Bennett and Tolley versus children in poverty

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Each mid-year the NBR publishes its Rich List which celebrates the massive increases in wealth for the less than 0.1% at the top of New Zealand’s economic pile.

Each December we have its corollary – the reporting on the inexorable rise in levels of child poverty.

This year the Children’s Commissioner tells us deprivation has increased to the point we have almost one third of our children living below the poverty line.

Such is the government’s contempt for the poor that the only response was a truly feeble effort from Social Development Minister Anne Tolley.

Meanwhile the priority for Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett was to criticise State Housing Action Network (SHAN) protestors – myself included – as bullies because we picketed the national office of IHC in Wellington calling on the organisation not to buy state houses.

As we said in our SHAN media release:

“We want the public to know that this once proud organisation, IHC, has become an eager collaborator in one of the National government’s most despicable policies”

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IHC would not support Victorian-era approaches and attitudes to people with disabilities so neither should they support the National government returning housing for low-income families to Victorian times when the only options were charities and churches.

There is a housing crisis for tenants and families on low incomes. New Zealand has faced such crises in the past and the government has stepped in to build large numbers of state rental houses. It must do so again. 

If IHC wants to retain public respect and confidence it must withdraw from any deal to purchase state houses.

Bennett’s bullying claim was ironic coming from the person leading government attacks on beneficiaries and state house tenants. (The biggest applause at any National Party conference always comes when a minister announces they are putting another boot into beneficiaries or state house tenants)

National is enacting policies which it KNOWS will increase child poverty and the sale of state houses is one of them.  Instead of addressing the housing crisis for low-income families by building more state houses National is moving in the opposite direction – selling state houses.

But there’s no point moaning about how appalling National Party MPs are. They just are and they won’t stop trashing our kids till we stop them.

The most important thing to do is organise against their policies which is what SHAN and other groups are doing.

If you are not involved then look for opportunities to get active. 2016 is the year to bury National.

21 COMMENTS

  1. ‘2016 is the year to bury National.’

    Nice thought, but National is unlikely to be buried.

    The greedy corporatists that run NZ know they can get away with anything (in the short term) because those who disapprove of their enrich-the-rich-at everyone-else’s-expense policies have been rendered powerless and the corporate media continue to cover-up the crimes and cheerlead dysfunction.

    Only when a large (say 30%) portion of the populace is suffering badly will anything change. Until then, expect more of the same: more raiding of the commons; more squandering of energy and resources; more overcrowding; more environmental degradation; more people pushed into greater poverty.

    The good news is, the present globalized money-lender system is on its last legs and won’t persist beyond 2020 because it is founded on fraud and is maintained through propaganda, deceit and profligate use of oil and coal.

    The bad news is, wealthy ‘elites’ (scumbags) will do anything they can to hang on to wealth and power. We will find out over the coming few years just how vicious they are prepared to be.

  2. “Meanwhile the priority for Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett was to criticise State Housing Action Network (SHAN) protestors – myself included – as bullies because we picketed the national office of IHC in Wellington calling on the organisation not to buy state houses. ”

    National doesn’t like criticism.

    The treatment of dissidents like Nicky Hager and the smearing of critics proves that the Nats are just one step shy of turning this country into a full-fledged police state.

  3. Anne Tolley has come out with various comments, that show, she is firmly committed to the largely ideologically driven approach by the National led government, to outsource social services and use contracted NGO or private providers to get people off benefits.

    And that is their main goal, to simply get them off benefits, no matter what and how, into whatever jobs there are, of which too many are simply marginal, casual, part time jobs, offering little or no security. So we have the relentless focus on work that Paula Bennett mantra like piped from the roofs in Wellington, since 2010 or so, which culminated in the most radical “welfare reforms” for decades that were brought in mid 2013.

    But all they have to show for is dismal, and anything but convincing:
    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/msds-selective-and-poor-responses-to-new-oia-requests-on-benefits-advisors-reports-mental-health-and-sole-parent-employment-services/

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/msds-selective-poor-responses-to-new-oia-requests-post-nzsjb-27-11-15.pdf
    (PDF version, but “links” in it may not work, so see the original post above)

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/mental-health-and-sole-parent-employment-services-msd-withholds-o-i-a-information-that-may-prove-their-trials-a-failure/

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/mhes-spes-msd-withholds-o-i-a-info-that-may-prove-trials-a-failure-post-nzsjb-final-14-04-2015.pdf
    (PDF version, but “links” to more info may need to be clicked in the online post above)

    PDFs with MSD’s responses to some OIA requests:
    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-oia-reply-ce-ment-health-emplmt-serv-work-ability-assmts-compl-hilit-24-04-14.pdf

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-o-i-a-reply-d-power-mhes-waa-information-complete-24-04-2014.pdf

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-oia-rqst-mhes-waa-other-support-services-reply-anon-hilit-26-02-15.pdf

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/msd-oia-rqst-dr-bratt-mhes-spes-waa-reports-winz-sundry-data-08-07-reply-anon-19-11-15.pdf

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/msd-oia-rqst-dr-bratt-hd-panel-mhes-spes-waa-reports-reply-hi-lit-19-11-15.pdf

    Child poverty is the result of low benefits, and the smallish increase that those on benefits with children will get as from April next year will hardly alleviate the poverty that there is.

    Those who are sick and disabled have not been given any increase, and they do in large numbers continue suffering an existence in the shadow of society, as they are mostly not seen.

    As for the IHC, CCS and other supposed advocacy and support organisations, they are all in the palm of the government, due to over-dependence on government hand-outs (albeit often insufficient), and hence they tow the line and do not speak out, rather they increasingly “engage” with government and collaborate in the whole privatisiation agenda, in general social services, in disabled services and now in housing supply.

    Add also the large Wise Group, whose ‘Strategic Policy Advisor’ Helen Lockett sat alongside other vested interest holders, such as Dr Beaumont (then running ‘Pathways’ in Otago), on the once appointed ‘Health and Disability Panel’ that Paula Bennett appointed to “advise” on welfare reforms from 2011 to 2013:
    http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/the-health-and-disability-panel-and-its-hand-picked-members/

    According to MSD’s OIA response from 19 Nov. they had no significant “conflict of interest”, which is actually nonsense:
    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/msd-oia-rqst-dr-bratt-hd-panel-mhes-spes-waa-reports-reply-hi-lit-19-11-15.pdf

    The questions that were asked:
    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/msd-o-i-a-request-to-c-e-of-m-s-d-base-benefit-break-down-anon-08-07-15.pdf

    https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/msd-o-i-a-request-to-c-e-of-msd-bratt-hd-panel-reforms-anon-08-07-15.pdf

    The Wise Group’s subsidiary ‘Workwise’ was rewarded with a nice contract to get “mental health suffering” beneficiaries into jobs!

    Most people are totally indifferent towards all this, and the lots of those on benefits, hence the government gets away with what they are doing. Taxpayers are happy to see taxes for the reduced (income and business taxes), and cutting welfare is the price they are happy to settle with.

    This country is being sold out and corrupted by the day, but the “party” goes on, the one of the fools who do not bother informing themselves and prefer ignorance, distraction, consumerism, entertainment and taking the mickey out of the poor. What a disgrace NZ has become.

  4. “The biggest applause at any National Party conference always comes when a minister announces they are putting another boot into beneficiaries or state house tenants.”

    This speaks very loudly of economic apartheid, and a frightening level of moral detachment from a putative enemy that has been systematically disarmed anyway. It is not “Woohoo! They have tried to destroy us but we have prevailed!” It is not ” Woohoo! We have put our shoulders to the wheel and produced a result that will benefit our whole country.” It is more, “Woohoo! We have knocked them unconscious and now we can jump on their faces and go through their pockets for loose change.”

    • In ‘1984’ O’Brien says to Smith: “If you want a vision of the future imagine a boot stamping on a face forever.”

      We didn’t get there in 1984 but we’re almost there now.

      • It started in 1984 though Afewknowthetruth. Prebble, Douglas and the ACT crew infiltrated an eyes-wide-shut Labour Party and the neolibs and 1%ers have been at it ever since.

        Reverse Robin Hoods robbing from the poor, to give to the rich, trickle-down Keynsian gobshite – whatever you call it, there’s no way to sugar-coat it, or roll it in glitter. …. a turd is a turd is a turd.

  5. @ John Minto . You write .

    ” 2016 is the year to bury National.”

    As was last year, and the year before that and the year before that.

    Standing about shouting at locked doors won’t bury National. Hippies shouting , and God forbid playing guitars , at cops standing in front of locked doors won’t bury National.

    What will bury National would be to take their money away. That endless supply of dirt cheap farmer money ( Pardon the pun. ) . That endless and boundless supply of monies what puts the cock in billy english’s snoot. And you’s boys had best acknowledge that or you’ll be the ones getting buried, mark my words.

    Swing the farmer to the left and align them with their fragile service industry infrastructure and you will bury National but better still ? You will expose National ( And Labour ) to the highly oxygenated atmosphere of public scrutiny.

    But how one might ask? How to bring True Blue Farmers over and into the fold ? After years of lies and swindles.

    Dead easy mate. ( OMG! I wrote ‘ Mate’ )

    Offer farmers security.

    Not lies , deceit , hollow promises , misleading information , Machiavellian political farces or sending in the confederates to Federated Farmers to manipulate the hard working hearts and exhausted minds of those few hardy souls who believe there’s hope, where there isn’t .

    A clever politician would initiate a trend towards a Farmers Bank of New Zealand. A state run institution, at first at least, and designed to buffer farmers against the kinds of manipulations the jonky-stiens are trained to take advantage of.
    The Farmers Bank of New Zealand would have to be state administered at first to stop foreign banks predator-pricing it into oblivion.

    For jonky’s personal wealth creation first and foremost of course. ( Average daily jonky thinky-thinky thing . ” Sexy, money-times, tug hair, quick wank then piss in the shower. Boom ! Done! Now pass the sausage will ya mate? ” )

    Once NZ farmers could peer to peer lend you’d see a flourish in farming production like never before. Certainly in living memory. Smaller holdings would bellow and snort in rude good health but best of all? National and it’s deviant, swindling con artists would wither and die for a lack of fresh money. Put agriculturally, they’d be fucked . And beware ! Nothing, I mean nothing else will fuck National like exposing their crookedness and deviancy while they starve of cheap money.

    Their swindlings and manipulations to steal away with farmer money , both historic and current under the guise of being the farmers best mate, mate, would be revealed once and for all and National would fall like an old man pine but without the dignity.

    You can , and will, be forgiven for thinking I write shit. That perhaps I have a misguided opinion bordering on the psychotic and that I need more hugs and more sleep. Well, perhaps : )

    I will however continue to espouse my belief that if you want to kill off National? Take their farmer money away AND GIVE IT BACK TO THE FARMER VIA A SECURITY INDUCING, STATE RUN BANK .
    THEN ? YOU’D GET FISCAL TRICKLE UP . NOT TRICKLE DOWN. Always was a myth of a concept.
    When I was farming from 1965 ( One of my jobs was to feed calves after school ) to 1989 the one , all consuming anxiety was always about the certainty of debt versus the uncertainty of income ratio. And every single time that better times mysteriously came along for farmers the arse would equally mysteriously fall out of at-the -farm-gate prices at exactly the same time interest rates were increased after there was a borrowing frenzy off the banks. Who knew, that out there in Wellington, Auckland, Hong Kong etc there were hoards of jonky-stiens fucking about with our $-exchange to trap farmers into True Blue slavery?

    ( I wish there was a function here that would allow me to fire off sky rockets to further entrench the need for all you’s to take notice of me. CAPITALS REALLY DON’T QUITE DO IT DO THEY? I JUST LOOK LIKE I’M SHOUTING. )

  6. New Zealand is now officially a two tier country–the have nots and the have yachts

    an expanded middle class, and much of the self employed and SME layer are co-opted by the 1%ers and have turned their backs on their fellow New Zealanders

    the “baby boomer” bubble created the superannuation beast everyone is stuck with and so the “underclass” ghetto bubble will have unpleasant effects on society for years to come including thousands of kids not reaching their potential

    we need to organise the oppressed and exploited and demand poverty be addressed, feeding kids unconditionally like in parts of Scandinavia would be a good start as proposed in case you had forgotten by Hone Harawira and voted down by FJK’s Nats

    • A society should be measured on how well a society is operating as a whole and how well the lower socio economic groups are performing, in NZ the MSM are only interested in the rich listers and how fat their bank accounts are?

  7. Cutting social services is the worldwide N.W.O. plan and this has been dictated to our government by powers way above NZ – LONG LONG AGO. John Key is a sell out puppet to this Agenda and he is told what to do and what to say and likely ( ? ) paid highly for it. Pure and simple. He is a liar and a good talker but not too bright or ethical. His priorities are money and greed and not those in need in NZ.

    Someone once called him a ====>>>> corporation in disguise of a man.
    All you negative tickers and trolling Natz supporters, why not honestly look into the real ugly history of John Key and his past banking dealings ===>>> etc.

    Tolley and Bennett are corporate owned minions and just do the job they are told to do. They both care less about those in need as they got there’s and to hell with effectively supporting where it is needed. They both talk a huge line of bull and are foolish to believe that most agree with them. Bet they are happy as Larry about their recent pay rise. Good job girls now lets see if you are willing to go and donated your time at some Christmas soup kitchen?
    Yeh ! right ! — Wouldn’t want to get our nails dirty or rub up against some homeless person.

    • Ew…if I was served by those two pigs , – Id spew it all up again… you wouldn’t have known in what shit both of them had been rolling in.

      No thanks…Ill make my own soup, thank you very much…

  8. I ask, what has been “achieved” this year under big mouth John Key and his mediocre to useless ministers, in regards to “social housing” outcomes and addressing child poverty?

    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1501/S00128/john-key-speech-next-steps-in-social-housing.htm

    http://www.interest.co.nz/property/74957/pm-denies-auckland-housing-crisis-or-bubble-not-planning-reduce-migration-says-doing

    http://www.hivenews.co.nz/articles/862-hive-news-tuesday-more-fallout-from-salvation-army-withdrawal-nz-hits-new-highs

    http://www.landlords.co.nz/article/5421/social-housing-programme-open-to-overseas-buyers

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/editorials/69809849/Editorial-Governments-state-housing-sell-off-gets-stranger

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/282781/thousands-of-state-houses-up-for-sale

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11533295

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/292115/housing-protesters-accused-of-bullying

    So the IHC seems keen to jump in where the Salvation Army and others did not want to go, and we have the Minister talk like those social housing providers that want to buy and operate homes for the needy having to be “sustainable” businesses. That means that the providers are expected to operate like any other landlord, like a private enterprise, and then we may as well go and talk to the developers, with whom Housing NZ have been talking and working for some time.

    Social housing is just an empty slogan, housing is a commodity, and so it will be treated, by this government, by the “investors” and others. They will press more blood out of a stone, I suppose.

    As for child poverty, what have we had there?
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/10535794/Child-poverty-on-Key-agenda

    http://tick4kids.org.nz/Forty%20percent%20of%20poor%20children%20in%20families%20in%20paid%20work

    http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/305633/poor-start-addressing-child-poverty

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/key-completely-out-of-touch-with-needs-nz-s-poorest-kids-turei-6258127

    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/children-s-commissioner-challenges-govt-to-tackle-child-poverty-6068034

    A year of talk and little action, a miserly “increase” in benefits announced in the last Budget, not taking effect until April 2016 (and only partly going to end up in beneficiaries’ pockets), and at the end of the year we have the Commissioner report, that over 30 percent of kids in NZ live in households below the poverty line.

    I could offer many more links to media and other reports, but they will only confirm, the government has no answers, offers “solutions” that few consider practical and effective, and is slowly looking damned embarrassing. Shame on such a performance, and we are heading into more difficult economic times now, with China’s economy slowing, on which we have become so dependent now.

    The only last solution the government has is allowing more immigration, so the “growth” figures save their face. But like all previous immigration, it will come at a price, further down the line, all of the new residents will want healthcare, education, need welfare support when times get tough, and will retire one day, expecting retirement incomes. I suppose “the market” will solve it by forcing people to “save” for these harder times, as the coffers will be empty, as the LOOT will have been carried out of this place, to the tax free refuges in the Caribbean, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg and so forth. Key will sun himself in Hawaii and reap the rewards of a life of speculation, of selling stuff (some of which he did not own), and on brokering deals with the devil, leaving us out to hand dry and die.

  9. Tolley , Bennet and Collins….

    The ‘revolving door’ politicians.

    What is it about the National party these days…. do they have an un -announced job share description going on or something???

    Or is is simply that their odious personalities catch up with them and they constantly have to be moved on to another portfolio to prevent implosion among the National party cabinet?

    Or is it that they cat fight over the same positions so Key gives them each a turn?

    What gives here?…whats going on ?

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