Posts by Sacha
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
And if PAS is or would like to be a public square, then “don’t be a dick” doesn’t work at all, and much more thought needs to go into the kind of speech that is promoted and the kind of speech that is tolerated.
The governance requirements of a fully civic space are greater, yes. However, well-resourced public institutions like parliament and local councils don't seem to be feeling much pressure to reflect the interests of all citizens, let alone listen to their voices.
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Regardless of who they are, the left shouldn't have any trouble differentiating itself from Bill English's understanding of what his govt's new poverty committee is for.
It will be concerned with getting the best results from the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on social service delivery, he says.
...The poverty committee would provide oversight for welfare and housing reforms and work in the youth justice sector which had built up momentum.
It would provide oversight for developments in whanau ora and for a grassroots social sector trial taking place in six centres - Kawerau, Tokoroa, Te Kuiti, Taumarunui, Levin, and Gore - which the Government quietly began in August without any formal statement by a minister.
The trials under the management of a non-government organisation or individual manager will run for two years and are designed to try to find out what works and what doesn't in terms of interventions to help young people in truancy, unemployment, getting off drugs or whatever their problem is.
...Asked what measure the committee would adopt for poverty, Mr English said measuring poverty was not a big issue.
So, overseeing trials of privatising social service delivery then - begun before the election campaign but strangely not mentioned during it. And what about those NGOs who do so much of the frontline work?
"They are not driven by real results, they are driven by caring and supporting and helping."
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Jeremy Eade,
I was under the illusion they were the same word.
Won't get into it now, but culturally they bring different baggage. And StatsNZ replacing one with the other on official forms was a political reflection of that.
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Legal Beagle: Paula's Peril; or The…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
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Bennett wins back Waitakere in judicial recount, Sepuloni down the road.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Jeremy Eade,
John Key is the dream Pakeha.
He may be the dream "New Zealand European" but I doubt he's earned the other label.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2011 -- The Vote!, in reply to James Butler,
So is it time to stop with the eye-rolling yet?
I was serious in admiring Heather's not managing to have encountered the word. She knows I'd never roll my eyes at her. Well, not about that sort of thing..
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to DCBCauchi,
No-one should be made to feel bad for circumstances out of their control, but by the same token privilege (especially economic privilege) comes at other people’s expense.
(Note that this is not directed at any particular individual or group of individuals:) Not acknowledging that expense while insisting on your entitlement to that privilege is not very nice. Those who have to pay the price resent it.
Agreed, though the issue is often not seeing our advantages rather than 'insisting' on them.
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2011 -- The Vote!, in reply to Isaac Freeman,
I've always thought that munted differs from broken not so much in the suddenness as in the pointlessness of repair.
+1
utterly rooted, if you will
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Hard News: Word of the Year 2011 -- The Vote!, in reply to Heather Gaye,
hand on heart, I didn’t encounter it
quite an achievement :)