…Metiria’s real crime was to challenge neoliberal cultural mythology and promise hope to beneficiaries that someone who shared their experience would force change for them.
Rich, white, male broadcasters have had their witch hunt and we have lost a civil rights hero. NZ is a poorer political landscape for it.
THE JACOBINS, along with “Madame Guillotine” and Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, will forever be associated with political extremism. So, the mere suggestion that our very own Green Party might be entering its Jacobin Phase is unlikely to be well received – especially by the Greens!
Labour’s collapse in the Polls has gifted them a Leader who can finally explain policy in a way that resonates and is listened to, this changes the dynamic and also makes National’s next attack line, which has moved from bad leadership to bad policy, far more of a difficult trick to pull off because when it comes to policy, Labour’s are light years ahead of National.
Rather than basing our approach on synthetic pharmaceuticals, if we took a herbal remedy or food-grade approach, then local and affordable cannabis-based products could be available here within months. They could be made from hemp, they would be cheap, local workers would be employed making them, and everyone could get their daily dose of phyto-cannabinoids.
At the time that Metiria Turei was dealing with trying to obtain a ‘living’ benefit, Christine Rankin was head of what we know as WINZ and her and her Deputy threw lavish parties and spent loads of money on doing up their offices. Allegations were that Rankin was incredibly lazy and did very little in the way of work.
I don’t believe for a second that she was thinking about becoming co-leader for a game changing political party. I can’t be convinced that she used a story about her situation back then as political leverage (she’s a smart cookie who knew the risk of this disclosure). I most certainly don’t feel she is unfit as a leader, or is an untrustworthy fraudster, nor do I feel ripped off – not by her at least. I feel NOTHING about this. Not a thing. I give no fucks that 20 something years ago, a person living as a pōhara, single parent, student, managed to get a few extra groceries by not declaring flatmates. It doesn’t even register on my richter scale of what is moral vs immoral.
If Labour continue to climb, and TOP can get Clendon or Graham, Gareth Morgan might be the Queenmaker, not Winston.
…I’m not sure what angers Patrick, Garner, Espiner, Hosking, Soper or Armstrong most, that Metiria has highlighted the cruelty of our welfare system and empowered beneficiaries or that the Greens went up despite all orgy of sexist hate they spat at Metiria.
New Zealand capitalism is in urgent need of a reboot. The agricultural sector is offering nothing more imaginative than more (and more!) of the same: more cows, more milk powder, more massive irrigation schemes, more befouled waterways. The road transport industry is swallowing a disproportionately large amount of New Zealand’s limited investment capital. Our civil service is not only displaying alarming levels of inefficiency but also outright corruption.
Personality not only wins elections Bill, it forgives almost every possible sin by the voter, that’s why National voters have turned a blind eye to suicide, mental health, poverty, inequality and the way beneficiaries, prisoners and the vulnerable are treated by the state.