Why NZ desperately needs a Bernie Sanders political revolution to hack the State (no really)
NZ desperately needs a Bernie Sanders political revolution to hack the State.
Over the last 6 months of hosting Waatea 5th Estate, one thing has started to emerge, that many of the State’s so called welfare agencies are actually the problem and other countries are now recognising how brutal we have become…
New Zealand experts warn Australia data-driven welfare ‘abuses and brutalises’
New Zealand welfare experts have slammed the Australian government’s decision to copy their welfare system, saying the changes are unproven and are causing New Zealand’s most vulnerable to “check out” of any relationship with the state.
“In New Zealand our welfare system operates the same way as our prisons – it treats beneficiaries as a threat to society, to be policed and managed,” said Darrin Hodgetts, a professor of societal psychology at Massey University and an expert on poverty in New Zealand.
“If Australia want to abuse and brutalise their people, then sure, copy our system.”
Look at our list of agencies which punish under the facade of welfare:
CYFs – With what we now know about how appalling CYFs are, would you really call CYFs into any instance of suspected child abuse? Really? The stats show children in state care are abused more than kids left in the community. The horror of that fact takes a while to settle in.
Mental Health Services – They are torturing people in isolation cells and manage to wash their hands completely of the large number who fall through their cracks.
Housing NZ – They send the homeless to motels and then charge them with a $50 000 bill! Privatising state housing and subsidising slum lords with a housing allowance locks and traps the poor. They use deeply flawed meth tests to throw people out of houses and then wonder why we have a homeless crisis!
WINZ – How many ways can we count how terrible WINZ are? They spy on NZers to catch beneficiaries out in relationships using Victorian era morality that claims a relationship can somehow make life cheaper. 60% of beneficiaries on solo parent welfare owe money to WINZ for the ‘fraud’ of being in a relationship. WINZ are effectively creating an entire class of indebted servants and we are allowing them to do this.
Corrections – They are producing more damaged people coming out of prison than they have going in. Abuse of Trans people is rife and recidivism is through the roof. As we close in on 10 000 NZers locked up for the first time, there’s even a case in front of the Waitangi Tribunal arguing the incarceration is a breach of the Treaty.
Probation – More focused on finding ways to send prisoners back to prison than rehabilitate them into society
Ministry of Social Development – They refer people to illegal garages to live in and then say it’s not their fault for not checking the house they are sending someone to is legal or safe and they spy on beneficiaries using Facebook.
ACC: Has 30% share in private prison at Wiri so has a vested interest in a full prison for revenue. Hires it’s own Drs to actively disqualify people from treatment.
We have State agencies that are more concerned with punishing NZers than helping them. This is taxpayer funded oppression.
One of the features of neoliberalism is to strip out the democratic shock absorbers of civil society so that when the hard right policy hits, it cleanses those too weak to resist it. It’s civil society that speaks out about social issues from an educated perspective and from a hands on authenticity and its suppression and removal from society degrades the value of the individual, it doesn’t protect it.
No where can we see the ruthlessness of a hollowed out civil society better than in our current housing crisis. John Key says the Homeless can just pop into WINZ and get a house. The disconnect between the Prime Minister’s version of events and the families-living-in-cars reality of his polices may as well be light years apart.
Watching 1000’s of beneficiaries line up for help from AAAP shows how dysfunctional and unresponsive our state agencies have become.
Where we need to be moving is towards democratic autonomy. Publicly funded NGOs that guide users through the purposely complex social services, accessing their full benefits, entitlements and rights. These NGOs would know the rules inside out, would know the entitlements and could make public reports on the Ministries they work with.
Rather than empower private contractors, empower the individuals by fully funding their advocates.
We need a fully funded civil society that can critique without fear of retribution (like the Problem Gambling Foundation), so that these shock absorbers become amplifiers of people’s rights, so that the disaffected see value in participation.
We need to hack the State so that these welfare agencies are actually looking after the welfare of those needing their services and not pushing counter productive policies that actually end up hurting those people.
No wonder so many in poverty refuse any Government aid, with the fish hooks and strings attached to such help, living in a car is better than risking life long debt with agencies as cruel as Housing NZ, WINZ, CYFs etc etc.
We need to demand reform of our Public Service into a truly Civil Service if we want a Civil Society.
Great post.
Would love to see the above list reformed from the kafkaesque charade that welfare has now become. A sort of non welfare under the National party that tries to siphon money off for the .01% from the poor.
Yes Martyn the welfare state created by Michael Joseph Savage has wholes in it so wide you could drive a kenworth truck through it and it is hurting the very people it was set up to help. The pnats have created this toxic environment. ACC are a joke investing our money in dams and prisons when we cant even get our entitlements and help when we are injured. We now have to pay to see a physiotherapist no referral to see a specialist this is disgusting what are we paying ACC levies and taxes for. The system is not there when you need it is broken like our country at the moment. Unless we vote for change we will all have to suffer except for the 1% the government is ruling for
Martyn
So Australia is going down the crapper like NZ is, well well.
No surprise here as both are effectively now both controlled by the same Corporate club.
They are aligning us all now, ready for assimilation into the OWG no doubt!
So yes we desperately need a Bernie here to seize control back from these dictators of greed and corruption.
Oh yeah for sure. You’ve heard of the movie the big short? Well the next one will be the Aussie short. Private sector debt rises by a billion a week. Aussie just can’t stop ticking up.
You are right Sam. Reliable commentators from overseas expect the Dow will correct in late 2016.(Google it) Which could fit right in with your warning on the housing market. People don’t want to believe the real estate party is coming to an end.
what we need is for NZers to wise up hey Pnats are doing what they always do transfer our assets to there mates and get richer of our backs
“social security” of old has become a sadistic punishment maze that people rightly avoid sometimes with great suffering involved, but at least it means a few less bonuses for the torturers at WINZ, and lets cut to the chase–it is past time for the PSA to stop protecting its members in the state sector that make other citizens life a daily misery
and it is time also for some more direct action; such as squatting in empty houses and on yachts in the marinas, the comfortable just love telling the less well off how to behave, they won’t like it up ’em!
Perfect Tiger mountain,
The pendulum of the poor is swinging so far now away from the rich with this “supply side” driven crappy economy that a revolution will come from this for sure.
History will record that an evil man (JKey) cheated NZ out of its resources by trickery, while he turned the country into a destabilised crime ridden sad country not fit to live in, and hastened a revolution in side 9yrs.
Key lied in 2010 when he said if the country (NZ) becomes negative he will leave, – another lie?
What NZ — REALLY needs is to get at the core of the problem.
All this misery worldwide is sourced by and for the plans and goals of
the U.N. and their AGENDA 2030. Their ” sustainable development ” is a load of hog wash. Look into this more thoroughly and see how it impacts us and many other countries.
We need to focus above our government to those who dictate to and own and control most politicians. I know I sound like a broken record but please prove me wrong.
Get out from under the U.N. and its policies is a first good step and then take back our government so it helps those in need properly. We pay these rotten politician salaries and they serve their own best interests and their criminal corporate buddies. Its all part of a well thought plan that was implemented long ago.
Notice how there is always enough money for military etc, but never enough for the peoples needs ? ? ?
This is a disappointing post Marty – as usual you make suggestions (several of which are plain BS) but then have nothing to offer as an alternative. For instance you slag CYF but without it there would be massive suffering in our community. I am not saying that CYF are a great organisation but they do far more good than bad. You seem to be equally confused about Probation. You seem very confused about the reality at the coalface and are sounding more and more like a left version of Dunnokeyo – get it together!
Watcha sayin there, BLOODAXE?… That he doth protest too much ?
If no one did, – we’d all be none the wiser, now , wouldn’t we…
“We need to hack the State so that these welfare agencies are actually looking after the welfare of those needing their services and not pushing counter productive policies that actually end up hurting those people.”
We know Martyn, we know.
But what are we going to do, and how?
Iam warming to the idea of a Udi just to get ride of winz
Excellent Bomber. Its about time the undeclared war was declared.
How does bit hit you when we see daily an ugly picture of a snorting wild-eyed woman and a rambunctious man as our potential leaders now,- and think of how Bernie Sanders looks as a soft hearted honest grandpa with a yearn to give us all a break, and suddenly we realise they made a deadly mistake by voting him out , as just now he looks like the perfect answer to all USA’s problems right?
Why leave it to government to change everything for the better when we now have the blueprints to do it ourselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4xVuvbKOMw
Sunday, 14 August 2016, Keshe Foundation is delivering “free energy” (Magrav Unit/Generator) to the Whitehouse demonstrating that everything we need from energy to food is here and in coming weeks Mr Keshe will demonstrate to his students how to make gold.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtQzN7XLiLvTpyUnQAa1mRw/videos
Government no longer leads the people The People are now the leaders.
The last thing we need is more government to solve the problems created by government
E X A C T L Y ! !
To falsely believe that any world govt. ( except for a very ! few ) will do good by and for the people is living in a fairy tale dreamworld.
This rigged and planned world order was put into play long ago to benefit the few at the cost of the many.
Labour is not that much better than National as many of them , as well, are heavily entrenched in the U.N. and promoting their Agenda 2030. Even Martyn here at TDB refuses to post many of my past comments about this. To me and many I know, this is one of the most important truths to get out there.
The U.N. and most govts. ARE the problem, THAT is the real conspiracy, not those wanting to expose them and being mis-labeled conspiracy nutters.
Rothschilds upper 1% and their U.N. ; NATO tools are the real source of why we are so damaged and hurting as a world and in perpetual profit making wars. NATO and the U.N. are the brawn and brains and to avoid this elephant in the room is naive. We need to get out from under their influences soon.
Revolution anyone ? Take back our govt. anyone ? We should be in charge of our govt. – not the other way around. We already have the brilliant minds and leaders here in NZ to run things properly. We just need to get rid of about 95 % of the dead wood and greedy “out of touch ” lot in parliament. They only think they are speaking for us and representing us but this is just not true.
Watch – if Labour wins, it will be business, mostly, as usual when most voters ( those who still vote ? ! )
will have false hopes and live in dream land illusions.
Again, we need to focus squarely on the culprits behind the curtains. The U.N., again, are not our friends and Helen Clark is a disgrace.
Please – please google the U.N. and Agenda 2030 and see how negative their influences are and why. Genocide is their main goal next to greed and world domination.
Find out who they are are really serving and who and why they are linked with so many organizations ; NATO ; foundations ; banks and govts. etc.
MARTYN, IF YOU CHOOSE, AGAIN, TO DELETE THIS COMMENT AND NOT PUBLISH IT, WE WANT TO KNOW WHY .
Please do not use the excuse that we are repeating ourselves.
[Blake, please do not assume it is only Martyn who deletes comments. So do I. Quite a few, in fact that are abusive, repetitive, off-topic, or where the author has failed to provide a valid email address as a sign of good faith. As I have repeatedly told right-wing commentators, there is no automatic right to have your comments published here. Most of your comments are published, in fact and if any are rejected then it is probably because it is off-topic and/or repetitive. As much as humanly possible the rules apply to everyone across the board. – ScarletMod]
Where is my reply to ScarletMod ? ? ?
The reply was also very much on topic about political revolution.
It also corrected an inaccurate assumption and shared an important link about the above topic. Come on.
I would never excuse crime but no wonder it has gone up when people desperately trying and make it out there without the help of Min social development. I reckon some people would find crime easier than the reality of dealing with that department… If that is the case expect our crime rate to sky rocket.
Re brutalising people, we have only heard one side of the story about the Ashburton WINZ shooter, told mostly by MSD, WINZ management and staff, and a few witnesses at the actual shooting.
Nobody can convince me that the now convicted and sentenced Russell John Tully was born to be a murderer one day, something must have set off the trigger, after possibly being treated like crap by WINZ, like so many others. Also the significant increase in so-called assault, abuse and intimidation incidents over recent years was in my view caused by the draconian and punitive “reforms” that came in since 2010, especially since mid 2013.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/77612963/russell-john-tully-went-from-nicest-bloke-to-killer
Here is some insightful information presented on welfare reforms and what it all means:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/msds-selective-poor-responses-to-new-oia-requests-post-nzsjb-27-11-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/msds-selective-and-poor-responses-to-new-oia-requests-on-benefits-advisors-reports-mental-health-and-sole-parent-employment-services/
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/designated-doctors-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc-the-truth-about-them/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-post-09-08-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/msd-and-dr-david-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-claiming-worklessness-causes-poor-health/
And the evidence for supposed “health benefits of work” is not even what MSD and the AFOEM claim:
“Is the statement that if a person is off work for 70 days the chance of ever getting back to work is 35% justified?” NZMJ, 20 Nov. 2015:
https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2015/vol-128-no-1425-20-november-2015/6729
Here are also some OIA responses from MSD:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-oia-rqst-mhes-waa-other-support-services-reply-anon-hilit-26-02-15.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-oia-rqst-mhes-waa-other-support-services-issues-reply-anon-26-02-2015.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-oia-reply-ce-ment-health-emplmt-serv-work-ability-assmts-compl-hilit-24-04-14.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/msd-o-i-a-reply-d-power-mhes-waa-information-complete-24-04-2014.pdf