10 Important stories about National’s political agenda that got lost in Jacindamania and Metiria’s assassination

With all the heat, noise and media attention on Jacindamania and Metiria’s political assassination, important news stories that really spell out the deficiencies and hollowness of National’s political agenda are being lost in the noise.

Here are the top 10.

10 – State sanctioned spying on Greenpeace

As predicted by TDB, the mass surveillance powers rammed through by the Government under urgency with just 1 vote are being used against environmental activists. Startling news that Greenpeace have not only been spied on but that the spying is backed by the Government…

Greenpeace boss Russel Norman is calling on the Government to “categorically deny” any involvement with a surveillance campaign targeting the environmental lobby group.

Greenpeace says it has caught spies in the act, tracking and photographing staff and volunteers and filed litigation against the private investigation company it claims is organising it.

“The information received suggests the New Zealand Government has also been involved,” said Norman, a former Green MP.

Norman said Greenpeace did not know who the source was but said they had been able to verify other information the source provided.

…as TDB understands it, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment  is paying well known dirty ops team Thompson & Clark for information on Greenpeace and other state intelligence agencies are using that information to strengthen their own surveillance agenda against the wider environmental movement.

It is outrageous in the extreme that such surveillance would be supported and backed by the state and that the information being sourced is then being passed along to our intelligence agencies.

 

9 – Paula Bennett promises to protect whistleblowers after publicly crucifying beneficiaries who blew the whistle on her?

Hilariously Paula Bennett is promising to protect whistleblowers in the wake of the madness at the Ministry of Transport that saw staff sacked for discovering corruption…

State Services Minister Paula Bennett is promising to protect those who speak out against fraud. “I’m open to changing the law if it’s not working, ’cause I think it’s really important that we have integrity and transparency in our public services,” Ms Bennett told 1 NEWS.

…this claim of protecting whistleblowers is an absurd hypocrisy when Paula Bennett released the personal details of beneficiaries who called out her draconian welfare policies and then despite a ruling by the Human Rights Commission against her stated she would breach their privacy again to punish them going public.

It is equally absurd having these assurances of protecting whistleblowers when right now there is a whistleblower with allegations against Paula Bennett committing welfare fraud who is being gagged…

 

8 – Bill English can’t comprehend why people are complaining about homelessness 

This story just didn’t receive the contempt it deserved…

Bill English says he doesn’t understand why people are unhappy the Government is spending $140,000 a day on emergency accommodation for the homeless.

The housing crisis is on track to cost the Government $50 million on motels and other “short-term measures” a year, but the Prime Minister says there’s little else that can be done.

“If they’re not in the motels, they haven’t got anywhere warm and dry to live,” he told The AM Show on Monday morning.

“I don’t know why people are complaining about this. It’s a short-term measure, it’s necessary. We’re not doing it to put them on holiday.”

…he can’t understand why we are complaining about his Government’s feckless and pathetic response to homelessness???

Really Bill?

In 9 years your Government has created…

• Generations locked out of home ownership
• Hundreds of thousands forced to live in over crowded and illegal housing
• Thousands of families living in cars
• 41 000 homeless
• 1600 dying each year from the cold
• mass budget blow outs to put the homeless into motels
• privatised state housing

…and why has the Government purposely created this situation? They have purposely fed a speculative housing bubble fuelled on mass immigration and fake education programs to keep the middle classes convinced they are millionaires to maintain power.

Bill’s ‘why are you complaining’ line is as ugly as it is obscene.

 

7 – Environmental Protection Agency protects a mining corporation rather than the environment 

Our Environmental Protection Agency is there to protect the bloody environment, not protect mining corporation profit margins…

the EPA’s decision, which was strongly opposed by local communities, iwi, environmental groups and others, will allow TTRL to mine up to 50 million tonnes of iron sand each year for 35 years from a 66 square kilometre area of sea floor in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone (provided all consent conditions can be met)

…apart from the fact that this is a terrible ruling based on a total misreading of the policy, watching agencies tasked with protecting our environment protect the mining companies instead should be a deep embarrassment that leads the nightly news for a week.

 

6 – NZ Prison violence out of control

Take a long hard look at the above image folks, that’s a NZ prisoner who had his skull bashed in and it highlights the culture of violence that is now all pervasive in our over crowded and racist prison system…

Nicotine patches given to prisoners to help them quit smoking have become highly-valued tradable commodities – leading to standovers and bullying.

The finding is contained in a damning Ombudsman report on Spring Hill prison. It also found a third of inmates claimed to have been assaulted and half feel unsafe.

There is also a “pervasive influence” at the prison of new psychoactive substances that mimic the effects of drugs such as cannabis and heroin, the report states, and nicotine patches had become a “highly-tradable” commodity resulting in bullying and standovers.

…National’s get tough on crime knee jerks exacerbated Labour’s get tough on crime rhetoric and created a prison industry that makes money from incarceration and uses flawed parole rule changes to keep prisoners locked up in prison without rehabilitation for longer and longer.

We have built a prison system based on fear, anger and spite that produces  human beings more damaged coming out than they were going in.

 

5 – Unemployment stats are rigged

After raising this as an issue on TDB for 3 years, the truth about the way our unemployment stats are rigged has finally been exposed by the mainstream media…

The official unemployment rate in New Zealand has hit an eight-year low of 4.8 percent.

Sounds impressive, right? Sounds like the kind of employment environment where the worker rules – where there is little competition for jobs, and bosses are so desperate for workers they are offering great salaries and benefits.

But the 4.8 percent unemployment statistic is not telling the full story.

There are 1 million New Zealanders not in jobs and not counted in either the unemployment or employment rate. Many of the 1 million people ‘not in the labour force’ are doing things like studying or caring for a family member.

…we have been told our rock star economy is performing for everyone, the truth is that it is not and the offical stats used to measure this are deeply flawed.

 

4 – Historic abuse by the State still ignored

The way National have avoided any attempt at an inquiry into the historic abuse of NZers by the State continues to bubble along, especially with the latest example of abuse at a bootcamp makes the news…

The former minister for Child, Youth and Family says her department “funded” the abuse of young people at a boot camp on Great Barrier Island.

…how the National Government can protect the abusers and ignore the abused and still remain in power is a judgment on us as a people.

 

3 – The Poor lose a champion  

The most tragic part of the rich white male broadcaster clique who destroyed Metiria was that the most vulnerable amongst us was robbed of a voice… 

…while the rich white male broadcaster clique congratulated themselves and crowed over who could take credit for Metiria resigning, those who have been most damaged by our neoliberal welfare state had their champion silenced.

 

2 – ACT vs National 

ACT – a one trick pony running out of pony’s 

There is an undeclared civil war erupting between ACT and National. Steven Joyce leaked on the weekend current affairs shows that ACT is trailing National in Epsom and in response David Seymour publicly attacked National’s law and order policy. 

TDB understands that National strategists are now questioning the wisdom of allowing ACT a free hand in Epsom when the 1% party vote ACT take could be the difference between National forming a Government or not in a close election.

 

1 – Auditor-general report still secret

The fact that the report into the jaw dropping incompetence of allowing an incompetent bureaucrat become the Auditor-General is still being hidden from the public…

In her valedictory speech at Parliament last night, Labour MP Sue Moroney, who originally revealed the fraud, called on Mr Carter to release the report.

Ms Moroney said while Harrison had wrecked many lives, she didn’t want the next reputation she wrecked to be Parliament’s.

“My advice to future Parliaments is simple – if you have to go to the Serious Fraud Office to satisfy yourselves about the person you’re about to appoint as Auditor-General, then they are almost certainly the wrong person for the job.”

Ms Moroney said she’d had to fight the “old boys network and the Wellington mafia over the Auditor-General’s appointment”.

Former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer said the public deserved a better explanation for why the report was not being made public.

…it is just further proof that our public service have lost their soul under the neoliberal culture that is now promoted and is in desperate need of a culture reform if a change of Government comes in.

Labour are simply too compromised by their fear of the PSA to do anything meaningful about changing the culture in our neoliberal welfare agencies and our only hope to purge the neoliberal culture out of our welfare agencies will fall to NZ First and the Greens.