slagging off a sickness beneficiary, (whom i presume was actually fictional),
For those on the lower end of the economy the prospects are to be used as a tool to enrich the 1% via low wages and employment insecurity,
Meanwhile the middle class becomes as you say a ‘ticket clipper’ taxing the wages of the poor via the demand for rental accommodation which a compliant series of Governments has refused to address thus securing their retirement savings while also being directly subsidized by such things as the ‘accommodation supplement’ which they gladly pass on to the 1% via the mortgage…
Lest we forget – Dr David Bratt –
The Principal Health Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income, who has an incredible bias and compares benefit dependence to drug dependence, he has already been preparing AND implementing the new, more rigorous, relentless “hatchet” approach in medical assessments for sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries since he took up his role in 2007.
He (with others) was TRAINING the WINZ designated doctors in sessions all over NZ since 2008, to ensure they make the decisions in the way MSD and WINZ “expect”!
He appears to have felt intensely encouraged to get bolder with his personally biased views being integrated into “presentations” and speeches he presented at major GP conferences, meetings of health professionals in general, health profession trainers and the likes, especially since National has been leading the government, and since ‘Future Focus’ was brought in under Paula Bennett and her adored “master” PM, John Key.
Just have a look at some of these “presentations” full of pseudo medical scientific claims and findings, and his personal bias:
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/GP%20CME/Friday/C1%201515%20Bratt-Hawker.pdf
(‘Ready, Steady, Crook, Are we killing our patients with kindness?’ is that one called, from 2010)
http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/WelfareWorkingGroup/Downloads/Forum/David-Bratt-Benefit-Sunshine.pdf
(‘Benefit Sunshine’, the one from also about 2010, which was also presented at the Welfare Working Group Forum)
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/2012/Fri_DaVinci_1400_Bratt_Medical%20Certificates%20are%20Clinical%20Instruments%20too%20-%20June%202012.pdf
(‘Medical Certificates are Clinical Instruments too’, which appears to be his most recent PDF style presentation from 2012)
In another PowerPoint one called “Pressure, No Pressure”, which he prepared for GPs, so they can “deal with” “pushy patients” is also still available via online search, and can be downloaded easily.
He has been reported on in NZ Doctor magazine, once on 01 August 2012, comparing benefit dependence with drug dependence, and searching his name and the name of that publication in association via Google, Yahoo or any other engine will bring about that article to read.
Strangely that man “gets away” with this blatant, blunt approach, which tells us a lot about the philosophy, “mission” and “spirit” that his employer, the MSD leadership, follow and adhere to.
So we are already there, using practically “NAZI” style labeling, stigmatizing, blaming and so forth, what will the next round of reforms and new “work capacity assessments” under the ‘Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill’ bring for sick and disabled on benefits?
I predict it will be a life of constant fear, worry, despair and hopelessness, for those powerless and not able to defend themselves. Action is therefore needed to stop all this attack on sick and disabled in NZ right now.
See also this for additional info:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/POST-PN-413
http://www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=POST-PN-413
Dr David Bratt was appointed under Labour. Winz Regional Health Advisors are another Labour initiative. Their main function appears to be removing as many ‘clients’ as possible from Invalid to Sickness benefit. They may, or may not be health professionals. I have rheumatoid arthritis, am on IB and work part-time, however a Bratt trained GP told me ‘if I can drive, I can work’ and ‘I should be repaying the cost (to society) of a recent joint replacement.’ My condition is incurable and getting worse, I dread the coming ‘reforms’, particularly as they are likely to be accompanied by demonising the disabled as has happened in Britain.
Hi Beattie.
What you describe is a disgrace. I’m aware that it was Labour that began this nasty mode of
taking resources from those those who need them most, to give them to the wealthy“reforms”. I will talk to my local MP about this and will take along information about their lethal effects in Britain. I wish I could do more. Any ideas anyone?Kia kaha. You are not alone.
beatie – I know how you feel.
My question to the GP would be “when is Pharmac going to start adding including improved work opportunity in the benefit side of the cost-benefit analysis of the heavily restricted RA drugs that every other developed country has been handing out for over decade to patients who are not improving on standard meds?” AFAIK Pharmac only includes direct health system related costs and benefits, which means NZers have really poor access to the new standard treatments that will probably improve quality of life and work ability.
Also, you, or someone close to you, paid tax in advance for that joint replacement. Tell the of GP to F* right off. S/he has no understanding at all of of the impact of RA that is not effectively controlled (which yours isn’t, if it’s getting worse).
Hi beatie
I am sorry to hear about your struggles. Yes, you are right, the system with Principal Health Advisor Dr Bratt, more quiet and less “prominent” Principal Disability Advisor Anne Hawker, was designed and introduced under the last Labour led government.
Bear in mind though, with most policy and measures that governments introduce, it is usually upon the “suggestion” of policy developers in such government departments and ministries, like MSD and Work and Income. Hence governments ask for ideas and get presented what “internal” “specialists” have usually already worked on and thought out.
Then governments pick what fits into their agenda.
Indeed, most RHAs and RDAs are not necessarily appropriately qualified. Some are nurses (not necessarily registered), some rehab and other professionals. Few, if any, are proper, all-round, high calibre “experts”.
They are there to look at what they usually get presented in the way of reports and certificates from client’s own doctors, specialists or else, or from the “designated doctors” (who now are largely quite biased, as the conditions WINZ expects them to work under, necessitate this).
One good example of a RDA that is qualified and experienced in some “health” and “rehab” field is the one for the Southern Region, a Tanya Rissman. She is accidentally also “acting” RHA, as they appear to have had difficulty hiring one.
Her experience and qualifications are in teaching and counselling, and she worked “with” psychologists, social workers and other “health experts”, for instance when running “Antics Ltd”, a kind of consultation and social service delivery agency, that appears to have run out of business long ago (probably due to funding issues).
She is considered to have skills in teaching kids with learning difficulties, in social work and working with others, but is hardly a GP, a surgeon, a psychologist let alone psychiatrist. Yet WINZ and MSD have kept her for years, to make recommendations (usually signed at the dotted line by case managers) about sickness and invalid’s beneficiaries, or applicants.
To get an impression of where she comes from, look at page 39 of this interesting publication:
http://alumnionline.massey.ac.nz/documents/MASSEY-Nov-2002.pdf
You can also google her name, and a bit more will show, but with most RHAs and RDAs, they are very “secretive” characters, of whom not much can be found at all, last of all the register of the Medical Council or Nurses Council!
I know its the time of year when political debate dies down, but surely we can have a bit more in-depth reporting than the current yawn inducing articles that are passing for journalism in the MSM these days. I mean endless stories about Paul Holmes are one thing, but the totally uncritical analysis in our main newspaper about what National has been up to is another thing entirely. A quad bike accident is simply not front-page news people, and unless the media start to hold John Key’s government to account for their woeful performance, New Zealand will continue to go backwards under the neoliberal agenda.
‘unless the media start to hold John Key’s government to account for their woeful performance, New Zealand will continue to go backwards under the neoliberal agenda..’
don’t hold your breath, the MSM are part of the game positioned cleverly to look like ‘independants’ when they are actually assisting in in the swindle of public assets, the illusion of choice as Goerge Carlin would have said (RIP George), youtube george it’s worth it.
Holmes, Woodham, Hyde, pretty much all TVNZ and the similarly vacuous TV3, campbell has his moments but he’s easily isolated. Then there’s that whole land of red neck radio rantville.
Love live TS.
Speaking of quiet time of year I notice this survey went up on MSD website on the 7th Jan.
http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/welfare-reform/july-2013/ill-health-disability-feedback.html
Doesn’t say how long it’s up for.
I was looking for SB stats for another post and remembered this one when I saw this.
Done.
Many thanks DoS.
If anyone has five minutes to spare, please consider filling out the survey.
Does anyone know which opposition members are on the select committee?
Yes, I did that survey. Very therapeutic, despite the loaded questions. BTW thanks for your kind response.
Opposition members are:
Jacinda Ardern, Rajen Prasad, Su’a William Sio (all Labour), Jan Logie (Greens) and Asenati Lole Taylor (NZ First).
See also:
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/Default.htm?pf=CommitteeShortName&sf=Social+Services&lgc=0
Given recent media comments by the one for NZ First, I am wondering, whether she really can be counted to belong to “the opposition”!?
The others I have mixed feelings about, but Jan Logie I have had some positive experiences with, she is just busy with many other spokesperson responsibilities also, so that limits her focus on welfare a bit.
DoS:
I did it TWICE by the way, as the system is so set up, that they seem to allow numerous participants make repeated contributions from the same computer!?
So much for “representativeness” of any survey. I did not do this out of malice, but rather just to try it, and the messages sent were more or less the same.
Yes, I most strongly recommend everybody does participate, and give MSD the answers they would least expect, that is, to tell them, hey, this will not work without involving and fairly asking the affected about how to “assist” sick and disabled into some possibly suitable work (where it may be possible).
Also, express staunchly your reservations, reject the outsourcing of work capacity assessments, the privatisation of welfare, the involvement of hatchet doctors, i.e. criticise the the assessments as they are done already by internal WiNZ advisors. Insist that the client’s own doctor, support persons, advocates and the clients themselves must be included and listened to before “helping” people (those who may be able) back into work.
Also challenge the role of employers, who are generally very biased and discriminatory, not seriously giving disabled and incapacitated sick any fair chance for dignified, paid employment. Incentives should be given to willing clients and employers to trial work, without sanctions if it does not work out for acceptable health or other reasons.
Expectation should be brought across, that whatever they do will totally comply with natural justice, the Human Rights Act, the Bill of Rights Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Disabled, and so forth. I also stated they should primarily involve the affected clients AND their support organisations, leave assessments on work capacity to primarily the client’s own doctors, and to otherwise only seek further recommendations on truly independent medical experts or rehab professionals.
They should get rid of the totally biased and unreasonable Dr DAvid Bratt, they should refrain from training “designated doctors” and actually pro-creatively assist those back into work, who are genuinely able to do some work.
I strongly suggest that ALL that are concerned do the same. State the objections, justified concerns, that sickness beneficiaries should not be automatically grouped together with “job seekers” and the likes.
Rather than leave the survey over to ones that will have a bias against beneficiaries, that support the draconian measures planned, and that may thus “serve” the interests of MSD (who will largely have advised the government on what changes can and should be made!) and naturally this present government, it is a MUST to offer more truthful, objective, experience based and legally backed up information, views and suggestions.
That way more of us will be heard. Whether they will listen to us is another story of course. At least, you will have done your best and raised your voices.
Talk about loaded questions! “There is considerable evidence that work is good for wellbeing and unemployment is not. What do you think is the best way to assist disabled people or people with a health condition or mental health condition get into and stay in work?” Every question is pretty much the same.
I wonder what the big disability groups like CCS and IHC have to say about it? They should be all over this.
My loaded answer was ‘flexible employment conditions withing a proper employment contract’ Every answer pretty much the same.
They are obviously NOT, as they are likely to also depend (at least partly) on “public funds” from, guess whom? THE MINISTRY!
Is there a way to hide the fact that we are all linking from The Standard when we go to that survey? Is cutting and pasting the URL enough?
Just go straight to the MSD website, put in survey or welfare in the search box, and bingo, you have it, without any cross linkeage!
There is a scathing report for our ex PM Helen Clark from the UN, this is on TV3 website,
sorry can’t link.
Ignore that MSM bias report.
Helen is doing a fantastic job. She has been praised for the efforts she has made and the initives she has implemented by every international leader she has come into contact with.
She turned this county into the greatest place on earth. It is a wee bit more difficult to do that to the billions of starving people in this world. But she is getting there.
When did the board of UNDP become MSM? It’s essentially a report from her employers that the department she runs is doing nothing for poverty.
Are you saying that Helen Clark is doing a poor job? What an idiot
No I’m saying the report which has come from the board of UNDP says the department she runs is not doing anything for poverty (I’m just going to repeat myself since you can’t read apparently) I have no idea whether she has been doing a good job or not.
I agree with Olwyn below it is likely that she has been following what the board has instructed but they have now decided that it has not been effective.
What is far more ridiculous is to determine that the board of the UNDP is MSM and decide she is making a huge difference to poverty when the department she works for has just announced that they are not making any real difference.
There is a lack of context to the report, which seems to come from the UNDP board itself. Helen Clark is not someone who is known for doing things by halves, so I am guessing that they may be in the process of changing their priorities, and that whoever wrote the article has drawn a long bow to suggest that this amounts to criticism of Helen Clark. After all, many of her decisions would surely accord with the board’s priorities.
Also on TV3 site another headline “Civil servants beware of NZ’ – British paper.
after two brits head home after short stints in top jobs for the nact key led govt
Sorry can’t link.
Yes, this is it:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Civil-servants-beware-of-NZ–UK-paper/tabid/423/articleID/283284/Default.aspx
Well, I cannot blame them to caution Brits coming here to take jobs, as I have been experiencing a fair bit of “bizarre” conduct in NZ government departments and private companies, when it comes to working with migrants.
The “tall poppy syndrome” is still extremely strong, it is often a network environment, where “old mates” stick together, and new ones have to cross the walk of fire, before they may be accepted.
If accepting a senior position, I am sure, there will be an immense challenge for any migrant CEO, manager or whatever, to convince and be accepted. In some cases it happens, in others it goes very wrong.
But I do not miss Grossman, for sure. Yet I am totally convinced, there is more to her swift resignation, than what Bennett tells the public. Cultural differences exist, but are just part of the whole mixture of challenges to deal with.
There is a scathing report for our ex PM Helen Clark from the UN…
It transpires it covered the period prior to Helen Clark taking charge.
Don’t ever let the truth get in the way of one’s political bias…
Yep. Clark’s not even mentioned. It’s not even all that “scathing”.
This seems to be it.
The article “Exposure of sex-for-fees web site underscores UK student poverty” discusses the growth of prositution among UK students struggling to meet rising fees and living costs:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/15/stud-j15.html
‘The Independent reported recently on a web site offering students up to £15,000 a year to have sex with its clients. A reporter used a concealed camera to record a meeting with an “assessor” from SponsorAScholar.co.uk, Mark Lancaster. He explained that the level of remuneration students received depended on the sexual acts they agreed to engage in with their “sponsor.” The student was told they would have to undergo a “practical assessment” in order to qualify…. New research shows that the number of students engaged in sex work, including lap dancing, pole dancing, escorting and prostitution, has doubled over the last year, reaching 6 percent of the total.’
I wonder if any similar sites operate in NZ – where tertiary students are also loaded with huge debts – and if any similar research into student prositution has been undertaken.
New Zealand is a wealthy country by any measure. It can certainly grow enough food for everyone and enough resources to build a good roof over each head, before even starting on other matters such as a doctor for every so many souls.
So why can’t we do that?
Why can’t we New Zealanders adequately provide for all of us? What is stopping it? What has caused this bizarre and obscenely rude situation?
Does anyone know?
Neo-liberalism, red-neckism with a dash of god-bothering.
Well said millsy . I would also add too much booze that slows down the brain.