The killing of Jacinda’s kindness legacy will be this Government’s worst legacy
Government confirms emergency housing plan shake-up
She said verification, eligibility, and limits to the ability for officials to use discretion for applicants for emergency housing would be done before August.
“MSD staff assessing anyone applying for emergency housing will increase their scrutiny of whether they have unreasonably contributed to their immediate emergency housing need, whether they have taken reasonable efforts to access other housing options and whether they have previously paid their emergency housing contribution.
“This will include escalating for further consideration by a manager on a case-by-case basis, and making a grant for one to four days – as opposed to the current options of seven to 21 days – to enable further scrutiny before a grant is approved for a longer period.”
…this isn’t Emergency Housing, it’s punishment.
No Carrot and all stick!
Homeless people can’t live in a stick!
Constant reassessment, people being kicked off the list, shorter periods of time, these are all means of spiking the point of Emergency Housing.
These people have complex needs, throwing them out on the street is not the fucking solution!
Emergency Housing existed after Key was embarrassed by Kiwis living in cars. What had happened was that the State under Key had become so mean spirited and abusive towards those they were tasked with aiding, that people were frightened of having any contact with Government services so the Government services under represented the true enormity of real poverty.
Jacinda continued her kindness mantra and State Agencies became actual tools for aiding better outcomes. People saw them as far kinder in treating them, but of course that’s all changed and now the State is mutating from carrot into stick with which to bash the vulnerable with.
Jacinda’s much vaunted ‘Kindness’ legacy, which started out as an incredible political strength and ended up being used as a term of derision by those embittered by Covid, is complex and the ending of it by this new hard right racist climate denying Government is going to cause a cultural dislocation far larger than our Pandemic response.
There were two Jacinda’s
The first was ultra conservative and saw change in incremental stages that were heralded as ‘great first steps’ but amounted to jogging on the spot, and then there was the Jacinda with the enormous emotional intelligence who could channel NZs infamous emotionally stunted headspace to embrace the huge moments that defined crisis in NZ.
From volcanoes, to terror attacks, to a once in a century pandemic, she cut a glowing light of hope against the darkness of those moments.
Her masterclass in leadership that Jacinda performed defying the feral QAnon antivax lunatics and death cult capitalists by protecting us from 20 000 Covid deaths deserves special attention.
Was the personal sacrifice steep to all of us?
Yes.
Was the economic cost steep?
Yes.
Do the recent revelations by Pfizer that the vaccine didn’t stop transmission suddenly prove all the anti-vaxxers right?
Not at all…
Social media users are circulating video clips of testimony by a Pfizer executive, who is said to “admit” that the company and its partner BioNTech did not test whether their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine reduced virus transmission prior to rolling it out – which is something the companies were not required to do for initial regulatory approval, nor did they claim to have done.
To get emergency approval, companies needed to show that the vaccines were safe and prevented vaccinated people from getting ill. They did not have to show that the vaccine would also prevent people from spreading the virus to others. Once the vaccines were on the market, independent researchers in multiple countries studied people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and did show that vaccination reduced transmission of variants circulating at the time.
As these results on transmission were emerging in early 2021, national health authorities in many countries implemented or proposed vaccine-passport-style regulations that prompted ongoing debate (here) over the ethical and legal basis of the rules.
The misleading posts imply that national restrictions such as vaccine passports were based on a promise of vaccines blocking virus spread that neither the companies nor EU regulators made before the vaccines were marketed.
…Jacinda’s courage to go hard and go early caused deep societal anger and dislocation, but so would have 20 000 dead!
We all sacrificed, some more than others, but we all paid a pound of flesh to get through this horror and while the response wasn’t perfect, the truth is we were running blind through a once in a century pandemic and Jacinda saw us through that better than most.
The immediacy of banning the favourite machine guns of psychopaths in the wake of the white supremacists terror attack in Christchurch was another example of her ability to provide true leadership.
Those crisis moments made her and saved us, but her incremental reform of the neoliberal Wellington Bureaucracy, her ‘Neo-Kindness’ is what robbed her of her strongest strengths leading a Government with an unprecedented MMP majority.
Jacinda’s aspiration didn’t meet the reality and in her last interview with Jack Tame had the audacity to call any criticism of her aspiration unfair by arguing it was better that she had high aspirations rather than not having any at all.
That’s her argument, sure we aren’t doing anything meaningful or transformative, but it’s important she had high hopes.
That’s neokindness and Jacinda’s neokindness wasn’t enough, if you aren’t forcing the Wellington Bureaucratic Elite into radical reform, they play you and stymie your agenda.
All that said however, Jacinda’s neokindness did have a shallow response that actually was more important than her policy results on poverty, inequality and climate change and which when reversed will trigger an enormous dislocation.
What Jacinda’s ‘kindness’ actually did was force all State Departments and Agencies to act with kindness to everyone who used their services.
If an example of unkindness could get to the media, that Department rushed to solve the issue because they knew Jacinda expected kindness.
The first stand Jacinda made was dumping private spy company Thompson and Thompson from having anything to do with the State.
And this kindness mantra worked! Welfare punishment, state housing punishment, IRD actions, sentences, debt issues – every Department of the State was expected to be kind and they were.
An entire generation of people have grown up under 6 years of the State being kind, the new hard right racist climate denying Government now however wants to remove any carrot and just use the stick.
Take roading.
National have stripped money out of road safety features to keep people safe and will instead use the power of the Police to just ticket anyone speeding.
Rather than spend more money on making our roads safer, National will just use the power of the State to strictly enforce the rules.
It’s easier to fine a speeding driver than build better safer roads.
This new hard right racist climate denying Government will use the State to beat the bejesus out of the people and I don’t think Kiwis remember what it’s like to have a State that is out to get us all the time.
Fast tracking Trans National Mining Interests to raze our Environment.
Throwing the homeless off emergency waiting lists to make the emergency waiting lists look better.
More meth precursor drug access.
More sub machine guns.
8000 tobacco deaths for tax cuts.
13000 more children in poverty for tax cuts.
Disability benefit cut by $2300 per year for tax cuts.
Getting us involved in a new American war.
Ramming through laws misusing urgency.
Gang Patch bans that are against the Bill of Rights.
Attacking worker right, renter rights and environmental rights.
Taking free lunches away from poor children.
This is what we have become in just 100 days – if you voted for this you must own this malice and spite.
Aotearoa New Zealand is better than this Government is making us.
Comrades.
As much as we are collectively shocked and horrified at the brutal right wing draconian madness that is being rammed through Parliament with bugger all over sight, can I assure you all, it’s about to get waaaaaaaaay worse once the lobbyists have fleshed their election talking points into actual policy.
I do not think we are ready for this jelly.
There needs to be an urgent political summit of the Left to work out how we are going to collectively resist this.
Jacinda’s Kindness legacy is about to be juxtaposed by a State that is actively attempting to hurt you and we will miss her then.
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I don’t think it was just Jacindia. She had a kitchen cabinet headed up by Hipkins.
On no it won’t be, that’s just a starter, you wait & see, you’re going to love it.
Labour were doing nothing for road safety. They were lowering the already far too low speed limits even more.
tell that to the rising numbers who will be maimed by speeding drivers .And dont think that police will enforce road rules because we have a deminishing police force that will shrink further under these mupets .They have already insulted them with a bellow par pay offer so more will be on the way to AUS .Mitchel will be calling up his mercinery mates from the past to come in and slaugter a few gang members to placate people loike you
One problem is the kindness rolled over to not acting on complaints about State tenants behaving badly,parents not sending children to school,gangs allowed to run riot not checking on those a benefit are following the rules.
Her kindness was real but it meant she was a weak leader not jumping on those ministers who were not performing .Her time will be recorded as one of lost opportunities
Jacinda was kind and started great journeys, however there was no discipline, no firm hand when one was required, and ultimately ended up wasting too much money and nothing to show for it.
There was nothing “kind” about the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates. How is “no haircuts unless you do as I say” an act of kindness? (before you answer remember that the vaccine did not stop transmission or even stop you getting covid, so who exactly was she keeping safe with that policy?).
I guess 20,000+ dead would have (somehow) been much more palatable for you then.
Dearest Nitrium, climate science and vaccine efficacy denier.
Ardern’s COVID management was her greatest achievement. It demonstrably saved lives and made her a world leader in protecting public health, overwhelmingly applauded around the globe.
I’ve picked out three paras that should be checked regularly when trying to define opinions about Jacinda as PM. Good on you for making it plain Martyn.
We all sacrificed, some more than others, but we all paid a pound of flesh to get through this horror and while the response wasn’t perfect, the truth is we were running blind through a once in a century pandemic and Jacinda saw us through that better than most.
The immediacy of banning the favourite machine guns of psychopaths in the wake of the white supremacists terror attack in Christchurch was another example of her ability to provide true leadership.
Those crisis moments made her and saved us, but her incremental reform of the neoliberal Wellington Bureaucracy, her ‘Neo-Kindness’ is what robbed her of her strongest strengths leading a Government with an unprecedented MMP majority.
Yours is the best comment on this article. I feel that the Labour Party selection process is the biggest culprit in the ongoing trainwreck that the government became in its final term as they did not have people suitable for the job required. Social media with every village idiot getting whatever loopy thought they had broadcast regardless of real evidence did not help the situation.
Did we experience kindness?
When exactly?
Ardernism: Doing you a kindness by giving you a chair and a pillow while you watch her pals continue to ransack your home.
Jacinda’s legacy of kindness trickled straight down onto Mr Luxon, who has been very kind to himself.
Claiming $52,000 per year of tax payer money to live in his own property is pretty kind. It might be my money, or Uncle Jack’s, or batty Jean-next-door’s, growing our own veges and worrying about kiddies eating crap processed food, but it’s legal. And it’s a start.
When Luxon got to lead something, he recounts John Key turning up with a package of whitebait to celebrate. Any idea how much whitebait retails at ? Kind. Now they are addressing value for money for children with rumbling bellies. It’s a start.