Hard News: Deja Vu
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Interesting that Finlayson, Roy and Dunne don't collect any housing expenses for living in Wellington, but as circumstances for other MP's indicates, there are ways to retain properties whilst renting on the taxpayer in Wellington. Still,I think if a property an MP owns is not fit for it's purpose (Key said 2 brm no good for 3 kids) couldn't they replace it at their own expense as the rest of us do.To make what appears to be a very cushy job so easy to do, how will any of them truly understand what it's like to be a kiwi battler, in circumstances they claim to know how to fix?Their circumstances seem not to be the average kiwi so I say."A plague on both your houses" One is enough for each Minister.
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Russell- that is such a good topic!
(A neighbour just brought me her own fresh bread, and pikelets, and homemade pumpkin soup...I was able to give organic ANZ garlic(which she neeeded) for such an unasked for-but-deeply appreciated koha- an example of manakitaka if ever. eh?)
So, the rant part of the brain cools a bit - and I make these suggestions-
kia ora (almost omnipresent now)
mana
mauri (a bit more esoteric, but a lot of people of all origins will understand it)
taihoa - used to be popular, and is still around (and so much easier to say than, hold on a moment, wait a bit, until -)
whenua (in both common meanings)
aroha -
because I think we should take a closer look at how and in what manner benefits are administered to under 18s
Dude, if that benefit was really easy to get, every rebellious 16-year-old with a bee in their bonnet about being told off for smoking a joint would be on it. C'mon.
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Plus, NO benefit is easy to get in NZ.
Completely off topic. I just recovered my couch in a beautiful plush black velvet for $250.00. I think that is marvelous. I so happy, I think I will drink. :) Cheers -
Dude, if that benefit was really easy to get, every rebellious 16-year-old with a bee in their bonnet about being told off for smoking a joint would be on it. C'mon.
I'm not saying it's easy to get, never did, I'm simply maintaining that the people I know who've received it have had little or no back up from the government. And mainly that nothing was done to deal with the core issues. It was money well spent in terms of maintaining the surivival of the people but did little to ensure the situation was repeated in the next generation.
So... as per usual, you're starting with an inflammatory and ill-constructed point, and are back-engineering it into a very sensible point on the fly, to placate your opposition. It'd be great if you could start with the reasonable points & build on them instead.
nailed. I know I had a point somewhere back there...in fact you know what my point is. Nice to see you here, keeping me honest.
Mainly thinking about that example I mentioned earlier about the friend who came off this benefit, has a child of her own, and the parents take as little responsibility for the grandchild as they did for the her because the state made it so easy to avoid responsibility, ie paying for the child to leave the alcoholic household, but not seeing to any kind of alcoholic counseling for the parent, avoiding potentially offering a window of opportunity for her to return home.
mark taslov, I take that comment *extremely* personally on behalf of me, my own, and all my friends, and a *very* large number of people I am acquainted with- our families are paramount (but not your nasty little god)
Please don't Islander. It wasn't meant personally.
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In the absence of a more-recent-and-relevant thread in which to post it, provocation will be scrapped by a government bill.
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Plus, NO benefit is easy to get in NZ.
Not only are benefits not easy to get, even when you're on them you're screwed if you need extra money for, say, dental work. A friend's a DPB mother (three kids to the same father, who she divorced because he was an abusive fuck, before anyone goes down that particular corridor) and needs some work done including a root canal. Subtracting the cost of the root canal, the best that WINZ can offer her is a collection of loans (loans, not grants!) that come to less than 2/3 the cost of what she needs done. Add in the root canal and it's probably not even half.
Without getting into the expense of dentistry, it's a mightily fucked-up system that puts very low limits on how much it will loan you to get something as important as basic dental work. It's not like she's wanting her teeth whitened or straightened. -
@Mark Taslov
Feel the love
Your completely naive assumption that all members of families are both known to each other and in full possession of aroha for each other and the capacity to feel and express it. I suppose the examples of dysfunctional families that have been presented to you on this thread just slid teflon like from your mind?
When your non existent god pitches up and makes the world a perfect place we can make that assumption. Until then can we please have humane, unfortunately necessary, measures in place to deal with reality as we have it if that is alright with you?
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ThaDude, if that benefit was really easy to get, every rebellious 16-year-old with a bee in their bonnet about being told off for smoking a joint would be on it. C'mon.
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And that's my distant memory too, that the application required evidence of near irreparable break-down of the family unit.I start from the the point that the benefits should be available on reasonable grounds and don't assume families game the system to maximise their entitlement. It'd be great for many many non-financial reasons if even a small number of kids were helped out by family (though not necessarily instead of eligibility for assistance), but you'd have to be sure that you weren't jepoardising the second family's viability...
What other words have a meaning that cuts to the quick of what we, people who live here, are trying to express? What a useful thing!
Hapu, as in "Congrats bro, the missus is Hapu again..."
Korero mai, I had a colleague who used that phrase when she was pissed off at me... kinda softened the inevitable blow.
Temea temea temea, (sp?) as in yada yada yada (I heard that a lot, it seemed directed at me... what does that mean...)
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Sofie,
Finlayson, Roy and Dunne already lived in Wellington so would not be eligible for the 'living away from home' housing allowance or expenses.
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we would be buggered if it weren't for grandparents, for example
I'm sorry to hear that Jackie and yet at the same time I'm glad that it is the grandparents and not state that are intervening, maybe I'll get blasted for saying it. But wherever reasonable I feel family is the best port of call, I know what you and Heather and Islander and Matthew and by proxy Steve mean that the family is not always available or in anyway suitable. My examples are isolated. my tone is often exacerbating and morbidly coloured by my own experience of these issues. When I spoke of the break down of the family I wasn't saying it's totalled and off to the crusher, simply that we could pour a little more oil.
Maybe I'm in a small minority of kids who grew up in the same town as their grandparents and seldom saw them, maybe my mum complained a little too much about that. Maybe I was selective when remembering certain cases of friends in a similar situation, but compared to experiences in both Europe and Asia, I have always been puzzled by the ways i see a lot of families operate back home. Not the good ones mind. Just the ones like mine.
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Your completely naive assumption that all members of families are both known to each other and in full possession of aroha for each other and the capacity to feel and express it. I suppose the examples of dysfunctional families that have been presented to you on this thread just slid teflon like from your mind?
I don't recall making that assumption Peter, but I strongly agree with you. I'm pretty sure my example above re: the alcoholic household was a clear enough indication of where i'm coming from.
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As someone said before, he has this image of himself as a little kiwi battler
Who has a thoroughly distorted view of the circumstances genuine Kiwi battlers face. A former producer tells the tale from about '93 or '94, a time when tax rate policies were being publicly discussed.
The producer relates, So Paul said, What does this mean for the average guy. He grabbed a calculator and starting tapping away, saying, Let's see, for every $100,000 a year I get, it means . . . .
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Heh! Hoha...
"te mea, te mea, te mea" literally means 'the thing" x 3 - but 'mea' is one very complex wee word. Generally when used in that 3fold fashion it means "and so & so" or "and so forth" or "and so on"-
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But wherever reasonable I feel family is the best port of call
You're making the assumption that the state doesn't think this way. Had a quick look at the Ministry of Youth Development site; there was a bit in 2006 outlining the improvements they were making specifically for people on the Independent Youth Benefit, including one-on-one couselling, helping them find work, substance abuse counselling where applicable, and greater work with CYFs to establish whether the family breakdown is indeed irredeemable. Maybe it's changed a bit since your friend was 16. Or...perhaps the policy is solid & the execution is lacking funding.
Also, I found some stats for Independent Youth Benefit in 2007, and the number of people on it have been steadily decreasing since 2001. It's almost exactly a third of what it was then - 1200 people in 07.
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korero (another goodie creeping into ANZ mainstream) talk - but not just talk - talk it through, talk about thoroughly, give us some ideas here, exchange viewpoints-
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Sofie, have a lovely glass for me while being comfortable of your magnificent couch!
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provocation will be scrapped by a government bill.
I noted on the Island Life thread last Thursday that Lianne Dalziel's bill to do the same had been drawn from the ballot. Shame the Herald didn't report that fact.
Shades of a cartoon (Tom Scott?) brilliantly portraying Shipley on labelling. You'd have thought it was about labelling food, until the punchline revealed Shipley wanted a bill with a National label rather than Bunkle's bill with an Alliance label.
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Mark Taslov:
What kind of good reasons?
A real-world example: In 2007 a young relative of mine brought a school friend home with her. The shy and rather distressed teenager had been ordered out of the family home by her mother, who hailed from an Asian country with the possibly undeserved reputation of supplying younger brides for unprepossessing first-world men. The mother appeared to believe that, as her daughter had turned 16 and she no longer felt obliged to care for her, she was free to take this action.
A little adult intervention established that the mother was continuing to collect whatever benefits were available to her as her daughter's carer, and that the father was an ineffectual older invalid. Once WINZ was alerted to the situation the daughter's rights were restored, enabling her to live in independent accommodation while continuing her schooling (she's a very bright kid).
In that particular case, over the few days when another mouth needed feeding it was done according to "new world" values, simply because it was the decent thing to do. Getting "high and mighty" with the errant mother provided a quick wake-up from her rather mediaeval world view. The threat of state intervention certainly focused her attention on the reality of the situation.
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Mark, if the parents are still so hopeless that they are not interested as grandparents do you not think that the alchoholism counselling would have equally fallen on deaf or disinterested ears?
People going and getting counselling for alchohol abuse and any other types of counselling that we may think are useful can only happen if those afflicted are willing to participate voluntarily. If somebody has broken a law then a judge may order them to undertake in something but if that's not the case what can be done? You can offer it but you can't say to a parent, "since you aren't sorting out your boozing we aren't going to give your kid any financial support to get out of your home and pay for some food". That would be leaving the kids hanging out to dry and we would face far greater issues dealing with said kids a bit further down the track.
While I agree that where possible the powers that be try to help sort out the underlying issues I would hazard a guess that that is actually happening in more cases than not.
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Sofie, have a lovely glass for me while being comfortable of your magnificent couch!
Righto, I'm on yours now. :)Seriously black velvet is a beautiful fabric and the back side is gold with black flecks of the velvet which makes 2 pillow shaped cushions necessary tomorrow then I'll sort your delights :)That and refill my lost filling should make for a good week. Can you fire me your postal address Islander. You got my number.
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Feeling the love.
Ah the warm glow of love by state demand, that’s some quality caring and sharing!
Considering Matthew's first response was directly following;
this exchange. ...
Yeah, in which Nic provided a good reason for retaining the benefit, to which you responded with your glib “live with a relie” comment, and Matthew pointed out the problems with assuming that option will suffice. I’m not an advocate for Matthew, I just wondered if you could address those points. I guess not.
So... as per usual, you're starting with an inflammatory and ill-constructed point, and are back-engineering it into a very sensible point on the fly, to placate your opposition. It'd be great if you could start with the reasonable points & build on them instead.
Where’s the fun in that? Sophistry is Mark’s bag.
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Maybe it's changed a bit since your friend was 16. Or...perhaps the policy is solid & the execution is lacking funding.
I'd say that's probably the case, my experience of this thing is pretty warped dating back to 97-98 I had no fewer than 5 flatmates on this benefit, 3 of whom skipped out owing rent. 2 of whom were pretty much their own admission scamming, one of whom's parents I got to know, and who admitted to basically just letting their daughter join the benefit so she could go flatting with her friend. What I was supposed to do as a non-caregiver but primary tenant when these kids didn't go to school for a month? Why wasn't there a case worker on the case? Just seemed like some of the after service wasn't there.
This is mainly why I wasn't into Matthew's example...If not the family then who? me?
Ok thank you Joe, that was a good reason.
Mark, if the parents are still so hopeless that they are not interested as grandparents do you not think that the alchoholism counselling would have equally fallen on deaf or disinterested ears?
well it's interesting. The alcoholic did eventually get help about 5 years later, then he remarried and he now has two grandchildren from his new family to dote on (step), such is life. So it's not that he's not a good grandfather, just merely that he's not a good grandfather to the of the child who he failed with.
I don't know, I was just disappointed she was excited at getting a 1.5k rebate after forking out $4.5k over two years with the entire family in the same city.
No points for guessing which city.
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Where’s the fun in that? Sophistry is Mark’s bag.
Yeah, but does it matter if he gets there in the end.If the influence is good, should it not be a good thing.He certainly tests some of us, so what, Korero.
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Thanks Sophie, et al for understanding. Honestly, I've been making a real effort to curb the incendiary this year after my train wreck end to last year. But days like today show I've still got a way to go...quite frankly I'm pretty damn glad everyday I log in to find I haven't been banned.
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