Posts by Hilary Stace
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Access: Patients X, Y and Z, in reply to Sacha,
Yes they have committed to doing both. Tracey Martin was on the Nation in the weekend talking about the historic abuse inquiry. The main problem as far as I am concerned is getting the terms of reference wide enough to include everyone affected and all their concerns.
There is a commitment to getting both inquiries started in the 100 days which goes to the 3 Feb. It seems like the historic abuse one needs to be bigger and fuller, while most of the issues are already known for the mental health inquiry so it can be smaller and quicker and lead to some practical actions to improve things early next year.
So it seems like Tracey Martin is in charge of the historic abuse inquiry and David Clark appears to be scoping the mental health one. There are some complex processes to sort out but I am hopeful we will see action on both by February.
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Interesting perspectives on drug policies from his previous life in the police including undercover from our new MP for Ohariu in his maiden speech.
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Legal Beagle: Despite Simon Bridges'…, in reply to Sacha,
The two Labour MPs and Nat David Carter are at the Commonwealth Parliament Conference and David Parker and Winston at APEC. So all legitimately away on Parliamentary business. The government probably thought the convention that this is accepted in votes would be respected by the Opposition. But maybe because they weren't actually signed up yet made a difference. Or maybe the Nats are just being sore losers.
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The other side of the issue is that National gets to chair or deputy chair many of the committees (the last Opposition only had one chair) and that many of the committees have 50/50 membership so not the automatic Government majority the last Parliament had. (Which incidentally meant that Labour, Greens and NZ First learned to work well together as in the Education Select Committee dyslexia and autism inquiry.)
As someone who regularly goes to select committees I have noticed that there are often substitute MPs for the named members of the Committee. So surely it is good to have a few spares?
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Over a year later we have the Judge's decision. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/97919308/disabled-men-received-dedicated-and-compassionate-care-judge-says
It am very angry and upset about it. These men were often treated as less than human for years by an uncaring system in which they were incarcerated. They experienced some of the worst aspects of institutionalisation. But all fine according to the Judge. They were 'dangerous' and therefore had no rights and were fortunate to have such kind and caring staff looking after them.
It is sad that Colin Burgering, who championed the rights of these men and others, died last year so can no longer fight for them. Tony Ellis argued the case with minimal resources against the full resources of the state. He could now take it to the United Nations under the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - but who would fund that?
This is why an inquiry into our mental health system and a separate inquiry into historic abuse, are so urgent. These men - and all the others - need to be supported to tell their own stories. This needs to be done in a respectful and inclusive way. In an adversarial environment they will never win.
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I just went to a seminar at Victoria University in which the speakers Jonathan Boston and Judy Lawrence considered how to legislate and pay for the amelioration of climate change. It is expensive to rehouse people and build new infrastructure. Do we want an EQC or ACC model or something else? Here is their paper.
http://igps.victoria.ac.nz/publications/WP/WP17-05-Climate-change-adaptation.pdf -
Legal Beagle: Election 2017: the Special…, in reply to Stephen R,
The Labour candidate and new MP is Paul Eagle who was the deputy mayor. He was a very popular Labour city councillor. But Annette King did work hard at securing the electorate as a Labour one. As has Grant Robertson in Wellington Central who won the party vote for the first time in several years.
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Legal Beagle: Election 2017: the Special…, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Not all historical wrongs. He has been one of strongest forces against inquiry into historic abuse of children in state care.
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Hard News: Media Take: The selling of…, in reply to Katharine Moody,
The swing towards Labour was one of the biggest in NZ political history - 14% in some electorates - but we didn't hear much about that from the analysts because they didn't win.
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I have never seen so much blatant lying in a New Zealand election. Nor such lack of accountability for the liars. So the message is that lying and deceit wins. This behaviour also turns tentative or new voters off participation in the election as it reinforces stereotypes of politicians as liars. Nicky Hager has written about this two track dirty politics trick to undermine democracy. NZ just fell for it.