Posts by Rosemary McDonald
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Marc C,
Most people only think about matters affecting them personally directly, and otherwise form rather superficial views on other matters the media report on
I understand that you were not trying to guilt trip me....and besides...even if you were...I'm a tough old bitch...
Disability and carer issues....yes, that would be my focus.
Both ACC and MOH disabled have received a hammering from National....and the document I posted before( https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/hcss-implementation-guide-mar09.pdf) was produced under a Labour administration.
Read the doc carefully.
Between the lines, it had an agenda to increase the amount of unpaid care that families of ACC clients were expected to provide. Natural Support.
ACC claimants are entitled to funded care. After the appropriate assessments.
ACC claimants are entitled to have family as their paid carers.Under the original Public Health and Disability Act, MOH;DSS clients were entitled to funded care after the appropriate assessments.
MOH:DSS had a POLICY of not allowing clients to have a family member as their paid carer.This POLICY was found (after much exhaustive and dehumanising legal argument) to be discriminatory under the NZ Bill of Rights Act.
The government responded by amending the Public Health and Disability Act to make the discriminatory POLICY law, AND, preventing those of us who have legitimate claims for being discriminated against under the original Act from seeking legal redress.
Don't panic NZ...the actual number of those affected is nowhere near what the Government claimed.
Justified outrage from all quarters.
Complaints to the United Nations.
But no mention of it in ANY written policy statements from the two major opposition parties.
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Kumara Republic,
One of the major reasons I started voting for the Greens in 2011, even though I don’t agree with all of their policies, was to ‘keep Labour honest’.
I'm leaning that way too....but,
and sorry to be single issue obsessed,
the Greens have not (as yet) even mentioned this particulary shitty piece of "we hate cripples and their families" legislation in the Disability section of their policy statement.
-
Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Deborah,
Idiots and wind, every time. No need to read anything significant into it, other than hoons will be hoons.
Ah!!!! Finally!!!
The voice of reason.
Vote Deborah.
-
Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Bart Janssen,
One day we will be allowed to vote on a list of people we DON’T want in parliament, no matter how many other people like them, once enough people say “sod off”, they are gone*.
Now THIS gets my vote!
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Marc C,
But I think they have at least stated they will bring back more justice and fairness in the way ACC claimants will be treated.
Well, whoop de bleeding pooh!
Marc, I respect the fact that you are widely read and well informed....but your particular area of interest is ACC...and I am thinking perhaps more the ACC claimants on the fringes of entitlement.
The appropriate comparison for those disabled with high, very high and complex care needs under MOH;DSS (the group Atkinson was all about) would be those ACC claimants that come under the National Serious Injury Service.
Yes, National did an ACC slash and burn...and in some areas this was much needed, but those under the NSIS were largely protected. Especially the long term claimants. I do know that some high spinal cord injured struggled to get the 24/7 care that their longer injured cousins enjoy, but what the squadron of lawyers happy to take on ACC havn't sorted... Labour will. There is also the fact that ACC has an embarrasing surfeit of riches at the moment (perhaps they can payback the 1.2 billion extra that National gave them?).
Any way....back to Atkinson and the National Serious Injury Service clients.
Mentioned in the HRRT decision was the August 2008 Home And Community Support Services Implementation guide...a joint ACC/MOH project to have one service specification for two groups of disabled with similar needs. The two groups were clients of MOH;DSS and ACC National Serious Injury Service.
https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/hcss-implementation-guide-mar09.pdf
The only difference twixt the two groups of similar needs when it came to providing care to meet their core needs (to keep them alive and healthy, only) was that ACC clients have the right to choose a family member as their paid carer.
Simply removing the prohibition against paying family carers of MOH DSS clients would have given one very significant point of parity with ACC clients.
And guess what?
While my disinclination to vote is being treated like an act of betrayal, dishonouring the sufragettes, apathetic and not bothered....
Not one ACC client who enjoys the right and the benefit of having a family member as their paid carer went to the media during the slight furore and said....".what's the problem? It works for me." Strange, since the Tribunal heard the 52% of care for ACC clients is provided by paid family. That's about 2000 people.
Not one of the AT LEAST 273 MOH;DSS clients who were being cared for by paid family...in breach of the Policy, came forward to support their unpaid cousins.
So please, folk, don't give me the whole "it's your duty to vote" guilt trip.
Peter and I have gone more than a few thousand miles participating in the whole "family carers" debacle. We have attended court hearings and consultation meetings and been trespassed of the grounds of parliament for handing out flyers. We have researched and read and made phonecalls to so called 'advocacy groups' and were disappointed but not really surprised when the govt. did what they did last May. In fact, we wrote about something similar back in 2009.
What went wrong?
No solidarity. No cohesion. So called advocates and representatives of disabled and family carers too busy snuffling in the trough to show real leadership and actually listen to those disabled and family carers affected by that policy.
Labour held non ACC disabled in as much disdain as National do.
Ruth Dyson might be supprotive now....but why did she kick the claimants to touch when she was Minister?
No, politics is a dirty, smelly business, with no room for princpals or ethics.
And we are as flies to wanton boys...
Some aspects of national administration should be above politics, such as the right of a nations most vulnerable citizens to the care they need.
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Russell Brown,
Which will never happen, and frankly I don’t think it should – legislative stunts under urgency generally aren’t a great idea:
Repealing the amendments made to the Public Health and Disability Act on the 17th May 2013 will restore the previous status quo.
Instantly.
Simply removing the few lines in MOH:DSS documents that were the reason for the Atkinson and Others v. MOH case would have been all that was needed to stop the discriminatory practise.
This is actually a very simple issue.
The rights and wrongs have been exhaustively addressed through all three hearings...from a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act perspective.Perhaps I am being "unrealistic"...add that to "lazy", " apathetic", "foolish".
Maybe I should take a different tack with Labour and the Greens on this.
Instead of asking "Will you.....?" I might ask "Why wouldn't you.....?"
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to RaggedJoe,
You can use it positively to support or negatively to demonstrate disagreement, but please use the opportunity.
Or you can choose not to vote.
This in itself is exercising your democratic right.
It is saying..."None of these candidates/political parties is worth voting for".
It always amuses me when those of us who don't vote are accused of being "apathetic", "lazy" or "foolish".
In many cases it is a well considered stance...if you like...a political statement.
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Russell Brown,
Or to put it another way, what do you actually have to lose?
Integrity and principals, morals and ethics.
Quite a bit of talk here about getting rid of JK...I'm with y'all there...Off with his head!
BUT...a pity that the precious vote is being used AGAINST something or someone....rather than FOR....as it ought to be.
Please...who do I vote for?
I have MY bottom line policy issue....
I will vote for the party that states unequivocally that it WILL repeal the PHDAct(2) ammendment AND reveal the redacted sections of the Regulatory Impact Statement. Within the first month of claiming a majority.
Tempus is fugiting, and I have not yet seen ANY concrete policy statement on this.
I would be stupid not to recognise that there will be one of two outcomes when you all go and do your thing in September.
The Nats will get back in. And may God have mercy on our souls.
There will be a tentative Labour/Green coalition.....with other minor parties on the periphery.
The latter outcome demands that there is a clear mandate....which could very well be undermined by He Who Must Not Be Identified By His Country Of Origin and His Kiwi Friends.
Let the Games commence.
-
Speaker: Why you should vote, in reply to Angela Hart,
I agree that it is foolish not to vote.
Happy at the present point in time to languish in the realm of the foolish, Angela.
So far, neither Labour nor the Greens have stated specifically that they will make repealing that shitty piece of legislation a priority....believe me I have scoured both parties' Policy statements,
AND spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with each's head office asking more or less..."what's the story ?"
So far I have a message via Mojo that they will aim to repeal the PHDAct(2)...I replied that I was looking forward to actually reading that in their policy statement.
Methinks there is a little bet hedging going on here.
Jesus wept....these politicians a wriggly arsed bunch.
I apologise for banging on about this one particular issue....but it really does provide us all with a benchmark when it comes to deciding on who to vote for, or if one votes at all.
This issue has been meandering its way through nearly fourteen years of discussion, mediation, tribunal and court hearings, consultation and submissions and yet more discussion.
Culminating in the shitty broadside from the Nats and their supporters...and the predictable howls of protest from the opposition benches.
Yet Labour could have addressed the discrimination before the issue was heard at the Human Rights Review Tribunal in 2008.
It didn't.
Why not?
And on an issue that even some deeply blue National supporters found repugnant, one would have thought that making clear and unambiguous policy statements on this issue would have made sound political sense for both Labour and the Greens.
Oh, dear!
Methinks, perhaps, that I overthink the whole politics thing.
Demand too much from those who clamour for my precious vote.
-
Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Why don’t you have a vote?
Hilary...I am a dyed in the wool skeptic cynic rebel from way back.
Yes...a person's vote is a precious thing. Too precious IMHO, to waste on the pathetic candidates available...especially in our electorate...(Shane Arden's seat...when he's not on his tractor.).
There have only ever been two politicians who I would consider to be worthy of voting for...those with intelligence AND integrity, commitment and humility.
Marylin Waring....not standing...pity.
Catherine Delahunty...not in my electorate.
The PHDAct(2) amendment, which removes my right to take an issue of incredible importance and impact on my family's life to the judiciary for review places me in the position of outcast.
Less than the lowest scrotes in society...child rapists and murdrers have more rights than me....and others in my position.
Until this is rectified...and yes you're right...no specific mention of repealing PHDAct(2) from ANY party, no promise to reveal the redacted sections of the Regulatory Impact Statement, fromrom ANY of them....I will not be voting.
I might have if any one party had made rectifying that travesty a priority.