No, no, and no again

Sorry but this is a difficult story - a story of loss, of disrespect, of money and of our current state of affairs. It does finish on a slightly positive note though

NZH

A protest campaign has erupted against a Fletchers proposal to build up to 480 homes near Auckland Airport on land that includes lava caves that were used as Maori burial sites for generations.
The 32ha site valued at $11.85 million has been designated a special housing area, which means the project is likely to be notified only to adjacent landowners.

Now we know that this government and especially nick smith and paula bennett are in trouble because of their inaction to our homeless and their uncaring attitude to those trying to help. So smith has made special housing areas.

About 100 people attended a protest meeting on Wednesday night called by a group of young cousins at the nearby Makaurau Marae, the ancestral home of the Te Waiohua people who gave Auckland its original name of Tamaki Makaurau.
But their tribal leader, Te Warena Taua, who chairs the marae committee, says he accepts the development because he could not stop it.
He led a tribal challenge in the Environment Court against extending the metropolitan urban limit outwards to include the property in 2012, but lost.

yep they lost, but that does not mean the fight is over.

Fletchers' application to the Overseas Investment Office, which was required to approve the deal because 56 per cent of the company's shares are foreign-owned, shows that it plans to vest almost half the land (16.2ha) in Auckland Council for "roads, reserves, walkways and other public amenities", including an area to be added to the historic reserve.
It says the other 16.6ha will be used to build 350-480 homes over the next eight years, including terrace, duplex and stand-alone houses.

Get that? fletchers are 56% foreign owned and this development is for one reason - to make money! Don't be fooled into thinking it is for parks or reserves or even housing NO it is to make money!

The land was confiscated by the Crown in 1863 and has been owned by the Wallace family since 1866.

Illegal and immoral - confiscated for what? because they wanted it that is why.

A Wallace descendant who grew up on the land and still lives there at age 87, Ailsa Blackwell, said she helped a friend gather "a sugar-bag full" of human bones from a cave on the farm for a school talk at Mangere Central School in about 1940.
"It was my job to hold them up at the school for the talk," she said. "The headmistress was shocked. She took them straight up to Pukaki Pa."

yep desecration of those sites over the years too

Another member of the protest group, journalist Qiane Matata-Sipu, said the group would not be satisfied even if Fletchers protected the caves.
"Look at it," she said, surveying the farmland stretching downhill from the caves. "This is all that's left. We don't want to be left with this little box [a small protected area]."

Give it back, all of it. 

And to end on a positive note

Heritage NZ Maori manager Te Kenehi Teira said the development would need an archaeological authority. "It will end up on my desk at some stage. I will take it straight to the Maori Heritage Council for a decision because of the magnitude of the place," he said.

Perhaps that will protect the sites but more is needed - the area must be given back and that will protect the site and the ancestors. 

true bennett

So Paula Bennett the minister just made up the 'Flying squads' going around tapping on car windows to try and help the many homeless people living in their cars. She told the useless john key, he repeated it to show how useless the homeless were - didn't even bloody WANT help. Now the truth has come out that it was all bullshit. What an absolute disgrace of a person and if you want to see her real side watch this video - nasty, nasty, nasty!!!

The truth is many people are really struggling with the situation of no place to live - only very desperate people live in cars or vans. Māori are over-represented and everyone is suffering. Listen to this interview to hear the resilience and strength of some of our people.

People are helping as best they can but this is a structural issue that has to be fixed from top to bottom.

Does this government and its ministers care and are they going to do something? Nah better to have some more guns ($20b - yep that is billions) to shoot the desperate climate refugees soon to show up on our coastline...

bennett has head in the sand and the tide is coming in

Quite a good interview by Jack Tame with Paula Bennett the Climate Change Minister on Q & A this morning. He kept the hard questions going and she didn't like it very much - as shown by the forced smiles.

Will we ratify this year now that we have signed - Bennett says, "I could do it... but I haven't made up my mind"

No hurry, whatever, when I get round to it - is what she means I think. Funny she seemed so genuinely excited to be signing with all the Presidents and Heads of State - just a photo op then.

Tame raises the Morgan report

A new report by the Morgan Foundation, released today, says foreign carbon credits which New Zealand bought to reach its climate targets were fraudulent. 

It says that New Zealand was the world's biggest buyer of Russian and Ukrainian credits which did not represent any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. 

That meant New Zealand, despite achieving its target on paper, had done little in reality to reduce global emissions. 

"We are, without doubt, cheats", the organisation's founder Gareth Morgan said. 

New Zealand's main tool for reducing atmosphere-warming emissions is the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Bennett says the report is "nothing new" and "half of it is kinda right and the rest is factually incorrect"

Tame - but we did continue trading in those credits for a long time when other countries had banned them" 

Bennett - yes...

and then onto excuses and what nots

but the Greens are not going to let it lie, thank goodness

Climate Minister Paula Bennett acknowledged this morning on TVNZ’s Q&A that the National Government had knowingly allowed business to buy carbon credits in the Ukraine and Russia that did not result in actual cuts in emissions, the Green Party said today. 

This acknowledgement comes in the wake of a report by the Morgan Foundation which showed these false cuts in pollution equated to a quarter of the emissions the Government claimed to have reduced between 2008 and 2012. 

“Minister Bennett cannot just say we should all just move on,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. 

"If the Minister cancels New Zealand's fraudulent units, a move she says she is considering, she would have the Green Party's full support. The Greens have been calling attention to these dodgy credits for several years and last week called upon the Minister to cancel them.

 just read that line again

false cuts in pollution equated to a quarter of the emissions the Government claimed to have reduced between 2008 and 2012.

shocking so, so shocking

Tame - it wasn't in the spirit of the talks 

Bennett - it was in the rules okay...

Bennett uses many of the old key tricks in this interview - redirection, "Well I think the question is.. " when she doesn't want to answer the actual question given. "Focus on the future not the past" when she doesn't like the question or "What I would say is..." as an alternative and then into, "Keep it in perspective" to downplay it all. Pretty typical politicalspeak and she does it as well as only the truly committed can.

Apparently bennett has "other countries asking to learn both from what you did well and the mistakes you made" Pity Tame didn't ask which countries because all the telltale fib-markers were out when she was saying that and I really think she made it up.

She did speak the truth when she said she is "not sure" if our target is more within the range of a 3 - 4 degree Celsius rise in temperature. This minister is underdone and not up to debating even what the hell she has signed imo. Tame asks, "Do you accept that a global temperature rise of 3 -4 degree could potentially be catastrophic? Bennett - "yes, absolutely". And then we get the platitudes of "playing our part" "Hugely significant changes" - eh what? Tame asks, "What significant changes?" Bennett - "...a range of things and not one answer". Even Tame is getting over it at this point.

Tame - what does this government value more agriculture (which makes up 33% of our emissions) or climate change? 

Bennett - we're just not going to pick one. 

Tame - why not?

Bennett - cos we don't have to

and that is all she wrote. The rest is bullshit and dopey "I think" stuff from bennett - this minister is just not up to it and she represents this government well - they should all just resign.

Do not rely on the government to help - start now before it is too late, build community, build resilience, build networks and connections, reduce everything - do it now.

the crackle mirror

Those who care about poverty and the people, especially children, who find themselves in this desperate situation, they know - they know the consequences of Paula Bennett the Minister of Social Welfare and her bill, they know the downstream effects of creating more desperation and more poverty. Yep Paula Bennett is really getting into her work now and that work is demonizing and making life impossible for the poor and beneficiaries in our society. The most vulnerable, the most in need, those that should be looked after are going to be dealt to by Paula, she doesn't care, 

as Hone says,

the reality is there’ll be huge downstream costs for the people and families involved and ultimately for us all. Saving a buck here to then spend mega bucks later on dealing with things like homelessness and ill health is more than pointless. It shows a lack of thought and care that is simply disgusting.

Sue Bradford says "I am really fearful of what is to come" and "The results of all this will be tragic and costly.." So true and everyone knows it. Our society is going to be sorely tested by this because it further widens the gap between the haves and have nots. It is deliberate too, that is an almost unbelievable epiphany to have. Paula Bennett is doing this to the most disadvantaged in our society deliberately, because she wants to and is ideal for the task for many reasons, as Sue Bradford states

Much better to have a Maori woman, a former solo mum, taking the lead, than a former school teacher from the white South Island heartlands.

And Bennett knows what she’s doing.

She knows it even more than someone like Shipley, which makes her leadership role in this even worse. Paula Bennett’s seeming naivety and smiling, bubbly front mask a long, deep commitment to National’s ideology – a belief in helping the already-rich get richer while the poor are forced into ever deeper poverty, no matter the downstream social and economic costs.

Our most disadvantaged are being tossed aside and many will be Māori. The recent UNICEF report on child poverty in NZ showed that this country ranks 21 out of 35 for levels of child poverty. We know it is beyond bad and that the government is pretending to ignore the issue while adding to it, as we see with the Bill above. Hone says

what the report clearly shows is that when governments are fully committed to and invest in reducing child poverty, it does reduce. And what the report clearly shows for New Zealand is that child poverty is not reducing.

No it is not reducing, not even slightly and the reason is clear - they don't even measure it - they can't because. as bennett states in the video,  "there is not a Government measure for poverty." You probably won't find that funny but Paula Bennett thought it was hilarious as The Standard and NRT  and the short version with  Mickey show. That was no nervous giggle - sure she was chased down, completely flustered the whole way, until Jacinda Ardern got her. She was caught with no where to go and so she just giggled. You work it out - to me it says that she just cannot be bothered with any of that stuff - you know the stuff about people and real lives. She is totally living in a bubble of aloof disconnection deliberately maintained against evidence, morality and a belief that people mean something, individually and collectively. 

I don't think Paula Bennett likes people.

paula bayonet

Paula Bennett the Minister of Social Welfare continues her attacks on the disadvantaged and vulnerable in our society. She wants Cabinet to consider “introducing court-ordered sanctions or legislative changes to stop some parents from having more children”. For ‘some parents’ just read ‘Māori’ because that is what she is alluding to. Does she really believe in sterilization of some parents or is it a line to generate outrage. Bennett is letting us all down by ignoring the reasons behind this abuse and murder. Those reason lead to the real solutions and Māori such as Rawiri Taonui articulate them well.

So the judges shall decide who has children and who is not allowed to – we have seen the judgements of some of these judges in recent times – pathetic.

Bennett knows that currently a child at risk is removed from their parents and she admits that, “in the past year, 148 children were removed from a parent within days of being born”. So she is really after the children not being born at all because those 148 children aren’t with their parent/s anymore, so it is not about protecting them, they have been removed.

I agree with Metiria Turei co-leader of the Greens, who says about Bennett that

RadioNZ

“She expressed great enthusiasm for the idea of forced sterilisation and did say that Cabinet had been considering just that option. Now, she has corrected herself - but I'm not so convinced that they haven't considered or won't consider it in the future.”

How bennett became a minister I just don’t get – oh that’s right she reflects our society and its beliefs. Bennett says that it is not about banning people from having children, but instead giving them the message that if they have another child it will be removed from them at birth. This is already done but bennett doesn’t want that to get in the way of the story. Don’t be mistaken it is fiscally based as well as ideologically driven.

Within our society we have people from all ethnicities and backgrounds who abuse and kill their children. The children have to be protected but sterilizing the parents is not the answer, that solution is disgusting. Māori figure highly in the statistics relating to abuse and murder of children. Rawiri Taonui wrote Mana Tamariki: Cultural Alienation. Māorichild homicide and abuse published in AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship, Vol. 6 Issue 3, p187-202, (2011), on this subject and he found that the eye witness evidence from the first Europeans corroborate evidence from Māori knowledge including waiata and whakatauki showing children were treated with respect and tolerance traditionally by parents in Māori society. Yes, some children were abused or killed as isolated incidents, as is true within the histories of all peoples, but the prevalence of this abuse today, for Māori, has its genesis in colonisation and deprivation.

No one is trying to minimise the issue or pretend it doesn’t exist but to seriously deal with the issue means to understand what the real reasons are for it and that leads to where some of the solutions may lie. Re-enculturalization is one area of solutions, as Rawiri Taonui says,

“Promoting the rebuilding of culture within the perpetrator not only includes the beliefs and values of the ancestors, but also the history of the people, including colonization. At an individual level, this knowledge has the ability to dissipate anger by raising consciousness. Positive enculturalization enhances a sense of belonging, rebuilds identity and promotes self-worth. This facilitates the healing of relationships within families.” (p199).

Obviously there is still major work to be done and although current Māori child murder rates are decreasing at twice the rate as that for non-Māori, to achieve any momentum needs the government to support tangata whenua initiatives and ideas. Instead of sterilizing people, they need to be actually trying to fix the issues. There are considered views from Māori that need to be heard. Rawiri Taonui sums it up well,

“We rarely recognise that colonization and its concomitant intergenerational impacts constitute violence: colonization is the application of anger upon vulnerable peoples. This violence has a reciprocal reaction within the societies upon which it is inflicted: cultural alienation, forced assimilation and cumulative marginalization create anger in indigenous societies. Where this anger is not understood, it becomes internalized within the colonized society and inverts upon itself. The indigenous oppressed attack each other. Angry men fight each other, sometimes in gangs, the red fights the blue. Anger seeks the weak and vulnerable in the form of mothers and children, violence expresses itself by seeking innocence. Re-enculturalization can emancipate individuals, families and tribal groups” (p 199).

Now that is an analysis, not bennetts numbnuts approach. Sadly this whole angle from Bennett may just be a “go too far and then pull back to the actual position” approach – or maybe she really does believe it – I’m not sure which of those two scenarios scare me the most, they are both filthy.

as deep as a dollar

The prime minister has said that

"Plenty of women go back to work when their baby is a year old and it makes financial sense to do so"

 and that shows what a lowlife he is. Of course he never asks the obvious question of why. Yes a number of women go back to work and some of them may even want to, but many are also forced to because "it makes financial sense". If they didn't then there would not be enough money to pay the bills or create a life for themselves and their families and even for many that do work, the money isn't enough. Welcome to capitalism 101.

Of course the other implication of keys statement is that raising a child is not work which is utter bullshit. A good post on the standard shows the truth of keys lies. As that post shows, key is only looking at one side of the equation and mr moneybags never adds in the cost of working for any parent, let alone a single mum. That's just the monetary values not even getting into the social and moral values of having parent/s around raising young children. The comments on the post also mention - what happens when the child gets sick, or is disabled, or there are 2 or more children - why mention all of these factors when all he can focus on is money. 

The attitudes of key and bennett are the cause of most of the ills of our society.

they are us

The latest announcements regarding welfare reform are indeed beneficary bashing as Hone points out and Paula Bennett is an absolute bloody hypocrite as Hone has stated. The programs attack those who need support and they are not about any reform or improvement at all, they are all driven by a warped mentality that blames people for their situation. Only a very small percentage of the unemployed are recidivist most are there because of circumstance and it takes a very mean spirit indeed to attack those people but this attack is only the beginning of the program to drive people to desperation. No point building new prisons unless you have the bodies to put in them, is there.

NZH

From October, the 30,000 people on the domestic purposes, widow's or woman-alone benefits will have to be work-tested for part-time employment once their youngest child turns 5, and for full-time roles when their youngest child turns 14.

Having an extra child while on a benefit will bring only a 12-month reprieve from these obligations _ a disincentive to having more children. Private agencies will also be employed to manage the benefits of unemployed youth and teen parents.

Not just Mana and Hone are speaking out

Stuff

Child Poverty Action Group spokesman Mike O'Brien said children were invisible in the changes although they would be "profoundly affected". "At the very time the Government is consulting on vulnerable children, it is about to blow a huge hole in the safety net provided to thousands of children whose parents are on a benefit.

"The minister argues on the one hand that her first priority is the protection of vulnerable children so she needs to explain how the interests of children and so-called vulnerable children in particular are enhanced by these moves."

Auckland Action Against Poverty described the changes as a "nasty piece of work".

Spokeswoman Sue Bradford said the Government failed to understand two basic work concepts.

"The first is that there has to be jobs to go to before people can get paid work.

"The next is that bringing up children on your own is very important work in its own right."

Both key and bennett say, "there are jobs for beneficiaries" but Hone again slams them with this

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira said the Government wasn't creating jobs but taking them away.

He pointed to recent announcements of job losses at government departments including; 50 at the Maori Affairs Ministry Te Puni Kokiri, 305 from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and 70 from Housing New Zealand.

So their lies are outed but only those affected or those who know someone affected will notice, the 'middle' who voted for the gnats will carry on with their head in the sand attitude, until they are forced to see by the inevitable downside of these changes - the increased desperation, the increased crime and the increased poverty. 

The people who need our help are our brothers and sisters, our family, our whānau - they are us and we are them. A pox on the instigators of these policy changes and their lackies.

fake-bennett

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has given Iwi leaders a real tongue lashing but her attack is fake. Blaming maori for negaitive statistics, telling them to fix it out of tiny settlements (paid out as compensation for crown cheating and lying), and not providing any resources is just maori bashing and it deviates us from actually working on solutions.

From Radio NZ

"Maori leaders have been told to face up to the fact Maori babies and children are being beaten, abused and killed. They have also been told to pay up in order to help it stop."

"Ms Bennett told iwi leaders to put their hands in their own pockets and commit to a joint effort. Ms Bennett told them 'the Government does not have all the money right now.'"

Isn't it the job of the government to provide support and services to its citizens? Since when is it okay for the minister to say to a social group that it is your problem, fix it - and then not provide any resources to address the problem.

The negative statistics attributed to maori is a result of government policy not because of any 'lack' from maori. The child abuse statistics must be reduced for all groups in society but that won't happen by attacking particular groups. And it won't happen while tight resources are withheld. To say to iwi leaders that they should use additional parts of tiny settlements to do the governments job is untenable and unrealistic and is just politics - not actually addressing the issue - spin, a softening up... for what?

bennett the hypocrite

This from paula bennett, around the discrimination identified by findlayson, in the beneficiary bashing measures introduced this week.

"I think that is a discrimination that most New Zealanders will see as being fair and reasonable."

What's the bet if she was discriminated against she would be the first to jump up and down. bennett is an ex solo mum, of maori descent, who dragged herself up through the system, on a benefit, and when she reaches a place where she can help other with her experiences what does she do? She puts the boot in. She says it was good enough for me but not for you - the saddest aspect of this is that bennett is just being used anyway and she can't even see it. The worse sort of hypocrite is someone like bennett who takes off the system and denies others the same opportunity.

bennett lobs in some helter skelter

paula bennett and the government have it all wrong. It is not the beneficiaries fault that there are not enough jobs. If you have to blame - blame the real culprits not the victims. What a shocker to put fear in people's hearts just before the holidays.

From Stuff

"The Government is considering cancelling unemployment benefits after a year and forcing beneficiaries to reapply.

Other changes under consideration by the Government are understood to include work-testing for domestic purpose beneficiaries whose youngest child has turned six, compulsory budgeting advice for beneficiaries who claim frequent grants, and part-time work obligations for some sickness and invalid beneficiaries."

Well we know which groups will bear the brunt of this new policy and maori and young people are over represented - and aren't they the group that kill themselves four times more than the average.

This song sums up, on lots of levels.

"(Lennon/McCartney)

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride

Till I get to the bottom and I see you again

Yeah yeah yeah hey"

slip by bennett?

I noticed Paula Bennett on the radio saying that she was surprised by the increase in unemployed here. Offically there are 1200 or so going onto the unemployment benefit every week. But Paula let sip that that is the NET figure. Actually about 2500 people are being made unemployed every week and some jobs are being created thus leaving us with the net figure. But my question is:

How many of those jobs are real, full time jobs and how many are part-time, temporary jobs?

Plus there is no logical reason for the Minister to be surprised unless she wasn't aware of the Economic tsunami and its ramifications, or the figures she is looking at are different to the ones being published.

IMO when the real figures come out - not just bennett will be shocked.