You can, however, investigate them and charge them with 'fraud' for doing what a bureaucrat/civil servant suggested in order to access much needed funding for disability suports.

Or, you can, after letters and a phone call,…

No they are not. Well, not me.

I do not lie. I do not intentionally mislead. I do, and have not, compromised my sense of honour( archaic notion, I know) for the sake of a large number of dollars dropping into my…

Actually, they are. You might let a little more light into the argument if you stopped demonising people and thought about the fact that most people join the public service because they want to make the country run, not because…

The only reason for this latest 'loan' is to be able to claim there's a Budget "surplus" this year.

The other one's actually a loan. Unlike how Wellington paid for their equivalent new trains.

Nope. It's all for roads. The loan for the new trains was already handled in, IIRC, the 2010 budget, and that one's a loan to Auckland Transport which will end up as the owner of the…

I'm not at all sure I understand how social change and politics works. I've seen…

Yes,…

And of course those bureaucrats were being honest? Yeah, right.

On the issue of paying family carers...Tony Ryall was repeatedly spouting the same rhetoric and profferring the identical flawed data that was presented to the HRRT by Crown Law on behalf…

Having had conversations with…

You seem to mean MoH-funded personal support services? Most disabled people never need to use those, though I appreciate how crucial and poorly-designed the current system for them is.The practicalities of disability though are broader, hence having to look in many places in the Budget to find…

http://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/disability-services/disability-sector-strategic-reference-group

Would be a start. All the usual notables here...most importantly Toni Atkinson – DSS Group Manager, Ministry of Health (MOH)
Jill Lane – Director National Services Purchasing, MOH
Barbara Crawford – Manager Strategy & Contracting Support, DSS, MOH
Kathy Brightwell, Manager DSS Policy, Ministry of Health.

An…

how? to whom?

Agreed. The right to choose the person paid to provide care allocated after an assessment was recognised by the Tribunal and the two Courts.

The contest for control, power if you will, over the "resources" was won, not by…

– New operating funding of $6 million over four years to provide vocational support services to school leavers with disabilities who are entering the Very High Needs Scheme.

-…

Disabled people deserve competent action. Flinging around rhetoric about 'rights' only gets us so far – and I'd say a decade in the courts should give a solid…

As soon as one begins to casually use expressions such as "working the system...", the battle to claim rights that give equality and equity to…

.....and a centrish government will look like what?

Politics MUST be removed from the provision of required disability supports.

Disability Support Services are an ongoing need...a right, in fact.…

True, but I think the next leftish govt will look quite different to that one. As will the next rightish govt.

I'd be lobbying Winston and the Greens, as well as applying some pressure to Labour. If that were my day job.

The public broadcasting budget shrank overall because the digital transition funding ended. NZ On Air got an additional…

Hmmmm.....

This issue went to the Human Rights Commission when the Red Flag flew o'er the Beehive. Could have been sorted then if it there was the will. There wasn't. Labour cried "foul!" a year ago when the PHDAct…

That and many other things. The simplest answer to many of them is change the government.

Especially this one:

http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/onpoint-what-andrew-geddis-said-but-shorter/?i=225#replies

Anyone still give a shit about this?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1405/S00092/extra-funding-for-disability-support-services-in-budget.htm

So happy that disability support services are down for an extra $112.1 million they are "celebrating". Hopefully there will be a lot less of this;

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/canterbury/8712453/Abuse-claims-at-seriously-dysfunctional-care-home

from this particular MOH:DSS Contracted Provider.

“We estimate that to avoid cuts in services or increased user charges, the Health Vote would need to increase by at least $499 million just to keep pace with population growth, ageing, and increases in costs,” says CTU economist…

Thought about listing my…

Sounds like Prostetnic Vogon Joyce wants to do a Robert Moses,…

But the entities don't exist, that's my point, not the change in budget amounts. Seems to me that the government doesn't want to admit just how big MoBIE has got.

No. If there's no further data in the description then there's no further data. There might be…

Yes and no.. as you can see from this crazy chart projected health spending doesn't really *ever* match with actual health spending. It's pretty much just the baseline, with the expectation that more money will be spent on it.

So…

totally

Please be more specific. Voters need to hear it.

I'm not sure whether NZTA purports to be an independent body whose debt is not guaranteed by the state?

In any case, the government is on shaky ground in this area.…

This opines the authentic self-satisfied liberal middle class.

Nothing for the poor. Not a cent for the bottom.

Still, I guess we got gay marriage.

Francis Fukuyama was right. The neo-libs…

Aha! You can teach an old b^#ch new tricks! Thank you Sacha.

Anyway, the taking "ages" bit I get, but I also do a fair amount of riffling myself.. Quite enjoy the pastime.…

Note that if you highlight text in a comment before you click on Reply it automagically gets pasted in as an indented quote. Handy.

I will await such an analysis with bated breath.

Although, since the Government is funding DPA NZ to the tune of $615,837....

http://www.register.charities.govt.nz/CharitiesRegister/PublicAnnualReturn?nocId=a9b164fe-cc62-e311-8f2f-00155d0d1916&charityRef=DIS00007&accountId=eb40962d-ed89-dc11-98a0-0015c5f3da29&searchId=2d51ec04-e061-4332-b5c7-3da29a6cfe18&nocRef=DIS00007AR007

compared to $11,000…

That must represent some internal transfer of functions?

We need to see all the other amounts spread across government, not just the MoH-funded support services. It all adds up to about $3b.

I imagine one of the disability organisations will analyse that – perhaps DPA now that they have a really…

MoBIE 2.3B in 2015 (down 16.7% 2014-2015)
DoL 1.1B (down 10.1% 2014-2015)
MED 254M (down 30.7% 2014-2015)
MSI 113.4M (down 0.3% 2014-2015)
DBH $74.9M (down 48.1% 2014-2015)

All as separate line items, yet the later 4 were subsumed into the former…

Totally. Great policy.

For Education, there is a nominal increase over those years from $10.12 billion in 2014/15 to $10.15 billion, but in real terms that is a 5.5 percent cut.

"In Health spending, the cuts over the three years amounts to…

Seems about right. NZTA is only too willing to bend…

This will cost only what it costs to serve the loan, but I'm not clear on how NZTA pays it back. Is it fair or not to say that the $375m loan…

We must be strong.
For if we are weak, we are not strong.
And if we are not strong, we are weak.
So we must be strong.
....

To be fair Keith, and probably to our equal surprise, the first question to Bill English in the lockup wasn't about tax cuts. (Brooke Sabin asked a number…

link to PHDAct amendment

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2013/0118/latest/whole.html

and the RIS •http://www.health.govt.nz/familycarersris

Interestingly there's a big increase ($180m) for Defence. New helicopters and frigate upgrades, mostly. Which, you know, might be justifiable – there are arguments for…

Instead of merely removing the prohibition against the payment of
family members providing care for those eligible for Home And
Community Support Services via MOH: Disability Support Services, the…

Reasons for Change in Appropriation The decrease of $1.936 million is due to the expected timing of expenditure under the Problem Gambling 3-Year Services Plan and a one-off funding transfer, which increased the 2013/14 appropriation by $1.730 million. Current and past policy initiatives are…

And for reasons I…