The sheer audacity of this self-deceiving sophistry manages to sum up all the vacant aspiration and vanity of modern neoliberal New Zealand in a way that would make John Key (who best represented this cultural mutation), blush with lust.
Unions must demand more, the right to strike, a worker levy and open Union membership are ideas they need to build and push if the pathetic union membership rates are ever to be expanded and real inequality challenged.
…the Human Rights Review Tribunal is the only mechanism open to citizens of NZ to hold the Police (and the State) to account for their abuses of power. The Independent Police Conduct Authority only has the power to recommend or suggest resolutions, the HRRT can force the Police to comply.
The irony that Mediaworks are bitching about Labour’s broadcasting policy when it was John Key’s mate, Mark Weldon, who killed off Campbell Live for political reasons is eye rolling, but let’s put aside all the self interest and consider the argument against RNZ being the de facto public broadcaster because there are good reasons why Labour’s plan to drown RNZ in cash is a bad idea.
One of the most telling sections in the terms of reference is the recognition that underlying causes of poor mental health and suicide, such as poverty, poor housing, unemployment and discrimination will be considered as part of the Inquiry’s work – without that, such a review could easily descend into a debate between mental health professionals over issues like best levels of medication, or how many mental health beds there should be in hospitals, rather than looking at the factors that cause mental unwellness.
If the NZ Police can get away with taking personal information from a political blogger that breaches the privacy act and my civil rights, they can do it to anyone and the supposed watchdogs that are there to protect us are so underfunded they’ve become lap dogs to police abuse of power.
The death of Dolores O’Riordan from the Cranberries and the announcement of Jacinda and Clarke’s baby. The universal juxtaposition of life and death played out many multiple times every day blown up large and baked into a week.
If you honestly had problem with the Te Reo spoken during this perforce, perhaps you need to have a good hard look at yourself.
While every lose of life is a tragedy, I’m not sure what the hell the relevance of dredging up a road death over a decade old is other than to generate manufactured anger.
Growing inequality and housing affordability are more important than a single baby and we’ve already seen policy that was supposed to start fixing these issues have had their numbers overcooked and in the case of the $50 a week student allowance, actually become counter productive!
