Image created by Alison Withers

                            AND TRAITOR TO HER PAST

Today’s Herald makes interesting reading for anyone who thinks that, despite his Wall Street millions, John Key’s state house background makes him more sympathetic to those on lower incomes. GST is to rise by up to 2.5%. Such an increase disproportionately penalises those at the bottom of the economic heap – lower income earners and beneficiaries – since a much greater proportion of their income is spent on essential items such as food, power and rent. They are to be compensated by an unspecified decrease in personal taxation and an unspecified increase in benefits and Working for Families.

On last night’s Campbell Live, the Prime Minister gave Campbell a guarantee that lower income earners or beneficiaries would be no worse off after the changes in the budget. ‘No worse off’, but not necessarily ‘any better off’. Middle and higher income earners, on the other hand,  will of course be better off as a result of any decrease in income tax, since that is an economic truism. So, in a nutshell, the rich will get richer and the poor stay where they are, which in real terms means ‘go backwards’.

Meanwhile, the Herald’s page 3 headline read: ‘Tough new welfare laws loom this year’. That other traitor to her class, sometime beneficiary Paula Bennett, was announcing measures to force solo parents, receiving the domestic purposes benefit with children over the age of  6, into the workforce. Under the policy they would be required to ‘actively look for a job, to go to any job interview they are referred to, and to accept any offer of suitable employment, whether fulltime, part-time, temporary or seasonal… If they do not comply with these obligations, they will have their benefit reduced in the first instance, then suspended, then cancelled.’ Ms Bennett does not say how they will then feed their children.

Leaving aside the fact that forcing solo parents back into the workforce at a time of relatively high unemployment, when thousands of Kiwis are losing their jobs, makes little sense,  the policy, which is unlikely to boost the government’s coffers by much, is primarily designed to appeal to right-wing prejudice against solo parents and welfare beneficiaries in general. As for Ms Bennett, she has a very highly paid job herself now and will be even more highly paid when the government’s promised tax cuts come into force.

On page 4 of the Herald, Corrections Minister Judith Collins, responding to Corrections staff protests that salaries in private prisons would be much lower than in the public system and that the private prisons would provide inferior service at a greater cost, said that since the prison population would continue to grow, ‘if people are working in the private prison and they don’t like the wages, they can go and work in the public sector.’ Translation: ‘Every cloud has a silver lining. Thanks to our bankrupt justice policies, more and more people will be going to prison, so there will be more and more job opportunities for people in the prison service.’

It’s perhaps worth noting that around half of those new inmates will be Maori and almost all of them will come from the very bottom of the socio-economic heap – John Key’s ‘underclass’.

No doubt both state-house Key and beneficiary Bennett would reject any suggestion of prejudice against the underprivileged, given their own backgrounds. But the fact is that as people climb the money ladder or rise up the social scale, their sympathies change accordingly. I’ve experienced this myself. Like John Key, I was the son of a solo mother and I was raised either in lodgings or in council flats. We were extremely poor. For most of my early married life and career, my family and I lived on the bones of our bums. I had no time for people with money and my politics were to the far left.

As things got better and I moved from ‘comfortable’ to ‘well off’ – I have never been rich – I began to see things differently. Rather than unquestioningly accepting that the poor could not be blamed for their poverty, I began to adopt the view, ‘If I can make it by having ambition and working hard, why can’t they?’ I was not unsympathetic, but less sympathetic.

So I have no doubt that when people graduate from one socio-economic group to another, their sympathies move with them.

And this, after all, is a National Government. Key and Bennett may have impoverished backgrounds, but their sympathies now lie with the rich and not with the poor. Why else would they be members of the National Party?

And all the photo ops in the world, all the Prime Minister’s ‘niceness’  cannot conceal that fact. Ask Joan Nathan, she of the McGehan Close ‘underclass’. Joan now feels that she has been let down by the PM and says that, despite her limo ride with nice Mr Key,  her daughter Aroha wants nothing to do with him. She says she and her family are worse off since National won the election. She’s pretty ‘anti John Key at the moment’. Ouch!

What Joan has learnt is that state house leopards do change their spots. But they do it so slowly, you barely notice. That’s what camouflage is all about.

Last night’s Close Up and Campbell Live both debated Social Welfare Minister Paula Bennett’s decision to publish details of the benefits received by two women who have gone public with their criticisms of the government’s cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance.

There are two issues here: Was it appropriate for a Minister of the Crown to publish personal details relating to the benefits paid to clients of her department without first seeking  their permission or informing them of her intention? And did her action amount to a breach of the Privacy Act?

 Ms Bennett denies having breached the Privacy Act. According to this morning’s Herald, her denial is based on guidelines for ministers and departmental officials laid down by the Privacy Commission.

One relates to any “authorisation” for the disclosure given by the individual, including “implicit” authorisation. This is clearly not the situation here. No such authorisation was given.

The other guideline seems to come closer to the mark:

“By releasing a large amount of personal information to the media the individual is taking the risk that unfavourable publicity could result. If the minister releases only information which is relevant to the issues raised by the individual, that person may not be able to claim that any particular harm was caused by the minister’s disclosure rather than by the individual’s own disclosure.”

The important words here are “relevant to the issues raised by the individual”.

Were the amounts currently being received in benefits by the two complainants relevant to their criticism of the Government’s intention to cut the Training Incentive Allowance?  The answer to that question can only be ‘yes’ if it demonstrates that the cutting of the allowance will not unreasonably affect them, since their income from benefits is adequate or more than adequate to allow them to continue studying.

But it would not be possible to answer that question without knowing everything about the women’s current financial obligations which in turn would necessitate delving into almost every aspect of their personal lives. That, the Minister herself told Mark Sainsbury, was unacceptable: “I don’t know every detail about them and so I shouldn’t.”

Yet without the context of that detail, the material she chose to publish was meaningless and probably misleading. For that reason alone, it should never have been made public.

Concentration on whether the Minister breached privacy laws is, however, merely a distraction from the central issue here – abuse of power. Ms Bennett’s constant appeal to her own experience as a beneficiary completely misses the point that she is no longer a beneficiary, that she is now a Minister of the Crown, enjoying considerable influence over the lives of other less fortunate people and living a lifestyle which those people could barely imagine. At the nub of this issue is the imbalance of power between Ms Bennett and the two complainants. Her access to a huge publicity machine alone gives her enormous advantage over her critics.

Beyond that, the powerful have an obligation to show restraint in their dealings with the less powerful, on occasion even when they are in the right. Politicians are quite properly expected to have thicker skins than private citizens. This is in part because the effect of their words and actions on the private citizen will be so much greater than the effect of that citizen’s words on them. When an individual criticises a politician, particularly a Minister of the Crown, it is water off the politician’s back. When a politician, particularly a Minister of the Crown, publicly criticises an individual, the effect can be devastating.

Sue Bradford commented on Close Up that Bennett’s handling of this affair reminded her of Rob Muldoon. The comparison was apt. Muldoon abused his power. He did so by dropping the full weight of his prime ministerial office on the head of anyone who criticised him, generally by attacking them personally. He was a bully, someone who uses his advantage in size, strength or power to overcome his opponent. Bennett is in the same mould.  

Like most bullies, faced with a stronger opponent, Bennett began not merely to back off but to attempt to recast her actions as support for the two women. She wasn’t “beneficiary bashing” she told Mark Sainsbury. She wasn’t even “having a crack at them”. She “welcomed public debate”. She even admired the women who were “feisty and gutsy and good on them”.

She took the same approach with John Campbell. Again accused of branding beneficiaries as “ungrateful bludgers”, she feigned righteous indignation: “I take umbrage on their behalf.”

The sheer dishonestly of all of this beggars belief. Closer to the truth was her later observation to Sainsbury that her actions were intended as “a bit of a lesson for what happens if you go out there and put your story.” As Sue Bradford observed, this was and was intended to be “a dangerous message to beneficiaries”. In other words: “Pour encourager les autres!”

My personal view is that Bennett is not fit to be a minister. She has neither the intelligence nor the judgement nor, it now seems, the compassionate restraint appropriate to her particular portfolio. That will not of course be the view of the nation’s talk-back callers who, in intellect and thoughtfulness,  are her true constituency.

You really have to wonder how much longer John Key can keep the Blethering Bennett in his Cabinet. Here is her latest effort, reported in this morning’s Herald:

Ms Bennett today said she had reiterated to Ms Rankin Mr Key’s position that she should not campaign against the law.

“She certainly been made very clear that we don’t expect her to be actively campaigning on the no vote,” she told reporters.

Ms Bennett said the interview was Ms Rankin’s personal opinion.

“I think it’s pretty clear that Christine Rankin was speaking as Christine Rankin and not as families commissioner and in that case I thought it was quite acceptable.”

Ms Rankin was entitled to her own opinion, she said.

“I think that when she’s speaking as a families commissioner then she is with them on what they are doing but I think that she’s entitled to her view as long as she’s not actively campaigning against the commission, and what they believe, she is allowed to put a view forward.”

Asked what actively campaigning was, Ms Bennett said Ms Rankin should follow the commission’s rules and policies.

The stupidity of these comments beggars belief. Does Ms Bennett really think that a Government appointed member of the board of an autonomous Crown agency can publicly express opinions directly at odds with the policy of that agency on the grounds that these are her personal opinions?

How is the public to know at any given time which hat Ms Rankin is wearing, when she is speaking as Ms Rankin [private citizen]   and when as Families Commissioner Rankin?

According to The Blethering One, Christine Rankin should  simultaneously “follow the Commission’s rules and policies” and not follow them.

Good grief!  Was I too kind in calling her an idiot?

The woman is a blethering idiot.

Watch her on Sunday