Degenerative ACC

A post from Tumeke! by Bomber Bradbury

Why does this Government want to destroy ACC? National have been planning to privatize ACC all along, Merrill Lynch told the Australian Insurance Shark Industry that National’s privatization of ACC would be a $200 million bonanza for them in July of 2008, that was months before ‘Cullen’s hole’ was used as the excuse to privatize. The Pricewaterhouse Coopers report points out our ACC system works better than many other examples around the world.
From the beginning National have lied about their true intentions on ACC, the second Nick got the portfolio he was gagging ACC from talking at the select committee meeting which was trying to ascertain the truth of his claims that ACC was in the crises he painted and now National have decided to abuse sexual abuse survivors by forcing them to say they are mental before they can get any counseling. This is ideology before people and it’s appalling.

Click here to read more.

National fail women

A blog post from Tumeke! by Bomber Bradbury

Government failing women - Labour
The National Government is failing women, Labour MP Sue Moroney says.
The biennial New Zealand Census of Women's Participation 2010, published today, tracks progress, or the lack of it, for women across the corporate and private sectors at governance and management levels.
It says women comprise 32 percent of MPs, 30 percent of Cabinet, 72 percent of teachers and 47 percent of school principals.
There are only three female editors out of the 26 daily newspapers, while 26 percent of the country's judges are women, as are 29 percent of the New Zealand police force.
Although 59 percent of the workers in public service are women, only six out of 34 public service departments have a woman chief executive.
The report identifies a 15.4 percent gender pay gap in the public service, which is greater than the total labour force gender pay gap of 13 per cent.
Equal Opportunities Commissioner Judy McGregor said in some areas women's participation had stalled and was sliding backwards.

It's not just in these stats that we see the National fail women, we see it in their destructive attitudes towards child care and we see it in their forcing Solo Mothers back to work based on flawed voodoo math from the Ideologically stacked Welfare Razor Gang.
The vast majority of NZers stay on welfare for a year, the vast minority stay on the dole for a decade, yet the ideologically stacked Welfare Razor Gang arrived at the $50 billion figure by claiming that if every person on welfare right now stayed on Welfare for their entire lives, as in no one got a job for the rest of their life, THEN and only then would it cost $50 billion.
What makes me so furious about the ideologically stacked Welfare Razor Gang is that they are making up bullshit numbers to justify attacking the most vulnerable in NZ while John Key hands over tax cuts to those who are already rich. Forcing solo mothers, the mentally unwell, the sick and the crippled back to work based on bullshit numbers is an obscenity.
Many of these users of Welfare are women so they are being let down at the bottom and at the top by National Party policy.
One way the Government are really letting women down though is with their despicable decision to cut ACC funded counselling for victims of sex crimes. Despite a damning report on the bullshit ‘Massey Guidelines’ policy ACC is still continuing to deny women counseling services for rape with no monitoring system put in place despite promises by Nick Smith and ACC to do it.
John Key appealed to female voters last election in the midst of the repeal of section 59 hysteria, now woman can see the reality of National's policy it will be interesting to see if they are still enthralled by him.

http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2010/11/national-fail-women.html

John Key's new threshold for compassion in a recession

A blog entry from Tumeke! by Bomber Bradbury

ACC denied funeral claim
Distraught about losing their son, a Palmerston North couple have hit out at the lack of help available to the mentally ill or to families of people who commit suicide.

ACC’s decision to deny any claims by families for suicide funeral costs as the National Party don’t consider suicide an accident is just another example of how John Key can find money for tax cuts that benefit the rich while denying funding for people in need.
This despicable, petty, nasty little cost cutting measure is simply another example of John Key’s new threshold of compassion during a recession, forget media rules covering suicides John, how about some help to cover funeral costs for the families impacted by the highest suicide rates in the OECD? Just like National’s decision to cut ACC funded counseling to rape victims which despite a damning report on the bullshit ‘Massey Guidelines’ policy is still continuing to deny women counseling services for rape with no monitoring system put in place despite promises by Nick Smith and ACC to do it.
And why haven’t any of you heard about denying the families of suicide victims any funeral costs and denying people counseling for rape in the TV news? Because apparently those issues aren’t as interesting as the death of a psychic octopus.
Denying women counselling for rape and suicide funeral costs, how's that 'change' feeling folks?

http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2010/11/john-keys-new-threshold-for-compassion.html

ACC rape counselling backdown

A blog entry from Tumeke! by Bomber Bradbury

Congratulations to all the amazing women impacted by this unnecessarily cruel policy who were brave enough to stand up against this despicable decision that denied sexual assault victims any counselling because the Government offensively redefined rape as an 'acute event' as opposed to a mental illness and as such didn't require counselling. This new definition was used to turn down 90% of claims, it was a disgustingly cruel piece of policy and the Government have done the right thing by backing down and offering 16 hours counselling, this is still a weak amount of time to give sexual assault victims, but it is many times better than the system National implemented.

Click here to read more.