Dom Post on Two New Zealands
February 12th, 2009 at 10:50 am by David FarrarThe Dom Post editorial looks at two contrasting New Zealands:
One was the New Zealand of Paula McCutcheon, the young mother widowed last month when her husband, Mark, was stabbed while trying to help a woman who was being assaulted outside a Hawke’s Bay pub. Hers is the New Zealand most inhabit a land in which citizens go to work each morning, take pride in standing on their own feet, abide by the law and teach their children to respect others.
The other was the New Zealand of Victoria Stevens. It is a New Zealand in which adults healthy enough to rob and to steal, and to wrestle with the police, prefer to claim benefits than to go to work and in which mothers show their love for their sons by barking like dogs. To most New Zealanders theirs is a foreign country, but it is a foreign country that coexists alongside mainstream New Zealand.
Not so much a foreign country, but almost a foreign species.
And then focusing back on Stevens:
Although reliant on her fellow citizens to feed and clothe her, she acknowledges no reciprocal obligation to abide by the law or to treat others with respect. Is it any wonder her son now finds himself in the dock?
Unfortunately, she is not alone. As Prime Minister John Key has identified, there is a growing underclass in New Zealand, the members of which scorn notions of responsibility, respect and decency. Its ranks include those who made Nia Glassie’s short life a living hell and the dysfunctional Kahui clan, which closed ranks to shield its adult members from the police but totally failed to protect three-month-old twins Chris and Cru Kahui from whoever it was that inflicted the head injuries that killed them. It is a group too many of whose members are Maori.
And, despite the best efforts of academics and social workers, it is a group that no one has yet discovered how to reintegrate into society.
One thing is clear, however. Paying benefits year after year to people who flout the law, choose not to work and accept no reciprocal obligation for the aid they receive, has not worked.
It is time for Mr Key’s Government to take a rigorous look at the other New Zealand the one in which the evils of intergenerational welfare dependency are becoming more and more apparent.
Sadly, some people dispute there is any problem with generations of a family being on welfare. They see it as a right, not to be challenged.
Tags: Dom Post, Victoria Stevens
February 12th, 2009 at 10:55 am
For the first time ever I am in agreement with a Dominion Post editorial! ha ha!
Interesting how John Key has only just now (yesterday, presumably) noticed what everyone else twigged to about three decades ago – that there is an ‘underclass’ in New Zealand.
Gosh..what an amazing man! my hero! his deductive powers are magical.
As for intergenerational welfarism there is a fairly obvious solution of the “ummmmm simply abolish welfare, duh!” variety; that of course would ‘solve’ the problem, and hence off the agenda, so let’s set up a committee to discuss band-aid at the bottom of the cliff number 8 million…
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:02 am
“Sadly, some people dispute there is any problem with generations of a family being on welfare. They see it as a right, not to be challenged.”
Pssst, phule, he is talking about you.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:04 am
How many houses does Helen Klark own again? Six is it? Or eight?
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:07 am
5 July 08
“Homo Degeneratus” By Sir Bob Jones on NZCPR
“Five years ago Reeds published my novel True Facts. Before you scream, understand that the title was not a grammatical error, rather it was deliberate and highly pertinent to the plot, as I shall explain.
When Mike Moore read the manuscript prior to publication, he, a great enthusiast of my previous novel Ogg, expressed his alarm. Mike’s an old mate and knows he can talk frankly to me. In essence and notwithstanding its humour, which he acknowledged, Mike felt True Facts’ underlying thesis was dreadfully offensive and would cause outrage. That didn’t eventuate, possibly because the book never took off which Reeds attributed guessingly (there’s a new word for you) to its cover design.
Five years have elapsed. So too has what I wrote about in True Facts.
The plot was set in an international media company based loosely on News Corp with the oafish, earthy executive chairman, Felix caricature, drawn roughly on Kerry Packer.
Always sensitive to market movements and becoming sceptical about the future of both television in the over-competitive market and the broadsheets in an increasingly illiterate world, Felix spots a new opportunity.
Reading a report of a zoology Professor being bumrushed in a huge politically correct furore, out of his university, Felix recognises an untapped market.
For what the Professor had discovered was the devolvement of a section of homo sapiens into a new biological animal species, which he named homo degeneratus, these being the fifth generation welfare dependant class in Britain.
With his eye to the main chance Felix organised polling of the degenerati including a survey, notwithstanding their illiteracy, as to their readership taste. All dismissed newspapers as full of lies and the repetition from the degenerati that what they want is “true facts” leads to a new, largely pictorial tabloid tailored specifically for them, called “True Facts”. Three years’ issues were written in advance with stories such as “Boy born with horse’s head due to sperm bank ballsup”, of successful prospering criminals, of the sins of “they” and much more of that ilk. The publication proved a great commercial success with the degenerati.
But the salient message was the existence of a huge, welfare-sated under-class that by any definition, can not possibly be considered homo sapiens. When I say definition I refer in one word to civility with all of its accompanying values.
I will not pull my punches. Homo degeneratus is now thriving in New Zealand; slobbering, tattooed, illiterate, pig-ignorant, prolific breeding, drug-infested, alcoholic, welfare dependent, murdering and robbing, barbaric filth and it is all traceable solely to welfare excess and the DPB in particular. I for one have had enough. Disproportionately Maori, their existence is a disgrace, not to Maoridom but to the human race.
Pampering, soft-soaping and excusing plainly doesn’t work. As a first step we must cut off their life-line, namely the aforementioned welfare excess…..”
READ THE WHOLE THING:
http://www.nzcpr.com/guest105.htm
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:13 am
“And, despite the best efforts of academics and social workers, it is a group that no one has yet discovered how to reintegrate into society.”
Reintergrate???? You don’t reintergrate a cancer, you amputate it.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Is it the same ‘intergenerational dependency’ like Paula Bennets daughter, like her Mum once was , a solo mum, but different this time her ‘boyfriend’ in jail for a very serious assualt.
But what about all the finance comapny chiefs , who through legalised stealing have lost 100s millions of investors money. Perhaps they buy the Dom Post so they arent included as the underclass
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Have a think about the context of this.
Can you imagine the DomPost publishing a piece like this 12 months ago?… “It is time for [Ms Clark’s] Government to take a rigorous look at the other New Zealand the one in which the evils of intergenerational welfare dependency are becoming more and more apparent”.
She would have gone ape shit at them, withdrawn interview privileges etc.
Our soft MSM publishes this now, to prepare their reader-lemmings for the blame to be attributed to Key and National.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
JVH – if you had three feet your mouth would hurt.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:37 am
There are no solutions to this issue, there has always been an ‘underclass’ and always will be. Fortunately it is a very small minority that has a higher visibility than warranted by their numbers.
All we can do is minimize their impact on the rest of us. Pious efforts to fix these people are a waste of resources. They have no desire to be reintegrated.
Eliminating benefit payments would simply encourage them to commit even more crime. Paying them a subsistence living is unfortunately a distressed purchase like auto-insurance and car repairs.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:43 am
PhilBest
… and that was just the CTU …
Kimble
… that’s a bit tough on January’s lone blot at the end of the blogosphere or whatever it was. Give the chap some credit, if only for his (albeit temporary) rebranding initiative.
thedavincimode … aka … thedavincimode
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Annette King, despite being a Minister in the Labour-led Government of the last 9 years, may be surprised by this article.
She asked the following written Parliamentary question only a month after she lost office.
8668 (2008). Hon Annette King to the Minister for Social Development and Employment (12 Dec 2008): In light of the Government’s statements about an “underclass” in New Zealand, What is the Government’s definition of an underclass?
I wonder if Annette King’s definition of an “underclass” would differ much from everyone else’s ?
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I posted about Victoria Stevens at the end of last week, following her arrest for contempt of Court. A couple of days later a family member posted a comment on Keeping Stock lamenting the situation, and suggesting that in this particular family, intergenerational dysfunction goes back two or three generations. It’s well worth a read, and serves as a timely reminder that not only are there many more Victoria Stevenses out there, but that many of them have whanau who have managed to drag themselves into a better space while others remain trapped (whether by choice or circumstance) in a cycle of abuse and degradation.
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-evidence-2.html
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:51 am
“All we can do is minimize their impact on the rest of us.”
If “underclass” was related to intelligence, you’d be right down there in the gutter with the worst of them. IP publisher.
“She asked the following written Parliamentary question only a month after she lost office.”
An utter abuse of Question Time. What is this fat arsed incompetent doing representing the citizens of NZ? Parliament is just full of embeciles. (What does this say about the electorate?)
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Although of course principally and fundamentally against eugenics as such, the statistical correlation between inter-generational welfare dependency and the anti-social behavior prevalent in this “underclass” (and yes, Annette wouldn’t you love a ‘definition’ of this to pull apart and turn into anti-fascist headlines) is simply too large to ignore. If one accepts that the the social and economical costs of maintaining this ‘underclass’ are unsustainable, there are only two methods of response, either moving members of one class into the other (re-integration) or reduction of the ‘underclass’ numbers (unfortunately, eugenics or worse, although a world-war is also a proven and accepted methodology, unfortunately with undesired side-effects). Given the undesirability of the second option, there must be found a better way to re-integration.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am
nz capitalist (7) Vote: 2 4 Says:
February 12th, 2009 at 10:55 am
“For the first time ever I am in agreement with a Dominion Post editorial! ha ha!…..”
Yes, amazing for Tim “Emmeline” Pankhurst’s rag….surely times aren’t a’changin’ that fast already; H1 has only been gone 3 months……
“…..As for intergenerational welfarism there is a fairly obvious solution of the “ummmmm simply abolish welfare, duh!” variety; that of course would ’solve’ the problem, and hence off the agenda, so let’s set up a committee to discuss band-aid at the bottom of the cliff number 8 million….”
I read a very good article somewhere on the welfare reforms in the USA, for which a Republican Congress and Senate were responsible, but President Clinton signed into law. Apparently a lot of social agencies and food banks had braced themselves, laid on extra volunteers and supplies; for the week that the stand-down of benefits was going to hit after the previous couple of years warning. Apparently the phone didn’t ring at all, and they all went home after the first couple of days. The lesson was, that people whose benefit was going to be stood down, were not just going to let themselves be made martyrs of and be photographed starving to death, and have articles written about them by bleeding heart liberal lefties; they had sorted their shit out, got a job, moved in with relatives, or whatever.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Wow, that’s a brave editorial.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
@Redbaiter: long time no see, I’m flattered to see you remember me.
“It is time for Mr Key’s Government to take a rigorous look at the other New Zealand the one in which the evils of intergenerational welfare dependency are becoming more and more apparent.” – No,no, no!!! Let us waste no time or money more than necessary on this self selected group of imbeciles and insolents. Let us invest in those who contribute.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
It must be nice to be a newspaper editor – getting a tidy salary to smugly take swipes at people without having to come up with any solution to the problem.
I guess the Dominion Post wouldn’t address the other ‘other New Zealand’, in which the highly privileged fiddle expenses and tax returns even though they already have more taxpayers’ money than they know what to do with, the churches who close ranks around child abusers, the police who close ranks around their mates’ accused of all manner of wrong doing, the business people that somehow feel they deserve welfare when the poor don’t, and expect, and get, leniency when their lids commit crimes.
These people inhabit a world where going to work is an option, where it’s considered foolish to stand on your own feet when you can stand on somebody else’s, where one abides by the law when convenient an you teach your kids to despise the underprivileged.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I suggest that we offer members of the underclass a few thousand dollars to be sterilized. My guess is that they would leap at the chance of some extra ca$h to spend on booze, drugs and ciggies. And bingo, within a generation the problem is gone.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Scum like Victoria Stevens do not deserve a dollar of social welfare payments. People of her ilk should be ineligible for the dole and forced to earn a living.
The lefties feign despair at this supposed lack of compassion, but they cannot deny the direct culprit is the last nine years of the socialist Labour government, which have engendered in these low-lifes a sense of entitlement.
I’d love to be proven wrong, but I’m of the opinion National does not have the will nor the intention of changing the current system. Welfarism will continue wearing down New Zealand at the expense of the productive sectors of the population.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Sam, who exactly are these people you are talking about? The rich don’t get taxpayers money you know. They are the one that pay tax so the scum can live.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
BEAUTOX………You are absolutely right. All it takes is resolve and a carrot and stick approach, the carrot is the bribe you propose. The stick is making it a mandatory part of the sentence where victims are maimed or killed.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Every western country has the same problem.
This “underclass” is neither a separate part of NZ nor indeed a “class”.
They are simply scum taking advantage of a misguided system of government based on a rather short lived Greek experiment.
That system is called democracy and has come to, in the minds of many, to mean all people have “rights” whether or not they accept the obligations that accompany those “rights”..
The only way to deal with these scum is, as a few here have stated, to excise it and that can only be done by allowing the scum yet another “right” – the right to starve to death and/or freeze to death if they won’t get off their fat arses and help both themselves and their community.
Welfare needs to become a safety net available only to those unable but willing to help themselves and unavailable to anyone who fails to accept the obligations society places on them.
About now I hear wails of “What about the children?” or more accurately “Wot abart d kids?”.
I didn’t ask these people to breed, society certainly didn’t and research has shown most characteristics and moral standards are formed by the age of three years old, almost all by the age of six so the kids either sink or swim with their parents – there is simply no saving most, if not all, of them.
At the same time this bloody ridiculous “democracy” thing needs revamping to only allow those able and willing to accept their obligations to participate and note, the emphasis needs to be on the able as much as the willing.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
February 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
“I am well aware that the public is cynical and all standards of decency have gone out the window, but we need to get at least some semblance of decency back or else we can kiss goodbye any hope of an ordered society that respects one another. ”
Thats what I said previously and I stand by it. We need to get back some sense of responsiblity and acountability where working for a living is the first option and not the last.
Unfortunately we have a generation of people who feel ‘entitled’ to what the world has to offer. That they feel that they do not have to work and strive for anything, that it is theres by right. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
However Red and BB I have been thinking about what you called me (pinko) and have decided that you may be right. I am and have always been, a capitalist with a social conscious. I believe that we should take responsibility for ourselves, however I do believe that there will be times when people need help and we as a society should help.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Manolo – I disagree that National does not have ‘the will or the intention of changing the current system’. Perhaps with an exception – leaving people to starve on the streets is not an option in 21st century NZ. If National gets tough on beneficiaries to quickly and too harshly, it will hit at people who do take responsibilites seriously and do the best they can. Even if a very small number of such people are ‘hit’ it will blow up politically in a big way – heart wenching ‘stories’ (a common pr trick) would have more sway to statistics showing only one or two are affected.
Politicians in the pre-Rogernomics era wanted to keep as many people in employment (apart from mums with young and school age children) as possible to keep them out of mischief. At that time a potential concern was that computers and industrial automation would result in fewer working hours and people would not know what to do with the extra leisure time. Nowadays this is about as laughable as the concern then with teddy boys, kids wearing fluorescent green socks and ‘drainpipes’ and young couples snogging at the back of a cinema on Saturday afternoon.
There were welfare problems then – like the wheelchair bound sickness beneficiary who got so mad at someone that he managed to get out of the wheelchair and hit him one.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Lucy – The help you refer to, I believe, is a hand up when someone has fallen over (financially, because of health or some such thing). But it cannot mean condemming generations of people to the degradation of welfare dependency. The only way to end it is to make welfare unattraactive. Disencentivise it. National have to realise that the percentage of people who have made it a way of life will never vote for them in a million years, so stop trying to pander to them.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Perhaps it’s time to turn “entitlement” into “privilege”. We must change the culture of the country, we are all in agreement that the welfare state has turn some into walking cesspits but most agree welfare must be there for those that need it. Many of those that believe welfare is an entitlement are more then likely to be those most involved in crime. Enough of Mr nice guy the big stick must come out. Three court appearances, no more welfare, for life. First offence 1/3 of the dole chegue gone and so on. Yes the prisons will full but most people are smart enough to figure it out. We owe our future generations, do we have the courage and the will to say enough of this bullshit?. It will cost but the returns will far out way the initial outlay.
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“The rich don’t get taxpayers money you know. ”
Ho ho – you’re joking, right?
Vote:February 12th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Brian- Yes I do mean a hand up. Sorry if I didnt express myself properly. Any help should be a bridge only and not a way of life.
And sideshow Bob. Yes I am sick to death of the ‘entitlement’ mentality it is and should always been seen as a privilege and not a right.
Vote:February 13th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Sam, you are obviously deluded by your fantasies of the VRWC. Rich people, on the whole in this country, are the productive ones who give others jobs and pay the lion’s share of the tax, that pays for people like philu. And by the way, Anarchy as a political system is the joke. How anybody (past student age) could actually subscribe to such a childish “philosophy” is beyond me.
Vote: