Instead of standing of the side of the cultural and capitalist oppressor and adopting its discourse of exclusion and the antagonism of difference, thinking workers of New Zealand, and elsewhere, should show solidarity with other workers and stand for better standards of living and workplace rights. Don’t blame the victim when the system itself is the problem.
The truth is that the 5 Eyes spooks meet in NZ quite regularly and the surprise by the corporate media is more due to the lack of institutional knowledge now inside these news organisations.
The recent government changes to how approvals are managed for permanent residents will do nothing to alter the system of exploitation of tens of thousands of workers here on temporary work visas.
The MSD have responded to TDBs question posed yesterday…
What NZers don’t seem to understand about the last 9 years of National is how ideologically driven it has been. National pretend to be moderate and balanced when the truth is they are hard core believers in underfunding the State so that it can’t afford its social obligations.
Appealing to the voters’ emotions, rather than their heads, is exactly what is wrong with politics today. Just think John Key, Brexit and Trump!
Good politicking is about demonstrating, clearly, how policies are actually going to make meaningful differences to the citizens’ wellbeing.
The Ministry of Social Development say they will get back to me with an answer. We will be following this allegation closely and will report once the Ministry have responded.
We all understand the anger anyone of us would feel when a loved one is hurt by someone. You wouldn’t be a human being if you didn’t want to punish a person for doing something criminal or cruel to someone you identify with, but allowing anger and fear to dominate our thinking has created more problems than solutions within our prison system and it’s time we all acknowledged that.
Congratulations to Kristine Bartlett and the mostly female 55,000 care workers who have finally been shown the dignity and respect they are so long overdue. The work they perform is critical to our social infrastructure and they deserve to be treated far better than they have.
It is a day they should celebrate.
When this story first surfaced last week I thought that I must have caught the wrong end of the stick…