We had been preparing the story for weeks. A huge research project, a scholarly article in a good journal, a well-known charity behind us. It was our “I, Daniel Blake” story for New Zealand.
Grandparents, forced to take on the care of often damaged and vulnerable grandchildren, arriving at Work and Income for some financial assistance, get… nothing. In 85% of cases, they were not told they were eligible for the Unsupported Child Benefit, a lifeline to help with the costs of bringing up other people’s children.
Once the grandparents did find out, often from other people or the charity Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust (NZ), they entered a nightmare process of queuing, getting lost in phone calls, receiving conflicting messages, lost papers, having to explain the most private things in public and worse.
“Worse” in this instance was both the incompetence of case officers and their appalling attitudes. Not all were dreadful. Fifteen percent of the over 800 grandparents noted they were treated with respect and competence.
But in by far the majority of cases, Grandparents were subject to what amounted to a form of ritual humiliation before receiving their support – if indeed they received it at all. Here is half a dozen of the hundreds of negative comments made by grandparents to us:
“I don’t know how we got through the first two years, when we were grieving the loss of our son and my father, tragically taken about the same time. Work and Income told us we weren’t entitled to anything”.
“I have to say I find it very difficult to go to WINZ [Work and Income], the whole environment”.
“No wonder they need security. Where’s the basic human respect for us?”
“This office was unhelpful and unprofessional in their dealings with us every time. It is unfortunate that in having to move, I will once again have to deal with them. I have been putting off making an appointment there as I dread dealing with these people again… I find it extremely disappointing to find that any office still operates in this manner despite the not inconsiderable effort the Ministry put in to reducing, if not eliminating, this kind of inappropriate and inadequate service to clients.
“I get stressed days before I go there, always have to beg for what I need.”
“They act like it’s their money you’re taking and they made me feel that I was using the system when what I wanted to do was give my grandchild as good a life as I could.”
Many grandparents in this study went for years without the support they were eligible for. In one case, a grandparent has been looking after five children for ten years, and only last year she finally received her entitlement plus some, but by no means all, of the back pay she was owed.
So that’s the story in brief. You can read the article here. We released it to the media yesterday afternoon, expecting headlines and expressions of shock and horror that a government agency continues to treat citizens so badly; that the culture of dehumanization and humiliation was alive and well around the country; and that such sheer incompetence was permitted to continue in this taxpayer-funded service.
A few media outlets, online and radio, have picked it up. But it has hardly generated the headlines I had expected. A squib, not a rocket.
If you look carefully enough, you will find a service standard on the Work and income website, which promises “prompt and efficient service”, “respectful, friendly and professional” behaviour and so on.
We were told that offices were supposed to have these standards on view, but they never are. Also, there is no complaints procedure if the standards are breached. But who cares? Obviously not most of the media. Perhaps not the public.
The existence of a Dickensian agency within our government sector apparently hardly warrants the blink of an eyelid, let alone the public outcry and perhaps inquiry that our findings deserve.
NZ media are corrupt, for years neo-liberals have been driving out anybody with morals or ethics and retaining the worst of the worst. They’re either young and stupid & doing what their corrupt boss tells them, or they’re neo-liberals and they’re corporate controlled.
Google my poem Journalists are Maggots – JR Murphy – then share it far & wide.
100% JR I concur.
So today I have put a small (as a retiree) amount into this blog, the standard and scoop. It is all that is left to get the truth out there. (pun intended.)
A friend told me if you write to a minister, and your local mp, the receipt of the letter and the “action” have to be logged into the records.
See http://www.grg.org.nz
Mike Hoskins is definitely the Face of Neoliberalism, if you don’t know who he is try 7 Sharp at 7.00pm on the State Broadcaster TV One ?
He’s an absolute nob,can’t believe he makes a living out of that puerile crap he talks.
Welcome to our world…
It has been this way for many years now. They’ve had plenty of practice on being arseholes. So too have the media who have been ignoring us for years.
Get used to it or get voting…
Not all Grandparents come from the land of milk and honey, in fact if they are looking after grandchildren they have pretty much seen it all, some grandparents are also comparatively young, my hunch is that many of them were already well used to what they would face when they walked into Work and Income…
Nope, disagree. They are under a total shock of the new situation and mostly have never dealt with W & I before.
“We released it to the media yesterday afternoon, expecting headlines and expressions of shock and horror that a government agency continues to treat citizens so badly; that the culture of dehumanization and humiliation was alive and well around the country; and that such sheer incompetence was permitted to continue in this taxpayer-funded service.
A few media outlets, online and radio, have picked it up. But it has hardly generated the headlines I had expected. A squib, not a rocket.”
Our 16 yr Community Advocate NGO have often suffered this same demise and lack of media coverage from the press.
Last weekend we to released our press release to NZ Herald TVNZ, Radio NZ and local papers, and we got zilch accept from a local paper and Scoop but absolutely nothing from Radio NZ at all so we spent two days following up with every single news and current affairs platform on Radio NZ and we are getting the response that our regional story is of no real interest to them!!!!!!!!
I now believe that radio NZ has been sanctioned by SS Joyce “the minister of everything”, (who we believe still has interests in his old radio network “Radio works” now part of “Mediaworks” and thus he has clout there.
Also joyce has association as National Party Campaign Manager, he may well have warned any employee at radio NZ that if he or she airs any item that reflects badly on his Political party then it is a sackable offence.
We are truly under control of a corrupt Government today for sure.
It is time to “drain the Wellington swamp”.
As we voters own 50% of the public media, – so we need all opposition parties to force a legal court injunction to take control of 50% of all our public owned media NOW.
Dr Liz Gordon said,
“We released it to the media yesterday afternoon, expecting headlines and expressions of shock and horror that a government agency continues to treat citizens so badly; that the culture of dehumanization and humiliation was alive and well around the country; and that such sheer incompetence was permitted to continue in this taxpayer-funded service.
A few media outlets, online and radio, have picked it up. But it has hardly generated the headlines I had expected. A squib, not a rocket.”
Yes Dr Gordon, TVNZ and Radio NZ both are now under the control of Government and in Parliament today Labour,NZ First& Greens all said the “public service must be kept free of any Government interference or control and be able to present any issues that they feel are in the interests of the public they serve as Public servants”.
We concur,
Our own community NGO have had the same treatment now with all those media outlets when we send our weekly press bulletin to them for press coverage for our community and we got ignored.!!!!
This ignoring of giving service to public press releases, is bad now inside our own Public service and i call out the “Public Servants as the cause.
They are so scarred as being “whistleblowers” of broadcasting any documents that may place the government in a bad light now!!!!!
So heads up for Sue Moroney for taking the issue of protecting Whistleblowing in the public service to the Public service commissioner to have the issue highlighted today in Parliament, about the threats made against whistleblowers at the Ministry of Transport during the fraud investigation to find how we need to protect whistleblowers so hopefully the public media now after today in Parliament’s airing of the issue helps our public servants, & journalists at our public media feel now that they now can speak out about public issues now.
Lets hope so.
Interesting listening to Anne Tolleys propaganda in parliament saying MSD office are very generous. Looking after each person interest. Shes a very good liar and knows it well.
Yep heard her bullshit too. All the places she visits the staff are outstanding. My question to her’ is when she’s NOT there and the offices she DOESN’T visit? But the lies have always been prevalent with National. It started with Key, then English, so they all believe their own bullshit.
Sadly they are bullies of the media. Lisa Owen is a prime example of how she interviews the left from the right.
And let us take Coleman as an example. He is never available for comment on anything of relevance( suicide) but is the first one in front of a camera if opening a new hospital or new anything!
Trouble is the media just give up.
I was almost throwing up when this happend today.
You should have seen Tim McIndoe’s right of reply speech after the Whistleblower debate today;
McIndoe said “they have done a great job about fixing up the protection act for whistleblowers”!!@#$%^&*()@#$%^&*()_+
GGGGGGGRRRRThese people have no hope or honour.!!!!!!
I don’t think the media do just give up. John campbell reiterated a while back just how many times Coleman had been asked on to his show to respond to issues around mental health. These cretins are our representatives theoretically and should in fact have to front. It is simply not good enough to endlessly not be available to front on Checkpoint and anything else that really does do a good job of interviewing. Now what would that be…. not sure certainly not TV.
That comment actually shocked me to the core, if the BIG boss walked in would one not bend over backwards. Not so for poor grandparents raising.
When writing to a minister, pose a question on their portfolio.
It then becomes a ministerial question.
Send copies to their opposition equivalents, asking for their follow up.
It forces ministers to address the issue.
Well, it used to do!! Has that changed??
The media, generally speaking, are big corporates. They exist to generate a profit via ad revenue not, as some would have you believe, address the pertinent issues of the day, uncover corruption and iniquity, or god forbid, tell the truth. Big corporates favour Tory governments, because Tory governments look after big corporates in exchange for large donations to election campaigns. Thus we have the cancer that is lobbying. It’s a bit like the circle of life… if you removed the word ‘life’ and instead substituted the phrase ‘miserable penury’. “But, but, Minister… I believe we contributed a not inconsiderable sum to the party coffers during the previous election. Quid pro quo, Minister. Nothing for nothing.” *cue obsequious smirk*
And there you are. This is how the wheels of government are lubricated. With the blood and tears of discarded pensioners, freezing children and exhausted workers. It’s the way of things. The natural order, according to bastard Tories far and wide. And that being the case, why the devil would they risk having their carefully nurtured narrative derailed by gloomy anecdotes about the desperate and wretched? That’s why you get an abundance of silence whenever this sort of thing is brought to light. Those sorts of people don’t matter, and this sort of story is profoundly unhelpful to their efforts to get themselves re-elected, and thus continue to feather their nests at the expense of the common rabble. The great unwashed. Persons of no consequence.
That’s you and me, by the way.
Well we will NOT be quiet on behalf of our nearly 7000 members caring for so many vulnerable children. We average 80 new members per month!
Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Trust NZ that is
The Media must hold the Government to account. Clearly, this is currently not the case.
There is something missing from all of this… what people don’t realise is that when you get arrears paid from Work and Income you don’t get interest like you would with ACC (social security legislation doesn’t provide for this), and you can be forced up into the next tax bracket so you get a whopping tax bill.
Both of these mean that because of inefficient service you suffer financially and in other ways.
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