The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.
We are getting philosphical here, Olwyn, but good point.
It is all about dismempowerment, disentitlement, disowning and marginalisation. Then add the paternialistic approach by the present government, typical in the statements by welfare minister Paula Bennett, that the beneficiaries, the typical “poor” (apart from the working poor) need to be “managed” and supposedly “supported” (that ringing into ears again they cannot manage on their own), and we have the stigmatisation go on, and on, and on.
The POOR are only to blame themselves, and WE (society) need to take their affairs into OUR hands, that is what the damned welfare reforms before Parliament are about. It is not empowering, it is disgracing, humiliating and shaming, nothing else.
It is a bit too much of the traditional beggar meet benevolent or supposed benevolent donor scenario. Do as you are told, listen, obey, do the “right” thing, and you will get our “help”. Shut up and do not come complaining is the other side of “the deal”.
Looking closely at the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill exposes what is really going on. Sadly very few in public know what is in it, what is planned, and what this government is doing. So it is the ignorant, ill-informed public and with that voters once again lulled into wrong thinking, manipulation and told to vote for something that none of them understand.
In the meantime National and the lackeys from ACT and UF get away with hoodwinking NZers and driving a neglected, poor section of society ever more into desperation and onto the margin. So while crime figures may have gone down over the last year or two, prepare for them to go up again.
Desperate people will take desperate actions, like some sole mothers up north having had to steal to feed their kids.
The poor often are women. And the fact that women have babies sometimes becomes a curse rather than a joy. Immediately, pregnant single women used to be reviled and patronised.
Examples of the children of the poor being taken from their parents –
Britain: The children were sent to Australia to what were supposed to be health farms. It was said that they could return but children who wished to might be told that their mother had died. It took decades to trace and join some of these families. There was some sexual interference, they all had to work hard, girls trained to be domestics and boys farm labourers I suppose.
Australia: The children particularly of aboriginal women who were unmarried, were taken with strong efforts of persuasion. Hospitals did not reveal their methods of coercion as they knew there would be public distaste. Julia Gillard has just given a formal apology. Hundreds of thousands of babies were taken away from their mothers for assimilation into white homes.
USA: During the Depression as people streamed out of dry poor farming states in search of work, they might leave their baby in care of a Home. There was one in Tennessee where the proprietress made a good profit from selling the babies for adoption. When the parents came back the children were gone – I don’t know if they were lied to, saying the baby died. There was a further grotesque side – the woman owner in Tennessee used to holiday in Cuba and have a high old time. The authorities in the state were complicit in this trade. A film was made about it.
I bet NZ has been guilty too. Just can’t remember offhand.
Re what happened in Australia and the US, I always thought this only happened in NAZI Germany, but I learned through history, I was wrong. The scale of things are or were different, but the systemic approach is equally worrying.
just been a government level “apology” for the “encouraged” (euphemism) separation of children from un-married mothers from the 40s through to the 70s in Aus; same thing happened in NZ;
“leading to life-times of loss and despair”; yep, Authoritarian government knows best.
Management and treatment of slaves is a pressing issue of debate in our society, from when and how harshly whippings are carried out to the appropriate care, feeding and housing of a plantation’s slaves. Proper systems of tasks, rewards and enforcement of moral rigour in slave families must never be overlooked or shyed away from. Such are the duties of a decent slave owner.
Completely agree – a very good point and very well made.
In our world, to be poor is to be deficient and because it is politically incorrect to blame the economic system the only option is to blame anyone who can’t ‘foot it’.
“…it is politically incorrect to blame the economic system” – very insightful use of that term. And you are right. A few days ago, James Henderson put up an excellent outline of that very economic system that must be protected from attack at all costs. http://thestandard.org.nz/one-day-older-and-deeper-in-debt/
““Services for the poor are poor services”” works better perhaps (for an audience with a trigger finger 😉 ) – i.e. meaning if you design for the poor rather than for the population as a whole services will “largely revolve around their management rather than their representation” – the poor house, the soup kitchen. The suggestion elsewhere in this post about a universal basic income being a service for the whole population is a good alternative.
Problem is, the Right Wing have gradually and effectively moved popular thinking towards the Right. Slavery was fully supported by most citizens in the southern states, remember.
Yep, but it can be moved back as the article I linked to yesterday showed. Just have to show, and keep showing, that the society that National and Act bring about is less benevolent and caring. Is, in fact, outright nasty.
Cv
Yes that’s my worry. 1984 and Labour started a process of wiping everything in an effort to control the unions. Now we have a generation that hasn’t had any experience of that time. If something stays in long enough it becomes status quo as long as it suits those who can enrich themselves within that system.
I agree OTH. I think that the idea of human rights could be extended to include the basis for genuine agency – security of dwelling and a basic living income, for example. See johnm at 7, who offers a few historic examples.
The answer for less well off people is supplied by the Democrats for Social Credit party as follows:
Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI)
“• Promote the right of every New Zealander to have an adequate basic income
• Provide the guaranteed basic income free from tax
• Pay this guaranteed income to every resident New Zealander as a right of citizenship
• Progressively replace all current benefits and allowances with a guaranteed basic income regardless of employment, marital or gender status
• Retain supplements for the disabled, their carers and housing”
This is the humane and socially and economically sensible thing to do. At a stroke you remove the huge edifice of fascist persecution this government is now contemplating.
Young persons will continue to seek work as that is the only means to a fulfilling future and family life and a home.
I believe the current government intends to privatise everything and one day after ruining the public sector will simply say “We don’t have enough money!”
There are many alternatives to the current fascist road as mentioned by Draco T Bastard.
“In his final book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.
—from the chapter titled “Where We Are Going”
The first Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.
French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine’s sentiments and commented that ‘man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth’s produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence’ (Herold, 1955). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income
The current era of growth is over permanently, yet NeoLiberal Governments continue to assert that the richer members of society should continue to experience wealth growth at the expense of poorer people, this is obviously unjust, cruel, irresponsible, unchristian and downright fascist. The choice:
Yes, I’m sure many of us on the left wonder what happened to our egalitarian New Zealand. Something that Chris Trotter has done some outstanding articles on on Bowally.
I think the poor are really ostracised now (and the rich are given some sort of special (undeserved) status, think John Key and his popularity) compared to 30 years ago, when we lived in much more egalitarian times. The reason for this is the aggressive promotion of the free market philosophy in New Zealand. Borrowing from Michael Sandel’s brilliant book “What Money Cant Buy”, he argues that there is a real lack of discussion about the moral limits of markets. He states that the market has moved into areas it has no place to be such as schools, health, justice, military etc. The big loser from this are the poor. As an example, a rich person can afford health insurance, while a poor person relies on the public health system. The rich person using health insurance will jump to the head of the queue pushing the poor person further back. Is this moral or fair? Clearly it is not. But it is the way we live in New Zealand. The same thing is going to happen with the Mighty River shares. Those rich enough to buy shares will take advantage of increasing power prices through higher dividends while the poor are left struggling to pay increased electricity costs.
I guess there are no surprises that National don’t represent the poor (although their cruelty is reaching new heights the longer they stay in power), but the question is why don’t Labour do more to represent this group. I suspect that they are scared of alienating that bunch of gormless, bookless, aspiring to be rich like John Key group of dropkicks that seem to make up the swing voters in NZ. I know heaps of these people (a couple are family members), they will never vote for Labour as long as John Key is fronting National, he is like their god. Hence the reason that National don’t seem to budge in the polls I suspect.
The best path for Labour would be to give up on the swing voters and strongly represent the poor, and I reckon if Labour could create a decent debate on social justice and equality it wont only win back the non voting poor but it could possibly win back some of the swing voters on moral grounds. It needs strong leadership making it clear that we need to increase the top rate of tax and implement the recommendations from the Family Commission to reduce child poverty. If this is put across in a fluent, articulate, strong manner it will swing voters.
Most Kiwi’s are fair people but they dont seem to be getting any alternative messages/narrative from Labour.
Anyway Olwyn, I strongly recommend the book. Michael Sandel (Professor of Govt, Harvard University), What Money Cant Buy…The Moral Limits of Markets.
I have read a paper by Sandel expressing that view, with which I agree but I have not read the book. I used to love his lectures on Channel 7 when we still had it. I get the impression that the moral arguments get sidelined because market advocates promote their view as “scientific” and insist that “you can’t mess with the science of it.” But I have no doubt that many would be open to moral arguments, just as they were open to moral arguments against slavery, which was also rationalised on a quasi-scientific basis.
I think you’re entitled to reject the false frame as well. The “market advocates” don’t in fact have “science” (by which I take you to mean economics) on their side either.
Rational and emotional arguments can be pretty persuasive, especially in partnership.
“This is wrong – this is why and here’s what we’re going to do about it.”
The problem as I see it goes deeper than that, however. It is clear for the current crop of Nats that universal human rights are too politically correct. Of course, they\’ll defend their own rights to the death.
As for their adherence to a particular market theory, that’s debatable. Perhaps they subscribe to the notion that commerce provides for many goods, and took a bit too much fashionable advice from Treasury.
a major enabler of nationals’ full-scale pogrom on the poorest/sickest was how well the clark labour govt prepared the soil for them..
..those nine long years of clark/labour fostering the ‘otherness’ of the worst-off..(‘working for (some) families..but not them..!’) creating the climate perfect for nationals’ plans..
..the demonising/ostracising/stigmatising of that group has been a major success for the right..
..it is now the norm that these people are ‘bad’/undeserving..
..and of course a classic example of careful what you wish for is those (in work at the time) who nodded along in support of the poorest not getting ‘working for families’..
..that it should only go to ‘deserving’ families/people..
..those supporters of this discrimination now unemloyed have had the double kick in the guts of losing their income..plus losing their working for families top-up..
..i wonder if their experience has tempered their previous enthusiasm..?
…(‘first they came for the unemployed etc etc ‘..)
“The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.”
This quote states a fascist mind set. The new Jews are the poor, there was a final solution for the jews and the poor must be managed.
This statement is quite vile in it’s assumed superiority for those with greater wealth, income and opportunity it shows contempt for all of western civilisation’s progressive strivings. For instance the French Revolution : Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The Social contract post WW11 and the New Deal in the US.Also the Christian ideal of we are all equal before God.
This vile statement talks of a land ruled by the kleptocratic few, not democracy. A land ruled by the marriage of corporate power and the state and the disenfranchisement of the poor to a basic income.
Definition of DISENFRANCHISE
: to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially : to deprive of the right to vote
The poor are to be cast out in terms of income, social status, and rights eg: Benes are force to send their children to ECE. at ages 3 and 4. They are to be harrassed and driven into any possible work outlet proper or no.
johnm, I don’t know if you meant it, but your explanation makes it sound like Olwyn’s quote is stating how things SHOULD be, and that he agrees with it.
Olwyn is actually stating the way things already are, and in a way that shows he strongly disagrees with this attitude become practice.
Excellent summation of the way things have become, especially for those of a Tory mind-set.
“Iain Duncan Smith denies jobcentres have targets for sanctioning benefits
Minister says reminder will be sent to jobcentre staff after leaked email suggested existence of league tables”
1. “IDS, what a shit. ” 2.”Iain Duncan Smith denies jobcentres have targets for sanctioning benefits
Who would believe a word this ignoramus says. Ian Duncan Smith is a proven liar not to mention Mark Hoban.” 3. “HeilCameron – Is he unique in this?” 4. ”
He seems to a be a man who struggles to open his mouth without lying so the argument about who to believe here seems moot.
The true mascot of the Nasty Party. A man who cannot face the cruelty of his actions. A bully, a coward and incompetent. Not a trifecta of which to be proud.”
5. ” Fiddling the unemployment figures by use of sanctions, regardless of the human cost; changing the law retrospectively to prevent people exerting their rights with Workfare; and undermining disabled people’s dignity by cutting their benefits and social care whilst claiming that they are being given greater choice and independence. All accomplished by lying through your teeth, IDS.
Lower than vermin.”
6. “Impossible to believe anything IDS says, with his form.
The targets explain why my single parent neighbour has been sanctioned twice since just before xmas, losing a total of 6 weeks JSA, for complete non-reasons.”
7. ” “Who does he think he is..?” IDS?
A bigoted privileged narcissist in a party bloated with bigoted privileged narcissists.
This is the problem we have – and why none of them have gone – they’re all so unbelievably rotten that none of them are standing out!”
The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.
We have no assurance that the empolyers are not over-stating the problem. They have employed some people to their satisfaction. Why is there no balance showing exactly how many of the total are a problem?
At the interview they complain of people chewing gum and smoking – are the implied social skills necessary for labouring jobs?
And the article mentions a burger chain requiring loads of workers in the area. I had a relative (from a fairly right leaning branch of the family), worked for a bit a McDonalds. Hir family described the boss/system there as exploiting the young family member working there. They demand workers do as they are told, for meagre wages, no matter how unacceptable the orders.
Let’s have the employers’ and their recruiters’ attitudes and behaviour on the table before they start demeaning all those applying for their jobs.
Doug, I’ve read the Waikato Times article you link.
One has to wonder about the criteria applied by Kristen Goodwin when she determined that only 5 out of 200 people who applied for 1 administration job, were “acceptable”.
I find the whiff of deliberate bullshit there anyway. Is Ms Goodwin asking us to believe that she went through the rigmarole of interviewing 200 people for 1 job ? And that by the strangest of coincidences the 5 “acceptable” people were not found until 195 “unacceptables” had been interviewed and rejected ?
How I sympathise with the wan, put-upon, clearly pregnant Ms Goodwin as depicted by her photograph in the article. It must be so trying for a decent, middle class, white, mother-to-be lassie to have to deal with 195 disgusting underclass.
There are six certainties here:
1. 200 applicants were not interviewed or considered in any true sense.
2. For whatever lesser number were in fact truly interviewed irrelevancies such as looks, age,
ethnicity were determinants.
3. The “journalist” who researched and wrote the article is inept. It is bullshit.
4. Paula Bennett would not be happy with Ms Goodwin. Job applicants are to be “congratulated”
for endlessly suffering the actual and implied sneering of the likes of Ms Goodwin.
5. Far from countering Olwyn’s observation the article positively proves it.
6. The poor are a commodity who fall to be “managed” by their “betters”, and publicly
castigated when their “management” proves vexing.
Sooner or later there will be social-media assisted rebellion. An enduring society cannot unendingly marginalise, enslave, and impoverish.
which only makes her claim that 195 were unsuitable even more difficult to believe.
How did she advertise the position? Was the job correctly described. Is she simply telling porkies ????
Indeed, it doesn’t fit with your personal narrative so it she must be lying or inept in some fashion. It couldn’t possibly be that unemployment is so high that large volumes of people are applying for every job the see, qualified or not.
Seems pretty likely to me. Way back when I was a low skilled worker facing personal financial problems I know I applied for every entry level position I could. Even for things I knew I couldn’t get in the hope of getting an interview.
absolutely fair call,
if i do not have all the facts I should not be casting aspersions based on the comments of the employer and the lifelong reading of people’s faces and how they often mirror the person within.
Yes I did read the article Contrarian. It said only 5 people out of 200 were acceptable. That is, 195 were unacceptable. Plain, straight out, no-good. That is the sneering pejorative inherent in the article.
Where the hell does Goodwin get off, and where the hell does Henson get off, branding 195 job-seekers as useless and unworthy if only 5 were interviewed ?
Heavy and uninformed judgment don’t you think of those 195 if they were never personally seen ? If they were judged only according to a phone call, some written expression of interest, or a photograph.
The article is a vicious and deliberate non-sequitur deceitfully peddled. Which means that honest reporting was never intended by the Maxim Institute connected propagandist who wrote it.
Anyway thanks for your comment. It confirms my suspicion that unacceptability may very well have been determined according to age, ethnicity fathomed according to a name or an accent or a photograph, or other discriminatory considerations. It also confirms that you Contrarian buy into the disgraceful “rationality” which Olwyn has identified.
Perhaps I should be kinder to you Contrarian. You comment that maybe it’s down to high volumes of people applying for jobs whether or not they are qualified. Yes, the ones who hope against hope, the ones who are desperate, the ones whom Bennett fulsomely congratulates.
Like the man during the Great Depression who lived next door to my then 18 year old mother in Church Street, Penrose. Daily routine was to walk all over the locality and beyond visiting work sites in search of a job. Insanely chanting the mantra – “I want work, work wants me, the work I want will come to me” repeat repeat repeat repeat. Lazy, indolent bastard ! Obviously the tupuna of the vile 195.
Take your pick CT. Join Bennett and congratulate people who against all the odds keep on applying for jobs, or abuse them as do Goodwin and Henson. You can’t have it both ways.
Precisely North. The rulers have to feel like they are so superior to the serfs. Otherwise their core existence is threatened and they may have to treat their workers like human beings.
And don’t get me started on the minimum wage. Why you should pay it and expect anything but the most minimal response is beyond me.
You did read the article? Sorry your comment about having to believe she interviewed 200 people when it specifically said 5 people must have been a typo on your part.
As a aside if advertised a job requiring Microsoft suite experience and, say, two years experience within the field of a law firm I wouldn’t interview who didn’t list those skills on their CV.
OK. So why does the subtitle of the article read “………applicants appalling” if the writer is talking about people, like in your Microsoft reference, who are simply unqualified ?
You’re a dick if you still maintain this article is not a direct attack on poor and unemployed people. But rationalise all you want…….
Chances are that the advertising would have been done through an agency. The agency would have screened out the vast majority of them through the CV/Cover letter – possibly automatically. Then there would have been the phone interview screening out even more. The finalists, all 5 of them requested by the client, would have been passed on to the employer for an interview.
If the employer did it themselves they would have done exactly the same thing including the predetermined five interviews.
It would be unfair to blame employers for being unable to deal with the enormous volumes of unemployed applicants out there. It would also be unfair to expect them not to go straight for the most qualified for the position.
Jesus did bon mots on the poor ten times better than this.
Is this “rationality” towards the management of poverty less a function of implied scorn and more a function of decreased social mobility?
I think egalitarianism, like Christianity, would be a very good idea, but I observe New Zealand to be so stratified, so grouped into tight hermetic subcultures, and so lonely, that the principle disempowering dynamic is stasis: people are just stuck. Can’t get out. And hence, without personal agency, the logic of managing the poor ensues from that.
“…without personal agency, the logic of managing the poor ensues from that.” I agree. johnm at 7 points out various people, including Napoleon, who have understood that the retention of real agency depends upon having a right to the means to build and maintain a life. Australia, at the time of the federation, also outlined what was needed for a modestly flourishing life. The living wage campaign is also a move in that direction, though a campaign by itself cannot confer a right. Advocacy, however, is a start.
Advocates for the poor are heroes. Absolutely no irony. Any time I see a Labour politician advocate for unity and dignity, to me they are heroes. Enjoyed Ardern sticking it to Bennett in the House this week. Just needs extra killer instinct to make her squirm when she’s impaled.
always precise Ad, personal agency Indeed
include
-government ignoring alcohol reform recommendations
-educational under-achievement, tangata whenua and Pasifika in partic.(yet that must be the “individuals fault”)
-racism (plenty of recent MSM articles on that matter)
-police and justice discrimination toward certain ethnicities
-euro-centricism
-bourgeois expectations
-low minimum wage
-health and safety record in NZ
-well entrenched poverty and implications
-the legacy of all the above occurring for decades now (before some of these applicants were born)
These employers are reaping what their political masters have sown.
The parallels between British Labour and its NZ counterpart are eerie. No wonder the satirical show ‘the thick of it’ is like a documentary of our own “shad cab”
The latest from Owen Jones at the Independent:
What a disgraceful, grubby chapter in the history of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Usually when a Tory Government is in power, giving working people and the poorest in society a kicking, any critical voices of the Labour leadership are savaged for aiding and abetting the enemy. It’s the Tories we should be opposing, or so the line goes. But what happens when the Labour leadership actively rides to the rescue of the Tories, blatantly and overtly helping them as they attack some of the poorest in society while riding roughshod over British law?
Jones believes that it is essential that Labour members stay and fight to take the party back. He endorses a new extra-parliamentary left movement that could light the way:
A Labour Party worthy of the name: it must be fought for. But that is going to be a long haul, and the suffocating political consensus must be fought now. With the Labour leadership abdicating their responsibilities, we need a broad movement that can confidently and unreservedly challenge Tory attacks. That’s why I’m throwing all my energy into building the People’s Assembly, a new initiative being built by trade unions, community groups and activists, members of the Green Party, Labour Party and – most importantly – those with no political home at all. It will be a coalition of all those who despair of what is being inflicted on this country, and are determined to do something about it.
As in the UK there is no shortage of people who are angry and despairing about the actions of the National government and its allies in Labour. Some will turn to the Greens. But maybe a similar movement in NZ could help turn the Labour Party around from being collaborators in kicking the poor and vulnerable of behalf of the wealthy, into a coherent resistance (also known as an opposition).
I love the idea of a people’s assembly. We have the germ of such a movement in TS, but I am not sure how one would go about broadening it. Such a movement would also give courage and traction to Labour MPs who would like to oppose the system, but do not see how. The problem with trying to represent demoralised people is that they cannot offer you a power base from which to negotiate. Trotter has quoted Roosevelt saying of the new deal. “You make me do it,” meaning, “you create the pressure that will give me justification.”
– Set up non-partisan co-ordinators in major and minor centres. They will need to be the right people. These will be people already active, respected and known on the Left wing political scene and ideally should all already know each other.
– There need to be funds available for each centre, promotional work, hall hire, contribution to a nation wide website (hmmmm new functionality for The Standard…?). Probably on the scale of $1K to $2K each in starting funds.
– Identify a network of skilled activists and professionals in each centre willing to dedicate their time and who are both willing to organise and be organised. Lawyers. Accountants. Doctors. Academics. Factory workers. Farm workers. Tradies. Beneficiaries. Retired.
– The first basic functions to carry out are: local news and event reporting and commentary. Dissemination of alternative political economic narratives. Help people understand the path that NZ has taken since the Great Depression. Write up of personal anecdotes and experiences.
My intuition at this stage is that such a movement should not be too committee-like from the outset, but I am not sure how else one might get the ball rolling. It seems at this stage it would be a good idea to keep an eye on how they are proceeding in England, and to also talk to like-minded people and get some ideas percolating.
Thank you to whoever put this quote of mine up, and to the various commentators offering further insights into the problem and suggesting ways in which we might address it over the long haul.
The link above is to an article which clearly places the blame for unemployment not on the economy, but on the unemployed themselves.
Astoundingly it states what are considered “common” faults. Perhaps I’m limited in my experience but I find all except the last two as unlikely in the majority of cases.
COMMON JOBSEEKER FAULTS:
Drunkenness
Absenteeism
Failing drug tests
Physicality when told to leave site
Not turning up for interview
Smoking throughout interview
Chewing gum throughout interview
No CV prepared
CVs full of basic spelling mistakes
Yes folks! THAT’S the real reason the poor remain poor. It’s nothing to do with outside influences, but their lack of personal responsibility
Cheers, Olwyn. This isn’t meant to hijack your thread (!) but to point out that the “management” of the poor is justified through the media by highlighting a few rare cases, encouraging empathy with the employers in this case who can’t find suitable workers.
At no point in the article is it revealed what the conditions for workers with these employers are like, reputation of employers, duration of contract, location of the work and access to transport to work all of which will have considerable effect on the employers ability to attract workers.
That practice of generalising from a small number of particular cases is a standard way in which prejudice is propagated and maintained. And the list conflates cliched examples of poor work histories with poor interview stories. Absenteeism and failed drug tests do not generally come up at interviews. And as to “smoking throughout the interview,” aren’t most interviews conducted indoors? And aren’t all indoor work environments smoke-free by law? It all reads like yet another round of prejudice maintenance.
It might be a good idea to have a Good/Bad employer site. It would have to be circumspect about referring to the names of bad employers but could mention the type of employment. Tramps used to mark the gateways of houses with symbols that indicated their experience with the residents. This would be a modern way of doing the same.
Mea Cupla. I’m really dead sorry that I’ve spoiled it for everybody by refusing to be materially wealthy; by refusing to be a good consumer; by refusing to reduce my humanity to the level of a rationally optimising ‘ homo economicus’. And to authority -the representatives of the wealthy – that have generally found my attitude and presence problematic, well…what can I say? I feel for you and your burden, I really do.
Thanks to greed over powering common sense I have been recently made redundant. Severance Pay is not a word in my employer’s lexicon. As i try to find next month’s rent I expect to confront first hand many of the prejudices ascribed to the employers in the above article. I freely admit I am not looking forward to cliche driven character dissection by what are presented as some extremely judgemental denizens of virtue and perfection.
Luckily i have skills outside of slavery and will be trying to get the workshop producing most of my income but the interim of reality screams that I may have to sign on. If it does occur I at least wil be able to offer some updates on the front line attitude so to speak. That said though, signing on to the dole is going to be a desperate last act.
Stories like the one above do not instill confidence in jobseekers. It describes an environment devoid of rationality and open minded common decency. Neither of which, if the article has any truth, appear to be high on the agenda of employers.
Luckily i have skills outside of slavery and will be trying to get the workshop producing most of my income but the interim of reality screams that I may have to sign on.
Ring WINZ today as the stand-down period starts from when you ring them up. Even if you end up not signing up you’ll have started things in motion.
You are not alone in your advice. I have had friends on my back all week about not being such a stubborn idiot and to go ask for help, so i did. I rang them and booked in for next week. Not to say i am actually going to sign on but as they say, best to have a matress down if jumping off the barn roof.
🙂 most of my skills are hard to make money from without producing dross folk do not really need, so I have spent the last thirty years predominately in Hospo. The few times I thought that was going to change my lack of will to walk over others generally allowed others to walk over me.
I have exhibited at the National Gallery (when we had one) I have built a 300 square meter concrete map to celebrate the workers of NZ who once built the biggest Dam in the Southern Hemisphere ( a map since destroyed by a property developer who thought townhouses are more necessary than community space) I have organized large protest events and even got protest art legally installed on Parliament’s lawn. ( way back in the 90’s when we still had some rights to the grounds) The one time a ‘legit career’ was opening up for me as an Art teacher a particularly nasty violent crime shut the door hard and left me with PTSD. So like all of you I have tried things and I have had my challenges.
I confess to being a serious Artist not prone to producing the decor dressing that fills most galleries. I am told I produce actual Art that makes you feel something, that is based on the human need for reflection growth and progression. I am told I am very good and have learnt to quietly accept the praise when it is delivered. I paint, I sculpt, I carve Taonga, I make really lovely wooden boxes. I love producing large installation work for public space, but that is a rare event these days.
I have had opportunities most Artists would kill for and if I had more bloodlust I may have prostituted the events to my favour, but no, I concentrated on producing quality work instead. I succeeded every time, but the work seemed to be only part of the deal, i always suspected they wanted a personality to sell as well and that just is not interesting to me. I am not a navel gazer but do think on occassion. I have practical and digital skills in various creative fields, no institutional training to speak of and still have half a brain despite the best efforts of the MSM and associated media. I am an excellent problem solver and peacekeeper who is not motivated by money (hence the need for gainful employment) As an ‘outsider’ not attached to the Gallery game I developed my work instead of my reputation and am now entering one of the most productive satisfying and genuinely challenging periods of Studio work I have ever experienced. Perhaps the recent actions of my employer are simply the Universe suggesting I allow my work to help keep me alive instead of the other way around.
I beleive many who visit The Standard can appreciate that the career we get paid for and the life we actually live are often seperate things.
I thank you for the words of support and I know it is expressed towards all who are trying to get through the challenges of daily life in New Zealand. We all can help each other everyday by doing all we can to make sure those we know and love learn from the anguish facing hundreds of thousands of Kiwis. We all can remind people that things can be different and that articles like the one in question should be vilified for the thinly disguised hate speech that they are. Arohanui.
Thanks for your contributions “freedom”. The world is a place with as many diverse talents as there are human beings. Sadly the one-eyed market driven agenda – of the ones now dominating societies and economies – does not respect talents such as yours enough. Keep up your spirit despite all challenges and best of luck!
From todays Herald-Amelia Wade.
“1 in 3 NZers believe that they are worse off than 2 years ago and have less disposable income; 43% the same (on the moving escalator); 18% better off.
Food costs up, Power costs up, House costs up, Car costs up, Unemployment up.
Low and Middle-Income families feeling the increases more than those at the top; “average wage” stats skewed by high earners (that must be the 18% then).
But that is OK; Telecom job losses likely to be around 2500; 1/3 of their workforce;
“the highest number of job losses at a single time, from a single company, in NZ history.”
“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” [1]
Except for Telecom in 1990/91 when the layoffs first began. IIRC, the first tranche was about 5000 – again, about a third of their workforce at the time.
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
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Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
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Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
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In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
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The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
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A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
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Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
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A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
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We are getting philosphical here, Olwyn, but good point.
It is all about dismempowerment, disentitlement, disowning and marginalisation. Then add the paternialistic approach by the present government, typical in the statements by welfare minister Paula Bennett, that the beneficiaries, the typical “poor” (apart from the working poor) need to be “managed” and supposedly “supported” (that ringing into ears again they cannot manage on their own), and we have the stigmatisation go on, and on, and on.
The POOR are only to blame themselves, and WE (society) need to take their affairs into OUR hands, that is what the damned welfare reforms before Parliament are about. It is not empowering, it is disgracing, humiliating and shaming, nothing else.
It is a bit too much of the traditional beggar meet benevolent or supposed benevolent donor scenario. Do as you are told, listen, obey, do the “right” thing, and you will get our “help”. Shut up and do not come complaining is the other side of “the deal”.
Looking closely at the Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill exposes what is really going on. Sadly very few in public know what is in it, what is planned, and what this government is doing. So it is the ignorant, ill-informed public and with that voters once again lulled into wrong thinking, manipulation and told to vote for something that none of them understand.
In the meantime National and the lackeys from ACT and UF get away with hoodwinking NZers and driving a neglected, poor section of society ever more into desperation and onto the margin. So while crime figures may have gone down over the last year or two, prepare for them to go up again.
Desperate people will take desperate actions, like some sole mothers up north having had to steal to feed their kids.
The poor often are women. And the fact that women have babies sometimes becomes a curse rather than a joy. Immediately, pregnant single women used to be reviled and patronised.
Examples of the children of the poor being taken from their parents –
Britain: The children were sent to Australia to what were supposed to be health farms. It was said that they could return but children who wished to might be told that their mother had died. It took decades to trace and join some of these families. There was some sexual interference, they all had to work hard, girls trained to be domestics and boys farm labourers I suppose.
Australia: The children particularly of aboriginal women who were unmarried, were taken with strong efforts of persuasion. Hospitals did not reveal their methods of coercion as they knew there would be public distaste. Julia Gillard has just given a formal apology. Hundreds of thousands of babies were taken away from their mothers for assimilation into white homes.
USA: During the Depression as people streamed out of dry poor farming states in search of work, they might leave their baby in care of a Home. There was one in Tennessee where the proprietress made a good profit from selling the babies for adoption. When the parents came back the children were gone – I don’t know if they were lied to, saying the baby died. There was a further grotesque side – the woman owner in Tennessee used to holiday in Cuba and have a high old time. The authorities in the state were complicit in this trade. A film was made about it.
I bet NZ has been guilty too. Just can’t remember offhand.
Re what happened in Australia and the US, I always thought this only happened in NAZI Germany, but I learned through history, I was wrong. The scale of things are or were different, but the systemic approach is equally worrying.
just been a government level “apology” for the “encouraged” (euphemism) separation of children from un-married mothers from the 40s through to the 70s in Aus; same thing happened in NZ;
“leading to life-times of loss and despair”; yep, Authoritarian government knows best.
Management and treatment of slaves is a pressing issue of debate in our society, from when and how harshly whippings are carried out to the appropriate care, feeding and housing of a plantation’s slaves. Proper systems of tasks, rewards and enforcement of moral rigour in slave families must never be overlooked or shyed away from. Such are the duties of a decent slave owner.
Fine point well made, Olwyn
Completely agree – a very good point and very well made.
In our world, to be poor is to be deficient and because it is politically incorrect to blame the economic system the only option is to blame anyone who can’t ‘foot it’.
“…it is politically incorrect to blame the economic system” – very insightful use of that term. And you are right. A few days ago, James Henderson put up an excellent outline of that very economic system that must be protected from attack at all costs. http://thestandard.org.nz/one-day-older-and-deeper-in-debt/
It’s a bit trite but I think that “Services to the poor are poor services” is a good riposte to this view.
Only if you’re a sociopath.
““Services for the poor are poor services”” works better perhaps (for an audience with a trigger finger 😉 ) – i.e. meaning if you design for the poor rather than for the population as a whole services will “largely revolve around their management rather than their representation” – the poor house, the soup kitchen. The suggestion elsewhere in this post about a universal basic income being a service for the whole population is a good alternative.
Olwyn……..admirable, enviable, succinct, powerful. The essence. Thank you.
+1
Very well said Olwyn.
There must be a way to entrench decent human rights legislation to reverse this right wing dehumanisation, and prevent its re-occurrence.
Referenda with a clause that has any politician trying to remove them or bypass them going to jail for 20+ years.
Problem is, the Right Wing have gradually and effectively moved popular thinking towards the Right. Slavery was fully supported by most citizens in the southern states, remember.
Yep, but it can be moved back as the article I linked to yesterday showed. Just have to show, and keep showing, that the society that National and Act bring about is less benevolent and caring. Is, in fact, outright nasty.
Cv
Yes that’s my worry. 1984 and Labour started a process of wiping everything in an effort to control the unions. Now we have a generation that hasn’t had any experience of that time. If something stays in long enough it becomes status quo as long as it suits those who can enrich themselves within that system.
I agree OTH. I think that the idea of human rights could be extended to include the basis for genuine agency – security of dwelling and a basic living income, for example. See johnm at 7, who offers a few historic examples.
The answer for less well off people is supplied by the Democrats for Social Credit party as follows:
Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI)
“• Promote the right of every New Zealander to have an adequate basic income
• Provide the guaranteed basic income free from tax
• Pay this guaranteed income to every resident New Zealander as a right of citizenship
• Progressively replace all current benefits and allowances with a guaranteed basic income regardless of employment, marital or gender status
• Retain supplements for the disabled, their carers and housing”
This is the humane and socially and economically sensible thing to do. At a stroke you remove the huge edifice of fascist persecution this government is now contemplating.
Young persons will continue to seek work as that is the only means to a fulfilling future and family life and a home.
I believe the current government intends to privatise everything and one day after ruining the public sector will simply say “We don’t have enough money!”
There are many alternatives to the current fascist road as mentioned by Draco T Bastard.
http://www.democrats.org.nz/OurVision/ThePartyTenets/tabid/61/Default.aspx
“In his final book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.
—from the chapter titled “Where We Are Going”
The first Muslim Caliph Abu Bakr introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams.
French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine’s sentiments and commented that ‘man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth’s produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence’ (Herold, 1955).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income
The current era of growth is over permanently, yet NeoLiberal Governments continue to assert that the richer members of society should continue to experience wealth growth at the expense of poorer people, this is obviously unjust, cruel, irresponsible, unchristian and downright fascist. The choice:
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
The Greens
Alliance
That’s their 2011 manifesto and on page 14 they say that they’ll bring in a Universal Income.
Yes, I’m sure many of us on the left wonder what happened to our egalitarian New Zealand. Something that Chris Trotter has done some outstanding articles on on Bowally.
I think the poor are really ostracised now (and the rich are given some sort of special (undeserved) status, think John Key and his popularity) compared to 30 years ago, when we lived in much more egalitarian times. The reason for this is the aggressive promotion of the free market philosophy in New Zealand. Borrowing from Michael Sandel’s brilliant book “What Money Cant Buy”, he argues that there is a real lack of discussion about the moral limits of markets. He states that the market has moved into areas it has no place to be such as schools, health, justice, military etc. The big loser from this are the poor. As an example, a rich person can afford health insurance, while a poor person relies on the public health system. The rich person using health insurance will jump to the head of the queue pushing the poor person further back. Is this moral or fair? Clearly it is not. But it is the way we live in New Zealand. The same thing is going to happen with the Mighty River shares. Those rich enough to buy shares will take advantage of increasing power prices through higher dividends while the poor are left struggling to pay increased electricity costs.
I guess there are no surprises that National don’t represent the poor (although their cruelty is reaching new heights the longer they stay in power), but the question is why don’t Labour do more to represent this group. I suspect that they are scared of alienating that bunch of gormless, bookless, aspiring to be rich like John Key group of dropkicks that seem to make up the swing voters in NZ. I know heaps of these people (a couple are family members), they will never vote for Labour as long as John Key is fronting National, he is like their god. Hence the reason that National don’t seem to budge in the polls I suspect.
The best path for Labour would be to give up on the swing voters and strongly represent the poor, and I reckon if Labour could create a decent debate on social justice and equality it wont only win back the non voting poor but it could possibly win back some of the swing voters on moral grounds. It needs strong leadership making it clear that we need to increase the top rate of tax and implement the recommendations from the Family Commission to reduce child poverty. If this is put across in a fluent, articulate, strong manner it will swing voters.
Most Kiwi’s are fair people but they dont seem to be getting any alternative messages/narrative from Labour.
Anyway Olwyn, I strongly recommend the book. Michael Sandel (Professor of Govt, Harvard University), What Money Cant Buy…The Moral Limits of Markets.
I have read a paper by Sandel expressing that view, with which I agree but I have not read the book. I used to love his lectures on Channel 7 when we still had it. I get the impression that the moral arguments get sidelined because market advocates promote their view as “scientific” and insist that “you can’t mess with the science of it.” But I have no doubt that many would be open to moral arguments, just as they were open to moral arguments against slavery, which was also rationalised on a quasi-scientific basis.
I think you’re entitled to reject the false frame as well. The “market advocates” don’t in fact have “science” (by which I take you to mean economics) on their side either.
Rational and emotional arguments can be pretty persuasive, especially in partnership.
“This is wrong – this is why and here’s what we’re going to do about it.”
The problem as I see it goes deeper than that, however. It is clear for the current crop of Nats that universal human rights are too politically correct. Of course, they\’ll defend their own rights to the death.
Because they’re busy kowtowing to the Free-Market and the Masters of Business – Just like National.
As for their adherence to a particular market theory, that’s debatable. Perhaps they subscribe to the notion that commerce provides for many goods, and took a bit too much fashionable advice from Treasury.
a major enabler of nationals’ full-scale pogrom on the poorest/sickest was how well the clark labour govt prepared the soil for them..
..those nine long years of clark/labour fostering the ‘otherness’ of the worst-off..(‘working for (some) families..but not them..!’) creating the climate perfect for nationals’ plans..
..the demonising/ostracising/stigmatising of that group has been a major success for the right..
..it is now the norm that these people are ‘bad’/undeserving..
..and of course a classic example of careful what you wish for is those (in work at the time) who nodded along in support of the poorest not getting ‘working for families’..
..that it should only go to ‘deserving’ families/people..
..those supporters of this discrimination now unemloyed have had the double kick in the guts of losing their income..plus losing their working for families top-up..
..i wonder if their experience has tempered their previous enthusiasm..?
…(‘first they came for the unemployed etc etc ‘..)
..phillip ure..
“The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.”
This quote states a fascist mind set. The new Jews are the poor, there was a final solution for the jews and the poor must be managed.
This statement is quite vile in it’s assumed superiority for those with greater wealth, income and opportunity it shows contempt for all of western civilisation’s progressive strivings. For instance the French Revolution : Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. The Social contract post WW11 and the New Deal in the US.Also the Christian ideal of we are all equal before God.
This vile statement talks of a land ruled by the kleptocratic few, not democracy. A land ruled by the marriage of corporate power and the state and the disenfranchisement of the poor to a basic income.
Definition of DISENFRANCHISE
: to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially : to deprive of the right to vote
The poor are to be cast out in terms of income, social status, and rights eg: Benes are force to send their children to ECE. at ages 3 and 4. They are to be harrassed and driven into any possible work outlet proper or no.
johnm, I don’t know if you meant it, but your explanation makes it sound like Olwyn’s quote is stating how things SHOULD be, and that he agrees with it.
Olwyn is actually stating the way things already are, and in a way that shows he strongly disagrees with this attitude become practice.
Excellent summation of the way things have become, especially for those of a Tory mind-set.
Thanks Karol, for offering johnm a clarification on my behalf. And I am a “she” not a “he” despite the “y” in my name.
Sorry for the wrong use of pronoun. She it is.
The Tory Scum in the U$K are putting this quote into practice here are some reactions. IDS is Ian Duncan Smith who does there Bennett’s role here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/22/iain-duncan-smith-jobcentres-benefits#start-of-comments
“Iain Duncan Smith denies jobcentres have targets for sanctioning benefits
Minister says reminder will be sent to jobcentre staff after leaked email suggested existence of league tables”
1. “IDS, what a shit. ” 2.”Iain Duncan Smith denies jobcentres have targets for sanctioning benefits
Who would believe a word this ignoramus says. Ian Duncan Smith is a proven liar not to mention Mark Hoban.” 3. “HeilCameron – Is he unique in this?” 4. ”
He seems to a be a man who struggles to open his mouth without lying so the argument about who to believe here seems moot.
The true mascot of the Nasty Party. A man who cannot face the cruelty of his actions. A bully, a coward and incompetent. Not a trifecta of which to be proud.”
5. ” Fiddling the unemployment figures by use of sanctions, regardless of the human cost; changing the law retrospectively to prevent people exerting their rights with Workfare; and undermining disabled people’s dignity by cutting their benefits and social care whilst claiming that they are being given greater choice and independence. All accomplished by lying through your teeth, IDS.
Lower than vermin.”
6. “Impossible to believe anything IDS says, with his form.
The targets explain why my single parent neighbour has been sanctioned twice since just before xmas, losing a total of 6 weeks JSA, for complete non-reasons.”
7. ” “Who does he think he is..?” IDS?
A bigoted privileged narcissist in a party bloated with bigoted privileged narcissists.
This is the problem we have – and why none of them have gone – they’re all so unbelievably rotten that none of them are standing out!”
The poor tend to be understood as the rational inferiors of the well-off, to the extent that political arguments now largely revolve around their management rather than their representation.
Maybe they need Management.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/8462897/Dole-queues-are-long-but-bosses-say-We-can-t-get-workers
We have no assurance that the empolyers are not over-stating the problem. They have employed some people to their satisfaction. Why is there no balance showing exactly how many of the total are a problem?
At the interview they complain of people chewing gum and smoking – are the implied social skills necessary for labouring jobs?
And the article mentions a burger chain requiring loads of workers in the area. I had a relative (from a fairly right leaning branch of the family), worked for a bit a McDonalds. Hir family described the boss/system there as exploiting the young family member working there. They demand workers do as they are told, for meagre wages, no matter how unacceptable the orders.
Let’s have the employers’ and their recruiters’ attitudes and behaviour on the table before they start demeaning all those applying for their jobs.
I was going to post the same link, but as an example of the hate speech being directed at the poor in NZ.
Then again what can you expect from an ex- Maxim Institute ‘journalist’.
The Nats are certainly winning the propoganda war against the poor.
S Karol rightly asks , how are the unemployed meant to rebuke these sensationalized and largely overstated claims ?
Doug, I’ve read the Waikato Times article you link.
One has to wonder about the criteria applied by Kristen Goodwin when she determined that only 5 out of 200 people who applied for 1 administration job, were “acceptable”.
I find the whiff of deliberate bullshit there anyway. Is Ms Goodwin asking us to believe that she went through the rigmarole of interviewing 200 people for 1 job ? And that by the strangest of coincidences the 5 “acceptable” people were not found until 195 “unacceptables” had been interviewed and rejected ?
How I sympathise with the wan, put-upon, clearly pregnant Ms Goodwin as depicted by her photograph in the article. It must be so trying for a decent, middle class, white, mother-to-be lassie to have to deal with 195 disgusting underclass.
There are six certainties here:
1. 200 applicants were not interviewed or considered in any true sense.
2. For whatever lesser number were in fact truly interviewed irrelevancies such as looks, age,
ethnicity were determinants.
3. The “journalist” who researched and wrote the article is inept. It is bullshit.
4. Paula Bennett would not be happy with Ms Goodwin. Job applicants are to be “congratulated”
for endlessly suffering the actual and implied sneering of the likes of Ms Goodwin.
5. Far from countering Olwyn’s observation the article positively proves it.
6. The poor are a commodity who fall to be “managed” by their “betters”, and publicly
castigated when their “management” proves vexing.
Sooner or later there will be social-media assisted rebellion. An enduring society cannot unendingly marginalise, enslave, and impoverish.
Well said North.
And how come these fuckwits seem to forget all about their beloved market economics as soon as they can’t use it to screw someone?
If they’re not getting suitable applicants they need to offer more money. End of.
Did you actually read the article North? It explicitly says she interviewed 5 people out of 200. Not that she interviewed 200 and found 5 acceptable.
which only makes her claim that 195 were unsuitable even more difficult to believe.
How did she advertise the position? Was the job correctly described. Is she simply telling porkies ????
Indeed, it doesn’t fit with your personal narrative so it she must be lying or inept in some fashion. It couldn’t possibly be that unemployment is so high that large volumes of people are applying for every job the see, qualified or not.
Fair point.
Seems pretty likely to me. Way back when I was a low skilled worker facing personal financial problems I know I applied for every entry level position I could. Even for things I knew I couldn’t get in the hope of getting an interview.
absolutely fair call,
if i do not have all the facts I should not be casting aspersions based on the comments of the employer and the lifelong reading of people’s faces and how they often mirror the person within.
Yes I did read the article Contrarian. It said only 5 people out of 200 were acceptable. That is, 195 were unacceptable. Plain, straight out, no-good. That is the sneering pejorative inherent in the article.
Where the hell does Goodwin get off, and where the hell does Henson get off, branding 195 job-seekers as useless and unworthy if only 5 were interviewed ?
Heavy and uninformed judgment don’t you think of those 195 if they were never personally seen ? If they were judged only according to a phone call, some written expression of interest, or a photograph.
The article is a vicious and deliberate non-sequitur deceitfully peddled. Which means that honest reporting was never intended by the Maxim Institute connected propagandist who wrote it.
Anyway thanks for your comment. It confirms my suspicion that unacceptability may very well have been determined according to age, ethnicity fathomed according to a name or an accent or a photograph, or other discriminatory considerations. It also confirms that you Contrarian buy into the disgraceful “rationality” which Olwyn has identified.
Perhaps I should be kinder to you Contrarian. You comment that maybe it’s down to high volumes of people applying for jobs whether or not they are qualified. Yes, the ones who hope against hope, the ones who are desperate, the ones whom Bennett fulsomely congratulates.
Like the man during the Great Depression who lived next door to my then 18 year old mother in Church Street, Penrose. Daily routine was to walk all over the locality and beyond visiting work sites in search of a job. Insanely chanting the mantra – “I want work, work wants me, the work I want will come to me” repeat repeat repeat repeat. Lazy, indolent bastard ! Obviously the tupuna of the vile 195.
Take your pick CT. Join Bennett and congratulate people who against all the odds keep on applying for jobs, or abuse them as do Goodwin and Henson. You can’t have it both ways.
Precisely North. The rulers have to feel like they are so superior to the serfs. Otherwise their core existence is threatened and they may have to treat their workers like human beings.
And don’t get me started on the minimum wage. Why you should pay it and expect anything but the most minimal response is beyond me.
You did read the article? Sorry your comment about having to believe she interviewed 200 people when it specifically said 5 people must have been a typo on your part.
As a aside if advertised a job requiring Microsoft suite experience and, say, two years experience within the field of a law firm I wouldn’t interview who didn’t list those skills on their CV.
OK. So why does the subtitle of the article read “………applicants appalling” if the writer is talking about people, like in your Microsoft reference, who are simply unqualified ?
You’re a dick if you still maintain this article is not a direct attack on poor and unemployed people. But rationalise all you want…….
Specially when there are people at WINZ telling people that they must apply for between 3 and 5 jobs a day.
Chances are that the advertising would have been done through an agency. The agency would have screened out the vast majority of them through the CV/Cover letter – possibly automatically. Then there would have been the phone interview screening out even more. The finalists, all 5 of them requested by the client, would have been passed on to the employer for an interview.
If the employer did it themselves they would have done exactly the same thing including the predetermined five interviews.
It would be unfair to blame employers for being unable to deal with the enormous volumes of unemployed applicants out there. It would also be unfair to expect them not to go straight for the most qualified for the position.
Well said Olwyn.
Mind if I borrow it?
By all means! the more people pointing out such things, the better.
Jesus did bon mots on the poor ten times better than this.
Is this “rationality” towards the management of poverty less a function of implied scorn and more a function of decreased social mobility?
I think egalitarianism, like Christianity, would be a very good idea, but I observe New Zealand to be so stratified, so grouped into tight hermetic subcultures, and so lonely, that the principle disempowering dynamic is stasis: people are just stuck. Can’t get out. And hence, without personal agency, the logic of managing the poor ensues from that.
“…without personal agency, the logic of managing the poor ensues from that.” I agree. johnm at 7 points out various people, including Napoleon, who have understood that the retention of real agency depends upon having a right to the means to build and maintain a life. Australia, at the time of the federation, also outlined what was needed for a modestly flourishing life. The living wage campaign is also a move in that direction, though a campaign by itself cannot confer a right. Advocacy, however, is a start.
Advocates for the poor are heroes. Absolutely no irony. Any time I see a Labour politician advocate for unity and dignity, to me they are heroes. Enjoyed Ardern sticking it to Bennett in the House this week. Just needs extra killer instinct to make her squirm when she’s impaled.
I hear ya, Arden comes across like the type who has soft toys around her bedroom. Maybe it’s just me…
I like her a lot though.
always precise Ad, personal agency Indeed
include
-government ignoring alcohol reform recommendations
-educational under-achievement, tangata whenua and Pasifika in partic.(yet that must be the “individuals fault”)
-racism (plenty of recent MSM articles on that matter)
-police and justice discrimination toward certain ethnicities
-euro-centricism
-bourgeois expectations
-low minimum wage
-health and safety record in NZ
-well entrenched poverty and implications
-the legacy of all the above occurring for decades now (before some of these applicants were born)
These employers are reaping what their political masters have sown.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/workfare-why-did-so-many-labour-mps-accept-this-brutal-unforgivable-attack-on-vulnerable-people-8542193.html
The parallels between British Labour and its NZ counterpart are eerie. No wonder the satirical show ‘the thick of it’ is like a documentary of our own “shad cab”
The latest from Owen Jones at the Independent:
Jones believes that it is essential that Labour members stay and fight to take the party back. He endorses a new extra-parliamentary left movement that could light the way:
As in the UK there is no shortage of people who are angry and despairing about the actions of the National government and its allies in Labour. Some will turn to the Greens. But maybe a similar movement in NZ could help turn the Labour Party around from being collaborators in kicking the poor and vulnerable of behalf of the wealthy, into a coherent resistance (also known as an opposition).
I love the idea of a people’s assembly. We have the germ of such a movement in TS, but I am not sure how one would go about broadening it. Such a movement would also give courage and traction to Labour MPs who would like to oppose the system, but do not see how. The problem with trying to represent demoralised people is that they cannot offer you a power base from which to negotiate. Trotter has quoted Roosevelt saying of the new deal. “You make me do it,” meaning, “you create the pressure that will give me justification.”
Initially
– Set up non-partisan co-ordinators in major and minor centres. They will need to be the right people. These will be people already active, respected and known on the Left wing political scene and ideally should all already know each other.
– There need to be funds available for each centre, promotional work, hall hire, contribution to a nation wide website (hmmmm new functionality for The Standard…?). Probably on the scale of $1K to $2K each in starting funds.
– Identify a network of skilled activists and professionals in each centre willing to dedicate their time and who are both willing to organise and be organised. Lawyers. Accountants. Doctors. Academics. Factory workers. Farm workers. Tradies. Beneficiaries. Retired.
– The first basic functions to carry out are: local news and event reporting and commentary. Dissemination of alternative political economic narratives. Help people understand the path that NZ has taken since the Great Depression. Write up of personal anecdotes and experiences.
My intuition at this stage is that such a movement should not be too committee-like from the outset, but I am not sure how else one might get the ball rolling. It seems at this stage it would be a good idea to keep an eye on how they are proceeding in England, and to also talk to like-minded people and get some ideas percolating.
Thank you to whoever put this quote of mine up, and to the various commentators offering further insights into the problem and suggesting ways in which we might address it over the long haul.
Olwyn…….you give “aspiration”, of late a cynically abused word centred in cargo-cult, true meaning.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8463033/Dole-queues-long-but-bosses-can-t-get-workers
The link above is to an article which clearly places the blame for unemployment not on the economy, but on the unemployed themselves.
Astoundingly it states what are considered “common” faults. Perhaps I’m limited in my experience but I find all except the last two as unlikely in the majority of cases.
COMMON JOBSEEKER FAULTS:
Drunkenness
Absenteeism
Failing drug tests
Physicality when told to leave site
Not turning up for interview
Smoking throughout interview
Chewing gum throughout interview
No CV prepared
CVs full of basic spelling mistakes
Yes folks! THAT’S the real reason the poor remain poor. It’s nothing to do with outside influences, but their lack of personal responsibility
Cheers, Olwyn. This isn’t meant to hijack your thread (!) but to point out that the “management” of the poor is justified through the media by highlighting a few rare cases, encouraging empathy with the employers in this case who can’t find suitable workers.
At no point in the article is it revealed what the conditions for workers with these employers are like, reputation of employers, duration of contract, location of the work and access to transport to work all of which will have considerable effect on the employers ability to attract workers.
AWW, the article is discussed above
http://thestandard.org.nz/ts-quote-of-the-week/#comment-608099
That practice of generalising from a small number of particular cases is a standard way in which prejudice is propagated and maintained. And the list conflates cliched examples of poor work histories with poor interview stories. Absenteeism and failed drug tests do not generally come up at interviews. And as to “smoking throughout the interview,” aren’t most interviews conducted indoors? And aren’t all indoor work environments smoke-free by law? It all reads like yet another round of prejudice maintenance.
It might be a good idea to have a Good/Bad employer site. It would have to be circumspect about referring to the names of bad employers but could mention the type of employment. Tramps used to mark the gateways of houses with symbols that indicated their experience with the residents. This would be a modern way of doing the same.
Mea Cupla. I’m really dead sorry that I’ve spoiled it for everybody by refusing to be materially wealthy; by refusing to be a good consumer; by refusing to reduce my humanity to the level of a rationally optimising ‘ homo economicus’. And to authority -the representatives of the wealthy – that have generally found my attitude and presence problematic, well…what can I say? I feel for you and your burden, I really do.
You’re damaging world economic growth by not buying a new 52″ flat screen every 18 months. Shame on you.
Thanks to greed over powering common sense I have been recently made redundant. Severance Pay is not a word in my employer’s lexicon. As i try to find next month’s rent I expect to confront first hand many of the prejudices ascribed to the employers in the above article. I freely admit I am not looking forward to cliche driven character dissection by what are presented as some extremely judgemental denizens of virtue and perfection.
Luckily i have skills outside of slavery and will be trying to get the workshop producing most of my income but the interim of reality screams that I may have to sign on. If it does occur I at least wil be able to offer some updates on the front line attitude so to speak. That said though, signing on to the dole is going to be a desperate last act.
Stories like the one above do not instill confidence in jobseekers. It describes an environment devoid of rationality and open minded common decency. Neither of which, if the article has any truth, appear to be high on the agenda of employers.
Damn. Good luck, freedom.
Ring WINZ today as the stand-down period starts from when you ring them up. Even if you end up not signing up you’ll have started things in motion.
You are not alone in your advice. I have had friends on my back all week about not being such a stubborn idiot and to go ask for help, so i did. I rang them and booked in for next week. Not to say i am actually going to sign on but as they say, best to have a matress down if jumping off the barn roof.
Good luck mate. Keep in touch.
If I may be so bold as to ask: what are your core skills?
Not sure how one could help from here or if you want it.
But there will be plenty of mildly leftish team leaders, managers and employers on this site.
🙂 most of my skills are hard to make money from without producing dross folk do not really need, so I have spent the last thirty years predominately in Hospo. The few times I thought that was going to change my lack of will to walk over others generally allowed others to walk over me.
I have exhibited at the National Gallery (when we had one) I have built a 300 square meter concrete map to celebrate the workers of NZ who once built the biggest Dam in the Southern Hemisphere ( a map since destroyed by a property developer who thought townhouses are more necessary than community space) I have organized large protest events and even got protest art legally installed on Parliament’s lawn. ( way back in the 90’s when we still had some rights to the grounds) The one time a ‘legit career’ was opening up for me as an Art teacher a particularly nasty violent crime shut the door hard and left me with PTSD. So like all of you I have tried things and I have had my challenges.
I confess to being a serious Artist not prone to producing the decor dressing that fills most galleries. I am told I produce actual Art that makes you feel something, that is based on the human need for reflection growth and progression. I am told I am very good and have learnt to quietly accept the praise when it is delivered. I paint, I sculpt, I carve Taonga, I make really lovely wooden boxes. I love producing large installation work for public space, but that is a rare event these days.
I have had opportunities most Artists would kill for and if I had more bloodlust I may have prostituted the events to my favour, but no, I concentrated on producing quality work instead. I succeeded every time, but the work seemed to be only part of the deal, i always suspected they wanted a personality to sell as well and that just is not interesting to me. I am not a navel gazer but do think on occassion. I have practical and digital skills in various creative fields, no institutional training to speak of and still have half a brain despite the best efforts of the MSM and associated media. I am an excellent problem solver and peacekeeper who is not motivated by money (hence the need for gainful employment) As an ‘outsider’ not attached to the Gallery game I developed my work instead of my reputation and am now entering one of the most productive satisfying and genuinely challenging periods of Studio work I have ever experienced. Perhaps the recent actions of my employer are simply the Universe suggesting I allow my work to help keep me alive instead of the other way around.
I beleive many who visit The Standard can appreciate that the career we get paid for and the life we actually live are often seperate things.
I thank you for the words of support and I know it is expressed towards all who are trying to get through the challenges of daily life in New Zealand. We all can help each other everyday by doing all we can to make sure those we know and love learn from the anguish facing hundreds of thousands of Kiwis. We all can remind people that things can be different and that articles like the one in question should be vilified for the thinly disguised hate speech that they are. Arohanui.
Thanks for your contributions “freedom”. The world is a place with as many diverse talents as there are human beings. Sadly the one-eyed market driven agenda – of the ones now dominating societies and economies – does not respect talents such as yours enough. Keep up your spirit despite all challenges and best of luck!
From todays Herald-Amelia Wade.
“1 in 3 NZers believe that they are worse off than 2 years ago and have less disposable income; 43% the same (on the moving escalator); 18% better off.
Food costs up, Power costs up, House costs up, Car costs up, Unemployment up.
Low and Middle-Income families feeling the increases more than those at the top; “average wage” stats skewed by high earners (that must be the 18% then).
But that is OK; Telecom job losses likely to be around 2500; 1/3 of their workforce;
“the highest number of job losses at a single time, from a single company, in NZ history.”
Gotta keep those millions flowing to foreign shareholders. They get the profits of firing people, we keep the costs.
Welcome to Wonderland.
Except for Telecom in 1990/91 when the layoffs first began. IIRC, the first tranche was about 5000 – again, about a third of their workforce at the time.