When you consider the horror of the meth hysteria and the punitive spite vomited upon beneficiaries, can HNZ, WINZ and MSD possibly go on strike too? In their cases you could actually argue them being on strike is actually the best thing to ever happen to those they torture.
In an economy where roughly half the paid workforce have not had a pay-rise for close to two years, will the Nurses’ Organisation’s demand for an immediate, across the board, 11 percent increase strike the average Kiwi as “about right” or “too much”. With an experienced registered nurse’s salary set to rise from $66,755 to $77,386 by December next year under the present offer, will the two-thirds of workers who earn considerably less than that sum (in 2016 the median NZ income was just $48,800) regard the union’s proposed strike action as reasonable – or unreasonable?
Simon’s call to do less than sweet bugger all can only be considered political leadership if you are the oil industry, you know, the one Simon went out of his way to help mug NZ civil rights to protest for.
We have a Government and Opposition arguing over the pretence of a solution. How the fuck did we get to such an empty moment when what we need is urgency, vision and courage?
These are the people who have to go. They presided over an out of control Housing New Zealand Corporation with brutal, punitive policies towards the most vulnerable of people.
This situation has reached crisis point – the prisons are overwhelmed by people who have mental illness, addictions to alcohol and drugs, and/ or both. 90% of the prison population has one or other, and 20% both. The number of people in prisons has gone up nearly 500% over 30 years, driven primarily by the surge in the use of illegal substances.
The most wonderful irony in the world would be the economic crash hitting while the great critic of free market neoliberalism is sitting on the throne.
That’s almost worth wishing for.
What are NZers getting from allowing Fonterra to remain a monopoly?
Why are property owners afforded a far broader definition of what is proportionate when policing something as trivial as a car parking space than an individual fighting to save themselves from violence?
Last week I received this message from a former employee at Housing New Zealand Corporation.
Nothing sums up the new Government’s possum in the headlights lack of strategy quite as much as the final decision to build a 500 bed prison at Waikeria.
