University of Auckland, New Zealand

Imagine if you were competing with others to get accepted into a computer course that required a grade point average of at least 2. Now imagine that you realised that you were not good enough because your best GPA was only 1.5. Now imagine that the course coordinator taps you on the shoulder and tells you that you don’t have to worry because that minimum requirement only applies to all the other races. They explain that they have lower expectations for people of your race and so will let you into the course.

Would you be insulted? I know I would. If I was a person of that particular race who had achieved a GPA of 2 or higher I would be even angrier because employers will assume that I got in because of my race not because of my ability. Allowing in people who didn’t make the grade casts doubt over the ability of anyone of that race who did make the grade.

At Auckland University the computer science 200-level  courses have a lower minimum requirement for students who are Maori or Pacific Islanders. Is Auckland University insinuating that Maori and Pacific Islanders have lower IQ’s and are unable to compete on an even playing field against non-Maori and non-Pacific  Islanders? There is nothing positive about this discrimination. It is an insulting and racist policy. Essentially it is the bigotry of low expectations.

Additionally, why should a non-Maori student with a higher GPA miss out on an opportunity to be on the course because some of the spaces have been filled by people of lesser ability? This is discrimination against them because of their skin colour and race. How can that possibly be okay? Academia must be about excellence and you should only gain a place because you met the same requirements as everybody else.

Source: NZ – Racism Is Not Ok facebook page

It seems nothing has changed at all with child abuse statistics in the past ten years, despite marches, hand-wringing and legislative changes.

Jared Savage has written a lengthy piece at The NZ Herald but the upshot is nothing much has changed.

Picking the eyes out of the article it seems that no one is prepared to address the ‘arewhana‘ in the room.

Here is the clues to where the actual problem lies:

The problem to be fixed was the disproportionate number of Maori children in the abuse statistics.

Nearly 60 per cent of children seen by CYF by the time they are 5 are Maori, according to the Rebstock Review, with Maori children disproportionately represented in families with high levels of need.

Basically if you remove Maori from the statistics then we don’t have a problem.

If you look at the long tragic list of dead children the percentage appears much larger.

However, we are told by all and sundry that this problem is the nation’s problem. It isn’t, it is a Maori problem and the majority of the bad statistics stem from their community. It is some they need to fix.

It is obviously cultural and systemic. There is no other answer. You can’t blame poverty, there are plenty of other poor people who aren’t abusing their kids.

This is actually a shameful Maori problem and one they need to own.

People were outraged over the cartoon at the top of this post. What they should be outraged over is the appalling statistics that show Maori are disproportionately represented when it comes to child abuse.

The anti-smacking laws haven’t worked, increased penalties haven’t worked. Something drastic needs to happen but this is not a nation wide problem. This is a Maori problem.

The sooner Maori show leadership on this issue the better.

In the meantime I fully expect to be called a racist, yet again, for telling the truth.

-NZ Herald

Convicted fraudster Merepeka Raukawa-Tait is supporting self-confessed fraudster Metira Turei:

You won’t see me putting the boot into Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Green Party.

 

Last week she made public that, 24 years ago, as a young solo mother she didn’t disclose to Winz she lived with flatmates. That would have affected her benefit.

We have seen and heard the usual indignation from many good citizens disgusted with Metiria.

Apart from the clamour that she should repay the overpayments there is even the call for her to resign from Parliament. It’s a real hanging offence to some people.

My advice to Metiria is not to give too much time to public reaction. We pick and choose what we want to get on our high horse about. I know many beneficiaries who have done the same. They don’t see it as fraud merely survival.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait (previously Sims) deducted PAYE from her employees but did not pay it to IRD. She was stealing from her employees and defrauding IRD. She did it because ‘she needed the money’.

To this day, like Metira, she has no remorse at all. She needed it, thus she was justified.

This case was well known in Rotorua at the time and hasn’t been forgotten in spite of Merepeka changing her name, and reinventing herself.

Wellington mayoral hopeful Merepeka Raukawa-Tait has past convictions for failing to pay employees’ taxes.

The Women’s Refuge chief executive, under her previous name Merepeka Sims, pleaded not guilty to 12 charges totalling $12,466 in Rotorua District Court in 1993.

She was convicted and sentenced to community service.

Mrs Raukawa-Tait announced last month she was standing for the Wellington mayoralty. She planned to submit her nomination yesterday, saying the convictions were in the past and should not affect her ability as mayor.

She told The Evening Post that the tax matter, which related to two previous businesses in Rotorua, was “well and truly in the past”.

“I think that most people that have ever gone into business have had dealings with the Inland Revenue Department … If anyone wants to ask me about it then they’re more than welcome to ring me up about it,” she said.

“That was at a time when I was attempting to grow a business. It didn’t work out well … I was lucky to come out of it and I’ve learned from it.”

Mrs Raukawa-Tait said she later paid the tax .

Just another entitled Maori bludger supporting another entitled Maori bludger.

It just beggars belief how these people who are liars and cheats, get themselves into public positions of power and influence.

Takes a fraudster to know and admire another fraudster.

-Daily Post, NZ Herald

After the election signs went up around the country I’ve been sent a few pictures of some. One set of pictures I was sent were of some signs put up by Anna ‘Marge’ Lorck, the Labour candidate for Tukituki.

The Hawkes Bay Home-wrecker’s signs are deliberately dishonest, she isn’t the local MP and unlikely to be either. So, I laid a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority.

The Advertising Standards Authority is considering whether to investigate two complaints made over the billboards of Labour’s candidate for the Tukituki electorate, Anna Lorck.

The complaints have been laid because her billboard says “Your Local MP” but she’s not an MP.

An ASA spokeswoman said the complaints were received on Saturday and Monday.

Lorck, who is at 45 on the Labour list, said one of the complaints had been made by Cameron Slater. She did not know who the other complainant was.

“Call me old fashioned, but to be a strong and effective local MP you should live in the electorate you’re standing to represent,” she said.

She might be old-fashioned in this regard but in many others she is quite modern in her thinking…

“The point of the billboard is that I am asking people to vote for me to be your local MP… Of course my opposition is upset with my billboard message to voters and that I’m the only option to elect an MP that’s local,” she said.

“These complaints further highlight to everyone that [National candidate for Tukituki] Lawrence Yule lives in Napier and that I’m bringing a real point of difference that he cannot match. I’m local,” Lorck said.

“They’re trying to distract voters, but I’m rising above them”.

She said she was working with the ASA “to ensure my vote local message is clearer, brighter and stronger on my billboards”.

How about taking the signs down Anna? They are false advertising.

This is a copy of the letter I received from the ASA:

Rodney Hide was spot on yesterday with his column in a newspaper:

A friend texted: “Turei: smart politics … or dumb?” I replied: “Both”.

Sadly, there’s a big chunk of voters who think they’re entitled to live off the work of others. They see it as government’s job to make that happen. They vote for handouts.

 

Nothing signals handouts better than a party leader saying, “Hey, I lived on handouts too – and when I was short I lied to get more.”

Whoa, Turei gets it. It’s exhilarating. She lied and cheated and shows no shame and offers no apology. Imagine her as deputy PM. Wicked. If it’s okay for her, it’s okay for us.

Turei wins the handout vote, hands-down. The other parties don’t come close. They might promise more, but they will expect you to be truthful and live within the rules. The last Labour Government had zero-tolerance for benefit fraud.

Turei’s admission is a smart move for votes. She’s the handout voter’s dream. There will be no crackdown on benefit cheats if she’s in charge.

She thought she was the shit…until it dawned on her, probably after a friendly lawyer explained the Crimes Act to her.

Her admission is also dumb. It has finished her politically.

She’s self-labelled a benefit cheat. That will haunt her. It will be the first thought most people have on hearing her name. It’s not a positive for the great majority of us.

She’s proved she will lie to suit her purpose. And have no remorse in doing so.That’s the very damaging thing: she doesn’t see she’s done wrong. She sees herself as simply doing what was necessary.

That’s not the behaviour of a person you can trust. It’s not a person to have in power.

Nope, and she has made calls for other people to be prosecuted for far less crimes. Todd Barclay and John Banks in particular. She revelled in it…and now people are going to trawl through Hansard finding her comments.

The Greens believe their policies are needed to save the planet. That’s what they keep telling us. There can be nothing more important to them than saving the planet.

If it’s okay to lie to get a few extra dollars, it must be okay to lie to propel the Greens into government. And keep them there. So if it’s okay to lie for dollars, it surely must be okay to lie for Green power, for Green policy, for a Green planet.

Or does Turei think that a few dollars for her then were more necessary than saving the planet now?

Or was her cheating back then a one-off? She suggests given the same circumstance she would do the same again

Worse, by stealing taxpayer funds she deprived some other person of assistance.

Trust the Greens? You can’t. Not with Turei there. That’s the problem Turei has created for herself. Is she telling the truth in promising big benefit increases? How can we be sure?

And that’s the dumb part. The Greens won’t make it to government this election. In the resulting dust-up Turei will be dumped. There is nothing more certain. She can’t be trusted. We all make mistakes but Turei shows no remorse and offers no apology. It wasn’t a mistake.

The Greens must have done some polling because less than a week after her shit-eating, grinning, self-confessions she is now trying to play contrition…as they say, desperation is a stinky cologne.

When John Banks was stitched up by Kim Dotcom, Metiria Turei had much to say about it in parliament:

How can this Minister have genuinely run successful businesses? And, you know, John Banks did. He spent two terms as the mayor of New Zealand’s biggest city, he has been a Minister of the Crown, and he has been an MP in this Parliament for many years, but how could he have done all of those things credibly—and this is the important issue—knowing that his career and his credibility depended on his honesty? He has signed off on documents that have now led him to be in court on a charge of criminal fraud. There is an issue here of honesty, an issue of credibility, and that has had a very significant and very negative effect on this Government.

 

The impact has also been felt by John Key. John Key, who refused to read the police report concerning the case. John Key, who was severe in his criticism of Helen Clark over the exercise of Taito Phillip Field’s vote. Some of us in this House may remember the criticism that John Key made. He demanded that she abandon the use of Taito Phillip Field’s vote while he was charged with and was undergoing the court proceedings—also criminal court proceedings—that eventually led to his imprisonment. John Key does not hold himself to the same standard that he requires of other MPs. He made demands of Helen Clark to force Taito Phillip Field to stand down, to resign, and to not exercise his vote because he was facing criminal charges. Now he finds himself in exactly the same position, with a Minister—or an ex-Minister now, because he has had to resign—but a member who props up his Government and whose proxy vote John Key and his MPs exercise, and he is quite happy to continue to exercise that vote while that member is in court on criminal charges. There is a word for saying one thing and doing another.

That is right. You are not allowed to say that word in this House—

—but there is such a word. So the rot that we see in this case, with John Banks now resigning as Minister and being subject to criminal fraud charges, extends beyond just John Key to others in this Government.

[…]

We would expect more. We would expect so much more from this Government. We could have had so much more. But the Government is also doing it off the back of the vote from a disgraced MP who has a serious conflict of interest, and it does not even have the decency to accept that it exists. Government members could have the decency to accept that the conflict exists and that they are not worried about it or they do not think it is so serious or they think that it is manageable. That would at least be honest. But to simply say that it does not exist is, in my view, completely dishonest. What makes it morally bankrupt is that at the end of the day it is ordinary New Zealand families who will bear the cost.

New Zealanders deserve a Government that will legislate for their well-being, for equality, for a good life, and for a fair future for their kids. This Government has failed at every step, because every action it has taken through all the years that we have had this National Government has been to privilege the most privileged. We see the Government’s desperation to continue on that path, with its refusal to even follow its own instructions to others that they do not exercise John Banks’ vote.

We are very pleased that John Banks has resigned as Minister. This should have happened a year ago, with the police report. It has come far too late. But it has come at a time when the significance of the vote that John Banks will exercise has the greatest impact with the Skycity deal. It is a dirty deal, supported by a disgraced Minister, and this is a dirty Government, which is happy to push it through. Thank you.

Well, what is Metiria Turei going to say about her own circumstances.

She has admitted to a prima facie case of fraud, under the Crimes Act that carries a punishment of up to three years in jail and if she was convicted she would be immediately forced from parliament.

She was the first speaker in an urgent debate on john Banks. She was pleased he resigned, she was ecstatic.

When will she DO the right thing and resign herself. She can’t possibly hold any portfolio associated with welfare, IRD or crime. She would have the same conflicts of interest that she called out John Banks for.

To quote her “You are not allowed to say that word in this House—but there is such a word.”.

That word is hypocrisy, Metiria, know thyself, and resign.

One is a Green MP, her name is Metiria Turei and she is a benefit fraudster.

She used her crime to create political capital, she has owned up but is yet to take any real responsibility.

The other is a grandmother and is set to spend some time in the pokie.

Grandmother Jasmine Kasiana Teowai Hudson is likely to spend her 63rd birthday in jail after pleading guilty to a $250,000 benefit fraud.

An appalled Judge Alistair Garland sent Hudson, who turns 63 in November, home on bail to sort out her affairs before sentencing next month.

Hudson pleaded guilty in the Christchurch District Court to rorting the welfare system of $246,872.96. At $20 a week repayments, it would take her 236 years to pay off the debt.

Over 15 years, Hudson received an invalid’s benefit, a supported living benefit and reduced Housing New Zealand rent.

Hudson claimed she was not living with a partner, when in fact, she was.

According to court documents, he is Orsogna Moehau, who she described in statements to the Ministry of Social Development as a “friend” or “boarder”.

Her fraud was detected in late 2015.

Outside court on Thursday, Hudson did not want to talk to media, but in court her lawyer, Elizabeth Bulger, hinted at a household in disorder.

Metiria Turei has confessed, she should be charged and prosecuted.

We should have zero tolerance for benefit fraud. If she isn’t charged it sends the wrong message and will make these entitled bludgers even worse.

Haha, suckers

Self confessed benefit fraudster Metiria Turei has now said she will pay the money she nicked back:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei says she has decided to pay back any money owed to Work and Income but is waiting to hear from them to find out how much she needs to pay.

Turei said there was “no doubt” the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) would investigate her case and she expected a call any day now.

 

“I’ve left them no option,” she told the Herald. “Of course they need to have a look.”

She still thinks it is all shits and giggles.

Announcing her party’s welfare policy at the party’s AGM on Sunday, Turei revealed that she lied to Winz about her living situation while on the domestic purposes benefit in the 1990s.

She admitted that she had extra flatmates living with her to help pay the rent, but did not tell the authorities because her benefit would be cut. A solo mother at the time, she feared she would not be able to care for daughter Piu if she lost her welfare payments.

Turei initially said she would pay it back if MSD got in touch, but later said she planned to refund Winz regardless.

“It was always the decision to pay it back, I just wasn’t clear enough in the speech on Sunday.

“But I need to wait for WINZ to do the calculation and the investigation, because I can’t do that myself.”

It was difficult to know how much she owed, she said. She had extra flatmates in three of the five flats she lived in, over three years.

Paying it back is fine, but she should be prosecuted and convicted for such a deliberate fraud.

She has realised her stunt has backfired and their internal polls must be clearly showing that. She has been forced into this position not out of guilt or remorse, but the stark political reality that it has cost the Greens votes.

What the silly cow had also failed to realise is that she has now exposed the baby daddy to recovery of liable parent contributions from IRD…for 18years of missing payments from the dead beat dad.

On top of that her changing stories have revealed she also received money from her family, the baby daddy’s family, as well as the boarders. I’d say she has bigger problems than just her benefit fraud.

-NZ Herald

Jo Moir at Fairfax examines the party positions:

Bottom-lines are being dropped thick and fast around the country but there’s one in particular that’s got politicians divided.

Winston Peters’ policy for a binding referendum on whether to keep the country’s seven Maori seats could cause all sorts of problems for other parties looking to do a coalition deal with the potential Kingmaker after the September 23 election.

So who stands where on whether to put the Maori seats to the vote and who should get to vote?

[…]

Unsurprisingly the Maori Party, who holds one of the seven seats (co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell has Waiariki) doesn’t want them abolished and would like to see them entrenched in New Zealand.

It was the Maori Party influence that resulted in the National Party dropping their position to get rid of the seats when the two teamed up in government.

The party’s co-leader, Marama Fox, has attacked Peters for wanting to “put Maori back in a box”.

“It’s ridiculous to think that if we had a referendum in this country that Maori would be successful in retaining the seats because everybody is taught in the same mainstream schools now….we’ve all grown up in the Euro-sized white-washed version of our history.”

She called out NZ First Maori MPs, Peters, Ron Mark and Pita Paraone, for leaving their values behind when they entered Parliament.

“I just look at them and think what did you do when you walked into Parliament, leave your values under the carpet? Seriously guys, and you say I’m representing the greater voice now, what, than your own, or your own conscience, or your own value system, or your entire history of being brought up?”

Fox blamed “red and blue governments” for the “cultural genocide” that means “our own people don’t understand our own culture, language and identity”.

“It’s ridiculous to think that can be overcome with one little referendum.”

Marama Fox shows just how thick she is. In attacking those MPs she highlights just how many Maori, far higher than their population would suggest, are MPs. All without the benefit of special race-based apartheid seats set aside for them.

As the party who holds six out of seven of them, leader Andrew Little says he totally “backs retaining” the Maori seats.

“It’s been our position for a long long time and we’re not changing that.”

So can Labour work with NZ First in any sort of government given their differing view points?

Little says Peters has already come out with a number of bottom-lines and they’re something that will be addressed after the election.

“I’m absolutely adamant the Maori seats are here to stay under a Labour-led government.”

The Maori rort has helped Labour more than it has hurt. Of course he wants to retain the Maori-mander.

National Party campaign manager Steven Joyce put in his two cents after Peters’ made the announcement on Sunday.

“In terms of the Maori seats we’ve always said there will come a time one day when everyone agrees they’re no longer needed but that day hasn’t happened yet.”

On what that means for working with Peters post-election, Joyce quipped the NZ First leader had so many bottom lines now “he must have a dedicated person to keep track on them”.

“We won’t worry too much about that until we see how the election goes.”

Steve forgets that National had this policy before Bill and John got all brown-nosey.

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira is also against a referendum and would like to see the seats entrenched.

Harawira is relying on a win in the Te Tai Tokerau seat this year to return him to Parliament after losing the seat to Labour’s Kelvin Davis.

The ACT Party doesn’t think the seats are needed and leader David Seymour says if Parliament was “serious” about getting rid of them a referendum wouldn’t be needed.

United Future leader Peter Dunne is happy with the seats as they are but if there was a referendum, he says, it should be for Maori to vote on.

As for the Green Party they don’t support a referendum and would leave it for Maori to decide the future of the seats.

Peter Dunne will be happy as long as he is there somewhere. Act is right and who is this Hone guy?

-Fairfax