Our main watch dog for NZers human rights and civil liberties is about to slash jobs by 15%.
10 permanent staff (15% of the total FTE) and approx 10 staff on fixed term positions were disestablished officially yesterday at the Human Rights Commission while National have appointed their mates and friends like multivitamin spokesperson Susan Devoy to Race Relations, National Party MP Jackie Blue to EEO, and ACT acolyte Ken Shirley, religiously conservative Ravi Musuku and homophobe Brian Neeson to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.
This is on top of Rugby old boy David Rutherford being appointed as the hatchet man to scalp the HRC of its ability to bite.
There’s no point to back appointments as vacant as National’s with staff who are still committed to human rights when the appointments are supposed to devalue and undermine those human rights.
More levels of management have been added and less positions for advisors/educators and policy analysts while large numbers of staff are to compete for fewer positions.
Commissioners are paid quarter of a million each, managers over 100,000K the national govt chooses static funding for 5 years.
This leaves a Human Rights Commission that is all dressing and no window, our civil liberties have been stripped and human rights defense is now naked.
How appropriate that the Human Rights Commission has been gutted as National continue their blitzkrieg against us with the GCSB being able to spy on NZers, the military being able to arrest citizens for protesting and vast new unchecked search and surveillance powers to the Police.
Marriage equality celebrations and the pretense that we are a more equitable society have barely ended when the hangover from John Key’s brave new New Zealand wakes us to the sobering cold dawn reality of what NZs civil liberties look like in the shadow of corporate interests under his Government.
Don’t be afraid, be angry.
UPDATE: The HRC have contacted me regarding inaccuracies they claim are in todays blog. I have agreed to give them a right of reply over the pending job losses.
The Commission can confirm that a proposal on a new organisational design has been made to staff. The proposal is part of a self-initiated organisational review to clarify the Commission’s priorities for human rights. The proposal would see a potential reduction of the equivalent of 10 fulltime positions. It needs to be stressed that this is a proposal only and requires a full consultation before any decisions are made. The Commission comprises 71.35 full time equivalent positions.
You are nothing but a death insurance policy to the corporations. As a reality this department are now void of anything and whilst I’d like to see it there – It’s gone – lets change government and create a new department.
Jeeeesus ! That’s chilling . I think I know what’s going on but when it’s spelled out by someone else , it seems all the more chilling .
The creatures writing these fascist policies are already ten steps ahead and clearly planning strategies for all possible scenarios , so the World of Tomorrow is already scripted and from the synopsis looks fucking boring and fucking ugly .
I can see only one course of action for New Zealanders already faced with a crises of survival . Move to a country town and dig in because when the Neoliberals move on , they’ll leave a trail of destruction and the larger towns will become Mad Max ghettos , just dumber , uglier and more dangerous . If someone were to ask me what a solution might be instead of the dopy anarchy and tacky chaos that’s looming I’d say ‘ I dunno ? ‘ .
We are so screwed.
ALL politicians are ether uneducated or out and out sack of shit liars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iW1SHPgUAQ
A documentary adaptation Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. An investigation of disaster capitalism, based on Naomi Klein’s proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.
Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism — the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock — did not begin with September 11, 2001.
The films traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.
New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, shock and awe warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.
The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
Great doco but scary. Leaves you feeling incredibly powerless. Why is this not on TV1 at 7.30pm to at least try and inform some people who will not search this out themselves. Thanks to Rialto, Maori TV and Prime for some great docos.
This is another matter that will need to be addressed by the next Labour-Green government in 2014 (or earlier).
This cannot be allowed to stand.
No.
Way.
In.
Hell.
The purpose of all such organisations is to provide the pretence of justice and accountability whilst providing none.
Human Rights Commission
Police Complaints Authority
Broadcasting Standards Authority
Food Standards Authority
Ombudsman……….
… they are all there to protect the opportunists, the looters and the polluters, and provide a façade for the covert fascist state.
All ‘run a mile’ when confronted with truth, or ignore it.
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