Bullies

I do wonder why it is that Right Wing Adherents always seem to find Downright Nastiness and Rudeness to be a fun way to interact. Nothing seems to amuse them more than to bash the vulnerable, especially beneficiaries.


Yes, this is going to be about Paula Bennett, but I need to vent some other stuff too.







That Private Christian School

Because, despite the fact that we are all supposedly in recession mode, our Flash New Government have now awarded further tax cuts to the richest segments in our society. They have also awarded $38million to the private schools.

It was a remarkable thing, therefore, that we were witness to a Principal of a Private Christian School, Rathkeale College in Masterton, hounding a solo mother, to the point of expecting her to mortgage her house, in order to pay to them the Voluntary Donations (note the word voluntary) that she has been unable to pay over the years. (She had paid all the compulsory stuff which was the largest amount by the way). But, beamed onto our Aotearoa/New Zealand telly screens, this unrelenting, white man, dressed in expensive suit and tie, accused this woman of free-loading and bludging on the rest of their school community. Even a partial payment was not good enough (she offered to pay what she could) for this avaricious man and his greedy school board. They wanted all of their potential pounds (NZ dollars even) of flesh to the last cent.

Adult & Special Education

I wrote already about the cuts that have been made to Adult Education throughout New Zealand. I must now report that a further $2.5million has now been cut from Special Education Units in state schools which offer support for kiddies with very severe physical disabilities.

but to get to the point here -

The Training Incentive Allowance & Ms Paula Bennett

The Training Incentive Allowance is now to be cut from sole parents. Enter Paula Bennett, the Minister for Social Development, the Minister who once herself was also a Solo Parent on a Domestic Purpose Benefit (DPB), the Minister who used Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) herself in order to gain qualifications and get herself out of poverty and into our Parliament no less! This Minister had this to say: "We have not cut the training incentive allowance; we have not cut the training level, we have merely changed the level." Gotta love the spin, not. Sole parents would still be helped, she said, "with a foundation course or other certificate", but at university level they would be treated as other students, she said.

In normal English language without the spin, that sole parents means getting a student loan and supporting their families via the student loan route rather than the DPB which the student loan was quite obviously never set up to do.

The Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) exists to enable solo parents to upskill by taking courses relevant to their needs. These might be more basic community-based courses, or polytech courses or university course. The TIA offsets the costs of the courses that solo parents are engaged in, for example, course fees, texts, stationery etc, travel (bus or train fares to an institution or petrol costs) and childcare costs. If the training allowance wasn't there, these costs would need to come out of grocery costs because most benefits have absolutely no room for manoeuvre anywhere else and few mothers would be prepared to take food from their children to enable their own study. There is no extra fat in a DPB, it covers rent, food, electricity - that's about it really. Solo parents must number amongst themselves the world's best economists. Some of them are straight out amazing.

So basically most solo parents are (from next year) going to be shut out of university study and any upskilling which could make a serious difference to their lives (and incomes).

Dissent

Two solo parents, Jennifer Johnston and Natasha Fuller, part way through their university degrees have publicly criticised the TIA cuts because only those sole parents who can find a way to complete their degrees via Student Loans will be able to do so, the rest will be left high and dry. Student loans are set up for young students who don't have parental responsibilities.

For example the student loan only offers an $18pw accommodation subsidy because it is assumed students will share houses (3, 4 or 5 students to a house maybe) to save costs. A solo mother (or sole father for that matter) with kiddies in tow usually needs at least a 3 bedroom house to her/himself and her/his family so that isn't going to work. And the student loan money is only available during semesters which means at the end of each semester there is a week standown (a week with no money at all) as the adult student moves off the loan onto some other income or benefit.

Most solo mums also study on a part time basis rather than full time purely because of their other responsibilities so they would be accruing an awful lot of student loan by the time they were done.

Now It Gets Ugly Because ...

Fighting for themselves and others, Jennifer Johnston and Natasha Fuller (and a heck of a lot of other people) were horrified when Queen of the Bullies, (Minister for Social UnDevelopment) Paula Bennett, released personal financial data about the two women after they publicly criticised cuts to a training incentive allowance.

Ms Bennett had her staff go through personal WINZ (Work & Income NZ) files, then gave the garnered information to the media as a weapon against the dissenters. She has tried to justify this complete abuse of power by saying she made the information public because (she reckons) the women were presenting a skewed picture to the public. Including all the TIA allowances the women received as though it was income (which it is not), Ms Paula Bennett has, in fact, presented an far more skewed picture, (allowances which are paid to providers are not income) and opened the door to the favoured sport of some people - beneficiary bashing.

Right Wing governments adore beneficiary bashing - it takes the heat from their real agendas.

Ms Johnson and Ms Fuller say there has been vicious reaction to them personally from some members of the public. Jennifer Johnston, said Ms Bennett was trying to intimidate her by releasing details of the welfare she receives.

"The ‘Right’," (from Bomber Bradbury's blog over at Tumeke) " – that includes Not PC – the corporate media – even David over at Kiwiblogh (who pretends to be enlightened) are all effectively arguing that the beneficiary is somehow inferior to the rest of us and as such don’t have the same rights to privacy and are open to this of type of abuse because it creates ‘better understanding of the debate’. What a load of absolute bullshit – complaining about a training allowance doesn’t ‘imply consent’ that you can now have all your personal details sent out to the media openly by the Minister you are complaining about! And that so many NZers are blind to this fact in their rush to bash a Bennie is about as ugly as our country gets."

As Paula Bennett is the Minister of Social Development, beneficiaries form a good part of her constituency and, in the view of Sue Bradford (Greens Party), Ms Bennett owes "a duty of care to this constituency." If so, Ms Bennett certainly doesn't see it that way.
Campbell Live Interview with Paula Bennett and Sue Bradford Here

She is also not averse (my opinion) to telling outright lies. On being asked to divulge her own spend on TIA, Ms Bennett says, oh it was so different then. It was much harder she reckons there was no child care subsidy, for example. Well, sorry Ms Bennett but that is just not true. The Child Care subsidy was available back in 1998 at least and I remember a friend using it back around 1990 at least while she was doing a typing course at the Polytech. So even though Ms Bennett might feel as though she is older than she looks (her opinion) she isn't so old that she could never have got a child care allowance. No way.

Meantime Prime Minister John Key (that wolf in sheeps' clothing) told reporters he was "comfortable" with the women's information being released and accepted Ms Bennett's justification.

The Labour Party intends to lay a complaint with the privacy commissioner against Social Development Minister Paula Bennett for releasing income details of two beneficiaries.

We are only about seven months into this political term, at this rate by the time we are done with it we may be believing even Rob Muldoon was benign.

Our Children Are Not Our Punchbags

First the Background

A few years back people in our country was transfixed when a judge ruled that a woman who had beaten her kid with a horsewhip was only using "reasonable force" for the purpose of correction, a defence which was then allowed under Section 59 of The Crimes Act. I hate to think what that judge's home life was like.

It came out that many parents who might otherwise have been found guilty of child abuse (whacking their kids with blocks of wood and all sorts of other implements) were using Section 59 as a defence and winning their cases.

Sue Bradford of the Greens Party responded by bringing to Parliament (back in 2003 this was) a private members bill to Repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act to address this situation. "Parents", said Ms Bradford, "are supposed supposed to be protectors, not attackers, and children should feel totally safe at home."

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
"You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable."

Kahlil Gibran.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Finally The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 amended the principal Act, to make better provision for our children to live in a safe and secure environment which should be free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction. This bill was passed by an overwhelming majority of 113 to 8 votes.

Some of you who were reading my Yahoo!360 blog may remember me writing on this topic before. We basically got up to about here. All was good.

But ...

The far-right-wing Act Party (Act is anti-regulation of any kind even to protect our kids, it seems) and disgruntled MP Taito Phillip Field voted the minority eight votes. This bill, I could point out, was not actually increasing regulation, it was merely amending the existing regulation to improve it. That point seem to have escaped the ACT party.

The Referendum

Since then, a campaign of misinformation led by much of our media, some extreme fundamentalist christians, Act supporters and sympathisers, and brainless celebrities like Simon Barnett to name a few, has culminated in a Citizens Initiated Referendum. We get to have a referendum if someone circulates a petition and enough of the Kiwi adult population sign it, (I think they need to get about 10%).

The former United Future MP Larry Baldock designed this confusing and heavily loaded referendum question, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” He was collecting signatures on this months before the new law was even finally passed.

The first point which I think needs to be made is that The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 doesn't actually make smacking a criminal offence. The new law has not led to mass criminalisation of good parents.Indeed, a review of police reports have indicated that the number complaints even made have been very small. There has appeared to have been some increase in complaints about the use of more heavy handed force (not just smacking) and some prosecutions (as in the well publicised James Mason case). Other cases have been resolved in a range of other ways including referral to Child, Youth & Family (CYF), case conferencing and advice to parents.

Secondly there are many parents (like me) who do not think that smacking/hitting whatever your kids is part of any good parenting strategy. Quite often stressed parents smack their kids purely because they, the parents are stressed, but as the title of this post notes, our children are not our punch bags. We throw our hands up in horror nowadays when men belt into women (I was just feeling stressed honey) because men are so much bigger and more physically powerful than the women they hit, but surely, we parents are also bigger and more powerful than our kids.

What we find, in fact, is that many young parents don't really want to hit their kids at all but when they themselves have been brought up with smacking as punitive discipline, many times they simply do not know what to do instead. A child advocate came to our town a few weeks back to talk to parents on just this subject and was surprised (and very pleased) that none of the young mums she met had any problem with the law, none of them wanted to smack their kids, what they wanted was ideas and advice and helpful alternatives to smacking.

We all want our children to grow up to be well behaved, responsible people, able to have peaceful and happy relationships with their partners and children. Children need positive, safe and secure childhoods if they are to grow up to be successful, non-violent and happy people.

A recent survey showed that at least 3 out of 4 Kiwis believe this referendum to be a waste of money.

A referendum isn't a cheap thing. This one is expected to cost us $9million. In a recession. Great.

Voting in the referendum runs from Friday 31st July until Friday 21st August, 2009. Kiwis will get our voting paper in the mail between Friday 31st July and Friday 7th August, 2009.

Taken from an interview
on National Radio's Morning Report (June 17, 2009)

Larry Baldock: It is absolutely clear that if a parent uses any reasonable force right now to correct their child right now they are breaking the law…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us an example of that having happened?

Larry Baldock: There are examples that we’ll have available…

Sean Plunket: Can you give us a single example of that having happened, please?

Larry Baldock: There was a grandfather for example, who tipped his grandson out of a chair because the grandson refused to obey his grandfather to turn down the television and so on.

Sean Plunket: Was he convicted and was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: He plead guilty …

Sean Plunket: Was that a smack?

Larry Baldock: No, he tipped him out of a chair….

But wait, there's more...

Sean Plunket: Can you point to anyone who has been criminalised for smacking a child?

Larry Baldock: Yes we can.

Sean Plunket: Please, could you give me an example?

Larry Baldock: Well, I’ll have to go to my list of examples.

Sean Plunket: Can you give me a single example off the top of your head?

Larry Baldock: No, not off the top of my head, I can’t...

Wouldn’t it be nice to send Baldock a bill for $9million?

Funding Cuts To Adult Education

Our flash new government has recently made an 80% funding cut to adult education spending. This is likely to have a major effect on the future of many adult education classes and on the jobs of around 15,000 tutors across the country.

The cuts start in 2010 and will see funding of $152 million over four years limited to $19.4m in the first half of 2010, $40.4m in 2010-2011, $44.7m in 2011-2012 and $48.4m in 2012-2013.

In rather arrogant and snobbish attitude, both Bill English (Finance Minister) and John Key (Prime Minister) have denigrated the adult classes, (many of which take place in local high schools thereby utilising those buildings in the evenings and probably paying the school a bit of rent too) saying that teaching useless subjects to old people is not a good use of our taxpayer money.

Which is somewhat ironic when, according to Labour MP Maryan Street, Bill English has spent years while in opposition, extolling the virtues of adult education. Maryan Street is spearheading a nationwide petition calling on the Government to reverse funding cuts to Adult Community Education (ACE) programmes.

Speaking while launching the petition, Maryan Street also commented that Education Minister Anne Tolley's responses to concerns about the cuts were "distressingly facile" and sought to ridicule all kinds of courses which are run in our communities.

Ms Tolley had stated that she was reprioritising funding from courses like "twilight golf, pet homeopathy and Moroccan cooking" to numeracy and literacy courses.

Waimea College Principal Larry Ching said he found Ms Tolley's comments insulting, "not just as a principal but for as a person who for many years has attended adult education classes. These courses affect ordinary Kiwi people and they build resilience in our communities." Mr Ching also said it was hard to justify for the government to justify the spending of $35m in funding to Private Education when ACE funding was being cut.

According to a 2008 report, more than 400,000 adults enrolled annually in courses including literacy, numeracy, foreign languages and computer training. "And giving people the chance to upskill is particularly vital during a recession," Ms Street said. "Community based education employs thousands of full and part time tutors and has an estimated economic benefit of between $4.8 billion and $6.3b annually."

And here's the thing. One of the "classes" affected will be our own Tai Chi class here in Oxford, which is run from our Community Office. There is a wide age range attending and quite a few are elderly and retired people on fixed incomes who may quite simply no be able to afford a higher fee so they may wind up simply staying home. They can all read and write quite well already, thank you very much Ms Tolley and Messrs English and Key.

Tai Chi helps people of all ages and abilities. It keeps people (especially important for older or disabled people) fit, active and mobile.

The petition will be circulated throughout our country until the 30th September, which said Ms Street, would give the Government time to rethink its decision. If you are a Kiwi and the petition turns up somewhere near you, please sign it.