If we can admit Housing NZ meth policy was an abortion, why can’t we also check the neoliberal welfare agencies other sacred cows like inane WINZ Office security?

Carol from WINZ is ready to see you now.

There are two wonderful things that have come out of the meth hysteria fiasco.

The first is that it burnt EVERYONE! Normally a social policy abortion like this only burns the poorest and weakest amongst us meaning the remedy is given as much urgency as a sleeping sloth going for a jog.

This hurt as many middle class property speculators as it did beneficiaries. The seething resentment so many private landlords must feel at the sheer scale of all that money they threw away while ex cop meth decontamination companies milked their fear and greed reached a high enough level for something must be done intervention from the State.

So because this hurt everyone, it took just one interview with Peter Gluckman to kill off an entire industry overnight!

The other great thing this meth hysteria fiasco has given us is the right to challenge other sacred cows of the establishment. If they were SOOOOOOO wrong about the meth fiasco, maybe they are wrong about a whole bunch of other hysterical bullshit?

What about the over the top and aggressive security outside WINZ Offices?

Private security who vet and stop beneficiaries from entering any WINZ office were placed there after the Ashburton shootings.

Personally I’m always surprised that there aren’t more shootings outside these cruelty shops or that the WINZ Offices themselves don’t become permanent targets for graffiti.

MSD argue they should be able to hide the level of threats, yet the actual rate of abuse…

Trespass orders in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch WINZ offices increased from 114 in 2016 to 170 the following year.

Over the same period, 11 incidents ended in injury to at least one MSD staff member across the three regions.

…for the cost is completely out of whack…

Evergreen International NZ has won an $80 million contract to supply security services to the Ministry of Social Development, just six months after the private equity-owned firm acquired the Armourguard Security business in New Zealand for $1.

The national two year plus two year contract includes provision of security guards, monitoring of security and fire alarms in ministry offices and Child Youth and Family homes, and support for monitoring systems.

Evergreen, which is owned by New York-based Evergreen Capital, acquired the Armourguard business from NYSE-listed Tyco last year. The value of the transaction was given as $1 according to a note in the accounts of Sensormatic New Zealand, the immediate owner of Tyco New Zealand. The note didn’t say whether there was a debt component to the transaction.

The firm, which had 1,500 employees, takes over as national provider for services that were previously supplied by a number of companies, a spokeswoman for the ministry said. She declined to give details of the contract, including whether any cost savings were achieved.

According to the request for proposal documents released via the government’s GETS tender website, the ministry currently employs about 162 guards at 144 Work & Income sites.

…that was 2014 prices, Christ knows what it is now. Even at those rates, $80million for 11 incidents seems like a Housing NZ meth hysteria level of self-interested incompetence.

Teachers would love to have only 11 incidents a year plus half the security cost…

Beaten, bloodied, bashed and bruised – even the classroom isn’t safe as teachers across New Zealand face violent assaults from their own students.

Last year, a shocking 580 primary school students and 119 secondary school students were stood down for assaulting school staff.

The argument has always been that it was the previous Government’s awful policies that made beneficiaries violent and not the sadistic staff, so with a change of Government and a replacement of the puritanical and cruel policy implementation, why the huge security still?

If we can admit Housing NZ meth policy was an abortion, why can’t we also check the neoliberal welfare agencies other sacred cows like inane WINZ Office security?

How can WINZ staff receive a level of security that Teachers would cry for?

The reason of course is that it’s not just a policy thing, the staff at WINZ have a special level of sadism in them which makes for a toxic culture the new Government are trying (and failing) to respond to.

The real reason security can’t  be cut back is because these staff are still toxic and are still creating the justification for violent responses from vulnerable beneficiaries.

Perhaps stripping them of their bully boy security will force these staff members to treat beneficiaries humanly and not punitively?