You can now add ‘anti-women’ to this Governments ‘anti-treaty, anti-Māori, anti-renter, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-beneficiary, anti-worker” agenda

Dame Anne Salmond is scathing of the deceitful and cruel decision to declare war on women workers..

Anne Salmond: She won’t be right, mate

Having declared war on the environment, the Government is now declaring war on women

…you can now add ‘anti-women’ to this Governments ‘anti-treaty, anti-Māori, anti-renter, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-beneficiary, anti-worker” agenda…

In the Great Chain of Being, a medieval idea, God sits at the top followed by archangels and angels, a divine sovereign (the origin of sovereignty), the ranks of aristocrats and commoners, with men over women, and civilised people over barbarians and savages, followed by sentient and non-sentient animals, fish, insects, plants and rocks. Everything further down the Great Chain is a ‘lower’ form of life, and expected to offer up tribute and service to everything higher up.

This antique belief has proved strangely resilient, no doubt because it is self-serving – for some. It has helped to justify authoritarian rule, the 1 percent over the 99 percent, sexism, racism, and extractive economics, with the earth offering up ‘ecosystem services’ to human beings. It is a myth, pure and simple, with no scientific justification.

As in Trump’s America, it helps to explain why autocracy, elitism, sexism, racism, extractive economics, contempt for the environment and fundamentalist religious beliefs so often go hand-in-hand.

This is a toxic mix, however, and deeply destructive. At present, authoritarian rule, extreme inequality and divisive politics based on hatred of ‘others’ (immigrants, other ethnic or religious groups, or genders), extractive economics, climate change and biodiversity losses are putting human survival at risk.

Here in New Zealand, the same lethal mix is emerging. Witness the coalition Government’s ‘War on Nature,’ with its low grade wheeling and dealing with mining, industrial fishing and forestry and other extractive industries; the Fast-track legislation; Act’s Treaty Principles bill and its Regulatory Standards bill, and now the pay equity amendment, passed under urgency in one afternoon and evening. This is not what New Zealanders asked for at the last election. The only parties that advanced these kinds of policies won a very small share of the vote.

This latest assault on our democracy is a despicable piece of legislation, aimed at over half of the population of this country, without giving them any chance to scrutinise or debate it. Having declared war on the environment, the Government is now declaring war on women.

…the underhand manner  this Government used to hide their war on women is extra sickening when you consider women gained the vote here first…

When the Government started work to limit pay equity claims, and why the public wasn’t informed earlier

When did the Government start work to scale back the pay equity law, and why was that work kept secret?

Using information gleaned from interviews, redacted Government documents, and debate in Parliament, political reporter Glenn McConnell has pieced together a timeline of the pay equity reform.

It took less than two days for the Government to reveal its plan to limit pay equity claims, and then change the law.

The move sparked fierce public backlash from working women, unions, and opposition parties. They criticised the law change, but also the way in which the change happened – with Parliament put into urgency to rush through a bill that had not been campaigned on ahead of the last election.

…how cowardly of this Government.

Look at the detail they have ‘released’

…you can see how panicked National are because they are desperately releasing claims like this…

…bull-shit!

They are lying directly to your faces and hoping you are stupid enough to believe them!

This has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with trying to fit I to Nicola Willis’ brutal new budget cuts!

The requirements mean nothing now the Government has shut down all existing claims and reset the new threshold, they played this exact same game with emergency housing and homelessness, they changed the eligibility rules to Emergency Housing which threw people onto the street and claimed they had solved Emergency Housing!

They are pretending this will make things easier and clearer – that’s an outright lie to your face, here are all the current pay equity deals the Government has just voided…

…how much must hate women to pretend this is acceptable?

Alt-Right culture warriors scream ‘define a woman’ while the Political Right ‘defund women’.

We have money for tobacco subsides, military and loop holes for wealthy landlords, but no money for our sisters, mothers, aunties, wives, girlfriends and fellow women workers

Worst Mother’s Day present ever!

Sign the petition this Mothers’ Day 

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