If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times, the NZ State is the biggest abuser of civil rights in this country.
Despite losing the original case, here is the State using its power to legally limit their liability and costs…
The Ministry of Health is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees fighting families that care for their disabled children.
Independent disability advocate Jane Carrigan said three matters, all of which still have a long way to run through the court system, had already cost the Government more than $600,000 in litigation fees.
“It’s just disgusting, this just reinforces that they’re happy to spend the money but just not on the people who warrant it,” she said.
“Why pay carers when you could be paying lawyers?”
The ministry confirmed it had spent $646,578 with the law firm Simpson Grierson in relation to the Fleming, Butt and Humphreys matters.
Peter Humphreys recently won his bid in the Employment Court to be considered an employee of the Ministry of Health and not his severely disabled daughter for whom he provides full-time care.
His case, however, along with Christine Fleming’s which she won on similar grounds, had been appealed by the Director-General of Health and would be heard together later this year.
Being employed by the ministry and not their children could mean compensation for lost wages and holiday pay.
…legally fighting to stop parents of the disabled from being seen as employed by them is an obscenity, especially when you consider the poor service the actual sub-contracting out creates.
This is a State that is looking after its now interests and not the interests of the people it is supposed to serve!
We see this over and over again by the Wellington Bureaucracy.
The MSD in the 2000s oversaw obscene tactics that included hiring private detectives to dig dirt on victims who were complaining about being abused in state care in a Test case that if MSD had lost would have cost the State untold in damages. Public Services Commission is now recommending any abuse inside Oranga Tamariki is now monitored out of the Education Review Office who have no skill in this area.
Why is the state allowing itself to cover up ongoing abuse? Because it wants to limit its liabilities rather than serve the people.
This is a State that is run for the interests and the benefit of the Bureaucracy NOT you the citizens!
Luxon’s ‘investment model’ will make this dynamic even worse as it will allow the State to abandon its obligations to all by justifying resource only to the worst cases.
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Very, very, very sad for those hard working, long suffering parents/guardians of our most at-risk Kiwis…Perhaps, if Jacinda from announcements, or Dr Ashley “Lord of the Dance” Bloomfield were parents of those vulnerable children this would have be solved straight away.
Disgusting. This is where our health dollar is going. We should be incredibly grateful for these caregivers and pay them accordingly
This latest case kinda explains why Bloomfield has handed in his resignation. He doesn’t want to be the fall guy. He’s already done that.
the whole thing reeks of petty spite
Gagarin, I see you’re catching on. Too late bruh.
oh puleeezeee ow a govt department acting like spoilt brats doesn’t make fester a viable option.
This is kindness Jacinda ?
The reality of the establishment and its priorities and Simpson Grierson’s come to that.