The Standard

Social issues

Categories under Social issues

A tenant’s tale

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, March 12th, 2017 - 198 comments

“And when I saw that article in the NZ Herald this morning , in light of whats been happening to so many New Zealander family’s having to sleep in cars and the like over the past few years – I thought ”FUCK IT !!”… Im going to say something.”

No Mana, Māori Party

Written By: - Date published: 5:45 pm, March 10th, 2017 - 52 comments

The Māori King’s comments reveal a much bigger crisis within Māori politics.

Roads not health

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, March 9th, 2017 - 98 comments

A new coalition protests health under-funding, while the cost of the holiday highway blows out. Our government has its priorities all screwed up.

The gender pay gap – grandstanding but no action

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, March 8th, 2017 - 73 comments

A new report has some really interesting findings on the gender pay gap. Paula Bennett engaged in a bit of grandstanding, but it rings completely hollow given National’s history on the issue.

Happy International Women’s Day.

NRT: The banality of evil

Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, March 6th, 2017 - 3 comments

I/S at No Right Turn: “This is where National’s cuts and austerity have taken us: to a place where Corrections tortures and abuses people because it is the “cheapest” way of managing them.”

Future state abuse victims

Written By: - Date published: 1:18 pm, March 5th, 2017 - 9 comments

What to do with the helpless anger generated by such a statement?

Social investment meets the surveillance state

Written By: - Date published: 11:14 pm, March 4th, 2017 - 47 comments

First they came for the budgeting services. Now we know that every social service agency  has to provide clients’ private personal data to the Ministry of Social Development or get no funding. Apparently it’s  essential to Bill English’s much-touted and little understood “social investment” strategy, which is sounding more like something out of Orwell’s 1984. […]

There are no fascists in New Zealand…

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, March 4th, 2017 - 69 comments

A confluence of circumstantial evidence is all you ever get when you’re dealing with cryptofascists.

The social damage wrought by homes as commoditites

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, March 4th, 2017 - 82 comments

A recent UN report highlights the waste of treating homes as commodities. It should sound awfully familiar in the NZ context.

Encouraging Signs

Written By: - Date published: 1:32 pm, March 3rd, 2017 - 25 comments

A refreshing shift in NZ’s political environment.

English reckons the collapse of NZ’s housing is “a good problem to have”

Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, March 3rd, 2017 - 36 comments

In every case a failure to plan, a failure to deliver, and a glib attempt to fob off the victims of his government’s failure.

Free speech vs hate speech

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, March 2nd, 2017 - 154 comments

Auckland Uni is in a difficult position – a classic dilemma with two important principles at stake.

Who would have thunk that Government’s approach to housing is inadequate

Written By: - Date published: 10:46 am, March 2nd, 2017 - 34 comments

Radio New Zealand has reported on a review of the Government’s housing policy which described it as fragmented and lacking a robust plan but it took intervention by the Ombudsman to have the review released.

Two editorials on immigration

Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, March 1st, 2017 - 29 comments

Two very contrasting opinion pieces on racism, housing, jobs, and the immigration debate.

English hammered on ‘druggies’ smear

Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, March 1st, 2017 - 44 comments

English will be worried that he got hammered like this, when Key got away with all sorts of insults and lies. And if you think your fellow Kiwis are useless workers you’re doing it wrong.

Off the track

Written By: - Date published: 11:26 am, February 28th, 2017 - 7 comments

Off the Track is the 10th State of the Nation report from The Salvation Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit. Many of the markers routinely analysed for the report currently suggest we are not heading in the best direction for New Zealand as a whole. The Auckland Fabians have a lecture by Alan Johnson on the report on Thursday in Auckland.

Homeless crisis hidden in plain sight

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, February 28th, 2017 - 10 comments

Bill blames the blowout in emergency housing grants on the “hidden homeless”. Hidden only from those who will not see. Hidden only from a government that deliberately chooses for political reasons not to collect the relevant data.

Bill’s bigoted drug reckons vs the evidence

Written By: - Date published: 6:50 am, February 28th, 2017 - 176 comments

Some folks Bill knows are telling him stuff and he’s basing immigration policy on it. The facts say otherwise. Bill English is full of shit and it’s time that more media called him on it.

Housing crisis what housing crisis

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, February 27th, 2017 - 52 comments

The Government’s estimate of the extent of the housing crisis has recently been shown to be totally out of touch and to add further pathos it is counting kiwi families urgently housed in motels in tourism statistics.

You can’t afford a house because of – plants!

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, February 27th, 2017 - 58 comments

I’m used to hearing some pretty pathetic excuses out of the National government. But this will really take some beating.

Can we even afford to be tenants in our own country?

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, February 25th, 2017 - 93 comments

Being tenants in our own country is starting to look like the good old days.

Two big policy fails

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, February 24th, 2017 - 10 comments

This is what you get with a hasty, reactive, “top down” policy process.

Just allow more shit – a metaphor for this government

Written By: - Date published: 4:21 pm, February 23rd, 2017 - 125 comments

So National’s great plan for swimmable rivers by 2040 is to allow twice as much shit in them and still call them “swimmable.”

Kaupapa Pākehā

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, February 22nd, 2017 - 329 comments

What if we based our politics on relationships not power?

Nick Smith screws up again

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, February 22nd, 2017 - 20 comments

We should probably just schedule this as a monthly post.

Win for sanity in Hager vs Westpac

Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, February 21st, 2017 - 29 comments

The Privacy Commission issues a ruling that should not have been unnecessary.

Living wage rises to $20.20 an hour

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, February 21st, 2017 - 30 comments

The living wage rises, and an odd argument for abolishing the minimum wage.

Rocketwerkz – an enlightened employer

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 pm, February 20th, 2017 - 8 comments

We sometimes give employers a bit of a hard time on this blog, so it’s nice to occasionally celebrate a good one. Dunedin gaming company Rocketwerkz is in the headlines for all the right reasons.

Greg O’Connor responds

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 pm, February 18th, 2017 - 86 comments

In a guest post, Labour’s Ōhāriu candidate Greg O’Connor responds to some of the topics of comments in the post “Greg O’Connor selected for Ōhāriu” and elsewhere on the blogs.

Good ideas in Gisborne

Written By: - Date published: 1:28 pm, February 17th, 2017 - 97 comments

Andrew Little’s announcement yesterday in Gisborne of Labour’s pledge of up to $20million to build a prefabricated timber plant there is a much-needed boost to the area and a sign that Labour’s 100,000 new house pledge first made by David Shearer in 2012 has legs.

State care inquiry

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, February 16th, 2017 - 6 comments

credit: Aaron Smale RNZ

We need one – and an apology.  Bill may wonder aloud whether we’ll learn much, but I wonder if he’s more concerned we’ll learn too much…