The denial over our poverty has never been so difficult to gloss over.
The economic growth rate is as illusionary as middle class property wealth, we are needing to massage the stats to make unemployment look better and tens of thousands of migrant workers are being lured to NZ to be paid less for jobs NZers demand real wages for.
This influx of migrant workers and students puts enormous stress on our infrastructure and puts NZs poor in competition for jobs and places to live with these exploited migrant workers.
We saw this friction in the Brexit result.
This downwards pressure on labour costs via exploited migrant workers combined with draconian welfare reforms makes poverty in NZ more acute.
Even the Guardian is damning…
New Zealand’s most shameful secret: ‘We have normalised child poverty’
One-third of the country’s children, or 300,000, now live below the poverty line – 45,000 more than a year ago
…and Jenny Salesa’s opinion piece also in the Guardian is a harsh reminder of how things have gotten….
Child poverty in New Zealand is sensationalised? Not where I sit
Every day I am reminded by the constituents coming to my office that poverty and inequality in New Zealand is systemic. We must choose a better way
…and the latest insult to our collective sense of decency has been highlighted in the housing crisis…
Would-be tenants seek to live in cars on driveways to beat Auckland rents
Auckland’s rent crisis is forcing would-be tenants to seek driveways and front yards as dwelling options.
Advertisements are being placed at supermarkets by people wanting to live in cars seeking “driveway and shower” arrangements.
One man put a notice board ad at Pak’n Save Albany seeking “a driveway for a man and his car”.
…was this what Key meant when he said we were on the cusp of something special when he won on election night.
Cusp? Sure. Special? Not in a good way.
Then there is our mental health system in collapse as witnessed by Kelvin Davis….
Labour MP calls on mental health services to do more for those in need
Labour MP Kelvin Davis says the mental health system has a lot of answer for, following an eye-opening night supporting a desperate man calling out for help.
About 10pm on Friday night Davis was driving back to Whangarei from Auckland when he received an “ominous” text from a Dunedin man.
“Sorry and goodbye,” the text read.
…and all of this from a Government who says there isn’t a housing crisis and vetoed an inquiry into homelessness…
Hundreds of submissions for homelessness inquiry
More than 250 submissions have been made to a cross-party inquiry into homelessness, which will have its first public hearing at Auckland’s Te Puea Marae later this month.
…our Government is not only in denial, it is wilful denial.
Meanwhile, a Politician who pundits claim can never win, continues to win…
The ‘unelectable’ Jeremy Corbyn just won another election
Despite allegations of being ‘unelectable’, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party achieved another election victory overnight – adding to a string of positive results in the last year.
On 18 August, Labour held onto the Tooting Wandsworth contituency, increasing its share of the vote by more than 13%. Considering this vote took place at a time when the Parliamentary Labour Party has launched a coup against its leader, this is a shocking result.
“Growth” that by design is not to be shared by most New Zealander’s. Why, because of their once hidden immigration policy National saw to it that wage growth was, if not frozen, then supremely stifled. And finally finally, this scam has dawned on media commentators.
But its bullshit growth isn’t it? Building/slapping up houses on a basis of massive debt to trade with each other is not growth, it doesn’t earn the country money. Allowing a flood of cheap labour to enter the country does not earn this country money does it? Not unless it goes into the productive foreign earnings side of our economy and somehow a Cafe manager, Hairdresser doesn’t seem to fit that bill, nor an Uber driver.
I think Bernard Hickey calls this a short term solution. It is so very John Key, trade short and get out with a quick buck before the facade falls down. Yay!
Tragically true
Well done Martyn. Hopefully the message is starting to get through, but its bloody hard to break the right’s stranglehold on the commercial media.
Constructed ignorance: a politician, a city/district councillor, a council officer, or a bureaucrat refuses to even look at or discuss information that refutes their absurd claims.
Constructed ignorance has done immeasurable damage to NZ society. And it’s not going to stop, since we are governed by saboteurs and traitors who seek opportunities to enrich themselves at other people’s expense.
The great decline, the slow unravelling, will continue until enough people have been ‘pushed off the cliff’ and something in ‘the system’ breaks. The factor that breaks will probably the environment, but it may be the oil supply or the global financial system.
Then the slow unravelling will morph into fast unravelling and the saboteurs and traitors in power will look for someone to blame for their incompetence and mendacity…. probably China or Russia.
Because the Key government lives in a state of denial and blame games is showing what a weak and gutless government it truly is.I am beginning to doubt Key had any policies right from when he first became PM.
The guy(Key)makes promises prior to an election that he has absolutely no intention on keeping to once the votes are counted.
Perhaps Key, Nick Smith, Brownlee, Bennett, Joyce, English etc,etc,etc have been drinking too much of JKs finest vino and so whatever brain matter they had is well satuated to the point they cannot think logically anymore.
Their “Holier than thou” attitude reeks of arrogance. They are of the opinion they can do no wrong but when caught in a corner of their own making they resort to blaming someone else e.g a junior in say John Key’s office.
And so to me this government is rotten to the core. Key cares more for the vanity projects e.g a $26million+ flag referendum and photo opportunities.He would never ‘shake hands with the great unwashed(as a National Party supporter often said to me)’. That would be too below him whilst he is striving for the goal of either becoming the first President of NZ or he gets a job in the tax-free haven that is a United Nations.
Be assured if Key & Co get back in after next years’ election he will go ahead with a flag change. He may even replace the face of Kate Shepherd on the $10.00 with his own face. He wants to leave a legacy of his time as part-time PM of NZ. But the true legacy he will leave behind is what we ordinary NZers see every day i.e homelessness, high prices for small properties. greedy landlords(sharks), etc,etc,etc.
Key will head off back to his more beloved Hawaii once he is no longer PM. And he will get one of his lapdogs like John Roughan to write another book about him. Such is his ego that he just loves himself.
He smirks like a dictator and is beginning to behave like one.
“He smirks like a dictator and is beginning to behave like one.”
Indeed, Key is a man of many faces, the smiling one is what the public fall for, he was not called the “smiling assassin” for no reason.
JUST ME you are so right,
Anyone who has a permanent smirk/smile has a desire to hide their soul and Key does this all the time.
He is a shifty character we all see now.
I remember my wise Mum used to say to me that “you can see the soul if you look into their eyes”, and if you look at Michael Joseph Savage’s eyes in his picture above, you see warmth in his soul, but Key;s eyes they are dead, like his soul, – he does not have one at all.
A line from on old Star Trek series episode called “An Errand of Mercy”. A Klingon commander says:
“I never trust a man who smiles too much!”
We all know what happens to Dictators in 3rd world Banana Republics, the populace rises up and they can find themselves Standing in front of a whitewashed wall, or banged up for the rest of their natural. But we are not a … Oh hang on a Minute…
We can go on and on and on about this emotive issue, deserving a lot of action, but we are up against a giant machinery, a WINZ, MSD and CYFS and Housing NZ combined bulldozer-steamrooler-tank machinery, that has its controls up in the government.
They simply DO NOT CARE, they simply DO NOT LISTEN, they simply have a DIM VIEW of us who dare raise these issues.
For them it all boils down to one solution: Work, work and work, jobs, jobs and jobs, as WORK WILL SET YOU FREE is their ideology and incessantly repeated mantra:
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/GP%20CME/Friday/C1%201515%20Bratt-Hawker.pdf
They indoctrinate the medical and other health professionals, they indoctrinate the public, all they can influence. Most of the affected feel so intimidated and are generally poorly informed, they rather go along with it all, than rock the boat.
And meanwhile, most know nothing about this, they continue to invite RFPs (requests for proposals) for private providers to step in and do the nasty job at the coal face, to pressure people into whatever work there is, as that is supposed to get them “well”, enable them to “save” and buy their own “home”, whatever that may look like:
https://www.gets.govt.nz/MSD/ExternalTenderDetails.htm?id=16820331
“The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) seeks to engage a provider(s) to undertake delivery of a short confidence and motivational training programme for suitable clients who face health condition barriers to work in the Central Region from as early as 1 December 2015 to 30 June 2016.
The aim of the Moving Forward – Health Condition service is to help clients who face barriers (some real and some perceived) to gain confidence and motivation. This will enable those clients to reactivate or activate their job search and take the next step toward training or suitable work within their capabilities.”
Other RFPs:
https://www.gets.govt.nz/MSD/ExternalTenderDetails.htm?id=17378735
“MSD is seeking proposals to be submitted that are aimed at supporting clients with a diagnosed mental health condition to gain work and achieve sustainable employment.”
“The Provider will be responsible for marketing the service, providing the wrap around case management of clients to support them to achieve and sustain employment outcomes that align with their individual goals.”
“Employment Placement and Support:
The aim of this component is to support clients into employment that results in their exit from benefit. Once employment is achieved both the client and employer will receive post placement support for up to 365 days. During this time the Provider will support the needs of both the client and the employer at a level that meets the needs of the client and employer.”
“The outcome targets of this service are that at least 30% of clients will achieve a benefit exit as a result of employment,
And of those placed into employment:
• 90% of clients will remain in employment for 31 days
• 60% remain in employment and off benefit for 365 days”
“Of those clients who do not achieve a benefit exit as a result of employment;
• 30% of participants will exit the service with an increased work-readiness capacity”
https://www.gets.govt.nz/MSD/ExternalTenderDetails.htm?id=17499650
Meanwhile their “evidence” re the “health benefits of work” has been taken to pieces:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/17944-scientist-and-legal-experts-discredit-%e2%80%98evidence%e2%80%99-used-by-msd-and-dr-bratt-when-claiming-the-%e2%80%98health-benefits-of-work%e2%80%99/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/senior-scientist-and-legal-experts-discredit-evidence-used-by-msd-and-dr-bratt-when-claiming-the-health-benefits-of-work/
I have no doubt after watching him for eight years as PM that he is deeply flawed psychologically and is narcissistic and the trade mark smile hides a devious personality and a contempt for anyone who questions his motives or a sincerity that i dont believe he has but projects it for use in his act for the public.
He is a compulsive liar and has been caught out so many times that by now such is the gravity of his offending it is remarkable he still holds the office of Prime Minister and can been seen as credible as a leader of a country.
No other PM could have survived this long without total meda loyalty and compliance often seen in dictatorships and a watertight caucus and cabinet and its unprecedented in this country and it is a cult of personality carefully crafted by spin and a media profile that is used ruthlessly to market Key as the great all round kiwi bloke who made good and is the first PM not too be a regular politician.
His background has never really had the scrutiny that an aspiring leader should have been subjected too especially someone wanting too qualify for the leadership of his country where his decisions will directly impact on the people he wants govern.
Had it had that investigation he would have been exposed as totally unsuitable and dangerous and corrupted for the office of PM.
The media failed miserably in this regard and is complicent in keeping this man in office and looking the other way, a complete turnaround from the treatment Helen Clark endured during her premiership and helped too defeat her government in 2008.
I believe it will end in disaster for New Zealand and its people and it will show John Key for what he really is NOT a kind genuine decent man not profiting for his own gain at the expense of his country and making decisions that he knows will in the long term prove to be disastrous just like his actions in the collapse of the Irish economy where he could unlike many of his victims just walk away unscathed.
Soon he will do the same here but with a knighthood and handshake and a career in the United States and a legacy that kiwis are already feeling the effects of and its not over yet and will be felt for years too come and we will wish we acted when we had the chance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sbkW-YBOg8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxTmebVRh9I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHEEbzi4n0w
Why does Labour have the same policy as National of awarding points towards permanent residency applications for those foreigners owning property in No Zealand?
I believe we are heading very fast back into a time similar to Victorian England. I think we may see some of features of that society come to life ie work houses and maybe debtors prisons. It is possible if inequality gets worse unless of course there is not revolution.
It’s funny you should mention that, Jono…
ref: “Neo-liberal Libertarian holds up Victorian England as “model for success” ” – https://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/neo-liberal-libertarian-holds-up-victorian-england-as-model-for-success/
Very interesting isn’t it… I think that’s the plan for where our masters want to take us.
Yes, revolution or outright civil war. Fighting and dying for either would be preferable to living in a floating prison hulk or debtors’ prison in the neo-Victorian nightmare you describe.
Because there’s nothing nightmare-ish about violent armed conflict ending in the maiming and death of innocent civilians, right?
Jesus, buddy, if you really fantasise about all that fighting and killing, either get a playstation, or go join the army. That kind of thinking has no place in a political forum, except as an example of a bad response to a bad situation.
mental illness is not included in the power elites sphere of reality.
their approach hardly seems secular
when i was diagnosed with mental health complications, i was shunned by friends and family who simply didn’t believe mental illness exist.
this is typical in new zealand
so without the diagnosis i am a lazy attention seeking quack with no job and no home. just blame the vulnerable
I completely understand the challenges you may have been confronted with, it is indeed a major issue we have not resolved in New Zealand, how to treat mental illness sufferers with dignity and respect, although this is at times different.
What is also important is to expose those “experts” that have gone about, with much money behind them (vested interest holding parties), who push their so-called “evidence” to “prove” that much mental illness is only imaginary, i.e. stuff going on (without basis) in their minds.
They have already been able to influence policy and even the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, who release a policy statement on ‘The Health Benefits of Work’.
Much of what they present are misinterpreted statistics, misrepresented data and flawed and baseless “evidence”.
It is time to expose this BS:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/senior-scientist-and-legal-experts-discredit-evidence-used-by-msd-and-dr-bratt-when-claiming-the-health-benefits-of-work/
“Is the statement that if a person is off work for 70 days the chance of ever getting back to work is 35% justified?”
https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2015/vol-128-no-1425-20-november-2015/6729
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/msd-and-dr-david-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-claiming-worklessness-causes-poor-health/
PDF of the above post:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-post-09-08-15.pdf
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/work-has-fewer-health-benefits-than-mansel-aylward-and-other-experts-claim-it-can-cause-serious-harm/
If only more people would bother informing themselves and hold the powers at the top to account!
We need more honest approaches, and to look at real evidence, and return to actually offering real “support”, not selling the false concept that employment in any kind of job will solve all problems, including poverty. Poverty and isolation and marginalisation cause illness, especially causes and worsens mental illness. It is not “worklessness” that is the main problem.
[Stupid comment deleted. No, Andrew, I’m not going to publish that. Without real corroboration, it comes across as trolling. Try that again and I will give you a week’s vacation from this Forum. – ScarletMod]
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