Posts by Hilary Stace
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I thought this little summary might be useful for someone. I've written about some of it before but here is my overview in one place.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to linger,
To be fair there has been a lot of opposition this term, but much of it happens in Parliament and not many people are watching.
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Hard News: On benefit fraud, in reply to peter mclennan,
It’s quite exciting how popular the idea of a UBI has become even in the last year. Of course a major problem is how to do top ups for those who need a bit more than the basic UBI. I wrote about the UBI after Guy Standing visited last year. I suggested then – and still believe – that there is a great deal of expertise out there to be harnessed from those who have navigated the welfare system. Collectively we could sort out the issues around fair top ups to a UBI.
https://publicaddress.net/access/the-universal-basic-income-and-its-implications/
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Access: The Family Carers case – here we…, in reply to linger,
It was a weird meeting because none of the speakers were the party spokespeople and two of them, Greg O'Connor (Labour) and Teall (Greens). aren't even MPs so had not been at any caucus discussions about the topic. So they had to find the last minute policy answers from papers they had been given that afternoon when both their party spokespeople were stuck at airports. They both did pretty well considering. Greg has an adult son with high needs and he has had a lot of experience with services for those with high and complex needs. Interestingly none of the party spokespeople talked much about rights which is strange as it was organised by DPA, a rights-based disabled people's organisation.
Nicky Wagner had told the organisers a while ago that she had a previous engagement and couldn't be there but I'm not quite sure why the MP for Wairarapa came long. The closest Nat MP to Wellington? He had sat on the select committee which had recently looked at accessible transport so maybe that was his expertise.
Ria Bond from NZ First was the best prepared. She has been taking over from Barbara Stewart who is retiring so had been learning about disability issues. Tracy Martin had just the day before put out their inclusive education policy. Ria Bond is a rare bright light in the NZ First party
There is another DPA meeting next month in Christchurch and I hope that they send along their actual spokespeople this time.
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I heard recently that about half of all beneficiaries are paying back loans to Work and Income. So they are getting even less that they should be. To survive I suspect there is quite a bit of the black economy going on.
On the other hand it is actually really hard to be totally honest with W and I. If you earn a little here and there and try to declare it each time they make it really really hard.
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Did anyone mention Helen Kelly?
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Access: Privacy and the right to consent…, in reply to Sacha,
There is no evidence that that approach will provide that evidence. He's really driven by the ideology, though. I still say it is just modern eugenics. It's all about othering, surveillance and control.
There is a real difference this election between the targeting ideology of social investment and the social democratic approach of universalism.
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Hard News: How journalism looks now, in reply to David Cohen,
Thanks for that David. That comment annoyed me too.
There is also some evidence that diagnoses are now levelling out as standardised diagnostic tools catch up with the child population. No epidemic after all.
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Hard News: Drug policy: women lead the way, in reply to Russell Brown,
Consenting adults - I doubt that. At least not in the sense we use informed consent these days. I've heard they were also used on young disabled people in some institutions. There was probably an unauthorised epilepsy drug trial on teenage residents of a girls home in the late 1960s.
But institutionalised disabled children were routinely used for testing polio vaccines and other such in the US. And the ongoing history of anti-psychotic testing in the US is horrific as revealed by bioethicists like Carl Elliott.
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You could walk outside the building on Thursday at 1 pm to support the event highlighting the need for an inquiry into historical abuse which is part of the #neveragain campaign. There is also a drug story there too. There are rumours that institutionalised people (including young people) became unwitting participants in drug trials including for epilepsy, anti-psychotics and even LSD.