Island Life: Good on ya, Paula
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PM announces House of Lords. Comments worth a look too.
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Well, now we know where the money saved by ditching TIA payments for unworthy solo mothers is going - Key's announced $150 million for free youth vocational training at polys, private trainers - and, *of course* six week taster stints in the army.
Yep, bugger the mothers. Unpaid, 24 hour on-call fools, wearing themselves out making sure everyone in the family is looked after so everyone can be productive. Just as well we don't recognise unpaid labour in our GDP stats, might make women look ultra-productive or something.
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Dreams of Umpire...going, going... gong!
Er, Hunt was Speaker of the House; in the UK, that's pretty much an automatic peerage
Seems to be the case here, too...
...past Speakers are a BeKnighted lot!
aside from Margaret Wilson who got the new Knight-Lite DCNZM - ain't nothin' like a Dame! - and has nobly stuck with it!
..and of course dear Jonathan's elevation beyond the rank of taxis to ONZThe Myths of Sir Lockwood
(from the 2035 edition of Berks Peerage)A well known after-DNA speaker, Alexander Lockwood Smith and his bride Alexandra (known affectionately as the "Double-Alex") made his mark by seemingly speeding up parliamentary procedure - also referred to as the "slaying
of the drag-on".
The untimely death of his protege Michael Jackson began his "Annus horribilis", followed in August by the storming and month-long occupation of parliament by irate beneficiaries which knocked his confidence considerably - His birthday falling on a Black Friday that year did not help either - then the rapid dissolution of the United States and and Rise of Emperor Limbaugh threw the world into a tailspin - by this time Sir Lockwood (also known in some circles as the Knight of the Long Turds) was just going through the motions...
National's crushing defeat by the reformationist New Values Party (in a coalition with the Pate Party's Tiberius Goose) in 2011, heralded a brief golden age in New Zealand - unfortunately overshadowed by the return of Planet Nbiru in early 2012 and the massive paradigm change that ensued.
The Duchy of Rodney-beyond-the-super-city-walls (where Sir Lockwood retreated to, post Parliament) was obliterated in an asteroid strike on his birthday in November 2013.yrs scatter-logically
Enki Thum
Latterly of Uruk -
PM announces House of Lords. Comments worth a look too.
Hum... won't hold my breath waiting for Phil Twyford to get tapped on the shoulder for services to comedy...
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Hard to argue with that.
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Regarding Jonathan Hunt while having a quite awful record of entitlementitis his work on opening the closed book on adoption gives him the really big tick and a tap on the shoulder in my book and quite a few oother people too...especially the ones who were involved
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Sorry, I've been out of the loop - how much money did they make from being on David Benson Pope?
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I recommend Tapu Misa's column today about Bennett and the DPB.
Bennett didn't connect with her Maori side till university. She was the rebellious but indulged only daughter of a comfortable "middle New Zealand" family (dad had owned his own business, mum was a librarian). She didn't lack self-belief; her family wasn't without resources. So being a single mum at 17 was never likely to derail her for long.
But if she had help from her parents, she doesn't mention it. Yes, there were lucky breaks, supportive friends and flexible employers, and quite a bit of public money (how much is no one's business, apparently), including a handy little thing called the Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) which allowed her to back herself into a university degree. But basically, it was all down to individual pluckiness. Or so the story goes.
So you can imagine how annoying it must have been to have a couple of DPB mothers complaining that their dreams of being just like Paula had been squashed by the cuts to the TIA.
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It wasn't a fair fight. Bennett's so-called balancing information didn't give the full story, either.
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Yes, anyone could have found out that the DPB payment for a parent with two or more children is $272.70, but the amount each parent gets on top of that varies according to her circumstances - and those circumstances can be hugely complicated as well as intensely private. -
The story does not mention anything about tennis balls.
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Bennett didn't connect with her Maori side till university. She was the rebellious but indulged only daughter of a comfortable "middle New Zealand" family (dad had owned his own business, mum was a librarian). She didn't lack self-belief; her family wasn't without resources. So being a single mum at 17 was never likely to derail her for long.
So, STFU you class and race traitor?
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So, STFU you class and race traitor?
Are we reading different articles?
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Are we reading different articles?
Could you tell me WTF Bennett's supposed racial authenticity (as determined by the melanin and estrogen-light columns of the Herald) have to do with anything? And if Ms. Misa thinks nice 'middle-class' homes are automatically relaxed with teen pregnancy, I've got a bridge to sell her.
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I didn't see that the sentence "Bennett didn't connect with her Maori side till university." needed to be in there.
She might not have connected with her Maori side until then but the statements in:
She'd been determined to reject that "victim stuff", to not be that "poor, uneducated Maori solo mum".
are about her identity, and I'm not sure if Tapu should be saying she wasn't Maori enough for her determination not to be that stereotype to be invalid.
It also only lives in those two sentences. It's not picked up at all in the story so I fail to see why it's there.
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Yes, the way Misa has included the Maori identity stuff seems debatable - hardly unusual for someone of Bennett's generation to only get into that later in life. I only included that sentence because it had her name in it.
Misa's broader point stands - that Bennett has traded on a carefully crafted story about being a battler from humble beginnings when that's simply not true. Much like John Key whose wider family had wealthy origins (and the associated social capital) before the well-publicised state house phase of his own life which I don't doubt was tough.
Those who have acclaimed Bennett for her courageous actions in publishing beneficiaries' incomes without consent to introduce "balance" into the debate about her cutting of the TIA can hardly complain when someone else does the same with public details about the Minister's life.
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Oh look another thread about this hath sprung up while I were away.
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yes, Sacha - and look who has the biggest sense of entitlement - MPs. It's okay for them to use the system to full advantage for themselves, somehow they are owed such largesse. Somehow they deserve it because they are just so fantastic. Outrage is reserved for mothers who have the temerity not to have husbands.
We are slipping back into the Dark Ages.
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