Stuff reports:
The driver’s licence of Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt has been suspended, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency has confirmed.
Stuff asked the 74-year-old Shadbolt last week what the current status of his licence was, but he declined to comment, saying it was a legal and confidential matter that had been dealt with. …
If Shadbolt had just lost his licence for trivial reasons such as too many speeding tickets, then this would not be an issue.
But the suspicion has to be that his licence was suspended due to a lack of cognitive ability. And if this is true, then how can you have a Mayor who is meant to lead a Council in highly complex decisions, if he can’t even cope with driving a car. The independent report into the Council already concluded Shadbolt can’t perform the role of Mayor.
Really the time has come for the Government to act. Councils has been sacked for far less. If Shadbolt won’t resign, surely the Government has a duty to Invercargill to step in and sack the Council. You could reappoint the competent ones as Commissioners.
Go over to Redbaiter and watch the video of the press gallery vs Judith. Astonishing. And this was all because she is doing her job as Opposition Leader and asking questions to the Prime Minister which the PM keeps avoiding.
A guest post by Dr M.B. Spencer. It was originally sent as a letter to the eidot rot the Herald but rejected.
As a long time owner of property in the central city, including at times in Queen Street, I have watched with dismay over the years as the City Council has made change after change to Queen Street and the surrounding streets, when each change has made the inner city harder to reach and less pleasant to experience.
Simon Wilson’s labelling landlords “vandals” and “enemies” of Queen Street is simply not true. Why would landlords, who have such large investments in the area, conspire to destroy their investments?
In response to Andrew Krukziener’s comment on the “lack of ability for people to stop for five minutes to pick up something”, he naively retorts “Hang on. How long has it been since you could drive into Queen St, stop outside the shop of your choice and “pick something up”?”
Obviously Simon Wilson doesn’t remember Queen Street when it was a vibrant shopping area bustling with shoppers as well as office workers and students. At that time the street was lined with P15 car parks which allowed shoppers to come in from the suburbs and “pick something up”.
Then the Council, in its wisdom, decided to remove the P15 car parks (which are now occupied by white painted blocks of concrete) in order to dissuade shoppers from coming into the city by car.
Before carrying out this change I managed to persuade them at least to measure the damage they were about to wreak, so the Council did a survey of people getting into their cars in the P15 zones to find out how much they had spent “picking something up”.
The answer, which included those people who had bought nothing, was that the average P15 occupant had spent $67.50. Since the Council had also measured the occupancy of the P15s to be 100%, 11 hours a day, from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., this showed that each P15, which they subsequently banned, generated more than $650,000.00 a year in sales to people who “picked something up” and “did a bit of shopping”. And this figure ignored weekend shoppers.
Multiply that figure by the dozens of P15s now occupied by concrete blocks and you can imagine the damage that one action did to retail in the street.
The above is just one of a whole series of changes brought about by consecutive Councils, each of which has made it more difficult for suburban dwellers to access the CBD, and when they do manage to find their way in through blocked or one way streets, they find the cost of parking is prohibitive. (There is a reason why suburban shopping malls don’t charge for parking!)
Over the years these changes have gradually whittled away Queen Street’s magic and encouraged the suburban shopper to take the easy way out and just shop at their local mall.
Simon Wilson should realise that the empty shops in Queen Street are not only the fault of what he calls the “enemies” and “vandals” of Queen Street, but are mainly the result of years of deliberate actions by the Council.
Newshub reports:
An unemployment insurance scheme could cost anywhere between $450 million and $5 billion a year, depending on how many people lose their jobs and how generous it is, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) says.
This scheme will be funded by a new tax (levy) on every employer and employee in New Zealand. So if there is a recession and lots of people lose their jobs, the tax will increase and your take home pay will drop in the middle of a recession!
TVNZ have released the latest One News Colmar Brunton poll. Key details are:
Party Vote
Seats
Preferred PM
Three weeks back I wrote a piece in support of Mike King and his organisation’s Gumboot Friday. In the comments section someone asked what I considered the factors to be with the apparent worsening of mental health for children and young people; for example evidenced by calls to Life Line.
My relevant background here is a few tertiary qualifications that shed some light, being in education as a teacher/Principal since 1991, bringing-up three children, observing many families and constantly researching how to improve education outcomes for children in such a way that they feel aspirational about their future.
Clearly this is a huge topic and container loads of books get written about it. Two weeks back I wrote a post on what I consider to be some of the Meta-Impacts (causes) on poor mental health for young people. Last week I wrote on what I consider to be the micro-effects on mental well-being. The aim of these posts is not to be THE expert – but more as lead-ins to get the views of people who might comment and have insights. This post is looking at what ought to be done – and done with urgency.
How to Improve Things:
1. Being a GOOD parent needs to be both an informed focus and an elevated role.
– Treating the baby well within the womb.
– Fully nurturing the new-born.
– Stimulating the mind of the infant – reading, playing, being outside – pretty much all positive things and ignoring screens.
– Being engaged in all education programmes and schools.
– Feeding your child.
– Understanding that the child is not the responsibility of the State.
2. Our education system has to be radically fixed to highly value the academic outcomes of the child regardless of their demographics. Self-esteem is earned through massive effort and achievement. All people should be “valued” as a right – but you earn your esteem. Our education needs to be rigorous and focussed so that our children grow up highly competent, focussed, aspirational, critical thinkers. Is this idealistic? Of course – what else should your education design be.
We currently have a 60% attendance rate in our schools. We have 10,300+ students not even enrolled. We have huge academic divergence between demographic groups. We are sliding in all international comparisons.
We need to very accurately provide for diverse learners and not give up on kids that have had a slow academic start in life.
It is time – and has been for a while – for a courageous Minister and a deeply effective set of implemented policies towards achievement.
Parents need to lead the schools and combine around great literature/film, great Math/Science (the same thing), high level skills and propelling the child towards world class opportunities.
3. When people are struggling with mental health we need to make interventions accessible and affordable. We need to bury the folly that the Ministry of Health is the solve all and look to effective and fleet-of-feet interventions from the best people in the nation – not the best “group-think” in a bureaucracy.
4. We must allow children to think and question. To be exposed to ideas about their purpose and pathways. As a nation we need to openly understand our whole history. In my time as an educator one of the vest worst concepts I have ever heard is that we will end up teaching a very limited range of topics as our “prescribed” NZ history.
5. Any anti-bullying programmes must also be matched with genuine resilience. In terms of what people think of me personally there are very few people whose opinion I would take on board. That doesn’t mean I don’t listen to critique of my words or actions but, to paraphrase Kipling; if I believe all of the compliments I have received I would be even more insufferable but; if I believed all of the negatives about myself I would be a very sad knuckle dragging feral. Young people need to know that their value does not lie in the opinion of others.
6. Our children need massive protection and much more time to be kids. No child should have a smart phone until at least 14. No under 18 should have devices behind closed doors and wi-fi available through the night. Screen time should have limits from day 1 and activity and broad health encouraged. We must not press down adult problems (Climate Change, Racism, Sexuality confusion) into the laps of children. Our children are not the playthings of politicians, porn-barons, predators or multi-national social media conglomerates.
7. Our societal leadership has to lift and the examples that prominent leaders set need to be better. Our media has to have much more integrity to raise the level of trust in the 4th estate.
8. It may sound trivial but we need to be better neighbours. When Mike King talks to groups he talks about the role of those that are in a good place – to care for those who are not. In one placed we lived our neighbour was a deeply addicted alcoholic. I went over, all saintly, to offer to help. When I asked him what we could do – his response was relational – he asked to do our gardens and be taken notice of to begin to delay when he started drinking each day. He is a very different man today – not because we helped him – but we gave him a daily purpose. Do you know who your neighbours are? If not – go and see them and get to know them tomorrow.
9. Waiting for the government to solve this is like “Waiting for Godot” – they are never going to arrive. 120 oppositionally aligned and power seeking individuals of very limited experience cannot solve this set of problems. It is up to the broad community. Success or failure is on us.
10. Sometimes you get behind one person – who is not perfect but has the courage to say it as he sees it: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/mike-king-slams-nzs-health-bureaucracy-returns-nzom-medal-ahead-gumboot-friday?auto=6256199865001
Very much love to know your thoughts.
Please support Gumboot Friday on the 28th: www.iamhope.org.nz/ I once asked a prominent politician to speak to our school students. His response was; “Why kids don’t vote.” Please make your vote dependent on the treatment of our young.
TVNZ reports:
The capital city had consulted on a rise of 13.53 per cent as part of its long-term plan, but extra costs were added in on Friday lifting the proposal to 15.99 per cent.
The latter proposal from Mayor Andy Foster will be discussed at the long-term plan committee meeting on Thursday.
The costs included $1.8 million for the regional council, $1.2 million for the Kiwi Point Quarry and $1.2 million for the Pōneke Promise – changes and upgrades to make the central city safer.
Councillor Nicola Young said the updated proposal was shocking.
“I have been concerned for quite some time that councillors seem to have a Father Christmas wishlist, as indeed do a lot of Wellingtonians and they need to think about where the money is coming from.
“The proposed rates rise has put this in stark reality.”
She did not support increased debt and said cutting costs was the best option.
Nicola is absolutely right. WCC needs to cut costs and not treat ratepayers as an unlimited source of income.
Inflation is running at under 2%. Wage growth is around 3%. Any rates increase above 5% is just spending gone wild.
Politico looks at the case for Covid-19 having leaked from a lab in Wuhan:
The hypothesis that Covid-19 was leaked from a Wuhan lab has leaped from its original host — Trump administration officials and people dismissed as conspiracy theorists — into the body of mainstream debate. Last week, 18 leading scientists published a letter in the academic journal Science calling for further investigation to determine the origin of the pandemic that has killed 3.4 million people worldwide. “Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” the scientists wrote.
A few months ago people were being suspended from social media for stating it may have been a lab release, and now it is seen as quite possible.
The case for a lab leak is:
None of the above is proof, but it is a fairly strong case for suspicion against the official story.
A guest post by Melissa Lee:
As I write this, we are entering the second week of the terrifying cyberattack involving ransomware on the Waikato District Health Board’s IT Infrastructure. To put this in perspective the deeply sensitive, private (let alone potentially humiliating) and personal medical records, data and patient files hacked in this malevolent assault on the people of New Zealand, on over 430 thousand New Zealanders, is at risk of being monetised, exploited and marketed on the dark net.
This Government has let this happen.
If you tuned into Parliament TV for the General Debate in the last month you may have noticed I’ve been talking extensively about my concerns for our digital borders and the impact that cyber-attacks, malware, scams and spam have had on our country already in the past year. We saw the confidence shock in our financial institutions with the incidents at the NZX and the Reserve Bank and we’ve had a near unprecedented incident of a Crown Entity, the Health Research Council of New Zealand, being unable to adhere to their democratically mandated duty to report to the House for their Annual Review scrutiny due to the loss of data that took place.
I’ve begged the Government to uplift cybersecurity spending to proportionately match Australia’s $1.6 billion investment into cyber resilience and give Parliament greater insight into the sector.
They haven’t listened.
In Budget 2021 cyber spending is scattered across portfolios. In particular, Vote Business, Science and Innovation, Vote Internal Affairs and Vote Prime Minister and Cabinet (Some may also sit within the Communications Security & Intelligence (GCSB) Vote but we don’t get to know what publicly). When I looked at these votes and the funding being provided I saw no uplifts and, if anything, a significant decrease in support for Government Digital Services and cyber support. In particular the reduction from $55million to $44 million for Government Digital Services on the basis their ‘payroll’ systems were now sorted was ludicrous particularly when I saw Waikato DHB staff were having strife with their pay. There is no true ‘All of Government’ approach to cybersecurity and that needs to change.
The reason I am so concerned about our cyber education is simple; the Internet is our new border and we are at a growing risk of malicious damage to our nation through online actors then we are now through our airports, particularly during COVID times. Millions upon millions is lost out of our economy due to the damage that one email with a virus can contain and we must do more. The State has to take far more responsibility as our democracy, our health and ultimately, our lives are now at risk. It is not hyperbole to say that when clinics and hospitals across the Central North Island are facing one of the greatest crisis our nation has seen.
At the start of this Parliament I called for a Briefing on Cybersecurity to be instated before our Select Committees. It took several months but it finally began a few days ago, I’m hoping in light of the ongoing situation in the Waikato I will get this Briefing extended to more widely address the ramifications of this assault on the health of the Central North Island and I hope my Committee colleagues will support me on this.
Where is the Ministerial accountability? David Clark, the former Health Minister turned Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications, who was asleep at the wheel during COVID-19 is clearly also asleep at the wheel despite being the Minister in charge of cyber security policy. David Clark confirmed to me in Parliamentary Questions neither he nor his officials, which cover cyber security matters, have given any advice towards Cybersecurity or ICT Operations to the DHBs. Here it is again unedited:
What an outrage. Either something is fundamentally wrong in the answer given or his team hasn’t even sent some posters for the offices of our DHBs . I’ve been asking the questions, about 900 cybersecurity specific ones of the 3572 I’ve lodged as of Tuesday. Apparently I’m the most prolific MP so far of this Parliament and that’s not a good thing; it’s ridiculous I have to ask so many questions when this Government is failing to deliver and now our digital borders are being breached near constantly.
Ultimately, this situation goes beyond the Labour Government not doing their job. It is seeing individual New Zealanders being harmed at their most vulnerable being forced to travel the length of the country for medical treatment and with growing anxiety about what unknown hackers know about their personal lives.
My thoughts and the thoughts of the entire National Caucus are with affected families and members of the Waikato Community. We will hold the Government to account for this unacceptable situation.
Our digital frontier is in jeopardy. It’s not good enough. It’s just not good enough.
MELISSA LEE MP
National Member of Parliament
National Spokesperson for – Broadcasting & Media| Digital Economy and Communications | Ethnic Communities
DPF Comment:
I was listening to a podcast a couple of weeks ago about the hack of the US pipeline by a cyber hacking team. The former global head of security for Facebook was on it. He said that these gangs or teams are incredibly ruthless and what they do is encrypt both the current system and the backups.
I’ve heard that this may have happened with Waikato DHB – that the backups are also compromised, which is why after nine days the system is still down. Also the fact the gang has started releasing private patient info to media shows how complete their attack was.
I understand a DHB staffer opened an attachment which lead to the attack. I would have though most corporate IT systems, especially DHBs, should have cybersecurity software that prevents strange attachments from being opened. There are definite questions to be answered.
Next month National’s Annual Conference will consider constitutional changes, arising from the 2020 review. I won’t be attending in person, but will use the blog to share my views in the proposed changes:
Most will have seen the news that revealed the BBC had used forged documents to not just convince Princesss Diana to do an interview with Martin Bashir, but Bashir spent months poisoning Diana and her brother against the Royal Family with lies about her private secretary, the security services etc.
The most in depth story on what happened is (ironically) at the BBC. Worth a read to see how bad it was, and how unrepentant Bashir is. He should be facing charges for forgery, not just out of a job. But while he is the main culprit, the BBC bosses of the time who covered up with an inadequate inquiry that didn’t even talk to Earl Spencer show the rot went deeper.
The tabloids are rightly pilloried for the phone hacking they did. Arguably what the BBC did was worse. They forged documents and rather than merely report the news, they created it by poisoning Diana against the Royal Family with lies – just so they could get an interview.
This data (from MSD) shows the number of people on the jobseeker (dole) benefit, who have been on a benefit for over 12 months. So this excludes people who have lost their job, gone on the dole for a few months, and then got another job. This is only people who have been there for more than 12 months.
The start shows the peak of just over 80,000 post the GFC. Then from 2010 to 2015 it declined from 80,000 to 65,000.
In 2018 it started increasing again and by March 2020 was already at 84,000. So even before the impact of Covid-19, the numbers under Labour had grown by around 20,000 to exceed the post GFC peak. Since then the numbers keep rising, despite the lockdowns having ended middle of last year. In March 2021 it reached 120,000 – almost double what it was when Labour took office.
Of interest is that overall jobseeker numbers have started to decline. They fell 11,000 in the March 2021 quarter. But it was all with those there short-term. Those under 12 months on the benefit fell 19,000 and those over 12 months rose by 8,000.
The Government of course has just announced an extra $3 billion of spending to increase welfare benefits. Will this reduce or increase the numbers who are on welfare long-term?
Most people want a generous welfare system for those who are temporarily out of work. But I also believe most people don’t want people spending years and years on the unemployment or job seeker benefit, rather than actually getting back into the workforce. And it isn’t as if there is a shortage of jobs out there.
TVNZ reports:
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is cautioning against creating new laws for “individual sets of circumstances”, as a petition calling for harsher “coward punch” laws gains traction.
When asked by reporters this afternoon whether existing laws were sufficient, Ardern spoke about the issue broadly. She said she did not want to “compromise” any case that may come before the courts relating to the death of promising MMA fighter Fau Vake.
Vake’s death was announced yesterday after he was assaulted in Auckland’s CBD last Sunday.
Ardern said the question was whether a separate piece of legislation was needed for particular offending.
“One of the issues is when you create separate pieces of legislation, sometimes you can create unintended consequences,” she said.
“Currently, of course, you are able via a manslaughter charge, for instance, to receive a term of life imprisonment.”
The problem is proving manslaughter beyond reasonable doubt never happens, and is basically never charged.
Last year, former National MP Matt King’s Crimes (Coward Punch Causing Death) Amendment Bill was voted down in Parliament in its first reading.
The bill would have created a new offence for “one punch” assaults. The bill proposed a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment, as an alternative to manslaughter, for those convicted of the offence.
I think this law is needed to protect the weaker in society. Most people couldn’t kill someone with a single punch. Hell I’d be more likely to hurt myself if I punched someone in the head. But a small portion of the make population are strong enough that a single punch from them can kill you.
The law should be there to protect people. Far too many have died or been seriously injured from coward punches.
Newshub reports:
Finance Minister Grant Robertson says despite plans to introduce a levy-funded unemployment insurance scheme, he hasn’t broken Labour’s election promise of no new taxes – yet.
Under the proposal, announced at Thursday’s Budget, if someone is made unemployed they could get 80 percent of their previous wages, rather than the much smaller Jobseeker Benefit.
No funding has been allocated for the ACC-style scheme yet. ACC is funded through levies separate to taxes, and this scheme would be funded the same way, Robertson told Newshub Nation on Saturday.
The ACC employee levy is calculated as a percentage of income, and taken directly out of your pay packet and given to IRD.
It is identical to a tax, except for its name.
The new scheme means every working New Zealander will have a decrease in their after tax wages.
It is clearly a(nother) broken promise.
Stuff reports:
Six people charged by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in relation to election donations made to the Labour Party in 2017 have appeared in court for the first time, where they were granted bail and interim name suppression.
The six individuals were charged earlier this month with two charges each of obtaining by deception at least $34,840 for the political party, on or about March 28, 2017.
None of the accused are sitting MPs or current or former party officials.
I assume name suppression will be lifted in due course. It will be very interesting to see who the defendants are. The SFO statement only rules out narrow categories of people. It does not rule out current of former parliamentary staffers. It does not rule out former MPs. It does not rule out current or former ministerial staffers.
Jude Gibson made an additional suppression order relating to one of the defendants, preventing publication of his current or former occupation.
Interesting.
The Prime Minister has just announced her (effective) appointment of Dame Cynthia Kiro as the 22nd Governor-General of New Zealand and 38th Vice-Regal representative. She will be the first female Māori Governor-General.
Dame Cynthia is currently the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of NZ. She was made a Dame in the last Honours list.
She was Children’s Commissioner from 2003 to 2008. She chaired the Government’s Welfare Expert Advisory Group and was Pro Vice-Chancellor (Maori) at Auckland University.
She was born in Whangarei and raised by her grandparents, who were manual labourers. A great example of New Zealand being a socially mobile country.
Congratulations to Dame Cynthia.
Government departments often set up technical reference groups. I’ve even been on one. They are a good way to get people with significant expertise in an area to contribute. They are very different to other groups such as stakeholder or policy groups.
MBIE is working on a NZ Battery Project to try and find a solution to dry years when we don’t get enough hydropower. It is meant to provide “comprehensive advice on the technical, environmental and commercial feasibility of pumped hydro and other potential energy storage projects”.
MBIE has appointed eight people to the NZ Battery Technical Reference Group. Six are what you would expect:
The last two are very different. The seventh is the lead energy campaigner for Greenpeace. Now if this was a policy group on climate change sure you might have a Greenpeace lobbyist. But this is a technical reference group of experts. That one is highly dubious.
The last one is even more staggering. It is a teenage student climate activist. The TRG terms of reference are quantitative analysis/ policy and economic expertise and energy modelling skills. And they’ve appointed someone whose expertise is arranging school strikes.
Now again on a different group, you might have a teenage climate activist. But this is a technical group working on whether one can do pumped hydro feasibly from a technical, engineering and commercial perspective.
What is worse is these are not Ministerial appointees. MBIE themselves made the appointments. It makes MBIE look, to be blunt, pathetic.
MBIE should be ashamed.
The Foundation for Defence of Democracies notes:
New Zealand’s $36 billion sovereign wealth fund divested $4 million from five Israeli banks last month because of their West Bank operations. This could cause reputational and financial problems for New Zealand and for companies managing its sovereign wealth fund.
Flawed information and analysis spurred the fund’s decision. In a letter explaining the move, the Guardians – the government entity that runs New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund – cites concern about Israel’s plans to annex portions of the West Bank. However, Israel agreed to suspend its annexation plans in September 2020 as part of its peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Subsequently, UAE-based Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank signed a memorandum of understanding with Bank Leumi, one of the Israeli banks subject to divestment.
The letter erroneously describes United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which declared that Israeli settlement activity “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” as “binding.” However, the council passed that resolution under the non-binding Chapter VI.
So the people in charge of $36 billion made two factual errors in their justification for their decision. That is a worry.
Yet even as they condemn Israel, the Guardians invest in one of the world’s leading human rights abusers. The fund holds nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of investments in 625 Chinese companies, including two companies blacklisted by the United States for violating the rights of ethnic minorities. China has detained up to 1 million Uighurs from Xinjiang province, suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and continues to occupy Tibet.
Likewise, while the fund divested from Israeli banks, it invests in companies extracting natural resources from another disputed territory. On March 15, New Zealand’s High Court upheld the sovereign wealth fund’s right to invest in companies operating in Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory occupied by Morocco.
The hypocrisy is huge. If human rights was the issue, they’d pull all 625 investments in China.
I blogged last week on the twists and turns of the Samoan election. At that stage the Supreme Court had ruled there was no additional MP, and the FAST Party had 26 out of 51 seats and looked to be able to form a Government. Parliament was required by the Constitution of Samoa to meet within 45 days of the election, which is today.
After summoning Parliament to meet on Monday, the Head of State suddenly announced he was cancelling his own summoning. Furthermore he wouldn’t give reasons why at this stage, and wouldn’t say for how long.
It is clear the Head of State has gone from being a neutral figure to trying to throw the election to the incumbent Prime Minister. His actions are clearly illegal and basically what we are seeing is an attempt at a non-violent coup.
The Supreme Court has ruled that his actions were (again) illegal and that Parliament should meet on Monday and elect a Government.
The Head of State has left Apia and returned to his home village. It is unclear what else may occur. The worst case is he declares a state of emergency or worse. Luckily Samoa has a very small military so a Fiji type situation is unlikely.
What is disappointing is the Head of State is a former New Zealand police officer. He should know better and be upholding the law, not acting as a proxy for a caretaker PM.
There may be a role for New Zealand to play in this. If the HRPP Party won’t accept they lost the election and tries to continue to govern, then the New Zealand Government should warn that they would be risking all financial aid, and more. We can’t let Samoa go down the path Fiji did.
Thankfully Samoa has a written constitution and a Supreme Court that isn’t partisan. What has happened there shows how power corrupts. HRPP has governed for 40 years and the PM for 22. There is no tradition of peaceful transfer of power. It is a good case for term limits, so people can’t see themselves as in a job for life.
UPDATE: The Speaker has refused to summon Parliament saying he only obeys the Head of State, not the Supreme Court. So the Speaker has effectively also joined the coup.
This makes things even messier. Parliament could meet without the outgoing Speaker and elect a new Speaker and PM. But the HRPP will boycott the session and claim it is illegitimate. You would have two competing Prime Ministers and which one will the Police and Public Service obey?
The Supreme Court could hold people in contempt for ignoring their rulings. But arresting the Head of State or outgoing PM or Speaker could be incendiary – especially if they are in their local village.
It is a shame to see such a great country being torn apart by the refusal of one man to accept he lost an election.
Two weeks back I wrote a piece in support of Mike King and his organisation’s Gumboot Friday. In the comments section someone asked what I considered the factors to be with the apparent worsening of mental health for children and young people; for example evidenced by calls to Life Line.
My relevant background here is a few tertiary qualifications that shed some light, being in education as a teacher/Principal since 1991, bringing-up three children, observing many families and constantly researching how to improve education outcomes for children in such a way that they feel aspirational about their future.
Clearly this is a huge topic and container loads of books get written about it. Last week I wrote a post on what I consider to be some of the Meta-Impacts (causes) on poor mental health for young people. The aim of these posts is not to be THE expert – but more as lead-ins to get the views of people who might comment and have insights. This post is on the impacts of the child’s direct environment. A third post will look at improving things and with urgency.
Micro Causes:
Some children appear to be almost naturally pre-disposed to anxiety and vulnerable to any negativity. Being anxious is a tendency for them and they need loads of nurture to build resilience. They don’t intend it and “walk it off” is not the pathway to content for them. In our society – including schools – there is very little effective resourcing for these young people. We have 10,000 students not even enrolled in any school and there are children who are school averse through being too scared to go.
I believe that we have many parents in New Zealand who are poorly equipped for the hardest task in the world. That might be through their past, their age, lack of a partner and/or other forms of support (e.g. extended families). I often hear people talk about remarkably successful and creative adults who grew up in appalling situations (my brilliant, late, father-in-law spent nearly six years as a child in Holland under Nazi rule). My impression is that these people are an exception rather than the rule. I also hear people say – “well they should not have had a child(ren) if they are not up to the job.” That ignores the current children in very difficult circumstances. Wealth and good parenting also do not go hand in hand. We may well be in a parenting crisis. How many families eat together 5 – 7 times a week? How many parents read to their children every night? How many parents have superbly structured rules around screen-time and web access? As a society we seemed to think that since we stopped smacking we have prevented neglect, abuse and indifference.
Much of our schooling is appalling. Underqualified teachers. Very poor practices. Teachers who publicly complain about their jobs. A huge lack of aspiration that does not support the development of self-esteem at all. Self esteem and reliance is earnt through achievement.
Peer negativity and bullying significantly impact many children and teens. The PISA studies have NZ children as the most bullied in the OECD. We seem somewhat wired to seek acceptance – when that leads to children and teens seeking it through alcohol, smoking, and delinquent behaviour to impress others it is almost always unlikely to end well. Many children simply feel desperately lonely.
The impact of internet content and social media is massive – particularly when parents choose to neglect their protective role through ignorance, or laziness. Many children become so wound up (addicted?) to their phones and social media that they emotionally black-mail parents to let them continue to have unfettered access. Parents choose to be powerless – but there is also less help from schools, etc, that there should be. One NZ couple if doing incredible work in this area and produced this world class documentary. I doubt that any sane human being can watch that documentary and not consider that we have a MASSIVE problem with pornography and social media that will impact this generation to the extent that many will not be able to have loving, balanced, respectful and fulfilling relationships.
Very much love to know your thoughts.
More next week. Please support Gumboot Friday on the 28th: www.iamhope.org.nz/