The Daily Blog Open Mic – Tuesday – 28th January 2020

1. Just keen putting your fingers in your ears corporate and government NZ, and hope climate change will all just go away just like the growing pollution!

   Climate change actions of more than 30 listed NZ companies rated low

   ‘Fifty New Zealand companies were ranked in 2019 by CDP. Thirty-three – two-thirds – of them scored F, which CDP said reflected “a failure to provide sufficient information to be evaluated for this purpose”. ‘

   https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119001117/climate-change-actions-of-more-than-30-listed-nz-companies-rated-low

   Clean Green NZ, fake news!

2. This Chinese woman says she came to NZ in 2001 and still needs an interpreter to tell us about being shut up in Wuhan?
   “We just hope that the New Zealand government can do something and take us back home and keep us safe, like many other countries are doing. The children are very innocent in this. I know my daughter is not the only child who is stuck in Wuhan and there are many of them who just came back to their hometown to visit family and friends, or for a tour.”
   “I have lived in Auckland for a long time. NZ is our second hometown. I came to NZ in 2001. I wouldn’t want to bring any harm to it. If we’re able to go back, we’ll definitely quarantine ourselves for a while, and I wouldn’t let my daughter go back to school immediately.”
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/408290/new-zealand-mum-stuck-in-locked-down-wuhan-pleads-for-evacuation
   And I hope that the Embassy has recalled at least a skeleton staff! Joanna, who is stuck in Wuhan, told Checkpoint she had tried to seek assistance from the New Zealand embassy in Beijing, but was told they were on holiday until Wednesday.
   After calling an emergency hotline, she was directed to register online at safetravel.govt.nz and to wait for further details, she said.
   “I feel a little disappointed since many other countries are taking action already, but it seems like the New Zealand government is falling behind.”

   People who go to live in other countries really need to learn to speak the lingo. I had an aunt and uncle, went to UK, retired to Costa Lotta in Spain and presumably had a great time. He died, she got sick, couldn’t speak the language, lot’s of difficulties. I wonder if that was Jean Batten’s problem? it is only practical to learn the language and also it is good to get to know and converse with your fellow citizens.

   • +1 Greywarbler – if an individual decides to gain permanent residency/citizenship but doesn’t live and work in NZ or speak the language, , but still get’s the benefits when things go wrong, should that be allowed?

     I don’t expect people visiting to speak the language, but you used to have to pass a language test to work here (now gone) and allowing permanent residency/citizenship without bothering to learn the language of the country is wrong. Now there are endless support and delays and complexity all around government departments for special care and interpreters for so many people who never bothered to learn the language and need lifelong translator support in every aspect of their lives here.

     The government should be doing a working holiday scheme in NZ for labour, not giving permanent residency and voting rights to hundreds of thousands of new people each year accessing welfare & social systems here for free.

     NZ satellite families are now so rampant that schools are now warning NZ parents of the Coronavirus and asking all the returning children from China to NZ to delay for 2 weeks coming to school. (Well we know how volunteer schemes work in NZ, aka not).

     Not the Chinese children’s fault, it’s the government policy pushing their ideology and risks onto other citizens and for what, record homelessness and 11% Jobseeker rises in benefits and lower and lower wages and government departments and NZ infrastructure totally swamped?

3. School uniforms are just plain snobbery. Establishing a basic requirement for colour and type and style, and then letting people get their own according to how much they want to spend would be a more useful idea than expensive gear that is a way of creating exclusivity and advertising the school. I remember one boy who couldn’t play in the elite sports team at secondary because he couldn’t afford the blazer.

   I have just looked at Postie Plus that has good Ts and a logo with Be Your Self on it. A class with two or three tops with appropriate slogans and knee length shorts or skirts if wanted, could outfit a primary child for $10-$15. They could iron-on a school logo somewhere, perhaps on a hat or cheap jacket.
   https://www.postie.co.nz/kids-clothing?f=CATEGORIES%5E7+-+16+Essentials&s=SORT_NEWEST_DESC
   https://www.thewarehouse.co.nz/c/clothing-jewellery/kids-clothing
   https://www.kmart.co.nz/category/kids-&-baby/kids-clothing/boys-clothing/440428

   The difficulty is that the schools are self managing which is not a good idea. Parents who get on boards have limited thinking. Also they can put the school’s ‘brand’ ahead of achievement of personal educational goal of each child. Having a smart uniform at considerable expense that the community can identify can take precedence over the affordability and praticality issues. The School Board’s own prejudices and personal rising social mobility aspirations set the direction of the school. Limited self-management would result in a better more general education that aspired to a good general knowledge and a curiosity driving learning, and to an education that was affordable to all.

   • +1 Greywarbler, good points, school uniforms are approx $300 which onto of donations, school fees and so forth mounts up, It’s discriminatory for those that have 2nd hand uniforms, (you can tell from the fading who is poor and who is not, embarrassing for the kids and and discriminatory if they get into trouble for not wearing the right uniform) and don’t believe in uniforms anyway!

     • I actually agree with the idea of uniforms that control flights of fashion fancy and don’t foster competition in line with ‘I’ve got the latest and you haven’t hah hah.’ My son got this from Maori classmates. I bought him a pair of Nikes on special once, to give him a treat and get him into ‘the smart zone’ and they were pinched from his locker. Sigh.

       What is needed is a sort of template with some flexibility and school establishing controls through dress codes. These can be explained to parents, and the reasons for them, as there are always the dissenters, who should get a hearing and an explanation as to result to all parents. One good thing the dress codes can do is to stop female hemlines shooting up to the bum, and hopefully not going the other way and putting girls into ankle length skirts as at Nelson Girls College. Very expensive lot of specially woven pleated material there. They did bring in a cheaper lighter version in the same weave which was still way out of the pocket of the ordinary low-wage precariat. Id an idea of a template for uniforms that could be used by all schools, each having a different coloured jacket and logo. I remember from secondary days, the girls having a box pleated sleeveless tunic worn over a shirt or could be tshirt. The pleats expanded to fit all sizes, tied at the waist with a cord, and were not constricting. Boys had shorts, light for summer, heavier for winter. There is no reason why track pants couldn’t be worn by both genders in winter. Be practical and concentrate on tidiness and cleanliness, rather than style and formal dress supposedly to encourage pride in appearance, and an appreciation of the jobs where more formal clothing is required, rather than the trades and skilled work which doesn’t have the same snob appeal. (But where the real work making our economy is carried on!)

       The middle class haven’t a clue, and don’t even bother to look for one, they are so focussed on themselves; self-centred and conformist to whatever is the aspirational mean. We have abandoned all the high principles that grew after the Depression and WW2 to a venal state, growing more and more like Australia.

4. Well election date has just been announced (19 September) and immediately if not sooner, news release of the old dirty politics machine running strong, in the form of a law suit against Trevor Mallard/ speaker.

   Labour should have got in first, and sued for the harm done to them.
   http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/speaker-sued-over-claim-rapist-worked-parliament

   • surprise, surprise, the new NZ Natz strategy, put in a private lawsuit prior to the election to distract and scare.

     Seems to have broken Andrew Little even though he won (twice).

     This one also might not be as clear cut as the Little case.

5. It’s still not easy-peasy, having a baby. It actually is a tremendous thing bringing a new being into the world, and not to be taken lightly. The Health and Disability Commissioner is definitely needed to see that we get good care and from humans not just machines. The people running hospitals need to have medical knowledge, and not just some generic manager who used to run a trucking firm or something.
   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/408334/hutt-hospital-maternity-babies-born-with-brain-damage-after-poor-care

   • No surprises there, Greywarbler, the maternity system was broken in NZ when it was decided that a woman could only have a midwife or an obstetrician and the governments (both Labour and National) started closing down the maternity hospitals like National woman’s in Auckland and in Southland. Now woman giving birth in general hospitals are asked to leave after labour within hours or a day of giving birth or have to travel miles to get to one with enough specialist equipment if anything goes wrong.

     There are practically no publicly available obstetricians in hospitals so in an emergency situation there will never be enough, or it takes months to get an appointment with one. Obstetricians are less likely to do wholistic care, as they are essentially trouble shooting at the last moment based on the DHB polices being implemented so clearly the process is designed to lead to more mistakes.

     Likewise with midwives, woman I know have had major issues, with having midwives leave mid pregnancy and then be replaced at the last moment by someone they don’t know, who fails to turn up when there are major problems and tell them to go to a hospital unaccompanied (where there are few if any obstetricians).

     Maternity is broken in NZ compared to what it used to be, under decades of cost cutting policies, rather than best care approach.

     And like everything else in neoliberalism, does not save any money. Just wrecks lives as more babies are born with issues, many preventable, and more child abuse/mentally ill cases in a NZ system that does not priorities children and sees them as a burden to cost cut on, not as the future of the country.

     • Thanks savenz that makes clear what I had perceived. I have a retired midwife friend and she notes many faults. Says sadly that there are lots of meetings and little improvements to faults. Talkfest?; perhaps paralysis by analysis from well-paid talking heads who know how to talk in terms of current importance and meaning and how to work programs on a computer and adjust the height on their office chair.

Comments are closed.