Helen Kelly: 1964-2016 – We have lost a great New Zealander and we are a lesser country for her passing

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We all knew she was leaving us.

But when it came, it still knocked the breath out of me.

We have lost a great New Zealander today and we are a lesser country for her passing.

Her tireless fighting for the most vulnerable workers made her a civil rights champion the likes we haven’t seen in the position of Union President. Her authenticity her realness and her total lack of ego made her unique.

There were so many battles.

The manufactured crisis at The Hobbit where Peter Jackson and National colluded to destroy the Actors Union (with a certain amount of help from Russell Brown) by pretending a massive corporate welfare payout to Warner Bros justified re-writing employment law for Corporate Hollywood.

There was Pike River and the abomination of no regulations that saw so many families weep for their fallen Brothers, Husbands, Uncles, Sons and Partners. The fact that the company had been able to operate with such appalling lack of regulatory oversight should stain our honour forever. While John Key was on the phone to Cameron Slater making disparaging comments about the families, Helen Kelly demanded justice.

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The forestry industry where forced into making work safer as Helen castigated them for their outright hostility towards their own workforce. The resulting inquiries that Helen managed to get underway highlighted the way employers viewed their staff as deserving of death. 

Helen refused to allow the farming industry to get away with substandard health and safety regulations and called them out on their conditions via twitter all the time.

For me personally it was her fight against Talley’s/Affco in 2012 that really cemented her position as a civil rights leader. Talley’s/Affco, led by a virulent anti-Communist multi-millioanire arsehole, are NZs worst employer and have a work injury history that borders on the Saudi Arabian.In 2012, they gerrymandered the law so that workers could not get benefits from the Government meaning 5000 children went hungry. That any company would use hunger as a negotiating tactic in the 21st century was repugnant and Helen refused to let the pricks off the hook for that.

In 2015 they threatened Helen with legal action if she kept speaking out about them.

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Even as she faced terminal cancer she stood for the rights of the ill to use cannabis. That Peter Dunne and the National Party forced her to become a criminal so that she could find pain relief is a shame that should haunt them till their own dying days.

 

We have few Union leaders who can replace her – Robert Reid was probably the closest and he is retiring. None of the new Union leadership are close to being able to fill her shoes which leaves her legacy unfulfilled.

She has passed in to the night and we are left to carry on in the darkness with only her example to light our hope.

Sleep well dear Comrade, Christ knows you’ve earned it.

Rest in peace Helen. We will never forget you.

26 COMMENTS

  1. Of all of the CTU leaders, Helen did get out from behind the desk the most …. Leadership from the front line….

  2. Peter Dunne has no sense of shame. Nor does he have any sense of decency or compassion or anything else except what’s good for Peter Dunne and his corrupt mates.

    if there was ever a Total Wanker Award in NZ politics Peter Dunne would surely be a leading contender. It still staggers me that anyone votes for him. But the fact that they do clearly demonstrates the incredibly low level to which NZ society has descended.

    • yes agree Peter Dunn is a total wanker but at the moment parliament is full of wankers and most of them are blue wankers

    • Probably not the time @Afewknowthetruth, but I understand what you mean. I take it you know more about the bow-tied hypocrite than most.
      NZ Poticians are full of the hypocritical amongst their ranks, and many with skeletons in their closets, as they chastise and make judgements on others. (Pots and Kettles, etc.)
      I agree, and I’m at a total loss as to how his electorate continues to indulge the prick. It may just be that ‘bow tie of respectability’ equipped with the well-spoken tounge of a used-car dog and lemon salesman …. and probably just longevity in politics.

      Helen had him pegged as did/do others.
      Better to acknowledge and celebrate what a spectacular woman she was rather than give a little worm any attention at all.

    • You are so right in your assessment of Mr P Dunne, he is as cunning as a cart load of rotten snakes.

      He has chosen to stand in an electorate that will never be affected by any thing unfortunate.
      Ahuria is a well to do area, high income and high valued homes, flash cars and well educated.
      So they just keep on voting for the status quo, and Dunne knows it.

      To have this idiot holding the balance of power makes a mockery of the voting system and more so , of democracy in general.

  3. The best way to continue and build on Helen’s work is to join – join the union, join the political party, and take part. The strength and the virtue of the left lies in collective action.

    So yes, Martyn, we can all despair at the inadequacies of the unions, parties, media and leaders that we have, but even the imperfect can make a contribution to progress. And that progress is real and valuable – a recent example is the Unite/Restaurant Brands deal, coming on top of the Zero-hours parliamentary success.

    Helen’s life work was wonderful, her successes substantial, and a great part of that is the way she inspires us to do a bit more, to help bring out the best of ourselves and each other

  4. Helen showed what a real New Zealander and a real leader looks like – as opposed to another “leader” who claims to represent what New Zealand stand for but is actually consigning these ideals to the rubbish bin of history.

    I think a statue in a public place in her honour would be quite nice.

    • Something would be fitting, and not something easily hidden away either – as befits the person she was…

      I met her once ,… it was at a memorial service for a member of the Sikh community who was killed on security duty by some thugs … ( and standard operating procedures certainly seemed to have been absent in that case ) in Henderson / Te Atatu, – Phil Tywford and Phil Goff was there as well,- and as I worked in that industry I turned up along with members of Unite Union …

      I was a bit stand offish as it was a solemn occasion , and I recognized Helen Kelly, but she waved me over with a big grin and said ,”Come on”

      And here was this Helen Kelly , not willing to have anyone left out or staying towards the back , with this positive , inclusive demeanor.

      And I hear this was how she was on the job as well. We have indeed lost a champion. My condolences to family and close friends and to those for whom she championed their rights to have fair treatment and a fair go.

      Indeed, some sort of memorial would be in place to honour a life that was well lived.

  5. She left a legacy of determination and connection with ordinary people. We can only hope others will carry on with her never ending task.
    Nice to see that even her political opponents have paid tribute to her.

  6. Very sad to wake to news of the death of Helen Kelly, a woman of extraordinary integrity and compassion who I covered at press conferences and at parliamentary select committees over many years, and was very fortunate to have known, albeit tangentially. She exuded kindness as though it was commonplace, because she believed that it should be.

    Helen maintained great humour during a rather ugly and hopeless period in my country’s political history, and she continued with the same strident and valiant spirit throughout a long and painful battle with cancer. To her, her sickness was nothing beside the illness infecting our body politic. Her own body wrecked, throat gagged, she continued to call for justice and respect for all people. Her final, struggling exhalations for human dignity over the last few months, in her suffering, shames any articulation I could conceivably spit.

    “Reality is not simply there, it does not simply exist: it must be sought out and won.”
    – Paul Celan

    Helen embodied that.

    It’s time that we stopped talking of political cycles as though they were seasons. Our position in relation to our leaders is not set like some celestial body with no choice of trajectory. Let hope be our spring, union our summer.

    RIP Helen

  7. Every time I saw Helen in action it made me proud to be a New Zealander.
    Very few today in my country make me feel the respect and pride that Helen engendered.
    A Bright light she was a shinning light she will remain.

  8. Right to the end of her life, Helen came out fighting for the ordinary Kiwi. Bless her.

    A shining inspiration of all that is good and decent in this world.

    RIP dear Helen, you were the best. Thank you.

  9. Well said Martyn, and like others, I too am gutted that this hero and champion of the people has died. We have lost a great human being and New Zealander today, that void can never be replaced by anyone.

  10. What a remarkable person. The embodiment of a “working class hero” if there was one. New Zealand is a better, safer, and more equal place for having had her with us.

  11. Helen Kelly, thanks for all you did for workers and New Zealanders in general, you will surely be missed. You deserve greatest respect for the work you did with such a great dedication and selflessness. Rest in peace.

  12. God bless morphine, but heroin’s better.

    heroin |ˈhɛrəʊɪn|
    noun [ mass noun ]
    a highly addictive analgesic drug derived from morphine, often used illicitly as a narcotic producing euphoria.

    I was told, as I held my mums hand, that , she couldn’t be prescribed heroin because it’s addictive therefore illegal. And we can’t have terminally ill patients becoming addicted to a drug that causes euphoria now can we? We all know, God likes a sufferer. Is that why some whack themselves while muttering gibberish?

    That dubious logic was explained to me by an eye rolling Indian Dr gentleman. A lovely fellow, and would make Dunne bristle with indignation. But then Dunne isn’t dying of cancer. Yet.
    He does have a nice bow tie though and we do allow him to maintain office.
    What a fucking mess. A beautiful soul forced to acquiesce to an idiot like dunne.
    What the fuck’s that about? Great and beautiful people get hideous diseases while arseholes seem to live forever? Fucking roger douglas, the wanker that deregulated Unions , is still alive and kicking. He made money from encaging pigs for their flesh and destroyed an entire country and the vile fucker’s still going strong. In the immortal words of the Dali Lama… WTF?

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