Winston Peters has launched a legal fishing expedition to identify who exactly breached privacy on his superannuation over payments. A problem that he shares with about 50 thousand other pensioners. Unlike them, his problem wasn’t trying to find money to repay it. It was that the breach was deliberately timed to be a classic dirty politics ploy, almost certainly by National, in the leadup to the recent election. I wish him good fishing.
No doubt those purity pledge campaigners who rained stones on Metiria Turei will be just as keen to get to the bottom of all this, and no doubt Paula Bennett will be keen to take personal responsibility and clear her name.
Back in May the Nats chose Nikki Kaye as their vehicle to attack Jacinda Ardern. It didn’t work so well. This time round they’ve lead with Paula Bennett. According to Bennett, Ardern lacks the right kind of brain. Keep talking Paula…
Graham Adams at Noted on Paula Bennett: “Nevertheless, these questions are not going to go away and what is certain is that Bill English can not afford to have Bennett share billboard space with him until they are answered satisfactorily”.
An open letter has accused Paula Bennett of serious historical crimes. Bennett has denied the allegations and threatened legal action. Facebook has removed the source documents.
I don’t know of a single piece written in support of Bennett’s proposal. She has been in the bubble too long, and lost touch with the values of NZ.
Photo: M Wilson
One of Giovanni Tiso’s clever “Erratum” series.
Seeing is believing they say, and Paula Bennett says that she has taken on board the climate change message after a Pacific visit. So what now Paula? It’s a tough question for sure. But at least you’re blessed with an opposition that will cooperate, instead of trying to whip up people’s fears and obstruct progress for political gain.
Paula Bennett’s “big” housing “announcement” today is a re-announcement with a twist of lie.
Key is grooming Bennett for a finance role and eventual succession. No point in Nat members making a fuss, they don’t get a say in who leads them.
It’s great to see John Key taking a sudden interest in addressing child poverty in New Zealand. But why the change of heart?
You know the rules …
NZ Census 2013 shows a widening income gap: rises for the haves; more struggle for the have nots. Gains for women in education and some in the highest income brackets; more struggle for those on low incomes, especially beneficiaries impacted by Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms. Welcome to Key’s “Brighter Future”.
3 billion reasons to be…cheerful?
Paula Bennett wants to introduce a new regime that screens all government employees to stop child abuse.
MPs have a lot of interaction with children.
So will they be regularly screened? And if not, Why not?
The government doesn’t measure child poverty, so has no way to tell if it is getting better or worse. Hilarious right? Paula Bennett certainly thinks so. “Gosh!”
Why must we turn welfare, an important safety net and part of the social fabric / contract of our country, into a stupid pissing match about a minister’s “reputation”?
Despite an apparently never-ending parade of security stuff-ups at WINZ, Paula Bennet is “not concerned”. What exactly is her job then?
Paula Bennett’s MSD ignored not one, but two warnings last year that its public kiosks were insecure. When a third warning came from Ira Bailey, Bennett (or her staff) appear to have leaked his name to the media. Bennett has a history of leaking private details to the media – by taking no action Key is giving his tacit consent.
Public trust in the police is at a new low. But what of the trust in our government? How much collusion is there between the police, government, spy agencies and foreign governments? However, citizens are also using the technologies of the surveillance society to hold the government and state authorities to account.
Today there have been protests around NZ, against Paula Bennett’s punitive welfare reforms.
Updates: Include ODT article link and extract, photos of Henderson protest, and links to several news articles.
Split Enz once sang, “History Never Repeats”… Or does it? Destructive prejudices separating ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor have been around a very long time. When the likes of Paula Bennett pander to such ill-informed vindictiveness with punitive social welfare reforms, they will damage large numbers of children – our future citizens.
Bennett’s reforms aim to cut the costs of government spending on welfare. But what this means is that more of the necessary caring and service work in NZ will be unpaid, or underpaid. It doesn’t mean people will necessarily work harder or longer, and that they aren’t making a significant contribution to society and the economy.
Paula Bennett’s second welfare changes bill is out – with a nasty added sting in the tail: anyone who refuses a ‘suitable’ job will be blocked from getting a benefit for 13 weeks. Work testing for sole parents with 5 year olds, compulsory ECE for beneficiaries and the widows benefit cut are all in there.
So the current people on benefits will cost $78 billion over the course of their lifetime. To get this useless $78 billion factoid, National have given an Australian company $1 million of our money – next year, they’ll do it again, to see if the number has changed any. What use is this number? It’s not good for budgeting and doesn’t seem to actually tell us anything useful – so why is the government wasting money while telling us times are tight?
People of Swedish descent who engage in acts of treason while dressed as nuns will no longer be eligible to receive welfare, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett announced today.
I see Paula Benefit is up to her old tricks again. As the government desperately wants to be doing something other than not attending huis over water rights, it’s up to Paula to pull a benefit bash. But she’s obviously run out of ideas so now we’re re-announcing the old bene-bashes.
Bennett (playing the distraction card) is pushing her drug testing policy again. I have a question for the supporters of this policy which remains unanswered…
Collins can’t credibly call for zero tolerance on privacy breaches while working alongside a Minister who has not only breached privacy, but is unrepentant, and boasting that she might do it again. Bennett has breached the Privacy Act – what is she doing still in cabinet? The Nats have no credibility while she remains.
I look forward to Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little calling Paula Bennett as a witness in their defamation suit with Judith Collins. Bennett openly admits doing what Collins has sued Mallard and Little for accusing her of doing: using ministerial powers to leak the private details of a political opponent. Bennett even says she’ll do it again. She obviously doesn’t see doing it as hurting her reputation.
What a mess of a week Paula ‘out of her depth’ Bennett is having: Found to have breached the rights of a beneficiary who dared to speak out against Bennett’s cuts to a training allowance, which Bennett herself used while a solo mum. Caught out making up the story about drugged up beneficiaries turning out jobs. Delivered another rise in benefit numbers, when there are meant to be more jobs and fewer people on the dole.
The Human Rights Commission has concluded that Paula Bennett breached the privacy of a private citizen. Apart from releasing an agreed statement, the HRC is not proposing action. John Key won’t propose any either.
Today’s big announcement from Paula Bennett at the National Party Conference was that those on the run from police will have their benefits stopped. But the question needs to be asked: how many people on the run are collecting the benefit?
