NRT: Half-measures on housing quality
I/S at No Right Turn: “Any improvement is better than what we’ve got now .. At the same time, we should recognise that this is pathetically weak.”
Social issues
health
De Boni on privatising mental health
A superb piece by Dita De Boni on the Nats’ plans to privatise mental health. See also (and sign!) Labour’s open letter opposing the “social bonds” scheme.
Death by damp house
The stupidest idea this Government has had yet
One News has reported that the Government is on the verge of introducing Social Bonds whereby investors in social services will be rewarded if targets are met.
Shame shame shame
Last night in Parliament National voted down Harawira / Turei’s Feed the Kids Bill, David Shearer’s Food in Schools Bill, and Phil Twyford’s Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill.
All the best Helen Kelly
“The head of the Council of Trade Unions has confirmed she has lung cancer.”
Salvation Army – State of the Nation
This morning the Salvation Army released their state of the nation report – A Mountain All Can Climb. It is mixed news, and most coverage has focused on the impact of the housing crisis.
No quick fix for diseases of poverty
The continued rise of rheumatic fever is an indictment of our society.
New figures show that there is no quick fix for diseases of poverty.
Your move, National.
Local Bodies: Neoliberal Economics Limits Food Choice in Southland
bsprout on the Local Bodies blog, provides a case study, specific to Southland. At the same time, it outlines a more general pattern that can be seen in many places, each with their own local circumstances.
A Punitive Climate of Fear
Whatever the reason for a person’s disability if it is to such an extent that they cannot work we condemn them to a life of subsistence living with a big pay rise when, and if, they reach retirement age to 65% of the average wage!
Power poverty on the up
The government has failed to tackle NZ’s on-going housing crisis. Fuel/energy poverty is increasing, with a higher proportion of households unable to afford any heating. More Kiwis are renting than in the 2006 census, & more Aucklanders live in over-crowded households.
‘Ditch the [misleading] rhetoric’
On RNZ this morning PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff criticised Bill English for his misleading rhetoric about rises in “average wages”. NZ’s income and wealth gaps have increased in recent decades. The lowest income remain low; the top earners get big salary increases.
Local Bodies: Government Responsible for Invercargill Poverty
The second annual Child Poverty Monitor was released today. bsprout on Local Bodies on poverty and inequalities in Invercargill, “provides a good snapshot of New Zealand society”.
Elective surgery waiting lists
The Nats have been manufacturing “good news” stories in health by creating a system that turns away one third of the patients in need.
Unaffordable housing & the culture of greed
Rental housing remains unaffordable for many. The problem is the greed of investors & speculators, supported by a culture in which housing investment is seen as a way to individual prosperity.
Health service funding
The Nats are steadily cutting funding (in real terms) to health (and other sectors). Today, yet another doctor broke. Welcome to the brighter future.
Polity: When general reporters cover political stories…
You really have to ask what journalists are trained in. Clearly not learning about existing party policies. Some reporters managing to miss that Labour has been planning to extend Paid Parental Leave for 3 years.
Local Bodies: Manipulated Data and the Art of Deception
The National led Government are desperate to present the good news stories to promote the success of the past six years of their governance. They have increased the budget and the numbers of their spin doctors to ensure that it is mainly positive messages that make into the public domain. The Government cleverly manipulates data to hide the extent of poverty the degradation of the environment and the success of our economy. Of course most of us who live in the real world know that National’s reality is a falsely constructed one.
NRT: The Greens support abortion
Removing our absurd thirty-year-old abortion law, which effectively requires women to declare themselves mentally ill to access a basic medical procedure is great. But it also addresses availability, requiring medical professionals who object to abortion to provide an effective referral, and ensuring that women don’t have to travel hundreds of kilometres for a basic medical procedure.
Snapshot of a nation: inequality
Al Jazeera reports on damaging inequalities in Spain under “austerity”. High unemployment; 30% of children in poverty, political corruption, tax evasion & a focus on football. Suggested ways to decrease income & wealth inequalities in NZ. Update: TV3’s The Nation: inequality & Wilson & Pickett interview.
Save the Poisons Helpline!
National are planning to merge a bunch of health helplines to save money. The 0800 POISON number could be scrapped leaving additional seconds or minutes until help is received in those most urgent of moments.
NRT: Stinkier and stinkier
In the ongoing saga about the Problem Gambling Foundation, The Salvation Army were unaware that the Ministry of Health had decided that they would take over as the national provider. They hadn’t even applied for it. It appears that only thing driving the ministry’s decision was the complaints from the gambling industry about the PGF trying to reduce problem gambling…. Is the gambling industry is thoroughly corrupting National’s ministers?
NRT: Climate change: War, disease, and famine
The biggest single threat to civilisation from human initiated CO2 forced climate change is going to be in food production and distribution. In a leaked version of the IPCC’s AR5 second volume ” the report predicts that climate change will reduce median crop yields by 2 per cent per decade for the rest of the century – at a time of rapidly growing demand for food.”
Polity: Fizzy drinks: Tax or no tax?
There has been some discussion recently about whether we should tax fizzy drinks as a threat to public health. Otago University public health people say yes. Various anti-tax groups say no. Here’s Rob Salmond’s 2c worth.
Some interesting arguments
Less (inequality) is more….
John Key seems to be trying to fudge the evidence of the damaging inequalities in NZ. I recap Bunji’s 2010 series of posts on The Spirit Level showing the benefits of a more equal society. Will this be addressed by Cunliffe and Turei this long weekend?
The politics of food: Oxfam report
Some MSM reports crow about positive economic indicators, & decreases in the time people spend on benefits. Such statistics fail to show inequalities, & struggles of people on low incomes. An Oxfam comparative international report on food security is not good news for NZ, or the world.
Poverty denial
Here & in the UK: food poverty, increases in queues to foodbanks, in diseases of poverty, a crisis in affordable housing, & struggles & insecurites of the working poor. But poverty denialists blame the poor, smear beneficiaries, & talk of (always-around-the-corner) “brighter futures”.
Thank you ….
To all those making a difference and working for a more inclusive, equal, fair and sustainable society. Special thanks to Lynn for all his work for The Standard.
‘Locked Up Warriors’: 101 East
On 101 East on Al Jazeera. Too many people in NZ prisons, especially Maori: too many in poverty; too much money spent on prisons; not enough for low income communities; some very good community initiatives. Is this a fair representation?
Outsourcing poverty: Paula Bennett’s shame
A charity is taking on the funding of the essential work on monitoring poverty, in the face of Paula Bennett, Bill English and John Key et al failing to do their job: a return to Dickensian & Edwardian times.
Tales from the precariat: AAAP
Auckland Action Against Poverty did 3 days of advocacy action in New Lynn. Their press releases & videos show the struggles of low income Kiwis to survive in John Key’s corporate-loving NZ. The tales tell of a need for real social security legislation & a more client-friendly WINZ.
Labour supports Plunket
Another good policy announcement from David Shearer.
“The problem gambler”: Key & SkyCity
Brand Key – CEO of NZ Inc, speculator, gambler, spinmeister – epitomises the “neoliberal revolution”. Gambling & other consumerist addictions are blamed on the individual. A court case against SkyCity shows the contradictory links between gambling, smoking, corporate influence & “insatiable consumerism.”
Botulism scare products
The information on which products are at risk from the Fonterra botulism scare has taken far too long to come out. Thanks 3 News for this list.
Conscience exceptions are for people with a conscience
The ability of doctors to refuse to provide proper healthcare if God says it’s bad is again in the spotlight, with a Blenheim GP refusing to prescribe the Pill to a patient because he decided she needed to have babies, and her views on the matter don’t mean shit. But are we seriously going to label that as an act of “conscience”?
Come in Houston…
Story of a 111 response time.