In a re-run of the 1980’s ‘Yes Minister’ sitcom, Ministry of Health humphreys have absorbed like a sponge the community and Government messages about the urgent need for ‘transformational’ action on mental health, and are busy working out ways to head off any ‘transformation’ of their power and influence.
In a few weeks I am visiting a women’s open prison in the UK. I am really interested to see what they do there. Most countries have open prisons and various forms of community prison. We do not. For some reason, all our prisons got wrapped around in huge fences and became security-mad in the 1990s, and of course it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. The worse we treat them, the worse the become.
Last week RNZ reported on two stories that should give us all pause to think about who we are , what we stand for and the ACTUAL rather than the pretend economic policy by which our country is run .
Don’t tell me that we weaponised CYFs uplift policy in 2016 and went about removing as many children big data algorithms tell us will be a long term welfare cost without resourcing the services we will need to send those costly welfare units (children) to?
The truth is that Government has been hopeless at managing the neoliberal welfare agencies to be anything other than a stick, and have come far too late to the game in their first term to remedy these corruptions of social policy. The only hope to force real change is to fund groups like AAAP to be advocacy agents for beneficiaries (effectively unionise the beneficiaries) and also fund AAAP to prepare annual reports that are critical of WINZ.
The clip is just 12 seconds long but I post it in the hope our government and the RNZ will show similar courage in demanding better behaviour from our banks – especially from 4 big foreign owned ones who have taken the lion’s share of the New Zealand market.
As long has you haven’t taken too much, we won’t come after you” is the message former Waikato DHB elected Board Member says the ‘Serious’ Fraud Office has given to the community, in the wake of its decision not to prosecute the DHB’s former CEO, Nigel Murray.
THOSE SHOCKED TO DISCOVER that unnamed British civil servants have briefed The Times on Jeremy Corbyn’ “mental and physical frailty”, shouldn’t be. Corbyn is merely the Leader of the Opposition. In 1936, the British civil service, instructed to spy on their own sovereign, King Edward VIII, did not refuse. The explanation for civil servants’ willingness to intercept the telephone calls of the reigning monarch is the same as for their willingness to brief against the Opposition leader to the Murdoch press. In both cases, the targeted individuals were considered “unfit for office”.
Privatisation of water supply – like all privatisations – would accelerate inequality in Auckland just as Labour and National’s privatisation policies of the past 35 years have done so.
The alternative to state funding of infrastructure is, of course, to fund it by taking on massive amounts of private debt. On this issue, at least, Tamihere has some solid points to make. In his own colourful turn of phrase, Goff and the Auckland Council have “maxed-out the credit card”. If the City is to preserve its international credit rating of AA, then it simply cannot afford to take on any more debt. What’s more, the rest of the country cannot afford for Auckland to take on any more debt.