Open mike 25/07/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 25th, 2024 - 40 comments
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40 comments on “Open mike 25/07/2024 ”

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  1. Kay 1
    25 July 2024 at 8:23 am

    In light of the damning report into the abuse in care, I would like to remind others of another 'report' done in 2005- Report of the Confidential Forum for Former In-Patients of Psychiatric Hospitals.

    https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/ArcAggregator/arcView/frameView/IE12126512/http://www.dia.govt.nz/Agency-Confidential-Forum-for-Former-In-Patients-of-Psychiatric-Hospitals-Index

    And the final report

    https://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/ArcAggregator//arcView/resource/IE12126512//http://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/Files/CFPages070627/$file/CFPages070627.pdf

    I was one of the first people in NZ to testify in front of the panel, having been caught up in the very tail end of the institution system in my late teens. For reasons that wouldn't happen these days, but were incredibly easy to do with the 1969 MH Act. Put it this way, an awful lot of people were incarcerated- often illegally-for no clinical reason, but simply because the system made it easy, and the public fully supported it.

    The forum was never going to result in any formal enquiry, like systems that hurt children did (Lake Alice, abuse in care). We were given the patronising option of free counselling, or support in taking legitimate criminal complaints to the police which would not have got anywhere.

    I don't know anyone at the time who was interested in financial redress, although God knows we deserved it then and still do. What we wanted was an acknowledgement from the State that yes, what we testified about happened, it was true, and we're sorry this happened to you. Ha ha, still waiting. Around that time was the apology to the descendants of Chinese immigrants forced to pay a poll tax 100 years ago. One can only assume our descendants might get an apology when the last of us have died off?

    This was Helen Clark's government, and Helen was also the health minister in the late 1980s when I contacted her to tell her what was happening. Politicians were well aware, but 'out of mind, out of sight' has always been the order of day. I mean, who can believe a mental patient? Easy cop-out.

    A big reason I will never vote for Labour, they will never be forgiven. I was also illegally disenfranchised at this time, and unable to get onto the electoral role till I was 20.

    There's a good reason we're called 'psychiatric survivors'- we manged to get out of those places still alive. But not unscathed. Like many others, I've been left with diagnosed PTSD from my experiences, and the release of this report yesterday has triggered that. I'm on a news blackout to protect myself.

    I just want people to know there is another group abused in care, who successive governments have chosen to disregard, and by some patronising setup where we can tell our stories, that will make everything ok, and absolve any sense of discomfort for the State.

    • SPC 1.1
      25 July 2024 at 12:10 pm

      It will interesting to see if the stalkers legislation promoted by Ginny Anderson MP, now taken over by the current government, covers the use of "technology".

      The technology to abuse people in their homes, anonymously, is the topic that politicians worldwide do not and will not mention.

      Not only the state and its agencies have the capacity to do this.

    • gsays 1.2
      25 July 2024 at 12:24 pm

      Hi Kay, nothing I write can alleviate your pain. I have been thinking about yr comment most of the morning.

      I have no idea of the suffering and misery you have gone through. To add to that, the potent sense of injustice takes a remarkable strength of character to endure.

      I trust you may find more solace than heartbreak in this Royal Commission Report.

      Ki kaha, arohanui.

  2. Ad 2
    25 July 2024 at 8:29 am

    Does anyone else have a shadow of melancholy that the only time we ever now unify under a thing called New Zealand is at the Olympics?

    And the rest of the time we're just customers of business.

    • joe90 3.1
      25 July 2024 at 10:40 am

      My skin crawls knowing Luxon, Chhour, Mitchell, and the CoC intend going ahead with their fucking camps.

      .

      Conclusion on the nature and extent of abuse at Whakapakari

      128. Children and young people were subjected to horrific abuse. The brutality of the
      camp was underscored by the daily use of violence against children and young
      people. Serious physical abuse was part of the daily fabric of life at the camp. Young
      people were found to have broken bones and scars on their return to the mainland.

      129. Sexual abuse was rife. Supervisors raped children and young people at gunpoint.
      The supervisors orchestrated ‘rape parties’ where they encouraged older boys to rape
      younger boys or penetrate them using sticks in a group setting.

      130. Two aspects of psychological abuse are unique to Whakapakari. The use of Whangara
      Island as ‘Alcatraz’ was an extremely frightening form of solitary confinement where
      young people were left without shelter, water or adequate food for days or weeks at
      a time as punishment. The second was the disturbing mock executions conducted
      by supervisors of young people, a practice that occurred on many occasions. Young
      people were forced to dig their own graves at gunpoint, and lie in them. Some young
      people were shot at.

      131. The harrowing experiences of children and young people are rendered more shocking
      by the fact they occurred so recently. There was no escape and no one to turn to for
      assistance. Children and young people were not safe at Whakapakari.

      https://www.abuseincare.org.nz/assets/Whanaketia/PDF-downloads/Case-study-Whakapakari.pdf

      edit:

      As the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care approaches its second year of hearings, reporter Matt Nippert revisits his investigation into a Lord of the Flies-esque bootcamp on Great Barrier Island and finds horror, trauma, hope and dead ends.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/great-barrier-island-bootcamp-abuse-the-dead-ends-after-a-long-march-for-justice/JAT5GFPXPEZGOJE4U5Z7QLNQQU/

    • Mike the Lefty 3.2
      25 July 2024 at 11:24 am

      Note that the term "boot camps" comes from the common historical fallacy that you can cure bad adolescent behavior with a "boot up the arse".

      Seems National still believe it.

      • Bearded Git 3.2.1
        25 July 2024 at 11:51 am

        Come on Joe…it's only half a million per kid after all (sarc)….and this government says Labour wasted money 🤑

      • tWig 3.2.2
        25 July 2024 at 12:56 pm

        One quote I have heard is "you can't use punishment to treat trauma", where many of the kids causing problems have big problems themselves.

        The cost per person of the bootcamps applied to wrap-round support for the kids involved and their families would have a much greater social effect. Boot camps are not cost-effective.

      • alwyn 3.2.3
        25 July 2024 at 7:06 pm

        " "boot up the arse"".

        My, my. You certainly have a vivid, albeit deranged, imagination if you think that that is the source of the phrase.

        Do you make your living inventing other such things like the pretense as to what the Maori Chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi thought they were doing that the Maori Party proclaims?

        [Still wasting our time and adding zero value here. And you’re back to diversion trolling. Last time it was an educational ban of two weeks with a warning that the next one would be much longer. Two months off this time – Incognito]

  4. gsays 4
    25 July 2024 at 10:45 am

    In respect to the Abuse in Care report.

    Listening to the soundbite of PM Luxon speaking, it felt like it was written by Chat GPT, with the sincerity of AI and the emotional depth of an android.

    How these clowns can wring their hands in sorrow while at the same time fail to invest in the most vulnerable is ugly.

      • gsays 4.1.1
        25 July 2024 at 12:13 pm

        Thanks.

        As an aside, I started reading some of the EWA (WEA?) literature.

        The report relating Covid responses around the world and the Aotearoa, Finland and Bhutan experience.

        Made some good points but I was left frustrated as it implies that the knockdowns/ caring for people was the only factor in our 'success'.

        The glaringly obvious factor is the isolation or relative remoteness of the countries.

        The rest of what I have read is all a bit aspirational. I suppose I'm looking for a more direct path to ending neo liberalism…

        • weka 4.1.1.1
          25 July 2024 at 1:04 pm

          the main thing we have missing at the moment is an alternative vision of how life could be post-carbon and post-neolib, and that vision needs to be of a life that is still good. No-one will jump to a life that is shit. TINA is very strong in people's minds and hearts, stories of what we could do instead are absolutely critical at this point.

          Leaders in the transition movement talk about shifting from our current system to one that is sustainable is like rebuilding a plane while you are flying it. Sounds bonkers, no-one is going to agree to that. Unless they understand these things,

          1. that the current system will crash anyway if we don't act, so not acting is simply a delaying tactic
          2. the crisis is here, now, and incredibly serious
          3. that another way is possible

          what's happened is we've had lots of public education on #2 re climate/ecology. We all know it's bad, very bad. And in response to that, in the absence of a decent alternative, many people are now shifting towards various forms of climate denial.

          If WEA are doing the mahi of establishing TARAs, and they also appear to be working with people in positions of power in the system as well as the public, this is a very good thing. We desperately need stories of how things can work out.

          One of the problems I have is that writing on TS, if I write about the alternatives most people will scroll on by, but I write a post about how shit National or WINZ or whatever is, I will get more reads and comments. This is a real political problem on the left. The only thing that stops me from quitting is that I know there are many people working on the solutions outside of the mainstream and the left's eyes, and those people are making some headway in the mainstream. But the political culture remains stuck. I hope that something will get through before it's not too late.

        • weka 4.1.1.2
          25 July 2024 at 1:06 pm

          The rest of what I have read is all a bit aspirational. I suppose I'm looking for a more direct path to ending neo liberalism…

          a couple of additional thoughts. We don't have to end neoliberalism, we have to create an alternative, and then people will go to that.

          I get frustrated by aspirational stuff, or 'we should do this…' politics. But I don't think we can have the 'how' without the narratives of TARA and things working out. I see WEA doing this initial work.

          • gsays 4.1.1.2.1
            25 July 2024 at 8:21 pm

            I hear what you are saying in regards to what folk lap up.

            Trying to articulate a vision for the future vs the latest incarnation of Luxon is an egg. This is another frustration with a lot of good writers and thinkers eg David Slack, Nick Rockell, Robert Guyton. They seem to go after the easy low hanging fruit in regards to what is wrong with this mob but real light on a vision for how it could be. (By that I don't mean Labour are good.)

            Locally made clothes and shoes, manufacturing medicines, a Ministry of Works where trades training takes place…

            All a bit how New Zealand First was before the influence of the donors took hold.

            By the way, keep up the writing, I may not comment, but some ideas stick in the mind and influence thinking.
            Not sure what TARA means, I know it will be obvious.

            • SPC 4.1.1.2.1.1
              25 July 2024 at 8:33 pm

              There Are Reasonable Alternatives?

            • weka 4.1.1.2.1.2
              25 July 2024 at 11:18 pm

              thanks gsays. I need to find a way to write about the new, emerging narratives, in a way that lands with more people.

              Locally made clothes and shoes, manufacturing medicines, a Ministry of Works where trades training takes place…

              Yes! Do you want to write something?

        • SPC 4.1.1.3
          25 July 2024 at 1:12 pm

          The thing is National was tempted towards keeping borders open, and give away the option of closed borders during a pandemic – something the Oz right wing government of the time chose to do despite a stronger public health system than our own.

        • Descendant Of Smith 4.1.1.4
          25 July 2024 at 3:37 pm

          Nonsense. Remoteness was barely a factor when you had usually had thousands of people flying in every day from overseas on airlines. We don't travel for months via sailing ships any more.

          Many too coming in if borders stayed open would have been New Zealanders fleeing locations where people were dying like flies and they (New Zealanders) had little access to healthcare or the cost was prohibitive.

          Isolation hardly played a part compared to stopping travel.

          I do wonder if anyone has done any research on New Zealand citizens dying during the pandemic while overseas

  5. Obtrectator 5
    25 July 2024 at 11:40 am

    I'd never looked closely before at pictures of Elon Musk, but the one shown here gave me the creeps:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/24/elon-musk-funding-trump-election-boycott-companies

    Wouldn't take much tweaking to make him look like the DPRK leader:

    http://cdn1.uvnimg.com/a9/ce/53b4238640bc9ba225d3a6702cbe/b3ee5ff5b4dc48ce8ab0fcffd304d675

    (I'd post the images themselves if I could work out how to shrink them so's they'll fit.)

  6. joe90 6
    25 July 2024 at 11:46 am

    Bugger. John Mayall performed into his late eighties and died at ninety but still….

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/24/john-mayall-the-blues-british-music-eric-clapton-rolling-stones

  8. tWig 8
    25 July 2024 at 1:13 pm

    Starmer has already put the boot into his own left-wing MPs.

    "… seven Labour MPs who voted for a Scottish National party (SNP) amendment to end the two-child benefit limit were suspended from the party for 6 months."

    The 2-child cap limits government family allowances to only the first 2 children in a family. The cap, introduced by the Tories, is estimated to have put hundreds of thousands of families into poverty. Starmer says…no money in the pot. At party member level, the 2-child limit is not supported at all.

    Labor have such a majority that the amendment would not have passed. Therefore this is Starmer’s show of strength, ‘my way or the highway’.

    • Nordy 8.1
      25 July 2024 at 2:18 pm

      He was quite right to do so. MPs voting against their own party/government need to be shown just how stupid they are, especially in a very new Government after 14 years of shambolic Tory Government. They know (or should know) that it is Labour policy to remove the cap when funding allows. Political grandstanding by a few idiotic MPs is just embarrassing.

      • Bearded Git 8.1.1
        25 July 2024 at 5:11 pm

        Bollocks Nordy they voted with their conscience. Starmer's punishment is well over the top. It's consistent with his support for 4 and 5 year jail sentences for Just Stop Oil protesters.

        42 Labour MP's abstained which sends almost the same message.

  9. SPC 9
    25 July 2024 at 3:15 pm

    The part below this, is interesting

    How the land was taken in 1970s New Zealand

    The separation of Rameka and Tahere from Pākinga Pā reflects deliberate government strategies of the 1960s.

    Those strategies took two forms – engineering the move of Māori from rural communities to the cities and removing land from those who remained.

    The wider context is described in a 2008 report titled, Eating Away at the Land, Eating Away at the People by historian Bruce Stirling.

    The report, compiled for the Waitangi Tribunal, described a move from Wellington in the 1960s to “productively use ‘idle’ Māori land”. It came with a “growing drive to ‘integrate’ Māori into Pākehā society… to ‘Europeanise’ Māori land, just as urbanised Māori were to be ‘Europeanised’”.

    It was in this environment that Tahere’s grandfather moved with his seven sons from rural Northland to South Auckland.

    Once there, he crossed lines not evident in provincial New Zealand. “Being here [in the north], you’re free, you can choose and do as you please. And the city was different, they were bound by different laws,” says Tahere.

    Crossing those lines saw Arama Tahere’s father and his six brothers taken into state care and then placed in boys’ homes. The Royal Commission into Abuse in Care has heard evidence of how those who suffered through those homes were instrumental in the development of New Zealand gangs.

    Tahere’s whānau included founding members of the Ōtara-based Stormtroopers and the Tribesmen motorcycle club – creating a hapū and family to belong to away from home.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/how-pakinga-pa-was-lost-over-221-of-unpaid-rates-and-the-pakeha-family-who-gave-it-back-to-maori/4XU2YNJ4HVFF7LGXPRBVYON5NM/

    • SPC 10.1
      25 July 2024 at 3:24 pm

      So not an ambitious government then.

      More a government of by and for the ambitious …more wealth than others, more for themself – not enough taxation to fund government.