Judith Collins

It seems the right are offended by the above, which has been posted all over the North Shore.

Actually I think it is an honourable suggestion, given the nastiness of Mrs. Collins. lest we forget that the root cause of crime is well proven to be linked to poverty, which itself is well proven to be linked to ethnicity, social circumstance and a lack of good education provision.

Also, national don't seem to realise that countries with armed police also have more gun deaths - funny that!

If you create a monster then learn how to deal with it!

Another evil bitch

The world, it seems to me anyway, is becoming a place where nasty, callous women are taking charge – pretty heavy vitriol from me!! I have mused about Thatcher (dead soon – the sooner the better), Palin (can’t come soon enough) and others, only for me to read about Emma Harrison – who I hear you say?

Well, in the UK unemployment is rising, with the biggest growth being in the long term unemployed. Like New Zealand these are the group that the right leaning governments want to get into work and off benefits. Unlike NZ the UK have decided to allow the private sector to do this important role via a company owned by Emma.

Enter Mrs Harrison who proudly states

"The coalition government's cuts are, in fact, fantastic!... Cutting benefits will put a stop to people making a profession out of being unemployed."

Whoopee, rather than addressing the reasons why they are unemployed, force them on to a programme in the private sector. Rather ironically A4e was initially contracted by the Labour government.

Academics have identified the root causes of poverty, yet governments continue to do their own thing, reacting to the issues rather than having the courage to adequately tax to fund proper poverty reduction and improving learning out comes for students. Indeed the performance of A4e leaves something to be desired, but business must be OK given the plushness of their new HQ.

 

Oh, and don’t say it’ll never happen here – they are already operating in Australia!

Austerity revisited…

According to this report (OK, so it is actually a syndicated story, hence the references to the US and ‘soda cans’) the UK students protest against the increase in student tuition fees was

the largest street protest yet against the government's sweeping austerity measures.

 

So yet again I am forced to define what austerity (as seen before in my other blog re this) although I am using a slightly different definition here, the other is still relevant

In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided. Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to reduce debt.

Governments around the world (the UK and NZ seem to be copying each other) are mainly playing the austerity policy game and at last someone has the sense to publicly challenge this. True, you cannot just print more money, but you do need to think about why you are introducing these measures.

Some of the quotes from the AP article state quite succinctly why people have sound arguments

"Politicians don't seem to care, they should be taking money from people who earn seven-figure salaries, not from students who don't have any money."

"We will not tolerate the previous generation passing on its debts to the next, nor will we pick up the bill to access a college and university education that was funded for them”

So, rather than this being a ‘class war’(as suggested by the likes of the right wing Sky TV News) this is  a generation war, those than benefited from the boom years are now being challenged, rightly in my opinion,  on the justice of their decisions. Another article provides a clearer insight into the political arguments, the back tracking of the Liberals, conveniently changing policy direction to become bed mates with the Tories. Not unlike the Maori party and their cosy relation with National here in NZ – about time people begin to see through that marriage of convenience.

And to finish - if Austerity involves increasing taxes to repay debt, exactly why is the New Zealand government borrowing money to pay for tax cuts?

A Very Interesting Read!

Some people may know that I don't like the idea of National Standards, as proposed by the National government and their education minister Ann Tolley. I also have held a belief that Canterbury was a place that was dyed in the wool National territory, the kind of place that would endorse all national policy. This link shows quite the opposite.