Paula Bennett in 1996
Like a lot of folk, I’ve had the allegations of youthful criminal behaviour by current Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett pop up in my facebook feed. They’re not entirely new and they do seem to confirm what many feel is her character (or, rather, lack of character).
As we know, Bennett bought property and gained an education as a solo mother. As a minister, she swiftly took away the rights of other beneficiaries to do the same. She is also a proven bully, perfectly willing to use the force of the state to cower the powerless.
In many ways, Paula Bennett is an awful person.
However, I have some sympathy for any beneficiary who broke the law in order to survive. NZ has enjoyed only around a decade where solo parents were shown any dignity or empathy. That period was from 1973, when the Domestic Purposes Benefit was enacted, to the mid-eighties, when the first faux ACT government was elected.
Since then, beneficiaries have again been reduced to social pariahs for whom we are supposed to have nothing but contempt. From mothers to others.
The allegations against Bennett come from someone whose social media output suggests is a confused, angry person with a tendency to right wing paranoia and misanthrope. That doesn’t mean the allegations are false, of course. But it does mean we should tread with caution before believing them.
Just because he believes them and we might want them to be true because it confirms our low opinion of Paula Bennett doesn’t mean they should be aired publicly, let alone be the subject of criminal prosecution.
If Bennett did break the law while struggling to hold her family together, I think that’s entirely forgivable. That she has learned nothing from her experience isn’t.
Te Reo Putake – Socialist, vegetarian, contrarian and footballer, Te Reo Putake was until recently the wittiest, most engaging and most infuriating writer at The Standard Blog where he was banned during their latest identity politics purge. TRP intends to continue battling for the battlers and kicking against the pricks in real life and here at the Daily Blog.
I too have some sympathy for any beneficiary who broke the law in order to survive but I feel that there should be even more scrutiny on Paula Bennett over this because under her watch there has been even more of a witch hunt of this type of offending and beneficiaries (mostly women) are being prosecuted on very flimsy evidence like the allegations against her.
Some beneficiaries are going to jail and having their kids put into CYPS all this directly down to Bennett’s office policies and targets.
Labour is too weak on this – show hypocrisy when you see it. Other beneficiaries are not on $350,000 per annum on the public purse, and have access to massive legal advice and now Bennett’s organised a national shut down of this allegation without it even being investigation.
Yep the guy making the allegations is not a pillar of the community – that’s the sort of people who’s testimony is lapped up under Paula Bennett’s war on beneficiaries!
Sorry, I don’t care if this is 30 years old. I think as a citizen of this country I deserve to know if my deputy PM is an offender and have her treated exactly the same and in the same arbitrary and cold hearted way as the laws she herself has put into place.
Maybe she might learn some empathy from it. But I doubt it.
Yep a case of “do what I do what what I say!!!!
YES?
columnists–always the punch line at the end…and how true this one
I believe in redemption and second chances for even the baddest, hopefully involving atonement and some demonstration of any new capacity for empathy
putting the slipper into beneficiaries, shows “Pull’yer Benefit” has chosen to learn little however–self loathing of her younger self? who knows, she certainly likely now has some ideological capability to detest WINZ/MSD customers after being mentored by Paula Rebstock
at least Ms Bennett may now have a glimmer of how it feels to have falsehoods about yourself widely disseminated, like the two beneficiaries whose privacy she breached, and finally settled with, and the “my office did it” dobbing in of a senior cop’s issues, because his Marae embarrassed the govt. by housing the homeless
@ TIGER MOUNTAIN Unfortunately we have a 2 tier system, one for the powerful and another justice system for the vulnerable so it does not seem like we will ever know if the allegations against Paula Bennett are ‘falsehoods’.
I personally believe the allegations because it’s unlikely that someone on and off a benefit for something like 20 years of their life would not. This has been Paula’s life – source https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/05/29/tips-from-paula-bennett-on-how-to-be-a-hypocrite/
“At just 17, she gave birth to her only child, a daughter she named Ana. Just two years later, she got a Housing Corporation loan to buy a $56,000 house in Taupo. All of this while on the domestic purposes benefit.
Bennett was also fortunate in getting a training allowance to go to university when her daughter was 8. Her backstory suggests that she was still on a benefit while studying.
Evidently, Bennett’s working life was “too exhausting” and she made a “career move” back onto the DPB;
In opting to chuck in her paid job and return to the DPB, she became an oft-parroted cliche that many on the Right – especially National/ACT supporters – often accuse welfare beneficiaries for.
The Training Incentive Allowance that paid for Bennett’s university education meant she was not lumbered with any of the $15 billion debt that 728,000 other Kiwi students are now facing. Her tertiary education was free.
From being an on-again-off-again beneficiary on the DPB, in 2005 Bennett became a beneficiary of the Parliamentary Service and she entered Parliament on the National Party List.
Today, as Deputy PM, the tax-payer is responsible for meeting her $326,697 p.a. salary, plus free housing, and other perks.”
@ SAVENZ … Paula Bennett has made sure she is a lifetime state dependent, something she condemned other beneficiaries for! How hypocritical!
Agreed a self planned plan right from the word go.
Exactly, Paula Bennett the two faced hypocrite, who is the rare ex-beneficialy who will, end up on easy street thanks to our tax dollars and her loyalty to the elite corporate tit and the Natz. A — ” want to be ” — all dressed up with no where to go. Even her humour stinks.
She is just another lying disgrace, like donky jonky , and now English. Unethical and embarrassing and poor ” out of touch ” leadership on their side of the aisle.
We will one day be asked to show sympathy for those cadre of criminal swine who stole our tax paid for stuff and things, the depravation of which has created criminals from innocent and ordinarily ‘good’ people. How would I feel about that? Not that flash, if I were to be honest.
If bennett broke some kind of law, specifically relating to the way she administers her position, then what the fuck am I doing paying taxes to keep her in the circus tents she might call ‘ frocks’?
Everyone’s a liar and everyone’s a criminal but perhaps being a hypocrite is the worst crime of all because it deny’s in others what one finds dubiously forgivable in one’s self. Is that what she’s just done? Then charge her with hypocrisy. That and operating a circus tent without a traffic management plan.
Not sure how you get away with half the stuff you post….the stuff many people are thinking but dare not express…
Did you ever comment on TS, AND IF SO, how did that turn out?
Just curious. My latest comment there went into a black hole. I actually thought I was commenting here because on this backward cell phone it looks much the same when ones eyesight ain’t what it used to be.
Yep a case of “do what I do what what I say!!!!Shit Tim, you write good shit mate!!!
Did someone centure your blogs?
SS Joyce may have a hand in this if it happens as he through his mega propagandist agency MBIE has a very long arm and coerces most outspoken critics now.
keep it up mate.
It has been obvious from the start that Paula is a sleazeball. Her chameleon behaviour has not been enough to mask her nature and she can’t stop herself exposing it.
100% correct GARIBALDI!!!
The real point remains that the strongest advocates for removing state assistance, in all its facets, are the people who most gained from state assistance.
These born again neo-libs didn’t worry about whether or not the state could afford it when they needed it, but now someone else needs it – well thats different!
Live and let die rules, so it seems.
IF the allegations are true…for example, hypothetically speaking, buying a house is not survival, renting out a house is not survival.
Drunk adults hassling kids over lost drinks is not ‘youthful criminal behaviour’.
(this whole paragraph might not be allowed so feel free to delete)
None of these actions are about keeping a family together.
They are not the actions of a young person living on the edge.
They are all about greed and bullying.
I personally am treating this thing with a high degree of scepticism till I see some evidence. But should the accusations prove true I’m happy to see Bennett in court for fraud. Lying about your relationship status so you can afford to buy groceries is morally sound. Lying to get on the property ladder …nah.
Man, I’ve finally seen the text of the allegations. This needs to be tested in court before the election. Crowdfund the defence of the individual who has made the allegations!
If Bennet wants to end up in court airing her dirty past laundry, count me in with some popcorn.
Another point is, while I respect the fact alternative news sites such as TDB and TS not to implicate themselves by publicising the details of this issue, they are out there on the Internet anyway. So it’s hardly hush hush.
She has little credibility as a community and state leading citizen, she has had her snout in the taxpayers troth for a long time and the stink of hypocrisy is unacceptable.
Move on Paula and get a real job.
… ” She has little credibility as a community and state leading citizen, she has had her snout in the taxpayers trough for a long time and the stink of hypocrisy is unacceptable.
Move on Paula and get a real job.” …
THIS ^
And not only that she is unfit for state leadership. We do not have to remind everyone of the abuse of state power she used in using official information to smear two women who were beneficiaries in public.
We do not have to remind ourselves of the circus over her decision to put beneficiaries up in expensive motels as an answer to homelessness – that while the then treasurer was in the middle of writing up the state budget. Not only that , – but denied access for the very same mode of advancement she used – by axing solo mothers ability to gain tertiary education .
That is NOT the picture of a stable or organized government – that is the symptoms of a government that does not communicate with the people – let alone with its own members. And she had epitomized the spite and self hatred of humble beginnings in her very own demeanor.
She is a social climber and a bully , nothing more and nothing less , … who has used her ingratiating and bullying talents / tactics to weasel her way into position.
And as others have said , – has used the tax payers dollars to get there and is hoping the taxpayer will fork out for her after she leaves government.
She is a true pig.
Comments are closed.