Last week we watched the worst angles of our nature focus viciously on Metiria’s brave admission of being forced to cheat the system to feed her family, while a far larger story about our homelessness passed by without half the attention spent bashing her.
Metiria’s honesty about how our broken welfare system forces good people to cheat it to feed their kids is an uncomfortable truth that has had the right wing media and politicians in a tizzy.
When Bill English took $32,000 in a housing allowance he shouldn’t have collected in 2009, the media were mostly asleep. Metiria admits taking to feed her daughter two decades ago and suddenly it’s the worst crime of the century.
It’s no wonder why some people think if you are white and commit fraud, there’s always a ‘get out of jail free card’ available; If you’re brown and commit fraud, the entire kitchen sink gets thrown at you.
The reality is that the our welfare state is broken and dysfunctional. It punishes those it’s supposed to help, and many are forced to cheat it just to survive.
Rather than acknowledging that our welfare system and its punitive punishments are counter-productive, we have instead had a circus parade of moralistic hypocrisy designed to vilify Metiria.
This character assassination would be bad enough for eclipsing the wider issues within welfare, but it also managed to take attention away from a new Yale University report that found NZ now tops the list in homelessness.
This time last year, the waiting list for emergency housing was 3,877; now it’s 5,353 while the emergency motel budget has been blown out already.
This Government’s ‘do-nothing-and-leave-it-to-the-market’ approach to housing has damaged tens of thousands of NZers with 41,000 now homeless.
Privatising state houses has only exacerbated this horror fail in social policy.
How is it that we can have further evidence of National’s total failure on housing and welfare yet we focus almost exclusively on stoning Metiria to death?
The election is in September and we must not allow the petty bigotries of the mainstream media and right wing politicians to hide the truth of our wrecked social infrastructure from voters’ minds.
Depends who you ask.
Jessica Mutch, Lisa Owen and Kerry Prendergast had a good crack at demonizing MT in the weekend, to say nothing of ther self-righteous world of ZM talk-back.
Looks like there’s finally a bit of push-back though.
It’s getting to the stage where i actually feel embarassed for them at times.
The Lisa Owen thing was just pathetic. I hope to Christ she watches herself and examines that interview as someone who professes to be a professional of the 4th Estate, and perhaps contrasy it with the other she did on the day.
Pathetic and appalling, and yes! her pettycoat was showing. I’d love the opportunity to watch it with her.
Jessica…not so Much but nor that good.
But then what can one say about Kerry P.
I’ve tried SO bloody hard to give her a break having a certain degree of separation from those with professional and other contact with her. I’ve refrained from comment and gone along with all that ‘what plays in Vegas stays in Vegas’ kaka…..but there goes one very UGLY, hypocritical, self-entitled, self-righteous, judgemental human being. What’s worse is that it comes with a nice fake wood (but deep down Formica) veneer..
Truly fucking horrible. She’s smart ( in a slimy sort of way) with an ability to ingratiate and satisfy thosr in (for eg) the arts community. Many have been conned and tried to persuade me she ain’t that bad.
No people, she isn’t-she’s actually worse
But to be fair…and I’ve tried my best, if only to satisfy family,friends and colleagues limited impressions of her, she’s in good company.
You look back over life, and remember what a bigoted parent would once have described as a”social climbing wanker”. You wonder how much of her past achievements were of a genuine motive, or more about self-aggrandisement, a future legacy and future personal welfare. You look at her family situation, its connections, their gains and losses (both in terms of money and worth, of her desire to brand herself…..), and then her vile attitude to MT on Q+A was just unbelievable to me.
I think we should erect a statue to her somewhere.
Probably over the former Taranaki St underground dunny would be a good place
What everybody is failing to acknowledge is this persecution of poor, while rich are being advanced – through law – is actually illegal. When we going to get Westminister Statute the First or Magna Carta legal arguments against neo-liberal terrorism in front of a judge. NEVER
Those people who have been part of the hatred against unemployed, those on welfare and poor are just becoming more full of hate – as they feeling guilty and ashamed they took part in the bullying.
Wairarapa media are completely owned by wealthy elite old boys network, they purposely censor anything that speaks out about poverty, persecution of disabled, homelessness in this region. Which why we now No 1 for suicide as well.
YES WILLIE;
AND NOW NACTIONAL PM’S OFFICE IS ALSO DEMOLISHING THE RNZ REPORTER RACHAEL KELLY FOR SEEKING WHEN TODD BARCLAY WAS AVAILABLE.
BUT SHE HAD A CAMERA PROVING THE ALLEGED FORCED ENTRY/BULLYING WAS A LIE.
SEE THIS. NZ FIRST MUST NOW CARRY CAMERAS AS DIRTY POLITICS NOW EMERGES AGAIN FROM THE PM’S OFFICE EVEN THOUGH KEY AND CO HAVE LEFT.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201851765
Mediawatch looks critically at the New Zealand media – television, radio, newspapers and magazines as well as the ‘new’ electronic media.
Sundays at 9:05am and 10:12pm
Shooting the messenger hunting an MP gone MIA
Media Politics
9:10 am today
A recording allegedly made in secret was the downfall of scandal-struck MP Todd Barclay, who has vanished from public view. Now another recording has rescued the reputation of a reporter accused of… Read more AUDIO
No-one home: a staffer at MP Todd Barclay’s Gore office greets Fairfax reporter Rachael Kelly. Photo: screenshot / stuff.co.nz
They weren’t the only ones leafleting on the issue. On Monday, The Southland Times said police had been called after someone stuck notices calling for the MP’s resignation to the windows of Todd Barclay’s electorate office in Gore.
That wasn’t the only time police were asked to act on people rocking up there.
Fairfax Media’s reporter in Gore Rachael Kelly called by with a colleague last week to find out what Todd Barclay had been up to since disappearing from public life – but she had no luck.
Last weekend, Fairfax Media’s political editor Tracy Watkins reported this:
“Kelly and a local cameraman have been accused of intimidating and threatening behaviour, even of being physically aggressive. And the allegations were made at the highest levels, from the Prime Minister’s office and Parliamentary Service.”
That sounded bad. Something must have gone very wrong.
“It was alleged Kelly and her cameraman “barged” into Barclay’s office and harassed and intimidated staff – even pursuing them to the back of the office, leaving the staff feeling threatened and under siege,” wrote Tracy Watkins, who also said the police had been alerted.
Tracy Watkins said Fairfax Media’s South Island editor-in-chief Joanna Norris had phone conversations with a senior member of the PM’s staff – who was not named – and the head of Parliamentary Service David Stevenson.
But Rachael Kelly’s colleague was recording the encounter in question for a video reportto accompany her “Looking for Todd Barclay” story for the stuff.co.nz website.
It showed the pair at the office only briefly and after being told the MP wasn’t there, they politely departed. No aggro, and no barging or forced entry as alleged by the PM’s office.
After the video appeared online, the Parliamentary Service and Police decided no further action was necessary.
“If it had not been for Stuff’s ability to produce video evidence, the allegations would probably have stuck,” said Tracey Watkins, who reckoned the response could be part of a Trump-type strategy to undermine the press.
Rachel Kelly was filming her routine door-knocking because it was part of the story about looking for Todd Barclay. It was quite likely to be the only footage she would get in Gore that day with anyone who knew his whereabouts. On any other occasion, there would be no reason to have the camera running.
If journalists are going to face unfair claims of bad behaviour, they’ll be tempted to record all their dealings with political figures and their staff just in case. That won’t make it easy to form relationships that journalists really need to gather real news.
And it’s deeply ironic that this matter was settled by a recording of an encounter with Todd Barclay’s staff coming to light. That’s something that hasn’t happened yet in the matter of the secret recording Todd Barclay’s alleged to have made on the premises last year which ended up causing his downfall.
Now talk of the possibility of Turei losing a future ministerial position. She confessed to committing her actions as a student during a decade where benefits were cut and record unemployment, whereas we have a Prime Minister who was revealed committed fraud in a privileged position around the time of the GFC.
The double standards are revolting. With plentiful news of exacerbating levels of poverty and copious amounts of often absurd vitriol spouted from sanctimonious privileged loudmouths—they are merely serving to strengthen my resolve to vote. Let them carry on, they sound more and more ridiculous.
I loved the suggestion that MT declare her “wrong-doing” earlier.
When, we wonder, would be a good time to do that? And why would you? Now, when she sees an opportunity to correct one of the glaring wrongs in our society, would seem the perfect moment. And to have a minister who is not holier-than-thou, and knows the consequences of poverty, would seem the perfect person to conduct public policy in this area. Even more so if she were to suffer the actual punishment meted out to many in identical circumstances: house arrest, “community service” or prison, along with an appropriately severe financial punishment. After that, her Ministerial service would be seriously motivated.
The point was, and still is, that anyone on a long-term benefit who doesn’t have to sail close to the wind or indulge in this kind of “crime” is very, very lucky. Or perhaps very very poor, and most certainly unable to participate in anything approaching normal civic life, and has perhaps already lost his or her children. Or is at his or her wits’ end.
Those endless, ubiquitous, sanctimonious voices echo in infamy.
I bet most of the “dirty politics from the left” is just the right in disguise. Who knows what Lusk and co. got up to… probably still digging for truffles as I type.
Plus English did not ‘admit’ his wrong doing – he was ‘discovered’
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