The good word

To counteract all the horrible things (from government policy on down) happening at the moment, I thought I'd find some Good Words from women to post now and then. Here's the first one, from the new director of Women’s Health Action, Julie Radford-Poupard, interviewed in the Women’s Health Action Newsletter, May 2012: I particularly like what she says about children's issues (such as poverty and ill-health) "being inseparable from the wellbeing of women and whanau that care for them".

  

What do you see as the biggest challenges to women’s and children’s health at present?

I think a major challenge at present is keeping women’s issues on the political agenda. We need to keep asserting the importance of a social determinants of health approach. This means taking account of gender (women’s and men’s social roles), alongside other determinants such as ethnicity, indigeneity, socio-economic status, sexuality and disability which is vitally important for progressing health and addressing health inequities alongside. Progressing women’s health can then be understood as something that will require a whole of government approach, for example tackling violence against women.

How do you view the role of public health NGOs, and in particular women’s and children’s health promotion, in the wider health sector?

I think organisations like Women’s Health Action play a vital role in the wider health sector. Including consumer and gender perspectives in health policies and service planning helps to ensure services that are responsive to the needs of women and their children. This then helps to ensure better health outcomes and better use of public health dollars. With an increasing policy focus on children it is important to recognise that children’s issues are inseparable from the wellbeing of women and whanau that care for them. Women’s Health Action’s work in breastfeeding promotion is a great example of health interventions that recognise women and children as an inseparable dyad.

Julie can be contacted on Julie@womens-health.org.nz or phone (09) 520 5295.

The problem is violent greed

Not for the first time, the genius of Jacky Fleming shows how skewed our world becomes when we focus on the wrong end of power and oppression:

Since coming into power, this National government has been near obsessed with blaming beneficiaries and the poor in general for all manner of wrong-doing.  Apparently cutting benefits is the "kick in the pants" some need to take responsibility for ​other taxpayers ​ (my emphasis). Paula Bennett has been quick to tell people claiming benefits - even ones she previously accessed herself - that "the dream is over."  If you have to visit a food bank to have enough to feed yourself and your family, it's because you've made "poor choices."

And step out of line if you dare, because Paula Bennett will release your personal details to the media as “a bit of a lesson for what happens if you go out there and put your story,” even if that does breach Privacy Commission ideas of fair practise to the tune of $15,000.  Nope, it's beneficiary bashing all the way, thanks.

You could be forgiven for assuming beneficiaries and the poor are sucking up resources unfairly, completely to blame for our economy stalling and many New Zealanders feeling frightened and even so hungry they eat pig scraps.

But what happens if we focus on the wealthy?

Firstly, they are doing pretty well under National, as this handy graphic from the Green Party shows:



And they are doing pretty well at the expense of everyone else.  Just 9% of New Zealanders are in the top tax bracket, so those tax cuts really were just for a few of us.  And while our median income is falling, our average income is increasing, which is just maths geekery for saying rich people are getting richer even in these belt-tightening times.

We don't spend enough time talking about greed in this country, because National has us bashing people with very little.  It is greedy to make sure those with lots of resources have the chance to create more and more and more, without thinking of ​other taxpayers ​(my emphasis).

If we focussed more on stopping those determined to create unnecessary wealth at the expense of everyone and everything else - the greedy 1% - and less on judging and punishing those with very little, our world would be a very different place.

Now I just need Jacky Fleming to write a cartoon about it.  Oh look, she has.

HRC reports on aged care industry

i wanted to link today to some more great work done by an amazing woman.  judy mcgregor, the equal employment opportunities commissioner, has already done a range of very useful research into discrimination in the workplace.  she has now prepared a report on the working condition of resthome workers:

Nearly all the workers are women, who earn as little as $14 an hour, something McGregor says must change because in less than 10 years New Zealand will need 70 per cent more workers in an industry that already loses a quarter of its staff a year.

"It offends against human decency. The reliance on the emotional umbilical cord between women working as carers and the older people they care for at $13-$14 an hour is a form of modern-day slavery. It exploits the goodwill of women, it is a knowing exploitation. We can claim neither ignorance nor amnesia." 

McGregor went undercover in January for a week, swapping her office for a mix of shifts looking after the "old, old" in our aged care system.

the tvnz report is here.  i can't believe the drongo who commented on behalf of the aged care association, claiming that unions that "they like to see that no-one should be able to make a profit".  it's hard to fathom such blatant stupidity.  i don't know any unions that believe this.  what they believe is that profits shouldn't be made at the expense of exploiting workers.  what they would like to see a fairer sharing of profits between the owners of capital and those whose labour ensures that the business runs.

he doesn't realise that we don't live in a purely "market-based economy" and for good reason.  it was the experiences of exploitation caused by lack of regulation that mean we live in a regulated economy.  not as well regulated as it needs to be, and those protections have been continuously weakened over the last 30 years, but it is still a regulated economy.

it was the callousness of his attitude that shows quite clearly why pay and conditions in this sector have continued to be so bad.


and a quick follow-up to my post of yesterday.  the press council is on a roll.  they have not only ruled against paul holmes, but also against michael lhaws for some of his nastiness earlier in the year.  it's about time this lot were held to account.

some good news

i had to share this because it's awesome:

Vodafone Warriors chairman Bill Wavish has today welcomed the appointment of Rotorua academic and community leader Donna Mariana Grant as the first woman on the club’s board.

i congratulate her on her achievement.  although it could be said that recognising her continues to give prominence to men's sport over women's, something that is already a huge problem in our society, it's still a breaking of a major barrier & i'm sure she'll have a lot to contribute.  i wonder if we'll ever see a woman on the baord of the NZRU?


in other happy news, the press council has ruled against paul holmes' racist waitangi day rant:

14. When the statements are considered in context, a reasonable reader would assume they are referring to Maori as a race rather than to just the protestors at Waitangi. While there may be truth in the “hopeless failure” of some Maori to educate their children and stop bashing their babies, it is inaccurate to make the allegation against Maori as a race.
15. The inaccuracies upon which some of the opinions are based also make the opinions so extreme that in the Council’s view they go beyond what is acceptable and become a gratuitous offence to Maori as a race.
16. It is because the allegations against Maori as a race are inaccurate, and the opinions are extreme to the extent of being a gratuitous offence to Maori, that the complaints are upheld.

while i'd like to have seen them make the point that some non-maori are equally "hopeless failures", it's still great to have the ruling out.  i'm not sure that this means anything in terms of penalties for mr holmes or for the paper.  it would be nice if there was some.  regardless, there is still the moral victory of knowing that there are at least some standards to which the press are being held, and that mr holmes' nastiness clearly breached them.

What can they do to you? Whatever they want.

You don't need to have been following the trial, or even have heard the verdict, to be able to guess which of the people in this picture were sentenced to two years six months in jail and which were sentenced to 9 months home detention.  Pakeha fears about Maori have been projected onto accused throughout the whole case. I've no reason to disbelieve that Andre, who commented on Public Address, is not who he says he is:

I was excluded from the jury for the trial along with two other jurors after being empanelled. I gave them all a rant prior to departing and am relieved they didn’t find them guilty on the main charge. They were overwhelmingly middle class white women that I left on the panel, some of whom had already told us that Tame Iti scared them etc. One of the jurors asked to be excluded because she was convinced he was guilty by how he looked. She was refused her request to leave and heard the case. Another guy asked to be excluded because he thought the whole exercise was a waste of taxpayer money and resources and he was excluded. How does that work? 

*******

One way of communicating my range and anger over the sentences is to talk about how manifestly unjust they are on the court's own terms.  This man who beat and pretended to hang his children, received a sentence of two years 8 months.

As others have pointed out Rodney Hansen, the judge sentenced them as if the charge of being part of an organised criminal group (which the jury could not decide upon) had been proved.  He included the defendant's political views as aggravating factors stating: "Some of the participants held extreme anarchist views."  He blamed the defendants for the actions of the police - stating that they had done harm by creating divisions within Tuhoe.

The logic of the judge's sentencing was grotesque.  Justice was far from blind - it saw and was terrified of who these people were and sentenced them accordingly.

*******

The sentence is unjust when understood inside the system of justice that colonisation brought.  But to focus on that is to ignore the larger injustice.

From here

Justice Hansen is not the first judge to exert his authority over Tuhoe people as a way of trying maintain the crown's sovereignty over Tuhoe land, unfortunately it's unlikely that he'll be the last.  He was very willing to describe the actions he'd decided people had undertaken as 'a frightening prospect undermining our democratic institutions and anathema to society'.  He talked of 'we' and 'our' and 'society' singular.  He ignored the many actions of the crown that had undermined Maori democratic institutions and that were an anathema to Maori societies.What right do Pakeha from Auckland have to talk of 'we' and 'our' when it comes to Tuhoe land?  They can't even claim the right of Kawanatanga.

*******

Protests have been organised around the country over the next couple of days.  Come along if you can - thinking that this is wrong is meaningless without action.

PALMERSTON NORTHFriday, 25th May 2012, 1pm, Palmerston North District Court. Bring placards, banners, chants and friends.

WELLINGTON
Friday, 25th May 2012, 12pm, Wellington High Court. Bring placards, banners, chants and friends.

AUCKLAND Saturday, 26th May 2012, 2pm, Mt Eden Prison.

DUNEDIN Saturday 26th May 2012, 2pm, Dunedin District Court House.

CHRISTCHURCH Saturday 26th May 2012, 4pm, Christchurch Police Station.

* I found some comfort in Marge Piercy's The Low Road tonight - not for the first time.

** I've seen a lot of people express this idea in a way that implies that Rangi and Tame are more Maori than Emily. Sometimes this is because of lack of knowledge, but it is wrong.

Dear comedians... we need to talk about rape.

Cross posted from my usual blogging spot... Well behaved women rarely make history.

Dear Comedians,  

I just wanted to have a wee chat about rape jokes. It’s the end of the NZ comedy festival for 2012, but it’s not too late to improve in time for next year.

As a basic rule of thumb, comedy thrives on taking awkward social situations and twisting them to make people laugh. Rape is not an awkward social situation. It’s a violent crime.

Some of the best comedians I have seen have told jokes about their own awful life experiences… I’m yet to see someone get up and do an anecdotal bit on rape. Possibly because of the fear that every time we make light of it, another person thinks what they did was ok. Possibly because most people never get to the point where it is a laughing matter and remain un-medicated.

Humor is one of the best survival techniques to trauma that I know of. Generally this is for stuff like, falling down, embarrassment, “stupid shit I have done while drunk”, self-destructive behaviour due to youth, addiction, stupidity etc. Not so much, stabbings, rape, domestic violence.

Also, I get to laugh at my trauma when I'm ready. What the fuck makes someone qualified to tell a room full of people that you know they should be desensitised enough to laugh at something as awful as rape.

Here are some basic rules of thumb about what is and isn’t funny.

If someone did something harmful to themselves, it might be funny.

If someone was hurt by someone else, it probably isn’t.

If someone tells a story themselves, to strangers. It’s probably funny.

If no one tells it in the first person, it probably isn’t.

If you wouldn’t use the phrase at a dinner party “go on tell the one about when you were raped”

Then don’t stand on stage and tell “the one about someone being raped.”

Because (and here is the bit where I get serious) every time you tell a joke about rape, rapists, rape victims, or just use the word rape to explain how hard your life is (it isn’t, shut the fuck up), someone in your audience got chills. Someone felt the hair stand up all over their body. Someone felt bile rising. That person who walked out, they probably needed to be sick.

One in about 7 people in your theatre would have been trying not to cry, or trying to remember to breath. Some would have been using self-talk to stop a panic attach. Some would have felt the urge to scream when the man behind them laughed throatily at your rape joke because… why? Why would someone laugh at a rape joke? Because they have done it and got away with it?

Because they knew someone who got away with it? Because they hate women/men so much they think they ASKED for it?

Every time you tell a joke with rape as a punch line or story thread, you are hurting survivors all over again.

So go on, tell the rape joke. And look and I mean REALLY LOOK at your audience. Look at who is laughing. But more importantly, look at who isn’t. And choose to never do that again.

And a big shout out to Rabon Kan, who not only had walk outs in his shows, but didn't learn from it, apologise for it, or indeed respect the complainants. 

I used to find you funny. Now you make me feel physically sick, and unwilling to be alone with you.

To grieve (visibly) or not to grieve, that is the question...

I've been thinking about how we talk about grief and death.  By "we" I mean Pakeha New Zealanders, I know I'm not well qualified to explore this for anyone else. 

Dad and I were in Christchurch over the weekend, celebrating his 70th birthday with our extended family who'd rocked up from all over the place.  The last time we were all together was my mother's funeral last year, and the reason Dad and I were in Christchurch was to make sure his first birthday in 44 years without Mum would be surrounded by love from other family members.

It was, and the fact that Dad and I frequently talk about Mum in the ordinary day-to-day living thing was not that big a jolt for my family, most of whom began to do that too.

Now I still have moments of rending grief about my mother's death, times where I cry and feel like my insides are twisting so tightly I can't breathe.  Part of that grief is much less tidy than "wish Mum was here to talk about that".  Sometimes I grieve aspects of mothering which Mum found difficult, and the pain I hold around that as her daughter.  I talk about that grief with close friends, not my family, with the exception of my brother. 

What triggered this musing on grief was visiting my grandparents graves in Christchurch with Dad.  It reminded me of the day of my grandmother's funeral.  I was eight, and none of the children had been allowed to go, because that's one of the ways my family did grief then, out of sight of the children.

I'm not sure I really understood what had happened.  I remember watching my mother cuddle my father when he came home from work and she told him about the earlier phone call.  I remember she was crying and Dad wasn't, and I wondered if he ever cried.  I remember neither of them actually told us what had happened, but we travelled down to Christchurch knowing Nana was dead a few days later.

After the funeral I guess, we were in a very packed car, and we pulled up to a place with rose bushes and grass.  My cousin and I wanted to get out and play, we were bored and crammed in.  When I asked Mum if we could, she yelled at me and told me I was selfish.  No doubt she was embarassed that her heathen child was asking such an inappropriate question at what I now know was the cemetery.  I felt ashamed, and because I didn't know why I'd been selfish, I felt sure I'd done something wrong.

Trying to talk about grief differently now feels a bit like that, all the time.  I'm aware that when I bring up my mother's death with people who don't know me very well, that those who respond without discomfort are almost without exception Maori.  The exceptions, interestingly enough, are people I know through work who are experts in trauma and able to sit comfortably with others expressing pain.  Most people either ignore what I've said, or look horrified, or struggle for words.

And I wonder about my responsibility.  Is it to stop other people feeling discomfort?  Or is it to tell my truth about grieving when it's relevant to me, rather than when it fits Pakeha social norms?  If I'm sad at work one day and I've been crying because every single reminder of mother's day this year was torture, do I say that?  Or do I pretend everything is fine?

Unsurprisingly given my almost pathological honesty (you'll have to trust me on that), I've been choosing to talk about it.  And if I'd been my mother that afternoon in the car, I'd have said "No sweetheart, you can't play here.  This is a special place for nana and other people who have died, and some people would be upset if you were playing.  Maybe we can go somewhere you can play later."

The silent B in Pink Shirt Day

In 2006, the bisexual poet and musician Hinemoana Baker and I were profiled by Maori Television in Takataapui, discussing discrimination and prejudice against bisexual people within the queer community.  Amongst other things, we were asked to respond to these:



Sadly this Takataapui episode isn't available online.  Which does save Hinemoana and I from the real possibility of being bullied on the grounds of a series of poor hair choices over the years.  TVNZ's slightly earlier "State of the Queer Nation" - which is online -  wasn't actually about the queer nation. No (out) bisexual, transpeople or intersex people; no bi, trans or intersex issues - or even people - mentioned.

Bi people have been organising against biphobia around the world since at least the 1980s.  We need Pink Shirt Day not just because we have same-sex attractions - we need to stop bi-specific bullying and invisibilisation related to negative stereotypes because it has negative impacts on bisexual people.

Bisexuality is explicitly named as a grounds for discrimination in the Human Rights Act, after a long and sometimes bitter fight by bi people leading up to 1993.  Despite continued attempts to exclude us from the Act's protections the Wellington Bisexual Women's Group rocked up at a celebratory event in 1993, flushed with bi pride at our inclusion. When the approved lesbian speaker outlined the Act's protections but repeatedly left us out - not for the first time - our slightly tired response was to heckle, shouting "and bisexual" as needed.



We got up to speak collectively, ending with a waiata.  Fortunately for negative stereotypes of bisexual people, I was able to clasp Hinemoana's hand tightly, so I could mouth our waiata and allow the audience to enjoy her gorgeous voice without noticing mine.

Aroha mai Hinemoana - this apology for appropriating your musical genius is long overdue.

This Pink Shirt Day I'm going to share some link love for bi people, and those interested in challenging biphobia and biphobic bullying.  I'm not including generic queer groups as too often those groups have a silent B (and T, let alone I) when it comes to LGBTI issues and communities.  Feel free to add more links in comments.

The Wellington Bisexual Women's Group continues, eating and talking our way to bitopia.  Members have also lobbied for queer rights legislation, contributed to queer rights legislation and created resources to challenge discrimination.  Most recently this included suggesting significant changes - all of which were accepted - to the Human Rights Commission chapter on the rights of sexual and gender minorities.

Secret Love is a short NZ film featuring Hinemoana's music and story which opened the queer film fest a few years back.  And if you're wanting bi anthems, her song "I'm Free" was written in response to someone in her family telling her being bisexual was just a phase.  Other bi anthems here.

The best resources I know of online are the US based Bisexual Resource Centre and the wonderful Boston Bisexual Women's Network.  They  produce regular newsletters and the only resource I've ever seen which explicitly names bi-specific experiences of domestic violence.

I'll leave those interested with eight BBWN tips on how to be an ally to bisexual people.  Pink Shirt Day is a great day to start:

1. Believe that I exist. Despite ongoing scientific research that seems so determined to disprove the existence of bisexuality, plus the general lack of interest by the greater gay and lesbian community to acknowledge us, we really do exist.
2. When I tell you I’m bisexual, please don’t try to talk me into redefining my identity into something more comfortable for you. Please don’t tell me that if I haven’t been sexual with more than one sex in the last three, five, or ten years that I am no longer bisexual.
3. Celebrate bisexual culture along with me. We have a vibrant and rich cultural history within the bi community — from Sappho to Walt Whitman to Virginia Woolf to James Baldwin to June Jordan, we have many daring voices that have expressed love beyond the monosexual confines.
4. Please don’t try to convince me that people who lived bisexual lives in the past would have been gay if they had lived today. You don’t know that, I don’t know that, and your insistence that it is true says that you believe that people were bisexual only out of necessity, not by desire.
5. Validate my frustration with the gay and lesbian community when they ignore or exclude bisexuals. Please don’t try and defend an action such as a keynote speaker who is addressing a LGBT audience but consistently says “gay and lesbian” when referring to all of us.
6. Ask me, if appropriate, about my other-sex relationships and my same-sex relationships. Bisexuals live our lives in multiple ways. Some of us are monogamous and we would like to discuss that relationship openly with the people in our lives, no matter whom it is with. Some of us have more than one relationship going on and we’d like to be able to share that with others without feeling judgment.
7. If there is some sort of bisexual scandal in the news, don’t use it as an opportunity to make derisive remarks about bisexuals generally. As we know all communities have examples of “bad behavior,” and painting everyone with the same brush doesn’t create much understanding between us.
8. When I’m not around, or any other bisexual, speak up when bisexual people are being defamed or excluded. It’s great when we can witness your support, but I’d love to know you are helping us even when we are not looking.

Good Idea - Bad Idea

Good Idea

Yesterday, the Southern DHB announced that it was going to start providing an abortion service in Invercargill.  Previously people from Southland who needed an abortion have had to travel to Christchurch (pre-earthquake) and Dunedin (since February 2011) to get them.* (Here's ALRANZ's supportive press release.)

One of the many things that is wrong with our current abortion law is that it makes centralised services necessary - which means women who don't live in the main centres have to expend extra money and time in order to get an abortion.  It's great (but not enough) that things have got a little better for Southland women.

Bad Idea

Yesterday, LifeChoice Victoria, LifeChoice Canterbury and Pro-Life Auckland launched a Right to Know campaign (there are not enough sarcastic quote marks in the world to properly communicate just imagine two sets for pretty much every word).  They distributed leaflets that lied about abortion in all the major lectures theatres at at least two (and probably three universities).**  You can read the full text on their website.  Campus Feminist Collective in Auckland have started planning their response

My favourite quote demonstrates the hideous double-speak of incrementalism: "Women should be trusted with all of the available facts, and then allowed the freedom and space to make a properly informed decision."  By 'facts' they mean 'inaccurate bullshit we like' and by 'freedom and space to make a properly informed decision' they mean 'make all women wait longer than they need to get an abortion through a cooling off period.'

The reason that this double-speak has any chance of working (and I hope it doesn't work - the person I was sitting next to thought the leaflets were prochoice - because they hadn't read the leaflet only looked at hte headings) is because the politics of abortion aren't particularly clear in this country.  Even people who are reasonably pro-choice can buy into a discourse which portrays abortion as the ethically murky thing that we shouldn't talk about, if that's the only discourse abortion they ever hear.  We need to be the ones that champion the ability of pregnant people to make their own decisions - so that everyone will see this for the patronising claptrap that it is.

* Talking of which does anyone know what the current situation is for people who need abortions from the West Coast?  They used to have to travel to Christchurch, but that clinic was damaged in the earthquake - do they now have to travel to Dunedin or Nelson?

** They're well-funded - these were glossy properly printed leaflets that were three to an 3 page - and they would have had thousands of them to do all those lecture theatres.

A teensy tiny little bit of progress on the Tui ads. Maybe.

You may have noticed that the Tui beer ads have changed.  No longer are they as awfully sexist as they once were.  Now they are only very sexist instead.  Auckland Feminist Action, who raised the issue in the first place are on to it again, with the following statement from earlier this month:

Tui needs to try harder

Auckland Feminist Action gives the latest Tui ad an E for Effort, and invites DB to have a beer with them and discuss how to make an ad without dissing women.

Feminist Action is delighted that its campaign contributed to the sexist Tui brewery ad being taken off television and the Tui website, says spokeswoman Leonie Morris.

“We gave that ad an F for Fail,” she says, “but the new Tui ad, ‘Halftime distraction’, gets only an E for Effort. Tui needs to try harder.”

While the halftime ad doesn’t put women in the sexualised poses of the earlier brewery ads, the
women are portrayed as just as stupid and helpless. They can’t get a kitten off a tree branch barely above their heads, navigate city streets or paint a sign without falling off the ladder.

What ties these ads together is that the only people equal to the lead male characters are their
mates. Women are persistently excluded from equality in Tui ads. In “Halftime Distraction” a series of beautiful women can’t tempt the hero away from his mission - getting the beer for his mates during halftime in a rugby telecast.

Women are treated as distractions from the real thing: a men-only, testosterone-laden, beer-drinking sport session.

DB says camaraderie and irreverence are crucial aspects of the Tui brand. But the camaraderie is a superficial mateship, and the irreverence is expressed by treating women always as objects, rather than equals. “It’s no accident that women like these ads less than men, since women are always the target of the joke,” says Leonie.

“Tui refuses to understand why this is sexist. We invite them to have a drink with Feminist Action and discuss how to make women equal in their ads,” she says. “Tui needs to stop laughing at women and start laughing with them.”

Here's hoping DB takes Feminist Action up on that drink and, more importantly, on that conversation.

It's time

Well actually, it's past time.  But now is still good.

If you want to vote on this poll, (screenshot above taken at 11am) it's at this Stuff article.

Doing Harm

There is an awful, awful case going through Court at the moment, for the second time.  Charlene Makaza, aged 10, died in 2007, from injuries the Crown say were caused by sexual violation.  The man accused of sexual violation and murder is her uncle, George Gwaze.

We know from the early Court reports on the retrial that the Crown is arguing Charlene's anal and vaginal injuries caused her death, and that because Mr Gwaze's semen was found in her underwear and bedsheets, the Crown believes Mr Gwaze caused those injuries by sexually assaulting her.

We also know that the defence for Mr Gwaze maintains his semen ended up on Charlene's underwear and bedclothes in the washing machine, and that her injuries came solely from her positive HIV status.

I would be interested in this case anyway - it's an occupational hazard - but because the medical advisor to Mr Gwaze in the first case was Felicity Goodyear Smith, I'm more than interested.

After the case was first trialled, Dr Goodyear Smith obtained a platform in the Sunday Star Times to explain why this case was not really sexual abuse.  I believe this was written by Donna Chisholm (though the article no longer names the author online), the same journalist who later wrote a North and South article so glowing the men's right website Menz scanned the pages to put them online.

So Dr Goodyear Smith has her admirers.

She also has her critics, because she has a longstanding history of arguing that "adult-child sexual contact" is not always harmful to children, including in her 1993 book "First Do No Harm."  This book also talks about false allegations of sexual abuse being common in child custody cases, and "false memories" being to blame for other allegations.

"False memory syndrome" is one of the great media beat-ups.  It does not exist.  The term was invented in 1992 by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the USA, a group of parents, mainly fathers, accused of sexual abuse.  They included Ralph Underwager, who was quoted in a Dutch paedophile magazine as saying sex with children was part of God’s will;  Pamela and Peter Freyd, whose adult daughter Jennifer told the media about her sexual abuse, believing her parents were doing unquestionable harm to abuse survivors; Paul and Shirley Eberle, who edited a child pornography magazine in the 1970s with explicit photographs of children and features like “Sexpot at five” and “My first rape, she was only 13.”
 
Dr Goodyear Smith is in frightening company in arguing that "false memories" are the cause of sexual abuse allegations.  Not surprising when you realise that her husband, John Potter, was imprisoned for indecently assaulting two under-age girls at Centrepoint.  John Potter runs the Men's Rights website Menz (where they publicise campaigns like "Kill the Family Court"), and is the son of Centrepoint founder Bert Potter, also convicted for sexual crimes against children.  Dr Goodyear Smith was Centrepoint's doctor, and says while she was aware of some "sexual contact" between adults and children at the commune, she wasn't aware of the extent of the child abuse.

She is also the founder of  COSA, Casualties of Sexual Abuse, a now defunct organisation that wants to see fewer convictions for sexual violence crimes because it argues many of those convicted are innocent.

I'll be interested to see if Dr Goodyear Smith gives evidence in the retrial of Mr Gwaze.   In describing her role as medical advisor for the first trial she said:

"It looked very damning, and very difficult. But when I went through it bit by bit and produced a timeline it all fell into place and then it became incredibly compelling that there was actually no crime. Even though there may be strange coincidences, there are explanations for all of it."

Will the doctor who didn't notice the sexual abuse at Centrepoint, who believes sexual contact with children isn't always that big a deal, who is anxious to stop the flood of false complaints imprisoning innocent people, win in court? We'll have to wait and see.

Vaccinations and Beneficiary Bashing

And now the government is considering penalising beneficiaries who don't immunise their children.

Just as I believe access to free contraception is a good thing, I think vaccination is a good thing. I believe parents should adhere to the regular vaccinations schedules, except in rare and specific cases.

This has nothing to do with vaccinations.

If the goal was to make sure all children were vaccinated, as well as making it easier for parents and dispelling some of the myths, the government could consider a policy like that in some regions of the US where children are unable to attend school if unvaccinated. I have significant concerns about such a policy. But what it would do is (a) put pressure on parents (all parents) to have their children vaccinated, and for those who didn't limit the potential for communication of diseases to other students. That would be the more sensible policy for a government concerned about vaccination rates.

This has nothing to do with vaccinations.

But it is quite clever. On the one hand, it's the usual beneficiary bashing, introduction of nasty punitive measures, and the implied slur that beneficiaries are irresponsible, illogical people who don't care about the health of their children (just like they're apparently all sluts who are popping out one child after another to play the taxpayer, or something).

But I think there's something else going on. There's been an outbreak of whooping cough in my low-income suburb. Obviously lack of vaccination is a significant contributor, as is sheer chance, but it also thrives in crowded conditions. There's a reason it happens in places like this rather than wealthy suburbs, and it ain't because parents are stupid.

Rheumatic fever - for which there is no vaccination - affects young Maori people at vastly disproportionate rates. Preventative measures, however, are well known and documented, including less overcrowding and better quality housing. And that's not even touching asthma rates and severity, depression and repeated contraction of minor illnesses.

But rather than tackling these, the focus seems to be not just on the beneficiary bashing, but on the framing of health issues amongst beneficiaries as issues of personal irresponsibility and ignorance, rather than a public health issue which needs to be tackled on a structural level. And facilitates both the bashing and the sticking-one's-head-in-the-sand.

So yes, parents, it's generally a good idea to vaccinate your children. But to the government, what would be a good idea for you to do is to stop screwing people over, quit the beneficiary bashing and start tackling the fact that (poor, Maori and Pacific Island in particular) families are living in shitty, cold, uninsulated, overcrowded housing, and it's doing no-one's health any good.

STOP: National Party press release: Vasectomies and limited liability

A new policy to address government spending has been announced, and while it may court controversy in some corners, John Key is personally championing the initiative.

"It's time we stopped irresponsible and violent men from increasing the burden on the taxpayer," said the Prime Minister.  "We've been too timid to go there before, but this government is making available vasectomies to men we believe should no longer be reproducing."

Of course Mr Key has first-hand experience of his reproductive capacity being curtailed, and speaks highly of the choice.  "It's been nothing but wonderful for my sex life," he smiles.

The government plans to offer vasectomies to all men convicted of domestic or sexual violence, and these offers will take place in prison.  "We know those men make poor fathers, and their children are likely to need more support from the state than other children, so let's just cut our costs."

"But we're going beyond that too," Mr Key said winningly.  "We're targetting those deadbeat dads who leave women and children to fend for themselves.  They cost us billions, and it's time we put a stop to them having more children."

These men will be offered the opportunity to control their future reproduction for free by IRD employees as part of the Child Support changes proposed by National.  "It's a win-win.  No more unsupported children, and those guys will get to have as much fun as I do," said the ebullient Mr Key.

"National are more and more interested in limiting reproductive liability for the state.  This proposal should ensure the taxpayer pays only for important things like new roads, maps to facilitate the oil and mining industries making profits, subsidies for industries we support, and contracts for consultants for the public sector.  Alongside our plans for increased tax cuts for the productive members of our country, vasectomies may just be the pick-me-up our economy needs."

The new government policy will be trialled over the next twelve months.  Mr Key says if it's as successful as National hopes "We'll be making vasectomies available to more and more groups of men from communities which cost taxpayer dollars."

PRESS RELEASE ENDS

uk abuse case

i was listening to this interview (nine to noon, 9.50am) on radio nz this morning, the regular weekly discussion with uk correspondent anne leslie.  she spent a large part of the interview talking about the 9 men who have been jailed for their part in the sexual abuse of teenage girls.  if you haven't heard about the story, i'd recommend this piece.  it's a pretty harrowing read, here's a short excerpt:

Girls aged between 11 and 14 are most vulnerable and are often targeted by someone close to their own age, sometimes a younger brother or friend of the older men.

The location is usually innocuous – school gates, shopping centers, arcades. It can start with a car pulling up, young guys with charm and good looks engaging a girl in banter. Then cell phone numbers are exchanged and a friendship begins.

The men then work for several months to make the girls believe the friendship is genuine, the relationship meaningful.

from the radio interview and an article in the waikato times (not online), the basic facts seem to be that gangs were preying on teenage girls, particularly those living in children's homes.  those predominantly involved, particularly in northern england, are asian men & mostly pakistanis, while their victims were all white.

because of this fact, there has been a huge focus on whether race & culture played a significant part in this crime.  this is fuelled by the accusation that the police had failed to investigate properly back in 2008 due to fears of being accused of racism - the daily mail has plenty to say about that, though no actual proof other than the opinion of a former labour MP.  the BNP has been right in there, with their usual line of attack & there is a sizeable portion of the population who agree with their views.

none of this helps the situation at all.  there are things that need to happen, and questions that need to be asked.  there will be an police complaints commission inquiry into the police's failure to act, according to this guardian piece.  that's very much needed.  it could be that the police feared being branded by racism, although given the spark that led to the rioting in england last year, it doesn't appear that the police have generally been too fussed about that accusation.  but it could be true.

it could also be partly because the victims were chosen well.  they were often poor, and according to the times article were "known to social services" - sounds like a euphemism for girls that got into trouble a lot.  According to the chief crown prosecutor nazir afzal "these girls were on the street at midnight.  it made them easy prey for evil men".  and it's exactly that kind of victim-blaming that could have been partly a cause of the police failing to take action.  in any case, i really hope that the independent inquiry gets to the bottom of it.

other questions need to be asked about the sub-culture these men were living in.  if they, and those around them, believe that white girls are more deserving of abuse because, to channel colin craig, they are promiscuous anyway, then that culture needs to be challenged and changed.  that needs the leadership of these communities speaking out as well as the rest of the community being active in challenging these kinds of views.  the sheikhs in the  mosque need to be talking a lot more about the responsibilities of men to treat all women with respect.  however, i wonder how many of the convicted men ever bothered to go to the mosque.

the subculture reminds me of the gang rapes perpetrated in sydney some years ago, with the victim-blaming we saw from sheikh tajuddin.  at this stage, we haven't heard any such stupidity from british leaders, but while they have been active in condemning the abuse, have been too much on the defensive, trying to protect the rest of the community from being vilified by association. which is entirely predictable and totally frustrating.  the focus on race distracts from the areas where focus needs to be placed.

there must have been people associated or close to these men who knew what was going on.  it's not possible that no-one knew.  and also there were people around the young women who knew that they would disappear for periods of time.  it seems the young women also talked about what was happening to them, because the crown prosecution service and rochdale social services have felt the need to issue an apology.

so what caused this silence, this failure to help the young women and to stop the men who were preying on them.  anne leslie also mentioned the responsibility of the parents of these young women, and in some cases it could very well be that parents weren't taking enough care.  but whatever it is, the reasons for that silence, across all communities in that region, really do need to be investigated.

as the police and others have said, it's not like asian or pakistani men have more of a tendency to be abusers than other men.  the police have been clear about this:

"It is not a racial issue. This is about adults preying on vulnerable young children," the Telegraph quoted Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood of Greater Manchester Police as saying. "It just happens that in this particular area and time the demographics were that these were Asian men."

"I am currently running several other inquiries about on-street grooming and it is not Asian men," BBC News quoted Heywood as saying.

kathryn ryan talked about sex tours to asia by white men seeking to abuse young women.  i agree that abuse presents itself differently in different communities - there are different drivers, different ways that abusers seek to justify their behaviour.  there is one thing they all have in common: they see women as less than human, less than themselves.  they are impervious to the pain of others and the damage they cause, and more focused on their own needs and pleasures.

it's really important that we focus on these things, and figure out how best we can change them.  and that we focus on the institutions and societal structures that failed to protect these young women, even after they made complaints.

Paying the hope tax

Tonight I am putting a motion to the Puketapapa Local Board opposing any deal for an international convention centre in Auckland that results in an increase in gambling machines (pokies) in Auckland or in any single venue.  Parts of the motion also seek advice on how the Board can adopt a proper sinking lid policy for our own area and how we can advocate that such be adopted across the whole Auckland Council area.

I wanted to put my arguments in order before tonight's meeting, and I thought here's a great opportunity to multitask, and making the mysterious work of local government visible; I'll write a blog post about it! 

Let me start by saying I do not see gambling as a sin, as a moral issue; that by limiting gambling opportunities we are acting as guardian angels protecting people from getting their souls dirty. 

For me this is an issue about reducing harm.  In the Puketapapa Local Board plan we said the following:

We want to live in a community that is free from harm caused by alcohol, gambling, drugs, and violence in the home… We want a sinking-lid policy applied to gambling machines in our area that does not allow relocation of machines. We will support the work of agencies working toward reducing preventable harm in our community.

It's worth noting that we added the section this is in, titled "Reducing Harm", in response to submissions received from the community stating that we needed to give this area more attention in our plan.  We had already mentioned various aspects in a few places, but the strong feedback we received was that we should make it clearer and more prominent, so this is a direct example of community submissions making a difference, not least the submission we received from Hapai Te Hauora Tapui specifically on the issue of problem gambling.  See, submissions can make a difference! 

Here's a quote from a supportive email a constituent sent me recently:

The Government spends thousands on trying to help problem gamblers, yet they continue to feed them more opportunity.
This is a waste of our tax money and a waste of the problem gamblers program.
Pokie machines are of no worth to community. They only contribute to more damage, deception, suffering, advers[ity], destruction and addiction.
They ruin relationships, families, communities and the list could go on.
I say NO TO MORE POKIES.
The harm that problem gambling creates is undeniable.  As a unionist I have seen how it can manifest at work, where someone who would never ever in a thousand years have considered stealing from their workplace or colleagues to buy alcohol will shift money between accounts in a dubious manner, will surreptitiously empty the drinks kitty, will take a loan from the business which they are sure they will pay back once the winnings come in.  For some gambling can become an addiction, and the harm that that does, to them, to their family, to their community, is significant.  The gambling problem of a single person impacts negatively on at least 5 people around them.

Gambling activities all have a component of luck, and a component of exploitation when it comes to those individuals who are problem gamblers.  Pokie machines have no element of skill to them whatsoever - you put the money in, you push a button, you win or you don't.  The Problem Gambling Foundation has labelled pokie machines the "most harmful form of gambling as 77% to 85% of problem gamblers use them as their primary mode of gambling."  In 2008 PGFNZ estimated that 42% of pokie machines revenue was coming from the 3% of users who are problem gamblers.

Honestly I just don't see why we need more pokies.  DIA figures, quoted by PGFNZ, show we already have one machine for every 206 people, nationally.  In more economically deprived areas there's one machine for every 75 people.  And it's worth pointing out, in the context of this blog, that it is the accessibility and increase in pokie machines that has led to a large increase in problem gambling amongst women.

Why do people who can't afford to gamble more?  And why do those who profit from pokies seek to increase their numbers, especially in poor areas?  Because it is a hope tax.  There is so much in life now that we can't do unless we have money and there is often little chance to earn through work the kind of money that can change your life.  A lucky windfall is the only option for many, and I can understand the lure of gambling in that regard; when I was first at home with my eldest son and really wanted to stay home I paid the hope tax, buying a lotto ticket every week, because such a win seemed the only way we could make that happen. 

The number of pokie machines in New Zealand has been trending downward and that is great.  Why would we want to reverse that trend?  And in particular why would we want to do so by increasing the number at Sky City, an enterprise that largely makes its profits from problem gambling, and has recently been shown to not be living up to their host responsibilities in this area?  Casinos are required to give even less of the funds raised through pokies back to the community - only 2.5% of profits, as opposed to 37.2% from machines out there in pubs and clubs.  500 new machines at Sky City would result in 250 to 400 new, extra, problem gamblers.  Sky City have given out $24.2M in community grants since they started in 2001, which sounds like a lot until you consider that their profit in the FIRST HALF of the last financial year was over $78M. 

New Zealand has also become a major testing ground for the developers of pokie machines.  They use psychologists to develop these devices in ways that will suck the most money out of the user.  And they test them in our casinos, before they are rolled out to other parts of the world.

As leaders in our community, indeed more than that, as decision-makers in our community, local government politicians have an obligation to do what we can to limit harm.  Part of our obligation to our community is to not remain silent while others in the great democratic family of Auckland Council are considering decisions that will do great harm indeed. 

Problem solved

As you have probably heard, and raged about , the government's current plan is to target young women who are on benefits (or whose parents are on benefits) for long-term contraception.

Colin Craig objects for the following reasons: 

"Why should, say, a 70-year-old who's had one partner all their life be paying for a young woman to sleep around? "We are the country with the most promiscuous young women in the world. This does nothing to help us at all."

Meanwhile Right to Life is really concerned about women getting tubal ligations.  They're worried for the following reasons:

It undermines the nature and purpose of marriage and sexuality. It goes against the dignity of sexual relations as intended by our Creator. It prevents the total gift of self because it excludes the potential for fertility.

Tubal ligation is the mutilation of a woman’s body and a violation of her human rights. Women have a right to the protection of the State.

Tubal ligation is an assault on the integrity of a woman’s body.

It is bad medicine, pregnancy is not a disease. There is no disease for which ligation would be a treatment. It is a medical procedure which is intended to destroy healthy organs.

I have the perfect solution to this:

A cage fight.

We lock all the people who think that certain women should have contraception forced on them and those who think women can't consent to sterilization or don't really know what contraception is, but know they're against it.

While they're fighting it out with each other those of us who believe that all people should have control of their bodies, and be able to select whatever contraception, or non-contraception, best works for them, without any financial obstacles, can take over the world.

This is how it works

How to reduce the cost of state services without doing anything about reducing the actual demand

1.  Announce that support that used to be available through home visits will now only be accessible at an office.  But don't worry because there will be offices here, there and everywhere and of course you will be able to get to one!

2.  Wait decent period.  During this time there will be an initial problem whereby lots of people find the new system unworkable. Some of this may end up in the media. Stay firm, see this out, you are nearly there, this too shall pass.   These are but teething troubles and if you don't make any significant changes then they will sort themselves out.  Put your serious face on though and say "we must do better" when asked about it by anyone other than your closest friends and advisors.  Be very careful not to laugh, smile or rub your hands together gleefully while you mutter joyously about savings.

3.  Voila, the pesky people who reckoned they couldn't access the service anymore have gone away and stopped being a bother!  Less cost:  WIN!  Ignore anyone who points out that those people still need the support they just can't access it.  Dazzle them with numbers; savings, number of happy smiley people, number of times the door counter clicked over, that kind of thing. 

4.  Announce that due to the reduced number accessing the support (look, see, numbers!) it's not really necessary to have all those offices here, there and everywhere anymore.  And if we rationalise (ooooh, good word, it sounds so rational!) then we can have bigger better ONE STOP SHOP offices in hub locations that are really good for public transport links and have good coffee machines. 

5.  Wait decent period.  During this time there may be some annoyed people who can't get to the new office, but if they really needed the support they would find a way.  Stay firm, see this out, you are nearly there, this too shall pass, etc etc, blah blah blah see 2 above.

6.  Voila, shed some more of those pesky people who reckoned they needed the support, when clearly they didn't or they would have made more of an effort.  We even offered them a nice coffee and a taxi fare to get home again, I really don't see what else we could have done, isn't it sad that some people can't help us to help them.  Less cost:  DOUBLE WIN!  Any doubters can be waved aside with declarations of Because Numbers! and Wonderful Downward Trend and look how happy that person over there with the free cup of coffee is.

7.  Announce that due to the reduced number accessing the support (look, see, numbers!) it's not really necessary to even have offices anymore, we can do it all over the phone and really most people use the internet nowadays anyway, and we'll make it a free call so you can conduct your private support queries in a phone box, and this way we don't have to fund any wasteful free coffees and taxi fares anymore.  You won't even have to leave the house to get the support you need! 

8.  Wait decent period.  During this time the phone system will inevitably crash, most likely more than once, and of course this will be exactly what those naysayers and boxed in thinkers who objected to this (luddites! technophobes! get into the 21st century, everyone does everything by phone these days sweeties!) said would happen.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and what really matters is how you handle a crisis, not whether or not you could have totally avoided it in the first place.  Stay firm, see this out, you are nearly there, etc etc, blah blah blah see 2 above.

9.  Magnifique!  Even less people accessneed the surface!  This is great!  Oh the efficiencies, the wonderful efficiencies.  And isn't it nice to know that those accessing the service now must really really need it, and I told you there was some fat to be cut and we found it and oh yes did I cut it, and now I don't have to trip over any annoying homeless people when I've finished visiting one of the offices, what a relief.

10.  Take a holiday, you deserve it.

Is there choice hair?

When we discussed women's pubic hair a while back, there were lots of interesting comments from people with very diverse views on the subject.  So you can just imagine my excitement when someone sent me research which asked female students to grow their body hair - legs and underarm - for 10 weeks and record reactions from others and their own feelings in diary format. 

The 34 participating students were all under thirty, mixed racially (41% non-white) and mixed in terms of sexual orientation (70% opposite sex attracted; 18% both sex attracted; 12% same sex attracted). They did not have to disclose that they were growing their body hair to anyone else, or discuss it if they did not wish.

"Choice" is such a contentious term in feminism.  I am not down with giving women a hard time about any choice we make about how we present ourselves or live our gender, whether that means rebelling, subverting or conforming to traditional ideas of femininity.  But finding ways to consider how our choices are constrained and enabled I find endlessly fascinating, and I'm often frustrated when attempts to discuss this turn into "all choices are equally fine."  Because while they might be equally fine in the choosing, they are certainly not equally fine in the consequences for women.  Which is why, of course, we all pick our battles around rebellion, subversion and conformity, based on energy, desire, analysis, capacity, access to resources etc etc etc.

For me, feminism is about a whole heap more than getting to do whatever I want because "it's my choice."

Back to body hair.  Women participating in this research talked about a cluster of concerns the researchers call "heteronormative social control" and "gendered anxiety" while watching their leg hair lengthen.  They were worried about receiving homophobia; being seen to be queer; or if queer, being outed when they did not wish to be.  For many women, this included being scared about physical violence:

I keep worrying that it’s not just fun and games having body hair. Maybe some guy at a bar will see my armpit hair and think I’m a lesbian and he’ll round up a group of guys and attack me. I have heard about it happening to women who are perceived as dykes. I’ve seen guys harass women who don’t want anything to do with men.

Lots of women also talked about the social controls they experienced around suddenly not being seen as "real women" or male.  One woman's mother told her that her legs looked like men's legs now; others had people in their lives asking if they were wanting to become men.

 I was asked a question by a male coworker if my husband and I have sex during my body hair growth. I replied by saying yes. He asked if my husband thought he was having sex with a “dude.” I told him, “Why would he think that, the rest of my body is still there, I still have boobs and a vagina. I’m still the same person as before, I just have some hair.” I have really enjoyed making the guys at work cringe.

More than half the women talked about feeling "on display" during the assignment, having their underarm hair paraded by others as a "tourist attraction" or "circus act."  There was no question they were breaking gender rules.

The final cluster of concerns women shared in this research was to do with women's bodies and male possession.  Nearly all partnered heterosexual women were asked if their male partner approved of them growing their body hair.  Many women also talked about ongoing social expectations that they should get their body hair under control in order to be attractive to men.

My fiancée told his father about the body hair thing I’m doing. He was very offended by it. The first thing he asked was, “Did she ask for your permission first?” I was so offended by this. As if my fiancée is in control of what I do to my body! I don’t need anyone’s permission for anything I want to do with my body. And if my fiancée said absolutely not, I would do it anyways and probably wouldn’t be marrying him right now. I guess his dad went on and on about how women need to have smooth bodies, that he couldn’t be with his own wife if she didn’t shave. “Women with hairy legs, it’s just not right!” Guys like him are the reason why I was so obsessed with shaving my entire body. Those guys ruined my self-esteem, my self-worth, and my confidence. Body hair isn’t gross. Men like him are!

This research is interesting because it questions the idea of choice explicitly.  Can we "choose" not to shave body hair?  Without punishment?  Or when we call some things "choosing" are we glossing over social controls and constraints which are ultimately harmful to all genders?

I stopped shaving my legs when I was 18, and my underarms when I was 21.  Both were feminist decisions about wanting to explore why body hair on women was unacceptable, and how my body would feel and look if I broke those rules. 

My lovers have only ever expressed support and desire around these choices; no doubt potential lovers who haven't approved have gone elsewhere.  There's also no doubt I'm not interested in being sexual with anyone who doesn't like my body. 

None of my family have ever commented, except for my mother who despite shaving herself explicitly supported me choosing to abstain and said many times she wished she had never started shaving.  But as with the women in this research, there have been a multitude of ways I've been reminded over the years that this "choice" is deviant by others - that, I'm afraid, is another post entirely.

we need more transparency

so.  kim dotcom.

i have no opinion on whether he is a good guy or a bad guy.  he is what he is.  as for the criminal charges against him, i'm happy to leave that for the court to decide - as long as a fair process is used.

but what i do obect to is the fact that someone with bucket-loads of money is able to attempt to destabilise the nz government.  i think that fact tends to get lost, because the object of his attention is the hugely unpopular john banks.

now i'll be the first one cheering when mr banks loses his ministerial warrants, and i'll be happier still when he's no longer an MP.  in fact, it would please me immensely if he would retire from all public life, and we never had to hear from him via any of our media.  i hate the ideas he holds, i hate the racism he so obviously displays and the contempt he displays towards people who are doing so well.  no matter how imperfect those people might be, they are probably a degree better than mr banks.

regardless of all of that, we have a duly elected government in nz, and mr banks has put himself in a position where he is vulnerable, and because of the configuration of this parliament, the government is vulnerable.  that simply shouldn't be allowed to happen, because i can think of plenty of situations where the outcome would be disastrous to nz.

even with the current scenario, we are now looking at the possibility of colin craig entering parliament on his platform.  and the "no-asset-sales" policy is definitely not enough to compensate for some of the others.  that mr key would start making positive noises about the conservative party means that a by-election is looking increasingly likely.  but given that any small party or independent that wins the epsom electorate will hold the balance of power, what will that power mean for many of us nz'ers?  those of us from minority religious groups for example.  for reproductive rights, as another example.

so while i'd love to cheer mr dotcom on, i find that i can't.  because i hate that he is able to do what he is doing - even though he didn't necessarily create the situation, more that he is just benfitting from it.  any wrong-doing that may have occurred clearly is the responsibility of mr banks, aided by a law that doesn't seem to be doing what it was designed to do: prevent known donors to give "anonymously".

i think we have long come to the time where donations over a certain amount must be declared - ie that parties and candidates can not have anonymous donations.  i'm not certain what the exact amount would be - i'd probably go for $10,000 for parties and mayoral candidates, and $5,000 for invidual MPs and city councillors.  and there should be look-through provisions, so that any trusts would have to declare the source of donations as well, if it wasn't from their own business earnings.

it's the only way we can know who is paying for our democracy to function, and then we can come to our own conclusions about why they would be paying such amounts.  transparency is essential to democracy. it's certainly essential to ensure that big money donors can't, at some later stage, threaten to out themselves in order to pressure the government, or for whatever other reason they might have.

Aotearoa is not for Sale: Demo report

4,000 people marched in the hīkoi 'Aotearoa is not for sale'  Friday (this is some of them).

I joined from a feeder march from the university.  We were worried we weren't going to meet up properly.  The first thing I saw was flashing police lights - which said the hīkoi wasn't far away.  Then I saw people two blocks away turning into Willis St and there were just more and more of them - by the time we reached the    hīkoi the front was already in Lambton Quay.  There were just so many people.

I wanted to see how long it went back from there so I started walked backwards against the demo. I said hello to friends, my sister, acquaintances, more friends, people who I thought were overseas; I went past a brass band, many lots of chanting, and still people kept coming.  This was the biggest march I'd been on since the Foreshore and Seabed  Hīkoi in 2004.

I was on Wakefield St before I could see the end.  I hadn't been planning to count it, even though I'm a wee bit obsessed with counting demos - it was too big.  But having seen so many people I wanted to be able to put a number on it.  So cutting corners and walking fast, I got all the way to the front again (by this time the front was half-way down Lambton Quay.  I counted out a hundred in groups of ten, and got a good sense of what 100 people looked like - then I counted people in groups.  About 37 groups of 100 people walked past me - and by the time we got to parliament it was more - as some could only come for their lunch break.

Watching everyone walk past I realised just how huge a group of 4,000 people is.  The different bits of the demo had a very different feel.  The very front was singing, and chanting faded in and out as people passed.   There were groups behind different signs - focusing on issues in specific communities - the meatworkers were well represented.  There were also some very cute kids (with and without signs).

The hīkoi was led by Maori, and Tino Rangatiratanga flags made a really clear statement about the issues being fought for.  I've been on Maori led protests with only a smattering of tau iwi.  I've also been on plenty of protests that were organised and dominated by Pakeha and made no effort to acknowledge tangata whenua (including many, many that I've been part of organising).  This was something slightly different than either of those things.  Maori led the  hīkoi, and framed the issues around Tino Rangatiratanga, and tau iwi accepted that leadership and framing - because we believe that our interests are best represented by being part of that fight.

******

I spent much of the time once we'd actually got to parliament trying to find out was speaking.  This was quite a difficult mission.  The sound system they had didn't work and people were trying to speak to a crowd of 4,000 through a mega-phone.  Earlier on, at the Vic feeder march - you could barely hear the speeches that were given through a megaphone when there were 100 of us.  It's a fine experience for those giving the speeches, organising the speeches and the first few rows - but a rally without a proper sound system just breaks up the protest for everyone else.  It is no longer a collective experience.  Either acknowledge that your sound system isn't good enough and focus on a very few chants - or get a sound system that'll allow everyone to hear speakers.  Anything else is actually disrespectful to the vast majority of people who came - by not having a good sound system and still giving speeches you're telling them they don't matter (and I should say I've been part of organising protests that made this mistake on many occasions - and it is only the few times that we've got it right that I've realised how important it is)

In this particular case, it was probably good.  The list I managed to build up was:

Someone who had been part of organising the hīkoi
Grant Robertson (apparently David Shearer was giving a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce)
Russel Norman (obviously this filled me with joy)
Hone Harawira
Winston Peters (!!!!!!)
Someone from the Meatworkers Union (I was sad to miss this)
I heard one woman's voice, but I couldn't figure out who she was
Te Ururoa Flavell

I'll talk about the politics of this in a second, but at the time (no-one was giving two minute speeches - so the talking - which I couldn't hear - went on and on and on) I began to believe that the plan was to keep talking until everyone had left.

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The political nature of the  hīkoi is a little harder to analyse.  Demonstrations are inherently incoherent events - and the larger a demo is the the larger standard deviation is.  On this demo one guy had two flags on his flag pool - the first was a tingo rangatiratanga flag.  The second was not a flag I'd seen before.  It was white and had the union jack in one corner, there were crossed shotguns on it, with a crown on top of it - and it had 'union power' written on.  I can't make those symbols make a coherent message - but it must have meant something to him.

There has already been quite a lot of radical political analysis of the hīkoi. Valerie Morse argued for the importance of anti-capitalist politics. Kim at He Hōaka responded with the importance.  And since Friday, Shomi Yoon has a post on ISO's blog has a demo report.

'Aotearoa is not for sale' (a name I hate incidentally - currently Aotearoa is for sale - saying something that is patently false has never seemed like a good strategy for me) is centred around resisting current attacks. It opposed: "privatisation of public services, sale of public assets to private investors (local AND overseas), casualisation of labour, privatisation and pillage of our country's resources."  I really appreciate the the posts I mentioned above each are focused on linking the current attacks with critical understandings of society.  In order to successfully fight - we need to understand how the world works and that means naming colonialism and capitalism.

I want to highlight a point of Shomi's "The xenophobia that’s represented by NZ First leader Winston Peters will be absolutely damaging to the campaign. It is a problem that an openly reactionary party like NZ First felt comfortable endorsing the hikoi." While the fact that no-one heard him takes a little of the sting out of the fact that he could talk .  Some of the campaigning material has been xenophobic - emphasising 'foreign ownership' as if that was particularly.   The false 'we' is a real danger -  supposedly left-wing people have suggested there's something progressive about a consortium led by Michael Fay buying farms.   The right have been emphasising the idea of "Mum and Dad" investors.  If those who oppose privation use xenophobia - then it is easy for the right to brush off those criticism with examples of New Zealand investors.  If we attack privatisation in its our totality our criticisms are much harder to refute.
My contribution is more prosaic. The protest was amazing - getting 4,000 people together is an amazing achievement.  However, it is not enough.  As John Key has already made clear - he can ignore it.  One massive protest isn't enough.  Organising is about growing and maintaining pressure.  If we want to effectively fight the current attacks - and push for a better world - we need more than one massive protest.

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Last thought:

All the best protests enlist Seddon in their cause.