The Juxtaposition of Jacinda at Harvard with NZ child poverty

1. “Labour fear a backlash if they made a significant move like feeding every kid in kindergarten, primary and college free breakfasts and lunches because mean spirited Kiwis will say, ‘that’s the parents responsibility’.”

   Well yeah it is their responsibility and there are thousands of Mums & Dads ashamed they cant put enough food on the table so, call Child Poverty what it really is simply Poverty. Every child in poverty is in poverty has an accompanying adult in Poverty.

   What is the poverty economy? For starters its the 95,000 workers suffering the evil of unemployment plus another couple of hundred thousand underemployed. Then theres the purposely designed low wage economy where the protected manufacturing jobs which eventually would have become exporter manufacturing jobs were killed off by Douglas and the useless minister of employment Goff. Replaced by tourist attendants jobs paying no more than petrol station attendant jobs. And when Kiwis refuse to be paid shit wages the government imports workers from India who are happy to work for next to nothing because its still twenty times more than their pay rate in India. Really Labour thinks NZ needs to import Chefs for McDonalds instead of letting the McDonalds labour demand create the necessary wage for local supply. When the unemployment rate is only half a percent then allow world labour into the local labour market. A labour market that pays high wages and forces employers to train local staff to be more productive is the real answer to child poverty.

   Then overnight cancel the landlord accomodation subsidy to force the landlords to sell up at firesale rates so alienated renters can buy their own homes again so tmchildren have stability and aren’t getting kicked from suburb to suburb and school to school by the vagaries of whats happening in the finance lives of landlords.

   Free school lunches is a no brainer that could be implemented within a week if this government wasnt so dissappointing.

2. I watched a bit of her speech but she and it no longer rang true for me anymore. Not with the knowledge of the last 4 and a half years of her government. It was pure theatre.

   Objectively Jacinda gloating about our abortion laws at Harvard immediately put NZ offside with the other half of the US politics. That does not help us. And objectively, politicians going to foreign countries and playing politics is not smart. Precisely as dumb and annoying as it would be if a Republican politician did likewise here playing to the gun lobby!

   Child poverty, worst it’s been in 18 years. In 2017 Jacinda said it was a top priority. Something doesn’t wash here.

   Jacinda lectures American’s on gun laws. Just that night back in NZ there had been no fewer than 7 drive by shootings in Auckland, alone. That week it looks like one criminal simply ran out of ammo, 44 shell casings founded at the scene. Poto looked particularly useless which was incredible because it is something she does naturally. Minister David Parker came out with the most delusional comments I think I’ve seen from any politician regarding assault rifles and more or less thanked god we had shot guns and not semi automatic rifles! I just couldn’t believe what I had just watched, much less what Ryan Bridge was thinking!

   In that lecture no assault rifles will be allowed in NZ, except in her gun law changes you can go and buy a very military looking weapon from a gun shop with a 10 round .22 magazine semi auto, probably easy to turn full auto. Yes, not as lethal as bigger calibre guns, but when you are arguing lethal and a bit less lethal it’s tomatoes and tomatoes. Our gun law amendments are a pigs arse of compromise and are a mess. And lets be honest, AR15’s will and are still slipping into NZ, just into the wrong unlicensed hands. Something doesn’t wash here.

   I could go on but there is a consistent theme to this government and its all talk, no walk! They care but they don’t. It’s a PR show that reads increasingly unconvincing and looks like a rort.

   • No doubt you could go on but thanks for not bothering. Your disingenuity began right from the start. Why should NZ consider the sensitivities of the red-neck anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist rump of the US by being secretive about our abortion law reform? You then rage about Ms Ardern ‘lecturing’ when in fact she was careful and explicit about listing items of NZ legislation and made it clear that they were specifically about NZ’s values. Perhaps you failed to grasp the fact that her audience, people of academic intelligence, were impressed with our country’s achievements which you obviously can’t comprehend. You then continued to the end of your diatribe where you infer that the Government is responsible for letting alleged illegal AR15’s entering the country. In reality, the pigs arse can be found in your cranial cavity.
     You may have done better to address the topic – poverty, rather than spew forth your opinions on an address that you obviously didn’t have the capacity to understand.

     • Wow. Red neck anti abortion Christian fundamentalist rump? So many big words. Maybe you don’t get it but I’ll paint by numbers for you.

       She talks a storm, and delivers a whisper. Has done from the day Labour were elected. Ardern is THE Minister for Vulnerable Children remember! Ironic, isn’t it? She talks likes she gives a shit but that’s all she does. Talks.

       For someone who fancies their cranial cavity you didn’t understand the examples I noted from her Harvard speech stink of her hypocrisy. Just like child poverty. Way too subtle for you academic!

       Try changing a light bulb one day. That’ll floor you!

       • Pity you didn’t turn on the lightbulb. Had you done so, you may have understood that in her Harvard address the PM was outlining what democracies can achieve. In your response, you somewhat proved the point she made about one of the greatest challenges facing democracies.

   • X-ray. Why was Jacinda talking about our abortion laws at Harvard ? This is almost like meddling in another country’s politics, even if it pretty much guaranteed approval from young undergrads. I’ve not seen or heard her speech, but I do know that talking about child povidy, tugs at heart strings, if nothing else. Anybody can sweet talk about what is possible under any system under the sun.

   • A handful of drive by shootings in Auckland where no one is hit does not compare with American mass shootings on an industrial scale.
     If you looked at the American equivalent of non mass gun crime theirs would eclipse ours by a hundred to one.
     The average Yank would laugh at your comparison.
     Cheap shot at Jacinda.

3. Totally fair appraisal. But please, slavering natzo analinguists-do not get too excited by another TDB drubbing of the PM.

   The NZ Labour Caucus is in majority neo Blairist with contracting out and the State Sector Act hard wired into their craniums-apart from Minister Wood and Willie Jackson.

   The circuit breaker can only be new gen voters in 2023/26 organising for an end to the NZ neo lib state.

4. The Labour Party under Jacinda Adern could do so much more to help the poor in this country, but they ignore them and seem to concentrate on big business. Why can’t they just get rid of some of their ineffectual ministers and get some that can actually do their jobs?

5. I doubt feeding children of in private schools or those in Epsom is an answer in child poverty.

   That said such support cannot be pickpocketed by landlords – the only other way to stop that is to apply a rent freeze before increasing income assistance.

   • SPC It has been found in past considerations that universal supply is better than handpicking the needy. That targets their vulnerability, shaming, the administration costs more, and there is no reason to stop it because it will be good plain food which the wealthies can opt out of if they don’t want it, organisation managed by the school. And reports of how better attention level in class etc be put in school newsletter.

6. “I’m alright Jac”

7. A CGT could end child poverty in NZ but this means that the rich would lose a small percentage of their massive freely acquired wealth. That is not acceptable to Jacinda Ardern.

8. A CGT could end child poverty in NZ but this means that the rich would lose a small percentage of their massive freely acquired wealth. That is not acceptable to Jacinda Ardern.

9. We don’t need theatrical performances we need political action and I don’t give a damn what Americans think of our Prime Minister.

   I remember the cringe I used to feel when almost anyone halfway famous visited New Zealand, and the slavish desperation as the reporter asked what they thought of New Zealand. There was a painful need to hear compliments, to have them say how beautiful New Zealand is, how lovely the people.

   And now it seems we are proactive in our desperate need for artificial acclaim. Our Prime Minister goes to America to be a ‘star’ on the talk-show circuit and glitters under the artificial lights of the undisputed bullshit epi-centre.

   It isn’t Doctor Cindy, it is Prime Minister Ardern. There is a road where the rubber hits and it is only this road that matters. The performative rhetoric of kindness along the red carpet of the lost somewhere else is is not just meaningless, it is ashes in the mouths of the poor and struggling. The people her government continues to abandon with breathtaking hypocrisy and increasing snobbery.

   • what now ? It does rather look as if the PM is part of the celebrity circuit, and the “celeb” world has ill-defined and ephemeral values which don’t always jell with the nitty-gritty practicalities of politics; Key’s seeming kowtowing to Hollywood moguls didn’t help Kiwi film workers; Prime Ministers baking scones for pop singers is pretty cringe territory. This beautiful country is equalled all over the world, everywhere is beautiful in different ways, so yes, patting our own backs to outliers might be juvenile, but perhaps understandable in face of the odd arrogant person who thinks they come from something better. It was a medico from the Royal Marsden Hospital in London who said to me, “ How can a country like New Zealand possibly have alps ?” when in fact our magnificent Southern Alps dwarf what they have over there…

10. We don’t need theatrical performances we need political action and I don’t give a damn what Americans think of our Prime Minister.

    I remember the cringe I used to feel when almost anyone halfway famous visited New Zealand, and the slavish desperation as the reporter asked what they thought of New Zealand. There was a painful need to hear compliments, to have them say how beautiful New Zealand is, how lovely the people.

    And now it seems we are proactive in our desperate need for artificial acclaim. Our Prime Minister goes to America to be a ‘star’ on the talk-show circuit and glitters under the artificial lights of the undisputed bullshit epi-centre.

    It isn’t Doctor Cindy, it is Prime Minister Ardern. There is a road where the rubber hits and it is only this road that matters. The performative rhetoric of kindness along the red carpet of the lost somewhere else is is not just meaningless, it is ashes in the mouths of the poor and struggling. The people her government continues to abandon with breathtaking hypocrisy and increasing snobbery.

    • I apologise for my mistake. Can the duplicate comment be removed, please?

      • “ He sings each song twice over… lest he never could recapture that first fine careless rapture. “

11. You make good clear points Martyn. Yes we admire PM Jacinda’s promotion of good things on a world level . No we don’t admire the lack of attention to good things needed at home in Godzone. People liked that word and idea because it sounded like they didn’t have to do anything personally ‘ God will provide’ and that was great because God being generous would do it whether you were Christian or atheist. After all that was what Christians were about, every one else gets on with being practical.

    But time has revealed a bit more about NZs thinking, as a whole, and I don’t think everyone or even the vast majority will be able to honestly cope with these thoughts from the post which I have observed for myself:
    …mean spirited Kiwis will say, ‘that’s the parents responsibility’.
    Difficult as it is to imagine, a large chunk of NZ would prefer to see children go hungry than ‘let the parent off the hook’.
    That’s how petty and mean we are as a people.

12. I’ve said it before for years in fact, get on and build state houses and get people quickly into long term warm, dry homes. I am absolutely convinced if we laid down another 100K houses in say 7 years (hmm, like the Labour term has been?) that we will hugely impact poverty and have a positive impact on house prices particularly if we index linked them with population growth.

    The rest falls into place.

    Did anybody catch Bernard Hickeys Long List topics from yesterday and how Finland cured homelessness. Gave everyone without a home, a home and some basics, no questions asked. Now no homelessness and 4 out of 5 of them are back in employment or training.

13. No decent person wants good relations with American babykillers.

14. I wouldn’t know how many visiting PMs have been on Fox and CNN. My point t is that while fawning NZ media would have us believe Ardern is taking the US by storm, 99% of Americans don’t even know she’s there. 50% of those that do. Probably think she’s someone from Aotearoa, a little Isand nation from somewhere near Noo Zeeland.

    • She is the PM of New Zealand, what should NZ media report on, the All Black’s, coward Krauts real name or Ronaldo’ love child?

15. Maybe before solving world poverty they could lobby for high pay rates for their own profession and university staff?

    Professors on food stamps: The shocking true story of academia in 2014
    Forget minimum wage, some adjunct professors say they’re making 50 cents an hour. Wait till you read these stories
    https://www.salon.com/2014/09/21/professors_on_food_stamps_the_shocking_true_story_of_academia_in_2014/

    Not just the US!

    ‘My students never knew’: the lecturer who lived in a tent
    Higher education is one of the most casualised sectors of the UK economy, and for many it means a struggle to get by
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/30/my-students-never-knew-the-lecturer-who-lived-in-a-tent

    In NZ.

    Another note on academic decline.
    http://www.kiwipolitico.com/category/education/

    Destroy democracy and the West by destroying higher educational standards and making it a ‘no go’ zone to earn enough to be respected, have the best quality lecturers and undertake ground breaking research.

    Not sure the money being spent on rock climbing walls and marketing for universities, is going to stop the West’s decline when you earn more as a gang leader or influencer than a top academic teaching the next generation.

16. Could solving poverty and ending radicalisation on the Internet, be as simple as respecting real academia and knowledge and making sure that everyone gets a decent education with critical thinking at the forefront rather than identity politics?

    Another note on academic decline.
    http://www.kiwipolitico.com/category/education/

    extract.

    “Let me explain. When I arrived in NZ in 1997 I was sold a bill of goods that my new employer was akin to “the Harvard of the South Pacific” or some such nonsense. As a University of Chicago alumni that was familiar with Australian universities, that claim did not impress me but I knew what the recruiters were trying to convey. And indeed, in those days most of the political science staff had degrees from elite, first tier institutions in Europe, North America and Australia. This led to a proliferation of older white male academics trained at such places, although by the time I arrived women had been successfully incorporated into the department and much of the post-colonial mindset was removed from it. During the 1990s Asians and Maori were brought in as well, a trend that continued while I was there.

    The university was ranked about 100 positions above what it is today and the Political Studies department was actually ranked in the top 50 Political Science departments world-wide. I was hired to teach and research on civil-military relations and interest groups (in my case, labour unions) as well as Latin American Studies as part of a proposed expansion of area studies and political science offerings. For a brief while, that seemed to be a viable plan.

    But academic managerialism soon struck in the form of a new VC. From then on it was a slippery slope or rush to the bottom to put “bums in seats” in order to secure EFT (Equivalent Full Time) funding. Managers began to interfere with what used to be purely departmental and classroom decisions. Research funding contacted and was subject to generic competitive models that did not account for disciplinary specificity. The union-busting project against the house collective bargaining agent for staff began in earnest and accelerated thereafter. People with research and teaching talent began to leave and boot-licking academic driftwood began to pile up. Promotion and tenure decisions were revised so that quantity rather than quality of research output and publication became key criteria for advancement.

    This led to a rush towards “crony collaborations” in which academic friends produce edited collections in local or profit-oriented publication outlets and publish articles in journals edited by each other, without the scrutiny normally undergone by the peer-review process required by internationally-recognised publishers (say, in my discipline, World Politics, International Security or the International Political Science Review or Cambridge or Princeton University Presses). What used to be the norm when it came to research output rapidly became the exception to the “quantity over quality” rule ( I got a taste of this when I was advised to list my editorials and media appearances on the contrived and biased PBRF reviews required to justify departmental funding).

    Towards the end of my tenure and afterwards, newer hires were increasingly recruited from non-elite graduate programs and paid at comparatively lower levels than during my first years in residence. Their PR and self-marketing skills became as or more important as their contributions to original research in the discipline. The employer demanded that courses generate a profit and, once the STEM disease set in, that they prove relevant to the Science, Technology, Economics and Management priorities of the tertiary funding model. “Non-profitable” departments like Classics or Indonesian Studies were soon eliminated.

    Fees-paying foreign student enrolments increased under diminished admission standards. Existing degree requirements were lowered and “certificate,” “diploma” and other types of shallow qualification study programs proliferated. Flash buildings were built and more acquired (including a former brewery and a mansion for the VC), non-academic middle managers (many in PR) were hired by the bucketful and academic staff were told to limit photocopying, ration A4 paper and assume more administrative duties previously done by secretaries. Besides turning Ph.D.’s into clerical workers, among other things this move to “corporatise” academia along profit-oriented lines prompted PR flak-inspired suggestions in my former department that the Introduction to International Relations course for first year students be re-named “War and Peace” and that my course on Revolutions be renamed to have “9/11” in the title.

    The larger point is that academic managerialism has destroyed the very concept of the academy, which if anything should be one of the last refuges from the profit motive because it rewards discipline and merit as it imparts knowledge, both conformative and transgressive, for knowledge’s or humanity’s sake rather than for money.

    As the Taylorist pathogen took hold, more of the good people in the department left or retired. I was asked why I stayed and in my naivety I simply answered that it was about lifestyle and personal relationships. My partner and I had met in the late 1990s and were getting more serious, and my lifestyle out on the west flank of the Waitakere Ranges was ideal for my purposes at the time. Under an pre-existing research leave policy that was covered by my original contract I did take a couple of semester-long research leaves during those first ten years, once to the University of California San Diego and the other to the Portuguese Institute of International and Strategic Studies. Then the old research leave policy was terminated, and shortly after that, I was as well.”

    I’m sure Jacinda’s visit full of business lobbyists will instead commit to more consultants on it making billions, remove people’s rights to freedom of speech and keep dumbing down the populous while wondering why there are 1000’s of nutty fringe groups out there wanting to kills everyone, less and less skills available to fight pandemics, more angry groups from transgender to anti vaxxer’s who believe they were put on earth to be the messiah and judging from the knife attacks on comedians now, don’t have a sense of humour or understand irony.

Comments are closed.